Pics & History of your Empire [Archive]

PittBull260

05-01-2005, 18:20

Hi guys I wanted to make this thread for everyone to show pics of their empire and a brief history of it. Just thought this would be something intresting for us to read. I'll start off with mine.

Faction: The Spanish
Starting at: Early Period
Year:1384
Type:GA
No cheats, except for the see entire map cheat, I just like to see the whole map.

History: I started off being a small friendly empire, once I bordered my empire at Aragon, and the neighboring province (Neverea i think) I started building up my army for the crusades. I sent 2 succesful crusades to Palestine and Tripoli. The settlements were pretty good there until the mid 1300s.

The Egyptians had humoungous armies and took over palestine and tripoli, but only after me winning the battles 5 times in a row, in the 6th battle Palestine finally fell.

I expanted into Europe when I lost my settlements in the east. I reached as far as Ile De France, and into Rome. But my forces weren't strong enough to stand against the allience between Germany the Byzantines and the Pepacy. So I pulled back to aragon, and now I'm there waiting for the year 1453 to hopefully win.

https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/DEADLIFT/spain.jpg

https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/DEADLIFT/spain2.jpg

edyzmedieval

05-01-2005, 19:04

Hey man.... Can I ask you a question??? Have you installed a mod because I cannot recognize that shield(the one with the red cross, think it's a crusader type thing).... Hey, I'm gonna post my stuff soon...

PittBull260

05-01-2005, 19:24

PittBull260

05-02-2005, 03:09

Well I finished my campaign, here is the territory

https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/DEADLIFT/1452.jpg

the results:
I have won but only because the main and big empires fell into civil war many times each, which allowed me to expand my empire into central Europe.

https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/DEADLIFT/spainend.jpg

PittBull260

05-03-2005, 02:53

Patron

05-04-2005, 01:47

I've been playing this game for quite a while now. I started off as the welsh and conquerred Britain in viking invasion, then started a new game as the English in the european map in the early medieval period.

So far I've conquerred, in this order, Navarre, Wales, France, Aragon, Castille, the rest of Spain, western Germany, kicked the almohads out of Iberia except for granada, central and northern germany, morroco and granada, crusaded through scandinavia and denmark conquerring each province just after my crusade leaves before finally joining my invasion army up with the crusade and moving through poland to attack khazar, driven out of khazar by the byzantines and settled for conquerring chernigov and some neighouring provinces, lost provence to a sneak attack by the italians, retaliated killing the italian king causing a civil war, took advantage of the civil war taking northern italy, corsica and sardinia, crusaded to egypt succesfully wiping out the almohads, invaded poland sending the ex crusaders in russia to invade lithuania and help deter the byzantines, crusaded to syria and closed off the middle east by securing syria and attacking tripoli fro mthe sea with my conventional army.

It's 1182 and I've reached this far on expert mode. I start a new save game everytime a king dies so I could post some screenies here of my progress. I haven't saved any images of major battles though..

Patron

05-04-2005, 19:21

Bit blotchy because of bmp to jpg conversion, but you can see my progress just fine.

http://images.plus613.com/14000/www_plus613_com_timeline.JPG

I decided to go for 100%, will I make it before the mongols appear? I don't think so, not unless the byzantines go into a civil war and I have a number of stunning victories against the hoardes of novgorods and russians that still exist.

Yoyoma1910

05-04-2005, 19:32

Sorry mate, it's not there.

Productivity

05-08-2005, 03:46

http://img216.echo.cx/img216/4994/13052fr.jpg

Playing as the Sicilians. Shot taken in 1305 (I think). I'm currently in a war with the Spanish, the two armies facing each other down in Morroco and Cordoba could be interesting when they collide.

The mongols have just won a war with the poles, due to killing the polish king with no heirs, hence the rebel regions in the baltic areas.

Aside from that, it is really down to me and the Spanish, teh Byzantines aren't really a threat, I'll deal with them once I'm finished with the Spanish.

Incidentally, GA points are really hard to acheive with the Sicillians.

