The Hundered Years War, England 1.3

[Szybki Ben]

Hello

So the problem I encountered after the realease of the newest patch is... I am unable to beat France in HYW in anyway.
When I decided to launch another game with my somehow favourite nation, I noticed I could get France under PU as a peace offer demand.

I got like, woo hoo! Most epic start of the game since I never saw such chance in previous patches. And there the problem began.

In 1.1 or 1.2 I didn't really have many difficulties beating BBB and their vassals. However, now I noticed that the amount of casualties I suffer is way higher comparing to French.
I tried a lot of diffrent tactics, first was defending on my ground, Gascogne or other province after gathering all available troops for the beginning of the game (37 regiments, forcelimits max).

After getting utterly destroyed few times I figured out "Well, maybe defending in the mountains?"
I did the same thing, gathered all my available troops, started sieging mountainous province to the south and waitied...
To avoid much attriction, 20k stayed on hostile territory, another 17-20k (many times I've tried it, diffrent amount of units) and after battle started I quickly reinforced the defending army.
Most of the time outcome was possitive for me (like 70%) but it didn't give me much advantage. Enemy quickly reinforced and I wasn't able to really chase down their armies and shatter them entirely.

I really tried a lot of tactics, diffrent generals, terrain, even safeholing all my troops on the Isles, waiting for some other nation to declare war on France... nothing ever happened for over 15 years.
Technology level is the same, generals a little in favor of France (4/4 compater to mine 2/4 or 3/3 or 4/2), discipline, morale the same. Even advisors with discipline/morale boost don't help much.

My question is, anyone tried PU'ing France? Anyone succeeded? For over 3 hours of thinging and trying I really couldn't find good tactic allowing me to win this war.

TLDR:
How the hell I vassalise France at the beginning of 1444??? (Wargoal - succession war)

 

[LarryLeica]

Scorch Normandy and Caux and let them siege. You can do a naval landing before the French forces arrive and get out again.

Guyenne provinces are easier to defend as attackers will get river crossing penalties, so concentrate your forces down there and hold while France burns manpower away sieging two scorched provinces.

 

[Szybki Ben]

I've actually made it! Seems like AI gets a little bit confused with armies on two sides of its country. For 2 years I've been playing hide and seek retreating to Calais/Navarra, scorching earth on two provinces (one on the northern and one on the southern border) plus annihilating small sieging stacks when possible. What is interesting, I forgot to dismiss 1/1/1 king from on of the armies and when big decissive battle began, with superior enemy leader French armies lost 8k men during first 3 days of battle.

Anyway, thank You for quick and helpful respone

 

[TheBloke]

I started a new England 1444 game on 1.3 today, and I just won the HYW. Got 87% WS and took France into PU.

However, at the end I had:
- No manpower
- 2.5k normal soldiers left (after destroying all mercs) - I destroyed these too, to save all possible money
- 30 loans outstanding - total interest of 7.5 a month
- An income of only about 2 ducats a month, even after setting Fleet maintenance to lowest (army maintenance was 0 as I had no army left anyway!)

So I won, but it was really at rather a high cost.. I am debating whether to start the game again and try to do better. I've carried on playing for a bit, but mostly it's been on speed 4 not doing anything - for nearly 10 years now - because I have no resources at all. Still 20 loans to pay off..

I already commented on some of the combat I experienced in this post.

It was very, very close - I won two major battles with only 0.02 or 0.03 morale left on my side. But in one of those I was fighting 49k troops with only 41k, so that's not too bad.

Some tips - though bear in mind I only just won and might restart, because I really spent too much getting the win. So other tips might be necessary too! :

