imperial game

[Zhuge_Liang]

choose sicilians and get ready for taking so many ships as possible, conquest this lands by your naval forces:
naples
venice
egypt
antioch
tripoly
constantinople
cordoba
portugal
flanders
greece
novgorod
norway

take this lands, dont take Rome and build trademarket on which one province, ally with all you can and take all the seas of the world, build lots on all your cities and take elite units, you will earn near 2000 on which province and even 4000 on provinces as antioch, be sure you have ships on all your seas and then you will be rich, but dont enter on war with no one or you wont be able to trade with the faction you are figthing
have fun

[Crash]

I agree, but you can take Rome as long you leave the Papal States alone. I just like to have Rome for my capital, and it has a nice castle as well as some other buildings that the Pope left there for me.
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[HopAlongBunny]

Good advice http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-yes.gif

[lancer63]

Ok. I understand you just listed the most trade profitable provinces of the game. And I agree they can make you a very wealthy prince.
What I don't see is how you can achieve to have all those provinces without going to war with more than half the provinces of the game, keep from getting x commed and keep the former owners from reclaiming their land without investing a fortune in your armies first. Plus your trade lanes will be worth what my cat buried yesterday, when an enemy ship enters your trade routes. It simply short circuits the whole system and creates trading havoc.
I don't try to critizice. I really wanna know how you can turn 'Imperial' cause I've tried it before but, either end up getting me arse kicked all over the map or have to use the money cheat to avoid economic collapse. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-glasses2.gif

[RZST]

assasins my friend :) thats the only way to deal with xcoms and annoying kings/princes.

[Nowake]

Quote[/b] (Crash @ Mar. 18 2004,01:34)]I agree, but you can take Rome as long you leave the Papal States alone. I just like to have Rome for my capital, and it has a nice castle as well as some other buildings that the Pope left there for me.
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif
I was about to say the same thing. Indeed, I always take Rome and let the Pope rot in the Papal States http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif If he doesn't have the inspiration of excommunicating me and then I chop his head off.

[Zhuge_Liang]

oh you will have to take that provinces by force, but you will have to ally them after take that provinces
i does never take Rome because all your provinces will end with all the buildings done and i dont want to spend my money to protect that city which done give me more than 250
you can take the lands of a faction by rebellions, but that is too slow and you must take all that provinces quicly
i have to say you can only trade with other provinces with port, coast provinces without port wont trade with you, so dont attack them

[son of spam]

erm...

What difficulty level do you play at?

I find that on expert and even on hard the comp will very very rarely accept a ceasefire (much less an alliance) unless they are almost wiped out.

Thus, after your land grabbing spree, like lancer said, you'll get your arse kicked by the very angry former owners.

Not to mention the crusades you'll certainly be getting after you get excommed for attacking Italy.

You do have a good point though: those are the richest trade provinces, but when you have the power to take them all (or even 3/4 of them), you might as well just kill everyone else and win the game.

[gaijinalways]

Yes, what level are you playing on? Assasins and spies are nice, but at certain levels (expert) it is much more difficult to take things over without starting a war which kills some of the trade income.

[katank]

yep, impossible to manage diplomatically.

I don't find them willing to accept anything except for auto ceasefiring when I move out of sieging their last province.

I've never gotten any ceasefires diplomatically even if they are on the verge of extinction which I found stupid. I usually end up wiping them out just to avoid the trouble and all those nice trade provinces never even get developed for trade if you have them all as you are going to be fighting the world and winning by that time.

[Mablung]

There is a similar thread over at totalwar.com http://pub133.ezboard.com/fshogun....0.topic (http://pub133.ezboard.com/fshoguntotalwarfrm5.showMessage?topicID=12590.topic) this lists all the most profitable provinces by popular opinion. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-2thumbsup.gif