Estonia Suicidal [Finished /w Videos] detailed Walkthrough

[SuitedQueens]

EDIT after finishing AAR:

Conclusions post (I don't repeat many notes I left during AAR, but a nice overview):

viewtopic.php?p=1055961#p1055961

TOP 3 videos:

viewtopic.php?p=1055701#p1055701

viewtopic.php?p=1055724#p1055724

viewtopic.php?p=1055743#p1055743

Link to supplementary files:

viewtopic.php?p=1054609#p1054609

Some mechanics you HAVE to know before going into the major 20+ turns war:

viewtopic.php?p=1055294#p1055294

Expanding on Vassal Laundering troops concept:

viewtopic.php?p=1054680#p1054680



Ok, thats the first post of this AAR. The format will follow my though processes from turn to turn. I grant you the ability to peer deep in the mind of long time Empires/Kingdoms munchkin powergame player. But first I want to lay some meta strategies and basics, while concrete research will be described on the first turn Preparation. I chose Estonia because of cry baby on Steam that said it was too hard to play on Balanced difficulty.

Lets paint the big picture (skip to the first message if you want SCREENSHOTs overflow). In this I tell you the principles of play:

The whole game revolves around the ability to maintain multiple full fledged stacks and economy (includes Authority) to support them. Generally you want around 26 POP in your regions, but 18-20 should be fine. After that point diminishing returns for the growth truly skyrocket, and its better to get yourself a new regions preferably of your own fate and ethnicity.

Default economy developing path assumes 3 building of each category (preferably free slots or Legacy generators) to maximize Authority Gateway structures to meet the cap of 2 + (ruler combined stats) ASAP. Each region above the Demesne limit costs -0.2 Authority, while each of starting 10 regions that have discount for Court Expenses can easily generate +0.4, so you can see that Demesne limit doesnt really matter (affects chances of Characters to betray you tho).

But heres the issue: Tribes and Nomads don't have Tier 2 Authority structures. They have Tier 1 Stewardship and distant Tier 2 Great Temple for +0.1 Authority gains. Game mechanics build around Authority Events buildings, and the first priority is to unlock further conquests is to get to 8 POP in each region to unlock the Rustic Fort. On Suicidal difficulty its expected to stay in 57+ Authority to maintain Neutral status and 66+ to break into Green, which is really hard for the Tribes. For tier 1 Civ 10 regions for Authority Events, Manpower and Gold should pull their weight to support at least 2 stacks. Those stacks in turn will help us generate enough temporary Authority gains to propel us to Green Authority group to fish for Tokens.

For Nomads Vassals matter even more than to Civilized nations because of that limitation. Especially when we start as Lvl 1 Civ. The idea is to feed extra territories to the Vassal and laundering your Troops through them to help economy (Send and then request for half discount). Court Expenses are one of the limiting factors on the Suicidal since the modifier is so huge, so any extra regions that don't produce much right away better be sheded mercilessly.

The problem is that you cna't really ignore Progression as tier 1 Civ, because you are limited by the number of regions hard. You can't really afford to go on the quick wars against Legacy leaders like HRE, Byzantine, Seljuks, Fatimids, Hungary because you need to have 3-4 stacks and relevant Generals which require about 3 Provinces to support + free region below Demesne to hold down vast chunks of opponent territories for 20+ turns while conducting active war.

The problem with tribals is that high value buildings for Civilized nations are tier 2, so you ABSOLUTELY have to rush all free slot Merchant and Trader structures to establish comparable passive Legacy and Gold income. This fact exasperates the need of a single structure per province with barely any POP on infrasturcutre in order to not waste too much Authority on edicting each turn. And you don't have free Temporary Military structures to use as shufflers. Altho plenty of common buildings can be seen as Pseudoshuffles as well since you always NEED Horses, Livestock, Flax, Furs and Pelts, Drugs and Herbs.

On the good note Tribals don't need so many slots dedicated to Manpower producing buildings and as I said their Gold production is mostly free slots, while buildings we want contribute to the growth. The problem lies in lack of Loyalty generating structures, so we have to build Piety and Stewardship a lot early in the region development cycle. There also no questions for Pillaging regions to the ground to speed up Conversion. Luckily we have enough native religion in the vicinity to fill up our baseline economy requirements.

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Diplomacy and RGDs go as usual, altho another caveat is the fact that all relevant nations hate us, so more insulting have to be done, which means we gonna have to deal with constant -0.3 to -0.4 from Frenzy. Otherwise there are more minuses from Claims of nations that hate us. We also have to put as many Claims as possible via RGDs and Insults to improve Diplomacy and Legacy generation. Possibly insulting our future Vassals and friends for a bit just to gain extra Claims for bargaining.

You always have decisions to make on which Provinces you want to hold to launder their respective units through Vassals, and which are low value irrelevant ones with units you can buy via Diplomacy or recruit by Hire Mercs or Non-Standard RGD decisions. Since we start relatively far from Seljuks we have to acquire Passage Rights with many nations and trade in regions + claims to get ourself a base for conducting future wars near them and Byzantines.

As far as RGD go we will be putting Sap Authority, Spy Network, Forge Claim and all character related stuff in High Green. Dropping other decision chances to Very Low once they pop up, because having a single copy of most of them is nice and flexible. Characters play important role and are hard to kill in combats, so the real way to rotate them is through RGDs. Tribals and Nomads have issues with Military Expertise, so more rotation than for the Civilzed nations required to get high quality Generals that are so necessary to toppled down Legacy leaders.

