What's an effective strategy for playing Alberic de Bordelaux?

[Chuddly]

I want to play Alberic because his lord bonuses appear to be far better than Louen's but he starts off pretty weak. Brettonian basic infantry are total garbage so I can't really face Moussillon consistently but also can't really leave the capital city because Moussillon attacks it.. And the ambush chances all around are only 45%. What should I be doing as Alberic? I want to confederate but in my limited experience as Louen, other Brettonian factions only confederate if they like you a lot and the balance of power is drastically in your favor.

I was just "grinding" incursions but that seems a tremendous waste of 10+ turns.

[yuzhonglu]

Not really. You're gaining exp and money from the incursions. You gain territory using confederations. Look at your tech tree- you can research forced confederations. Save some money before confederation and use the confederated army to kill an unpleasant neighbor like Grung Zint or Kemmler then disband it.

Also, if you're good you can take Mousillion by T3 or T4. Hire a life mage on T1. Move your army out to where Mousillion can attack you (they will). Beat them in that battle and the city is open to capture.

[Chuddly]

Originally posted by yuzhonglu:

Not really. You're gaining exp and money from the incursions. You gain territory using confederations. Look at your tech tree- you can research forced confederations. Save some money before confederation and use the confederated army to kill an unpleasant neighbor like Grung Zint or Kemmler then disband it.

Also, if you're good you can take Mousillion by T4 or T5.

So when you do the forced confeds the AI cannot refuse? I swear as Louen I did all those techs and all joined but one. I got the option to ask them to confed but they would never accept.

Good idea!

I'll try that, thanks for the advice.

[Hieronymus]

Most of the time the Red Duke will attack you in the open. So as your first move go on land close to Mousillon put your paladin in your army and recruit some Yari Ashigaru (uh peasant spearmen). Red Duke attacks you, bog the duke himself down with footsquires he can't beat them 1v1, but he will style on your paladin and Alberic. Use Alberic/Pala to goonsquad the Varghulf. Knights of the Realm will easely stomp his cavalry, then cycle charge whatever is leftover into oblivion. Peasant arrar bois should only shoot crypt ghouls and after that Grave Guard.

This can happen on turn 1, after that siege Moussilon and they will usually break out. Stomp them similarly and you have moussilon early.

[Chuddly]

Originally posted by Hieronymus:

Most of the time the Red Duke will attack you in the open. So as your first move go on land close to Mousillon put your paladin in your army and recruit some Yari Ashigaru (uh peasant spearmen). Red Duke attacks you, bog the duke himself down with footsquires he can't beat them 1v1, but he will style on your paladin and Alberic. Use Alberic/Pala to goonsquad the Varghulf. Knights of the Realm will easely stomp his cavalry, then cycle charge whatever is leftover into oblivion. Peasant arrar bois should only shoot crypt ghouls and after that Grave Guard.

This can happen on turn 1, after that siege Moussilon and they will usually break out. Stomp them similarly and you have moussilon early.

That sounds like solid advice.. The only thing is, doesn't Alberic only start with one foot squire unit?

I guess my mistake was intercepting the cav before they arrive but then when I order a cav retreat, they get stuck and instead of moving around units just push through the lines and then get owned.

[A.Pot]

You can totally take out the Red Duke's starting army on turn 1. Just place Alberic in range to be attacked, end turn then Red Duke will come out to attack. Once the battle starts, use your knights to try to draw out the Red Duke's forces. Have one unit get close enough for the Black Knights to come chase you then surround them with your Knights of the Realm who have Anti Large.

You can use your knights to distract parts of the Red Duke's army and make them give chase while the rest advanced to your infantry in more manageable numbers. Super important though that you take out the cavalry and monsters first.

After that, you can build up your forces and lay siege to Mousillon. Raze Massif Orcal if you want to avoid the Greenskin Incursion

[Chuddly]

Originally posted by al_potenciano:

You can totally take out the Red Duke's starting army on turn 1. Just place Alberic in range to be attacked, end turn then Red Duke will come out to attack. Once the battle starts, use your knights to try to draw out the Red Duke's forces. Have one unit get close enough for the Black Knights to come chase you then surround them with your Knights of the Realm who have Anti Large.

