Anyone with Quick Tips for a Veteran player?

[Hollywood]

Everytime I read a guide or see a video, it's the same old "beginner's" guide to TW. Not that there's any problem with that, I'd just rather not spend hours watching/reading about things that are obvious to players of other TW games. Just jumped into the game and already realize there's quite a big difference between this entry and previous titles on the campaign side of things, so looking for any advice or tips that someone with successful campaigns have found unique to this game.

The kind of stuff I'm curious about:
What's a good economy for raising a second or more armies?

Is building tall with raiding and sacking still the primary goal for early game?

What are some key unit builds I should be looking for (What units outshine their counterparts)?

How offensive is the AI? Is this relative to previous TW's where you are fairly safe with walled settlements to venture away or do they hit hard and fast?

Or any other random tips anyone has found that are unique to this game. Thanks in advance.

[BastardSword]

The only viable strategy now is to be very aggressive and have as many armies as possible, and to protect all your frontiers because even on normal the AI will wait until your armies are on one side of your empire and invade you from the other side. Vassalize everything you can once you are marquis and can do so. Kill Yuan Shao ASAP because otherwise he will vassalize everything on the map and turn them all against you. Always expect to be invaded.

I still don't really understand the economy yet. It has a food system like Shogun 2 but I'm not sure what it is used for. Some people say you can sell it to low-food factions and make a ton of money from it, but I want to know if food creates future growth like in Shogun 2 or if it's just a surplus to sell off.

Seems to me that spear guards are the best infantry units for their cost, they always seem to take forever to kill off, but only green-colored generals can get them I think. Bows/crossbows are a bit piddly but they can turn battles around for you. Trebuchets are quite cool. The basic sword/spear/axe units are underwhelming compared to say spear guards. Cavalry are very good against archers and not so good against infantry, but at least they won't melt against basic spear units unlike in say Shogun 2. Good generals can basically win battles for you, so try to get some good ones.

[Hollywood]

Thanks for the tips, learning the Yuan Shao situation right now, which is why I made this post lol. Didn't expect to be at war with over 5 factions at one time when he declared on me, which made me rethink my one army sacking strategy for early game.

[Malkuth]

The only way to survive is to try to Build up a food economy where you the player is selling food to the other lords. As you get later in game this switches to making as many vassals as you can. Even buying them out with the mass amount of money you make selling food. This is how you can field 5-10 armies right before the 3 kingdoms stage.

Now getting to that point is different for all.. Cao Cao is easy, you are surrounded by all kinds of farms etc.

Other thintgs don't get bogged down in wars. Talking blitz type battles.. Take what you need etc fast.

Another tip: When you get a diplomatic message from someone asking you to do something you don't want and you can Edit the deal. Delete everything.. Give the guy 50 gold.. And you won't suffer any negative effects of the original deal.. LOL... Its true.

Another tip: same idea if you get offered marriage and they want to take your daughter or son into there court.. Reverse the deal and have them come to yours instead. They usually always accept.. You can get some dam good generals this way.

Don't be afraid to vassalize Dukes that have vassals.. Once your big enough and rich enough you can buy them out.. Than there vassals become free picking for you the next turn to vassal..

Basically this game is not only about war anymore.. Its about spending time managing your courts and managing the diplomatic screen..

Don't build your cities to quick.. I sucks up your food and you can't sell it. Make sure you build Building that keep your citizens happy.. This will counter the Negative effects of Over populations.

Once you start getting to right before the 3 kingdom stage of game.. Start upgrading those cities etc.. You need to anyway to get to king..

[Hollywood]

Originally posted by Malkuth:

The only way to survive is to try to Build up a food economy where you the player is selling food to the other lords. As you get later in game this switches to making as many vassals as you can. Even buying them out with the mass amount of money you make selling food. This is how you can field 5-10 armies right before the 3 kingdoms stage.

Now getting to that point is different for all.. Cao Cao is easy, you are surrounded by all kinds of farms etc.

Other thintgs don't get bogged down in wars. Talking blitz type battles.. Take what you need etc fast.

Another tip: When you get a diplomatic message from someone asking you to do something you don't want and you can Edit the deal. Delete everything.. Give the guy 50 gold.. And you won't suffer any negative effects of the original deal.. LOL... Its true.

Another tip: same idea if you get offered marriage and they want to take your daughter or son into there court.. Reverse the deal and have them come to yours instead. They usually always accept.. You can get some dam good generals this way.

Don't be afraid to vassalize Dukes that have vassals.. Once your big enough and rich enough you can buy them out.. Than there vassals become free picking for you the next turn to vassal..

Basically this game is not only about war anymore.. Its about spending time managing your courts and managing the diplomatic screen..

Don't build your cities to quick.. I sucks up your food and you can't sell it. Make sure you build Building that keep your citizens happy.. This will counter the Negative effects of Over populations.

Once you start getting to right before the 3 kingdom stage of game.. Start upgrading those cities etc.. You need to anyway to get to king..

Solid advice, very much appreciated. These are the little cheese and secrets I was hoping to find among the interwebs.

[Greldinart]

-be agressive isnt the only way, you need to adapt and stick to your neighboor, you cannot be 1vs all in begin of this game. friend 2/3 of guys battle the 1/3.
yet be at total peace without expanding is...stupid :p
-expand too quickly without cash isnt worthy, because low developped cities dont make a lot of money, they need time and investment.
- army and character maintenance cost are very very expensive here.
so you need solid income..if you are quite at peace, sent back army in court and build your cities with 10+k money per turn it could be enough, if you are at war, use the war income of pillage and battle for cover the charge of extra armies.
-Never run out of food or satisfaction and income will shred.
-specialise your region in 1-2 thing maximum like industry+commerce food+military theres too much building type, and except for siege, food is shared in your kingdom.
-locate and secure region with special ressource of weapon and armor, that make you earn stuff for your future general one every two year soemthing like that...in romance the high lvl héro can be warmachine your unit cant stop them only a good stuff general can do it.

one game, i choose to be vassalized and could switch to a peacefull and developped economy enough for invade extraland south, then build a war machine after.
another game i was a powerblock and vassal and fight a lot until i meet my master yuan shao...
except the map to be a total mess at the end of the game.

[SIX]

I would add to go beyond lv 8 cities doesn't add much and suck up a ton of food. If you follow that advice you don't have to build farms everywhere. In my campaign I had one province with a grain farm and a livestock farm that was giving me 61 foods with the 2 green food building. Use two champion assignment first the 100 % food production and the 4 food worldwide plus 50,% production. My fist building in every province is the workshop for the flat income.

[Reapo]

Need to have a good balance of economy and armies. So as soon as you think you can hold two, three, four armies and so on, do it. The AI is going to be aggressive around turn 30-60. A lot of the powerful factions will be hitting higher faction ranks so that means more alliances, vassals, and coalitions you gotta navigate or become apart of.

If they war dec you and you are pretty much solo with no allies, you are going to take a hit on all fronts. Economy is going to tank because your most likely going to lose your trade partners and any payment plans you had setup. And when the AI declare war, they come in force. Armies start to straggle in, but they start coming into your lands with like 2-3 stacks so its very hard to hold them off if your by yourself.

Something that I picked up is if you are getting ♥♥♥♥♥♥, becoming a vassal can get you out of a pinch and you can eventually turn things around. It will take some time, but you'll eventually get to a point where you can go toe to toe with multiple factions with good army position and some key ambushes.

Another thing I struggled with is when to upgrade from militia armies to like good armies. There is going to come a time where the battles are going to get more difficult because the enemy just has better units. So you are taking huge losses and you'll often have to face another stack before your fully recuperated.