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ah_dut
04-07-2004, 00:45
So people, I ask what brings you to the Italian shores? Is it the amazing light infantry, naval power, ludicrous wealth? I say yes to all. However, in medmod, you’ve got many amazing units like sailors and Italian heavy inf. If you think on it, the old Italian’s are OP. You’ve got wicked archers, the Genoese sailors, who are automatically Valour 1. Valour 2 sailors can fight (a bit) also the Italians rock. Available in early, they can whoop some rear end. With the same stats as the CS but better morale, they are brill in early.
I personally, like to build many, many ships from Corsica and Sardinia. Then invade Constantinople with loads of mercs. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif this nets you a great base and cripples a potential naval rival. After you money goes beyond the roof from trade, your small territories can pack well armed, armoured excellent units, backed up with expensive mercs. They aren’t cheap but with so much cash it doesn’t matter.
I’ll write more later but got to do some h/w
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

ah_dut
04-07-2004, 00:46
high

ah_dut
04-07-2004, 00:46
late

katank
05-31-2004, 02:17
Get fleets joined ASAP and pump dromons from Venice.

grab Naples off the Byz and then take Serbia.

Hitting the Sicilians in Sicily quickly to deny them any naval builds and you can easily win the naval battle and reduce them to a non issue.

tech Genoa up for archers and eventually sailors, Milan for spears, Tuscany for first UM (valor bonus) and then militia sarges and then FMAA (eventually gets iron upgrade).

Venice can go for shipbuilding and knights.

you can also pump navy like crazy to dominate over Byz and grab their islands to have forward naval/crusade base or hit the Pope.

taking Rome intact woudl be awesome as you can immediately produce the unique Italian inf which is a buffed version of chiv. sarge and Rome is also a reasonable farm province and the full castle with armorer is also nice.

the papal troops are actually quite tough and will get you excommed.

beat him into a little castle in Papal State sand siege him until last year and pull out.

then, he will be alive and not remerge but will no longer be a threat.

keep healthy garrisons in the north to fend off HRE ambitions or Hungarian ones on Venice.

be ready to crusade and use your knights hospitaller well.

they are chiv knights but dismount into even better foot knights and are absolute can openers.

they have valor bonus on malta so taking out sicilians is a good idea.

Zortanius
06-20-2004, 03:51
Good guide Katank,

IMHO I think Serbia should be the very first target. I use my very first heir and not the king to take it out with a couple of spears and some UMs. Once in I have to wait for atleast 4 years in order to build a port. Thereafter I build a WT followed by the farm and mining upgrades. In case things get hairy fown there _ I try and keep the shipping lanes open for to send in more troops - Usually one or two heavy rebellions or invasions from the Byz later I have some solid battle hardened troops under a good defending general. I tend to leave the Sicillians and the Papacy alone as I like to trade with Naples (which eventually falls to one of them). I cannot reap the trade from it if I conquer it. Similarly I leave Sicily and Malta alone. As you suggested, I do pump out lots of ships and have a strong naval presence al around the mediterranean. I like to surround Iberia so if the Spanish or the Almohads get aggro - I go in commando style and quickly take out 2 or three provinces and just basically create havoc. Encircling Iberia also helps for trade.

The best thing about playing the italians (other than ILI), is that they are the best placed faction for crusades. Egypt, Palestine, Tripoli or even Asia Minor - I take my pick. Trying for egypt is always good as it is good practice versus 2 factions, Getting in a strong army in there leaves it ripe for counterinvasion and rebellions which altho a bad thing are excellent for lucre, The egyptians and almohads usually send in heavy troops but using a sound defensive strategy you can ransom back loads of prisoners. The rebellions in Egypt and Cyr tend to be manned by siege heavy armies which are very easy to defeat and usually reap high amounts of money in terms of lands captured. So usually in the 5-6 years since I take Egypt (and additionally Cyr), rebellions and ransoms from the Egyptians (and Almohads) bring in about 20-30 K and sometimes as high as 40K. Plus your troops there are very good and the general is legendary. Keeping this in mind I would advocate using mercs as well since their upkeep is more than taken care of. Plus if you use ILI then you can always nationalise them. From there the whole game is yours. I tend to defend and not attack wantonly - if some faction has the audacity to attack me my vengeance is swift and complete. HRE and the French usually tire each other out. Rome and Sicily do the same as do Spain and the Almohads. Byzantium always gets stuck in a losing war with the Turks so I tend to ally with Byz, relieve Constantinople and Greece abunch of times and use the opportunity to carve out a slice of Asia minor for myself and get rid of the turks at the same time. Eventually Byz attacks me... and pays the price.

In my experience Genoese Sailors are't all that good - just like in all my other games - I always try and get arbalesters and crossbowmen and I phase out archers, as few as I may have. Arbalesters and Crossbowmen last longer, are cheaper to both train and maintain and kill more troops.

Using my sea fleets I try and take Sweden which REALLY REALLY helps.

Also as tempting as it may be, never attack Tyrolia as you will invariably be attacking uphill on some mountain range. Work around it. Also keep an eye on the Hungarians and Danes - sneaky buggers.

Cheers

Alexander the Pretty Good
06-25-2004, 00:34
For Glorious Achievements mode (early - high):

Homelands are critical. Not only your stable source of GA points, but your trade centers (particularly Venice) are here. Fight to the death for them.

Conquest isn't worth all that much. You have to conquer five provinces for one measly point. It's hard work. But you probably will have to, since Italy has few creative ways of generating points. Besides Crusades.

Crusades = awesome.

Italy's powerful navies plus close proximities to the target provinces make it pretty easy. I usually will connect to those provinces for trade then prepare crusades - start with Jerusalem for the GA points and because it is usually weakly defended (mostly peasants and militia). Either work your way north from there to Tripoli or go directly to Antioch, which has the greatest trade potential ( later in the game when the 'Marco Polo' event happens). Go for Egypt after you have Jerusalem, Antioch, and Tripoli. Try to time the Crusades for when you have a low influence Doge on the throne, but not when the Doge is old and about to die.

You will then have a power base in the mideast. Huge trade output from Antioch and Tripoli when it is developed.
And a last-ditch point from which you can rally if you are kicked out of Italy - just make sure your crusader holdings stay loyal.


