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frogbeastegg
11-13-2006, 21:12
England is playable right from the start, without the need to unlock it or edit any files.

Bombasticus Maximus
11-14-2006, 00:23
Faction Infomation

Name: England.

The English have three provinces in the game, London, york and Caen. There starting map looks like this:
https://img381.imageshack.us/img381/8346/vcenglandzy1.gif

What to watch out for

As you have Caen which is in modernday france you will need to watch out for them as they will expand and go to war with you. In my Current game as the English the Milanese are also attacking me so keep a eye out for those. This may seem a little unbelieveable but what out for the scottish too, You may think that there no match for your might but there no push over. Try and get trade rights with as many factions as possible and do all the missions you are given because you get money and units to fight for you.


Making Money

In this game it's alot easier to make money so just build the buildings that will make you money for instance roads, ports, markets and so on, Not forgettting to build barracks and churches aswell.

Castle or town?

There's two different types of settlement you can have in the game. One is a town and the other is a castle. They both have their uses. For instance if you want to make money out of the people inside your town then use a town but if you need to fkeep that region then use a castle as it can be upgraded to a Citadel which will have 3 levels that the enemy has to tackle. Thats what I think anyways.

Good luck on your Campaigns. :2thumbsup:

Sumeren
11-14-2006, 13:38
A tip if playing England is to send a diplomat to marry youre faction heir to a french princess to gain an alliance with france. Control whole Britain wipe out rebels and Scotland and you got a nice platform to lauch attacks were ever you want to. And get longbow men early as possible they will win you most battles for you.

De Montfort
11-14-2006, 15:15
The three settlements that England possesses at the start are actually London, Nottingham and Caen.

London is a town, while Caen and Nottingham are Castles.

The rebel held settlements in the British isles are:

York (Town)
Caernarvon (Castle)
Dublin (Town)

York can be captured quickly as it has no wall defences and only a few units of light infantry, and Dublin is similar except it has slightly more and better troops. Caernarvon is a Wooden castle that requires the walls to be breached by catapult, or assailed using ladders. The catapult is the best option as the Welsh have longbows who can decimate your assault siege equipment before it reaches the walls, while the catapult can fire from a safe distance.

Bombasticus Maximus
11-14-2006, 15:32
I made a mistake it's not york you start with it's nottingham.

https://img166.imageshack.us/img166/5845/medieval220061114142747gz8.th.jpg (https://img166.imageshack.us/my.php?image=medieval220061114142747gz8.jpg)

econ21
11-14-2006, 15:36
Some pointers from my first VH/VH campaign (on turn 60 so far):

Building strategy

Nottingham and Caen are castles; London is a city. Given the relatively tight early economy, I would be inclined to use extra settlements as cities rather than castles. You can't afford to build more castle troops than you can already get and it costs a lot of money to upgrade your castles to get the better troops that will give you an edge (armoured swords, longbows etc). I let all of the UK, except Nottingham, be towns in order to make money. So far, I am leaving continental settlements be whatever they are - they are a nice mix of cities and castles; and frontline castles are no bad thing.

My build priorities would be gradually upteching Nottingham and other castles to progressively get the best sword and longbow units available. I find missiles to be my war-winning arm against the AI. Swords are necessary because English spears and bills are inferior to the dismounted Feudal Knights and Huscarls that the Danes and others may throw at you. They are also crucial for sieges (as both defenders and attackers).

Aside from that, I would try to build up profitable economic buildings in my towns, using the building browser to see the incremental income (markets often have no effect, so I have delayed them).

I've constructed religious buildings in an effort to deterr the Inquisition but to no great effect. I try to make sure there is a general in a settlement when a religious building is finished, in the hope of getting a rise in piety.

Developing better ships and a decent navy becomes essential: the AI builds fairly large fleets and does blockade your ports.


Early strategy

Preferring to "turtle" for personal - not gameplay - reasons, I would target rebel settlements first, only fighting AI factions who attacked me first.

Taking rebel York probably should be your first move in Britain; Wales second.

On the continent, taking Rennes then Bruges would make sense.

Be aware that both Wales and Bruges have decent garrisons - longbows and Flemish pikemen - so don't expect an easy fight.

The Scots should be passive early on - they have only one province and seem awed by your might. For efficiency, it might be best to conquer them before they have a chance to build. However, personally, I think it is more fun to give them a headstart and I only turned north when they declared war on me.

You should be able to take Rennes just before the French can get it, but will soon got involved in a war with France. The French are not particularly challenging, but I fought a largely defensive war, only slowly taking the city east of Paris (on a mission) and then the capital itself. The Pope slows down your conquests - I just accept his missions and pace myself accordingly.

After taking rebel Bruges, you are likely to encounter a strong Danish presence at Antwerp - in my game, they had eliminated the HRE - and they soon turned on me, leading to a second war. Scotland joined in shortly after.

Once war begins, the first target should be to eliminate the Scots so there is no two front war and you can empty the British Isles of significant troops. The French, being the next closest are the second priority (heading off against Denmark, Spain or elsewhere just overstretches your front). Respecting the Pope's demands to cease fighting will slow down these conquests a lot and probably destroying your standing with the Papacy. One thing I learned was that maintaining a siege can also violate a cease and desist order from the Pope, leading to excommunication.

All bordering factions appear to attack you sooner or later - Milan, Spain and Sicily have all piled in, in my first game - but do not appear an overwhelming threat. As of turn 90, I am now fighting on five fronts: Denmark, Germany (against Milan), France, Italy (against Sicily) and Spain. After wiping out France, I am planning to push down into Italy. Hopefully a southern border with the Papacy will be secure - he will not attack.

From there, I will probably take out Spain and Denmark, as defeating these - like defeating Scotland - will reduce, not expand my front. I may then turn towards the Holy Land to take Jerusalem and pick up the last of the 45 target provinces.

Unit Stats

3^|Unit size|Melee|Charge|Missile|Total defence|Defence|Armour|Shield|Cost|Upkeep|Prereq|Misc
7^Peasants|75|4|1||3|3|0|0|110|90|C1|
7^Town militia|75|5|2||7|1|0|6|290|125|T2|F
7^Dismtd Feudal knights|60|13|3||21|8|7|6|570|225|C3|
7^Armoured swordsmen|60|13|3||22|8|8|6|650|150|C3|
7^Bill militia|60|13|4||2|1|1|0|170|100|T4|AP, F
7^Billmen|60|15|5||3|3|0|0|230|125|C2|AP
7^Heavy bill militia|60|15|5||10|3|7|0|300|150|T5|AP, F
7^Heavy billmen|60|15|5||10|3|7|0|300|125|C3|AP
7^Dismtd English knights|60|21|6||13|5|8|0|530|225|C4|AP
7^Levy spearmen|75|5|2||7|1|0|6|310|125|C1|
7^Spear militia|75|5|2||7|1|0|6|310|125|T2|F
7^Merc spearmen|75|7|3||14|3|5|6|660|185||
7^Crusader sergeants|75|7|3||14|3|5|6|?|200||
7^Peasant archers|60|2|1|5|1|1|0|0|220|100|C1|
7^Archer militia|60|2|1|5|1|1|0|0|220|100|T3|F
7^Longbowmen|60|7|2|6|4|1|0|3|560|150|C2|AP
7^Yeomen archers|60|9|3|8|5|2|0|3|650|150|C3|AP
7^Retinue longbowmen|60|11|2|8|14|6|5|3|710|150|C4|AP
7^Sherwood foresters|30|16|3|13|9|9|0|0|510|250|C5|AP, 2HP
7^Merc crossbowmen|60|6|1|12|7|3|4|0|860|180||AP
7^Hobilars|40|7|3||7|3|4|0|280|150|C1|
7^Merchant cavalry|40|6|2||14|3|7|4|370|210|T3|F
7^Mailed knights|40|10|6||14|5|5|4|680|250|C2|
7^Feudal knights|40|10|6||16|5|7|4|?|250|C3|
7^English knights|40|10|8||16|5|7|4|860|250|C4|PC, AP
7^Templars/Hospitallers|40|13|6||16|6|7|4|?|300|C4|PC
7^Crusader knights|40|13|6||17|6|7|4|220|300|C4|PC
7^Early gen. bodyguard|21|13|8||17|5|8|4|820|350| |2HP, PC
7^Late gen. bodyguard|21|13|8||16|5|7|4|860|350| |2HP, PC
7^Demi lancer|40|13|8||12|5|7|0|700|250|T5|PC


F= free militia unit
AP = armour piercing
2 HP = two hit points
PC = powerful charge (not sure if that just refers to the 8 charge stat)
Prequisites: C1 = level 1 castle; T5 = level 5 town etc.

Observations:

1. The key unit to work towards is the armoured swordsmen. (Dismounted feudal knights are available a little earlier and essentially the same unit, but with too high an upkeep.) Swords are essential to compete with the heavy infantry of other factions, particularly in siege situations. Upgrading other unit types is less essential: you have no upgraded spears, while the effectiveness of missiles and cavalry arguably relies more on finesse than on unit stats.

2. As stated, the English have only the most basic spears so receiving a cavalry charge is a problem for them. [Rant: this does seem bizarre, as the one thing the Medieval English army excelled at holding off an enemy charge while dismounted.] The stakes of longbowmen could be used to shelter behind in purely defensive battles. However, the AI is reluctant to approach them even with infantry so they are more for channelling attacks than repelling them. It is not clear whether armoured swords can receive a charge better than the basic spearmen - relying on their greater defence to compensate for the lack of spears. If they do, it may be worth dispensing with spears altogether. My experience is that neither does very well and it is more like mutual assured destruction for both the infantry and charging knights. Mercenary spearmen are essentially the same unit as the armoured sergeants available in MP but not SP. They are available in numbers on the continent and are worth considering to take cavalry charges.

3. The polearm units - billmen - have a relatively high AP attack but low defence and no anti-cavalry properties. They are unsuited to take a charge, particularly from cavalry, but are good as flankers even against well armoured enemies. The same comment applies to the polearmed dismounted English knights, although clearly they are far superior to billmen in absolute terms.

4. The English lack any fast cavalry so there is little reason to take hobilars or merchant cavalry. The differences between the core knights are rather marginal - largely incremental upgrades to armour - so there is great need to rush to uptech. In a pinch, your general's bodyguard, with their 2 hit points, can serve as the tip of your spear, if you really need an edge over enemy knights. However, as the upkeep of the core knights is the same, you should uptech when you can. English knights have lower attack than continental Chivalric knights, making the crusading and chapter knights particularly valuable (+3 attack, -2 charge compared to English knights), but they do have a higher upkeep. Demi-lancers do not seem worth bothering with: compared to English knights they trade defence for attack (+3 attack, -4 defence).

5. Archers have a fairly long upgrade tree and it is worth pursuing. However, the gains are rather incremental and plain longbowmen should perform well enough. Only retinue longbowmen should be thrown into a protracted melee - lesser archers will lose too much for it to be worthwhile. Mercenary crossbowmen are worth considering as their ammo lasts longer. But since this is presumably offset by a lower rate of fire, the benefits of this are probably largely psychological.


Battle tactics

My preferred army would be:

1 or 2 generals
2+ mounted knights
3 of the best missiles available + 2 others (e.g. merc crossbowmen for their longlasting ammo)
3-5 spears
3+ dismounted Feudal knights or preferably armoured swordsmen
2+ billmen

I find myself relying on missiles to win field battles. The choice of first target is important.

Often, I would aim for "missile supremacy" - targeting enemy missiles first to avoid return casualties and going to loose formation if enemy missiles are significant. The passive AI bug reinforces this tactic. However, it is slow and enemy missiles in themselves are not the major threats (they don't kill much and they are easy to kill by other means - e.g. your cav).

Whether to target heavy infantry or heavy cavalry depends on your relative strengths. If the enemy has a lot of heavy cavalry (often the French), it may be smart to thin them out first given how poor the English at receiving a cavalry charge. But if they have a lot of heavy infantry (the Danes), these may be the more important target - especially if you are short of swords. Armoured opponents seem more vulnerable to missiles than you might expect but it takes time. A rather passive AI often gives you that time.

The spears and swords would shield my missiles - swords to engage infantry, spears to engage cavalry.

Billmen serve as anti-infantry in the absence of swords. They are also excellent flankers due to their AP weapons and respectable attack. But they have a low defence and cannot take a cavalry charge.

The knights would go for the flanks once the enemy was committed - often driving off any remaining missiles in the enemy's rear first and/or charging already committed enemy knights. Rear charges into a committed enemy line are lethal, while pursuing routing enemy is particularly important in M2TW as they rally faster and more often than in RTW. (Writing this paragraph make me see the virtue in going cavalry-heavy). Just be careful not to let your cavalry get bogged down and then charged by enemy spears or cav. For this reason, I tend to commit them later in the battle - when the main enemy combat units are tied down.


Crusades

Successive Popes hated me - perhaps because of my conquests of Scottish, French and Danish settlements. However, even on VH, they can be easily brought round by a large tribute of florins. I offered 1000 for ten years, they asked for 3000+ for two. After that, I was always in their good books.

A very useful strategy is to declare a crusade on an excommunicated enemy. This gives you access to some crusading units, which are very useful for the English: armoured spearmen and knights that equal continental ones. Moreover, it makes an entire stack free of upkeep. Be aware that the target must be the enemy capital. However, this means that the crusade is likely to be particularly devastating to the enemy. Press the space bar before moving the crusade, so your stack moves slowly. This gives you time to change course to move around roadblocks and so avoid desertion due to making slow progress. There is a cooling off period between calling crusades.

When crusading to Holy Land you have a choice of going by land or by sea. Sea is potentially much faster, however, I suffered mass desertion twice - once going west along northern Spain (perhaps because technically, that was sailing away from the Holy Land); and once when a Moorish boat was blocking the Gibralter straits (thankfully, it moved on). Unfortunately, the Poles took the crusade target just as I was in sight of the Holy Land. A risk of going by sea is that your crusade is destroyed by pirates or enemy fleets (the French fleet in the Med was extremely strong in my game). When I then tried to sail home, but in the Med was targeted by many French ships which seemed to cheat in their ability to find me. My four boats were not enough and I only just landed the remnants of my army at Rhodes[1] before the fleet was anhilated.

Going by land is possible if you press the space bar and take time to avoid your crusade being slowed down by unseen cities and armies on the way. (Tincow reported crusading this way without losing a man.)

A compromise might be marching to the med by foot and then going by boat. You can hire mercenary boats on the coast, but these may not be enough to fend off pirates and enemies. South of France, north Italy or the area formerly known as Yugoslavia might be suitable staging points for this strategy.

[1]It may be smart to set up a base closer to the Holy Land, in order to facilitate future crusades. Crete and Cyprus are possibilities, but taking them will usually entangle you in a war far away. Rebel held Rhodes is a much easier target.

... to be continued...

Hengist
11-14-2006, 15:39
Starting Guide to England:

Dificulty: medium/medium

Your have 3 starting Regions, 2 on the British Islands and 1 on the continent.

Caen: Castle
London: City
Nottingham: Castle

Your neighbours, apart from rebels, are Scotland to the north, France to the south and Denmark or HRE to the northeast.

1. Rebels:

Your first goal is to capture as many rebel targets as you can. These should be in Great Britain 1. York (city), then 2. Carnaevon (castle) and then 3. Dublin (city), thereby leaving only Edinburgh (city) and Inverness (castle) to the Scots.

On the continent you should go for Rennes, Antwerp and Brugges (all cities).

To achive this you obviously have to form 2 armies, one based in Nottingham and one based in Caen.

With these rebel settlements captured you have 9 Regions and Borders with Scotland, France and either HRE or Denmark, but in my campaign it was Denmark that captured Hamburg.

Meanwhile some 20 to 30 turns, depending on your speed and success should have passed. Of course you did all the fancy thing like sending out Diplomats and gather trade rights, alliance, changed map infos and explored the world.

I played a religion-heavy approach and build 1 priest per region and religious buildings asap, thereby being high in the popes favor. That should come in handy in the next stage, as we will see.

2. Scotland:

If you wait too long, Scotland and France might repeat history and form an alliance. They did so in my campaign and attacked me simultaneously while I was in the end of Phase 1. My GB army was on its way back to Nottingham to upgrade and my continental army was siegeing Antwerp.

I was able to fend of the French attack and destroy the full-stack Scottish field army. From other posts I got the impression, that the AI always builds exactly 1 strong Scottish army, so once that is defeated, you have some breathing room. Using that, I first took Edinburgh and then Inverness.

Inbetween the pope asked me to cease hostility with the Scots, but I didn’t listen to him and pressed on. Fortunately, the mission I failed was just about loosing standing (the weak version) and not threatening excommunication (the hard one). So the Scots died and I was master of the whole British Islands. The war with France grinded down and I finally was able to make peace with them.

So now you should be in control of all of GB and the channel coast of France and Netherlands. 11 Regions with 4 castles and 7 cities. If you feel like you can convert Inverness and Carnaevon to cities to get more cash. I didn’t do it, but I found them, especially Inverness, to far removed from the battle hotspots. I coulnt bring myself to build troops there and move them down, so you might want to make at least Inverness to a city.

3. The Holy Land:

After some quite turns the pope finally called the first crusade. My advice (to any catholic faction) Take part and win it! Apart from the game fun and satisfaction you get a very nice foothold in the Holy Land and there you can wage wars as much as you want without interference from the pope.

As England getting there might be abit hard, as you certainly have to walk and desertion is a big problem with all the obstacles like mountains, rivers, blocked bridges etc. in the way. I ended up at the gates of Antioch with an all-merc-army, mainly turks. But the city fell and I got nice rewards from the pope.

4. Expansion in Europe and the Holy Land:

a. Holy Land:
Depending on wether it is a city or castle you capture, you should take 1 or 2 more settlements (I took the castle of Aleppo) and then make peace with the Muslims if you can, to rest and secure your base. Spam priests to convert the population rather quickly. This has the nice side effect, that you have will have a lot of candidates for the college of cardinals and you will need it because of b. A nice side effect is, that all these muslim cities are around you and the target of the next crusade is surely close to you. If your timing is right, you can even call crusades on specific targets, shed some Catholics blood and before you get too low to be excommunicated, finish the crusade and be the pops best boy again…..splendid. :)

b. Europe:
You cant expand any further in Europe without fighting fellow Catholics and this is something what the pope doesn’t like at all (even if he is your creature). Your next enemies are probably France and Denmark and as both were high in the popes Favour, I constantly had to watch my standing or delay offensives to not anger the pope too much.

Against France you have one special strategic advantage at this stage: Angers, Paris and Reims all lie close to your regions borders, all with 1 turns march. So what I advice you to do is to load up all 3 with spies and make a blitz attack on the French, capturing all 3 within 2 turns. This way you might even be faster then a papal Mission to stop hostility. Afterwards the French are severely crippled.

Once France and Denmark are conquered the game is pretty much over. You should now have like 30 provinces in Europe, some holdings in the Holy Land, a cardinal college in you Favour (I had 13 of 13 :)) and can conquer the rest at your leisure.


5. Army:

I tried to stay close to history in my army composition, so my armies mostly contained archers, infantry and just some mounted units.

My ideal composition was:

- 8 archers (longbowmen, yeoman archers, companion archers)
- 8 infantry (dismounted knights, dismounted feudal knights, swordsmen)
- 3 cavalry (mailed knights, feudal knights, English knights)
- 1 general

evilc1
11-14-2006, 15:45
I have worked the last couple of evenings on getting my start right with England.

I am now @ turn 60-odd and at war with NO-ONE. I am the most advanced and richest nation and I have one of the smallest armies, but I don't need them (yet!).

Here is what I did:

1) Build, build, build up all towns in Great Britain with money-making things and things that encourage growth. Any towns without generals set them to "Growth Build Policy".

2) I DID NOT attack the rebel towns to the east and west of Caen - Caen is the only territory I have on the mainland. In order to get your Council to not give you a mission to take the rebel towns, move an army near them - it does not seem to give you missions to take towns you have generals near.
My line of thinking here is that I want to make my territory easy to defend, and Britain, being an island, is just that.

3) Take all of the British Isles ASAP. I took York, then Caernarvon, then Inverness (was a rebel town, dunno if it is normally scottish), then dublin. I then attacked Scotland in their only remaining town of Edinburgh. (This was @ about turn 20-25). The pope told me to stop. I told the pope to shove it where the sun don't shine - he got over it! (Well he died, so standing got reset, but I was excommunicated at one point but who cares?)

4) Build as few troops as possible. Save your money. Personally I built nothing, but some stuff got built in settlements where I didn't have a general but you can take GB with just the troops you start with if you are sly. Asassins help here. As Scotland is a small nation, it is quite easy to assasinate your way through their family tree!

5) Expand trading as much as possible. I found some really nice amber mines up in the southern tip of sweden, that bit of land at the very top of the map to the east of the UK. The UK has lots of coastline and so open up those trade routes ASAP.

6) Build up your navy ASAP. Leave a bunch of ships in the English Channel (The thin bit of sea between London and the French coast) - these make a "bridge" of sorts that your troops can use to cross easily. You need a bit of a navy to protect your ports and the income they produce.

7) I ignored the call to the crusades, but that is only really because I wanted to play it that way.

8) Do not worry about the french going to war with you. Just make sure you have enough troops in Caen to hold out. They attacked me once or twice but with piddly armies as they had to defend too many cities on the mainland. I NEVER get attacked in the UK so I can afford to put 99% of my troops in Caen. Eventually, as I became the most advanced / richest nation in the world, they came begging for a ceasefire, which I charged them greatly for ;)

As I said, I have gotten to turn 65ish (In two or three evening's play - but I restarted quite a lot until I got the tactic down that I wanted to use), and I have built next to no army producing buildings or armies. However, all of the towns in the UK are mine and are at or nearly at full settlement size with plenty of income. I have no-one attacking me, I can play the game in turn based mode (ie on the world map) almost exclusively without having to resolve battles. That way I am spending all my time and money on ramping up production until I get to a point where I am maxed out and churning out the hardest troops like they were going out of fashion - then, watch out world!

QUESTIONS:
Do you NEED the catholic church? Can I not form the "Church of England" and convert to that? I figure you need a religion else there will be heresy / unrest etc, but I don't want to be the pope's lap dog.

At what point to gunpowder weapons come on the scene? Are my fully ranked up Retinue Archers (Best archers in the game) going to be worthless soon?

Is there a way to upgrade troops from one kind to another or is disbanding the only option? You don't appear to get any money or population from disbanding, so is there any way to get anything back when getting rid of unwanted units?


All in all, love the game to bits.

Nepereta
11-15-2006, 17:39
played MTW2 for the first time so my tactics probably need fixing a bit.

English M/M

I focused London on a Trade Growth build. Building merchants, farms and merchant structures.
The rest I raised armies and army building structures asap lots of cavalry and archers.

Made trade treaties with the french and scottish and took York and then wales( caonarvon sp?):
Wow
I am amazed out how hard sieges have now become. Managed to take Wales by running one spear through the now unconquerable towers round the back to open the back door.

Then I rushed my cavalry units round the back and took the place over. A messy fight in which lots of spear units where seriously depleted. Due to being stuck on the walls with the tough welsh.

Then onto ireland via the ships I sent round to the welsh coast an easier fight in which I used the street in the town that is a small hill running diagonally accross one corner of the settlement upon this I stuck my archers. At either ends of the street I kept my cav ready to strike the entrance from all angles.

The gallowglasses kept coming for the archers but got pwned by the cav encircling charges for the win.. After finishing off the gallowglasses I then wiped out the 2 archer units which sat in the centre.

Onto scotland I sent most of my armies bar the Caen one (that has done little since the start of the game). I managed to take the scottish in the field outside edingburugh. Using superior cav I managed to kill off both stacks to a man. 6 cavalry units ftw!

The hardest part was aberdeen, this was a stone castle fortified with highlanders and cavalry. I had 2 ballistas which destroyed the gate and proceeded to carefully snipe the highlanders inside.

Its worth mentioning ballista rock in this game, they can a fair number of enemies in one shot and tend to be incredibly accurate.

After this I rushed my infantry into the remnants and drove my cavalry in hard once they'd cleared the gate.

And thats it. I think I could of done more focused builds. The mailed knights unit rocks, I use a mix of nobles and mailed knights for hard strikes and I use hobiliars for routing units which I used to great effect in the edingburough battle. The peasant archers are pretty sucky as are the basic spear units. They tend to hold a line so my cav can ram the enemy from behind.

All that said the new build model means we can recruit large numbers of replacement spears and bows when needed. I tend to use the spears as expendable. In RTW and earlier games expandability wasn't an issue because we could only make one per turn in each settlement.

Now great britain is secure I guess I'll have to carefully consider my next moves.

hotingzilla
11-17-2006, 04:59
Archers in MTW2 are much stronger than RTW or its prequel.

I have done tests on custom battle that retinue longbowmen are able to beat heavy infantry,and even heavy knights w/o using stakes.

Archers in this game simply kills 50%+ before the enemy reaches the line and when they reach the bowmen, high attack and defence stats are able to allow them to beat the heaviest cavalry and infantry.

nameless
11-17-2006, 09:39
Archers in MTW2 are much stronger than RTW or its prequel.

I have done tests on custom battle that retinue longbowmen are able to beat heavy infantry,and even heavy knights w/o using stakes.

Archers in this game simply kills 50%+ before the enemy reaches the line and when they reach the bowmen, high attack and defence stats are able to allow them to beat the heaviest cavalry and infantry.

I find that the English's best option against cavalry are to use archers and stakes.

It's best to try to have the archers focus on the enemy cavalry and "soften" it up before the lines meet.

Sir Moody
11-17-2006, 13:07
My Tactics seem to have differed from everyone else so far -

First steps - I moved all the troops in mainland france to england and then sold caen to the French for 1000 a turn for 10 turns and an alliance

using the Troops that were in england to begin with i take York - using the troops fresh from caen i take Wales (i cant remmber the name of the province) - with the cash coming in from france im turning a tidy profit and iuse this to upgrade London into a trade centre and build Nottingham into a longbow producing castle and mass produce some longbows

using the new longbow equiped forces i split the caen and york armies into one army with the new longbows and march on scotland and take both scotish provinces and then ireland. I spend a few turns building up the new areas and bring nottingham up to the level needed for armoured swordsmen.

using the new armoured swordsmen i take both the Rebel flemish cities and then push south into the excominicated Germans taking one city and then recieving a second in a peace treaty (Ceasfire and trade rights for the city - the germans accpeted) At this point the pope called a crusade against the millanese who had taken a french city in the south - i joined but the papancy beat me too it so i used my failed crusaders to take another milanese city - which was promptly seiged - i destroyed the milanese army and then recieved a ceasefire offer the next turn - i asked for another milanese city in return and was suprised when they agreed - at this point the pope reconciled them and excomunicated germany (again) so my next move was to seize 3 german provinces (2 cities 1 castle) and thats the point im up to

Slaists
11-17-2006, 16:34
Well, my smartest move playing as England was securiting an early alliance with the Pope... This made my Pope-o-meter jump up to the maximum. As a result, when the French declared war on me, they got excommunicated in two turns... The Pople even sanctioned a crusade to Bordeaux, which I managed to completed in three turns... And once, the Scotts became aggressive, the Pope did not seem to bother too much about me wiping them out (my standing with the Pope got a little beating though: the Pope didn't excommunicate them after their first attack...).

Flavius Gonzo
11-17-2006, 18:16
Question for those of you playing the English campaign:

What is the best way to fight France without angering the Pope? My campaign so far has been concentrated on Rebel towns/castles in the british isles and then Bruges, Rennes, and Antwerp, as well as the Scottish. But, strategically, I'm eyeing the French properties of late.

Do I just trying to fight as much as I can, but obey his orders when he asks me to back off? Doesn't just attacking the French lower my relations with the Pope?

Ideally, I'd like to fight my way down to the mediteranian before beginning a crusade...

nameless
11-18-2006, 00:07
Question for those of you playing the English campaign:

What is the best way to fight France without angering the Pope? My campaign so far has been concentrated on Rebel towns/castles in the british isles and then Bruges, Rennes, and Antwerp, as well as the Scottish. But, strategically, I'm eyeing the French properties of late.

Do I just trying to fight as much as I can, but obey his orders when he asks me to back off? Doesn't just attacking the French lower my relations with the Pope?

Ideally, I'd like to fight my way down to the mediteranian before beginning a crusade...

Not much you can do about it.

If France loses lots of favour with the Pope and you got tons of favour with him then maybe. I did it with Scotland the moment they started losing points.

Problem in my campaign is that the French are so keen in keeping me as an ally. I don't know why but there are times when our alliance breaks (But it's not due to blockades or seiges, it's something else, probably spies or assassins). Right afterwards they try to get into an alliance with me again.

The second problem is that the pope loves the French but he loves me as well so there's zero chances of us going to war with each other. :sweatdrop:

In regards with Crusades, you shouldn't worry too much about it. Crusaders cannot fight other catholic units and they keep movement bonuses so you can get down to the target in no time. Turn 25 a crusade was called and I simply went through France, the balkans, the Byzantiums, and into egypt. No problem there.

Reasserting control of the English isles is critical to their success and you have to be careful on how you manage the pope, best is to build abbeys and cathedrals (I got several already). Nevertheless, you should have only 1 fortress on the island and the rest as cities as one fortress is more than enough.

The mailed knights which the council kept giving me I found to be very useful in my early battles so I think heavy emphasis should be placed on heavy cavalry until you tier up to longbowmen etc. I've taken control of northern france (It was all rebels and I'm stuck there, the french have very powerful armies along the borders as do the germans and now the Danish are attacking me).

ChewieTobbacca
11-20-2006, 07:12
To fight France without angering the pope, have France do the attacking (it hurts their reputation with the Pope) and send a diplomat to speak with the Pope and get a good reputation with them.

I once had France attack me, i drove them back. I then sent my best general to outside Paris. They surrounded me with 6 armies (not all full stack) and were defeated, allowing me to take the city. With it taken, the French sent a diplomat to me for peace, as apparently I had destroyed their main military force. In turn, I took Angers and Rheims as compensation.

In fact, I have conquered half of my empire without even fighting much. Denmark once attacked Bruges, and I landed my two full stacked armies next to them. Immediately, they sued for peace and I took Antwerp and Hamburg from them. When I crusaded successfully against Acre, Egypt sued for peace which prompted me to take Aleppo, Damascus, and Jerusalem from them.

I'm on H/H btw.

Flavius Gonzo
11-20-2006, 19:44
Here are a few things I've learned on Crusades and the Pope that are useful towards English strategy (my game is H/H).

1) Fighting Catholic factions is tough because you will usually only have 1 turn after you attack before the Pope demands you cease hostilities. The easiest solution is to focus first on all the rebel settlements nearby, but once you run out of nearby rebels, strategy will require more thought.

Be prepared to strike quickly against a Catholic faction in the Pope's favor, and be able to take 1-3 settlements in exactly one turn using seige engines to break down walls and avoid a seige. I've had a lot of success planning out large invasions against the French during "cooling off" periods, and then striking immediately when the ceasefire ends. For example, I took Rheims and Paris in a single turn by building up two separate armies and hiding them in the woods nearby, and when the ceasefire ended immediately taking both settlements in the same turn. The next turn, the Pope will likely call another ceasefire, giving you time to prepare for your next conquest.

You can take out Scotland with a similar 2 army, 1 turn approach: send a force up from York to attack the Scots on your northern border while sending another army from Dublin (or by sea) to beseige Edinburg. The Pope doesn't seem to consider it a hostile act if you have armies in enemy lands, only if they attack.

Another option is to wait for nearby factions to be excomunicated -- it's happened in my game to the HRE and the Danish. I've made defating the French a priority, however, in order to secure a Mediteranian port.

2) These were mentioned already but two huge ways to boost your reputation with the pope are to first, make sure you send an emissary to Rome early to form an alliance with the Papal States, and secondly, to win a Crusade.

3) I had success on my first Crusade by marching to Marseilles and then hiring Mercenary Galleys which I sailed to Antioch. I had some small desertion along the march but the 3 galleys I hired were enough to disuade rebel navies from attacking (or maybe I was just lucky -- move your crusading army at the end of the turn if you want to be safe.) Financially, it was well worth it, not to mention the huge boost it gave to my general. A note on this, however: my crusading general finished his crusade with a huge boost to Chilvary which was great, but had I decided to send a general with an already dreadful reputation, it may have been a waste. My advice is to send someone green. It's a great assignment for an heir apparent with little going on for him. Send spies and priests with your Crusaders too!!

Dalrogad
11-20-2006, 22:30
Hi guys - What is H/H?

I had 3 awesome battles last night where I won when significantly outnumbered, 2 of them were siege battles, where they came out of the castle - one of those, I ran a company of cavalry to the square after they had all emptied out, and held it for the 3 mins. Awesome.


I have not had any luck with getting those kind of concessions from other factions in diplomacy... Do you guys keep a diplomat with your army?

Also, I have my spies up to 6-7th level, but my diplomats, who I use just as much, or 1-3rd level. WHat can I do to level my diplomats?

Flavius Gonzo
11-21-2006, 00:18
H/H means Hard campaign, Hard battle difficulty settings. So H/VH would mean Hard Campaign, Very Hard Battles. The default is M/M I believe. Very useful info because a strategy dominates on E/E might be useless on H/H, etc.

I've gotten tons of mileage out of my diplomats so far. I sent a handful out in different directions so far. My diplo strategy has been to try for the following:

1) Get trade rights with everyone
2) Get alliances with key factions (In particular, the Catholic ones I don't share a border with, and especially the Papal states, to get the Pope-o-meter bonus.)
3) Earn money. On my campaign (H/H) I've found it pretty easy to make money by offering Trade Rights, Alliance & Map Info, in exchange for regular tributes, some times even large ones over several turns. It looks like the AI bases its decisions on how much it will pay based on your relative strength, so if your faction strength is much higher, it looks like the enemy will be willing to pay large amounts to form an alliance. I can't remember specifics, but I think there was more than one faction willing to pay 1000+ for several turns for the privelege of an alliance. I play aggresively though and maintain large armies, so this might not work as well with a builder strategy. I'm also not sure if it's better to go with a big bang negotiation or sell each component (trade, alliance, map) one at a time.

I haven't paid too much attention to how my Diplos are leveling, it seems to me that by the time I march a Diplo all the way to Novgorad or Caesarea, I am going to negotiate with that Diplomat whether or not they are good negotiators.

Also, I don't see much of a point in having a Diplomat travel with an army. It might have an effect on preventing your general from being assassinated, but it's not much else good since your army is a useless large expense unless it is attacking and conquering. A Diplomat can't negotiate for much with a faction you're at war with.

So, my opinion is that the best way to deal with Diplomats is to send several out over the map to shore up trade rights & alliances. It's also handy to keep 1 or 2 at home so they can be used as emissaries for dealing with any foreign diplomats, armies, or princesses that enter your lands. It also comes in handy if you are getting beat badly and need to sue for peace.

Decker
11-21-2006, 05:00
Hey guys Im playing on m/m right now and I need some advice on what to do.
*How do you spot a full stack army?
My faction is currently holding Dublin,York, Wales, and Rennes. I have 3 huge armies, one in Caen, one in York, and my 3rd in Dublin(my faction leaders army). I have 2 cardinals spreading the word supported by at least 3-4 priests. I have one diplomat(lvl4) who is stuck in England while my navy is licking its wounds in Caen after 2 bad defeats against rebel fleets. Im still at peace with the Scots and after 40 turns of peace with France they declared war and I have thuroughly thrashed 2 of their armies. I also have peace with Milan and am thinking of making peace with the HRE since they are fighting France too. I have 500 florins (I was bankrupt until I razed Dublin:2thumbsup: ) in my bank. I have also takin care of 2 rebel armies that just "popped" out of no where in York and Nottingham provinces, has anyone else had this happen to them?

1) Im around turn 45-47(can't remeber) I had just voted for the wrong cardinal(an ally) and the new one Inquidated my best general in Caen:furious3: . The guy just walked up and just burned him with his army cheering for him to burn. Now my biggest army and best army is leaderless with the French eyeing Caen and my council friends pressing my to take Antwerp.

2) Also I can call to join the first crusade and get back on(hopefully) on the good side with the Pope and I was wondering if this would allow me to "walk":smash: thru Scotland with my 2nd best army lead by my faction leader. Would this be possible? And would it get that Inquisitor off of my back who has set up camp waiting for something that will never come?

3) I was thinking of taking Bordeaux with half of my army from Caen, and then offering it to the Papacy if possible? I am most curious about this one since that Inquisitor probably will not move until something happens.

Thanks for your help, and its a fun game. Plus how many turns/long is the game usually?

Dalrogad
11-21-2006, 09:09
Spot full army? - with a spy.

Inquisitor go away because you join crusade? Not sure, but I would be much more concerned about getting from England to where the crusade is. If you don't make progress in the right direction every turn, goodbye army. Also, not that this will help in your current situation, keep in mind that more piety for the inquisitor's target = less chance of him getting burned.

Do whatever you an to get on pope's good side. I have been trying to give gifts to papal states, so far to no effect. Successful crusading gives huge boost to pope o meter.

I am on M/M also, and doing much better now sicnce I restarted campaign and took some advice from here. But I am struggling very badly now to hold my regions (currently largets and most powerful faction on about turn 25). Can't imagine what VH would look like.

Andrew of Newcastle
11-21-2006, 13:33
Im a newbie on here but not to the Total war series, as I have owned and played the whole series, like a large majority here I expect. However, im no uber General and actually consider myself pretty pants and just manage to bumble through lol

Im on turn 125 playing the English and again, seem to have a completely different approach to others.

From day one I was put under pressure by the French in Caen. They would come and have a sniff, siege me for a turn or two before backing off and disappearing into the fog of war. I used this time to build up a decent stack of the mixed troops that are available at the beginning. My main concentration was the worrying fact that the majority of the british isles was owned by either rebels or the scots so turned all attentions in this direction. After being told to clear off by the rebel cities using diplomatic means, it was either force or nothing. Something had to be done as those damn heritics were worrying my townsfolk.

