Italy

[ah_dut]

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

[ah_dut]

high

[ah_dut]

late

[katank]

Get fleets joined ASAP and pump dromons from Venice.

grab Naples off the Byz and then take Serbia.

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

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

Venice can go for shipbuilding and knights.

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

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

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

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

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

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

be ready to crusade and use your knights hospitaller well.

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

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

[Zortanius]

Good guide Katank,

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

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

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

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

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

Cheers

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

For Glorious Achievements mode (early - high):

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

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

Crusades = awesome.

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

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


About the Noble Mercantilism GA:

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

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

The rivals:

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

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

In world domination, you may want to take Rome for its troop producing abilities early on. If you're going for complete domination (100%, not 66%) you will need to eliminate the papacy along with everyone else. I'm sure you can find how to do so somewhere else.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Edit: now that I'm a SENIOR patron, I can edit away embarissing mistakes, like the island of Crete

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

A BRIEF WORD/SUMMARY OF UNITS
(In early/high)

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Edit: Fixed the Firegalleys-in-early error

[Chimpyang]

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

[Zortanius]

Hey Alexander the pretty good,

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

Cheers

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Thanks Zortanius



I'm OK now.

[katank]

note: melee for sailors are lower than brigand etc. and turkish hyrids.

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

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

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

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Quote[/b] ]you can't get firegalleys in early. that would be extremely overpowered.

I shall quote myself as a suitable reply:


I can't seem to get ANYTHING right.



Thanks for the corrections Katank

[ah_dut]

Quote[/b] (Alexander the Pretty Good @ June 26 2004,23:51)]I can't seem to get ANYTHING right.

or Katank can't get anything wrong

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

There's that, too.

[Sir Toma of Spain]

For Glorious Achievements mode (early - high):

About the Noble Mercantilism GA:

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

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

[Bossk]

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

[katank]

@ sir toma, really? you had master merchants in many of those places and not first place in trade?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Sir Toma of Spain]

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

[katank]

that's strange since I got the points in my games. Are you playing VI 2.01?

[Sir Toma of Spain]

Yes i am

[katank]

weird, anyone else have experience on this matter?

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

[Sir Toma of Spain]

I will try that i hope it works because it is really annoying

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Haven't played Italians in a long while (been hooked on the great mods available) but that still bothers me when I think of it.

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

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

[Watchman]

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

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

[katank]

the rebels do trade if you are not at war with them.

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

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

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

[Procrustes]

... and the GA screen never seems to show anything else than the Homelands one, but anyway....

Hi Watchman,

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

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

[Graphic]

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

[Claudius Maniacus Sextus]

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

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

thats all CHEERS!

[weegee]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now for the questions:

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

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