Turks

[Seyfullah]

Yeah i think ghulam do get +1 in lesser armenia. when i played with the turks, ahc coming out of armenia got 1 star almost every other turn so its cav that can be generals if you're low on heirs.

[John XVI]

Heh,I found the ghulam cavalry useless. AHC can do their job a lot better.

[Seyfullah]

i guess ghulam cavalry does come after some upgrading and cost more too.

[Bill Westwater]

I am currently playing as the Turks in Late/GA/Hard mode in VI. The year is 1399 and i am 6 years away from being able to get JHI in Rum. It has cost me enormous amounts of time and money, and at present i only have about 1000 crowns, so i won't be able to afford them when they arrive. Its not as if i have done that badly, i have, in addition to Rum, lesser Armenia, Armenia, Anatolia, Nicaea, Constantinople, Greece and Trebizond, and an income of between 4 and 5000 a year. Is it really worth trying to get janissaries in late? If so, where? Rum is quite vulnerable against the Egyptians, who are the strongest of the surrounding factions, but then so is Bulgaria, where JHI get a bonus. Though described as easy in late, the Turks don't seem to be particularly easy to me.

[Deus ret.]

Is it really worth trying to get janissaries in late? If so, where?

It is, depending on your overall situation. Since it doesn't sound like you've already become the No.1 superpower on the map, build them! They're good for more than just fun - after all, they're one of the best units in late, actually THE best if you ask me.
If possible, you should build them in a province which gives them +1 valour. as with all units.....IIRC in the case of JHI this is Georgia, so you might not attain that goal. So build them where it suits you best: best upgrades, earliest availability etc. Actually JHI are so strong that they reign supreme even without too many upgrades, so just produce them! Once you see them in action you'll be satisfied. A very capable melee unit with sky-high morale, they're also quite good vs. cavalry, and if I'm not mistaken they can even shoot. You'll love these guys, they're extremely versatile and deadly. There is a reason why the Janissaries were among the most dreaded troops historically until well into the 16th century.
Those Janissary units are also the main reason why the Turks are classified as "easy" in late. Compared with the Byzantine units they're rather overpowered, and not even the Eggies can field anything which really matches them. Just assemble an army of a dozen or so of JHI and try to get a battle....

[Sensei Warrior]

I am not looking at a Turk game right now, but I think you might have gotten a couple of points confused Deus Ret. There are Jannisary Infantry and Jannisary Heavy Infantry. The JI have bows and swords, and the JHI have Polearms. The JHI are a great anti-cav/AP unit and definately one of the best in the game. The JI have bows, and very decent fighting stats. They can be used in either capacity with ease. I believe the JI get the valor bonus in Georgia.

Typically I wouldn't refute you Deus, you usually give great advice, but If I am wrong, or your post confused me, I will give my most humble apologies.

The rest of what Deus said is dead-on. All the Jannisary units are the best for the Turks and possibly the game. It would be comparable to wondering if you should build Lancers with the Spanish or Longbowmen with the English. Every Faction has a really good unit or two and the Jannisaries are the ones for the Turks.

[Deus ret.]

seems like I confused those Janissary types...sorry! thanks for clarifying, Sensei. I intended to write solely about JHI because JI doesn't become available much earlier, if at all, and for its own sake isn't really worth the whole build-up IMHO (the Turks sport quite a number of versatile hybrid troop types, but IIRC no pole arms other than JHI) .... I seem to have drifted off somewhat. Bill, by combining our two posts you can probably assemble something useful.

[macsen rufus]

I have a Late Turkish game on currently (one of many) and have Janisseries coming out of Rum. I settled on Rum because that was already pretty well teched up and easier to get the military academy built, and also the strategic consideration of being close to Lesser Armenia. LA is the ideal staging post for putting armies together as it is close to provinces that give you valour bonuses on most of your good troops, and being on the coast you can launch armies overseas with ease.

Of the three Janissery units I concentrate on JI and JHI - the Janissery archers are a bit superfluous with JI also having bows. An army where all of your infantry are Janisseries is very powerful, and you can use the Turkish tactics you've already practised with the earlier troop types, and you can kick any kind of @ss that comes your way.

Your cash shortage should be easily addressed if you expand a little southwards into Antioch, and a bit further into Palestine IIRC will give you a turc horse bonus.