PittBull260

05-08-2005, 04:22

dgb, that's a very sweet empire you got there man!, the war between u and the spanish look very intresting, I'd like to see how your war turns out, it'd be cool to show the results of about 10 years in your empires feature

TheWingedVictory

05-08-2005, 06:09

Yes, I had a Spanish Empire too. Mine stretched from (meaning conquered those territories and a little beyond that too) the British Isles, Scandinavia, Denmark, Holy Roman Empire, France, Genoa, Corsica, Egypt, more isles, northern Africa, and more. It was pretty sweet, it looked like an extended Western Roman Empire. It was during the high period where the only civ left in map were the byzantines and Egyptians. You'll catch up easily cuz Spanish are usually easy. However I was dumb enough to delete the campaign cuz I got bored of it. But how do you do that glorious achievement window and homland thingy?

TheWingedVictory

05-08-2005, 06:12

plus, my comp is messed up so I can't even play mtw anymore. :furious3: :furious3: :furious3: I wish I could see the glories of my empire once again....
Build some navy that stretch all over western Europe. Spain will be flowing with money, and soon you'll be unlimited in the matter of money.

TheWingedVictory

05-08-2005, 06:21

and spread inquisitors and bishops for all ur regions and states, so in the case other nation conquers ur territory, the 100%zeal level make sures that they rebel and gives u back the control. And try avoiding wars with muslim nations unless u have a real lucky advantagious circumstances. They NEVER quit attacking if u go to war with them unless u get out of Africa.

TheWingedVictory

05-08-2005, 06:53

http://www.angelfire.com/zine2/dine3/L/sp.bmp
This is my re-creation of what it looked like.
awwww, the glory.... :charge: :charge: :charge:
I'm not showing off, since most of you conquered the whole map probably, but this is the biggest I have ever gotten. But I'm not sure about the steppes region cuz I scarcely went there to explore. (oh, and i remember now that I did conquer Italian peninsula).

Productivity

05-08-2005, 07:05

TheWingedVictory

05-08-2005, 21:34

ohhh, so it's about conquest or glorious achievement mode bfore u start the campaign! ty for informing me that. Unfortuanately, my stupid comp can't run mtw anymore...

PittBull260

05-09-2005, 02:12

for those of you who dont know how to take screenshots and make them small files (less than 100kb)
this is how
while playing the game, position your camera to where u want to take the screen shot, then press and hold ALT+PrtScrSysRq(upper right part of keyboard) then close the game (or minimize it) then open up PAINT on the start menu, go to EDIT, click PASTE and voloa u got the pic, when u save it, make sure you save it as a JPEG file, then go to photobucket.com and make an account load your pics there, and then just post them right here :)

I really wanna see how other people's empires are, then maybe we cna share strategies on how to get rich, and be with peace with everybody(cause i always get attacked) etc.

Pitt.

Productivity

05-09-2005, 12:45

Also you may need to resize them down. If I posted mine as is it would be huge (plays the campaign map at 1600x1200).

bretwalda

05-09-2005, 15:06

I would suggest to press F2 which takes screenshots and places them in the TGAs directory. This way you dont have to alt+tab out of the game and the screenies will be stored. You can use irfanview to view, resize and convert the pix and you can use the above method to post them. Good luck!

Sir William Wallace

05-09-2005, 22:02

how do you guys get pictures of your maps and GA's on here?

bretwalda

05-10-2005, 00:08

I upload the pix to a free webspace and link them.

:wink:

PittBull260

05-10-2005, 02:14

how do you guys get pictures of your maps and GA's on here?
go here www.photobucket.com make an account real quick, then upload pics on there, then when u want to post them you'll see the icons above the text that you're writing, click on the icon that will say "insert image" after you keep your curser on it for 2 secs then copy the link from your image and paste in there :)

PittBull260

05-11-2005, 19:40

so dgb hows your war with the spanish going?

Productivity

05-12-2005, 02:50

so dgb hows your war with the spanish going?

It is on hold unti my war with a calculus assignment is over.

Patron

05-12-2005, 07:55

https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y206/asdasdasd2/timeline.bmp

You can just make it out.

Forgive me if I sound nerdy, but I've been playing this for months. I haven't played it much since I last posted here though.

hmm...

Economic situation.

All Iberian provinces except Valencia and portugal are getting a lot of money for development. The spanish steel provinces are my balls, I train troops in France and England, send them to specialist provinces which build armourers, master weaponmakers and valour bonuses, then send them to spain to get their attack bonus. Currently my specialist provinces are upgrading to fortress and my training grounds are preparing for when I reach the high medieval period, in 1205. I am training feudal seargants and archers with a +1 valour bonus from master spear and bow makers, they also get a +3 armour bonus and just recently a +2 attack bonus. So my feudal seargants are the equivalent of men at arms -1 defense and +1 armour, I think.

I'm sufferring a lot from corruption due to my very high tax level in all subjugated provinces. Some of my high acumen generals have been corrupt and I've had to strip them of their titles send them off as auxillaries into my war zones. I used to only give titles to generals with an acumen of 4, but I've reduced that to 3 because you still get more money. I have a lot of money, but I intend to spend it all as money unspent is money wasted. My navy just about covers every coastal square there is, except around Ireland and Greece with about 1 ship on every square, so if one is destroyed by a storm I could face a lot of trouble. I don't waste time building economic buildings in provinces I use to build military technological buildings.

Political situation.

I'm at peace with the Sicilians, Papacy and Men of Novgorod. I'm at war with everyone else. The super powers are the Byzantines and myself and a distant 3rd and 4th the Poles and Hungarians with strong regional powers. The pope has threatenned to excommunicate me if I attack the Hungarians and the Hungarians are allied with the Byzantines. The Germans will be wiped out in 5 years at most.

Religious situation.

Catholicism is winning out due to my efforts. A combination of invasions spearheaded by crusades and supported by my navy and conventional forces has allowed me to conquer the Baltic, north Africa and the middle east. I upgrade to keep and build a church in provinces which are not catholic, if I have money to spare.

Social situation.

There are many small peasant revolts in landlocked portions of europe. A few have occurred in Anjou and Scotland, Anjou being a province I am developping to train chivalric knights in. Unrest is curiously low in the remains of the Egyptian and Almohad empires, I sometimes leave them empty, there were a few revolts there and an Almohad revival a few years ago, but they consisted entirely of archers, napalm throwers and peasants.

Military situation.

I train all of the 4 basic early medieval units to the most advanced degree my country can allow. Archers, Feudal Seargants, Men at Arms and Knights. I am also training Viking Huscarles in Scandinavia and Denmark and Catapults in Ile de France. When desperate I put some of my annual income into training auxillaries, especially spearmen, slav warriors and steppe cavalry.

The navy is paramount to my military, which explains why there is a gaping hole in central europe and why I've managed to conquer the middle east. I spy on enemy forces using diplomats and bishops and mix and match my newly trained elite troops to counter enemy forces, then send them in. Around 50% of my battles and around 80% of my attacks take place along the coast. My navy has recently destroyed the Byzantine navy in the Black sea and there is no longer a risk of the Byzantines forcing me to spread my troops across the entire coast of the black sea to prevent some large army splitting my territory up.

My Macro strategies consist of my blitzing into easily defended clinch points, such as Greece and Constantinople, or Cordoba or Navarre. This is not happenning in Eastern Europe. I have had to donate a large amount of my forces to defending the long borders in Europe as there is usually no point in raiding provinces I can't keep as I will eventually conquer the provinces and utilise the building there.

