Help please

[nightcrawlerblue]

Ok, I'm playing as the Spanish and I've captured most of the French and all of the Almohads. I conquered most of the French but suddenly BAM I got excommunicated and everyone suddenly went to war with me. At first i didn't realize it so it was a horrific surprise. The Aragonese, who i've had an alliance with since the beginning, attack one of my provinces and take it easily. On of my best provinces (for some reason) revolts even though its loyalty was like 150. My armies are costing too much to mantain with the sudden loss of provinces I was winning this game but it suddenly changed direction so fast I am afraid the Aragonese will take my main provinces and then I'll be done for. Can anyone give me advice?

I'll put some screenshots up later if you guys want.

[Doug-Thompson]

Didn't you get a warning from the Pope?

[son of spam]

Ouch, sounds like you had a bad run of luck.

I suggest that you reload to before your best province (castile? any of your spanish homelands?) rebelled and lower taxes like mad. Also, letting the Aragonese take a province might not be that bad, as long as they don't have enough troops to stop a revolt. A cheap tactic to stop the Aragonese from taking your province is to get a nice fast jinete and run it around until the time limit expires. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

Use assassins to kill the pope ASAP so you can get un-excommed.

Use your armies to crush the aragonese. If both armies are far away, then use your french army (your armies in france) to kill the aragonese and your almo army to ensure loyalty.

Other than that, I don't know what else to recommend. Tough luck http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif

Screenies would be nice.

[nightcrawlerblue]

Hmm my webspace doesn't seem to want to work. I'll try to get those pics up ASAP.

EDIT: I got them working.

Pic #1: French armies (http://members.cox.net/ben_pt/images/mtw/MTW1.jpg)
I got the French almost gone but I have to keep those armies around to keep the peace. They're stuck for a couple of turns. I have two 3-star generals and one 5-star.



Pic #2: My homeland (http://members.cox.net/ben_pt/images/mtw/MTW2.jpg)
I have a large garrison to protect my king and heirs but the sorrounding land is barely protected at all. The rebels destroyed everything in that province making it useless (it was making 600+ before). There is a French barque that has sunk 8+ of my ships. it is undefeatable

I am afraid the Aragonese will break through my defenses in Castile. All my heirs and my king are right there. I'm being hemmed in because of the Aragonese and the rebels. My shipping lanes are destroyed because of that one ship and I don't have anough of an economy to keep all my armies operating. I have to keep my 7 star general army over near the egyptains just in case which takes up about half of my income and the french armies take up the rest.

[ichi]

One thing that I noticed is the lack of religious agents, assassins and spies. Without spies you must keep larger garrisons. Assassins are very useful to kill the Pope when you are excommed, thus ending the problem.

ichi

[Axeknight]

Yup, kill the Pope (sorry god, but he has to http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif ). Then move all armies that you can back to Castille till you can get your troops in N. Africa back to Iberia. Then counterrattack and take back Iberia. It'll be hard, very hard....

[nightcrawlerblue]

I have bishops in almost every province (every one that used to be muslim plus some of my catholic ones). I haven't gotten the building for spies yet. I've been using my capitol to create super troop buildings (+2 armor +1 attack. Best troops in Europe) instead of assasins and spies.

My plan of attack: create several fuedal sergeants to take back that province under castile (can't remember what it's called). bring down my best French army to help take care of the Aragonese. I will teach the Aragonese to mess with the Spanish empire

[Axeknight]

Forgot to ask. What's your king like? Cause if the top heir is better, then that'll solve your problems without needing a superassassin to kill the Pope. Just lead your king and his bodyguards (alone) on a death-or-glory (but probably death) charge into an enemy province. Your king goes down in a blaze of glory, there are no messy assassinations to deal with, you get recommunicated, a better king, and you don't get damned to an eternity in hell for killing the Pope. In one fell swoop

Course, if the oldest heir would turn out a worse ruler than his dad, then don't use this strategy.

Just a thought. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[katank]

I lke axeknight's solution.

the jedi king can probably handle half the enemy army himself and at least soften the enemy up.

The king gets +6 health IIRC for being a king besides the various bonuses for being gen.

BTW, you should have taken out the aragonese a long time ago.

they are rotten backstabbers and you should take out either the almos or the aragonese first.

[nightcrawlerblue]

Well I was HOPING to be friends with the Aragonese for most of the game. I figured that since I could crush their nation at any time before now they'd agree to being friends. But no They wait until I'm at war and my forces are stretched too thin too defend myself Who had the bright idea of making smart AI anyway?

I might have a chance if Germany didn't go to war with me (I'm not sure if they did or didn't). However, if Germany's at war with me I'm dead. Their military might will crush every province I took from the French along with my three armies.