1. Get your starting armies off the Continent ASAP - use transports to bring them back to England. You'll need MA from Brittany and probably Navarra + Castille too.
2. Build lots of mercs. I built around 15k mercs at the start, adding that to my starting armies of around 38k.
3. Make sure you have a military adviser who adds +% to discipline or morale.
4. Make doom stacks - I rarely had more than one single stack in france, with up to 45k troops in it. Don't fight in France until you have a stack of 40k+, unless you can see there are lots of little France stacks that you can pick off, in which case 20k could be OK - but be prepared to run!
5. Make sure you put Richard Plantagenet in charge of that stack (he's 2/4/3/0 stats).
6. Blockade both of France's ports - I took Fleet Basing from Castille so I could siege the Langerodoc (sp?) port without any attrition
7. Don't do any sieging until you have won several victories over the French (and vassals), and they have much reduced armies
8. Take Ile De France as your first siege as this gives you the ticking warscore. I sieged it with 40k troops, because I didn't dare break up my stack because any smaller stack would die. Even then, France attacked me, and this was the battle I won with 41k versus their 49k - only just won, so so close.
9. If necessary, consider peacing out before you get the 84% necessary for PU. (Or restart until you get this easily.) I kept going until I got 87%, because I'd already invested so much that if I didn't get that PU, I may as well restart. But a better strategy might have been to win a couple of victories, get to say 12% WS, and then peace out then. I could have done that at far lower cost in loans.

I learnt several of the above tips from the following thread, which I followed the first time I won the HYW back in 1.2.2, and part-followed again today: [1.2] Winning The HYW as England

 

[TheBloke]

I've actually made it! Seems like AI gets a little bit confused with armies on two sides of its country. For 2 years I've been playing hide and seek retreating to Calais/Navarra, scorching earth on two provinces (one on the northern and one on the southern border) plus annihilating small sieging stacks when possible. What is interesting, I forgot to dismiss 1/1/1 king from on of the armies and when big decissive battle began, with superior enemy leader French armies lost 8k men during first 3 days of battle.

Anyway, thank You for quick and helpful respone

hehe, just saw you already won after I posted my long post Oh well, info for others in the future

Those are some good tips, that I didn't use - the 1.2 guide I linked recommended the strategy of fighting alternately in the north then south etc, but I wanted to do it more 'cleanly'. But I suffered big as a result

So did you get the 84+ % WS and the PU? What state is your England in at the end, how many loans, how much army left etc? No doubt better than mine at least

 

[aqvamare]

The saftest way is still the hit and run cog attack and the sorch earth in normady or caux tactic. The patch didn't change anything to it. the -2 malus from amphius assault were already pre 1.3 included when you unload directly your troops in ports.

For money problems, you need only 6 carracks to safelock the french navy, it gives you +3 gold/month. Second, send all your merchant fleet to bordeaux.

My second advice, take your 19 starting units and vassal scot on day one, they are enough to crush scots. it increase your income during war.

 

[Sleight of Hand]

I suppose the question is: is it worth it? I read in the patch notes (may have been for 1.2...) that PUs only continue so long as the junior partner likes you. What is FRA's view of ENG after you win the HYW and force a union on them? How long does it usually last?

 

[Melric]

Is this much different from 1.2 now? In 1.2, I put my northern troops in transports and wait. I typically get 4-5 Merc foot troops and disband about 6-7 troops in England. My southern troops act as bait to bait the French troops into Aragon (they will follow, but only French troops follow) and then I hop over to Castille to lose them. The AI stupidly breaks up its stacks into 3-4 stack armies (also the French break out of the stack when they follow you into Aragon) as it moves around to siege the various provinces. I just land my transports on those stacks, wipe the stack, and then immediately hop back in the transport. That eventually whittles the stacks down until I have clear numeric superiority. Then I bait them into attacking me in a place where I can dump 3X their number on them. Using this process, I can typically take France by 1450 with about 10K remaining manpower and no loans. It is tedious but I have done this several times now. The biggest problem is Burgundy jumping in at the end when France is weak to suck up Champagne. Even if you get a PU with France at this point, Burgundy will still go after France's vassals if you peace out while Burgundy is at war with France.

Also, if you move your navy maintenance slider to zero, France will attack you with its navy. Even at zero, however, you will still win the naval fight.

 

[hwoosh]

I suppose the question is: is it worth it? I read in the patch notes (may have been for 1.2...) that PUs only continue so long as the junior partner likes you. What is FRA's view of ENG after you win the HYW and force a union on them? How long does it usually last?

This should not be a problem.

 

[rekindledflame]

I suppose the question is: is it worth it? I read in the patch notes (may have been for 1.2...) that PUs only continue so long as the junior partner likes you. What is FRA's view of ENG after you win the HYW and force a union on them? How long does it usually last?

