guide for pirate cove

[Rosalina]

I want to play aranassa and I realy would love to have some tips or a guide about her and the pirate cove. Ive looked on google and I found nothing but very bad stuff.

I would like to know which Technologie I should focus on and what path to take on her skill tree.

And also about army building. I realy suck at armybuilding.
Most of my games I start making 1 army "ok", capture some sattlements or establish coves in this case and around turn 30 I recruit my 2nd army. and put in the low cost troups because I cant get any good troops yet. now im in turn 40 and I have 2 weak♥♥♥♥♥armys with just 2000 gold per turn income.

Also I think I focus on the wrong buildings. I always go for money making first then other stuff like growth and defence. A little hint on what buildings to go first would be nice.

I would also like to know how a hero can make a pirave cove because my pete just does not have any option showing up to do so

[Sonny Crocket]

Only pirate captains can make pirate coves, is your hero a captain? You should be able to right click on the province and select cove, but it is on a timer, so you can't just make as many as you want.
You need to at least invest in infantry buildings in your capital. Dont try to get them all. In your ship focus on increasing the main building for population and upkeep, then get the upgrade that gives you the high level monster (the ship thing), its very good, and depth guard with halberds is great too. First thing I go for is depth guard, to give my infantry holding power, then get mortars, cannons, Bess, and you can destroy armies while your heavy infantry keeps them at bay.

[Dr.Smeggulas XIII]

Aranessa gets the best melee infantry of any other Vampire Coast LL. Her Sartosa Free Company (once you unlock her specific traits for them) are insanely better than Depth Guard. In terms of army building, go with; 5 Sartosa Free Company 4 Handgunner Gunnery Mob, 1 Deck Gunner (from starting unit) 3 Halberd Deckhand Mob, 2 Mortars, 1 Cannon. The other 4 units you can fill in for yourself, but this roster is easily achievable within 20 turns and will carry you early game.

[Ben Argo]

Nah, bra, I never use depth guard with Aranessa.

Use her Sartosans as rear charging infantry or skirmishers. Deckmobs hold the line. Her starting bomber mob and Prometheans are decent for helping to hold the line. Ignore upgrading infantry building for as long as possible and focus instead on...

Artillery. Choose the gunnery wight when that option comes up and get Queen Bess ASAP. Build the upgrade to your ships main building, then the sail option to increase campaign movt. Then go for the artillery chain to get mortars and cannonades. I usually do Queen Bess, two mortars, and a cannonade.

Research the tech that upgrades Lords with a plus five to recruitment, then do whatever you like from there. I usually do the bonus to heroes one next and then ships carpenter.

Only capture Southern Yvresse. Establish colonies in Lothern territory and try to keep Cult of excess alive for trade and as a distraction for those knife-eared SOBs. You can upgrade defenses in Yvresse and hire a lord (one of the special ones you research or just a basic one). The second lord just defends that province unto you have enough trade agreements and other coves set up.

[Rosalina]

wher eis Yvresse I play mortal empires and I start near a dessert there is no city with that name nearby

[Monostatos]

Hi

To make coves you need the Captain hero, they'll do it for a pretty hefty sum, but can travel the world digging up treasures to boot. Send them of all over, and focus on juicy capitols and mega ports.

As the VCo focusing on the economy is actually pretty smart, since you already can get mid to late units by using Raise Dead, so no complaints there. As long as you make sure to either set up battles with gruesome casualties, OR find places on the map where battles already has occured, you can always recruit whatever you want.

One thing to consider though, compared to other factions, is that gathering vast swathes of land to control is not always the best idea. In part this is because your win conditions depend more on infamy (sorry, Infamy) than region conquest. So you don't need to (unless of course you want to). Also, given how your lords can gather quite a bit of money from just pillaging cities or raiding, vast swathes of land are money sinks you may well want to be without/keep to a minimum.
Especially playing as Aranessa or Noctilus, who have fairly defensible positions starting out, you are in a favorable position to relinquish the large empire altogether. You can always trade and get into other factions' wars to get brownie points instead, while gathering infamy in the process.