I bumbled an army together made up from troops from across the 3 towns owned leaving a minimal guard in each until I knew which, if any, would be seen as easy meat for a wandering band of rebel scum. Fortunatly after a good few turns, the rebels didn’t seem interested and more importantly my townsfolk seemed quite happy with little security and supervision. This enabled me to send my ramshackle army northwards to claim York. Taken within 2 turns the army turned west with wales in the sights. Slightly tougher but still no real challenge for my now confident general.

Diplomacy with the scots didn’t seem to work, they wouldn’t even be friends for a while as I figured a temporary alliance would stay and southward intentions they may have had and bide me time to build up my newly aquired towns. Fortunately they seemed content with trading so I sent my weary army over the irish sea to take Dublin. Again, easy pickings.

By this time my council of nobles and merchants guild had started to get a taste for continental life and asked me to take rebel towns of bordeau and one other (I forget which). Sounds simple but when the fog of war extends all the way up to my caen boundary, the first job was actually finding the towns!!!

After sending my diplomat in completely the wrong direction, I failed to meet the deadline imposed. This happened a few times until I decided that my council didn’t really understand the pressure they were putting my men under so chose to ignore them and concentrated on my campaign of taking the british isles.

This actually included moving all my armies out of Caen and Rhiens and shipping them over to back to Britain. France, as expected took the opportunity from this and marched on my two fortresses, easily suppressing the few units of militia I callously left barrackaded in. With my continental links now severed, I was able to finish off my British isles campaign.

As my towns were developing well (I find it suprisngsly easy to make money compared to previous versions) I took the fight to the dormant scots. A few guys in skirts couldn’t be too hard could it? After all, my all conquering army is now extremely battle hardened and confident. Well…. My complancy was my downfall. Those Scottish guys sure know how to look after their turf. Although they didn’t massacre me, I was sent home with my tail between my legs and a few broken bones. Oh and ¼ of my army left. Time to rethink. After a half a dozen turns sat mulling things over in York, I marched forward with a ¾ stack of fresh lambs to the slaughter. And slaughter it was. Now aware of my impending attacks the scots had hardened themselves, done a few extra push ups and were ready and waiting outside their door. In actual fact, they brought the fight to me as soon as stepped on Scottish soil and we had a decent battle in open ground. Embarrassed once again I returned back to york empty handed and bloodied.

Time to leave them alone for a while I think, so sent a faithful diplomat to Edinburgh to try and restore a few things to bide me some time for a rethink as my forces were now fairly depleted. Fortunatly my diplomat must have appeared arrogant enough to fool them into thinking I was still a threat and they agreed to a ceasefire and reintroduction of trade rights.

I left my Scottish neighbours alone to munch on their haggis, while I licked my wounds and concentrated on building up what resources I did have. If anything, it would shut the whinging pope up for a while who wasn’t overly impressed with my taste for catholic blood. He never really threatened to excommunicate me as I had quite a number of priests and cardinals by this point who were doing the lords work in the cities I did control.

This was actually a move that paid dividends as the relaxed scots, secure in their false impression I would leave them alone, marched northwards and took the rebel town of Inverness. This left them very overstretched and spread thinly. I seized the opportunity and within a few turns, I had a fresh army banging on the gate of Edinburgh. With a hastily recoiling pile of Scottish stacks heading back south to counter my offensive on Edinburgh, it was under my control before they even had the city on the horizon. Taking Inverness after this was a walk in the park and the deflated and broken scots fell easily before dispearing into the highlands and any official trace of the once mighty haggis eaters now in the past. The British isles was mine. And it felt good.

After the parties had died down, I was actually rewarded not long after with one of my cardinals being voted in as Pope. However, this little upstart soon forget who put him their in the first place and showed little regard for his English heritage as he condemned my march over the English channel to give the French some pay back for exploiting my poorly defended French cities. As enough time had passed that gunpowder had been invented, my generals seemed to get a little overexcited by the new technology and went a little overboard on recruiting bomdards and cannons. In hindsight, it wasn’t a bad thing as my show of flamboyance with the gunpowder arts was enough to scare the French into handing over both Caen and Angers with only the threat of offensive action.

A shrewd move to stay any reprisals by asking them to be friends again (my diplomat assured me he had his fingers crossed at the time) has given me a little time to strengthen these citadels into my main battle HQ of the mainland. Little do the French know of my future plans. I think the Spanish do though as they has sent an eager messenger to offer friendship and an alliance, which I accepted.

That’s where I am at the moment. Ive no doubt there will a be a few blooded noses on the horizon and I know my progress is slow, but im definitely enjoying myself.

Glacierise
11-21-2006, 22:53
Hi guys,

I am playing England too, already got through the short campaign :yes:

My approach: The begining is clear - conquer the isles. Then I faced south, and waged war with France. The pope didn't like it, and I got quite beaten by the damn inquisitors - they kill my best generals, even a king! :embarassed: And the funny thing is, almost all the popes have been elected from my cardinals! I start off well with them, but it turns out bad afterwards. To get your men elected pope - place priests in places with lower catholic poppulation, so the priest converts, and burn heretics!

I also accepted crusades - this was the coolest portion of my game - the battles were awesome, this is a whole another story. But the crusader units are brutal! As soon as I conquered Antioch, I got into war with Turkey, and won a fortress. From there, I built an army, and spreaded into the rest of their lands - they have nothing to put against my knights! I keep an alliance with Egypt, and crushed France relatively late (had reduced them to a single town for a long time). Of course, when I became very powerfull, The danes, milanese and sicilians declared war. I succeeded in thwarting their attacks, but now the HRE is probing me too... From another crusade, I won Tunisia, so now I am having a base of operations against Sicily too...

The game is turning great! Fighting both muslim and catholics, very diverse and tense. Difficulty is H/H.

Have a great time!

nameless
11-22-2006, 04:10
Something interesting I found when doing an experiment as england on M/VH
before waiting for the patch but it shouldn't matter when it comes out.

The council of nobles will provide you with missions that usually provides you with mailed knights and I found that early in the game, mailed knights are very very useful, especially against the scottish and rebels. Ratio in my armies were at least 10:10 with levy spearmen and archers which are easy to get. You can quickly build up armies this way.

Priority first is to take control of the English isles ASAP. That means conquering all nearby rebel settlements as quickly as possible including Dublin. Another good idea is to send your princess down to France and marry to solidfy an alliance with them.

At the same time, have your continental army take control of all of the surrounding rebel towns. Once your alliance is made with France, you should be okay for the time being so long as you maintain decent garrisons. Which I should also add the rebel towns are quite strong so you'll need to either starve them out or increase the army's strength.

I decided to turn the continental settlements into fortresses since their the most vulnerable. I gathered whatever remaining troops I had in England and launched an assault as quickly as possible on the Scottish main captial. The Scots had been passive for the first 14 turns by building up their forces and readying to attack the other rebel town up north so the captial was weakly guarded by two generals and spearmen. I had a spy open the gates and quickly attacked the first turn. I sent militia spearmen to wear down the generals before sending in the levy spearmen followed by 10 mailed knights.

As a result I wiped out the Scottish without angering the Papacy since it was quick and short. Eventually the last rebel town will be taken in the next few turns. At this point, I made sure that all settlements in the English isles were turned into cities since they are the most safest. By Turn 15 I had control over England with cities pumping out money and the 3-4 continental settlements acting as fortresses and the Pope loves me the most.

I quitted the game as this was an experiment but I found that due to the speed, the HRE was keeping the Danish busy which left the two rebel towns up north of it open for the taking. If you can take these towns quickly, you'll add onto more, you'll receive greater control over the northern sea and areas remote enough to keep it safe. Plus, you can wipe out the Danish which should be weak by pulling the same strategy, either with siege weapons or a spy to open the gates. If you can wipe them out in one turn, the Pope won't mind.

This allows you to assert dominance in the north western section of the map which is a good position to start out from.

kvbrock82
11-23-2006, 11:31
EDIT.... ive just read that this is probably not of any real tactical benefit to members so my apologies and please move it to the general section if needs be

actually i found it quite an entertaining read as im going through the same ups and downs heh :book:

Fizz
11-23-2006, 19:22
2. As stated, the English have only the most basic spears so receiving a cavalry charge is a problem for them. [Rant: this does seem bizarre, as the one thing the Medieval English army excelled at holding off an enemy charge while dismounted.] The stakes of longbowmen could be used to shelter behind in purely defensive battles. However, the AI is reluctant to approach them even with infantry so they are more for channelling attacks than repelling them. It is not clear whether armoured swords can receive a charge better than the basic spearmen - relying on their greater defence to compensate for the lack of spears. If they do, it may be worth dispensing with spears altogether. My experience is that neither does very well and it is more like mutual assured destruction for both the infantry and charging knights. Mercenary spearmen are essentially the same unit as the armoured sergeants available in MP but not SP. They are available in numbers on the continent and are worth considering to take cavalry charges.

3. The polearm units - billmen - have a relatively high AP attack but low defence and no anti-cavalry properties. They are unsuited to take a charge, particularly from cavalry, but are good as flankers even against well armoured enemies. The same comment applies to the polearmed dismounted English knights, although clearly they are far superior to billmen in absolute terms.


There is a lot of talk on the M2TW official boards that this may be a bug. People are writing about how even against incredible odds, cavalry is walking all over billmen and dismounted knights. Combine that with the unit description of billmen that states they're effective against cavalry, and it does seem like it could be a bug.

The thread can be found here:
http://p223.ezboard.com/fshoguntotalwarfrm55.showMessage?topicID=8201.topic

-Fizz

nameless
11-24-2006, 06:21
Has it occured to you that Billmen do not...GASP....have anti-cavalry properties?

Billmen for dummies (Two handed swordsmen)
http://p223.ezboard.com/fshoguntotalwarfrm55.showMessage?topicID=8420.topic

PhilM
11-24-2006, 09:32
Had the game a week - coulpe of gripes.

As been said earlier, I agree and I've been quite dismayed at the performance of the Billmen dealing with cavalry. The bill was very effective at unhorsing knights in the medieval period, which isn't reflected in the game. I'm generally finding that billmen are pretty poor all round to be honest.:embarassed:

Another question is - Has anyone managed to get Sherwood archers yet? I'm england and controlling half the map and haven't got one city or castle anywhere that can produce them. I haven't checked the population of all of my settlements, but most are on full advancement as far as I can see and many have bottomed out and are at 0% growth when they get up around the 20,000 mark. I'll have conquored the world by the time I manage to produce 1 single unit at this rate.

Princesses don't marry into your faction as often as in Medieval 1 total war - which is a bit annoying. It should be a bit easier to arrange marriages and have 'claims' on rivals lands as a result. The foreign princesses seem to prefer to wander the depths of europe than marring an heir to the most powerful kingdom in europe, even after numerous attempts - yeah right!

The family tree is sometimes a bit wild. Leaving the throne to a distant cousin, rather than a true 'Grandchild' of a monarch. Wish you could set the heir to correct this.

Don't like the naming of kings either. Used to say King William III (for example). Now doesn't mention the roman numerals.

Can't give titles to nobles - which used to be a bit of fun. Creating someone a duke or an earl was great on Medieval 1 total war.

Another last gripe - Mongols are far too powerful and ruin the game a bit. Within about 50 years of appearing, the Egyptians, Turks and Byzantines had been wiped out by them. It's now 1650 and it's basically me against the Mongols. Both with half the map each. I get bored of the mongols. They just have horse archers all the time.


Most of my gripes are minor and don't interfere with the game too much (except the mongol bit), and I have enjoyed the game enormously. I keep feeling this is just the same as Rome though and not enough of the old medieval game was transferred to it.

BigTex
11-24-2006, 10:27
Has it occured to you that Billmen do not...GASP....have anti-cavalry properties?

Billmen for dummies (Two handed swordsmen)
http://p223.ezboard.com/fshoguntotalwarfrm55.showMessage?topicID=8420.topic

Billmen and other 2 handed axemen are indeed bugged. When engaging against cavalry they will only attack at the initial charge. After that they cease to attack and just stand around maneuvering to kill but they never will swing. It's a very odd bug, one that's also hard to detect unless to pay close attention. My suggestion is that you take some billmen, varangian guard, have them stand their ground in a custom match against mounted sergeants or militia cavalry. You'll notice that the cavalry suffer horrendous casualties on impact, but after the charge not a single one will die. They are just incapable of attacking cavalry.

They work perfectly fine against infantry. It's just their bugged versus cavalry. Now this for some reason does not apply to zweihanders, dismounted gothic knights, forlorn hope, and other 2 handed sword carrying units. Something tells me that it may be related to the armor piercing stat, or maybe just a reach problem.

If anyone knows of a 2 handed swordsmen with an AP stat would love to see them tested.

Dalrogad
11-24-2006, 20:06
Had the game a week - coulpe of gripes.

....Most of my gripes are minor and don't interfere with the game too much.....

I couldn't agree more.
I see so many people griping about stuff that really doesn't matter at all, and almost noone griping about some of the collosol problems in the game.

One example of a good gripe, not mentioned in the thread linked below, is that cavalry charges are WAY underpowered in this game. I see people here complaining about the billmen not attacking at all against cavalry - a worthy gripe, for sure. But I can charge a tight company of militian spearmen with a full company of heavy knights with lances, and only kill about 6 of them on the charge. absolutely ridiculous. In reality, a cavalry charge should easily kill or seriously wound half the company on the charge. Even the knights/horses who are skewered would still plow forward and crush the defenders. At an easy 1,000 pounds per unit, moving 30 miles an hour.... It's a no brainer. Did I mention that the lances have at least 50% more reach than the spears? Even if it wasn't a crushing wall of 30 mph 1,000 pound locomotives, the lances alone would kill at least 1/2 of the men making up the first 2 rows.
How about the fact that knights often charge without using their lances??!?!?! The charge right in with lances raised, do nothing to the enemy at all (even without any weapons at all, a very substantial portion of the company should be trampled or crushed to death), then get their swords out and chop away. Absurd.

I find the extreme inaccuracy of the crossbowmen and archers, even at close range, to be rather dubious also. And what's much worse - bowmen could fire as many as 20 arrows per minute under the right circumstances (probably most of the time) and in this game, it seems more like about 4 per minute.

Please see this thread for more real gripes:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=72771

past caring
11-24-2006, 20:34
Question for those of you playing the English campaign:

What is the best way to fight France without angering the Pope? My campaign so far has been concentrated on Rebel towns/castles in the british isles and then Bruges, Rennes, and Antwerp, as well as the Scottish. But, strategically, I'm eyeing the French properties of late.

Do I just trying to fight as much as I can, but obey his orders when he asks me to back off? Doesn't just attacking the French lower my relations with the Pope?

Ideally, I'd like to fight my way down to the mediteranian before beginning a crusade...

Almost certainly not the solution for all scenarios, but in my current (and first) game patience has proved to be a virtue....I'm up to around turn 50, have secured the British Isles and have Caen, Rennes and Antwerp on the continent. On reflection, following the obvious strategy of securing my "home" territories first may have been a mistake; though I grabbed Rennes early on, by the time I was able to turn my attention to Bruges and Antwerp they'd already been swallowed by Denmark. This has meant that I've nowhere to expand without incurring the possible wrath of the Pope. It may have been a better bet to go for the three continental rebel provinces in a blitz and then worry about my rear later.....

Anyhow, after a short campaign against the Danes in the Low Countries (short due to a "cease and desist" order from his Holiness) I've got Antwerp and they've retained Bruges. Been kicking my heels for a few turns, mustering a sacrificial army of peasants and town militia to send on Crusade. It has to be sacrificial 'cos the Danes will obviously want revenge at some point and whilst the French have shown no sign of hostility so far, I'm sure that it is, as they say, in the post. So I need to keep my best troops close at hand.

My relations with the Vatican are decent - we've got an alliance, I'm rigorous about burning heretics in my lands and have even sent my top assassin to pop a few Bretheren of the Free Spirit types outside my realm. But the French have an even better relationship with the Pope. Suddenly, they join the Crusade and, bosh, they're instantaneously excommunicated. :laugh4:

Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I've beseiged Angers and then taken it by way of ceasfire treaty in the very next turn (a nice touch in this TW instalment that in such circumstances, you also take the garrison) but the French are still excommunicated. Paris next or maybe Metz? Hmmmm.....

Dalrogad
11-25-2006, 00:45
I have been unable to ever take any city with diplomacy, regardless of any circumstances, and I have tried many times, with many factions and diplomats.

In fact, I usually find that I am lucky to even get map information, let alone trade rights. But I have seen a number of people posting about getting plenty of free territories with diplomats. Free territories? Are we playing the same game?!?! I would think this type of diplomacy would be even less successful in a harder game.... and my current campaign is M/M.... so I dont see how it is possible to accomplish that.

ALso, I finally got tired of the pope and his BS, so in my second campaign, once I became powerful, I obliterated the papal states, and assasinated a couple of popes in a row (lost about 6 assassins doing this, and this all took well over 10 turns), just to prove to myself my suspicion that the pope, and excommunication, appears to be of no real consequence. Even having gone so far as to obliterate and assassinate the pope and his people, I never had a holy war called against me, or anything else really - as I have read somewhere is a possibility.

I am unclear as to the use or purpose of the pope, and I have found diplomacy to be good for nothing but establishing trade rights, and occasionally, alliances (which appear to be useless, because I have never been able to convince an ally to attack anyone.)

Kekvit Irae
11-25-2006, 05:40
All posts must contribute some useful information, ideas or strategy to the topic in hand. Any posts which do not run the risk of being deleted in order to keep the theads on topic. This is not the place to chat about your campaigns, or to cheer on other players; you may do that to your heart's content in main M2TW forum (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=131). Strictly no spamming allowed.

AKA, this is not a board for discussion. This is a board for tactics and strategy. Discussions on billmen and their usefulness can be directed toward the main M2TW board.

Flavius Gonzo
11-27-2006, 23:13
I figured out during this weekend's campaigning something about cavalry that would have been critical to know earlier in the game. It is:

DON'T RECRUIT MAILED KNIGHTS WHEN HOLIBARS WILL DO THE JOB

There are a few key advantages that your light cav offers over knights:

1) They are much cheaper to recruit & maintain
2) They do *almost* as good of a job outflanking a "pinned" unit, though they die quicker due to the lack of armor.
3) Most importantly: they are faster. Holibars can actually ride down an enemy general whereas mailed knights our your own general cannot! Having a unit of Holibars on hand when an enemy king flees the field is really important. They also do a better job riding down infantry and archer types than mailed knights.

Either way, keep your cavalry mixed, a stack with many knights and no holibars is much less preferable and much cheaper than a mixed stack.

Grimmy
12-01-2006, 07:29
England is in a fantastic position with its multiple secure island provinces. You can sit and build up your infrastructure for as long as you wish without fear of invasion.

For income, England is trade dependant to a large degree. Much of England's trade will be sea-born with the north Europe coastal provinces. This poses a problem when it comes time to expand off the island home territories, for those who like to hold back and build up before expanding.

To counter this problem, it can be useful to plan a 3 step, phased expansion.

Step 1: Take the Danish homeland and the 2 provinces north of that first. You don't have to worry about wiping out the Danish faction at this phase, just take those 3 provinces, soldier them up well enough to ensure their defense and then pause to rebuild your trade infrastructure. Once the trade cash if flowing well enough again, then...

Step 2: have at least 100k in the bank and begin building enough of an army to be able to seize all the northern European coastal provinces from Antwerp to Rennes in one amphibious push. If you can manage it, one full stack of good quality troops for each province. If not then as much of a full stack per province as you can.

Your eastern flank is secure and trade will continue there. The euro coast is your next target so that you can reestablish your trade there, free of blockade and piracy. If you spend the time and loot to build the larger armies, even though the garrisons on the coast will be light, then you'll have enough troops on the continent to react and respond to counter attacks as well as maintain momentum by seizing desired inland provinces or seeking out and destroying enemy force concentrations without having to build crap troops to fill the ranks.

By taking all the coast at once, you minimize the amount of time that trade is disrupted and will begin to recover the costs of the invasion quicker.

Also, you should have nearly enough troops of good quality already on the continent to at least double the number of your provinces without having to rush in building and transporting new troop replacements.

If you plan on using the forces you land with as your main core all the way to finish, you also maximize experience gains along the way.

Anyhoo, this is the method that has worked for me, and given me less headaches in having to pick and choose when to build, what to build, etc as there tends to be sufficient income to just keep building.

Step 3: which I forgot to add earlier is, of course, the continued fight to secure the rest of the continent and battle on to victory. The only thing I'd caution here is to watch out for over expansion and remember to pause in territory acquisitions on occasion to allow for financial infrastructure building to catch up to army maintenance costs.

Grimmy
12-01-2006, 08:13
The demi lances that come with the Military Academy in cities make a good replacement for hobilars. They've got better armor than hobs and are still faster than knights so can chase down fleeing generals.

Rosacrux redux
12-01-2006, 09:41
Grimmy, I don't think this is a viable strategy. Playing England in my current campaign (H/H) I think the Angles are way too easy and can overcome any difficulty with little or no hassle. Just try to keep a good buddy relationship with the Pope, and you are going to own the continent in no time. My initial expansion was two rebel provinces on the isle, next the three coastal rebel provinces around Caen (Renes, Antwerp and the other Icantremember) and then I wiped out the Scots and secured the isles for good. By that time Germans and Milanese were after me. They both got excommed soon enough and a well-placed crusade got me Hamburg, while I took a couple Milanese cities and gave them... to the pope.

Right now I am in turn 130 or so, I have wiped out the Danes and got their lands, got almost all of the HRE, got half france from the milanese (they took it from the French, who have just three provinces in the south) and the only serious threat appears to be the Mongols - they sacked Byzantium, Egypt and Turks and have now three provinces in Europe, including Constantinople (and a rather impressive Crusade is on its way to the Big City).

I am wondering what a SO STRONG Mongol faction will do against the Timurids...

Grimmy
12-01-2006, 10:22
It is viable in as much as those that dont rush to expand will run into financial problems once they start.

Personally, I like to hold off expansion once I've got the islands secure until I have armor factories and the swordmakers guild so that what I produce as troops are what will be there to the end of the game. I dont like messing about with trying to upgrade units in the field or disbanding experienced troops because a better type is now needed.

So, for those that do like to hold off until they're building the best that can be built by England, taking the Danelands first and then rebuilding trade, then taking the French coast and holding until trade is rebuilt again, helps alot in avoiding going bankrupt with the more expensive armies.

For those that like to jump out and expand at the beginning...yeah, this wouldnt help them much at all.

I've never been one to play the TW games as a speed drill. Since I've no one to beat but the AI, I like to take my time and then break out with "best of breed" forces and that gets real expensive, real fast.

past caring
12-01-2006, 22:33
Well, I did as I suggested I'd do in my previous post - started a new game and went for a land-grab on the continental rebel provinces first. Basically, this involved taking Rennes with the army in Caen, shipping an army from England to take Antwerp and building another army in Caen to move on Bruges all in the same go.

It worked well, giving me a decent continental base (and trade) early on. I used the army in Nottingham to take York (which has the bonus of limiting Scotland's options to Inverness and Ireland) but otherwise didn't worry about the rest of Britain until I'd secured the continental provinces. When it came to it, Scotland still hadn't moved on Inverness or Ireland, so I took Inverness first then snuffed them out in a pincer move.

Admittedly, this was on M/M and the AI might be a little more aggressive on harder settings. That said, my first campaign was also on M/M and in that game the Danes had taken both Antwerp and Bruges by the time I'd secured Britain.

You'll need to use your king and all available generals to pull it off, as you'll not be able to take Antwerp in the first couple of turns without hiring almost all the available mercenaries - but these can be disbanded as soon as the job is done.

Skott
12-02-2006, 05:46
I did a bit of both strategies. I grabbed all I could along the English channel and also grabbed as much of the rebel towns in the British isles. I failed to get Dublin before the Scots did though. Then I sat and built up. I went for Scotland first. I made the mistake of taking too long though and the pope excommunicated me.:oops: The best strategy as to take Scotland with two armies all at once before the Pope realizes what you are doing.

Then I turned my attention south. Franze got excommunicated so I concentrated on them. I had an alliance with the Danes and THE HRE. The HRE stayed allied with me till the end. The Danes however attacked me after a while even though I married my princess off to them. Ingrats. No matter. I held Antwerp and they couldnt take it from me even though they tried a few times. The HRE and I worked together on taking out France. Once that happened game was over. I met all my victory conditions for the short game.

England is a good faction to start out learning with. Even if you make mistakes (I made quite a few trying to figure out some tatctics)you are in a good safe position to work from. Especially once you take out the Scots. Basically the strategy is Blitzkrieg, build up, Blitzkrieg, build up, Blitzkrieg. During build ups you build up your economy and troops meanwhile waiting for the Pope to excommunicate someone and then you push your armies forward as fast as possible. Dont fight open field armies. Go straight for the towns and castles. Thats the quick method anyway. If you want to fight open armies you can. It just slows you down though.

I'll come back to England again after a while when I'm ready to do a full campaign but right now I want to try some other short campaign factions first. I'm craving some variety right now.

hotingzilla
12-02-2006, 09:44
My strategy on campaign H/ battle VH was very simple. Tech up on cities to gain the most income. If you cannot maintain trade rights with a foreign coastal settlement, just take it otherwise it's no use. I didn't really bother with diplomacy or many other micro stuff. I focused 100% on military and a strong economy. Raised the best longbowmen, some armoured swordsmen and a few knights. I am at around 120 turns with over 60 regions (just not taking Jerusalem in order to play on).

Every turn I was sieging at least 4 settlements so it ended up sweeping up the map quickly. I sack almost every settlement and that almost always bring you 20k florins per settlement ( some can even reach up to 60k). I always try to engage an enemy before they come to besiege me. it's much easier to fight on open plains than behind walls.

For middle-late game I would suggest the following types of troops (listed in decreasing importance):

1. Retinue Longbowmen (+2 exp) (use archers effectively - keeping them alive; shooting the best target and on the best terrain and angle)
2. Armoured Swordsmen (these are cheap to maintain and well round good infantry)
3. Merc Xbow w/ Pavise (excellent meat shield)
4. Sherwood Archers
5. Demi Lancers (great flankers, just don't prolong melee)
6. Culverins, bombards, mortars (the AI taught me the importance of these units)

I personally wouldn't bother with Billmen and English knights (foot or mounted) simply because that they are weak and expensive to maintain respectively.

I got excommunicated soon after I had a strong income and force when I began conquering territory like crazy. The Pope doesn't stand a chance... buried their godly papal forces under arrows and cannon fodder..

Grimmy
12-02-2006, 09:52
If, for what ever reason, you are late in expanding (either got held up by a defeat and loss of forces or turtled) then a way to get established on the mainland without getting Pope problems is to target towns and take them in one turn.

Hit the coast with large enough invasion force and the arms necessary to break down a city wall and take it the same turn you set foot on their lands.

It also helps if you have a good diplomat sitting outside Rome to grease some palms with alms and buy your way back up the respect meter.

The same can be done with castles, land and seize in the same turn but those tend to be bloodier and potentially messy so it might be better to take the towns first and the castles in a follow on wave.

But, so far, if I manage to take a town or castle too quickly for the Popes messenger boy to reach me with the "back off or else" letter, then I get no grief for it.

Test112345
12-06-2006, 08:18
Two questions:

1)Where can i find the papal states to make an alliance with them?

2)How the heck can i join the Jerusalem crusade if im all the way in england? there is no way for me to get there!

thanks

Test112345
12-06-2006, 09:38
Also, since i can't edit:

how come i joined the crusade along with a bunch of other people, and we're all laying siege to the town, but nothing happens? no one is attacking...

past caring
12-06-2006, 16:16
Two questions:

1)Where can i find the papal states to make an alliance with them?

Roughly the equivalent of modern day Rome. You may be lucky enough to find one of their wandering diplomats anywhere, though.


2)How the heck can i join the Jerusalem crusade if im all the way in england? there is no way for me to get there!

thanks

You get double movement points when crusading. Moving your army next to the sea will also allow you to hire mercenary shipping. March your army through France to the Med then hire a boat. Simple.


Also, since i can't edit:

how come i joined the crusade along with a bunch of other people, and we're all laying siege to the town, but nothing happens? no one is attacking...

It's treated sort of like a "normal" AI siege - the beseiging AI army may decide to assault or may try to starve the defenders out. The defenders may decide to sally or they may not. If things aren't moving quick enough for you - hit the assault button yourself.

ps - general gameplay questions such as the above are better suited to the "Citadel" section.

Skott
12-07-2006, 03:54
One good strategy that I do is send a diplomat to Rome to camp the city. His main job is to grease the Pope's hands with gifts in money. 1,000 florin will get you at least one step up on Pope's view of you. Sometimes it'll give two steps up. I've gotten three steps with 2,000 florin. This is a good way to keep in the Pope's good graces whenever he starts to get upset with you. When your diplomat enter's his mid-50s in age then its time to send a replacement. Characters in this game tend to die not long after they reach 60 years of age I have noticed.

Crusades in this game kinda suck IMO. Too often the crusading army deserts before you even get near the target. Especially if you are traveling from northern Europe to the Middle East. I have found it better to just not go on crusade and give the Pope a small gift when he frowns on my lack of participating.

When attacking a faction a blitz type of strategy works best IMO. Build up and try and attack as many towns as possible in one or two turns and then stop. If its a nation with few territories you can take them out in one or two turns. Then grease the Pope's hands with a one or two thousand floring and he'll not get upset with you.

If you can get get your Cardinal elected Pope then you can do alot with him on the chair. He's more likely to call a crusade of your target of choice because typically he's liking his homeland more than anyone elses. :yes:

Grimmy
12-07-2006, 15:32
Something to keep in mind when considering Papal interferance with your plans of conquest.

IF you begin the tussle with high standings with the Pope, then you'll get a "cease and desist or you'll lose favor with the Pope" instead of "knock it off or you'll be discommunicated".

That can buy you the time you need to finish that wave of conquestering. So, as England, build up your Pope standings prior to hitting the Scotts and or the French.

If you get an alliance with the Pope, you max out your standings and that's a good time to start your necessary attacks on other catholic factions.

If you can't get an alliance just prior to attacking then it is a good idea to spend a few turns bribing your way up the favor ladder to at least 3/4ths the way to the top before launching your offensive.

sapi
12-11-2006, 04:37
The pope's really annoying me at the moment, but it is manageable ;)

I was at 10 on the pope-o-meter at one stage, then he tells me to stop fighting france. Of course, they attacked first and wouldn't accept a peace. 20 turns later, i get reconciled, 5 more turns later, i've got the same mission...and again, no way to complete it :(

PureFodder
12-11-2006, 15:48
Hi all.

I'm new to these forums, but have been playing the total war games since the original Medieval TW.

I'm doing the English on M/M difficulty on turn 90ish.

Firstly I assaulted York an Wales, sieging them, but not directly attacking to so I could keep the army in tact for the Scotts. Once the Rebels had been sorted out Scotland was assaulted and defeated(resulting in me being excommunicated, but with an aging king it doesn't matter too much as you'll get reconciled as soon as he dies) . After taking Ireland too I converted all of the castles in the British Isles to towns to make maximum amounts of money and plunged money into any building that will generate money.

In my game the French seemed much more interested in going South and East so I used the foothold in Northern france to take the entire North and West coast of France up to Antwerp off the rebels. This gives plenty of places to produce an army, so the British Isles can concentrate on funding me. The French repeatedly attack my settlements in France, but the pope has been doing a great job of stopping us from having any sort of propper war.

The Danes decided to assault Antwerp, getting themselves excommunicated. This allowed me to remove them entirely, taking provinces all the way to Stockholm. The Portugese did the same, attacking with an underpowered army, getting themselves excommunicated and allowing me to take the Pyrenees region.

The best way I've found to conduct a war with Catholic contries like France is to build up 2-3 large armies, typically 2 artillery, 6 Archers, 1 General, 1 Mounted unit, 3 Spears and 7 Heavy infantry. Get all armies within striking distance of cities then in one turn each one assaults a settlement, using the artillery to batter down 2 adjacent holes in the wals and any nearby archer towers. The computer will then stick a few units infront of the gaps. Now take your archer units one at a time and walk about 10m away from the hole in the wall, set them to fire fire arrows and shoot the defenders almost point blank till they run out of ammo, then bring in the next archer unit. The computer is too dumb to send units past the wall to engage your archers, so you can inflict easily 50-70% casulties to the defenders doing this before charging in with the rest of your army to mop up when the timer/ammo runs low.

Doing this will allow you to take a few provinces before the Pope orders you to stop, by which time the damage is alredy done. It's also worth noting I haven't shared any land borders with a country who didn't decide to randomly attack me.

mercian billman
12-12-2006, 06:06
I'm at turn 100 with the English and tried the turtling strategy for a long time. I even sold Caen to the French in order to help in my conquest of the British Isles. Everything was good until I decided to go on a crusade to Jureselam, the Crusade went well enough and ended up controlling Gaza, Jeruselam, Acre and Antioch, unfortunately after being in the Holy Land for 15 years, I was in deep debt, facing a problem with heretics and my troop numbers were dwindling. I was forced to disband my forces and sent my best general back to England which took about 15 years, in addition to this I had to disband half my troops in England in order overcome my budget defecit.

As soon as my general returned, the Pope excomunicated France and I crusaded to Paris, and used another army of 1 General, 4 Armoured Swordsmen, 2 Foot Knights, 6 Yeoman Longbows, and a Bombard to capture Rennes and Anger. Unfortunately the HRE managed to take Paris from me and kill my best general in the process.

CharleyLFC86
12-12-2006, 06:42
I've been playing on H/VH with the expanded gametime patch from the Org main page (which I absolutely love, as I like to take my time and not rush it too much. 1200 turns is a beautiful amount of time, heh) Anyways, my first goal as the English, as it was in MTW, was to secure the British isles, which I did so swiftly. I beat the French to Rennes, Antwerp, and Bruges, at which point the Danish began attacking me, probably because Hungary was completely dominating everything east of Denmark, and the HRE had become mostly Milanese territory. After a gruleing amount of turns to defeat the French; they somehow were recruiting at least 2 full stacks of armies every turn despite only holdling Paris, Rheims, Bordeux, and Angers, I'm facing Milan, the clear second strongest faction at the moment, second of course to myself in everything but financial. I'm about 125 turns in, I believe.

Anyways, I absolutely hate and despise the Milanese in this game. I don't know if other people have encountered the same thing, but generally a Milanese army is entirely composed of Genoan Crossbowmen, with a spattering of ridiculously accurate catapults and ballistas and the usual general's bodyguard (they have killed my general severl times now after only a couple barrages, which is incredibly annoying...). They also sometimes tow along one or two units of infantry, I think it's broken lances, which they rarely seem to use.

My problem is a cost-effective way to deal with these armies. They seem to be able to produce 2 or 3 full stacks of these clone armies every turn. My armies are generally made up of 5 units of retinue and yeoman archers right now, with the rest of the stack split between Demi-lancers and armoured swordsmen. I've found the most effective way of beating them seems to be forming a long line of battle with my cavalry, then walking towards them and engaging a massive charge, which usually crushes about 45% of enemy troops on impact and routs the rest. However, it's rarely cost-effective as to train 6-8 units of cavalry every other turn is taxing, especially when I need to maintain a strong prescence in Antwerp to fend off numerous attacks by the Danes.

I've tried simply matching them blow-to-blow with archers, but their pavises make the the kill ratio something like 7:3 in my favor, not nearly cost-effective enough, especially as their catapults, ballistas, and treb's absolutely devastate my expensive units, even when put on loose formation.

I've also found that unless I can overwhelm units of GXmen, they will inflict large amount of casualties on my swordsmen and cavalry. Has anyone found a better tactic at beating the pesky Milanese consistently with less than 10% losses? It doesn't help that my pope-o-meter sucks (that's probably my worst ability in this game, or perhaps stems on laziness of not interacting much with the Papal States...) and that the Milanese have a knack for stacking the College with their home-grown Cardinals.

sapi
12-12-2006, 11:44
When i was facing the Milanese, i simply used my financial advantage to overwhelm them with mercanaries, focusing my elite troops on the danes and the french. After i'd taken them out, i was able to focus on milan, which is currently dieing nicely ;)

Von Nanega
12-12-2006, 14:08
One good strategy that I do is send a diplomat to Rome to camp the city. His main job is to grease the Pope's hands with gifts in money. 1,000 florin will get you at least one step up on Pope's view of you. Sometimes it'll give two steps up. I've gotten three steps with 2,000 florin. This is a good way to keep in the Pope's good graces whenever he starts to get upset with you. When your diplomat enter's his mid-50s in age then its time to send a replacement. Characters in this game tend to die not long after they reach 60 years of age I have noticed.

As stated in the above quote, Get that diplomat to Rome quickly as possible.
Then I load up ships with three priests and sail them to muslim lands as fast as possible. They preach, get piety. This will help get them a cardinalship. I fort up in Cain untill England is secure. While you are doing this build forces and ships. (Your other ships are busy getting priests south to convert muslim lands.) When England is secure you are ready for the war on the mainland.

Ethelred Unread
12-12-2006, 15:15
I hadn't really done that and my standing with the pope is pretty low, but as previous posters have said I always take towns in one go so when the pope tells me to stop I can. I did try and send a dip to rome, but he got as far as northern italy then got burnt by an inquistor. There's also one near my lands but I've managed to avoid and family members getting burnt, just a few priests.

My strategy so far on Vh/vh has been to take as far as antwerp and wait until the danes get excommed as they usually do, ally with the milanese and help defeat france (who also in my game seem to like going south more), and try and take the british isles. As it's my first game, it's not going that well as I was very focussed at the beginning, should have had clear aims really, but i think i'll play it out and see how it goes.

I've also got a little colony in the holy land around aleppo and antioch from a too slow crusade stack, the problem with that is that the mercs are really expensive to keep, any ideas about how to prop them up?

Braedonnal
12-12-2006, 15:58
Has anyone found a better tactic at beating the pesky Milanese consistently with less than 10% losses?

