Turks: Strategy help needed

[invalidopcode]

After conquering the world in expert mode/early age as the Danes, Spanish, Polish, Almohads and Egyptians, I decided to give the Turks a whirl. What a pleasant suprise to actually have my butt handed to me a couple of games.

My problem is, if I go after egypt, the byzantines come after me. If I go after the byzantines, eqypt breaks the truce and comes after me. Throw in the crusades and it is WWF battle royale every year And, to top it all off, all of this fighting eventually wears down my feeble economy until I cannot support advanced troops and inevitably I lose... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/angry.gif

Can anybody offer any strategy (and/or some battle tactics) that they have found useful with the Turks?

[solypsist]

it is for just this reason I've avoided playing the SP as the Turks. I assume you're playing an Early game. Parhaps try a later period with them, see if you can do it, then go back and do an Early game if you feel so inclined.

[ShadesWolf]

First a couple of questions

What level are you playing on ?

What Era are you playing on ?

Generally dont attack either, capture all the rebel provinces first, then send an emissary out and capture a few more. What for the AI to make a mistake as the Byzantines and then attack. If you can manage to attack constantinople and destroy all the buildings, then they will be no danger to you.

Make sure you build Inns, they are a cheap and easy way yo create a army.

[Cooperman]

In the early period patience is the key to playing as the turks.
You need to wait for the byzantines to commit their forces to conquering in the balkans or russia then try and grab a few of their provinces in turkey. They wont have the military to fight a war on 2 fronts and it should be relatively simple to defeat them.
As the turks mobility is the key the byzantines have slow heavily armoured units so try and use horse archers to wear them down use saracen infantry to hold the center and some ghazi infantry to tear them apart from the flanks.
You need to watch out for the Egyptians though, the first sign of weakness on your border with them and they will attack so keep a strong force on that border to deter them.

[Efrem Da King]

You can always cheat http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif .

[Tyrac]

Do you auto resolve battles or do you command them personally? With personal battles you should be able to win unless the odds are just horrendously against you. My very first game was Turks Expert. I did not expect to win... But I did I do nto really remember the tactics I used other then I hit hard and fast and used my Sultan in battle alot. Not much can stop those body guards at the start of early. Get a few wins for the Sultan vs rebles etc and it just snowballs from there.

[Xicote]

Quote[/b] ]the byzantines have slow heavily armoured units so try and use horse archers to wear them down

Yes. Always ALWAYS use Horse Archers. If you go against Egypt they are great against Nubian Spearmen. Up against Byzantines, use Skirmish tactics against their Byz Infantry.
Horse archers are the key to success with the Turks In my Opinion.

[ShadesWolf]

This tactic will only work against a SP gamer....

You try this against somebody online and they will wipe the floor with you......

Byzan's are the most powerful unit in early, as long as they are used correctly

[Basileus]

Speed i sthe key, use turcoman horse, turco man foot soldiers and armenien cavalary and spear men and your set in the early era..hit fast on byz and use mercs if your able to take constantinople on the 3-5th turn then your set..defend and go after antioch and tripoli grab the money making provinces of egypt..

[Sainika]

I play now as Turkey (early, Expert). By the 1320 I have the half of the map, exceptional armies and 700 000 florins cash (even after 150 years of permanent wars). As it was said before, patience is the key to win.
My strategy was to get an alliance with Egyptians and after several years of training and building go to war with Byzantine. The main reason - reach Nicea. I waited until Byzantine moved its armies to Europe (Serbia, Croatia) and conqered Trebizond, then - Anatolia and Nicea. Then I stopped to defend my new lands and to make peace with Byzantine. And so on.
Try not to begin war with Egyptians as they are much more dangerous than Byz.
My typical winning turkish army (in early) consists of 4-6 units of saracen inf., 2-3 units of Horse archers, 2 units of ghazi, muwahids and Armenian Heavy Cavalry. Almost all battles I played without autoresolves.
After that I begin to build income-giving buildings and farm upgrades. And only after this preparing I began to war with Egyptians. Next steps of conquest were easy to make and turkish empire prospers.

[Lord of the Isles]

I've been trying a different strategy with Turkey in Early than that discussed above. It's sort of a mirror version of the "Byzantine Blitz", where the Byzantine player attacks Turkey early on in an effort to take and pillage their main troop producing province in Rum. I've two successes with it, but three other games where I gave up after 20 years with awful positions. All games played on Expert.

The first success was unfortunately carried out early one morning under the influence of too much beer, and I can no longer remember how I managed it. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif The most recent one is still in my memory however, as are the losses.

The losses persuaded me that the major problem with this plan was allowing the Byzantine to retreat away from attacks on Georgia, Trebizond, Lesser Armenia and perhaps Anatolia. This gets the Turk lots of provinces but by this time Byzantium has two big armies in Nicea and Constantinople. He counterattacks with at least 1000 men including say 2 Kataphraktoi, 3 Byz Infantry and the Varangian Guard and you are mincemeat if you don't retreat yourself. Spearmen and Horse Archers are no match for them (unless you outnumber them at least 2 or better 3-1). You have to give back your provinces and Egypt is still sitting there ready to pounce on you soon.

The trick to making this early attack work is to split Byzantine forces and make them fight you often enough that their total number is reduced. In the first year Syria got a garrison of two peasants and Edessa got a spearman unit and one Horse Archers. Everything else gets moved to Rum and Armenia. Meanwhile Rum built Towers while the rest start a 20% farming improvement. It might have been better to start Rum on getting the spear building for Saracens/Muwahids but the plan was to reach Constantinople before they are available. Rum builds spearmen (and for many years to come, with a few Horse Archers when time allows). The Emissary goes to Lesser Armenia and then to get an alliance with the Egyptian Sultan in Antioch.

In year two I invaded Trebizond. The small army there retreated to Georgia: success Next year I attack Georgia with two units each of Horse Archers, Spearmen, Desert Archers and Camels. The Byz have five units: 1 Kataphraktoi, 1 Byz Inf, 2 Trebizond Archers and one Alain Merc Cav. I lost quite a few dead but the Kats held back on a hill to begin with, allowing me to rout the rest, before they charged. Camels and spears did for them.

That was a key loss for the Byzantine Empire, for it meant the next big battle (in Nicea I think) saw them with fewer quality units and Turkish numbers carried the day. I was able to take Constantinople and build up its garrison before any Crusades arrived and before Egypt decided to break the Alliance (which it *will* do sometime but not perhaps as soon as it should). By the time the wars with Crusaders and Egypt arrived, I was producing Saracens in Rum, Desert Archers in Syria and Armenian Heavy Cavalry in Armenia.

None of this would work against humans of course. The Byz AI retreats sometimes when it should fight, then attacks the next year, allowing you to be the defender. And a human Egypt would break the alliance earlier than I've seen the AI doing. But it works (sometimes) for me.

[Alrowan]

north is the key... bribe armies in khazzar and vrimea, expand up there, and remain peaceful with egypt and byz

[Putchuco]

Hm, interesting...

and I was complaining to myself how easy the Turks are

I started Turks on Expert/Early (no cheating),
stayed at peace with the Byz (they actually scared me...),
attacked the Egypt right away and never gave them time to recover (constant attacks&#33http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
Horse Archer and later Turcoman Horse helped a lot, hehe.
Can't count the number of attacks where I chased egyptian
(and later Byz) armies with no defense to my horse archers.

It's now 1140 and I captured:
- All of North Africa
- everything south east of Serbia through the Balkan up to Volga-Bulgaria (or so)
- all islands in the eastern med sea
- destroyed Egypts (~1100), Byz(~1125), Hungarians (~1135)
- defended one (really) weak German crusade
(a second by Spain is on it's way...)

Might sound cocky, but this game is actually very easy,
I'm guessing now because of the rather successful way I'm
using the Horse Archers:
- circle infantry and hail them with arrows
- run down separate archer infantry
- circle (slower) med-heavy cav's
(can't tell you how cruel a 'fight' with 3 units
of horse archers against 1 unit of Treb. Archer +
1 unit of Kataphr. (Byz) was, they never had the
slightest chance,
I lost three guys through friendly fire...)
- lure fast cav (saharan or steppe) into your own
spear units (I tried horse archers there too,
but got my posterior kicked...)
- (as mentioned in the other posts here)
get mercs as often as possible
I actually buy them right before a big campaign,
use (abuse...) them heavily and disband as soon
as I have to slow down to secure the conquered lands.

[Leet Eriksson]

Mobility is the key son,turks don't fare well head on cuzz of the bad armour.also i'd rely on most of the posts above.one last thing,there are alot of turk threads i bet if you did some searching in the forums you'll find em.

[Cousin Zoidfarb]

I use this trick with all factions. Don't overextend yourself. Sometimes razing a captured province and leaving it to rebel gives you income and acts as a buffer and if the enemy recaptures it they will have to reinvest into it and tax their resources.

[Odyssey of War]

Horse Archer strategy works well with one major flaw, it will work if you have unlimited ammo or have raised the unit ammo stats. For those people that play with limited ammo, this strategy is very hard to implement in my opinion. Try using horse archers to inflict damage until they run out of ammo, then retreat them and bring in infantry and some lightly armored knights to take on the egyptians. If you do go to war with Egypt, I agree with above in that you should keep hitting them, otherwise they recover too quickly. Going north to novogrod is a very good strategy and keeps you out of the way of the byzantines early on. Eventually you will have to attack them. Try taking their islands and destroy their ships, the byzantines actually have some very good unit building provinces on their islands which they use for support.

[Putchuco]

Odyssey of War:
I don't necessarily agree on the unlimited ammo issue,
because I do play w/ limited ammo and the horse archers
are still kicking b*tt.
Fairly good archers, fast on the horses,
can evade everybody and tire them on 'fire&retreat'.
The Turcoman Horse are even better, because they
have some Melee strength and can actually attack
unguarded enemy archers, or even other units
if attacking from all sides...

I agree that the horse archers should be the first wave,
decimating the enemy, before you bring in the infantry
(I actually build some kind
of defense post with my infantry and let the horse archers
go to the enemy and hail them with arrows all the way
until they find my main army).
Sometimes the AI is so fed up and tired (I guess)
with my horse archers that its units just sit there
(exhausted?) and get mowed down...

[invalidopcode]

Thanks for all the great information. It has helped a lot.

The Eqyptians are no more. The Byzantines have been pushed out past Istanbul (not Constantinople&#33http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif. The Golden Horde have been held in check at the outskirts of the realm. I absorbed two Crusades - one by the French and one by the Spanish. There was much rejoicing...

Now it's time to recover the economy and get serious about a navy.

[Bob the Insane]

My final break through for getting the Turks started right (on early) is to get rid of either the Egyptians or the Byz, one has to go. But be aware, your islamic brothers in Egypt will attack you at some point, as you are clearly in a worse postion than the Almohads and are thus the logical direction for their expansion. The Byz will not automatically attack you (though they may).

Thus the pushing the Egyptians back to Egypt itself and leave them there. One bonus to this is that there will be no religious issues in your expansion. Now you have the cashflow required to start on the Byz. Three things to remember, keep an eye on the Egyptians, try and stay allied to the Almohads and remember that the Byz are the strongest and fastest expanding faction left in the game.

Oh, and keep your eyes peeled for the crusades..

[Praylak]

I’ve played the Turks many times, and I’m always impressed how different my games turn out. For the most part, I like to play as already suggested and I think it’s a great strategy. From the Early period, be patient and wait for the AI to make a mistake. You start with some potentially rich provinces so I build them up and get some of the better than basic troop production in action.