About the Noble Mercantilism GA:

I am playing a campaign currently in GA mode (hard, early) and I did not make the first 2 shots at noble mercantilism (which is to control more trade than any other faction). It is only worth 3 points and only happens 3 times (1205?, 1321, end), but I couldn't get it. I'm not sure how, since I maxed trade in: Venice, Tuscany, Genoa, Tripoli, Antioch, have trade posts/merchants in Egypt, Sweden, Khazar, Crimea, Wessex (It's been crazy). Oh well. It's only a total of six points I have missed so far.

Alexander the Pretty Good
06-25-2004, 01:42
The rivals:

The papacy
In GA, little threat. In world domination, a bit more tricky.

In GA, the papacy is not a rival for points. Just stay on the pope's good side. He probably won't attack you if you leave him alone and you protect your borders judiciously.
In GA, having a papacy around is crucial to get your crusader points.

In world domination, you may want to take Rome for its troop producing abilities early on. If you're going for complete domination (100%, not 66%) you will need to eliminate the papacy along with everyone else. I'm sure you can find how to do so somewhere else. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

The Hungarians
Tricky guys. In GA, they get left alone and accumulate huge amounts of points. You might have to take care of them. If you're not careful, they'll take Venice without warning. It will be like, Your brave crusaders have taken Jerusalem then The Hungarians have taken Venice because you were so interested in crusading and forgot to defend it. And that's not good. Regard the Hungarians with care and as usual, watch thy borders.

The HRE
I've never had a problem with the Germans. Though they are a natural, logical rival, they rarely emerge as Italy's chief enemy. They usually disintegrate under civil war or attrition vs. French, Poles, Danes. Keep an eye out for a strong HRE, especially in GA. YOU make big points for an ambitious HRE. And you could be a REAL nice bit of real estate for the Emperor who is looking for trade and ships.

The Sicilians
Sicily usually has the ears of the Pope and also usually takes Naples early on. Sicily could become a trade rival. More often though, it seems to remain a footnote in total war history: too small and not rich enough to get even negative recognition. Why don't you try to be allies with these guys? They also produce huge numbers of princesses, and that can be REAL useful.

Byzantines
Trade rival. And naval one. Early on, they will probably be the only other faction keeping pace with your navy; they might even beat your naval prowess.

For GA, they may be a slight thorn in your side. At some point (1205?) one of those three islands the Byzantines own, Crete, will become one of your homelands. Anyway, it is worth a point. No real economic worth. It could be difficult to get if the Byzantines are powerful or if you just don't really want a war with them.

Other than that, the Byz either are overrun or dominate. Usually they are overrun. Unless you want Constantinople, or if they took a crusade objective, I see no need for you to intervene.

Wild Card
Other factions may rise above the others unexpectedly. Early on, the Italians will probably be left alone. But by the time Italy is ready to compete for world-power status, there's probably someone who has expanded to reach your borders who will challenge you for standings in the world hierarchy.

Edit: now that I'm a SENIOR patron, I can edit away embarissing mistakes, like the island of Crete http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-2thumbsup.gif

Alexander the Pretty Good
06-25-2004, 01:59
A BRIEF WORD/SUMMARY OF UNITS
(In early/high)

Italian Light Infantry
Somewhere there has to be a memorial for these guys. They are simply amazing. Probably the best darned spearmen in the game, or at least in early.

These troops will be the core of your armies. They are incredible in the early era, more than a match for Chivalric Sargeants in the high era. Advise that you use at least two provinces of your homelands for these guys (I use Milan and Tuscany).

Words cannot begin to describe how awesome these guys are. Way way way better than just about any spearmen I can think of.


Geonese Sailors
In Early, these guys are good. With the +1 valor garanteed, they are really good. Much better than vanilla archers, second (in Early and in my opinion) only to Tribeizond Archers.

Useful. I use them for a Italian Light Infantry/Geonese Sailors combo. Priceless.

They lose their appeal (rapidly) when arbalests and pav arbs become availiable.

Galleys
You get +1 valor galleys in Venice, according to the province info parchment, anyway. I've never seen a consistant valor +1 in my galleys. I can't explain it. If it is just my game, then +1 galleys is not bad.

Firegalleys
Good fighters, availiable in HIGH. OK ships, the best the Italians can get until gunpowder is invented.

Other
Though I'm missing a lot of other bits on units, I just thought I should mention some more stuff. Tuscany gets +1 urban militia. The number crunchers will say, That's 7.387323% more effective than normal urban militia It's really only useful very early on. I personally never rely on militia when I can avoid it.

Italian crossbows and arbalesters are pretty good. No tangible advantages over other crossbows and arbalesters. Just seems better.

Edit: Fixed the Firegalleys-in-early error http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-blush.gif

Chimpyang
06-25-2004, 19:37
Also, rushing the pope in early and crippling him every so often isn't a bad idea as occasionally he builds a large enoguh army to feel the need to attack you. Driving him to the keep after a sensational win usually keeps his army numbers down, siege until the year in which the caslte is due to fall the evacuate. The time to kill him is later on, when you can withstand a reermergance easily.

Zortanius
06-25-2004, 22:53
Hey Alexander the pretty good,

The island you speak of is Crete. Just thot it'd mention that.

Cheers http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

Alexander the Pretty Good
06-25-2004, 23:03
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-oops.gif
Thanks Zortanius

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-blush.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-wall.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-lost.gif

I'm OK now. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-2thumbsup.gif

katank
06-26-2004, 07:38
note: melee for sailors are lower than brigand etc. and turkish hyrids.

they are far better than vanilla archers though and cost less upkeep too, therefore cheaper in the long run.

@alexander the pretty good. ship combat is random, sacrifice thy peasants for naval victories, and ship valor is useless.

you can't get firegalleys in early. that would be extremely overpowered.

Alexander the Pretty Good
06-26-2004, 21:51
Quote[/b] ]you can't get firegalleys in early. that would be extremely overpowered.

I shall quote myself as a suitable reply:

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-oops.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-help.gif
I can't seem to get ANYTHING right.

