Medieval 2 Kingdoms - Winning as Britannia

Medieval II Total War: Kingdoms (Expansion Pack) has 4 Kingdoms on, the one I'll be covering is the Britannia campaign. This involves: England, Scotland, Ireland, Norway, Wales & Rebels.

Let's go easy newbie, start with England. Make it Easy on difficulty. England controls about 3/5 of the British Isles, with Scotland controlling 1/5 and the other factions controlling another 1/5. England have borders with Wales, Scotland & Ireland. Ireland have 1/2 the Irish Island in their control. England have the other half. Scotland and Norway are in a fierce battle, which normally starts at the 10-20th turn. Wales are small, but their armies are vast. England have a large amount of cities, but not all of them are big and almost all of them need tweaking.

First thing to do is get your settlements from rioting. With Cardiff, it's simple: lower the tax rate to "low tax" - this'll make the settlers happy. Ireland's the real struggle, with 4 settlements, you can't just give up. That being said, you cannot hold all 4 towns without supreme skill. My usual plan is to give up Derry, the settlement to the North, and try and keep all the other 3. Athenry is the Western settlement and is a great forefront on the Ireland Campaign - you must keep a hold of it, build a church, get more troops in from the nearby forts and get the happiness up. Trim will work on it's own as long as it has 3-6 troop cards in, so I'd suggest moving almost all the force to Dublin, the biggest settlement. Dublin has 0% happiness, bumping down to low tax and getting more troops & a general into the city will get it up to around 50-60%

Derry's troops should be diverted to Dublin, they could use them to bump up the happiness. Athenry should be okay as long as you're stocking it with troops.

• First turn over.
• Second turn should just be a push in troops on the front-lines, both in Wales and in Ireland. Move London, Nottingham, Gloucester and Oxford armies to Shrewsbury and Cardiff. Keep Chester on a good troop count.
• Third turn: the Welsh should be moving to attack, or already be attacking the fort near Shrewsbury - you should just keep troop counts high in Cardiff and Shrewsbury to hold them off. In Ireland you should keep happiness high in all sectors, Derry should have went into revolt.
• Fourth turn: You may already have relations with Scotland, if not I'd suggest sending a diplomat up there and then to Norway, to establish trade rights & map information. Most of your troops should be at Shrewsbury by now, when they're all there move them into Montgomery; the nearest Welsh city.
• Fifth turn: if you've been maintaining a good troop count in Ireland, you should have 3 large armies. Wales should have moved most of their troops to Montgomery to stop you taking over, but if you've got all your troops there, it should be a larger force, or a more disciplined force, to defeat the Welsh armies.
• Sixth turn: You can now attack Montgomery before the Welsh deploy too many armies. Take over should be simple, then just execute the city. This'll keep order in the settlement high for a few goes.
• Seventh turn: Full troops should be in Trim, now you can move them down to the Southern Irish settlement of Cork. The castle is at the bottom of the isle; it should have around half the force of a full-army. I'd suggest taking a general with you to Cork for the invasion, as this'll deeply improve your chances. It'll probably take three turns to get to Cork.
• Eighth turn: You should start deploying all your troops from other cities to Montgomery, Cardiff & Chester. Put more in Montgomery & Cardiff. Chester should have about 8-10 standing cards. In Ireland, get more troops in Trim now their army has moved out to Cork.
• Ninth turn: Do nothing, just keep movements going.
• Tenth turn: Do nothing, just keep movements going
• #11th turn: Your troops should be at Cork, start the siege, pick up whatever little mercenaries you can before beginning. Most troops should be at Montgomery & Cardiff by now. Keep them there for a few turns, this is normally when Wales will attack with their major generals.
• #12th turn: Cork should be taken over ASAP! Then start recruiting their and making all the villagers happy. You should have an epic amount of troops on your Welsh front now. Firstly, send most all troops from Cardiff to the fort West of the town. Move most of your troops from Montgomery to Pembroke; which is South-West of Montgomery. Stack Montgomery with troops from Shrewsbury & Lancaster until it's almost full.
• #13th turn: Take down the fort & you should hit Pembroke by this turn, begin the siege and get any mercenaries you can to have a full army.
• #14th turn: Move your troops from the fort near Pembroke to Pembroke to help with the siege, then attack with both forces. After taking over, get a 3/4 army and move to straight up north, to the Welsh capital. Send all troops from Montgomery as-well to help with the effort. In Ireland, you should have all 3 settlements to the north stacked, and Edward should be back from his crusade of the holy-lands. Send Edward to Ireland, to help with the war-effort, maintain all troops in their towns until he arrives.
• #15th turn: You should have reached the Welsh capital of Caernarvon by now and start the siege on it, Wales will probably have retreated to the capital, so expect at least 1/2 an army. If you have kept your armies on max, you should have about 2 full armies, which can absolutely demolish the Welsh rebels.
• #16th turn: Take over Caernarvon; the faction Wales shall be destroyed after, and their rebellion shall finally be finished. With this, you've completed your main goal: Defeating Wales. Now you have to control a vast majority of all settlements in Britain, and control the British Isles. The easiest way to do this is become allies with Norway, so you're both taking out Scotland when they betray you (which they always will) - you also want to finish the threat of Ireland.

Ireland is a much bigger player than Wales, but it can again be contained with a few single simple moves. You've already took Cork, the capital of the Irish Army; that leave's Ireland with 4 settlements: Derry, Lifford, Downpatrick & Tipperary. Tipperary can be took out by your Cork forces. The two northern ones: Derry & Lifford, can be took out by Edward's forces. Downpatrick is usually unguarded or with no more than 7 troop cards - this can be taken out by Trim's army. All in all, Ireland should take you no more than 15 goes to finish, by then you should have great diplomacy with Norway, and William Wallace, the Scotland strength, should have came out. You should put all your forces from the Welsh battles up to the towns of Carlisle and Newcastle and then move a powerful army into the Scottish borders. You can also move Edwards army in from Ireland to the Scottish Western Lands; using boats docked at Dublin.

You should have the idea of what to do now, always exterminate the populace when you take a settlement; always keep your troops stacked in front-lines and always head in with a fierce army.

Scotland can take from 20-60 turns, no matter what, don't give up! England generate more income than Scotland, so you can always pay your way into more troops and make more advancements, if Newcastle is taken, it's only because they surprised you on the attack. You should never go into the battle without a good strong force, even if it means waiting a while. You'll end up getting hit by a harder Scottish force and possibly losing all your troops & village.

After Scotland is finished, Norway is a cakewalk, they're surprising simple to conquer if you've defeated Scotland and they've already went bankrupt by the time you attack them. Just keep the pressure on them and they'll fold into rebels too!

That's how you own the Britannia campaign. Thanks for reading!