This run most likely wont be a 150 turns rush because of all problems mentioned above. I flash out details in the first episode with screenshots and research examples. I didn't play Estonia previously, so IDK unit rosters and province options. We walk through my though process and initial research as we go.

[SuitedQueens]

Lets start our research, first turn takes longer and I provide more detailed descriptions. Gameplay should be guided by the units roster as I said in the meta talk. Go to the recruitment page and see what we have available. But first go to the ledger military tab and hover over Recruiting to find the region that gives the highest initial XP.



Next lets see our SAU limit and what do we have in the roster. Yeap, only 5, so we for sure to over the limit by hiring 4 and then mass queuing up and getting them from the non-Standard units RGD that in accordance with files can give us Infantry SAUs and Mass Bow levies.



Ok, time to overview what we have and what we can progress to at stage 2. Spoiler, I browsed the files and stage 2 have exact same units besides a few extra ships, so we are Rush nation by definition. Incredible Cavalry first, but take a note on the Asterix indicating unit Inflation. Also pay attention to Ungainly instead of Clumsy, which is good for difficult terrains in which we generally be fighting more often.

On EXP and above difficulties Inflation applies to the Upkeep cost as well, so its improtant to mix various unit types of the same nature. But its fine to say have 10 copies before hitting diminishing returns, which gonna be particularly harsh after 20 copies.



Our other SAU unit is Infantry with very good Steady ability. But take a closer look at stats. The only thing we need this unit for is Assaulting, since even defensively they are on par with Cavalry in any terrain type besides holding cities AND maybe for holding down attrition if we are caught defending against opponent Cavalry heavy stack in terrain where Charges allowed. But maintenance is ridiculous, especially the Metal cost, which is a harder resource to get for the Tribals/Nomads. I think I will get 3 of them at max to storm National Capitals.



We start with 2 Provinces able to produce the same Mercs, so one of them is easy candidate to Form Vassal or gift away regions to the distant nations while Pillage beforehand to extract the Monetary value. Such a beautiful stats, but ofc we expect some attrition given that the main unit we will be using in the Assaults and difficult Terrains. The only issue with Mercs is that they can trigger -5 Loyalty for General leading them (which is Rare) and increase chance to Succeed for the Peer of Realm or General who leads them (Rare if high Authority, high Administration Ruler and not above Demesne limit tbh).



As far as supports go we have 2 options that are basically the same, but help us to beat Inflation. The first priority will be getting a province where we can hire Mercenary supports to balance laundered units and mercs.Massed archers is defense oriented version, while Light Archcers can be a harassment stack frontline since they have Skirmisher stat that provides +2 Attack for the purpose of dealing extra Effectiveness damage. Harass stack can look like 6 Light Archers + 6 Massed Bows Assaulting enemy Capital before main stack arrives on the same turn. Think of it as a big success on the Siege roll. Take a note that we don't have light horses, but I won't go out of my way to get them, because we be better off with Provincial Medium Cavalry Mercs, which is our 2nd priority.



Now lets press Shift + 1 to enable the province overlay and hover over regions close to our Capital2 where we can get sought after Provincial unit types, preferably provinces sharing our Religion and Ethnicity and Claims with a decent existing Population and terrain. Initial Population dictates the region growth potential.

The obvious choice is Latgalia at the south striking all of our requirements. Latvian Mercenary Bowmen is Massed Bowmen Mercenary. Other benefit of Mercenaries is their ability to get Improved Equipment and faster XP rate unlike Levies, but if we launder them - they turn into Levy with aforementioned minuses, but the base gold cost will be 4 times lower.





The next logical expansion avenue is Lithuania, where we get our desired Medium Horse Mercenary unit. Those 3 provinces is the minimal requirement before going into attacking Legacy holders like HRE, Seljuks, Byzantines, Hungary and Fatimids.



But heres the economic and logistical issue. All terrains we gonna fight in are Difficult, so +2 defense for the defenders. Since I don't use my custom AI that shouldn't be a big issue, because AI proly won't be able to muster up proper stacks. Basically 5 base Cav with no Charge benefits/maluses, but some Steady and Evasion attrition negation against 5+2=7 base Mediums on average. Hopefuly higher initial Effectiveness helps us to demolish them in Draw grinds. Cavalry Flanking stats help to evade Pursuers incoming damage as well if we LOSE. I have to measure my stacks because Auto Deployment will be putting Medium closer to the center. Maybe I won't be taking Mediums at all preferring to fight as 3 Heavies + Cavalry frontline.

On the economic front we are screwed because we have ZERO Hills, which means no Copper and Iron Surface Mining (but at least some Bog Iron deposits), another factor indicating that Metal production will be costly for us. We basically have to build Mining Explorations everywhere and use minimal Heavy Infantry. Right now our Metal production is only +2.



On the Grander scale plans I won't be expanding West or East at ALL. BUT I want to get our Relationships to 100, because getting in war with any Rus related states means that you will be fighting the whole interconnected net of them for the whole game unless I sign Full Cooperation with their Allies, so they won't be pulled into the war with me if I attack one of their states. Sweden usually doesn't hold much Legacy, but they are in the top 15 regularly, so might start war with them later in the game.



Another reason for good Relationships with Novgorod is the Passage Rights to play NonStandard RGD on their territory. Look at the Custom unit list I will be drawing from:



Sweden provides Mercenary Knights and Offensive Spears through the Diplomatic Exchanges or Recruit Mercenaries decision played there.



