[ME] [Updated for TK!] Rock the Casbah: Expanding Carcassonne

Feeling limited in expansion opportunities as Bretonnia? Perhaps some time with your feet in the sand is just what you need! These are some campaign guidelines intended for players new to the faction.

Introduction

When you have a faction you really click with, you play a lot of them. They become your automatic pick for playing with friends, and a surefire way to make sure you contribute to your ally. Something about just 5% less replenishment rate than Helman Ghorst himself and five extra peasants for that early-game blitz clicked with me.

So I might've played a bit too much as the Bae Enchantress.

These are my experiences from two too many ongoing pre-Norsca Mortal Empires campaigns as Carcassonne. Bretonnians seem to have gotten an even rougher start in Mortal Empires, but it's made up for by offering a huge open area across the sea that's defensible once taken, gives opposing armies attrition, and has two (two!) fully habitable regions with gold mines: the deserts of Araby.

That's right, you're gonna be a sandy Frenchman.

(Ignore the fact that the men in the video are British.)

This is purely from personal observation on Normal with SFO and other mods. Your campaign may be different, especially in multiplayer, and even moreso if your opponent in Head to Head is playing as the Empire, another Bretonnian, a Tomb King, or Clan Mors. Barring these influences, though, you should be able to establish a firm grip on another continent and get those peasant units up with these guidelines.

What Mods I'm Using

I'm the sort of person who mods a game 'til it breaks to fit my tastes. I'm not very tactical, but poring over potential strategies is something I find very rewarding. How does this concern you? Well, with the Tomb Kings update, I'm tailoring my guide to give more specific information in accordance with what I'm using, but this means that certain hints will be inapplicable for different mod sets. That being said, I'll try my best to cover contingencies, but I'm sure some things will just slip my mind.

So here ya go:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1221939247

Here's the biggest movers and shakers of the set, in alphabetical order:

• 2x skillpoints for SFO: A submod for the larger SFO, this means lords and heroes become powerhouses sooner. Since you're a human, your careful preservation of assets should mean you come out with some strong leaders, but keep in mind that enemy lords - especially hordes, like Beastmen or Chaos - will also benefit greatly from this.
  
• Cataph's Southern Realms: This one is a bit of a tradeoff. You ensure that you have allies both to the north and the south of you who are all interested in trading with you (since Cataph recently made it where their AI attitudes are "Diplmoatic" instead of "Passive"). However, this comes at the cost of taking Estalia for yourself, a province with both Wine, which is good for public order, and Iron, which lets you pump out leveled Men-At-Arms and Battle Pilgrims cheaper. How so? They have a garrisoned army in every region, as opposed to becoming Beastmen punching bags and/or Skaven food immediately. It reduces the threat of Clan Skryre knocking on your door later on, but also reduces your expansion opportunities in the early game.
  
• Crynsos' Faction Unlocker+: Loads of fun to mess around with, and the prerequisite for expanded subfactions like Mixu's Legendary Lords. Unfortunately, starting as one of the Bretonnian errantry armies - i.e.: Knights of Origo, Thegan's Errantry, Knights of the Flame - puts you in a tough spot, as you cannot confederate your northern buddies (last I checked), so Carcassonne is still our pick. This also puts Morghur the Shadowgave in your lands as opposed to putting Khazrak One-Eye in Estalian lands, so that's a loreful little change.
  
• Dryrain's Reskin Overhauls: Pretty, but not necessary. Requires unit detail to be on ultra so if your performance leaves something to be desired I'd skip these.
  
• GCCM: These mods essentially make certain regions have special battle maps. They're always stunning affairs to duke it out over, though you usually have some odd rules too, like the minor settlement Helmgart having a control point.
  
• Landmarks of the Old World: Adds more wonders for you to build. A lot of them are in the Empire, so if you're looking for motivation to take out the Empire after all of Araby is yours, be my guest.
  
