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Post by jonblend on Feb 11, 2023 12:09:17 GMT
Makes sense, interesting. That’s what I thought for the consuls, I need lvl 10 weapon and give them gold equipment. But I just cannot be bothered to swap them around everytime I do a conquest, and I really like them on my other gens so will not move them permanently either. Oh well, no strategist for me  Perhaps if I ever do another crazy grind run I might do it… Giovanni is kind of a beast on a good boat. Similar to cnut, just a tiny bit less tanky. Lvl 12 ibc + lvl 6 genovese cb + lvl 20 elite archer worked nicely. He was the spearhead of my navy with cid as side kick and roland with hospitaller as support. Also halfgard and ivar with the bond hit pretty hard on boats As for fred, he is one of my support gens. Bag + hospitaller + teuton, I adjoin him to timur since he also provides +3 morale from his leadership, not amazing but works ok. Who do you send to take cities? Aside from timur that can do it on his own, I found my other strong gens like cnut or bruce were struggling and needed to be in a team of 4 to allow for rotation and rest periods. Perhaps it’s because my varangians and lombard halberds are still lvl 10-11. What I would really like is the ability to have 2 or 3 builds per gen so you could toggle depending on the case. Needs for campaign vs conquest vs territory are quite different. For instance it would be great if I could have a conquest build for alfred where he would have hospitallers. I don't mind switching equipment for a multiple hours conquest if it allows me to save some of that time; at least that's what I hope and yes it would be really useful if we could save our builds for each mode and reactivate them with a single click.
As for generals usage, Justinian, Antonina, Theodora, Yelu Dashi, Baldwin have all the admin equipment and defend/stay around the capital at the beginning while Timur (+Narses) and initial units try to capture as much cities as possible in the first ~5 turns/before everyone's spam arrives. The admins might join one of the battle groups if I need their skills or plan to relocate the capital to a lv5 city.
Generals for initial units are Roland (2x 20 ore), Alfred, Basil (especially if I can recruit legion brigades from castles later), Beli, Aetius, Nur Din, Giovanni, depending on the situation. Supporters with Pathfinder, Desperate Wager, Healing and Calmness (+some very situational ones like JohnA for morale, Edward/Theodoric if I can capture a city with his Forced March next turn, Rage from Halfdan and Ivar) are put on single swordsmen or scout cav whenever there is leftover resources because they greatly enhance the performance of tavern bought generals.
And on a strategic level, it often turned out that there were six groups of action: Alfred's (def inf +2x cav) and Bruce's groups were more suited to hold central/choke points while ranged spearheads of Timur, Subutai and Cid plus their entourage kept conquering city after city along the flanks/border of the map. Cnut+Harry at a later stage opened up another front, for example landing in North Africa in Crusaders and RoB, SW England in Viking and Barbarian Invasion. So basically what nikomachos already said :-)
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Post by lafluth on Feb 12, 2023 8:10:44 GMT
It is tempting to just set up cav gens with only one unit of hospitaliers so they are cheap to summon early on as support and put 2 lvl 20 units on them. But they would become useless in territory unfortunately.
Great idea to have 1 def infy + 2 cav of normies on alfred with his rapid march, did not think about it before but will definitely do it next time. Might actually be a good asset to open a second front at low cost. Mine has very good defense stats so he should be able to survive even with just a lvl 1 tent.
I find basil, belis and cid do really well as early gens to deploy on normal units and use them to defend cities. Especially my belis, who I have set up very defensively with ding fang’s maxed armor and another armor equipment. He will hold anything, even lvl 2 cities. Also his cheap recruitment skill is great to hold cities at lower cost. Plus he has bond with narses.
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Post by lafluth on Feb 12, 2023 8:12:51 GMT
And another note… if anyone does century of iron on max challenge… beware of basil with varangians. He spawns mid game in byzantian empire and he caught me off guard, almost wiped out my tanky cnut in one go lol
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Post by blueberry on Feb 12, 2023 10:24:00 GMT
lafluth, now do a max-difficulty challenge conquest with some country that starts in a central position and with no castle, like West Francia, the County of Toulouse or the Republic of Venice... 
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Post by lafluth on Feb 12, 2023 10:39:54 GMT
lafluth , now do a max-difficulty challenge conquest with some country that starts in a central position and with no castle, like West Francia, the County of Toulouse or the Republic of Venice... ahahaha… yes good one! I was thinking that too, is it actually doable without a starting castle and in the middle of everyone!? might try it some day for kicks, but for now I will stay away from mad conquests, still have ptsd from the last one  |
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Post by jonblend on Feb 12, 2023 13:37:19 GMT
When there are near impossible challenges, blueberry is never far Looks like the update to come (new gem skills) addresses some of the struggles of challenge conquests. Though not right now, I think I will have a try at CoI soon-ish. |
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Post by nikomachos on Feb 12, 2023 15:26:30 GMT
When there are near impossible challenges, blueberry is never far Looks like the update to come (new gem skills) addresses some of the struggles of challenge conquests. Though not right now, I think I will have a try at CoI soon-ish. yeah. and admin skill combos with actual admin gems what a luxury xD rly curious about the new consul gen charles 7, maybe the guy will be the new meta if he is f2p |
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Post by Nobunaga Oda on Feb 13, 2023 5:06:17 GMT
Did ET calibrate the maximum point requirement for extremely hard states like the Crusader States in that era or random, weak 1*s scattered throughout?