Here's our Midgame obvious attack avenues on the Legacy leaders. Either of those 2 launchpads will do. Getting this northern province via maritime Invasion allows us to Hire Infantry Mercs right there since we don't have any Levy Infantry with short supply lines. Same for the Lesser Poland: manageable conquest with Medium Cavalry Mercs available + potential Passage Rights nations to restore HP of battered units. Goes without saying that we will have to Move Capital there.




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Lets review our Characters. Ruler stats are nice. All stats are important, but you want to have 3 Adminstration as the bare minimum. This will affect Coups, Court Expenses, many RGDs effects, random and national events. Piety is 2nd in importance, but shines in the midgame and on. Military is less prioritized against AI, but affects decisions like Persecution, which are the crucial to succeed. The problem is his 0 0 General stats, which means no extra Authority boosts from Leader in the field winning major battles. Good Administrator perk is INCREDIBLE in the early game thanks to +1 Food, which especially shines in the Woods, Deserts, Steppes. We want to keep him in power as long as possible.





The problem is that our Children slots are filled up (0% of the new Heir being born) and our ONLY General with 2 Offense rating is our only Heir. But I guess I wouldn't mind losing him because his Piety stat really bad and Administration is nothing to write home about. Altho I cant say that he's bad. Send Councilor can improve his stats and 2 Rating helps to put him in the field. We have bunch of other Generals with interesting Perks and combat stats that we discuss on the future turns when time comes to assign them.

We have bunch of Brothers and Uncles with better stats tho and 0 Bodyguards, so might try to get rid of him through combats. I think that will allow me to drain invisible Luck reserve so I can rotate character better in the midgame. On Suicidal difficulty Royal Marriages is only dangerous for us, because AI always floats above 50 Authority, so they are useful for passive Diplomacy rolls on improving Relationships similar to Cooperation. Maybe we have a chance in the Midgame when young ruler ascends to the throne with very young son and we have big enough Realm.



Time to assign governors to our two Provinces. We are Tier 1 Lvl 1 Petty Chiefdom (Pagan Tribe). Our Base Demesne limit is 3, which means it can be pushed to the Cap of 2x Base i.e. 6. Every region above 6 will incur 0.2 Authority per turn. Currently we have 10 Regions. To start shedding them off we need Form a Vassal preferably OR start trading them off by getting our Relationships to 25 with Nations.

Once I give up my NW island mass we lose Neighbor status (need 4 regions distance) with Sweden, so one regions goes to them for sure. Two other regions I will donate to Byzantines and HRE since they are stable partners, and we are likely within their Sphere of Influence. Otherwise I prefer either Seljuks or Fatimids, but they might be too far away. I will put 5 Military governor meanwhile to maximizes hired SAUs starting XP.



Same logic for the next Province. Once we hired Im gonna replace them with High Administration governor, because many positive events hinge upon Administration stat, Character Loyalty, Local Authority and above 75 Regional Loyalty, the most notable being Food donations and Health events that increase starting Food Percentage bonus for the next population form default 15% unlike granting a fresh POP like in Empires.



Next step is pressing Shift + 2 and going through the Red and Yellow regions that miss trade goods + overview them:

1) Pretty bad region, but Impediment allows us to build 2 free slot money and Legacy generators. Terrible building that never worth it at any point of the game. We are nation that doesnt have 2x Legumes building, so they are in Prime cost in the early game. Base stats are bad and we have better buildings that produce Preserved goods. Easy Dismantle. Noble and both Freeman go on gold.



2) Another low quality region. Feast is a nice structure, but we will be giving away this region anyway. And while building up other regions we we need A TON of Livestock, so -8 gold will remain for a while. Shoemaker is net 1 gold, but considering extra penalty to Court expenses (region has 2 free off Expenses structures) its an easy dismantle. Very bad impediment as well that isnt easily removable. Throw Noble and Freeman on gold, Priest on Infra.



3) We will be building Flax Field syphoning Production Point from the whole Province, because Levy Camp is worthwile to keep in the early game for both Military score and removal of Hastily Levied penalty. Otherwise insane Impediments that take a long time to cleanse and no positive ones. Very low quality region, so a good riddance. Throw Noble and Freeman on gold.



Final POP distribution for the Province. Note that I have -3 to -5 Food in each region, which corresponds to a chance of starving POP per turn. But we don't care really



4) Our Capital is a decent region with unfortunately no Impediments allowing for Great Trades structures. Easiest Flax Field queue up ever. Keep Priest on Piety, while Nobles and Freemans moved on gold. Decent Natural good for bonuses.



5) Bone Diviners have to go for now, because we need every single gold piece and immediate benefits of this building is not that good considering it operates on Livestock, which we will need in droves very soon, so that -8 here to stay for a while. NO positive Impediments once again. I keep both Mining Exploitation and Wagon for now. I hold off on Roads and wait for the Wagon event. Only freemans move on Gold, you can see the pattern emerging that follows up on each region. I can tell you why in the 1st turn Economy overview.



6) Very nice region with positive Impediment allowing two Great Trades structures. I will queue up Horse Corral destruction that I might cancel later on. We need to build Horses everywhere and this is not priority structure, altho I might reactivate when I hire Cavalry. Right now 11 Gold worth more. Actually have to move Priest on Infa here. Initiation Ritual worth 8 Gold.



7) The 2nd worst region in our Chiefdom. Have to remove Food Storage until I build Pastoral Council to rebuild it and upgrade into Communal Larder instantly. NO positive Impediments, only negative one, Its one of those buildings I can cancel destruction of when its time for POP to grow.