This is true but the PU will only break on King's death. For England if you have bad luck this can be a problem as the King can kick the bucket rather early, but realistically it only takes a couple years to get France's relations back into the positive.

 

[Szybki Ben]

Actually, after my well, safe tactic, I had about 12k troops left, 0 manpower and a sum of money around 100 but I had taken 0 loans during the entire war. I must admit I got a little bit lucky because even though War of the Roses fired, I only got 1 revolt which I suppressed after the French got totally beaten.

As I previously said, making AI ping pong their armies from north to south border without engaging his forces has slowly, but continously, depleated his money and manpower. Attriction did its job even on his friendly territiory.
I never had a dooms tack fight, as one fight of 2xk army of mine (27?) was able to withstand his army of 28k while my 9k stationing in Navarra made AI "lock" it with his 16k ish second army. This made a huge diffrence when I defeated the northern army, attacked the 16k from two sides, destoryed it entirely and well, after that it was a piece of cake.

Now I've got year 1522 and anexxed my fellow BBB, ahh it feels GOOD .

As for the French attitude towards England... after you PU them they drop the rival thing so that's automaticlly +50 to relations, so all the negative modifiers are from cassus belli, was at war etc. Just after the war endned, I had merely -43 their opinion of me so that too a little over the year to get above 0.

 

[TheBloke]

Actually, after my well, safe tactic, I had about 12k troops left, 0 manpower and a sum of money around 100 but I had taken 0 loans during the entire war. I must admit I got a little bit lucky because even though War of the Roses fired, I only got 1 revolt which I suppressed after the French got totally beaten.

Wow, that's pretty good going! And in what year did you finish the war? I'm guessing around 1460 if you integrated in 1522? 50 years before you can start integrating, and 10 years or so to integrate? Well maybe at least I beat you on one thing I just finished at beginning of 1449. So total duration about 4.5 years from start of game.

I just did the whole thing again, and was pleased that I got a much better result than the first time. This time I did use the North-South tactic. I also did Scorched Earth, as others have recommended - but I now deeply regret that. I don't get how anyone finds that useful? Starting with England you only have 37 Military Points. So you can scorch one province, and then have to wait a while before you could do a second. But each scorch only lasts 12 months. I found that whatever province I scorched, the enemy ignored it for sieges, and sieged the other three. I did see them taking a bit of 10% attrition now and then, but it was only as they moved through them. If I had enough starting MP, or could build up enough, to scorch all 4, then yeah I could see that'd do some good. But I never got close to that - i think I scorched three times in total, but always it was just one province at a time. So it basically feels like I just wasted 75 MP. And a couple of times it actually bit me in the arse, because I had to move my own troops through a scorched province (e.g. to escape doom stack) and lost 1k or so troops to my own scorched attrition!!

Anyway, doesn't sound like I was as careful as Szybki, but I'm still much more pleased with this second run. I've still taken out 15 loans, but I've got 12k troops left (after killing all mercs), and my gold balance is 140 and I'm making +7/month. Interest is only 3.5 a month, half what it was after my last attempt. So I'll clear those loans fairly quickly.

I'm going to continue this game now, but sometime I'll go start again and see if I can improve yet further - clearly I'm being less cautious than Szybki and not spending enough time wearing the enemy down. I did have several large battles again in this one, though I was generally much more careful than my first go and didn't have any really close ones. I won a 25k v 25k, and a 42k v 28k, and a 31k v 20k. In the rest I heavily outnumbered them, picking off little stacks, e.g. 15k vs 3k or 20k v 9k.

 

[smellymummy]

winning the HYW, 1.3 or whatever patch is still going to be depending a lot on luck on how the rolls turn out in a battle isn't?

no matter how you game it, the decisive event is going to be when you route the french stack and follow and annihilate them, followed by a carpet siege provided you got enough troops to even do this depending on the previous decisive battle or your ability to recruite new regiments or mercs

 

[TheBloke]

winning the HYW, 1.3 or whatever patch is still going to be depending a lot on luck on how the rolls turn out in a battle isn't?

no matter how you game it, the decisive event is going to be when you route the french stack and follow and annihilate them, followed by a carpet siege provided you got enough troops to even do this depending on the previous decisive battle or your ability to recruite new regiments or mercs

Well didn't seem too much so for me in my second game - none of my battles were close. I never fought outnumbered, with the closest in numbers being a 25k v 25k - I can't remember exactly but I imagine that was fighting an enemy with already depleted morale, or maybe I had defensive bonuses. Anyway, basically I never fought at a disadvantage, and the majority of my battles were major wipes, e.g. 25k v 5k or 40k v 15k, where the result could only have gone against me if I'd been majorly unlucky.

