best faction to turtle with? [Archive]

shinderhizzle84

06-26-2008, 19:37

hello. I play on M/M and i enjoy playing the game relatively slowly. I just can't seem to be able to push myself to play the game very aggressively. What are some good examples of factions that are strong (no ridiculously weak factions please) that a player can turtle with success? I primarily rely on cavalry, but france is not my type of faction because you are surrounded be a lot of very strong enemies. I have yet to beat a long campaign and i have owned this game for quite some time!!! any suggestions i could get on this issue would be greatly appreciated. thank you!

FactionHeir

06-26-2008, 19:48

If you are playing M/M, any faction is good. In fact, there is no chance the AI will ever beat you really :wink:

Generally speaking however, island factions are better off from the start, though any faction can turtle on an island. Also factions that start at a map edge have an advantage (except if that map edge happens to the the east)

Csargo

06-26-2008, 21:56

That basically makes England your best choice... Island at the corner of the map.

shinderhizzle84

06-26-2008, 23:39

yea i've tried england, theyre pretty good to turtle. My biggest problem with england is their lack of variety of cavalry. While their cavalry isn't horrible, it certainly isn't strong. I do enjoy england, but if anybody else here knows of some good turtling factions with good cavalry, that would be great. Thank you!

PrestigeX

06-26-2008, 23:46

I think the best factions to turtle with are..

Scotland (pike units, lots of them, cheap for cities)

Venice/Milan (spear units, halberd, good cav. militia, and ofcourse CROSS BOWS)

PBI

06-26-2008, 23:49

How about the Byzantines? Start with Constantinople and a good defensive position, and get very good horse archers.

Galain_Ironhide

06-27-2008, 00:22

I had a really good slow campaign as the Turks. You have the Byzantines to your left, with whom you can stay at peace with for a good while and you can easily expand to the east (you just have to race the Egyptians to start with).

Then you sit around managing your empire until the Mongols arrive and then the fun begins :skull:

The Turks have a good range of units which keeps you interested as well. I loved those Naffatun (naptha throwers).

Most of all, have fun with which ever faction you choose. :beam:

Ratwar

06-27-2008, 04:29

You might want to think about Poland. As long as you don't expand too far West, you should be able to stay at peace with everyone but the Russians for awhile, and they have some good calvary.

Askthepizzaguy

06-27-2008, 05:11

I would turtle with Russia.

Russia starts off weak, but isolated, and in a corner of the map. All you have to do is grab the steppes and keep an eye out for Polish invasions. Leave Poland and Denmark alone, focus on keeping your troops in a defensive position, your forces lean and your empire profitable.

Now, use diplomats to make peace and alliances. Build your territory up with farms and public order buildings, markets and so on. Make some merchants and go to Baghdad and Italy and Antioch to trade.

build some watchtowers to make an early warning system against the Poles.

In your biggest castles, make lots of stables, in your cities, barracks and blacksmiths.

Your army should consist of lots of disposable horse archers (not the expensive kind) and lots of well-armoured militia men. Low cost, but maneuverable, able, and disposable. if they die, you make another one. And another.

Eventually, you should invade Denmark and Scandinavia. And then take over the British Isles, and be the ruler of the North.

When the Mongols come, move your capital and your main forces into Denmark and become the Viking horde... assault France and the HRE, and dont worry about the Mongols. Let them come.

Should be fun.

shinderhizzle84

06-27-2008, 17:43

howabout hungary? are they any good to turtle with? i'd do russia but they seeem waaay too hard (even on m/m, which is what i play.) I'd do poland but i personally like their counterparts, the hungarians.

Yaropolk

06-27-2008, 18:38

I think england is best turlte faction, as mentioned, on an island, corner of map, wide variety of longbows to use for defensive purposes. Declare a few crusades early in the game on rebel cities in europe and you'll have Templar or Hospitallier knights, two top tier options before you even get english knights!

I went straight Mailed -> Hospitallier with them.

PBI

06-27-2008, 18:51

Can you Crusade against (Catholic) European rebels? I thought the Pope only allowed crusades against non-Catholics.

FactionHeir

06-27-2008, 19:22

You can crusade against any rebels as long as those provinces are known to the game as valid crusade targets.

Shahed

06-27-2008, 19:26

I think the most fun I've had turtling is with Scotland (owning the isles). Nice small elite army, with the occasional foray into the mainland to loot some wine, beer, chocolates and other goodies for morale.

