Playing as the Turks - a fxxxing nightmare!

[Tigger]

I recently started a new campaign as the Turks in the late era (with Wes W's latest mod 1.84) and I've had nothing but trouble from the word go.

I quite quickly took Constantinpole & Nicacea from The Byzantines and managed to hold these. Straight away though I am invaded in Antioch by Egypt followed in the same area in quick succession by crusades from France, Italy, Aragon and Spain, Oh and then the Sicillians started sinking my remaining ships Plus no one will ally with me http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif

What the fxxk???

I Know when you get very powerful no one likes you but this is ridiculous, I've only been playing 17 years I'm now hanging on for grim life not getting anywhere.

Anyone else had a similarly unfair experience???

btw If you play the new Wes mod watch out for Crusades as they are now very scary with around 8-10 very high level knight units (too powerful in my view)

[Dr_No]

indeed the turks can be a tough one to play as.. i really like the diversity of troops they get- adds for some great role play

i'm playing exactly the same campaign as you with the mod - i found the key to be to ally with the byzantines early, take lesser armernia straight away and the other rebel territory- build up your troops and take out the egyptians relatively early... (i found the byzantines tough suckers that never seem to die early in the game- everytime i attacked them i got sandwiched between them and the egyptians)..

i took palestine and antioch with big armies and then retreated straight after, launched two jihads to get them back with loads of free troops and took out the cream of their warriors- bonus here gives you loads of GA points. if you can get some ghazi's early you can rip through those nubians like a hot knife through butter.. the egyptians often have their troops in all the wrong places to really strike back for a couple of turns during which you can normally consolidate... don't worry about retreating as the handy jihad means you'll comeback more stronger than they can ever imagine http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

i find the siphae and horse archers a great combination for puling the ranks in every direction, and muhuwids for the camel warriors..

i left the byzantines until i had marched up to cairo and then started pumping out ships for the trade money.. i found that as soon as i had taken out the egyptians i had to garrison nicea and rum heavily against those crusaders- you're right they are really powerful now but seem to play more in character(?)- ie the cavalry often gets seperated by from the infantry and charges uphill only to get whipped by my boys and then charged in the side by the siphae... fortunately you mainly defend against these most of Turkey seems to have good hills to defend from..

i waited for the byzatines to expand north and west before i took trebizond (three stacks from the adjoining territories) and georgia (one stack from armenia)in the same turn, and straight to constantinople. you've got to fight these yourselves as the byzantines have pretty amazing cavalry and infantry- make sure you've got loads of ghazi and ottoamns (for the AP) turcoman foots, mahawids (for holding the enemy in place), and turcoman horse (for tiring out the kats)- watch out for the Alan Cavalry.. i normally try and get a ship in the black sea as well so they can't launch amphibious counters.

once you start kicking butt you'll find ceasefires and alliances easy - and when the jannie's turn up watch those infidels burn

in case things are getting really tough i think the WesW mod allows you to build spies quickly which can be a good way to distract whoever you're about to attack

and btw the sicilians seem to attack everyone's ships all the time....

and if you thought the crusades were bad- watch out for the mongols http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

good luck
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wacko.gif

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif I like your name, Dr_No.

[Dr_No]

thank you Big King Sanctaphrax

tell me - are you the king of a city made of floating rock? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

dr_no

[Tigger]

Thanks Dr No for your very informative response, what you say makes sense especially as when you take Constantinople everyone else seems to get jealous and try their damnest to smash you to pieces I am as they say right now stuck between a rock and a hard place

might have to begin that campaign again, and the computer says playing the turks is easy

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

[eXistenZi]

Quote[/b] (Tigger @ April 23 2003,07:45)]I recently started a new campaign as the Turks in the late era (with Wes W's latest mod 1.84) and I've had nothing but trouble from the word go.

I quite quickly took Constantinpole & Nicacea from The Byzantines and managed to hold these. Straight away though I am invaded in Antioch by Egypt followed in the same area in quick succession by crusades from France, Italy, Aragon and Spain, Oh and then the Sicillians started sinking my remaining ships Plus no one will ally with me http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif

What the fxxk???

I Know when you get very powerful no one likes you but this is ridiculous, I've only been playing 17 years I'm now hanging on for grim life not getting anywhere.

Anyone else had a similarly unfair experience???

btw If you play the new Wes mod watch out for Crusades as they are now very scary with around 8-10 very high level knight units (too powerful in my view)
LOL I just tried the Turks last night on Late and the same thing happened to me (Germany was the one that launched a crusade)

What a pain http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif (Turkey is rated as "Easy" though in late period heh)

But they have some great units (Ghazis sp?, and Armenian Heavy Cav which I just love)

[Alrowan]

ive never had any probs with turks on expert

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

Quote[/b] (Dr_No @ April 23 2003,09:14)]thank you Big King Sanctaphrax

tell me - are you the king of a city made of floating rock? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

dr_no
No-but that would be extremely cool.

[Daevyll]

Turks are perhaps the most difficult faction to play on early.

The best way of dealing with the Byzantines is to occupy Trebizond with a large force, and then wait until the Byzantines leave Byzantium with only a weak garrison. Somehow they always seem to draw more troops away from there than they should, and you can take advantage of it.

Once you control Byzantium, you can mop up the Byzantine presence to the east of it.
After that you can either deal with the western part of the Byzantine empire, or wipe out Egypt to the south.

As for Turkish troops, Saracen Infantry are your best bet early on, supported by Ottoman Infantry.

Later on you get some of the most fantastic troops in the game (in my opinion at least), a nice full stack of Janissaries had broken the back of many a crusade in my games http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Tigger]

Quote[/b] (Dr_No @ April 23 2003,08:23)]and if you thought the crusades were bad- watch out for the mongols http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif
Thanks Dr No took your advice and i've had much more success with subduing Egypt first of all.

Jihads are blooming marvellous It's great, invade, retreat, send in a Jihad with free top quality troops I'm jihading everywhere now http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Am currently wrestling with Golden Horde (who quickly wiped out the Byzantines&#33http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif over Constantinople. My those boys are hard. Two units of armenian cavalry and one sipahi of the porte were butchered by the Mongul heavy cavalry who seem to have been maxed up with the Mod

Mind you they didn't reckon on finding four units of Janissary Infantry in the woods http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif heh heh

[ShadesWolf]

I am currently in the process of writing my SP campaign for the Turks.....

My plan is as follows
- High
- Early
- Late.

The High is the story of Sultan Aybak and is almost complete for part one. Which I have entitled the Byzan Wars.

I have also started (game wise) the Early campaign, and have eliminated the Egyptians.

I will keep you informed of my findings http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[Dr_No]

Glad to hear things are going better Tigger http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

am stilll on the same campaign (i'm a slow player and try to play most of the battles which means it takes three hours to play a turnr at the moment http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif )

Manged to cover most of eastern europe up to Poland, and the top half of Italy with green.. (strange warm feeling as venice fell).. now in a fight for western european domination with the only other super power- Spain.. fully upgraded knights of santiago and Lancers seem to be on par with Mongol Heavy Cavalry, and they somewhow took back venice -- launched a jihad from hungary (with metalsmith and armourer upgrades) and was pleasantly suprised to get a whole stack of jannies, hashinin and ghazi's- all with weapon and armour upgrades

(mental note for next time- attack the iberian peninsula early.. and get as many iron producing regions as possible)

The Mongols had swept into northern europe in blaze of fire and destruction pillaging as they went- but now seemed to have started nation building which is good news for the rest of us..


ShadesWolf- my current Sultan is Ayabek III, keen to know how yours is doing http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[ShadesWolf]

DR NO http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Aybak II is doing well
He has seen off the Byzantines and is now engaged in a long, hard and drawn out conflict with the Horde.

I think he has got over the worst of it, and can see the light at the end of the tunnel

I have the pages of his next few years ready to up load onto my web site, but just havent had time to do it. I will try to get it done over the new few days. FINGERS CROSSED

[Tigger]

Yeah Dr No, still going strong. Have got all of north Africa now and pushing into Eastern Europe. It was enjoyable fighting the horde who always give a good fight my only problem now is that I'm a bit short of cash as throughout my campaign catholic nations have been keen to atack my ships and ruin my trade routes.

I now more or less have sea dominance but not many people to trade with so am trying to sit tight and see if I can reduce the number of enemies to boost trade income. Strange how sometimes you can be at war with someone for ages (the french and not just sea battles) and then suddenly you aren't at war any more?? Odd but handy nevertheless.

What I particualarly like are the large numbers of Mega Crusader rebel armies that keep popping up - great for bribes with lots of heavy knights http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[SmokWawelski]

I think that the manual says that Turks on Late are easy, because the crusades are not used that often as during Early or High.... Of course, what do they know....