• Mixu's Legendary Lords: Adds more LLs. Every Bretonnian dukedom gets one, encouraging the use of the different units they specialize in. Chilfroy de Artois, for example, has a penchant for archery, whereas Cassyon d'Parravon finds himself in the company of Pegasus Knights often. Great for flavor and encourages you to confederate only when their LL is up instead of just when they lose their army.
  
• Norsca Expanded - Unit Roster Expansion: They're still pretty easy later on, but this at least makes it where fighting Norsca doesn't feel like a chore.
  
• Rebanner II: Makes banner, standards, and other followers that can be affixed to a unit more impactful. Some of these can be pretty powerful, so it's your call on whether you want them.
  
• Steel Faith Overhaul II: New units, rebalanced rosters, harsher climate penalties, garrison units provided by every building, new buildings, rebalanced buildings, brighter campaign-level AI... This mod does a lot, and it's the primary reason I'm changing my guide's contents to be more mod-oriented.
  
• The Cow Trebuchet: This, on the other hand, gives you bovine siege ammunition. While its capabilities in the sense of knocking down walls and gates are lacking, cow trebuchets give you an artillery option in more provinces, requiring only a tier III farm. Good for hastily-raised armies in economic provinces.
  
• Valuable Veterans - Quarter effect version: If this is 25% of the base effect, I shudder to think what even a Peasant Mob at rank 9 could do in the full one. Makes veterans stronger in melee combat, with its effects most noticeable on making skirmishers and higher-tier archers more melee-viable. If armies stay fielded for a long time, such as Louen, Khazrak, or a player's army, or a faction can spawn ranked units like the High Elves, then they will be noticeably more capable at combat than your average Joe. Most often, this means you'll wreak havoc on beleaguered minor factions, but have a harder time against legendary lord armies, especially hordes.

Act I: Establishing a Beachhead

Turn 1: Setting the Stage

I've been using this start for a while now, and it's generally reliable. You'll notice the Warherd of the Shadowgave down by that bay south of you. We'll be dealing with them in a second. Move the Fae Enchantress soutth so she's still within reinforcement range of Castle Carcassonne, but is closer to the Beastmen. This gives you a little extra movement for rounding them up. Put the Damsel in her army and recruit four Peasant Bowmen.

Slate your barracks in Castle Carcassonne for destruction. The growth is preferable to the ability to recruit even more melee troops for your first army, and when you start confederating other Bretonnians, you'll eventually get Bastonne, which has a nice source of Iron. In the remaining open slot, build an economic building. Choose the industry building if you want to be more flexible early on with hiring more peasants, or the farming building if you want more growth. Note that industry gives -1 public order, so take that into consideration, too.

Hire a standard Lord in Brionne, the port region you start with. He'll help mop up the Beastmen in case they move to a point where the Fae Enchantress can reinforce, but not attack. Don't worry - even if he isn't necessary in this function, he's about to become your biggest breadwinner.

If you're in singleplayer, throw the "Venerate the Lady" commandment on. You're gonna need it, since the Bretonnian factions get this nasty early-game debuff called "Greenskin Incursions" that give -10 public order (double that in vanilla) for 10 turns. I haven't noticed it before in multiplayer, so you may be safe there.

Start researching "Code of Chivalry". Your Damsel is squishy, and you don't want to lose her early on. The extra armor and leadership can make a difference. This also allows you to access the Desert Purge Decree, which gives you bonus chivalry when fighting the Tomb Kings, as well as generally improved stats against them.

Turn 2: Executing the Beastmen

Most often, Morghur and his pet army saunter up into your lands in their first turn, setting themselves into raiding stance. This puts at least one (sometimes both) within striking distance of the Fae Enchantress, giving you a free +30% missile resistance on your Legendary Lord in return for killing Morghur.

The battle should be an autoresolve, but if you want to minimize casualties, I've found this to be pretty effective in general:

• Group your LL and Damsel.
  
• Group your melee troops, excluding the Peasant Mobs.
  
• Group your archers.
  
• Group your trebuchet, all on its lonesome.
  