Zaleukos

06-30-2008, 11:40

Denmark, Scotland, and England are prime turtling factions. Either faction can conquer the British isles + Scandinavia for an extremely defensible base (and if you only have the British isles any invader will accept peace proposals due to the lack of land border). While these arent cavalry specialists I find both English and Danish cavalry perfectly adequate. Both can recruit cavalry from cities (Demi Lancers and War Clerics), English knights have charge and Armour, and the Danes get Chivalric knights. You can also opt for Templars/hospitallers in the cities. So it should be perfectly possible to play these guys as cavalry factions.

Otherwise Portugal/Spain/The Moors are good for turtling. The Pyrenees can easily be blocked from Northern invaders and you will mostly be left alone in Africa as long as you dont take Tunis (and even if you do it is easy to buy off invaders since the invaders wont have a land border against you.

Regarding Cavalry: Of the catholic factions only Scotland, Milan, and Venice are really disadvantaged in Cavalry, and they can all make up for it with Templars/Hospitallers. At any rate the only difference between Catholics is in the top tier Cavalry where English/Portuguese knights have slightly worse melee stats and the French and Germans have super heavies, and this is IMHO not very significant. The main asset for heavy cavalry is the charge value, and Chiv/Gothic/English/Noble/Lancers/Polish knights/Polish retainers/ ALL have the same charge value.

EDIT: I guess you can play the moors as a light cavalry faction (Arab Cavalry tends to die off quickly but is plentiful and available early) and they will also get Christian guards late in the game (more or less equivalent to western Knights).

G^2

06-30-2008, 13:25

Sicily is also an option to turtle with. As long as you stay away form Corsica, Sardinia, and Durazzo, no one should really bother you. Since your in the middle of the Mediterranean, you can establish good trade routes and you can buy Bolougue form the HRE. The key is to make an alliance with the pope and keep your relations with him perfect, then if you do get attacked, that faction gets ex-communicated. If you get bored, Tunis and North Africa are easy targets to expand too.

As for calvary, Sicily has the powerful Norman Knights and if you expand into Tunis, Knights Hosplitar and Templar.

Zaleukos

07-01-2008, 09:05

Yeah I forgot Sicily. Buy Bologna and give it to the pope, take Tunis, Tripoli, Algiers, Marrakesh, Timbuktu and Arguin and noone will bother you, save the odd landing outside Tunis (which resemble Caernarvon in that some stupid faction that doesnt have any business there still likes to land there). Merchants in Tumbuktu and Arguin will help an already strong economy even further.

The only question is where to make Castle troops. Palermo is better as a city, and Tunis is also an excellent city. Maybe Algiers, but it is a few extra turns away from everything... I'd probably keep Palermo a castle in this scenario as the location is very central.

Archpedant

07-01-2008, 15:52

Any faction at any level of difficulty can be played turtle if you put enough thought into it .

To avoid attacks:

a) always strongly garrison settlements (if you are playing defensively you don't need a field army or navy so this is not that difficult to afford)

b) ally with everyone

c) never attack anyone and offer peace every move if you are attacked

d) build forts garrisoned by peasants at every choke point an invader has to cross (as England I built seven in two rows just south of the Scottish border and was never attacked even at VH/VH).

e) keep the Pope happy

f) convert most castles to cities, build economic structures and use money to hire mercenaries that can be easily disbanded after a crisis has passed - rather than waste money and time building military structures that will recruit inferior troops anyway.

Also note that many factions can field powerful cavalry from top level marksman ranges - the Milanese and HRE for instance get mounted crossbows which combined with some knights can be an unbeatable combination.

In this respect the English get rather shafted as historically they should have mounted longbows but for some reason these are given to the French instead (whether longbows were ever actually used from horseback is another question - most commentators say its impossible but the Japanese certainly used 5-foot long long bows while mounted)

Old Geezer

07-01-2008, 17:27

Is it acceptable turtle behaviour to attack rebel settlements or to go on crusade? If one is attacked can one take any of the offending faction's provinces?

Jason X

07-01-2008, 17:35

for cav flavoured slow campaign, i'd like to second the turk/egypt initial (jihad) land grab followed by turtling (sipahi/qupulukus or mamluk archers)

or any iberian faction (jinetes!)

russia is a good choice but you might feel it's too slow/difficult without crusades - the trick is too ramp up the chiv of your governers for the pop growth.

check the faction guides

FactionHeir

07-01-2008, 17:50

Is it acceptable turtle behaviour to attack rebel settlements or to go on crusade? If one is attacked can one take any of the offending faction's provinces?