It depends on which of my two neighbors fairs the worst, but the crusades do to some extent keep Egypt busy. Byzantium is also busy conquering northward. So I tend to concentrate on getting my home provinces well developed.

I don’t agree with taking Kazar, because keep in my mind this province is one of a possible few that the Mongols will enter in 1230. I also make it priority to make at least a citadel in Armenia, because sometimes the Horde enters there. In my last game, I could not find a suitable opportunity to attack either until the Horde arrived. Yes, I spent the whole 120 years just building up. Still there was lots of fighting off crusades. By the time the horde arrived I had very developed provinces and good quality armies ready. I now had two ways to move. Egypt was fighting crusades from every direction, Spain, France and the Germans were sending them like greeting cards. Byzantium was now fighting both the Italians and the Horde. In just a few years, all neighboring border garrisons dwindled and all were ripe for attack.

The rest is elementary. I opened up two fronts and all fell before my armies. It was an unusual but very fun game.

[Kristaps]

To Praylak: and just how did you survive as Turkish 120 years just holding on to your existing Early provinces? None of those have sea access with significant trade income. This means you should have practically no army to defend in the case either Byzantines or Egytians attacked. Just wondering...

[burma_mtw]

Constantinople and Nicea can be picked up and held quickly in the Early Period. Constantinople has great trade and buildings. The Province on the South shore of the Black Sea (starts with "Tri") is a magnet for attacks so you may want to leave it alone for awhile.

Part of this technique is to move West to avoid dealing with the Mongels when they show up (AD 1230).

One of the first moves is to abandon Lessor Armenia (maybe it is a different Province) to trigger a revolt. The rebels act as a blocking force to keep the Egyptians off you back and reduce their forces.

Anyway, once you have Constantinople you are pretty much set. Build enough units to keep people off your back first. Next, get your trade going. Do you routes to the West first as the Egyptians will be your first target.

No need to attack the Egyptians until they come after you which is usually early anyway. Once they do, don't stop until they are eliminated. You shouldn't have to go any farther then Crynecia for the time being.

By the time the Mongels show up, you should control everything to the East of Constantinople with one possible exception. Georgia seems to fall whether you or the Byzies control it. Probably easier if you own it (you can retreat to the South and SW) but I like to see the Byzies get run over by 48-64 Units of Mongels.

While the Hoarde is doing its thing, you can head West to eat up whomever owns Spain. Constantinople (and maybe Greece) will keep anybody from bothering you from anywhere in Europe. With Spain in hand with all its Metalsmiths you can build up for awhile and start taking over the map about AD 1300. Blocking at Navarre and the country next to it, moving up the East side of the map, and then sweeping West works for me.

There are lots of ways to win, this is just one alternative. This Control the Seas, Turtle, semi-Turtle works for the Danes, English, Turks, Egyptians, Almohads, and Spanish. Maybe it works for others but I haven't tried. It is probably not as much fun as being territory agressive because you don't fight as many battles and they aren't that tough. It is just me being conservative. I like to have lots of money and big powerful armies.

For me, playing the Turks is the most fun because you get such great troops and more different types. With the Metalsmith upgrades and 7-8 Star Generals, nobody really has a chance. Jannisary Units are animals.

Forgot to mention two things. Sweeden (and Norway a little later) is good to pick up early. Bribe your way into Sweeden but put enough troops there to discourage the Danes who get a little miffed with you in their territory and they have lots of Royal Knights. Sweeden is a gold mine. Lastly, using this approach, bribe a lot but only rebels until later in the game. Your massive trade routes generate lots of money. If Italy or the Byzzies get lookj to be getting too powerful, cut their trade routes. The sudden loss of income will usually trigger a Civil war. The AI's don't tend to build large war chests.

Just my opinions...I could be wrong.