How do you succeed as Slavs?

[Antonius Palatinus]

Cause i'm getting quite rekt. What i already understood:

1. Recolonisation is a really bad idea, you will end up with overstretched provinces with -30 public order(-17 for immigrants ffs!) and 500 florins income. Thats all because you have to wait until it grows to be able to build public order, religion and military buildings, and it takes too much time, about 40 turns i think.
2. Which means that you will not be able to protect your province from raiding, civil wars or whatever because you will only be able to afford 1 good army stack, and since province is huge and raided from all sides...
3. Huns will go nowhere. They declared peace with ERE and focused on me on turn 10. You'll have to fight them alone. And you can't even build large onager.
4. Units are extremely weak, almost no armor up to the top, casualties will be tremendous with each battle, even with huge bonuses from Horned is the Hunter. Poison arrows are better then no arrows, but it still takes forever to kill op hunnic horse archers, they will cut down your naked idiots army indeed.

Overall, i think that i shall try some extreme playstile, like converting to horde or capturing some southern provinces(which is hard cause your units are so weak and have bonuses only vs nomads).

[ryousanko]

The one strategy I could apply with a modicum of success was to go horde and migrate eastwards and resettle in Scythia, at the start was pretty good as there were no nomads, White Hus were Busy being destroyed the Sassanids and was able to consolidate my power and build up my economy

Problems with this strategy arise later int he game: Your expansion options are limited since going war the Sassanids or their clients is suicidal and the Dilemma mechanics (which will happen whether or not the Huns are nearing) make everyone else hate you, which is a huge problem, since everyone in the east is a Sassanid drone, Go to war with one and you will be at war with all. If you are good at handling the endless army of persian clones this could work for you.

Alas, the concept was not entirely wrong, Slavs have no territorial requirements for victory conditions so that makes them flexible, you could try migrating to a more defensible position: such a Britain or Spain, consolidate your power there and then who knows..?

[Uugly]

Either shield wall or end up losing to the OP Huns horse archer.

[𝕮𝖔𝖗𝖛𝖚𝖘]

In my Campaign (Very Hard with Radious mod) playing as the northen Slavic clan, I recolonized the N colony on turn 2, then builded up farms with max bonus to income, focused economy first, had to pay 4k-8k to Northmen (basically I allied with all northmen and some germanic clans from the west, it took some time tho.. and money...)

Showed my middle finger to the Huns on the first 'event' by declining them any money or food.
If you gonna be a b'atch of Huns everyone will hate you for that. And the Huns will hate you in the end too. Say no to them and prepare for the worst.
Also when you say no to them you'll get bonus to relations with others(non huns) because of that, so it's easier to form alliance or trade with germanic clans or any other factions.

At one point I had 5x raiding stacks in my lands, killed 2 of those at city siege the rest moved to others lands. Keep in mind even if you pay to the Huns, other mongol hordes will invade your lands anyway. So just say no and be done with it.

You need to think this way, Slavic people are masters of the land, so focus with farms and food and anything that gives you bonus to growth. Temple of Perun + Priestes will give you so much bonus to Slavic Paganism + you would never have to worry about public order.

The first 4-8 turns are just the opening, if you play it right your good for the rest of the campaign. In my case diplomacy was the key and trading with Germanic factions, if you can do it you will be fine.
Oh and one more thing, the mongols they do love to burn so recolonize and protect it right away before other factions/AI does that.

I don't even have to war dec anyone, I just recolonize burned land and defend.
For other regions when the first will be secured, one full stack + governor + priestes focused on religion spread and public order and recolonize will be going eazy and steady.

The only wars I was fighting in the west were to protect my Germanic allies. I've got like 6+k income atm, and I'm still very early in the campaign. Sometimes I had to pay 4k-7k for trade and defensive alliance or non aggression pact + trade but it pays off in the long run.
Atm I have 5 full stacks and I'm building 6'th one, trade and income from farms and diplomacy is the key. Too early aggressive expansion will be your doom.

Did I mention prioritize growth? Do that.

Sorry for chaotic typing, had a long sleepless night.

(Forgot to add.. get elite units as soon as you can, Perun and Veles ones they will wreck enemy lines.)

[Wak_Cackle]

I guess the slavs get archers with a poison arrow attack, that bypasses missle block chance, armor or whatever.
Maximus video here;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rs8WCUCvIf0

[Antonius Palatinus]

Originally posted by Corvus:

In my Campaign (Very Hard with Radious mod) playing as the northen Slavic clan, I recolonized the N colony on turn 2, then builded up farms with max bonus to income, focused economy first, had to pay 4k-8k to Northmen (basically I allied with all northmen and some germanic clans from the west, it took some time tho.. and money...)