Since its a singleplayer game, whatever you do is acceptable ~:)
The game won't enforce anything on you - the only rules that are set are by yourself (and the limitations of the mod you are playing)

G^2

07-01-2008, 18:42

@ Old Geezer,

Generally, turtling is when one plays defensively and focuses on technology and using diplomacy instead of battling. Thus, a turtle would not attack any faction but generally would attack nearby rebels to gain a small empire. Once consolidated, the turtle would then look to its defenses and use diplomacy to stay out of conflicts. Also, the turtle needs to play a high chivalry game to keep their reputation up.

Personally, if I were purely turtling I would not go on crusades and would not attack enemy provinces except rebel. However, I never play my games like that but generally find them more enjoyable when I strike a balance. I prefer slow advances and dreadful generals.

Just my opinion.

Archpedant

07-02-2008, 08:29

One important thing is to ignore most missions - almost every settlement your council wants you to conquer will eventually embroil you in a war with somebody else who wants it (Durazzo in particular which is perhaps the most worthless starting settlement on the whole map but strangely attractive to neighbours) and the rewards offered are almost never worth the hassle of conquering and defending the target (2,500 florins, 3 or 4 'best' units that you can recruit yourself if you really need).

Similarly instantly obeying the Pope means endless wars with everyone he falls out with - faced by a demand to blockade or break alliances I always wait it out and in most cases the faction will reconcile before the time limit expires.

Crusades are another matter - I tend to put all my out of date and surplus units on a boat under my oldest general and set off just before the time limit expires - then if he doesn't die en route, or the settlement isn't taken by someone else, you then starve it out on arrival and give it to the Pope or sell it to the highest bidder (the former owner will often pay you handsomely for it back and a ceasefire) after sacking and dismantling if in spite of everything you do manage to take it.

Such tactics are incidentally not that unhistorical - many more kings and nobles took the cross than ever went on crusade and their are several examples of crusades getting diverted (4th) or ending in bloodless negotiation (Frederick II).

Alternatively send a young general who needs the personality boosts and bring him back afterwards.

shinderhizzle84

07-05-2008, 20:18

yea i'd do sicily but taken all those rebel muslim provinces, for me, at least, is too much work :D Yes, i AM that lazy ;) No, but seriously. Denmark is another good choice for me, they are one of my favs, but pretty much right from the beginning of the game i always find myself being attacked by either the poles, the hre, the french, and sometimes (actually, more like "usually") i find myself being attacked my more than one of these factions all at the same time. england, again, i like....but too little variety of cavalry. i made a turks campaign and called a jihad on constantinople and am doing pretty good.....i like jihads :D

my only problem with the turks is their location (for the mongols and timurids.) I suck against the two big horde factions and would like to be able to have a bit more time to amass armies to prepare against the mongol threat instead of having them at my welcome mat from their 1st turn on the campaign map. I will try doing sicily, it shouldn't be THAT hard. if i find it is strictly aganst my laziness constitution then i will just have to sick to the brits. keep all the suggestions coming guys! Great help so far!

Flavius Merobaudes

07-05-2008, 22:14

I'd recommend Spain. Unite the Iberian peninsula under one banner quickly, then consolidate in a secure position. Spanish late era units are superb, so it's actually worth prolonging the campaign. And of course they are far away from the hordes...

shinderhizzle84

07-05-2008, 23:02

G^2

07-06-2008, 23:22

@ shinderhizzle84

Things to consider for drop in income.

1)Did someone declare war on you? If so you lost trade right with that faction.

2)Did you recently create a large army or fleet? Perhaps your income can't support the upkeep for it. Also, fleets are increadably expensive to maintain.

3)Did you construct an expernsive building? This can also cause a trade deficet (sp?) for a turn or two.

4)Sometimes you have bad harvests which can fluctuate your income, also trade lanes can change for example Marselle could have constructed a port redirecting trade in Genoa from Naples.

My guess is someone blocked one of your ports for one turn and thus you have lost trade rights with them. Check in the diplomacy scroll and see if your at war with anyone.

shinderhizzle84

07-07-2008, 00:29

yea that's got to be it: the stupid hre randomly blockaded naples. the funny thing is that i don't ever really remember ever granting trade rights with them, so.....w/e i will try to make a ceasefire or something, or at least get some trade rights with the milanese and venitians (they are both filthy rich, like, 50 cent rich :D) then hopefully i will be able to continue producing norman knights (who, btw, i must say, freaking rock!!!)

still people, don't stop giving me suggesstions just because i've found a good faction! By all means, please keep them coming!!

