Tips as Miao Ying Cathay

[Ducko]

yo not my first total war game, but can someone tell me how I should play this nation?? It said recommended when I booted the game, but wtf

I started 2 times over now, everytime 1 or 2 bastion fall in less then 6 turns, rats doomstacking to my east in turn 10 and declaring war and some dudes north of the wall just decided to declare war on me too? On turn 14 they rebuild both bastion, I am at war with 3 factions with full stacks? Am I missing something playing with this faction?? Help would be appreciated

[LionSaurus]

Hey there. What difficulty are you playing on? It's been awhile since I played Miao so not sure if there is much difference, but if you are struggling I always suggest bringing down the difficulty (no shame in it).

You need to clear the inside, aggressively grab one city after the other, recruit units each turn on the way and eventually prepare for the great wall events.

I'm sure there are more detailed guides out there as well to help you with the starting turns.

[Ducko]

Originally posted by LionSaurus:

Hey there. What difficulty are you playing on? It's been awhile since I played Miao so not sure if there is much difference, but if you are struggling I always suggest bringing down the difficulty (no shame in it).

You need to clear the inside, aggressively grab one city after the other, recruit units each turn on the way and eventually prepare for the great wall events.

I'm sure there are more detailed guides out there as well to help you with the starting turns.

I'm playing on normal, the problem is I'm just not fast enough? I defend the wall, the rats doomstack me from the east, I take care of the rats, the dudes from the chaos region doomstack me out of existence from the north... I just can't defend both sides at the same time

[Fryskar]

Originally posted by Ducko:

Originally posted by LionSaurus:

Hey there. What difficulty are you playing on? It's been awhile since I played Miao so not sure if there is much difference, but if you are struggling I always suggest bringing down the difficulty (no shame in it).

You need to clear the inside, aggressively grab one city after the other, recruit units each turn on the way and eventually prepare for the great wall events.

I'm sure there are more detailed guides out there as well to help you with the starting turns.

I'm playing on normal, the problem is I'm just not fast enough? I defend the wall, the rats doomstack me from the east, I take care of the rats, the dudes from the chaos region doomstack me out of existence from the north... I just can't defend both sides at the same time

Having 20 units isn't doomstacking.

To know what goes wrong, we'd need to know what happens.

In general cathay (or rather the iron dragon) is one of the easiesr campaigns.

If you're rather new, you'll want like 8-12 melee units. Peasent spears are your cheapesr options, they basicly function like sharpend stakes, stopping the enemy and doing some dmg. They won't really threaten an enemy by themselfs.
Your peasent archers do fine at dishing out, but fold to most melee units if caught.

Your lord is your centerpiece, early on the most dangerous thing on the field. She should be able to defeat most lone units by herself.

Iirc you start with a fire rain rocket, make sure you don't shoot your own.

Don't autoresolve, altough you gain some boosts for beeing on normal it can increase your losses by a lot.

[LionSaurus]

I would suggest allowing snake gate to fall, but stay within range to retake it. Priority should be to clear the inside of the walls - getting terracota graveyard etc. under your control, but again - staying within range to retake snake gate.

Don't auto-resolve. Fight the battles and use Miao Ying for what she is worth. She is a top tier lord who is an amazing fighter in dragon form and an excellent caster in humanoid form. Prioritize sending a caravan to Sylvania - you will be rewarded with a weapon that gives you regeneration - put this item on Miao Ying to make her close to god tier. Let Zhao handle most of the things south until you have conquered and gotten control of what is east of the wall.

Once you control the inside of the wall, start holding the wall areas - build up the garrisons, keep armies nearby (it's a lot of free XP and loot in defending the wall) and focus on growth and economy so you can afford to have two armies while also developing your cities.

[StrangestEcho]

The other dragon has an easier start for a new player. The Northern provinces have a harder start but once the Bastion is secure it becomes pretty easy.