I think luck only comes into it if you don't use the attrition / ping-pong / north-south tactic we're talking about. If you try to meet them straight-up, you're likely to get nuked because they have so many more forces with all their vassals involved. If you go about it in a more cunning way, well then it's just up to you to make sure you knock off little stacks as much as possible until they're weaker, and then take no worse than even numbers against them.

I think you're thinking that there's always going to be a large French doom stack around that has to be beaten decisively before you can get to sieging. But that's not really the case. The AI will split his stacks up all over the place so that he can keep sieging, and you can knock them down piece by piece. Eventually yes you will need at least a couple of more major battles, but you can still stack the odds in your favour and ensure it's not down to luck.

None of this would work against a human of course

Where luck does come in, as always, is in your events - if you don't get a heir and have to go into the War of the Roses, if you get stab hits, or worse even get a Peasants Revolt, if your best leader dies before the end of the war, etc etc. Get a couple of bad events like that at the wrong time, and everything could be out the window.

So I suppose yes you're right, luck can be a factor - at least you can't have too much bad luck in events along the way. But combat itself you can mostly remove the luck factor if you're careful.

 

[Parallel Pain]

winning the HYW, 1.3 or whatever patch is still going to be depending a lot on luck on how the rolls turn out in a battle isn't?

no matter how you game it, the decisive event is going to be when you route the french stack and follow and annihilate them, followed by a carpet siege provided you got enough troops to even do this depending on the previous decisive battle or your ability to recruite new regiments or mercs

The only luck is whether you get curia controller at the start and whether or not War of Roses fires during the war.

1452 finish last night. Scotland Vassal. Castile and Portugal Ally. France PU (of course). No loans. 20k troops 9k Merc 5~8k manpower 120 ish gold. Running budget surplus of 0.5~1g a month.
Didn't change a single thing from when I did it in 1.2

Day 1) Pick vassalize scotland mission and DOW Scotland. Improve Relation Burgundy. Send barque fleet to protect trade Bordeaux. Cog immediately pick up Normandy army. All forces in England move north. Give Gascogne army to Richard Plantagenet and have him attack the France vassal army not on the mountain.
Pick military advisor with discipline or morale if lv 1. Don't pick others yet.

Then:
Call in Portugal into war. Get Castile as ally. Royal Marriage both (less likely of War of Roses) get access from them and Navarra. Then send diplomat to improve relation Papal States (for curia control, either to keep it or gain it eventually).
Call in Castile if you can. But even if you can't having them as ally make Burgundy unlikely to DoW you.
Blockade the Scottish fleet with your 12 heavies, then split 3 heavies off to blockade the other Scottish Sea Zone (1 each)
Choose a good battle vs Scotland (watch they get a free stack from Highlands). One of your provinces has marshes, you can lure the Scottish stack there and engage in decisive battle. After battle consolidate (saves manpower and money, you don't need that many regiments anyway). Pick 14 regiments (3:2 infantry cavalry) Give it to Richard Plantagenet again and have him go hit-and-run coastal France.
Pick 2 regiments to siege Lothian. Everyone else go kill the Scottish Army, then shadow your siege regiments from your territory so any new Scottish regiment don't kill it. Portugal should start moving their troops to Scottland. After they've put all the other provinces under siege you can move the other stack down to channel coast.
2 controlled provinces and all blockade give you enough warscore to vassalize Scottland
Once you vassalized Scottland you can put naval maintenance to 0 and let Portugal and Scottland do the naval stuff for you. Then you should be able to hire the other 2 advisors (tax/trade/prod/repu/dipovertime) and still run a 4g+ budget surplus.
Hire that surplus of merc maint (8~10 inf).