You can use your knights to distract parts of the Red Duke's army and make them give chase while the rest advanced to your infantry in more manageable numbers. Super important though that you take out the cavalry and monsters first.

After that, you can build up your forces and lay siege to Mousillon. Raze Massif Orcal if you want to avoid the Greenskin Incursion

Interesting. So anti large affects black knights and other cav?

I sort of did that in that I drew half his army away, but I kinda messed up on the cav. Got the monster out fast and just barely won but didn't have enough to take the city after that. I'll need to practice.

Don't vamps rearm super fast though?

[A.Pot]

Originally posted by Frostback:

Don't vamps rearm super fast though?

Yes but you can at least take out the Red Duke's heavy hitters early on so in the next battle you only have to deal with the weaker units

[Chuddly]

Originally posted by al_potenciano:

Originally posted by Frostback:

Don't vamps rearm super fast though?

Yes but you can at least take out the Red Duke's heavy hitters early on so in the next battle you only have to deal with the weaker units

Good point. Thanks for the help!

[rovers14]

It's been a really long time since I've played Alberic, so I just started a fresh campaign to remind me what happens. I was able to destroy mousillon and occupy their settlement by turn 3. Keep in mind this is on very hard campaign difficulty and normal battle difficulty. These fights gave me a run for my money, I normally play on very hard battle difficulty so I'm really glad I brought it down for this!

1. Move Alberic on land towards mousillon as close as you can get to their settlement, add your paladin to the army, begin recruiting nothing but peasant bowmen.

2. Red Duke should attack over the end turn (maybe not on lower campaign difficulty? Not sure). Tough battle here, win this battle by doing what the others said, divide them and conquer. Admittedly this took me 2 tries, the first try I didn't realize how quickly alberic and the paladin would die to a single varghulf after baiting it away. They both took too much damage along with other units I sent in to bail them out. The second try went much better by weakening it with arrows before leading it straight into spearmen, then I sent alberic and the pally in to help. After the battle the AI decided that was too easy, so somehow it let the varghulf, 1 black knight, 2 grave guard, 1 zombie, AND the red duke survive and retreat to mousillon, even though all of them were dead before they received the army loss penalty. Absolute BS if ya ask me!

3. Turn 2, you should have a full stack of 20 now, and hopefully you didn't take too much damage the last fight, because the next step is sending your army to mousillon. Besiege it, end turn, and they will sally out to fight you because you are weaker than them...aaand here comes another tough fight.

4. Good news is the beat up army of theirs will advance to you without waiting for their reinforcements. Bad news is the reinforcements send all of their fast units ahead, and the red duke is healing the entire time they advance. Try to slaughter them all with arrows before they reach you, and keep some peasant mobs behind your archers so they can attack any bats that their reinforcements send after your bowmen. If you win you will be able to occupy the settlement right away, so it's already yours by turn 3 and I was able to get a heroic victory out of it, which just means a nice chunk of extra experience for alberic.

It looks like the rest of the campaign should be a cake walk after getting rid of those vamps! On turn 1, I considered moving Alberic just barely close enough to mousillon that the red duke can still attack, but will not make it back. I decided not to, because I have attempted this in the past with other campaigns and sometimes the AI just sends them somewhere else. We need them to stay in the region so we can slaughter them!

[goumindong]

Originally posted by Hieronymus:

Most of the time the Red Duke will attack you in the open. So as your first move go on land close to Mousillon put your paladin in your army and recruit some Yari Ashigaru (uh peasant spearmen). Red Duke attacks you, bog the duke himself down with footsquires he can't beat them 1v1, but he will style on your paladin and Alberic. Use Alberic/Pala to goonsquad the Varghulf. Knights of the Realm will easely stomp his cavalry, then cycle charge whatever is leftover into oblivion. Peasant arrar bois should only shoot crypt ghouls and after that Grave Guard.

This can happen on turn 1, after that siege Moussilon and they will usually break out. Stomp them similarly and you have moussilon early.

