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

SwordsMaster
11-14-2006, 15:14
Ok, I guess I'll start...

The initial options are fairly clear: Valencia and Zaragoza. This achieves 2 things: prevents the portuguese somehow in Pamplona from growing powerful, and gives you a solid northern border, as well as a rich city. Keep them both as cities - Toledo will be enough to fulfill the troop recruitment purposes.

Valencia has a worthwhile general, but you may not be able to afford him straight off the bat, so IMO, don't bother.

Zaragoza has a fairly strong garrison, so I usually let the portuguese try and assault it first, and once the garrison is weakened, strike.


Get trade rights with as many neighbours as you can, and remember that you cannot get excommunicated by fighting muslims, so if you can afford it, hit Cordoba ASAP - again it is a rich city, and from here you can move on to Portugal (you will need 2 armies if you do not wish to get excommunicated, one to hit Pamplona, and another for Lisboa), and Granada starts as a strong castle, so you might want to wait to have the proper siege equipment, or just starve them out...

At this stage, France will usually DoW you. Don't let it bother you too much. but grab Bordeaux and Toulouse if you can. The french usually leave one or both those castles undefended in order to gather a sizeable army. If you manage to destroy the army completely, its free for your picking. After a couple of turns of war, the Pope will usually tell you to stop this nonsense so just accept the first ceasefire they offer you in exchange for trade rights and cash.

You should complete the missions given wherever possible. I usually ignored the outrageous ones - like going to Russia to kill a heretic - but stuff like blockade such and such port, or capture this city, are usually what you would have done anyway.

In any case, France will be your constant annoyance, so keep an army on their border at all times, and fortify Toulouse and Bordeaux. I find that these are great training grounds for assasins - I have a screen of about 12 in the area.

At this stage, begin developing the peninsular posessions: organise your garrisons so as to minimise costs, and build merchants, spies, watchtowers, and develop your fleet, because eventually you'll get missions to capture Ajaccio and Cagliari, and, my personal favourite: land 3 stacks in Rome, and show the pope who's boss....

After this, the world is your oyster. I personally like to sit back and build up.

You should have no trouble.

Good luck.

Vicarious
11-14-2006, 16:01
No trouble? I'm playing my first M2TW campaign as Spain, and it seems like I'm loosing my first game ever including allTotal War games..
(It's possible that I started a little optimistic with VH/VH on my first game...)

Like Swordsmaster I conquered Valencia and then Zaragoza, and kept them as cities. They're generating a descent income after I constructed Grain Market, Roads, Ports and then Market.

Then I set my eyes on the weak Portugese, and quite easily conquered Pamplona while the Portugese faction heir was watching it with half a army stack 1 day march away. In addition, I got the French as my allies, so my back was free. Then my trouble started, whan I of course was threatened with excommunication from the pope because of my hostiliy against the Portugese. What to do then? I had to anxiously watch this MY LITTLE PONY walking towards my capitol ("I'm soon gonna enjoy your land and your woman"). Fortunately, I got a peace with them before they attacked me. At least I thought so..

A few turns later, while I'm deploying my Faction Heir to face an oncoming full stack of Moor army, the Portugese (out of blue air... not) attacks me with a full stack in the flank. My movement points runs out, and escape is impossible. I have tried fighting this battle 3 times. I have the advantage of high ground and lots of archers, but I always end up loosing anyway. My best effort is to kill 80% of his army, but I lose all of mine including the Faction heir. The main reasons seems to be that his footsolidiers are supreme to mine of the same type, so it has to be the generals skills I think.

So now things look bad. The Moors and Portugese are flooding my land, with almost no defence left. I have a large stack ready to conquer a almost defenseless Granada, but since the combined forces I'm standing against is more than the double of mine, I see no hope.

So my first advice is: Don't go to war against both Moors and Portugese at the same time. Kill of one of them before you focus on the next. (prefarably the Moors, because of the excommunication I LIKE RAINBOWS AND BUTTERFLIES..).

Vladimir
11-14-2006, 17:50
Do you still have Jinette spam? I did a little experiment in MTW and on expert, conquered Iberia and finished two crusades with only Jinettes.

Vicarious
11-14-2006, 17:59
I had a unit of Jinettes, but they were slain.. Can still recruit 6 or something, but not too impressed by the Jinettes so far. They have good statistics, but they seem to fight worse and die faster than Heavy Cav even so..

Vladimir
11-14-2006, 18:17
That's why you don't have them engage in combat. Fire javelins, and retreat or isolate and sandwich units.

Kekvit Irae
11-14-2006, 22:21
Watch the language. :blankg:

Vicarious
11-15-2006, 10:26
I had to anxiously watch this MY LITTLE PONY walking towards my capitol
This forum is even stricter than the sensoring on MTV.. You replace ******* with "MY LITTLE PONY"?? Tough to swallow for a hard-boiled Norwegian..

Anyway, let's cut to the case.

That's why you don't have them engage in combat. Fire javelins, and retreat or isolate and sandwich units.

Ok, this is of course a good advice. But my impression is that the units move much faster in M2TW than in RTW. So when you fight large battles (as is often the case...), your missile units get very short time to fire on approaching enemys before they are upon you. To use your Jinetes for firing/retreating demands a lot of micro-management, and you can't pause the game every 5'th second either.. So I often find my Jinetes engaged in hand-to-hand combat anyway.

Some posts earlier up here in this thread, I doomed my Spain campaign. Well, that was at little pessimistic. As I told, I lost my largest army and the faction heir. And the Moors and Portugese both had a full army stack that could just march on too my capital town and my largest castle, and I would've been out. But that was overestimating the AI. Instead of doing this, The Moor army headed back to their own land (maybe because I launched a sneak-attack and took Granada), and the Portugese army just sat still on a stupid ambush next to my spy.. So I had time to build up a new full army, and this time I beat the Portugese killing of their whole army and executing prisoners in revenge of my faction heir. So now I can grab Lisbon too in a few turns, and it also looks bad for the Moors.

It seems like the AIs problem is that they don't use spies. At least I have seen no spies in my land, and I got a couple of them myself to spot enemy spies. (And hopefully the game is built so that the AI would only see what their spies and armies sees, which is nothing..) Anyone got an opinion on this?

SwordsMaster
11-15-2006, 14:59
This is exactly why in my post I said not to start fighting the portuguese unless you can take both Pamplona and Lisboa in the same turn, ie, you have 2 large armies. After you do that, you can march the army from Pamplona to defend your south, and the army from Lisboa to attack the remaining enemies.

Franconicus
11-16-2006, 10:42
Started a campaign yesterday (vh/vh), my pc is slow and I could only do some turns.

I wanted to assault Zaragoza first and then make a trip to France to weaken them from the beginning. However, the Portugese were faster than I was, the town was already under siege.

So I besieged Valencia. In the beginning the garisson was stronger than mine, so I had to wait. I gathered some reenforcements (archers, spearmen, even mercs) and then attacked. After breaking the gate the enemy made a full frontal charge against my spearmen. The rest is history.

I made an alliance with Portugal. So there were no more targest except in the south. I raised an army and entered muslim territory. The muslim declared war and attacked me. Although their army was twice as strong I had a good position on top of a hill. I had two Spanish knights, two armored knights, one archer and one spear unit. The enemy had loads of archers, mounted archers and so on. I waited on top of the hill, gave them some volleys and dived into the archers. The Spanish nights are very useful against horse archers. They are faster than the normal knights and can catch them. And they seem to be better than the muslims.

Stolpmeister
11-18-2006, 12:47
Quickly buildning up a strong fleet is also a good option for Spain. Blocking the landbridge at the Strait of Gibraltar means the Moors can't bring in any reinforcements from North Africa. Having a fleet also means you'll have an easier time capturing Ajaccio and Cagliari - take them whenever you get the mission, and convert them both to cities for some nice income... don't worry about defending them, the AI very seldom makes amphibious landings.

Also, remember that Spain has some really nice lategame city-units, so don't neglect military upgrades in cities! Militia swordsmen, tercio pikemen, musketeers and gendarmes are all built in cities, and are all good units. The spanish musketeers are especially fearsome, with long range, good damamage, and causing fear.

Kobal2fr
11-19-2006, 11:26
Some early observations of mine :

Whatever you do
1) the Portuguese (well, Aragonese ;) ) will reach Zaragoza before you do
2) they will always try to siege the city with a minimal army that is always sent back home when the rebs sally. This is your window of opportunity. With the defenders weakened already, the second Portuguese attack usually takes the city, but if you lay your own siege just when they are pushed back, the city is yours for the taking.


Try as I might, I have never yet succeeded in bribing El Cid to my side , which of course was everyone's first move as the Spanish in MTW. Big troop stack + mucho piety... Ah, well, at least the Moors don't get him either this time around. He is already married too, so the 2 princesses Spain starts with are of no further help there.


If you can spare the cash needed to build a few cogs or better yet war galleys (or if you get some from a mission), it's a good idea to put them in the strait of Gibraltar. Prevents the Moors from reinforcing Cordoba/Granada if you haven't seized them yet, and if you have it stops the retaliatory stack(s). Of course, you can expect the Moorish navy to try and force you out, but it will still buy you some time to dig in and, should the ships actually survive, exps your admiral(s) nicely.


Concerning agents, Spain has the considerable advantage of starting in half-Muslim lands, and of having vast expanses of 100% Muslim desert right on its doorstep, so all Spanish priests tend to exp fairly fast, giving you an edge on the road to Cardinalship and Papacy. Roving Moorish alims also have the courtesy of regularly spawning more heresy for you to squash.


On the other hand, there aren't that many good ressources in your private peninsula, so merchants and trade are probably not going to be neither your forte, nor good investments until later in the game, by which time the Byzantine, Danish and Venetian merchs will eat yours for breakfast...


As for troops, well, your early infantry is crud. All of it, even your cultural unit. Javelinmen are as useless as ever, especially with the skirmishing issues affecting M2TW as of now. Sure, they have armor piercing ammo, but what good is that when the range is so pityfull ? Maybe in sieges, and even then I'd opt for archers to take out rams and tower. Jinettes, on the other hand, are marvellous. Expensive, but worth every dime. They'll slaughter heavy cav, chase routers far and fast, rout out archers and militia, you name it, they do it, and do it well.

Rosacrux redux
11-20-2006, 14:57
Started my 2nd campaign with Spain (my first with Byzantium on H/H I abandoned when the Turks added their weight to the 2front war I was fighting against the Venetians and Hungarians...) and it's loads of fun. On M/M because I wanted to get a grip on game mechanics and the campaign, so I have played only a few battles (the AI bonuses on H and VH make autocalc battles a suicidal option...).

Well... Spain is easy. I am already on turn 140 and I've got the whole Iberia, 1/2 of the French territories and the four westernmost african provinces.

I got Valencia off the bat, then went for Zaragoza (the Portuguese had already softened the defenders a bit) and got that too. I managed to defeat a strong moorish army (one of the few battles I didn't autocalc and damn the spanish cavalry units are very strong) and then the Portuguese attacked and I swiftly got their northern city. I had an alliance with the Frenchies so no problem there. After a few turns and an excom threat (and the subsequent truce) the portuguese attacked again, so I wiped them out swiftly without getting excomed.

Soon the Moors fell too and the Frenchies attacked. I had a solid income base in northern africa and spain (only one castle, Toledo, the rest cities). Managed to push them back and gained two castles in the process, and they gave me Marseilles too for getting a truce. Since then, I've used my advanced units to great effect, just got to the lower countries (antverpes and bruge I got from the once almighty danes) and now I am king of the hill... NOT. Bloody mongols have overwhelmed the Turks, the Egyptians and the Byzantines (whatever the Hungarians left of them, actually) and are moving on against me...

In the agents department, is it just me or are Spanish merchants total whimps? I had a few Venetian and Milanese traders roaming my place, killing off my merchants on the bat, and I didn't manage to make a single aquisition. A single. In the religion field, I soon got lotsa cardinals and the Pope was mone for more than 100 turns, only recently did the hungarians manage to overcome me.

Doug-Thompson
11-20-2006, 20:37
Mass your opening units and take Cordoba right away.

This fatally weakens the Moors and cuts the Portugese off from expansion to the south. Yes, the Portuguese will take Zaragoza. Let them. The place is rebellious. The Portuguese are stuck building garrison units in Zaragoza while you're taking Valencia and kicking what's left of the Moors out of Grenada. Also, the Portugese make a handy, weak buffer state between you and France.

It's a shame, but apparently you can't afforably bribe El Cid. I'd be happy to be proven wrong on that point.

Ignore early calls for a Crusade to Jerusalem. Concentrate on whipping the Moors. Don't be shy about hiring mercs, either. However, do build churches and send priests to convert Muslims in your newly won territories. That will make the Pope happier with you, and you will need the Pope's support soon when the Portugese attack.

One effective trick is to keep beating units that the Moors send to try and retake Cordoba. Beat them off, rebuild units in Cordoba, repeat.

Eventually, the frustrated Portuguese will attack you. Despite complaints from players, the AI will probably excommunicate them. Once that happens, do not play a defensive game. Take all the troops you can spare and take Lisbon.

Chances are, the Portuguese over-extended themselves in Zaragoza. You'll find Lisbon relatively easy pickings. Once you take and sack that city, the Portuguese are crippled, a rump state that's still a buffer between you and Europe. Now their king or the Pope can die, ending the excommunication, and they're still in a hopeless situation. Kill as many Portuguese family members as you can before the war ends. Then you can even ask for a ceasefire if you want, and probably get one. If the faction goes bandit for lack of heirs later on, you can pick them up with no excommunication trouble.

Now you're home free to take North Africa. After you take Algiers, accept Crusades to Jerusalem. You can start the Crusade in Spain, where your Catholic homeland will provide exceptionally good troops, and take them by ship to North Africa. Seize Tunis, Tripoli and Alexandria. If some other crusader takes Jerusalem, that's no problem. You can now take Cairo and the rest of Egypt with no trouble.

By now, you're the most powerful faction on the map with plenty of trade. Your relations with the Pope should be quite good, with a lot of high-piety cardinals who have converted thousands of Muslims. From here, take advantage of excommunications and bandits takeovers as they become available.

Franconicus
11-21-2006, 10:25
I agree with DT. Do not waste too much time with the Rebel towns. They are not worth it.

In the beginning I ordered my spearmen from the north to Toledo, where I gathered an army to deal with the moslems. I also built archers there as soon as possible. Archers help against Muslims. While I was building the army, I laid siege on Valencia and ignored Zaragossa. I allied with Potugal.

Then I marched to Cordoba. The Muslims attacked me first. I defeated their armies outside of Cordoba, so there were little defenders left. Next turn I assaulted the town. Cordoba is really a money maker, much more valuable than any rebel town. At the same turn 'El Cid' sallied from Valencia and I took the town. The reward was four knight units.

I ordered these units north to push further to Granada. Do not stop your invasion until the Muslims leave Spain. It is not a big issue. To my surprise I noticed that Zaragossa was still rebel. I sent a small expedition force to take the town.

Right when I had taken Granada, portugal betrayed me and blocked one harbor (what a silly way to declare war!)

Immediately, I made ceasefire with the heathens and advanced to Lisboa. A big army tried to stop me, but my army was almost as big and half of it was heavy armed kights. :smash:

I took Lisboa without problems.

The Portugese were passiv. However, they did send an army to siege Zaragossa. I sent a release army, but before it arrived, they assaulted.

I had two archer, one peasant and one spear unit. Each unit had only 50% combat strenght. They had archers, peasants, crossbows and a general. Plus catapults.

I put my archers on the walls. Man, I did not know what these catapults could do to wodden walls. :dizzy2: I lost half of my archers and had to retreat to the center while the enemy demolished my complete front side.

When they finally atacked, I stopped their General with my spears. He will never do a frontal attack again. Although the enemy suffered high casualties, I finally was wiped out and lost the town.

But there is still my release army and they have three catapults. And there is my King, coming with the main force from Lisboa.

If the Pope does not stop me, Spain will soon be mine. Let us all thank the Lord and praise His glory.:shame:

Von Nanega
11-25-2006, 19:21
You gotta go full bore when playing Spain, and trust to God that initally no bad luck comes your way. You roll on Cordoba right away and chase the Moors out of Espana. Then go clean up the rebal territories. By this time Portugal should be just about read to stab you in the back along with the French. You will be on the go from the first turn onward. :knight:

Von Nanega
11-28-2006, 14:10
I was right. France does backstab. But I was ready and invaded them. A series of brutal battles later they sued ffor peace. I was tired and armies needed rest and refit so at 500 a turn for 15 turns tribute I was kind and granted it. But for strategy. Maybe two castles in Spain, rest cities to feed the war machine.

Franconicus
11-29-2006, 08:17
I am Pope!!

One big advantage of Spain is that you have access t the land of the heathens right from the start.

It is a nice strategy to produce priests. I made four or five of them. Take then to the new conquered lands, they will help you make the people catholic and happy. Then send them to Africa, where they can convert the (still) free moors.

Three priests were promoted to Cardinals, then the Pope died and one of my Cardinals was elected. :2thumbsup:

Aenlic
11-29-2006, 21:07
After finishing a short campaign as the Spanish, I decided to try a new strategy as the Spanish for a long campaign on H/H. The following is a synopsis of events so far:

My first council mission was to take Zaragosa, instead of Valencia. OK, works for me. I sent my army to take Zaragosa, which is an easier conquest anyway (El Cid can be be annoyingly tough and his entire garrison are veterans). Taking Zaragosa seems to stop French southern expansion plans. They went for the English instead. By this time, I managed to get both the Portuguese and Moors to pay me for alliances.

With Zaragosa mine, I began building a second stack with my new found wealth from extorting alliances from my neighbors, garrisoned Zaragosa and sent the army that took it south for Valencia. Valencia was tougher to take than Zaragosa, but fell after a long siege. I garrisoned it and sent my now fairly experienced army to get retrained and resupplied before heading north to wait on the border of Pamplona.

My second army was untried, so I made sure it had my best general (4 stars) and was a bigger stack, then sent it west to wait on the border of Lisbon. When both were ready, I attacked the Portuguese in the same turn. The Pope didn't even raise an eyebrow when both fell and the Portuguese were eliminated.

I then sent part of an army back to Zaragosa in case the French became annoying, and sent everything else to get retrained and resupplied. I now had one and a half armies, with good experience to take on the Moors. I also built a stack of 4 ships to use to block the land route from Africa. With it sitting on the land bridge, the Moors were unable to reinforce, and al-Andalus was mine. So I made the Moors pay me for a new alliance - again.

Now I had to make a decision. Moors or Europe. I owned the land bridge with my ships. The Moors were now impoverished and their ships aren't a match. So I went for Europe. So far it's going well. I took the still rebel Bordeaux while the French and English were at war. Then the English got themselves excommunicated. Too bad for them. I took Rennes, Caen and Angers (which was apparently the province that got them ex-commed) before they made friends with the Pope again. I sacked all three. Then I went after Toulouse. This made Il Popo annoyed. So, I gave him Caen and Angers after destroying all the available buildings in both and retreated to Rennes and Bordeaux. Now I owned Rennes, Bordeaux and Toulouse and the Pope was happy with me and acting as a nice buffer between me and England in the process. Woe to anyone becoming a problem on my northern border. The Pope makes a fine buffer. :wink:

At this point, I am about to go for the rebel islands, taking Ajaccio and Cagliari. I'm still allied with the Moors. That's about to change, however. After I take the islands and build up a nice army in Granada, I'm going to start a series of crusades, since the one in Jerusalem just failed (I didn't join). I've been saving the Moors for this. I ought to easily get to each target first. And I should succeed in each. I think I can take each Moorish town in turn and each as a single crusade. This will boost my armies' experience, give me plenty of loot, a new power base in the south, more income, and best of all make the Pope my best buddy. If I can manage to use crusades to take Marrakesh, Algiers, Timbuktu and Tunis, then I should have a very experienced army or two to take east toward the Egyptians for Jersualem crusade and the resultant relics; and hopefully be ready for the Mongols, who should be appearing soon.

I know it was kind of long. But the above illustrates my idea that attacking the Moors too soon wastes an opportunity to use them later on for Pope manipulation and building armies through a series of crusades. It's not historically correct, but it sure has been fun so far. :grin:



Note: How to attack and then garrison cities immediately.

I try to always have at least one useless general who has at least 3 loyalty and 2-3 or more piety and some chivalry helps too - the more of each, the better. I don't care how may stars he has. I allowed him (and hopefully one other general too) into the family for one thing - garrison commander of newly taken cities. Behind my armies, when I can, I try to have a baggage train/follow-on force ready to garrison. This small stack army consists of my lovable but militarily useless general, 2-3 or sometimes 4 milita units and 1-2 priests/imams. Their only purpose is to immediately garrison a newly conquered province so my main army can immediately move on to new things. Just a little tip from your uncle Aenlic. :wink:

Lorenzo_H
11-30-2006, 09:26
Here are some observations I have made with the Spanish Campaign:


They have excellent Cavalry in the beginning.
But no real infantry.
Portugal is a joke of an enemy at the start (left pamplona virtually unguarded- much too tempting) take advantage of it.
Their early game economy is mediocre at the worst.
Their Merchants are weak.
Their Papal missions so far seem to be realistic and almost easy.


Altogether I like the Spanish, and I am looking forward to accessing some of their really good units like Conquistadors (which can only be trained in America).

mgholson
12-02-2006, 08:10
So My Spanish Campaign isn't going good.

I started off taking Valencia easily then Zaragosa with the rest of that army. Valencia is loyal but Zaragosa is not. I leave my army here in Zaragosa for awhile to quell the unrest.

At this point in the game I am allied with the English, French Portugese, and oddly enough the Moors, who sent a diplomat and asked for a alliance.

The Moors now demand my attention as I wish take their cities. I start with the army I'm building up in Toledo and take Granada. Over in the East I notice that Bordeaux just repulsed a French army. I rush an army up and take Bordeaux with ease, but apparently steped on a few Portugese toes to get there and they break their alliance with me.

Apparenly the French feel as if Bordeaux is there's by divine right because they send an army to seige it. Its a pitiful army and I sally out of my castle and destroy the crossbow men and spear militia.

Unfortanily next Turn I realize that Bordeaux was only a cunning trap, those devious French lust for Zaragosa and send a giant army to capture it. The Army I was raising to finish off the pitiful Moors finds itself heading East. Next turn I am warned by the pope not kill other Christians, but apparently it doesn't count if you attack an army that is sieging your city. I bring down reinforcements from Bordeaux and with my mixed army that should be off slaughtering heathen muslims I decemate the French and they scury back to their own lands.

Things seem to be getting back on track, but wait, those bloody portogese didn't like me trampling through their pastures. They attack from Pamplona with a weak army that breaks against Zaragosa's walls, but oddly enough leave a large army standing around on the border.

Meanwhile I ceasefire with the French apparently at the urging of the Pope. Other than an isolated Pampalona it looks like The East is fine, I turn my attention back to the Moors and take a newly built army into Cordoba. The Moors don't put up much fight and I kill their faction leader and sack their capital for 11000 florins. Things are looking up.

I decide it would be a fetching time to make those Pampalonian's pay for their insolence. I send my army out of Zaragosa, almost a complete stack. But Zaragosa citizenry need a larger garison to keep them under control so I move back my general along with a few units of caverly. Apparently the army was bitter of spilling Christian blood so they turn on me. The entire stack becomes rebel. Oh and did I mention that Lisbon is fielding a large army against my capital, and did I mention the French just showed up at Zaragosa again but this time with a large force of Feudal Knights.

So I am now fighting a 4 front war, Portugal to the West and Northeast, French to the East, my own rebel army, the French from the East, and the Moors from the South. Looks like things couldn't get any worse.

On a happy ending note for some crazy reason the French left all their troops at my border and attacked Zaragosa with none other KING HENRY the MEAN and his 40 royal gaurd, he stands at my door. I engage him with two units of peasants to the front and flank him with a calvery on either side, his guard crumbles and he dies.

Next turn I am attacked from all directions. Game over.

Dunc
12-02-2006, 22:30
I am at approximately the year 1340 in my Spanish campaign, on VH/H. Either that or H/H. I can't remember.

I started out by taking both Zaragoza and Valencia. It was a long time ago so I can't remember exactly how it went, but I remember I built up forces for a few turns before I did it. I probably took both by starving the enemy rather than fighting, because that's how I often do things.

I was allied with Portugal as well as the Moors.

My first war was against France. The first Franco-Spanish war was pretty uneventful. I think the only battle against France in that first war was when they made a half-assed attempt at Zaragoza which I repelled. I sent a big army up towards Toulouse. I had the city under siege when the most confusing diplomatic turn of events ever happened.

France demanded that I become a vassal state. As a joke I counter offered with ceasefire + they give me Toulouse. They accepted, and I got Toulouse.