French front.
Hit and run with Cog. Make 6 more cogs if you can afford it.
Watch out for shadowing stack. Distance of Caux<>Normandy<>Ile de France is small enough you can hit a 2~4 stack and kill it and sail out before reinforcements arrive, but not from that one that border both Caux and Normandy unless you get a super good roll.
Down south Poitier<>Bordeaux is far enough but none of the others are, so don't hit there if there's shadowing stack.
If French shadowing stack are too well placed, or they've put too evenly on the coast, lure them by putting troops in Navarra or Castile.
Switch out damaged regiments with your backups that were in Scotland to keep maximum men engaged.
Sooner or later they'll be low enough on troops (still more than you, about equal to you+Portugal+Scotland) that they'll focus only on one side.
When that happens that's your notice to start luring to mountain battles.

Make sure they siege the Normandy provinces (if they're south, lure them north by sending a couple of regiments to siege Ile de France)
Then bring your army south. Give 5~8 regiment to Richard Plantagenet and have him siege Foix (or whatever the mountain province is called). Keep half of the rest in your neighboring province, the other half on cog.
The French should bring half, and roughly half, of their men down to engage you. If they go after your stack on the coast, land your stack in the cog to make them switch target to Richard. Pick the army and sail off again so the rest of the French don't come and you don't get attrition.
Once they engage Richard immediately reinforce with everything you have.

Repeat 3 or 4 times until you (by yourself, not counting Portugal or Scotland, outnumber the French 2:1 or 3:1. Then send your mercs to siege. Divide your other forces in two and use them to kill the rest of the French. One fight. The other close enough to reinforce. If you can win without the reinforcement, then the other get a head start on the chase. It's pretty much Ile de France <> Toulouse.
After French army all dead, merc continue seiging, while your two armies walk around killing any new spawns. One stack take Northern France the other take Southern.
This way the French can't put together an army to stop your 3~5 sieging Merc stacks (2/3 reg each) and you don't suffer any manpower loss from attrition.

Voila, victory. And Scotland vassal so you don't have to fight them later with their French guarantee or whatever ally they might get.

 

[Szybki Ben]

I ended the war at the end of 1449 and started integrating about 2 years later (returning Provance cores to France for more territory at this time period ).

So far I see people have outcome this in a diffrent ways which might help others in the future.

About Scorching Earth - yes i was able to scorch 1 province at a time, but it did eat up some of the enemy troops as AI was sieging Normandie with 6 or 9 stack for some time. Other benefit is that when, lets say, enemy is sieging Caux and Normandie is scorched, you do not risk the reinforcement (even small) from it. That 3-5k army that would siege Normandie might have made battle few days longer and make it possible for enemy just to catch your retreating army by bigger stack and in the end, lose you a war.

Also, after I won it took France about 5 years to rebuild their strength and lick up on their wounds which shows how consuming on resources this tactic is.

As for Scotland. Well I vassalised them 20 years later with CB from the mission. To be honest, it's hard to lose a war with such powerful ally as the France under PU. You rule the seas, they rule the land with your medium help.

 

[TheBloke]

I ended the war at the end of 1449 and started integrating about 2 years later (returning Provance cores to France for more territory at this time period ).

Oh wow so you did do much better than me, then! That's a really good idea about Provence. I just White Peaced them out of there when I was able to (around 1447 or 48 I think) - I had 0 WS against them and it was one less thing to worry about. But yeah that's a great idea to get some WS against them and make them return that core.

About Scorching Earth - yes i was able to scorch 1 province at a time, but it did eat up some of the enemy troops as AI was sieging Normandie with 6 or 9 stack for some time. Other benefit is that when, lets say, enemy is sieging Caux and Normandie is scorched, you do not risk the reinforcement (even small) from it. That 3-5k army that would siege Normandie might have made battle few days longer and make it possible for enemy just to catch your retreating army by bigger stack and in the end, lose you a war.

Yeah fair point. I can see it has some value. But I'm still not convinced that it's worth 25 MP per province from England's 1444 starting position. Especially now I see Parallel Pain's guide to beating both France and Scotland at the same time, without scorching!

Also, after I won it took France about 5 years to rebuild their strength and lick up on their wounds which shows how consuming on resources this tactic is.

