True on losses. I totally view mancemen as throw away units where I would not on knights. I find that to be an advantage however. Dont get me wrong, I did mention knights are the best at what they do, and we have similar views of what ti use both units for. I personally just find the added cost over macemen to be too much over the gain in speed.

You should try the custom game. It really gives you the chance to try out some theories under duress. Try the "Crusades" map and play as Jerusalem. Its a lot of fun. When you are comfortable, kick it up to impossible where the AI gets stupid bonuses to production... its a lot of fun.

Started my custom game and doing better with all that I know now. So I just wanted to say thanks again for all the good advice and an interesting discussion on what strategies works best. Surely that is the sign of a good strategy game when there's not one clear-cut way to do things best.

It is a great game. almost 20 years old and people still love it. I am just giddy I found some other people talking about it! :)

Actually tried 10 or so custom games, on the maps of the original campaign, and the hardest settings (imposssible diffuclty, poor county, no money, no weapons). Mostly the challenge is around the location of the countess. Remove the countess from the AI list, and it's easy. Add the countess, and it's a crapshoot depending on where she's located. in 10 attempts at that difficulty level, I won 2 games.

I use a grain economy, prioritizing grain production at excellent field fertility (1/3+1 fallows), an army of pikemens and archers to start, using macemen and pikemen mercenaries to supplement it, with some crossbows if I have access to iron, usually later on though. Any tip that could kickstart me into an earlier, stronger start?

That seems like a solid start to me. I might personally throw more macemen into the mix as I find in open field battles they tend to reduce my overall casualties by wiping out his archers quickly. Other than that, pikes/archers are hard to go wrong in early armies. And youre totally right about the countess. Its wonderful to start near the Bishop, its like free stone castles... Anyway, if you are having trouble, try slowing down. I understand that may seem a bit counter-intuitive, but the AI simply cannot beat you in a well defended castle, allowing you all the time in the world to create your army as needed and conquer territories.

Especially in a AI-Impossible level like the Crusades starting in Jerusalem. Let them fight over the other turf while you improve your land and stock you castle. Once thats done all you have to worry about is your offensive army. At that point you can usaully just reach out and start taking counties. But if they start counter-attacking, just follow the same formula. Build a strong, stocked castle and improve the county. Then on to the next!

Thanks for the tips!

Few questions for you:

Do you know if random events, especially weather wise are skewed as the difficuty goes up? I seem to experience streaks of bad harvests that can really screw me up in the early game, or even later. I can even have 3 years of food stored and up starving with 3 90-100% failed harvests.Once on the german map, I experienced 2 consecutive years of nearly empire-wide bad harvests, for all the possible different weather reasons. They were inconsequential as I already had enough momentum to wrap the win, but it really made me wonder about harvests and difficulty level, as I never experienced anything close to that in the campaign game.

Another question: I checked in the manual, and could not find the answer. I know you only pay the difference for materials when you upgrade a castle, but what about labor? From observation, I'd say you have to pay the full amount every time. Makes the upgrade from mott and baileys unnappealing unless you go straight for the royal castle... which seems overkill resource wise unless it's in a really good location.

Regarding norman keeps: Worthless?

I'm slowly getting better at impossible, but still the countess can get absolutely ridiculous starts. I had one in Italy where she started in Venetiam early rushed the Bishop in Liguria, then proceeded south to and including Campania, before I, in sicily (or even the baron in the heel of the peninsula could get a second county. Seems I can do nothing in these cases as the best I can manage by the time she swamps me is a mott and bailey and they aren't invincible.

Not a clue on the weather scaling with difficulty. Purely from an anecdotal standpoint it seemed pretty much the same to me. I dont change difficulty much, but I rarely have more than a county or two with that many failed harvests. I would guess a string of bad luck.

Good question, honestly I never really payed attention to that... Probably should!

As for Norman Keeps, everyone has their favorites. To me the additonal tax revenue is worth it. Usually you know which counties are going to be hit and can go royal there. Also, often times I find lumber to be in shorter supply than stone with mass archer production so it saves some there. I also find that I build them in impossible once I have pretty much locked up the map and its either just a matter of time or I am playing around. I find you can auto-resolve with much better results than the M&B. If you are talking strictly combat, I agree. Not worth it at all, in fact I prefer the room of the M&B and find it easier to line up oil dumps.

Italy is a tough map even without considering the countess. The counties are such trash to start.

The wooden palisade is useless. Only build it if you need the defense faster than possible with a motte and bailey.

The M&B is my favorite at the start. It's cheap but still gives you a good defensive position.

If you upgrade to a norman keep, you get 50 archers extra but only if you have room. (both the keep and the M&B can hold 200 troops) It's a good defense but battering rams can still reach the second gate.

The next one (caste?) is a joke. When I attack it I fill the moat, break through the gates with a battering ram and then send a unit of macemen to capture the flag. I often win it while the defender still has 300+ troops left.

The royal castle. The best. If you have the resources there's little reason not to build one.

I'm way late into the discussion, but I also employ a combination of wheat and dairy. I wanted to alert you of a tactic I was using a while back: UPS.

When you have one county with way too many cows, you can send a ton of them to another county and then have them send them back. By keeping cows in transit, you can have emergency rations on the road.

Also, if you send just 1 cow to an enemy, it's the most fierce insult. They go mad and will usually attack you. It's nice to keep a few cows around just for that.

Thats a great idea! I usually have wheat flowing all over the place but that takes some time. I could do this with all my starting cows...

If you have some empty fields, they'll fill them up. But beware. If you have a bunch of wheat fields, they can destroy your wheat fields and fill them up.