ArtistofWarfare

07-07-2008, 07:20

I like to turtle early myself...identify where my attacker will come from, and prepare my first "push" in the way of a counter attack. For various reasons.

Is Venice a decent faction to turtle with? I've heard their late game is strong...navy/tech. And I do like Venetian Heavy Inf already.

G^2

07-07-2008, 22:07

@ ArtistofWarfare

Personally, everytime I play as Venice someone tends to attack me early on. Thus, I personally would not use them as a turtal faction. Even when my reputation was high, there are just too many factions that share borders with Vinece.

Turtling aside, Vinece is one of my favorite factions to play as and has great units and plenty of options for expantion which makes for an interesting game.

ArtistofWarfare

07-08-2008, 00:23

@ G^2:

Cool thanks.

I might go with them anyway. I've decided that for my first m2 campaign I would accept the "game's challenge" and only select my faction from the ones first available (as opposed to unlocking the others manually).

I spent a good 3 hours in custom battles last night on h and vh with venice vs france...in all sorts of scenarios. Was fun stuff, and yeah Venice seems to go in line with my infantry sided mindset.

I'm going to try out France, England and Spain a bit tonight just to be sure...but from what I already know of them, Venice might be a good place to start.

G^2

07-08-2008, 02:38

Eikon the Magistrate

07-08-2008, 20:39

Denmark,Scotland,England are quite easy to turtle with and flourish economies so far as catholic factions go. I tried Egypt recently and they to are not bad for this style of play theres noone around for a long time and your pretty much safe from anything esp if you dont straight after the holy lands. I find it difficult to play "turtle" with factions that share long borders with other factions (france,hre,poland,hungary etc) because its almost certain that somewhere along the line you will be invaded even if you have played by the book.

I was disapointed with sicily as a turtle I found them to be quite poor, also the nearby settlements require more advancement prior to getting a good return, the need for ports for example to connect your trade routes, and of course the biggest florin-sink of all the navy to keep the ports active. The 3 factions listed above (scots,danes,brits) have land and sea routes available so at least in the short term the cities are trading better.

For those that find denmark difficult for this style of play I would suggest the blockade as a way to render impotent the assumed threat of the poles/hre, the north sea area is easily sealed off and you get a small boost from the blockade.If you are at peace with the russians the number of ports is only 3 I believe with 2 of them being able to blockade in the same turn. While this would be a slight breach of the turtle rule, it would only be employed if/when they do attack.

ArtistofWarfare

07-08-2008, 23:38

Venices has a great unit roaster. Italian Spear Militia are awsome, Venetian Archers are also a great choice, (I think there is an armor upgrade bug though) along with Venetian Heavy Infantry. If you upgrade ISM to partial plate, they are perhaps the most powerful spear unit in the early game.

Again, I'm just digging into M2TW still ...but from everything I have seen so far, Venice's roster looks to be arguably the most underrated roster in the game.

It's not just the infantry either...as there are unit rosters that have more powerful heavies than Venice. It's the quality of their combined arms. They have the best artillery against units (France has the best against buildings as far as Catholic factions go...just by stats) and they are capable of fielding every major catholic faction gunpowder unit.

Further, their troop availability (due to their high quality militia) is such that you should never be lacking manpower, and regularly outnumbering any opponent. Sure, they can spam lower quality units but as you said- italian spear militia. That's quality spam.

Venice also has a great Navy apparently, and of course- starts with control of an eastern med island..ideal for so many reasons.

I'm about 99 percent sure at this point that campaign 1 for me will be with Venice. From that campaign, I'll learn all I need to about the other factions on the map.

At first glance already though, I have a feeling that my worst case scenario would be dealing with a French/Milanese coalition. If those two factions are allied against me, that turns into a major war.

glyphz

07-09-2008, 00:05

At first glance already though, I have a feeling that my worst case scenario would be dealing with a French/Milanese coalition. If those two factions are allied against me, that turns into a major war.