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-wall.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-wall.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/ceasarno.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

Thanks for the corrections Katank

ah_dut
06-26-2004, 22:55
Quote[/b] (Alexander the Pretty Good @ June 26 2004,23:51)]I can't seem to get ANYTHING right.
or Katank can't get anything wrong http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-jester.gif

Alexander the Pretty Good
06-27-2004, 00:09
There's that, too. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Sir Toma of Spain
08-11-2004, 07:31
For Glorious Achievements mode (early - high):

About the Noble Mercantilism GA:

I am playing a campaign currently in GA mode (hard, early) and I did not make the first 2 shots at noble mercantilism (which is to control more trade than any other faction). It is only worth 3 points and only happens 3 times (1205?, 1321, end), but I couldn't get it. I'm not sure how, since I maxed trade in: Venice, Tuscany, Genoa, Tripoli, Antioch, have trade posts/merchants in Egypt, Sweden, Khazar, Crimea, Wessex (It's been crazy). Oh well. It's only a total of six points I have missed so far.



I also can never get that goal even though i am making tons of money from trade and no one else has a trade route

Bossk
08-12-2004, 01:47
First of all my first post here so hi to all ~:wave:
Secondly I thought I'll reply to this topic as I am just playing a campaign with the Italians ~D
I chose them because of their wealth and mercanilism and have around 400k florins by ~1205. What I found useful is conquering most of the Iberian peninsula with crusades while in control of the Almohads (especially cordobo has a large trade incoming when linked with fleets) . Luckily add the fact that I could claim some provinces in german civil war(mostly switzerland for pikemen ) and later conquered hungarian provinces, most isles in the mediterran sea and even conquered Saxony (for gothic knights) and norway and sweden (rich on tradable goods) via my fleets. Later I started crusades towards North Africa to gain the gold ressoruces and next step Palestine/tripoly. Italians have the advantage of good units and a good starting position.

katank
08-12-2004, 15:07
@ sir toma, really? you had master merchants in many of those places and not first place in trade?

I always have dominance in trade even if I'm not the Italians after about 50 game years.

1) go through all the sea zones while holding down V. make sure every seazone shows green. yellow means get a ship in there! red means sink the rival ships.

2) check to see you have ports in all your trading provinces. generally good idea for port and even ship building in every coastal.

3) check the coin button thingy in the lower left hand panel. clicking it will bring up a parchment of all provinces and economic state. I think rightclicking on a trade province should bring up a detailed parchment of where you are exporting to. check to see all valid provinces are being exported to.

4) sink every bloody ship from the faction with most number of ships in the water. If you destroy the most dominant trader, likely you'll be strongest in trade.

your income should be around 30k-70k of income per year with fully connected trade network.

@bossk, not to burst your bubble but you may want to prioritize on sacking provinces like Sicily and Naples and take the holy lands fast.

the holy lands give you GA points and good trade provinces. Antioch and Tripoli are hard to beat.

North Africa is good to not conquer. You need ports to export to.

the cash you get from exporting to there is likely to be greater than the gold.

also, too much territory rapidly means bad vices for your govs.

The entire Italian penisula excluding papal possessions, the 4 crusader provinces and Syria, Scandanavia, Sourther steppes(Kiev, Khazar, Crimea), and maybe Iberia (including Morrocco and perhaps Aquitaine and Toulouse(CKs)) should be enough.

Sir Toma of Spain
08-12-2004, 23:00
@katank yes i am making about 30k a year but the points do not show up. I think it might be a bug in the game, another one is the German goal of controling 2/3 of the north sea trade, they always get the points even if their only provence left is Switzerland.

katank
08-12-2004, 23:30
that's strange since I got the points in my games. Are you playing VI 2.01?

Sir Toma of Spain
08-13-2004, 06:48
Yes i am

katank
08-13-2004, 14:04
weird, anyone else have experience on this matter?

Sir Toma, consider using the -ian switch and switch through the factions and check to make sure that none has higher income than you, esp. from trade.

Sir Toma of Spain
08-16-2004, 07:48
I will try that i hope it works because it is really annoying ~:mecry:

Alexander the Pretty Good
08-18-2004, 00:51
Haven't played Italians in a long while (been hooked on the great mods available) but that still bothers me when I think of it.

The solution is probably some faction has lots of provinces with less goods than say, Venice or Sweden, but has more of them an d trades more extensively.

I wish there was a way to keep track of how your opponents are doing, at least in small ways. GAs that require the most of something (like trade) should show the leader in that category. Or their should be a "global stats list" available, showing trade income, or something. In Victoria (which I dallied in for a couple of weeks) there is the leadger, which tells you a lot of things about the different countries. A trimmed-down version of that would be real nice for RTW. But, if wishes were fish, the oceans would be full... ~;)

Watchman
08-31-2004, 21:38
Dunno about the point gain, as I never actually remember to *count* the darn things before and after the "hit years" and the GA screen never seems to show anything else than the Homelands one, but anyway. One issue with trade is if you end up in a war with the folks you're supposed to trade to - I'm currently watching a net loss of around 5k florins a year due to being simultaneously at war with both the Spanish and the Sicilians, who between them have most of the coastal provinces that aren't mine or populated by Rebels (who don't trade).

It's all the more annoying when there's no way they're going to gain anything out of it - I believe in strong border armies - and simply won't accept a ceasefire no matter what I do...

katank
09-02-2004, 17:11
the rebels do trade if you are not at war with them.

the key in this case is to establish naval superiority and then pull back to have no contact with their lands.

if land border, invade and beat em into a castle and pull out on the same turn your navy goes away from their shores.

this tactic of no contact means auto ceasefire and works for factions including rebels with whom you can't get a ceasefire otherwise.

Procrustes
09-02-2004, 19:34
... and the GA screen never seems to show anything else than the Homelands one, but anyway....

Hi Watchman,

I may be misunderstanding you, but if you are making the same mistake I did it's that you need to click on each of the individual GA's in the scroll on the right hand side of the GA screen to get the details for that GA on the scroll on the left hand side. I mean, the right hand side scroll is called "Greatest Achievements" or some such - the first one listed is "homelands", the second and third may be "conquests" and "crusades". On the left hand side the text for the homelands GA is described. If you click on the "conquests" GA on the right, the text will change on the left.