I can't remember the exact sequence of events, but basically I found myself in a two front war when Portugal and the Moors declared war on me. I took all of Iberia under my control. I never fought a field battle against Portugal from what I can remember, I defeated them strictly by starving their settlements out.

I enlisted the help of the church to fix my Moor infestation. I got the Pope to call a crusade on Corduba, which was like opening up a can of instant army. I took Corduba pretty easily, and mopped up the rest of the Moors. Once I pushed them out of Iberia, we made peace.

The peace didn't last terribly long. I kept building up until France clued in that they got a bad deal last time, the Moors decided they wanted their Spanish holdings back, and Milan gave into peer pressure because all the cool kids were doing it.

I never fought a battle with the Moors. They sent an army over the land bridge and did nothing with it, they just left it there.

I did fight several with France and Milan. Thousands of Frenchmen and Milanese have died at Toulouse. Seriously, I've never seen so many full-stack armies sacrificed in vain. It was like world war 1. It was the same story each time. My understrength garrison gets set upon by 2000 enemies, I fight them off in a close battle in which I take 33-50% casualties, the next full-stack arrives to try again before I'm even fully recouperated from the last attempt, and it happens a few times.

I just held my ground at Toulouse while I sent an army up France's West coast to take a few cities. Bordeaux, Angers, and Rennes were mine, while France was still routinely sacrificing thousands of guys at Toulouse.

I then raised another big army to try and take some of the pressure off of Toulouse by moving for Marseilles, which I took. Toulouse was still getting bombarded with attacks.

My lines were kind of extended. I had to keep sizeable garrisons in five cities because they were all potential French/Milanese targets. That's why progress was kind of slow.

The latest city I've taken is Milan. I raised another army and slipped it through the front lines and it took Milan.

I made a move for Genoa with a slightly understrength army (Genoa was lightly defended) but I was intercepted by a full-strength Milanese army plus reinforcements. My 1080 guys took 70% casualties in the spanking by the 2400 Milanese. I did kill 55% of the Milanese though. It wasn't enough and a few hundred depressed Spaniards had to hobble back to Marseilles to brace for a Milanese offensive.

The whole time I neglected my navy. My navy was getting its ass kicked by the French and the pirates and I was poor, so I gave up on it. At one point in the war, just a few turns after the three-front war started, I was severely in the red and I was actually in danger of losing the war as casualties were mounting and I had no money to replace them. I lucked out though by sacking a settlement.

If M2TW's AI didn't suck so badly, I wouldn't be doing so well. When assaulting cities, the AI is just terrible and every other battle I am saved by a glitch.

Skott
12-04-2006, 04:04
I started a Spanish short campaign. I'm looking forward to killing someone other than just Christians so I felt Spain offered me a chance to fight both Muslim and Christian nations.

On turn one I took my starting army and headed towards Zaragoza. On turn two I got the mission to take Valencia but I kept going to Zaragoza hoping to beat the Portuese to it. No luck, they were besieging it when I got there. I hung around for a couple of turns hoping they'd get repulsed but after two turns they took it. During the wait I made alliances with both the Moors and Portugal figuring that would buy me time to build up. Once portugal took Zaragoza I turned my army around and marched on Valencia. I laid siege to it to weaken El Cid and his defenders. On the last turn I assualted the Motte & Bailey Castle and won the day.

I then continued my economical build up. I didnt build my army up much but I did build a nice little fleet that could wether pirate attacks. I sent diplomats out to get trade going. I even sent a diplomat to camp Rome. Yes, I have learned finally the way to control Papal diplomacy is by having a diplomat near Rome to grease the Pope's hands with small gifts of money. I'm not sure what the minimum is but I know each time I give a thousand florin he praises me and looks the other way. It keeps me in high esteem with him. I made one other alliance. With the French. In case i wanted to play them and Portugal off one another later on.

The Pope called for a crusade against Antioch. So far in two previous games (England & Denmark) I went on crusade three times and each time my army deserted. I'm convinced the Crusades in this game are a joke. No matter what I do desertion happens and I lose good men and time so from now on I'm just going to ignore crusades in all my games. CA needs to fix/tweak how crusades work. They simply are useless in my opinon. Besides that I can give the Pope one thousand florin and he forgives me not going on crusade.

Anyway, once I got a good economical build up going I looked around to see what rebel towns I could pluck without starting any wars. The Moors were to my south and the Portuguese to Southwest and North. Bordeaux sat lonely. The French hadnt gotten to it yet and it only had a three or four units defending it. Lowly units too. So from my Toledo docks I sent an army to invade Bordeux and capture it. It was a easy take. I kept the army there to discourage the French from getting ideas. Meanwhile I looked around for other targets.

About this time the Pope dies. Having kept in perfect esteem with the old pope with a couple of small gifts my Cardinal had four votes going into the election. I easily won and my Cardinal was made Pope. Things were looking good. Portugal and the moors went to war against each other. I decided to let them fight while i looked for easy targets. I assumed the Moors would be better fighters than the Portuguese so i didnt attack them. I was actually hoping they'd take Lisbon so later I could snag it and not get any gruff from the vatican. I build another small army and sent it east towards Corsica and Sardinia. After a time my army captured the rebal towns of Ajaccio and Cagliari.

By now the Portuguese had taken Cordoba from The Moors. This only left Granada left on the peninsula so I decided I better take it before the Portuguese do and totally surround me. I still had the alliance with them but I knew eventually war would come. I recalled my army from Bordeux since my other small army was at Cagliari rebuilding there. I pulled my Bordeux army home via boat and marched them southeast from the Toledo docks as quick as possible. I threw in some extra good troops and bought some mercenary spearmen. I sent them to valencia where I had a fleet waiting to pick them up and sailed them south to Granada. At the same time I got a mission to blockade Granada so this worked well. I also took my small army stationed at Cagliari and sailed them to North African coast of Algiers and stationed them near the town there ready to pounce.

In one turn I landed my troops at Granada and laid siege to it. I then had the ships blockade the Granada docks. At the same time my small army near Algiers landed and laid siege to it as well. The Moors were completely unprepared for this attack. They only had one unit at Granada and a few at Algiers. On the next turn I assaulted Algiers and took the town. I kept the siege at Granada going one more turn to get the 'mission complete' notice. that gave me an extra 1000 florin for no extra effort.

During this phase the French attacks both Portugal and me. Near as I can see its just a naval war so to keep myself from getting into hot water with the vatican I'll let the French blockade what ports of mine they want. its not a worry really. Bordeux is the only region they can attack me directly and it has a good garrison waiting in case they do. Otherwise they have to go through Portugal to get to me. Meanwhile I sent my Granada force to Marakeesh to take it and my Algiers force to Tunisia to take it. For all pratical purposes The Moors are done for. Its just a matter of time now.

Once the Moors are exterminated I'll just wait and see if the French or Portuguese will attack me directly. If so they'll probably get the Pope's wrath and get excommunicated. Then I can waltz in and take them down. I'm still allied with Portugal however so I'll just build up for now. Maybe send a expedition force to the Americas. I havent been there yet and Spain should offer a good springboard for that campaign. I could go after Egypt as well or any excommunicated nation. Sicily is currently excommunicated and so is England. Lots of choices for land grabs.

Thats it so far. Looking forward to sitting down and playing this faction some more.

Quillan
12-04-2006, 06:11
Once you eventually get to gunpowder, Spain becomes really powerful. In land units, Spain has the full spectrum of gunpowder troops: handgunners, arquebusiers and musketeers. I personally didn't bother building any handgunners; I've faced those in battle in a previous campaign and wasn't terribly impressed. I skipped over the arquebusiers as well, just because once you can build them it's only one more barracks until you can build musketeers. Musketeers are a graphic demonstration why gunpowder weapons supplanted swords/bows/crossbows as the primary weaponry of armies. They have high attacks, long range, accuracy, and the ability to penetrate armor. They seem to cause more casualties at long range than pavise crossbowmen do, and at closer ranges, I've seen armored sergeants break with a single volley of fire. The fear effect does seem to require you to be moderately close to work.

In artillery, Spain doesn't have access to mortars, monster ribauds or serpentines. They can build bombards, grand bombards, ribauds, culverins and basilisks. Their gunpowder ship from the dockyard is the lanternas, the same as most of the other Mediterranean factions. The Venetian galleas is a better ship, but is also more expensive.

My field army is now transitioning to the end period weaponry, as I can build them. My usual stack now consists of 4 musketeers, 5 Tercio pikemen, 6 sword & buckler men, 2 jinetes, and a general. I leave two spots open for artillery pieces, and use them as necessary. I've found times when I have to leave the artillery behind to move quickly, and am adopting the strategy of leaving a piece or two in every front-line city so I can pick them up as needed.

Skott
12-05-2006, 02:51
So Spain eventually does get some pikemen? Thats good because so far their infantry isnt too good. I have to hire mercenaries to use as my main line right now. Spain does have some good mounted troops though. Good crossbow men too.

my latest update is this...

I landed troops at Merrakesh and as I was laying siege to it Portugal decided they wanted Granada. I guess they were mad that my army beat them by one turn to Merrakesh. So, The Spainish-Portuguese War starts. Portugal took Granada without much effort. I only had three militia units there. I wasnt expecting a war with Portugal so soon. They had me surrounded on the Peninsula and it was touch and go for a while. My best two armies were in Bordeux and North Africa. I had to build a third army to help stave off the Portuguese. Finally I got all three armies into Spain and began taking territory. Portugal kept asking for a ceasefire but I wasnt willing. I wanted them dead and gone. I retook Granada first and then Cordoba. Pamplona and Zaragoza fell next. Then finally I took Lisbon. During this time I greased the Pope's hand to keep him happy and my rating high.

At one point the pope died but my rating was so high and everyone was so happy with my piety (or how I was conducting warfare because in reality I'm as pious as a rock):laugh4: that they all were voting for my guy. I won that election easily and retained the papacy.

Then France tried for Bordeux. Luckily my northern army was near Pamplona at the time so I marched them up to break the siege. It was a bitter fight. Their mounted knights did a number on my front linemen but I won the day. I marched a small army over to tulouse because it was lightly defended but the French had a major army neaby and routed my smaller army. And then the Pope intervened so I had to break off or face his wrath. He's my man on the chair but I still gotta listen when he says, Back Off!

The Moors still got one territory left in Western Africa. Its way down below. Its taking a while to march an army down there to grab it. Other than that right now I'm just building up my tired armies and my economy. I'm turning all my castles into towns and cities now since all of Spain and most of North Africa is mine. Just leaving Pamplona nd Bordeux as castles for now to guard my northern border.

Once I take that last Moorish territory the campaign is technically over. I dont know if I'll play more or move onto another faction. I'll probably save the campaign in case I want to come back to it. I still havent seen the Americas yet nor have I seen these Mongols and gunpowder. I'm still in the very early 1200s.

ChewieTobbacca
12-05-2006, 06:06
I'm playing as Spain currently with one year = one turn on VH/VH and i'm in the late 1200's now (which would be 1400's in a standard year game) and let me tell you something: late end Spain units are unstoppable.

In fact, the only "knight" units I use now, are Gendarmes, which don't really count as they are just heavy professional cavalry from cities. A line of Tercio Pikemen, supported by Musketeers or Pavise Crossbowmen, Sword and Buckler melee support, and a mix of artillery or Mounted Crossbows for skirmishing is incredible. Couple that with their fast movement speeds and lighter armor (only Gendarmes really face any penalties vs. units that are effective vs. armor) and i've been able to mow down army after army of all sorts.

Quillan
12-05-2006, 06:08
Yes, Spain does get pikemen, and good ones too. I expect the Holy Roman Empire might have better, but nobody else does. Swiss pikes are in the game, but only as mercenaries after a certain date. To train Tercio pikemen, a city has to get to huge unit size, and then build a Military Academy (4800 florins and 4 turns, IIRC). The academy is well worth building anyway; park a general there for a while and he'll pick up the Academy Trained trait later superceded by the Officer Training trait. These are worth +1 and +2 to command, respectively. There are no building prerequisites for the Military Academy either, just the huge size requirement. It can later be upgraded to a Royal Officer's Academy, for 9600 florins. This allows the building of Gendarmes and increases the pool of pikemen from 4 to 6 units max.

The gunpowder infantry are also trained in cities. Once gunpowder is developed, you get two new barracks buildings. The highest level barracks buildable prior to the discovery (Militia Barracks) enables the recruiting of handgunners once gunpowder is developed. Following the militia barracks, you build an Army Barracks (6 turns and 12,000 florins) to allow recruitment of Arquebusiers, and then upgrade that to a Royal Barracks (8 turns and 15,000 florins) to be able to recruit musketeers.

Aldaris
12-05-2006, 13:41
Well, this will be my first post on this forum, and I am making it about my current favourite faction, the spanish.

It was said earlier that the spanish do not have good infantry in the early stage. Tis is not really true, you get the almughuvars, and those are great if used right. The almughuvars are javelineers with decent to good melee ability, and that makes them a great asset.
A typical main army of the spanish in the early stage should consist of 2-3 jinettes (javelin cavalry), 2-3 mailed knights, a general, 4 crossbows (peasant archers will do in a pinch if those are not yet available) and 4-5 almughuvars (with skirmish turned off). Top this up with spear militia if you feel like it, but it's not really necessary.
Use your jinettes to harry the enemy heavy cavalry, as those are the greatest threat to your main line. Neither the crossbows nor the almughuvars will take a cavalry charge without falling like flies. Place the crossbows in the front line with the almughuvars behind. The knights secure the flanks. Advance into range and bombard with crossbows and, when you get closer, javelins. The latter are really deadly, especially when you have the high ground. Don't be afraid to maneuver at speed to gain that advantage, you have mostly light troops who can take it pretty well. Concentrate your barrage on one section of the enemy line, then cease fire and let your knights punch through (don't let 'em linger in melee). immediately after that, charge the almughuvars forward and use your knights and jinettes to attack the rear if the enemy cavalry is dealt with, if not, concentrate your horse on those. Your shooters can run to an opportune spot to shoot the flanks or rear or engage in melee, if that is too risky. Use them to complete envelopments, never on their own. They should only add to the "oh hell, we are surrounded"-syndrome.
This works great against most armies, against cavalry-heavy troops, increase the number of jinettes and knights and concentrate your fire accordingly.

Mazoch
12-05-2006, 23:48
Some random thoughts on Spain.

Starting out
Spain’s strength is defiantly their cavalry in the starting phases of the game. I found myself filling my armies with at least half to two thirds Calvary, add a few spears and a few archers and great army for early warfare.

My general strategy would be to use mailed knights or spear to attack the enemy from the front while Jinettes would attack the flank / rear of the unit at the same time. When able I'd wait out sieges to force the battle outside where I could make full use of my cavalry.

Overall my basic plan was to focus on taking the entire Spanish peninsula. This would give me a large area that should be fairly well defended

In my first turns I ignored El Cid and grabbed a fair stack and headed to Zaragosa, I also send a princess to Pamplona. I manage to marry her to the family member on Pamplona and as such could grab the city without a fight (though it does result in war with Portugal). I decided to stay out of southern France.. Plenty of opportunities towards the south and with England, France and Milan all shooting for the area i figured I'd stay clear.

Already at war with Portugal it seemed clear that I needed to finish off Portugal asap before the moors decided to join the fun. Ultimately they declared war on me a couple of turns before I attacked and occupied Lisbon.

I scrambled to regroup, after some tough fighting I drop the moors out of Spain.

The joy of crusading
The dissertation issues with crusades can be a hassle, but for Spain these can be avoid relatively easily, and crusades provide an idea way to expand your influence without breaking your finances.

You can avoid crusades as long as you move closer (or at least don't move away) from your destination). So the trick is to plan tings so you can continue moving towards your destination while still picking up a few holdings on the way. There are two huge benefits to crusades: 1) Crusading units has no upkeep, being able to send a full stack of high end units into battle without upkeep saves you a quick 2-3000 a turn. At the earlier stages of the game, this is the kind of money that can make or break your empire in the making. 2) Cheap powerful units. Crusader knights and sergeants cost next to nothing (I can’t remember the precise numbers but good spearmen for under 300 and knights for less than 500? and no upkeep?).

As I see it you have two ways to use your crusade:
1) When the crusade is called quickly gather the general you want to use, a ballista (or catapult) and 6 other units (archers might be a good idea as there is no cheap crusade ranged units to be bought) in Valencia. Gather as many ships as you can spare at the time (5-6 would be a solid fleet this early in the game) and join the crusade. Your real goal is not actually the holy land but rather establishing a solid base of operations in the central and eastern Mediterranean. First stop is Corsica. The two islands in-between Spain and Italy and almost certainly still rebel. Disembark, siege and attack in the same turn. With your siege weapon and full stack of crusading units there is no reason to waste time. By the end of your turn you should have taken the settlement and be back in your ship and heading towards the second of the islands. Next turn take the second island in the same way as the first and head into East. You second stop is almost all the way to the holy land. Rhodes (along the Turkish coast) tends to remain rebel for a long time and would be an idea staging point for future crusades and East Med navel base. The last leg of the journey can be tough as you’re likely to be hounded by enemy ships. Get there, unload and grab the castle. You now have three island bases giving you great coverage of the Mediterranean. You have a strong stack already in the east if you want to continue to the holy land, else consider disbanding many of the crusade units as the upkeep becomes brutal once the crusade ends one way or the other, no one is likely to attack your islands anyways.

2) The second approach to the first Crusade.
I haven’t had a chance to experiment with this approach but if done right you should be able to hop to North Africa and march your upkeep free super army easy at a sedate phase, crippling the moors as you go. By the time the crusade ends you should have taken 2-3 Moorish settlements in North Africa, leaving you in a strong position to wipe out the rest of the faction.

Skott
12-06-2006, 03:56
I got my tech built up to Bombards and the 2nd level Bombards (foget name) I also have access to those pikemen now. I stopped the campaign there. I took the last Moorish territory finally and put the Moors out of the way which ended the short campaign. I saved game so I can come back to it later if I want.

I started a English long campaign now. My first long campaign. Now that I know what I'm doing I want to see how the English do. I like their infantry better anyway. My strategy is a holdover from RTW basically. Get a good solid line. Back it up with some ranged artillery units (archers and ballistas) and a couple of cavaly units to cover the flanks. Move in to artillery range and let the ranged units weaken the enemy and then once its exausted move line up to engage and send in cavalry to the flanks and roll the enemy flanks up. Standard classic strategy really.

I been doing this with M2TW as well. Knights instead of RTW cavalry. Catapults instead of balista and still using archers but crossbowmen now mostly since they hit harder. And they go up front instead of being behind the linemen. Archers in M2TW arent as accurate it seems. You put them behind troops and they shoot up but not very effective when landing from above. Put them out front they do pretty good in a direct LoS attack but subject to assaults by the enemy lines. And they dont retreat as fast as the RTW units did. The crossbowmen can melee better though than archers from RTW.

The AI more or less stands about and lets me move my lines up just like in RTW. So far M2TW does the same basically in my experiences on M/H and H/H. Kinda dissapointed CA hasnt improved battlefield AI from RTW. I had hoped they changed it. Maybe if I try it on VH?

I did enjoy the Spanish more than I did the Danes. So far though the English suit my tactics best with their better infantry but to be honest I didnt try the Spanish pikemen yet. I want to tech up the English and then compare them to the Spaniards in mid-late game play.

Edit: I didnt try doing a crusade with the Spanish. In other previous games it didnt work for me at all. Nothing but desertions. Plus you can camp a diplomat at Rome and grease the Pope's hand with a little coin and keep him from getting mad at you for not going on crusade. Far as I'm concerned the game's crusade aspect is seriously flawed and I dont like it at all. Not even going to bother with it anymore. I'd love to partake in it but if all thats going to happen is mass desertion then its just pointless. I know I'm being overly critical of it but there it is ::chuckle::

KARTLOS
12-06-2006, 04:52
playing on h/h

i started off by allying with both the portugese and the moors.

i musterd all my forces (leaving toledo unguarded for a couple of turns) and took zaragosa first - as has been mentioned the portugese will get their first and fail in their attempt to take it - thats your chance.

i decided to wait on valencia - it is a tough city to take, so i thought it was unlikley that the moors would get there before me (which proved to be correct)

i moved my army (now nearlly a full stack) up into france - i tokk bordeaux off them and Rennes which was rebel. under pressure from the pope I managed to negotiate toulouse off them for a ceasfire ( it came equiped with troops - never done this before imp impressed)

i then pursuaded the pope to declare crusade on jerusalem. I took a couple of generals, some troops and recruited to full stack with crusade mercs. I had another non-crusading general follow along behind with some milita troops.
I hired cursade merc boat in south of france. first stop ajaccio, second stop florence. The cusade army moved on imediately after taking these territories and the following non crusade general came in after to garrison the new territories. I recruited more crusade mercs in italy and split into two forces. and moved overland down towards the heel where i recruited two new crusade merc ships.
next stop durazzo and corinth both byzantine territories. both taken after one turn of seige. ( tip - to garrison territories whilst on crusade move your general out of the crusade stack recruit mercs - put them in the city, move the crusade stack back to the general and rejoin the crusade. I have also noticed that if you leave crusade troops behind in a city they dont desert into thin air, but just stay in the city.)
The army from corinth moved on to take smryna, whilst the durazzo army too corinth and then byzantium. I ignored nicosia as it was too well defended and moved both armies on to take iconium (also byzantine at this point). i have scurted around adana as it was guarded by almost a full stack of byzantines and i ma about to start moving through the middle east - where helpfully i hhave been able to replenish my severely depleted armies with fresh crusade mercs.
amusingly when i arrived in anatolia i was aproached by the egyptians for a ceasefire (They own Jerusalem so when i joined the crusade it automatically declared war on them) I was able to get 8grand for this! and im just about to break the peace!
Ive been left with a very scattered empire so it should be fun connecting the dots. I think the byzantines might take back a few of their cities but i am not too bothered by this as i got a lot of loot from them, plus i think the idea of a crusading army going on the rampage and taking every city they can is quite historical.

note- i have lost a few troops to desertion, when ive waited to pacify a territory, but not too much, and the cost of rectruiting new mercs pales against the plunder + income from a city.

Skott
12-06-2006, 21:12
The Portuguese do go for Zaragosa right off but in my campaign they did take it after two turns of sieging it so its not a gurantee they get beaten back. Whats interesting was that in my campaign the Portuguese did it with only two units total. I expected them to lose but they didnt. I guess its safe to say in most cases they lose but one cannot rely on it everytime.

Mainos
12-14-2006, 11:08
Hi, I´ve played a couple of caimpaigns with the spanish.
O agree with mosto of you that the first you have to do is wait for the portuguese, they are not aragonese i´d like to remark, to attack zaragoza and thn it will be very very easy.
Pamplona gets blocked and undefended. Portugal then tends to conquer cordoba, but is not easy for they.
Then I allied with the moors waiting Portugal to wear a bit. In the other side try to ally with english by marriage, and probably you´ll get a nice cpatain, and then attack with your ships french ports, of Toulousse, Rennes and Bordeaux. Shipping should be your main goal because your strategical position. English will attack form northern france. First time, when I succeded allying the english, your princess is not Claudia Schiffer, I got Toulousse and Burdeaux just as a reward for ceasing fire.
Attack Portugal whnever possible, always Lisboa and Pamplona in the same turn, in a very quick action because you will be excomulgated by the "·$%%# Pope.
Don´t expand yet to Europe, Bourdeaux and Toulousse is enough. Don´t get Rennes in Bretagne when the council ask you to do so because it will be too far to help them when the french try to recover it. Go for the moors.
I even joined the crusade and conquer Jerusalem and Acre but had to burn it and lost it later but the money was a great reward for the crusade. I went back with my troops conquering south af africa burning all the cities and keeping Tripoli, argel as castles and marrakesh as city. Priests will be neeeded to keep thes muslims cities in order to convert people.
I tried to bribe el Cid for a long time but he is not aggresive so wait until he dies and Valencia will be very very easy to conquer. keep it as castle and use it to expand to mediterranean. South of marrakech is a cupole of regions, and the southest has even gold but they are to far and as merchandising is not your principal strength you wont get too much. I conquer it but I regret of doing so. Is a long walk, very long.
Then, when you have the whole Peninsula, north of africa, and, perhaps, southern france, go with your ships to attack milanese and french in europe and northern italy. They will attack you first so dont bother about diplomacy. And center europe is very vert very funny. Milan, genova and marsella are very good cities and will serve you as starting points to conquer center europe. When the popes asks you to cease fire with french, attack milanese, and viceversa. Maintaining a siege doesn´t count as excomulgating action, and if they try to defend they will be excomulgated.

