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[Rolan7]

Regarding retinues, since I'm Basque and have probably the single worse cultural retinue in the world (500 light cavalry), I've been playing with retinues made entirely out of skirmish retinues with pretty good results. Sure, you know that any fight that goes into melee phase will see you take heavy losses, but most armies will break before that, and since skirmish retinues take only 600 retinue size, you can have more of them.

I did this last game as Scandinavia.  Once I hit critical mass, they were great for constantly assaulting holdings (they were *amazing* as Norse because I was able to raid constantly without bothering with levies).  I've found they do just fine in combat, usually, if you have as little as 20% numbers advantage.  They seem particularly good at defending over rivers and such too, though maybe that's wishful thinking.  Basically they kick so much ass in the skirmish phase that the enemies are half-broken by the time melee starts.  Even when they lost, a lot of them usually managed to retreat.

I still built the cultural building for my viking levvies and the 20% of my retinue that's HI, but I really want to try Ethiopan sometime just for that cheap LI retinue.  Then again, I got a little sick of constantly having CB against everyone.  By 1066 I had Scandinavia, Francia, Hispania, and Britannia, and I would have had the HRE if pagans could form it.  I also had central Africa and most of its coast, just for more variety in the blot.  All this funded and perpetrated by hoards of raiding skirmishers...

Yeah, next time I'm playing catholic or orthodox.  Otherwise the land grabs are just too tasty.

[umiman]

Normally I'd agree with you about the blobbing easiness but... how did you do that as a Catholic?  You could invade the HRE I guess, but that still leaves conquering France and Britain.  Was it the "grant a claimant a county and then press their claim" trick?

I'm not sure about how he did it, but having the pope as a vassal is an extremely powerful tool. You can ask him to give you any claim, and he can't refuse (when you're on the screen of a title, with the buttons destroy, claimants, etc, there is a claim button, that sends a demand to the pope to give you a claim on that title, costing piety).

To get the pope as a permanent Vassal:
Step 1: See if you have any of your bishops are cardinals. For any of this to work, you MUST be an emperor. If no bishops of yours are cardinals, see step 1a, if you do have some, see step 2
Step 1a: Create a YOUNG antipope
Step 1b: Press claim on papacy, the pope is now your vassal.
Step 2: Put lots of money into the election fund for cardinals, until your nominee is winning by a long shot
Step 3: Assasinate a cardinal
Step 4: See step 2 until all the cardinals are your bishops. If you created an antipope and pressed his claim, congratulations! Keep that campaign fund high, and you will never lose the your new vassal. If not, see step 4a:
Step 4a: Assasinate the pope.
Step 5: Congratulations! Keep that campaign fund high, and you will never lose your new vassal.

Edit:
Step 6 (for super easy mode): Increase church taxes to max, and church levies to minimum. Bribe/whatever the pope to positive relations, and tada, money forever!

the much easier easy is to just press your antipope's claim and conquer Rome.

[Sheb]

Yeah, next time I'm playing catholic or orthodox.  Otherwise the land grabs are just too tasty.

It's 1066, I'e played as a fairly minor catholic (King of Navarre), and by 1066, I own Hispania, Italia, Francia, Brittannia, the HRE as well as bit and pieces all over the place. You tend to snowball after a certain size no matter what. Maybe muslims are a bit better.

[Rolan7]

Yeah, next time I'm playing catholic or orthodox.  Otherwise the land grabs are just too tasty.

It's 1066, I'e played as a fairly minor catholic (King of Navarre), and by 1066, I own Hispania, Italia, Francia, Brittannia, the HRE as well as bit and pieces all over the place. You tend to snowball after a certain size no matter what. Maybe muslims are a bit better.

At least it's probably a bit more complicated than holy wars.  The ability to grant all titles within the conquered area made it dirt-easy to keep my dukes (and eventually kings) happy, Norse, and of my dynasty.