[Bill Westwater]

I chose Rum as the place to build JHI for the same reason, its teched up. That and the fact that when i captured Constantinople, its fortress was reduced to a citadel. The problem with Rum was that i couldn't get allied with the Egyptions and they were the richest faction until about 1380 with the largest army. This meant that, having spent 8000 on a fortress, i had to keep a large army with one of my best generals in Rum, which would have been much better in Bulgaria or Greece fighting the Hungarians and Byzantines. Taking on the Egyptions too would have been a war too many, particularly after the plague in 1348, which puts a serious dent in your income.

[macsen rufus]

With the Turks, I usually halt my westward expansion at Constantinople, which is easily defended, and then try to secure up to Georgia, for another bottleneck. This frees up armies for the inevitable Egyptian campaign. I agree Rum (in fact the whole of eastern Asia Minor) is vulnerable due to the strange borders with Syria/Edessa etc, and that makes it hard to secure without a lot of troops locally. When going south I try to take two provinces at a time, driven by the need to reduce the number of provinces to defend - taking Syria and Antioch simultaneously is generally a good idea. Of course good naval defence is also required to guard your rear.

[Bill Westwater]

Good strategy Mate, and not that different to the one i tried to use. But i thought take and hold Bulgaria and Greece, and then go for the egyptians. I took Bulgaria, then Greece, and even Serbia (it was in the GA) but got bogged down in fighting with the Hungarians, who with silver armour knights with weapon bonus are lethal! Then the Byzantines, who i left with Rhodes and Cyprus rather than have a re-emergence, produced a big fleet from nowhere and destroyed my ships and trade network, which in turn prompted the Egyptians to pick on me. This led to a civil war, and its now 1413 Greece is in revolt, though i've taken Antioch and Edessa. JHI have come on line and its time to do some invading. You are right Egypt is definitely a softer target than Europe. The Russians are leading the GA by a mile unfortunately, as they get 2 points for taking 1 province, while the turrks only get 1 point for two, so i don't think i'll win, but never mind.

[macsen rufus]

I rarely play GA mode (always forget it's an option when picking a new campaign ), and haven't tried the Turkish GA at all so I'm not sure what you're "forced" into doing. Sounds like you've got your hands full now, so those janisseries are going to come in very handy.

And in my previous post I didn't recall correctly - Tripoli gives the turc horse bonus, and good income, too. I usually find the Egyptians can't take too much damage before they just collapse.

[Vladimir]

Plus the Egyptians tend to be less heavily armored than the whole of Europe. Therefore it only makes sense to use the missile and cav heavy Turks against them. Besides, with Big C. and Egypt under your control, you'll never be hurting for cash.

[Empirate]

Using the Turks it is usually not much of a problem to have half your army or even more consist of troops that can shoot: Ottoman Infantry, Futuwwas, Turcoman Foot, and of course Janissary Infantry; as well as Turcoman Horse, Sipahi of the Porte (including princes=generals): All of these are hybrids to a greater or lesser degree. Add Saracen Infantry (or, if you can get them, JHI) and Armenian Heavy Cavalry, and you'll probably have an army that can put more arrows into the air than anybody else except for the Mongols. I just love using archer hybrids, my favorite of the above being Futuwwas, as I usually don't take long enough to build Janissaries. With that many arrows in the air, even heavily armored troops are bound to take some casualties. Light troops just melt away. If you can concentrate your fire on a few enemy units, especially after annoying and separating them using horse archers, they'll flee very quickly. This allows you to defeat a part of the enemy force before they ever reach you, making melee that much easier.
Just remember to keep a heavy core of durable Saracens, armored up and built in a province with mosque and ribat, to up their rather mediocre morale. Then use part of your archer hybrids to flank, while the rest continue to put arrows in the air. Armenian Heavy cavalry pack a real punch when charging, so make extensive use of this.
I love missile troops because they kill without taking many losses if handled right. Hybrids are quite good at this and still can fight in a melee, especially as flankers. Turcoman Foot can even hold their own as main battle line troops for a while, due to their quite high defense and good armor. Don't expect them to do much damage, though: That's what their arrows are for. Ottomans and Futuwwas, though, are good attackers - Ottomans due to armor piercing, Futuwwas due to high attack and charge. The latter are killed quickly, so watch them. They're a bit like Ghazis that can shoot. Use up their missiles, then flank, and you'll be a happy little Sultan!

[Sensei Warrior]

seems like I confused those Janissary types...sorry! thanks for clarifying, Sensei.

Dont sweat it. I did manage to make a mistake as well. Jannisary Archers get the valor bonus in Georgia. Just for the record all the Jannisary units become available at the same time, High.

I intended to write solely about JHI because JI doesn't become available much earlier, if at all, and for its own sake isn't really worth the whole build-up IMHO (the Turks sport quite a number of versatile hybrid troop types, but IIRC no pole arms other than JHI) .... I seem to have drifted off somewhat. Bill, by combining our two posts you can probably assemble something useful.

I agree. Because of the Grand Mosque/Military Academy thing, unless you do something sneaky, you can only have one provence that produces Jannisary units. So usually once it finally get teched up enough I find that typically I use that provence to do nothing more than churn out JHIs, the type of unit the Turks are lacking to begin with.

Empirate brings up a good point about the abundance of hybrid units. With so many units that can pull double duty you can build a well balanced army out of units that use a bow. You can rain death on your enemies. I use armies that have as many as 12 units that shoot and fight. When it gets to that point not to many armies actually make it close enough to you to engage in melee. I have watched unit after unit disapear in a vain attempt to engage my army.

[Empirate]

Macsen Rufus brought up the topic of strange borders in Asia Minor and, in fact, the whole East. Strange they may be, but, strategically speaking, CA did a good job of simulating where armies could be moved and where not. The strange connection between Syria and Rum is actually due to a mountain range (the Taurus, iirc) that leaves just a few good passes, connecting the sierra-like plain of Rum to Lesser Armenia and to the parts of northern Syria that are called Edessa in the game, as well as north-western Mesopotamia (which is called Syria in the game). So from Rum, these places were all in easy striking distance. The separation between Syria on the one hand and Antioch, Tripoli, Palestine on the other is another good one: Instead of a mountain range, it was a desert that separated these, with just a few good roads making traversing it possible. These basically led to the north, to the middle and to the south of the Levant (i. e., to Antioch, Tripoli and Palestine).
So the strange borders in the game are pretty accurate, in the military picture of things that is. They do make it a little challenging to conquer and hold on to some territory, though. But this is most true when trying to take Asia Minor from the South up, not from the North down. So if you're playing the Turks, it should work to your advantage: Grab Syria, hold on to it. Lesser Armenia, Antioch, Tripoli and Palestine can then be taken at your leisure, one after the other (although I'd recommend taking Antioch quickly, to protect Edessa). In the west and north, advance to Constantinople and Georgia/Khazar, respectively. These bottleneck provinces can be held indefinitely until you're finished with the Egyptians - couldn't agree more on this. In fact, it might be recommendable to conquer all of northern Africa, all the way up into Spain, establishing Toulouse and Aquitaine as the final borders (as long as your fleets con protect your coastline). This gives you a huge empire with only four border provinces!
In Late, the trick is, of course, getting there in the first place... which I will leave to your strategic imagination.

[Maloncanth]

Though described as easy in late, the Turks don't seem to be particularly easy to me.

Oh wonderful! I am NOT the only one! Seriously, there have to be tons of people who find Turks - Late - GA a difficult game. I've played it three times now and I've still not won. :p

And here I kept thinking Late GA Aragon was difficult... Has anyone else given Turkish Late GA and compare it with some of the other Late GA campaigns? I'm considering writing another guide to it, since I think I understand why they're difficult to play, but then, I feel as if I have to earn the write to do that by actually winning once. XP

[Celtic_Guardian]

In early i found a good way to kill of Egypt quickly . If in the first few turns, you can mange to kill Sultan Al-Mustali 1, he doesn't have any heirs at the time, faction is done like that. I did have a re-emergance, but I beat them pretty easily, now turning my attention to Christendom.