Such a good region. Positive Impediments allow construction of 5 Great Trade buildings. Horse Collar temporarily disabled, which I reenable when hiring Cavalry.



9) I see Legumes in rotation, so I cancel Flax Field and focus all production on them. I have to tolerate Pickle Fermenter now because base Food production with bonus is fine. Positive Impediment allows 1 Great Free Trade building,



10) Last is the region with no Province. I have one positive Impediment. Communal oven is nice when you have Grain, but I can't disable it now since Food production is too weak. Have to keep Freeman and Priest on production. I will likely donate this region later on to one of the big nations.

[uco/jZMRPGj7][/url]

Final POP distribution for the main Province. Distributed to get 1 Legumes in a single turn. We building up Piety to reach threshold for the Great Temple and some other nice buildings. Chief House for Authority production requires 250 Stewardship



Final resources distribution after the first turn POP rearrangement.





Now its time to split our starting army into 4 units to assign general for Perks they will provide for the specific regions. Remember that General effect activates only on the next turn after assignment. In case of movement of unit stat bonuses only for units he commanded for at least 1 turn, so fresh joins don't benefit.









I changed stack names to not confuse myself in the future. They will be gradually replaced by Peasants as well, while moved on to the Levy Camp Province to remove status quicker. And here it dawns on me. I'm one of rare nations that don't unlock Peasants with Peasant Roundup structure.



Also had to pull 1 Lord from the Gold on Island Province in order to hire SAUs faster. This province is on timer anyway before being gifted piece by piece. Both Provinces queued up Picked Baltic Warriors. Capital province have to spend 2 turns, which I don't speed up, so +5 XP from a Character perk has a chance to apply.





Lets go to Diplomacy now. First I Insult 3 neighboring Nations to have a 50% chance of spawning extra Claim on their territory. I don't plan to Absorb Livonia. Just Vassalize them, in which bartering off Claim helps tremendously.



Byzantine starts in war with Pechenegs, so we Insult them as well. Each Insult is -10 with the target, but +5 with their enemy and +2.5 with Vassals. We will drain our Diplomatic Frenzy tally that starts at 30 and adds 1 per turn pretty quick. That means -0.2 to -0.3 Authority for the whole game. I will be looking at our preferred nations war statuses on subsequent turns.

I spend 150 gold on the Forge Claim Very High odds right away. I save all the other ones. NonStandard units can be played on the enemy territory to save upkeep and SAU slots. I will go over 5 SAUs limit that way or save it for Novgorod once I get the Passage Rights.





Thx for your attention. Thats will be all for now. The last note is that I have 0 Claims in my territory, To check this stat you have to go to Ledger > Authority > sort by Claims vs Player > switch to nation that have claims against you and press Shift + 7.



And heres my game settings:

[SuitedQueens]

Note:
if Picture says Service unavailable click it to load on IBB. If that doesnt help reload the page.

Note 2:
https://mega.nz/folder/fRAVnSjQ#JtGtQN3isFjuL-qmKm3ziw
Here the link that contain 3 Excel files with very relevant info split into many sheets. Keep in mind that goods and structures is not updated to the current version, but many new buildings are a no brainer choices anyway.

Note 3: (for Custom AI I might enable if game becomes too easy)
HERES the link to the AI mod file. Turn processing speed will slow down like 3 times, but AI will be 10 times as smart and challenging. https://mega.nz/file/ichwhTqS#nQwbuP6FR ... 4cCaVLV5O4

Place in the Data/scripts path, but backup the original file. BUT do this one you find that its easy to beat your opponents and they never present adequate resistance. YOU CAN ENABLE MOD at any point of AAR.

[SuitedQueens]

In Turn 2 I tell you how I manage the turn and establish structure & formatting going forward.


1) Dealing with Insults reports by pressing OK, teleporting to sai nations and Insulting them again. Insults and Gifts unlike other take 1 turn to complete.








2) Next step is checking the Message log Diplomacy page with Filters for Neutral Nations Priority ALL Messages. After that list through nations we are interested in to see if they have any Wars where we don't insult their enemies. We found one in HRE.





Latgalia that we intend to Insult often got in the war with Polotsk. That means that when I insult both Latgalia and Polotsk I still have a chance to get a Claim, but Relationships go down at -5 instead of -10. But the problem is that Polotsk is in Alliance with RUS like Novgorod, so we proly have a modifier of You hate nations we like rather soon. No Claims from Insults generated.






3) Next step is checking Recruitment queues and moving my armies. I assign the last Character with positive perk to a newly created SAU and send him to cover no walls 20 POW region, because this type of regions provoke AIs into DOWing you. You better boost up their perceived Combat Rating quick. When I have about 100 Combat Power stack I will merge and start Raiding.

Raiding is my stack CP + random roll against theirs stack CP + garrison CP + Fortification value multiplied by 3. Good way to gain gold without Pillaging. And Cavalry SAUs with high CP will help me in achieving that goal. Meanwhile I put my Buff armies in Garrisons so its easy to see that they are AFK when I go to Ledger Armies page.



I can't queue up new units, because 2 SAUs drained all my Metal. Again, typical tribal situation, so have to rush Metal structures ASAP and we don't have many options. I will have to build Mining Exploitations, Crude Smelters, a few Charcoal Burners in cetrilized regions for bonuses to Crude Smelters and exchange Units for Metal in Diplomacy.