For battles I mix and match and I never fight a battle I cannot win and I aim to reduce casualties. I often deal with rebels by placing a unit of Feudal Seargants and Archers on top of a hill, mowing them down and winning the battle with 0 casualties. My larger battles are based around a line of Feudal Seargants with archers in front which move forward to pin enemy forces whilst my knights surround the melee and charge into the enemy's vital troops and generals. I gain the most casualties when assaulting castles I am considerring massing together auxillaries and laying siege to castles instead of assaulting them as I usually do. During an Assault I just knock down the stone walls with my catapults and run my infantry over in a dispersed formation, then close formation and watch the hell for a minute or 2 until there is one enemy lieutenant left who takes another 60 seconds to kill whilst the rest of my troops are cut down by archer fire. I take the keep first of course so less of them get mowed down.

:book:

Patron

05-12-2005, 19:04

Sorry about my grammar.. I was just slapping down key points like I do before an essay and didn't bother with eloquence.

BAD

05-13-2005, 21:51

Well I decided to finally give the Byzantines a go in Glorius Acheivement mode. Things started off swimmingly well in Early with all the points for Homelands I could get but they tailed off in High when they all dissapear bar three. That's when I noticed the French and Polish were becoming close competitors in the points.The only way I could solve it was to push north past my northern border of Greece and Constantinople. . . At first I just went on a pillage and raid mission but I evenually ended up keeping the lands and have now pushed up as far as Greater Poland, Austria and Bohemia.

I accidently put the Poles into dissolution through killing off their heirs. . . but then I had the dreaded re-emergence which got swiftly put down and now they survive in Estonia and Livonia. I also annihillated the Pope in the hope that when he comes back he would reappear in the French provinces (after I had given them up), but nooooooooo they reappear in Naples, which I have held for the entire game! :dizzy2: I think his time die again will be soon. . .

But the main reason I posted was because I had the most insane battle last night (well this morning really ~D ), led by my heir no less who I have been trying to school up since he was born with a paltry 2 Dread and 0 Stars. ~:confused: I will let the screens speak for themselves. 3 Hours Long, and they still hadn't finished bringing on the troops by the end!!! ~:eek:

The pre-battle info

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v469/Nimwan/MTW/zOMGZzzZzZz10000.jpg

"Ummm. . . Constantinople, we have a problem. . . "

The final scenes

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v469/Nimwan/MTW/FrenchmassacreatGreaterPoland.jpg

Mwahahahahaha!!! :charge:

Prince Manuel, heir to the throne

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v469/Nimwan/MTW/PrinceManuelaftersomeskoolin.jpg

I couldn't believe it. . . 10,000 men in a regular battle, not a re-emergence or the Horde!!! ~:eek: I nearly lost it in the first wave aswell I stayed back and held my ground with the basic infantry line and firepower support. Not a good idea, The Chivalric seargeants took all I had and I only managed to wangle it by getting the Hors Archers (of all the troops :rolleyes:) to do some rear charges. For the next waves I took the battle to them with my Cavalry reinforcements, as you can see alot of fertiliser for Polish lands. ^^

Oh yeah I am playing on the XL mod atm. Loving it too. ~:)

PittBull260

05-14-2005, 02:31

very nice BAD, that is an awesome battle you've won man, pretty crazy

keep us updated on your progress

Martok

05-14-2005, 05:20

Yes, very cool Bad. I love it when a general gets the "Skilled Last Stand" trait. Congratulations are in order! ~:cheers:

PittBull260

05-14-2005, 20:31

well here's the progress on my new campaign as the Sicilians on the XL mod

Faction:The Sicilians
Starting at:High period
Current Year:1281
Type:GA
NO cheats except for the one that lets you see the whole map

I started out just making farms and other money making upgrades. I build up a nice Navy, and took over the Serbs, I was allied with the Pepacy Venitians and pretty much all my neighboring countries.

When I conquered Bulgaria from the Bulgarians, the Hungarians and the Venitians double teamed me and took Serbia from me. They also attacked Bulgaria but I succesfully defended it.

So i left bulgaria becasue it is too far away from the center of the empire, and took back Serbia with a large force. There I stayed for a while until I had a large enough force to go into Greece and Constantinope, who the Venitians control. So I took over those 2 provinces to make good money off of it.