• Group your Grail Guardians with themselves, too.
  
• Lump the dirty serfs Peasant Mobs.
  
• Keep the peasant mobs around the trebuchets. Ideally, the enemy won't get that far, but against Skaven/Tomb Kings/other summoners, it'll be nice to bog down whatever they summon and draw the trebuchet out.
  
• The rest of your melee troops should be holding a line, with your spears at an angle to prevent flanking of your archers, who should be at least five or six soldiers deep behind your front line. Remember to turn off skirmish mode.
  
• Charge the Fae Enchantress, Damsel, and Grail Guardians at the enemy. Avoid spears, especially when you acquire unicorns. Spears hate unicorns. Your Damsel will initially lag behind, so be sure not to get enveloped before she shows up.
  
• Have your trebuchet attack the clump surrounding your most important units. Aim for the edges of the clump; if you can avoid using a counterweight to launch a 90kg stone projectile over 300m directly into your own face, you should.
  
• Here's where it gets good. Initially, you only have four spells at your disposal: the Winds of Magic-less Favour of the Fay, the quick AoE Awakening of the Wood, the healing AoE Earth Blood, and the Damsel's single-target (AoE when overcast) armor and damage buff Wyssan's Wildform. Slap Favor of the Fay on whoever seems to be having more difficulty in the fight (usually the Grail Guardians or the Damsel), throw down a Earth Blood on this small group when they're getting mildly injured, give Wyssan's Wildform to the Grail Guardians, and maybe pop an Awakening of the Wood on the growing enemy clump for good measure (prioritizing lightly-armored units).
  
• Keep your Lords and Heroes near your Grail Guardians! The latter unit has a protective aura for the former two.

Ideally, this makes your battles have minimal casualties. A few units may try to bypass the clump, but that's what your frontline is for. Move it up when you're feeling confident and close on the enemy, who by now should be badly hurt. Add more AoE buffs to the equation for your LL/Damsel/Grail Guardian squad as you get them from your skill trees.

If the Fae Enchantress has enough movement points, run her into the other army. It should be mostly Ungors, so it'll be a walk in the park. If she doesn't, try and get her within reinforcement range and then make your new generic Lord run into that army. If he's not necessary in that regard, have him start scouting the ocean. A preliminary peek at the oceans north of you should reveal at least a few oceanic ruins. Prioritize Skull Reefs, as they grant 10,000 gold and a magic item when you ram into them. Other nifty benefits include a 30% reduction on building construction costs and 10% additional income from buildings for 5 or so turns, 1,500 gold and a campaign buff (when presented a choice, your seafaring lords rarely need combat buffs, as they will die to any naval army larger than them), and the second-place 5,000 gold (Sea Corpse).

From here, I'd suggest holding off on acquiring a second seafaring lord, as you will need to raise a temporary army for the rebellions and potential invaders in your home province. But more on the latter later.

Oh, and go get the auxiliary building to the industry/farming building you made in Castle Carcassonne. Money doesn't grow on trees, after all!

Turn 3 to However Long It Takes: It's Like Civ5 With Ancient Ruins But You're More French

Get the Fae Enchantress and her 17 followers onto a boat and head to Zandri, which should be directly south of the Border Princes' capital. Send your generic lord north navally. Along the way, you'll meet a lot of people.

• Southern Realms are willing to trade almost immediately, especially the Diplomatic ones. No reason not to, and you can cancel these agreements after 10 turns; you're not coming back here anytime soon, so don't worry about it. Making some progress in befriending them also means you can use them a bit like Waaaghs by giving them a target they may someday move to attack.
  
• Bretonnians, oddly, can be a little slow to warm up to you, despite being another Bretonnian.
  
• The Empire seems similar in its trading to Bretonnia, except for the fact that Karl Franz will probably give you a deal right off the bat.
  
• High Elves are a bit of a mixed bag. You start at war with Yvresse for some reason, so anyone friendly with them is immediately pushed under the threshold (at least initially) for them to be friendly towards you. However, the base -15 aversion is not enough to deter most High Elves from trading with you, so that's nice.
  
• Dark Elves may trade with you after you sign a non-aggression pact with them, but I wouldn't recommend this unless they'll never make contact with other, more important port factions (i.e.: Dark Elves that are situated really far north should be your only Dark Elf trade partners). Morathi's a no-no, as is the Scourge of Khaine.

Keep improving your economy in Carcassonne, prioritizing the salt in Brionne once the settlement hits tier III. When Castle Carcassonne hits tier III, you have a few choices: dyes, hostel, or the wonder there. Pick whatever fits the current situation best. From here on, everything's more of a suggestion than a rule.

Alternative Starting Moves

Regalia of Estalia

Note: If using Crynsos' Faction Unlocker+, Morghur the Shadowgave is the Beastmen faction that starts near Estalia, and they start on the southern tip of Carcassonne's land. They will not behave the same way and are not reliable in killing Estalia. If using Cataph's Southern Realms as well, you can forget about taking Estalia in the early game. Only follow this plan if you're not using these two mods.

If you plan to take Estalia, you’ll have to kill the Beastmen tribes there as well. Weigh their current usefulness in destroying Estalian assets against the rising Chaos corruption in the region and the threat they will pose when you acquire Estalia.

At this early stage, you can decide to replace the Fae Enchantress temporarily with another lord in order to get the Fear trait from defeating Khazrak One-Eye (with the Fae Enchantress already causing Fear from the start, it ends up being a wasted trait for her). "Replacing" may not be the best option unless you plan to disband the Grail Guardians you start with though; hiring a new lord and then transferring the peasantry to them will allow you to afford all your starting units while at the same time getting the Fear-inducing trait.

When it comes to taking Estalia, the Beastmen will follow a certain pattern:

• Turn 1: Destroy Tolbaro.
  
• Turn 2: Move towards Bilbali.
  
• Turn 3: Destroy Bilbali.
  
• Turn 4: Raid Magritta.
  
• Turn 5: Siege Magritta.
  
• Turn ?: Complete siege, destroy Magritta.

You can choose to bypass the Beastmen to begin with to settle Tolbaro and Bilbali; the more units in an army, the cheaper the settlement. Keep in mind that once you settle a ruin, you will lose a good portion of your troops, who will be the initial population in the settlement. Side note: the ruins of Magritta do not provide walls until it's upgraded from ruins to a hamlet (tier 1 settlement).

Pros to settling before killing Beastmen:

• Reduce Chaos corruption from Beastmen edifices in ruins
  
• Guaranteed to beat Clan Skryre to the settlements, who will recruit until they have an inordinate amount of units for no particular reason
  
• Free real estate

Cons to settling before killing Beastmen:

• Beastmen can turn on you when you're weak
  
• Rebellions can occur (don't tax until you've at least built one dock)
  
• Skaven can decide it's their land and you can't tell until you've poked it

Going to war with the Beastmen right off the bat gives you a guaranteed shot at the Beastscourge trait on your own terms, but means you'll have to fight the surviving remainder of Estalia. Getting close to Magritta, friendly or no, also makes their lord garrison into Magritta, so it's difficult to catch him unawares.

Ork Cork

This is pretty straightforward. You start with military access with the Talsyn, so just head northeast, then follow the path south to the Broken Nose settlement Kharak Bhufdar. It'll be tough, but you can manage. Throw the commandment "Venerate the Lady" on the province of Carcassonne to counteract the negative public order. That commandment will be your best friend in corrupted provinces, so keep it in mind. Alternatively, use the rebellions as a source of levels for a newly-recruited lord in that province.

FInal Destination: REBEL SCUM

-10 public order for multiple turns can also be read as "free farmable XP". You can take Estalia (or at least Tobaro and Bilbali, saving Magritta for later), Chaos-corrupted as it is, and let the Estalian rebels roll in while also making sure Castle Carcassonne doesn't fall. This isn't really ideal, as you stagnate for a while, but as long as you have a lord sailing about, running their ship into ocean ruins, you should be fine, and your lords will go into Araby with the skills to pay the bills. Pro tip: the Skull Reef is a guaranteed 10K gold, plus a follower or item! That's lods of emone!

Act II: Dealing with the Dead

A Quick Word on the Knights of Origo

You can make deals with them. You have base +10 affinity with them. Yet these hyperaggressive island dwellers can and will declare war on you.

For some reason.

Therefore, making deals (especially alliances) with the Knights of Origo isn't a good idea. They will drag you into their protracted conflicts with their other Bretonnian neighbors, and it won't be pretty for your chivalry.

Also, the Beastmen are probably torturing Thegan's Errantry, the Knights of Origo's next-door neighbors. Might want to stomp that out those goats, too.

How to Fight Egyptians

Straight off the boat in Zandri, you'll notice that Khemri is right next to you. Without having a fullstack, it may not be ideal to mess with Settra immediately. The Rakaph Dynasty, on the other hand, is much more desirable with its Great Desert of Araby properties. However, unless your odds aren't very good, I'd recommend autoresolving with the Tomb Kings. Why? Well, let's get down into the nitty-gritty of it.

Your front line will probably be fine. Tomb King trash is exactly that, and this early on it's probably what most of their stacks are composed of. In addition, using the strategy from earlier to clump them around your strongest units makes for easy artillery targets. Your archers will outshoot theirs, and while chariots may be cause for concern, you have enough bodies to just surround and slaughter them once they're stuck in.

The real problem will be your backline. Not because the AI is using their chariots to flank you, no. Not because they're using stalk (though their snake riders have that, I guess). Nah. They'll spawn a unit of Ushabti right on your trebuchet as a parting gift. Your front line is (mostly) replaceable, especially once you can start recruiting Battle Pilgrims (highly recommended for Fae Enchantress's army) or Men-At-Arms with maces. That trebuchet's tier V, though. Bog the Ushabti down with your Peasant Mobs or leave the Spearmen-At-Arms back with the trebuchet; either way, you're cutting down on your front line to deal with that.

Slay Grails Are A-Ringin'

The Vault of Nagash, a monument that gives +20 vampiric corruption as well as a slew of useful benefits, can be built in the settlement “Black Pyramid of Nagash”. However, that means that you'll be dealing with +20 vampiric corruption there. This isn't that hard to handle, though: your Untainted-producing building, the Grail Shrine, radiates Untainted into adjacent provinces, as well as providing a veritable cornucopia of boons, the most notable being a garrison of two Battle Pilgrims. Once upgraded to a Grail Chapel, you can recruit those Battle Pilgrims and Damsels as well; the Fae Enchantress has special buffs for these units. Consider buildilng Grail Shrines in minor settlements if they're in partly contested areas or are bordering the Black Pyramid of Nagash's province.

Handling France

All while you're on another continent playing in the sand, you should be confederating and watching for the Red Duke. Taking Mousillon is something you're gonna have to do; from my experience the AI are content holding the line or dying to them. Parravon is an easy confederation target and has pastures, allowing you to hire cavalry at a discount. This cavalry division could kill the Red Duke if you're lucky and can at least be sent to aid in the south. Also, until you tell him to stop, Louen will be raiding, sacking, and ransoming up north in Norscan territory because he starts at war with Skaeling. Stop him from doing that, either by confederating or giving him an irrelevant war goal (like the High Elves you start at war with), ASAP. Keep in mind that each dukedom you confederate will come with a Legendary Lord, so be sure to look over their special skills and tailor your build of them accordingly. Bohemond Beastslayer is a lord/monster-killer, Chilfroy de Artois leads archers, and Cassyon d'Parravon buffs Pegasus Knights.