[Empirate]

Yeah, Turks in Late seems to be one of the hardest campaigns you can play. At least, crusades have lost a lot of their bite by then, but you start with only one province, have to fend off three powerful neighbors and lack clear venues of conquest. Pushing into Constantinople at all costs is not as viable anymore, since the Mongols will make it hard on you to maintain anything resembling peace on the eastern front. I'd still recommend going after the Byzzies first. If you can manage to kill their great generals, the rest of their troops doesn't stand up to yours. As soon as you have Constantinople and the rest of Asia Minor, stop. Establishing one-province-borders will help immensely if you can do that. This also means you have to push back the Horde until you have Georgia or preferably Khazar, giving you another 1PB. After this, and once you have garrisoned Constantinople and Khazar so much you never need worry about them, attack the Egyptians. While their units are usually much inferior to what you can field, they have one thing you don't: Money, money, money. Well, they have it and you want it, so take it from them. Problem is, you have to be really good at minimizing casualties, coz you will lack the money to train reinforcements during much of the first part of this campaign. Ships are important, but mostly to protect your coasts, not to rake in trading money.

Hope you like the Turkish style of army: Winning crushing victories in the field is very important early on as you can't rely on superior economy and productive capacity.

[Arol]

Its 1174, and I've manged to put paid to the Spanish; just need to finish of Leon, and captured Castile with a castle intact.
It will be interesting to build up the metalsmith upgrades there, to see the effect on the perfomance of some of the units like the futuwwas. Maybe even later re-locate the Grand Mosque there and build super-JHI's.
This being the first time I've played the Turs, I've read the comments on these units, and if they were superb before, they must be near invincible with upgrades?

[Empirate]

As tempting as it sounds, I wouldn't wait for upgrades to build Janissary units. They're very very good as they are and don't really need weapon upgrades. Besides, they take such a long buildup that you simply don't want to wait the additional years it takes to build up the weaponsmith's facilities. I'd rather build the grand mosque and military academy in your most advanced province (likely Constantinople) ASAP, and roll out a few more units, so they actually get to see some action.
One "warning": The AI likes to withdraw from an army it thinks is unbeatable. I once had a stack of sixteen gold-armored JHI, and the computer armies always withdrew. I didn't get to see those über-troops in action at all!

[Arol]

...I'd rather build the grand mosque and military academy in your most advanced province (likely Constantinople) ASAP, and roll out a few more units, so they actually get to see some action.

The Grand Mosque is already in Const., right now I'm building it up to fortress level.
It was just a thought, that maybe later when Castile is buildt up to the same level, to see what those units would be like über'ed up!
But, it seems like you've tried it:

I once had a stack of sixteen gold-armored JHI, and the computer armies always withdrew. I didn't get to see those über-troops in action at all!

[Empirate]

You can't build a new Grand Mosque anywhere else as long as that in Constantinople is standing. A cheap way out is to destroy it after your Military Academy has been built, and rebuild it in Castile or somewhere. This enables you to have two or even three provinces churning out Janissary units. It's probably an unnecessary step, though, unless you're really taking it slow in your campaign or want to field only the very best troops you can. The Turks have a unit roster that's pretty good even without Janissaries, and these units just add a little spice, and a very badass heavy infantry indeed, something you have to do without otherwise.

[Arol]

You can't build a new Grand Mosque anywhere else as long as that in Constantinople is standing. A cheap way out is to destroy it after your Military Academy has been built, and rebuild it in Castile or somewhere. This enables you to have two or even three provinces churning out Janissary units. It's probably an unnecessary step, though, unless you're really taking it slow in your campaign or want to field only the very best troops you can. The Turks have a unit roster that's pretty good even without Janissaries, and these units just add a little spice, and a very badass heavy infantry indeed, something you have to do without otherwise.

I do want to take it nice and slow. Play this game to the completion.
With others Iv'e cut them short when winning was obvious.
Thanks for the idea of waiting for the Militarry Acadamy to be completed, and then re-locate the Grand Mosque!
Should be some pretty powerful units comming out of Norther Spain by 1300!

[caravel]

So if you're playing the Turks, it should work to your advantage: Grab Syria, hold on to it. Lesser Armenia, Antioch, Tripoli and Palestine can then be taken at your leisure, one after the other (although I'd recommend taking Antioch quickly, to protect Edessa). In the west and north, advance to Constantinople and Georgia/Khazar, respectively. These bottleneck provinces can be held indefinitely until you're finished with the Egyptians - couldn't agree more on this. In fact, it might be recommendable to conquer all of northern Africa, all the way up into Spain, establishing Toulouse and Aquitaine as the final borders (as long as your fleets con protect your coastline). This gives you a huge empire with only four border provinces!
In Late, the trick is, of course, getting there in the first place... which I will leave to your strategic imagination.

These strategic "chokepoints" are what makes the eastern factions (Fatimid/Ayyubid/Mamluk, Seljukid/Ottoman, Byzantine), so potentially powerful. If you're playing as any of the three factions, taking the oppositions' territory before expanding elsewhere, is a good strategy, though if you want a real challenge possibly not. As the Turks, expanding first southwards into "Egyptian" territory is the best strategy and removes a treacherous neighbour that will give you grief later. There can be some good ransoms with this method also. After securing this territory, providing your shipping is solid, you only need a good garrisson in Egypt to deter any possible Moorish incursions.

Your next move would be against the Byzantine. The best way to initialise this is to have your Alims in asia minor years before, converting the populace. The first provinces to take are Trebizond and Anatolia simultaneously, isolating Georgia, then wait for the counter attacks beat them off with plenty of missiles, saracens, ghazis and AHC's. Once Anatolia is secure, that army needs to push forward into Nicaea. You can then prepare a, suitably mobile, force to take Georgia, which shouldn't be too difficult as it will be unable to reinforce effectively. Your western garrissons in Trebizond and Nicaea need to stay put, and another force needs to be prepared for the capture of Constantinople, once secure you have a three province chokepoint consisting of Constantinople, Georgia and Egypt, your fleets protecting the rest, and can sit back and develop it with relative ease. This pushes the Byzantine out into Europe. You may find them in Khazar very soon threatening your northern border, though by the early 1200's there will be a better reason to keep that province extremely well defended.

If you don't want to wipe out the Egyptians you could leave Sinai, Arabia and Egypt to them, keeping medium - strong garrissons in Palestine and Syria.

[KhaderKhan]

I do want to take it nice and slow. Play this game to the completion.
With others Iv'e cut them short when winning was obvious.
Thanks for the idea of waiting for the Militarry Acadamy to be completed, and then re-locate the Grand Mosque!
Should be some pretty powerful units comming out of Norther Spain by 1300!

There's one little bug you can exploit in the MTW when playing the Turks, i.e. Multiple Grand Mosques, all you have to do is capture provinces that have both Citadels (e.g. Constantinople, Nicaea, Egypt, Rum etc..) and a mosque (easy to build), once you have both in place order simultaniously (this is important or else the bug won't come into effect) build orders for Grand Mosques. Once you have multiple Grand Mosques you can have multiple Military accademies.

Once you have them you'll be having 3 - 5 (or more) provinces that produce Jannissary troops.

Sometimes I do wonder why playing the Turks is described as 'easy' when it should be described as 'really easy'.

[Agent Miles]

I don't know what version you play, but I can que more than one Grand Mosque simultaneously, but the game only builds one. The others just don't get built.

[Geezer57]

I believe the "multiple GM" bug was one fixed in VI.

[KhaderKhan]

I don't know what version you play, but I can que more than one Grand Mosque simultaneously, but the game only builds one. The others just don't get built.

Did you have enough money? I suppose it also depends on which version of the game you play also.

[John_Longarrow]

Playing without the VI patch, I've not gone to war yet with the Byzantines. I started in early and did the "Ransom the Egyptian ruler" gambit. Captured him twice, first time got the ranson, second they didn't pay.

Current year is 1175 and I'm planning on taking out the Byzantines. They have a very strong garrison in LA and there are two crusades parked there. I've got 1000+ armies in Armenia, Rum, Edessia, and Antioch.

My plan is straight forward. Step one, take out the Byzantine fleet. I've held all of the eastern provences for over 80 years and I'm the only one who's really got a navy. I just finished crushing the Italian fleet after a 3 year fight. I've got about 80+ ships in my fleet so I have a strong hold on ALL sea traffic.

After sending their ships to the bottom, I'm going to take Constantinope. They won't be able to reinforce it and it should fall quickly.

My other boarder is Northern Spain.

I'm going to try a little trick to see how well it works.

I'm going to take Treb and then retreat. Next year I'll throw 10 Jihads into it, just to see what all I get. That should give me plenty of time to rebuild the Jihads in Armenia before the GH shows up. I'll have taken and given up Georgia by then so I should be able to crush their southern forces quickly then move in to reinforce.

Since I hold Castille with +1 upgrades to both armor and weapons, I'm planning up building at least 10 Jihads there to ship over to Georgia when the GH shows up. I'll drop a post when 1230 rolls around to give an overview of what my religious army does.