turkish- byz or egypt?

[vlad_demstra]

Hello all,

I am not playing the turks and having a bit of trouble. I attacked the byz frist only to realize that have 3 to 4 very high generals. so my quistion really is, How should I go about starting out as the turks in early/expert. thanks.

[Revenant69]

I had similar problems when i first played Turks. Their armies seem so weak compared to the Byzantines, but after awhile Turks became my favorite faction.

Check out this thread, it has A LOT of good info on how to play turks.
Turks Help thread (http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin/forum/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=7;t=10420;hl=revenant69)

Hope this helps,
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif

Rev

[insolent1]

Well theres a great opening move the Turks can make. Its a while since I played as them so I don't have exact troop amounts so you will just have to try it out.

First turn build troops in Rum & move some of the troops to Syria & Edessa & move your sultan to Rum.
Second turn attack Anticoh with ur camel general & troops from Edessa & send the rest of troops in Syria to Tripoli, Move your Sultan & troops from Rum to Syria.
If its done properly u will capture the egyptian sultan & get a nice reward.
Egyptians will normally counterattack in syria & maybe Tripoli but they are broke & can't train any more units so push them back to Egpyt.

When fighting the byzantines I use lots of horsearchers/turcomanhorse, AHC & some camels. I use the HA&TH on the better units in their army. Once the units are down to half strength engage with your infantry & flank with AHC or keep shooting them http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
I sometimes take my time to go to war with the byzantines as they have a tendency to try & grab most of the steppe provinces & thats when I go for Constantinople which cripples the byzantines http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif

[vlad_demstra]

okay i will try this.. thank you very much.. I normaly play english.. so im trying something new. :)

[fruitfly]

I've played a fair bit as the Turks and had games where I've killed either the Byz or Egyptians first.

Taking out the Byzantines isn't that difficult provided that you're good at controlling all cavalry armies and that you head straight for Constantinople. Once they lose that they can't produce any more top-level troops which makes eradicating them much easier in the long run. Going through Trebizond on the way will get you a 2* bonus for one of your generals too, which also helps.

Turcoman horse (and horse archers) are perfect for killing the various Byzantine infantry units and kataphractoi. If you attack one with two or three coming from different directions they really don't stand a chance. Then just finish them off with an AHC charge once they're exhausted and down to half strength or less. Sending your cavalry archers on raiding missions is an effective tactic too (provided that you don't send a good general with them) as you can skirmish with the enemy, thin out their numbers and then withdraw once you run out of arrows saving your units to attack again the following year.

The Egyptians are easier to kill early on as their armies tend to be mainly peasants (plus you can trap the sultan and gain a nice florin bonus in the process), but for every turn you leave them alone the Byzantines will get much stronger.

[chilling]

I've been playing a lot of thee Turks recently.

My favourite tactic is to ignore the Byzantines and expand across north africa. I then try and make a bridgehead in Christian europe, usually in Venice or somewhere like that. Obviously I've had my ships annex the oceans as far as Gibralta. Keep attacking the Christians until the Horde turn up and distract the Byzantines. From there its a case of deciding whether to carry on in Europe or turn your attention to the Horde / Byzantines.

I found moving over to the Muslim units difficult to start with, (I usually play with the Christian factions) until I realised they were set up for all horse armies.

It helps a lot to play the Muslims though, when you come to face them in a different campaign you have a much better understanding of what their units are capable of.

[ichi]

Alternative Strategy for Turkish

Keep you armies to the minimum to keep the AI from coming after you, but don't attack the Byz or Egypt.

Make peace with everyone except Byz and Egypt.

Build up the three or four provinces that you have - focus on florin producers, upgrades for your Turcoman HA and spears, and inns. Build up a little reserve cash.

Wait until either Egypt gets hit by the Almos or the Byz get into it with the Hungarios, then rapidly expand your army and hit the distracted neighbor. Use the Turk cav archers to beat those Byz Kataphraktoi or Egyptian Camels.

Keep expanding until they are down to one province. Leave them there with a few stacks, but strapped for cash, as a buffer 'twen you and the army on the other side of them (my last game I was in The Sinai, Egypt was in Egypt, and the Almos were in Cyrenacea.

Then turn your attentions to the other faction (Byz if you hit Egypt, Egypt if you hit the Byz). Try to get chokepoints in Georgia (or Khazar), Egypt (or Sinai or Cyrenacia) and Constantinople.

Hold up, regroup, build up. Get your navy beefed up. Take Crete and Cyprus. From here you can go anywhere.

ichi