I find that light cavalry does pretty well against all foot ranged units. This does take a lot of micromanagement as you need to charge and recharge until the enemy breaks but as long as you are willing to do that, it works very well. I even use them against the filthy Mongols to shatter their foot units and siege weapons. Just don't let them stay in hand-to-hand, they aren't made for it.

Beefeater
12-12-2006, 16:24
Second Braedonnal. Playing England, Hobilars are your best friend against the Italian crossbow/pavise militia units. To achieve consistently low casualties, aim for four units of light cav: two to draw or herd the missile units out of position, and two to attack from the flank once the missile units are engaged.

CharleyLFC86
12-13-2006, 02:51
It seems they've learned their lesson after I've been crushing their armies repeatedly now, and they've begun creating more typical infantry-oriented armies, which I can easily defeat with superior ranged units and tactics. Hopefully they won't switch back to assembly-line speed making Geonoese xbowmen, I hate them so much.

And despite only holding two cardinalships, one of them was extremely pious and has been elected Pope. With only a few major Catholic Factions remaining (HRE, France, Scotland, Portugal have felt my wrath), everyhting is looking up England.

Iyasu
12-13-2006, 03:13
When i've played England before, i used the first 10 turns to capture the rebel settelements of Bordeaux, Rennes, and Bruges in the continent while attacking Dublin. i made an alliance with France initially by marrying their princess (constance) to my faction heir (rufus) during the first turn. when i runned out of rebels settelemts to capture, ive began my covert operations against the french. ive trained spies and assassins in rennes, i used the spy to enter the french castle of Angers, then used my assassins to sabotage their chapel and kill off their priests! eventually after several assassinations, the Pope excommunicated them! so the french territorities is up for the taking. the strategy relied heavily on lots of saving and reloading. also it is better to have an assassins' guild on rennes for better effect.

just my two cents:2thumbsup:

Sphinx
12-16-2006, 22:35
Hiya, just adding my two cents here.

I played on Medium for both parts of the game and played a short game with England where the end goal was destroying the French. Since it is on Medium you can often get away with some things that in a harder game would be suicidal.

Anyway, like others stated, I concentrated on the main isles first. I left Nottingham as a military city as well as Caen but all other cities I turned into villages. I concentrated on the Scots last after taking out all other rebel factions. I never ransacked or exterminated the population on the main islands but instead just occupied the settlements.

By about turn 20, the Pope calls for a Crusade. I had one general who I didn't like much so I sent him on the Crusade with a small army. To my surprise, he made it to Jerusaleum in only one boat and so after getting a few more units attached to him the little army took the city. But, having them just sit there wasn't helping me much so I abandoned the city and turned south thinking I could go west across Africa and take some more cities now that the Army was quite large and even the Pilgrim units were seasoned veterans.

I found that sacking Cairo and Alexandria is very profitable making about 40000 gold off those two cities, money which I used to upgrade all of my provinces.
A little later another Crusade started and it went to Antioch. I took that same Army up there and then tried to sail them home because by this time the general was getting old. But, their ships were attacked and sunk.

As for the French I took some of their territories but the Pope kept telling me to stop. During those times I would just shift units and rebuild. By about turn 50, Denmark and Milan also posed a threat. They would attack me but I could normally stave them off easily enough allowing me to focus more units on France.

By about turn 70 the French were gone so now I might restart and try a larger campaign.

PureFodder
12-17-2006, 00:07
Having finished the long English campaign on m/m here are my thoughts.

1) The best thing I ever did was to turn take the whole of the Uk and Ireland ASAP before teching the settlements up much, then converting all of it to towns and using it as a money maker. The computer will almost never go for amphibious assaults, so you can leave it poorly protected and it'll finance anything you do.

2) Iberia is the best place to assault, possible even before taking France. It's easy to defend once taken and provides a great staging area for you to head towards north africa and into the non-Catholic regions.

3) The French may hate you with a passion, but the pope never let any attack by me or the french last more than one turn before threatening excommunication. This means all French aggression towards me got thwarted and any assaults against France required a mass assault on several provinces, backed up by artillery in order to take several settlements in one go before the pope could get involved.

4) Yeoman Archers can decimate armies, especially when backed up by armoured swordsmen. Retinue archers probably aren't worth the 9600 to upgrade the facilities, but the Sherwood archers are worthy (available through the woodsmen guild, great at killing heavily armoured troops and cavalry)

5) Mounted missile troops can absolutely demolish most English armies, but the English starting position means this shouldn't be much of a problem till the very end stages of your campaign.

gwarman057
12-23-2006, 17:05
Currently playing my first game as England on m/m. I started with taking my army from the isle and taking York, Caernaveron (sp?), and Dublin asap. I made a move after York to take Inverness but the Scots already had it under siege so I moved on to Caernaveron. At the same time as that I took Rennes with my mainland forces and a few added units from Caen. I waited for missions to try and make some extra cash but I took Dublin and Rennes early because the Scots and France had guys on their way there.

I made an extra diplomat so I could have one to negotiate with near my settlements and one to head south. The south one I used to do a few diplomatic missions from the nobles and ended up using him to form an alliance with the papal states and the HRE. HRE took an alliance with nothing extra, but the papal states took a little but of bribing. I offered them cash gifts when I could spare it, which they really seem to love as well as cash tributes and map info. After a few turns of doing this I formed a perfect relationship with the pope which was very helpful. Of course you can't forget to keep up with churches and priests as well.

During this France got aggressive and started a siege on Caen. I took my units that were still in Rennes and positioned them directly behind the French and as soon as they were excommunicated I decimated them and moved to take Angers. The French army was decimated very badly after this so they sent in a diplomat to talk to my general and I negotiated a ceasefire in return for giving me Rheim, which they barely accepted.

When the pope called for the first crusade I was in the middle of my war with France so I decided to ignore his call and take the consequences which weren't too bad at all because of our diplomatic relationship. About 10 to 20 turnws after that I recruited about 7 priests from Caernaveron and Dublin along with a stack of 5 cog units and shipped them to Africa while I was screwing around in Europe. Once there they were they started converting the muslims and their piety skyrocketed. Once the Cardinals started dying the pope was more than happy to replace them with my missionaries from Africa. When the pope died my cardinal was a complete shoe in. Now I have nearly free reign over anyone with less than 5 papal rating.

Scotland proved to be the thorn in my campaign's side. They became aggressive right around when I sent the priests to Africa. During this time Milan had started a war with me and Scotland started soon after them. The Scots took York for a few turns and I took it back after mustering all my isle troops. They ended up becoming allies with nearly all my neighbors (Portugal, France, HRE, and Milan) so when I sacked Edinburgh they started to get pissed at me and eventually started to attack me.

After taking Edinburgh the pope (this was still the original pope) told me to cease hostilities with Scotland because they had managed to keep a 6-cross rating. So I sent a spy to Inverness and kept my troops in Edinburgh while the Scots kept sieging it and being beaten back, and as soon as the ceasefire was over I rushed Inverness and wouldn't ya know it, my spy came through and I didn't need to siege it, I rushed the gates and killed off the Scots, finally giving me full control of the British Isles.

During tthe Scot invasions I also had to fend off southern invasions by Milan and HRE, who turned on me after allying with Scotland. I was able to take Bordeaux, Paris, Bruges, and Antwerp, which has made me very financially secure. I'm currently in the middle of a four-front war with France, Milan, HRE, and Portugal, but with my pope I should have no problem with him interfering with my slaughtering.

My biggest mistake was ignoring diplomacy with everyone aside from the pope. Of course I granted trade rights and was nice to everyone at first I let that go away and now I have a bunch of angry neighbors who are allied with each other. Luckily Spain hasn't allied with anyone except for the Moors (go figure) so I'm currently trying to secure their alliance and hopefully I'll be able to marry into their family to form at least one secure alliance.

Callahan9119
12-31-2006, 11:40
i like turtling as english and taking the lands on the french coast as a buffer for my island, and like econ said, just do what the pope and the council tells me, i prefer not to war monger and stay pretty peaceful unless attacked

asurin
01-02-2007, 13:16
Hi, I'm playing on the default M/M settings.

My basic strategy has been based around the goal of having a solid advantage when the time comes to invade the new world.

As I have heard nothing about how that part of the game works I am proceeding under the assumption that fleets will need to sail across the european map first.

Thus my plan is to capture the western coast of europe and blockade the straits of Gilbitrator with a massive fleet. To do this I shall endevour to annihilate the Scots, french, Dutch, Spanish, Portugese and Moors.

Thus far I have played for 78 Turns, and controll 32 provinces. This gives me the bulk of Western Europe. I have also captured the rebel Island near to the Holy lands.

Thus far I have destroyed the Scots, French and Milanese. I also assisted the Spanish to destroy the Portugese(Too tempting a turget).

My initial moves.
Focus on two front war. English Isles and the Ferench coast.
Built up my forces and immediatly moved north into York. The Forces in Caen immediatly moved north east to capture the two coastal rebel Towns. I then kept these armies inplace at York and Antwerp. I then built two new armies to capture the town west of Caen and West of Notingham.

Then I declaired war on the scots and forced them to fall back into Ireland. The pope threatened excommunication so I arranged a ciecefire.

As I was preparing to move on Bordeax the French Besieged Caen and England entered into a war that has continued is one fashion or another up till the present day.
I did then muster my forces and struck back against the French taking 3 Provinces in total but during this the Scots got the fool notion that they could beat me and declaired war. Appeals for a Ciecefire were in vain So I now was fighting a two front war.

Not that it mattered. I always keep strong standin armies on my borders, or close by in case of need. Then, having earlier rejected the invitation to join my war against the french, the HRE broke our alliance and sided with the scots and the frogs!

Their first move was to take Antwerp, successfully holding it against two counter attacks by strong forces. Mostly this was due to my lack of artillery and the inabillity of spearmen to capture held ramparts, even enmasse.

The problem was solved by teching up to catapults.

I finished off the Scots and began to expand into french territory untill once again I found myself attacked by Millan in the south and by the dutch at Antwerp in the North. :juggle2:

It was during this time I sent a force to join in the first of three Crusades so far. My forces traveled by sea around spain into the Med and on to the holy lands. After taking losses from disertion they landed and marched on Jeruselism only to see the stout stome walls and sigh in disappointment (I didn't sent Catapults with them). So I moved them south and attacked the Castle there. And was swiftly defeated, my King leaving a yellow streak so long that its stench reverberated throughout Chrissendom.

A quich application of "rent an army" fixed the problem of him having lost his and I was set to try again on a different target.
In the end I sailed East and captured the Rebel island I had passed on my way to the Holy Land.

I then decided to bring the fleet, my king, and his daughter back to England. They had scarcely made it back to Italy when the King, his daughter were killed by the Villanous Millanese on the high seas.

Back in Europe I was able to rout the invading armies and moved my forces south and East in two frounts to take two vital HRE Fortresses, Push the French back into Spain and the Milanese back Across the Alps.

Stage Two.

With large areas of Western Europe under my control, I was uble to finally move south into Spain to exterminate the French. (French Popes to date = Two, so the pope hates my Guts). The portugese left a nice unprotected forts next door so I promptly took that too. I also moved west into Millan and via several well fought battles destroyed their millitary might. Constant sabotage my my spy of their Cultural Infastructure eventually leading to their final defeat when their last two provences were lost to rebels.

Stage Three

The Spanish the decide to attack me as well. When will they learn? Again forcing me to fight on multiple fronts. I have just completed the destruction of the Dutch forces between my and Poland, and have started to advance into the HRE once more.

My next moves will be to Exterminate the Duch and HRE. And move South to Conquor Spain, Followed my North Africa.

I plan to stop my advance east at poland but that will depend of wether or not they will hold off attacking me.

And finally, at last, the Pope is ENGLISH! :beam:

nameless
01-06-2007, 00:34
Ever since patch 1.1, Portgual seems obessed in invading the British Isles no matter what.

I'm not exactly sure what's the best option because ever since then the Spainards, Portugese, and moors rarely touch each other, hence, Portugal is free to do whatever.

Best option of course is to exterminate them but that's difficult without angering the pope and such.

pianonator
01-06-2007, 19:22
Difficulty: VH/VH

Well, actually, I think it's VH/VH, but I can't remember. Is there a way to check?

Well, I'm on turn 40 about, and I have 19 provinces. I think it's actually easier to expand on VH/VH than it is on Medium, simply because everybody just attacks you. I formed a marriage alliance with the French, and they betrayed me 4 turns later. They laid seige to Bruges - in revenge, I took Paris, Rheims, and Angers. Then I killed the king, and the pope told me to stop attacking them for a while. This was fine, because they attacked me again later, so I took their last royal town and their king.

As far as the Scottish go, I foolishly let them sit while I took rebel settlements and dealt with the French. Then, they attacked me, so I was forced into some tricky battles. In general, engage (trick them into engaging you) large armies on the field. The enemies are a little more confident and skilled on VH and last longer in a prolonged melee, but it is a lot better than dealing with a huge force in a city. One of my favorite things to do is to win a battle against a huge army, and force them into a city. Then, lay siege to that city. Usually, another huge army led by a noble comes up to save them. Kill the ENTIRE garrison when they sally, and as much of the other army as you can. I wiped out both Scotland and France this way. In one battle against Scotland, I killed their King and Heir and their main force. While one army was engaging them, I sent a small strike force to enter their capital and kill the king - winning the battle was not necessary, but it helped.

France was the first faction I killed, and then Scotland. Right now, I'm in a Pax Anglica of sorts, so I'm using it to build some of the more important buildings I didn't get a chance to build while I was building armies. I currently have the English Isles, the France-ish area, that little town next to Antioch (forget what it's called), and some towns in northern Europe. I'm waiting for the Danish to betray me.

Somebody brought up this point before, and it's a good one. Even if somebody beats you to the first crusade, take one of the rebel towns around the Holy Land and build it into a fortress. You have a huge stack in there already, and probably your faction leader. This is very nice, because new nobles come to age there, so you have the makings of a very nice expansion force. Convert the populace to Catholicism to make the pope like you.

Battles: I'm still working out a Medieval II mindset here, so much of my strategy is leftover from Rome. The trouble is that my spearmen aren't phalanxes. Oh well. Typically, the enemy tries to flank. Not a problem if you have lots of light and heavy cav to chase them off. Then, they're without cavalry, except for the heavy stuff they plan to charge up the middle. This is usually (stupidly) their general. My spearmen typically get pushed, and occasionally rout. Not a bad thing. Then I move my cav back in and squish the center assault. It seldom works out this nicely. Thus far, I've always been on the defense when fighting in the field, so this strategy works nicely. Haven't gotten longbows yet - when do those show up? Also Armoured Swordsmen would be nice. What buildings do I need for them? Also, again, does anyone know how to check the difficulty level in a game?

mdterp
01-08-2007, 06:48
campaign: hard Battles: Very Hard

I found it best to start the campaign by completing the missions and conquering the UK.

I then established strong alliances with Spain and the Holy Roman Empire, thus surrounding France with enemies. Use trade rights, map info, and monetary gifts to gain good favor with them.

Using these alliances and my 2 cardinal votes I got my cardinal elected. Note that it is extremely important to watch your cardinal's retinue and characteristics to elect a pope favoring your upcoming plans. The manual explains how to groom your cardinals.

Using the pope and longbowmen France was unable to wage war on me or take my lone continental province of Caen.

Ignore attacking present day France and instead join (or call) a crusade and establish a base in the east. Do your main campaign expansion here. This avoids all the problems with fighting catholics.

I ended my long campaign by conquering the east coast of the mediterranean from the rich Egyptian provinces all the way into the Byzantine's empire. Remember the Mongols will pose an enormous threat in this area so prepare for them.

Owen Glyndwr
01-08-2007, 16:35
I tried playing England once, but have, well I wouldn't say failed, more like am stuck. I have blown 2, count em 2 armies trying to take down Caernarfon. That is mainly because I never get to exploit the power of the Longbowmen, because all my battles have been seiges, and my spearmen and billmen just absolutely get wiped out by even the Welsh Longbowmen:furious3: although I can't help but be pleased:laugh4: ) . Man those defense bonuses are killer, but I gotta ask. How dya'll do it? Do you maintain seiges and just wait 'em out, that's how i did it in M1, or dya try to lure them out so you can effectively use your Longbows?:help:

pianonator
01-08-2007, 18:59
Quote Owen Glyndwr: I tried playing England once, but have, well I wouldn't say failed, more like am stuck. I have blown 2, count em 2 armies trying to take down Caernarfon. That is mainly because I never get to exploit the power of the Longbowmen, because all my battles have been seiges, and my spearmen and billmen just absolutely get wiped out by even the Welsh Longbowmen although I can't help but be pleased ) . Man those defense bonuses are killer, but I gotta ask. How dya'll do it? Do you maintain seiges and just wait 'em out, that's how i did it in M1, or dya try to lure them out so you can effectively use your Longbows?

Some people consider it a Bad Thing to use cavalry on sieges. It's not. It's tricky, but in small castles and towns, it's useful. Even though it's Lots of Fun to take out a castle with a small strike force, it's also not a Bad Thing to outnumber the defense by several hundred.

You want to use Spearmen and Billmen if you have them (it's not a Bad Thing if you don't. Also be sure to have a few units of Mail Knights and Hobilars. Quickly engage the melee troops that are protecting longbows. This can be done by simply charging your infantry at the longbows, and then the enemy infantry will engage you. Or, you could charge some Hobilars at them and see if you get a few before you have to pull back. Go around the back of the Longbows and charge the dying nightlights out of them with Mail Knights. Watch out for spearmen, though.

One strategy that I kind of did accidentally is to deploy at a part of the castle that has lots of buildings and a kind of crooked path in between you and the square, where the longbows are, and where the main melee might be. This minimizes their effectiveness. Be sure to give your spearmen leather armor or better.

If you feel Really Confident, have two rams attack two different gates, each force consisting of some cav and infantry. This way, the enemy might split their forces. Or they'll leave one gate undefended, so you can do a lightning flank with one gate team. Have fun!

Caveat - I haven't tried the last idea, but I think it'll work.

Edit: You have longbows already? How? Caernafon is best taken out early.

Dead Knight of the Living
01-08-2007, 19:13
I have a couple of items to discuss.

First. I agree on the part about the Billmen. Maybe my brain is fired, but didn't someone post a mod to fix the Billmen. If they did and any of you know where or how to do it please let me know. I don't even recruit them anymore.

Second. I haven't really noticed a problem with an "underpowered" cavalry charge. Though my cavalry doesn't really crash into the opposition like I'd like them too. They kind of pause right when they hit the enemy, but I notice the enemy lose a satisfying amount of people. Satisfying to me I mean.

I just got the game at Christmas and only started playing it two days ago. I'm playing Hard campaign/Very Hard Battle.

I've conqurered just about all of France except Bruges, Rheims and the city in the Southeast corner by Genoa. I forgot the name of it.

I've conquered Ireland (but lost it to the Scots), but I"m now on the offensive in Scotland. I took Edinburgh and just assaulted Iverness.

Here's a question for the crowd. My general died while I was assaulting Iverness. Immediately the battle ended and went to the Battle REsults screen. It was a defeat for me. So far that's the only time I lost a commander. Is that supposed to happen in this game? Your commander dies and you automatically lose the battle? That's horse droppings if it's true.

Secondly. I agree with all the approaches to the English Campaign. Just wanted to throw a little tactic that I stumbled on accidentally that some of you might want to try intentionally.

Scotland does leave you alone much at the beginning. Well, once they did grow a sack and decided to attack me I built up a full army and put them on a boat so Scottish spies couldn't see it.

The Scots then assaulted York and took it. The Scots throughout the game I learned have one major field army and usually independent units or a minor field army wandering somewhere else. So, I sent my army on boats north of York and waited for the Scots to take York over.

They did. I besieged York and forced them to attack me by waiting out the Siege. They ended up attacking me earlier (thank God/ 8 turns would've sucked) with their minor field army. I waxed them all. The Scottish military out in one simple fell swoop.

I garrisoned York and went to Edinburgh and Exterminated the population. It was effortless. I then marched unopposed to Iverness where I had that little issue with my general dying. But in two more turns I'll be back there with 1500 troops to their 200 or so and I'll exterminate them easily. (My general will not engage in this fight).

Then I'll march to Dublin which is guarded by a few units. Scotland... gone in a flash of light.

This game is pretty good though. NOt as bad as I initially thought it would be; but it could definitely be much better if they'd fix the bugs.

Dead Knight of the Living
01-08-2007, 19:33
I have a couple of items to discuss.

First. I agree on the part about the Billmen. Maybe my brain is fired, but didn't someone post a mod to fix the Billmen. If they did and any of you know where or how to do it please let me know. I don't even recruit them anymore.

Second. I haven't really noticed a problem with an "underpowered" cavalry charge. Though my cavalry doesn't really crash into the opposition like I'd like them too. They kind of pause right when they hit the enemy, but I notice the enemy lose a satisfying amount of people. Satisfying to me I mean.

I just got the game at Christmas and only started playing it two days ago. I'm playing Hard campaign/Very Hard Battle.

I've conqurered just about all of France except Bruges, Rheims and the city in the Southeast corner by Genoa. I forgot the name of it.

I've conquered Ireland (but lost it to the Scots), but I"m now on the offensive in Scotland. I took Edinburgh and just assaulted Iverness.

Here's a question for the crowd. My general died while I was assaulting Iverness. Immediately the battle ended and went to the Battle REsults screen. It was a defeat for me. So far that's the only time I lost a commander. Is that supposed to happen in this game? Your commander dies and you automatically lose the battle? That's horse droppings if it's true.

Secondly. I agree with all the approaches to the English Campaign. Just wanted to throw a little tactic that I stumbled on accidentally that some of you might want to try intentionally.

Scotland does leave you alone much at the beginning. Well, once they did grow a sack and decided to attack me I built up a full army and put them on a boat so Scottish spies couldn't see it.

The Scots then assaulted York and took it. The Scots throughout the game I learned have one major field army and usually independent units or a minor field army wandering somewhere else. So, I sent my army on boats north of York and waited for the Scots to take York over.

They did. I besieged York and forced them to attack me by waiting out the Siege. They ended up attacking me earlier (thank God/ 8 turns would've sucked) with their minor field army. I waxed them all. The Scottish military out in one simple fell swoop.

I garrisoned York and went to Edinburgh and Exterminated the population. It was effortless. I then marched unopposed to Iverness where I had that little issue with my general dying. But in two more turns I'll be back there with 1500 troops to their 200 or so and I'll exterminate them easily. (My general will not engage in this fight).

Then I'll march to Dublin which is guarded by a few units. Scotland... gone in a flash of light.

This game is pretty good though. NOt as bad as I initially thought it would be; but it could definitely be much better if they'd fix the bugs.

Owen Glyndwr
01-09-2007, 01:37
Ok, thanks for the help, the english campaign was my first, and I think I was jes used to my powerful roman legions mowing down everyone stupid enough to get in their way (which was pretty much everyone considering it was the ai:laugh4: ) Yeah, I was a little slow to get gowing on taking out Wales, and focused more on sucking up the towns near Caen (i.e. Antwerp, and whatever the town is in Brittany). And while I was doing this, I was building Caen into a powerful castle and got Longbowmen on i think around 20th turn or so. I also encountered the same problem as dead knight of the living, how my cavalry stupidly stop right in front of the enemy, which is frustrating because that makes a cavalry flanking action nowhere near as decisive as it was in Rome. This causes most of my battles in M2 to be full-on head to head slaughterfests where I lose 200 men against an army with 500 (compared to the average 35 I'd lose in Rome, even when I was outnumbered while seiging). Its a little frustrating, but hey! at least i get to see all the neat little stabbing and decapitation animations the CA added, great job guys! Now we jes need to work on the head falling off when they decapitate!:2thumbsup:

pianonator
01-09-2007, 22:58
Yes, I have noticed that cavalry problem too. Make sure you tell them to charge from a fair distance away, and make sure they are all formed up when you give the order. DO NOT change targets midway. If you have to break off, tell them to go somewhere else, and make sure they're running. If they're not, click on the run button in the corner. That's another problem with cav - they tend to walk everywhere, even if you double-click.

Dead Knight of the Living, you probably lost the battle because your moral was so low that all your units began routing the instant that your general died. When you lose a general, it's a massive hit to moral, and if your units are on the breaking point, it turns into a massive rout.

What building does one need for Longbows and Armoured Swordsmen?

Again, does anyone know how to check the difficulty levels during a game?
:help:

MilesGregarius
01-10-2007, 11:58
What building does one need for Longbows and Armoured Swordsmen?

Longbowmen show up with the second level archery range, I forget its name, the one after bowyer. It's always a priority for me in Nottingham and Caen.

Armoured swordsmen come considerably later. I think you might need your castle upgraded tp fortress or even citadel level to get them.

Malkut
01-10-2007, 12:26
Armoured swordsmen come considerably later. I think you might need your castle upgraded tp fortress or even citadel level to get them.

Armored Swordsmen come from the fourth-level barracks, and I'd give just about anything to have them avalible at Nottingham from the beginning, to deal with the Scots.

Two other units of note, and how to get them:

Sherwood Archers: These Robin Hood wannabes have incredible range and power, but small unit sizes and high upkeep. If you have a really good economy, they might be worth it. They come from the Woodmens’ Guild. There is a chance you'll be offered the opportunity to build it every time you train longbow units in Nottingham.

Templar Knights: Templars help make up for England's heavy cavalry deficiency. Move a character with high chivalry to a fortress, and begin pumping out knights each turn. This gives you a chance at earning a Templar Guildhouse. Bigger guildhouses give experience bonuses that stack with tourney fields. Combine that with the highest-level smith, and you’ve got a really incredible unit, for roughly the same cost as the English Knight. I totally and unequivocally recommend this, especially when fighting France. Don't let them have any advantage over you!

Malkut
01-12-2007, 12:52
Some other pointers:

Get the 2H Animation Fix, so that you can actually use Billmen: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=74094

England’s strategy for the past thousand years has been to have no permanent allies, just permanent interests. While this is true to an extent for every faction, you actually have a secure power base to build from early on, so you will always be in a position to undermine whoever is strongest on the Continent.

Sieging Dublin during the first five turns will marganalize the Scots. I’ve never managed to get to Iverness before they do, but getting to Dublin is easy via boat from Caen. Doing this will leave them with one town and one castle, while you can quickly swallow up York and Wales, too. After that, it’s just a matter of attrition. You can afford the losses, they can’t. Eventually, they’ll put a nice portion of their men on a boat, and sail down the eastern side of the island. That’s the perfect time to attack.

Fill Great Britain with paved roads, and keep a single castle (I picked Nottingham, for it’s central location), and a stack on hand to blunt naval invasions from Denmark or Portugal. Both of these factions will need to die, sooner or later, but you have other problems, first.

After wiping out the Scots, your enemies will be France and the HRE. Make an alliance with France as quickly as possible, so that everyone will blame them when they betray you. This will cause them to lose standing with the Pope, and that will keep him from interfering for a long while, as you swallow up their lands. As I said above, fill Europe with Templars or Hospitilars.

Speaking of His Holiness, the first pope needs to die, and the sooner the better. Seriously. He’s a very fair man, and for a dirty, underhanded dealer like you, that’s bad. You need an Englishman in Rome, or at least someone from one of your current allies.

Milan will probably be your third enemy. As an aggressive, expansionist power, they have never failed to draw the Pope’s ire in any of my games, so they question isn’t rather or not to call a crusade against them, but when.

If they’ve gone to war with either of your first two enemies, it might be in your best interests to let them both bleed themselves dry, constantly aiding both sides with regular injections of cash. Have an army ready for a crusade the second Milan betrays you. If the war with France is going well, and if Milan is not at war with any of your enemies, it might be prudent to nip this little potential problem in the bud early.

Crusades into the Holy Land are great, but make sure you aim them at a castle, either a nice, developed Turkish one, or a small rebel one, if any still exist. Jerusalem is nice, but hard to control, where as castles are easy. Bring many agents with your army. Once you’ve acquired your objective, spam priests each turn, and begin converting the Middle East, to ease your eventual conquest and undermine the Muslims. The Middle East is a great place to train cardinals, so start assassinating your enemies’ priests.

Now, go forth and conquer!

Silvershade
01-12-2007, 16:09
In my latest game as England on H/VH I marched straight on after taking York and reached Edinburgh before the Scots had taken Inverness, my spy opened the gates and it was bye bye Scotland very early in the game. This leaves the remaining Scottish ( now rebel ) armies and settlements to deal with at your leisure with no pressure from the Pope.

sir smudge
01-15-2007, 14:44
I've been playing mtw2 for a few weeks now and I've just started a new campaign as England. the problem I'm having is when attacking a city i seem to be takeing huge casualties compared to what im use to in rtw. Is there anything I can do to make things a bit better.

XiahouPing
01-15-2007, 17:47
If you're taking casualties from the towers, try and have a few ladders and/or towers spread the fire from your rams. If you mean from just general fighting, make sure you aren't using unit types that are weak against what the enemy is using.

jelake
01-15-2007, 18:44
I'm playing an England game right now and I went after Scotland from the onset. I gathered up every troop I could spare short of emptying my 3 cities/castles , bought up a load of mercs and hit Edinburgh on, like turn 3 or 4. Bypassed right past York. Turned the Scot's 2 roaming armies into rebels. After that, took the rest of the British Isles at my leisure. Portugal came up and took that city just east of Dublin, can't remember the name, so I had to declare war on him.

Eventually France came after Caen allied with the Portuguese. Pretty amusing fight. They attacked with over 1000 men to my 600. I had Armored Swordsmen by then and billmen. Of their 1000 men they had 1 ballista plinking my wall, so I decided to sacrifice a Mailed Knights unit to destroy it. It worked. I couldn't close the gate though so I was ready for a tough assault but it never really came. They hit the gate with a couple units of cavalry, but the Spear militia bounced them easily enough. Creative Assembly really needs to fix their siege AI. They managed to get one ladder group to the wall and the almost entire 1000 man army tried to climb those 3 ladders, with the gate open right next to it! I just moved up a swordsmen and billmen to kill them when they reached the top of the wall, rotating them out when they tired, with the general rallying them when their morale was low. It was carnage.

Owen Glyndwr
01-16-2007, 02:04
I managed to turn my campaign around. After losing yet another army to Caernarfon, I have finally come to a revelation. Much like the English in the 100 years' war, the power of the English lies in their longbows. However, i never get to use them in seiges because the walls make the longbows fire arching shots which doesn't do much damage. Which brings me to my first point Never Under any circumstances should you EVER let your longbows fire arching shots. All it ever does is wastes valuable ammunition. You always want to manouvre your archers into a position where they can fire in a straight line, which means dont but longbows right one behind the other. My second point is this, you will almost never win seiges while your assaulting, especially in the early game, and if you do win, you'll incur heavy losses in the process. (this is coming from someone who is about 35 turns into the game and just got to feudal knights however) So, unless you have seige equipment, it is best to wait for them to attack you. When they come to you, their defense bonuses are gone, making them easier to kill, and you can bring the full power of your longbows to bear. For example, in the seige of Caernarfon, the first 3 fights were a waste of time, money and troops. However, the next time I waited it out, they sallied forth, and my longbows killed almost the entire army before they even reached me. Afterwards, it was a simple massive flank and i had won with only 35 men lost. The third point I will make is this: Your spearmen are pretty much worthless, they can't take a cavalry charge, so dont try it. it is better to lure the cavalry out into the open ground, place a few spearmen and cavalry nearby to keep theirs at bay, and waste half their cavalry force with longbows. After this, fix their cavalry with a few spears (make sure you'll do the chargeing, as your spears cant take a jit very well) and just flank them several times with whatever you got, which brings me to my final point. You pretty much have no cavalry, so you'll need to find other means of providing that shock I usually only bring along a few divisions of cavalry. A lot of my flanking I do with longbows. I fix with either spear militia or billmen. and then flank with maybe one mailed knight and whatever longbows i got. This usually works pretty well. If you can, try to completely envelop their cavalry. Like chariots, if you split their force up, even that invincible General's Bodyguard goes down quick. With tese strategies, I managed to take over all of france (except for Marseilles), wales, and Ireland. I finally got Yeoman archers and feudal knights in Nottingham, and am building an army to destroy Scotland. Then I am going to attack the Milanese who just stabbed me in the back. With England, once you pull away from the Roman Infantry can take anything mentality, they are pretty much unbeatable.

Malkut
01-16-2007, 16:32
Let me clarify the siege points that have been made.

Once you have Armored Swordsmen and Dismounted English Knights, then you can attempt sieges without catapults or trebs. Not before. Your early infantry are simply unsuited to taking walls or gates. Spearmen are disposable horse killers, and billmen aren't wearing any armor. Swordsmen are a match for any infantry on the continent, and DEK are simply killing machines. None are very good at tight battles. Your lack of shock troops, combined with the trouble most new people have with horsemen (denying you an excellent means at sapping enemy morale), means you will incur large casualties in very early battles. That's why I suggested attrition. Set your empire up where you can afford the casualties, and the Scots cannot. Once you have control of the islands, you’ll be an economic force to be reckoned with, and you can tech up until you have a decent front line.

When I assaulted the city in Wales, I simply brought peasants with me to do the ramming and charge the breach. Who cares if they get slaughtered by the towers? They're pawns. They can die like pawns. Let the enemy wear themselves out killing the rabble, then send soldiers to batter them into submission. Every arrow one of them takes is an arrow that's missed one of my real soldiers.

. . . I think I may just be too good at this “king” thing.

pianonator
01-16-2007, 23:43
Yes, there is a huge difference between sieges here vs. Rome. In Rome, your Roman infantry were invincible and unchallenged on foot. Here, the nations are on fairly even footing, so you'll find (gasp) a fair fight. It is not that easy to mount a foot attack as England early in the game, because Billmen are a little broken and Spearmen just don't act like they used to. I prefer the "knock knock" approach to sieges. Fight those big armies in the field where you can actually use your strengths, and then force the tiny remainder of their army back into the city. Then do the one-turn catapult siege so they don't have time to reinforce the city. If they won't engage you, siege them and wait for them to sally. Wait with Ballistas and longbows pointed at the gates.

I thoroughly agree with Malkut - peasants and Town Militia are great for scratching that rebel-town itch.

Seriously folks, I've been hearing a lot of trash talk about English Cav - sure, it's not the best, but I took out France in the early game with nothing but Mailed Knights and Hobilars. Oh, about those Hobilars - those little buggers are FAST. In Medieval 1, I had whole armies made of Hobilars, longbows, and spears. Of course, cavalry was waaay overpowered in that game.

Defeat the Persian Navy by Land. Defeat your enemy garrisons on the field.

Edit: Pilgrims - useful at ALL?

Nepereta
01-17-2007, 11:38
Taking caenarvon early pre siege equipment pre heavy infantry

I took caenarvon in my first game by running 1 unit ( you need numerical superiority and lots of ladders) on the walls to open the back door. Then rushed all the cav in the back way. If you clear out the city square the units that where previously on the walls will head towards the square. If you have a big gang of generals and mailed knights in the square the welsh spears and longbowmen should be easy especially if you can deal with each piecemeal.

Other points:

Gallowglaich ( or whatever they are called) can be hired in ireland I think. Pretty effective infantry for early assaults. Taking dublin first might be easier route to victory.

Waiting out the siege with a small cav heavy force might work. When the enemy sally you just hang back and deal with the spears and bows on the field, then run round using my sword of the infinte +10 and kill the goblin king!

Owen Glyndwr
01-17-2007, 16:30
It all goes back to my signature. You have to recognize your advantages and faults before rushing in to battle. Your early infantry is incapable of doing anything other then pinning a stopped enemy for about 50 seconds, billmen, even less than that. However, Longbows mow down anything standing in their way. With cavalry being pretty much the same as everyone else's, you need to utilize your longbow. In Rome, my army makeup used to be 4 cavalry (for 2 on each flank) 1 general 3 archers and the rest are the heaviest infantry I can make. I rarely actually ended up using my archers, it usually was a huge pin made by my infantry, follwed by flanking hit after flanking hit, going down the line with my cavalry. However, now almost half of my army consists of Longbows, maybe 3 or 4 spears, Dismounted Feudal Knights, and the rest are mailed knights. Just as in the 100 year's war, when the english pull the impetuous French out onto the field, they get absolutely wiped out with very little English casualties (i.e. Agincourt, Poitiers, and Crecy) but later, the French began to hide in their castles more, and the English had neither the time nor money, nor the manpower to sit there and seige (even Edward III's seige of Crecy cost quite a few men and 6 or 7 months.) Usually it's best to draw them into the field, even if this means taking up to 6 turns to wait it out, it is usually better to do it. Either do that or bring in artillery, anything you can to avoid fighting on the walls. Defenders get bonuses to the point in which even peasants are useful, meaning your spearmen will be defeated by anything and I mean
anything on the walls. It's the same with the Spanish, once you learn how to use the Jinetes, the Spanish are pretty much invincible.

Malkut
01-18-2007, 16:51
People might want to try the M2TW: Lite Mod. It's basically a bugfix that helps gameplay bunches, fixes the two handed thing, and adds Armored Sargeants to England's campaign roster (they're avalible for England in the custom battles).

You still can't charge the walls with them, but at least the guys you're going to be putting in front of enemy knights are wearing something more than a raincoat and a shield.

gardibolt
01-18-2007, 17:54
I've found DEK pretty useless; they die far too quickly and easily. I prefer the hardier DFK instead, especially if you're besieging and likely to come under a lot of arrow/xbow fire. The better defense allows them to get to the walls and up the ladders/siege towers and actually fight at the top of the wall and not rout in a panic. :dizzy2: On an open field facing no missiles DEK might be pretty good but I almost never have such a situation.

Pilgrims are certainly useful to draw fire; set them on loose formation so they last a little longer. But they're otherwise not much good.

Malkut
01-18-2007, 18:50
That's why I never use DEK exclusively. Dismounted English Knights are psychotic madmen who forsake the personal protection of a shield in order to use a weapon that really, really hurts bad. It can indeed be tricky getting them past missile fire, but I find the results well worth it.

Of course, by the time you actually get them, it would be cheaper just to bring trebs along with your siege forces than to replenish your army's losses from towers, so missile fire might be a bit of a moot point by then.