The pope excommunicates me so I take over Rome and The Papal states, get in peace with the Venitians and left the Pope to keep Genoa (so that he doenst re-appear with a huge army). And here I am now, pretty much waiting for the ALhomads to come with their huge low-tech armies, hopefully I will succesfully defend my empire from them :)

https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/DEADLIFT/sicily1.jpg

The points
https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/DEADLIFT/sicily2.jpg

hr_oskar

05-15-2005, 23:05

This thread is quite fun ~:cheers:

Loved that one about the battle in Greater Poland -- 10000 Frenchmen! ~:eek: -- very impressive prince character there, made me want to play a game solely for training up legendary generals.

Anyway here's my current game. I'm only playing vanilla at the moment (VI, v2.00). This is my special campaign with the Papacy. Obviously I'm not trying to expand my lands or play a typical conquest game but rather trying to convert the whole map to Catholicism (95% in all provinces is my goal) and generally promote the Catholic factions.

In the early age the Byzantines conquered all of Russia and Eastern Europe all the way to Germany and Austria. Meanwhile the Catholics bitterly fought each other, though the Spanish did defeat the Almohads and eventually were at the border with Egypt. I was certainly in for a challenging game since I had to somehow unite Catholic Europe under one flag and roll back the Patriarch in Constantinople and his imperial bunch of invincible 8-star generals.

The HRE dissolved early on while the French came out strong so to begin with I placed my bets on them and had all my agents undermining their enemies. The English were at war with them so my inquisitors burned all their heretic generals worth a star.... eventually I killed off the English royal family and let them go rebel. Unfortunately the French continued to disappoint me and ended up losing all their homelands to Spanish and Italian invaders. By now the Spanish are my champions as their empire is stable and healthy and they're finally managing some great crusades.

The Golden Horde helped a lot with my situation with the Byzantines, which I was of course hoping for. The Poles and Hungarians re-emerged and finally after a long persecution of the Byz royal family I was able to kill off their last heirless emperor and make them neutral. The stage is now set for a Catholic east.... after I assassinate the Khan of course ~D

Enough BS, here are the screenshots:

https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y225/hroskar/twcampmap.jpg

All the rebel territories in the east are basically the former Byzantine empire, after the tragic death of their last emperor ~;)

https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y225/hroskar/twmideast.jpg

Most of the Middle East is around 70-90% Catholic, despite still being ruled by the somewhat estranged Muslim factions.

PittBull260

05-16-2005, 02:49

hey oskar, that's a very intresting campaign u got there man, hopefully u'll make the world catholic :)
keep us updated

BAD

05-16-2005, 07:09

This thread is quite fun ~:cheers:

Loved that one about the battle in Greater Poland -- 10000 Frenchmen! ~:eek: -- very impressive prince character there, made me want to play a game solely for training up legendary generals.

Damn right, that was insane. The crazy thing was I thought that would break their back. So I continued with my advance towards the baltic. What greeted me at a siege in Pomerania a few years later? 14,000 Frenchmen!!! I had to retreat I only had 800 this time, it was beyond even Prince Manuel's abilities. ~:eek:

And my dang ruler went and had a new son who matured before Manuel could take the throne. Noooooooooooo_O after all that schoolin aswell. ¬_¬ Now I have to do it again with the new heir. . . Now where are those frenchmen. . . ~D

Ahahaha but nice game you got going there oskar, I may try that with the muslims. Someone has to stand up for them. . . if you leave the AI to it the get creamed everytime. :(

Patron

05-16-2005, 07:52

Oskar's campaign looks really impressive, but I've still conquerred more territory and I'm only in the 1190s

:knight:

It looks as though I might win, I have a new king in his early 20s and I'm all set to conquer the world in his lifetime. My training camps are churning out the best equipped and most up to date units in the game and are prepared to churn out the same amount of units once I get past 1205. The hungarians are sealed in, but I'm using a lot of troops to do this (can't attack cause of excommunication threat from pope) and the Germans will be wiped out next turn. The Byzantines are in a dire position now, they have a few good generals, but nothing I can't match and my conventional army outclasses their kataphraktoi now. A crusade is marching towards Constantinople and will pass through Hungary and my ex-crusaders + newly trained units and a troupe of elite knights trained up by killing egyptian peasants archers and spearmen is honed to blitz into eastern turkey. Once the byzantines are gone It will be easy pickings until I've finally conquerred the entire map, probably before the Mongols arrive. Though I think I'll leave ireland unconquerred or something, just so I can test my elite English armies against them in one glorious final battle to secure England's place as god's divine kingdom on earth (I'll have a puppet pope by now) for now till eternity!

