Tips on how to win Wars

[The Uruk Scribe]

First of I would like to point out that I am a totalt n00b in this game. Keeping my kingdom together and under the control of my dynasty I can do. (At least on very easy)

But all the wars I won so far where all basically beating on the weakest one county stat (Gotland to be exact) and me aiding the winning side of a civil war. And avtackning when my neighbor was being invaded. (Norway in both cases)

I just can't get my head around the combat system. Can you beat bigger armys? And if yes how? What is the fastest way to get more troops?

Please help...

[SKull]

Right!

1: Save up money for the cheapest available merc company and use that to win an early war, even when you're outnumbered. This is a reliable way to win your first war if you're militarily weak. Keep in mind that just hiring them is not enough. You also need to budget keeping them hired for as long as you need to win the war; IE at least three-six months. 250 gold is enough for a 150 gold company, just in case.

2: Have babies, marry them off to someone and form alliances. In the marriage options for the children, the sword icon on the portraits of suitable candidates to marry mean that you will sign a non-aggression pact with the ruler named. This can then be manually turned into an alliance if the ruler decides to say yes. You can bribe him if he doesn't want to join you. Make sure it's someone nearby who you do not intend to instantly invade. Far away, but not too far away is what you want. When you start your war an icon will appear at the top of the screen to call the allies into the war. This is the cheapest way to win an early war, but not quite as reliable as mercs. Still, it can save you money.

3: Timing. Attack weakness, ally strength. Regencies, other states attacking the enemy, civil wars, etc. And make sure your allies are ready for war too. If an ally is already fighting another war, he may not have the time to come to your aid. If necessary you can break a betrothal to find a more squared away ally to help you in a war you want to start right away.

4: Usually you should aim for a combination of winning battles and besieging holdings. Since the enemy usually runs away after a defeat, a good approach is to win a battle, conquer one holding and then win another battle. Rinse and repeat until the war score says 100%.Civil wars seem to be an exception to this, and can normally be quickly won almost exclusively by winning battles.

5: If the enemy is much stronger than you, speed is the key. This is when you might storm holdings to get the war score up immediately, just in case. If his army shows up and squashes you, the enemy might still sign a white peace before the battle ends, so hit that space bar when you know you're losing the fight. Doesn't always work, but the AI is pretty dumb.

6: Aim for quick wars, particularly against weaker opponents. You want the war done before any other neighbors launch easy wars of their own on the same target. You really don't want long wars against multiple enemies, particularly early on.

[SirTalkALot]

You can get very indepth with combat. But Ill give you some pointers.
1) Beware of terrain penalties, if you are crossing river or attacking on mountains you will get heavy losses. This will also apply to your enemies though, so take battles on favorable terrain. You will get a small icon indicating where the fight will be on what penalties there will be in a battle (if any) and who will get it. There is a terrain map mode to visual this, hovering over a province will also tell you what terrain it is on the bottom right side of your screen.

2) Good commanders leading your armies. Look for high martial and combat abilities (like flanker, direct leader, flat terrain expert, etc). You can min max these combat abilities like using direct leader as the center flank, and using flat terrain experts on flat ground. Leading your armies yourself also adds a bonus to moral if you have good martial, but this puts you at risk of injury, capture (instant loss of war), or getting killed.
Use the character finder to find good martial characters will good abilities and invite them to your court and make them a commander. Avoid older or sick characters as they can die easier in combat. And you should always avoid inviting people who hate you.

3) Troop type. This is where combat can get very in depth but to summarize if you have a lot of light troops they will usually do worse in combat compared to heavier troops. So if you are a tribal with a lot of light troops attacking HRE emperor who has a lot of heavy troops, that will be a difficult battle. So use tips 1 and 2 to combat this.

4) Military technology. This often doesn't have a huge difference because your neighbors are all around the same level. But it can still have an affect. Go to your technology screen, hit the blue box around the tech bars and it will tell you how everyone compares to each other on technology (blue is older, white is newer). Clicking on individual provinces will also give you the tech level that province has. So fighting levies that were raised in Constantinople will have better tech then some levy in raised from Ireland.

[SirTalkALot]

For getting more troops you can use Mercs (very expensive).

Retinues act as a standing army with a monthly cost and are quite nice because they always stick around can you can declare war with them up. They can also be expensive.

Building up your demise, upgrading and building more holdings. Castle provides the most troops, but also the least amount of tax.

If you are tribal you can use prestige to raise tribal army for a very low monthly cost. This is something to always look out for if you are fighting a tribal government that has the prestige to raise it. It also helps that you vassals like you because they are more likely to accept call to arms.

[kaiyl_kariashi]

look up Tactics on the CK2 wiki.

Controlling available tactics allows you to win stuff you normally shouldn't be winning.

Most involves a combination of your flank commander's martial score, culture, traits, and carefully tweaking your flank compositions to allow for a smaller pool of possible tactics and removing all the bad ones and minimizing the good and average ones so that you're more likely to roll Great tactics more often.

But just a general rule of thumb.

Less than 8 martial is Bad. Don't make them Commanders. 8 and 12 Martial are alright but not amazing. 16+ is good.

This generally increases the weight of certain tactics being rolled or allows you to qualify for some tactics with less composition than normal.

But traits are where the real magic happens. Traits can give direct bonuses as well as affecting what tactics you have available.

Matching certain commander cultures with certain troop compositions can result in Cultural Tactics, which are EXTREMELY powerful compared to normal tactics.

Tactics can also combo in various ways depending on your or the enemies previous tactic resulting in more or less effect, which can get quite ridiculous on top of everything else. Like 900% increased damaged in a few extremely specialized cases (though typically more like 400% for a strong combo).

[★Jaw★]

Originally posted by SirTalkALot:

If you are tribal you can use prestige to raise tribal army for a very low monthly cost. This is something to always look out for if you are fighting a tribal government that has the prestige to raise it. It also helps that you vassals like you because they are more likely to accept call to arms.

As of Holy Fury, Tribals can no longer trade prestige for warriors in times of war. Tribals instead got a retinue buff and have access to heavy infantry(If Norse, pretty sure others have other perks and whatnot).


As for OP, good commanders are as useful as numbers, honestly. For myself, I usually lead my own armies, and have a pretty high martial and personal combat and the following traits are a must: Inspiring leader, Cruel, Impaler, and Unyielding.

The first three traits give you a great boost in combat, unyielding just helps your morale and defensive capability, overall, beefs your commanded force.

My start is leading the army along side my sons, both of them as flank commanders usually wind up getting cruel, and some battle specific trait the more I raid and fight. But yea, point is, keep an eye out for those modifiers,as they are pretty useful.

[The Uruk Scribe]

Thanks for all the tips. Hopefully they will help me conquer some stuff. Like, lets say Finland.

[SirTalkALot]

Originally posted by George Costanza:

Originally posted by SirTalkALot:

If you are tribal you can use prestige to raise tribal army for a very low monthly cost. This is something to always look out for if you are fighting a tribal government that has the prestige to raise it. It also helps that you vassals like you because they are more likely to accept call to arms.

As of Holy Fury, Tribals can no longer trade prestige for warriors in times of war. Tribals instead got a retinue buff and have access to heavy infantry(If Norse, pretty sure others have other perks and whatnot).


As for OP, good commanders are as useful as numbers, honestly. For myself, I usually lead my own armies, and have a pretty high martial and personal combat and the following traits are a must: Inspiring leader, Cruel, Impaler, and Unyielding.

The first three traits give you a great boost in combat, unyielding just helps your morale and defensive capability, overall, beefs your commanded force.

My start is leading the army along side my sons, both of them as flank commanders usually wind up getting cruel, and some battle specific trait the more I raid and fight. But yea, point is, keep an eye out for those modifiers,as they are pretty useful.