Indeed, bordering the Milanese war factory is never a good thing, since they field very similar city roster except more devastating (or annoying :smash:) crossbows, + it's 2 vs 1 (Milan, Genoa vs. Venice), unless your navy can quickly reinforce from Ragusa. If you ever secure northern Italy it becomes less of a hassle to defend

ArtistofWarfare

07-09-2008, 00:26

Indeed, bordering the Milanese war factory is never a good thing, since they field very similar city roster except more devastating (or annoying :smash:) crossbows, + it's 2 vs 1 (Milan, Genoa vs. Venice), unless your navy can quickly reinforce from Ragusa. If you ever secure northern Italy it becomes less of a hassle to defend

Well, I had a good Italian campaign going on MTW:VI back in February before I got my new PC ...which is a Vista and wants nothing to do with MTW:VI.

I would imagine in this campaign, I will approach the beginning of the game similarly. I do not need to flex muscle early, simply create the potential to do so. So I start with a digging in, getting an early start on fortifying everything that is mine to start, and making it impenetrable. Plus, with this campaign map I can go about doing so far more in depth.

While I'm doing this, I like to put the majority of my resources and efforts into establishing myself as a naval power...or "the" Naval power. I like to quickly get to the point of saying "yeah, you have the #1 Navy on the map". This way, in the situation we're talking about, step 1 of any war would be to completely destroy the enemy's entire navy and blockade all ports. Just reduce their sea trade and naval capacity to zero immediately.

At that point, planning for army mobilization and ground action would come into play. But in my experience, dominating the seas early is a trump card advantage that an enemy just can't do anything to negate. Once you control the seas, it takes a monumental effort from an enemy to remove you.

edit- I've also found that in doing this, and providing your allies/neutrals with massive amounts of trade that you are doing one of the few things to actually strengthens diplomatic ties between yourself and other factions.

phonicsmonkey

07-09-2008, 05:09

Venice is awesome, one of my favourite campaigns in vanilla

You can avoid an early war with HRE (leaving you to concentrate on Milan) if you can secure Bologna through diplomacy - otherwise you'll find the Kaiser's men traipsing back and forth across your territory which can get annoying and mess up your turtling strategy.

I strongly recommend building a blacksmith as soon as possible so you can upgrade the armour of your italian spear militia - when fully upgraded to mail armour they are kickass, plus they look great on the battlemap too.

One thing to look out for is that there is a bug with Venetian Heavy Infantry and Venetian Archers which means they start out with plate armour on the battlemap - they don't have plate armour stats, but the models are wearing it and when you upgrade their armour it changes to mail / padded which is just weird...

G^2

07-09-2008, 20:40

@ ArtistofWarfare

As phonicmonkey stated, buy Bolongia from the HRE then nock out Milan quickly (within first 10 turns). If done right you can take both Milan and Genoa without getting excomunicated. With Milan out of the way you can then afford to turtel for a bit. Keep your relations with the HRE good and keep an eye on the Sicilians which almost always end up attacking at some point. When turtling as Venice you have to keep your rep. up because you share alot of borders with many factions which will gain up on you. When your ready you can use Crete as a lanch pad into Greece.

Italy was also my favorite faction in MTW, Chivilric Spearmen with Crossbows defeated many an army. Thus, I was thrilled when M2TW had three Italian factions and more provences.

Flavius Merobaudes

07-10-2008, 15:39

ArtistofWarfare

07-11-2008, 23:33

You can easily fix the graphical bug of the armour upgrades by changing their sequence in the EDU:

armour_ug_models Venetian_Archers, Venetian_Archers_ug1
should read:
armour_ug_models Venetian_Archers_ug1, Venetian_Archers

The same goes for Retinue Longbows or any other unit with this kind of bug.

1) is it simply a graphical bug , or are armor values of these units actually bugged?

2) As some have said about protecting against the HRE- This is entirely what I will be doing with a defensive border established to the north of my home cities...

I will place a couple of half stacks in ambush position, get some defences up and then begin focusing my efforts towards valuable lands south and east ...as I can't imagine I'll have much interest in Germanic regions.

FactionHeir

07-11-2008, 23:56

1) Just a reference bug in the EDU. Except for visuals, it has no effect.

ArtistofWarfare

07-12-2008, 00:03

cool...not too concerned about it then.

Either way, it's good information...I'd imagine that when I get a little more crafty with editing files I'll develop an interest in things like that as well.

Chaotix

07-12-2008, 00:19

ArtistofWarfare

07-12-2008, 00:35

Oh, btw ArtistofWarfare, a neat trick with Venice: On turn 1, you can buy Bologna from the HRE for just a regular tribute of 1000 for 6 turns! It helps to even out the score with Milan in the early game, and you even get 5 free merc xbows with it. Try to get to Florence first, too.

EDIT: guess I should have read the last 5 posts! :laugh4:
anyway, I think 6000 is probably the lowest you can buy Bologna for, so thats some "new" info there.

Is it really worth that kind of expense, or would an early skirmish or two with the HRE be worth it for a province like that?

I understand that this would destroy longterm relations but- unless the HRE just becomes my #1 ally (they might due to their positioning and mutual enemies, I'll have to see the map) what difference would it make you know?

Chaotix

07-12-2008, 01:08

ArtistofWarfare

07-12-2008, 01:45

Hmm... I dunno, but if you spread it out as a 6 turn tribute of 1000, you barely notice it- the city pays for itself with interest, and yes, you can maintain peace w/ the HRE which is essential if you're planning on attacking other factions first. And you get 5 merc xbows as a garrison free after buying it, which I used some of to attack Florence on the next turn- considering you'll have to build fairly expensive archery ranges or militia squares before you can recruit them yourself.

Also, you have to watch out for Sicily as well as Milan. In my VH campaign, they attacked Crete with their whole army and took it- course, it also left Palermo and Naples undefended. I think securing all of Italy and its rich cities is probably the best early strategy for Venice. Then you can go after just about anyone else, but I like to invade Spain or the Byzantines at that point.

In previous Medieval campaigns where I was controlling an Italian faction I obviously recognized the powerbase that the entire Peninsula and Sicily would be. However, due to the papal states, the pope and several other italian factions around, this looked to be a lengthy war that would require full committment. So usually, I've secured what provinces I could without getting into conflict with other christian neighbors and then scouting out the map for the most lucrative provinces and colonizing them.

I'll have to see how to handle this though with m2...as it would be nice to secure all of Italy and then begin looking elsewhere with a nice driver behind the wheel.

glyphz

07-12-2008, 05:06

I, too, believe that buying Bologna is better. You get an alliance and a city for just 6000 spread out. 6000 is cheap for me, esp. how expensive bribing is in RTW post v1.0.
one way to justify this is "The short wars are the best." OBviously, war with HRE is gonna be loooong, and not very profitable. Alliance is better, Bologna means one less border. You dont want them mixed with the Milanese, the Byzantines, and possibly the Hungarians.
Speaking of wars, you might do want consolidation of Italy. The other 2 Italians initially have only 2 settlements, not something ballista(e?)s, spies or a combo cant handle (maybe a fleet for amphibious assault). Sicily is easily accessed by fleet, while Milan can go for Bern, or worse Dijon (w/c is far inland). That makes Milan the ideal target for a blitz. (quick war) Having Bologna and, a city close to them makes things easier, getting Florence makes it even better. Cities for cash, troops for the assault. You wouldnt notice that 6000 you paid for investment. Getting both in one turn prevents Papal intervention, and dealing with pissed italian armies. OH and Milanese lands are close by with each other, its easy to defend. edit: ONce your done with Milan, Sicily is only a matter of having simultaneous assaults via fleet. Once you're done your holdings will look close to MTW Italians.

ArtistofWarfare

07-12-2008, 06:24

Well I'm starting it up...I'll take it to AAR at some point but it's a Hard/Hard campaign with Venice and I am using Huge unit sizes.

Just at first glance here- is not "greece" and the Agean the priority for expansion, as opposed to any effort made to get lands north?

Again, I'll take what I can get early, but I might develop a very stubborn/stiff attitude with nations surrounding me and become extremely defensive (the let them come in if they want attitude again) while I focus on the Naval buildup and the push east. Constantinople is the end goal- and it's not that far away.

I would already like to control Rome, Constantinople and Jerusalem at once...I just haven't played the game yet so I don't know how long that should take, or what is fast/slow.

Edit: Rereading your post, yeah that's a pretty ballsy push to take Italy early lol. How do you not get excomm'd? But I do agree about Bologna and Florence if I'm going to approach things this way though. It's just a huge advantage early and yes- the earlier the better for Italy.

Remind me of the rule on the papacy again? Is it like mtw where he can only track 1 warning at a time or whatever? And 10 turns to cease or something...(I was considering the pope's friend strategy for a while early and trying to get a Cardinal elected 1st election.)

Edit again: Started things before - As said, H/H difficulties so I start with 8,000 florins. 6,000 of those to buy Bologna? Is it that valuable?