DFK, on the other hand, are almost exactly like Armored Swordsmen, except more expensive, so I almost never use them except as a temporary measure. However, either unit will probably form the center line of your later-game armies.

Owen Glyndwr
01-19-2007, 01:53
Yesterday I had literally a 3 hour battle. I was defending Angers with 3 bands of peasants agoinst the Milanese 3 Genoese Xbow militia, 1 general's bodyguard, and 3 spear militia. They came in with their militia and Xbows, and I beat them off. I was down to two peasant divs against thir 2 genoese Xbows, 1 spear militia, and General. They didnt move, and I waited for about 5 mins, and then took things into my own hands. I moved one peasant just outside of the gates, and when the general cam running, i ran inside the gatehouse, and the general turned around (even though a spy opened the doors for them:laugh4: ) So I did this for about an hour, and managed to eliminate the entire general's bodyguard (general included) I continued on to almost eliminate their last spear militia, but the Milanese finally got wise to my plan and answered my sallies with a hail of Xbow fire. So I was forced to charge, and just barely lost. 3 hours of my life wasted:furious3:

pianonator
01-19-2007, 07:09
I had a similar battle. Well, sorta. I was in a Fortress under siege, and the attacking army just stood there forever. Didn't move at all. Has this bug been discussed before? I have patch 1.2 I turned on triple speed and read through the building tree until it ended.

Owen Glyndwr
01-20-2007, 04:13
Oh well, it's all good. I managed to retake Angers the next time (the seige was actually of little importance as that army was there the whole time) Preseed on and took Rheims, Difon, and finally Marselles. Then I turned my attention northward. I took Edinburgh, but lost too many troopps, and lost the town 3 turns later from a full stack of Scottish (although i cant help but be impressed because my Yeomans managed to elimate almost the entire army). I rebuilt my army, pressed on disregarded a few cease and desist orders (my standing was perfect, and it only took my standing down 5, nothing 5k florins cant change eh?) and finished them off. On to Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Portugal, who recently stabbed me in the back. Oh yeah Milan too! 3 front war FTW!

Frankmuddy
01-22-2007, 11:49
The first thing I tend to build when I capture a settlement is religious buildings. The first diplomats I train are immediately sent to rome. I don't know if it was this, or just dumb luck, but I never had any problems with the Pope, and my enemies tended to be excommunicated fairly frequently.

Owen Glyndwr
01-22-2007, 16:05
yeah same here, even if he threatens me, I rarely lose very much, and then i just send him more money if it gets too low!

gardibolt
01-22-2007, 17:45
Finally annihilated Milan, which was a source of great satisfaction to me. They had been reduced to holding Venice, thanks to my Pet Pope declaring a crusade against them in Rome (and I accidentally took Milan and Florence on the way), but they had a full stack of elite troops, with a bunch of xbowmen. A frontal assault looked pretty darn dubious.

So I decided to take a two-step approach. I sent a stack that was half artillery and one-third missiles and the balance infantry for protection, bashed down the walls and rained death down on everyone I could reach. Once I was out of ammo, I withdrew, losing that battle. But then I brought up my real army, which was infantry and missile-heavy. Thanks to the shield bug, my hundreds of pilgrims ended up cutting a huge swath through the better-armored Milanese troops, and I took the city, sacking it and so happily getting that 'faction destroyed' message. Maybe that will cut down on the hundreds of assassination attempts....

pianonator
01-22-2007, 21:22
Hey -
How are folks getting such an effective economy? I'm around turn 60. 21 territories, mastery of the Isles, I own the general France area, and 2 Middle Eastern provinces. I knocked out France, Scotland, and Milan by assassination. Unfortunately, Poland and the Danes are after me, and the Pope doesn't like me, and I'm not earning much more than 1500 per turn. Are merchants useful at all? I have roads everywhere, and ports, and markets and fairgrounds wherever I can get them.

Gingivitis
01-22-2007, 22:54
My economy was solid because one of the first things I did was send an army to Algiers with 2 merchants and a priest. First 2 turns I recruited toops and ships from Caen and sent them south. Pirates almost got me at the end but was able to land there with one very leaky boat left. Now for the moment of truth, would there be a big army waiting there for me? The answer was a resounding "no". There was a family member and a light cavalry unit. This was cake as I just sent my archers up the walls and killed everybody without a loss as they walked around on top of the walls untouchable. I now had a Castle to headquarter my Africa conquests.

I sent the merchants down to Timbuktu along with a big enough force to take the town and Arguin while dropping watchtowers along the way while making sure I could keep Algiers with a sizable force. Anytime I could produce another merchant I'd do it in Timbuktu or Arguin until there were no more resources left. Nice that I never saw a foreign merchant there the whole time. An additional benefit was getting a church in Algiers so as to be able to produce priests in a place where they could really jack their stats up converting people.

Owen Glyndwr
01-23-2007, 16:35
I always end up getting good economies because the first thing I do is recruit two diplomats, the first I send to the pope, to secure an alliance, as well as securing alliance/trade rights/map info( and I ask formoney if my offer is still generous) on the way to Rome. The other, I do the same thing, send that diplomat around the world, but remember not to get alliances with everyone, usually you want it only with nations like France, Scotland, Portugal, and maybe Denmark, the rest just exchange map info and trade rights. Soon enough, you'll be trading with everyone, and you'll be rolling in money. The merchants, you place on rare recources, but I never use them because the most Ive ever gotten is 40 florins/turn, and they ALWAYS end up getting their assets seized, usualy by Venetians or Milanese.

OliverWKim
02-10-2007, 13:22
I'm at around turn 90 in my English campaign and just got gunpowder. Does anyone know when you get to travel to the new world? I really want to see those ubercool Aztec cities.

Moah
02-11-2007, 15:23
Aztecs?

Not for a looong time. If you're playing standard turns then I'm told Timurids should pop up around 1380 (turn 150) and new world is, presumably, around 1490 (turn 205) with the game due to finish 1530 (turn 225). Although another poster said the game keeps going even after end date.

I'm playing on after victory until I've tested myself against mongols but I'm not waiting another 50 turns for timurids and then another 50 for aztecs when I won 30 turns ago.....It'll be a re-start for me.

The only way to meet these guys is to deliberately not play expansive and don't wipe out opponents it seems.

Other posters have argued you must impose restrictions on yourself to play badly so there remains a challenge which seems to me counterintuitive. How is a challenge a challenge if you need to choose not to play your best for it to be a challenge? If you lose you just handicapped yourself too much. If you win, then not enough. The only skill is against yourself.

OliverWKim
02-13-2007, 14:31
Whoa. I just hit turn 108 and I'm just 5 regions (including Jerusalem) away from victory. I could play an entirely new campaign in that space of time... Thanks for the great response though. I couldn't find anything about it on the web.

Owen Glyndwr
02-20-2007, 21:00
yeah I'm turn 110-ish and I have 46 territories. I own Iberian Peninsula, France, Britain, Germany, Italy, and the northern Balkan Peninsula. Haven't taken Jerusalem yet, huge Mongol army guarding it. But I just captured Rhodes? one of those islands in the Mediterranean ownhed by the Byzantines, and near Anatolia. Im using that as a spring board into the Middle East. One question though, once I take Jerusalem, can I continue on like in BI, or do I stop like in the origional Rome?

OliverWKim
02-28-2007, 10:32
You can play on. If you wait several hundred more turns like me, you get to see the Aztecs + Timurids (unless you already have). I have 44 regions, and landed a huge army to capture Jerusalem, but it got wiped out by the Golden Horde - it was outnumbered like 5 to 1 even when I switched it on to Night Battle mode. :furious3:

Owen Glyndwr
03-02-2007, 07:25
sweet, because the Moors just backstabbed me, and I gotta keep my posterity. Can't allow a nation to survive when they destroy half of my Crusading army due to a sea battle!

OliverWKim
03-02-2007, 08:14
The Moors back-stabbed me as well, even when I granted them trade rights and map information. We had a good alliance going for like 30 turns and, as I conquered the rest of Spain, the Moors were very happy. Then, suddenly, they besieged Zaragoza. I quickly repelled the attack. However, heir betrayal gave me an excuse to destroy their entire empire. :beam:

OliverWKim
03-08-2007, 09:55
Just finished the campaign by conquering several provinces in North Africa and taking Jerusalem back from the Mongols. For once, I outnumbered them: they only had 2 units of archers, while I had a 20-army unit of hardened veterans + my faction leader + gunpowder units. Revenge is sweet!:beam:

Owen Glyndwr
03-12-2007, 06:39
I was right about to move my army in, when I noticed 8, yes I mean litterally eight full stacks of Timurids all surrounding Jerusalem:sweatdrop: well, I figure I'll waste some time by capturing Rhodes, Southern Asia Minor, and Crete. It's around turn 160 and I just got the World is Round event. I'm upteching my docks to create carracks so I can take the new provinces. Rich trade recources here I come!!!

OliverWKim
03-22-2007, 11:37
Turn 160, eh?
I suppose I could wait that long...
That is, if I survive the Timurids. :beam:

OliverWKim
04-03-2007, 12:35
About how big is the New World? About how many provinces

Csargo
04-11-2007, 20:48
About how big is the New World? About how many provinces

Six I believe

OliverWKim
04-12-2007, 10:30
Six? oh so it's just the tip of mesoamerica and south america, not all of the continent... bummer.

sir smudge
04-12-2007, 13:14
ok been playing on and off for a while and just got hit by the black death! Man that sucked lost loads of my population and lots of troops is there any thing i could of done to avoid this at all?

TeutonicKnight
04-12-2007, 14:51
The Black Death is scripted. The only thing you can do is review the Events file, see what towns are hit on what turns, and plan appropriately.

I don't worry about it too much. You may be getting hit, but so are the other factions.

Csargo
04-13-2007, 02:18
ok been playing on and off for a while and just got hit by the black death! Man that sucked lost loads of my population and lots of troops is there any thing i could of done to avoid this at all?

If you take your troops out of the cities I don't think their effected by the Black Death, or atleast not as badly.

hoeveloranges
04-13-2007, 03:08
is there any specific strategy to use against HRE? I haven't started fighting them, but they have sieged one of my cities a few times (each time they've called it off after a turn) and I'm starting to get annoyed by the three stacks they have near metz (something like that), Also, what's best to use against milan? I've been sending dismounted feudal knights and swordsmen at em, but anything more effective?

Askthepizzaguy
04-13-2007, 21:17
Everyone seems to be stuck because attacking catholic factions turns the papacy against you. Does anyone else know the diplomacy trick?

Basically, you send a diplomat to rome (or any faction) and offer trade rights, map info, alliance (if it's "generous" or balanced) and then offer as a gift an attack on each nation, one at a time, until your relations are excellent (I prefer perfect with the pope).

At this point, you can also request a crusade, and if you're at "perfect" relations, the pope will instantly accept your suggestion. But this is a side note. This is how to build massive, cost-free armies.

And by the way, as long as you aren't the aggressor, the pope usually excommunicates your enemies. Crusaders take them out.

And if you attack them with perfect papal relations, usually the worst that happens is a slight dip which you can fix again, and you lose points disobeying the pope, not excommunication.

Bascially, with a good princess or a mediocre diplomat, you can manipulate everyone, especially rome, to be your friend. (Although having disastrous reputation can put a damper on your diplomatic effect).

And by the way, your offers can be bogus. Example:

The pope seems to hate muslim factions, especially the turks, for whatever reason.

You can simply offer to strike them, over and over again, in the same diplomacy screen, on the same turn, until relations are perfect again.

I hope I haven't spoiled anyone's fun, but playing as ANY catholic faction is easy, no matter what, using the above trick.

Oh, and P.S:

When you're on a crusade or about to go on one, build up lots of little town militias around all of your generals that are just sitting at home.

Turn ALL your generals (except maybe your faction leader who can sit at home and babysit the home front with his usually high piety/chivalry rating) into crusading forces as quickly as possible, and lay seige to every non catholic city in your path, (one, two turns of seige max) until you have sacked and pillaged (or exterminated those you wish to keep) and bloated yourself on pillaging florins.

When invading factions with differing religions, always convert the town on the first turn with a church, pop out a priest the next turn. Why?

Because even if the town rebels, it will now be catholic. your priest will slowly convert the populace, as will the church, until you wish to reclaim it.

Works well for stubborn Byzantium and Antioch.

Anyone else have hints or tips to share?

Askthepizzaguy
04-13-2007, 21:34
Here are the keys to a good economy:

watch how expensive your standing army is. If you own lots of cities, you can usually keep some town milita (or better) troops there for free. Always do so. Free troops are nothing to sneeze at, especially when your empire is FULL of them. Any non-free troops sitting in your cities are usually a waste of money unless they are cheap and you NEED them to maintain order or defense. I usually don't waste time defending anything unless it's really important. I can always reconquer little provinces later.

Make sure you are being cost effecient with your invading/seiging armies. Mercenaries are great for crusades, but only for emergencies otherwise. They are almost always 1.5 times as expensive to maintain as any other troop. On the empire scale, thats a LOT of wasted money.

Make sure you have unblocked ports and roads. I found that sometimes a market doesn't do anything. Glitch?

Castles don't earn squat. Make lots of cities unless you're feeling wimpy or overly aggressive.

look out for invaders and rebels, and corruption. Any army standing in your territory affects your trade.

If your conquests take too much money to maintain and properly staff, let it revolt and then exterminate them again and convert the populace with priests/churches. Less garrison troops means less expenses.

Look at your budget scroll. What's the most expensive stuff? Eliminate it.

You automatically make money. You go bankrupt by spending too much and not upgrading your trade and cities.

I have more suggestions... please message me if youre interested.

AND PS:

Merchants are fine, but only use them when your empire is massive and has expanded far from your capital.

Then what you do is pop out like ten of them and suck up the resources around your furthest big city. Silk, spices, etc very good.

Byzantium is a great place to pop out merchs because of the 4 silks. Antioch is near cotton, sugar, and spices. Russia is surrounded by amber, which is useless unless it's far away.

And buy off little merchants that you see. Save first, and attack. Make sure it's even possible, check both ratings first. You get a bonus for buying a merchant off because you seize their biz and get their money.

Merchants can earn you lots, if they are good, but never as much as sacking cities and being cost effective.

Askthepizzaguy
04-13-2007, 21:42
I know merchants kind of suck, but if you use them right you can earn 500/turn with just one.

fancy resources. Distance from capital. Trade rights. Merchant rating.

add them up, and you get a bang.

For example. You're england, and you have trade rights with the egyptians. Now you have 6 merchants sitting near Antioch, each earning about well... 400 a turn?

That's like a FREE CITY.

Conquer far from your capital, towards a trade resource like Zagreb's gold, and plop a merchant there. Make sure you steal from other merchants to build up their rating. And be sure to save first!

save before you hit the turn button with ctrl + s.

quicksave, and then quickload ctrl + l and you can try again if a merchant was stolen during the turn.

OliverWKim
04-17-2007, 13:46
I just got the 'World is Round' event and am loading up a ship of units to take the new world by force! I assembled a fleet of 20 gun holks (cost a fortune) so my supremacy over the Atlantic and the Mediterranean is unopposed. I also lost Jerusalem again to rampaging rebels, but then recaptured it with a 25 unit army! However, I probably need to ship more units into the area as the city is in a constant state of riot and discontent, due to its distance from the capital. Does anyone else suffer from the problem of a discontent, revolting Jerusalem?

gardibolt
04-17-2007, 20:47
I believe that as was the case in RTW, Jerusalem has a hardcoded unrest factor making it hard to hold onto (which makes some game sense in M2TW, given it's one of the game-winning goals). The Pope took it in my game, lost it to rebellion, and the Timurids moved in and lost it to rebellion twice. I'm going to wait until the Timurids take it and them I'll take it FTW (since there's a full stack of elite rebel troops in it right now---let them and the Timmehs wear each other down first).

Oh, and Oliver, you didn't specify but you can't take Holks to the New World, only Carracks. Just wanted to make sure you knew that. I've taken four of the 6 territories there and I'm wishing that I had brought more spies, merchants and especially cavalry. The Aztecs are tough but they crumble beneath the horsies.

sir smudge
04-18-2007, 10:33
R+To get Sherwood archers you need a certain guild woodsman guild I think I've got them with about 70 turns remaining. On this topic of billmen what would every one sergest to counter a cav charge with the english?

OliverWKim
04-18-2007, 11:23
Oh, and Oliver, you didn't specify but you can't take Holks to the New World, only Carracks. Just wanted to make sure you knew that.

Uh oh. I only have like two units of carracks, and I think I may have disbanded one of them. So I guess I'll have to spend another fortune just to upgrade my fleet. :furious3: ARRGH!

John_Longarrow
04-18-2007, 23:42
Sir Smudge,

As a tactic, one of the best units I've seen for the English against Cav is longbows. Lay out stakes and shoot them as they close. If the Cav charges your stakes you get a bunch of horsemeat, free of charge.

OliverWKim
04-20-2007, 13:34
Just grabbed my first foothold in the Americas by capturing Cuba. There was little resistance; I just recruited a 6-unit mercenary army of light native warriors to supplement my main force and defeated them with that. I only lost 4 of my 'regulars', 4 Flemish Pikemen who got a little too close to the action. Gunpowder works great against the Mesoamerican civs, as I routed half of the enemy army just through several volleys from my ribaults. Hopefully I can conquer the New World before the weekend ends!

ArtistofWarfare
04-24-2007, 15:23
I had a similar battle. Well, sorta. I was in a Fortress under siege, and the attacking army just stood there forever. Didn't move at all. Has this bug been discussed before? I have patch 1.2 I turned on triple speed and read through the building tree until it ended.

you don't have patch 1.2 because it hasn't been released.

You have the unoffical, leaked 1.2...which is filled with problems.

Don Esteban
06-05-2007, 12:55
Sir Smudge,

As a tactic, one of the best units I've seen for the English against Cav is longbows. Lay out stakes and shoot them as they close. If the Cav charges your stakes you get a bunch of horsemeat, free of charge.


I think I'm being stupid but i can't work out how to get the Longbowmen to lay stakes :help:

McIwoo
06-05-2007, 13:13
Don Esteban it's their "special attack" (like setting the arrow on fire for most other archers).

I think the keyboard shortcut for the "special attack" is "h"...

Don Esteban
06-05-2007, 15:48
Don Esteban it's their "special attack" (like setting the arrow on fire for most other archers).

I think the keyboard shortcut for the "special attack" is "h"...

For some reason i thought they had fire arrows special attack as well....

Like I said, I was probably just being dumb, i'll check again.

Thanks!

P.S. It would have been handy for my last battle where they got charged by a bunch of Danish war clerics :wall:

Iavorios
06-06-2007, 10:20
Dude, you can lay stakes only before the battle begens.

Don Esteban
06-06-2007, 11:41
Dude, you can lay stakes only before the battle begens.

AAAH, Cool. Cheers, problem solved :laugh4:

Makes sense actually

madchoochter
06-12-2007, 21:49
You can get a good start by sending Cecilia (first princess) to Denmark and the Diplomat to Spain. Marry the princess to the Danes faction heir for an alliance + cash and offer a marriage between a Spanish princess & Rufus. At the same time, take York, Caernafron, Rennes and block the land bridge between Ireland and Scotland. This will stop the Scots taking Dublin. Send diplomats to Byzantine, Rome getting some good allies & trading partners if possible. Keep the Pope sweet with a gift of 100 per turn tribute for 10 - 20 turns & maps.

Build up a force in England as you advance on rebels there. Now you can either take Edinburgh or take a gamble with Dublin by allowing the Scots to cross to Dublin after you have established a sizable army. Two things can happen. They can seize it or die trying. Ideally they'll blow half their army in a failed assault on Dublin, leaving the Scots very vulnerable. Take Dublin then siege Edinburgh. If this gamble fails and they take Dublin the Scots are still reduced in strength and by re-establishing the blocking of the land bridge you can keep a lot of their forces busy touring Ireland.

Every settlement on the Isles becomes a city except Nottingham. Flog all buildings that will be destroyed before the conversion completes (not sure if you get the cash anyway, but it's easy enough to destroy 'em yourself).

Through the marriage alliance to Spain and Denmark you have reduced the difficulty in mainland Europe by effectively ruling them out as enemies for a while. It's still possible they'll turn on you but in all likely hood they'll concentrate on their immediate neighbors rather than you if the take the rebel provinces near Caen. You can then focus on France. Sometimes Portugal thinks it can have a go at you early on even though that's suicidal.

If they ally with Spain the marriage alliance you have means little chance of Spain dropping you for Portugal. When they attack you pay Spain to attack Portugal or bide your time until either the Moors or the Spanish decide to have a go at them. Deal with any forces that come up to France and send em packing. This is pretty much guaranteed to end Portugal if they're stupid enough to attack you. Their forces will be split fighting you and their Iberian enemies. The Pope won't like it either and may be open to excommunicating them early allowing you to take their territory through early Crusading. Assuming you've been stuffing the Popes coffers of course.

I convert every province in France to a city with the exception of Caen, Toulouse. Toulouse is used to reinforce incursions in Iberia and discourage Moorish/Spanish expansion into France. When Iberia is almost all English territory it is converted too. Toledo then serves as the main garrison in Iberia after taking out the Spanish a while later.

I can usually do ok with this strategy until the Milanese and HRE show up on my Eastern front. Then all hell breaks loose and the real fun begins. I just watch the western side of my empire looking for opportunities to strike into Iberia/Africa while at the same time plotting the demise of the HRE, Milanese, Venitians, etc.

Unfortunately in my current campaign the Pope allied (only!) with the Moors, so it's put a bit of a spanner in that plan at the moment. He also has El Cids' region for some reason I don't quite understand. It's like the Pope decided El Cid is getting it, loaded up a boat full of troops and off he went. Seen him take random places around Italy but never seen him sail for an attack on anyone before. Anyway, this is making the campaign a little tricky. Don't really want the Pope to gain any more territory. It's all mine!!!

Another word of advice is to use crusades continuously to strike out. This is especially true as England is unlikely to gain easy access to the south of France for a bit has to send navies around the Iberian Peninsula before it can start policing those waters. Using a crusade against the Moors say for Marikesh, allows you to travel really fast, sacking and swallowing their land very quickly while giving you lucrative trading ports & easy access to the Med is it called?

YAKOBU
06-15-2007, 23:33
Hi everyone ~:wave:

After reading the strategies on here and playing the English in M2TW I would like to share some thoughts with you all.

From my earlier experience of Shogun/MTW/RTW I understood that many of you rush to develop a settlement as quickly as possible to churn out your better troops. In RTW for example this meant disbanding units etc in order to get settlements up to the next level as quickly as possible. My experience of M2TW is that I am unable to disband units in order to grow settlements and that producing units in a settlement does not reduce the population.

As the English your key historical unit is the Longbow. The majority of strategies on here recommend building Nottingham up as a Castle in order to get access to that unit quickly. After my initial campaign using this strategy I felt that it had taken a long time to get in a position to produce Longbows so it set me thinking. Nottingham starts with a population of 3,000 and a base farming of 1 whereas London starts with a population of 3,800 with a base farming of 1.5.

I decided to stage some tests.

Firstly I started a campaign and immediately converted London to a Castle whilst developing Nottingham and then London with roads, farms and ports. To my pleasant surprise once London was converted to a Castle it had basic roads; a drill square; and a chapel in place. This meant London had access to infantry already at a higher level than Nottingham. At turn 14 London was ready to upgrade to a Fortress and by turn 22 was ready to produce Longbows. Nottingham meanwhile took until turn 28 to be ready to upgrade to a Fortress and turn 36 before it was ready to produce Longbows.

Upon looking at the population growth of London I realised that as a Town it grew at a faster rate than a Castle. I wondered if I built up the Town first until it hit the population cap for the Fortress what would the result be. This I did and managed to hit the population cap on turn 8 and after converting to a Castle was ready for a Fortress at turn 10 and Longbows at turn 18.

The final 2 tests involved timing the conversion to a Castle and setting the tax level on low. The optimum result was setting the tax level on low and building Land Clearance for 2 turns and a Port for 2 turns. On turn 5 converting to a Castle meant on turn 7 just being a few individuals under the population cap. On turn 8 London was ready for upgrading to a Fortress and on turn 16 Longbows were ready for production.

So to summarise.

Following the standard strategy of recruiting from Nottingham England does not have access to Longbows until turn 36. Using my strategy the benefits of town growth and lowering taxes means Longbows can be ready for production in London on turn 16, a full 20 turns earlier. In addition to this London gives you a Castle on the main entrance to England from France as well as enabling you to build higher level infantry from your starting drill square.

I hope this is of use to somebody.

:charge:

YAKOBU
06-16-2007, 12:03
Hello again ~:wave:

After playing a game again last night and advice from other members I did realise I could get both the Bowyer and the Practice Range at the Castle level which would mean Nottingham would have access to Longbows quicker at turn 6.

My idea still works well for teching to the Fortress and then getting access to Yeomen Archers as well as superior infantry. I am going to see the best strategy for obtaining a Citadel later.

For my style of play I like to get access to my higher-end troops as it is they that will be with me at the end of the campaign. I prefer them to mercs so that I can build up their experience and retrain them as needed.

Generally I don't have cash problems as I prioritise building in my key settlements if funds are tight.

In 1 campaign I noticed I got a population boost because of my governor but it appears their starting stats do not give it. I will look into this further.

:charge:

YAKOBU
06-16-2007, 12:05
Hi again ~:wave:

After further testing this morning I found I could have a Fortress ready 1 turn earlier on Turn 10 thanks to the advice from Foz.

Turn 1
I would set the taxes on London to Low and start building Land Clearance. Rufus would take York (using mercs if necessary) and Robert would set off to Rennes. Also I would set 1 fleet moving to Rennes.

Turn 2
If Rufus gained 1 chivalry without any dread then I would set him off to govern London. Robert would lay siege to Rennes. The fleet would move next to Rennes.

Turn 3
Start building the Port in London. Robert would take Rennes (using mercs if necessary). If Rufus hadn't gained 1 chivalry then Robert always had in all my tests. If this was the case then Robert would get on the fleet and set off to govern London.

Turn 4
Continue moving Rufus or Robert to London depending on who has the highest chivalry.

Turn 5
Convert London to Castle. Either Rufus or Robert should now be governing London depending on who has the highest chivalry.

Turn 6
Nothing to do in London.

Turn 7
Upgrade London to Fortress.

Turns 8 and 9
Nothing to do in London.

Turn 10
Fortress ready !!!

From here you can go for whichever high-level troops you desire !!!


I did find that sometimes Robert or Rufus would pick up additional chivalry but this was not always guaranteed.

Using this method it's possible to keep running London as a Town until near the 9,000 population mark and then converting to Castle; upgrading to Fortress and upgrading to Citadel 1 after the other. I think this should make it possible to obtain a Citadel by around Turn 30 but may vary depending on chivalry ratings and timing of conversion.

I hope this helps further.

:charge:

Zetto
06-25-2007, 23:56
Thanks for all the tips. It's my first game, M/M, didn't dare to go higher, patch 1.2 if that makes any difference (got the game only a couple of weeks ago). Anyways, I just learnt first-hand, how powerful are the longbows (I didn't build so many of them before reading this thread). I'm at turn 60, and I've put an army near some german town, 6 longbows + 1 peasant archers, 1 general, 1 armored swordsmen, 1 levy pikemen and 6 horses, 4 light and 2 heavy. Germans attacked me with 3 armies, one big and 2 small ones, about twice my size in total. They had almost no archers, just a few siege units, the bulk of their army were armoured sergeants, and a couple of heavy knights. Luckily for me, it was happening in a mountainous area, so I holed up in there, and my archers literally ripped the germans apart. I mean hundreds in casualties (i'm playing at huge scale), even before they got close enough to get in hand-to-hand combat... As a result, I lost about 10% of my army, mostly cavalry which I had to use to protect flanks and chase down the routing enemy... Germans lost 95%!

I know it's a little off-topic but it illustrates pretty well one of the main points in this thread - use longbows... a lot! :yes: In this particular case, they saved my neck :2thumbsup:

BTW, the mongols have arrived and I have to figure out how to prepare myself... I've got a couple of cities in the middle east, which I kept after crusading down to jerusalem, now I need to make sure they survive the mongol onslaught... those archer cav really scare the crap out of me :embarassed:

Red Spot
07-10-2007, 17:10
Bit of advice for anyone that turtles on VH campaign difficulty.

Dont go for the castles across europe, I've had England build up with Nottingham and Caen up to Citadel level and got into a fight with Denmark (up to that point I had "general peace") because I tried to help them get rid of a bad familie member wich they didnt seem to like when my assasin failed as big has he could (wich he thankfully payed for with his life ..:P)

Denmark declared war, France wich was their ally stopped being mine and later on declared war on me, Spain and Portugal joint soon after.
Not to worry as I had a good big garrison in Caen and more troop where already on their way, so I in the momentum of others attacking me took Bordeaux and Toulouse and that city in the corner(wich you often get a mission for to take at start of a campaign), bit later bumped Portugal out of their Citadel in North-Spain.
At that point my forces where being rebuild in the castles taken, but before I could decide to take them back out I was being attacked at all sides, France from the center, Denmark from Sea and assaulting Caen, Spain and Portugal mostly pressing the south but also making naval invasions on Caen.
I could handle it, barelly, but every turn being under heavy fire my bank dropped an other 10k florin wich had ~50k in it, so after 5-ish turns I got pretty desprate, collected my full armies from castles into 1 full stack with a general and launched an attack on the Citadel a bit South of Caen wich had a close to full garrison wich included lots of French Nobles.

Never ever have I lost an evenly matched open battle from the AI, they triggered the battle by having 1 Crossbow unit attack me wich I accepted as it would save me a heavy siege.

Anyway the advice would be, come with as much cav. vs France as they do and leave your archers at home .... (or expect to lose ..:P)

Things looked great untill my center broke, they rushed out 2 pretty much intact nobles and caused havoc among my archers, my chances where lost, I managed to use my general and remaining cav. to take down some infantry that where still fighting my swordmen than retreated wich my general and a very crippeld set of cav. units made, it proved to be of no use as in a couple turns I got pushed back into England ... :s

That battle should have saved me as getting that Citadel would have broken the Frances back and given me a much better front(and hopefully a more stable econ.)


G

John_Longarrow
07-12-2007, 23:05
Red Spot,

Did you lay out stakes for your archers first? If so, you can make a pretty effective wall behind which to fight against cavalry. That is where long bows shine against French cav.

If you did not, or if you were not able to, I'm not surprised that a strong French cav army would do nasty things to your troops.

Red Spot
07-17-2007, 07:21
yeah I know, thing is they didnt attack and I have battle timelimit off, so all I could do is launch the attack myself or retreat.

they came with pretty much as much crossbowmen as I did archers so I didnt wait for an unexpected charge, if it wasnt that my general took too long routing some cav. I wouldnt have lost, than again I could have expected their cav. to last a bit longer than others ...

still the only fair battle I've lost so far ... and I dont like it (I want to lose more ..:P)


G

ole-warhammer
07-19-2007, 23:41
Don't know if it will work (havn't tryed it!) But gain controll of whole England (and Ireland). If you have to, evacuate Caen (destroy every building) and reatreat to England. Build up a navy and declare war against the Scots and Danish. Eliminate the Scots, and Invade Denmark (and Norway and Sweden) Also, if you are lucky, Denmark wage war against THRE so the armys are fielded there.

When taken Denmark, you have two choiches:
- East to Russia
- South to THRE
- South west to France (and retake/fortifie Caen)
- South east to Polen

Also you can send a huge army with a huge navy to Jerusalem (will take many turns to do) and establish a strong "country" there. Scicilia can also be invaded for quick invasions (by sea) against any European faction (almoast)

As said before, not tested out by me!

Fisherking
07-29-2007, 09:06
England has the strongest archers in the game and many of them can stand up and fight with other infantry. That coupled with stakes to stop Horse makes them very powerful. If you are looking for the killer faction against the Mongels etc. this is it.

To go along they have great infantry...only lacking pikemen. But hay the archers fill that role with the stakes!

The English also build horse in cities (Demi Lancers). From a tactial standpoint there is not much more to ask for.

Overall I would say that they are the most militarily potent faction in the game.

icek
07-29-2007, 20:28
england lack four things to be uber: good quality spearmens, guys with pike wall formation, mobile skirmishers and red coat's- long range musketers. But actually lack of those typos makes playing with other factions worth a try.

mcpa
08-10-2007, 15:27
Hi,

I'm playing on VH/VH with patch 1.2. I have huge experience from RTW but this is my first campaign; started with England.

I'm surprised how easy it has been, at least, so far. Currently I'm on turn 26 and have 19 settlements. My strategy so far:

1. Taking York, the city in Wales and Rennes ASAP.

2. Then Bruges and Antwerp.

3. Scotland made 2 siege attempts that failed on Inverness and I had 1 spy in Edinburgh that opened the "front door", so with my faction heir and his 51 knights I was able to defeat the Scottish faction leader and his bodyguard (their only unit there at the moment). When the battle was over my faction heir and 6 of his bodyguards remained and the Scottish were eliminated. I lost 2 in rating at the pope but no big deal.

4. After this, Inverness and Dublin was conquered.

5. At the second turn my faction heir married a french princess, and my relations with France is and has been superb so far. So I have bought cities from France; in exchange for giving tribute to them for a couple of rounds.
The cities I have bought from France are Rheims, Angers and Toulose.

6. From the Spanish I bought Bordeaux.

7. I conquered the rebel settlement Metz.

8. Sicily attacked me and the turn after I defeated them I proposed peace in exchange for 5000 florins and their 2 provinces in Northern Africa; Tunis and Tripoli. They accepted.

9. I'm allied with France, Denmark, Spain, Portugal and the Pope.

10. The Denmark king has been excommunicated so it is hunting season now on the Danes.

11. 1 thing I made asap was to send diplomats to the Pope; I give him tribute and map information from time to time. I proposed an alliance which they accepted. So currently I have a "pope rating" of 9. So high that he accepted the crusade I proposed to Antioch.

12. I have currently only 2 forts; Toulose and Caen. The rest are cities; making a lot of money.

There has not been so much fighting yet; mostly with rebels. Perhaps it will happen when I engage the danes.

James the First
08-10-2007, 22:15
mcpa - you can do with this info what you will. It may be considered spoilerish so I will give some space so you can choose not to read it!
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Don't trust the French!!! No matter how good of a relationship you have with them. The Portugese also seem to have a thing for going after the British Isles. Don't ask me why. And finally, if you go on a crusade, be prepared for a jihad to be called against the city that you take. Sometimes it happens, sometimes not. Deal with the Portugese and control the northern sea and your motherland should remain secure. You seem to be spread pretty thin so early in the game.

falcons1988
09-03-2007, 11:38
one thing about crusades and that is if you have a priest/bishop/cardinal your men are less likely to desert (the higher priest/bishop/cardinal even less likely to desert), I had two crusading armies on with a priest/bishop/cardinal and one without, the army with out the priest/bishop/cardinal deserted, and the one with a cardinal didn't

ToothyTurtle
10-01-2007, 18:42
A little about early game.
Send a spy to Edinburgh, the Scots keep sending an army by sea to camp outside of York.
I recently started a new game and the rebels sunk the Scottish fleet.
I went straight to Edingburgh with Rufus, militia Spear and an archer unit.
Took it as they only had the faction leader in.
Must have taken me about 7 or 8 turns.

Quintus.JC
01-11-2008, 21:17
Early English expansion should be in two directions, one in mainland Europe while one in Britain, York and Caernarfon should be left alone, and they’re in your pocket anyways, head for Edinburgh as early as possible, Scotland needs to be destroyed no matter what, after that you can tour the country, Inverness, York then Caernarfon, after that Dublin. In mainland go for Brussels first then Rennes. Try to capture Antwerp if you can, this will bring bags of revenue but will likely to bring you into war with another major faction. After these conquest your purse will be filled with treasure and could look to expand elsewhere.

Paradox
01-13-2008, 15:25
Strangely, I left Scotland last to avoid exommunication. I advanced my armies early on and conquered the rebel territories, stretching to Dublin. I had a very hard time dealing with the French as they kept attacking fiercely and, despite the damage I've been causing them, they still attack with large armies that I had a hard time with. I pushed them back to their final province near northern Italy and finally eliminated them.

I had Acre and Antioch at my disposal and my relations with the pope were unmatched, so I attacked Scotland's capital and ended the game without having to be excommunicated.

GC1CEO
01-23-2008, 21:15
My observations after 80 turns on M/M on my English campaign:

Focus on maintaining and building two armies, one for the British Isles and one for France. If possible, keep a General in charge of both. Don't invest in mail knights because you can easily get -4- of them from a number of mission rewards, once you get them put in a set of hobilars to do your cavalry flanking and archer rundowns. They are even faster then mail knights so it makes the above activities all the more easier. Longbowmen will be your first godsend as you'll be able to hit city walls without being in range of their archers (not to mention that extra time and distance for an attacking enemy on field). Billmen will be your second because you'll have something in heavy infantry finally. You'll own once you get up to Dismounted Feudal Knights and Armored Swordmen. Alot of archers do make the difference for English armies, I won one battle down to all my (very tired) archers and 2 enemy units left and I won by skirmishing then meleeing, rinse and repeat.

Specific units for specific usages. Spear Milita shouldn't be used as your heavy offensive force once you have later units, I kept them as movable defense for my archers, for assaulting cavalry and for reserves for my heavy infantry. Billmen are the other side of the coin with spear milita, they are your offensive chargers but they are not quite as good with defense. Hobilars do just as well for most things then mail knights do, however mail knights can be used against other cavalry (and against more infantry units) more effectively in my experience. Having merc xbows, peasant archers and longbowmen makes for having three different ranges of archer attack. Longbowmen are the point of playing the English, having alot of them will decimate attackers and defenders. Infantry kind of sucks until you get Dismounted Feudal Knights followed by Armored Swordsmen (Swordsmen are the better option however, so use them if you get the choice). At that point, you can crush almost any infantry thats thrown your direction and you don't have to worry about using them just as offense or just as defense since they outshine Spear Miltia and Billmen in both departments. Always keep some spear milita around to act out as reserves, archer protection and anti cavalry. Your spear options will always suck, so you just have to be creative when dealing with enemy cavalry charges.