JoeyBritt
12-14-2006, 14:58
I'm in a very sticky situation with the Spanish now. After easily conquering Iberia early on in the game (something I suggest strongly as it offers a good basis for monetary support during the rest of the game) and eradicating the Moors, I began to build a buffer zone between the rest of Europe and myself, conquered the Western Med Islands and moved to finish the conquest of Africa. All went pretty smoothly with a few bumps on the way until...
I am at war with the Mongols in the Holy Land, (the point at which my Empire spreads furthes Eastwards is Jerusalem and Jedda). The Russians, who own most of Northern Europe and a large chunk of central Europe, are attacking my buffer states just before Iberia (Toulouse, Bordeaux and Marseille) whilst Milan is attacking my city of Naples. For once I find myself wishing for the Timurids to attack so that Russia will have to redirect its forces...Still got another 50 years til that though!

ChewieTobbacca
12-15-2006, 03:58
I posted this elsewhere but here goes:

One of the things I learned in the history of the late Middle Ages was the rise of Spanish dominance towards the end of the Medieval era. Spanish armies from the late 15th century through to the 17th century went relatively undefeated in its major battles, largely through the effective use of its tercio formation. In essence, the formations were pikemen being used in conjuction with firearms, and light infantry.

In the M2TW description of Spain, they are described as having excellent light infantry. At the end of an era where heavy armor and knights were the dominant force, Spain adopted lighter and more mobile infantry forces. Now while Tercio formations had gunners mixed in with the pikemen and other infantry, the units that come in M2TW are not mixed units. Instead, you have to mix them yourselves.

So I started up a custom battle and created an army late era professional units of 5 Arquebusiers (meant to do Musketeers but clicked the wrong unit), 3 Gendarmes, 6 Tercio Pikemen, 5 Sword & Buckler Men, and one Late General's Bodyguard.

I loaded up a French army of Voulgiers, Dismounted Chivalric Knights, Aventuriers, Pikemen, and Lancers/Gendarmes. The French army actually cost more than my army by a significant amount (over 10k florins), but both sides were equal in terms of experience, armor, and weapon upgrades.

In my formation, I lined up pikemen in a line, at an angle from the corner of the map. The reason for that? Well being near an edge of a map means that the flanks have a smaller amount of room to manuever. As always, picking the right terrain to fight on is a key to victory.

Then, what I did was, I mixed my gunpowder units in with the first rank just in front of the first rank of pikes. I then put my sword & buckler men within the Tercio formation, about 2-3 ranks deep, in the back. Picture:
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v224/chewietobbacca/0001.jpg

Another view:

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v224/chewietobbacca/0002.jpg

Now why would I do this?

First, only the first rank of gunners fires, so the back ranks within the pike formation wouldn't affect anything. Next, the gunners will not have any infantry obstructing them, as it would be possible that some gunners won't fire if put behind. Finally, the pikes being there means that no cavalry can be used to attack your gunners while they are shooting at enemy skirmishers or formation.

With musketeers, and their very long range, being at the front of your formation means that you have an even longer range than before. Thus, you can hit longbowmen before they can even hit your pikemen. If muskteers are put behind pikemen, the first few rows of pikemen may be hit by enemy elite archers without your musketeers being in range.

There is another benefit - gunners tend to be weak against enemy archer fire, and take lots of casualties. However, while stuck in a pike formation, it's more likely your pikemen take the arrows, and so you can protect your ranks better against enemy skirmishers. Furthermore, this formation tends to prompts the enemy to hit you head on, even when they aren't ready. The reason? First, if they skirmish, your musketeers will likely kill their skirmishers handily. Second, pikemen are so numerous in number, that skirmishing against them will take a VERY long time to kill enough to make a dent, and it's more likely the musketeers will kill all the enemy skirmishers before they make a dent in your numbers. Finally, the musketeers cannot be attacked by enemy cavalry directly in this formation, and enemy archers are more likely to hit your pikemen or overshoot/undershoot the formation (as it is thin facing the enemy).

Do, however, move your musketeers out to provoke the enemy into attacking you if they are just sitting there out of range to bombard you with artillery, if they brought any.

If the enemy charge your pikes, the trick is to move your gunners back while you move your sword & buckler men forward. This keeps the gunners out of melee, allows them to continue fire, though now from behind, and the sword & buckler men can fight enemy infantry at the front, while the pikes still protect the sword & buckler from enemy cavalry.

Your own cavalry must be deployed along the flanks to defend against enemy cavalry. If the enemy cavalry are defeated, you will then conveniently be along the flanks to hit the enemy from the side or from behind.

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v224/chewietobbacca/0004.jpg

Keep your pikemen in guard mode to recieve the enemy charge. Now a lot of people have been saying that pikemen do not attack properly - they actually do, you just have to tell them to attack them. As seen in the picture above, they are attacking the Voulgier's with their pikes. What you do is you have to select your pikemen, and SINGLE right-click the enemy. This worked for me both in and out of guard mode. DOUBLE right clicking the enemy will force your pikemen to run at the enemy and thus they will break formation and drop their pikes. If you single click, they will try to stay in formation and in line and will engage the enemy with pikes. Only if the enemy gets too close/breaks formation will some of them use swords to fight their nearest threat. The rest of the formation, if not hampered, will continue to use pikes.

As you can see in this picture: https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v224/chewietobbacca/0003.jpg

My pikemen are advancing with pikes at the enemy unit. This is quite devastating - even against halberds, mounted & dismounted knights, my pikes were able to inflict massive casualties. In fact, once you get some practice with pike formations, you can use pikes on the offensive and to "push" the enemy.

A few tips:

-Use the "alt" button to rotate your formation. Holding alt while moving the mouse will rotate the army around its center. It's great for moving your formation to face the enemy if they try to flank.
-When moving your formation at the enemy, always SINGLE right click a spot either in front or behind the enemy. Do not have them attack or units will start to converge to attack that targetted unit. Furthermore, after you have clicked, you can hold the "shift" button to see where your units will end up. This allows you to adjust the angle and direction of your formation.
-To attack the enemy with pikes, even in guard mode, make sure you SINGLE right click. On the offensive, if you single right click, pikes will stay in formation and will keep their line intact. As you see in my last picture, the pikes try to stay more or less in a line and will rotate the entire line at a target if the enemy formation is at an awkward angle. Pikes will only be dropped for swords if the formation is too thin, the formation is broken, or there is a more immediate threat to the pikemen than what the formation is targetting (for instnace, a flanker or straggler).
-Use sword & buckler men to flank or to defend pikes against infantry that are good at killing pikes, such as Zweihanders, other Sword & Buckler, and dismounted knights.

The weakness of these formations?
-First, they take a lot of practice, especially pikemen. They are tricky units to get used to.
-They take a lot of casualties! Late medieval armies got very large in part because they started to trade away armor for firepower. Most of these units aren't armed with shields or heavy plate armor and will thus take lots of casualties from enemy ranged units. Be prepared to lose a large amount of your army to enemy fire, but hey, in MP battles, winning is all that matters ;)
-Against an enemy that is artillery heavy, your bunched up units will present juicy targets. To counter enemy artillery, either swap in some light cavalry (such as Jinetes), or your own artillery to counter the enemy. Formation positioning is also key - if you can position your units where the artillery has a hard time hitting you, you will also be good. Finally, use your musketeers/ranged units to provoke the enemy into attacking, so they cannot bombard you at will without causing friendly fire casualties. Again, use your musketeers range to your benefit.
-Against an enemy that is horse archer heavy, you will have to use lots of bowmen and light cavalry to counter them. Heavy ranged infantry armies, however, shouldn't be a problem, as you should use your units on the offensive (and musketeers do a great job at killing enemy ranged infantry anyways).
-An enemy that is very heavy cavalry in numbers will present a problem if you pick the wrong terrain to fight on. If your cavalry guarding your flanks falls, they will be at your flanks and your pikemen will be toast. To counter this, either bring more heavy cavalry (and less sword & buckler), use gunners to aid the flanks, or once engaged, swing unengaged pikemen at the horses. They will make mincemeat of them.

The battles results:
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v224/chewietobbacca/0005.jpg

A lot of casualties, and my general died, but my formations stood their ground and didn't rout. Furthermore, this army was much cheaper to make than the French one, and surprisingly, one unit of pikemen inflicted the most casualties, at over 250 in this battle!

Soulitaire
12-19-2006, 13:33
Just a few short notes confirming what a lot have already said here:
. taking all of the Iberian Peninsula and moving over to Marrakesh causes trade income to really jump. Up.
. you can't trust the Portuguese (the in-game Portuguese, of course).
. buffer states (donations of acquired real-estate to the Holy See) are most useful in shortening borders. I found that an alliance with the Pope and mutual rights-of-passage makes life easier.

Mainos
12-20-2006, 14:37
Im-presionante!

I can not help you with the battlegame cause I´m still managing the campaign and do not play tha battles , yet, but I´ve seen that some units are able to do an specific formation called schirron or something like that, that makes a circle with pikes outside. That´s what spanish tercios did in that era. But don´t know if it works in the game as it says.

Anyway, your strategy is spectacular, historically and tactically perfect. Well done. Im impressed, and as I am spanish , glad to see the photos.
Have you seen Alatriste film? They show tercios battling.

Well done!

Bongaroo
12-20-2006, 21:45
I played a short campagin with the Spainish on VH/VH and found it very entertaining. Firstly I rushed to gobble up the rebel provinces while securing an alliance with the French. The alliance lasted right up to the end when I was close to victory and the AI decided it didn't want me to win.

The Iberian penisula is a very strong position to defend with a bottleneck of 3 mountain passes to the northeast and a single approach from the south. After defeating the portugese and moors on the mainland I spent about 10 or 20 turns teching up and upgrading my front line armies. A crusade aimed at the moors pushed them over the edge and besides spending some time hunting down armies in the desert while moving east, mopping up was a cinch.

At this point I was only a few provinces short for victory. The french backstabbing provided an easy choice for what to take for the win.

Unit-wise, the Jinettes are a blast. Keep them out of combat until they've chucked all their harpoons. Those things pack a punch. They are quick and manueverable as well and if you use them right can easily start the enemies battle line routing.

tequila
12-27-2006, 11:12
I'm using 6 Jinettes in my armies against the Moors. They're perfect for absolutely destroying the front lines of any infantry army they go up against, and also for threatening archer and crossbow heavy armies as well. Circle a few Jinettes behind, and often opposing armies will rout after a few seconds of melee with your own infantry line.

Lorenzo_H
12-27-2006, 22:52
In my game (turn 117 or so), so far I have taken over completely the Iberian Peninsula.

At one time I had control of the North African City whose name escapes me (but it is the most westerly province in africa) and Bordouex. They have both, sadly, rebelled against my rule. I intend to take both of them back, but I will exterminate the population, not sack as usaul.

Toledo is by far my best city, even though it is not my capital. It has never been anything but a green face, and right now it stands at my nationwide best 150% public order minimum. It is a citadel and is capable of producing Chivalrous Knights, Fudal Knights, Sword and Buckler men, Jinettes, bombards and then all the usual stuff like diplomats, priests etc. So far I love S&B men and dismounted Chivalrous Knights. I have a shortage of Infantry throughout my kingdom.

Economically I am getting by, just about. I practically live off sacking though. I only get max 1000 florins a turn, and I'm lucky to get that if I do.

I have several pressing questions:

What are guilds? (ie Swordsmans Guild, Explorers guild) I keep establishing more and better ones without knowing what they do!

I have gunpowder, and the Buildings which will allow me to create cannons are cheaper than the ones for catapults and trebuchets. Which should I go for?

Are crusades worth it? I went on a crusade, sent my best young general and took the target city. At first, I was pleased with my achievement and glad to have made the investment of devoting my best troops to such a worthy cause. That was until about 5 absolutly bloody huge Mongol stacks each led by a general with at least 7 command stars came and killed my Alonso the Crusader who was promising to be a very good addition to my royal family (he was very young and very experienced too).

From now on what I intend to do is to keep doing the crusades just for good measure, but upon taking and sacking the city, I will collect my rewards and then leave, abandon the place, drop it like a hot potatoe and hope that all the Mongol stacks leave me alone.

Kraggenmor
01-01-2007, 06:52
Got the game for Christmas and have been playing almost non-stop since (generous company holiday time FTW!). I started my first campaign Vh/Vh as Spain and have had to re-start or go back to a save point more times than I can count.

I'm astonished by everyone here who seems to have had the luxury of only dealing with the Moors and Portugal. Every time I've taken either Zaragosa or Valencia within a couple of turns I'm dealing with Sicilians (or Milanese) landing at the former rebel holding while Portugal launched an assault on either Leon or Toledo and whichever they don't attack the Moors do. While all that is going on, the French send armies to queue up behind the Sicilians while the Milanese (or Sicilians) wander over for no reason whatsoever and blockade any port or sink any boats I managed to build.

Seriously I've counted myself fortunate any time I haven't had at least four enemies actively engaging me. I've just managed to take all of the Iberian plus Toulouse but, if I field any substantial force for expansion my income goes red in a big way. Now that the threat of Portugal is for all intents removed, suddenly England, Scotland, Sicily, Milan, France, the Moors, the ever present Rebels and God knows who else are now openly marching troops through my lands and navies across my seas with obvious intent to attack holdings in Spain.

The game has been fun for the most part but I have to say the absolutely treacherous AI players really take a lot away from it. Alliances mean nothing and trade rights even less. What good are trade rights really when you can fully expect anyone you gave or got trade rights from will be attacking you within five turns. I am not exaggerating that either. I have yet to have trade rights last more the 5 - 6 turns before they're canceled for that faction attacking me.

My experience has been that game is every bit coded to be the world against human player. How else do you explain factions who have a declared war marching massive armies alongside each other without attacking each other while moving to hit my (the player's) holdings? I find it terribly frustrating.

Though I hold all of peninsular Iberia, I'm barely pulling in a couple of thousand florins/turn and if pull troops out of garrison in order to make support moves or to march on a new target my economy immediately plummets to the red. So my choices seem to be to sit tight and hope to weather siege after siege trying to build/retrain and save up for a long campaign while being nibbled to death by ducks OR field armies and try to expand as long as the funds from sacking towns sustain the drive meanwhile barely building at home and watching the armies I use to make that drive dwindle by attrition until the whole thing sputters out.

Kind of frustrating to say the least.

katank
01-01-2007, 23:41
VH campaign is a bit broken in that regard. You need to resort to constant bribing to make even far off factions sensible.

Kraggenmor
01-02-2007, 15:30
You need to resort to constant bribing to make even far off factions sensible.

Aye. If I could afford it.

I did get my economic issues sorted out - at least a little bit. In my gains making I had not converted any settlements from what they were when I took them. So I had four cities and five castles. I have converted Valencia and Pamplona which leaves me with Toulouse, Toledo and Granada.

I know diminishing my garrison forces will alleviate the problem to a great extent but, I also know that as soon as I do that massive AI armies will show up and I'll lose those locations.

I've recently added Marseilles as a holding and the black death has just (hopefully) finished ravaging through Iberia so, maybe this would be a good time for troop consolidation and see what happens.

Owen Glyndwr
01-04-2007, 20:27
In my Spanish Campaign, the Pope called a crusade on Rome (The Sicilians took it, making it very hard for me to butter up the pope, because i can't find him), and it was pretty much a joke from the getgo. I only joined it because my standing with the pope was suffering, and I was planning an invasion of Briton. I was getting desertion after desertion because I was having a hard time simply getting off the Iberian peninsula lol. But now that I'm going, I'm well on my way to rome!

Malkut
01-19-2007, 11:19
Started what looks to be the first non-English campagin I'm going to stick with today.

I was going to assault the rebel towns first, but a quick check by my first spy showed that Cordoba was defended only by the Moorish faction leader, one of his sons, and a single militia unit. From the first turn, I gathered all my forces, adding a few Jinettes and Javelinmen, and made a quick, surgical strike against him. Even though doing all this at a rush nearly bankrupted me, the sacking made it profitable enough for me to raise an army to take Zaragosa after the Portugese failed to do so.

The Moors responded with a large stack lead by another general. I fought them in the hills around Cordoba. From my superior position on top of a very large hill, I rained fire arrows and javelins down on them, flanked them with my Jinettes, and charged them with my general, all in very quick order.

Total chaos. Most of their line broke coming up the hill. Only one group of spearmen met my front line, and they were overwhelmed. Their general was captured by mine. The last group tried to make a final stand on a hilltop nearby. My Jinettes engaged in a deadly duel with their desert archers, during which their mobility and power proved superior. The remaining forces were charged down and captured as they ran by the Jinettes. Moorish power in Europe was broken in that one heroic victory.

By turn ten, I expect to have fully driven the Moors out of my country. Then, I need to concentrate on my economic status, and prepare for Portugal’s inevitable betrayal, assuming it doesn’t come in the next two turns.

Moah
01-19-2007, 12:18
Bribing to keep alliances doesn't have to be that expensive.

200fl/10turns keeps the happiness up and is affordable. In teh long run far better than a straight gift of 2000.

I'm Scotland and paying the pope and the french. my pope-o=meter is perfect and the French haven't betrayed me...yet. (Turn 30ish)

Malkut
01-20-2007, 11:42
A lesson from my game: if you're going to backstab Portugal, do it quickly and cleanly. If you wait too long, they'll expand somewhere where you can't reach them, like Britain.

I still suggest sacking Cordoba very early. It's larger and better developed than your other cities. Once you take that city and smash their main force, the Moors will sue for peace at every opportunity. They know you can block the land bridge and crush them piece by little piece.

It might be best not to betray them, once you have peace. Everyone allies with the Moors early on. I led a crusade on Marrakesh for some quick rewards, and that made the French and Portugese very mad, even though they were brother Catholics.

It’s a long, long way to Timbuktu, but it might be worth the trip. Ever wanted to trade in African slaves and ivory? No? Well, me neither. Still, I can’t deny that it’s extremely profitable. Besides, is it really worse than warmongering and assassination? Be sure to bring priests, because there isn't a single Catholic in miles.

Moah
01-20-2007, 12:23
Bribing to keep alliances doesn't have to be that expensive.

200fl/10turns keeps the happiness up and is affordable. In teh long run far better than a straight gift of 2000.

I'm Scotland and paying the pope and the french. my pope-o=meter is perfect and the French haven't betrayed me...yet. (Turn 30ish)

Ah well it was good while it lasted. French betrayed me on turn 50ish. Seems like the Pope is the only man you can trust to stay bribed...

Lorenzo_H
01-24-2007, 08:55
On my Spanish Campaign, I am pushing through what the English conquered of France.

I sent my main force to attack Caen, which is a Citadel, but the turn before I could assault it with my 4 culverins they sent an army of c950 men to retaliate against my force of c550 men. They also had reinforcments from the town which amounted to c105 men. So essentially I am fighting the English in a Battle outnumbered doubly.
It was probably my most fluky victory. The 4 culverins were only able to fire 3 shots each (all of which missed) and then the enemy closed in. To make a long story short I won the Battle, after killing 3 enemy generals, with less than 10 men left! (this is unit scale normal).

I took Caen and now I plan on taking the rest of the English cities in France.

I am also setting out on an expedition to the new world. I wonder what type of units I should take...

Kraggenmor
01-24-2007, 14:46
I am also setting out on an expedition to the new world. I wonder what type of units I should take...


Not to belabour the obvious but, since you asked:

A.) At least one extremely loyal family member general. Distance from capital is a major issue and so, troops rebelling is too.

B.) Jinettes, goes without saying. I did well with an inital army that was almost exclusively pikes with a few Jinis and a general. If you can spare gunpowder infantry, that would be great too.

c.) Agents, agents AGENTS! Priests, spies, assassins, merchants maybe even a diplomat or two.

Like mentioned about Timbuktu, there's not a shred of Catholicism about, so Priests are a requirement not an accessory. Cardinals would be even better - again - if you can spare them. They'll be spending a long time floating over there so, account for that in the 'can I spare them?' decision. It's a long time they'll be doing nothing but, once they land they'll be busy, busy boys.

Merchants to drop on valuable resources and start the expedition paying off ASAP.

Spies for the obvious. Extend your line of sight, gather intel and open gates. An open gate really extends the functional life of an army.

EDIT: Consider also creating a fresh batch of agents to be put immediately on the boats. As mentioned, it's a long float over and you can expect a long lead time to being able to build back up to the point generating quality agents once you're there. You don't want to send a 50 year old agent over there and get only a turn or two out of them before age catches up.

Your expedition fleet should also be several ships Carracks in size at least and should be renamed Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria ;). Its good to have extras in case of storms, pirates, etc.

Lorenzo_H
01-24-2007, 15:31
Hmmmm...

I have right now is one Merchant, one Priest, about 7 Sword and Buckler Men, 3 mounted chivalrous knights, a few Tercio Pikemen and then a culverin. Right now I don't have access to any (worthwhile) gunpowder units aside from cannons. I also, wondered whether the Pikemen are worth bringing. I read they were oddly effective against the Aztecs - but since there is not much Cavalry over there I don't know... As for Jinettes, well I didn't think of bringing any of them because they seemed to me like they might be getting obsolete now and I haven't built any for a while but since you mention it I will be sure to bring some.

Should I:
Wait for more gunpowder units?
Build more cannons?
Build more cavalry?
More agents?
I suppose I should bring along a few more priests and Merchants and then some spies.

Kraggenmor
01-24-2007, 15:51
You can always make a new batch of agents and send them along following the initial force.

I wouldn't wait for gunpowder infantry, I was just saying that if you have them and can spare them, it's a good call.

I like Jinettes because...well the obvious, they frigging rock during every age and, because of their speed and flexiblity. Aztecs are fast, jinis are too and good for disrupting them, like they are good for disrupting everyone.

Remember too - the Aztrecs are 'kind of' outdated by nature. So your 'outdated' units are good over there.

Either way, if you feel like you're ready to roll on the new world, rock on.

Lorenzo_H
01-25-2007, 13:04
Well at this stage I have sent my fleet packed with all the aforementioned goodies and units and its currently sailing towards the New World. I almost forgot to add a loyal general! This is mainly because I am sadly low on generals at the moment therefore I had to take the Governer of my only decent Huge City (Cordoba). You see, I only realised halfway through the game that to upgrade Cities you needed to build better walls, so my Cities are all behind the times apart from Cordoba and Toledo.

Anyways, with the conquering army sent to the New World I now have several more objectives:

1. To beat the crap out of the English which is proving quite challenging (they seem to be better than the Moors) and now they have allied with the Mongols who already hate me.
2. To join the crusade and go take Jerusalem which is a City in the middle of the Mongol territory who have a bigger military than the rest of the world's armies put together!
3. To make Valencia, Pamplona, Zaragosa and Leon into productive Huge Cities.
4. To make a bigger army, and take the 45 territories required to win (right now I have 15 or so, and its turn 175, so some urgency here).

Trithemius
02-02-2007, 05:01
I have gunpowder, and the Buildings which will allow me to create cannons are cheaper than the ones for catapults and trebuchets. Which should I go for?

I like cannons myself.


From now on what I intend to do is to keep doing the crusades just for good measure, but upon taking and sacking the city, I will collect my rewards and then leave, abandon the place, drop it like a hot potatoe and hope that all the Mongol stacks leave me alone.

Probably a good idea. This kind of "recycling" also means that you can do the Crusade again, later... ;)

Snoil The Mighty
02-02-2007, 10:06
I like cannons myself.



Probably a good idea. This kind of "recycling" also means that you can do the Crusade again, later... ;)


Doing it this particular way instead of giving it to the pope or selling it to another faction does insure that you can pillage and plunder under divine sanction again and again. I'd like to have a standard along the lines of a Great Cross or Carrochio Standard that said - "Crusade Over-Free Beer for Mongol or Timurid Army who attacks first" that I could park outside the city as I left.

Lorenzo_H
02-12-2007, 09:11
Ok, right now there is about 17 turns left in the game, and I have to capture about that many provinces in order to win.

I will post a screenshot or two (could someone PM me about how to do this because I never seem to be able to do it).

Anyway, I have captured most of North Africa (but can't find the two cities belonging to the two provinces that are most west and south on the entire Map - Help?), All of France, Sicily, Milan, of course the entire Iberian Peninsula, Jerusalem, Tlaxca, Caribbean, London, North America. I have sent a ship to capture Brazil, and one to reinforce Tlaxca because three Aztec stacks have just attacked it.

I am going to have to resort to attacking the Papal States, who have grown very powerful indeed. Aside from owning all of Italy apart from Milan (Spain) and Venice (Holy Roman Empire) I also noticed that their Mediteranean holdingd are quite substantial. I am going to launch a nasty Surprise attack on them. My invasion of England is going quite well, having destroyed the only English Army in Britain the whole Island is at my mercy which will not be spared. Tip: Jinetes; you know they are good, but I recently found out that they work wonders against the English especially.

Owen Glyndwr
02-20-2007, 04:52
A lesson from my game: if you're going to backstab Portugal, do it quickly and cleanly.

I agree with you completely. From my experiences, not just in M2, but in R also, wars need to be dealt with efficiently. Especially in the early game where money and troops are light. On my campaign, I got whatever troops i could spare and moved right over to Zaragosa 1st and 2nd turn. the Portuguese beat me to it so I sat around and waited. they lost, so I took Zaragosa and make a temporary alliance with Portugal. The trade will give you an extra kick to make the armies needed. I prepared armies because I knew either Portugal was going to betray me, or I them. I had about 20k florins, so I made two armies. I learned that in these games, good logistics are key. Not only to avoid the Pope, but money constraints make it so that you can't afford to have these wars drag out. I finished off Portugal in two turns, and then quickly kicked the Moors out of the iberian Peninsula. These took me about 15-20 turns, and it gave me just the start I needed to get a good foothold in the campaign (helped prevent the multi-frontal wars that I experienced as the English)

Lorenzo_H
02-20-2007, 10:01
I actually managed to destroy Portugal with a much smaller overall military than them. Since they only had two cities I attacked Pamplona first, and while the Portuguese Army was circling around south of Lisbon to presumably attack my Cordoba or Toledo I had a small army take Lison. The huge Army turned to Rebels and is still there now - I havn't bothered to destroy it. Is this causing devastation or something like in RTW?

Kraggenmor
02-20-2007, 15:12
The huge Army turned to Rebels and is still there now - I havn't bothered to destroy it. Is this causing devastation or something like in RTW?

Probably. I've certainly had that happen in my own campaigns under similar circumstances. If that rebel army is parked on a road they are almost certainly hosing up trade along that route as well. Doubly bad if its a road to & from a port. If its just out in the wilderness then, its probably "just" causing devastation - you can tell by the ground around the army turning gray and looking charred.

Either way, you want to deal with that army in some fashion. Either destroy it or bribe them. How urgently that needs to be done depends on just what its doing to you.

sturmgrenadier
03-05-2007, 20:01
Vicarious' post was funny; I didn't realize that 'MY LITTLE PONY' was a sanitized substitute for a curse word until I read the later posts by the moderator and such. This newb thought that he was saying that a cavalry heavy, computer-controlled enemy was marching on one of his cities:) I want to commend him for his exceelent command of the English language; I was very surprised to find out that he is a native Nrowegian and not an ex-pat Yankee living in Oslo. To business, though...

I'm playing my first campaign as Spain on VH/H (am I correct in discerning that the protocol is to list the difficulty of the game setting as a whole (strategy) first and then battle difficulty?). Although I've been a big fan of the TW series having played each of its main variants (Shogun, MTW, Rome), I've experienced much more success (and far sooner at this point of playing in comparison) with MTW2 than with any of its predeceessors. I won the long campaign playing HRE on M/M after only restarting once. And recently, I won playing France on H/H on my first try. Maybe this was luck and/or these are easy factions. At any rate, my first campaign with Spain has been far more difficuly (and my position is probably doomed at this point).

I only control four cities after about turn thirty-five (Valenica and Lisbon eventually fell). I think my main mistake was squandering so much time trying to take Valencia. I did the spy infilitrate tactic and it worked at opening the gates. And I thought my assault force was big enough. Unfortuantely, my army got routed on three successive tries (save restart used). Ont he first, I made the mistake of charging through with all of my units and (as other posters have pointed out in many threads here) that is a recipe for defeat as the attacker. next two times, I split my forces in two and attacked through two different gates and did a good job of timing my split forces to engage the enemy's (similarly dvided forces) simultaenously. Alas, the result was still the same. My forces ultimetly were routed. I had to go to plan B and seige them until they came out at me (and I easily beat them). But this fatal waste of several turns set me back at a critical time. Mr. Moor was on themrach in the meantime (I had to fight off a couple of sieges by him) and diverting resources to Valencia gave him the time he needed to entrench in Zaraoga (huge army threre) and from reading the posts from more experienced players, I know understand that taking this city early is critical:(

As opposed to with other factions I've played where it is fairly obvious to me where I need to spend haeavily in the eraly going,with Spain, I'm not really clear on whether I should focus on investing in military development, economic development or what in the infancy of my campaign (first thrity turns or so). I suspect that my strategy of taking a middle ground is probably a loser. It doesn't help that Mr. Moor is particuarly aggressive with his prosleytation of my lands early on. I should probably have put fighting this threat to the backburner though (and not spent money on churches and priests, and delaying my delveopment/force building) since it likely only takes a toll in the long run, like a slowly-spreading cancer.ANyway, these are just my newb observations. Any other rookies experiencing thse kind of growing pains? Thanks for your time!

Quillan
03-05-2007, 20:35
You did notice that El Cid de Valencia was a 6-star general, yes? You need overwhelming force to crack that nut. If you're only 35 turns into the game I seriously doubt it's lost. You need to eliminate the Portuguese and Moors who are on the Iberian Peninsula and consolidate your hold there. Once done, you have a strong base which is both easy to defend and a great jumping off point for a military campaign in England, Europe or Africa, and is fairly decent for getting to the Holy Land as well by boat. You can block the straits of Gibraltar with a fleet and defend the 4 routes across the Pyrenees. The Moors make safe expansion territory as they're Islamic, so no papal problems will result, but Africa is huge with few territories. Europe will give you more provinces in a given amount of land area but has papal complications unless you pick only on the excommunicated factions.

sturmgrenadier
03-05-2007, 22:43
How long untila submitted post/reply displays on the thread? I only asked because I submitted a few a paragraphs long one a couple of hours ago and still hasn't appeared. Maybe it didn't take when I pressed the button.I thought it confirmed, though. Alas, a waste of joint flexing:(

sturmgrenadier
03-06-2007, 01:18
Please disregard my previous post inquiring about how much time elapses before one's submitted post appears. Thanks for the insights, Quillan. Command rating makes that much difference (sorry for the duh question)? oh, I guess I'm not very observant after all. I didn't notice the enemy general was a six-star on my first try and from then on, I probably kept clicking right past the pre-battle screen. never did notice that. I guess I need to build up a larger numerical superiority before taking Valencia. Thanks

vonsch
03-06-2007, 02:20
Please disregard my previous post inquiring about how much time elapses before one's submitted post appears. Thanks for the insights, Quillan. Command rating makes that much difference (sorry for the duh question)? oh, I guess I'm not very observant after all. I didn't notice the enemy general was a six-star on my first try and from then on, I probably kept clicking right past the pre-battle screen. never did notice that. I guess I need to build up a larger numerical superiority before taking Valencia. Thanks

Yes, large disparities in command ratings for the commanding generals can make a large difference. As Nappy said, "morale is to the physical as three is to one." Command ratings have a significant effect on morale.

Quillan
03-06-2007, 03:02
Cid's troops are comparatively crappy, but then so are yours at the beginning of the game. He's defending a settlement, so the major benefits of greater numbers (hitting the opponent on the flanks/rear) tends to be cancelled out by the restricted area. His command rating makes his troops fight harder than yours, the defense tends to cancel out your greater numbers, and the fact that troop quality is basically equal means that you tends to lose the fight unless something else is brought into play. That can be three things: a superiority of troop quality (requires you to hire mercenaries or wait until you've upgraded Toledo so you can go in with dismounted knights instead of spears), a vast superiority of numbers (3-4 times as many units as he has, and just wear them down through attrition) or a superiority of something else (like tons of missile troops and just shoot him to death before closing).

vonsch
03-06-2007, 03:40
Cid's troops are comparatively crappy, but then so are yours at the beginning of the game. He's defending a settlement, so the major benefits of greater numbers (hitting the opponent on the flanks/rear) tends to be cancelled out by the restricted area. His command rating makes his troops fight harder than yours, the defense tends to cancel out your greater numbers, and the fact that troop quality is basically equal means that you tends to lose the fight unless something else is brought into play. That can be three things: a superiority of troop quality (requires you to hire mercenaries or wait until you've upgraded Toledo so you can go in with dismounted knights instead of spears), a vast superiority of numbers (3-4 times as many units as he has, and just wear them down through attrition) or a superiority of something else (like tons of missile troops and just shoot him to death before closing).

Or you can camp him until he sallies. He's much easier in the field than all walled up inside his keep. I leave him until last in the penninsula. If the "competition" beats on him, or takes him, less trouble for me.

sapi
03-06-2007, 12:58
I find that the best way to take care of El Cid is to get a mass of militia and siege and autocalc.

You can absorb the losses but he can't :yes:

Lorenzo_H
03-06-2007, 14:46
I fought him in a battle once, and I found that if you kill him personally then the rest of his army is as good as fried mushroom with mayonnaise. I even had less men than him, but I had a good few Jinettes which always help.

Quillan
03-06-2007, 20:23
... but I had a good few Jinettes which always help.

This is a truth that cannot be overstated. Jinetes are, properly utilized, one of the strongest units in the Spanish order of battle. As general killers, nothing is better. The only real drawback is a limited ammo supply. Learn to use them, and you'll learn to love them.

Lorenzo_H
03-07-2007, 16:38
As far as I'm concerned, Jinettes are the best western cavalry. They are versatile, fast, have armour piercing ability, and kill more units than any other cavalry unit of my armies.

sturmgrenadier
03-07-2007, 19:38
After soaking up some of the insights/experiences of posters here, I started a new campaign on VH/H (strategy/battle). This time, I took the advice of a couple players and focused first on capturing Zarazoga (instead of Valencia like on my first campaign), because of its apparent greater strategic importance as a gateway to the European mainland and/or a defensive bulwark to keep forces from said region out of Iberia. Much to chagrin, even though I made like 'Charlie Hustle' trying to bust out a run to first, the Portugese beat me there. But apparently, a few turns later, they broke off their siege laving the rebels in control still. This allowed me to successfully infiltrate with my spy and assault (after recruiting two units of mercenary spearmen to supplement my modest forces). I shoudl also mention that for the first several turns, I spent my dough exclusively on upgrading the miltary production capabilities of Toledo and my other nothern city.

Fine and dandy so far, right? Well, I amassed about a modest force under my general's leadership (about half of this banner filled with color) and decided to make haste towards Lisbon (the west coast Portugese city). I moved my one spy all the way down there to infiltrate, but partly owing to the scarcity of even 'soft targets' for accrruing experience at this point of the game, he was only a level four, and failed to open the gates. At this point, there was only a tiny garrison in the city. I guess it was moot, because by next turn, this massive, full stack Portugese force had appeared on the scene and chased me away. So it is doubtful that I would have been able to hold the city even if I had captured it he previous turn.

In the meantime, my Sicilian pal, after having apparently grown quite disgruntled with the fact that I had not purchased my regular, monthly order of his new, deluxe pies (maybe securing trade rights/allying would have prevented this? Or rather, I suspect he or another faction would have attacked at this time given the difficulty setting in any case?), decided to seize my newly won city asset up in the northeastern part of the peninsula.

I charge hell bent for leather back up there but lost the first time I tried to relieve the siege. I've saved and will try again after work this evening, but my guess is that I've probably lost the city because he has several units of mailed cavalry and my garrison consists of only one merc spearmen (I disbanded one earlier in an ill-advised cost-cutting move, militia and such) and my general's forces doesn't have the mid-level infantry unit yet (can't remember it's name; it's one upgrade up from the puny javelin throwers that rout easily). Now that I see everyone is pitching the virtues of Jinettes, I probably should ahve recruited mroe of them. At any rate, this is a tough faction to play on these difficulty settings (at least for me it is:)

My question/dilemma is this: seeing as how I haven't wasted any time and have poured all of my resources into upgrading my military capabilities, how do I realistically have any chance to expand (hold on to conquered cities while I conquer new ones)? I just don't see how it is possible to build up the two (I'm assuming full stack in size) armies that some posters have mentioned here. There just isn't enough time before you have to build up and expand before you have to divert a lot of resources to defend against invasion (in my case it was seaborne)? What am I missing with this timetable? Is there a way to buy myself more time strategically before I have to contend with the competing demands of expansion and defense? Thanks for your ideas and comments!

Lorenzo_H
03-07-2007, 23:25
sturmgrenadier,
Regarding the army expansion question, if you have a balanced economy (also invested in some money-producing buildings) you should just about be able to maintain your borders. What you must avoid is rapid expansion, followed by heavy debt, followed by heavy loss of new territory. I fully feel for your concerns; I often feel myself that I need to expand, but to expand I need to expand to fuel the expansion. Time is not an issue. As long as you are 1. economically stable (the most important factor) 2. increasingly aggressive 3. intelligent in how you go about expansion (don't bite off more than you can chew). To hold onto settlements you might want to consider keeping the population happy, otherwise the settlement might fall to internal struggles, perhaps a more frustrating way than losing it to another faction.

For success in battle, even when outnumbered:

When in doubt, use Jinettes! They have many uses - but my favorite and the one I currently employ whenever I have a battle, especially when outnumbered, is to circle around the enemy and take out the General, who usually leads from behind. It doesn't take long, and might only use up the javelins of 3 Jinette units, and is well worth it.

I also heartily recommend the use of Tercio Pikemen. Their stats may decieve you into thinking they are unimpressive, but I have found them in practise to be most reliable. Pair with Dismounted Chivalric Knights and Sword and Buckler men to kill infantry.

Another thing - when you conquer new settlements, sack them. The boost in Florins is worth it, in my opinion.

sturmgrenadier
03-08-2007, 00:43
Diablodelmar,
Thanks for sharing your observations. When I play Spain, I'm going to focus on finding that 'optimum' level of expansion in the early game. If I am losing newly conquered cities while running budget deficits, that's a good sign that I am expanding too much without investing enough in infrastructure (re: income producing activities: creating buildings and fostering trade agreements, etc.) That's obvious to me. What's the good indicator that I'm not moving quickly enough? I guess that's when adjacent cities become uber-fortified/defended w/ massive garrisons by the time I try to take them?

Truth be told, in playing games in the total war series (including this one), I've always tended to pursue a economic development heavy strategy in the early game and this has usually worked for me. But then after reading a lot of these posts here (and the stories about neighboring factions grabbing adjacent cities very rapidly and permanently damaging your chance of a successful campaign, it's caused me to reconsider and think that maybe speedy expansion (and by extension, funneling more money towards military development) was much more important early on than building my economy. That's why I've tried a different tack with Spain. Now, I guess after reading your post, I'm moving back towards my old strategy. Maybe the type of strategy just depends on the clan that you are playing as and the difficulty setting? I can more experienced players saying, 'DUHH!':( In any case, I'll definitely have to try the Jinette attack. When you say circle around the enemy, do you mean there is a way to get them to do the special attack circling lliterally around the enemy? Or did you just mean that figuratively in the sense that they are running in circles (next to the enemy unit) while they pick away at it? I'm guessing it's the latter, because I can only get them to run in a standard size circle when I activate the special ability.

Non-sequitir: as a coin collector, I find it neat that your island is permitted to mint its own coinage on a restricted basis (if I understand correctly) that is legal tender within the island. Obviously on this side of the swamp, only the national government has the power to mint coins and currency. I suppose in your country there is a rather different division of powers that permit particular municipalities, regions, etc. to execute such powers and that these are rooted largely in history, culture and tradition. If so, is it true that there are twin, maximum security correctional facilities on your island where they send the most violent offenders? And is the island heavily subsidized/compensated for taking on this burden? Sorry for the irrelevant prattle.

vonsch
03-08-2007, 01:35
Sturm,

Yes, Portugal always beats you to Zaragoza. And, yes, they usually don't take it first try, but they will the second once the garrison is worn down. Doesn't matter if they're wiped out as a faction. :smash:

I haven't played Spain a lot yet, but have started up Portugal a lot of times. I've gone through the Spanish start-up five times or so. That said, as I recall all the Portuguese royals start in Lisbon. An all out attack there first removes them, often without getting excommed. But an excom that early isn't too bad, just get a diplomat to Rome fast and start dropping some indulgence money on the Pope. When you get up to perfect relations, he'll talk reconciliation for a larger indulgence. Or he'll croak before things get too nasty. You do want to get recommunicated before going seriously into conquest. The added penalty in unrest really hurts as you move away from your capital. And the threat of having a jihad AND a crusade aimed at you should be intimidating. :help:

If you can get rid of the Catholic "competition" on the penninsula early (and make nice with the Pope), you're better off. Make nice with the Moors until then, and let them waste manpower on Valencia. You can usually pick up Zaragoza without much trouble, but the French move pretty fast, so get it under seige and they will (at least the always have for me) back off. Same for Pamplona which goes rebel when the Portuguese royals all die.

Then you can pretty easily swat the Moors. I drop my navy into the straits ASAP. A couple ships do fine unless I get really unlucky with rebels. Get a close port going so you can repair one while the other stays on station. The Moors take a while to build ships in my experience. Choke the flow of reinforcements from the south and taking out the Moors is a lot easier too.

Cordoba is great income. Get it as soon as you've settled the north and before Valencia. Granada isn't worth rushing for its own sake, just to clean the Moors out. Once they are gone, and Valencia is in the fold, then you can put more navy to guard the straits, build up the Pyranees defense force (the French will come for you sooner or later) and tech up a bit.

I do use some merc to make sure I win the key battles. Spears are a good value. With them pinning, you can use your general's cav to charge, after the jinettes have used up their javs in the backs of the enemy (or his general).

Keep those jinettes. Don't combine them and end up with fewer units. If you keep rebuilding them (which you can do just about anywhere!) they get some nice experience and become both tougher and deadlier. I combine them only when I can make a full unit and have "change" to retrain. That cadre is the key to ensuring their experience is put to work with the fresh recruits!

You should be able to do this in 10-15 turns.

Use your free upkeep slots religiously. I use Carl's fix which tweaks how they work so I'm unsure now how vanilla does that. You may need to use just militia units for that with vanilla. With the fix you can use anything you can build in that city, which means jinettes can be used too early on, which is nice. In all cases the game does seem to make the most expensive that fits the role free, so it optimizes that part for you.

vonsch
03-08-2007, 01:41
When you say circle around the enemy, do you mean there is a way to get them to do the special attack circling lliterally around the enemy? Or did you just mean that figuratively in the sense that they are running in circles (next to the enemy unit) while they pick away at it? I'm guessing it's the latter, because I can only get them to run in a standard size circle when I activate the special ability.

I think he means neither.

The enemy general sits behind the lines until he sees the chance to charge something worthwhile. If you loop a couple jinettes around one or both flanks and come up behind him, he'll usually chase one (jinettes are faster) and you can send the other in behind and ping-pong him. But it takes micro-management. And have to watch to be sure nothing else decides to help him out. It's a good use of those javs since they do anti-armor damage (better than sticking them in peasants or even spear militia). Let your archers handle the unarmored stuff.

It's worth meleeing him (unless he's huge on stars) once you're out of javs too, if you think you can kill or capture him. Have one unit pin him, then other charge into his rear or flanks over and over. Remember, jinettes are faster. But avoid getting a whole jinette unit killed. Withdraw them if they are really hurt badly. It's worth saving them to keep that experience.

Gingivitis
03-08-2007, 02:29
I think he means neither.

Isn't it that Can(something) shooting circle ability that Jinettes and other horse archers have?

vonsch
03-08-2007, 03:25
Isn't it that Can(something) shooting circle ability that Jinettes and other horse archers have?

Cantabrian circle, yes. But don't think that's what he was referring to when talking about taking out the opposing general. :dizzy2:

The circle is mostly an anti-missile maneuver while firing yourself. Unless you're going up against some sort of general that's in a missile cav unit, probably not too useful in this circumstance.

TheJace
03-08-2007, 06:00
This may sound strange but I'm looking for late game advice. As Spain I have siezed all of the Iberian Pennisula, Italy, the western half of africa, and all the islands in between. But while I was doing this, the Mongols have taken over a third of the map and still have most of their elite veterans around. The timurids have recently arrived but they are not attacking the Mongols and show no intrest in doing so. Taken the Mongols down seems up to me, so how do I wear them down. I have some ideas, but I want to hear from the community.

Lorenzo_H
03-08-2007, 09:54
Diablodelmar,
Non-sequitir: as a coin collector, I find it neat that your island is permitted to mint its own coinage on a restricted basis (if I understand correctly) that is legal tender within the island. Obviously on this side of the swamp, only the national government has the power to mint coins and currency. I suppose in your country there is a rather different division of powers that permit particular municipalities, regions, etc. to execute such powers and that these are rooted largely in history, culture and tradition. If so, is it true that there are twin, maximum security correctional facilities on your island where they send the most violent offenders? And is the island heavily subsidized/compensated for taking on this burden? Sorry for the irrelevant prattle.

Are you asking me about the Isle of Man?


When you say circle around the enemy, do you mean there is a way to get them to do the special attack circling lliterally around the enemy? Or did you just mean that figuratively in the sense that they are running in circles (next to the enemy unit) while they pick away at it? I'm guessing it's the latter, because I can only get them to run in a standard size circle when I activate the special ability.

What I meant is that I send them behind the enemy lines to attack from the rear - Jinette hammer, pikemen anvil type thing.

Lorenzo_H
03-08-2007, 10:07
This may sound strange but I'm looking for late game advice. As Spain I have siezed all of the Iberian Pennisula, Italy, the western half of africa, and all the islands in between. But while I was doing this, the Mongols have taken over a third of the map and still have most of their elite veterans around. The timurids have recently arrived but they are not attacking the Mongols and show no intrest in doing so. Taken the Mongols down seems up to me, so how do I wear them down. I have some ideas, but I want to hear from the community.
I find that the Mongol generals are usually quite dangerous. They have high dread, high command. If you have any decent assasins, try them against the Mongol generals. If not then get some high Chivalry generals of your own in there to balance out the morale loss issue in battle.

Speaking of battles, guess what unit performs well against the Mongols? Yeah, you guessed it right, Jinettes!

sturmgrenadier
03-08-2007, 17:39
Thanks for further explaining about how to use Jinettes, folks. One other thing that I've learned here is that not all 'special abilities' are necessarily useful. I learn something valuable each timne I visit and read this forum. In playing Spain, I have the feeling that I am (ahem...) 'attempting to extinguish [multiple and continually erupting] conflagarations with my bodily waste fluid' to quote a sanitized version of the old slang expression. First, the Sicilians, then the Milanese, the Germans then the French all laying siege to my cities. The first two were half-hearted assaults that I easily beat off, but the last two were no joke-good units and numerous. Strangely enough, they all (even the French) came by seaborne invasion. This is really unpleasant because they appear out of nowhere with little warning (can attack on the same turn). Then, there's the English and Papal States that like to poke around my territory but haven't attacked, but cause me to have to keep an eye on them and tie down resources. Oh well, I guess that's what happens on VH (strategy) setting...

And yes, diablodelmar, I was asking you about the Isle of Man, but feel free to tell me to grab a 'Fodor's' guide at the library (bugger off, as the say:)

Lorenzo_H
03-08-2007, 23:29
I'll be happy to answer your questions about the Isle of Man.

We do have our own currency, correct (the Manx Pound Sterling, worth the same as English pound). We have parliament (the oldest in the world, as a matter of fact). It however, does not have much power, for we are not independent; England truly rules over us.

We have two prisons, if thats what you mean. I don't think they are "maximum security," but nobody has escaped for a very, very long time.

Anyway, that is about as far off-topic as you can go, lol. It would be my pleasure to answer any more questions you might have, but use PM, or else start a thread in the Frontroom. Btw, I used to collect coins too. Nice one. Have any gold? I once found a gold coin in my house when I was very little, (promptly relinquished by my dad!).

sturmgrenadier
03-09-2007, 19:32
Hey, folks. This is the last time I'll take up thread space commenting on my observations about the difficulty level settings, because I suspect most players here are fairly experienced and/or skilled (and wouldn't gain anything from reading my novice comments). At any rate, here goes...

I was eliminated from my campagin yesterday (not completely annihilated, but it became clear that my position was unsalvageable; that's probably what most players mean when they say've they've lost/were eliminated in this context). After beating off an underwhelming repeat invasion by the Milanese (and gaining some false confidence in my growing, battle ability), I was simultaneously triple-attacked by the Portugese, French and Scottisch, each of whom laid seige to one of my cities. I had left a half to two-thirds stack of troops garrisoned in each at the time of attack (mostly spearmen, a couple of bows, a horsie, a light infantry, etc.) and Toledo had even been upgraded to Fortress (not the largest upgrade-I might have the names mixed up), but I just didn't have enough other troops on the board/troop producing capability to save any of them. One was assaulted after only a turn and fell (the enemy used ballistas to bash the wall down in five spots-this was way overkill, but I digress). And unfortunately (for me) each of the sieging armies were full stack and had pretty good unit types (mailed knights and other mid-level troops).