4) Next step is checking all Notifications to not miss any random events, new Claims, Harsh season messages, Health Decline on ruler and the list goes on.

2 Nations raised claims against me. Lets see how to figure out who. Yea, as you see in Ledger its Novgorod and Livonia. Claims greatly enbolden AI to DOW you and icnrease chance of Relationships degradation. No matter the Relationships neigbours often raise Claims against you just by the fact of proximity. Thats why its important to have good relationships with them. You will be able to force them to relinquish claims and won't get negative Authority for Hostile claims that can trigger for low relationships for one time -0.3





I got one Claim within Levonia, but I need another one to simplify the future Vassalization via Diplomacy. Our RULER Health degrades to fair. The lower HP, the higher nominal age and the more fractured we are the higher chance for the Health degradation. Hope the trend stops soon cuz we need this Ruler.




5) I click on Construction notifications next to continue focusing one particular region in the Province to reach tier 2 (not relevant to Tribals) and Gateways quicker. I get Wood Cutting as a chocie, which we NEED sicne we will be building Mining Exploitations everywhere that REQUIRE wood. Plus I NEED 3 tiear 1 structures to put Regional Roads in rotation.








6) After Region Managment done which doesnt take too long I go to the Trade Goods ledger and see which goods are not GREEN that I can use. Wood will become GREEN soon, so no worries. In Tin Vein region I have to use Authority to catch the Mining Exploration hopefully on the next turn. Preserved Food will be used by Tier 1-2 common structure later in the game, so no worries here.





7) Next I go to RGDs. We got Move Capital, which you always want as a single copy before downgrading to Very Low odds. I don't have money for that, but I spend 150 gold for Deploy Spy Network increase to Very High Odds. Not playing anything this turn.





Last thing I do each turn is double checking my Armies to see that I don't have Idlers chilling around and Recruiting page. Thats more important for the Major nations ofc.






As you can imagine I will skip some stepes of this process for describing later turn unless smth worthwhile happens during one of them.

[SuitedQueens]

Ok, fun developments this turn. Novgord DOWs us, which is not bad necessarily. I can always restore our Relationships with Gifts and Insults later on, but thats my opportunity to gain Authority via conquest. I should hold up defensively in Woods with 3 Heavies (have 1 atm) + Mediums from the garrison (nope, only 2 lights available) and full +3 support line. I can accumulate forces to Retaliate against them before they form smth meaningful on my borders. Hopefully chain reaction won't pull other nations in war soon.



As far as Insults go nothing new for our old nemesis. But through the message log I found that Hungary in war with Croatia, so I acquired a new Insult target to improve Relationships with Hungary. Poland started war with Prussia, so another ridicule sponge.





I merge all my armies in a single stack. Have to cancel SAU and hire 4 Mercs leaving me with 4 Gold and +130 Income. Peasant appear as hireable unit, so I will gradually reassign generals to them and use Peasants as a bait to force AI to Sortie while moving main stack back and forth, cheap Siege score boosters and wielder for Character buffs.

Based on the amount of movepoints it takes to reach my region I don't believe Novgorod can jump me out of Fog of War.




Notifications warns me that Initiation ritual ended, which means that my Manpower sits at +19 for now, which is decent. I gain Legacy in return. Also we got positive event on free Road queue up AND repelled raid initiated by Levonia.




Meanwhile I received Forge Claim and generated another Claim on the Levonian territory, so its time to stop Insulting them since 3 Claims is enough for Vassalization. I will send them gifts later on.



Flax field finished in the province 2, so its time to start Mining Exploitation. Other than that I leave Regional Roads in the province 1. I cancel 2 Horse Collars and 1 Food Storage dimantle to queue them up on the next turn again to save me Gold. No need to check out trade goods page or RGDs.

[SuitedQueens]

We knew that DOWs would happen anyway, so I started hurling Insults to have a chance of generating extra Claim before that happens. Its Livonia this time. Potetially I have to play Recruit RGD to catch them at the right time. I can't fight on two fronts really. They didn't have an army on my borders yet, but likely played all their Recruit decisions already.



I circle Insults and find a new target. HRE DOWed Bohemia. Another reason to Insult those countries is generating Claim there, so once they got conquered you have an extra Claim on the big nation you befriended. But Claims gotten through Insults drain 2 Authority. Heres the example with Pechenegs.



Livonia has only 40 Land Power, didnt play any RGDs or committed raids, so seems like its their starting units + one infantry thats in our vision. Heres which filters I sued to come to this conclusion. Latgalia played Recruit RGD last turn, so you can their Land Power at 100 and I can see the notification icon on the map and Raid notification.







Next I queue up 3 more Light Archers which drains my gold to 0 again. That will make a 6+6 stack to hopefully hold off Rostov. 2 units over Retinue tho. I switch some POPs in Province 2 to food to reduce chance of POP dying to 0.



My plan is to Retaliate once and carry over my stack back and forth to Retaliate against Novgorod and Livonia. I can't split stack because AutoGarrisons would join them (more units required from my side) and I likely to conquer underlying region, which I intend to Abandon immediately. That happens because Underlying garrison CP lower than stack (Allies and Vassals count) that Garrisons or stands on top of the region.

Some fun things about Retaliate: you lose extra Efficiency no matter the combat results after all actions between the turns. If you Assault + Retaliate and WIN Retaliate overwrites, if Draw you return to original region instead of continuing to fight, if LOSE you will be pushed back extra square. Any movement deny pushes you extra square too e.g. Regions becomes inaccessible because of harsh weather OR regions transfers to a third side you don't have Passage Rights treaty OR Garrison CP/2 higher than your stack (patrols repel) OR higher CP army uses the same pathway.