Use the castle in Nottingham to build your British army, use the castle in Caen to build your French army. Convert everything to cities, you will need the income to keep your two armies, especially for the more expensive buildings.

York is easy, use archers to give them heavy losses and lure their archers out and run them over. Don't make it a solid rush and you can keep your losses under 50 (or less!). Rennes is the first town with a wall, but easy enough. Soften with archers and just ram on in.

Caernarven is easiest if you wait out the siege because the Welsh forces will sally forth and you can outflank the longbowmen with anything with hooves. Having an intact army means you'll be setup for your next target all the more sooner.

Don't walk into Dublin expecting as easy a fight as York, the heavy infantry will eat you up if you're used to sending in your spear milita directly into a fight. If you can thin them out with your archers, it helps alot. Having Billmen and Longbowmen by this point will make a massacre of the Irish heavy infantry, as long as you use them offensively. If you have a ballista by now (which I didn't), taking out some of the nearby arrow towers means you can get in much closer before taking down the wall.

Burges can be a tough fight, but your French army by now should be a pretty heavy stack. Don't feel bad if you bring along a full stack.

At that point I stopped in my first wave of conquest, having the Rennes-Caen-Burges combination means I have firm control over the English channel. As long as either the French, or whoever controls Antwerp eventually, isn't hostile to you it won't be a stretched front. I kept both as allies initially so that when the French eventually attacked me I was more or less ready for it.

Apparently Inverness can stay as a rebel settlement for a while, I saw Scotland fail in several attempts to take it. After you have cleaned up from Dublin, if Iverness is still a rebel settlement then take it and you'll make your eventual Scottish conquest far more easier. Make sure everything but Caen and Nottingham are converted to cities and build up your economy, use assassins and spies on the Scottish once you're ready for a possible war and then move on Edinburgh. If you have catapults and ballistas by that point, you can have the Scottish conquered in one turn. Remaining Scottish forces will turn rebel and are even easier targets at that point. Once Scotland is toast, you can stop worrying about any problems in Britain.

In terms of economy, get trade rights with everyone and pick up a number of alliances. I took alliances with all my neighbors initially (including a royal one to the French in the beginning) since it stays to keep them at bay for a while. However always keep your French forces full and ready, else the French will take advantage of your lack of defenses.

In terms of religion, bribe the Pope from time to time and try and keep in that 7-10 range so you can avoid the threat of excommunication. Send your first Cardinal and some priests to foreign lands (southern Spain) to spread the faith and build their pieties up. Have some local priests to make sure all of Britain is firmly Catholic (90%+).

Keep building up those naval forces, having 1-2 stacks of 3-4 of your best ships is effective against pirates. If you run into war with another faction, make one of them a bit bigger as a surefire fleet against theirs. First move in a major war should be to eliminate as many of the enemy fleets as possible, if you are lucky you can even destroy one of their entire enroute armies that way.

After you have all of Britain and the triple-three in France, you should have more then enough resources for a major war with France, Spain, whoever. You can move your British army to France at that point.

Having two full stacks ready for conquest means either France or Spain is ready for a spanking. By this point one of them probably will be ready to attack you, I fought two small wars with Spain but they were stupid enough to send their family members as Generals which meant they lost their fleets to me, followed by some rather unguarded Generals including two faction heirs. They were begging for a cease fire soon after and I netted more then 10,000 florins in tribunes after each. The French will eventually attack, I got them excommunicated. At that point I actually had 3 armies, since one General with a few mercs had just joined the Crusade and was in Southern France when war broke out. Crusader units are amazing, even the Pilgrims are great. I took Marsielles, their biggest port, with relatively few losses giving me a foothold in France. I quickly took Angers and Paris in the span of 2-3 turns then eventually Rheims. At that point the original triple of Rennes-Caen-Brugges is no longer my frontline but by then they have amazingly solid defenses (I think I had ballista towers on Rennes by the time I took Rheims).

As it stands now, I am poised to hit Dijon then Bern (in my game, the French took Bern) on my one side. Bordeaux and Toulose on the other. I have blocked Corsica, which is French and will be simply destroying any French naval forces that spawn there and my eastern army, once it has taken out Bern, will go down and take it for the coup de grace.

Diplomatically, Spain is forever a pain in my ass but my military forces both naval and land are far superior so they are simply on my targets list after France. Portugal keeps getting excommunicated so they'll be an easy target. The Danish are pretty powerful and cocky, so they'll probably pick a fight with me before long. I am bribing them for the moment. Milan is getting very aggressive without actuallly declaring war. They want Marsielles the worst in the world, and even assassinated my General there. In truth I assassinated two of their family members and half a dozen of their spies and assassins in the area. I am banking on keeping my royal alliance with HRE intact, it is still fairly recent so it should hold out. I figure once I have all of France, I may even have the resources for a 3rd permenant army so Spain and Portugal will be feudal stampedes, which should give me enough resources for a 4th permenant army at that point. At some point after that, I will start sending Crusades to take Jerusalem and the Middle East (How do you say East England in Arabic anybody??). My plans of course hold out on being long term friends with HRE, if that breaks down my plans will be a-changing.

GC1CEO
01-28-2008, 03:20
Turn 120 something:

Spain kept being a pain in my backside, not enough to be a severe pain but enough to keep threatening one city over and over again. However things were still pretty good as I sliced through France, eventually having to include Adjacco (I think thats Corsica?) to finish them off. However the second I did, Milan immediately after me and they were basically the rulers of Italy (minus Sicily). I really wasn't expecting them so soon, I had hoped for a few turns worth of building up time so they had Bern from me pretty quickly (I had taken it from the French earlier) and kept threatening Marsielles.

Once I had a decent army on field in Northern Italy, Portugal (which ruled most of the Iberian pennisula at this point) went after me and allied with Milan so I had two major fronts to contend. I had started to hold my own by making peace with Spain (which they almost immediately broke the cease fire yet again) and keeping Portugal at my borders, I had taken Genoa and almost had taken Milan. I had gotten Bern back and fought off several sieges of Dijon and Marsielles. Unforunately the worst, and unescapable, thing happened to me when my chief ally, HRE, declared war on me and frankly I can't fight that kind of war.

So that ends my first English campaign.

Some final observations:

Genose Crossbowmen are a pain in my backside, they seem to have the range and damage of longbowmen while having the strength of good light infantry, they are more then fast enough to run away from anything that isn't on horseback and they'll easily fight to the last man. Unforunately its all Milan seems to field, and I really need some tactics to combat more effectively in my next campaign.

Crusade armies are awesome in combat, I used one against the French and even the Pilgrims seem far better then town milita (which I guess supposed to be about their equal?). They do mostly desert after a while, but thats no big deal if I need an army for a few battles.

Ideally, if it wasn't for the economy I'd forget France and even abandon Caen and focus on the British Isles and then hit the Iberian pennisula, then Scandavia but unforunately it seems the money making cities are in France and without the Rennes-Caen-Burges triple I can't seem to have enough to support my military, especially early in the game.

kitbogha
01-30-2008, 17:18
So that ends my first English campaign.

Some final observations:

Genose Crossbowmen are a pain in my backside, they seem to have the range and damage of longbowmen while having the strength of good light infantry, they are more then fast enough to run away from anything that isn't on horseback and they'll easily fight to the last man. Unforunately its all Milan seems to field, and I really need some tactics to combat more effectively in my next campaign.

Crusade armies are awesome in combat, I used one against the French and even the Pilgrims seem far better then town milita (which I guess supposed to be about their equal?). They do mostly desert after a while, but thats no big deal if I need an army for a few battles.

Ideally, if it wasn't for the economy I'd forget France and even abandon Caen and focus on the British Isles and then hit the Iberian pennisula, then Scandavia but unforunately it seems the money making cities are in France and without the Rennes-Caen-Burges triple I can't seem to have enough to support my military, especially early in the game.

1) A combination of good artillery, placed facing their flanks on each side is absolutely devastating, support them with heavy infantry or spearmen, a company or two of archers to oppose them and give them a reason not turn their flanks round and for a final flourish a squad of light cavalry to finish off any routers.

2) Crusade armies are great and pretty much the only benefit of taking up the cross. A sneaky but useful tactic-use your crusading general to recruit an army of crusader knights etc, then accompany him on crusade with another general, when you get in sight of your objective seperate the spare general off from the main body and fill his army stack with crusading recruits from the first stack. Use the original crusading general to continue recruiting crusader troops and you end up with a great, cheap second (or third, or fourth) army. You can retain these after you have used your initial stack to complete your crusade objective. This is particularly handy when you want to consolidate the whole area around the original target.

3)What fun is it being England if you don't get the chance to wipe the French from the board. To me, the rest of the game is a bit of an anticlimax....


I played this faction first, and found it to be really entertaining and fun. You get a really good selection of troops, and fight all the old traditional European enemies, as well as some new ones.

GC1CEO
02-02-2008, 07:54
My second campaign:

- I was more ready, least early, on to deal with Scotland then France. I avoided a few mistakes this time, my tactic also had me taking Antwerp because I was having so much luck with my continental army with Rennes and Brugges. However it also meant I had to deal with assassins and the like from the Danish trying to screw over Antwerp.

- My Scottish campaign was the same, take everything but Edinburgh then take out Scotland in a single action.

- This time around I readied myself for hitting France and attacked first with two armies, interestingly enough they begged for a cease fire after I took two of their cities. This gave me time to rebuild my armies and such for the second wave, dealing with France was so much easier in my second campaign. I used a rather unorthodox tactic, I used assassins constantly to take down their entire family line.

- Milan was even more aggressive this time around, they had cities as far north as Dijon by the time they first attacked me. Likewise they were more popular with other factions so they had plenty of allies.

- I found a great tactic for assassins is to make sure you get a master assassins guild, always put it France-side. Build assassins from there, I call this Stage 1. Stage 2, move them to a city half-way between that city and where ever you really want to use them constantly. Around that city, assassinate a variety of smaller targets (rebels, captains, diplomats, other assassins/spies, etc) until they are Rating 7-8 then once you have 3-4 like that move to target. I wiped out the French family tree in a couple of trees, they went through as many as 2 kings a turn.

- I'm still having trouble with the Genovese Crossbowmen in the Milanese armies, they seem more accurate, greater defense and more luck then my longbowmen. I have a few Yeoman Archers but unforunately they aren't in mass in my armies yet, they seem to have a -little- difference.

- The Pope is too weak militarily which works against me, since it doesn't matter if I'm in his good graces since those he excommunicates are too powerful to be opposed to anybody anyways.

- Something that might end my campaign is HRE is now my enemy, once France was done for. Unforunately they are pretty powerful and I got taken by surprise, I had been trying to keep Milan out of France and it took all of my armies to do so which left Northern France and the Netherlands too unguarded.

- I am continuing the campaign until I get a third enemy, I can handle Milan and I might be able to handle HRE. Unforunately nobody will talk peace, apparently once the AI decides to attack you first they won't even consider a ceasefire proposal no matter what you offer. I had tried to make France a vassal, and several ceasefire attempts, even when they were down to 2 cities but they wouldn't hear me even though I offered to essentially rebuild their treasury.

- Blocking passes and bridges seems to be just as effective as in RTW, which is what has kept Milan from running me over in Southern France.

- I need serious work on improving my battlefield skills, the AI handles it far better for me.

Iavorios
02-02-2008, 11:42
The reason NOT to angry the pope is not his army, but the crusades. With them you can make a mockery out of anyone. Give him 10-15K and he will call a crusade against just about anybody ho has the stupidity to be exomonished. Then all you need is seven units of any type, and a few generals (3 unleased). Get them in one stack, join the crusade, then get the all the generals but one out of the main army. Recruit crusade merks all the way to Milan.There is enough of them in France and Italy for 3 full army's. They are cheap and have no upceap as long as they are in a crusade. And they stay with you after it is ended, altoug they are quite expencive to maintain then.You have to move fast, in order to outrun the rest of the crusading army's, but this is not a problem. The only problem is how many times do you want to do this. I mean check the Pizzacuy posts, you can conquer Western Europe for less than 30 turns. Just crusade against the infidels, use the army's left after the crusade against the good catoliks, bribe the pope, crusade again, and again and have fun. It is all up to you.

glyphz
02-03-2008, 14:38
after previously playing as Venice and milan, i tend to forget that my militias aren't up to par with, sometimes, even rebels... :embarassed: any way just started as England , M/M, 1st 20 turns

*1st turn, it's nice to have the british isles for myself, so to do that asap, *Scotland has to go. :whip:
*Spy gets as much exp. as he can so get him to work.
**London goes for a Ballista maker for a quick strike, w/o papal interference.
*Prince goes for rennes w/ reinforcements
*Same goes for the other guy in york . both wait it out.
**diplomat gets an alliance w/ the french. i wanted them to betray me. Dip. then makes a beeline to rome.

*York sallied as did rennes later on, but w/ added reinforcements no problem.
**1 starter cog to the west of rennes, picks up heir w/ some troops headed for bordeaux.
*Henry who gained chivalry replaces th king at London
**Other starter cog + additional 3-4 takes the 1st ballista, king, picks up all available troops and heads for edinburg

*Scots by turn 6, failed to take a 2nd settlement, and my spy was able to open the gate, so the king and his troops were able to siege scottish capital w/o the ballista (not have made it).
**The scots were out early on turn 6.:balloon2:
)**The french left bordeaux alone, so i attacked w/ th heir.
*The Danes were next. I left wales and inverness for my leisure.
*Alliance w/ the Pope, spanish and the HRE were negotiated.
*Nottingham became a town.

**Around turn 10-ish, assault army led by the king, in 10 cogs heads east.
**Turn 14, the french captured both dijon and metz, giving them 7 provinces.
A diplomat of mine then purchased angers, toulouse and rheims, took me 2 tries. about 2000 gold in 11 turns.:juggle2:
*Yay! :balloon2: Caen and bourdeaux can now become towns, to try and compensate lost cash.
*8Grand fleet, which cleared some pirates along the way,separates into 3, each having a ballistae

**Turn 16. Simultaneous amphibious assaults went well. Flushed the danes out of arhus, hamburg and stockholm.
*News of faction destroyed meant the Danes didnt get a 4th settlement
Cheers!:balloon2: :balloon2:
*But, the french decided to backstab me early, w/ the heir by himself assaulting toulouse. I thought they'd at least let me finish paying for my purchased territories.:furious3:
*I tried to guickly send reinforcements (w/ a ballistae) from the Brit. Isles.

*I sallied from Toulouse and killed the heir, then defended northern France + Rheims from... the French... awaiting for reinforcements to counterattack Paris.
*A succesful jihad on baghdad by the egyptians... eh?
**Turn 20, After multiple French offensives were repulsed, i besieged and attacked Paris, w/ a good-sized army.
*Defense had the king in it.
*When Paris fell, the French blue suddenly became, rebel gray!!!
I guess there was no chosen heir, despite thm having loitering generals...
**An unexpected early exit for the French:balloon2: :balloon2: :balloon2:
*Pope calls for a crusade at Egyptian Antioch.
*My faction leader dies in stockholm, my new king was readying an assault on a now rebel marseilles.
He'll be the perfect candidate for a crusade.

*I took a quick toggle-fow, before I hit the sack.
*the danes and the french's early exit left a large stacks of rebels...
I might receive a nasty ambush if i'm not careful.
*Milan moves a huge stack towards Dijon. I should prepare for the worst.
*Portugal's army went missing, and their princess approached me earlier w/o offering nothing... i hope it's just me being paranoid.
*Venice is th biggest threat overall, taking Vienna, bologna, durazzo, zagreb.
The italian cities could become the bane of me.
I'm #1 in everything except overall (Venice). Strange:inquisitive:
**Metz antwerp bruges are my top priority to connect my territories and i need a castle too.
*Milan's demise may seem to be a higher priority compared to th crusade.:sweatdrop:
*oh, and inverness and wales are still rebel.:oops:

So far so good, i g:sweatdrop: uess

GC1CEO
02-04-2008, 10:44
My second English campaign continues:

I was able to buy off Milan with a ceasefire which let me focus on the HRE, and took a few cities. However as it was very difficult to get excommunicated, my progress was mostly getting reorganized and getting my forces through the Alps.

Unforunately I made a mistake and got excommunicated after Milan was reconciled, however in the exact same turn I was reconciled. This meant I had a 0 in my papacy rating for a few turns and badly needed to raise it, my luck was that the Pope called crusade on Milan and taking Rome benefitted me greatly once I gave it back to the Pope. Unforunately it killed my ceasefire with Milan, which I was never able to get another (so far).

As a stroke of luck, I got a ceasefire with HRE and took Florence then Milan but unforunately the ceasefire only lasted maybe 10 turns with the HRE and now they are on my backside again...

To complicate matters, I am dealing with the Black Death which has killed off two of my kings, a couple of family members and severely weaked my city garrisons. On top of that, it harmed my income greatly so I had several turns of next to no profit (even one turn in the red) which meant I couldn't rebuild my armies to take on HRE..

I had two really cool battles though, one was in the Alps where I fought defensively and my 600 men took on 900+ Milanese, I took a defensive position on a hill and my catapults and archers massacred the advancing Milanese. Ironically enough my own catapult killed my general and the enemy's catapult killed their own general.

The other was defending Marsielles against Milan, I had a bunch of archers and set everything on fire. A siege tower, some ladders and a bunch of ram happily littered in pieces in front of my walls. I only lost maybe 30-40 from enemy archers, I only had to send out some knights to take care of the rest.

Milan has hand gunners now, which massacres my missile troops while HRE seems to not have been affected by the plague and is pumping out armies on two seperate fronts, it is currently fighting England (me) and Poland but it seems to be holding its own unforunately. Likewise nobody is excommunicated right now, every time they get excommunicated they are reconciled within a turn and I am trying to keep in the Pope's good graces to get some new Cardinals. Currently I have none.

I am probably going to end my campaign and start a third, considering I fudged up alot of things about mid-campaign and its left me pretty bad off right now.

kitbogha
02-16-2008, 15:25
To complicate matters, I am dealing with the Black Death which has killed off two of my kings, a couple of family members and severely weaked my city garrisons. On top of that, it harmed my income greatly so I had several turns of next to no profit (even one turn in the red) which meant I couldn't rebuild my armies to take on HRE..
Milan has hand gunners now, which massacres my missile troops while HRE seems to not have been affected by the plague and is pumping out armies on two seperate fronts, it is currently fighting England (me) and Poland but it seems to be holding its own unforunately.
I am probably going to end my campaign and start a third, considering I fudged up alot of things about mid-campaign and its left me pretty bad off right now.

1) The Black Death effects everyone, the HRE are just as effected as you are. Sit tight as it sweeps through your lands and then rebuild. It does help to have all the health buildings (town halls etc) as they reduce the devastation. Once it passes you can rebuild. The first England game I played I was in the red for ages it seemed, due to the plague, but I still went on and showed them who was the dominant force in the world. You can do it!

2) Attack handgunners with artillery and light cav units and watch them rout...Neither Milan or the HRE are unbeatable, go for the throat. If you have "spare" armies, use them to take out castles etc as these are producing all their best units. Without their best troops they are much easier to beat. You can always recruits arquebusiers etc as mercs if you want gunmen.

3) Don't give up. Sit back, plan your next ten-twenty moves and take the fight to them. No general ever won a war by saying "I could have done things better, I think I'll start again".....

The Wandering Scholar
02-20-2008, 21:21
England are my 1st faction, not much has happened yet apart from me taking York and securing trade with Scotland. I think that i'll allow them to build up a bit as I am reluctant to make war. Next turn i will try to get trade with France and maybe other factions if I can reach them. My immediate plan is to take whatever settlement is located in Wales then maybe Rennes or other Rebel towns.

My first mission is to give Nottingham a 6 units or more garrison for some troops. Should be easy with 5 turns to do it.

Very good game so far! :beam:

Quintus.JC
02-22-2008, 15:03
England are my 1st faction, not much has happened yet apart from me taking York and securing trade with Scotland. I think that i'll allow them to build up a bit as I am reluctant to make war. Next turn i will try to get trade with France and maybe other factions if I can reach them. My immediate plan is to take whatever settlement is located in Wales then maybe Rennes or other Rebel towns.

My first mission is to give Nottingham a 6 units or more garrison for some troops. Should be easy with 5 turns to do it.

Very good game so far! :beam:

Bruges and Antwerp are good choice, although this might drag you into a unwanted war with other major factions, but the revenue is superb. Be wary of the Scots, try to destroy them quickly to prevent future trouble.

kaka
02-23-2008, 11:07
Can someone tell me what to do if,when you enter medieval 2 total war is showing a video,its going fine and menu the same.When i enter the game everything is moving dead slow,except the mouse,mouse is moving fine.So can someone help me please? by the way i have windows vista.:wall:

The Wandering Scholar
02-23-2008, 15:31
try the apothecary:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=15

TKaz84
02-25-2008, 06:16
England are my 1st faction, not much has happened yet apart from me taking York and securing trade with Scotland. I think that i'll allow them to build up a bit as I am reluctant to make war. Next turn i will try to get trade with France and maybe other factions if I can reach them. My immediate plan is to take whatever settlement is located in Wales then maybe Rennes or other Rebel towns.

My first mission is to give Nottingham a 6 units or more garrison for some troops. Should be easy with 5 turns to do it.

Very good game so far! :beam:

Destroying the Scots serves two ends:

1) They are going to attack you anyway, so you might as well get it over with early (as soon as Billmen and Longbows become available) and quickly (bring siege equipment, even Ballistas, and try to take them out in one turn to avoid Papal wrath).

2) With the Scots gone, you can leave town militia or peasants behind and empty the Isles of quality troops as soon as they are conquered.

kitbogha
02-25-2008, 17:30
Bruges and Antwerp are good choice, although this might drag you into a unwanted war with other major factions, but the revenue is superb. Be wary of the Scots, try to destroy them quickly to prevent future trouble.

Plan for 1st moves:-
1) Take York. Consolidate towards taking Scotland, you will need a good sized and well constituted army (ie ballistae, longbowmen,heavy cav, sergeant spearmen etc). At the start of the game the northernmost Scots town (Aberdeen?) is a rebel settlement, so you can always send a small army up by boat to take it.
2) Build for invading Wales. They should present little in the way of opposition if you go tooled up.
3) Rebel settlements in Europe-Antwerp and Bruges are tempting targets but are often difficult/expensive to retain, as for some reason they are prone to rebelling, so you blow a lot of cash building happiness buildings, lowering taxes and keeping very big garrisons. They also are targets for the Danes, so you will inevitably come into conflict with them if you take these settlements. That's no reason no to, but do be aware. I would tend to expand south and west rebel settlement wise. By this time you may well be at war with the French anyway, so you can take their towns/cities, they are quite frankly a big disappointment on the battlefield...

The Wandering Scholar
02-26-2008, 00:11
Thanks for the info

Mongor
02-28-2008, 18:35
So far my campaign is:
1. Take York and que up a ballista maker in London.

2. Once the ballista is ready take it and some troops for Nottingham to York,
from there proceed to Scotland. Normally the Scottish army is out side of the
I by-pass them and take the city in 1 turn, poof no more Scots-no pope
warning. This by turn 10 at the latest.

3. Take care of the rebels who where the Scottish army. Then retrain re-equipt
and on to Wales.

4. Next block the land bridge to Oslo-Stockholm, If lucky a crusade will have
been called by then and I use that army to take both of them. I use that
to train my merchants since no other merchants can get to them. I have
seen as many as 5 trying to get across at one time.

From there it is on to Dublin and then Northern Europe. The French were my
allies, but betrayed me early and went for Caen. I fought them off and that
is where I am at.

KyodaiSteeleye
02-29-2008, 16:16
One little hint-et on English Unit roster:

Artillery and Sieges

Mortars are not really much good in field battles, but are fantastic in defending wall assaults. Stick a couple of units behind the wall section being assaulted and target either the engines or the units - once in range they are suprisingly accurate and will blast big chunks out of the enemy. As attacking armies will retreat once you've destroyed their means of attacking, you may want to just target the men, and let them keep coming (as long as you are confident you can defend the walls). Obviously, i'd suggest blatting any rams as soon as they get in range, as you probably don't want the enemy taking route one into your settlement/fortress.

Redz " Preatorian Knights"
03-03-2008, 21:43
dont get it?been playing english now on h/h, i mean i never had a problem on conquering the french, they attack me in the first place, and well if and when the pope say i should stop i stop and just wait untill the time expires and on i go again...
all this talk about strategy... well for me it simple:
strategically:
1. sure you can make allies, especially the pope... but hell sooner or later you'll be at war with your own allies anyway so why bother? pope? its simple to play with the pope, stop when he tells you to, and resume your blood lust when the time expires, anyway it gives you time to regroup and restore your strength
2. go for the rebels? ha... those rebels are a mile away from my armies ....people!! attack the most usefull faction you know you would benefit the most, denmark or france to gain foothold on europe(maybe?)
3. wait wait wait.....

sorry guys, just finish fighting the poles here with heroic victory, had killed all there western armies and cut off 2 provinces with enveloping tactics...
well 'till later

oh... one more thing, about the cavalry.... well i just charge a full stack spearmen, should it really do some damage on them i mean should my charge halves there unit strenght?if the game works that way, as you say, well might as well have all your armies be all cavalry...

TKaz84
03-04-2008, 16:13
oh... one more thing, about the cavalry.... well i just charge a full stack spearmen, should it really do some damage on them i mean should my charge halves there unit strength?if the game works that way, as you say, well might as well have all your armies be all cavalry...

Charging cavalry into spearmen, especially if they have their spears set, will just get your cav killed. You might get some of them, especially if yo have lances down, but after the initial charge you'll just be massacred.

kitbogha
03-10-2008, 17:39
oh... one more thing, about the cavalry.... well i just charge a full stack spearmen, should it really do some damage on them i mean should my charge halves there unit strenght?if the game works that way, as you say, well might as well have all your armies be all cavalry...
That is a terrible move, best way to get your cav wiped out.

ArtistofWarfare
03-10-2008, 18:46
That is a terrible move, best way to get your cav wiped out.

Yeah we're basically talking about the modern day equivalent of the following: Fire Team on the streets begins taking sniper fire from (it seems) building structure approximately 400 yards due north. Instead of finding cover, identifying the shots and attempting to flank the position...you just scream "charge" and send your entire unit running towards the assumed enemy position firing...running down the middle of the street on full auto fire. Naturally, several of your men will be swatted like flies immediately...but hey- One of them might get a pot shot off and kill the sniper right?

It's just...insanity :wall:

The Wandering Scholar
03-12-2008, 22:42
hmm cav into spears.. no thanks

BetterDeadThanRed
04-06-2008, 00:12
Well, I'm a little over halfway through my first MTW2 campaign and I have had a really easy time with the English. I have only skimmed through the first few pages of this but I have found that I used a more unique strategy.

Since I am approaching my victory conditions already and have already vanquished or crippled all of the Western Euro factions, I must be doing something right, so here is my strategy (it was influenced highly by numerous RTW campaigns):

England is in a poor monetary state and would require years of effort and an inordinate amount of cash you don't have to develop into a trading superpower like Venice, however, you do have access to some powerful early game units such as longbows and mailed nights almost immediately and the council is more than happy to grant you decent military units for obeying their missions.

Basically, your first objective should be basic infrastructure development and rapid militarization (I became the most powerful nation within a few turns without even trying, I was just using my old RTW strat). Avoid war at all costs, but be sure to deny France control of the Atlantic and channel coasts as quickly as possible by capturing all available rebel settlements. (To prevent immediate war with France, I married my faction heir off to their princess which should buy you some time, but they still betrayed me eventually) Since your goal is to expand without ruffling other factions, or the pope's feathers, avoid war with Scotland as no matter how powerful they get, you can usually crush them in one turn when the time is ready (and its best to let them spend their own money developing Edinburgh before you take it from them).

YOUR ECONOMY WILL STAGNATE. Mine did for close to 20 turns, but your immense military power will be your crutch. Keep cranking out those feudal nights and longbowmen , sacking every settlement you capture to keep your head above water.

Eventually, what ends up happening once you become so powerful is that alliances start forming all around you and it becomes inevitable that the war will begin: Let it. Let them damage their own reputation with the pope and for every offense they deal you, take one of their cities to counterbalance. The pope will not view you as the aggressor. Obey the pope's every wish as it is critical to remain in his favor when using this strategy. Risking excommunication is risking death, even when everyone is already against you.

On the topic of war, France should be the first to betray you, and the HRE soon after that. Portugal, Spain, Denmark, and Milan soon dogpiled onto the *charlie foxtrot* within just a few turns, but as you are in the pope's favor (you remembered to do this right?), laugh as the pope excommunicates the hapless bastards and proudly declare open season on the enemies homefront. As you are a military behemoth at this point, a poor one but an immense one at that, you can use the money you gained from the conquests to begin developing your own homefront. It takes a little while to get it kick started, but once you do, you will become a trading superpower.

Focus your efforts not on defeating the enemy outright, but on reducing your fronts. Pushing France into the Mediterranean reduces your fronts to a manageable two, and from there you can isolate and annihilate your enemies with impunity.

Since the pope will start to hate you if you continue your pillage and burn strategy across Western Europe, focusing your new found economic wealth on the construction of Cathedrals and tributing the pope will keep him forever on your good side.

And one more thing, kill, kill, kill the enemies family members. There is no penalty from attacking French/Spanish/German/Danish/Portuguese/Milanese settlements that have suddenly gone rebel from lack of leadership. I have never had much luck with assassins, but knowing where to send your army to cause the most damage is a definite advantage.

Hope that helps somebody.

Random Generic
04-22-2008, 04:32
all this talk about strategy... well for me it simple:
strategically:
1. sure you can make allies, especially the pope... but hell sooner or later you'll be at war with your own allies anyway so why bother? pope? its simple to play with the pope, stop when he tells you to, and resume your blood lust when the time expires, anyway it gives you time to regroup and restore your strength
2. go for the rebels? ha... those rebels are a mile away from my armies ....people!! attack the most usefull faction you know you would benefit the most, denmark or france to gain foothold on europe(maybe?)
3. wait wait wait.....

sorry guys, just finish fighting the poles here with heroic victory, had killed all there western armies and cut off 2 provinces with enveloping tactics...
well 'till later

oh... one more thing, about the cavalry.... well i just charge a full stack spearmen, should it really do some damage on them i mean should my charge halves there unit strenght?if the game works that way, as you say, well might as well have all your armies be all cavalry...

Most of us dream about being Alexander the Great. You seem to be trying to emulate Joe Stalin! :dizzy2:

I won my first campaign in 180 turns as the English. I never attacked a Catholic faction that didn't attack me first, never sacked a Catholic city, stayed at 70% or better with the Pope the whole time, with provinces that very rarely showed anything but a green icon, and in all measures was the greatest faction through most of the game.

I suppose I could have cut a swath across the map and sacked and exterminated all before me...but why play a strategy game unless you intend to use...ummm...strategy? :clown:

Random Generic

RLucid
04-23-2008, 16:06
Ha, ha!!! :laugh4:

But Stalin was far less astute. Exterminating all his own officers and causing starvation in main farming regions by forced collectives. Dismantling of buffer states in order to extend area controlled (Poland/Finland) at cost of huge losses, and giving the most dangerous enemy a free hand in west to avoid economic difficulties due to it's military buildup. Then trying forward defense, when even the Tsar's were bright enough to retreat and use time & space, stretching invaders supply lines.

So actually, re-reading it again, a certain Austrian Corporal who fought for the Kaiser in WWI seems a better fit; "hell sooner or later you'll be at war with your own allies" and "just finish fighting the poles here with heroic victory, had killed all there western armies and cut off 2 provinces with enveloping tactics..."

RollingWave
04-29-2008, 10:26
finally got my hands on the game (after a long while without a usable computer arragh)

Here's something i realize, when defending a seige. have a group of longbow man lay down stakes at the gate. that's just plain evil and completely eliminates the chances of the enemy bursting through your gates via a calvary charge (which they often likes to do. and they'll just impale their general on the stakes) and it also breaks up infantry formation and charge. leaving them easy prey for your own infantry.

also it's kinda silly that your own cavs charging through the stakes will be equally painful. are they THAT dumb?

anyway some basic thoughts on the English so far. it's pretty easy :P (granted I played all the series quiet extensively)

the paths are pretty obvious, your first stage is obviously to take the British isles while stalling the French. send your diplomate towards Rome ASAP. marry your daughter (or vice versa) to the Spanish / Portugal / Danes / HRE / which ever comes first.

take York immediately, seige Walsh if you don't have ballista and/or enough infantry at that stage. if they try to break out just steam roll over them with a massive calvary chage.

I sailed to Dublin and took it before the Scotts, I waited till I allied with the Pope and was somewhat builtup before I launched a surprised attack on them and finished them quickly before the Pope could intervene.

on the Continent I build up Caen a little and seiged Renne fairly early. in the early going it is worth while to wait out seiges if your not confident. with stone walls you could defend against most attacks with a decent mix of infantry and even the most vinilla archers as long as they don't bring along a significant amount of heavy infantry. take Burges if the French don't come knocking, they'll come soon enough. so might as well have 3 settlements where you could play hit and run with them.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

After securing the Isles with 3 settlements on the Continent your second stage is to expand into Europe . I noticed that Oslo and Arthurs were still rebel towns so I sailed two army over and took them. but I didn't attack any other Christian faction (the Danes still had Stockholm) ignor missions that ask you to attack settlements owned by neutral or ally factions. (unless you can fashion together some sort of diplomatic deal, unlikely though) my war with the French saw me taking seige after seige in the early stages while I was still trying to finish up the Isles and build up . but the French repeated tried to assault and repeated go slaughtered. as long as you can stake up the gates there's really not much to worry unless you got massively out numbered AND outclassed. I find that even a bunch of militas with a few Long bow sprinkled in is usually more than enough. the only thing you might need to worry is if they bring in heavy infantries on seige towers.


after reinforcement from the Isles arrived the war turned quickly and I scored a massive victory after taking Angers. the French then stalled me for awhile though VIA massive assasination waves. that was painful as I had just about every family member on the continent stabbed to death. OUCH. after a massive assasin / spy buildup of my own to counter that I finally made more progress, as the French were left with only 2 settlement it was me and Milan running the show. then Milan allied with the French and attacked me ... soon after they attacked the pope and got excommuicated ... helping me out big time as they got swarmed by Venice and Spain and Poland. they made a even dumber move by taking Rome. promptly having a crusade declared on it and my army is now crusading toward Rome, (one via land one via sea) and blowing away most towns before me)


I left the French one last town (Borduex) and called a cease fire with them after they broke up with Milan. I think it helps to have a buffer between me and Spain at this point. I figure to take as much of Milan as I could now and then build up for another Crusade to the Holy land to finish this campaign.


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a few quesiton though.

a. does having a lot of Priests in a region help against Inquistors?

b. does having Spies in your army / towns help against assasins' chances of killing your general like MTW and Shogun? or are they only good for spotting Assasins to send your own assasins against?

c. how do you get more cardinals promoted? just keep killing Heretics and Witches?

TKaz84
04-29-2008, 22:45
c. how do you get more cardinals promoted? just keep killing Heretics and Witches?

Train a bunch of priests and send them to provinces with low amounts of Catholicism. This is harder for the English because there are no such provinces nearby. Your best bet is to ship your priests to either the Iberian peninsula and convert the Muslims, or to Stettin and start converting pagans.

Iavorios
04-30-2008, 08:57
Spies do help against assassins, and wen a cardinal dies, the pope apoinst the priest or bishop (these come from cathedrals) with highest piety for cardinal. Regardless of his nation(as long as it is catolick afcorse).

Random Generic
05-03-2008, 01:11
After securing the Isles with 3 settlements on the Continent your second stage is to expand into Europe .

I might disagree. I leave the Scots be and follow the rest of your plan, taking Bruges for the final conquest of stage one on about turn 12 or 13. It seems to me that about this time a Crusade comes into being, I think the second stage is to conquer and secure the Holy Lands. It takes awhile to make it pay, but an aggressive campaign can reap huge rewards.

Not only is there some real economic advantages, the favor gained from the Pope can have real consequences. If you have 100% favor with the pope, and can maintain it, you can often goad one of the countries on the Continent to attack you and they will be excommunicated for a few turns. This is when having a few ballistas and heavy garrisons hanging about bear big fruit...In a few turns not only can Paris and Rheims be English soil but those recalicitrant Scots can be put out of their misery too, all while keeping your reputation sterling.

The added advantage of taking the Holy Lands early also come clear when the Mongols invade. Although I must admit, I usually abandon the Holy Lands if they are serious about taking them and invade the Byzantine provinces with the armies.

Random Generic

RollingWave
05-04-2008, 13:20
well I'm running into some challange now...

after taking Rome and taking much of Milan's land in a crusade. I gave Rome back to the Pope like he asked and I traded Milan back to .. well Milan and had them become a Vessal.. but then I screwed up and accidently tried to assinate one of their agents and the vassel broke (DOH)

then I asked for a Crusade. that wasn't hard as I sailed a elite army with my heir and took Jerusalem easily as there was no one defending. and then I realize i'm stuck in the middle of the enemy lands with no allies anywhere near and only 1 town and 1 army. (the Mongols overran Egypt at this point). I sallied out of Jerusalem and took Gaza (Which was citidal) in the hopes of retraining my troops, only to get the Mongols seiging it every single turn (immediately following it after i beat back one wave) and during one of the many assaulst i lost my heir... DOH!. (weird, i had all sorts of bonus on him for HP and he died in a melee against archer units... zzzzz ) after that i give up on this futile attempt and demolished what i could in Gaza (as i had in Jerusalem) and disbanded everyone.

Another reason is because that while doing this I did some Island hopping and took all the Islands west of Italy in hopes of buidling a launching pad to reinforce the middle east and perhaps strike into North Africa . Sicily was at war with the Pope and a lot of other Catholics (and was amazingly not excommunicated) so I figure i wasn't going to be a problem. but then Spain and Milan BOTH back stabbed me... great. ah well now I cut the losses in Middle east I can focus on re-establishing my authroity in Europe and wait till the next time I can call a Crusade.

kitbogha
05-05-2008, 13:47
a few quesiton though.

a. does having a lot of Priests in a region help against Inquistors?

b. does having Spies in your army / towns help against assasins' chances of killing your general like MTW and Shogun? or are they only good for spotting Assasins to send your own assasins against?

c. how do you get more cardinals promoted? just keep killing Heretics and Witches?

a. No. The only hope against The Inquisition is to have high piety levels. These can be achieved through the old "burning squinty eyed old women as witches" route or converting the heathen in Orthodox/Muslim areas. Of course, the Inquisitors are maybe less likely to visit areas where the population has a high level of Catholics. It seems a fairly arbitrary thing, often Inquisition are launched when you p*** off the Pope, by not doing as he tells you.

b. Yes, I think so.

c. Yes, and of course the converting heathen thing always helps. A sneaky ploy I have used is to kill off opposition factions' Cardinals to make room for yours in the College of Cardinals.

Lord Preston
06-17-2008, 21:31
I'll post a few thoughts about England and my early strategy.

- I only build roads before Henry comes of age (with the King in London as seems to help the traits he gets). I also build 1 or 2 levels of farms in Nottingham and Caen so I can get Longbowmen and Billmen for the expected France betrayal.

- I marry the Princess of France to my Hier as she's a 5 or 6 heart Princess. My heir then gets the stay at home trait (improves chances of children) which seems to give me the 4 children quite quickly which I want to keep the bloodlines going and arrive around the time i'm looking to expand past the UK isles.

- After York I go for the Scots extremely early looking to get all there male family involved, basically doing an assasination job on there family to turn Edinbrough into rebel if I can't take it. This removes the chance of the Pope giving you the Excommunication mission.

- I'm quite slow to build up early, prefering to run more units to capture the Isles. Spending 1200+ on Archery range for pesant archers (I don't like them with Longbowmen at the next level) or the same in Caen for Billmen isn't worth it for me early. Save the money for the town's you take.

- I tend to just Occupy most of the Isles and sometimes sack Edinbrough depending how I need money (have France attacked yet?).

- Once isles are secure i'll build up longbowmen, levy spearmen and a few Billmen and cavalry and look to go on the offensive in France (rebel prov's first). I'll save money using longbowmen and not training for above for a long time and go for Armoured Swordsmen in Caen as a priority.

- Roads -> Farms -> Port are priority for my Isle cities to aid movement and get pop+taxes up and trade. I leave markets for a long time.

- I tend to not storm a city directly unless its garrison is lacking, prefering to let them sally although I can't use the longbowmens ground pikes.




Some comments on early units and stacks:
- Levy Spearmen, I find I don't use them as much as Militia as you can leave militia for free in towns. I'm not if Levy Spearmen don't have the penalty that the Spear Militia have (didn't know till I read about it here) against infantry. I suspect they have the lower penalty of Town Militia but then have the vs cav bonus to be better than the militias.

- Longbowmen last me aggeesssss. They're a huge improvement over other archers and I find the following improvements are much smaller for the cost increase (of building and unit), longbowmen will dominate for a long time. With building Woodsman Guild (in Nottingham for me) they can be made even better. This allows me to build up my economy more and concentrate on going for Armoured Swordsmen in Caen.

- Billmen. I read a few posts here about them being poor, but the units they compare them against come at the following level. They're cheap and while die a lot compared to the spear units are useful early, especially with there charge. When used with longbowmen I like them because I hate micromanaging cavalry to make sure they don't spear themselves on pikes when attacking the rear of the enemy line.

- I used to use loads of cavalry (mainly because the missions gave me loads as reward) but have started to slim down to a max of 4 + general. The early cavalry is good enough for me so stables arn't a priority, fance usually have stables to use once captured. I prefer to load up on more archers and sword, with a few archers sacrificed for seige (catas or trebs) for city assaults.

- Spear units are lacking so I prefer to play quite defensive to use the Longbowmens ground pikes and sword units. I hire a lot of the spearmen from France once my economy is up and running.

My typical europe stack (not sure if good for crusades yet) is:
1x General
4x Cav
6x Longbowmen
9x Infantry.

Where Infantry early is mostly militia/spearmen with a couple of Billmen and once Armoured Swordsmen come along only 2 or 3 spearmen.

My basic battle plan is like Agincourt but with spearmen to protect the flanks and cavalry to harrass enemy archers and attempt flanking (beware of your own longbowmen pikes). With the longbowmen I try to force the enemy to attack me since with 6 of them i'll decimate there units before attacking if they sit there waiting for me but it seems to depend on the AI's attitude (seems like scots always attack while others sit back and wait). I like a couple of high attack AP units even if billmen to flank safely near the longbowmen pikes where cav would risk spearing themselves.

I like this stack as it works for seige battles where I will lose 3 units (archers/cav/inf depending on garrison of target) for art/trebs. Previously I loaded up on Cav and between them and archers it made seiges hard or a lot of unit changes rather than just 3 unit changes.



The main point I think that helps me is longbowmen and saving money not training up above them. Longbowmen are a big step up and the later versions are more like a small upgrade. Get longbowmen then concentrate on swords even if Nottingham (or whereever else you aim to get woodsmans guild) grows to next level.

Fairly standard I think but hope this helps someone.

RollingWave
06-18-2008, 04:00
on Mortar: I think it's probably the best well rounded artilery in the game, able to do everything fairly effectively. while they're not quiet as devastating as Culverins on the battlefield they are a little more reliable in

a. not shooting your own men to shreads

b. reliable regardless of angle / terrain

c. usable behind your men

as for Billman, the main gripe most people have is that they simply die like flies to too many things to be effective in most circustances. if they get shot at... they're dead... if they get charged. they're dead. if they fight most other infantries head on, they're dead. they only shine when the can fight without being seriously retaliated. (on walls, flanks .. engaged horsemans... etc..) unless you get several levels of armors on them they're just a very risky unit to rely on. the English roster weakness is usually against heavy horse armies, but the normal billman tends to die like flies if they recieved a charge even by lesser horsemans.

They're not completely useless of course, but given the relative situation I'd take a sergent spearman over them in that particular spot on the roster.

Privateerkev
07-28-2008, 17:08
England is by far my favorite faction. It fits my campaign style (safe homelands with ability to get 'colonies') and battle style (archers.)

I've played the first 10 turns an absurd amount of times. I think I have finally hammered out a good early game strategy to set England up to do what ever you want in the middle game. There is a way to get the island fast (~10 turns) and keep your economy building.

Turn 1. Move diplomat towards Rome. Move merchant towards wine in Angers. Move Princess by east ship to Caen. Move west ship to the direct west sea spot from Caen. Move outside Caen stack, minus peasants, to ship. Move peasants to Caen. Move Caen castle stack, minus Robert, to ship. Move Robert next to ship, buy crossbow mercs, move Robert and mercs into ship. Move peasants in London towards Nottingham. Move King as far north as possible. Move town militia from London towards York. Move Nottingham troops towards York. Move spy up to Scotland to spot. Do whatever you want with cardinal (I put him in London). Move Rufus to York, buy crossbow mercs, take York, move as far north of York as possible. Buy basic economic buildings. Ports, roads, farms, ect...

Turn 2. Refuse offer from French Princess because you want your own Princess to get credit for the deal you will make. Accept offer from Scotland just for the heck of it. Move merchant to wine. Keep moving diplomat to Rome. Move Princess to French Princess and go for trade rights and map exchange first. Then go for marrying the French Princess to Rufus. Caen is now quite secure for decades. Move Princess on a diplomatic tour (I send her to Italy because there are 5 factions there). Move west ship towards Ireland. Move east ship towards York. Move peasants to Nottingham. Move town militia towards York. Move stack that came from Nottingham to Rufus. Move King to Rufus. Get Rufus as far north as possible. Use spy on cardinal or Scottish stack. Laugh as Iverness thrown 2nd Scottish stack back. Keep building economic and don't bother recruiting.

Turn 3. Move diplomat towards Rome and keep Princess on tour. Move west ship to Dublin port. Move Robert to Dublin and siege it. Move troops from ship to Robert. (the men tend not to have the MP to siege the village so I have Robert do it first.) Recruit crossbow merc and kern. Take Dublin. Move west ship next to Dublin. Move east ship next to Edinburgh/York border. Move King stack next to the ship. Move town militia into York. Keep the taxes high and economic buildings flowing. Don't recruit. Keep spy spying if he isn't dead yet.

Turn 4. Same moves with diplomat and Princess. (it's a long walk...) The Scottish situation should be as such: They should still have just Edinburgh, 1 stack on the English border, and men in their city. By now, they usually have moved men from the city into their one ship. This is good for you. Move King by east ship to Edinburgh. Take now empty east ship, and try to sink the Scottish ship full of troops. Move King to siege Edinburgh and build all the siege you can in one turn. Edinburgh should just have Scottish King and one spear. Keep spy spying if he isn't dead yet. You now have 2 choices with Robert. If Scotland is more powerful than what I mentioned, you can sent Robert to the west coast of Edinburgh. But if Scotland is in the situation I described, just sent Robert to Wales and build a ram and siegetowers for a couple turns. Have Robert buy a welsh spearman too.

Turn 5. Same moves with diplomat and Princess. (it's a really long walk...) Assault Edinburgh. Scotland is gone. The Scottish stack on the English border will go rebel. Move Rufus and most troops towards Iverness. Keep building siege towers for Caernorvon. Move ships back south to shuttle things to Caen later.

In 5 turns, you've just knocked Scotland out of the game. In a couple turns you'll have the last 2 provinces on the Isles. This is where you have choices. You can go full turtle and disband your whole army. Once the diplomat gets to Rome, you can bribe the Pope into giving you a Crusade. (Give him 1000 a turn until the Pope-o-meter is up to at least 8) That way you can send Robert and troops to Antioch with free upkeep. Disband your mercs. You can take the rebel settlements in France if you want. Go to North Africa. Go to rebel Scandinavia. The sky is the limit. In 10 turns or less you've taken all of the British Isles and have 8 provinces. I turn Iverness and Caernorvon to towns. You only need the 2 castles. You can easily fund a full stack of troops while keeping building steady in all provinces. Use that stack however you want.

Hope this guide helps. ~:cheers:

toasterstrudel
07-28-2008, 19:12
I don't know if this epic post go up but here it is.


Ok I breezed through England on M/M and H/H and now I am breezing through on VH/VH.

Here's my strat thats worked wonders.

Conquer Early Rebel Settlements: Rennes, York and Caernforn

On first few turns take rebel settlements Rennes, York and Caernaforn. Recruit men if you need to...no need to wait for ballistas at that early stage siege building will do just fine.

As far a Bruges and Antwerp - I leave them alone...Why? because the amount of armies there are too big and will result in a costly battle. Plus you get into it with the Danes or HRE early on as a result. Let someone else waste the armies and you'll take it from them after they build it up for you.

Diploamts: Alliances and Trade Rights with as many nations as possible
Money is the key to this game so you need to acquire as many trade rights and alliances as possible. Sure eventually they'll break down but get the trade money while you can.

Thus,on the first turn send a diplomat to the Scots - make an alliance. You'll betraying it soon enough but no need for a fight and it gives you trade income. Send a diplomat to the French...preferably your princess and get another alliance.

It is also important to build about 3 other diplomats. One is sent to the Ibeiran pennisula to forge at best an alliance...at worst trade rights with the Spanish, Portugese and Moors.

Send the second Diplomat to the Pope in Italy in order to forge at best alliances at worst trade rights with Milan, Venice Sicily and the Pope. Ultimately leave the Diplomat next to the Pope - use the diplomat to gift money (400-500 every so often) and map info to please him for your indescretions vs. other Catholics.

The third Diplomat goes east to forge at best an alliance and at worst trade rights with the HRE, Denmark, Russia, Polish, Bzyantines...you get the drift.

After taking Early Rebel Settlements: Eliminate the Scots - and the UK is yours.

Seriously the Scots should be out of the game by turn 10. After you take out Carnaforn and York you should have a big army sitting in York. The Scots if they are lucky will have taken Inverness, but in all likelihood will still have only Edinburgh. Send your army there and take it out. Any free standing Scot army will turn to rebels after its only territory falls. Now all you have you deal with is rebel settlements in Inverness and Dublin. **Note convert everything to cities but Nottingham for the cash.***

Now Onto Mainland Europe: Step 1 -The Key to defeating the French - Bordeux and Toulouse.

If you are moving aggresively under this strategy you should have a large army in Rennes and Caen should be building up inexpensive units - Levy Spearmen, Hobilars and Archers. ***Build Archery buildings in Caen and Nottingham ASAP - u want to get Longbowmen - a very effective unit.***

With the Units in Caen and Rennes send a big army down to Bordeux a fortress- it should be a Rebel settlement. Once you do that focus on Toulouse which is another fortress. If you get to Bordeux around this time the French in all likelihood will attack you. But if you take Toulouse...you will essentially cut off the french's ability to make military units. I think only Angers remains as a fortress for the French and with Caen, Bordeux and Toulouse at your disposal Angers will fall fairly easily. Once Angers is taken the French are only left with Cities and ERGO they are toast. Pick up the remain cash cows like Paris at your leisure.

The other advantage to Bordeux and Toulouse is it gives you control of the two militay outposts along to protect you against Portugal or Spain - whichever decides to turn. Hopefully they wont even bother to attack- but that unlikely. Those two fortresses gives you the military might to repell them.

Building a Financial Empire: Low Taxes, Build Trade Buildings, Ports and Ignore Merchants

Okay while you are slowly acquiring Fortresses in France. You should be building up you finincial centers. Markets, Ports and Roads are must for each city. Also set you taxes to low and only raise them if you know for a turn or two you need extra capitals to fund an army. Low taxes will get the cities to expand as soon as possible. Ignore buildings that worry about public order or happiness (except for the basic church) you can build them later and the low taxes is more than enough to keep people happy. The sooner you have good water trade...the more effective all your alliances and trade rights are.

A note on Merchants--- a total waste at 550 a pop the value is not worth trust me do land clearance for 600gs. It will serve you better in the end.

Spies - Are a wonderful resource build them and use them.

Talk about a good investment. This is the best early specialty unit in the game. They are essentially mobile watchtowers. I build a bunch and send them all over my bordering enemy's land because they will do two things. Act as watchtowers - you will see who is marching towards your cities many turns in advance in order to prepare for a counter attack. Second - once you decide to take out a enemy's city I flood several in before the attack in order to open the gates. Third you once you can build assassins te embedding spies dramatically increase the ability of an assassin to destroy their buildings like Ballista towers!

Strategery - How to take out the rest of Europe and ultimately the world.

The key is taking out the other countries fortresses and cutting off they're ability to develop military units. Like I described above with France..every country can be taken out the same way. For example the HRE in Bern and Stauffen. Once they can not attack you, you are more than prepred to go in and SACK their cities. (you get mad gold that way) Also don't ransom back prisoners...execute them. It gets rid of of their much needed armies and forces them to spend even more to recruit new soldiers. Also once you have cleared out a geographic area...like say the whole of france... feel free to convert those fortresses that are not along an enemies borders into cities. You wont need them to make soldiers anymore might as well convert them into cash cows.

Battle Strategy - My preferred battle stack

I am a huge advocate of artillery, archers basic infantry and light calvary.

My battlefield lineup would be

Cannon-Cannon -Cannon -Cannon
Arch -Arch-Arch-Arch-Arch-Arch
Spear-Spear-Spear-Spear-Spear
Calv.Calv Calv. Calv.

On a Battlefield I lead with my artillery and hammer down the opposing force followed closely behind by archers and then levy spearmen. If the enemy seeks to charge my archers are set to fire at will and will mow down their forces and ultimately caused them to hold their position and force them to be cannon fodder. If they continue to attack I send my infantry to take them out and pull back my artillery. More often then not, the enemy just chickens out and allows me to pepper them.

As for my cannons in order of preference I have them destroy 1) opposing artillery 2) enemy general/king 3) heavy infantry/spearmen and then artillery.

Once the cannons are done. I let the archers dump their remaining arrows on the enemy. Once their quivers are empty I send in the spearmen full assault with horses on 1 enemy unit at a time. The overwhelming force causes a quick rout. Once they rout the horses quickly capture them and I move onto the next enemy force.

***Note it is a great attack strat for the dreaded Mongols and Tims as well. Cannons and Archers are the key along with fast horsemen to track down routed armies.

I use mostly spearmen with a sprinkling of dismounted knights because of the high numbers ability agaisnt enemy calvary and low cost.

Defending a city

I use essetially the same lineup. With that many archers you place them along your walls and bring out your cannons and place them right along side the outside walls. Once again use you cannons to destroy them armies in the order I just suggested. Once again the archers will take out any charging armies. Once the artillery and archers are expended. Send in the infantry and horses...the enemy should be so decimated that they wont stand a chance.


Attacking a city.

Again same lineup. If you have at least 4 artillery you not only can easily pummel the front gate but also take out towers and a few walls. Unless it is a fortress I use up all the artillery to take out any forces standing in front of destroyed walls as a stop gap. I then send archers to take out the stragglers. If youve taken out the towers there should be no opposing fire for the archers to worry about. Then once again send in infantry and horses to clean up the rest of the mess.

***Note I do enjoy sieging a city until it falls. If I am not in any great need of money I'll use this tactics to slowly whittle down their army while preserving mine. Be mindful of other armies marching towards you to help their besieged city.****


Attacking the Milanese (i.e. Archer laded armies)

My aforementioned battleformula is perfect for them. Crossbowmen, while good, are no match for artilerry and will be shredded by a artillery/archer combo. Finally the best troops to rout them are calvary and if you send a pack of 4 calv after pounding with arrows and artillery the crossbowmen are no match. Honestly, they are my favorite/easiest types of stacks to fight against.

Giving them the Old' Jihad - How to destroy the Muslim world

Once you take over the whole of Europe they game is for all intents and purposes is over. You will control the majority of the wealthiest countries and you'll have money coming out the wazooo. So where do you go from here.

Step 1: Control the seas.

Build armadas (we're talking Carracks here) to destroy every Muslim factions ship and blockade their ports. (Obviously don't take them all out at once...try a faction at a time) But honestly the goal is to prevent them from doing any trade.

Step 2: Shock and awe

Once you control all their ports...you mobilize all of your bored military units who have no one to fight in Europe and load them on the extra armada ships you aren't using to blockade...Bring them over enmass (we're talk 4-5 stacks per city) to totally wipe out each coastal city.

***Note since one victory condition is Jerusalem...that is the city I focus on first. I control that sea area and then drop 4 stacks of guys right on the shore....GAME OVER***

Remember at this point it my be best to exterminate those cities rather than sack. Too many muslim inhabitants leads to mass revolts.

Step 3: Priest and Catherdrals lead to a Happy Christian World.

Dont underestimate preist and catherdrals and other public happiness buidlings in the Middle East and Africa. You'll need them because of the crazyt ideological difference. Have enough of them and there should not be any revolts.


Other issues: Taking out Timurid Elephants
Cannons - if you follow my formula you will have those things running amok in no time. All cannons should focus on the elephants first when battling the Timurids.


Survivng the Plague

When the Black Death hits whether its in one country or in the world wide event later in the game remember 4 things.

1. Stop Moving All Units - this just spreading the disease and making it worse

2. Put everyone into the cities - this is the best way to combat the spread and keep people healthy

3. Lower all the tax rates - it keeps people at max happiness

4. WAIT IT OUT - As the saying goes...this too shall pass...and it will. Usually when the black death hits I put everyone in the nearby castles/cities, clear all queues and keep hitting the end turn button until it passes. Once it end you will have lost lots of people (BUT so has everyone else) you will be in debt but after a few more end turns with NO building you'll be back in the black and making mad cash (since you wont have very much army upkeep costs) in no time.


Ok that should be my little manifesto...Happy Hunting Viva La England :2thumbsup:

Iavorios
07-29-2008, 14:03
Nice, but what about the Pope? Seriosly you will have to take verry good care of him if you want to go anywhare. I supoase that the only way to conguer all of western Europe before turn 60 is to make everybody enemys of the holly father and crusade them to oblivion. Been there, done that. I no longer find it funni, or chalenging. I like to conguer without crusades, it is way more fun. But seriosly if like to blitz that much why don't you join the blitzmaster chalenge. If you dare.

DS_Legionary
08-04-2008, 08:35
I've finally decided to start up and finish a campaign as England. I started off with your basic first moves. I sent my starting garrison and King in London plus a couple units from Nottingham to go and lay seige to Caernavon, sent my Prince and his army to take York and finally sent my last family member in Caen to go take Rennes. All fell with relatively little trouble by the time turn 5 rolled around.

By that time Scotland managed to nab Dublin so I decided it was time to eliminate the Scots before they became a thorn on my side. I sent my King from Caernavon by boat to Dublin and my Prince from York laid seige to Edinburgh. The remnants of the Scottish army attempted to lift the seige on Edinburgh but were defeated in a triumphant victory for Prince Rufus. The last Scottish stronghold in Dublin fell two turns later. The scots were now a matter of history and I had all but secured my new island stronghold. However by taking Dublin I had become excommunicated by the Pope. Oh well he shall be dead soon enough and I can use this to at least cripple the French before I go into turtle mode.

Henry has come of age and looks to be a very promising commander, so I decide to let him handle Inverness with a token force and send Prince Rufus down to the mainland to assist Robert in the destruction of the French. My king is getting old so I assign him to build watchtowers in the wild areas of my newly acquired lands. I have also teched up to longbows/billmen in Caen (turned Nottingham into a city after the Scots were defeated). I have prepared two seperate armies for the conquering of France.

These armies consist of 3 units of levy spears, 3 units of Hobilars, 3 units of Longbows and a general. My basic battle strategy is to use my Hobilars to harrass any French archers on the field, then let my Longbows have a field day with any French infantry on the field. The levy spears are there just a meat sheild for my Longbows and I use my Hobilars/General to swing around and decimate the enemy infantry from behind. My cavalry mops up and catches and routing enemies. I always execute any prisoners (get some dread for my Royal family).

Rufus and Robert are put at the head of these armies. Rufus heads south to Bourdaux via boat and Robert sits outside Angers waiting anxiously for word of Rufus' arrival outside Bourdaux. Rufus arrives and lays seige to Bourdaux and Robert also lay seige to Angers. Bourdaux falls with almost no resistance, Angers sallies but is trumped with minimal loses. Rufus moves on to Toulouse and slaughters Frances prince and one other family member. Robert Moves on to Paris and lays seige The new Frnech prince attempts to lift the siege but gets himself killed and the French king captured (King was in Paris). I execute the King and France is no more.

It's turn 21 and I have been excommunicated and also managed to eliminate the French and Scots. Henry has proven himself in northern England is now on his way to the mainland to command a proper army of his own. Rufus is now a 10 star general and Robert is 5 stars. My King is amazingly still alive, but who knows for how long. There are many rebels in what used to be France, but I will take them at my leisure. I have neglected all infrastucture in my cities and will turtle for a bit while I build up my cities. All settlements in England have been converted to towns, but I will keep Caen, Toulouse, Bourdaux and Angers all as castles for now.

There are only to forseeable things which may cripple me. I'm still excommunicated so there will undoubtedly be some people gunning for me soon (HRE, Spain, Milan) and they will have to be dealt with. Also, I guess since my royal family has been busy from the outset and hardly in a town they all have not gotten married yet. Henry is still young so I'm not worried about dying out, but my other two generals are approaching 40 and they have developed some traits I hope to pass on to offspring. Guess since I'm turtling now would be a good time to plop them in a city and hope they pop out a kid or two before they go sterile.

gNostic Heretic
08-13-2008, 19:26
Hi. I'm at the early 14th C. now, playing England on VH/VH and hold British Isles, Scandnavia (inc. Denmark), Northern France (inc. Paris and Rheims) and the (nicely built up by the other factions') citadels of Bordeaux, Bern, Metz, Stettin, Hamburg and Nicosia. I'm at war soley with the Mongols, allied with Milan and Poland, have marriage links with France, Denmark, Poland, Russia and Hungary and have just had my fourth English pope elected in a row and have never been excommunicated. The only factions totally destroyed are the Scots and Portugese and I did everything I could to prevent that happening; I like playing against different styles of opponents (that's why I'm at war with the Mongols - to maintain the balance of power).

I play a combined form of turtling and blitzkrieg, using the turtle times to set up the right situation for successful blitzing that leaves me looking (and smelling) like the Good Guy. Duplicitousness seems to have been the key to English success historically, a means to punch well above one's weight.

Suggestions:

1. Ignore Caernarvon. The combination of walls, longbows and (to a lesser extent) mailed knights is one that, at best, will leave your island forces bogged down in a seige for some years, unable to respond to other situations that may develop, and at worst, leave your one proper army annihilated, along with your faction heir, Rufus. Take York on your first go and bring two cogs round Cornwall, to pick up your victorious York army off the coast of Lancashire to take Dublin! No walls and immediate access to those superb early war-winning flankers - Irish Kerns and Galloglaich.

2. Ignore Antwerp. This city is a poisoned chalice. In all my games so far the Scots make a beeline with their Big Stack for Antwerp. They're welcome to it. Everyone in Northern Europe wants Antwerp and will attempt to 'liberate' it for themselves turn, after turn, after turn. This ties up the Scots in a protracted war with the HRE and Danes, possibly also the French. Excommunications all round for them, trebles all round for you! Besides, Antwerp is just slightly more than a single turn's journey from Rouen (also known in the game as Caen) where most of your forces will be stationed for most of the turtling period and therefore just tantalisingly outside of the area you can dominate with a single army.

3. Bruges and Rennes are ideal additions to the glory of your throne, being within one turn distance of Rouen and trading well with London and York.

4. Get Rufus married to the French princess and get your own princess over to Denmark, married to their faction heir. You have to be quick with Denmark but a successful early alliance with Denmark will further isolate the Scots, threaten the HRE and encourage friendly relations with Poland. You can also expect some few thousand florins on tribute, maps and trade rights for these marriages. Denmark will now usually start a war within a few turns with the HRE and Scotland. :laugh4: An alliance with Milan is a Very Good Thing too as it will make the French think twice about kicking you off the continent.

5. Tech for Bows in Nottingham, Swords in Rouen, Trade in London, York, Rennes, Bruges and Dublin but only after building the first two levels of churches everywhere and spawning priests. This pleases the Holy Father no end and the sooner you can get to 100% Catholic the less likely you'll suffer at the hands of the Really Very Annoying Inquisition.

6. Now its time to take Caernarvon, protracted seige using Henry while Rufus collects together all those Peasant Archers and Priests and goes to cleanse his soul of sin using the most popular method historically, that is, with blood. To Jerusalem with you and the devil take the hindmost! I find that straight down eastern France, with spies checking for blocking units, to Marseille, picking up 4-6 of those fine Crusader Sergeants and a couple of units of Crusader Knights, buy all the boats you can, then off to Corsica, buy more boats, then Rome, more boats and a Great Cross, and down to Sicily, more boats should leave you with about 6 galleys and 2 cogs. Not a huge fleet but then, almost no-one has a huge fleet at this time. Leave enough room in your crusade for 2 Turkopoles, 2 Dismounted Knights and as many fanatics as you can get.

7. Build up nice little army of Nottingham trained Longbows (say 6-8), 2 Galloglaich and 3 Kerns stationed in Rouen. Save money by combining a strong fleet with Merchant Cavalry Militia stationed in London and stationing all your spears in your cities as free garrison units. This really is the key to salvaging your wretched early economy. Resist the temptation to train Mailed Knights.

I fought and a battle using 6 units of MCM against 6 units of Flemish Pikemen, no general on either side and won without any really losses. Breaking up their line by repeated pretend charges until one or two units start to plod slowly after you, then swarming each unit with 4 units of MCM does the trick. An attack of 6 is no worse than your own mighty spear militia, while 14 defence is miles better. Combine that with the mobilty of just being on horseback at all and that the units are pretty much FREE and you've got a fine fire-and-forget cavalry unit. I fired them at pike and lost 32 men total. On VH. That's a lesson I won't forget. Probably won't ever use them against real knights though.

3 units of Mailed Knights will gobble up nearly a grand a turn for doing exactly the same hanging around on street corners looking like a tough guy that Militia Cavalry will do for nothing. That's the same 900 florins that you could be spending on those longbows who really will do a good job of deterence.

8. While you are on crusade it is vital to build up your economy as much as possible. While on crusade you'll have that free army revenue bonus but the good times won't last and I've found myself limping home from the Holy Land, broke, bankrupt and with a huge fleet full of amazing but totally useless (at sea) Crusader Knights, Sergeants, Dismounteds and Turkopoles too many times, unable to buld anything at home. So, trade links with everyone. No offensive wars. If someone parks an army on your land, let them (except for rebels), if they seige a settlement, annihalate them, then sue for peace, seeking regular tribute and trade links. I prefer regular tribute to big cash settlements. It helps me to not spend big wads of cash all at once, on unnessesary stuff and it also gives you a clue how long before they'll be back.

9. Take Jerusalem. If there's a big Egyptian army nearby, crush it first. Sack Jerusalem and bask in the Pope's glory. Sell everything. Build a chapel, spawn a priest and then leave town immediately never to retrun. Move on to Tripoli. Repeat. You're a Grand Crusader and Christendom will turn a big blind eye to your youthful and over-exuberant shenanigans. Onwards to Ghaza. Repeat. Use the fanatics for all wall-based action. They want the Kingdom of God NOW? Their wish should be granted! If you've got enough time before a proper Egyptian army and navy turn up do the same to Damascus and Aleppo. Avoid getting entangled with the Turks. I behaved like a proper bad boy and ended up being known as Rufus the Honourable with a chivalry of 8. :laugh4:

10. By now the Egyptians will be very very upset and will be chasing you up and down the coast. Buy all the mercenary ships you can and go home, satisified at a bad job well done. I must have looted about 100,000 florins doing this, which pretty much enabled me to tech up to Yeomen and Armoureds, with Abbeys, City Halls and all that lovely trade stuff. Needless to say, all those priests, about 10 became cardinals, helped Bruge eventually become Theology Guild headquarters and led to the total domination of the Papacy thereafter

12. Take Cyprus or Rhodes on the way home. I took Cyprus; the Egyptians had invaded and taken it from the Byzantines and I heard the wine and climate are nice.

13. Nevertheless the Byzantines just ATTACKED me on the way home; for no real reason. I sought shelter on Crete and then, lo! the Scots had inneffectually attempted to take Brugesone time too many and been excommunicated at just the right moment to launch a second crusade.

14. Declared Rufus and the old crusade army for the new crusade against Edinburgh and skimmed past all enemy fleets like a fox in the night, zipping back to Corsica in record time and landing at Marseille just in time for the Pope to die and the Scots to be reconciled. I had taken Inverness in the meantime. Darn it! But at least this got me back home super quick.

15. Then the French to declared war on me, turning up in Bruges/Rouen with three full stacks and also sunk my fleet with the Great Cross on it (couldn't get it on-shore in time). Oh I was very very cross now. I had had plans to install that cross in the new Westminister Abbey as a Permanent Sign of Heaven's Favour to the Eternal Glory of my Throne, etc, etc. The French would pay. And with a 37 year old Englishman on the Papal Throne and an angry Grand Crusader as the new king, eager to avenge the loss of this Most Holy Relic which we had carried, Blessed by the Bishop of Rome himself, all the way to the Holy Land to liberate Jerusalem from the unbeliever, only to be lost forever in the Watery Deep thanks to the Vile and Treacherous French who Never Even Went On Crusade... ... You get the picture.

16. Took and sacked Marseille. My chivalry went up to ten. Trained two units of catapults and a diplomat and then gifted the city to Milan. Two of the three full stacks headed south. I demolished the other with purely missile fire. Rufus' Army of Divine Retribution headed full-speed for a full stack heading for Marseille, demolishing it and then the next and ha, ha, no big stacks left in France. So it was a logisiticly satisfying sweep to Toulouse, Bordeaux, Angers, Paris, Rheims, Metz and finally Dijon where Rufus personally killed the Demon King himself before offering terms to the new King of France (Bern only) which returned all of those territories in return for 4000 florins a turn, for twenty turns and trade rights. Needless to say I demilitarised all those settlements.

17. This left me, home, dry, with a massive load of ill-gotten gold, tribute, a fine army of battle-hardened crusader sergeants and knights and with the French impoverished and at least a generation behind me in military technology. A glass of good wine was called for.

Monsieur Alphonse
08-13-2008, 22:48
Great story :2thumbsup:

gNostic Heretic
08-14-2008, 18:11
Thanks! ~:cheers: I'll write an AAR .... one day. In the meantime, how did you do it - this awesome sounding Ten Thousand Horseman battle?

gNostic Heretic
08-14-2008, 18:44
My approach as England to the problem that is the Mongols has been an army consisting of 16 units of Retinue Longbowmen, formed in to a very very early version of an English square with a general, two turkopoles and the great cross in the centre. I find that 3 longbow to a side, with a fourth augmenting the corner, set stakes and then withdraw the cornermen in to a second inner square does the trick against these wily nomad types.

Whether I'm on attack or defence I'll always set stakes. The Mongols will almost never attack outright, until I gently move the army outside of the stakes. Then it's a case of "And they're off..." and the hardest part of the battle is getting my square back inside the stakes very very slowly while the wild hordsemen gallop full tilt towards me.

Taking the bows off fire at will until the Mongols are to just beyond point blank range is always a bit of a laugh too.

I can usually count on losing 1/6th of my force for 5/6ths of theirs, which I find ... acceptable. With the great cross present I've never seen my bows anything less than eager. The Turkopoles are there to take out artillery and chase routers.

Interestingly, I've gotten better results from setting the square on the low ground. This may be because, given the amazing reach of retinues, almost all shots are straight.

Emperor of Graal
08-14-2008, 20:32
For beginners and people on Easy/Easy:whip:
starting guide for FIRST TURN (Because I hate Easy):whip:
By now you should know you Start with London,Caen and Nottingham
Get Rufus to stay where he is on the first go (because the council give you a mission to take it on
the next couple of goes,and you get money or units.):yes:!!
Now you build roads in Nottingham and Caen to get trade:2thumbsup:
That's always good.
The 2 fleets with cogs need to combine together (ALWAYS TO THE ONE CLOSEST TO NORFOLK) or you kinda:skull::wall::furious3: So be careful,move Aston and Cecile your bishop and princess
onto the fleet and mover fleet to disembark them next to Bruges:yes:
Near Rennes you should have a Captain get him to lay siege to Rennes:hmg: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/images/smilies/misc/hmg.gif
:hmg:
Get Robert in Caen to join the captainhttps://forums.totalwar.org/vb/images/smilies/misc/brakelamp.gif
:brakelamp:
End your go and you have a good start

Monsieur Alphonse
08-15-2008, 20:54
Thanks! ~:cheers: I'll write an AAR .... one day. In the meantime, how did you do it - this awesome sounding Ten Thousand Horseman battle?

The Mongols always stick together when on the march. I Simply set up my stacks (I actually had four but the last one was too far away) so that three of my stacks were fighting against three of them. There was a lot of lag and I had only one goal and that was to kill the Mongol generals. I actually never expected to win that easy. It was a lot of fun.

Rocksaw
08-16-2008, 15:42
Hello, first post on these forums. Have played a few of the total war series over the years but never really played 'seriously'. Have dabbled in the campaign mode but mainly just messed about with all the different units in custom battles.

Reinstalled Medieval II yesterday and am trying to have a proper go at the English Campaign... Have had a little read of various tips but am mainly winging it and hoping for the best.. Will give you a run down of what I'm doing and hopefully some of you can tell me if I'm doing ok or have gone horribly wrong and perhaps offer advice to set me on the path to glory.

First of all I should say my campaign is set up as follows...English Campaign. Medium/Medium difficulty... perhaps should've tried easy first but I feel like if i'm not playing any game on at least normal/medium or equivalent then am not playing the game as intended thus spoiling it for me. Other campaign options are set as... Long Campaign rules, Tell Me everything for the help option, Manage All Cities, Show AI turns and No Battle Time limit (this was unchecked but I can't imagine an hour of battle passing or whatever and the generals saying ok full time, we enjoyed killing you today, time to go home.. doesn't really sit well does it?) Oh and am patched up to v1.3 if that makes any difference. /shrug

I'm onto turn 5 at the moment and this is how I've gone about the business of world domination...

I have trade rights with france and scotland, am allied with france and just married princess cecilia to the french faction heir pushing our relations up to very good.

Prince Rufus has successfully besieged and taken York without venturing to the battle map, the rebels gave up without issue after 2 turns. Have set York to low taxes to encourage population growth and to aid this have built land clearance, income from here is 665. Yorks army is Prince Rufus, x2 Peasant Archers, x2 Spear Militia, x1 Mercenary Crossbowmen and x2 Welsh Spearmen (Mercenaries.) The scots have disembarked a sizeable military force just off the coast near York, sabre rattling I guess.


Down in Nottingham I have constructed Land Clearance, Dirt Roads and am currently building a bowyer and training up a unit of Hobilars to add to the tiny miltary presence there. Only have x1 Peasant Archers, x2 Spear Militia and x1 Hobilars there right now. Nottingham currently has an income of 824.


Moving further down to the capital London, I've built a market and am midway constructing Mines to add to the 973 income. Guarding the capital is a force comprising of King William, x1 Peasants, x1 Town Militia and x2 Spear Militia.


Across the channel in Normandy, Caen has x2 Spear Militia and x1 Peasants defending it... not the ideal defensive force. Caen has an income of 735 and have so far built Land Clearance and Roads. A small 2 unit french army is hovering outside Caen, we're allied so I'm not too threatened... I have the option

Finally, the army that should be back protecting our castle at Caen is over to the west, manning a siege of Rennes. Robert is in command here, his troops are... x1 Hobilars, x2 Peasant Archers, x3 Spear Militia, x1 Levy Spearman and x1 Peasants.

My empires coffers are fairly low, 1449 gold with a projected 2215 gold next turn.

...and thats the lay of the land as of turn 5 or the summer of 1088.