Lustria Expansion

Assuming you've come into some money while saililng the seas, you may want to consider starting a venture in Lustria. As you sail south past the west coast of Ulthuan, you'll notice a coastal habitable climate in ruins called "Monument of the Moon". It has a dock and no special resources, so you can just tack a farm on there and use it to churn out Men-At-Arms (Longbows). I find these archer units do particularly well paired with a standard Lord (preferably on horseback) when fighting the Savage Orcs nearby, the Blue Vipers. Staggered lines and angled flanks make it viable (though by no means ideal) to use a purely archer army. Uniting that province will take time, but can be achieved with just one army, assuming the Orcs are out and about picking fights with all the much more entrenched powers nearby. It's your call whether you want to trade with the New World Colonies or Hexoatl; they start opposed to each other due to El Cadavo's rudeness to many living things. I'm planning to trade with neither and wipe both off the map at some point.

Return to Grand Sand Land

Back to the southern front. After taking the province with the Black Tower of Arkhan (Great Desert of Araby) and the province with Khemri (Land of the Dead), the local Tomb Kings should be at least disorganized. At this point, a few things can happen:

• After watching you slay their kin, the other Tomb Kings that can see you declare war on you. Keep in mind that killing other Tomb Kings actually pleases The Sentinels, so that can help you delay that front for a while.
  
• Other powers start declaring war on you because you're becoming a world power. You probably can't take their land and inhabit it, but you can at least defend and get some money from the peace treaty. You can also send allies to occupy them in their own lands.

Act III: Chaos Wants Your Bread

Concerning Chaos and Other Headaches

Soon after picking one of these options, your power will be sufficient to make Chaos show up. They spawn between El-Kalabad and the Black Tower of Arkhan, off the coast of Mousillon, and over by where the Knights of the Flame are/used to be. Raise armies in these locations when the event occurs; use the Extensive Patrols commandment for the second turn of recruiting, but don’t wait for it to activate if you haven’t turned it on there already. Since Bretonnia doesn't have the upkeep percent increase per army, you can raise as many as you need to without fear of (exponential) economic repercussion. If you can't afford armies, make sure you don't have peasant units at full capacity, because otherwise losing settlements will debuff your farming economy greatly. Insure your waterfront properties as well; Chaos will bypass heavily fortified settlements for less-defended ports.

Fighting the various forces of Chaos gives you a significant diplomatic boost with other factions. If there's any deals you need to make (e.g.: you haven't confederated all the Bretonnians yet) then this is a good opportunity. You can also make unusual deals; in one game I ended up forming a military alliance with the Top Knotz as Carcassonne. Ah yes, the oft-spoken of friendship between Mash One-Finger and the Fae Enchantress.

Kislev Is People, and People Is Bretonnia

Around this time, if you made friends with the Empire and its subfactions (or took all their property), you'll see that they're getting hit by the Vampire Counts/Von Carstein and Chaos. Kislev is dwindling and there's a lot of land being taken by the Varg or Skaeling in their former properties. This, too, provides an opportunity. With military access, or simply sailing up to the affected provinces, you can begin taking more land and gaining rep with the world in the process. Erengrad, located on the eastmost shores of the sea between the Empire and the Norscans, has a special port that operates like the one in Bordeleaux, and Kislev itself has the Bokha Palace monument that provides +2 lord recruit rank, +10 control, and +50% income from all buildings in that province. Once you've taken some of these Norscan-occupied territories, you'll need to purify and defend them from pesky raiders. Hire a lord or two to quell rebellions and raise public order, as well as restore Untainted.

Rats, and What's Next?

Once you’ve stemmed the tide of Chaos (or during if you can afford to send a lord away from the Chaos front), you can turn your attention to Clan Mors. Some of their land, including the capital, will not be habitable for you, but that’s okay. Taking his capital gives you carved obsidian, a resource you’re unlikely to have elsewhere. As for any Orkish wasteland settlements he’s taken, raze ‘em.

This is as far as I’ve gotten. War with the Empire is very profitable; you can pave your way to Kislev in blood. Going across the mountain range where Clan Mors is headquartered gives you more Tomb Kings to fight.

