Anything I can do?

[thermos]

Hi all, just got KOH and am enjoying it immensely. I am playing my first campaing on medium difficulty and was doing quite well, however I had a major set back. My kingdom was expanding so i needed to hire another marshall to keep controll of rebels and borders. I did so and I guess the guy was a spy cause every single marshal i had revolted. In my court i have one 5 star spy counterspying and another 3 star spy counterspying. They seem pretty worthless at catching spys, unless they are spys themselves, ARRRG! I'm gonna turn paranoid. But that's why i have two, so they can rat eachother out. Well anyways when this happened i decided to keep playing instead of loading the last autosave as I was finding the game a little easy and looked forward to the challange. Unfortunatly my marshals that revolted are tottaly unbeatable as i had all four trained in up to 16 levels of abilities each. Is my kingdom over because of one spy or is there a way to bring them back under controll? Any advice would be appreciated.

Thermos

[Angryminer]

Welcome to the forums, Thermos! :halloha:
Nice to see that you want to cope with those rebels...
First you should think about getting an army. Hiring another marshall isn't sensable because it will propably be a spy. So better use your king and/or princes.
Try to beat your former "gods of warfare" in town-assaults. That means f.e. the king moves near a town (full garrison!). The prince moves near the rebel. The rebel goes after your prince. The prince turns his tail and moves into the town. The rebel follows and attacks the town. Move your king to reinforce the prince in the town.
In that situation you have two armies plus 6 squads garrison plus townguards plus townwall on your side. It is very propably that you'll harm the rebel enough to be able to do away with him when he flees the assault.
I hope that helps. :go:

And a last advice: Even if you loose one or two provinces to the rebels that isn't too bad. Just wait until your former marshall give their 1-province-kingdom to their military underdeveloped successor and get back what always belonged to you :dwink: .

Angryminer

[thermos]

Thanks Angryminer! That sounds like a very good tactic to deal with these rebels scum, would have never thought of that.

One last question,

Are they perminatly rebels now and i have to kill them? Is there no way to bring them back under my command? Would hate to lose them altogether, but i will if i have to. Also why did my 2 counterspys not find this spy marshall before all this happened. Is there anything i can do to make them better at there job so this will never happen again? I trained one to 5 stars and the other to 3.

I guess that was two questions. I have read and searched the forum but have yet to find a definitive answer on counterspying. How does your kings espiange level effect things?

Thanks again,
Thermos

[Baghera]

Sorry but your old marshals must die.
Your two counterspies really should have picked out the spy coming in... that part is quite strange. To be VERY sure about spies your 5 star counterspy should really be your king since he can never be a traitor.

If I were you I would save your game and do what you need to do to get out of the hole... when you are done... go back with the showspies cheat and see what was REALLY going on.

[Da Bomb]

Well it's luck whether your spies catch them or not. But then again, they might have tried to rebel 50 times before they succeeded and they stopped him (but didn't catch him) without you knowing. But you also want a king with multiple stars in the espionage section.

[thermos]

Thanks for the help guys.

BTW how often do you guys generaly control the battles yourself in a tactical fight. I was thinking on my next game to control every battle i can, but it seems very very hard. I found the tactical battles in RTW very easy, even on "very hard" setting, but I am having a hell of a time winning a battle in this game unless my marshal out-classes the enemy by a lot. In the quick battle i have won maybe 1 of the 20 fights i have tried. I suppose it's just a matter of practice. Is it recommended to not control the battles? Losses seem to be greater if you do, or is that just my bad commanding.

BTW if i didn't already mention it, this game goes into my all time favorite games list. My only complaint so far has to be that lossing all you armys seems a little harsh, but i guess you can do it to your enemy so it's only fair. Would rather i only lost one or two marshals but I'll deal with it. Favorite games (within last 5 years or so) include: Falcon 4.0, EECH, Silent hunter III, Mideval Total War, Port Royal 1&2, GTR, Masters of Orion 2, and now KoH. Mainly a sim and strat freak as you can tell. I think this game is an instant classic with a nice new approach to kingdom management.

Thermos

[Angryminer]

I lead most of my battles myself.
In the beginning I was also rather bad at leading battles, but after a while I learned to use the advantages and disadvantages of units.
For example the charge of cavalry is devastating. Two squads of feudal knights will make minor units like swordsmen surrender within seconds.
Here comes another very important aspect of battles into calculation: Morale. Do everything to dismorale your enemy and boost your own men's morale. When the enemy soldiers see that their friends are surrendering they will suffer a big morale penalty. Then they are vulnerable and will propably run away too when they are attacked.
When your own morale is low charge your marshal (better: prince or king) into the melee fight against some minor unit. Soon your soldier's spirits will be lifted by the words that the king himself is fighting amongst them. But this is risky. When the king's guards get slaughtered your soldiers will be struck with fear because they see their king nearly killed.
Also pay attention to endurance. A properly rested unit will be able to charge an enemy and will be granted the charge-bonus over a long time. Also rested soldiers can be much better maneuvered. This is a huge advantage.
And a last advice: Friendly fire is bad. Your archers will kill anyone who is so unlucky to stand in the way of their arrows. Make your archers cease fire when your troops get into the danger-zone (use the small cease-fire-button just right from the unit's picture).

Oh, and the quick battles are harder than normal battles because more units are involved.

I hope this helps. :go:

Angryminer

[thermos]

Thanks again for help, after playing tell 5 in the morning I think i got the hang of the tatical battles better. I love putting my archers up on the towers to rain arrows down on the victims below. It's funny the more I play this game the better i like it. Also a funny thing, in one of my battles, a little village guy started chopping down trees on the battle field where we were fighting.

Oh well off to get some sleep or.... maybe not.

[junobeach]

@Thermos
The exact same thing happened to me with all my highly trained Marshals rebelling. Very distressing and from then on I've used my King as Counter-spy. I tried at first not to lead the battles against them but my armies kept getting slaughtered by my former 5 star Generals. Once I started leading the battles I got the upperhand on them. I find the Tactics skill one of the best. If you are starting with a brand new Marshal have him plunder a farm or village for experience and pick that skill. The ability to set up a fortified camp with lots of archers is devastating. Dread is also very handy.

[thermos]

junobeach,

What is your method for using the fortified camps. How do you get the enemy to attack you after you have made a fortified camp? Do you just move your army close to them and camp and hope they attack you instead of pillaging something. I was thinking of trying the tactics skill, since i'm new to the game i have been picking mostly leadership, dread, and the one that lets you use siege weapons, since there effects are obvious to me, but i am curious how to best use the fortified camp.

Thermos

[Angryminer]

A little cheap way to use fortified camps:
1. Click the enemy army. The green patch shows where it will move.
2. Move your army on this path.
3. Set up a fortified camp.
4. Wait for the AI army to "stumble" over your encampment.

Angryminer

[junobeach]

yup, exactly. Gotta get between army and it's target.

[thermos]

Sounds simple enough will try it tonight after work.