Arrows should shoot the varhulf first. Its a huge target with low armor. They will chew it up especially if held down by a lord. Then kill the ghouls. You will want AP to deal with the grave guard so that is where you want your foot squires(ideally in their rear after asorbing a charge with some chaff

[Chuddly]

Originally posted by rovers14:

It's been a really long time since I've played Alberic, so I just started a fresh campaign to remind me what happens. I was able to destroy mousillon and occupy their settlement by turn 3. Keep in mind this is on very hard campaign difficulty and normal battle difficulty. These fights gave me a run for my money, I normally play on very hard battle difficulty so I'm really glad I brought it down for this!

1. Move Alberic on land towards mousillon as close as you can get to their settlement, add your paladin to the army, begin recruiting nothing but peasant bowmen.

2. Red Duke should attack over the end turn (maybe not on lower campaign difficulty? Not sure). Tough battle here, win this battle by doing what the others said, divide them and conquer. Admittedly this took me 2 tries, the first try I didn't realize how quickly alberic and the paladin would die to a single varghulf after baiting it away. They both took too much damage along with other units I sent in to bail them out. The second try went much better by weakening it with arrows before leading it straight into spearmen, then I sent alberic and the pally in to help. After the battle the AI decided that was too easy, so somehow it let the varghulf, 1 black knight, 2 grave guard, 1 zombie, AND the red duke survive and retreat to mousillon, even though all of them were dead before they received the army loss penalty. Absolute BS if ya ask me!

3. Turn 2, you should have a full stack of 20 now, and hopefully you didn't take too much damage the last fight, because the next step is sending your army to mousillon. Besiege it, end turn, and they will sally out to fight you because you are weaker than them...aaand here comes another tough fight.

4. Good news is the beat up army of theirs will advance to you without waiting for their reinforcements. Bad news is the reinforcements send all of their fast units ahead, and the red duke is healing the entire time they advance. Try to slaughter them all with arrows before they reach you, and keep some peasant mobs behind your archers so they can attack any bats that their reinforcements send after your bowmen. If you win you will be able to occupy the settlement right away, so it's already yours by turn 3 and I was able to get a heroic victory out of it, which just means a nice chunk of extra experience for alberic.

It looks like the rest of the campaign should be a cake walk after getting rid of those vamps! On turn 1, I considered moving Alberic just barely close enough to mousillon that the red duke can still attack, but will not make it back. I decided not to, because I have attempted this in the past with other campaigns and sometimes the AI just sends them somewhere else. We need them to stay in the region so we can slaughter them!

That's a hell of an answer, thanks! I played on hard/normal and the first fight was quite a challenge. I'll try it again with yours and others' advice.
As for the varghulf and the duke surviving, that is some bs.

The only other thing I wonder about is, with the orc incursions you get a rebellion every two turns but can't afford a second army... How do you destroy massif orcal if a rebellion pops up before you can get there? To compound that issue, you'll now have vampire rebels from Moussillon to deal with but only one army?

I tried confederating, not realizing the public order penalties would apply to the confederated lands. Their armies are too expensive to maintain and I can't defend rthe new lands... So after Mousillon, get the smelly greenskins?

[Chuddly]

Originally posted by goumindong:

Originally posted by Hieronymus:

Most of the time the Red Duke will attack you in the open. So as your first move go on land close to Mousillon put your paladin in your army and recruit some Yari Ashigaru (uh peasant spearmen). Red Duke attacks you, bog the duke himself down with footsquires he can't beat them 1v1, but he will style on your paladin and Alberic. Use Alberic/Pala to goonsquad the Varghulf. Knights of the Realm will easely stomp his cavalry, then cycle charge whatever is leftover into oblivion. Peasant arrar bois should only shoot crypt ghouls and after that Grave Guard.

This can happen on turn 1, after that siege Moussilon and they will usually break out. Stomp them similarly and you have moussilon early.