Huh, didn't know that change with tribal governments. I've been doing a Berber Empire from 1066+ so I haven't really dealt with any tribal nations.

[Valentine Michael Smith]

usually at the start of a war I raise my levies and my vassals and try to engage their force as soon as I can. After an initial victory or two then I disband the vassal levies and use my own guys to siege. Same tactic applies if I hire mercenaries. Crusades and defensive wars including rebellions you can call levies without penalty so just use them to do all the work and save your own levy and money.

[SKull]

Originally posted by The Swedish Uruk:

Thanks for all the tips. Hopefully they will help me conquer some stuff. Like, lets say Finland.

If you're playing as Norse pagan you can basically use a single good alliance to conquer Finland, They all love fighting there, and I have never once had a call to arms rejected in Scandinavia. And Finland is easy because it is so divided. I once played as a Norwegian chief and used an alliance with the high chief of Uppland/Svitjod to conquer all of Finland for me. When he died I conquered his son to make myself Fylkir and later emperor:) Barely fought a single battle myself, except the ones at the end, and one battle vs Denmark.

[★Jaw★]

I play Norse Vikings almost exclusively for the most part, but as far as I know, they were all buffed, at the expense of losing the prestige for warriors. I'll be honest, I prefer this system, especially with the introduction of the Warrior Lodges. Before, I would hoard prestige and use it to spawn a massive army and steamroll whoever attacked me, or whoever I'm attacking. Now most retinues except the cultural one use prestige, which is a fine trade.

[SKull]

I did too for a long time. But I had a Fylkir emperor abducted during the silly Hermetic event and got so pissed off that I stopped playing Norse altogether. The ruler of the world kidnapped by some nobody mayor in Tibet and no one reacts. It's just too stupid. I'm prepared to live with some stupidity, but not that much.

[★Jaw★]

Originally posted by SKull:

I did too for a long time. But I had a Fylkir emperor abducted during the silly Hermetic event and got so pissed off that I stopped playing Norse altogether. The ruler of the world kidnapped by some nobody mayor in Tibet and nobody reacts. It's just too stupid. I'm prepared to live with some stupidity, but not that much.

L M F A O. That's just some bad RNG right there. Wasn't aware that Norse were allowed to join the Hermetics, how'd you manage that?

In any case, the Warrior Lodge provides a massive boon to your personal combat skill and martial, aswell as an easy bloodline once you get to max rank and call for a legendary gathering. Once had a guy give me his Mjolnir for the event, which was pretty sweet, and made me even more fearsome in battle.

[SKull]

Originally posted by George Costanza:

Originally posted by SKull:

I did too for a long time. But I had a Fylkir emperor abducted during the silly Hermetic event and got so pissed off that I stopped playing Norse altogether. The ruler of the world kidnapped by some nobody mayor in Tibet and nobody reacts. It's just too stupid. I'm prepared to live with some stupidity, but not that much.

L M F A O. That's just some bad RNG right there. Wasn't aware that Norse were allowed to join the Hermetics, how'd you manage that?

In any case, the Warrior Lodge provides a massive boon to your personal combat skill and martial, aswell as an easy bloodline once you get to max rank and call for a legendary gathering. Once had a guy give me his Mjolnir for the event, which was pretty sweet, and made me even more fearsome in battle.

It's been a while, but I think reformed Norse can join it. And obviously, any self-respecting Norse emperor wields Mjolnir. It's a must-have item for sure.

[★Jaw★]

Meeeh. I never like to go beyond the Jarl level, myself. Once I become a King, and especially an Emperor, the game starts feeling far too easy. Prefer the struggles myself. The most I go for, is as Gotland, controlling the Swedish and Baltic coast. Then just supporting others, undermining them aswell, and of course raiding like no tomorrow.

[kaiyl_kariashi]

the tribal retinues give you access to whatever your normal cultural retinue is + some tribal retinues made up mostly of LI and some other unit types.

(it's really silly though if you get say byzantine cultures as you can get Cataphract retinues which look REALLY out of place in a big bunch of LI)