Showed my middle finger to the Huns on the first 'event' by declining them any money or food.
If you gonna be a b'atch of Huns everyone will hate you for that. And the Huns will hate you in the end too. Say no to them and prepare for the worst.
Also when you say no to them you'll get bonus to relations with others(non huns) because of that, so it's easier to form alliance or trade with germanic clans or any other factions.

At one point I had 5x raiding stacks in my lands, killed 2 of those at city siege the rest moved to others lands. Keep in mind even if you pay to the Huns, other mongol hordes will invade your lands anyway. So just say no and be done with it.

You need to think this way, Slavic people are masters of the land, so focus with farms and food and anything that gives you bonus to growth. Temple of Perun + Priestes will give you so much bonus to Slavic Paganism + you would never have to worry about public order.

The first 4-8 turns are just the opening, if you play it right your good for the rest of the campaign. In my case diplomacy was the key and trading with Germanic factions, if you can do it you will be fine.
Oh and one more thing, the mongols they do love to burn so recolonize and protect it right away before other factions/AI does that.

I don't even have to war dec anyone, I just recolonize burned land and defend.
For other regions when the first will be secured, one full stack + governor + priestes focused on religion spread and public order and recolonize will be going eazy and steady.

The only wars I was fighting in the west were to protect my Germanic allies. I've got like 6+k income atm, and I'm still very early in the campaign. Sometimes I had to pay 4k-7k for trade and defensive alliance or non aggression pact + trade but it pays off in the long run.
Atm I have 5 full stacks and I'm building 6'th one, trade and income from farms and diplomacy is the key. Too early aggressive expansion will be your doom.

Did I mention prioritize growth? Do that.

Sorry for chaotic typing, had a long sleepless night.

(Forgot to add.. get elite units as soon as you can, Perun and Veles ones they will wreck enemy lines.)

Well my experience form op post:

1. Recolonisation is a really bad idea, you will end up with overstretched provinces with -30 public order(-17 for immigrants ffs!) and 500 florins income. Thats all because you have to wait until it grows to be able to build public order, religion and military buildings, and it takes too much time, about 40 turns i think.

[Antonius Palatinus]

Originally posted by Wak_Cackle:

I guess the slavs get archers with a poison arrow attack, that bypasses missle block chance, armor or whatever.
Maximus video here;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rs8WCUCvIf0

2 squads of those op archers take entire battle to kill a squad of hun horse archers.

[Lothar135]

Poison arrows are certainly not OP. I find them quite usefull, but thats all.

btw. Playing as Venedians I have no problems...yet. I resettled 4 cities to complete 2 provinces and am at war with several Germans and Geats, but the nation is quite thriving. Money is good, cities are growing, huns are pillaging someone else...:D

[Pervy]

or you could play as the farmer of the slavic factions he got some rly easy way to stop huns ^^ you become friends ^^

OR

when you are playing try to get the op archers fast.
the slavic factions got a slow up start for a reason :)

[Aeternum]

Focus on destroying the nomads to stop them from raiding. Raiding is bad for income and public order. In my campaign, with the help of other slavic nations nomadic hordes had nowhere to run. Later in the game the huns declared war on me (Sclavenians) but my provinces were already recolonised and fortified so they were able to do diddly squat. But it got really boring so I abandoned the campaign. With the exception of their poison archers, Slavs are seriously meh.

[Father Ribs]

On H/H I migrated south with two stacks, all the way to the African coast. Took two WRE town provinces, liberated a third to make a decent buffer to the east, made friends with the native kingdoms, and then slowly pushed the romans out of Africa. Eventually I took a few provinces in the Arabian peninsula, and when I was really flush with armies and cash and the WRE finally was crushed under hordes and the Huns I took Spain.

Now the Huns have finally burned through the Sassanids and we're trading armies, and the various other nations have decided to try and take advantage of that to turn on me, so it's been fun so far.

My observations are that as long as the enemy's siege weapons are destroyed or small in number, I do a lot better letting the enemy come to my towns and breaking on spear walls backed up by the archers that while not dramatic, are ridiculously deadly over time. Their spears are some of the weakest I have played with, and I have yet to field an army I'd fight the huns in the open with...not to mention in field battles your archers need serious micromanagement to not wreck your own front line. The upgraded archers are seriously nasty and will take down the heaviest units if they're just held in place long enough...I wouldn't want to hire on as a spearman in my empire.

[Metadragon]

Early Huns are managable with cheap spears and archers/javelins. Can keep some Axes on hand as well but completely forget cavalry (except mercs) and just spam them