Playing italian

[middy]

I am playing the italians.. and are trapped between other catholic states.. How do I exspand?, and what about the pope should I leave him alone?

[solypsist]

you can attack your neighbors; the Pope will threaten, but as long as you're not laying siege within the two years you'll be okay.
you can also crusade over to foreign lands and settle there.

[jayrock]

your gonna have to war with your neighbors and claim their territory, sometimes they'll go rebel on the ai, and you can claim rebel lands without a penalty of war with neighbors if the rebels control the provence and the fort.

as for the pope, if you attack him, he'll excommunicate you so fast your head will spin. you can defend against the pope if he attacks you without getting excommunicated though.

i was lucky last time i played italians, the germans had a massive revolt, and i scooped up about 3 provences very early..

[Basileus]

Get your navy up runnig, and with all the cash you can go evry where you want with crusades or with regular stacks of troops..;)

[Monk]

as a Vet with the Italians i can help u out. dont go for immediate expansion wait for a good 20-30 years. in that time build a good strong economy and millitary. after about 20 turns the HRE is almost always Excomed. then u will be able to attack them and get some new lands. also Naval forces shouldnt be ignored either, creating a trade route all along the Itallian Penisilar and toward the West near spain will bring u wealth. you can attack the spainish if u feal like it. or you could build alote of ships and go way down south to attack the Almos. Dont go all out trying to take on the Spanish AND the HRE at one time. fighting on two fronts is a very bad idea (trust me http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif )

those are just some ideas http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Odyssey of War]

Also a veteran playing the italians. Take out the sicilians as soon as possible, they can wreak havoc with you navy and trade routes, and sicily adds some great trade and wealth. Just attack some ships each turn and stop when the pope threatens you, while adding more and more ships to the waters off sicily when you are waiting the requisite ten years. Eventually you should be able to take the sicilians out. Malta falls easily after sicily falls. Stay at peace with the HRE for a long while if you can, your provinces all border the HREs and it is hard to defend all three provinces while fighting north. Go by sea and attack either the spanish, alhomads, or byzantines. The egyptians and turkish help to keep the byzantines and alhomads and spanish in check and you can get a lot of trade from them. I would advise going after the spanish first since they always seem busy with the alhomads or egyptians and have some very good provinces. Just be careful in that you will need large armies to garrison the provinces for a while until they are fully under your control. Then you can push either north or south from spain.

[Lord Romulous]

my advice for expanding would be to build a large invasion force. and try and take the pope and sicily all in one go.
(all in one turn probably wont be possible but as quickly as you can. maybe 5 years or something.)

after you have captured sicily's provinces abandon the popes lands. its not worth it to hold on to rome or the papal states because the pope will return with some nice powerful stacks in a short while. and battling those can be a pain the ass as far as attrition to your armies is concerned.


sicily is nice because they have two or three good trading provences + they are out on a penisula so you dont have to worry as much about defending the provences from attack.

[LadyAnn]

Am playing Italian right now, so I throw in my redundant ideas too:

1. have a constant harassment policy toward Sicily. They have same policy, so do it. I attack their ships every 12 years, taking out as many as I could. In the same year I attack their ship, I also invade Sicily. When Pope asked to cease and desist, I just withdraw and stop any attack.

2. Watch my Doge's age. When he is over or perhaps near 60, he becomes a bad catholic http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif I also watch the Pope's age.
First target is Sicily.

3. Be ready to grab land from excommunicated factions.

4. Otherwise, just happily go on cruise ship... Crusade Currently, am leaving those Byzantines, Turks and Egypts alone, they are good customers of my merchants. Crusade over Finland is fun, crusade against excomm factions is even better. Just make a circuitous path through Germany and Hungary as much as possible. Suck them dry. It worths the 1000 florins you used to create the crusade.

Annie

[Brutal DLX]

Hi

Also playing Italians at the moment.
As for strategy tips, I would say it depends on whether you play GA or total domination.
However, I do play GA, and thus I am not overly concerned with expansion. I leave the Pope alone, as well as the Sicilians, so far they haven't attacked me and it's 1212-ish.
Built a trading fleet, almost all sea zones covered now. Established outposts in Norway, Antioch (crusade goal accomplished, kills two birds with one stone), Crete (another homeland province to take) and will look to add Portugal. After that I'll just tech up and try to keep the dominating factions in check. I prefer "smooth sailing" to endless minor border skirmishes. You can add command to your generals by crushing rebels, I'm helping out the HRE often when one of their provinces is besieged by France, plus you can give office titles to generals. At the moment I have just two good generals, two 5 stars, and those are in command of my only two armies, the rest are just garrison forces. I'm pretty safe since they can hardly attack my main pronvinces considering I have my coasts protected.

Well, I shall see how it plays out...

[A.Saturnus]

I`m for taking out the Sicilians. Their fleet can be pretty nasty later when they attack you, so better elilinate them early. Sometimes they attack the Pope. Use this opportunity If you build trade routes as you should, you get filthy rich very soon and you can buy some provinces that are usefull, like Sweden.
As a tactical tip, rely on Italian inf. They are the best spearmen unit around and you can have them in early.

[Syterion]

I'm playing the Italians for the first time, and I hate their generals. They are all 5 star at best I'm spoiled by the Byzantines, they have great generals. Once I had 3 9-star at once

Anyway, I always take sicily, then attack the Turkish or Egyptians and try to take Antiopch or Tripoli before they are too heavily defended. If you build a chain of ships as fast as you can, you can get their pretty fast and get those great provinces.

[Red Harvest]

My approach is much like others have stated:

1. Focus on your economy for a few years. Get 4 acumen governors installed in all the best money making provinces (and you will get more acumen feathers from making them governors.) For the first 20-30 years, build as few units as you can to keep folks off your back (and to find good governors). Do the first 20% farming upgrade early (since in addition to money the horsefarmer or breeder gives you mounted crossbowmen.) Get trading posts and ports in all trading provinces. Establish trade where you can without starting a war.
2. Build up military buildings as time allows. Get the basics and then build churches in each province (for unit morale). The goal is to proceed toward Italian infantry & feudal knights but that will take far longer than you want. Set up a province to build siege engines.
3. Now coordinate an attack vs. Sicily. Depending on how things went, you will probably be landing in Naples first, but you need to have serious naval might to sweep the sea lanes--kill *all sicilian ships* in one massive blow, wherever they might be. On the next turn hammer at least two of the three provinces, collect your "warning" from the pope. On the following turn, use your siege engines and large army to takeout the defenders. Most likely, you won't be able to get all 3 in the time allowed by the pope, and the Sicilians spread their heirs around so you probably can't kill them off this time. So make sure you take out any provinces that have lost their port that you cannot escape from. Withdraw from others if needed so as not to get excommunicated.
4. Build up for ten years during the pope's "timeout," then finish the Sicilians.

After that, you should have pretty good units available, with good armor, metalsmith in Tuscany, Italian infantry/feudal knights becoming available soon if you've kept building in full swing. You can pretty much make your own course after that. My Italian heirs and generals are all a bunch of inbred freaks with little command (starting with the initial king) so I hammered the Egyptians and waited for the HRE to play bully against me...

[Foreign Devil]

One thing to do is this- watch the age of the Pope carefully. When he starts getting old, attack the Sicilians. This will probably get you excommunicated, but you want that. After you've delt with them, seize the Papal States. If you invade with a large enough force, the Pope will retreat back to Rome. If you timed this correctly, the Pope should die within the next few years, and your excommunication should be revoked.

This way, you will have eliminated the pesky Sicilians, and you will have contained the Pope in Rome. His income will now either be very small or in the red, and he will no longer be a threat.

[Leet Eriksson]

don't forget the italians get some powerful UUs like the Italian Light Infantry(superior spearmen,good against saracen and ordinary seargants,can fare well against Chivs too)and firegalleys(aside from byz they are the only faction that can get them).

[Foreign Devil]

And don't forget Gothic Knights. Oh, and Tuscany has Iron deposits. A good place to build your Gothics http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

The Italians can also build Mounted Crossbowmen. I once fought off 2-300 papacy troops with one unit of these guys. Targeted thier Royal Knights, killed 7 or 8, and the whole army just turned around and marched right off the map. They didn't run away, they marched. Very wierd....

[Kristaps]

When playing Italians, I just take the Pope out first. With him not around: there are no excommunications http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif An added bonus: keep a reasonable assortment of italian light infantry handy and defend against the returning Pope. Helps to raise the stars of your generals and the valor of your infantry. At times my Roman garrison, takes out up to two thousand Popists with less than 100 in losses (someone mentioned attrition when fighting returning Pope...). BTW, the Pope usually returns with tons of knights and those are no match for italian light infantry regiments from Tuscany http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Good luck, general

[Monk]

Foreign_Devil, ive had the same experience. once an army of 950 Turks invaded my province with only 600 men in a mix of unit types. all i could do was laugh when instede of charging me they turned around and marched right off the map. (i would have easily lost had they fought me)

[HopAlongBunny]

The Italians are a fun faction http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Middle position makes everyone sooo interesting as neighbours

Present game, only alliances that have held longer than 2 turns have all been with Orthodox factions; alas they are now at the doors to Venice, so that will probably change http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

I'm playing a passive GA game (the Spanish FORCED me to take the pennisula...honest) With a zeal of 100% in my best provinces war has been my constant companion; no way anyone is going to march through Tuscany and take all my pretty troops Yes That's it War shall be your companion and opportunity your unfailing guide. Get thee hence and conquer the WORLD http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif