Spain

[frogbeastegg]

Spain is playable right from the start, without the need to unlock it or edit any files.

[SwordsMaster]

Ok, I guess I'll start...

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

You should have no trouble.

Good luck.

[Vicarious]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Vladimir]

Do you still have Jinette spam? I did a little experiment in MTW and on expert, conquered Iberia and finished two crusades with only Jinettes.

[Vicarious]

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

[Vladimir]

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

[Kekvit Irae]

Watch the language.

[Vicarious]

I had to anxiously watch this MY LITTLE PONY walking towards my capitol

This forum is even stricter than the sensoring on MTV.. You replace ******* with "MY LITTLE PONY"?? Tough to swallow for a hard-boiled Norwegian..

Anyway, let's cut to the case.

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

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

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

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

[Dunc]

I am at approximately the year 1340 in my Spanish campaign, on VH/H. Either that or H/H. I can't remember.

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

I was allied with Portugal as well as the Moors.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Skott]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Quillan]

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

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

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

[Skott]

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

my latest update is this...

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

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

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

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

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

[ChewieTobbacca]

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

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

[Quillan]

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

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

[Quintus.JC]

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

[Barbarian]

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


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

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

[Quintus.JC]

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

Sound too good to be true.

[Genaral Julis]

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

*Insert Evil Cackle*

[Paradox]

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

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

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

[aooinn]

thanks

[Bilgediver]

Playing M/M with timescale=1.0 (400 turn campaign, I tried playing with timescale=0.5 as Venetians, and I completed the game without gunpowder being invented, or the New World being discovered)

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

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

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

[ThunderClaw]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[oz_wwjd]

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

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

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

[coalition]

Favourite Faction, stuff Venice. :)

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

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

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

[Tsar Alexsandr]

I very much enjoyed Spain. You start with three generals, and two princesses. So that means you'll be able to pick up two more generals soon! Hopefully.

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

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

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

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

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

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

[johnnyq409]

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

[Snoil The Mighty]

Recent return to MTW II, read through most of this thread pretty carefully but apology if I skimmed and missed the answer to this question which is:

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

[jbillybrack]

Recent return to MTW II, read through most of this thread pretty carefully but apology if I skimmed and missed the answer to this question which is:

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

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