how do you survive an Arkhan campaign on very hard/legendary?

[BaronWilhelm]

however I approach it, i basically suffer un-recoverable losses within about 3-5 turns of unlocking a second army. If I try to hold sorcerer's palace, too many dwarves and Repanse attack in quick succession. If i sack my way to Arkhan's Tower province and ditch the coast, Lizardmen, Rakaph Dynasty, and then finally Settra wear me down till I don't have enough time to recover casualties and stop settlements from getting sacked or taken.

Combining the way the AI doubles up cheap stacks, and the good TK units don't come till like mid-campaign, it's more than I can chew on. Skelly spam can only work to a point lol, and after a few pyrrhic victories where you lose the the tomb prince and scorpion you're super ♥♥♥♥♥♥

[yuzhonglu]

Reload until you get sea treasure nearby. Then get casket of souls ASAP. Wait for second army and don't bother building up minor settlements in starting province.

[BaronWilhelm]

Originally posted by Sn3z:

There's something just wrong with this campaign, I putting it down to bad flow at the start and other factions around have no other enemies, but this appears to cause the dwarfs and Repanse to just raid/camp right outside my settlements, they don't declare war and I wasn't going to find out how it would take for them to, its easy to pick them off.

They only raided you? soon as I fought back at knights of the flame (Bret faction you're warring with at campaign start) the chevaliers and knights of Origo joined right away, and when I went north a little bit the dwarves were raiding me already, then attacked wizard caliph's palace as soon as i had to recover some casualties after a couple battles. That's when I started taking the approach of sacking dwarf and lizardmen settlements as I ran to tower of Arkhan where I just got gang banged hard by Settra, Rakaph dynasty and Sudenberg lol.

Looking back the only thing that was just statistically impossible to deal with, was gold chevron imperial infantry and more importantly, crossbows, before turn 50. Like seriously wtf, there's no way you can win that. Why would the AI get two stacks of that ♥♥♥♥♥ so quickly.

[Sn3z]

Originally posted by BaronWilhelm:

Originally posted by Sn3z:

There's something just wrong with this campaign, I putting it down to bad flow at the start and other factions around have no other enemies, but this appears to cause the dwarfs and Repanse to just raid/camp right outside my settlements, they don't declare war and I wasn't going to find out how it would take for them to, its easy to pick them off.

They only raided you? soon as I fought back at knights of the flame (Bret faction you're warring with at campaign start) the chevaliers and knights of Origo joined right away, and when I went north a little bit the dwarves were raiding me already, then attacked wizard caliph's palace as soon as i had to recover some casualties after a couple battles. That's when I started taking the approach of sacking dwarf and lizardmen settlements as I ran to tower of Arkhan where I just got gang banged hard by Settra, Rakaph dynasty and Sudenberg lol.

Looking back the only thing that was just statistically impossible to deal with, was gold chevron imperial infantry and more importantly, crossbows, before turn 50. Like seriously wtf, there's no way you can win that. Why would the AI get two stacks of that ♥♥♥♥♥ so quickly.

I don't think it will make much of a difference but I try and play on legendary I play vh/vh, the knights of the flame can be wiped out very fast like turn 7-8 I believe, they actually commit to seiging Wizards palace which I had defences and used legionary barrage, their stack is also crap for seiging, I just took their settlement whilst they were sieging they started taking attrition to, you can force a field battle with them but the trouble is you be fighting it in their land so no replenishment, its just such a bad campaign flow at the start need another settlement and the knights of the flame starting settlement can be moved merged into another region.(The whole area needs reworking). As for the dwarfs I killed 2 half stacks whilst they were raiding then razed there capital and left it at that. BeASTMEN stack which seems to always spawn can be a good asset atleast...

The passive rank gains the AI gets is good but its stupid when combined with high battle difficulty for more melee orientated factions to offset it you need to max out red skills and make getting ranked units a priority which for TK is really what you should be doing if your mustering 0 rank units your playing them wrong. CA really need to nerf the battle difficulty in some areas and add things like missile resist.

[zefyris]

Originally posted by chronobomb:

Originally posted by zefyris:

One way to play tk is to push the "only one army" for as long as you're not in a dire situation. In other words, once you reach 1 turn left for your first dynasty researched, you start researching a second without taking the -30% research rate hit. The longer you can keep it up, the better.

On the harder starts you have to build your armies fast as the others will see you as weak and declare war on you. If you are really struggling, just sit in your city for 14 turns until you can recruit a second army. Make sure you build the walls.

Don't tell me how to play harder start, i've done VH arkhan and didn't recruit a second army for around 26 turns after the start so I brought the dynasty research to 1 for two armies before recruiting one, and didn't finish the second I researched to 1 for a while after that too.
And it's not the first time I do that so don't tell me it doesn't work when I know it does.

[Sn3z]

Playing legendary now, Knights Flame did the same thing and seiged Palace, the dwarfs just raided next to them.. I took over their settlement, flame seiged and I beat them badly heroic. I was moving down Arkhan to mop whats left of flame(this move upon reflection was probably a bad), then Repanse raids outside lashiek after I left, shes been doing it now for three turns, dwafs just wandering around my capital territory raiding for three turns now aswell... They both are not declaring war yet anyway. Its currently turn 11.

turn 13 Dwarfs gone up to sorcerer's island still raiding, Repanse still raiding lashiek and I'am forced to stay in my capital, until I can stabilize PO. The beastmen stack on this difficulty is basically useless they won't attack anything and are cowering on sorcerers island.

turn 15 Dwarfs declare war and sneakily raze sorcerers island(I thought they run abck home should of scouted a turn prior)they rekt the beastmen stack, take heavily losses. I move up to get back muh land.

Turn 16 dwarf abandon sorcerers island cause they know I about to rekt them, Knights of Origo with two full stacks take Lahiek whilst Repanse is still raiding.

turn 17 Dwarf magically has another stack siege my capital, I run back and abandon the island and leav the badly damaged dwarf stack on the sea. Origo send a stack to attack my capital xD

turn 18 I attack the dwarf stack seiging + another dwarf one with 6 units with Arkhan and garrison, I win only because of legionary barrage which rekts tight packed units and bats to kill isolated cannon.

turn 19 Origo seige me in my capital, I sally with Arkhan badly damaged stack and rekt them again with legionary barrage.

**turn 20, first time I have managed to have a break, thnakfully nothing attacked, since I only have 7200 can't research the Proclamation of the fifth dynasty which would give me +1 rank and also don't have the whole province to enact the edict +1 rank, so I have to make do with agent wise +1 and the incantation of tatoth +2, sucks. I hire another lord start recruiting ♥♥♥♥♥♥ get the COS.

I stop here for now its not looking good, I should of spec into replenishment with the lich priest sooner instead of doing spells.

[Agemouk]

Originally posted by zefyris:

Originally posted by chronobomb:

On the harder starts you have to build your armies fast as the others will see you as weak and declare war on you. If you are really struggling, just sit in your city for 14 turns until you can recruit a second army. Make sure you build the walls.

Don't tell me how to play harder start, i've done VH arkhan and didn't recruit a second army for around 26 turns after the start so I brought the dynasty research to 1 for two armies before recruiting one, and didn't finish the second I researched to 1 for a while after that too.
And it's not the first time I do that so don't tell me it doesn't work when I know it does.

Both are viable approaches; played a couple of vanilla Legendary Arkhan campaigns in various patches, and both can work.

[Sn3z]

The hoops I had to jump though on this legendary campaign I can't see any way of delaying your first stack, to many enemies, and dwarfs are roaming around with 2 stacks full off LB.

[yuzhonglu]

Need sea treasure near sorc islands for early casket of souls. Otherwise you're f-ed. The only good news is with all the fighting you get a decent amount of battle income. I'm not even sure you should take your starting province, considering that it aggroes Repanse.

[Sn3z]

Originally posted by yuzhonglu:

Need sea treasure near sorc islands for early casket of souls. Otherwise you're f-ed. The only good news is with all the fighting you get a decent amount of battle income. I'm not even sure you should take your starting province, considering that it aggroes Repanse.

Its possible to get COS without treasure, COS should be timed with stack raise anyway lord level+ranks) defense building is the tip I would give but only build it in capital its pricey, I would have liked the treasure for the proclamation or another agent, canopic jars are not worth taking at the start over gold, only on rebels or the gold is bad, I demolished the grave hill(weakens rebel spawns). I also thought about taking the cash when you get the event to recruit a free agent, I went nercotech though which has good synergy with scorpion but I would need to research another dynasty where necrotect cost canopic jars not cash, I always go fifth first..

Anyway its turn 37, I'am out of that cluster ♥♥♥♥, I have my third army up soon, made peace with Origo thet are bugged and don't upgrade barracks...,took back my province, dwarf's are going to be tough to get though then LM over that mountain...

[The Sylvan Learning Center]

I love how the knights of the flame or w/e they're called declare war on you and sail down to attack sorceror's island. if you go to protect the island, they will sail away. if you leave sorceror's island, they will return to attack it.

it's pretty fun to have that going on in the early game, while you're trying to do other stuff, like kill the turtling 2 stack bretonnians in your starting province, repanse, or dwarves

[Sn3z]

Originally posted by The Sylvan Learning Center:

I love how the knights of the flame or w/e they're called declare war on you and sail down to attack sorceror's island. if you go to protect the island, they will sail away. if you leave sorceror's island, they will return to attack it.

it's pretty fun to have that going on in the early game, while you're trying to do other stuff, like kill the turtling 2 stack bretonnians in your starting province, repanse, or dwarves

Stay in the settlement at the start, muster local and globally turn 5-6 they should just go to the Palace(scout) you can then take their settlement whilst they siege you, the fun really starts after killing them if your on legendary.

[chef]

Originally posted by BANE:

You don't, your upkeep will kill you because you can't survive in a symmetrical war against the stupid CHEATING AI, you can only exploit it with things like playing only one or two units that it basically can't handle, which is extremely focking boring. IE full army of sisters of avalon or mamoths, etc.

Plus there are some things related to confederating that can make some factions really really bad in endgame when compared to others and there is nothing to compensate for that, so all of this looks kinda chaotic and imbalanced if you ask me.

Upkeep? Sisters of Avalorn? Mammoths? Arkhan? What am I reading?

[Lord Holland of Wessex]

Just use backspace exploit during enemies turn

[Imposter]

Settra DOES NOT PERVE- err.. Serve!

[Pilcrow]

I've tried the Arkhan campaign 3 times the past week. First time, I attacked the Bretonnians north of me and failed miserably. 2nd time I went northeast to attack Settra and failed miserably while also fending off the Bretonnians.

But the 3rd time I tried I went east and attacked the Skaven (Snikch, I think). For whatever reason, the Bretonnians left me alone and I wiped the floor with the rat people. Settra had his hands full with a couple other factions during this time which made him much easier to take out later. And the Bretonnians still haven't tried to attack me but they're next on my list and they'll be easy because of all the resources I got from the Skaven. I'm around turn 100 at the moment.

But that would be my advice. Ignore the game basically telling you at the start to attack Bretonnia. Attack the rats to your east instead, which is also kinda weird because they were the friendliest to me.

All 3 times, though, Settra was a pain in the ass. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.