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frogbeastegg
11-13-2006, 21:45
The Moors need to be unlocked before you can play as them. To do this you can either complete a campaign (on any difficutly, long or short setting) with one of the five starting factions, or you can edit the preferences file. To do this open your Sega/M2TW folder/data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign, find the file called "descr_strat" and open it with wordpad. Now find the section which says
campaign imperial_campaign
playable
england
france
hre
spain
venice
end
unlockable
sicily
milan
scotland
byzantium
russia
moors
turks
egypt
denmark
portugal
poland
hungary
end
nonplayable
papal_states
aztecs
mongols
timurids
slave
end

Change it so it reads

campaign imperial_campaign
playable
england
france
hre
spain
venice
sicily
milan
scotland
byzantium
russia
moors
turks
egypt
denmark
portugal
poland
hungary
end
nonplayable
papal_states
aztecs
mongols
timurids
slave
end

LordMorgan
11-16-2006, 00:05
Tried to do this and it didnt work I guess I will have to play as the English first anyways.

frogbeastegg
11-16-2006, 10:57
Odd; it works for everyone else I've seen mention it. Did you make sure the file you were editing wasn't tagged as read only? Right click the file, choose properties and then look for the set of tick boxes near the bottom of the window.

shifty157
11-20-2006, 04:54
Just a quick little thing i wrote up for another thread. I was asked to post it here.

I played the beginnings of a campaign as the moors. YOu dont have to worry about Egypt because its far away and seperated by big provinces and desert.

The big problem with the Moors is that they have no real heavey units in the beginning of the game so youre easily outclassed man for man by the Spanish and Portugese. You do however start out with a fairly large empire (4 provinces, 2 castles 2 cities) and if you develope these correctly you can really start making alot of money.

Its a really good idea to open up two fronts as quickly as possible. One in Iberia against the Portugese and Spanish (though not both at once because youll be stomped) and one in the east to take Tunis, Sardinia, Corsica, and eventually Italy.

The other big problem with the Moors is that because youre muslim, none of the christian factions want to ally with you so its really only a matter of time before christian factions on your borders declare war on you even though you may be much stronger than they are. If you play well then this shouldnt pose too much a problem (seeing as how youd probably be declaring war on them before too long anyway) but it can be rather frustrating because the constant declarations of war dont really give you much time to breathe. This can get especially bad once youve conquered France and get into the heart of EUrope because suddenly youll find yourself with many enemies all across youre rather large borders.

As someone else said, jihads will be your best friend for the early part of the campaign because suddenly you can have a very large army and not have to pay a nickel of upkeep. Of course once you get past the Pyrennes you lose this ability because i believe you can only call a jihad on a province that is mostly muslim.

Like i said though. Youre big lack as the Moors as any real heavey units so unless you can manage to get your hands on some (as mercenaries or any other way) youll want to make sure that you go into battle with a sizeable numerical advantage. Its also generally better to wait out seiges because generally even if you could win the seige youd take too many casualties in the process leaving at best with a long pause to rebuild your army or at worst completely open to counter-attack. Getting access to artillery evens the ground somewhat in seiges so that you can open several breaches to gain the numerical advantage and avoid bottlenecks like ladders and seige towers that can often turn into massacres with such lightly-armored troops.

Basically you have to refine the art of maintaining the pressure of an offensive while avoiding major battles as much as possible. WHat this results in is alot of maneuvering of your armies and alot of hit and run tactics. You have to leapfrog your armies across the map. WHat i mean by this is have your armies work in pairs. One army will move in and seige the next settlement while the other goes beyond that settlement and harasses the enemy to keep their attention diverted away from helping the beseiged settlement because more often than not the strength of the beseiged force and the relief army is more than enough to overpower your seiging army. But if you can catch the relief army in the field with another army then you should be able to crush it. EVen better is if you divert the relief army and lead it on a wild goose chase until its too late and the settlement is yours. What can be good at this is armies composed entirely of cavalry because of their much larger movement rate on the campaign map. YOu can lead a diversionary raid and seige a city in the heart of their empire and then at the last minute (have a good spy network to keep track of all enemy movements) before the relief force comes to destroy your army lift the seige and escape into the fog of war only to turn up a turn later at the gates of another city. Just be very careful not to fall into ambushes and always know exactly where all your enemies are. If worse comes to worse and you get trapped then keep some cash reserves to hire up all the mercenary infantry that you can.

Fleets become incredibly important for this tactic as well. It is incredibly important that you have a powerful navy and that you keep an iron grip on the seas at all times. Fleets are the only area where you are on the same ground as the Europeans so it shouldnt be too difficult to do this especially because the AI doesnt seem to spam fleets anymore like it did and because you dont have to spend countless turns chasing defeated fleets across the map because they just wont die. Its a very good idea to keep at least one 'amphibious' army that you always keep at sea. That way in a pinch you can land the army anywhere that its needed to cause some havoc and generally piss the AI off and then just as quickly it can escape beyond the AI's reach. The other reason for a strong fleet is to blockade the enemy. Blockades are an incredibly useful tool at denying your enemy income and less income equals less armies which should help to even the field a bit so that you arent at such an overwhelming disadvantage.

Quillan
11-20-2006, 05:38
A jihad can be called on any province. As Byzantium, I played for close to 100 years with a jihad called against Constantinople, which was 100% Orthodox. 4 different armies died on the walls, and two more never made it that far.

KARTLOS
11-24-2006, 06:54
The javelin horseman can be lethal if used correctly.

I reccomend trying to take the iberian penisular as quickly as possible. I went all out at the beggining, moving all my troops from africa to the extent that i left algiers undefeded for a few turns. Following council of noble missions i took valencia and zaragosa. by the time i took zaragosa the army that took it was a full stack spain had also been planning to take zaragosa and so most of their troops were bunched in the north east. this meant that i was able to sneak up with a small army and take leon, and then dealt with the rest of their armies with my full stack before taking toledo.
portugal then declared war on me. rather foolishly as it turned out as i took thier two cities very easily by virtue of having larger armies.
i am guessing i had taken the entirity of iberia by around turn ten.
following this i invaded france (after they declared war on me) with most of my military force, whilst a small troop went off to take , corsica, sardinia, tunis and tripoli. i also conquered sourthern italy up to rome and london.
my expansion then run out of steam for several turns as it was necesary to maintain large garrisons on the towns i conquered because of the differnce in religion. i am now invloved in an intersting conflict with milan in italy (they have bologna and venice whilst i have genoa) and england in england. in both instances i have reached a technological impasse as the english are fielding armies with lost of unmounted knights etc, whilst the italians have their excellent milita troops.

taking all of iberia gives you a very solid position- because it is the edge of the mapyou are only going to face conflict on one border and thus dont need to leave many troops in the penisular. the same applies for north africa. i have never been attcked - in fact i have never seen the ai mount a naval invasion in any campaign- it mostly tends to attack what is next to it.

i seemed to make loads of money as the moors on h/h i think this may partly be becasue they have weaker(lighter) troops than most factions i have palyed with previously and hence cheaper upkeep.

Aenlic
11-27-2006, 16:57
I completed my first short campaign using the Moors on H/H.

I did something which I suppose is a little unorthodox. I immediately allied myself with Spain and Portugal. I did it, as always, in steps. First I offered maps for maps. Then trading rights in exchange for cash, which they both seemed desperate to acquire. Then alliance for cash from both. With them allied for now, I sent one mixed stack to take Tunis then Timbuktu then Alguin. The rest of my armies went NE to take Valencia.

First priority in my towns was getting markets so I could build 4 merchants. The income from monopolizing the two gold SE of Timbuktu and the two ivory SW of Timbuktu is amazing. So, I need those 4 merchants quick.

After building a market in Marrakech, my next priority there was acquiring better ships. Both the Spanish and Portuguese early ships outclass the Moorish fleets. So better ships is a must before you go after either or you'll soon find yourself without any fleet and all of your ports blockaded.

I kept my diplomat heading east in southern Europe gaining trading rights as often as possible. I ignored any council missions which would have involved me in wars too early. It was income I wanted and eventually I racked up quite a few 500 florin diplomatic missions heading all the way east to the Turks and the Egyptians via the Byzantines.

With the income my merchants and trading rights I was able to rapidly build up my military tech and build a couple of really nice stacks at Valencia and Granada. While all this was going on, the Portuguese and Spanish and French went to war. The Spanish first went to war with the French over Zaragosa. Then the Portuguese went for Bordeaux and got into it with the French. Meanwhile, I'm happily planning the demise of all three. :wink:

I went for Spain first. I sent a stack of 6 ships to blockade Leon. Then I hit Castille and Leon simultaneously to begin a siege of both. With their armies up fighting the French in alliance with the Portuguese, I had no real trouble. Both cities fell, leaving the inconvenience of rebel armies for the Fench and Portuguese to deal with for the moment. I begin building another strong stack in Valencia for use in Zaragosa. I sent my Castille stack west toward Lisbon along with extra garrison units from Cordoba. I sent my Leon stack to get ready for an attack on Pamplona. I sent my fleet to blockade Lisbon and started readying a second fleet to head toward Toulouse in case the French became a problem.

Lisbon turned out to be lightly garrisoned thanks to their war with the French over Bordeaux. I took it easily after a one turn siege. I sent my fleet north toward Bordeaux. I had a new diplomat on the way to France to make overtures. The Portuguese owned Bordeaux and Pamplona and took Zaragosa while I was still allied with them and at war with the Spanish. I sent my Valencia stack to take Zaragosa and my waiting stack on the border to take Pamplona. My fleet blockaded Bordeaux and the Portuguese were doomed.

The French tried to blockade my Valencia port, apparently feeling threatended when I took both Pamplona and Zaragosa. I responded by blockading Toulouse. I had my diplomat ready and the French acquiesced easily the next turn to a ceasefire proposal coupled with renewed trading rights. Meanwhile, I had two stacks ready now from Zaragosa and Pamplona to go after the reeling Portuguese in Bordeaux. They made quick work of the Portuguese and I now owned 14 provinces and had destroyed both the Spanish and the Portuguese. The poor unsuspecting French were no match for my two armies in Bordeaux and Toulouse fell giving me my 15th.

Had it been a long campaign, I would have left the French alone and possibly even evacuated Bordeaux in favor of the more easily defended Pyrenees borders of Pamplona and Zaragosa. Then I would have continued east from Tunis to Tripoli and on to Egypt and continued building up my sea power to take on Corsica, Sardinia and eventually the Sicilians. The French are suprisingly easy to push around at about this point because they're usually involved in wars with the English and even the HRE by now. The trick would be to balance out war with Egypt to about the same time as the Mongols invade, so they are weakened, then sit tight and hope the Mongols get bogged down with the Byzantines, Egyptians, Turks or Russians. Then pounce for the 45 provinces.

troymclure
11-28-2006, 07:57
Ok some quick tips...

It is possible to elminate portugal in three turns! When i started as the moors i sent an army to the oporto province. I can't remember why exactly but i didn't declare war straight away, but waited till turn 3. I besieged their main city and was then attacked by the main portuguse force. During the battle i killed all the General's bodyguards, next turn i was greeted by the fact that portugal was destroyed.

I haven't tested it again, but this does mean that sometimes it will be possible to eliminate portugal with one battle.

Other advice, is to take iberia asap. It shouldn't be overly difficult, my advice would be too take out portugal first, then the rebel provinces (though not valencia, leave that and el cid till after the spanish are dealt with). Then the spanish, it shouldn't take too long, after that you are practically homefree.

PaulTa
12-02-2006, 08:31
It seems like most of those heavy hitters that moors are lacking early on are present later in the form of the best European infantry unit, the christian guard. Pound for pound, these guys are better than the famed Janisary heavy infantry.

If you can sit back and tech up a bit while developing a lucrative trading empire, you should be set for the later stages of the game with those christian guard.

Debe2233
12-06-2006, 11:08
The Moors have some great units available, I know in their weaknesses is says weak late armies but… yeesh what faction are they looking at.

The Moors come with some of the best late units in the game;

Christian Guard – High damage high defence not too difficult to get they're a perfect unit, come in mounted and unmounted varients make use of both.

Sudanese Hand Gunners – All Muslim factions come with these, they lack the long range of musketeers but they do have high damage, they come quite late but seem to mop the floor with the western equivalent.

Camel Gunners – in my opinion one of THE best units in the game, remember to hold fire at the beginning don’t let them waste their shots, get in close, flank and get behind and let the enemy have it.

To start off with wait for your first son to reach 16 (turn 2 or 3 ) he’ll appear in your capital, then send him off on a Jihad towards Portugal it provides all the command stars and chivalry a growing boy needs, with luck you’ll finish off Portugal by killing off all their family members then its just you and Spain.

Using Jihads liberally will give you some high chivalry leaders, using these you can build your settlements up in no time (0.5 + to settlement growth per point of chivalry) plus of course make advances in Spain, once you’ve taken the whole place you’ll be making a lot of money and be set to conquer anywhere you feel like, your far away from the invasions and close to the new world, what “Moor” could you want.

grinningman
12-07-2006, 00:25
*edit*

The latest version can be downloaded from https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/local_links.php?catid=156#linkid358

*end edit*

Original post:

---------------------------------------
In a fit of enthusiam, I made reference chart for the Moor castle tech tree. Guilds (only the swordsmith's for castles) aren't included, but everything else should be there.

*snip*

For buildings that produce units, only the new units produced by a particular building are listed, but you can still produce all the previous units from that building series. For example, a citadel can produce Arab Cavalry, Desert Cavalry, Granadine Jinetes, Dismounted Arab cavalry and Granadine Lancers. If you find any mistakes, let me know.

I might not end up making a city reference chart, so I thought I'd upload this one now.
-----------------------------------------

Carl
12-07-2006, 00:42
Hey, loads of thanks for this. Well done~:) .

SCRIBE
12-09-2006, 09:09
Are the Moors still able to deploy the Almohad Urban Militia?

grinningman
12-09-2006, 12:03
Yes, but they aren't the early game powerhouse unit that they were in MTW. They're built at a level 3 barracks building in cities.

grinningman
12-11-2006, 17:57
The latest version of these tech trees, which print out properly, look nicer and include a lot more info on all the buildings, are now here:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/local_links.php?catid=156#linkid358




I had some free time on the weekend, so I did end up making a city chart. I also corrected a couple of mistakes on the castle chart.

They are now here:

*snip*

I've removed the link to the old version of the castle tech tree. As before, guilds aren't included.

Slaists
12-12-2006, 18:53
All in all, Moors are an enjoyable faction to play, after playing one of the Catholic factions.

Converting all your neighbors to Islam and not worrying about those marauding Inquisitors just feels refreshing (for a heretic like me). As a bonus - the faction campaign map music felt great to me (could be, it is the same for all the Islamic factions though). By the way, I played on H/VH setting with 2 years per turn.

Strategy wise, there is no need to follow the initial advice of the internal game advisor about rushing for Valencia - a poor, undeveloped castle with strong early defenders. On top of that, it is not on your initial Jihad target list, which means that taking it would drain your economic and military resources for quite some turns with no immediate reward. Meanwhile: the Spaniards and Portuguese might attack Cordoba.

Depending on your particular map situation, You might as well, declare a Jihad on Lisbon (a great cash city with few castle units in their garrison). This is what I did after Portuguese attacked my border fort. I guess, they did not have a family member in Bilbao, since the faction was destroyed after my Jihad. From then on - it was a bit of a marathon finishing off Spaniards in the peninsula (I did take my time with it).

Note, sending a bunch of your Imams into a Spanish province will convert the province to Islam fast and will boost your Imams' peity. This helps to counter efforts of catholic priests in your own provinces: 1) their priests tend to rush back to thier home provinces to counter spread of Islam, 2) higher peity helps your imams to convert your own provinces back faster.

Another side note (and a sad one): it seems Timbuktu gets flash floods some time in mid 1100-s. This means movement impairment for any units there, including your merchants (and this effect does not seem to go away. probably, due to a bug observed in RTW too). So, my advice, turn Timbuktu into a castle (cheaper to keep and no need to have a city there since the trade income (not counting merchants) seem to be low) and make sure you take West Sahara and turn it into a merchant factory to farm resources for both provinces. Otherwise, walking merchants through the desert from your mainland provinces will be a hellish experience.

PureFodder
12-18-2006, 11:34
I`m on my second campaign as the Moors now on H/H after the first one ended up grinding to a deadlock and a couple of trial runs, here's my thoughts so far.

Initial Building strategy

First turn you get the option to upgrade 2 castles, I upgrade both and set the other cities to make land clearance / ports / markets / roads to up income.
I set Granada to be my ranged troop production centre once the castle is built. Toledo will make foot troops and Pamplona, mounted units.

Agents

Send your spy and Imam towards Toledo to keep track of the Spanish armies. Send your emissary asap towards France then onto the Papal states. Making peace with both these factions will pay huge dividens, my lack of attention in this area on my initial attempt resulted in having a crusade called on me and being at war with all the Catholic countries at the same time.:oops:

Initial assaults

Force 1
Take all but one unit from Marrakesh with your heir and link up with the troops just standing around the desert, buy a couple of merc units and declair a Jihad on Lisbon. This means that half your troops don't pay upkeep giving a nice cash boost early on and you can get to Lisbon asap which is important. As has been mentioned, Portugal only has 2 family members, both in Lisbon, so battering them will destroy the Portugeese and make your life alot easier, plus you'll get a load of cash.
DON'T STOP, dump one or two units to hold Lisbon then send the rest north, along with some more Mercs towards Leon.

Force 2
Take your units from Granada, send them to Cordoba and buy some more milita units there. Once your Lisbon Force is roughly 3 turns from Leon, send this force out towards Toledo so they arrive at the same time.

Every time I've started as the Moors pre and post patch, the Spanish did the same thing. They stick all their troops into two armies and march off towards El Cid and the rebel provinces there leaving their cities practically unguarded. Once they see you knocking on the walls of Toledo they turn round, but can't make it back in time to stop both provinces being taken. Bye Bye Spanish. Now Iberia is left to you and the rebels:2thumbsup:

Force 3
I guess it's up to you, you can take the forces at Algeirs down towards Timbuktu and the money pot there, but there's absolutely no chance that anyone will take it before you. I personally send that force plus a few mercs to take Tunisia before dumping them on a ship and heading to the really poorly held tiny rebel provinces in Sardinia and Corsica. Convert them both into cities to maximise income, the mines help the income too. A word of warning; Post patch, Sicilly has gone all out amphibious assault on Tunisia and Sardinia so watch out for them.

PureFodder
01-01-2007, 21:57
I've now finished my campaign as the Moors so I thought I'd add a bit to my last post.

Firstly, the Moors have a lovely feature of having absolutely no use for stables whatsoever. Your Castle walls provide the same cavalry as you'd get from building a stables there and the awesome Christian guards are available at any huge city. The stables don't even give any experience bonuses so don't build them and destroy any in castles you take for extra cash. Also the main bulk of your armies will be made up of dismounted Arab Cavalry which are also available at any fortress. This makes restocking your armies nice and easy.

Infantry
Spears spears and more spears. For the early and mid game your infantry will consist entirely of spearmen. Berber spearmen make up the main bulk of early armies and will take massive casualties whenever used, but they're cheap, easy to train and will hold up the enemy long enough for you to get round the sides and back of them to kill them.
Nubian Spearmen have the exact same stats and costs as Berber spearmen but lack the good stamina and fighting in desert bonus that the Berber spears have, making them an utterly pointless unit for the Moors to have.
Dismounted Arab cavalry are far better as they are well armoured but still you should expect decent casualties whenever you use them. These are your best troops for taking and defending castle walls.
Lamtuna spearmen do alot better in melee than their stats seem to indicate but get destroyed by archers as they have little in the way of defence, so be careful with them and they can excel.

A milita drill square in a large city will get you access you your first of two heavy infantry units the Urban Militia. Well armoured, cheap and free upkeep in large cities where they are trained makes them a very useful unit. Good against enemy spearmen and light infantry but lacking the offensive power to challenge good heavy infantry and win.
Finally you'll get a citadel, upgrade to an armoury and you get the Dismounted Christian Guard. An excellent heavy infantry unit that can go toe to toe with pretty well any infantry unit, 16 attack and 22 defence. Make loads of these and you won't regret it.

Missile troops
Sudanese Javelinmen are your entry level missile troop, bad in melee and far less useful than your javelin throwing cavalry, generally not worth it.
Desert Archers are a long range archer unit that are great for defending walls as they can fire flaming arrows almost as far as longbowmen with good damage for an early archer unit (just higher than longbowmen). They do suffer from quite a high trajectory of fire meaning missed shots don't hit other people very often. Terrible in melee and poorly armoured though, so they need protecting.
Crossbow militia. Made in barracks in small cities, ok damage, surprisingly small range and terrible in melee. Not a great unit.
Peasant Crossbowmen. Do NOT confuse this with the peasant crossbowmen that some Catholic factions get. These guys are great. Same long range as the Desert Archers, a very flat trajectory and a missile attack of 12. They are like Merc Crossbowmen with slightly lower defence and half the upkeep and recruitment cost.

Cavalry
Arab Cavalry. Cheap fast light cavalry that are very handy at killing, routing or simply disrupting enemy archers while your Javelin cavalry kill things.
Tuareg Camel spearmen. Actually make very good early game heavy cavalry. Generals bodyguard units will destroy them but against light cav, mailed knights and infantry they are lovely. The best bit is they are trained at a Caravan stop which can be made in any castle, only costs 1200 to build and increases trade in the settlement. The downside is they are financially crippling, with a whopping 300 a turn upkeep costs (they only cost 600 to train in the first place) so only train them when your are gearing up for an offensive.
Granadine Lancers are available at any citadel and are quite good heavy cav. Much better than your Camel Cavalry and with a lower upkeep cost.
Christian Guard. A great heavy cavalry unit, high attack, charge and armour make these guys invaluable. Same upkeep costs but slightly more expensive than Granadine lancers. Best bit is they can be recruited from any huge city, so with Citadels making lancers and huge cities making Christian guards you can very easily make and retrain your heavy cavalry armies.

Missile Cavalry
Desert Cavalry. These Javalin throwing cavalry can gut most western Catholic armies before they have a chance to fight back. Run them round the back of their formation while your arab cavalry disrupt their archers and lob Javelins into the back and sides of the General/Heavy cav/heavy infantry. Fast but vulnerable to missile fire and melee they take quite a bit of micromanaging to get the most out of them, but the results are worth it. A word of warning; Spain and Portugals Jinetes outclass desert cavalry in every respect and will massacre you so keep away from them!
Granadine Jinetes. Exactly the same as desert cav but with some armour, still not as good as Jinetes though but against French, HRE, Milanese, Venice, English, Scotts and Papal armies they shine, provided you can kill or occupy the enemy archers.
Granadine Crossbow Cavalry. If you can get a citadel well before gunpowder these are a relatively useful unit to have. Use them in a similar way to your javalin cavalry. Slower firing but with much more ammo they can happily sit behind the enemy formation slowly killing their heavy cav/infantry. Fast enough to escape from most cavalry attacks too.

Camel Gunners
These are good enough to get their own section. Make sure every citadel you own has a Caravansary asap. The building cost 3600 to make and only building you before you can make them is a caravan stop. As mentioned they also up your trade income. So the entire tech tree required to make one of the games greatest units costs a mere 4800 to complete, takes 6 turns and will eventually pay for itself :2thumbsup:.
You can make one unit every 2 turns, they cost 1180 to make and have an upkeep of 300 a turn. If they cost twice that they'd still probably be worth it. They have long range shots that drop the enemy morale quickly, they have a missile attack strength of 16 and can easily flank round the back and sides of an army to hit their weaker rear armour. An almost flat trajectory of fire means that when shooting at a unit near the middle of an enemy formation even if they miss they will almost certainly kill something. The are best used with fire at will off to conserve their 20 shots to do the maximum damage to the enemy army. They aren't good in melee, but that's unlikely to matter as they have a great range and any enemy cav that attacks will be under constant high power demoralising fire as they chase them and if they manage to get into melee combat the camels cause fear to the horses. If you can afford it I reccommend 6-8 units per army.

Artillery
Pre gunpowder you get the Ballista, catapult and Treb just like everyone else.
Gunpowder gives you the Bombard, the Grand Bombard and the Cannon. Your selection may seem limited, but these are enough for blasting walls down and defending bridges. The role of anti-personel artillery is more than capably handled by you camel gunners.