Hope this makes sense, and that I'm not just repeating what you already know. It's just that I made this mistake for a while - seems so intuitive now, but for some reason it eluded me.
Best,

Graphic
02-03-2005, 11:31
I started an Early Italian campaign tonight. I havent attacked anyone at all for a long time, I just built up an impressive trade empire (like 6k a year in venice from exports) and some countries are starting to get kind of big. have i waited too long to attack or can i jump in a little late with my amazing wealth and do some dirt?

Claudius Maniacus Sextus
02-06-2005, 01:11
i first conquerd naples who will almost all the time revolt,conquerd hungary,and launched crusades in al W Byzantine empire from hungary till constantinople.then had many peace years......... ~:cheers: ..........until the egyptians attacked,had many hard battles with the egyptians,but my superior tech units smashed them to the ground,so to speak even though victory was obtained in a LONG time.after that more peace time but took a close look on russia hwo had conquerd all from russia to france.so i start a major war which i ended in 100 years of hard fighting.soo....the only ones left are the english the danes I and the spanish who have africa and the iberian peninsula plus some prov. in france.i had NO intention of going into another big war so i leave them alone,but they are smarter then me so they declare war so i fight them to spain and conquer a little more and i have one.i would have waged another war but my pop. revolted in the egyptian prov. even though they are 200% happy.

thats the story SHORT!actually there wer many hard times,the strugle and many crucial battles.the major thing that has the italians soo good is they are MONEY-makers,i had an ugly BIG income,and at the end of the game i had 2,2.5+mil florints.

~D thats all CHEERS! ~:cheers:

weegee
02-15-2005, 23:11
Wow. Reading these pointers has been really helpful for my Italian campaign. Here's some comments/questions for you more advanced players. Not that I want all the answers because I enjoy learning things and having the mystery of the game be alive. Otherwise, it might get boring if you conquer the world every time. So I guess I'm looking for a sanity check to make sure I haven't missed a major point.

Going off of memory here because I don't have the game in front of me, so please excuse any errors. I am currently in year 1122.

At about turn 5 or so, I took Serbia quite easily. Immediately cued to build a port, watchtowers, etc. It has turned into a great province with gold mine complex. It also houses my biggest army, 2 full stacks of mostly Genoese sailors, Fuedal Sarges, Fuedal MAA, and some Military Sarges. Just started pumping out Slav Javelins as well to try the units.

I built up the trade routes with lots of Dromons. Money was coming in nicely, about 3500-4000k profit each year. Build up treasury to 30k

Alliances with pretty much every faction on the map except for Byz. Things are going great up till about 1105 or so.

There's a rebellion in Naples, then Sicily tries to conquer and fails. I go in a clean up. Easy win. Now I'm at war with Byz. Greece changes hands about 3 or 4 times. Sicily must have been bitter about me taking Naples so they sink a ship of mine. Bye Bye big money trading. I don't understand why they would do such a thing? I try to be good and not attack them but start stacking ships in order not to be so vulnerable. Eventually they try to take Corsica and Tuscany, but I fight them off and at the same time hit Sicily. I then get the warning before I can wait out the siege, so I withdraw to Naples. Of course Sicily got no warning for sinking my ships and attacking some of my lands over past 4 years.

Byz offered a cease fire and I accepted, knowing that I was allied with Turks. So when the offer came up to stay with the Turks, I took it. So at least Byz went back to neutral and now I can trade with them.

Now for the questions:

What's the next step? How do I get rid of Sicily without being ex'd. They will not take my marriage/ceasefire proposals. They're tying up most of my trade routes. I can probably squash them in about 2-3 rounds now that I'm building catapults. I also have some assasins in the builds, so maybe I'll risk excommunication and then kill the pope. How long does it take to organize a crusade against me? I'm assuming that killing him before then will cancel out any possible damage.

I'd like to either start hitting N. Africa or Iberia coast. Expansion wise, most factions haven't grown much. Turkey is starting to encroach on Byz and Germany has taken a couple of Hungarian lands. And I'm right in the middle of everything so I should be able to start gobbling up land. My ILI are only 5 or 6 turns away, so once I build a nice stack of them, I think that will be the time to hit Africa or Mideast. But first I must neutralize the Sicilians who are like a mosquito causing me annoyance.

Jammer
03-03-2006, 13:45
weegee, the Sicilian problem is a thorny one, but manageable.

Auto-ceasefire is a wonderful thing. Simply, if you're at war with someone, and then have no contact with them for a turn (no borders, no naval contact with enemy provinces), a cease-fire is automatically called.

Scenario 1: If you have Naples, then attack Sicily and storm the castle on next turn. On the same turn that you storm the castle, withdraw any ships from around Malta (and any other Sicilian held province). Auto-ceasefire should result.

When the Pope warns you, you have two years to establish full control of Sicily (the province) and cut off contact.

I recommend taking Sicily. It will cripple Sicilian economy and boost your trade income.

Also, your Dromons are fast. Divide them into single ships (not groups) and attack one Sicilian ship with multiple Dromons (and/or Galleys, too).

Good luck.

Sirron
03-16-2006, 12:58
Unfortunately my forces are too thin to follow your wonderful recommendations for Italian campaign.

Started in High, GA, vanilla MTW, Hard. After going for Serbia and trade I got amazing chance to take (in turn 15 + or so) Constantinople and bribe Trebizond from rebels.

So here I stood with holdings scattered from Milan to Trebizond, linked with ships and waiting for Byzantium, Sicily or Turks to attack me....

The Sicilians gave me a princess, I exchanged the alliance with Byz for one with much more powerful Turks and felt quite safe for turn or two.

Now out of the blue - the HRE attacked and took Milan, I retaliated with force and took it back...

Now the question is...

Stay on defence on Italian-German border?
Attack HRE owned Provence and tech -up?
Muster all forces and punish the HRE for such a cheek move?
Or unite my possesions - too costly , would require the war with Hungarians /and or Byz?

It is my first campaign as Italians, so that is why the stupid questions.

Thank you for your suggestions...

Ludens
03-17-2006, 14:02
You seem to be doing relatively well, Sirron. I suggest minimizing the length your northern border, but also launching a few punishment expeditions to keep the HRE occupied. Also, keep an eye on the Sicilians: they are untrustworthy and are likely to attack your shipping or provinces when you are weak. Personally, I would take them out as soon as it is convenient.