Playing on VH (strategy) for the first few times has been shocking: it was a rude enough surprise to be continually attacked singly by various factions (this is what I experienced with playing on H (strategy) and to a lesser degree M). But in my most recent playing session, this is the first time I've experienced simultaneous attacks by multiple factions (who are not even allied and this early in the game?). It occurs to me that the increase in the difficulty setting is not a linear function in MTW2; I have found the jump in difficulty to be much, much greater in going from hard to very hard in comparison to the leap from medium to hard (more of an exponential function:( Has anyone else found this to be the case? I'll give this campaign a few more good tries on VH, but I fear that it just doesn't constitute a reasonable challenge for a player of my capacities. And that really stinks, because the alternative, playing on H probably wouldn't be very satisfying, because I can probably beat it almost all of the time. Any others found that there's a ceiling they reach and it just isn't fun anymore to play the game. I wish they had a hard-veryhard setting. Or maybe they could utilize a 1-100 slider gauge that players can select. Thay way, players can gradually build themsleves up through meeting progressively, moderately greater demands instead of continually getting waxed or walking over the game (I know what they naysayers will chime: they can only discretely partition the difficulty settings so many times before it becomes meaningless and the differences between settings negligible!) And there's truth to that. But maybe they could come up with some kind of compromise device. Thanks!

vonsch
03-10-2007, 04:00
Yeah, VH is sorta silly in my eyes. The AI gets big advantages, plus it's programmed so that all the other factions will rapidly develop serious hate for you unless you can afford to actively bribe them constantly. I will play at hard, not higher. I want smarter AI, not more brute force overkill.

But it sounds like you were either perceived as vulnerable on the power meter, or you were tall poppy, and everyone was aiming to take you down a few notches. I suspect the former from what you've said.

Your better hope is for a mod that makes things more to your taste. Carl is working on one now. He's aiming for diplomacy that actually means something (unlike the VH one), and alliances can be binding if your rep deserves it and your ally has that record too. And a few other tweaks to make the AI perform better at lower levels from a production standpoint so it can compete better.

I'm testing and complaining. Spain has some issues due to the way jinettes were ubiquitous. But we're trying to hammer out something that makes sense, keeps jinettes in their role, but doesn't throw the AI into fits at creating viable armies. Portugal has it worse in this regard due to its exterior lines.

Drop back to hard and have fun. If VH POs you as it does me, avoid it. ~;p

I get annoyed when everyone decides to declare on me at once and I'm not in a position to handle it too.

Odin
03-14-2007, 13:25
I have read through the guide here and think it covers just about everything. I am curious though have any of you guys successfully bribed El Cid?

If so how much was it?

I am aware of the pros and cons and dont want to get into a discussion of how to defeat him in the field of via seige as its been covered. I am really just curious to know how much it would take to bribe him. Bribing seems ridiculously high as it is, so I assume in his case its a hefty sum.

anyone succeeded in doing so ?

Unorthodox
03-22-2007, 16:18
I don't think I've seen a single person spell "Jinete" correctly in this thread.:laugh4:

Anyway, when playing with Spain, I think it is pointless to ally with Portugal or the Moors. They're going to betray you anyway, and if they don't, then you'll want to betray them - before you expand any further, you'll definitely want to control all of Iberia. You'll be expanding soon, since there are only 2 rebel settlements on the peninsula. Allying with them and then betraying them hurts your reputation, which you don't want.

My first move is usually Zaragoza, since it's a relatively easy take (especially after Portugal sieges it first and weakens the garrison) and prevents Portugal from growing stronger. Valencia is a hindrance to begin with due to the strong garrison; leave it alone until you've dealt with the Moors and Portuguese. Once Zaragoza is yours, I suggest a quick strike on Cordoba, and a few turns later, Lisbon. After this, you have 5 regions on the peninsula, and your enemies have one each. Pamplona isn't going to do the Portuguese much good when they don't have the income from Lisbon, and Granada is a pretty easy take most of the time as well. Calling Crusades is very handy, although I usually save it until I'm going for Marrakesh or Algiers, since those are far away and you can certainly use the additional movement speed.

TheJace
03-31-2007, 04:09
Does anyone else have problems using pike men?:help: One time I could have sworn I saw enemy cavalry move straight through dropped pikes like weren't even their.:inquisitive: Do I have to have the spear-wall ability activated for them to work?:book: Do pike men even work?:furious3: Will adding more smily people make them work better:dizzy2:

Bearclaw
04-08-2007, 16:29
TheJace-
Pikemen need to be "braced" when the cavalry hits them. This means that they have to be standing completely still for like 10 seconds before they charged, and they'll do it automatically. Spear wall helps. If they are properly "braced" (put the mouse over them and it will give you the normal info-fatigue, morale, etc., as well as the "braced" notification) then a full charge of 60 chivalric knights against 112 decent pikes will result in massive casualties for the knights and only a few for you. If anything is behind the knights, though, your formation will be broken up a little bit. When they work, it's pretty awesome to watch massive numbers of knights just melt.

For everyone else discussing difficulty levels, I would recommend Lusted's Lands to Conquer. I recently decided to give it a shot and it has made things sooooo much more fun than ever before. For instance, alliances last! This makes the early Spanish game much more manageable, without making the late game too easy. I've always refused to play on anything except VH/VH, which as you all know, means that everyone attacks you viciously for no reason, which means constantly defend yourself or, usually, conquer the offending nations. And most of the time, I really don't want to get involved in central Germany (I like islands and coasts) or I want to roleplay being allies with the French. This is even more important for the Spanish, who start off with only two territories, on a small peninsula with two other factions and the French will be showing up soon. In my game, I allied Portugal (faction heir married their princess, my princess married one of their generals-important later) while I forced the Moors off the peninsula and blockaded the straits. I didn't want to blitzkrieg anyone and cheapen the game (although now I realize this is nearly impossible to do on LtC), so I sat around for a little bit and took Valencia and Zaragoza. Pretty soon, I had a general descended from the Portuguese general and a Spanish princess who married my heir's daughter (who was 50/50 as well), and that gave me enough roleplaying justification to attack Portugal (under the claim that my Spanish-Portuguese general was a legitimate heir to all Iberia).

This was the status quo for a little while, while I teched up and supported the French. They were under attack from dominant English and Danish forces, and I had a few marriage alliances with them, so I gave them some money, got military access, and kept an army up there to keep them from collapsing-they were reliable, and I didn't want one of the more powerful nations to establish a border with me. However, you can't just sit back and trust in alliances; after about 100 years of support, the French rallied under their 30 year old 10 star general (who had been 10 star since he was 19, when I married my princess to him...one of the greatest generals I've ever seen) and struck into northern Spain. I defeated his two full stacks in a single battle (one of the most fun battles I've ever had) and forced them to become vassals. Yep, you can do that with LtC too. Basically, it just makes diplomacy so much more reasonable. You can't push anyone around, but you can get alliances and reasonable ceasefires and the AI will honor them.

Also, LtC makes the late game very interesting. I've always stopped campaigns when I hit "critical mass," when no one else has a chance of stopping me. In this game, it looks like everyone has a lot of big armies, and they're all high-quality. The average army I've faced in LtC looks like this: 4 light cavalry, 4 heavy cavalry, 3 artillery, 4 missile, 5 good infantry (usually armoured sergeants). This is much more rewarding to beat than the typical 15 artillery, 2 town militia, 3 peasant crossbowmen. I'm basically facing off against armies similar to the ones I build, so battles actually come down to tactics instead of being decided before the battle actually starts.

I have one complaint with LtC-some of my family members don't show up on the tree. I married a French general into my family, but he never showed up on the tree and my princess disappeared. I think they had kids, but they didn't show up, I didn't get notifications, and the people they marry don't show up either. Every now and then I get a new general notification or I start getting marriage offers for a princess who isn't on my tree. This kind of sucks for me, because I use marriages mostly to increase the prestige of my bloodline, and then to get alliances, and lastly to snag a good general.

In any case, it's a minor flaw in amod that greatly increases my enjoyment with the game as a whole.

TeutonicKnight
04-30-2007, 18:29
So what makes Tercio Pikemen so special as to be a top-end unit, let alone a cultural specialty?

They have no armor, and no shield. Only a 4 defense. These guys are just begging for archer fire to come and melt them. The only thing I see going for them is running them through an armor-factory for some defense, then they might have a little durability to them. Otherwise, you'd better have a lot of mass graves dug ahead of time.

Am I wrong? Where's their strength?

Vladimir
04-30-2007, 22:03
How many armor upgrades can they get?

TeutonicKnight
05-01-2007, 15:40
I don't know yet. I started a new game with Spain last night after dowloading the leaked 1.02 beta patch. I'll know in a few days time I guess.

Quillan
05-01-2007, 16:55
They can have two armor upgrades, and it's been found that the stats shown on the display are deceiving. The armor upgrades work correctly, Tercio with both upgrades are shown wearing half plate, and even though the game says they have an armor rating of 2 (or whatever it is) they get comparable protection to partial plate. The Tercios are not the best pikemen in the game; Swiss Mercenary Pike are better, Flemish Mercenary Pike are arguably better, and Portuguese Aventuros are better. However, all of the above are impetuous, while the Tercio pike are not. Spain also gets musketeers, one of the few factions that get musketeers in the unmodified game.

gigabites
05-15-2007, 04:26
Guys,You might not going to believe this. But the first region i took is... The one and only, Valencia :yes:
First time I played the game, I siege it for 1 turn and then assault it in the next turn... Which turned out to be a bad idea... :no:

This is how I did it in my next attempt. Gather up several Mailed Knights, Archers and Spearmen and then siege Valencia...
Keep on sieging it until it ran out of resource... I noticed that the longer I sieged Valencia, their army size decreases. While you're at it, keep on reinforcing your sieging army. I managed to gather 3 spearmen, 2 archers, 2 Jinetes, 5 Mailed Knights, and 2 Generals (I got 1 from marrying a princess).

One turn before it fell, The besieged army attacks my sieging army, I choose to fight it on the battle map.
Luckily, the computer deployed my forces in a very good order (when a besieged army attacks a sieging army,the computer dont give the besieging army time to deploy their forces). From left to right: Generals, Jinete, Mailed Knights, Spearmen, Archers, Jinete, Mailed Knights.
I quickly positioned my Archers behind my Spearmen and told them to fire at will with flaming arrows.

The battle is somewhat short... The first unit that came out of the gate was Javelinmen and Jinetes. They quickly attacked both of my flanks. I charged them with 1 of My Mailed Knights and showered them with My Jinetes on each flank. When the rest of their troops got out, I just charged them on the side with the rest of My Mailed Knights.
El Cid, stupidly, trying to get a piece of my archers (I think), charged on my stationary Spearmen. (no patch installed hehe... :laugh4: ) I sent the rest of my Spearmen to attack El Cid & his bodyguard from all sides. Seeing My Generals bored doing nothing, I send them to attack El Cid as well...
After El Cid is history, I sent My Generals & Spearmen to charge the rest of his forces, which decided to rout after a short fight.

Thats how I got Valencia. After that, Zaragoza is just like a walk in the park... Oh, and in my game, Portugal didnt beat me to Zaragoza. They do have a half stack army, but it's just running around in circles next to their port...

Now i'm in the sixty-something turn... Mongols starts to invade... and i'm now the largest faction with highest population.
Regions I owned:
*Iberian peninsula except Lisabon (I allied with Portugal just to evade war on 2 fronts) and Granada (next target);
*a few French Cities (Tolouse & Marseile-do I spell it correctly? :inquisitive:,i think i have another 1, but I forgot what it is... :beam: )
*Cairo & Alexandria (Crusader forces that never get to Jerusalem because Crusade is already over, already captured by Holy Roman Empire)
*Tunis... Another Crusader force, that was meant to go to Antioch

Cheers... :2thumbsup:

Zim
05-23-2007, 22:39
I just started a Spanish campaign on VH/VH today and I just conquered all of Iberia except the Portuguese starting settlements and Zaragosa. I have only two cities and three castles(Toledo, Valencia, and Grenada). I'm thinking that I should turn at least one of them into a city. Toledo is my best castle by far, and doesn't border the sea(no port :no: ), but Valencia and Grenada don't seem to have much in the way of resources. Does anyone know if either of them produces much more in trade as a city?

MStumm
05-24-2007, 00:08
Toledo is my best castle by far, and doesn't border the sea(no port :no: ), but Valencia and Grenada don't seem to have much in the way of resources.

Toledo does have a port. Its on the northern Iberian coast to the left of Leon.

In my campaign I turned both Grenada and Valencia into cities and used Toledo and Pampalona as castles. Later (after taking over France and Italy) I converted all Iberian settlements into cities. To answer your question Valencia and Grenada were much poorer than other cities. Now they bring about 2000f each without governor compared to 3000+f from other Iberian cities.

MStumm
05-24-2007, 00:15
to the left of Leon.

I am referring to the "other left" here. Also known as "right" in some circles.

CMcMahon
05-24-2007, 01:44
I'm at turn... 87, I think, in my Spanish campaign right now. Thus far, I've knocked the Moops (No, it clearly says "The Moops!"), Portugal, and France out of the game, in that order, and am working on taking out Sicily and Milan, which should be semi-easy, if I hadn't taken over half of Egypt early in the game in a crusade, and (to save cash) razed all the buildings in the cities I took before gifting them to Milan. Anyway...

I could go through how I went about it, but all I really have to say is this: every army should be half jinetes, at least until you can start getting KOT and chivalric knights.I have a tactic that pretty much works without fail, as long as you don't choose a wooded area, and the armies are closely enough matched that the enemy will march on you:

1) Set up your infantry in a straight line, general dead center in the back, with any mailed/feudal knights or missile infantry on the flanks. You want them as far back as the map will allow, in order to tire out the enemy as much as possible. These units will NOT move until the enemy general(s) are dead, and half their units are routed.

2) Set up your jinetes in single file formation, off to whatever side the enemy won't be coming from, preferably behind a hill or a stand of trees.

3) Start battle.

4) Walk your jinetes around the enemy, and pull in straight from behind. Turn off skirmish mode, auto-fire, and cantabrian circle. Individually have each unit attack the general unit. Since you're nailing them from behind, they usually won't turn around at all, and usually will be dead before they even have a chance to rout (and, even if they did, they'd have to run through all of your jinetes to begin with). Now start pounding away at whatever units look the strongest with your jinetes, since they're all going for your "heavy" units (the infantry and mailed knights and general), they usually won't turn around.

5.1) If they turn around, charge right into them, as long as they dont have spears. Go two on one if possible, and have one group swing around from the side.

5.2) If they don't turn around, keep killing until you run out of javelins. Then pull your units back a bit, and charge. But don't aim at units... just set all of your jinetes to run straight back at your general, through the the enemy units (who should be fairly close to your infantry line now). Now have your heavy cavalry swoop oin from the sides, while your infantry marches headon.

Works every time, at least for me.

lar
05-28-2007, 14:23
I dont have much of an early strategy, portugal kicked the moors out of iberia for me and then i took out all of portugal and kept iberia for myself, i think the pope may have excommunicated them instead of me allowing me to get it easy enough.

then i didnt expand anywhere too afraid to go into europe and africa didnt really seem worth it so i built some forces and waited till i got to the new world. but when i pretty much got there i was using all my finance to keep my armys there so i could take it all and use the gold to fund me back in europe then go on a rampage, but the french germans and english all attacked me and made a big alliance so i had to hold them off i managed ok since it was only the french who really attacked me much and i then acquired a ceasefire with england and i took most of france but the inner most provinces.

i now have all america but the aztec part and the alliance against me isnt going anywhere so im gonna take rest of america get some cash and take out the rest of them, all 3 of them got excommunicated lol.


my armys consist of musketeers, tercio pikemen and cannons. there great to use in field battles and i usualy wait out sieges so i can take them out when they run out the gates.

Malkut
06-19-2007, 05:56
I started a new campaign as Holy Spain, and have almost won the short game by turn 40. This game has shown me that a good start is an aggressive one, don't attack rebel settlements when there are developed faction settlements you could have, and that sometimes, it worth it to tell the Pope to shove it.

Corboda is the most advanced city in Iberia, and is lightly guarded. Gather everything you can on the first turn, infiltrate it with your spy, add a few Jinetes if you aren’t feeling lucky, and go sack it first thing. Doing so with throw the Moors into disarray.

While you’re doing that, tell your diplomat to head towards Rome as fast as his feet will carry him. Begin building up a fleet in Leon, and get a few ships down to the Strait of Gibraltar to block off the Moorish reinforcements. Keep your fleet in good shape, and put a spy on the African side of the strait to monitor enemy troop movements.

The very second after you've blockaded the crossing point near Gibralter, immediately attack Portugal. They are worthless as allies and must die in order for you to with the short campaign. Ignore any excommunication warnings. If you get lucky, you’ll drive them right out of existence. If not, at least they’ll be off your peninsula. If you don't get a "faction destroyed" message, than they're either in Rennes or Wales.

Rush all the forces you can spare to the Pyrenees, and block off all access to the Iberian Peninsula. If you got your forces in place and your diplomat to Rome in time, you can probably buy reconciliation from the Pope before the French get a chance to seriously move on you. Once you’ve bought the Pope’s protection, the French are unlikely to mount a serious invasion. Keep you fleet in Gibralter supplied with regular infusions of fresh ships and repair battle damaged units when you can.

With no way to sneak in or out of your territory, you’ve bought the time you need to consolidate and really get your economy humming. Disband extra troops and build every economy building you get. You’ll be an economic powerhouse in no time.

Once you’re really in the Pope’s good graces, call for a crusade on Marrakesh. You’re sure to beat everyone to the punch, and it’s something you were going to do anyway, so it’s like getting rewarded for free. France and North Africa are both wide open spaces, so use Jinete-heavy armies, and you’ll be unstoppable.

venex
06-20-2007, 15:58
I started out by taking out the rebels in the peninsula and making potugal my ally. I got the Portugese to go to war with France, while I myself tried to maintain a status quo between portugal in France: attacking French forces outside of settlements, the portugese never seemed to be capable of making a siege succeed and thus France never got to attack me nor did Portugal grow too powerfull...I never was at a constant state of war with France though:
I would attack moving French armies, and then send an emissary to propose a caesefire, in the beginning this was pretty costly but eventually I cound get away with demanding maney for a caesefire and over time I even got them to give up Marseille and Toulouse :)

The pope never copmlained, because I never remained in a state of war with France for long, in the contrary: he eventually excomunitacted France (for going to war with the English I presume)

meanwhile my relationship with the pope was great because in concentrated the bigger part of my forces on fighting the Moors:
I completely destroyed the faction, all of North africa (Marrakesh - Alexandria) is mine, this enabeld me to have lots of priests converting people and thus becoming cardinals (all of the popes have been mine lately) + I got credit for completing 3 crusades I requested against the Moors (on Cordoba, Marrakesh and Alexandria). All of this took lots of turns though, getting a full stack organized to make the final assault on Alexandria took forever...

With this done I took the two rebel Islands of Corsica and Sardinia. The King of Sicily also died leaving no heirs, thus turning Sicily and Naples into rebel provinces which I took.
I then set my sights on
1) The still excommunicated French.
2) The scottish. The English haven't been very succesfull and merely have 3 provinces left: Wales and 2 provinces on the european mainland. So I sent 2 army's to invade Ireland and England. I took Dublin, London, York and Nottingham; then the pope told me to cease hostilities with the scottish :no:

So now I'm about tu utterly destroy the French, who have only 2 provinces left with pretty weak garrisons in them, when that's done I'll continue my conquest of the Brittish Isles...
After that? Oh I don't know yet, maybe attack the Egytians, though I don't like going further east: I've had no trouble with the Mongols so far, and I'd like to avoid them a bit longer :beam:
On the other hand taking Jerusalem IS a campaign objective of mine, so I'll have to go there sooner or later anyway...my forces in Africa are pretty preoccupied with chasing several bands of rebels in the desert anyway.


P.S.: As for my highly succesfull campaign in North-Africa:
jinettes + artillery are absolutely superiour in the open desert :yes:

Mete Han
06-23-2007, 07:40
If I exterminate the populace of the cristian cities I capture will I be excommunicated? If so how can you prevent revolts in the cities you capture without exterminating?

venex
06-28-2007, 01:23
You won't get excommunicated for exterminating the populace of a captured settlement..

And you can keep the people from rebelling by lowering taxes, increasing the number of troops garrisoned in the settlement, constructing buildings that increase public order/happiness/health/etc., keeping religious unrest to a minimum (building churches, or not...), etc. etc.

sir smudge
08-18-2007, 00:23
Ok I've been playing on and off for a while and this is where i have gotten up to playing on med/med.

I first started by takeing the rebel citys with the idea of leaving the Portogease alone and forcing the Moors out of Spain. but strangly enouth the Portogease attacked me:inquisitive: so fair nuff i says and wipe them out :whip:. then befor i get a chance to attack the Moors the French attack me:laugh4: so of i go and take the two citys the other side if the Piranees which i then give to the Pope to make my northern border safe so then i can get around to killing the Moors:2thumbsup:, Who by the way have been quite happy to sit there while my so called Christian brothers try and kill me:dizzy2:.

So anyway I claer out Spain and then start working on north Africa destroying the Moors. meanwhile I sent a crusade to Jerusalum which is held by the Mongles:inquisitive:. now these blokes are tough! their the only faction that has given me porse and so far altough my armys win the inital battle it always seems that there are like three other Mongle armys waiting in the wings. Who then come along and kick my butt:help:

so heres my plan I'm building up a number of armys who will then all be sent off to the Holy land at the same time. I'm hopeing this might stand up to the Mongles.then time permiting i'll take England if they get exed again:laugh4: and then on to sunny south America.

One thing I have notice is that the Spanish pikemen and the sword and buckler chaps suck! they die supper quick in a fight any one else notice this?

Benandorf
08-22-2007, 02:35
One thing I have notice is that the Spanish pikemen and the sword and buckler chaps suck! they die supper quick in a fight any one else notice this?

I have to disagree about the Pikemen; they seem to be very good at what pikemen are supposed to do. However, unless I'm missing something, Sword and Buckler Men are completely outclassed by units you get before them. Is there something I'm missing, or should I just stay with Chivalric Knights and forget about S&B Men?

On that note, why does everyone say Proffesional Gendarmes are so great? From my experience and the looks of their stats, they're quite mediocre, and outclassed by Chivalric Knights. Same for Knights of Santiago. So what is it that I'm missing?

sir smudge
08-22-2007, 10:13
I have to disagree about the Pikemen; they seem to be very good at what pikemen are supposed to do.

I found that up against the mongols they got creamed by their cav so unless thats using them wrong then personally I'm going to stick with earlyer units that seem to fair better in a fight.

Quillan
08-22-2007, 15:11
Personally I love the Tercio and the S&B guys. Everything tends to get creamed by Mongol cavalry, so don't use that as a measuring stick of quality. Sword & Buckler men are less armored than dismounted knights, but faster moving (slightly) and cheaper with superb combat capability. As Spain, by the time Gunpower rolls around, I usually start a full transition over. My late armies are a core of Tercio pike with a large element of S&B men and musketeers, a couple of cannons, 1-2 units of heavy cavalry (bodyguards, knights or gendarmes) and 2 heavy cannons (culverins or basilisks). They worked quite well for me, but I never faced the Mongols either.

Captain Pugwash
08-24-2007, 16:01
Playing spain for the first time.

How / when do conquistors arrive.

Does the heavy armoury (top level) serve any purpose? as it seems nothing requires what it produces.

whats the best troops to take on the mongols.

ta

Iavorios
08-24-2007, 17:12
The conquistadors are available only in the new world (that means after turn 160), from towns, citys and so on. But any way the DCK are way better, so really you don't need them in the old world. As for the armor, you need only master armororer, for upgrades, but if are rasing for the swordsmith HQ you will need the factory. The mongols are problem. In fact the only weakness that Spain has in this game is the lack of heavy spearmen. And you will need spears against the mongols, so most probable use merks or crusader ones, since you don't have any (exept militia but these won't do). Also you can use tercio pikemen. They will die like flies from the arrows, but you have many. Basically use CK, DCK, spears or pikemen and passive crossbowmen. O, or muskets if you can. They rule. There is a lot of topics on how to fight mongols and timurids here, so search.

ixidor
08-24-2007, 22:54
I am playing Spain in H/VH. I am in the turn 48 i think and Right now i conquered all the Iberian Peninsula (the portuguese survived though, they still have Bordeaux settlement), destroy the Moors, got Timbuktu (and start getting all the money i can from my merchs) and went right ot Sicily. I decided to close my borders in the Pirineus and use Africa as base instead. Right now i took Tunis, Naples and Palermo, destroying the Sicily. Milan attacked me so i took Cagliari from them. I also bought Bolonha from the HRE for 15k but it worth it since it's one less enemy to fight right now, it was full of spear militias and will very good to make milan's life in hell. The pope is spanish right now and it's very young in fact, 38 years old i think. His nomination was quite funny since he was not even cardinal until the election (even though he had 8 piety for converting moors to good christians), and then, just like that, he was elected cardinal AND pope in the same turn... Anyway, i got Palermo with my spies and with few casualties, and guess what, i got a Citadel, something i had not, in fact i had not even a Fortress yet. I will use the citadel to produce my sword and buckler man, pavise crossbowen and chilvary knights.