Arrows should shoot the varhulf first. Its a huge target with low armor. They will chew it up especially if held down by a lord. Then kill the ghouls. You will want AP to deal with the grave guard so that is where you want your foot squires(ideally in their rear after asorbing a charge with some chaff

That makes sense... Didn't know that about squires. But how to get squires in the rear? The zombies and what not tend to attack in a line? I guess you could try to draw them away. I'm going to try right now.

[rovers14]

Originally posted by Frostback:

Originally posted by rovers14:

It's been a really long time since I've played Alberic, so I just started a fresh campaign to remind me what happens. I was able to destroy mousillon and occupy their settlement by turn 3. Keep in mind this is on very hard campaign difficulty and normal battle difficulty. These fights gave me a run for my money, I normally play on very hard battle difficulty so I'm really glad I brought it down for this!

1. Move Alberic on land towards mousillon as close as you can get to their settlement, add your paladin to the army, begin recruiting nothing but peasant bowmen.

2. Red Duke should attack over the end turn (maybe not on lower campaign difficulty? Not sure). Tough battle here, win this battle by doing what the others said, divide them and conquer. Admittedly this took me 2 tries, the first try I didn't realize how quickly alberic and the paladin would die to a single varghulf after baiting it away. They both took too much damage along with other units I sent in to bail them out. The second try went much better by weakening it with arrows before leading it straight into spearmen, then I sent alberic and the pally in to help. After the battle the AI decided that was too easy, so somehow it let the varghulf, 1 black knight, 2 grave guard, 1 zombie, AND the red duke survive and retreat to mousillon, even though all of them were dead before they received the army loss penalty. Absolute BS if ya ask me!

3. Turn 2, you should have a full stack of 20 now, and hopefully you didn't take too much damage the last fight, because the next step is sending your army to mousillon. Besiege it, end turn, and they will sally out to fight you because you are weaker than them...aaand here comes another tough fight.

4. Good news is the beat up army of theirs will advance to you without waiting for their reinforcements. Bad news is the reinforcements send all of their fast units ahead, and the red duke is healing the entire time they advance. Try to slaughter them all with arrows before they reach you, and keep some peasant mobs behind your archers so they can attack any bats that their reinforcements send after your bowmen. If you win you will be able to occupy the settlement right away, so it's already yours by turn 3 and I was able to get a heroic victory out of it, which just means a nice chunk of extra experience for alberic.

It looks like the rest of the campaign should be a cake walk after getting rid of those vamps! On turn 1, I considered moving Alberic just barely close enough to mousillon that the red duke can still attack, but will not make it back. I decided not to, because I have attempted this in the past with other campaigns and sometimes the AI just sends them somewhere else. We need them to stay in the region so we can slaughter them!

That's a hell of an answer, thanks! I played on hard/normal and the first fight was quite a challenge. I'll try it again with yours and others' advice.
As for the varghulf and the duke surviving, that is some bs.

The only other thing I wonder about is, with the orc incursions you get a rebellion every two turns but can't afford a second army... How do you destroy massif orcal if a rebellion pops up before you can get there? To compound that issue, you'll now have vampire rebels from Moussillon to deal with but only one army?

I tried confederating, not realizing the public order penalties would apply to the confederated lands. Their armies are too expensive to maintain and I can't defend rthe new lands... So after Mousillon, get the smelly greenskins?

I didn't play the campaign any further than taking out Mousillon so I didn't consider the public order penalties or anything lol. But now that I've taken a better look at it...

First off, don't confederate until you're ready. You should take some time to build your starting province up beforehand and research some economy technologies. If you want to make it easier on yourself then you can choose to raze Mousillon instead of occupying it. Lyonesse will likely take it over and you can confederate it later. Otherwise, you could head straight for Massif Orcal with no rest. It only has a garrison of 8 units and you would have replenished about while traveling through your own lands (I actually auto resolved it, no units were destroyed!). Thanks to the fact that you don't have a siege attacker, you won't quite get there in time to raze it before Mousillon rebels, but it is actually possible to defeat that incursion with just the garrison. I tried it and failed, but I saw numerous things I could have done better, and I also could have recruited a lord to help out and that definitely would have won it for me. Either way bordeleaux will be safe, that's the most important thing.

