Can one actually win the Hundred Years War as England now?

[Aldrahill]

Hi all,

I have reloaded this game likely 20 times now. There is simply no way to win against France as England in the Hundred Years War at game start.

They have SO MANY more troops, they seem really reactive to wherever you land your troops and it's basically seemingly impossible to just get them to fight you on your terms.

And yet, I still read so many success stories! How do you guys manage it?

I've now given up on getting France into a PU, or even winning, and just hoping I can get enough Warscore to peace out with only giving Calais and revoking a core.

Any advice anyone?

 

[HansBaer]

Easy: Use your ships. Build some cogs, load and unload your troops on your SOUTHERN possessions (where you can see enough) to kill the siege stacks. Do this long enough and you have won.
You can vassalize Scotland while you do that, so you become much more powerful.

 

[Xara]

You scorch earth on your province, bait their doomstack into walking onto it, swap between the north and west coasts, viking-land on their tiny siege stacks, keep their coastline blockaded, and exhaust their manpower while losing very little of your own. Should take 5+ years, less if they start suffering revolts or if someone else attacks them. What's the trouble?

-and if you're not gonna win, you might as well just cede them everything immediately so you can get your stab boost event and go hit scotland

 

[rayyuri]

Get the vassalize Scotland mission, evacuate your troops at France, kill all Scotland army and start sieging every province. The remaining troops are like 15-20k.

Get 15k troops with a high shock general on ships, whenever France are sieging with less than 5k troops, park your ships there and your troops will automatically be unloaded and attack. Slow down your game speed and you should be able to kill all France troops before any French reinforcements, even they are at the province next to the one you are attacking. Get your troops back to the ship and evacuate.

After a while, you will be able to vassalize Scotland. This will make your monthly income positive. Keep killing French troops and use scorched earth if you want. Once you have 30%-50% more troops than France, start the final attack and win.

Tried this in 1.3.

 

[Aldrahill]

Easy: Use your ships. Build some cogs, load and unload your troops on your SOUTHERN possessions (where you can see enough) to kill the siege stacks. Do this long enough and you have won.
You can vassalize Scotland while you do that, so you become much more powerful.

What? They just murder you. If I tried to load my armies onto cogs to go down to my southern provinces, they'd just rape them with their 30k doomstack.

How does one vassalize Scotland?! They have armies! England simply doesn't start with the men necessary to do that.

 

[HansBaer]

The England i play with has enough troops to outright kill all Scots, position a stack on the highlands for the inevitable army spawn there. Use scorched earth, lure the doom stack north by recruiting a merc in Calais or unload 1 soldier in the North. While the doomstack goes north, kill their siege stacks. Repeat.
Remember, time is on your side in this war. They can't cause you too much WE, but you can cripple them pretty badly just by a 100% blockade.
And don't forget Portugal.

 

[Xara]

What? They just murder you. If I tried to load my armies onto cogs to go down to my southern provinces, they'd just rape them with their 30k doomstack.

How does one vassalize Scotland?! They have armies! England simply doesn't start with the men necessary to do that.

You're not supposed to actually fight the doomstack. Use your own stack to kill the sieging regiments of 3 french/vassal armies while the doomstack is at the other area. 3 days before their doomstack arrives, scorch the province, load the troops up, and evacuate them. They will walk onto the scorched province and suffer high attrition, and any siegers that remain behind will continue to take high attrition. Then you swap to the other english province pair. This is why you need a lot of cogs started building asap.

After 5 years or so they will have no manpower left and their stack will dwindle to the point that you can kill it. Then you can use some mercs to siege Ile, with your regulars ready to jump in , or run around and carpet siege , or patrol for new regimetns to kill.

 

[grisamentum]

What? They just murder you. If I tried to load my armies onto cogs to go down to my southern provinces, they'd just rape them with their 30k doomstack.

Ok, ease up. Your posts sound like you're freaking out and talking about "rape" and "doomstacks" when it's really a pretty simple matter of fighting a slightly numerical foe in a video game. Relax, take a deep breath.

1. evacuate all your troops to England, starting with the ones in Normandy, then the ones in the south.

2. wait for the French armies to spread out. they'll try to siege all your provinces in France.

3. when they do, watch where the big remainder stack is.

4. land your troops to attack their siege stacks.

5. once you kill a couple siege stacks this way, get ready to attack their main stack by landing your main stack in northern france and ferrying all your troops over.

6. once the battle is joined, KEEP BUYING MERCENARIES. feed them in to the battle as reinforcements.

7. make sure you were using the best generals in the fights.

 

[TheBloke]

One can, especially if one has a look through the forum and finds and studies this excellent thread: The Hundered Years War, England 1.3

 

[Aldrahill]

Ok, ease up. Your posts sound like you're freaking out and talking about "rape" and "doomstacks" when it's really a pretty simple matter of fighting a slightly numerical foe in a video game. Relax, take a deep breath.