Holding onto Constantinople can be valuable: it is a cashcow once you have developed your trading network. However, if you are not prepared to face the ire of the Byzantine empire than it might be better to beat a tactical retreat. At this stage it may not be quite worth bleeding your armies. If, however, the Byzantines are not that powerful (and you have just taken the lynchpin of their economy), hold on and connect Constantinople to your cities by all means, even if it requires war. Do not attack Hungary, however. You position is vulnerable enough already.

Lastly, Italy's main strength is its trade, so you should develop it and be careful when going to war. I would stay put and tech up until I felt powerful enough to expand into the east (preferably using crusades).

Sirron
04-22-2006, 17:42
Thanks for advice, Ludens, it worked quite well...

After heavy defensive battles (3 or so) in Milan, which I have won - the HRE gave way and disintegrated into the civil war. The emperor fell back, out of my sight into North Germany and rebels and isolated German garrisons were easy pickings for Italy!

I took Provence, Burgundy, Switzerland, Tyrol, Bavaria and Austria and Italian Empire became the force to be reckoned with... Interssting is that the emperor was able to eventually reunite the rest of his empire (save my newprovinces) again and is my ally now (some 40 years after his treaacherous attack against me).

I have slowly increased my trade, kicked the Byz out of Bulgaria, leaving them only on Rhodos and in Moldavia and prepared for crusade to tunisia verus Almohads, which succeeded after taking in many Spanish troops (I have marched it into Granada and then by the sea to the target province.

However the Spanish kicked me out of Tunisia in 3 years, with about 4 stack army....And in the same year the Hungary attacked and Turks followed suit. The black years, income down to - 1000 fl/year , trebizond and Georgia lost and retaken several times, two consecutive Seljuk attacks on constantinople, carnage all over the map... I was in no mood at that time to post, at all.

However the hungarian attacks on serbia were repelled, auto ceasfire helped to stop war with Spain as we had no land contact after the fall of Tunis.
I have sent 10 spies to stir the Turkish lands up, and eventually they have fallen to my troops and after their king and his 2 sons died in epic battle in Nicaea, the Seljuk realm was history. Unfortunately I managed to retake only my original possessions (treb and Georgia) + Nikea. Unfortunate provinces of Rum , Armenia and anatolia fell to Egyptian forces (my dear but deeply hated ally).

So then I moved against Hungary itself with three pronged attack from Austria, Serbia and Venice. Bloodbath, indeed, pope cancelled alliance with me, however, but the Hungarian king is hiding in Carpathians...

Then, in 2 years, the France attacked to remind me of western part of my kingdom, but they have decided to attack across the river several times to Burgundy (the finest example - yesterday evening with about 1400 to my 470 troops, resulting with 1030 vs. my 130 dead...And they lost their king, three units of templar knights (part of the army was the crusade to Egypt, but I refused to let them in) and other nice forces as well). The spies are working in their lands, but no major revolts, still some of their troops are forced to quell the rebelions.

So here I stand (pope has died, so he did not have time to excom me for the siege of Buda castle, btw) with my empire strenghtened, slowly the trade with egypt/spain grows and my income is now over 2000/year...

Unfortunately the northern branch of the trade routes was lost to the French navy, alas...

So my observations/tips are:

1. The AI simply did not let me to tech up and cash up (see 3).
2. There was no time to expand the trade routes and make them strong
enough to survive the naval war.
3. If you got involved in war (albeit defensive) and win, they all start to hate
you.
4. It is my campaign No. 7 that have seen the emergence and swift defeat
of GH by Russsians. I have not observed any substantial gains by GH,
ever, if the game starts in High period.
5. The rebel ships indeed exist - iI am not able to catch one single ship which
is sailing in and out of Black sea and harrases my trade lines from
Constantinople (about 40 turns now).
6. The Italian infantry is THE ULTIMATE SAVIOUR, this unit performs
incredibly.
7. It is not worth for Italy to move beyond the Constantinople if one does not
want to fight with Turks early.
8. MTW is great game (which is obvious).

Thank you for your attention.

Ledge
08-14-2006, 17:56
Hi all,

Currently playing as the Italians in my first full campaign set in the early period on imperial domination and wanted to retrospectively consider a few points.
Being a pretty cautious sort of player I sat back for the first hundred odd years and built up massive trade incomes then took some provinces off the HRE and knocked out the Alomohads and the Spanish. Yet I feel that I was too cautious early on concentrating mainly on building up my infrastructure and top class units. The Egyptians ended up dominating the east and me with the Italians the west. However, I kept on putting off the inevitable clash in fear of a massive drop in income. Thus the Egyptians dictated when and where it happened. Whilst I fought off initial their attacks and started to make inroads into their empire in the Balkans and central Europe I felt that I should have thrown the first punch(I had a couple of crusade markers set aside for that purpose!). Well I guess the purpose of this rambling is to ask whether over reliance on trade is best avoided.

P.S. Currently running a deficit of around -12,000 florins a year(massive armies!) and wondered whether anything bad happens if your treasury has a massive deficit...even tho it's only money!

Vladimir
08-14-2006, 19:38
Well it's always best to have a balanced stream of revenue. You should have been able to build up your farms and need to reduce your borders with the Eggies. Once you have reduced borders your relatively few, high tech armies should slowly be able to roll back the Islamic tide.

Ledge
08-14-2006, 20:19
Whilst all decent farmland is at least 60% trade income massively increased my revenue. So I'm looking at a situation where for the last 100 years or so I might well be unable to build any more units. This shouldn't be too much of a problem as I have consistly had the largest army and I just need to husband my forces to a certain extent. I'm just concerned about the impact on province happiness for being greatly in the red...is there any?
As for strategy the Egyptians have a couple of provinces in central Europe(Swabia and Franconia) with about 2k troops in each. With forces in Bohemia, Friesland, Lorraine, Tyrolia and Burgundy I'm in a position to take Franconia and prevent any from Swabia escaping when I march in.

Empirate
08-15-2006, 09:11
With most of the western part of the map in your pocket, and your sitting tight for a hundred years making money, I can't see where your financial problems can possibly be coming from.

