My confession!

[Anguille2]

I have to confess that i've started 5 games since the patch came out (Spain, Armenia, Highland, Epir and Georgia) on hard....

And i've LOST EACH ONE OF THEM :go:

I guess i have to rethink my strategy....

So who wants to confess! :wink:

[kiri_hacker]

lol I started like 10 since the patch and I felt the difference between with and without the patch but I didnt loose at all ... I blew em like a big Storm .... :lol: .... It's very simple you must always use Tactics not even two crusades at once can beat your camp... You can conquer all of Europe with just 5 slots peasants ... And ofcouse you must plunder a little and invest your money in your country and It will go well :go:

[mammix]

:P
i started recently with spain- war with cordoba, pampelona, italy. now i have got all the Iberia :P

ITS TOO EASY :P

[Anguille2]

Each time starting with a single province?

My last game was with spain and it took only twos hours before i was crushed (normal speed) as all the bigger countries around me were attacking me.

It's clear that once you reach a certain size, the game is easy.

In my first games with Epir, Armenia and Georgia i wanted to see how the ai had evolved and was aggressive on the diplomacy level.

My last games with Highland and Spain were serious games where i really wanted to win but was crushed.

PS: i fight all battles myself.

[Elvain]

I must saz that the patch have largely increased the dificulty.

If you start as small kingdom, it is much harder. Once you become larger it is still kinda easy, but constant attacks of all enemies can drive me mad...

My most funnier game was as Nicaea, when I first managed to expand rather easily, then it became harder to finaly eliminate the crusaders, but once I united Byzantia and got over 12 provinces, I was then pushed back to only 5 provinces ( I had to give up some land in order to keep the rest otherwise they didn't agree to a peace)

but with the mod, I find starting as 1 province kingdom a loss in 90% of games. I even lost as France in 1200 during 2 hours being divided between England, HRE, Aragon and Genoa

[Kuno of Gersenau]

I recently lost the game while playing with Jerusalem. While I tried to conquer Antioch Bagdad decleared war on me and conquerd my only town within a few minutes...:sad:

[Godkin]

well I lost only once before I found out the secret:

The name of the game is to form alliance with your powerful neighbour at any cost at the very beginning of gameplay and drag it into war with whichever country you want to attack. So it turns out the more lands you conqure the more harmonious your relations with your neighbour will become. Don't have to worry about the badboy effect any more.:cheers:

[Elvain]

well I lost only once before I found out the secret:

The name of the game is to form alliance with your powerful neighbour at any cost at the very beginning of gameplay and drag it into war with whichever country you want to attack. So it turns out the more lands you conqure the more harmonious your relations with your neighbour will become. Don't have to worry about the badboy effect any more.:cheers:
but it doesn't work 100%
1) it often is hard to make your powerfull neighbour an ally
2) he often asks you to declare wars on his enemies.. as you are larger, the more wars you are involved in, the more kingdoms invade your lands - the less you are able to support your ally
3) the ally often makes your common enemies become his vasals. If you ask him to start a war again, he refuses - he's no longer your ally - you take consequences of teh bad boy anyway.
or you can try to sign peace with his vasals, but it is very hard.. and you shuld not invade his land as it makes your ally angry...
4) it is no fun to follow some AI kingdom's no-goal policy. When I play the game, my goal rarely is JUST WIN. I want to win somehow, I want to achieve my own goals what is impossible through following servile no-goal foreign policy.
5) as you are at war with many ally's enemies who then become his kins/vasals the rish of the AI ally terminating the relations rapidly increases. The only way you have is to release all "friendly enemies" knights and lose wars. It is good tactic when you desperately need peace to survive, not a usefull tool of freign policy
--
or at least this is how it is in my mod...

[mammix]

the best option is to ATTACK your powerful neighbour when he's already in war- yo help another kingdom so hes your ally and your new enemy is not prepared for such a tiny kingdom attack him- 2 armies conquer 3 cities and you are great :P

[Dobber]

I lost one since the patch, Sicily I think, but I replayed as Sicily and changed my tactic and won.