Yeah for me too - by the end of my war, France and its allies had literally 0 troops. They still had all their ships though, as we had no naval combat at all. Which is good of course. That's one thing I was thinking about during the France war - although you need to beat them, there's also a balance: you don't want to destroy them too much, or at least not needlessly, because they're going to be your PU soon! So there's a balance between killing them enough to win without destroying stuff you don't need to. So for example, it's best just to avoid any and all naval combat - I used big stacks of 12 heavy and 20 light ships to blockade their two ports, which made France not bring out their ships at all.

I think I'm going to go try yet again, and follow Parallel's plan At the least I want to see if I can win a third time without so much debt at the end, and without spending the MP on scorching. I haven't decided yet if I will take Scotland at the same time, like Parallel, or take them after like you did.

 

[TheBloke]

1452 finish last night. Scotland Vassal. Castile and Portugal Ally. France PU (of course). No loans. 20k troops 9k Merc 5~8k manpower 120 ish gold. Running budget surplus of 0.5~1g a month.
Didn't change a single thing from when I did it in 1.2

Great achievement, and thanks very much for the guide! You have inspired me to start yet again - third time now in 1.3 - and try and do much better.

Two quick questions if you don't mind:

1. You say no loans; does that mean you never even took out a loan, or that you took out some but had them paid back by 1452? I suppose only picking one adviser is helping, and definitely reducing fleet maintenance must be a big help. But we only start with <200 gold and need a lot of mercs, so I'm surprised you had enough to never need a loan at all?

Once you vassalized Scottland you can put naval maintenance to 0 and let Portugal and Scottland do the naval stuff for you.
...
Repeat 3 or 4 times until you (by yourself, not counting Portugal or Scotland, outnumber the French 2:1 or 3:1.

2. You describe bringing Portugal and maybe Castille into the war against Scotland. But then later you describe Portugal seemingly helping you in the war against France? I thought that they would have nothing to do with the France war because of the >60 day start period. Is it the case that if you bring an ally into one war, it starts helping with the other one too? I understand Scotland helping because they're now your vassal, but I don't get how you have Portugal going from fighting Scotland to then fighting France as well?

Thanks!

 

[pgroves]

2. You describe bringing Portugal and maybe Castille into the war against Scotland. But then later you describe Portugal seemingly helping you in the war against France? I thought that they would have nothing to do with the France war because of the >60 day start period. Is it the case that if you bring an ally into one war, it starts helping with the other one too? I understand Scotland helping because they're now your vassal, but I don't get how you have Portugal going from fighting Scotland to then fighting France as well?

Thanks!

Yes, I've never even managed to get Portugal to join just the war vs. Scotland, let alone France!

 

[Parallel Pain]

1. You say no loans; does that mean you never even took out a loan, or that you took out some but had them paid back by 1452? I suppose only picking one adviser is helping, and definitely reducing fleet maintenance must be a big help. But we only start with <200 gold and need a lot of mercs, so I'm surprised you had enough to never need a loan at all?

No loans at all. Didn't even dip below 50g when I recruited cogs/mercs. Consolidate also save you money as you pay few regiment and don't pay as much for replenishing damaged ones.

2. You describe bringing Portugal and maybe Castille into the war against Scotland. But then later you describe Portugal seemingly helping you in the war against France? I thought that they would have nothing to do with the France war because of the >60 day start period. Is it the case that if you bring an ally into one war, it starts helping with the other one too? I understand Scotland helping because they're now your vassal, but I don't get how you have Portugal going from fighting Scotland to then fighting France as well?

It seems that Call to Arms call your allies into ALL wars, not just the most recent one. So calling Portugal into my Scottish war somehow made them join the French one. Don't know if it's WAD or not. Not that they did any fighting at all vs the French.
Also they'll never join in the initial DoW vs Scotland. But they seem to sometime join if you call them separately afterwards. You have 6 months to do it.
Altho you don't really need them anyway. You can finish the both wars without them without needing more troops than described above (I did in 1.2). Just shadow two siege in Scottland instead of one. The allies are really there to prevent Burgundy DOW.

I think I could've Scorched Earth to win faster. Might try it.