You should have been able to set aside close to a million florins by trading like that. Furthermore, your provinces should by now be able to produce a lot of money even if trade links are down. So you should be doing fine for a long time still, even if your armies are really big. I don't quite get why you're 12,000 in the red each turn due to upkeep. How many armies DO you have? Sounds to me like rather too many. After sitting tight trading for so long, your cash flow should be more than sufficient to support large armies - at least large enough to hold all you have and take some more. Try to disband some units here and there, where none are needed, especially mercenaries - these are usually unnecessary in this late stage of the game. Try to make do with way less troops than you seem to have. I can't even imagine the number of troops it must take to go so far into the negative.

And also, put your troops to some use! They're not there to look shiny, but to defend or to conquer land, which in turn generates money. Think of troops as an investment, which ultimately has to pay for itself in some way. An army of 16 units may cost something like 5,000-10,000 fl in training, and about a fifth that in upkeep each turn. If it is not used to defend provinces that are worth that much, nor to conquer some other provinces that are, it's not seeing enough use and doesn't pay for itself. Meaning: You probably don't need it.

Don't take me wrong: I'm not criticizing your style of play. I just think you should by now have what it takes to destroy all your enemies and take over Europe, and counsel you to do just that. And quickly, before your money runs out!

sbroadbent
08-15-2006, 11:54
What's the next step? How do I get rid of Sicily without being ex'd. They will not take my marriage/ceasefire proposals. They're tying up most of my trade routes. I can probably squash them in about 2-3 rounds now that I'm building catapults. I also have some assasins in the builds, so maybe I'll risk excommunication and then kill the pope. How long does it take to organize a crusade against me? I'm assuming that killing him before then will cancel out any possible damage.

There are a couple options here.

1) Drive the Sicilians in Sicily into their castle, and if you get threatened with excommunication, suck up the losses and assault the castle. I prefer to autocalc these as it seems to dull the loss of potentially hundreds of fodder... ;)

2) Drive the Sicilians into the castle and use an Emmisary to bribe the garrison. This can work so long as the faction leader or heir is not in the province. Hopefully it won't cost too much.

3) Drive the Sicilians into the castle, and use a Spy to try to open the gates. If you have limited time before the Pope Excoms you, this might not work.


I've found that even when you manage to get a ceasefire, it sometimes won't change the factions disposition, and they'll go right back to war with you. In this case it's best to simply sink their fleets



Being a pretty cautious sort of player I sat back for the first hundred odd years and built up massive trade incomes then took some provinces off the HRE and knocked out the Alomohads and the Spanish. Yet I feel that I was too cautious early on concentrating mainly on building up my infrastructure and top class units.

I wouldn't necessarily call this too cautious. Depending on the provinces you hold, and where the soft targets are, it can be worth it to build up a large treasury in the form of trade for your eventual full blown troop movements. Being the Italians this means you're stuck dealing with The HRE in the north, the Pope in the South, and whoever is to the east. These are not necessarily great targets to go to war with, particularly if like me, you want to accelerate your economy by getting trade going asap. In many games, I usually only train enough troops to stabilize my position. On top of that my troop training tends to focus on ship building where posible. Not to mention that early in the game, if you don't control what you are training/building, you can run out of money quickly.


Well I guess the purpose of this rambling is to ask whether over reliance on trade is best avoided.

I don't think it'd be possible to be over reliant on trade, unless the trading that you do have setup has minimal military backing. With that said, it's possible to be in a position where losing your trade income due to sea blockades can discourage you from taking any military action against some of your neighbors or trade rivals. This is particularly difficult if your rivals outnumber you in ships. If you do rely on trade, it's vital to establish a large shipbuilding effort. This shouldn't be too difficult with what coastal provinces the Italians start out with.

I've been playing an XL Fatimids campaign where I had ship building capacity in each province from Anatolia around to Egypt. Being able to pump out 7 ships every 3 years, combined with the Fatimid's rich provinces pushed me ahead of everyone in naval superiority. I also had Morocco, Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily, Malta and even Ireland pumping out ships, and by 1130 I had managed to place 6 ships in every sea zone.

Ledge
08-15-2006, 19:20
I guess playing Shogun too much made me forget about the impact of 'real' ships on trade. That and building too many troop producing centres. As such my war chest reached about 150,000 tops which didn't last long once the balloon went up and I had yearly expenditure in the 40,000 region. Anyways the war is going ok at the moment as I've taken Switzerland, Swabia, Franconia amd Saxony in a couple of years whilst holding the Egyptians off in Austria. Furthermore gaining naval supremacy in the eastern Med has allowed me to launch a second front in the Balkans taking Greece and Constantinople whilst launching raids into Asia Minor. Unfortunately the British Isles and Iberia are a bit rebellious at the moment. Got about a thousand men and 10 spies in Portugal which is still only about 102% happy at a normal tax rate. Probably gonna carry on fighting until I take Bohemia, Bulgaria, Hungary and Serbia, alongside wiping out the Egyptian navy, then look for a brief peace settlement while I organise for the next push.
Oh yeah the Egyptians did wipe out the Papacy which has reemerged. Hopefully they'll fight each other to a standstill leaving a weak Papcy in Italy which I can overrun as my last victim...being excommunicted is such a drag.

sbroadbent
08-16-2006, 04:19
I guess playing Shogun too much made me forget about the impact of 'real' ships on trade.

I only had the opportunity to play Shogun for a short period of time, but now that I have the Eras collection I should have more opportunity to fully explore that game.


That and building too many troop producing centres. As such my war chest reached about 150,000 tops which didn't last long once the balloon went up and I had yearly expenditure in the 40,000 region.

I think it is important to build alot of troop producing centers, but not to be training troops all the time. I generally only build troops when I get the sense that another faction might be itching for war, or I intend to expand my territory. In this case I do a quick recruitment blitz by filling up the queue in every decent troop producing province, and only if additional troops will be required do I continue further production. I might have periods of 25-30 years where I am training no units (other than ships), and in those periods I'm mostly focusing on teching up. I'd rather not train a set of units when in 3 or 4 years an armor upgrade will be completed, therefore requiring me to retrain the same units if I want to improve their armor.

What can happen in these situations is your nation will seem to stand still while other factions grow and other factions die.

While playing the Italians in one of my first campaigns I hit around 150K florins before I had to go to war and my treasury was devastated. I've hit 200-300K while playing other factions, and in my current Fatimids XL campaign I almost reached 500K. This was not too hard to reach when I had profits of 15K florins each year. With the buildup for the Horde, and a followup war with the Byzantines my treasury dipped below 200K (the Byzantines either didn't like the fact that I was building up to protect Armenia), or it was scripted for the Byzantines to attack the Fatimids about the time the Horde appeared. What was annoying was that for the 150 years previously we were best of allies.