[Owlbread]

I tend to prefer having an objective of creating a particular Kingdom/Empire then just defending the borders, not trying to expand (e.g. try to ensure Cornwall remains independent). See how long you can last then carry it onto EU4.

[Rolan7]

Sounds fun!  I might still conquer pagans to stop the raiding parties.  After putting some cousin in charge, I'll grant them independence.  I don't want to manage Europe by myself anymore... that's what family is for!

[Lukeinator]

I also like to create interesting vassals such as a Lithuanian Romuva High Chief of Iceland.

[Descan]

My current goal (after the mod updates enough) is to create a Gaelic empire of Spain, France, and Brittania, and then switch over to the Byzzies and create a Roman Empire of Africa, Levant, Italia, Egypt, and of course the original empire, and then convert to EU4.

I just wish I could have two empires using the HRE mechanics, so I could have both of the empires use them. :c

[Owlbread]

If you're rebuilding Celtia though you should definitely try to capture Salzburg i.e. the old core Hallstatt region.

Spoiler: Old Celtia (click to show/hide)

[a1s]

Light Cavalry. (Iberian, North African) Awful, terrible on every level. If you have these guys just stick with skirmish retinues and not even bother building any cultural buildings. Their stats suck, they use terrible tactics and are a bit expensive to throw at assaults. The closest thing they have to a bonus is their incredible speed, a single retinue could be very effective at baiting enemies into waiting doom stacks.

I think that you're not using them correctly, the trick to an effective LC battle is: they should get their own flank (if you can't fill it with just LC, then most of the soldiers by manpower should be LC, and absolutely no horse/regular archers). Despite being badmouthed by the community, LC actually has the 3rd highest skirmish attack, is decent in melee and in the event that you win a battle, is awesome at mop up, while sporting (very) slightly better defense ratings then HA (a common community favorite).

[Cheeetar]

By far my favourite cultural retinue are the heavy cavalry that the Byzantine Empire gets, despite their cost.

[Wiles]

I'd definitely agree that light cavalry retinues are underrated. I was playing as Navarra and found the jinetes to be quite strong. They get a 300% bonus in the skirmish phase with one of the common tactics. The only problem I had with them is that they suffered a lot of casualties when they didn't dominate a battle.

[PanH]

I'd definitely agree that light cavalry retinues are underrated. I was playing as Navarra and found the jinetes to be quite strong. They get a 300% bonus in the skirmish phase with one of the common tactics. The only problem I had with them is that they suffered a lot of casualties when they didn't dominate a battle.

Yup, I prefer cultural LC that have defensive bonus (Camel retinue), since they have no issue slaughtering anyone and have crazy armor (+60%).
HC is one of the worst retinue due to its cost. The saving grace of the byz retinue is the HA and the nice synergy of tactics, whereas knights are meh since HC and LC shouldn't be mixed, but even then, there's a lot cultural retinues that I find better than the cataphracts.
Longbowmen 1st, ofc, then Altaic HA, Scottish P, LC, HI/HC.

[EnigmaticHat]

I'm going to be a hundred percent honest here, I don't know how the combat system works.  I have experience and hearsay as to which units work well.  I know how to use politics and money to put out the largest force possible against the smallest force possible.  Also I know that in 95% of the fights that I've witnessed the larger force has won.

But do I actually understand the mechanics?  Nope.

[umiman]

The unit types matter relatively little, unless you're fielding an army of only light infantry or something. And most often you don't get a choice on what kind of units to field anyway as you'll be using vassal troops.

The only time you can determine your own unit composition is through retinues, and by the time you can afford such massive retinues as to singlehandedly determine battles, you've basically won anyway.

What matters is:
1. Army size.
2. General. Even a shitty general is miles better than no general at all.
3. Terrain. All rivers and water crossings make for excellent defensive points. Mountains and desert are great for attrition.

You can quite easily win against significantly superior numbers by putting your best generals behind a river or a large water crossing (think Holland or Venice).