Then we receive Notification about Harsh Weather incoming. Besides extra 25% Upkeep increase in our Eastern Continental side our regions likely to be covered with snow, so +1 Move Points cost. Which means that Reinforcements likely won't catch up to the intended target. Also you don't want to attack in many cases because many Terrains get +1 defense.



I go through the Capital province, queue up Dissasembly for 2 Horse Corals and Food Storage once again, start building level 1 roads. Put 1 Priest back on Piety from Infrastructure. Notice that I still don't have any +1 Authority events from Nobles or High Stewardship. You have the higest chance to get it when you are below 50 Authority. But I got Diplomatic Frenzy penalty already, which is pretty tame only -0.1 when you are close to 0 Authority. I switch Province 2 Governor to 5 Auth 3 Piety 0 Military + Loyalty trait version since I dont hire there for now.

[SuitedQueens]

I go through the regular Insults cycle and note that I generated two more Claims. One of them temporarily occupied by HRE already, so I get Bargaining advantage.



Finally Suomi launched war against Sweden Vassal, while Poland attacked Volhynia. Another Insults targets in order.





Perfect time to Retaliate against their stack. Message log shows no raids or Recruitment decisions played by any of our opponents. But we see a combat where Novgorod army suffered from attrition. Ofc when we gonna Retaliate their archers restore 1 effectivness, but their Shooting and min rolls will be terrible. We expect to suffer a lot of Effectivness anyway + extra from Retaliation action.





Putting 1 Lord on Military to recruit Heavy SAU #2, Merc and utility peasant. I used Red to highlight weak spots that have to be patrolled constantly. Crossed out Red is region that doesn't require protection cause its tucked away behind Capital with superb Combat Power stack, therefore I will dissasemble National Capital that provides a serious Garrison to move it in one of the weak regions. Yellow regions has 30+ CP, so we need to put garrison that at least 1 CP above to guarantee fight where AutoGarrison joins when enemy tries to pass it by.

Provincial Capital will be rebuilt in the region with highest Current Stewardship production at the time of final Dismantling turn.





Funnily enough somewhat distant Lithuania Claims my region. And since we have the lowest Relationships its likely to trigger Hostile Foreign Claims Authority losses more often.



Farms ends up in rotation to fill our last Missing resource - Grain. I get initiation Ritual in rotation for our secluded region. Superb structure all around.



The last note is on the Big River Crossing that slows down potential Novgorod surprise attacks tremendously. And we play Show of Authority on the region I highlighted in the screenshot. I inted to move Provincial Capital there.

[SuitedQueens]

So the the red arrow shows regions where we saw Livonia stack which currently in the Fog of War. But I have no doubts that they will attack only logical target from their perspective - unwalled non-capital region. Yellow arrow shows the path which would allow enemy stack to avoid my Retaliate retargetting, but they chose to move into Forested region, which got them caught. AutoGarrison above them in Combat Power (90) so they didn't join the fray automatically. Suffered some serious Effectiveness drops tho from the skirmishers phase. Their region got Pillaged status, which many times weaker than dedicated Pillage action.







Nothing new in Diplomacy related to me or big world events. I cycle through the Insult list from the turn before. No new claims generated. I checked secluded region I intend to give up and I can't drop it Loyalty below 50, so I will give it up to HRE right now since we arrived at 25 Relationship this turn. But I'll try to roll smth for it tho.



Another Raid repelled (thats why I want at least 100 CP to start Raiding) and finally we get +1 Authority from Nobles or high Stewardship.



Levonia blockades 3 ports, which doesn't cause any Trade Goods shortage since we don't get any via Water so far + unlike in Empires we don't suffer any production or commerce penalties for blockaded port. So we don't care. I pull + merge both stacks that take same amount of Impulses (move points) to move in the same region from different starting points, so nothing if enemy jumps in we can merge instead of fighting separately. Firt utility peasant carries Character with Stew perk to provide it for the underlying region.





I hire more temporary troops for the 2nd patrolling stack while waiting for the Metal trinckle up for the last Heavy Infantry SAU I want to get. Meanwhile I cancel 2 Horse Corrals and 1 Food storage Disassembly.



Two random events: noble orders Road in one of my regions, while island regions gets negative religious event we don't care about since I want to gift it away soon. So only province left to build starts Initiation Ritual. Always want to get manpower and legacy boosts, so I build it on every occasion.



I play Remove Civilized on Agrarian Chiefodm and thats it for the turn.

[SuitedQueens]

Novgorod pulls out their forces somewhere. Anyway, thats the first gap that should be reinforced by patrolling 2nd stack.



Meanwhile I get 4 extra Claims from Insulting, so I actually gonna stop and try to Insult only my neighbors enemies to fix our Relationships. My experience shows that you can't get more than 1 Claim via Insult spam. And another Raid repelled. I will continue to Insult Polotsk to improve with both Latgalia and Lithuania.





Ok, Novgorod played Hire mercenaries AND Non_Standard, so seems like their doom stack will advance my way soon.



Another failed Raid leaves opponent stack in shambles. Perfect time to capture their region since my Ultimate goal is Vassalize Livonia in the future. Lowering their regions value via Pillaging and/or Abandonment cheapens Vassalization Bargain Points cost.



I start sending troops to reinforce Region that borders Novgorod and provide FOV there. Realocating utility Peasant so he can provide FOV on southern border.



Lucky Noble Visit event from the previous turn allows me to not shuffle Nobles to gold so this region will be chosen as new place for the Province Capital. meanwhile I disassemble 2 Horse Corrals and Food Storage. You can see the pattern Emerging.



Well, its turn 7 and almost all my regiosn have Roads without edicting. Pretty good roll I say.

[Surt]

Re post 1, what do you mean by laundering units?
the who concept seems strange, could you explain it a bit more please.

[SuitedQueens]

Another one of those scenarios where 1 Impulse difference let me catch the runners. And failed raid played a big part in this skirmish round. Also interesting Steady trigger by opponent that actually saved ME from the 1 Efficiency loss.







Very peculiar thing happens. HRE accepts my region, which I clearly see on the map. But intantly releases it to Independents in the same turns. I guess thats a new patch antiexploit to prevent very powerful strategy from Empires. And keep in mind that we are in their Sphere of Influence since we were able to trade our region in the first place But potentially I have exploit of reconquering region and trading it away for smth else each time!



I also learn that Im outside Byzantine Empire Sphere of Influence, but I continue to improve relationships with them anyway because they are power player. I proly get the last Insult related claim meanwhile. My gold income is +42, so I have to use Authority to get free Impediment trading structures and I'm sitting at -8 already..



By shuffling POP and dismantling I able to drop Loyalty of the region below 50. That means Pillage with 100+ power gonna hit this region to refill my coeffers.



Meanwhile I send main stack to reconquer our HRE released region. Hopefuly Pillage pull me out out of minus forced by double merc hire, so 2 of them will be hired in a single turn. Furthermore pay attention that our Province capital moved to where I wanted.



New region allowed me to reshuffle POP + I found Exchange Tents with bonuses fulfilled.in both Provinces.



Nothing new for RGDs.

[SuitedQueens]

Re post 1, what do you mean by laundering units?
the who concept seems strange, could you explain it a bit more please.

This refers to the fact that Provincial Mercs is unit derived from the regular version, but Levy and Standing replaced by Mercenary with all implications. The cost of this status is two times base Gold cost, but no Manpower and Metal. Then there are Character Betrayal chances and loyalty degradation, creating Bandit Lair in the place where you Disbanded them, increased Gold gain for Characters who command them.

When you get the same Mercs by Recruit Local Unit or Diplomacy Exchanges you buy their Base version with Gold cost 2 times less than Mercs with Inflation for the extra copies, full manpower and metal. Levies also can't get Improved Equipment.

You can get the same Mercs by Sending them to your Vassal and then Requesting them from the Vassal. You can't consistently Send each Merc type, since list randomized each new turn. Now you get Base version, BUT with halved Gold with Inflation for extra copies, half manpower and metal.

So the perfect permanent armies consist from Mercs and Vassal Laundered troops!

[Surt]

Post 2 part 1, how do you get the interface to show the provincial units?

[SuitedQueens]

Post 2 part 1, how do you get the interface to show the provincial units?

As I said Press Shift + 1 and hover over provinces. You have to guess what each Unit type is, but names usually pretty descriptive. I like to check stats in my files anyway to see if I have better alternatives.

[Surt]

Turn 2 Novgorod is only allied to Kiev iirc.

[Surt]

Turn 2
4)
Clicking through the messages is every micro-managers duty, I do it diligently!!!
I seldom bother to look at the log, that might be a failing for my part, but I should do it in my Seljuq AAR to see major events.

5)
Why you do you 3 tier 1 to get regional roads? isn't that only in Empires? don't you just need Craftsmen's borough to unlock them?
Anyway wood cutting is a sad part of live that is needed if you can't get the other wood building.
Alternatively Material gathering, which only provide one wood but more infra.

6) Checking the grade goods page ... I'll be right back, just need to check something!
Eh I already complained to Pocus over not seeing everything, and if everything is shown, that the goods are not grouped, ie. Wood(4) instead of wood, wood ,wood, wood. Same on trade map.

7) I'm glad you agree with me (for once) that Deploys spy might be important.

... 8 ) Checking armies, usually not done as I sleep garrisons and skip armies that stay while pressing space while having an army selected.
I'll look forward to see what you actually use the recruitment (ie. Ledger->regions(mil)) for.

[Surt]

I assume this is turn 3 even if not shown.

Ok, fun developments this turn. Novgord DOWs us, which is not bad necessarily. I can always restore our Relationships with Gifts and Insults later on, but thats my opportunity to gain Authority via conquest. I should hold up defensively in Woods with 3 Heavies (have 1 atm) + Mediums from the garrison (nope, only 2 lights available) and full +3 support line. I can accumulate forces to Retaliate against them before they form smth meaningful on my borders. Hopefully chain reaction won't pull other nations in war soon.

That Novgorod DoWs is not a surprise iirc.
They start only allied to Kievan Rus, and don't often make more early on.

As far as Insults go nothing new for our old nemesis. But through the message log I found that Hungary in war with Croatia, so I acquired a new Insult target to improve Relationships with Hungary. Poland started war with Prussia, so another ridicule sponge.

I think I missed the reason to befriend Hungary, you intend to be neighbours with them?

I merge all my armies in a single stack. Have to cancel SAU and hire 4 Mercs leaving me with 4 Gold and +130 Income. Peasant appear as hireable unit, so I will gradually reassign generals to them and use Peasants as a bait to force AI to Sortie while moving main stack back and forth, cheap Siege score boosters and wielder for Character buffs.