Unfortunately at this point I effectively own all mediterranean coastal provinces so the big profits from trade are no longer flowing. My only major hurdle now is the English which have way too many ships for their own good.


Oh yeah the Egyptians did wipe out the Papacy which has reemerged. Hopefully they'll fight each other to a standstill leaving a weak Papcy in Italy which I can overrun as my last victim...being excommunicted is such a drag.

A great way of getting rid of the excom status is to train some Grand Inquisitors, and send them after the pope. Presuming the Pope is in a province with high zeal, you could have up to a 25% chance to burn the Pope, presuming of course that the Pope's Piety score is 0 :laugh4: Even if the Pope doesn't fry, what can happen is you can get a Pope with the VnV's of God Fearing and Atheist :D

The other option is to send waves of assassins after the Pope and hope one succeeds. In one of my games I modded the building files to remove the Watch Tower and Border Fort from the game. I also made Brothels and Taverns easier to build. During the game I swear there was a period of 5-6 years where the Pope got assassinated each and every year. Once I finish my Fatimids campaign that's the first thing that I'll be doing.

Ledge
08-16-2006, 18:21
Finally got to 60% domination on the main map and decided to call it a day. It served pretty well as a campaign to learn the game mechanics on and the high initial trade income made me pretty secure and meant I could pick and choose when to act.
The decisive battle came in Bohemia with about 7k troops on each side. With the Egyptians attacking to save their besieged forces I had the advantage of defence. I killed 3000 Egyptians and lost about 800 myself but slaughtered the 3000+ prisoners I had taken which broke Egyptian power in Europe. Furthermore the Egyptian empire descended into civil war and I easily took seven provinces in the last turn.
By the end of the game I must have had over 70 Gothic and Chivalric Knight units which was far too many. I ended up throwing them away on castle assaults and uncontrolled pursuits.
I can see your point about multiple troop producing centres especially if you need forces at a certain point and lack sea transport. Furthermore my armies tended to be too large and unbalanced. I pretty much ignored militia units which would have been handy in certain defensive battles. Certainly building specific armies with roles in mind seems the way to go.
Trade certainly influenced my style of play and choice of enemies but I should have rationalised my spending right from the start. This also applied to my unit producing centres which lacked effective specialsation.
All in all it was a pretty interesting starting game and I think I can improve a great deal on the back of it.

P.S. Assasinate the Pope...but I'm a good Catholic boy...well most of the time I was!

Don Corleone
05-02-2007, 15:32
I love playing as Italy. They were the first faction I went to when I started playing (and since I started with Vanilla MTW and Sicily wasn't on the radar), it's where I took my Org name from. Periodically I'll start games as Italy, but I do go long periods without playing as them. When I do revisit them, it's almost like I'm starting the game all over again. Well, I just started an Italian campaign (results coming soon to Pics n' History thread).

First, a bit about how I play. I almost always play on GA, usually on Hard. I've never tried expert, but based on Adrian's comments in several of the faction guides, I'm considering it soon. But I'm about role-playing and working the GA goals into a story.

Second, I like to look at what strengths and what weaknesses a faction has going for it. For the Italians:

Strengths
-Italian Light Infantry: You could build an army out of these guys alone. They kick ass. They almost unbalance the faction in Early. The build requirements aren't easy, but they're not impossible either. Don't armor these guys up though, or you won't be able to take them with you into the desert.

-Genoese sailors: Better than average archers and cheaper support costs to boot. As soon as you can, convert all your regular archer units to these.

-Tuscan UM: Not great, but for the very early game, a steal. Their extra valor point really helps and they can typically take on a spear unit single handed and come out with 25% casualties or less.

-TRADE: In case you missed it in the first 2 pages, Italy can be a cash cow! Lots of money to be made. In fact, playing as the Italians early on made me stunted in my understanding of the economics of the game. I had to play as the HRE and England a few times to learn how to budget and conserve.


Weaknesses
Starting Position: With the exception of Venice, rather undeveloped provinces at start.

Expansion: Not many places to go without getting into a fight with an enemy stronger than yourself. What's more, most of the immediately accessible neighboring provinces aren't worth the money you'll have to spend to go get them.

Cavalry: No early cavalry units. Mounted X-bows aren't that bad in melee, but they're too expensive to throw around like knight-wanna-bes.

So, here's how I played them this last go round:

-I abandoned conventional wisdom and didn't take Serbia right off the bat. Instead, I took Naples. I left weak garrisons everywhere but Milan and Venice. Why? When you take Serbia, you put yourself between the Byzantines and Hungary, both of whom are more than happy to hit you when you're not ready for it. This requires a large army (forget garrison) in Serbia. For a gold mine, it's just not worth it. Besides, if you leave Serbia, Hungary and Byz will fight over it. Let them fight it out in the Balkans, which leaves you to take your true goals, the GA point rich Levant.

-Taking the bait, the Pope broke an alliance with me and invaded Tuscany. One of my role-playing rules is that when an ally backstabs me, I take one province as punishment. Hello Rome!

-I then continued building my fleet up. Another ally got the idea to backstab me, and after 5 years of sea battles, Sicily is mine and what remains of that faction is holed up (without a castle) in Malta. Imagine the king and 7 units of royal knights, sitting around a field dreaming of the day they will 'make those Italians pay!"

Now, you've got two ways to go. You can help your Spanish friends polish off the Elmos (by taking Tunisia and working up the other side of North Africa) or, as I usually do, build up for the conquest of the Holy Land.

-I queue up 3 crusade markers. I wait for the Eggys to get a good war going with the Byz. Their aggression and their tendency to push far into Asia Minor works for you. By the time I start (by invading Palestine) typically the majority of the Eggys are in stacks in Nicia, Anatolia, maybe even Trebizond. Too far away to help their brethren back in Jersusalem. This time, I timed it just right and I put a fleet into the English channel the same turn... I noticed no drop in trade income. The 3 Eggy ports I lost I gained from the English and French.