Eventually, you'll get your Errantry War quest. You'll want to pick the Orks if your armies are mostly concentrated in Araby and Chaos if your armies are mostly in the Empire or Kislev.

Miscellaneous Hints

Initial Impressions of the Tomb Kings Update

• While your peasants are softcapped at 15 to start with, you can technically exceed this for a short time without breaking the bank, though you will be losing money until you can reverse that horrendous farming economy debuff.
  
• With the new tech Support Religious Errantry, diplomatic solutions are even more reasonable with the Arabyan Bretonnian factions.
  
• Ruinous Powers Decree is now gated behind the anti-Norscan decrees, so be sure to nab that before the first Chaos invasions show up. If they catch you off-guard, it may not be worth it to take three techs for the benefit of one, and instead choose a more general, new military tech like...
  
• Professional Fletchers! I want to get this one as early as I reasonably can because it just looks so helpful for early trash compositions and later reserve defenses. It's also in close proximity with the buff to your primary anti-large and anti-armor infantry (MAA w/ Polearms) and the fantastic, recently-buffed trebuchets.

How to Learn Good

In terms of research, confederation is always important. Researching at least how to confederate Couronne is a good idea, and lets you take Parravon along the way. The chivalry bonuses will pad against any negative traits you get for fighting the Knights of Origo or raiding. The technology that provides an additional peasant unit per settlement owned, Water Pumps, is also a huge priority and may be worth researching even before confederating Bordeleaux.

How to Build Good

Bretonnian buildings are a bit tricky. Their economy works best when you use two buildings for it, the farm/industry building and their respective auxiliary building. You can only fully upgrade one economic building tree at once in vanilla, as the tier III farm gives -100% income to industry buildings in its region and vice versa. SFO does away with this restriction, allowing you to convert provinces with no clear unit production bonus into purely economic provinces. I often do this with Carcassonne. Minor settlements with a special resource that you want to dedicate to economy will have all their building slots filled by economy buildings, with no room for anything else. To offset this weakness, Bretonnian minor settlements receive walls at tier III by default, and their auxiliary buildings offer certain bonuses beyond increasing income from the economy building they're tied to. Farm auxiliaries offer growth both in that province and the provinces next to it. Industry auxiliaries provide more local benefits, including increased siege duration and increased movement for armies starting in that region. Both farm and industry auxiliaries provide +1/+2 local recruitment capacity, meaning that a four-settlement province can have ridiculously high local recruitment capacity with economy in each settlement (+10), a blacksmith in the province capital (+1), research (+2), and the recruitment commandment (+2).

When building in a minor settlement with docks and a special resource like Bilbali in Estalia, it's best to build the resource and a defensive building instead. Building just economy would make it impossible to harvest the resource, all the military buildings go to at least tier IV, and extra defenses are always helpful. Grail Chapels are a good pick even if corruption is not currently present, as it eventually will be with the Chaos event. Alternatively, you can build a Tap Room/Tavern in it to spread happiness.

Industry is generally a better pick for when you're scraping the barrel for peasant soldiers, as the economic debuff from overhiring peasantry only applies to farmland. Farmland is better in most other occasions; it provides recruitment, a sizable archer garrison that works well with the automatic walls you receive, and the Fae Enchantress in SFO gets an additional 10% bonus to farming income. Having a frontline farm can be beneficial because it allows recruitment of Peasant Mobs, Peasant Bowmen, and Men-At-Arms (Longbows), who can be used to reinforce existing armies that have lost units or for new reserve armies.

A Word On Trash Units

Peasant Mobs aren’t that bad early on. Their purpose is to hold a line while your archers bombard and your cavalry harass. They also only require one economy building to be built, making them very accessible; expendable armies can be constructed using 60% archers and 40% frontliners, including your lord and his/her valiant Peasant Mobs. Against cavalry and especially chariots, their loose formations can get them in trouble, as the average horseman or chariot can outfight a lump of peasants. This formation is also shared by the Battle Pilgrims when you get later in your playthrough. Support the Peasant Mobs that catch cavalry with concentrated fire, buffing magic, or your lord's assistance.