Also, my tactics are based in heavy cavalry only. Why? In 2 missions for the nobles' council i got 4 knights of santiago, ah, i forgot to tell, i did a crusade to marakesh and so i got this guild in Leon and Lisbon, and after got Palermo i got more 4 Chilvarics Knights. Also, i bought Tunis from Venice, to avoid fight them since our trade gaves me so much money (and it was quite cheap, 3k from a settlement that is giving me more then 1k per turn...) i got 5 extra mailed knights units, so with all these knights, my tactics are based in 1 deadly charge followed by a massive routing and tons of prisioners, lol.

Now i will hit Milan hard in his heart, i will attack Genoa and Milan in the same turn. The pope will complain about it but without these 2 cities Milan is reduced to Florence and Ajjacio, so hardly an opponent for me after that. The only problem right now is Milan's navy, who is protecting their costs quite well. Without it i would have destroyed them already. Mighty naval battles are happen in the Mediterranean Sea right now, but it's only a matter of time until i break through Genoa (i don't want to risk my king and a full stack until i have destroyed most of his navy).

As soon as a get Milan and Genoa i will start expanding North, from Pirineus. I will give the final blow in Portugal, take Toulose and Marselha. Then, after getting all Italy for me and kicking Venice' ass out of Italy i will attack the HRE and the North of France at the same time. I am not counting to see the Mongols right now since they still have some factions to play against but if they come this way i will just guard my bridges and cities with full stackes and lots of Pavise Crossbowmen and Sword and Bucler Men, avoiding the open field.

erandur
09-03-2007, 10:35
Just starting a Spanish campaign after playing through as the Scots my first impressions are thats its actually pretty easy. On H/H went up to Zaragoza, waited a turn for portugal to fail and then took it after. Then using my spy I had a look at Pamplona. General and two militia spearmen. Easy spy opens the gates and take on the same turn.

Then it gets interesting. A large Portugal army shows up at the other side of the bridge leading into Pamplona. Now from experience bridge battles=slaughtered A.I. And I'm right. A semi circle of merc spears + militia spears and Jinettes on the surrounding hills gets me about 60 losses 180 kills and something like 460 prisoners. I ransom them for a laugh and Portugal pays all 4,000 florins:oops:

I decide to be adventurous and march to Lisbon. End up on a bridge and decide to park myself there for the time being. I train up another army in Toledo army to stop the French getting any Ideas. What do you know? half a stack comes merrily wandering down through the mountains and gets massacered by Jinettes.

Meanwhile my economy is utterly stagnant and making 79 florins profit so its time for Lisbon. What do you know? His holiness excoms Portugal as well. Then something truly sad happens. My main army is parked on a bridge with the exact same compostition except Jinettes with new javelins and retrained spearmen. The prisoners of last battle attack me on the bridge with reinforcements from Lisbon and the exact same thing happens. Semi circle of spears and Jinettes lobbing javelins. Lisbon is left with a pathetic garrison and I take it with no fuss.

In summation: Hardline on Portugal early, don't let them consolidate and get real armies together. Bridge battles, people say its an A.I exploit as it really has no clue what its doing but I call it tactics. Theyre an easy way to crush armies with no real losses.

Now I reckon I'm set going to sack Corduba to kickstart my eco and block the landbridge to africa. It looks set to be a fun campaign. I'm probably going to get to fight the Mongols now.:smash:

Negator_UK
09-09-2007, 11:31
Playing Spain, VH/VH - long game.

Game going explosively well due to a few things.

1. Moors leave Corduba unguarded on third-ish turn - Ta very much.

2. Crusade - AWESOME - was forced to put my heir in a crusade by ther pope (god bless the pope !!). Never normally like Crusades, but started anyway just south of Corduba. By progressing eastward slowly the crusading army took Granada, Valencia, Algiers, Tunis, Cagliari, Tripoli, Rhodes Acre and Jerusalem - Yes even after all that Crusade-abuse my heir still managed to be a hero and complete the crusade :laugh4: :laugh4:

3. Built a ballista-maker in one of my towns very early. Now I can attack and take a catholic settlement in one turn which is quite cool early in the game as it stops the pope intervening until AFTER the town is yours. Meanwhile anyone who besieges and takes my towns in two turns often gets excommunicated.

I chose Spain because I want to see the new world portion of the game (never seen it yet) but I am concerned I may complete the game without activating it.

So my question is :- How do I make sure the new world is discovered/unlocked as soon as possible ???

Monsieur Alphonse
09-09-2007, 15:52
You have to change the date in descr_events. The date is in years. This will only take effect with a new campaign.

Negator_UK
09-12-2007, 10:25
You have to change the date in descr_events. The date is in years. This will only take effect with a new campaign.

I don't want to hack my game - Do you mean that the appearence of the new world is a fixed date ?? - what about all these exploreres guilds I am paying for - don't they have any effect ??

Quillan
09-12-2007, 15:29
No effect whatsoever. Events like that occur at fixed dates, rather than at random. If you don't want to "hack" the game, as you put it, and you don't want to win the game before the New World is discovered, then just get to a certain point and turtle up. If you decide to do this, then I recommend the following course of action to you:

1) Give Jerusalem to the Papal States. Holding it will entail a lot of work and expense. Make nice with His Holiness and let him deal with it.

2) Make sure you own the entirety of the Iberian Peninsula, but stop your expansion at the Pyrenees Mountains. This will give you a natural and easily defended border.

3) Take all of Africa. There is an impassable land barrier in Libya in this game (unless you're using a modified map) so only sea invasions would be possible.

This will leave you with a large and fairly profitable empire without putting you so far in the lead that everyone is likely to hate you. You'll need to control bandits in Africa, defend your border with France, and defend your island territories, but you should be safe there.

Negator_UK
09-12-2007, 21:21
Too late, I just won the game ;-(

I'm going to carry on and see the new world anyway, it should activate if it really is bound by date (what date is it discovered then, or turn no ?).

I did give jerusalem to the pope, after taking Rome :-))
I'm now his favourite pupil again. The papal states are now Acre and Rome, so The Mongols at Antioch can't touch me without attacking the pope and I don't think the AI does that, even for an Islamic nation, (would be nice if it wasn't that stupid, but I think it is.).

Most of my western European enemies are destroyed, Denmark is the westernmost nation left, apart from 1 regoin of the HRE, So i'm quire safe as long as I keep my eyes open.

If explorer guilds don't bring on the new world, what do they do ?? They better do something because they cost money !!

Benandorf
09-12-2007, 22:09
They add to trade I believe, as well as give a universal movement bonus at higher levels of the guild (master and HQ). Probably the best guild, IMHO.

I believe the new world is discovered around turn 160, right around the year 1400. Or it may be 1420. But it's close to there.

Negator_UK
09-13-2007, 01:55
If they do that then its probably money well spent ;-)

It seems strange that the game only gives you that extension after turn 160, which is about 75% through the game. It means the discovery of the new world can't really affect the outcome of the european war since by turn 160 you've either broken the back of the game or it's broken you.

Thanks for the info, I'll look forward to turn 160 and have the fleets ready ;-))

Quillan
09-13-2007, 15:57
You can't. The event that triggers it (The World is Round) enables the building of a new class of ships, and only those ships can cross the ocean. You can have the military ready to go, but you'll still have to build the ships - and possibly the ports to build the ships as well - when that happens.

Negator_UK
09-13-2007, 17:38
Thanks.

That saved a few virtual tree's ;-))

Not to mention running costs for all those white elephants.

Currently enduring the plague, which I guess is necessary for me to be able to pass it onto the aztecs.

Benandorf
09-13-2007, 21:02
You're right, the New World doesn't really play in to it. It's just a nice way to flee the Timurids if you can't beat them. You'll lose eventually, but at least you won't be destroyed.

Negator_UK
09-13-2007, 23:15
Ahh the Timurids...

That was the other reason I elected to play Spain ;-)

Mete Han
11-06-2007, 14:13
The conquistadors are available only in the new world (that means after turn 160), from towns, citys and so on. But any way the DCK are way better, so really you don't need them in the old world. As for the armor, you need only master armororer, for upgrades, but if are rasing for the swordsmith HQ you will need the factory. The mongols are problem. In fact the only weakness that Spain has in this game is the lack of heavy spearmen. And you will need spears against the mongols, so most probable use merks or crusader ones, since you don't have any (exept militia but these won't do). Also you can use tercio pikemen. They will die like flies from the arrows, but you have many. Basically use CK, DCK, spears or pikemen and passive crossbowmen. O, or muskets if you can. They rule. There is a lot of topics on how to fight mongols and timurids here, so search.

The conquistadors have less heat penalty though so maybe they are better than dck at the holy lands and at the new world.

Niterider613
11-25-2007, 03:20
El Cid can now be bribed easier. They also put him at 4 stars :)

TheLastPrivate
11-28-2007, 09:51
Use the first 2 princess to your benefit. Also try to check if other faction has any princesses as well since your faction heir is single so far. I married my prince to Sicilian princess, a princess to the Engilsh. Im not sure if my second princess lucked out but I coudln't find any heirs that were single so I married her to Vaasco, the general u get but is not in your family. He's had good traits and did a lot for my early campaign so I thoght he deserved a princess... and made 3 babies the first 2 turns they got married as well.

Fianna
12-02-2007, 18:06
My strategy has been one of trial and error so far. There has been a state of perpetual war/stalemate with Portugal. France has been neutral then hostile over the years but it allowed me to take Bordeux ( I think) while England accumulated others. The Pope called a crusade against the French at Toulouse but I got there too late and it went to Milan. I really used that area as a place for my merchants to get cash...but they were awful, and would get acquired more often than not.

The Portuguese were confined to their one territory to the west (Lisbon) and I had an assassin in there who was doing a great job of destroying buildings, bringing the public to a 75% approval level. But, any time I thought I could take the city, I would be met by a family member and they would do a number on me with their bombard weapons.

I hate fighting in the cities because my game slows down to a crawl so for me it's better to fight out in the land.

I began running a serious deficit after profits year after year...not sure if it was trade or what, but the well ran dry. I had this army I was building for the Toulouse crusade and decided to kick the neutral stance I had with the Moors to the dust. I was able to take Granada easily so now I have Cordoba and Lisbon to worry about.

What I would do differently? Immediately strike against Portugal and the Moors and leave the rebel settlements to their own devices for the short term. Time and time again Portugal and the Moors, particularly their Imams, have been my bane.

No more...

TheLastPrivate
12-04-2007, 01:32
My strategy has been one of trial and error so far. There has been a state of perpetual war/stalemate with Portugal. France has been neutral then hostile over the years but it allowed me to take Bordeux ( I think) while England accumulated others. The Pope called a crusade against the French at Toulouse but I got there too late and it went to Milan. I really used that area as a place for my merchants to get cash...but they were awful, and would get acquired more often than not.

The Portuguese were confined to their one territory to the west (Lisbon) and I had an assassin in there who was doing a great job of destroying buildings, bringing the public to a 75% approval level. But, any time I thought I could take the city, I would be met by a family member and they would do a number on me with their bombard weapons.

I hate fighting in the cities because my game slows down to a crawl so for me it's better to fight out in the land.

I began running a serious deficit after profits year after year...not sure if it was trade or what, but the well ran dry. I had this army I was building for the Toulouse crusade and decided to kick the neutral stance I had with the Moors to the dust. I was able to take Granada easily so now I have Cordoba and Lisbon to worry about.

What I would do differently? Immediately strike against Portugal and the Moors and leave the rebel settlements to their own devices for the short term. Time and time again Portugal and the Moors, particularly their Imams, have been my bane.

No more...

Get marriage alliance with France and other with possibly scot/England due to their random costal raids on leon. While you're securing your northen borders with women's charms take zaragosa (which the portuguese will have failed) and declare a crusade on cordoba right off the bat.

Instead of finishing them off just kick them out of Iberia, make sure you're allied with the pope, block the land bridge in Gibrolter with a fleet of sheeps, and consolidate Iberia by destroying the portuguese. Don't bother with Bordeoux/touluse and try to keep an eye on the french ( they will keep marriage alliances). Once Iberia is yours finish off moors in marakesh/algeria and grap timbuktu and alguin as well. Once timbuktu/alguin is yours the merchant trade from gold/ivory should fill your treasury quite fast. Swap all castles in iberia into cities except Toledo, and from there you are ready for greatness whatever path you should take.

Don't take too long to consolidate Iberia.

Quintus.JC
01-09-2008, 18:57
Spain start with some weak army compared to the other nations, i tend to get excommunicated early on with the Pople because with every faction I play with there are always a rival ready to back stab me, I like to take care of them early on. while with Spain it's portugal. after destroying Portugal you can easily get back into the pope's good graces by fight muslim moors. after uniting the Iberian Penisular head into Africa and keeping going east until Egypt.

Barbarian
01-09-2008, 23:34
I also thought that Portugal must be destroyed early in the game. But in the present game, everything is different.
I married one of the princesses to Portuguese King, made alliance, offered trade rights + gave them military access, and received military access from them.
It was not my intention to have a long alliance, only to use them as a shield against moors. However, relationships between Spain and Portugal increased to the max level (due to the marriage, I suppose), and I saw that there is no need to start war with almost the only faction I am not at war yet.
Portuguese beat moors so heavily, that moors now pay regular tribute to me for not attacking them. Then armies from Portugal went through my lands (I thought they were coming to invade at last, as it happens in total war games:sweatdrop: ) and helped me in war against France. Yes, the really took part into battles. I have some videos from battles, where 1 stack of Spaniards and 1 stack of Portuguese teach lesson to 1 stack of French.


I recently got excommunicated, and pope declared a crusade on one of my cites. Although our relationships worsened a lot, (now the are only at "very good", I think) Portugal refused to take part into crusade against me, and soon they were excommunicated too (not for that, but for attacking France:laugh4: ).

Probably the best alliance I have ever had in Medieval 2.

Quintus.JC
01-11-2008, 21:05
I also thought that Portugal must be destroyed early in the game. But in the present game, everything is different.
I married one of the princesses to Portuguese King, made alliance, offered trade rights + gave them military access, and received military access from them. .........................

Sound too good to be true.

Genaral Julis
01-12-2008, 08:32
I've just started a new game as Spain...This time I've opted to stay out of the holy land and just bribe my way to the Popes heart. I'm going to focus on europe and The Moors and on the british isles..By the time I'm done..I should have a sizable empire at my command.

*Insert Evil Cackle*

Paradox
01-13-2008, 19:30
I did the same. I started to gain the pope's favor right from the start and now my relations with the Papal States are perfect. I quickly advanced two of my generals to capture the rebel settlements to the east and southeast. After that, I arranged a marriage between my faction heir and their princess, only to later betray them by launching a full assault while two of my forces were already positioned at the Portugese castle bordering France and their capital, after a few turns the Portugese were eliminated from one simple assault.

I aimed to gain diplomatic relations with other powerful factions (one of them being France) and allowed my princess to engage in diplomatic affairs to increase her charm until it reached the maximum charm level.

I'm not finished yet and I also forgot to mention that I kicked the Moors out of Iberia. This is a lucky campaign for me, I've been getting a lot of upgrade opportunities one after another for a short period of time and population seems to be increasing rapidly.

Genaral Julis
01-16-2008, 01:38
I have taken Zaragoza and Valencia and a bought Pamplona from the Portugiese (Sp?). I plan to move on Lisbon as soon as possible and then kick the Moors off of Iberia. After that...I belive a full scale invasion of France is in order...perhaps a surprise attack on the scots as well.

Tally Ho!!

:charge:

Quintus.JC
01-17-2008, 17:27
should you finish off the Moors first?

Genaral Julis
01-17-2008, 21:53
No, At this stage in the game..Africa is to big to take quickly so I will only invade it after France and the Scots and..perhaps england are firmly under my rule.

Paradox
01-18-2008, 00:05
Indeed, Africa is a bit of a time-consumer and involves great distances, it would probably be best to take care of it later on.

Genaral Julis
01-18-2008, 02:34
I now control Iberia. My invasion of France is progressing well. The French are putting up a good fight. But I have taken Bordeax (Sp?) and Toulouse (Sp?) is under seige.

Onwards!!
:medievalcheers:

Quintus.JC
01-18-2008, 14:13
wouldn't fighting Catholic nations risks you being excommunicated by the Pope? While fighting Muslims and gaining the favours of the Pope seems a more sensible decision to me.

Paradox
01-18-2008, 14:28
wouldn't fighting Catholic nations risks you being excommunicated by the Pope? While fighting Muslims and gaining the favours of the Pope seems a more sensible decision to me.
So you're saying that gaining the pope's favor is top priority in this game? It isn't, you can waste your time taking over cities far from your own domain, but it still wouldn't benefit you as much as Catholic cities would. I was threatened by ex-communication several times and ignored them because I know that, in a couple of turns, the faction would resume it's attacks against me. And besides, it would give you more time to consolidate your empire so that you can attack again, or even bribe (if you have the money, which often depends on your domain size) the enemy cities.

kitbogha
01-18-2008, 21:14
So you're saying that gaining the pope's favor is top priority in this game? It isn't, you can waste your time taking over cities far from your own domain, but it still wouldn't benefit you as much as Catholic cities would.
I couldn't agree more, it's a pain in the neck keeping in with the Pope, and all he wants to do is put a spanner in the works. A tip-if you are worried about being excommunicated then arrange simultaneous attacks on several of the enemy cities. Do not siege, simply attack them with your artillery and take them in one turn. The "Holy Father" may be annoyed but it's a fait accomplis and if he threatens you with excommunication simply use the time to build up your forces again. It works for me...and frankly I can't be bothered with anyone who "thinks the flames of eternal damnation are to good for (me)". His time will come when all other resistance has been overcome.....:evilgrin:

Genaral Julis
01-18-2008, 21:17
.and frankly I can't be bothered with anyone who "thinks the flames of eternal damnation are to good for (me)". His time will come when all other resistance has been overcome.....:evilgrin:

France has been excomed, So the pope likes me..and I get to kill people. Everyone wins!!

Paradox
01-18-2008, 21:24
France always get excommunicated, every single campaign I've played, whether I'm playing as the English or not, they still keep attacking them.

kitbogha
01-20-2008, 13:15
France has been excomed, So the pope likes me..and I get to kill people. Everyone wins!!

Gamer paradise!! Probably how it felt to many Medieval Kings at different times. Ah, how I yearn for the good old days! Nice and simple....

Naethyn
02-28-2008, 20:40
I had a very unusual Spainish experience as of late.

After reading these forums I decided to attack Cordoba on very hard difficulty. I took it easily and then also took Granada the next turn. By this time my armies were stretched very thin.

Suddenly a full Portuguese, Sicilian, and Moorish army was at my door step in Cordoba. I promptly backed off my prince and awaited reinforcements.

The Moors began a siege on Cordoba and the next turn the Portuguese attacked my prince with their king! Out numbered 2v1 my Jinetes saved the day. To my surprised on turn 21 the Portuguese had lost that battle and the entire nation had fallen.

The moors managed to caputure cordoba, but I took it back the never next turn.

So now I am surrounded by Portuguese rebels and the moors to the south. A very interesting start to say the least.

Mek Simmur al Ragaski
03-01-2008, 21:21
When i first started on normal, my main goal was to capture zaragosa and make friends with the moors and the portugese, then i made enough money to launch a full scale attack on the muslim half of spain, the first two cities fell easily and i killed half of the moors royal family in the process. Then i continued to attack the moors in algeria and morroco, and they fell once again. I had spread my lines thin and was prone to an attack from the french from the rear. I slaughtered many of them and they decided to retreat. Then my small army ws attacked stupidly by only the heir to the portugese throne, he died :furious3: I wiped out all armies hitting my rear, then the pope died and mine was elected. I made him declare a crusade on the last moors fort, brought in some crusaders and slaughtered everybody in sight. Then my cities rebelled on me, my cities died of plague, my king and heir died in battle with the portugese and i had only one general occupying zaragosa, and weedy 60 year old unfit to command a yound peasant girl :skull: but nonetheless i sent him to capture my cities and fight an unending war with the french while the egyptians came with hundreds of men as backup

Tecnik
03-02-2008, 14:07
Hello!

I started playing M2TW about 2 weeks ago. I have never played any TW game before but somehow the medieval bow and chavalry style really got me excited to buy the Gold edition of M2TW and i must say i LOVE it.

After doing the tutorials (which are really basic i must say now that i play the grand campaign) i started a campaign as Spain (don't ask me why, i am dutch myself).

So here's what i did so far in about 2 weeks and around 150 turns (i'm not going that fast but i had to learn everything about the game):

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

I immediately destroyed Portugal to have an easy look on incoming enemies. I figured the best way to beat this campaign without knowing anything about it (i've played some Civ2 but my knowledge is very slim) was to go full on military expanding. Finding out having family members in every city or castle really helps having Public Order i could quickly increase taxes, but always made sure the population in every city was still growing.

Because i was getting attacked by the French and not yet by the Moors i quickly took Bordeaux and Toulouse to have a defensive frontier against Milan and the French (both cities being upgraded to Citadels and towers to the fullest). All the battles i've fought accomplishing this is doing with a mixed army. I've made sure i always had access to different setups in each battle depending on the terrain i would face or units i would fight. I learned quickly that Jinetes are an excellent way to face with Artillery units and draw attention from horses to have them get butchered by my archers.

I used all of my money on military units (including mercenaries - these units are a GOD send because they are usually the best possible units that you can get). I found that doing minor trading and capturing and sacking all settlements i took (my reputation is as bad as it can get but what do i care?) it could actually pay the costs needed to maintain my large armies. After i made alliance with Sicily and wiped out the Moors i now was going to focus on England to make sure i could only be attacked over land over French country.

After the invention of gunpowder i quickly conquered England, scotland and am now on my way towards Scandinavia. I'm building a western frontier to push to the east, but i have no idea what's coming next (timor = scary?).

Short recap: I haven't lost a single battle (except 1 city to starvation because i didn't know this could happen - after which i reloaded the saved game once!). I use the 3 resource spots near Timbuktu (generating around 1000 florins each turns) and a lot of ports / roads / city upgraded to maximize trade. I do nothing about diplomacy and the Pope has excommunated me a kazillion times. I build the maximum amount of assasins (having 7-8 star ones) to get rid of all the other player's Agents. I use a lot of watchtowers to easily notice incoming troops. I now make around 5000-10000 florins each turn and conquering a city/castle every 5 turns or so. I cannot see who is going to stop me.

Mongor
03-20-2008, 18:53
I tried to stay out of Europe at first and concentrate on the Moors.

So after destroying Portugal I headed for N Africa. I took Tunis before
Sicily got to it. Then I took out the Moors and headed towards Egypt.

What I do not understand is why my relationship with the HRE, France,
the Pope and Milan all keep going down. Almost every turn I get a
message that X faction relations with you has decreased. I am not
anywhere near them and have been fighting Muslims only for 30 turns.
Any ideas why this is happening?

Genaral Julis
03-22-2008, 17:48
I'm back with update...

My forces in france are bogged down. I wasn't expecting this much resistence. It will take many years to triumph over France...

Charge!!
:knight:

Mek Simmur al Ragaski
03-26-2008, 22:52
Here's what id do whilst playing Spain

Expansion
Takes Zaragoza first, if possible siege attack it while the Portugeese are there too, extra men, weakening another army, and you get the settlement not them. I wouldnt take Valencia, not yet as it has a decent general, a decent garrison and barely anybody attacks it. Next i would try to take Moors out of Spain, and keep pushing them back, when i did this, i think the last settlement they had was Tunis, and they had garrisoned it with their last family member. Then i reccomend taking Bordeux, or Valencia, Pamplona and atlast Lisbon. Also you might think about taking Ajjacio and Cagliari, south of Genoa.

Trade and the Economy
Send a single diplomat or a princess to Central Italy, and watch as her charm increases rapidly as she is visited by a diplomat from nearly every faction on the game. As for economy, Ajjacio, Cagliari, Zaragoza, Valencia and Leon all prove as very good trading cities, aswell as providing a good income.

Papal Favour
I suggest participating in a crusade, and walking down through Africa, sacking every settlement you come across, giving it to the Pope, or you could exterminate them and keep them, giving the crusade target to the pope.

Problems
Being surronded by enemies. Portugal will ally with France and Moors and will try to throw you out of Spain. Dont let this small insignificant faction plot against you, destroy them with the first chance you get. I suggest killing Moors next, France may attack you first, but if you kill Moors, i guarantee that Egypt is not bold enough to cross the desert and hit your rear, so they you can focus on killing France

Well i hope this helps in your campaigns as Spain

CrusadeAgainstYourEnemies
04-13-2008, 03:36
Seems like a lot of you are making the Spanish campaign more complicated than it actually is...

I just played for about 40 turns on H/H, I own the Iberian Peninsula, eliminated Portugal and just took Bordeaux.

Here's how:

Right away I consolidate every troop under the King, as he's the best General of the bunch.

Put Vaasco in Leon and the Prince in Toledo, start building them up; Toledo for troops and Leon for economics. Lots of churches too, you're going to need many priests.

I use the army, and some mercs, with my King to take Valencia early. You can do this if you put every troop with your King.

While this is taking shape, I got the two princess running west. One to Pamplona and one to France. I make a quick alliance with Portugal and a marriage alliance with France.

Furthermore, build a diplomat, put him on a ship and send him to Rome. Always leave a diplomat by Rome, its so easy to stay in favor wiht the Papacy this way. I give them 1,000 and Map information everytime I need something done. Plus I build priests and churches.

They will both backstab you, but France not until you kill Portugal. And Portugal not until you kill the Moors.


Once you take Valencia, then you get your boy the pope to call a crusade against one of the Moorish cities in Iberia, get your King and his army, join the crusade with them and take that city and hire the cheap/effective crusader seargents/knights to fill out that army.

You take both of those moorish territories with your King. By now Portugal will have backstabbed you. Usually they will get excommunicated for this if you win a crusade and your papal standing is good, any nation that backstabs a catholic ally while they're fighting the Moors deserves to be excommed.

Then you transfer your army to the son, call a crusade on Lisbon and take it. Leave your King in Cordoba to build up and use his chiv/command rating to keep it under control while you make it yours.

You will add to your army whenever you can, but its one army. Thats your focus. One army that goes from Valencia to Lisbon taking everything, 3 cities with your King and the final with your Prince. You restock the army across the way and use those javelinmen/jinettes, they're nasty.

The Moors will have asked for peace by this point as you kicked their ass off Iberia. Give it to them, an easy peace is fine, you just want to them to stop pestering you like that annoying fly at a picnic. So now you move your Prince and whoever your best general, besides your King, to strike on Pamplona and Zaragoza. Take them out with two half stack each armies.

Now Portugal is done, the Moors are banished to Africa and the French are nervous.

CrusadeAgainstYourEnemies
07-17-2008, 05:27
Just started playing this game again and after playing a 100 or so turns with the HRE, I decided I wanted to be a good, high reputation, crusading faction rather than a German blitzkrieg.

A lot of what I said a good 3 or so months ago from the above post still applies but I've got several key tips:

----Use Alfonso to your advantage. He's young for a King and you have time to build him up. I used him as Crusader very early against the Moors. Put every troop from your Castle and your army under his control and head straight for Valencia, then Siege and wait a couple turns to soften up the rebels before you strike. I built a couple of Mailed Knights; about 3 in consecutive turns from the first three turns in and had them meet him at Valencia. This gives you the added boost you need to take it from the Rebel General with relative ease. You can do it without those added Knights, but no sense being a hero early on when you're going to need those troops for your Crusade.

----Get a Princess to Rome ASAP. I went over land and that was a bad idea. If I could do it again I'd buy a merc ship with my King and send one of them to Rome for an alliance early, before everyone else. Seems like the Papacy on VH/VH only likes to ally with one Catholic Faction at a time. Regardless, you'll need the Princess there to gift the Pope so you can convince him to target the Moors capital as his first Crusade.

----Speaking of this: the Papacy is your friend in Spain. The Spanish are by far the best faction to manipulate Zealous medieval Catholicism to their advantage. You can stock the College of Cardinals relatively early if you just build up churches and send your Priests down to Iberian Muslim lands and eventually North Africa (I'm at turn 40 and I've got 9 Cardinals, one eligible for the Papacy next vote). Priests who spread the Gospel to infidels get promoted to Cardinal. Use the Crusades, the Spanish did it in real life and you should too. My King died at 60 named "Alfonso the Saint" with maxed Chiv ratings, 7 command stars and was the only man who could govern Cordoba after it was taken. -occupy, occupy, occupy... don't sack, you'll be fine on money if you use the Crusades properly.

----Call the Crusade on the Moors capital in Iberia and on the way get their Castle in very south. Two birds with one strong, cheap/no upkeep Crusader army.

----I allied with the English early, sent a Princess up there ASAP. I didn't marry her off, she had too high a charm. Apparently her high charm attracted a good husband because she brought in a General with 4 command, 4 chivalry and 2 piety being 23 years old. I set this kid up to be the successor to Alfonso; killed off the faction heir in North Africa when I saw the King was almost 60... sometimes you need to make sure the right General gets the throne. So I've got a 33 year old King with 5 command stars, 5 authority stars and maxed chiv right now with some good traits.

----When you're Crusading and Portugal attacks you, they will surely be excommed by their second attempt act of aggression. Use this to beat them down without hassle from the Pope.



I'm at turn 53, got my mid thirties hand picked King, I own all of Iberia and all of North Africa to Tripoli and I just got Toulouse from the Milanese who the Pope called his own Crusade on. Now I've got my King and and my new faction heir around Toulouse with 1 1/2 stacks of professional non militia army, 15,000 florins in the bank, 9 papal rating and I'm at peace with everyone.

I must decide where to strike to next, as it's tricky when you try to be a good, noble country, but I've got the army, the Generals, the money and the Papal authority on my side.

-The Lesson: Spain is made for the Crusader/Papal manipulator strategy. It's fun, historically accurate to some degree and extremely effective.

Proserpine
07-17-2008, 17:28
Interesting strategy, CAYE. I might try it for my next campaign.

CrusadeAgainstYourEnemies
07-18-2008, 01:12
Interesting strategy, CAYE. I might try it for my next campaign.

Thanks bro, let me know how it works for you if you end up trying it.

I'm in the middle of a slugfest with Milan and Sicily for the Swiss/Italian lands.

IRONxMortlock
07-20-2008, 11:23
Having progressed a fair way through a Spanish campaign I thought I'd add some of my experiences to playing this faction, mostly in terms of the troops.

Meet the troops

Infantry
Missile
Spain has the usual peasant archers, peasant xbows and militia xbow troops. The archers lack a punch on enemies with armour but are ok are setting seige towers alight. xbows do better against troops but I really didn't find much use for them. They are OK for hurting enemies outside walls but keep them away from melee.

The Pavise Xbows however are far more deadly. These guys can take a pounding from enemy counter fire while handing out a nasty armour piercing punch. In a pinch they can dish out a surprising amount of damage in melee against light infantry though they do get tired quickly. It's best if you keep these guys in front of a formation to maximise damage. Their missiles are far less effective when fired in a high arc. After taking walls, throw a couple of these guys on the ramparts to dish out damage on any attacks while you're organising your move deeper into the city.

I've found Javelinmen to be of limited use though they can hurt an enemy formation if you can get a few salvoes of javelins into it. The upgraded version of these are Argmuvilars (sorry about spelling). These guys are far tougher and their missiles can really damage armoured foes. They operate very well in melee against light infantry and are great to harass enemy missile troops or to try to lure away a part of an enemy line. Be careful not to get them isolated however as they will melt under cavalry charges and even with full armour upgrades, will take plenty of casualties from anything but bottom line archers or xbows.

I've only just started to be able to build gunpowder infantry and I haven't been able to test them properly yet. I might add another post on these once I've had some more experience using them.

Melee
These guys just get better and better as you progress through the campaign.
Starting off, you get standard town and spear militia. The town militia are very basic and I generally replace them with spears as soon as I am able. Once spear militia starts getting some experience and armour upgrades they are actually quite useful troops that are cheap, often free to maintain and replaceable in almost any city. They are a good option against enemy cavalry and can generally hold a line long enough for you to bring around flanking troops/cavalry. They will take fairly high casualties from a full heavy cav charge and swordsmen can start hurting them quickly. When defending streets, place spear units in a schiltrom formation in a triangle like this: (where |=side wall, e=enemy, *=schiltromed spears).
|eeee|
|* *|
| * |
This makes a lethal little bottleneck.
In my early armies, I usually take 5 or 6 of these units along. They aren't particularly great troops but they do what I need them to do; hold an enemy in place for awhile.

Later, you will be able to recruit swordsmen militia. I quite like these guys too. Cheap and capable of tearing through enemy spearmen and for supporting your spear and pikemen. Free upkeep in cities is also another bonus.

You get the usual range of dismounted knights who, as you probably already know, are very sturdy and powerful troops (though quite pricey to recruit and maintain). They de-bone most infantry but can be hurt badly if they take a full cavalry charge. Watching these men go about their nasty business up close can be entertaining! I've found 4 or 5 of these in my stacks works quite well. Use them to fill in gaps where your spears have been whittled down or to run around attack the pinned enemy in the rear. I always keep them in reserve so that they are attacking while "fresh" after the enemy has been worn out by the spears.

Later still, you'll start being able to recruit pikes, and as and added bonus they are cheap and you are able to recruit them from cities. There's the slightly weak pike militia (free upkeep is always attractive though) and the impressive Terico Pikemen. Both benefit from a heavy mail armour upgrade. Don't let the stats fool you, I've found the tericos to be devastating if used correctly. The trick is to make sure they are properly supported. I've found that when I mingle militia swordsmen among their spears the units can take on almost anything (just guard the flanks!). Cavalry dies real quick and most infantry has trouble dealing with them too. You do need to keep an eye on them though; if you notice they've stoped using their pikes and are using swords, turn the shield wall ability off then back on. This should "reset" them and they'll go back to poking new and painful orifices in the bodies of your adversary. Whatever you do, don't let them use their swords; they are PIKEmen and without their pikes they perform horribly. Remember that these guys will take hits (missiles can do lots of damage if you let them!) but there are additional numbers in these units and I've found they can take a reasonable hammering before they break.

Like the gunpowder units above, I've yet to have much experience using sword&buckler men yet.

Cavalry
Missile
The hands down winner here is Jinetes and you get them right from the beginning! These have consistently been the best performers in almost every field battle I've fought. Fast, with a deadly javelin throw; a couple of units of Jinetes can inflict real pain on armoured enemies. Swing them around the rear of an enemy formation to pepper their General with javelins and to engage unprotected artillery units. They can also be very effective at forcing enemy missile troops to "skirmish" away from their protectors and into the open where these fellas can rush in and cut them to pieces when alone. Just having the speed and agility to get in close and force enemy missile troops to move can often be enough on its own as it prevents them from firing into your massed ranks of infantry. This tactic is valuable when playing against missile heavy nations such as Milan. They are also great to keep behind the enemy lines once they are out of ammo as "router killers" and for the moral hit it causes the enemy. Their charge is not to be sneezed at either and they can be used effectively to charge engaged heavy infantry in the backs. The key is to manage their ammo which unfortunately takes some micro-management. You want those spears to fly into the backs of heavily armoured troops not wasted on a unit of xbows who will crumble when attacked in melee. So when you're running around the enemy's rear causing havoc, turn off "fire a will" when you decide to attack light infantry, artillery, archers etc. ALT-Right Click to have them melee attack. This will have the effect of them conserving their ammo for better targets as well as making them rush in faster to fight with swords. It's like they get a bit confused if they are still allowed to fire the missiles too :beam:. Once they've cleaned up shop and they are back to running around, turn fire at will back on so that they cause trouble everywhere or of course, you can target them on a single unit like a General or some heavy infantry or cavalry. I keep 3 or 4 Jinetes in every stack and, in the field, they ALWAYS rack up more than their fair share of kills.

I haven't used crossbow cav to great affect yet but I really need some more practice before I write them off.

Melee
In towns with a merchants guild you can recruit Merchant Cav but I see no need when you've already got Jinetes. Mailed knights and later feudal and chivalric knights are good additions to your line when you want to delivery a hard punch to a sector of an enemy's line or for insta-routing units by charging the rear. Keep them away from the pointy end of spears and pikes and these blokes will gradually tear down infantry in melee. But this is not their real strength. It's all about the charge. Not many units can withstand a properly delivered charge by chivalric knights. I usually clear out the rear of an enemy's lines with Jinetes then neatly move and arrange these heavy cav units in lines parallel to the enemy (your cheap and disposable spear militia units should be neatly holding them in place remember). Wait until they have reformed and have stopped moving. Also ensure there are no other units between the cav and their targets. Then double right click and zoom in close to enjoy the action! Smashy Smashy :smash:. It's really best not to let them linger after the charge so pull them back, reform and do it again on a different part of the line (let the Jinetes clean up the routers from the previous hit :2thumbsup:). I keep 2 or 3 units of heavy cav with an army (as well as a General). If you can clear the enemies rear well enough to get 3 or more units of heavy cav to all deliver perfect charges almost simultaneously you'll occasionally cause the entire enemy army drop their shields right there and then!

That's about it for now. So far I've found Spain a pleasure to play. Though it's a bit tricky in the beginning, Spain evolves into a faction with a great mix of high quality troops. I now look forward to the process of bringing my new S&B/Terico/Musket armies into action! :knight:

I hope you found this guide to Spanish troops useful and please don't hesitate to post/PM if you have any questions.

M

HopAlongBunny
09-03-2008, 04:24
Diplomacy is king

Took out the Moors...that irritated the French; not a lot, they just called off the alliance.
Took out Portugal. Lowered my standing with everyone.

Won the Crusade to Antioch. In short order I was at war with Venice, Milan and Sicily!?
French attack Zargosa so I attack Toulouse; win both battles and control access to my lands :)

Pope calls a Crusade on me and I am presently at war with 10 factions (incl the Rebels so 9 i guess)

The odd part is I'm not sure how I got in this situation. Almost every turn, even when all I did was kill rebels, I got the message "x is displeased"; if constant warfare is for you then the name of the game is Spain:smash:

Eusebius86
11-14-2008, 16:17
I just started up another Spanish campaign on N/H.

Diplomacy - I immediately became allies with Portugal through my princess. I sent my other princess to italy to become allies with the Pope, HRE, and Milan. England became my ally after I married my second princess to them. France reluctantly became allied afterwareds. The alliance with France only lasted about 10 turns (due to some gifts from me every turn) because I decided to join a crusade against the Moors (which I called).

Religion - I formed a Papal hit team of 3 priests and 2 cardinals to convert the heathen Moors in Africa. 20 turns later my cardinal becomes the pope with everyone's approval save France (go figure).

Right now I'm cleaning up the remaining 2 Moorish cities in Africa. I don't know what I'll do afterwards... My pope was kind enough to reconcile some 4 or 5 nations that were exiled, so now I don't know where I'll expand. France hasn't attacked me, yet. I think I might try to get a couple assassins and 5 spies built up and sabotage 1 of the 2 cities in Portugal to try and get them to rebel.

By only being at war with 1 faction at a time I've managed to only build 2 full stacks, which means I've banked almost 40k gold over 15 turns...


FYI - In my previous campaign as Spain I was at war with Portugal and the Moors from the start, which caused me to then be at war with France and England, and the pope:wall: Diplomacy works wonders when you use it:yes:

Lord Preston
11-17-2008, 07:08
Thanks for the unit summary IRONxMortlock, gave me a better idea of what to expect for my first Spanish game. I'm still trying to work out how best to use the units available, i'm too used to the English way of loads of archers and the well protected armoured swordsmen, not to mention the spikes the longbowmen could place to keep cavalry away.

I'm up to about turn 50 so will just post some quick thoughts on the Spanish Early Game...

Units

Infantry
Typical spear and town militia initially, I favour spear as there seems to be more favouring of cavalry by your opponents. As a more northern european nation like England I favoured town militia for the lower penalty since most of the nations around me favoured infantry.

I haven't made a single unit of javelinmen, they just don't seem worth it, i'd rather have 1 Jinete unit instead of 2 javelinmen units. I have used Almughavars, they seem good as supporting troops but I wouldn't use them as the mainline. While much better morale than militia and a better total defense for melee (especially as no penalty vs sword) they are more vulnerable to missile and cavalry. Hence I find the best use is to have 1 or 2 (I had 3 in my stack but think it was to many), I placed them behind my main line, and basically aimed at the rear most units of the engaged line. I can see this being especially useful in the future against infantry heavy armies of Milan which often deploys a double line formation. 3 of the Almughavars reduced a Crusader Spearmen unit to 3 men in a couple of frontal barrages so I'm foreseeing great things.

The nice thing about Almughavars is i'm used to Billmen, which I would flank with (my own spikes blocking flanking with cavalry), but Almughavars have a better defensive ability and can influence the fight before even getting into a flanking position which they do just as well, if not better than Billmen at.

DFK are pretty typical, I had some making up my main line with Almughavars behind them and 2 units of Merc Spears to pin cavalry for my Jinetes to shoot/charge from the rear.

Missiles
I did not make 1 unit of Peasant Archers or Peasant X-Bows, the only Archers I used were the ones given at the start. The kill rates are so pathetic they aren’t worth the upkeep, i'd rather have 1 unit of Jinetes instead of 2 or 3 units of Peasant missile units.

Pavise X-Bows I have used in limited numbers, still trying to get the right balance. I just put 2 units in front of my infantry line as a shield and shot the good infantry/cavalry/general, especially if something turned there backs and chassed after my Jinetes. Good range, AP ability and huge shield for protection, I hated fighting these as the English so nice to be on the other side of them, especially since I can protect them from cavalry which AI fails at.

Cavalry
I think Jinetes have been mentioned enough, i'm still improving with them and i'm trying to decide if I should use any standard cavalry (Mailed/Feudal Knights). I'm thinking the speed and jav ability with very nice defense considering there speed and melee ability (low charge but you get into position for a rear charge quicker) means I don't really need standard cavalry. I didn't make 1 unit of mailed knights but think Feudal Knights will have enough upgrades to be worth bringing a couple of units, if only to head on charge stuff for Jinetes to flank.

Artillery
I've only used Ballista's so far, not because I don't have Catapults available but because I like the accuracy of Ballista's, I don't want cata's hitting my Jinetes while they're behind the enemy shooting there General/Cav. Trying to decide if they're worth bringing, I got used to artillery in armies to force the enemy to engage me with my English armies spikes protecting me. With such large areas in the south of the map the slow travel speed is a heavy penalty which isn't noticed as much in Central Europe.


Ideal stack atm for Europe warfare:
1 General
6 DFK (typically in guard mode)
2 Almughavars (skirmish off, behind DFKs, quite deep so easier to move to flanks to go behind enemy to melee. too thin and they catch the enemy when turning to run to the flank.)
2 Pavise X-Bows (infront of line, main targets are those who turn there backs to chase Jinetes).
2 Merc Spears (Protect the flanks while the Jinetes are doing there thing behind the enemy line).
6 Jinetes.
1 Misc (extra cav/x-bow/inf).

I'm thinking I want 2 Mailed/Feudal knights, Jinetes moral is so low for melee that isn't killing archers or flanking but not sure what to drop......


Early Strategy

Well before I started I set the role playing goals of refusing to accept the Portugese decloration of independance from Spain hence refusal of even having trade rights, nevermind an alliance as others here do. I also played the part of christian crusader wanting to remove the muslim Moors from the rightfully Spanish lands. As part of this christian crusader thing I must not get Excomm'd for attacking my fellow christians..... should slow me down a bit.

Initially I gathered my troops under the King and went after the Eastern rebels, added a few Jinete's. Then went for the Portugesse provence (forgot its name, between you and france at the bottleneck), then moved my army south to Valencia and took on the Moors moving towards it before capturing it for myself, swinging the army around the south coast picking up the other Moor regions until finishing Portugal off by taking Lisbon (for some reason there was only a general there and a practically full stack on the coast doing nothing). Just added Merc spear + xbows as gold became available and as needed on the rampage around. Kept the heir and a few Jinete's to hold up and enemies to the west/south west while my King did the capturing.

As far as alliances they were being made and broken all over the place so couldn't spot a safe couple of countries to form a Tri-Alliance with. France of course backstabbed me so my only alliance is with the English, no one else seemed to want to ally with me (any tips?) so been using princesses to get more generals/goveners.

My only castle is the starting one in the center, really nice placement and didn't feel the need for any more, the gold is more important from coastal trading.

Currently moving along Africa taking Moor lands (crusade against Sicily who hold.... erm what was Carthage, name escapes me atm) and preparing to move into France, hopefully they will get Excomm'd.

oz_wwjd
11-22-2008, 13:36
I've had problems getting people to ally with me at first as well. At one point I had the french,milanese,sicilans and moors all at war with me at war,althought the fighting has died down since I took Toulouse,Bourdeaux and Reims from the french. The stupid Milanese keep trying to take them though with a full stack of Militia Crossbowmen and a few artillery. As for Jinettes and Calvary I was using jinettes and mailed knights I received from missions from the start,and they work well together,Jinettes flank the enemy and shower them with javelins and the knights finish up when they are finished,just started introducing feudal knights into my army.

Mek Simmur al Ragaski
12-14-2008, 12:47
My initial thoughts on the Spanish were good. You have two possible enemies, Portugal, which is small and easily defeatable within the first few turns. Then there is the Moors, which controls the bottom half of Spain and is Islamic. This makes it easy to get your economy going because the Pope won't be giving you grief because you destroyed an Islamic nation.

Your first few movements should be probably to get the French princess, Constance, by far the best princess at the beginning of the game, to marry your faction heir. You could possibly marry into the Portugese or just marry your general Vaasco into your family. However, you might just want to steamroll all of Portugal so they are over and done with, because I found that they are much like Milan, willing to betray at the sight of weakness. Then you might want to call a crusade on Moors territory. Just get as many crusaders as possible and just exterminate all populations of the Islamic cities as you go, and eventually destroy the Moors.

From there, you have many choices, you can go to war with France, Egypt, or perhaps land on Italy, or fight Venice and Byzantine for Greece. You could even go to war with England/Scots for dominion of the British isles. It is up to you.

Adrian II
12-15-2008, 14:01
Spain turns out to be easy in H/VH mode. You don't even need El Cid with that fine general Vaasco in your ranks. And if you send your senior Princess to hawl in that kewl French general in Angers, you have enough leadership to tie you over the initial campaigns.

After the rebel areas, Pamplona and Lisbon were quickly taken and Portugal eliminated, leaving me with a flourishing economy. I then rushed for Marrakesh in the south (make no prisoners, just slam your way through, the Pope loves it!) and on to resource-rich Timbuktu and Arguin. Meanwhile the French were attacking in force, but after I took Toulouse and Bordeaux (which I turned into a city) they virtually dropped out of the game.

The prefidious English landed an army near Leon, but they were quickly taken care of. With the unique Spanish units like Jinetes, Almoghuvars and Mounted Crossbowmen you can fight like an oriental general: tackle the enemy piecemeal, decimate his main force prior to the main engagement. I have heard that oliphants are easy prey for Jinetes and Almoghuvars, too. Time to check out Jerusalem with a shipment of spies and priests..

Seamus Fermanagh
12-16-2008, 23:27
You'd better learn to love Jinettes -- they're the only thing that can get around that mis-happen Peninsula before the area in question has been smashed. Try getting from Leon to Cordoba before the French get from Paris to Pamplona -- it'll be a close race.

Adrian II
12-28-2008, 20:16
You'd better learn to love Jinettes -- they're the only thing that can get around that mis-happen Peninsula before the area in question has been smashed. Try getting from Leon to Cordoba before the French get from Paris to Pamplona -- it'll be a close race.I don't get your point, my friend.

It was never my intention to let the Gallic gentleman get that far and he never did. But in case he would, Cordoba could look after itself and recruit all sorts of troops - bar one or two heavier type units that have to come from castle Toledo, which is nearby.

¡Olé! :nice:

Seamus Fermanagh
12-31-2008, 02:39
I don't get your point, my friend.

It was never my intention to let the Gallic gentleman get that far and he never did. But in case he would, Cordoba could look after itself and recruit all sorts of troops - bar one or two heavier type units that have to come from castle Toledo, which is nearby.

¡Olé! :nice:

Just deploring the laborious travel times associated with Spain. Despite having an area about the same, map-wise, as France, it can take 5-6 turns for infantry to cross because of the circuitous routes. Moreover, it is choked with little bottle-necks necessitating the constant removal of bandits just to get from point A to point B.

My comment was a snide aside that only cavalry had the requisite speed. I always find that annoying as cavalry only armies always feel like a bit of a "cheat" to me.

Adrian II
01-01-2009, 14:10
I always find that annoying as cavalry only armies always feel like a bit of a "cheat" to me.Historically - and that is what counts most for this player - the small cavalry band was a frequent sight on the continent's muddy roads. Small bands of heavy cavalry would be sent out for all sorts of duties: escort, spying, tax collection, mail delivery, and of course dealing with banditry. A small band of knights on horseback would take usually care of highwaymen, assorted rebels and any unruly peasantry.

For larger engagements (such as you mentioned) it would have been unthinkable for knights to take to the road without at least as small host of footmen, squires, carriers, various minor vassals, and preferably some light horsemen for reconnaissance. That's why I always have my fighting family members and generals accompanied by a unit of peasants. There is nothing in the rules or fighting mechanics that prescribes this, it is just one of those personal quirks of mine calcalated to enhance the 'historical feel' of my game. And you are right that the game forces you to think ahead when dealing with the Iberian peninsula. However, this applies to all parties, including the vile French who always want Pamplona and of course the perfidious English who seem to always land an army near Leon in breach of any alliance you struck with them.

Historically, knights would literally hide behind their footmen until they saw a chance to charge successfully at the enemy. Often these footmen would form a closed circle in which their lord could recover between engagements. I am of course talking of the heyday of medieval warfare, the War of Bouvines &cetera, which was almost uniquely a heavy cavalry affair. The 'early' game in M2TW reflects this aspect nicely, in that any heavy cavalry unit makes short shrift of every infantry unit in the game, even the heaviest, as long as you keep charging and avoid a stationary fight.

We often complain like spoilt brats about historical or technical deficiencies in our games, but we should acknowledge and praise such perfectly correct aspects as well.

adal8or
01-03-2009, 14:07
I just typed something and it all got deleted D:.
So to cut it short I'd like to know if this army sounds good.
6 Tercio Pike men(I was thinking of using them like spear militia, should i be doing this?)
5 Sword and buckler men(Are these that good? Or should i use different infantry?)
4 Gendarmes
3 Pasive crossbowmen
General's unit
Siege unit
Thanks, adal8or.

Adrian II
01-07-2009, 20:48
I just typed something and it all got deleted D:.
So to cut it short I'd like to know if this army sounds good.
6 Tercio Pike men(I was thinking of using them like spear militia, should i be doing this?)
5 Sword and buckler men(Are these that good? Or should i use different infantry?)
4 Gendarmes
3 Pasive crossbowmen
General's unit
Siege unit
Thanks, adal8or.It depends on what you want to use that army for, amigo. If you want to lay siege to a fortress or city the Tercio are practically useless and so are the pavise crossbowmen. But if you need to confront a horsey nation (such as the French) in the field, the Tercio might be a good proposition. Personally I despise the Sword and Buckler Men. They are totally useless if you ask me. Prolly something wrong with their morale stats.

Jinetes, dismounted feudals and upgraded spears ftw.

Seamus Fermanagh
01-08-2009, 06:03
It depends on what you want to use that army for, amigo. If you want to lay siege to a fortress or city the Tercio are practically useless and so are the pavise crossbowmen. But if you need to confront a horsey nation (such as the French) in the field, the Tercio might be a good proposition. Personally I despise the Sword and Buckler Men. They are totally useless if you ask me. Prolly something wrong with their morale stats.

Jinetes, dismounted feudals and upgraded spears ftw.

I'm not quite so against the S&B guys as Adrian, but by the time you can employ them, you should be getting enough of an economy where you can buy the chivalrics instead. I do like sword and buckler militia guys for town defense alongside spears though.

In games, however, I don't spend a lot of time creating ideal armies. I like a mix of sword and spear backed by bow and a good cavalry punch for the moment of crisis. Feudals, and spears work pretty well for that throughout the game.

adal8or
01-17-2009, 12:18
Thanks for the help. I did a few custom battle and found that I'm probably gonna replace alot of stuff with chivalrics. I do happen to be facing the french whom if i hadn't hesitated to save and attack when the pope warned me with excommunication could have crushed. But i didn't and now their cities are building up garrisons again and they have some scary armies roaming the field. To make matters worse the English also attacked but got fended off by my pretty jinettes. I thought the English had weak military until i saw an almost full stack army in northern french territory. Funny how the French are 'bankrupt' yet are making more armies.

Garrisons are really annoying for me; I attack a city, win and then am left wondering what units to leave behind for garrison and whether to send the remnants of my army to get retrained or to attack with a damaged half stack. I'm thinking of building 2 Jinette+knight stacks for territory defense on the frontline as they seem to work well picking of half stacks trying to form into a 2 stack army. Any suggestions?
Thanks, Adal8or.

Adrian II
01-19-2009, 12:30
Thanks for the help.Basically all we have been saying is: make your own game. The beauty of the TW series is that they allow you to do so. You can blitz and stretch the margins of historic believability to the utmost. You can also play a 'historic game' by divising extra rules for yourself, which is what I do. My Early armies for instance are always a mix of 'historically correct' units like heavy cavalry, peasants and low quality missiles. I almost never destroy cities or kill prisoners of war. My Spanish armies are spear-heavy, my English armies missile-heavy, my French armies are horse-laden and my Italian armies are crossbow-stacked. And I seldom blitz because blitzing is a twentieth century concept.

Btw your garrisons shouldn't be a problem. You have free upkeep of spears and missile troops according to the size of the city. They are actually quite good for defense, provided that you add some heavier troops if and when you see a siege coming. Sally forth, draw the enemy into the range of your bows and (ballista or gun) towers and watch them burn and die.

I usually solve the problem of decimated elite units by moving them into small stacks that follow my main armies. If a unit in my main army is severely damaged, I give it a 'refill'. This is a good way to create full veteran units with high xp, and it bypasses the elaborate retraining process. I never destroy decimated units or mix them with inexperienced troops. As you probably know sp is particularly important for the weak spear units that some factions have even in Late.

adal8or
01-21-2009, 17:40
Ok thanks.
I reloaded the save I made before deciding to get excommunicated thinking i might as well try and get a ceasefire and attack the moors who seem to be a smaller faction. They didn't accept of course even after they were excommunicated. For some reason i offered a ceasefire after they attacked my jinette unit outside Angers which was just randomly standing there and their and one of their princes got killed along with a half-full stack army including angers full garrison i think. They accepted this ceasefire but if I had have carried on, and I'm not sure why I didn't, they'd probably have been pwnt.
So now I've taught the French not to wage war with me I'm planning on somehow restocking my army in Toulouse(Or was it Bordeaux?) and moving it out while preparing small garrisons for everywhere and having one full stack army patrolling my territory for defense. Then I've got to build up a economy a little and roll out 2 or 3 armies to Moorish territory I think. YAYY
Thanks, adal8or.(Random telling of my war plans here is unnecessary isn't it? Sorry if it is)

Adrian II
01-21-2009, 18:06
(Random telling of my war plans here is unnecessary isn't it? Sorry if it is)Why not? This is da place for it.

Between the two of them, Pamplona and Toulouse should give you more than enough access to high-grade units. You might turn Bordeaux into a city to make more monneh and/or grab Rennes for the same reason.. Just a suggestion, all depends on your situation of course.

adal8or
01-22-2009, 17:32
Thanks.
I didn't save up to where I got in this because I was a little peeved but oh well.
All was going well and all of a sudden I notice 2 or 3 of almost full stack milanese armies. Now I'm getting pretty scared as Milan were allied with France and probably got peeved when I attacked France even though i gave them a ceasefire. Eventually a small army of spear militia I was moving to Toulouse (yes it was Toulouse I captured from the French I think) got attacked by a Milanese army and managed to retreat to Toulouse.

Now Toulouse had about a full stack garrison and got sieged by an almost full stack Milanese army with another Milanese army roaming about the field near my territory but I felt fairly safe.
I restocked my Jinette army which now had a 9/10 star commander which was full stars when doing night time attacks. The Milanese army ran away when he saw me coming and i got his other army. Now the Milanese were begging me for a ceasefire after i just pwnt their almost full stack army and was chasing after another (This feels good :P).

But i needed siege armies, not that this would have been a problem except the Scottish who were at war with the English (English were at war with the French too now O_O) for some reason sent this huge naval fleet near the shores of Leon and dropped a just about full stack army off and attacked this mailed knight unit I'd sent out to scout. After that the Scottish full stack disappeared into their ships and didn't come out for a while. Funny how they were at war with the English and some other factions too i think yet threw a full stack army at me whom had never really even seen their territories.

Anyway, the bloody Moors had 2 of those Iman thingies near Cordoba which i owned so i ended up having 3 or 4 priests including a cardinal i think down there trying to stop them converting Cordoba and causing a riot. Even though my guys outnumbered them Cordoba eventually went to the rebels with an almost full stack defense. This put my income is minuses and I just had an ah *you know* this moment.
I had 70k or so in my coffers but oh well, I had no real armies to take Cordoba back and I couldn't be bothered.
Thanks, adal8or.

Sir Conor March
01-24-2009, 14:06
At the mo im playing as the spanish on M/M difficultly and i played and managed to mess up history a huge amount(a butterfly effect sorta) I played and took valencia and i focused on making as much money as possible and getting crossbows, spears and mailed knights to fight in wars. I married one princess to the scicilian family and another to the portugese. This is where things started getting odd. The ports attacked zaragoza but failed just and i managed to hop in and take it. Next the pope demands i go take jerusalem and go over there and manage to build a huge empire there(gaza,antioch,aleppo,damascus, adana and jedda).

After this i decided to send marchants to aleppo and antioch and made 1000s from merchant trade(most i ever got was 1063 per turn from one bloke). Scicily however took all of north africa over apart from the egytpian lands, timbuktu area and marrakesh. The portugese took over half of france and wales. The byzantines actally reduced the turks to 2 castles and a city in eastern turkey and for 50 years since owning the middle east and most of iberia the only lands i took were marrkesh and granada until gunpowder was invented. The mongols have popped up and decided to go around killing everybody, however the good news is i managed to kill their faction leader and his 2 eldest sons(i have Inn and theives guild HQ in jerusalem) before they attacked then they decided to go north instead because my cities have ballista towers and many ballistas(i choose to lure them towards the walls with ballistas then shoot them down from my walls.) and now its 1254 and i am the richest empire and one turn away from recruiting my first bombards.(how much fun).

My war plans are to sit spears at the front, swords at flanks, knights at back and missile in the middle.
Shoot them down for as long as possible and send cavalry to repeatadly charge their light infantry and missles.

aooinn
01-29-2009, 12:04
thanks

Bilgediver
06-21-2009, 03:51
Playing M/M with timescale=1.0 (400 turn campaign, I tried playing with timescale=0.5 as Venetians, and I completed the game without gunpowder being invented, or the New World being discovered)

I'm having a hell of a time, I took all of Iberia and Portugal within the first few turns, just went all-out and decided Portugal must NOT be its own independent nation, and I figured Gibraltar would be easier to defend. France went to war with me almost right away (Once I took Portuguese settlement in Galatia).

At this point I have been excommunicated (for something stupid, I did a normal cease and desist, but apparently holding my forces at a siege causes the pope to excommunicate me (but doesn't do it for AI factions?)), I captured Tunis when the Pope first calls a crusade for it (capturing it before the Papal states does). I have conquered all the way to Normandy and hold 3/4 of all Gaul. Weakening France allowed Milan to grow as the #1 power (vying with me), and keeps sending stacks and stacks of Geneose Crossbow with DFK at Bordeaux, and now England and France keep going after Caen and Normandy. But apparently its Tunis thats caused my biggest problem. Apparently the Pope keeps acting like a 4 year old child with a temper tantrum "I want it I want it I want it!" and launched a crusade after me. The bug causing no AI to lose crusading units allowed about 7 different factions to HOLD Crusading armies just outside of Tunis, and when they finally starting sieging, are sieging one after another. I'm still working through an English siege right now, but Milan is next I think.

Otherwise I'm ddoing great, I took over the two smallish Italian Islands as well as Sicily, and am expanding south to Africa (my merchants are making close to 1000K each at the gold, and about 600k at the ivory, and about 400k at the slaves), and the southern tip of the Italian peninusula. I just very well might knock the pope out if he keeps this up. But I'll probably lose Tunis, that many stacks of Crusading armies will probably be my downfall.

ThunderClaw
06-22-2009, 19:50
I started playing just last week, and after a few Calvin's Wagon style runs (wherein I screw everything up but learn a bunch in the process), I ended up with a strategy that works great.

CrusadeAgainstYourEnemies basically has it right, though I ignored developing the initial king in favor of developing Vaasco and the Prince instead. Perhaps it's just bad luck, but I've never had the king live for more than 30-40 turns after the game starts.

I started out by building churches and as many priests as I could. Priests are the absolute cornerstone to Spain's game, and I was maxed out on my agent number for as long as I could be. The priests went to the Moorish lands in Ilberia to make seed the land for invasion and to keep the Moors reeling. I also built a trio of Diplomats and started them walking down to Tunis, Rome, and some Danish land. I used my princesses to seal the early Trade Rights and Map Exchange deals to give them some easy +Charm, then sealed a marriage alliance with France. The other Princess was married off to a random event noble who had Fertile and Fair Fighter - I like Chivalry characters over Dread ones for Spain, since Spain is at its best when crusading and I'd prefer not to fight my characters' maturation.

After my initial armies were organized (2-3 units of Spearmen and Archers + 1-2 units of Knights, plus a crop of 4-6 Town Militia to hold captured territory), I built a Brothel, an Inn, and a Port in Leon, cranked the tax rate up to very high, and had the prince leave the place to avoid getting corrupted. Leon then started stamping out Spies and Assassins, whom I used very liberally while Alfonso was still King, training them by spying on rebels and assassinating nameless Captains. He quickly got the Spymaster and Assassin Master retinues, and I moved him into Leon so he could train all my new agents at a cutthroat price. During these few turns, I also built a couple Cogs, that I used to block off the land bridge to north Africa. I kept them reinforced throughout.

I ignored Valencia and Zaragosa entirely. The Portugese are weak enough that even if they do take Valencia, you can usually retake it without a lot of issue. I instead focused fire on the Moors from the very beginning. The Moors have an impressive starting base and will become extremely powerful if you let them sit, but they begin the game disorganized and off balance. I took advantage of this and went straight for their lands with the Prince and Vaasco. I won easy victories against tiny garrisons, and thanks to the influence of my multitude of Priests, the cities stayed mine. I personally used my now 4/5 skill Spies to infiltrate the cities and open the gates, but a battering ram would have worked great too. Meanwhile, my Assassins killed any Imams and Diplomats they could get their hands on to facilitate the conversion and keep the Moors from unexpectedly getting help.

By turn 20, the Moors were pushed off the Ilberian peninsula and they could not reinforce because of my Cog blockade. I converted Granada into a Town (in fact, every Ilberian settlement except Spain's initial castle was a Town by the time I got done with it). The Portugese had utterly failed to take either rebel town, so I went ahead and took them both. They were easy victories with my armies awash in cash from the two new Towns, though I did manage to simply assassinate El Cid - I had a 6-skill Assassin with a Young Accomplice, and got lucky on a 30% gamble. A few turns later, I station armies at both of Portugal's settlements and use Spies to open the gates, wiping out Portugal in one turn. Again, battering rams would've worked just as easily. I might not have been able to get very GOOD units this early in the game, but there were plenty of them to get the job done.

With Ilberia firmly under my control, I finally started building Merchants and sent most of my Assassins, Spies, and Priests down into North Africa to keep the Moors off balance - kept a few up in Ilberia to guard against heresy or a merchant attack. My Priests had gotten big Piety bonuses from converting entire regions from Islam, and leaving the Rebel factions there for a while meant that they had the chance to spawn a few Heretics for my Priests to smite. Consequently, I had 4 Cardinals at this point, so when the Pope died I was a shoo-in to control the Vatican.

With a Spanish Pope in Rome and my faction riding high, I gathered up all my generals that were below 40 and requested a Crusade on the region just west of Tunis (the name escapes me right now). My request was granted, and my men went crazy buying mercenaries. The Moors were struggling to even keep civil order in their towns now with my Priests' meddling and my Assassins constantly killing Imams and blowing buildings up, so when two armies full of Crusaders thundered across the land bridge it was over before it started.

I came away with 4 Grand Crusader generals and 2 more regions. I would've continued on to Tunis, but Sicily had sniped it away. It scarcely mattered. with only 2 castles and a heavy focus on trade buildings, I was awash in cash. Plus, I'd had a Diplomat down there for a long time, far away from the capitol, so he'd picked up Translator and a Foreign Dignitary. On top of his skill modifiers, he had 8 Influence, so I was able to purchase Tunis peacefully for 9000 florins over 3 turns. Then I decided I needed another castle up north, so I purchased Bordeux from the French for 7000 florins outright. About every 10 turns I'd buy another area for a while. Central Europe was basically always fighting, so I seemed to be the only guy with money.

It's turn 80 now in the game, and I tried to pull the 'crusade and hold' trick again when the Pope called for Antioch to be taken, but the much further distance meant that I'm not able to hold too much land with the short time limit Crusades give me. Doesn't matter, though; I'm about to wipe out Egypt, and Rebels will be easier to crush on my way back. The only other major threat is the Mongols. Milan decided they wanted a piece of me and are being very annoying by blockading the hell out of my ports, but I'm so dug in by this point that unless they were to show up with a full army stack of relatively decent units I'm in no real danger. Just finishing up building an assault force of Chivalric Knights and their Dismounted brothers before I go clean some Milanese clock.

oz_wwjd
06-23-2009, 02:35
I hardly ever use the dis Chivalric or Chivalric knights myself,as I usually have mailed ,or feudal knights with at least 3 silver chevrons by then. Experience comes fast when they escort my 10 jinettes around the map,cleaning up what's left after the javelins have stopped coming.



You'd better learn to love Jinettes -- they're the only thing that can get around that mis-happen Peninsula before the area in question has been smashed.

I've had numerous times when the french have tried to invade Zaragosa/Cordoba and my jinette army just managed to interecept them before they laid siege,as due to the fact that they had been including dis feudal knights in there armies, I didn't really see my garrison lasting very long if they laid siege.

coalition
01-09-2010, 06:23
Favourite Faction, stuff Venice. :)

Spain has the best selection of units in the game IMHO. Great Light Infantry, Heavy Infantry....Those Conquistatores are great units....Possibly the best heavy infantry and the mounted ones are great too.

Only one thing I wish to change, those damn Conquistatores units, why do they have to be recruited in the Americas. :furious3: (Historical correct but damn...)

Chivaric knights can form your main line for 9/10 of your long campaign, so there still plenty to choose.

Tsar Alexsandr
07-11-2010, 00:12
I very much enjoyed Spain. You start with three generals, and two princesses. So that means you'll be able to pick up two more generals soon! Hopefully.

The position is good. Toledo is a great defensive strong point, and Leon will be an important city. You should cut off Portuguese expansion in Iberia immediately. Take Saragossa before they do, and if they go for the only other nearby settlements in France, oh well... Not your problem. Then take Valencia. Valencia will make your defensive grip on Iberia even stronger. The Moors will be hard pressed to defeat the Spanish with a frontier like you have now at this point.

Once these conquests are finished, I suggest making ready to expel the Moors. You are a Spanish king, and must finish the Reconquista! Which reminds me, I hope you were sending your priests into Moorish Spain. It's a great way to gain Cardinals and a good way to get a future Pope. Not to mention it improves your favor with the Pope. Hopefully you can call a Crusade. I recommend Cordoba. It'll be an easy crusade for sure. But do you really want to let his Majesty the Pope call one out in the Levant? You deserve this Spain. You're the only really good faithful Catholic monarchy out there. Right? (Heh heh.) I like to get the Pope's help early on supporting my Reconquista anyhow. If you were already going to do it, why not improve your relation with the Pope by carrying out a Crusade and taking advantage of the bonuses that provides? If you're lucky, you might even get a Knights of Santiago base.

Once Cordoba is taken care of you need Grenada. It's unthinkable to allow the Moor's a fortress in Spain. They must be thoroughly removed from Iberia. With them gone, your grip on Iberia is undisputed. Portugal remains greatly diminished in it's capacity to fight for Iberia, and you have them firmly in check. Reinforce your position, and I allow Portugal to attack me, so the Pope doesn't get after me. But they usually take their time... and that's fine. Why they do that, you can take the islands of Sardinia and Corsica! Or you could continue going after the Moors. (I usually don't. Might as well save em for future crusades right?) I recommend staying on the Pope's good side and taking advantage of calling crusades whenever you can. Another good thing about not destroying the Moors is that you can send all those clergy into North Africa to keep a constant generation of Spanish Cardinals. If you are on good terms with the Pope, or the Pope came from your lands, or most of the Cardinals are from your land.... you're in a great situation. XD

I recommend building lots of Jinettes. :D They're fast, great at flanking, ranged, and their missiles are great at taking down better armored units. They're competent fighters, have good stamina, and just in general are a great cavalry unit. You also get good Skirmisher infantry, Almugavars that can fight well and are armed with armor piercing missiles. Spain also gets good swordsmen, in the late game you get good pikes, and of course firearms! (as well as Pavise crossbowmen who will be useful for a long time and available earlier.) And great cannon. Not to mention great cavalry!

They offer a fun campaign and great units! ^_^

Which reminds me, if you prefer Orange, you should play the Moors. Cause they get many of the same units, with a much different flavor! But the Moor's and Spain both have proven to be very re-playable campaigns for me. :D

johnnyq409
04-11-2011, 17:01
OK, so I'm a little late on the whole TW bandwagon but finally picked up M2 and after playing around for a little bit to get the hang of things, I've settled into an M/M long campaign with Spain.
As many others have seemed to have gone, my first move was to head to Zaragoza with Vaasco. The Portuguese tried and failed, so I nipped in and took my first region. Meanwhile I sent my princesses off to set up trade rights and alliances with Portugal and France, before directing them further into mainland Europe.
I regathered my troops and headed for Valencia and El Cid. A pretty decent force awaited me, but with some freshly recruited Mailed Knights reinforcing from Toledo, I took it with not too many casualties.
All this time I'd been constantly building trade improvements in Leon and subsequently Zaragoza, and we were bringing in a decent amount of income. Furthermore alliances were set up with Milan and the Moors, but only if they gave me a few thousand florins each. This gave us a pretty healthy bank balance, at which point I came into contact with the English. With plenty of money already in our pockets, I decided to see how much they'd want to take Caen off their hands. Just a few thousand, might as well I thought. I wasn't going to kid myself, it was a very isolated territory and I probably wouldn't hold it for ever, but it was a decent size town and it would repay the purchase fee within a handful of turns.
Similarly I came across the Silicians, who can captured Tunis. They only wanted 2000 for it, so still rolling in money I obliged. Next the Venetians, how about buying Tripoli off them? What's that, they'll give me it for free in return for an alliance? OK!
Time to consolidate, I had plenty of money but my army was a bit thin and my lands were stretched to say the least. The Portuguese had taken Cordoba and Bordeaux and needed dealing with. They tried to strike first, eyeing up Zaragosa but I sallied out and kept them at bay. Their treacherous was looked upon with disgust by the Pope, who swiftly excommunicated them.
Now it was time to strike the Portuguese. First Pamplona, with their forces busy in France, we caught them by surprise and the castle fell all too easily. Next, a quick phonecall to the Pope and he ordered a crusade against poorly-defended Cordoba. Back in Normandy however, the English had finally grown impatient enough and wanted Caen back. I was in no position to defend it, with just one mailed knight and a few spear militia, against a pretty full and varied stack. Never mind, sometimes you just have to take a step backward to move forward. At least it resulted in the English being excommunicated.
Cordoba fell with barely a fight, and I turned the majority of this army towards Lisbon. Defended by just the king and some catapults, it too proved no match.
So that's where I stand at present. Iberia bar Granada (the obvious next target) is united under the Spanish flag, with the two African colonies proving nice outposts and bases for quick access to the Holy Land. The Portuguese are on their knees with only a castle left. We've got the Moors cornered with just three regions and Granada is cut off from the other two. Surprisingly the French have remained allied throughout so far, though I think they've been pretty occupied keeping the Milanese and HRE at bay.

Snoil The Mighty
01-31-2012, 07:49
Recent return to MTW II, read through most of this thread pretty carefully but apology if I skimmed and missed the answer to this question which is:

Did anyone ever figure out how much it took to bribe El Cid?

jbillybrack
11-27-2012, 18:53
Recent return to MTW II, read through most of this thread pretty carefully but apology if I skimmed and missed the answer to this question which is:

Did anyone ever figure out how much it took to bribe El Cid?

Inspired to try, I console-cheated in over 6 million F and tried with a level one diplomat. El Cid was insulted that I doubted his loyalty and honor.