Do not worry too much about the income. Better sometimes to have armies with which to get more, than to have none, and a middling income. Think of it like this; Armies lock income, but make money long term. You sacrifice consistent cash now, for territory, sacking gold or even coves (you can establish coves with your armies too post battle FIY). So as long as you have a plan, even short term, (like say you are playing Aranessa; take Tilea, sack Border Princes and pact up with Grimgor) they will make it back.

--

As for armies, you are an immobile powder keg of doom, and as such you are comparatively stationary on the field. There are multiple strategies but this works for me:

Others can tell you this as well, but an important point about even the elite units in the VCo armies are that your melee units really aren't meant to carry you to victory. Sure, giant crabs and Vampiric infantry certainly helps, but your gun lines and cannons are ultimately what will win you fights.
With that in mind you should have a large, but micro comfortable amount of ranged units that you place in intervals or sections over a relatively large area (Think layers). This way some will always be able to fire at something (preferably in a focused manner to get threats off the map).
Be they zombies or Depth guard, position most at the front and scatter one or two between your ranged units for "rapid" response. On your flanks (or again on the front, it is up to your micro) you can put crabs or other monsters to tank and bowl enemies over. They aren't exactly cavalry, but mixing them in with smaller units has been and still is a viable tactic for monster factions (smaller units will keep the larger models from being swarmed, which for, say the glass cannon mournguls, is very effective and actually increases their damage output). You can also flank with your monsters. Just be careful with fast anti large.
Giant crabs and necrofex collossus serve oposing roles of ultra line holder and ultimate damage dealer. Place Giant Crabs among your defensive infantry, and the colossuses on the
rear flanks togehter with the other artillery (they can go into melee later, but are better at fireing and so can be considered as contingency melee).

The early game will vary some, but again, with Raise Dead you are less dependent on tech/building development. Zombies will hold the line throughout, but later more through being summoned to save army slots for Depth Guard.
Early armies will still be mostly zombies. They are ok fighters but will eventually lose to most other infantry/cav. Ranged units are very strong for their prize point however, with armor piercing shots and numbers to boot. Remember your zombies are fearless and can take a friendly fire shot here and there.
The pistoleers are (in my humble opinion) underperforming, and can be switched out for more melee zombies/actual musketeers. Scurvy dogs and Bats are -as always- useful for flanking (be careful, they die easily) killing archers and eating routed units. Especially the last part!

When you get the opportunity to Raise Dead, prioritize ranged units as much as possible. As long as the frontline holds it is okay. A single unit of Depth Guard early on can be used offensively to destroy early game infantry. If you manage to get a couple of them (If you can afford them) you can have them run around relieving zombie groups and then flank around some more.
Speaking of that, try not to have your army just clash in a straight line. All melee fights are ours to loose, so make use to have several (as many as you can manage) and that no single one loses you the game.

Later on, using Depth Guard or monsters, you can start rolling these smaller fights up, but for the most part, portioned-out ranged groups will win them for you. As you get more comfortable you can experiment with syreens, heroes and Terrorgeists and all that stuff, but focusing on ranged units is a good watermark from early to late game.

That's it from the top of my head. Hope it helps and take care

[milchbla]

Originally posted by Star Princess:

wher eis Yvresse I play mortal empires and I start near a dessert there is no city with that name nearby

In Mortal Empires Yvresse is a province located on the eastern coast on Ulthuan. The cities are Tor Yvresse and Elessaeli.
Never really got into Vortex but i think its Northern and Southern Yvresse on the Vortex map.

[Wh♂♂par]

Originally posted by Star Princess:

wher eis Yvresse I play mortal empires and I start near a dessert there is no city with that name nearby

Mhhmm. Dessert. Could you lead me to that place?

Your main focus should be the Southern Realms coastline, Bretonnia and Ulthuan. If resistance is too heavy or you don't want to start a war, use Vampire Captains to set up coves in cities that have good income. Lothern is a good one, Bordeleaux should be, if you ever get there Altdorf is OK, too.