Need some advice for ME with Carcassonne

[Ge0force]

I'm playing my first ME campaign with Carcassonne (hard difficulty), but I'm not sure how to expand early game in order to get more "peasants" in my army without penalty.

What I did was starting a war with the nearest greenskin tribe, but my army is too weak to capture their stronghold that is protected by 2 enemy armies.

Then I decided to research confederation with Bretonnia, but this resulted in way too many peasants causing a huge income penalty.

I didn't attack the other Bretonnia factors or Wood Elves because they have positive diplomacy towards me.

Do you have some advice for me?

[Wh♂♂par]

Do not attack the Wood Elves. Get the confederations going and defend from the Greenskin attacks, disband the over-limit Peasant units and build up. You could consider getting Estalia over time.

If you are lucky, you can ambush the Greenskin armies outside of the settlement and then, if the settlement is undefended, rush in and try to take it.

Magic on blobs will help here.

[Dragoon]

You might want to spend your first chunk of turns sticking to your first province and just let the public order penalties from the greenskin event keep spawning rebellions for you to farm for exp.

Heading down and taking Estalia for yourself is probably the best choice of expansion, leave the wood elves alone and form alliances with them.

Do your confederation research and absorb the other Brettonia factions and you will expand your land fastest that way.

[Ge0force]

Thankx guys!

Is it wise to spend 5000 cash on each confederation to prevent chivalry drop?

[funkmonster7]

Regarding confederations, be smart about who you are confederating. Don't just follow the research tree, follow what is easier to defend.

I've not yet played Carcasonne but I tend to play Leon. I make a habit to aim to confed Alberic first, and pretty much choose the options that boost my chivalry when I am given the option to confed the Bretonnian kingdoms before Bordeleaux. This is because I found that even if I confed Artois, I won't be able to defend it against the Barrow Legion, and the AI does a better job at defending themselves usually, since they have their own peasant max numbers (as they are technically a faction with their own capitals which gives them a base peasant max number). Honestly, Artois can hold off the Barrow Legions even after I have confed Alberic and destroyed the Red Duke next door... And even if Artois falls, I'll just fight it out with Barrow Legion later, with at least an extra LL on my side.

But granted, I've never played at Hard nor have I defeated the Barrow Legion. Never got that far... I hate Bretonnia's no-war policy (or they lose chivalry).

Also, to answer your question... 5k is worth it if you are confederating an LL or an economic powerhouse of a kingdom. If it's a small place like Artois, screw it...