I can't see how a city-state can survive a 75-point challenge which goes beyond, "why are you hitting yourself".
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Post by verily on Feb 13, 2023 11:46:00 GMT
Did ET calibrate the maximum point requirement for extremely hard states like the Crusader States in that era or random, weak 1*s scattered throughout? I can't see how a city-state can survive a 75-point challenge which goes beyond, "why are you hitting yourself". No they didn't. Good luck playing as toulouse, benevenito, venice, tripoli, i'll skip the 75pts challenge. Maybe 20pts |
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Post by cojoncio on Feb 15, 2023 19:43:37 GMT
The 75pts challenge are trivial with most countries w/out wasting drums if you:
1-have your slingers javalineers, archers, and shield pikermans maxed out(or close to)
2-Use Justinian as Consul
3-Prioritice research policies for keeping neutrals neutral
4-All special units are trash and useless, so deploy your best generals with 2xjavalineers+1 shied (archer generals), 1xjava+1lance cab+1shield (cav gens), or 1jav+1 swordman+1 shield (infantry gens). Use slingers if low in iron. Minimizing resource waste is the key
5-Attack only if you are sure your gen will survive till next turn
6-The far enemy of my close enemy is my friend, even if it is my enemy as well
7-the 5-7 first turns are critical, so reset it if your omens are not favourable at the end of turn 7
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Post by lafluth on Feb 15, 2023 21:09:52 GMT
The 75pts challenge are trivial with most countries w/out wasting drums if you: 1-have your slingers javalineers, archers, and shield pikermans maxed out(or close to) 2-Use Justinian as Consul 3-Prioritice research policies for keeping neutrals neutral 4-All special units are trash and useless, so deploy your best generals with 2xjavalineers+1 shied (archer generals), 1xjava+1lance cab+1shield (cav gens), or 1jav+1 swordman+1 shield (infantry gens). Use slingers if low in iron. Minimizing resource waste is the key 5-Attack only if you are sure your gen will survive till next turn 6-The far enemy of my close enemy is my friend, even if it is my enemy as well 7-the 5-7 first turns are critical, so reset it if your omens are not favourable at the end of turn 7 I would generally agree with many of your points, but have you tried CoI? The sheer mass of enemy units is overwhelming. I would call it many things, but not trivial |
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Post by blueberry on Feb 15, 2023 21:11:19 GMT
The 75pts challenge are trivial with most countries w/out wasting drums if you: 1-have your slingers javalineers, archers, and shield pikermans maxed out(or close to) 2-Use Justinian as Consul 3-Prioritice research policies for keeping neutrals neutral 4-All special units are trash and useless, so deploy your best generals with 2xjavalineers+1 shied (archer generals), 1xjava+1lance cab+1shield (cav gens), or 1jav+1 swordman+1 shield (infantry gens). Use slingers if low in iron. Minimizing resource waste is the key 5-Attack only if you are sure your gen will survive till next turn 6-The far enemy of my close enemy is my friend, even if it is my enemy as well 7-the 5-7 first turns are critical, so reset it if your omens are not favourable at the end of turn 7 I kinda disagree with "all special units are trash", but anyway. I remember that you had very good scores in the conquests of other games. What is your highest score in a challenge conquest? |
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Post by nikomachos on Feb 15, 2023 23:06:57 GMT
andrei point 6 hilarious but true can you share your as of now favoite reduced penaltiy (75/76 intead of 78) it doesnt have to be the same every time as we evaluate differently depending on the nations and alliances but just your overal most used setup of penalties
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Post by cojoncio on Feb 16, 2023 2:52:37 GMT
andrei point 6 hilarious but true can you share your as of now favoite reduced penaltiy (75/76 intead of 78) it doesnt have to be the same every time as we evaluate differently depending on the nations and alliances but just your overal most used setup of penalties 75, allways diplomacy with other powers -7 instead of -9. Otherwise is quite hard. Eventually you can truce with far away countries |
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Post by andrei on Feb 16, 2023 6:56:19 GMT
andrei point 6 hilarious but true can you share your as of now favoite reduced penaltiy (75/76 intead of 78) it doesnt have to be the same every time as we evaluate differently depending on the nations and alliances but just your overal most used setup of penalties Yeah, always diplomacy -7 |
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Perhaps if I ever do another crazy grind run I might do it…