[Godkin]

but it doesn't work 100%
4) it is no fun to follow some AI kingdom's no-goal policy. When I play the game, my goal rarely is JUST WIN. I want to win somehow, I want to achieve my own goals what is impossible through following servile no-goal foreign policy.
--
or at least this is how it is in my mod...

Yeah that is true I have to follow the ally AI's folly blind policy of attacking anyone out of no reason when asked. So the only way to fend off those pissed-off enemy's troops is to fortify my town one by one as soon as possible which prolongs the game time for rush attack only makes my defendless towns much more vulnerable.

But just look at the other side: Ally AI is more than willing to declare war on anyone attacking me if our relations reach to the point of "harmonious"or"united" (which demands a lot of invesments but would be easier if you do the homework at the beginning not in the middle of game), and this actually takes a lot of heat off me for most of enemy's troops will be directed at my ally and all I have to do is manoeuvre my men to the enemy's empty town and snatch it. It really works. If those troops come directly at me, well, beat one of them once and offer peace, now I can see the rest of them march to my ally's land.

I just mean to say I love the game after 1.05 patch cuz now I have to place so much emphasis on deplomacy and watch carefully for any signs of dissatisfaction showed by my ally, not to mention doing sth against his majesty's will......

PS: I am right in the middle of game and will check out soon.

[mart24]

And I am not ashamed of it. I now enjoy KOH more than i did with Patch 1.5. But I will have to confess I play always on the Easy setting. I guess I,m a wimp. :bland:

[patriot1]

I didn`t actually :scratch:

[Xuca]

I started a new game with Serbia and was pushed back from 5 provinces to just one, and then from two to one again. Byzantia kept declaring war and I had to give them more and more land until they invaded my last city with their 8-star marshal. It was by pure luck and a bit by AI stupidity that I ambushed him while camping and killed the marshal. Then I barely managed to conquer a city with the help of my loyalists and since then it was easier.

[nullspace]

In the new patch, money is much more limited at the start of the game because merchants make little money when trading with undeveloped nations. One trick to get some cash is to send your starting marshal to pillage enemy lands. He doesn't need any soldiers (he's faster that way), and pillaging a village makes 300 gold. Obviously flee from any marshals that attack him. He also gains experience, so buy him the enforcer skill. At level three, he pillages faster, and makes 2000 gold from anything he pillages. That money will really jump-start your development, or let you hire mercenaries.

[kiri_hacker]

I played on hard with Golden horde and while being a vassal and having no mearchants, I created a big kingdom and fought 6 kingdoms at the same time ... and they lost , well some of them became my friends after freeing some prisoners :P

[EmperorTrotsky]

i didnt lose.. but patch has made the game more playable..

[Mircoslavux]

no, I lost before the patch (playing as Jeruzalem just after 20 minutes game),
after the instalation of patch, I played like Bohemia, Teutonic Order (two wins on KA) and now like Hungary, what is a bit harder...:go:

[Dogge]

I didn't lose yet - it is difficult to lose this game, especially if you start out as a small kingdom, say Muscovy or Bohemia.

If you begin a small kingdom, your advantages are that you gain kingdom power quicker, you have to have less marshalls to defend your empire on all fronts and because of constant battles they increase their experience faster. Economically, you don't have a lot of cities to develop since you're small and thus it also becomes an advantage because you don't have towns far off that you can't reach with your marshalls who are already deployed somewhere and so you don't have to build defensive infrastructure that simply drains your treasury.

On the other hand, if you begin as a large kingdom than you're more likely to border numerous smaller kingdoms who are eager to get some of your land, and when they all attack at once like little flies, their numbers are overwhelming because all of your budget goes to military but it's still isn't enough because you just have too many provinces. And increasing your kingdom power under such conditions is virtually impossible. However, if you survive this initial period than it become easier later on because, since you have lots of provinces, you're more likely to have some good land features in your empire and gaining kingdom advantages becomes easy.