[Chuddly]

Originally posted by rovers14:

Originally posted by Frostback:

That's a hell of an answer, thanks! I played on hard/normal and the first fight was quite a challenge. I'll try it again with yours and others' advice.
As for the varghulf and the duke surviving, that is some bs.

The only other thing I wonder about is, with the orc incursions you get a rebellion every two turns but can't afford a second army... How do you destroy massif orcal if a rebellion pops up before you can get there? To compound that issue, you'll now have vampire rebels from Moussillon to deal with but only one army?

I tried confederating, not realizing the public order penalties would apply to the confederated lands. Their armies are too expensive to maintain and I can't defend rthe new lands... So after Mousillon, get the smelly greenskins?

I didn't play the campaign any further than taking out Mousillon so I didn't consider the public order penalties or anything lol. But now that I've taken a better look at it...

First off, don't confederate until you're ready. You should take some time to build your starting province up beforehand and research some economy technologies. If you want to make it easier on yourself then you can choose to raze Mousillon instead of occupying it. Lyonesse will likely take it over and you can confederate it later. Otherwise, you could head straight for Massif Orcal with no rest. It only has a garrison of 8 units and you would have replenished about while traveling through your own lands (I actually auto resolved it, no units were destroyed!). Thanks to the fact that you don't have a siege attacker, you won't quite get there in time to raze it before Mousillon rebels, but it is actually possible to defeat that incursion with just the garrison. I tried it and failed, but I saw numerous things I could have done better, and I also could have recruited a lord to help out and that definitely would have won it for me. Either way bordeleaux will be safe, that's the most important thing.

Thanks! So turtling and building up is a valid strategy for a while then?

Is building up as Alberic not recommended before hitting Moussillon? I never even saw the Red Duke try to recruit units... Although I guess if you don't fight him turn one then you're stuck fighting him in a siege.

[rovers14]

Originally posted by Frostback:

Originally posted by rovers14:

I didn't play the campaign any further than taking out Mousillon so I didn't consider the public order penalties or anything lol. But now that I've taken a better look at it...

First off, don't confederate until you're ready. You should take some time to build your starting province up beforehand and research some economy technologies. If you want to make it easier on yourself then you can choose to raze Mousillon instead of occupying it. Lyonesse will likely take it over and you can confederate it later. Otherwise, you could head straight for Massif Orcal with no rest. It only has a garrison of 8 units and you would have replenished about while traveling through your own lands (I actually auto resolved it, no units were destroyed!). Thanks to the fact that you don't have a siege attacker, you won't quite get there in time to raze it before Mousillon rebels, but it is actually possible to defeat that incursion with just the garrison. I tried it and failed, but I saw numerous things I could have done better, and I also could have recruited a lord to help out and that definitely would have won it for me. Either way bordeleaux will be safe, that's the most important thing.

Thanks! So turtling and building up is a valid strategy for a while then?

Is building up as Alberic not recommended before hitting Moussillon? I never even saw the Red Duke try to recruit units... Although I guess if you don't fight him turn one then you're stuck fighting him in a siege.

If by "turtle up" you also mean just hitting end turn over and over again, then no. There's always something you can be doing while you research and build, you need to keep the experience flowing in for Alberic. You can explore the seas (which is actually the easiest way to get the second knightly vow done, choose the one that tells you to kill a lord at sea to complete the vow, and if you're lucky you will find one of the treasures in the water that gives you an option to fight an army for a gold reward of up to 20k and other things), you can use massif orcal as a sack city (sacking over and over again every turn for the experience points), or you can go destroy Kemmler. There's a lot of things you can be doing instead of expanding but just make sure you don't forget about diplomacy, make sure your neighbors like you before you move more than a few turns away.

Personally I would destroy Mousillon ASAP, there's no reason not to whether you decide to raze the settlement or keep it. You don't want that vamp corruption hanging around forever, and you don't want them getting any stronger than they are. Or you could use Mousillon as a sack city, and let the incursions happen at Bordelaux to farm experience off of both of them since they're so close.