A collection of DLV strategies and hints - rules changed

[Furin]

I didn't know that, I'll edit my post to version 5.6 then, thank's for the info!

[Furin]

version 5.7 - point system

Although it's relatively easy to acquire military points, putting a small army into a fort and winning the siege battle, or putting a small force on an enemy bridge gives you easy heroic victories, raising the govermential points needs more micromanagement. It's also relatively easy to loose goverment points, and you can drop beneath a level that already allowed you to build a better market.

A foolproof method to get goverment points is spying, get as many spies as you can and then spy on the merchants and diplomats in your regions. Every successful mission will net you one point. Try to vary the targets.

Assassinating all those enemy assassins, that stand around your cities, whistling innocently, gets you even more points.

Asking for crusades and joining them is almost a must.

Being diplomatically active helps, but has its limits.

You can see your current points and what gets you more by clicking on diplomacy and then the faction ranking button.

The AI factions will develop alongside you, so it is tempting to exploit the system and quickly develop some cities and then intentionally let your points drop. I wouldn't do it though, those damn points are hard enough to get, and keep...

[Jaketh]

no sticky for you

[Xtiaan72]

version 5.7 - point system



This is in addition to what Furin said about Government points. Treat 20,000 in your treasury as if it was zero... If your treasury is over 20,000 you get 1 GOV point per turn... This means letting your treasury get over 25,000 before you can buy lots of stuff.

This isn't really possible at the very beginning of a game but you will get gifts from nobles along the way to help you get there. This money will also help you survive The Dark Ages when the crap really hits the fan.

[Furin]

version 5.7 - point system again

You have total control over the games development with the point system. Want a slow game, with slowly advancing and developing settlements (for you and the AI)? Make few points or try to stay below a personal target.

Want to have citadels and huge cities fast everywhere? make a lot of missions and harvest points as fast as possible.

[Xtiaan72]

5.7 - points (cont)


Just don't let your treasury go into the negative....you lose one government point per turn and it ruins all your hard work gathering points quickly....

This means monitoring your additional costs in the treasury screen like a hawk....remember to factor in your building costs for that turn....( add the additional costs to the costs of the buildings/troops you ordered that turn)

Generally I try to keep my treasury +5000 after factoring in those costs...Because if you get a negative economic event on the next turn, you can go into the negative anyway.....

The economy is officially the most difficult thing to deal with at the beginning of the game! But it's really immersive...Makes you feel like you are managing a fledgling kingdom that is in peril, especially with the small factions (KOJ, Armenia, Lithuania, Ireland,portugal)

[svean]

5.7 historical campaign - playing as Kiev, Lithuania, Poland maybe Teutons, Hungary, Novogrod

In SE Polish castle of Halitch there is a 19 years old "Genius" who gets "Battle hardened" trait in the second turn. If you want him and have a free princess just send her there with marriage mission in the first turn or he's lost to you. To see Halitch you have to send fast princess or a spy before her (tried as Kiev, but it should work surely for Lithuania too, for other countries I'm not sure).

Konrad Piast (that's he's name ) has 10 stars at the beginning, and could be founder of the most interesting dynasty, as his sons tend to get "intelligent" or at lest "smart", sometimes even "genius" traits... Of course you have to kill your own fraction heirs first... but those rebel just wait for suiciders

[Furin]

version 5.7 - campaign map/rebel spawn exploits

So the player gets all these nasty extra rebel spawns, and the AI doesn't. Unfair isn't it? Time to exploit this

I have found two ways for "thinking out of the box" with these rebels. It's common knowledge that towers keep the rebels from attacking your cities, they will travel from tower to tower, attempting to limit your visibility, and will sometimes stop to cause devastation. But at least they won't besiege your cities. Now if you up this a notch you can use it to your advantage in some regions. Let's take Yerevan, the turkish city at the northern turkish border. If you build only two towers in this region, both at the northern border to Georgia, the rebel stack will patrol your northern border for free, well almost you still have to pay for their occasional devastation. Now when Georgia decides to attack you with a fullstack or two, chances are great that they will have to fight that rebel stack first, as it's blocking their way. After that their armies will be so weakened that they either withdraw or can be defeated by your forces more easily. This definitly works, just found it out in 5.7 by accident, but needs a small amount of luck too. Could well be that the Georgians arrive when the stack is at the other tower and simply march by it. This tactic might work in other regions too, but I can only confirm it for Yerevan, try out for yourself.

The other exploit works with a spy and only functions in turn 0, if a rebel spawn stands next to the fort and has not moved yet, and you got a spy within range, put the spy next to the rebel spawn so the fort is in a straight line behind the spawn, now spy on the fort. The spy will "push" the extra rebel spawn into the fort, where it will stay until you decide to take them out. They will not leave the fort as they are assigned to the immobile fort commander. This works for example in Nottingham and Caesarea, but perhaps in other regions too, and of course every time you see a huge rebel stack next to a fort and have a spy somewhere near.

[Xtiaan72]

5.7 Rebel Spawns/ Watch Tower Battles


When you do the watch towers exploit.....And sometimes you just have to! As Ireland, for instance, not building towers is almost certain death ( unless you like fighting Sargent Spearmen, a Generals Bodyguard and Welsh bowmen with a handful of Kerns and a Light Cavalry Unit!)

Make sure to build the towers on terrain that isn't too mountainous.....You are most likely going to have to fight the rebels next to the towers.....so best not to have to fight them from down hill (Especially with a handful of Kerns).....Same token, a deep dark forest is probably not a good place for a "tower battle" either....

[aduellist]

Naval - Attacking Ships In Port

Not specific to DLV, but it's apparently a little gem that many folks don't know about.

To attack an enemy fleet that is in port:

Select your fleet by left-clicking.
Individually select the ship units within the fleet in the unit window with ctrl+left-click.
You can them right-click the enemy fleet in its port and attack it.

[Furin]

version any - campaign map/bedridden trait

Becoming very sick and immobile is a bad thing, especially as this always seems to happen when you have a mission or need that army the most.

If your general does not recover on his own there is one way to "unfreeze" the army at least. Move a general into the stack, who is not sick and has more command stars than the sick general. At the next turnstart you can select him, and the army, but not the sick general. Now you can move him, and the army away, leaving the sick behind until he eventually recovers.

If you have no other general in the vicinity, try to at least get the cavalry out of the sick stack (depends if the terrain allows that), the next turn they will create a captain who is not sick.

It's complicated but at least you get your men back...

[Furin]

version 5.7 patch 1 - point system

The spy missions will no longer give you goverment points , assassinating and sabotaging still does though

[Furin]

version 5.7 patch2 - change of garrison script

Seems like the garrison script was changed to fire on hitting the assault settlement button too. So bringing artillery or spies does no longer bypass the script. What looked like a cool feature turned out to be an oversight

[Tilarium]

I guess when you look at it it does make some sense. Your enemy sees the army marching towards the city so they call in the militia for a final stand.

[ivanhoex]

if you bring on the siege equipment with you, then you dont need to expend a lot of money paying all those bastards dinner and supper day after day...

meaning you dont get any of the money taxes that affect a general doing siege. you can bring as many nobles as you may ever want with you, since you dont have to pay the sieging upkeep for them...

so it was not nice the way it was before.


even more, the whole idea was that countryside people gathered at the city to defend their nation.

everyone knows how hard can it be to enter a sieged city carrying weapons in order to defend it... without getting killed / enslaved in the process.. thatd be just moronic..

[kutya]

Type: Economy - exploit
Version: all

Actually this isn't a DLV exploit, but I'm currently playing only DLV. I found this one accidentally:

If you know of a valuable trade resource, you can get it with even a rookie merchant without trouble. The point is that the resource must be covered with fog-of-war. You simply move your merchant there. The merchant will move there and if the place was occupied by another merchant, he will simply move over. Simple? And effective.

Since in DLV there are really important resources, this can give you a nice financial boost.

[Furin]

Version any/ exploit

A very nice tip kutya and I want to add a thing. If you don't have enough merchants to call dibs on all valuable resources, but you still have other agents, who are in enemy lands anyway, you paying the upkeep, it makes sense to use these agents to push enemy merchants off valuable resources with the method you describe.

Then you let the diplomat, priest or princess etc., stand on that resource for the time being, so the enemy cannot use it.

Like this you can recalculate the upkeep, as in, it costs me 500 fl to have that agent in the territory, but it costs my enemy 2000 florins as he cannot use the gold there. Like that the upkeep suddenly doesn't look so much any more...

[Alatar98]

version 5.72 /tactics

This may be kinda a cheat but a great tatic ive found when playing as the bysintine is to place your flame throwers just in front of your pikemen. (edit you want it so the pkies are still sticking out in frount of your flame throwers)

it allows them to fire off a few shots and if your foe charges with units it gives you enough time to widthdraw without many casulitys, if they charge you with thier horses,(which they seam to go after the flame throwers often) they charge head long into a wall of pikes and die while exerting only minimal casulitys to your units.

this tatic may also work well with guns but i havent hit the gunpowder age yet, i moved it back in my campain till after the 3rd plague

[ivanhoex]

version 5.72 /tactics

This may be kinda a cheat but a great tatic ive found when playing as the bysintine is to place your flame throwers just in front of your pikemen. (edit you want it so the pkies are still sticking out in frount of your flame throwers)

it allows them to fire off a few shots and if your foe charges with units it gives you enough time to widthdraw without many casulitys, if they charge you with thier horses,(which they seam to go after the flame throwers often) they charge head long into a wall of pikes and die while exerting only minimal casulitys to your units.

this tatic may also work well with guns but i havent hit the gunpowder age yet, i moved it back in my campain till after the 3rd plague

you have earlier acces to stakes against horses
pikes + naphtas = pwnz



v.572/tactics:

now different types of bow means a lot different range. composite bows and longbows have a huge reach. same for steel crosbows as in crossbow mercs

[repman]

Stickied

repman