Based on the amount of movepoints it takes to reach my region I don't believe Novgorod can jump me out of Fog of War.




Notifications warns me that Initiation ritual ended, which means that my Manpower sits at +19 for now, which is decent. I gain Legacy in return. Also we got positive event on free Road queue up AND repelled raid initiated by Levonia.




Meanwhile I received Forge Claim and generated another Claim on the Levonian territory, so its time to stop Insulting them since 3 Claims is enough for Vassalization. I will send them gifts later on.

Interesting, so the plan is to gift them to 50 and them trade clams for vassal?

Flax field finished in the province 2, so its time to start Mining Exploitation. Other than that I leave Regional Roads in the province 1. I cancel 2 Horse Collars and 1 Food Storage dimantle to queue them up on the next turn again to save me Gold. No need to check out trade goods page or RGDs.

So your basically pausing the structures.

[Surt]

Reply turn 4?

Next I queue up 3 more Light Archers which drains my gold to 0 again. That will make a 6+6 stack to hopefully hold off Rostov. 2 units over Retinue tho. I switch some POPs in Province 2 to food to reduce chance of POP dying to 0.

Switching to food is only needed with way more pops, the armies do need the food, so the gathering point region/neighbour region should have saved food + some food production.

I switch Province 2 Governor to 5 Auth 3 Piety 0 Military + Loyalty trait version since I dont hire there for now.

I assume that is Estonia.
Seljuqs can't do too many switches due to adverse effect when changing.

[SuitedQueens]

Huge neutral spawn for the turn we at. But thankfully they don't have a General. We can see extra Horse SAU roaming Novgorod territory. As I said this AAR won't use heavy exploits, so I won't be Circling this region through HRE for the benefits. I will Gift it to Poland, Hungary or Sweden.



They even had 3 Heavy Foots with +3 Supports which lead to my army being Exhausted again. But nonetheless we got much needed XP for our units.





Meanwhile we still have no Negative Token, so note for RNG haters: it works both ways, not only stalling Positive Tokens. And Pillage paid off big time especially considering that our Stack mostly covered by the Retinue.



New Diplomacy action. I propose one of the weaker Islands to HRE to start selling my Units in the near future. I propose buggy weak region to Poland since we finally reached 25 Relationship. Then I decide to start Insulting Latgalia again because Smolensk got involved in War with them. Plus they are in war with Latvia, so I actually stop Insulting Polotsk, my future Neighbor.








A bit about AI logic: they love to attack weak regions when you are not in their FOV. Thats how you setup traps. The only right choice for AI is to embark on the ship, because if they try to follow the Red route I outspeed them. Asterix means it takes me 4 Impulses to arrive at destinion and intercept them if they stay in the region or try to move further since it takes them 2 + 3 = 5 Impulses. But if I score a draw which is unlikely, then they can continue their path since we only fight for a single Impulse. I want to end up in this region to Pillage again.

Meanwhile I recruit penultimate infantry for patrolling stack, where the last one gonna be SAU on the next turn, one more support and utility Peasant. I will proly use them to boost up my Siege Score closer to 50 for quicker good Siege rolls. Thats really a minimal required threshold to do smth beyond Starving, which is great tool in Deserts and this type of regions with many impediments and low populations.



I put 0-0 with Stingy (20% Upkeep reduction) for my future patrol stack despite his terrible stats. I should be jumped out of the Fog of War due to Big River, so I can always change General last moment.



We got another +1 Authority event for Nobles and high Regional Stewardship. As I said you have a high chance of that event when below 50 Authority and 0% chance after 75. Finally we see a Crude Smelter in rotation. I increase Sap Authority by paying 150 gold.

[SuitedQueens]

That Novgorod DoWs is not a surprise iirc.
They start only allied to Kievan Rus, and don't often make more early on.

On high difficulties AI get boosts for their aggression. And in the beginning of the game Claims will be generated naturally on your neighbour's that also boosted by the fact that those regions part of Historical lands group. You shouldn't expect to be peaceful for long so use this time to Insult to generate extra Claims before they DoW you.

Rus proly won't be relevant for a long time. And in Kingdoms it's hard to avoid Hate our friends penalty because opposite religions tick down almost every turn, but friendly tick up. So if you Insulted any particular member of popular religion it's likely that they will end up friends with their Religion group and therefore hate you.

I think I missed the reason to befriend Hungary, you intend to be neighbours with them?

Interesting, so the plan is to gift them to 50 and them trade clams for vassal?

Yes, as I later found I'm outside Byzantine Sphere of Interest, so cant trade my regions. Many other questions I don't quote here answered in subsequent turn reports I already posted. Maybe I will be able to vassalize via War + Pillage of regions to drop their Vassalage Bargain Points cost, so I don't have to rack up huge War Scores. Unfortunately I proly have to Gift to them otherwise since no one started War with them yet. Each Claim worth about a midsized region in BPs.

So your basically pausing the structures.

The best way to manage. If I build everywhere it's inefficient for one. Two is that you rarely get what you want by random rotation, and Tribals don't have free Temporary Fortification edicts to shuffle like Civilized nations. Three is that Food and Gold are infinitely more valuable. I try to keep Freemans on the Commerce ALL game and Nobles chime in to help from time to time. 75 Infrastructure for lvl 1 per province, 100 if it doesn't take much Peasants.

On SIDE note: are you sure Seljuks work like you describe them. I think governors temporarily gain +25 when occupied, and then lose it when not. No permanent losses as far as I'm aware.