[RisingSun]

*rolls in convulsions on the floor, laughing so hard he craps his pants*

AAAH AHAHAHAHA SMART... AI AHAHAAH

*gets clean pants*

Well, check your alliance status to see if you are indeed at war with Germany. If you're not, then those troops in Anjou could be doing something more productive.

[katank]

don't be afraid of the HRE.

early on, they are a paper tiger.

the military might message about HRE early on just refer to the vast hordes of peasants and spears which you can rout very easily.

the king also only have 3 crowns and after a few defeats, you can easily get a civil war for them.

I consider the HRE one of the easier factions to cripple if not eliminate.

[Axeknight]

Yeah, its best to take the Aragonese and Almos down early, before they get real nasty...

[Seven.the.Hun]

i agree, those aragon types can be useful, or really annoying, GAH, what can u do?

[katank]

not really. just annoying.

it's funny how they always invade toulouse even if it's held by my elite guards with their string of RKs and get slaughtered.

silly aragonese, you'll never become an empire http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

[Axeknight]

Yeah, the Aragonese could be a very important faction, if they left the stupid expansionism out. If they got a few defensive armies (enough to deter invaders), then concentrate on covert operations (spying and assainations), then they could become a major faction, causing civil wars, bribing generals, killing generals etc, all the time mopping up the broken leftovers and slowly, but smartly, expanding without putting their own generals in danger (attacks with bribed generals), and without putting Aragon in danger (strong garrison at all times).

[nightcrawlerblue]

That sounds like my game. They have a fairly impressive army and I think they've been using assasins etc to destabilize the empires next to them (maybe). The province I had lost to rebellion had a steady loyalty but then it dropped suddenly the turn before the rebellion. Some other countries close to the Aragonese have had frequent revolts too... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/idea.gif

[katank]

then just kill them instead of waiting for that to happen.

if you are catholic, the pope wouldn't even have time to notice before they are history.

BTW, they do have a faction advantage for inquisitors which can be really annoying and makes for an additional reason to kill them. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[squippy]

AND Valencia and Aragon are both rich provinces. I've recently run an Arogonese game and its actually a good starting position with a high profit margin.

[katank]

yep, the aragonese can have a power base of valencia, aragon, navarre, and toulouse

the first and last are great farm provinces while the other two has iron

this makes for a pretty good base to start from and you could even not take on the spanish and almos and still do reasonably well.

in high, CMAA from the iron provinces and bonused chiv knights from toulouse along with building up to lancers eventually means they are really great to play.

[TinCow]

Given the date of the original post, I think advice is a moot point at this time... however I'll toss in what I would do in this situation. Critiques are welcome.

I would ignore the rebels for now. If they razed the province, it's useless anyway... so concentrate on the Aragonese and deal with the rebel scum when you have the spare forces from Africa. Looking at the Spain/Aragon situation, I see a glimmer of hope. Aragon itself is pretty much undefended. I would take 3/4 of the forces from your 'capital' and attack there. One of two things will happen. The Aragonese king will retreat... if he goes to a different province... great. Aragon is yours to raze to the ground. This will prevent them from producing any more decent units (Aragon relies heavily on that province) and it will fund your own new forces which should be enough to crush the two seperate Aragonese armies.

The other option is that the Aragonese King retreats to the castle. This is actually the preferred option. If this happens, bring in as many other units to support the beseiging army as you can afford to. This is because I guarantee you the AI will try to break the siege next turn. This will be a defensive battle and even if you suffer 3:1 odds, you can probably win if you play well. If you're really lucky... the larger attacking force will come from Valencia, thus giving you a bridge battle in which you will slaughter the enemy. The survivors will retreat to the castle and it will fall, probably killing the king (if he isn't dead already). You can now mop up the remnants in a few years once your newly funded (plunder) armies are ready.

That HRE crusade looks nasty. If it is hostile, I would recommend razing everything you own in France, unite your forces there and push south with them to get back to your homeland... razing along the way and jacking up the taxes to cause revolts. Don't try to hold those bits of France against a big and nasty HRE in your situation. If you can reunite Iberia, you've got a two-province choke-hold with good defensive terrain (mountain). Reconsolidate Iberia and Africa and you should be fine. You can defend that entire empire with 3 provinces and there's good trade to be had with it. You can sit in those positions for 50 years and do perfectly fine.

[katank]

yep, so true.

challenge them to climb the mountains of Navarre. those are steep like hell.

Even peasants last for a while against RKs when defending up that kinda slope.

charge your m@a down with some cav and no enemy could stand their ground http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-2thumbsup.gif