1. evacuate all your troops to England, starting with the ones in Normandy, then the ones in the south.

2. wait for the French armies to spread out. they'll try to siege all your provinces in France.

3. when they do, watch where the big remainder stack is.

4. land your troops to attack their siege stacks.

5. once you kill a couple siege stacks this way, get ready to attack their main stack by landing your main stack in northern france and ferrying all your troops over.

6. once the battle is joined, KEEP BUYING MERCENARIES. feed them in to the battle as reinforcements.

7. make sure you were using the best generals in the fights.

Dude, I'm fine There's no need top be condescending on a forum, I was just adding a touch of humour to the post.

Wouldn't this leave you with basically no money though? I was interested by a previous posters idea or declaring war on Scotland soon after the start, and only using the forces evacuated from France as a Siege squashier force.

 

[ero_sk]

You're not supposed to actually fight the doomstack. Use your own stack to kill the sieging regiments of 3 french/vassal armies while the doomstack is at the other area. 3 days before their doomstack arrives, scorch the province, load the troops up, and evacuate them. They will walk onto the scorched province and suffer high attrition, and any siegers that remain behind will continue to take high attrition. Then you swap to the other english province pair. This is why you need a lot of cogs started building asap.

Following this idea- do you recruit more regiments? Do you go over maintenance limit?

 

[Xara]

Following this idea- do you recruit more regiments? Do you go over maintenance limit?

No, in fact I always delete some of the cavalry.

 

[Parallel Pain]

HYW is winnable with no need to build additional troops/ships (no need to disband any either)

And you can win it with 300g and 10k+ manpower at the end. No loans and no mercs needed.

 

[hwoosh]

There's no need top be condescending on a forum, I was just adding a touch of humour to the post.

Rape is not funny.

 

[grisamentum]

Dude, I'm fine There's no need top be condescending on a forum, I was just adding a touch of humour to the post.

"Rape" as a metaphor for losing in a videogame isn't a joke.

Wouldn't this leave you with basically no money though? I was interested by a previous posters idea or declaring war on Scotland soon after the start, and only using the forces evacuated from France as a Siege squashier force.

Of course it leaves you with no money. You're fighting a war for the kingdom of France. You should spend every last penny if it'll help. You should expect to come out of the war with as much as 10-15 loans. If you didn't take on huge loans and you lost then you weren't really trying to win.

The Scotland advice is ridiculous. Scotland will be there later. A war to enforce a PU on France is quite rare and vastly more important and the war is quite winnable within a few years.

 

[ero_sk]

It's funny though. I always thought that I'm not a bad EU player but when I tried to win HYW I faced the wall. Mabe because I couldn't bother finding golden rule

 

[HansBaer]

Dude, I'm fine There's no need top be condescending on a forum, I was just adding a touch of humour to the post.

Wouldn't this leave you with basically no money though? I was interested by a previous posters idea or declaring war on Scotland soon after the start, and only using the forces evacuated from France as a Siege squashier force.

It adds a risk to the early game, because something could always go wrong, but the pay off can be worth it (much higher forcelimits, which can save you much money). Basically what you should do to subjugate Scotland fast and simple: Get a bait stack on hilly terrain, e.g. the Highlands, wait for Mel Gibson to attack, bring the rest of you British army in and crush them. The mountain bonus will leave them without a chance. Leave a bigger stack there, wait for the rebels to spawn, siege and vassalize. You don't even need your French forces to do it, certainly makes it easier though.
Definitely not needed to beat the French, but adds some variety to the load / unload tactic.

 

[grisamentum]

Get a bait stack on hilly terrain, e.g. the Highlands, wait for Mel Gibson to attack,

:laugh:

I found this detail amusing

 

[HansBaer]

Yeah, apparently presenting your ass cheeks doesn't win battles after all. Would be a nice NI for Scotland though: "The Wallace: Present your hairy asses to your enemy. +10 % morale boost"

 

[Parallel Pain]

Of course it leaves you with no money. You're fighting a war for the kingdom of France. You should spend every last penny if it'll help. You should expect to come out of the war with as much as 10-15 loans. If you didn't take on huge loans and you lost then you weren't really trying to win.

The Scotland advice is ridiculous. Scotland will be there later. A war to enforce a PU on France is quite rare and vastly more important and the war is quite winnable within a few years.

But you don't need loans to win.

And you can beat Scotland in under 1 year loosing only 3k men, only 1 siege (by you).
After the initial battle (and you might as well fight it since you need to pull all troops back to England), you need no more than the regiments you can't carry on your cog to finish Scotland.
Not to mention fighting Scotland let you call Portugal into the war with France.