[MASTAXPLODER]

control the wall, transform to the dragon to win battles

[JODEGAFUN]

Send the first caravan to Drakenhof, gives the Carstein Blade. Put it on Miao Ying and she will benefit from a type of reneration. Try to get jadewarriors (both meele and range) asap, they are quite strong early game, even more if you have access to gate keeper heroes if you own the DLC.

[sentry]

Agreed with the above, caravans are an early source of tons of gold. Also this campaign requires a bit more patience and some retries, as long as the other dragons survive eventually they will make their way to the bastion walls and help out. Once the walls are secure and upgraded a bit it should become workable.

[Big Moustache]

Take out starter enemy and than rush the rat in the mountains. Do not confederate the bastion faction before rat is dead. he will snowball if you wait any longer. This will give you a few turns to build up a decent army or 2 and get settled in

[LionSaurus]

Have you gotten any further Ducko?

[DarkFenix]

The trick with almost any faction in TWW3 is to be fast and aggressive. Some LLs get a particularly favourable start location with only one enemy, but generally speaking you're going to have multiple around you.

So you have no time to waste, they all start in the same state as you, small army and almost no territory, but if you give them time to expand you'll end up under assault from multiple sides by prepared enemies. Aggressively attack and destroy/cripple one side as soon as you can.

In Miao Ying's case this means the Skaven, the enemy inside the bastion. Finish off your minor faction opponent, but then immediately go after Snikch, kill him quickly and the enemy probably won't have breached the bastion before you're done.

[Ducko]

Originally posted by LionSaurus:

Have you gotten any further Ducko?

yea it was rather a really annoying game then a fun one, I called in the western empire (they decided to agree to join after a while) and they just steam rolled the rats I still dont understand how. When I faced them they picked my army one by one with 3 stacks of their own and non of my army could support eachother, I guess it was because they were ambushing?
Changing my army stance to the one where ambushes are less likely they ignored all my units and went straight to my settlements and since I had -25% movement range I couldnt do anything.
The Western empire had their army split up and still managed to beat them all in a few turns They somehow didnt get ambushed spammed one by one the rats, but the rats somehow splitted their forces too and it was mostly a 1vs1 army, when they fought me they were way more smarter and more annoying

[Ducko]

Originally posted by DarkFenix:

The trick with almost any faction in TWW3 is to be fast and aggressive. Some LLs get a particularly favourable start location with only one enemy, but generally speaking you're going to have multiple around you.

So you have no time to waste, they all start in the same state as you, small army and almost no territory, but if you give them time to expand you'll end up under assault from multiple sides by prepared enemies. Aggressively attack and destroy/cripple one side as soon as you can.

In Miao Ying's case this means the Skaven, the enemy inside the bastion. Finish off your minor faction opponent, but then immediately go after Snikch, kill him quickly and the enemy probably won't have breached the bastion before you're done.

yea I tried that, I tried to rush the rebels and most of the times it went smooth, but ALWAYS its either the gates fall and get taken over and they just flood in OR the rats steamrolling the yellow faction (forgot the name) to my east and take 80% of their settlements, right after I took the last rebel settlement / 1 - 2 turns later

[trooperrob]

you can try the ambush method.
put a lord out as bait, and have your other armies in range in ambush stance.
It may not work, but if you can't ambush it might stop them ambushing you.
If the ambush fails and they don't get you, then they should be close enough to stamp on.

rats are difficult. They should be exterminated with extreme predudice.

[LionSaurus]

Skaven have the stalker stance which allows them to ambush on attacks - ambushing makes it so you can't reinforce. That sounds harsh indeed.

I would say - if you aren't finding that campaign particularly fun - just play another. There are a multitude of campaigns to play and a lot of them are in a very good place - like Empire, the Dawi, Warriors of Chaos, etc, - and just revisit Miao Ying later once she has gotten a rework.

It says Miao Ying is a good campaign for starters, but it really isn't and I would argue you want a lot of experience behind you before you tackle that campaign.