Stuff I didn't use
It took me ages to be bothered to tech up to make Handgunners and Sudanese Gunners, but as camel gunners have the same shot power as them, longer range and the ability to hit the sides and rear of the enemy formations it didn't seem worth it.
I was never given the opportunity to make Hashisham infantry but they seem quite similar to Dismounted Christian Guard but have 30 units with 2 hitpoits instead of 60 units with one.
In custom battles you can get Dismounted Tuareg but I've never seen them in the campaign so I figured they were partially removed from the game (the last thing the Moors need is yet another spear infantry unit).

Tactics
These tactics are based on fighting the armies found in western Europe which is pretty much the only type of army I fought against (France, Milan, Venice, Sicily, Denmark, Papal states and Scotland). Spain and Portugal died too quickly and with too few battles to really see how to fight them and I never went into the holy lands except to take Jerusalem (which was in the hands of the Danes)

In the early and mid game an all out melee brawl in the middle of the map will get your armies very dead. On the open field deploy your infantry and archers as close to the back of the battlefield as possible this gives your cavalry extra time to demolish the enemy, your light and heavy cavalry at the front in the centre and your javelin cavalry at the front to either side of the melee cav.
Use your cavalry to charge and kill the enemy archers first. I either spread them out into a long line and charge head on into the front archer rank, kill as many as possible before the front rank of spearmen can get to the rescue. I've also has success using a tight formation and charging from the side of the archers as this way when they run away they don't head towards their waiting spearmen. Also do this to any artillery they have.
Once they're dead send your Javelin cavalry round the sides to hurl pointy stick death at the general and any cavalry they have, then any remaining ammo can go into the backs of their heavy infantry.
Now move your heavy cavalry round the back of the enemy and wander your archers and crossbows (supported by your spear line) into range and give the enemy a good blasting. If the enemy formation decide to rush your position, let them come while constantly harrassing them with your cavalry. Again, concentrate melee cav on any archers, and Javelin cav on their cav followed by their heavy infantry if you still have any ammo left. If the enemy make it to your spear line charge them into melee and hit your cavalry into their backs. Generally the enemy will be routing en mass just about now.

In the later game replace the archers in your army for as many Camel gunners as you can afford and replace all heavy and light cavalry with Granadine Lancers and Christian Guard. Make sure you keep a decent number of Dismounted Arab Cavalry as bait to make sure the enemy is always aiming their formation towards these guys and not concentrating on your cavalry. Add some Dismounted Christian Guard to the mix so you can pummel the enemy if they manage to get into melee. They're also very useful fighting on the streets during siege battles.

Timbuktu
Make sure you take this and Arguin to the west of it. To find it select an army and tell them to move to the bit of green land to the south of the massive dessert, the arrow to it will show you the only way they can get there and highlight that it'll take about 6-8 turns to get there. Before America is discovered you can't sail there apparently.
https://img409.imageshack.us/img409/3272/timbuktukz9.th.gif (https://img409.imageshack.us/my.php?image=timbuktukz9.gif)
Expect a decent defence garrison too (8-10 units i seem to remember). To get to Arguin go west of Timbuktu til you hit the sea then go North a bit. The two gold mines in Timbuktu earn 1400 a turn with a Mining network. A simple mine in Arguin earns 400 a turn. I had a merchant on every trade good and mine in these two settlements and between the 8 of them (3 mines, 4 Ivory and one slaves) they were pulling in 3561 every turn (cost of 4400 to train them all). This is how you can afford all those lovely Camel gunners:2thumbsup: .

General advice
If you go my route taking western Europe keep a diplomat next to Rome to drop a few thousand gold on the Pope when you sack a Catholic settlement. You don't want a Crusade called against you, especually when the crusading armies can get there in 2-3 turns. If you look like loosing a settlement to a huge army, sell every building you can, retreat out of it and sell the settlement to the Pope for a few thousand gold. They will most likely carry on the attack and in doing so become enemies of all the catholic countries, slowing down their offensive against you. Also keeps the Pope from setting crusades against you.

Expect to see Sicily in north Africa if you have the patch installed. It's well worth going and crushing the Sicillians as they will cause you alot of strife. It also provides a nice launch pad to go take Italy. I found it quite easy to grab france and slowly grind my way through northern Italy. If England or Scotland has taken all the provinces in the British Isles then a co-ordinated assault with a couple of armies and some garrisoning troops can take the whole place very quickly. The AI won't station much in the way of a garrison there as there are no bordering enemy armies for it to worry about. Land one in London and one in Edinburgh and you can take the Island in 4 or so turns, before the computer has time to reinforce itself.

Egypt seemed happy to totaly ignore me and went off killing the Turks and Byzantines and were almost matching me in populace, settlements and army strength for the entire campaign.

Jihads are great. Find a Jihad target that you were going to take soon anyway, send an army off to capture the place. Just before you fight the siege battle to take the jihad target, take every general who can amass an army of 8 units just out of their settlements and join the Jihad. Take the city and each unit in a jihad army will now have an extra experience level. You also get about 3000 florins bonus for a successful Jihad and you general gains a load of Chivalry, which means you can get to the Huge cities/Citadels faster.

I hope this has been of some use to someone and my hangover hasn't resulted in a complete breakdown of spelling and grammer.

IvarrWolfsong
01-11-2007, 15:54
PuerFodder,

That was ne of the clearest and most concise guides I have read here! Very nice work.

Gingivitis
01-11-2007, 23:00
My winning campaign also saw me mopping up Europe and leaving the rest of North Africa alone east of Tunis. For some reason I really wanted Tunis and every time I started a game Sicliy got there first, so I decided to call a Jihad there and was able assult it the the same turn Sicily landed there. I kept that army there after turning it from a castle to a town and Sicily never stepped foot there for the rest of the game. With the part of North Africa that I controlled completely peaceful I only had one battle front the whole game. Add the resource jackpot of Timbuktu and Arguin and I was basically able to expand as fast as I could build troops.

Nepereta
01-16-2007, 11:29
my Moor campaign so far consists of beelining for the 2 saharan territories asap. Meanwhile I have just been maintaining good diplomatic relationships with everyone I see. One diplomat is currently passing the alps having made friends with the portuguese, spainish, french, milan and english. Gonna try and make good friends with the Papists if that some how helps.

A little hint with timbuktu is get it in order (green face) prior to building merchants. Even if that means lowering taxes. I find yellow and blue face cities tend to generate negative trader traits. Each merchant is bringing in 300 or so from the get go on the gold and ivory.

Also to get your soldiers back its a good idea to use a jihad to tunis and rush your troops home using that and the roads.

The portuguese war decced me by virtue of a failed espionage attempt on there part. I used this to seize Lisbon which was undermanned and the El Cid territory ( which was upgradable to fortress straight away). Portugal are sitting in pampolona.

A good way to get heavier ( read marginally heavier than weak spears) city assault troops is to make use of the sahara ( saharan tribesmen) and also make use of jihads Using the jihad you can get Ghazhis and a peasant shock troop Muutwa'Ekekeke'Ptang! ( all these light infantry units have really low upkeep and are ultimately expendable.

Troops I use in the early game:

Saharan Tribesman ( Light infantry swordsman) good v weak spear types. You can pickup 3 or 4 of these units during the Saharan campaign.
Ghazis ( Light infantry axeman) good v weak spear types. Purchase cheap in large numbers during jihad. ( cheap upkeep)
Muutwa ( Fanatics) good flanking junk unit. ( Massive attack value). Purchase cheap in large numbers during jihad. ( cheap upkeep)

All of the above will disapear under a cav charge.

Spear Militia pretty rubbish especially if you ever played Italian at some point. Expendable meat wall.

Desert Cavalry: javalins ftw ( seriously use these to strafe command units from a couple of sides)

Desert Archers: not as good as longbows but v cheap. A number of these dudes will help a fair amount.

Arab Cav: don't think they are mailed knights they aren't. Skinny spears use these for flanks and rear attacks they run down light inf and archers handily. They also don't fare too well v jinnettes which is a little sad.

Basically compared to european games each fight has relied on hideously large stacks overwhelming heavier troops with sheer numbers. Expect to be using you generals more at the hard end to break up the harder units.

The dhows are a little weak looking. Consider getting war galleys for your navy?

Keep you main city growing as quickly as possible. Its not that far off large city == urban militia ( your godsend infantry unit). Go all out on farm upgrades and city hall upgrades.

tequila
01-17-2007, 12:38
Just a quick note. If you are playing on Hard or VH on the strat map, DO NOT GO EAST as the Moors --- at least before you take all of Iberia. Taking Tunis will just bog you down in a neverending war against the Italian powers --- Sicily, Venice, and Milan, who post-patch go crazy for North Africa. Even worse, after I took Tunis I foolishly launched an island invasion to Sardinia, where my armies were assaulted regularly by massive full-stack Italian armies. The Sicilians in particular were nasty --- swarms of Norman Knights, Muslim Archers, and Dismounted Norman Knights that made mincemeat of my Lamtuna and Berber spearlines (only massive doses of javcav saved me). They got so bad that I eventually conquered Palermo and Naples to destroy Sicily, which has alleviated the problem somewhat as Milanese and Venetian armies are nowhere near as challenging. This has probably been the toughest M2TW campaign I've had so far --- gotta admit it was fun as hell, though.

Also on VH, expect to see regular invasions of English and even Scots from the North into Iberia. Plan naval allocations accordingly.

Nepereta
01-17-2007, 15:56
thanks for the FYI tequila, this is my first new game since the patch on an earlier pre patch game that I loaded post patch playing as Venice I noted sicily island hopping. Which is a vast improvement on the usual Sicily hitting bologna in turn 30 or 40 which was pitiful imo.

tequila
01-17-2007, 19:52
No problem, I was quite surprised to see massed Italians outside my walls, especially with the quality of the Sicilian troops. Very nasty surprise when my first full-stack army (made up primarily of Berber spears, Desert Cav, and Touareg Camels) was utterly destroyed by a half-stack of Norman Knights, Muslim Archers, and Dismounted Normans. Those Dismounted Normans pack a punch, and Muslim Archers shredded my Desert Cav like paper when I trotted them out there unsupported (which made it so much sweeter when I later used Christian Guards to crush the little bastards in an avalanche of steel).

I would advise going full bore to conquer Iberia first and foremost. This will give you the safe haven and the economic foundation to do whatever else you want to do. What really killed me was having to conquer the Spanish and Portuguese (still haven't finished the latter, they are clinging to a citadel in Toulouse) at the same time fighting off British/French invasions of Iberia AND contending with the Italians. A major cost factor in trying to do that was maintaining a massively farflung empire that required massively large fleets to safely convey my troops from Iberia to North Africa/Italian islands/Sicily, never mind fighting off constant blockades of my crucial port moneymakers. Constant naval battles against all the Italians and the French in the Med was both extremely expensive and had no guarantee of success.

Nepereta
01-18-2007, 12:05
did you ally all the italian factions prior to all this going off? My diplomatic policies ( in every game bar the first as english which was of mixed success because I practiced a great deal of catholic killing) are based around allying everyone and let them do the aggreement breaking. It makes them appear dishonorable and hence potentially gives them more problems because the other factions should trust them less.

Until in theory all aggresor factions become inherently venal and their word isn't worth a damn and they just get caught up in an endless cycle of war with each other.

tequila
01-19-2007, 15:20
Didn't really bother with diplomacy. On VH all the AI factions are rabid dogs out to get you.

invalidopcode
01-21-2007, 15:35
When playing as the moors, be very careful about auto-resolving battles. I found that some battles that should have been guaranteed wins turn out to be devastating loses. I guess I attribute it to the fact that the game does not properly assess the advantage of the moorish army (i.e. mobility).

I also want to second the battle strategy mentioned already. Harass the enemy with the mobile archers, spear chuckers, and camel gunners (w00t!). Then when the ammo is used up, use them to attack the enemy archers/crossbow from the rear and side. The whole point of this is at best, to demoralize the enemy so he turns and runs, or at worse, kill enough off to make it easy for your infantry and mounted units to clean up.

As a side note, make sure you use your camel gunners on the most heavily armored unit in the enemy stack and from the flanks. They appear to run out of ammo pretty quickly. Concentrate gunner fire on a single unit at a time to try to "encourage" them to run away, run away....

Early on I was having trouble playing the moors because I kept on trying to go toe-to-toe with the European infidels. However, once I switched to these tactics the battles got a whole lot easier!

tequila
01-22-2007, 04:23
Let me second the enormous effectiveness of camel gunners. I just started buying these bad boys, and in every single battle I've fought with them (mostly targeting heavy armored Western units, mostly General Bodyguards and Dismounted Feudal/English Knights), every camel gunner unit has had 150+ kills at least, and I don't use them to chase routers. You don't really notice how effective they are until you see the enemy line thinned out halfway into the battle. I mostly use them as recommended by others above: string them out in long range on the flanks and enfilade the enemy line. Note that if enemy cav gets at them, these guys are still meat --- the scare-horses feature can't make up for their lameness at close range. But they are well worth that risk. One unit in a massive battle that destroyed the last hope of Sicilian independence had 355 kills.

Nepereta
01-23-2007, 17:31
what year to camel gunners come out? in all the total war series I tend to find when I hit the 1337er units the competition is pretty much dead and the game is a forgone conclusion. I wish we could select different times to start the campaign like in some of the earlier games.

grinningman
02-06-2007, 00:02
I've posted another updated, and probably final, version of the Moor castle and city tech trees. They look nicer, have more corrections and more info than my previous ones. They should also print out correctly (unlike the previous versions). They can be found here:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/local_links.php?catid=156#linkid358

wzup
02-19-2007, 17:00
what year to camel gunners come out? in all the total war series I tend to find when I hit the 1337er units the competition is pretty much dead and the game is a forgone conclusion. I wish we could select different times to start the campaign like in some of the earlier games.


as soon as gunpowder is discovered you'll be able to recruit camel gunners

grapedog
02-23-2007, 17:37
so, the general consensus is to ignore the missions, take the Iberian Penninsula first. Then take Timbuktu and just a couple of the North African provinces until you can recruit and field some of the better infantry and mobile cav units...

This is my first run as the Moors, and I tried taking out El Cid in Valencia and it took me a couple of tries to actually get him out of there. So far every army I have fought has made mince meat out of my troops save when I have them vastly outnumbered. I can't wait until I get at least one decent front line unit that won't wilt.

Boyar Karhunkynsi
03-02-2007, 23:29
I've read what's been posted here so far; some extremely sound tactics.

Units.

Mass Missile Fire (MMF) is the only good way I've found to play as Moors. An army ought to have at least half Peasant Xbowmen/Desert Archers/Xbow Militia, around a quarter spear infantry, and whatever is left as Garandine Jinetes/Desert Cavalry/ Garandine Xbow Cavalry.

I like things that kill people from far away. It just so happens that things that kill people from far away seem to generally die fast in melee, or a charge. The answer? Lamatuna Spearmen (sp?). These guys will slaughter any Jinetes, and most knights that come their way. Their defense is not nearly as good as Dsmtd. Arab Cavalry, but they make up for it with a good attack and charge bonus. They will have no trouble massacring Almughavars and other Javelinmen.

Tactics on the battlefield differ from person to person. I'm not going to lecture on how I play, it's up to you to decide how you want to kill Portuguese and Spaniards.


-Max

vonsch
03-03-2007, 00:33
I gave the Moors a try yesterday after reading this and found it all pretty accurate. While I like the desert cav, it can't go up against jinettes on equal hoofing. It's unwise to try to meet the other Iberians on equal footing. On top of that, your starting generals are not up to par. But jihads help (unless your one imam with enough piety to call one drops dead after the first!)

I found upping piety with imams harder than with priests.

It is nice to not have to worry about getting excommunicated, though. Even if you do have a large bullseye tatooed on your forehead from birth. At least you know where you stand. :thumbsdown:

Mercenaries make a real difference. A couple merc spear units and some turkoman HAs really earned their pay in the conquest of Iberia.

I wasn't playing vanilla, though, and decided I wasn't crazy about the particular mod I was using, so I quit about turn 30ish. The AI tweaks resulted in very passive enemy behavior strategically. Didn't like that. And there was way too much money in the game on all sides.

I prefer the strategy end to the tactics, so that one is counter my tastes.

Callahan9119
03-12-2007, 17:14
after playing as catholics for the past few times, i am really enjoying having my only worry about the pope being if i want to kill him or not :smg:

so far i quickly teched up marrakesh to provide catapults, i didnt really tech up anything else in any city besides ports to increase trade. i then just pumped out militia and arab cavalry in my iberian cities< i was able to make crossbows in cardoba, but i dont remember if they were available at the start>

i quickly sacked lisbon after i had enough to storm the gates with sizable manpower advantage, after healing up from that bloody battle i rolled in 2 units of my new catapults from marrakesh and was off to toledo <i was supposed to take valencia for a mission, but the sicilians (annoying buggers) got there first, and seeing as i didnt want trouble on my coastlines in africa, i let them be> i kept a constant stream of militia, crossbows and horses pumping out of my cities

my catapults and 2 ballista i had were the heroes, toledo's awsome castle fell to me easily, i repelled the last portugese army from here with a lucky? flaming catapult missle which killed the king and the faction turning pamplona rebel.

my second army took a poorly defended leon, zaragoza fell to my huge army with the catapults and ballista (note: experianced ballista put down enemy like crazy. one unit had like 225 kills in a battle)

i thought the spanish were done besides maybe a wandering king in french lands but before i took pamplona a full stack spanish army showed up. i attacked them, as the battle started i was at the bottom of a very very large mountain...looking up at my enemy, like a miracle i found a pass up to the top at the very edge of the map and rushed my men (minus my beloved catapults) up it, barely beating the spanish to the highest point and charged down routing them and capturing about 400 men+a prince (wheres the damn king) and killing the rest, i lost no more than 20 men. thank god for 30 year old 9 star generals.

now i am about to get the sicilians out of here and i am set to take islands from sicily and get saucy with egypt, cuz they are getting too powerful and need to be checked

my best advice would be make catapults early and assault cities after u have 2 ladders, the cost of repairing walls after u take the city seems far cheaper than lost time


i found the last of the spanish living in huts up in normandy, trying to decide if i sail up there and burn the city or not

Mother Yoda
03-16-2007, 18:20
PuerFodder,

That was ne of the clearest and most concise guides I have read here! Very nice work. I would have to agree with what IvarrWolfsong said. Kudos PuerFodder :2thumbsup:


Ok some quick tips...

I haven't tested it again, but this does mean that sometimes it will be possible to eliminate portugal with one battle. Yep, it's possible to do that. I tried myself and have to say that it has worked for me using a Jihad.

Sir Greenfear
04-18-2007, 18:59
After buying the game and playing a few Catholic factions I decided the Pope and Inquistors were too much of a pain so I decided to give the Moors a try. Playing the Moors has been a much more enjoyable campaign. Here's the way I've played the Moors.

1st Phase: Consolidate North Africa.

I decided that before I took on Spain and Portugal in Iberia, I would conquer North Africa. My first priority was Tunisia. I gathered a small but adequate army in Algiers and crushed the rebels in Tunis. Turn Tunis into a city. Garrison with about 4 militia units. Rebuild a small army in Tunis and march on Tripoli. Turn Tripoli into a city. Garrison Tripoli with about 4 militia (Egypt nor the Monguls who conquered Egypt have never sent an army to Tripoli, the most they have done is blockade my port so don't worry about a big garrison in Tripoli). March remainder of army back to Algiers. Build up an army in Algiers and begin the long march to Timbuktu. The march is long but well worth it finacially. Take Timbuktu. Garrison appropriately. Take the city on the west African coast and Garrison appropriately. Keep a small force in either sub-saharan town to deal with pesky rebels and disband the rest of the army. Build merchants to exploit the ivory and gold mines in the sub-saharan countries. The key to the Moors is to not have too many military units because your economy is not very strong in the beginning of the game. It is a balancing act but you should get the hang of it. During the turns that you are on your African conquest the only thing you should do in Iberia is play defence and keep Cordoba and Granada in your hands. This was extremely tricky and a couple of times I almost lost Cordoba to Spain but my defenders pulled out some heroic victories and Spain was turned back at the walls.

2nd Phase: Conquer Iberia and Southern France

After conquering Africa I turned my attention to Iberia. By this time my economy was getting strong as were the military units that I could bring to bear on the enemy. Wait as long as you can and build up your economy and military potential. When you think the time is right, build an army made up of mostly militia crossbowmen and urban militia. Sprinkle in some camel spearmen, grenadine jinettes, and arab cav. Leave a strong garrison in Cordoba because once you strike out into Iberia you will be counter-attacked there. I chose to go from west to east. I conquered Lisbon first, followed by Leon, next was Toledo, then it was on to Valencia. After taking these countries you can finally relax in Cordoba. I make all castles into cities. The only two castles I have at this point is Granada and Algiers. I garrison my cities after conquering them with 4 urban milita and 2 militia crossbowmen. After Valencia I rebuild army and conquer Zaragoza and Pamplona, thus completing my Iberian conquest. After this I gave my military a rest and just concentrated on economy and military buildings. By this time I had access to all of the Moorish military units so now I was ready to cross the Pyranese into France. I built two very powerful armies consisting of 1 or 2 Generals, 8 dismounted Christian Guard, 4 mounted Christian Guard, 2 Camel Gunners, 2 Peasant Crossbow, and 2 Sudanese Gunners. All I can say is the the Christian Guard are bad asses. I highly recommend fighting with them. Anyway, I took these two armies and pushed France out of Toulouse and Bordeaux. I left my two powerful armies there to serve as gatekeepers to my Iberian Empire. Nobody has tried to take on these armies yet so I have a very quiet border in Southern France.

3rd Phase: Island Hop and Conquer Egypt and Middle East

This is where I'm at in the game. I am building up my newly aquired territories economically and I have started island hopping. I took Corsica and Sardina first. I probably should have taken these two islands earlier in the game because of the silver mines to be had. After taking these Islands I conquered the three island in the eastern med. Now I am ready to take on the Monguls in Egypt and the rest of the middle east. I have two more bad ass armies sailing to Egypt as I type. I'll let you know how it goes...

rvg
06-20-2007, 18:03
A few of my observations on the Moorish campaign...

1. At the start Lisbon seems to be the most obvious target. I usually declare Jihad on it around turn 2 and take it by turn 5.

2. it is a good idea to let the Portuguese take Zaragoza while keeping the rest of Iberia for yourself; a small Aragonese kingdom is a perfect buffer between you and the rest of Europe. Ally with them while you're at it.

3. If you take Tunis, expected it to be perpetually under siege by Sicilians, Milanese, Papacy, i.e. pretty much everyone. I've even seen the Byzantines and the HRE land assault stacks there. If you don't take Tunis, Algiers will suffer this fate instead.

4. While having excellent merchant spots, Timbuktu is a hotbed of Paganism and heresy. Oh, and bandits. They seem to love the Saharan climate.

5. Jihad!!! I find moorish economy to be sub-par early on (which is really the only time when it matters), so the liberal use of Jihads goes a long way in fixing that problem (free upkeep even for a couple of turns makes a huge difference).

6. Mercs. Iberian peninsula spawns plenty of Merc Spearmen, who happen to be better than any spear units in the moorish roster. I hire them at every opportunity at least until I have a steady flow of lamtunas at my castles.

7. Desert Cavalry is great, Arab Cavalry -- not so great. I always train the former and never the latter*. Sudanese Javelinmen are *very* good on the walls and not too bad in the field either. Desert Archers are just plain awesome.

*Results may vary.

8. Once you start getting Christian guards (of both mounted and dismounted variety) your troubles are over, and from that point Moors play like any Catholic faction, but with Camels and without the Pope's constant finger-wagging.

9. You start out alone and you will stay alone. Other than trying to force an alliance upon the Portuguese, I wouldn't worry about diplomacy too much, since there will be none: Moors imho have the ultimate Total War game.

10. After securing Spain and North Africa I tend to go after Egypt (mostly to satisfy the Jerusalem requirement for the long campaign.

11. Neither Mongols nor Timmies present any problem for the Moors, both are pretty easy to beat as long as you have enough spears and foot archers. Elephants are dogmeat for the Granadine Jinetes and Camel Gunners. Jinetes especially, shred those Phants very-very quickly.

Seabourch
06-22-2007, 13:22
great strategy guide!

Raizen
06-28-2007, 20:05
I've finished a long campaign as the Moors and I've actually found them to be the easiest to play of the factions I've tried. My early moves were to take a main force from Marrakech and Cordoba and move into the Iberian penninsula. I declared a Jihad into Lisbon, finished there, and immediately moved north into Toledo and Leon on the same turn. In the meantime I trained up some garrison units in Cordoba to take over in Toledo, and immediately moved north into Pamplona. By turn 10 Spain and Portugal were both out of the picture entirely, and I had all of the Iberian area except for Valencia, which I needed a few more turns to crack. I took Zaragoza with a smallish force in the meantime.

In the meantime, I took a token force from Algiers and moved into Timbuktu, and then on to Anguin. This is my merchant stronghold, no one comes in so I'm free to merch up the ivory and gold in these two Sahara provinces.

Following my early conquest of the penninsula, I took some basic armies to both Ajaccio and Cagliari and took those both. France had entered into a war with England, leaving both Toulouse and Bordeaux in my sights with minimal garrisons, and Imams converting the populus into Muslims. Two full stacks rolled through France, with a third clearing up the easier to take provinces. France was eliminated quickly. The English were boxed in at Rennes and Caen, I consolidated my new territories and went into Caen and Rennes.

It's all pretty simple as the Moors, you basically have one strategy and it's easy to follow since you aren't very surrounded. The units are quite capable, crossbow militia are great, as are Arab cavalry. I recently got the gunpowder event, giving me Camel Gunners, which are well worth both the 1190 per unit price, as well as the wait between producing. An army of those, Christian guard, and Dismounted Christian guard has turned around a dangerous spot where I've been attacked by England, Denmark (who lost Bruges to rebels leaving me free to take it), Sicily, Milan, and the Papal States. Only Milan is left now, stuck in Innsbruck. The final push is into the Middle East, my big army stacks are moving into Egypt and Jerusalem should be my 45th province captured if all goes to plan. I don't hold much hope of keeping it as the Mongols are heavily fortified in the area, but if I take it last I'll have my victory conditions completed. All in all they're an easy faction to play, good for getting acquainted with the game and Muslim factions. Money is rarely a problem since there are rich territories in the Sahara that provide a lot of gold, and are safe to tech up to maximum money making potential. As well many of the Iberian provinces, if taken quickly, are good money producing cities. Ignoring Tunis until you're well established also helps you avoid early conflicts with Sicily that can drain your early resources.

One last tip: If you're taking a Christian town, always exterminate. Makes it much easier to handle your new lands without religious revolt.

ixidor
08-17-2007, 15:41
Yeah, i agree with most you said, Moors are actually very easily to play. Also, take adventaged from the jihads. In something like 40 turns i made 3 already, 1 to Lisbon, in a battle that destroyed Portugal faction (both King and heir dead), 1 to zaragoza (the french occupied them meanwhile) and now one to the heart of France, Paris himself (after obviously taking Bordeaux and Toulouse.

By the way, don't exterminate, simply sack the cities it's much better, you still put the population in order, actually win more money without destroying buildings and you don't compromise the development from the city/castle, which will be greatly retarded if you just exterminate...

MarNasr
08-22-2007, 03:34
I agree with the sacking idea..
it's my fav. choice always/ unless I got too angry from a city the resists too much. I exterminate it, but regret it later :grin3:

Dysmal
09-04-2007, 20:10
Just going to add my strat on my Moors Campaign. Playing on H/H btw :

Diplomacy : I immediately sent a diplomat north to open diplomacy with Portugal and the Spanes. I found that by giving map information and trade rights(and sometimes a couple turns of 100 florins tribute) I was able to gain an alliance with them both. My diplomat continued north and offered the same with the French, English, Milan, HRE, Venice, Papal States, Sicily, and then more East to the same factions. To those who wouldn't/couldn't accept an Alliance I would at least gain trade rights. By doing so I had great relations with all factions as I consolidated my position.

Early Build Strat : I converted Algier into a City. Every building I built early on focused on improving growth. Be careful about what you build early on. Always queue up a building and then check the Settlement Details to see the effects of the building. In cities I would build mines first(when available) and then the first couple level farms and town halls. Same with castles(except for the town halls of course). Send all Merchants you can train to Timbuktu on the Gold there. Also whenever you have extra Merchants move them to the other ressources there. Later on you'll have a Market in Timbuktu and you'll be able to train them locally.

Early Expansion : I kept my faction leader in Corboda with a decent garrison and sent my heir and other family member, as well as all remaining troops south to take Timbuktu. I kept a minimum garrison in Granata, Marketh and Algier, while keeping a semi strong one in Corboda. I didn't build any troops at all in the early going since you start out breaking even money wise. I took Timbuktu, left a minimum garrison and moved to Alguin. I took my heir and other general back north right after taking those. I took Valencia right before I had to face the Spanes. The Spanes will betray you first. You can tell when they're about to attack you since they start moving an army towards Corboda. Beat them off and then take them out. Destroy the Spanes totally before taking out Portugal. Portugal was warring with the French and the Spanes and was easy enough. DO NOT move East. Taking Tunis and Tripoli will just embroil you in a war with Sicily. Besides, I find Tripoli adds minimal income for the trouble of keeping it. Whenever you can call a Jihad and bring as many generals in the conquering army as you can. The bonuses are well worth it. After using the same army for 3 Jihads, my troops were all in the Silver-Gold Chevrons.

Early Army Composition : Since you'll be fighting your first few battles in sieges taking Timbuktu-Alguin-Valencia, you'll find yourself using less cavalry than you'd like. You're always outclassed by the enemy, so you'll need better tactics and superior numbers. Early on my meatshields were Sudenese Javs and Spear Militia. In sieges i'd send in the Spears first, backed up by Sud Javs throwing javs with skirmish off along with Desert Cav and Desert Archers. In the field I'd have a line of Spears backed up by a line of Sud Javs with Desert Cavs and Arab Cav on the wings. Honestly though your Generals will cause the majority of casualties in the early going. I found the siege of Timbuktu the toughest battle in the early going.

Make sure you send Imams near Settlements you plan on conquering. Also always build one Imam in newly conquered Settlements as well as the first 2 religious buildings. This helps alot in keeping Pub Order.

Medium-Late Game : By now the Iberian Peninsula is yours. You have tons of cash, and are beginning to field decent armies. The backbone of my armies were Dismounted Arabs, Urban Militia, Lamtuna Spears, and Granadine Jinetes. The Jinetes are just amazing units. My armies were usually half the stack infantry and the other half Jinetes. RETRAIN retrain as much as you can. You don't lose any experience by doing so. If you keep retraining units you end up with some real 'veteran' armies. Use Canons and Camel Gunners as soon as they become available. My sieging armies would have 2 Canons and alot of infantry, and my field armies would have alot of Camel Gunners and Jinetes/Cav. Since you Sack everything you conquer you WILL get a crusade called on you. By then you should be making enough money to field several powerful armies. Use a rotation. Defeat a crusading army with army A, then bring it to retrain and defeat the next with army B. Rinse, repeat. Once you hold the Iberian Peninsula you should have the income and tech to take on everyone without much problems. Don't be afraid to stop building in all settlements when at war. The money saved from stopping construction will give you plenty of cash to continually pop out units.

locked_thread
02-02-2008, 05:11
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BharatRakshak
03-16-2008, 05:07
The first thing I did was to get trading rights and alliances from both Spanish and Portuguese in exchange for money. I started building up in Cordoba and Granada with a mix of economic and military buildings (in Granada it was mostly military), and mostly economic in Marrakesh, and I built up Algiers too but slowly. I also went and got trading rights with the French and kept sending my diplomat eastward getting more trading rights from Milan, Sicily, Venice, Pope, etc.

I did NOT take Valencia. Let that place be. I sent a full stack there of pretty elite units and mercs and was sieging the place, but I saw a Spanish full stack coming in at the same time, so I decided its best to leave siege and wait out for the Spanish to get butchered by El Cid. At the same time, I saw the Portuguese faction heir sending his army into Cordoba, so I broke off from the siege and sent the army west towards Cordoba. In Cordoba I had a full stack already, so they fought off the Portuguese prince. Then with Lisbon practically unguarded, I declared jihad and used the army that would have been sieging Valencia. It was first time I used a Jihad and it was incredible the number of cheap troops you can get easy.

One thing I understood is that the only provinces that need to be defended with a proper standing army are the ones that border foreign countries. Therefore I didn't waste money recruiting in Marrakesh or Algiers, I did recruit in Granada simply to feed Cordoba. I believe by the time I took Lisbon I had already taken Tunis, but it wasn't that important anyway.

So after Lisbon, it seemed natural to take Leon. The Portuguese sued for peace along with hefty tribute and trading rights. Now the Spanish were already beefing with me, sending spies into Cordoba and also trying to siege me there. I sent in another Jihad into Leon and took it easily.

By now, an interesting situation showed up in Iberia. The French were all the way into Zaragoza (although lightly defended), the Spanish had a two-unit garisson in Valencia, and a moderately strong full stack army left in Toledo. I focussed on developing my economy at this stage. I think I might have also taken Cagliari at this point as well with a force from Tunis. I didn't want to take either Toledo or Valencia at the moment because it would leave me open to French mischief. The Portuguese were still in Pamplona and had also taken Bordeaux. I was blockading both Toledo and Valencia, and I thought I was crippling the Spanish economy, but apparently not (unbeknownst to me, they had taken Jerusalem and were making some serious dough over there). Their armies simply kept revitalizing with real nice units, and they sieged Cordoba twice. I beat them back of course, but I got sick of the cat and mouse game. I declared Jihad on Toledo and beat up the Spaniards, and by the next turn, I cleaned them up in Valencia (this means I can leave Cordoba and Leon lightly defended, leaving only Valencia and Toledo to be defended properly).

In the meanwhile I went for Ajaccio, and continued developing markets and ports and stuff all over Iberia now. I started sending Imams into Timbuktu as well as an army. While that happened (like 7-8 turns), the Portuguese and the French went to war. I took Zaragoza, and right after the French sued for peace and I was happy to take it because I would rather stay in my comfort zone behind the Pyrenees. Then the French even allied with me, so I set my sights on the Portuguese in Pamplona, took them over.

My goal has always been to have two frontier provinces at most at all times. So I figured that if I take Bordeaux, Pamplona doesn't need too much defence, so I went and finished off the Portuguese in Bordeaux (they weren't listening to my terms for ceasefire). I realize the French are looking in bad shape by now, they just have Toulouse, Marseille and Rheims. In the middle they are separated by the Danes and Milan. I really don't like to border the Danes, they look like they can rip through me. Anyway, Bordeaux is fully stacked with 7 star generals and military buildings are going on. Toulouse is mine too now just because even though the French look weak, they have a few full stack armies. And just to finish off the French on this side, I go ahead and take Marseille as well. Now, I have 3 frontier provinces: Toulouse, Bordeaux and Marseille. But I felt Marseille was worth it because of its money, and I was bordering Milan as it was in Dijon.

In the meanwhile, Timbuktu and Alguin are mine and I'm planning an invasion of Sicily (Palermo is the name of the boot region right?). My main motivation is to finish off Sicily so I can make them playable. Just when I'm about to land in Sicily, they say faction destroyed, and funny thing, the Sicilians had everything in Italy except Rome (Pope) and Genoa/Milan provinces. So all these are ripe pickings for me. But I still have to move slow because of the religion converting factor. So far I have Palermo and Naples. Looking towards Bologna. The Milanese are at war with me now, so I'm wondering whether to take Genoa with a naval landing force from Cagliari/Ajaccio. Their ships are killing me here, but once I take Genoa, there port is gone, so I can finish off their ships.

I am just praying the Danes don't start something funny, but they are already sending spies, so its not boding well. I don't want to get into the whole continental tit for tat business. I did that with Scotland, no fun at all. I like to be secure with 90% of my provinces. That's why right now, I'm trying to push up north through Italy. Then I might go for England.

Fadly
05-07-2008, 07:38
Is there any moors unit that can be kept inside a city for 0 upkeep like the Italian Militia?

Monsieur Alphonse
05-07-2008, 08:02
Is there any moors unit that can be kept inside a city for 0 upkeep like the Italian Militia?

Town militia, spear militia, crossbow militia and urban militia

RollingWave
05-12-2008, 02:52
I loved the Alomhads in the first series so after finally finishing off the British game I decided to give them a go.

they're even more fun this time around! just in a different way!

the desert cavs (or really javlin cavs in general) are pretty rigged. just have about 4 units (or more is fine) running around them when your main body approachs and you should be winning easily unless your massively outclassed or out positioned. pelting them from the sides or back with javline is pretty devastating. espically since they can then double up and just charge the enemy missile units after they use up the ammo.

They do have some serious trouble fighting in seiges though, in those cases auto resolve might work better. they need a lot of urban militas and christian guards to win in those. sudanese jav man are pretty useless in the open but could be useful in this situation i suppose.

I'm doing just a M/M so obviously I can do thing a bit differently. I played nice with the Christian factions to start while i take the two crazy mine rebel province and build up a reasonable structure. particularly getting lots of agents going. by the time the first Crusade was called I had most of Iberian converted to muslim and considerable amount of spies and assasins ready. I saw that Lisban had virtually no garrision and just took it. then Leon had a muslim revolt (assinating priest and sabatoging churches for the win!) and i took that out easily. then calling a Jihad to finish off Spain.

Since the Crusade is still going toward Jerusalm and most of the middle Europe states are busy killing each other. I'm having a field day so far. finding all the rebels in your large provinces are a pain though. espically when you have nothing but militas at youre disposale. (i had to build ballistas in there just so I have something more effective then risking my generals against javlin.)

kitbogha
05-12-2008, 16:18
the desert cavs (or really javlin cavs in general) are pretty rigged. just have about 4 units (or more is fine) running around them when your main body approachs and you should be winning easily unless your massively outclassed or out positioned. pelting them from the sides or back with javline is pretty devastating. espically since they can then double up and just charge the enemy missile units after they use up the ammo.

You got that one right. They are much better than I originally thought. Their dual use is very handy. I often use them to start off routs by charging en masse into units they have been depleting with their javelin attacks.
I do, however think that they can be useful in seiges too. I am currently holding Ajaccio, much to the displeasure of various Catholic factions and am being repeatedly attacked by Milan, The Papal States and Sicily. My Desert Cavalry are fantastic at just harrassing the flanks of the invaders as they approach up the hill then staying off to one side and picking them off as they rout. Honestly between the two units (which are now on Gold chevrons for experience) they have got to have taken 2000-3000 prisoners, and killed 300-400 attackers. I have been using the same stack-Two units desert archers, two nubian spearmen and two Desert Cavalry, time and time again (always retraining after each seige), and they have seen off about seven seiges.
I think that the Moors are a great faction to play and I am really enjoying them.
Two questions-
1) When do I get gunpowder (I'm already on turn 101)?
2) How do I get Christian Guard?

RollingWave
05-13-2008, 02:34
1. I'm pretty sure it's 1400, so your pretty close.

2. IIRC Christian guards are build at the largest city. i'm not sure if you need the highest barrack or just the walls.

I've decided to play the peaceful Muslim and didn't run at Spain / Portugal right away. waiting for the Christians to start killing each other (and go on a endless Crusade to the other direction) but then Spain attacked Cordoba while i'm busy killing El Cid's empire . but early game it's pretty hard for anyone to win a heads on seige without massively out numbering the opposition. and I just had all my desert cavs stationed near the gate house and barraged them with javlin after they broke through (pinning them down with Spear militas.. who i don't care much if they took friendly fire anyway) now that the Crusade is heading towards Antioch and my economy is almost set... they'll get it ... soon.

kitbogha
05-13-2008, 07:47
1. I'm pretty sure it's 1400, so your pretty close.

2. IIRC Christian guards are build at the largest city. i'm not sure if you need the highest barrack or just the walls.

Thanks RollingWave. I played last night (until 1.30 am, not the best idea when I needed to be up at 5.15 to go to work, but hey, it's an addiction an I am not responsible for my actions), and just as my vision was beginning to blur along came gunpowder!
I am not a peaceful Muslim, although early in the game I did ally with Portugal and Spain (a ploy for peace until I had dealt with all of the Rebel settlements in the area, but they weren't to know) and they both stabbed me in the back. Rather foolishly for them as it transpired...
Since then my campaign has been one of relentless war on the treacherous Catholics. I have taken all of Western Europe, except for Caen (which is the last French castle) and Rheims (England's last toehold on the continent) and my armies follow the orange banners into the Italian peninsula. My mighty warriors have defeated five crusading armies at the gates of Bordeaux and eight sieges of Ajaccio.
Money is finally starting to roll in (as soon you can take Timbuktu and get spamming merchants-there's serious trade opportunities down there!!). Strangely, my stock is going down with the other Muslim factions, although I have never been anything but nice to them. Thye don't even feature in my short-medium term plans of conquest. Maybe I'm just getting too powerful for comfort. I await Egypts ill advised attack on my Eastern border..
Now with the coffers filling and the armies of Islam awaiting, the Sultans thoughts turn towards another jihad-possibly directed at the foolish HRE, who have just failed in their attempts to take Milan from me.....:evilgrin:

Iavorios
05-13-2008, 11:38
Gunpowder after ver. 1.02 comes around 105-112 turns. Crisitian guards come out of huge walls or chaliph stables. Dismounted ones come from armory in citadels.

Fadly
05-14-2008, 01:15
Moors early infantry are suck. until the urban militia and the dismounted christian guard are available i relied heavily on cavs. by 100 turn, most of my early light cavalries are gold or silver chevron and i'm loth to disband them. the best cavs that i think available early on are Granadine Jinetes. it excel in both range and melee fighting, given the right tactics, though you can't expect it to go toe to toe with the heavy cavs or charging directly into a line of spears.

locked_thread
05-14-2008, 02:32
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RollingWave
05-14-2008, 02:50
it's pretty hard to get Hashishim early (not impossible, but hard)

they're two higher level spear units aren't that shabby technically. but aren't a strong suit that's for sure. and its not like they're in serious needs of anti cavs when they're usually the once that put more horses on the field. not to meantion tuleg camels completely annihilate light cavs and can stand up to heavier onces with some armor upgrades too.

Grandinet Jinets are better then desert cavs in that they can win most fights against light cavs. though for the pure purpose of pelting they're not that much more effective.

I took out the back stabbing Spaniards from Spain, Portogul is still allied with me but Spain took out most of their army. I'm trying to kill them without breakin the alliance... by converting their towns to all muslim and mass spieing them into rebellion :P

Fadly
05-14-2008, 07:54
Grandinet Jinets are better then desert cavs in that they can win most fights against light cavs. though for the pure purpose of pelting they're not that much more effective.

at least it simplified production. no longer i have the need to make a hard decision of portioning my cavs between missile and melee.

I don't like to use camels. they were pretty slow. it took forever to maneuver them into flanking position.

locked_thread
05-14-2008, 23:55
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RollingWave
05-15-2008, 05:58
dang that's pretty sick when you have one of the best infantry in the game when most guys are running around with town militas!

here's a question on Arguin, early in the game if you build a port there you don't get any sea trade.. thats intended right? (cause you can't sail there) but does that change once you get to ocean faring ships and / or Americas?

Fadly
05-15-2008, 09:10
Last night I tested this out. I built an assassin as soon as possible and put him to work... killed two cardinals right off the bat

i did just that, but my assassin are innefective. they were either missed or being killed. How do you make a good assassin?

locked_thread
05-16-2008, 01:23
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Mookus
05-16-2008, 17:50
I am having a real problem with my Moorish campaign and was looking for a little help. First let me say that diplomatically this is a hard faction to play. Everyone wants to fight you and there isn't much reason for them to accept ceasefires. I'm fighting for the Iberian and have Portugal on their last leg but I still have some work to do for the Spanish. Then I'm fighting off Venetian port blockades and an occasional invasion from the East.

All this war cost a lot of money and like everyone suggested, I headed for Timbuktu early in the game to capture my cash cow. The only problem is my merchants fumbled. Hard. Out of the first 5 merchants I made they had a combined, let my repeat that, combined skill of 2. Thats right 2. Three of them had 0 skill and the remaining two had 1. So instead of swimming in gold ala Duck Tales I'm just slightly better off financially than I was when I took Timbuktu.

What is my best option for improving my financial situation here?


*edit*

Actually in hindsight it looks like I complained too soon. After about 6-7 turns all those merchants gained a skill point or two so I'm no longer in the financial hot seat I was before.

RollingWave
05-18-2008, 16:59
I think that in terms of early diplomacy ( i say early, since it doesn't matter by later into the game anyway) is to ally with EVERYONE, and don't push for Tunis. if you let the Scilian take Tunis they usually won't bother with going all the way to Algier... having a real garrison helps too of coruse.

in the early moves, just head for Timbuktu and Arguin + Valencia and if your fast enough, Zaragosa . if you ally with both the Spainards and Portogusis I find that they usually start fighting themself and/or they'll stick with you with the other (usually Spain) attacks. this seems to still work fine in H/H . by allying with everyone anywhere near you (the Iberians / French / English / Italians / Dens etc..) you usually buy some time.

I tend to wait till the first Crusade is called to turn aggressive.

GrandInquisitor
05-19-2008, 00:37
I am having a real problem with my Moorish campaign and was looking for a little help. First let me say that diplomatically this is a hard faction to play. Everyone wants to fight you and there isn't much reason for them to accept ceasefires. I'm fighting for the Iberian and have Portugal on their last leg but I still have some work to do for the Spanish. Then I'm fighting off Venetian port blockades and an occasional invasion from the East.

All this war cost a lot of money and like everyone suggested, I headed for Timbuktu early in the game to capture my cash cow. The only problem is my merchants fumbled. Hard. Out of the first 5 merchants I made they had a combined, let my repeat that, combined skill of 2. Thats right 2. Three of them had 0 skill and the remaining two had 1. So instead of swimming in gold ala Duck Tales I'm just slightly better off financially than I was when I took Timbuktu.

What is my best option for improving my financial situation here?


*edit*

Actually in hindsight it looks like I complained too soon. After about 6-7 turns all those merchants gained a skill point or two so I'm no longer in the financial hot seat I was before.

This is obviously not as important now, but if your merchants are starting off with 0 skill, it might be that you built them in a place without a city hall building. I noticed that if I didn't have at least the level one version, my merchants generally came out as crooked or some such.

Mookus
05-19-2008, 17:36
@RollingWave

Yeah unfortunately I already took Tunis and it definitely creates a political problem. First is that Spain and Portugal seem to have early ties to Italian states and waging war in the Iberian leads to poor relations with Italy. Having Tunis just gives the Italians an easy target for invasions and blockades. I'm fighting the Venetians on a regular basis and the Papacy has tried to take Tunis twice. Both times after routing their army the Papacy accepts peace but the Venetians seem more inclined to stick this thing out until the end. I managed to Ally with Milan but I'm pretty weary of the Sicilians suddenly deciding they want some of N. Africa. The last thing I need to deal with now is hordes of Norman Knights.

@GrandInquisitor

Yeah I think you are right. My build order in Timbuktu was basically to rush to pump out merchants and then keep the city a backwater with low maintenance. It seems all my merchants came out with some -1 trait like Crooked or worse. Although over time those 0 skill merchants are all up to 3 or better and contributing about 1700 in merchant income combined.

RollingWave
05-19-2008, 18:53
well your into bigger trouble so it's gonna be hard to dig out, i got into the same jam but that was well after i took out Iberia and was starting to push into France. I was fighting a 4 way war, France, British Isles, the Scilian islands (took the 3 isles and now landed and sacked Rome ) and Northern Africa. All while the black death runs wild lol!!! (best way to beat the black death debt? sack everyone!!!!) I now have Tripolli and since the Mongols are still in their last stage of sacking Egypt I'm still fine for now. but they'll start to become a problem in 15 turns give or take some. I'm basically fighting with every Catholic faction outside of the Poles and Hungarians now. though that can't be too far away if I reach their border somehow... I'm half way through with the British isles ( i own all but the 2 Scottlish lands to the north though the Scott's main army is seiging Welsh, i do however have a reinforcement army almost there.

fighting on Mainland Europe is tough, I think i'll eventrually have to do some war of attrition there and let some of my cities fall to them (though i often do the jump city attack, if they go from say.. Paris to seige my Anger. I'll send my force from Toulous not to help Anger but to sack Paris. luckily i picked a good time as the fighting really gone wild after they just finished a Crusade. and one of the strongest foe (Venice) won the first Crusade and now spending a lot of focus in the middle east as the Mongols are running wild. I'm planning to head towards Scandanavia after i finish the British Isles (where the last English town is Oslo heh) and flank them VIA Denmark. not to meantion completely sealing off the Atalantic :P

Tactically Moors are very fun though, they have one of the most amazing skrimishing roster in the game along with solid forces everywhere else. (Latuma and dism Arabs are underratedly solid, Urban Milita is still pretty good.) the caravan stops also makes their castles much more protitable then that of the Christian factions.

Fadly
05-20-2008, 07:42
The war in Europe is so overwhelming, i almost have no time for north africa. i plan for push into egypt all the way into jerussalem after things settled in europe, but the war in Europe never end. one christian kingdom after another declared war on me, and the only way for me to end the war is to eliminate the faction entirely. The relatively light Moors infantry are no match for the heavily armored european infantry, which make things doubly hard. my cavalries need to hit enemy's flank and rear as soon as both side infantries collide or else my infantries will be routed en masse.

RollingWave
05-20-2008, 12:03
Hmm? Hashim Hashims beat almost anything , and Urban Militas are one of the best heavy infantry in this game that can be build from cities..

Doug-Thompson
05-21-2008, 22:30
One of the few drawbacks of playing a Muslim faction is that everybody hates you. The AI wars against you all the time and the Pope not only does nothing about it, he positively encourages it. Wars never end because the Pope applies no pressure for a resolution.

Fadly
05-22-2008, 05:20
Among the muslim factions, i prefer the turks. they have a hell of a horse archers and dual purpose infantries and a vaunted janisaries. If only moors have at least one type of horse archers, it may double it's combat power.

RollingWave
05-22-2008, 09:32
Moors have mounted crossbows and camel gunners . both basically play the same as horse archers only much harder hitting (espically against armor) unlike the Turks the Moors also start out as probably the top 3 faction in terms of wealth and access to wealth (Byz / Egypt being the other two). where as the Turks need some actual work beore they have any sort of money.

kitbogha
05-26-2008, 14:51
I have just achieved victory conditions, scraping in a bit on turn 208. I intend to convert the whole game map to Moorish orange before laying it to rest. I won without going to America.

Observations on the late game:-
1. It is easy to get bogged down around the top of Italy, the nearer you get to Rome, the stiffer your opposition will be. I chose to consolidate there (holding Milan and Genoa, as well as Ajaccio and Cagliari) and turned my attention to the HRE, who I thought would be tougher opposition than they were in the end, and the British Isles, to make up the magic number of provinces.
2. Don't be scared to go for Jerusalem. On my last move before victory I took Jerusalem. I had expected swift retaliation from the Mongols, but they had their hands full with the Timurids and I easily took the two nearby citadels on subsequent moves. The Moors now have a handy toehold in the region for mopping up operations.
3. Use assassins to take out heretics, often my imams seem to lack the required piety to do so and towards the late game your lands will swarm with these vermin. I found that having two each in Iberia, Western Europe and North Africa meant I could keep my people happier with the ensuing ability to keep taxes high. The assassins can be kept busy on other chores (he he he:evil: ) when the heretic level is under control....
4. Don't bother with the Americas until you have achieved victory. I know it's part of the fun and will ultimately provide a nice little earner, but it takes so long to get there and so much money to pacify and develop it seems better to wait until the game is in the bag.
5. Boost Lisbon up the technological tree as much as you can in the mid game-it's an ideal launch pad if you do intend to pop across the Atlantic.
6. Spam out imams, send them into provinces you have in mind for later conquest. If they are converting the locals, your final acquisition of the territory will be better received and save you from having to sack/exterminate the locals to achieve a happy populace.

RollingWave
05-27-2008, 04:42
my thoughts, being around the same stage as you.




Observations on the late game:-
1. It is easy to get bogged down around the top of Italy, the nearer you get to Rome, the stiffer your opposition will be. I chose to consolidate there (holding Milan and Genoa, as well as Ajaccio and Cagliari) and turned my attention to the HRE, who I thought would be tougher opposition than they were in the end, and the British Isles, to make up the magic number of provinces.

the Italy part is pretty tough particularly because there's a lot of priest / cardinals there making covertions harder. but i took it out with a 3 way offesnive, having one army moving from Tours toward northern Italy and due to my war with Sciliy i was fighitn on the islands, having taken all 3 of them I combnied the armies and retrained up (Sciliy itself is usually a high level fortress, giving you easy means to retrain your army.) and launched two naval offensive, one landed on Rome, the other landed on Genoa (mostly because the land army was facing stiff resistence around the alps) and then I took out Naples now traped between Rome and Sciliy. and slowly pushed into Milan / Venice / Bologna



2. Don't be scared to go for Jerusalem. On my last move before victory I took Jerusalem. I had expected swift retaliation from the Mongols, but they had their hands full with the Timurids and I easily took the two nearby citadels on subsequent moves. The Moors now have a handy toehold in the region for mopping up operations.


I'm just there, Though I might be in some trouble at this point because the sea rout is more secured than i thought (not to meanion thx for being Muslim, I can't' just call a Crusade against them and move like the wind lol), so the chances of gettign reinforcement seems problematic, on the brighter side, being Muslims means I don't have to sack / exterminate so I can start pumping units ASAP (I took Gaza with my army, because it was a. lightly defended . b.a citadel (mass Camels for the win in deserts!) c. very good positioning cutting Egypt off from the Middle east. allowing easy expansion either way.



3. Use assassins to take out heretics, often my imams seem to lack the required piety to do so and towards the late game your lands will swarm with these vermin. I found that having two each in Iberia, Western Europe and North Africa meant I could keep my people happier with the ensuing ability to keep taxes high. The assassins can be kept busy on other chores (he he he:evil: ) when the heretic level is under control....


hmmm? you don't have a theolegian headquoter by this time? I find that because I had to do so much conversion I got a headquoter like 20 turns into the game:laugh4: not to meantion because of that almost all my imams have super high piety and burn those critters fairly easily. in fact i have yet to had a Imam turn bad in this game ( H/H)

but your last one says you are using a town of Imams ;) so are you just accidently using those greenies to do the torching instead of the vets? I must had had like 5 missionaries walking around England after I took the Isles.

locked_thread
05-28-2008, 03:21
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RollingWave
05-28-2008, 06:33
My only issue with using assasins in mass is that it ends up hurting my rep to the ponit of no return and will assure you getting a dread based leader no matter if he was a living saint while he was the heir, i have virtually 0 chance of doing anything with my diplomat . though yes, I often removed enemy priest with assasin at one stage, i now that i stopped , I find it very difficult to keep my newly conquered land highly muslim.

kitbogha
05-28-2008, 17:43
hmmm? you don't have a theolegian headquoter by this time? I find that because I had to do so much conversion I got a headquoter like 20 turns into the game:laugh4: not to meantion because of that almost all my imams have super high piety and burn those critters fairly easily. in fact i have yet to had a Imam turn bad in this game ( H/H)


Strangely, I only got the Theologian Guild HQ when I took Edinburgh-really late in the game, circa turn 190. Could be that I'm not using my imams to their full potential, I did pretty much give up on them quite early when they did not produce the desired results and substituted assassins for the whole heretic killing thing.
In retropsect I probably could have made better use of the jihad as well, as a source of cheap manpower. Luckily Allah did not judge me too harshly, and the whole world now bows to his will.

kitbogha
05-28-2008, 17:55
One of the few drawbacks of playing a Muslim faction is that everybody hates you. The AI wars against you all the time and the Pope not only does nothing about it, he positively encourages it. Wars never end because the Pope applies no pressure for a resolution.

I am now playing a Sicily and encounter all the same problems from fellow Catholics and the Pope.
The only difference is that the Pope can be manipulated to a small extent if you are a Catholic faction-I have just acquired Milan, Genoa and Venice via Crusades due to the Milanese and Venetians being overly aggressive towards me.
Hmm, seem to have talked myself out of the point I was trying to make......which was:it's not too much easier if you are the same demonination as them.

RollingWave
05-29-2008, 03:30
for the most part though, the non-catholics all start at a considerablly safer position for this situation (i.e fighting with all the Catholics at once)

it's not the same to be called a Crusade when your Egypt than when your... say... the HRE :P which would be REALLLLLL fun as you REALLY get hit on ALL sides.

locked_thread
05-29-2008, 03:33
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Noncommunist
06-03-2008, 03:30
On the bright side, Muslim factions never risk excommunication while finishing off a downed opponent.
However, everyone hates you so it's like you're already excommunicated.

locked_thread
06-03-2008, 04:17
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Mookus
06-11-2008, 09:16
My Moorish campaign is actually going very well now but I had a quick question.

Does taking out the Papacy create more conflict between the Catholic nations? I've never played a Pope-less game. Although my game is going well, I am fighting pretty much all the catholic nations West and South of the HRE. I was hoping getting rid of the Pope may help cause a little more turmoil away from my borders.

Ratwar
06-11-2008, 20:20
My Moorish campaign is actually going very well now but I had a quick question.

Does taking out the Papacy create more conflict between the Catholic nations? I've never played a Pope-less game. Although my game is going well, I am fighting pretty much all the catholic nations West and South of the HRE. I was hoping getting rid of the Pope may help cause a little more turmoil away from my borders.

It might help minimally since you won't have to worry about your allies Crusading against you... And you wouldn't have countries you've never seen before Crusading against you. The few enemies would raise your reputation and help a bit with peace... But the Catholics are still going to dislike you.

glyphz
06-12-2008, 07:06
My Moorish campaign is actually going very well now but I had a quick question.

Does taking out the Papacy create more conflict between the Catholic nations? I've never played a Pope-less game. Although my game is going well, I am fighting pretty much all the catholic nations West and South of the HRE. I was hoping getting rid of the Pope may help cause a little more turmoil away from my borders.

if i'm not mistaken, as long as a catholic faction, exists the Papal States does too. They pick one of the Catholic factions settlements as their new base. That would mean the Papal States would either be the 2nd to the last or the last catholic faction you ever wipe out.:smash:
i'd think Rome has great value to the PS and could expect a crusade to be called to get it back. :knight:On a side note, if your in the Pope's nice list (playing as christian of course) and recovered Rome from an invader, a papal mission will come your way telling you to hand it (Rome) over

RollingWave
06-12-2008, 09:20
no, it doesn't help, but since your fighting or will be fighting with all the Catholics anyway just kill them and push up and secure the entire penisula. Rome is a nice cash cow of a city. by this stage you probably don't need to worry as much about Crusades anymore. (provided that if your like me.. where by this stage I have all of Spain / France / England and is landing in Scandanavia pushing toward Milan / Genoa from France anyway ;) )

RollingWave
06-16-2008, 09:00
some final thoughts

1. if you call a Jihad right off the bat, I suggest going for Toledo, because it starts out as a castle and it's central positioning, taking it almost immediately destroy Spain's power (though they might have some straggling unit so don't leave your other Cordoba too lightly defended.) and give you a solid base for troop production (granada starts with almost nothing .. it's hard to upgrade there.. besides you probably want to convert it to town pretty soon). taking Toledo with nothing but early light units and Jihad maniacs needs some sound tactics (or auto resolve :P) but with both Toledo and Cordoba the fight on the Iberian is essentially over, Spain will have nothing but a large town in Leon while Lisbon is completely cut off.

2. even on H/H the AI doesn't seem to come at Alger that often or early. what i did was to attack Timbuktu from Alger while using my Marrakesh / Granada / Cordoba forces to Jihad aganist Toledo.

3. when going after Timbutku just send your general with his desert /arabs down . don't take infantry! it save you at least a couple turns of march to just hire tribesman on the spot.

4. early game Hashashim is just rigged. they cut through the opposition like hot knief through butter. and makes your seige assault woes go away, as you suddenly go from rubbish spear to HOLY SHIT swords.

5. arab cavs are pretty lousy, but because you could build at city (and they're stats is close to sergents than milita) they're useful enough because you can mass them.

who does the game description anyway. it says Moors have poor late and good early unit.. what unit are they referring to anyway sheese. Jinets completely owns our jav cav and your early spear is fairly rubbish. (Berbers are decent off the bat though, but could only wear leather zzzz), the only early unit that gives you a serious advantage on the Iberians is desert archers. which in early game might actually be more effective than long bows, their good stamina means they don't tire much even after firing most of their ammo.

Stainless steel 6.1 Moors on the other hand... booooo :furious3: while most of the changes they made make sense. the overall effect just completely screws them. as now you can get Hashashim early, can't build arabs from town, can't get Camel gunners till the end of times, and Christian guards / Peasant X-bows got nerfed to death.

sure most of those changes made perfect sense (Christian guard somehow destroying Chivaric knights made little sense for example). except that virtually took away every good aspects of the Moorish roster, they added a Andulasian infantry (basically a Saracen Milita).... but as a pure mercenary wtf?!?!

Autumn
07-07-2008, 22:05
My general strategy;

Take Tunis off of Sicily. Convert Algiers to a Town for the cash.

Jihad Spain and Portugal into the dust. Conquor as far as Pamplona/Zaragoza. Convert all provinces to Towns except Toledo, Pamplona and Tunis.

Build Iron mines everywhere.

Roll around in all the money :laugh4:

Do what ever you feel like after that. Personally I turtle with all the high Chivalry generals from the Jihads and tech up. Then my next generation of generals tend to be Dread Lords :2thumbsup: Forget the Mongols, beware the West!


My advise with units;

Once you get Christian Guard the Moorish army becomes like any European army roster (Heavy Inf, Spears, Archers, Cav), but with the added "spice" of some interesting all Cavalry armies.

I like to go for 1 General, 2 Arab Cav, 4 Turag Camels, 4 Christian Guard, the rest Desert Cav/Crossbow Cav/Camel Gunners if you have gunpowder.

Check out Doug Thompsons excellent Cavalry guide here to get the most out of them https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=73479

Peter

St.Jimmy
09-02-2008, 01:11
Whats with the nubian spearmen? My first moors campaign and I havent used em myself but there unit card shows the same stats as the berber spearmen. The berber spearmen are the same price. Easier to get and can do schiltrom where as the nubians cannot?

Laman
09-03-2008, 06:26
Whats with the nubian spearmen? My first moors campaign and I havent used em myself but there unit card shows the same stats as the berber spearmen. The berber spearmen are the same price. Easier to get and can do schiltrom where as the nubians cannot?

A sadly somewhat redundant unit. There really isn't anything they can do better then the Berber Spearmen (personally i edited the Nubians and gave them better morale and upped attack with 1 so they have at least some things going for them), they look better then the Berbers though. The Egyptians also have them and although they are the only spear unit they get from castles, it is better for them to use Saracen Militia instead.

St.Jimmy
09-03-2008, 16:47
A sadly somewhat redundant unit. There really isn't anything they can do better then the Berber Spearmen (personally i edited the Nubians and gave them better morale and upped attack with 1 so they have at least some things going for them), they look better then the Berbers though. The Egyptians also have them and although they are the only spear unit they get from castles, it is better for them to use Saracen Militia instead.

The Lamtuna spearmen stats are better then Berber but I haven't used them yet.

O'Hea
01-13-2010, 10:53
I just started a Moorish campaign on VanillaMod a couple days ago, and since I've been getting tired of the Central European mid-game grind, I decided to stick to the Mediterranean, first solidifying Iberia, then Africa, then Italy, before going on to fight the Mongols for control of the holy land.

After building up some mines, my first move was against Portugal, and I managed to kill off their whole royal family in a battle outside Lisbon. I sent a diplomat to get trade rights and sell map information to everybody in Europe and flooded Iberia with Imams. Noticing all of Spain's considerable forces were occupied in besieging Zaragosa and Pamplona, I declared a Jihad on Toledo, patched together a mob of Ghazis at Cordoba, and sent my Lisbon army up for a simultaneous strike on Leon, while sending about a quarter-stack to grab Valencia out from under the Spaniards. They managed to grab Pamplona during the meantime, so I narrowly missed eliminating them as a faction within two turns, although a quick mop-up operation finished the job.
At this point, I started working on infrastructure and building up a stack in Algiers to grab Timbuktu and Arguin. The Sicilians had taken Tunis and Tripoli while I was preoccupied with Iberia, and they were next on my hitlist. When a Sicilian half-stack appeared outside Algiers, I decided to deal with them sooner than I'd intended to, cannibalizing my Sahara stack to kick the Sicilians out of Africa while building up a second one as a replacement. A couple years later, I'd taken Tunis, defeated a relief force out of Tripoli in a spectacular bridge battle, and crushed two rebel stacks at the gates of Timbuktu. Unfortunately, my war with Sicily had wrecked my relations with the rest of Catholic Europe, and even got the Pope to blockade my ports, even as I had a fresh stack out of Toledo set to ship off and sack Cagliari. This was where the Arabs' naval disadvantage started to become a problem for me, but while my Iberian stack was landlocked I managed to sneak a fresh Algerian stack up to Sardinia, and in the space of four turns it had successfully taken and sacked both Cagliari and Ajaccio, even as I captured Tripoli and laid siege to Arguin.
It's the 1180's, and I'm now preparing an invasion of Italy proper. Milan, which controls Dijon, Bern, Rheims, Florence, and Bologna in addition to its starting territories, is allied with Sicily and is the strongest Italian power now that Sicily has been reduced to Palermo, Naples, and Ragusa. The Venetians are Sicily's vassal and hold Venice, Zagreb, and Iraklion, making them the weakest but also the one I'll encounter last. And the Papal State, which boasts a surprisingly strong navy, also took Marseilles early in the game and has two quality stacks chilling outside Rome. It's looking to be an eventful and thoroughly satisfying campaign.

As far as the Moorish military goes, it's an interesting experience. The complete lack of heavy troops has forced me to rely on archers and javelin-throwers, and the Moors' light armor and abundant stamina has led me to focus on inflicting heat and fatigue on enemies before engaging them (especially in the case of the Sicilian's Norman troops). Tuaregs are expensive, but are also absolutely excellent cavalry, the best unit available to you in your African campaigns, and handy in Europe as well. The abundance of spearmen but lack of attacking infantry is a problem, but once I tech to Urban Militia and Christian Guard that department shouldn't be a problem.

dzidek
05-10-2010, 10:59
In the early stages the troop rooster is weak. C'mon warriors in rags :/

If you manage to liberate Iberia and conquer west africa you are near invincible.

Late period Moorsih army has it all.

Very good heavy cavalry. Good light one also, altough no horse archers.
One of the best heavy infantry in the game if not the best as conquistadores are available only in America.
Great gunners, with the camel gunners being superb. They are mounted so the can fire from behind your infantry line, normal muskets need a hill to do that.
One thing you lack are spears. They are only mediocre.

Aggressor
08-17-2010, 20:50
I decided to try The Moors after trying them out in a single player battle vs the computer and here's some tips...

First of all, The Moors have the potential to be insanely rich very early on if they are managed correctly. The first target should be Timbuktu which is basically the richest area on the entire map for merchants. Quickly take this settlement and then purchase around 8 merchants and get them on the gold, ivory and slaves in the area.

I then waited for my new general to spawn at Cordoba (around turn 4/5) and then proceeded to create an army and declare a Jihad on Lisbon. Quickly take this settlement and kill/capture both Portuguese generals who should be stationed at Lisbon, Portugal now should be destroyed. I then took Valencia and then moved north to take Zaragoza.

At this stage its a case of simply building up your towns, cities and castles. After around 50 turns I had 80,000 florins and have declared a Jihad on Toledo, and intended to wipe the Spanish off the map.

Don't forget to also take the settlement of Arguin which is south of Marrakesh on the coast.

Once your towns and castles are built up your next moves are whatever you want. You could move north into France or get your soldiers on boats and pick anywhere on the map that you fancy.

In terms of military power, i've read a lot of people's advice on the early roster of The Moors being poor, now im not sure these people are just bad players or lying because i've had no issues with any of the early roster. The late roster is simply incredible, particularily the dismounted and mounted christian guard and the hashashim.

Tsar Alexsandr
08-22-2010, 02:40
The Moor's are a fascinating faction. First of all, if you look at a lot of your infantry, you'll notice they're wearing robes. Hmm. Interesting. While the game factors in your defense as being a little low, (as compared to other "equivalent" troops.) it's not really that substantial. A few points doesn't make too much of a difference. Think of it this way, you have got desert warfare cornered. (if you ever have to do any that is.) But the rest of your army is worth a look too. You get good skirmishing cavalry, and decent cavalry. You've got good archers and crossbows too. Ultimately, the Moor's are a good mix of all troop types.

You'll find yourself getting evaluated lower than your enemy sometimes. (Even if you have the larger enemy.) This is because of your troops defense. And there's no need to worry, it's not that bad. Individually the troops of Spain and Portugal may be better, but you can make a better army overall. I recommend using your missile and skirmishing troops before finishing in hand-to-hand combat. The Moor's have great troops for this. (So do Portugal and Spain.)

You have one unique advantage over Portugal and Spain though. You're not Catholic. So nobody is going to tell you not to fight Portugal or Spain. I recommend defeating them quickly. You've also got the potential to be quite wealthy. Iberia is a very prosperous region. Push Portugal and Spain out of Iberia and the world is yours. Use the Jihad to your advantage when you can. (it get's you troops quick and allows your generals to get good traits.) When it's all over and you have Iberia, you can really do anything.

And your army has the potential to be very good. Berber Spearmen function as good solid defensive infantry, and Dismounted Christian Guard can protect the flanks. (Remember all those Spanish and Portuguese that used to live in Iberia? Yeah that's these guys now.) Your skirmishers are always useful. They're great at taking down expensive heavy infantry. Your archers and crossbowmen are great. (you can also get Nubian Gunners. Decent arbequisers.) Christian Guard are superb cavalry, and Iberian Jinettes are great medium/skirmisher cavalry. (A favorite of mine.) You also can employ great auxiliary forces to supplement your average army. Such as Taureq Cavalry mounted on camels, Hashashim, and the dreaded Camel Gunner!

The Camel Gunner is by far the most effective unit I know of in MTW 2. You've got great range and hitting power, those guys can really turn the tide of battle.

The Moor's have a great unit selection though, good starting location, and will make for a very memorable game! Easily, one of my favorite factions to play in the grand campaign. Have fun!

where's yur troosers
01-22-2014, 13:13
I have started a game (just with Kingdoms installed) after a long hiatus and picked the Moors for the 1st time, VH/M. I had hoped to be able to take the Iberian peninsular from the Spanish and Portuguese without a great deal of interference from anyone else. Obviously I woudl have expected a dramtic increase in Catholic annoyance as the game went on, but I was not ready for what happened.

I called a jihad on Toledo on turn 1 and by turn 10 had finished off the Spanish. As soon as iIwas able, I called another on Lisbon and had finsihed off the Portuguese by turn 20, not great, but not too shabby. However, before my war with the Partuguese started I was attacked by the Sicillians in Africa - I was beseiged in turn 4, they went for me before any of their usual rebel targets. A small Milanese stack was also landed and they attacked as soon as I had dispatched those from Sicily, again before they had tried to take Corsica or Sardinia. The French invaded the peninsular. Shortly after my second Jihad the Pope called a crusade on Antioch, so what did the Scots and English do - that's right land almost full stacks near Leon. Bruge is still rebel - when do the Scots EVER not try to take that?

I was able to call a 3rd Jihad on Tolouse and used that army to repel the invaders, but it has been so full on that I have not been able to consider taking Valencia or Timbuktu and there are still rebel stacks of former Spanish and Portuguese soldiers dotted about the place. Nobody will accept an alliance (not that much of a suprise) or an offer of peace. I have a fair income, but am spending it all on my military. I know the game is called Total War, but I have never experienced anything like it unless a Jihad or crusade has been called against me.

I cannot comment on the troop mix - I am relying on my generals (all of whom are many-starred) leading Desert Cavalry, and balistas to cheesily break seiges.

testhero
05-04-2014, 15:21
AS the English I had an first crusade fail #1. So I dropped in on the Portuguese for a quick smash and run at Lisbon. Their garrison rallied forth #2. The first two Cavalry units through the gate were Family bodyguards and my 600 longbowmen harrowed them before they fataly charged the balista in my van. Placed in a ravelin formed with overlapping archers stake hedges, Defended by my Sherwood archers #3. Just before their rest of the Cavalry charged the 2 Spear militia and 2 fanatics guarding my archers in a classic pincer, both Bodyguards broke! A charge by the remaining Sherwood men Taking the king and ballista bolt to their prince's back decapitating their leadership. Once my archers had swept the battlements of their archers. The balista finished demolishing the gate #4. The fanatics took the Barbican #5. So my longbowmen could gain the walls and mop up the survivors.
Once I had decided to sack the city #6 and returned to the strategic game I was greeted with that most noble of Announcments! Faction Eliminated, Portugal.
#7

#1 The Sicilians took Jerusalim with an audacious amphibious assault.
#2 probably to stop my only ballista shooting their gate in.
#3 It was very early. They were the best Infintry I had.
#4 And Decimating Sundary other units behind it.
#5 We won't mention their casualties, simply stunning morale! despite formed units in front and the occasional missaimed 'friendly' balista bolts in the back they didn't rout.
#6 8000 all told with Loot and Building destruction
#7 As is traditional in these circumstances I gifted Lisbon to the Pope to raise favor (and avoid Excomunication) Neatly honking off the Moors and Spaniards plans into the bargin