So what do you think? Things going ok? Or am I leaving places such as Caen far too vulnerable? Any advice, suggestions, comments, anything welcome... Really trying to get a decent grasp of campaign gameplay this time round... can tell theres a good game in here if I can just get used to playing more strategically. Thanks for reading, I know I went on a bit.

gNostic Heretic
08-18-2008, 15:03
Welcome to the Org, Rocksaw! :2thumbsup: Good steady start there. No, you didn't go on too much. May I suggest Dublin for your Yorkist army. Bring your fleet round to the north of Wales (where Liverpool would be now) and board the York army. Meanwhile bring your troops up from Nottingham to secure York. Dublin has no walls, however it does have Galloglaich and Kerns aplenty. The key to this day's battle will be your archers.

If you can bring your whole army round to the other side of the town where there is an entrance flanked on the left by a small hill and farmstead and set your archers up on that to shoot through the gaps in the buildings and put your spear across the entrance backed up by your cavalry you'll be able to pull one unit out of the town at a time.

If you're feeling adventurous repeatedly charge your general into the kerns from the original entrance point for extra valour points and bravery traits while bringing your army round the town.

Dublin's a fine money-spinner and the local mercenaries are my favourites. If you put a unit each of kerns and galloglaich on your flanks and use them in combination like flanking legionaries you'll soon see the benefit: kerns sling javelins into the back of the main enemy line while it is engaged with your spear wall, then in come the galloglaich! Prefer this combination to cavalry. Robin Hoods (Sherwood Foresters) and DEK's make an execellent high period replacement for this flanking style.

Avoid the temptation to take Antwerp. There is no easier way to make enemies of all your immediate neighbours than to take this town.

One of the great things about England is that it is an island. :wall: Dur, obviously! One of the annoying things about merchants is that they cost 550 florins to recruit, you send 'em off to get some of that fine wine or iron on the continent and next turn or so they get aquired by enemy merchants. Not much return for your investment. The tin mines of Cornwall, the silver mines of Ireland and Northumbria and the wool of Mercia are great training locales for your merchants, giving them the experience points necessary to survive the cut and thrust of European business.

Hope this was of some good use. Here's strength to your sword-arm!:duel:

Rocksaw
08-18-2008, 19:11
Yes, it will be very helpful! I've since restarted, and now plan on restarting again. Each time I'm learning a little more about what and what not to do. I like the fact you've given me some military tactics and units to recruit, thanks.

My main issue is mustering effective armies, they somehow end up being ragtag useless forces of basic militia and freebie knights. Really struggle with that and what buildings to add to my settlements and castles. I read about building economic buildings first, but even still I always seem to have low funds to build up armies.

Have been looking for a step by step hand holding guide but can't seem to find one.. oh well, hopefully third time lucky. Shall run a pretty much carbon copy of what I was doing up to my post above and employ the tactics you gave and see how I get on.

kitbogha
08-20-2008, 18:46
Welcome Rocksaw,
I think you're doing ok the way you're going. The key seems to be periods of expansion tempered by periods of consolidation-the trick is knowing when to do which one!
Unit composition choices are always personal so you need to find out what works best for you (you could try out a few custom battles to do this).
I find that a forward line of archers/skirmishers backed by spearmen/heavy infantry and flanked by heavy cavalry and backed up by light cavalry (they can be sent in to round up routing units) works best for me. The english longbowmen unit is one of the best in the game and has the great advantage of being able to plant a line of stakes in front of them to deter enemy cavalry charges. I remember dispatching almost a whole army of Mongols by this method once. Tech up the archery buildings in Nottingham to get them. A sneaky trick is to set them up with their stakes where you feel you might be outflanked then on starting the battle move your archers to where you really want them, leaving their stakes behind as added defenses (if being sieged you can even set up the stakes directly behind your main gate (or wherever you feel the wall will be breached)and watch the enemy cavalry rip themselves to shreds as they storm in!).
Also, some of your basic units (levy spearmen, mailed knights etc) will retain their usefulness even when better (and more expensive) troops become available so don't feel the need to replace everything when you get the chance.
Use your militia troops to garrison your settlements and your best troops for the main battles.
Try to keep a good balance of castles to cities, I find a 1:5 ratio works well. Once you command the whole British Isles you can even do away with all the castles there-cities are your money makers.
Another small point:alliances. Get one with the Pope and play him for all you're worth. Cosy in nice and be popular with him (keep giving him map info and if need be small gifts of money) and you get to call the shots on where crusades happen-i.e. against your enemies! If you are crusading you get access to lots of good troops which stick around even after the crusade finishes. In a game, playing as Sicily I managed to call all of the crusades for the enitire game. It's a self reinforcing thing as well, when you successfully crusade, your popularity with the Pope goes up making it easier to call the next one.
Having played as all the factions I think that England is the most fun, so good luck, go and stick it to them!!!

Socrateach
09-29-2008, 03:43
Greetings.

Playing as England, I took some sage advice from previous posters and turned Carnaevon & Inverness into cities for trade purposes (and also because they're a bit out of the way to ferry troops when quick action is needed). I kept Nottingham as my bowman center, which worked out extremely well. I used Caen as my infantry factory, which was similarly successful.

Now, the rub: After turn 50 or so, when diplomacy began to turn to insanity on some other nations' parts, I felt a bit lacking in cavalry. After early crusading I had gained a Hospitalier Major Guild House in Caen, but with that also being for infantry, the castle is in a bit of a crunch when I need lots of troops for a new army.

I'd appreciate some advice about what to change; I did not turn any cities (Bruges, Rennes, etc.) into castles. Should I try to entice France to swap me Angers, or would that only make them angry? Is there a continental city that would be ideal for castle-izing?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts and comments.

TKaz84
09-29-2008, 04:25
When you need another castle, you always want to convert the province that will result in the smallest income loss. Thus you want to look for a province that is a) poor for farming and b) inland. Most of the french provinces are fairly fertile IIRC, so you will want to find one that has no port so you won't lose out on sea trade. asngers would do nicely if you can get it.

Quillan
10-02-2008, 15:40
I've played three England campaigns. In every one of them I've wound up at war with the French, and never by my own aggression. So, I've always made Angers into a castle after I captured it, and switched Caen to a city.

TheLastPrivate
10-03-2008, 13:36
Honestly I hate having nottingham as a castle. It makes way too much money to keep it as a castle.

Same for Caen. I hate keeping Caen a castle. Well, what castles do I have?

Here is my opening moves for the isles:

1) Take York and Caernarvon. Move a ship towards the landbridge that connects Ireland with the rest of the island. Wait for the single scottish stack to cross it then block it with your ship.

2) With the majority of their forces doomed in Ireland, wipe out the scottish. When that's done, use a navy to ferry your troops to Dublin and capture it. At this point the scottish shuld be wiped out due to having no castles/generals, or even if they captured doublin they should have suffered losses and should pose no trouble.

^ All of the above should be done in 6~10 turns, depending on scottish movement.
While the scots are being mopped up, a diplomat/princess should:

1) Ask for Angers while giving trade rights, alliance, map info and maybe some florins.
They should budge after some negotiations.

2) The other should run to Rome to pay the pope.

If the French are allies, where shuld we expand?

Go Scandinavia. Secure Florence, Bruges, and skip hamburg (this will be buffer for HRE and you if the Danish took it), and take Oslo, Arhus, and Stockholm. Blockcade the land bridge from denmark to Scandinavia to avoid nasty surprises.

Now you control all of the northern seas from British Isles to the Balic. This should bring you enough cash to simply overrun everything with spammed armoured swords/longbows/mailed knights.

Sooner or later the Spanish/Portugese will siege either Rennes/Dublin/Caernarvon. Have a stack or 2 around to repel them. If the French are at heavy war with HRE and lacks the military power to backstab, you can forget the French and actually go to Iberia.

Basically, my strategy involves following a costal trade path. The trade from costal cities more than make up for garrison and tax losses due to having a stretched-out empire. B

Lord Preston
10-07-2008, 03:10
I started a new campaign today and did a few things differently than previously.

I'm with the Nottingham should be a city crowd. Basically I go to secure the uk isles ASAP, typically Scotland is gone well before turn 10 (turn 6,7 or 8). Once they're gone its just seiges which archers and cavalry don't help a great deal with so what is the point in a castle instead of just a city and using militia and mercs.... no point in my eyes. I get what I can in the first couple of turns (cavalry) then switch it to a city.

My understanding on how to train generals/governers is better. After the starting king died around turn 25 I have 3 generals. The current king and hier are high chivalry through occupying the scotland+ireland cities with one general and the other through pumping out church+priests thats also gave him good piety, this should hopefully make for good governor sons. They also have 6+ stars since they've been fighting lots but they'll get retired when the sons come of age. My 3rd general is Henry, the youngest and already a high dread+command leader who's razed a rebel cities and 3 of Frances cities. I've avoided many of the bad traiting i've picked up in previous games through understanding the tax levels+happyness combinations and such.

Previously my diplomacy was limited to trade rights and map trades, plus the obvious money gifts to the pope to keep him sweet. I've decided to put more effort into keeping allies happy, previously i've just thought "why pay them when they're going to double cross me, put the money towards an army and :smash: them" but i've only got 3 generals currently spread thin with France being such a big landmass and I hate armies going rebel so won't move armies without a general. Currently i've been keeping Denmark sweet since sending my first princess to form a marrage alliance. By the time they came to Antwerp (i think, near bruges) I had secured the uk isles and had my economy going so I trained a diplomat to send specifically to them so I can bung them the occational 1k or 2k when our relationship drops. I've kept it above So-So and they haven't double crossed me yet allowing me to concentrate on finishing France and keep another to cover HRE and the Milanesse.


The best tip I can give is ignore the pope while your first king is alive. I got excommunicated for keeping attacking France, I was able to take 4 French cities before my king died and I got re-communicated (I think thats what its called) and bunged the pope a few k and was well in his good books. I've taken another french city before getting that "pope wants you to stop attacking so and so" leaving them with 2 cities until I can attack again. The turn he typically dies is the mid 20's so starting a war or if they betray you in the late teen's, take as much as you can get. :smash: I think i'll take advantage of getting re-communicated when the king dies more, when my prince is ready to lead, keep attacking then when done with that offensive suicide the king into something and get recommunicated :2thumbsup:.

floydsvoid123
11-27-2008, 21:23
Playing M/M campaign on 1.0 vanilla, 2 years per turn.

My experience with the English indicates that southward expansion will be your primary game. Your secondary game will be against to the east, against the Danes. This is geared toward a North Sea trade triangle (the North Sea is the water between the British Isles, Denmark/Jutland, Scandinavia, and the Flemish provinces), which should prove incredibly lucrative, probably almost as much as the Italian trade triangles in the Mediterranean. Key settlements to aim for should be Edinburgh, Antwerp, Bruges, Oslo, and Arhus, all port cities on the North Sea. Key castles for me would be Tolouse for southern units production against the Italians and Iberians, Caen for the Woodsman's guild and the initial fight against the French (later the Milanese and the HRE), Hamburg for the HRE and defense of Denmark and the Flemish provinces, and Nottingham for the initial attack on Denmark (and maybe a cavalry factory later on).

Like most people, I first unified the British Isles. It is possible to defeat Scotland with assassins, since they have all of about 3 generals, none of which are very concerned with personal security. However, this way is risky as you need all the money you can get in the beginning. Take York quickly for the mission bonuses and upgrade to a town, in the meantime going for Edinburgh. If you do so fairly quickly the Scots will not even get to Inverness. A problem with this plan is that (at least in 1.0) the Scots have a fairly large starting stack of archers and infantry that probably outnumber you. So use that spy! It is essential to take Edinburgh the moment you siege it, otherwise you'll be facing a stack of infantry that will rip your militia apart. Your only choices to defeat these infantry are your cavalry, which are few are far between and will take heavy damages from those Scottish spears. Taking Edinburgh will force the Scottish stacks to become rebels for you to deal with at your leisure (I tend to use the rebel generals to train my best assassins). After Edinburgh, you can go for Caernavon and Inverness, both of which should become cities (even Nottingham is way more than enough for the Isles). Try not to use up too many men against the Scots and the rebels, as Dublin tends to be a nasty battle for me (those Galloglaichs are definitely one of the most annoying units to fight against in towns - they massacre your units with their superior attack, AP, and ability to overwhelm your units in tight areas). Ireland tends to be a good place to train up your Cardinal, plus there's a heretic to get you an extra piety point. Once your conquest of the British Isles is over, build up those towns quickly. Edinburgh and London tend to get problems with overpopulation and squalor since your funds are often too low to recruit and build walls at the same time, but for now you have an excellent economic base. Build up Nottingham to produce better units, both for against the rebels and for your future conquest of the Danes.

In the south, you have Caen. Caen is an excellently positioned castle, between several rebel settlements and upgraded quite well when you start. Your immediate priority is to recruit longbows. Remember that longbows are an excellent defensive unit during sieges - leaving about 3 or 4 in Caen, plus maybe a few spears, will render it invincible to French attack. I tried going for Bruges and Antwerp, but the superior Flemish units easily repelled me (those Flemish pikes especially - the Netherlands would have made an amazingly powerful faction had they been a contending faction in the era, just like the Swiss with their pikes). So don't go for the Flemish provinces yet, instead, go for Rennes. It's a fairly small town and easy to take, take it mostly for extra cash and maybe a ballista production center. Bordeaux should be your next target if the French don't have it. Keep it a castle only long enough to retrain your cavalry, then change it to a town. By now the French have attacked you, unless you got an alliance in early, in which case they will do so in a few turns. I believe Angers begins as a rebel settlement - take it after Bordeaux if it is, after the French declare war if they've taken it. Use it with Caen to produce longbows for now, turn it into a city later on. Don't bother with military upgrades for Angers, go with economic and religious buildings.

Here I went for a blitz against France. Since Milan was occupying their attention to the east, I had a bit of time to build up. I made 4 10 or more stack armies of longbows/yeomen, mailed knights (I had no proper stables upgrades for feudals in Caen), and maybe some levy spears or billmen (only for siege or river crossing purposes). I also trained some 4 or 5 spies and set them loose in Northern France, putting them into Dijon and Paris. I sent my ballistae and catapults also to Dijon and Rheims and down south to Tolouse. I gathered the stacks within walking distance of each settlement, and when the moment was ripe, I struck. Clear victories for every battle, 3 new cities and a castle, and the French were pretty much done for (the Pope threatened excommunication so I didn't go for Marseille, which had a full garrison anyway). Tolouse I kept as a castle to protect my Pyrenees frontier and to produce cavalry for a Horse Breeder's guild. I could probably go attack the Danes now, or secure Antwerp and Bruges (they might still be French, maybe Milanese). Antwerp and Bruges is probably a very good idea for the massive trade boost, plus the Danes tend to be extremely weak without those cities (with them, or even with just Antwerp, the Danes tend to be a very strong faction - it happens in some campaigns I play). Hamburg will be my first target, to pretty much destroy the Danes' military potential, gain a very well upgraded castle/fortress (I might be able to train English Knights, or the dismounted version), and threaten the Poles and the HRE. Use the force from the assault on Dublin and your units from Nottingham.

As things stand, the French are pretty much out of the game and don't require much consideration (they'll probably die out to Milan in the end). I am bordering Milan and the Portuguese. The Portuguese tend not to be a problem - the Iberian map is pretty much the same as the beginning of the game, with the Portuguese moving around a few settlements and losing them to the Spanish. I could easily attack now, but I prefer to spend my florins on eastward expansion (the Iberian Peninsula, in my opinion, just isn't worth the investment and will only be good for training cardinals). Milan will likely be a strong opponent. However, the Genoese crossbows and their militia counterparts are nowhere near as flexible as my longbows, yeomen, retinues, and sherwoods - none of them can deploy stakes, so they're vulnerable to cavalry, they run slower, making them less effective skirmishers, and they can't fire flaming arrows (which I believe are more deadly, but fire slower). They may have a stronger missile attack, but they reload a lot slower (I think half as fast), and in melee combat the longbows (especially the higher level ones) will prevail. Their strong militia may be a problem, but they will fall to the passive ai bug and my missile dominance. The Milanese tend not to use a lot of cavalry, if any, so I believe fighting them will be fairly easy. The Danes are infantry-dominant as well, and do not have long range missiles, so they will be easily defeated as well (I could probably beat them with a full stack longbow army). The HRE may be a problem due to their numerous cavalry and masses of infantry, but again, stakes and missiles. Always use the mountains for terrain advantages. Their units may be very heavy and strong, but suffer in speed as a consequence, so wear them down with steep slopes and AP arrow fire. One the HRE are done with, I could descend into Italy or expand into Poland, which may be a problem because of their horse archers, but they lack long range missiles so I could kill them off from a distance.

Now for the Papacy. Aston, your cardinal, has a very good chance of getting into the Pope's seat. I normally see two heretics in the British Isles and Ireland near the beginning of the game. You may want to keep the heretic in Ireland there for a while to build up heresy and use it to gain a few piety points. Aside from these, it may be difficult to gain piety. Since York and Nottingham seem to be centers of heresy, I use them to get Aston more points. One thing I do is train priests, preferably with 1 piety and maybe the odd habits line of traits, and use them to try and denounce the heretics. Quite often, they will fail, either becoming heretics themselves or gaining unorthodoxy and falling to heresy the second time around. Use Aston or a priest you're training up to denounce them.

A secret to the Papacy is that gaining cardinals is not always the best way to control it. As England you have very little opportunity to convert large masses to Catholicism. What you should do instead is expand. Aggressive expansion nets you large power and wealth ratings, and factions are always willing to align themselves with the most powerful of them all. Take all of the British Isles and quite a bit of France before Gregory dies, and you'll have a "Supreme" power rating in diplomacy. Use it when Papal elections come up to secure trade rights, map information, and most of all, alliances. Factions will vote for cardinals using the following priorities: Their own cardinals first, allied cardinals second, and most piety third, with eligibility, violence, purity, and unorthodoxy coming in if there is a tie for piety. So securing those alliances will net you the votes you need. As for map information, most factions will find simple alliance to be very generous of you, so get yourself an accurate overview of the state of things in Europe. Note: Don't bother with ceasefires in Papal elections, they won't vote for you no matter what you do by then.

Whew, that was long. Have fun!

Alerion
11-27-2008, 23:30
I took a different route towards winning and took out the Scots first and then crusaded into the Holy Land, setting up kind of a crusaders kingdom there... Beat the Egyptians out of Jerusalem, Acre, Gaza, Antiochia and Alexandria and then made them my Vassals. I now turned on the Danes without any problems with the Pope since they are massive bad guys in this campaign and are permanently excommunicated... I mean when theres a new Pope everyone's reconciled but it only takes 1-2 turns and they're out again ^^

So I allied with the French in the beginning. I sold Caen to them so I had no problems at all with them and they and the Spanish are my allies for the whole campaign until now... The Portuguese declared war on me once but the Spanish have kept them off ma back pretty good and the French are a little weakened through the Portuguese and Milan but since Milan has been destroyed by the Pope (!) there is no direct danger to them... so with England pretty safe and a healthy crusader kingdom (gave the egypts a good amount of money to 1. make them happy and 2. make sure they can defend against the Venetians who conquered the gigantic african province and are trying to attack Cairo every once in a while - the Turks arent allies but I never had war with them and the relations are pretty good so I call it a lasting peace...) I am taking out the Danes now and we'll see what`s next... Probably the HRE, since they are pretty low on Papal standing and I try to be the nice catholic guy this time...

Mek Simmur al Ragaski
12-05-2008, 23:26
I did what everybody else seems to have done, i conquered most of the British isles, and eliminated the the Scots before they had time to expand. I then turned my attention to France and the Holy Lands. Just as i was about to declare war on France, as i had a decent foothold, i had taken Bruges, Rennes and i still had Cannes, a crusade was called on Jerusalem. I decided to divert my faction heir to this, as sent him on a boat down to southern france - northern spain, where i hopped over to the mediterreanen and got another boat to take my soldiers to Jerusalem. Here is what i did:

1. I went everywhere but Jerusalem, i took of Acre, Alexandria, Cairo and any other Egyptian provinces with my crusading army. By the time i took Jerusalem, i had completely got rid of the Egyptians. Not liking large multi-national empires, i executed the population of the cities and destroyed all buildings worth money before gifting them to the papal states.

2. I then used my crusading army and pretty much destroyed all other forces, causing huge losses to many Muslim nations, such as Turkey and Byzantine, although i didnt bother with the Moors.

When i had pretty much wasted all of my crusading troops, i had made around 30000 gold from extermiating the cities and handing them over to the papal states, i returned my faction heir to England, the crusades had toughened him up sufficiently to become the next king of England.

I then concentrated on France, rushing down and quickly securing Angers and letting the French invasion forces waste their armies trying to regain their lost city. From there I am planning on rushing into Paris and down to Bordeux and then an Eastern Expansion into Switzerland, Germany and Italy.

boudica
12-06-2008, 13:40
Alerion, How did you manage to avoid losing your Crusading army to desertion if you did everything BUT head straight for Jerusalem?

boudica
12-06-2008, 13:44
Alerion, How did you manage to avoid losing your Crusading army to desertion if you did everything BUT head straight for Jerusalem?
Sorry! that question was for Insane834!

Mek Simmur al Ragaski
12-06-2008, 17:28
Boudica, if you get there quick enough, then you can have some time to wander over to your crusade target. Also desertion isnt really a big problem, i bought the soldiers for around 100 florins, and the money you save because of the free upkeep is sufficient enough to buy more soldiers while the others desert. Also if you bring seige equipment with you, such as ballistas or catapults, you can quickly seige a city in 1 turn, so there isnt much chance of desertion.

For the rest of my England campaign, i was playing all of last night and a little this morning so ill tell you what happened next:

After taking Bruges, Rennes and keeping Cannes, I waited a while and built up a few armies to defend my fronts. The French attacked Rennes and i beat them back and took Paris and then a few turns later the city to its east. I then created two armies and sent one down to Bordeaux, and the other to capture Antwerp. At this point the French had lost much land, as HRE and Milan and Venice had been attacking them too, they were beaten back to a town in central France, south east of Bordeaux that i have forgotten the name of. The Pope then ordered me to stop advancing on the French or I might be excommunicated, so i did.

On my other front on Antwerp, the Danes came down and made a bold attempt to capture Antwerp, which failed and i rushed north and captured the two Danish settlements north of Antwerp. I then had the pope call a crusade on the Danes, on a minor city, and made a crusading army and instead of going to the objective, i rushed into Arhus and took it, along with the Danish settlement south of it. The pope again spoiled my fun by making me stop attacking Danes, so i used my gained gold and bought Madgeburg for 25,000 florins.

I then had a few problems with the HRE when they brought several large armies and attacked of my settlements, which i fought back. This is where I am now, I plan to Eliminate the French, Danes and Romans before moving down and destroying Venice who oddly declared war on me earlier for no apparent reason. The Gunpowder age has just started, with cannons being available for purchase. However I am the only one who has mastered them yet it seems, as many of my enemies are still fighting with spearmen, and are just starting to bring in some Heavy Infantry.

Alerion
12-07-2008, 21:10
2. I then used my crusading army and pretty much destroyed all other forces, causing huge losses to many Muslim nations, such as Turkey and Byzantine, although i didnt bother with the Moors.


You do realize there are other religions than Catholicism and Islam, right? ;)

Other than that, sounds like an interesting campaign, though the lack of your opponents advancing in technology makes me ask: Which difficulty?

Mek Simmur al Ragaski
12-07-2008, 21:31
I did it on Medium/Medium although on my next campaign I plan to raise the battle difficulty as it is getting tedious killing 1000's of men and hardly losing any of my soldiers. The Black Death has just spread in my campaign, just as I conquered all of France too...

Alerion
12-08-2008, 00:15
You should really try to also raise the campaign diff. - I dont have the game for too long but I got bored quickly with lower campaign difficulties, since the opponents seem to stagnate in everything... Your dominance on the battlefield could easily also come from your opponents fielding levies while you run into them with english knights, retinue longbowmen and armored swordsmen ;)

Mek Simmur al Ragaski
12-08-2008, 17:35
A good point, I might just do that because I stupidly saved over my England Campaign...:oops:
Yeah so ill try a different faction on raised battle difficulty/campaign difficulty and see how it turns out. Maybe a different faction too, the HRE sounds good

Mek Simmur al Ragaski
12-13-2008, 20:42
Another Tip:

If you start to conquer, dont stop! I had numero uno in every ranking thing, then I stopped to build up my forces and I was betrayed by 5 of my allys at the same time. Denmark hit Antwerp and Rheims, France attacked Dijon, Milan went for Angers, The Moors attacked my lone city of Tunis, and Egypt attacked Jerusalem and Acre. Also the Mongols came and took over whatever the Egyptians managed to take from me. If I hadn't of stopped I would have destroyed the French and the Danes would be next, now I'm going to have to bring my soldiers together from Africa and assault southern France and Italy to get my economic stability back.

oz_wwjd
12-14-2008, 12:17
I've found that as well. In my 2 attempted English campaigns so far,in the first one I was unable to secure a marriage alliance with the french early,so they attacked Caen,and were beaten back with heavy losses,due to the 8 units of longbowmen I had in there.Then Denmark launched a series of attacks against Bruges,forcing me to rush my longbow army up there via ship to deal with them,and Portugual decided that they wanted Dublin,forcing me to hire every merc in the area to repulse them.After I defeated them 3 times they switched to Caernorvon,again forcing me to hire mercs to deal with the stack of Dis feudal Knights they had. Then the spanish decided they wanted REnnes and landed a full-stack army there,against forcing me to ship my longbow army back to deal with them,shortly after that I started over as I could see that I wasn't going to get anywhere.

In my next go, I managed to secure a marrange allaince with the French,but while I was moping up the scots,the HRE decided that they wanted rennes and turned up with a full-stack army,which seeoing that I had just transferred everything to dublin as the last scot king had a 1,500 army which I needed to deal with,pretty much screwed me over.

Mek Simmur al Ragaski
12-14-2008, 12:33
Yeah I know it sucks when your hit by several allys at the same time. Thankfully, HRE is also struggling, and I've been allied with them from the start of the game. If they had attacked, i'd have probably lost all continental Europe cities. These weren't just half stacks i was attacked with either, they are full stacks, and half the time it's countries that can't even financially support their armies that are fielding them.

Schiltrom
12-14-2008, 15:21
Make use of your starting favour with the Pope. Begin a Crusade against Jerusalem. Try to get there first. Take Jerusalem (along with the Pope's reward) and expand across Africa. From this point onwards, try to maintain alliances, don't bribe, and only attack if attacked and/or betrayed (for trustworthyness, it really makes diplomatic deals easier). Take part in any crusades that are called, and try to get to the target first. This way, although slow, allows military build up, and is the easy way to victory.

Mek Simmur al Ragaski
12-14-2008, 22:20
I have gone back to my badly going English campaign, in which I had been invaded by literally all of my allies except the HRE. I managed to recapture all of my cities and bribed the Pope lots of money to get my favour up. When my previous allies attacked me, they were almost instantly excommunicated, even the Danes and there was a Danish Pope.

After my previous humiliation, I launched an offensive into Danish territory in central Europe. I took Bern, which they had taken from HRE, and the settlement north of it. Im going to recapture Metz soon, which has a full stack garrisoning it, and a citadel. I also took Paris, which had been splitting my different cities, and was well worth it.

I also managed to call a crusade on Milan, the backstabbing runts. I took Genoa and Milan within 3 turns from the start of the crusade. I then crushed the Danes crusaders with help from the HRE. I left my empire in Egypt, I'm not ready to fight the Mongols yet. When I have eliminated the Danes and Milan, I plan to take the war to the Moors and possibly Portugal because i am planning on taking complete control of France, and they have taken Bordeux, and another settlement in southern France. Spain has proved to be reliable, I dont plan to break my alliance with them yet.

Mek Simmur al Ragaski
12-17-2008, 20:54
Another update on my campaign, here is an image:

https://i287.photobucket.com/albums/ll147/Insane834/medieval22008-12-1719-35-15-56.jpg

As you can see from this, my empire is very small given the time period. This because i prefur to have economic stability, and I prefur to be able to support my armys and still make profit. I also like to turtle, and just see what is going on at different places on the map.

My treasury is very low because i recently bought huge walls, farms and ports for every settlement.

Magraev
12-18-2008, 11:03
Looks like you have it under control.

Nice empire.

Mek Simmur al Ragaski
12-18-2008, 19:46
Thanks, i've been slowly expanding and putting fairly large garrisons in cities too keep them under control. I have also set Paris as my new capital, so that when certain things get 'distance from capital' as a downside on public order, it isnt there anymore.

I didn't play very much last night, but recently the Spanish cancelled our alliance, and enraged, I rushed down to kick them out of Bordeux. The English are not too be messed with....

oz_wwjd
12-19-2008, 06:16
I'm pursuring a somewhat different goal in my campaign. While my army of longbowmen and Mailed Knights teach the Danish why it's not a good idea to mess with me,my Crusader King and his army are over in Egypt,busy seiging their cities one by one. As I capture them I sack them for money to feed my war machine,hold them long enough to get a few priests out,then sell everything in the city,let it go rebel,then move on to the next target. Strangely enough,since I concluded a marriage alliance with the french they have been somewhat less aggressive against me than usual, I suspect they are fully engaged against the spanish/milanese,but the HRE has been sending small stack to attempt to take Bruges,only to be mowed down to the last man by the 10 units of longbowmen/yeomen archers I have stationed in caen,just in case anyone tries anything stupid.

Necceh
12-22-2008, 18:28
My first game in MTW II was with the English and it didn't quite go according to plan. It was played a few weeks after release, so forgive any vauge details in here as that was quite some time ago.

My aim throughout the game was to serve the papacy, as i feel it adds more dimenson to the game. War with France and Scotland were unavoidable and so i accepted that i would have to endure the wrath of the pope for these, but hopefully i could get this over with quickly.

I started off with annihilating the french early on (i think i had Paris before i had finished off the Scots). Unfortunatley then the the Danes prevented me from finishing them off, forcing my hand after they hit normandy.

Me being at war with 2 christian factions (and after killing the Scots) had put me in the popes bad books. So i accepted his mission to cease hostilities with the French. The war with the Danes essentially drew me towards the Baltics, which is not the direction i wanted to head. Never the less i figured it would be intriguing to see what the long term effects would be of a prolonged campaign through the baltics and then into Russian territory. If succesful i could avoid a lot of the Catholic factions and still hold a large amount of territory.

In order to improve logistics i wanted a sea and land route to Russia, so turned on the Polish, despite them being Catholic i decided it was worth it. This actually took longer than i had initially anticipated with the remenant Danish and Poles proving quite a tough challenge, forcing me back on several occastions. There was a point i almost decided to abandon the campaign entirely, especially after a ressurgent France made an attempt with the Spanish to take back some of their lands. Initial success in Bordeaux left me slightly worried but my counter attack proved succesful, leaving me with more territory than before, after the Spanish were unable to reinforce their frontiers before the pope intervened once again. The French were down to one city (Marseille), and i begrudginly accepted the pope's orders to cease hosilities with them before i could finish them off. I wasn't really looking to finish the game at any point so didn't mind leave the French alive in the long run as this was my first game and i was to immersed to care about winning it in any real sense.

After my success i turned towards Russia once again, fighting off the temptation to ignore the papacy and deviate from my initial strategy to go after Spain and then finally the Moors.

I finished off Poland and Denmark and decided to prepare for a Medeivla rendition of operation Barbarossa. This involved building a defensive perimeter of castles along my border.

The border was with Hungary, HRE and Venice in central europe and a border with Spain in Southern France (and the french themselves). I was constantly attacked from most of these, having to maintain standing armies to deal with incursions until the pope would intervene and request a truce.

It was after realizing just how bloody big Russia was, that i decided perhaps this wasn't the most inspirational decision i had ever made, but i soldiered on (heh) regardless. I created 3 huge armies and began my march east. The conquest itself was rather easy, with my main worries being closer to home, and within 40 turns i had what i thought was most of Russia.

Seeing as this was my first game, i hadn't quite figured out all of the city locations, and much to my horror my spies were discovering more and more Russian cities and towns to the east. I figured it would only be a handful of them given the amount if uninhabbited land Russia holds, but this wasn't the case.

I was then presented with the issue of distance from capital effecting morale in the newly conquered lands (even some of the Polish towns and Cities were a pain). Constant attacks from central europe weren't helping either. With much of my resources going on securing the borders i held there. There was even an instance when Spain, HRE and France attacked in the same turn on three seperate cities, leaving me heavily stretched afterwards and worried that any further assaults would break my lines. Thankfully i was given plenty of time to recouperate by the AI.

Anyways i had finally finished off Russia but was paying through my nose on upkeep and much of the loot money that had kept my campaign going was starting to run out and the infrastructure of the East wasn't able to maintain the army that had been raised to conqueror it.

I then thought 'to hell with it' and invaded the last remaining French Castle to win the game.

I was truly gutted that i didn't get to take on the Turks (and the Mongols), but at the same time it was a nice change to go after the Russians, but found it highly annoying that the one thing from preventing me ensuring a catholic conquest of the world was the bloody catholics themselves, especially as it would seem that the pope was angry because i was at war with so many Catholic factions, ignoring entirely the fact that i hadn't started any of them.

Was fun none the less and i really enjoyed the game, makes for a refreshing change as opposed to the usual English strategy.

Mek Simmur al Ragaski
12-22-2008, 18:55
Nice campaign, Neeceh, you've taken a different approach to the English campaign than most people, you seem to have conquered the north, when many people try to take Italy and Spain. I never really saw much that was worth anything in the north, but attacking a non-catholic nation would be good, as change from the Pope giving you grief.

Timmy Boy
01-05-2009, 12:50
I think I'm playing on M/M at the moment and it seems to be going quite well for me. I'm not that far in but I think I'm at the point where the plan is starting to take shape ;). I like to use the English for two reasons: 1) I like their playing style on the battlefield (lots of hard infantry and archers with a bit of cavalry for flexibility) and 2) the British Isles themselves are fairly well isolated from attack, so IMO compared to most other factions you get a decent amount of time to build up and a bit more choice of who you want to go to war with. To be fair I'm only playing the short campaign for the moment in order to unlock the other factions, but I will probably carry on playing afterwards.

At the beginning I was cautious not to overstretch myself because most English starting troops are just a few crappy militia units, and although the Scots only had one province their armies were quite concentrated IIRC and highlanders are decent anti-spearmen/militia troops at this point. So I allied myself with them, with the Danes (because the HRE are potential enemies, being near my mainland European provinces), and also with the Pope, which I supplemented by making sure every province had some kind of church and a priest; my papal reputation was soon "perfect". At the same time I built at least basic farms everywhere and set about taking the rebel provinces of Dublin, Rennes, York, Caernarvon and Bruges.

Once I felt ready to attack Scotland I moved a fairly large army up to besiege Edinburgh. The Pope told me to cease hostilities, so I moved my army back down into York without any actual fighting. It wasn't long before they came down and besieged York with a fairly large army. The ensuing fight was pretty brutal but I defeated the Scots by bottlenecking them as they came through the battered gate, and killed two of their family members in the process. The Scots were excommunicated for attacking me so I got the Pope to call a crusade against them, which I obviously joined. By this point I had shipped my first few regiments of longbowmen up from Nottingham to join the force besieging Edinburgh, and when the Scots counter-attacked they got thoroughly spanked, losing their King, his heir and Edinburgh, which I sacked for adbout 8000 florins. Their only remaining territory is a small garrison in Inverness.

My continental territories of Bruges and Caen soon came under siege from the HRE and the French respectively, and they are allied. I wasn't bothered by this because the besieging armies were fairly small, and I successfully defended both pretty easily, though the French keep throwing small, pathetic armies at Caen (I think they must be at war with someone else). Furthermore, I knew my reputation with the Pope was much better than theirs so I wanted to bide my time until one of them got excommunicated; the HRE seem to have backed off for now, and the French have been excommunicated.

The next step will be to finish off the Scots once and for all and send the rest of my army to France, preferably with the help of a crusade from my mate the Pope :p. IIRC Inverness is a castle so once I've taken it I'll turn it into a city for extra income, as it's too far away from the continent to be really useful for producing troops. I will focus my military efforts on the French and try to sue for peace with the HRE, which I'm hoping will come more easily if I spank the French well enough. If they attack I'll just try to hold them off for now as they're actually providing a buffer zone to protect me from the Danes (who will, of course, eventually attack me if I have territory next to their borders.) In the long term, however, I will probably look to attack Denmark, possibly by sea, in order to reduce my front (as others have said) and give me access to the Baltic with all of its trade and anti-Russian crusade opportunies. Spain is also a possibility, as taking the Iberian peninsular will prevent me from being attacked from both sides.

Flak
01-23-2009, 02:15
I've owned the game since it's release but didn't start playing it until a few days ago. I have been playing as england on M/M. I tend to take it slower, building up a very strong economy, but I don't really start branching out to the mainland until around turn 150 or so... This may be my problem as I don't like to fight without general's and usually wait for generals that are 3star or better. But my main problem, in every game I've played so far, the papal states end up running me over and upon the last crusade called against me I am wiped off the planet.

No amount of payments seems to change my standing with the papal states (I usually make 20k+ a turn from taxes and trade). But it has been this way through 6 different games now, at some point after turn 135 the papal states turns to neutral, then you see 7 full armies head for different towns and it's pretty much over from that point.


*is there a desc file you can change to increase the life of family or decrease the chance of death?

Flak
02-01-2009, 03:14
So no suggestions for me?

Don Jacopo Caldora
02-01-2009, 08:04
You could try this

For papal politics:
1.Build Churches of all sizes when you can
2.Recruit priests, send most of them to areas with low Catholic populations so they can convert people.
3.If Hertics/Witches appear, send the priests in the denounce them. You will lose some to heresy but between converting people and denouncing heretics you make them earn piety.
4. Crusade when called upon with one small army at least to keep the pope happy. Try to call crusades for closer targets if you have enough papal favor as well. Easier for you to succeed.

Eventually you may get more votes in the College of Cardnals to vote for new popes. Voting correctly means you gain more favor with the pope quickly. You may even have enough votes to vote your cardinals in without any chance of someone else getting it.

