Optimal strategy for the new players

[SuitedQueens]

Turn sequence (NEW):
- ruler death, supply usage, health/fatigue restoration, besiege damage and random events;
- diplomacy actions including war and peace;
- buildings finished;
- weather effects;
- regional and national decisions;
- pillage before army movement impulse;
- army movement after the end of the first impulse;
- orders like assault, merge at the beginning of the next impulse;
- orders like raid at the end of the last impulse.

[SuitedQueens]

Quality summary with details on Authority mechanics and Characters.

https://youtu.be/y_nz-2P4_84?si=3m9uiTsgz_SRHrEk

[SuitedQueens]

Good, technical advice. You are welcome to post this as a Steam guide, this is where the majority of players are.

Trying to kill my leader through combat, but no luck so far. Destroyed all Luck building and I think pretty much emptied out whatever tokens I had stored (lazy to run Debug). No MOD_EFFECT_BATTLE_DEATHCHANCE_BONUS either.

As far as I understand from script files units quality is not accounted for when tallying up Losses. 1 lost unit = 2 lost factors (peasants and knight are equal, right?) according to variables, and I should have extra for their stacks being bigger than mine. Then there is lossFactor >= 5 promts providing x2 modifier for default 12% chance of leader dying in combat, so its should be 24% per lost combat say leading 5 peasants.

New players will rejoice if that the way to maximize low Admin leaders death chances indeed.

[Pocus]

12% is for a defeat, it's half of that for a draw and a quarter for a win.

[Pocus]

@SuitedQueens

I have been unable to reproduce the exploits of proposing being a vassal or giving the same region to several nations, to make peace easily or rake up some extra money. Is it something you have around in a recent save (only)?

[SuitedQueens]

I have been unable to reproduce the exploits of proposing being a vassal or giving the same region to several nations, to make peace easily or rake up some extra money. Is it something you have around in a recent save (only)?

Maybe I worded it wrong. You can't become vassal of multiple nations with the same proposal. The idea is to exchange Vassal status for gold with one, break it, switch to the next extortion victim.

The same for the regions. You build up impenetrable wall of buffer neutral states. Client States/Vassals work as well, but that takes more time.

Make piece easily tactic was referring to the Disband Fleet and Army which indeed can calm down multiple factions with a single proposal sent at the same turn

[Pocus]

Ok thanks for the details, I'll see about these issues (in time).

[SuitedQueens]

Interesting question from Discord:

Any tips on how to win a siege? playing on difficult difficulty, and now I find that my besieging army just starves before the defenders do. Also my fleet begins to starve on the 2nd turn at sea, so I cannot keep them off shore for siege bonus. Even with only lvl 3 fortifications, the defenders hold out.

Cranky Corvid response listing official mechanics:

[*] Armies can draw food supply from adjacent regions you control, or from adjacent fleets (by consuming the fleet's Effectiveness, so it will reduce the fleet's time on station).

[*] To maintain a constant naval blockade, you need to rotate multiple fleets.

[*] Units have a Siege Value that determines how much they contribute to siege rolls. You can check this in the unit's stats. Most light and medium cavalry contributes nothing, while missile troops tend to be above average. You should aim to have a positive score for the roll, the more the better (it's capped at +50, off the top of my head). A leader with a good Offense Rating also helps, and there is a leader trait (Siege Expert, with a trebuchet icon) that gives every unit in the stack a big boost to siege value.

[*] If you need to boost your siege rolls cheaply, Peasant Militia are dirt cheap and do the job (recruitable by any faction after building the Peasants Roundup).

[*] High-quality stacks (heavy infantry, knights, crossbows/archers in the backline) can successfully assault most low-level fortifications. This becomes easier as the defenders take damage from siege rolls.

My own response digging into specifics and exploity tactics:

So one thing you should remember: its rarely worth it to besiege sub-lvl3 walls as long as you have 3 rating supports, just assault straight away even with medium infantry. You can go assault lvl 3 walls with cavalry/heavy infantry str8 away. Assault action is very few places where you actually must have 2 Attack rating General.

For Naval interventions you typically want to exchange/buy out a single region just for the food source OR get passage rights & above from the overseas faction OR attack unfortified/lightly fortified regions from the get go.

As for the big fortified settlements there are two main options except besieging:

1) Wait until they gain 1 more POP before starting the blockade, which gonna be way more efficient due to the small carry over food supply;

2) Multiple attacks per round. Its harder to stagger your armies compared to previous games where you had generals with bonuses/maluses to entire stack movespeed. Now your options are starting from the different positions and using Force March order. If move out of the region takes exactly 1 MP assault command won't go through if its part of the move order.

Typically you want heavy hitters to connect last. Usually you have mercs stack backed up by archers for the initial damage, potential RGD stack created in one of their occupied regions backed up by archers followed by the main heavy infantry force backed up by archers. That last hammer blow connects against heavily depleted garrison or low quality troops that replaced Palace Guards or whoever in the center.

[Pocus]

Good discussion, and not too exploity (within limits).

[SuitedQueens]

Courtesy of Cranky Corvid:

A) Fortification frontages and defense values for the structures and walls for the regions Assault action (if you tired looking it up):

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

B) Spreadsheet to predict the future Court Expenses. Pay attention that the main facitr is the size of your Kingdom i.e. how much regions you control and the number of buildings, so be careful when expanding into poorly developed regions with all slots filled in with tier 1, which combined with 10 turns of penalties straight up drain your coeffers with no promise of the hasty payback:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

[SuitedQueens]

Updating EVERGREEN topic by the new detailed walkthrough. I plan to include videos for interesting battles and BIG turns. AAR overflowing with SCREENSHOTS already

https://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=117928

[SuitedQueens]

Walkthrough is finished. I pretty much covered all facets of the game as a Nomad/Tribal nation. First post updated with links to the best episodes and videos. Super action packed AAR where I constantly pushed the game.

https://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=117928

[jimwinsor]

Walkthrough is finished. I pretty much covered all facets of the game as a Nomad/Tribal nation. First post updated with links to the best episodes and videos. Super action packed AAR where I constantly pushed the game.

https://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=117928

Much food for thought, thanks!

[SuitedQueens]

Much food for thought, thanks!

I will do a passive economy focused short AAR when a new patch comes out. I saw notes on Discord: the most agregious issues addressed already. I penned a few messages to Pocus on easy to implement balance considerations.

I will expand on the economy balancing, cuz some trade goods and buildings are not worth it ever with how the game being played by most players or with optimal strats. Either bonuses should be more significant or they should provide bonuses for desirable structures or extra events shoukd trigger more often or have a higher impact.

[SuitedQueens]

I will be doing a new detailed play-by-play AAR in a day or 2 covering July Challenge for Byzantines on Suicidal difficulty viewtopic.php?t=118111. I think it will be a good content since its the same type of challenge we did back in the late 90s with 4X games i.e. camp on a single planet and let AI develop for first half of the game, and then try to catch back and get a W.

[Surt]

You are going to make me look like an amateur!!!

I tried to expand as much as possible against independents to gain mass.
To defeat my current enemies.
To retake Constantinople asap
To move the Capital there.

Not necessarily the most effective strategy, but good roleplaying!