A Word On Slightly Less Trash Units

Low-tier Tomb Kings aren't that heavily armored. Low-tier Skaven armies also have such a vulnerability to concentrated fire. For this reason, as long as you have a solid enough front line, Peasant Bowmen will shred most lightly-armored units when used en masse. Later on, you can start introducing Field Trebuchets and their Blessed variant as well, or for lords who already specced into buffing archers via the red tree, Men-At-Arms (Longbows). Note that if you need to pick a fight with Lizardmen, most of their units possess the trait "Scaly Skin" that confers missile resistance, making this strategy far less effective against reptilian forces.

BAE ENCHANTRESS

The Fae Enchantress’s campaign skill tree has "Gifted Beginnings", available after researching +10% movement on campaign map and four skills in the first tier that gives her Untainted +4, among some other bonuses for Damsels. This isn't quite as important now that Araby isn't infested with vampiric undead, but it's still a nice skill to have when you're recruiting Damsels. In battle, the Fae Enchantress gets special bonuses for Battle Pilgrims, Grail Reliquaes (a bit redundant if you're using Battle Pilgrims, honestly), and Grail Vow knights. Personally, she uses Life magic, of which you'll be using Earth Blood a lot on friendly unit clumps to keep them alive longer. The Tomb Kings update also added some extra skills to her tree that unlock at level 10. One gives a hefty amount of Ward Save to all Prophetesses and Damsels, who could always use an extra hand with survivability.

How to Avoid Procrastinating

Don't garrison your lords in settlements that don't have Grail Shrines! You can get the negative trait "Procrastinator" which reduces campaign movement, increases enemy hero success chances against that army, and deducts chivalry. That being said, settlements that do have Grail Shrines have a chance of giving the trait "Devoted", which augments the lord's name with "the Devoted" and gives them chivalry as well as +5 leadership for self and +3 Untainted.

Resources Along the Way

There are some resources of note in the regions on your warpath:

• Bilbali, Estalia: Wine
  
• Magritta, Estalia: Iron
  
• Al Haikk, Coast of Araby: Salt
  
• Copher, Coast of Araby: Spices
  
• Lashiek, Land of Assassins: Pottery
  
• Martek, Atalan Mountains: Iron
  
• Eye of the Panther, Atalan Mountains: Gems
  
• El-Kalabad, Great Desert of Araby: Dyes
  
• Bel Aliad, Great Desert of Araby: Gold
  
• Zandri, Land of the Dead: Pottery
  
• Khemri, Land of the Dead: Gold
  
• Springs of Eternal Life, Ash River: Marble
  
• Karag Orrud, Charnel Valley: Carved Obsidian
  
• Mahrak, Devil's Backbone: Iron
  
• Lahmia, Devil's Backbone: Gems
  
• Lybaras, Devil's Backbone: Spices
  
• Doom Glade, Crater of the Walking Dead: Timber

Be sure to construct your recruitment buildings accordingly when building near a resource that offers unit discounts! Trebuchets, for example, get a discount if built in a province with timber, and exotic animals discount pegasus and hippogryph knights.

glhf

Thanks for reading! This started as a response in the forum before I realized it had become far too long to actually be relevant.

Please rate the guide! This helps others get a feel for how well-received it is and lets me know if I need to improve my work. As of right now, this is still a work in progress I intend to update to the completion of my campaigns with possible war goals and objectives.

Got any other hints for Bretonnians? Comment them! I might just add them, and if I do, I'll credit you for your feedback.

[OMG My Profile Name Does Not Fi]

Yes was an interesting guide with some general tips still helpful - shame it hasn't been updated after the latest changes.

[𓆚 standardheadache 𓆚]

Glad I could help! Bretonnia is a little obtuse at first, but think of it like you're playing a faction based purely on flavor text.

[Jeff]

very nice guide, thank you for writing this.
I've been meaning to play a brettonian faction but didn't know how so this'll help a lot