Send a diplomet to Rome to sit there and Gift money every so often to boost your relations with the pope. 1000 is ussually enough to boost relations 1 level.

Be sure to eliminate Scotland early and take all of England and also Ireland.

Waiting til turn 135-150 is to late to start expanding at this point, unless your an expert, or modified the game to give you more turns, will just be frustating.

You could try this strategy

Take any rebel settlements you can that are nearby. If the French are excom, take as many cities as you can from them at that point.

Normally, when I play Britain, I will take all of Britain and Ireland first. Secure the rebel Provinces on the coast of France, Take out Denmark and take control of Sweeden and Norway. Be sure to keep your front line provinces supplied with good garrisons. At this point, I will concentrate more on economic development and defense for about 50 turns before I start conquering again and steamroll my way through the mid to late game.

It is important to get rid of castles you dont need, make them cities to give you extra money. I ussually keep only one castle in Notingham, and one in France and that one just beneath modern denmark. Everything else can be cities to maximize $$ before you start conquering. Leaving poor garrisons tends to make the AI attack you. Ussually, going to war with France is the next step when you are satisfied with your situation and want to expand more, Milan can be guaranteed to stab you in the back sometime during the French Campaign. When to attack France also depends on there papal status vs yours. If they lose status it can be good to take a few territories out.

Just remember when you start your conquering campaigns to convert castles you dont need, try to have at least 3 cities to every castle. I generally prefer a more cities than this. Some areas of the map have to many castles, so pick and chose the place places to convert based on geography and your next potential enemies.

Turn 1-25 England, French rebels and buildup 25-50, Denmark, Sweeden, Norway and buildup
50-100, Empire development
100+ Plan your attacks, take about 10 turns to secure and build in what you take, then wash and repeat.

Quintus.JC
02-01-2009, 13:52
So no suggestions for me?

Send your diplomat straight off to Rome ASAP and make alliance with them, offer them alliance, trade right and map info, on medium difficulty the Papal won't refuse (Probably will only work if you restart your campaign). Constantly station a diplomat in Italy and when your Papal favour start dropping below 6 start dashing out bribes, as England money should never be a problem. over 10K should probably get you a perfect relation straight away. Call Crusades to nearby excomunicated factions; France and Denmark are perfect targets, France is your natural enemy while Denmark will make war with you sooner or later if you take either Bruges or Atwerp.

Concentrate at least one settlement for the recuritment of priests, unlike Spain or Hungary you won't get much piety over converting the locals since they're mostly Catholics anyway. Once you get a Theologian guild try to get its upgrades and eventually with a headquarter you'll be pumping our 6+ piety priests in no time.

Seamus Fermanagh
02-01-2009, 16:18
Some good suggestions above.

I'd add:

Take a province you don't really want or need, sack it, strip it, then give it to the Holy Father.

I often do this at the time of the first crusade. I'll take Gaza and/or Acre and keep them but give Jerusalem to the Holy Father shortly after its conquest. Eventually, the Mongols take it from the Holy Father, die in droves on my stake-reinforced gates at Acre and Gaza, and then I take Jerusalem for myself.

Nothing makes the Pope happier than having a more powerful and better-landed faction -- just be sure that it isn't land YOU need for your empire unless someone like the Mongols will come along to give you another chance at it.

risker
03-22-2009, 19:38
On m/m

The first move I did as England was to take my army out of Caen and bring back to england (Always keep a big navy around your seas both for transport and thwarting disembarkements) to aid the invasion of scotland. I managed to get an alliance and trade rights off the french and it's still lasting around turn 30 (though i had to cancel a few times) along with my castle-now-city, Caen). Anyway, I took York immediatly and started making a few units in nottingham. I then took most of my units in london (just left William there) and headed for wales. dont worry too much if you get bankrupt as I soon paid off my debts by bringing in 10k a turn thanks to some heavy taxation in london :beam:.

Anyway I took Caernarvon (appologies for spelling) and converted it into a city. Taxed it. rebelled:furious3:. took it again thanks to some mercs and the army from france. managed to get alliances with milan,venice (they declared war on each other at one point. choose milan. they'll help you against the french by taking half of their settlements) and the papal states.

After taking Caenarvon for myself, the scottish decided that it was there turn to expand. they took all their garrison of edinbrough and attacked york. took the troops i had been training in nottingham and destroyed their army. Pope wanted a ceasefire. This is why you must respect the pope during early period : the penalty was only "your relations will be seriously deminished" instead of "your going to get slaughtered by a crusading army and i'm going to enjoy it". I know its painful having to lick his butt constantly but its worth it once you get to assasinate him every turn and in the end "exterminate" the papal states (hopefully).

Anyway i took my Caernarvon heroes and trashed the scots. With a high garrison, i decided to tax edinbrough big time to make a compensation for all those units (i disbanded alot of them once the people loved me). Then I turned towards Dublin and Iverness with my other armies. Once i had all of GB, i only left Nottingham as a castle. The rest are making big money. I also have so many alliances the UN would be shivering. Caen has (despite myself not really caring about it) become a money-making city and is being untouched. I suggest you focus on getting big alliances with spain, HRE and milan as they will probably aid you against the french if your not as lucky as i was. But definatly enforce power in UK first IMO, you will lose far too many valuable soldiers, alliances and crosses with the pope and France generally tend to expand but then wither away as Spain and Milan take arms against them


But now I've basically got UK and one settlement outside it at turn 30 and making enough money to build up a suitable but not invincibile army so i have a choice:

Either head for Iberia : the portuguese have been fairly annoying. :wall: they've been blockading ports, attacking my ally, spain, and took rennes (that settlement west of Caen) under my noses when i was about to attack it. (the french and spanish didnt like this so they both seiged it despite being at war with each other ( a glitch that doesnt happen too often). the spanish got it in the end).
Though taking on Iberia might mean war with spain, a close ally of mine whowill help someday against the french

OR Head for the french? I dont think my armies are ready yet. The french have too many expanded territories and I want their wars with Spain, Milan and suprisingly, Venice to end so i can take them out swiftly and silently.

OR go west and get at the danish. this might seem the most "logical" solution. the danish are hated by everyone (including the pope) and are doing exactly the same thing as portugal (replace rennes by amsterdam and Spain by HRE it is exactly the same thing). Also, (I might be wrong here) I find the english army quite effective against the danish heavy troops who are slow and easy to pick out wth missile units.


:help:Its a dilemma i need sorting so can anyone convince me which is the best? thanks in advance.

PS: for the crusades problem, either just ignore the pope and give him a grand or the finger (depending if you like him or not). Or just build up an army in advance and get it as close to the holy land or wherever the crusade is as possible. It shouldnt be you main priority unless its a territory near by or a excommunicated faction's capital. I joined a crusade against Granada (moorish castle) and basically took it and sold it to the papal states for a few grand. Although the portuguese (who were excomunicated because of their vile yet cowardice blockading of my ports) decided on attacking it (probably thought i was still there and took it, great peice of business:yes:)

Maltz
05-18-2009, 21:51
Just had my first VH/VH campaign with the easiest faction (England :laugh4:). I control 44 regions at turn 58 and I should be able to capture Jeruselum from a sea invasion in 3-4 more turns or so. So the campaign is pretty much done.

Here are some inputs for VH/VH:

(1) Use tons of assassins (in my game I have about 15), if you are not against Save/Load. Concentrate on your primary enemies and kill all of their family members. The worst chance you have is 6% - not that bad. You can do it in a few minutes. The good things about them is:

a. Slow down your enemy's insane growth. You can eliminate a faction and just take down the rebels. Rebels don't upgrade cities nor hire new units.

b. Stay in good terms with the Pope. I bet everyone is tired of the cease-fire-or-excom order. Attacking rebels does not anger the Pope.

c. Assassinate the current Pope whenever his rating drops to about 4 cross from the top, and vote the next one in. Free upgrade of crosses.

tip: If you fail an assassination attempt, load the game, save the game again, then try again. You get a new random number this way.

(2) Do not leave a weak border. The AI ally ALWAYS betray you as long as you have a weakly defended border region. It is very hardly done if you have a lot of borders - so assassinate your neighbors before expansion! It is very important to have "buffer zones" - neutral, rebel cities between the AI and you. They come at you slower this way. (They will have to summon an army to conquer that city first, taking at least a few turns if they are even interested.)

Also the AI ally loves to attack your weak stacks, in your territory or in a neutral territory, just for fun I guess. (But they declare war on you by doing so!)

tip: You can also lure them to declare war on you this way, but you will have enough enemies already, don't make new ones.

(3) If you do not wish to be betrayed by an AI ally, just before they siege you, give (actually you can sell) that settlement to another faction. They will go to war, but you stay friendly with the AI ally (to maintain trade, etc). This usually happens if you over-expand - as you don't have enough garrison and the AI takes advantage of you.

So basically you aim for the Inn line and start pumping out loads of assassins non-stop. You can then take out the rebel cities one by one.

Don't think the game will be boring this way - I just fought a battle of 1000 vs. 3000 rebels. (And left a famous-battle mark on the map, hehe.) The AI grows very fast, so by the time they turn rebels, they are still pretty good rebels.

(4) Exterminate every single city unless it is already a very small town. You do not have the money to keep the garrisons and build all the fancy buildings that do not further increase your income. For example, a city of 30000 can generate an income of 2200, 5000 can generate an income of 2000; a city of 2000 generate 1800. The difference is really little but the difference in upkeep is big.

(5) Money is tight. A good balance of army I find is to match it to your army upkeep to raw taxes. So trade, merchant etc. will be your hiring and building fund.

Michlos
07-17-2009, 13:27
Thanks for all the tips in the thread, has made life in my English realm much easier.

One thing I've noticed though is that EVERYONE hates the English. I'm serious, every damn faction keeps attacking me constantly. I did make a grave mistake in my planing and it's costing me greatly. The froggies had decided to try to back-stab me but I swiftly moved in one of my stacks and smashed two of theirs in a bridge-battle (oh how I LOVE defending a bridge :smash:). The following round I sent in a diplomat and offered a ceasefire in exchange for a hefty sum of money. They decided to change the deal and offered and smaller sum of money and Metz. Like a fool I accepted, BIG mistake.

I seems that every European faction thinks Metz is the best thing since sliced bread and I consequently had stacks from HRE, Denmark, Milan, and Venice (go figure) all hotfooting it towards my newly acquired castle :help:

After beating off both the Danes and Milanese in some very heavy battles I came under siege from a 1k+ HRE army. I had a grand total of about 320 troops, none of them very hardcore to say the least. There were 3 peasants, 2 peasant archers, and a unit of cavalry militia. As the battle started they rolled up 4 sets of ballistas. To my luck they had their army placed way back in the middle of the forest so the ballistas had to move up quite a bit away from the rest of the army. I decided to go gungho and raced my cav out to as a welcoming-party. I managed to catch the arty without any backup and proceeded to slaughter them swiftly. By the time the rest of the army had gotten to my cav I raced back towards the castle. This is where the fun really began.

They used one tower, one ram, and only one set of ladders. This would be my saving grace as the tower and the ladders both decided to try to sneak off to my right side. I dispatched two of my peasants over there while the remaining one sat inside my gate and my archers let their fire-arrows fly against the mass of infantry trailing the ram. They managed to get the ladders to the wall but for some strange reason, not that I'm complaining, they had manned them with a set of archers. These were no match ever for my poor peasants and sure enough they routed within minutes. By another grace of luck I managed to set the siege-tower ablaze and that left them focusing on only the ram. As the ram was knocking on my front door :wall: they had placed some of their archers a bit behind the rest of the army. They just sat there for some reason and I manged to take my cav (that had just been moved out of the way of the incoming army after their arty-smash) and crush in to them from the rear.

Just as both their archers broke down and ran home to mommy :gorgeous: their ram broke through my gates and they started pouring in. My three peasants fought like there was no tomorrow (which was actually the fact for all of them) but were slowly wittered down by the onslaught. By the time the peasants were routed the HRE decided to send two of it's spear-units up on my walls to deal with my archers. This is where the archers really hunkered down and actually managed to rout both spear-units while only losing about 30% strength. The rest of the battle I used my last firearrows and the remnants of my cavalry to try to just score as many kills as possible before losing the battle. They had placed two units of cav in my square and won by holding it.

It was one helluva battle to say the least and even though I did end up losing the battle in the end I managed to kill 700+ of his units which made it much easier the next round when my stack of longbows, spears, and heavy cav showed up and cleaned house.

Now it's time to teach the Danes a lesson :clown::whip:

Sebastian Seth
07-29-2009, 19:51
I pretty much whent like this:

- Secure alliance with the french. (Marry Princess Constance to your heir.)
- Secure alliance with the polish. (Marry Princess Cecilia to their heir.)
- Get trade rights with spain and portugal. Trade maps with Moors. (Diplomat 1)
- Get trade rights with HRE, Milan, Venice and Sicily. Make alliance with papacy (Diplomat 2)
1. Take rebel settlements form brittain and north european coast.
- York, Caernavon, Dublin (Army 1)
- Rennes, Brugges, Antwerp (Army 2)
2. Exterminate Scottish and keep french and papacy happy with coin.
- Go straight for Edinburgh and their heirs. (Army 1)
3. Exterminate Danish and keep french and papacy happy with coin.
- Go straight to Aarhus and their heirs. (Army 1 and 2)
4. Participate on the 1st Crusade. (Army 3)
- On the way to there take the two islands west of italy and the african castle (carthago).
- If you manage to get to Jerusalem, burn it to the ground and give it to papacy.
- After that take the island west of antioch. (Bysantines)
5. If Florence, Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki or Vilna is still rebel, take em. (Army 1 and 2)

---
At this point you have:
Brittain with two major cities, two smaller cities and 3 castles.
North coast of europe with 2 major cities, 1 smaller city and 1 castle.
Scandinavia with 1 major city, 1 small city and 1 castle.
Mediterrain with 3 small island cities. (They are castles at first but change them).
One castle in the middle of african coast.

- So basicly you have secure income by farming alone and quite a lot of trade income. On top of that you have possibility of naval dominance in brittain and scandinavia, naval presence in mediterraen, lauchpoint to attack russians with allies, lauchpoint to attack HRE with 2 allies, lauchpoint to attack moors weak spots, lauchpoint to attack italian pennisula.
---

At this point I quitted playing but after quick calculations I think I would have attacked Moors, then HRE, then papacy and the italian states... And get ready for the mongol brawl in constanttinopole.

Mayby I start a new one to try it :)

HolyGateKeeper
10-29-2009, 01:24
I should practice more with merry England, they are of course one of the most best countries in the world, either by the Britannia Campaign, or just the whole map, it's sea power was increasingly awesome, and no one, I mean NO ONE, would dick around with them Normans. :whip:

coalition
02-21-2010, 07:47
I love playing the English, reckon they are my favourite Faction for Medieval II. Has anyone found a use for Sherwood archers? Their stats look great but they only have half unit size which really limits their usefullness in the open field.

Ashfire
02-24-2010, 22:58
1. Send Your Diplomat to marry the French Princess" Constance, or if you don't like France try and find either Portugal or Denmark (Maria of Ingrid).
2. In the same turn move Rufus' army up to York and take the settlement.
3. Put Robert in the Army in France and attack Rennes or Bruges (I prefer Rennes).
4. Move Princess Cecilia to France and try to get her Charm up, then try to marry her to Guillemot de Lyon (Usually in Angers).
5. As fast as possible take the rest of the British Isles (Caernarfon,Dublin and try Inverness). Don't wage war with the Scotts for some time as they can proove good Trade Partners in the beginning Finacial Struggle.

Hope This Helps!

Nilgard
03-20-2010, 02:14
I've played a lot of campaigns and finished the game as almost all of them. But I never understood the point of a Faction Leader. In real life he was, obviously, the most important character of a faction. But does a faction leader with good skills actually do something for the entire faction? Any bonuses at all or is he just a normal governor/general with an extra title?

Myth
04-30-2010, 14:11
My experience thus far (I have played and still play RTW, but i enjoy Medieveal 2 because it's more refined).

To anyone switching from Rome: TW and/or it's expansions, this game will be better when comparing vanilla vs vanilla (no mods). In RTW as the Brutii for example, i can get 8 or so provinces and from then on i can't seem to spend my gold, even with bribing. Here you will be presesd to find a good balance between gold producing buildings/farms/unit producing buidldings in castles.

Anyway, I am a fand of England as it historically hasn't been conquered since 1066 and their island makes the country very hard to take over If they keep a strong navy (which is recommended). How my campaing has been going so far (playing on my roommate's PC when he isn't home so it will take a good while to finish the game)

I play on VH/VH, latest patch, vanilla game.

I restarted once or twice, once i think because i read some idiot's guide of how "you must build farms ASAP". Yeah that might work in the lower difficulty settings but on VH/VH you need the trade buildings first! I am an agressive player so the first thing i did is (after taking York obviously), vanquishing Scotland. I couldn't take them out in one turn (I had managed to do that during the previous restart) and so i got excomunnicated, which didn't hurt that much.

Scotland had it's faction leader with a very large stack just sit there while i took Edinburgh, and they later turned to an immobile rebel stack. In my first start i had managed to crus them completely, but i had gotten lucky with councin missions and had received 6 units of Mailed Knights and 2 units of Hobilars as rewards, which really helped me overwhelm the other nation's early armies.

Anyway, after securing the whole of the British isles, I set out to continue conquering France. I had taken the two rebel setllements in South-Western France (one is a city, the one below is a Castle, Bordeaux i think). By this point the French and Danish had set their eys on my territories. Too bad for them!

Longbowmen and spear stacks is all i built. Yes, yes i know about cavalry, hammer and anvil and chasing fleeing stacks BUT Mailed Knights are too bloody expensive. I boomed my towns in England, getting ports, roads, markets, farms and merchants on top of those mines and sheep pastures. *note: You can trade from every mine on the campaing map. The one in Ireland is silver, and even if you have not developed it, a decent merchant will make 100+ profit at it.

So with Longbowmen+Spears i started splattering France. Portugal and Denmark debarked with some pitiful stacks that got repelled, but as a note: always keep units in Notthingham. It should be your only castle on England and it is Denmark's prime target of invasion.

Keeping Bordeaux is easy with peasant archers + merc crossbowmen + some spear stacks. It serves as a buffer vs Portugal, Spain and even the Milanese.

Meanwhile, Paris and the other major French cities have been conquered, Paris even had a Thief's Guild built, which was a nice surprise. The Pope had forgiven me, but due to my low standing with him and virutally no missions to build chirches, everyone and their grandma came at me. The Holy Roman Empire, the Milanese, the Spanish, Portugese, Denmark, etc. etc.

The only real threat was the French king with 9 stars and a large French stack near sothern France. Fortunately for me, my own general was 6 or 7 stars at the time, and the enemy attacked before combining the king with the army. The result was them charging uphill at two rows of Longbowmen and spears in the middle and at the flanks. Heroic Victory and then a subsequent chasing down of the lone general unit that is king Philip and his swift execution. So much for France.

The Pope has been getting moody lately and has been slapping me, the Germans and the Danish across the wrists for not palying nice with each other. There have been requests to cease hostilites (to which i oblige. Although Portugal went and attacked me anyway and got themselves excommunicated), but strangely none that would plead for the last two French towns. Inquisitors started chasing princessess around, which was funnny to me. I had married my own princess long ago to a good French general. (turn 3 or so).

The Milanese attacked, a large army lead by their Duke. It took 3 reloads to win the fight with a battered down stack of Longbowmen (2 gold chevrons) and some raggedy spears, but i succeeded! Milanese Crossbowmen are a big pain in the arse with these pavises on their backs, and when they are supported with cav/spers it's really hard to win. Tip for early Longbowmen placement:

IIIII IIIII IIII IIII IIII IIII
xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx
xxx xxx xxx xxxx

x - Longbowmen, IIII - spearmen. Put spikes down obviously and don't use flaming arrows if it's misty, windy or rainy. Only on a clear day, for the first two shots. And remove skirmish mode. If the enemy does not get past your spears he will lose, cav charging at spears and spikes dies eastily, and a sufficiently strong general will keep your stacks from routing. Once his general comes to fight, surround with spears and kill him. That is your chance at winning with an inferior force.

Meanwhile i've been getting very decent family members both as adoptees and as sons. Good governors and good generals all around, and stacks of billment and Longobwmen have been produced to continue with the expansion. Currently the Holy Roman Empire and a second Milanese stack attackd Metz and another border settlement, but they will be easily repelled. I'm thinging i'll consolidate my power first, maybe have my diplomats marry an enemy princess (didn't know i can do that), and stack some crucial cities with missiles/spears before i head on.

Seamus Fermanagh
05-05-2010, 20:02
Nilgard and Myth:

Welcome to the .org!


Stake archers almost seem like a cheat after a while. With correctly placed stakes, you can pretty well murder any cavalry attack on any fortified area -- since you know the routes they'll take and can set up an easy reception.

I'd only add that a couple of Hobilars are cheap to add to your basic mix and get a lot of value for you.

First, they're horses so the enemy will key on them and you can use them as bait to draw them onto your spears while your bows pincushion them.

Second, eliminating routers -- which Hobbies do well -- is a great way to minimize blockades/devestation and other annoying crud that the broken remnants generate.

Myth
05-10-2010, 10:29
Thanks! You are right of course, in RTW i always had stacks of cav, it's just that i find MTW2 to be much less of a goldfest and so i get what's necessary first. No doubt now that i have consolidated some very good provinces and start racking up the incomne i'll get cavalry to mop up retreating armies. But even at the very worst possible scenario, where you can only chase down with your General, you can still have the enemy army disbanded, provided their morale held long enough for them to get heavy casualties when fightings spears/bows. I haven't gotten to a point where i can invest in siege engines and don't know how well they work in regular battles vs units, my Roman heavy onagers helped treamendeaously when i jumped down south and started battling a very well developed Egypt.

I'd assume that medieval balistae and trebuchets will work nicely. On a side note, what is the relation between my papal standing and the catholic nations all ganging up on me? I'm not excommunicated yet nobody wants peace, even the cruddy French who are down to their last one or two provinces.

dzidek
05-13-2010, 12:31
English are tooooooo easy.... :)

And i don't know why... their units ar not OP, but they do have good starting position and after some turns good income.
Trainig a lot of Billmen and Swordsmen will allow you to make Swordsmiths Guild quickly in Caen or Training longows will give you the "Sherwood archers' Guild. I prefer the swordsmiths.

You lack good spears, billmen are next to useless (trashed them with border horse army :/), cavalry is mediocre, artillery is nothing special, longbowmen are not the greatest archers in game, armored swordsmen are like any other DCK clone... and still you take out the competition with ease... why?

well i think, it's all about unit availability... at the time your enemy has some unit you have already a better counter, at least i noticed it....

Myth
05-14-2010, 09:07
It seems to me that the longbowmen line of archers are in fact, the best in the game.

where's yur troosers
05-14-2010, 09:12
With respect England does so well (H/M) because:

1) you have a secure financial powerbase once the British Isles are secured
2) you can expand across the coast from Caen without immediately going to war as the neighbouring settlements are rebel
3) simultaneous expansion into Scandinavia is possible - the Danes can be delayed by placing a ship on one of the land bridges from Denmark
4) longbows are fantastic - easily obtained, reasonably cheap, long range, armour piercing, can fight in a pinch and lay stakes. What more do you want? With Yoeman and Retinue Archers to come it just gets better and better.

dzidek
05-14-2010, 10:47
I don't say English Longbows are bad... just that there are better

Myth
05-18-2010, 09:55
I don't say English Longbows are bad... just that there are better

Examples and justification, please?

dzidek
05-18-2010, 14:14
Scots Guard - better stats but no stakes

Myth
05-21-2010, 08:45
Hmm I'm not sure on the stats of SG vs Retinue Archers, haven't been playing M2TW for that long. However, on England's start:

I've found out that it is indeed more beneficial to just play with some historical accuracy in to account. Don't go slaughtering your Catholic neighbors right off the bat - this isn't RTW. I started by sending my diplomat on turn #1 to the French princess, selling Alliance/Trade/Map info/Marriage for Map info/1900 Florins. That's the best deal she'd accept at this point.

I married my own princess to the HRE faction heir. I got alliances with the Danes, Spanish, Milanese, Venetians, Polish and Hungarians. The Pope was overjoyed, naturally i got one with him as well. I got tons of money after all these alliances (the more nations you have as allies the more expensive your furhter alliances become).

At turn #9 i had taken Bordeaux and only given up Dublin and Iverness to the Scotts (let them develop the cities for a while, i have no alliance with them and wea are already at very bad relations due to my stream of spies coming from York). I can't wait for them to declare war, get excommunicated so i can march on to Edinburgh. Anyway, at turn 9 the Pope was singing Beyonce's "Crazy in love" any time he saw my diplomat. It was time - we (I) called for a most holy Crusade on Cordoba.

Well a bit prematurely as i lost Bordeaux to revolt (it seems it's not Cahtolic enough at the start) when i removed my general, but i'll just retake it later. I was the only one who bothered joining this crusade, and i went straight for the target (in retrospect i think it wiser to take out the other moorish town along the way). Naturally there was no real resistence to be had.

My general, who i have bread as a good commander and a chiv leader, got both Templar and Hospitalier retinues, and the other usual benefits for winning a Crusade, which i liked a lot. I decided to keep Cordoba, as it's a good launchpad for my invasion of Africa. And i will be invading Africa soon, since every Catholic nation is palying nice now that i'm the big peacekeeper and defender of the faith of the Western world.

Well except for Scotland, but I have my mind made up for them - I'm not leaving any liabilites at my back before i march towards the Holy Lands.

dzidek
05-24-2010, 14:00
Yeah.. i like to play England the same way.

I'm in the middle of a 100 years war now :D

Destroyed the Scots early (sorry William) and started a long campaign in France.

I own all of Britain and western France including Bordeaux (turned to city), Rennes, Caen, Touluse, Angers.
The French are down to 3 provinces and i prepare for the final attack.
Sadly Milan as always starts to be a pain so i will have to raid/sack their towns in the near future.

Got excom lately so i wait now for the Pope to die, as he is over 60 already.

I'm really glad as all my Castles in France got the swordsmiths guild so now i'm flooding Europe with swordsmen and longbows.

I made the isles all city, i don't need castles there. If something goes wrong i have a military heavy city in Notthingham with all militia units + military academy for the Demi Lancers.

All my "French" castles are now producing Armoured Swordsmen + Yeoman Archers + Feudal Knights.
After i crush the rest of France i will be able to produce Retinue Longbow + English Knights.

I've signed an early marriage alliance with the Spanish and the have kept it since then so i have no trouble in the south, that allows me to concentrate on my eastern front.

I don't make big cash but it allows me to maintain 3 full stacks all the time + some castle garrison.

Usually if i have to fight several battles in one turn i make a little logistic trick, like in real war.
I fight with one stack, usually it allows me to win easili in a 1:1 fight, after the battle i come with a 2nd nearby stack and replenish the ranks, this way i train my main army and the 2nd stack allows me to replenish the fallen soldiers quickly often more then 1 time).

As the tactics goes i'm not a genius, i place archers in the front with stakes in 2 rows, behind them are the swordsmen, the flanks supported by spearmen and billmen and some cavalry for flanking support.

In the beginning i made a little Zerg spam. I produced masses of Levy Speramen, really even the most finesse 1000 troops can't hold a 2000 meat wave. Got some gold chevrons on those spearmen already :)

Seamus Fermanagh
06-03-2010, 03:52
....

In the beginning i made a little Zerg spam. I produced masses of Levy Speramen, really even the most finesse 1000 troops can't hold a 2000 meat wave. Got some gold chevrons on those spearmen already :)

Subtle. :laugh4:

Myth
06-15-2010, 10:08
OK an update on the situation: I now own the whole Iberian Peninsula, the Western coast of France and modern day Netherlands, and all the English territories bar Scotland and Ireland. I'm rich, teched up and the Mongols are raping those infidels to the East, which will mean I get to liberate Jerusalem soon (Hungary still stubbornly holds on to it)

What happened so far:

1st Crusade launched at Cordoba. I kept it, as it is one of the best populated cities on the map. It's a moneydrain initially, as unrest is high untill you get it to 90% Catholic. However, Spain and Portugal both send cardinals there to do God's work. KEEP CORDOBA! It's a great foothold on the rich and greatly developed Iberain peninsula.

Being best butt-buddies with the French has it's merits. For one, they serve as a nice buffer to my Easternmost provinces, protecting me from hungry hungry Milanese bastards.

Anyway, the Second Crusade I launched at the holiest of cities - Jerusalem. I took three stacks, marched on foot trough Europe and completely raped the Turks and Egyptians. That's right, I gave up the target city to the Hungarians, but I took 3 or 4 Turkish cities, razed them to the ground and pillaged them, and let them revolt. Vice versa with the Northern towns of the Holy Land, and lastly Antioch. I had a nice fleet drop off 6 or so priests in Jerusalem and take my victorious generals immediately after the Crusade ended. The result was several Cardinal promotions, and Hungary keeping Jerusalem for another... 20 or so years.

Needless to say i grew filthy rich from all that plundering and destruction, and 3 armies on 0 upkeep. I made England in to the most advanced faction in the world, i got lots of guilds, merchants, priests and so on.

I had fresh princes with even fresher troops from Nottingham and Caen, just itching to prove themselves, while their fathers sailed back from the Holy Land. I WAS planning on slaughtering the Moors and playing nice with my Catholic friends, but the Pope went and Excommunicated Spain. Now, I couldn't let this chance just pass by and immediately i siezed control of most of the Iberian Peninsula. The Castle in the middle (Toledo i think) was so very well developed, it became a major troop production centre, complete with a Swordsmith's guild and a Hospitalier World Headquarters down south in Cordoba. The Iberain Peninsula provided me with both gold and a second launchapd for further invasions.

The Third Crusade was launched at the Westernmost Moorish territory on Africa, lettin me steamroll their other city on the Iberian peninsula as well. I needed some way of declaring war on these bastards and consolidating my hold on the Peninsula without France crying (as they were allied with the Moors). Well it served it's purpouse, took two Moorish towns, I got chiv and command stars for my other leaders, and nice templar/hospitalier knight anticlaries.

It was by that time that the blasted suicidal Milanese debarked on my shores and sieged ony of my Eastern spanish towns. Too bad for them! I came back, regrouped, drove them off and suddenly the Pope excommunicated Portugal. FINALLY! The whole Iberian peninsula was now mine!

The fourth Crusade was declared on Venice. One general with a full stack hailed from my spanish provinces, and another one down from England. The Milanese were kind enough to take two French settlements which i "liberated" and of course kept for myself, while keeping my Alliance/Militarry Access with France. My 30 year old brat surpassed his father and after several fights with Danes and Milanese he now has maximum command stars! I am laying siege to two of the three remaining Milanese settlemends and will soon wipe this God forsaken faction off the map!

I did get to develop quite nicely with so many of my armies at 0 upkeep, and i got a Woodsmen's Guild WHQ, so now I'll be able to pump out experienced Retinue Archers and Sherwood Archers.

On Sherwood Archers btw, yest they are half strength stacks, but have you seen their melee stats? These guys are very versatile, and i dully recommend having two stacks in between your more fragile regular archers. Their ranged stack is higher than that of Retinue Archers as well, making them be inferior with about 20% in ranged combat, instead of 50%, and the bonus of a high melee attack and superb stamina make up for even that!

Agent Miles
09-12-2017, 15:53
This post applies Kobal2fr's guide for Generals/Governors and Davybaby's Guild guide to a long campaign for England (VH/VH). In addition, I have added some of my own tips as well.

Always occupy the initial conquered cities to increase the General's chivalry and keep the starting population. Set the 7 cities in England/Scotland/Wales/Ireland to low taxes ASAP to increase the Governor's chivalry and to promote population growth. Edinburgh, York and Nottingham need to grow quickly to gain Guilds.

Edinburgh-Put a Governor here with Chivalry 5+ once you have one, so that you accrue points for a Crusader Knight's Charter house. Join the Crusade to add more points.
Dublin-Build a brothel for training spies. I put this in faraway Dublin to prevent accidentally sending a General there who might then become a boozer. Use enough spies as scouts to see all of your targeted enemy provinces as possible. Know your Foe.
Nottingham-Put a Governor here with Chivalry 5+ too, so that you accrue points for a Woodman's Guild. Train archers to aid in this.
Inverness and Caernevon-Convert to a city to gain a merchant.
York-Put a Governor here with Piety 5+, so that you accrue points for a Theologian's Guild (TG). Have the starting princess marry an Englishman (not a French Prince) with high piety for this. Build churches, but wait to make a lot of priests until the TG can be made.
London-Eventually build Academia buildings, a city hall, all merchant buildings, farms at least +2 and a military academy.

New family members travel to York and then London. Each trains a priest (piety +1) at York and gains another piety +1 from TG. Once in London, the young royals get a chance for Intelligent, Mathematician, Prim, Upright, and Academy Trained with ancillaries of Academic Adviser, Money Counter, Overseer, and Scribe.

Governor's can also be sent on quick missions to build nearby watchtowers. You want to have none of your realm or coastal seas covered by shadow unless it is the southern deserts of Africa. Specifically, you want early warning of Spanish or Portuguese fleets coming from the SW and Danish fleets from the east.

My English field army consists of the following:
A General, 1 gate busting siege device, 6 cavalry, 6 infantry and 6 archer types with a spy and a priest.
The cavalry start as Royal Knights, but are then replaced by Crusader Knights. England usually gets Templar's. With the Guild HQ, the Knights are level 2.
The infantry start as Militia Spearmen. I upgrade their armor to silver shields. These get replaced by Dismounted Knights and eventually Swordsmen. The Gallowglaich mercenaries are also useful early.
The archers start with longbowmen and progress through their upgrades. With the Woodsman's Guild HQ, the archers are level 2.

I deploy the infantry line in the center behind stakes if in the defense. The archers are split into two groups of three on the flanks, with two in front and one behind. These move forward and engage the enemy and eventually fall back to the outside, not to the rear behind the infantry. That way the archers can fire into the flank of an attacking enemy or switch to swords and attack the rear of anyone engaging the infantry line. The knights are also split into two groups of three and form outside the archers in column. These advance to attack the enemy in the rear, enveloping their force. The General goes where needed.

I also make a reserve National Guard Army:
One Governor, 6 Merchant Cavalry, 6 Militia Spearmen with silver shields and 6 Militia Archers level 2 with silver shields. Each group of units garrison a Huge City that can maintain them for free. These can be used in an emergency. I eventually have 1 in England (London/York/Caernevon), 1 in Scandinavia (Arhus/Oslo/Stockholm), 2 in Iberia and 2 in France.


On the first turn, move the army in Caen to the fortress. Train Royal Knights and sell all the buildings except the port. Move a cog there. Next turn, ferry the army to England and sell the port in Caen. Now have the Diplomat sell Caen to France. This will keep them happy for a long while. Leave one cog as a ferry in London and disband the other. Build a siege works at Nottingham and a ballista first thing. Train more knights. Take Edinburgh in one turn with the stack that has the ballista, wiping out the Scots. Secure the other cities ASAP. I did this by turn 15.

Send the Diplomat to Rome. When the Crusade is called, have the King join. Ferry the old King's army to Bruges and sack it. Sell all the buildings. Give this city to the Pope for an alliance. Ferry the King back to England and move his stack along the southern coast making watchtowers. He'll eventually die and you are off the hook for the Crusade.

Now station a Diplomat in Bruges to be envoy to the Pope. Give the Papacy 100 florins per turn and maintain this throughout. Train one more Diplomat to travel to France, Denmark, HRE, Poland, Russia, Hungary and the Byzantines for trade rights. The diplomat in Rome gets trade rights from the Pope and then travels to Sicily, Venice, Milan, Spain, Portugal and the Moors for the same. You can sell the trade rights and your map if possible.

The Danes will eventually attack Nottingham. They were no match for my field army. Send a field army to take Hamburg, then Arhus, Oslo and Stockholm. To move armies to Scandinavia I used one cog in Nottingham's port loaded with the land troops. The next turn, this can move to the northern coast of Antwerp's port and then unload. The cog was then disbanded and the army proceeded east. This way you don't have to maintain a larger fleet than the Danes.

To the immediate east of Hamburg is a forest. Build a fort north and south of this forest. Build a fort south of the river by the bridge west of Hamburg. Put one cheap unit in each to restrict movement into your new eastern empire. If an enemy lays siege to the fort, move the field army next to the fort and disband the fort's garrison. The enemy will occupy the fort the next turn. You can then lay siege to them and easily destroy an enemy army for the price of one garrison unit. Also, build a fort next to the amber resource icon in SW Stockholm province to use as a sort of "trading post". You can station up to 20 merchants in the fort/trading post, all working the amber resource. Put one merchant out in the open next to the amber south of Stockholm, so that all the merchants get the Monopoly traits. I was eventually gaining 10k+ each turn from the merchants alone.

Spain and/or Portugal will attack Caernevon. They were also no match for my field army. To invade the Iberian peninsula, I first sent as many priests as possible to convert the Moslem provinces and to act as scouts. These also quickly become cardinals. I keep these moving into Moslem lands all across North Africa. Ferry them to Caen and then march them the rest of the way. I built one fleet of as many Gun Holks as needed to safely transport the combat forces to the Leon province, one field army at a time. As soon as several armies were moved, the fleet was disbanded. March on the Moors. Use the new area as a base. When the Portuguese or Spanish get excommunicated take them out. The eastern border of Iberia can be secured with four forts closing the passes through the mountains to France.

This gets me lots of florins for many field armies. I was able to take out half of the French cities in one turn, then wait out the 9 turns the English Pope ordered us to get along. I finished the conquest of France in one more turn. Four more forts secure the mountain passes of southern France by Marseilles and my armies held the north. At the same time I took Marekesh and Crusaded across Northern Africa. I ferried a field army to Corsica and Sardinia. Finally, I built two more large fleets and took Crete, Rhodes and Cyprus while my field armies took Egypt and Mongol Jerusalem. The long campaign ended with 179 battles won and zero lost.