Suggestions of how to play Teuctonic Order in 1444.

[Dron22]

I am thinking of playing as Teuctonic Order as my next game. To later form Prussia and eventually a unified Germany. I tried playing it a bit before, and usually the early problem is surviving against Poland and Lithuania. Who should I ally with? What ideas should I pick as first 3? Will I need to pick Quantity to have decent manpower? I prefer to avoid getting the Quantity idea, as I rely on mercenaries to siege provinces in war to save manpower.

 

[Santoes]

If you're forming Prussia why not just play Brandenburg?

As for strategies you want to ally Austria and join the HRE. There's a little trick to speeding up your reputation, basically you want to stop reputation at the first of the month and renew it as soon as you can. You'll get an alliance quicker that way. Proclaim guarantee, and ask for military access to top off the reputation and join the HRE. After that just follow the flow of the game. Key strategy for any theocracy is to always save you military points by making your leader a general, unless of course he has some awesome stats.

Ideas for prussia are usually diplomacy, and then a bunch of military. You can't really go wrong with that.
For Teutonic order I'd get about the same with the only difference being I wouldn't bother switching religions, and wouldn't get religion or humanist ideas as that is covered in the NI.

 

[darthfanta]

Yeah,join the reich.

 

[Rain Envy]

TO is actually very easy and better to form Prussia. You need to understand diplomacy to really get the best out of it. Improve relations with Austria and join the HRE. Get alliances with the LO, Sweden (or Denmark) and Bohemia. That should be enough to hold off Poland. Later down the line you can look for a Russian ally and the Hansa. You want to cozy up with regional powers just to keep Poland Expansion locked. Do some minor expansion into the HRE and once you get some techs it will be easy to crush Poland + Lith.

 

[justin6477]

So, the best strategy as the Teutonic Order is usually to ally whoever you can and get them in a war with Poland ASAP. Your primary focus isn't to necessarily mug something off of Poland, but to stop them from forming the union. Nabbing Poznan and maybe something else would be an excellent victory, but your primary focus is to definitely stop Poland and Lithuania from turning into an early-game mega-power.

Another alternative to forming Germany is to just go all Drang nach Osten and extend to the Urals, ignoring Germany proper entirely. As the Teutonic Order, your ideas are pretty well suited for converting the Eastern Slavs and Western Uralics to Catholicism and then the Protestant branch of your choice. You'll definitely want religious ideas to help pull this off, but Teutonic ideas are definitely important. Then, as European (P)russia, devastate everyone with your superior combat ability and sky-high manpower.

I recommend doing both types of games.

 

[Barón Rojo]

Get some provinces in Perm and start colonizing Siberia.

 

[Mztr44]

The main challenge for the Teutonic Order is surviving the initial war that Poland will bring to you within the first 3-5 years. If you can get Austria in time, great, but Bohemia and Hungary are usually fairly easy to get very quickly since they share borders and often pick rivalries with Poland. Depending on Hungary's decisions it may still have the incredible Janos Hunyadi(4/4/4) as a general and as long as you stick with or near his troops you should be ok. If it's not Poland, it might be Denmark as well and if you start losing, you could see Pomerania and Brandenburg jump in. If you make it through that first war, an easy first step to expand is to vassalize the Livonian Order. Poland will already be pissed at you, Muscovy will still be busy with Novgorod and not care. Sweden will hate your guts if they break out of the Kalmar Union. If you can follow that up with a well timed vassalization of Pomerania, after annexing you will have a decently strong hold on the Baltic and you should be doing everything you can to dismantle the union between Poland and Lithuania. Take anything you can from Poland before it gets the increased coring cost. Anything you want to do after that.

 

[_megafone_]

Some extra pointers:

First, I like supporting Sweden's independence on day 1. It is VERY easy to win the war, as you can just block the straight and stop the Danish forces from engaging, and, once freed, Sweden's high-powered army is very handy in beating Poland in the first war (not only the AI now actually use transports, but Novgorod also usually supports Sweden, so they'll have access to you either way). You don't get many easy allies early, and Sweden is a powerful one.

Second, as most people pointed out, you should attack Poland before it gets the PU with Lithuania, and drag this war as long as needed for it to get a king, which will make the PU threat disappear. Also, don't stop hitting Poland over and over until you have ALL Polish culture provinces; it gets accepted pretty early so the provinces are very powerful, and if you don't finish up the job quickly, they WILL get Aristocratic Ideas and this plus their high basetax will make their lands really painful to core.

Third, if you can, get into an alliance with France after you form Prussia; you will inevitably clash with your old pal Austria, and you can end up really lonely then. Of course, if you're a big enough Prussia you can beat everyone at the same time, but you'd rather not do so, and your interests don't really clash with the French for a very, very long time.

Here is my current run, pretty close to forming Germany, and blobbed all over the Baltic. I got two really long regencies AND a Peasants' War, which slowed me down a lot; if not, I'd have formed the reich already. (red stuff on my southeast is Galicia-Volhynia, which I turned into a March for the Marshy March achievement. It got Divine Ideas though, and so makes for a really decent march anyway - all those defensive bonuses stack up heh)

I actually didn't ally France in this run, and it will slow me down even further as I creep closer to Austrian territory. Oh, well

http://i.imgur.com/WQ1Sc2B.jpg

 

[Shimohi]

Ally Austria, don't take any provinces til you joined the HRE and enjoy your safety and destroy everything in the east.

 

[Dron22]

Why join the HRE if I plan to form Germany at some point? Also I will probably be taking territory from Pommerania and Branderburg, is still a good idea to be part of the HRE?

 

[hauptman]

If you do not join the HRE it becomes very difficult to take land within the HRE. As you have to fight Austria and it's 9 allies/vassals even if you only want to take Saxe-Lauburg or some other chump OPM with no allies. Austria will always defend the empire from outsiders, unless austria is currently getting mangled bt france/burgundy.

This is the main reason Brandenburg, with it's tinier start, is an easier game. They are already Imperial, and an elector at that. Gain Emperorship that much easier. The emperor never gets "unlawful territory" penalties. Not to mention the extra diplomat, general, relation slot, 15%tax increase, and manpower/forcelimits.

Once you pass the 4th reform, vassalize/annex all electors and eat the empire from the inside. Make sure you are the only elector (or have the last elector vassalized) and you'll never loose the title. You do not want to pass any more reforms after the 4th of course.

 

[marat271]

I am thinking of playing as Teuctonic Order as my next game. To later form Prussia and eventually a unified Germany. I tried playing it a bit before, and usually the early problem is surviving against Poland and Lithuania. Who should I ally with? What ideas should I pick as first 3? Will I need to pick Quantity to have decent manpower? I prefer to avoid getting the Quantity idea, as I rely on mercenaries to siege provinces in war to save manpower.

1: Form Prussia
2: ???
3: World Conquest

 

[ErikHeinrichs]

If you do not join the HRE it becomes very difficult to take land within the HRE. As you have to fight Austria and it's 9 allies/vassals even if you only want to take Saxe-Lauburg or some other chump OPM with no allies. Austria will always defend the empire from outsiders, unless austria is currently getting mangled bt france/burgundy.

This is the main reason Brandenburg, with it's tinier start, is an easier game. They are already Imperial, and an elector at that. Gain Emperorship that much easier. The emperor never gets "unlawful territory" penalties. Not to mention the extra diplomat, general, relation slot, 15%tax increase, and manpower/forcelimits.

Once you pass the 4th reform, vassalize/annex all electors and eat the empire from the inside. Make sure you are the only elector (or have the last elector vassalized) and you'll never loose the title. You do not want to pass any more reforms after the 4th of course.

I just tried TO. I was member of HRE after just a few years as Austrias opinion isn't hard to get to +186 to be able to add Marienburg to HRE. Without a diplo guy i allied them within an year of game start. So i would say that TO is by far better to start as compared to Brandenburg. Even kicked the possible future "problem" Russias teeth in. Next war they are extinct.

To OP:
What i did was to actually first attack Livonion order to vassalize both Riga and them and take Narva for myself so i can make claim on Novgorod to conquer their ports before Muscowy does that so they wouldn't pick exploration. After second war (Novgorod) i vassalized Pomerania that had taken Mecklenburg in previous war. Coalition of Bohemia, Denmark with subjects and PLC formed. But they didn't attack me until i was at war with Muscowy and basicly zero manpower and 50-70% mercs. But i conceded defeat to the coalition war (Denmark started it) after just a few years of war as Austria was destroying everything for me.

 

[DicRoNero]

Another alternative to forming Germany is to just go all Drang nach Osten and extend to the Urals, ignoring Germany proper entirely. As the Teutonic Order, your ideas are pretty well suited for converting the Eastern Slavs and Western Uralics to Catholicism and then the Protestant branch of your choice. You'll definitely want religious ideas to help pull this off, but Teutonic ideas are definitely important. Then, as European (P)russia, devastate everyone with your superior combat ability and sky-high manpower.

Yeah, TO is super good to form Russia with. I will definitely play a full campaign with TO start once they give some love to theocracy goverment type, since atm sticking to it is kinda meh.