I'm currently about to finish my count noctilus playthrough, so I can give you some tips about vampire coast:
-If you are in the ocean or your own territory, raise dead will cost the normal price(f. e. bloated corpse costs 1000 gold for recruitment), but if not, the price is doubled. So if the former condition is met on turn 1, raise the dead.
-Buy bloated corpse if you see that it will be an equal/disadvantagious fight. If you use it successfully, the cost of using it will be much less than what you loose in a fair fight.
-Get artillery building on your lord asap. It will give you mortars that will make sieges way less frustrating and army abilities to soften up your enemy. I personally use two mortars for every army.

Experimental tips. Might not work for your faction or you personally:
-Checkerboard formation with 4 handgunners and 3 deckhands/pistols diagonally inbetween at the front works pretty well for me.
-When enemy ranged damage is too overwhelming, try fighting in the forest. it will slow down the ranged damage for both you and your enemy and you can sneak and clean up the backline with your elite melee force.

Originally posted by kingsseeker123:

I'm currently about to finish my count noctilus playthrough, so I can give you some tips about vampire coast:
-If you are in the ocean or your own territory, raise dead will cost the normal price(f. e. bloated corpse costs 1000 gold for recruitment), but if not, the price is doubled. So if the former condition is met on turn 1, raise the dead.
-Buy bloated corpse if you see that it will be an equal/disadvantagious fight. If you use it successfully, the cost of using it will be much less than what you loose in a fair fight.
-Get artillery building on your lord asap. It will give you mortars that will make sieges way less frustrating and army abilities to soften up your enemy. I personally use two mortars for every army.

Experimental tips. Might not work for your faction or you personally:
-Checkerboard formation with 4 handgunners and 3 deckhands/pistols diagonally inbetween at the front works pretty well for me.
-When enemy ranged damage is too overwhelming, try fighting in the forest. it will slow down the ranged damage for both you and your enemy and you can sneak and clean up the backline with your elite melee force.

It's mostly how different some starts are from others I've tried. Khalida just autoresolves her way through fights early on no problem. Cylostra will just die.

I did manage a decent run by not going for the settlement turn 1. I mustered and fought in the field until turn 4, and from there the run felt much more stable.

Having a secondary army with quicker units could help with dealing with their backline, dark elf darkshards are strong but easily disrupted.
If the enemy activated the sacrifice to khaine rite spread your formation more in melee and never send in your Syreens until you know it's safe.
Since Cylostra gets access to brettonian ghost cavalry you'll have really good flanking units available, just don't shoot them with artillery since Cylostras army gets magical attacks.
I did this with queen bees and no longer had any cavalry

You should a lord for farming sea treasure, just be careful of the high rank rogue armies near the north

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2993964898
If you want some cool mounts and more flexibility with your heroes and lords try this mod and the SFO submod.
It's like having customizable regiments of renown.