-As soon as the Eggys move their stacks into Tripoli, lay a crusade on Antioch. The money from Anitoch is too much to pass up and as you're weakening the Eggys, you don't want the Byzantines to snatch your reward while you're doing all the work.

-The 3rd crusade can come when you're ready. Basically, let the Eggys tire themselves trying to fight two fronts (just have LOTS of spears and arrows handy for all those camels). When you feel comfortable, launch the 3rd crusade into Tripoli. Once you take it, Egypt will probably have a civil war, effectively taking them out of contention.

-I'd launch the 4th crusade at Syria. THat's too many backdoors to have to cover in your Crusader states. Save Edessa for #5. It's only 1 point anyway.

Don't take anybody else. I've noticed that the AI bases it's assement of your relative strength by the number of provinces your faction holds, even in an GA game. Taking Serbia, Crete, and Cypress... yeah, they're easy at first. But they're all running your tally up. Other factions will become more and more wary of you and will eventually slice your trade route. If you're going for global domination, ignore this. But if your goal is to rack up the GA points while keeping the game fairly balanced, don't take any more provinces than you need.

From here, just rack up the cash and let the game play itself out. I have to agree with Katank's advice somewhat.... if somebody ever hits your tradefleet, destroy every ship they have. Faction leaders might sign peace treaties, but existing fleet captains never honor them. You'll have them continuously sneaking up and breaking your trade links. Clean out every ship in their entire fleet, then make peace. They seem much less likely to break their peace treaties when they have to start from scratch every time they do.

Vladimir
05-02-2007, 16:33
Good write-up Don. Italy is my guilty pleasure.

I prefer the Venetians in XL though and I usually take out the Pope. The only downfall is no Genoese sailors. Otherwise, it isn't much of a challenge anymore. You can get some really good defender virtues out of the Pope. He also likes to strike when you aren't expecting it so it causes you to be more careful, slowing your expansion and increasingly the enjoyability of the game.

xearor
05-30-2011, 01:30
also, too much territory rapidly means bad vices for your govs.

hi first post here. read a lot already in this forum and liked it very much so far. especially katanks opening moves.
was thinking of playing italians next after finishing a HRE conquest on normal. i was wondering why my generals were getting such bad virtues after conquering 60% of the map. is there a thread about the penalties you get when conquering the world?
is there any thread about vanilla viking invasion 2.1 AI strategies?

Cyprian2
05-30-2011, 07:55
hi first post here. read a lot already in this forum and liked it very much so far. especially katanks opening moves.
was thinking of playing italians next after finishing a HRE conquest on normal. i was wondering why my generals were getting such bad virtues after conquering 60% of the map. is there a thread about the penalties you get when conquering the world?
is there any thread about vanilla viking invasion 2.1 AI strategies?

Hi, xearor, and welcome to the org~:wave:~ I think you'll find here all the MTW information you seek and more. As a starting point, I highly recommend frogbeastegg's all-encompassing guide to everything MTW:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?31445-A-Beginners-Guide-to-Medieval-Total-War

It's a few years old, but still as relevant to the game as the day it was written (it helps that the game hasn't changed in the last, oh, nine years :laugh4:).

Also, if you're looking for some good MTW-related camaraderie (as well as answers to your questions), I recommend you check out the Main Hall, where all lovers of the game are welcome.

Finally, since I assume you're playing Vanilla (or the original MTW), may I recommend some of the famous mods that have been pioneered by fans of the game?––namely gollum's Caravel Mod (a vastly improved but not altogether unrecognizable version of the original):

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?132434-The-Caravel-Mod

and Vikinghorde's XL mod (which adds a ton of units and several new factions to the game):

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?31201-Medieval-Total-War-XL

As a relative newcomer to the Org myself, I trust you'll find your stay as pleasant as I have.

All the best.

EDIT: oh, and to attempt a very quick answer to your question about generals getting bad traits, it's simply the game-engine's response to your empire's expansion. When your income reaches a certain level, your empire is seen as essentially "decadent" and bad traits accrue to your generals and their loyalty diminishes (especially after the death of a faction leader), thus increasing the possibility for civil war and paving the way for a whole lot of fun! I'm sure there are others here who can give you a more technical explanation (e.g. coding, etc.), but I've always found that to be the case in games where I've expanded disproportionately to the AI.

drone
05-31-2011, 03:09
Welcome to the Org, xearor! ~:wave:

There are strategy threads here in the MTW Guides forum for VI factions. If you have some specific questions, feel free to post them in the Main Hall, VI is good fun. :bow:

xearor
05-31-2011, 15:20
EDIT: oh, and to attempt a very quick answer to your question about generals getting bad traits, it's simply the game-engine's response to your empire's expansion. When your income reaches a certain level, your empire is seen as essentially "decadent" and bad traits accrue to your generals and their loyalty diminishes (especially after the death of a faction leader), thus increasing the possibility for civil war and paving the way for a whole lot of fun! I'm sure there are others here who can give you a more technical explanation (e.g. coding, etc.), but I've always found that to be the case in games where I've expanded disproportionately to the AI.

thank you very much, explains a lot already. i was making 40k profit in a year and almost everybody was getting bad virtues, e.g. less farmincome,trade,etc...
paradox and confusing as hell, the more money you make, the worse your governours :(

i will definetely enjoy myself in the org :D

hmm will try out XL mod most probably,sounds interesting.

Cyprian2
05-31-2011, 18:53
thank you very much, explains a lot already. i was making 40k profit in a year and almost everybody was getting bad virtues, e.g. less farmincome,trade,etc...
paradox and confusing as hell, the more money you make, the worse your governours :(

I should also add that keeping your generals inactive (as often happens once you own 60%+ of the map :laugh4:) will also give them bad traits.


i will definetely enjoy myself in the org :D

I look forward to reading your posts in the Main Hall. As drone says, there are always folk on hand to answer questions, or just talk about cool stuff (not as many folk as there once were, of course... But it's a good community all the same).


hmm will try out XL mod most probably,sounds interesting.

Good choice. One of the best, imo. And I'd recommend installing Tyberius's graphics submod, found here:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?105344-Tyberius-Mod-2.0-Final-Version-Released

(a version 3.0 was made some time ago, but it got canned due to dissent between Tyberius and another orgah. A shame. 2.0 is still pretty awesome.)

all the best!