Chaotix

07-12-2008, 19:13

Don't offer them a lump sum of 6000. Instead, give them a 6-turn tribute of 1000- that worked for me, and you can use the rest of the cash on turn 1 for other things.

As for early expansion, I've found that taking Italy before Greece is easier, but really either will work.

Taking Italy will get you 5 more high-money making cities (Bologna, Florence, Milan, Genoa, Naples), two of which (Milan, Naples) are ready from the start, as well as a good castle, Palermo, and two castles that you can change one or both of into a city if you decide to take Corsica and Sardinia. It's entirely possible to play the whole game without taking Rome, as in most cases it'll only get the Papacy pissed at you.

If you decide to assault Greece first, start with Corinth- It's a good castle and makes a good base of operations. You get 3 more cities, one of which is useless until later (Durazzo), another that's decent, but not as good as Italian cities (Thessalonica), and a third that is only matched by Venice itself in money-making ability (Constantinople). You can also get a good castle to defend from Hungary at Sofia, and you can take Nicaea to finish of the Byzantines, although it may get the Turks to war with you.

You should prbably take Zagreb early whichever path you choose, but it may get you into conflict with Hungary.

Usually non-agression missions from the pope are for 7 turns, and he can call them against you for multiple factions at the same time. You can get an alliance with the pope early on and gift him money every few turns to keep him happy.

Phew. Hope all that writing helps ya.

ArtistofWarfare

07-13-2008, 01:17

Thanks for that post...I read every word and yes, it is helpful. I'm completely map ignorant when it comes to M2 so any and all information is nice.

I spent a lot of time familiarizing myself with the UI and Venice's starting position. I'm going full blast tonight playing so I'll send pm's to update where things went before I open an AAR later.

I'm honestly, stumped as to which direction to go first. You're right, Italy probably IS more lucrative and attractive...as well as religiously in line with my faction.

I have to say though that Bologna is just so isolated and the Emperor of the HRE is in the settlement. I'm tempted to launch an attack there, while securing all the bottlenecks that lead north toward the HRE's main lands. I would imagine capturing a Faction Leader this early and also taking the province, would bring in a lot of money.

The one thing holding me back from starting any war right now is the total lack of intelligence. I have to get some agents moving around and see who has what and where. I know the HRE is isolated in Bologna but I really don't know how hard they'll fight to retake it (if at all) or if they would continue to attack me on principle. What I do know from the HRE is that they really can't afford to be in a full blast Italic war early..or the rest of the "empire" fractures. So I may become diplomatic with France and Denmark/Poland etc and just start a war with the HRE...and then we'll see where Milan stands on things.

I really would like to win the first papal election though. Do more churches built effect this- as in, a higher overall Christian population throughout your Kingdom raises your reputation with the Pope?

G^2

07-13-2008, 01:58

ArtistofWarfare

07-13-2008, 02:30

It really is alot better to buy Bologna than to take it.
1) You keep you global rep up, which will help you only fight one faction at a time (although you are playing VH/VH in which your global rep will go down no matter what you do making diplomacy worthless, I play M/M where diplomacy works somewhat.)

2)Stay on the HRE good side because you won't want to invade them anytime soon making them great early game allies.

3)Save up you pope points for when you knock out Milan. You want early florins? sack Milan and Genoa in two turns wiping out the faction.

4)You get four units of Xbows which can be used to take out Florance.

As for churches, they help you in a roundabout way win papal elections.

1)You can make more priests which gives you a better chance of having more cardinals, which increases your pope voting power.

2)When you build churches and recurite priests your pope standing should increase.

Keep in mind having your pope in power does not make him your pupet. Your pope standing will be around perfect so you can get away with more but it really is a limited advantage.

1) I'm on H/H not VH/VH ...so that diplomacy wouldn't be entirely useless, but the game would still be pretty challenging for me. I wanted to learn the game on h/h first just ...because lol.

2) I have definitely considered making the HRE my main ally early but the thing is that a) they are a natural non ally of the pope and b) If I was to attack Bologna and capture their faction leader, I just don't see how they can do too much about it. Their attack into my lands can only come from a couple of bottlenecks and what I do know about the map is that as HRE, funneling troops into the Italian peninsula and points East takes a pretty full blown effort due to the movement restrictions in the provinces they would be coming from. I dunno, it's just so tempting.

3) France and HRE will assumably go to war...a lengthy war. If I had Bologna and didn't pay for it, had already disrupted the HRE's royal family and am allied with France...things should sit nicely for me to be able to address Milan and Sicily in the south, while the HRE wastes efforts trying to attack me while contending with France (and whoever else they wind up @ war with). Further, this would allow me to build nice relations with France so that in the longterm, war is avoidable with them until I am ready.

4) What actually is the extent of this advantage provided by having the Pope be from your faction? I understand it's not a puppet, but what exactly is the benefit of this situation?

glyphz

07-13-2008, 09:54

The one thing holding me back from starting any war right now is the total lack of intelligence. I have to get some agents moving around and see who has what and where. I know the HRE is isolated in Bologna but I really don't know how hard they'll fight to retake it (if at all) or if they would continue to attack me on principle. What I do know from the HRE is that they really can't afford to be in a full blast Italic war early..or the rest of the "empire" fractures. So I may become diplomatic with France and Denmark/Poland etc and just start a war with the HRE...and then we'll see where Milan stands on things.

I really would like to win the first papal election though. Do more churches built effect this- as in, a higher overall Christian population throughout your Kingdom raises your reputation with the Pope?

The AI in M2TW gets screwed up when a territory of their is isolated from others, especially if there is no sea connection between the main homeland, and the isolated settlement. Troops in the isolated settlement usually become very passive, as in Bologna. You might notice they'll just hole up in there and won't send any reinforcements. ( unless war is triggered with the faction that holds the settlement that separates the 2 meaning, Venice, you). If you get Bologna (by conquest or diplomacy), any troops in around Bologna will retreat back to their territory. This means they won't be gunning to get it back, but would rather take Venice 1st then Bologna . The AI likes their settlements "connected," and are probably be more willing to lose Bologna, as they can now "function" properly (no more issue of isolation). All in all this means the AI has lacking capabilities when handling separated territories :lost:(again, separated by sea does not count), though this is issue is diminished partly in certain mods. (I hope this explanation is not confusing)

Building churches may help you increase your rep with the Pope, but you do not get a chance to vote for your own cardinal unless he (or secretly she:rolleyes:) is a top 3 Preferati. This means you need your cardinal to get a lot of piety via converting, purge heretics. As Venice this means, sending your cardinal into Byzantine lands early. He should be followed by priests, who are less likely to turn heretic, if accompanied by a cardinal. As a group, they'll convert quickly. Converting quickly means your priests gain piety quickly (Battler/Enemy/Purger of Heresy), and more likely to become cardinals if seats become available. More cardinals of your own means more votes for you, cause even if you have a preferati, he has to emerge the winner first, after a voting among the cardinal occurs:gossip:, before he gets to sit in Rome

Chaotix

07-13-2008, 17:45

1. ^ what glyphz said
2. I don't think you can capture a general in a siege- all enemy troops automatically get executed, regardless of whether they routed first or not. So... it might be tough to capture the Emperor.
3. The HRE will be too poor to even pay the ransom even if you do manage to capture the Emperor- Faction Leaders go for around 15000 and the HRE starts w/ like 5000

russveld

07-16-2008, 21:05

Most definatly veice. they have amazing opportunities for profit on their capital. and they get amazing units. venitain achers are my favorite unit. they can hold their own in hand2hand for long enough for the veneians heaveys to get there. i always turtle with venice. and have never lost. and ive only been bankrupt once.

TheLastPrivate

07-19-2008, 13:26

i do love spain, but their early game is much too fast paced for me. I was just doing sicily until about turn 50, when i randomly went deep into debt in one turn (wtf???). lol, i had like, 9000 florins one turn and then the next i had -1032 or something like that lol...weird...

That's probably not caused by a single origin but make sure that the rebels/enemies are not blocking your trade roads as well. Enemy army (especially rebels) blocking road to harbor is fatal to income.

Ibn-Khaldun

07-19-2008, 20:37

That's probably not caused by a single origin but make sure that the rebels/enemies are not blocking your trade roads as well. Enemy army (especially rebels) blocking road to harbor is fatal to income.

This could be caused by plague though ...
In my Spanish campaign a long time ago the plague took my about -30k in dept :sweatdrop::wall:
That happened within just 3 turns if I remember correctly...
And that time I was fighting against almost everyone :wall:
I managed to balance the income so after the plague went away (It took more than 20 turns to get rid of it because of a single French spy who traveled between my towns:furious3:) I had the one turns income somewhere around 50-60k :beam:
To balance the income I had to disband most of my armies though:wall:

EDIT: My 400th post!!!!! :2thumbsup::birthday2::jumping: