The Swadia Challenge

[SAUS]

The Swadia Challenge!

My friend and I noticed at some point that Swadia will almost always lose most of their territory very quickly at the start of a game. We had already come up with some other challenges to test our skills out and for something new to do (none quite as good as The Swadia Challenge, though), so we decided to make one out of Swadia's imminent demise.

Here's the rules:
1) Set the difficulty to max (148%, I believe).
2) Create a brand new character (you can start wherever you want).
3) Eventually join Swadia and try to stop them from losing.

A couple hints:
1) You don't need to join Swadia ASAP, or anything. It is often way better to hold out so you can become stronger and more stable.
2) When part of Swadia, you will be at war A LOT. This causes your enterprises to be under sequestration, so your income will be lowered.
3) Prepare for some sad times! Having to abandon your castle which you worked so hard for since there are 1000 Nords and none of your allies can be saddening, but don't lose hope! A faction is surprisingly resilient.

Anyway, try it out if you're up for it and let me know how it goes! I will probably update with some of my own Swadia Challenge adventures. Also feel free to describe your own challenges!

 

[The Bowman]

It's either the Nords or the Vaegirs going for you. The Rhodoks are manageable, until you start besieging their castles.

 

[SAUS]

It's either the Nords or the Vaegirs going for you. The Rhodoks are manageable, until you start besieging their castles.

In my experience, the Rhodoks are super peaceful and not a problem (as you mention). They do also get run over by large numbers of knights. However, since they are so peaceful and so isolated, they eventually go to war with Swadia at the worst times. Then they come in and their armies are 50% tier 5 units, and they are one of the worst factions to fight in castle sieges. Their army is too big for fighting outside castles, so they kind of just come in, uncontested, and just take a town or two lol.

I started playing again about a week ago (kind of played a lot in that time, though), and decided to go with the Swadia challenge. I like it because you don't lose a lot in terms of what you want to do with your character or your late game plans. You just have to join Swadia for the mid game and can continue it as long as you like.

Here's a brief set of things that happened:
1) I ran around and did some quests. I prefer to do the early game solo for maximum money. I also always start the game by raiding Glunmar (the rhodok village roughly south of Praven - it is super isolated so I don't care if they hate me). I then buy some decent gear to start the game with for the ~5000 denars I make.
2) I eventually got a mercenary quest for Count Delinard, so I trained up a small party of Swadian Knights.
3) A whole bunch of battling with Nords later, I captured Dhirim (weak garrison, so they surrendered to me). We go to peace right after, so this is looking fantastic.
4) Immediately go to war with the Rhodoks. Over 1000 Rhodoks at Dhirim. I grab my knights and boogie on outta there (losing Dhirim in the process).
5) More rampaging with a bit of vengeance. Swadia goes to peace when I have 6 captured Rhodok lords -.-
6) I get married during the peace! Lady Sonadel, Daughter of Counter Grainwad (also Grainwad is by far the most retarded name I have ever heard haha).
7) We go to war with Khergits (they have Dhirim). We take Dhirim and Narra (I cheese Narra with mass sharpshooter army). They give Dhirim to me again
We got to peace quickly, but not before Vaegirs want some Swadia action.
9) Shortly after, Nords declare war.
10) Khergits declare war again, but Vaegirs go to peace.
11) 1100 Khergits show up at my doorsteps (Dhirim). No allied lords in sight, but I have 250 tier 5 units in my castle. I melt 300 of them in my death trap (back into the courtyard where your reinforcements spawn, clog the staircase and get cheap shots from the side - archers in the back for extra killing). They all run off after a successful defense. I can't fight that many Khergits in the field (still only have max party size of 85).
12) I crush Tihr's garrison (they are weak since it was passed back and forth with Vaegirs for a while) with my blob of knights. Khergits took back Narra and don't seem to be attacking. Remaining army is not too threatening to the powerful garrisons in other towns, so I chase off Nords trying to take back Tihr. They give Tihr to my father in-law and he is there defending it now.
13) Where I'm at currently. I parked my party just outside Sargoth. The AI is not smart enough to know how many men they need to take me on. With max tactics, and a party of knights (~90), they would need around 500 troops (of good rank) to be threatening (only 200 top tier troops would be scary, depending on what kind they are). They always come just shy of being threatening with ~300-400 weak troops. 5-10 total top tier units, if any, and a very large bottom end of tier 2 footmen or recruits. They just get run over. The lords that escape go back to sargoth to rebuild their parties, only to come at me again, just shy of having a threatening army. Keeping their whole faction at bay is very useful since the rest of Swadia can do what they need to do (this is what I spend most of my time doing lol).

Anyway, hopefully that isn't terribly long to read, or is at least fun to read for someone

I think it will be a slow process to gain more territory, but things are looking good. For a bit, our only town was Suno and ~5 scattered castles. Now we have all of original Swadia (minus I think just Ryiblet castle) as well as Tihr (and had Narra for a bit, but it was lost while I took Tihr and I didn't notice it was under attack).

 

[The Bowman]

In my latest experience, the Rhodoks captured Praven and stuffed its garrison with 170 men, on whom 51 were Sharpshooters and 22 Sergeants. Fighting the ranged units is especially hard, since they have those hammers that knock you down. The fact that some poor ranged troops can mow your sergeants and knights in melee is just beyond me.

 

[SAUS]

Rhodok sharpshooters are overpowered, imo lol. I think maybe their armour is just too good considering their weapons (which is, imo, the best ranged weapon).

 

[Froi]

Swadian Knights and Sharpshooters.  High surgery.  Challenge complete.

 

[Alene]

I tried this challenge in Multiplayer

 

[SAUS]

Swadian Knights and Sharpshooters.  High surgery.  Challenge complete.

Ya this is usually how it goes, but it was a ton of fun when we were both not that good at the game. I usually do it now for fun, but it still has some challenge to it. It keeps the mid game interesting compared to my usual plan which is to grind quests with my companions and ignore the factions until much later.

 

[annallia]

Swadian Knights and Sharpshooters.  High surgery.  Challenge complete.

Ya this is usually how it goes, but it was a ton of fun when we were both not that good at the game. I usually do it now for fun, but it still has some challenge to it. It keeps the mid game interesting compared to my usual plan which is to grind quests with my companions and ignore the factions until much later.

Can still be made interesting if you limit yourself to companion cavalry, or even infantry only.

 

[SAUS]

Swadian Knights and Sharpshooters.  High surgery.  Challenge complete.

Ya this is usually how it goes, but it was a ton of fun when we were both not that good at the game. I usually do it now for fun, but it still has some challenge to it. It keeps the mid game interesting compared to my usual plan which is to grind quests with my companions and ignore the factions until much later.

Can still be made interesting if you limit yourself to companion cavalry, or even infantry only.

Ya there's always extra restrictions. I did start one (kind of was bored already, so I didn't get far with it) where my restrictions were:
- no upgrading soldiers
- no buying gear

You basically have to rescue strong prisoners and take out strong parties to get good gear / troops. Mercenaries are fantastic. It was fun trying to take on men at arms deserters with as few troops as possible to maximize the loot. Maybe I will do that again some time.

Anyway, I think the challenge is hard as is if you don't have a ton of experience with the game. The main thing is that surgery is kind of overpowered lol, so maxing that early makes almost anything easier.

 

[annallia]

One of my favorite extra rule sets that me and a friend used to use was no medic skills past 5 (cause too damned easy when 80% of your army survives...)

No cavalry (other than companion cav)

Forced resting when wounded. Assuming we knew where the killing blow was:
Head = 2-6 weeks (yeah I know still short lol...)
Chest = 1-3 weeks
Back 2-4 weeks
Arms/Legs = 1-14 days

If no clear killing blow (usually it was only clear if you died from a missile weapon) you would then roll for location.

We would roll to see how long (read as severe) it was and even had a potential for character death. When wounded in battle you travel to the nearest friendly city/castle and stay there until your wounds are healed. Any battles on the way or perhaps even in that very keep you order your troops to fight without you.

 

[SAUS]

One of my favorite extra rule sets that me and a friend used to use was no medic skills past 5 (cause too damned easy when 80% of your army survives...)

No cavalry (other than companion cav)

Forced resting when wounded. Assuming we knew where the killing blow was:
Head = 2-6 weeks (yeah I know still short lol...)
Chest = 1-3 weeks
Back 2-4 weeks
Arms/Legs = 1-14 days

If no clear killing blow (usually it was only clear if you died from a missile weapon) you would then roll for location.

We would roll to see how long (read as severe) it was and even had a potential for character death. When wounded in battle you travel to the nearest friendly city/castle and stay there until your wounds are healed. Any battles on the way or perhaps even in that very keep you order your troops to fight without you.

I'm not sure if I would enjoy waiting that long lol. I find the punishment for being KO'd is already pretty big if you are greedy with how you play (try to take on very large armies / factions earlier in the game - kind of what the Swadia challenge is supposed to force). I do like the capping of healing skills, though. Sometimes I even do character export and then import with someone who conquered Calradia, but then it just feels lame since even my recruits are now immortals. I kind of didn't realise how ridiculous the max surgery was until I played the early game with it lol.

No cavalry is a good one. I haven't mixed that one with the Swadia challenge before, but it WOULD make it a lot harder. Stampeding over hundreds of enemies with just a 50-size knight army definitely makes the challenge a bit too easy.

 

[grishin]

Started a new game in native last night, was planning to join Swadia anyways so challenge accepted.