:bow: :charge: :charge: :charge: :charge: :knight: :duel: :duel: :duel:

Ahem.

I have 40 years to do this. Once I figure out how to use photo bucket I'll get some proper screenies in.

PittBull260

05-16-2005, 19:38

Mikemyers64

05-18-2005, 04:22

http://img260.echo.cx/img260/4071/empire2py.jpg

Playing the BKB super mod

i started out with rhodes as the knights hosplitar and took greece while it was still under rebel control. eventually the turks took constantinople and destroyed the byzantines for me, which left me to invade the turks. after that i massed togher a huge crusade of mercanaries towards egypt. the army was undefeatable and the egyptions went into cival war from losing from it so many times. some how the italians got palastine from egypt which put a thorn in my empire, so since the pope asked for a crusade against them i figured why not, ill have everyones support. when i reach venice the italians are almost dead and the papacy took most of their lands, for some reason when i conqured venice the papacy attacked me and ive been at war with the pope for 50+ years. now i dont really care who i attack, ive got less than 30 years before the game ends and i want to conqure as much as possible.

TheWingedVictory

05-18-2005, 07:16

@oskar
How do you play the papacy? Is it a mod, what mod is it and where can i dl it?

It looks as though I might win, I have a new king in his early 20s and I'm all set to conquer the world in his lifetime. My training camps are churning out the best equipped and most up to date units in the game and are prepared to churn out the same amount of units once I get past 1205. The hungarians are sealed in, but I'm using a lot of troops to do this (can't attack cause of excommunication threat from pope) and the Germans will be wiped out next turn. The Byzantines are in a dire position now, they have a few good generals, but nothing I can't match and my conventional army outclasses their kataphraktoi now. A crusade is marching towards Constantinople and will pass through Hungary and my ex-crusaders + newly trained units and a troupe of elite knights trained up by killing egyptian peasants archers and spearmen is honed to blitz into eastern turkey. Once the byzantines are gone It will be easy pickings until I've finally conquerred the entire map, probably before the Mongols arrive. Though I think I'll leave ireland unconquerred or something, just so I can test my elite English armies against them in one glorious final battle to secure England's place as god's divine kingdom on earth (I'll have a puppet pope by now) for now till eternity!

conquering with one king's lifetime? How much territoy did you already have before this king? The furthest conquest I had with one king was the whole of western Europe, still with my best troops and numbers, I wasn't able to defeat rivaling large factions.

hr_oskar

05-20-2005, 00:08

@WingedVictory: minor factions can be made playable by editing the relevant campaign file (EARLY.txt, HIGH.txt, LATE.txt) stored in /campmap/startpos. In there you can find a list of factions with labels 'MAJOR' and 'MINOR'. Change the Papacy's (or the Swiss or Novgorod's etc) label to 'MAJOR', then they'll appear playable in the campaign startup.

Still playing my campaign and having surprisingly much fun - I'd sort of had enough of playing MTW with self-imposed limitations, but this time it's really working because I have some fairly clear goals (convert the map to Catholicism, promote 1-4 other Catholic factions to control the whole map).

After killing off an entire dynasty of Italian "heretics", I bribed a great 5-star Italian commander who was left behind as a rebel. To my surprise, he became my new Pope after the old one died....

https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y225/hroskar/popeinnocentiii.jpg

Papam habemus! If some people today are disappointed with Benedict XVI, how'd they feel about this guy!?! ~D His Piety was at 0 when he became Pope so I figured a couple of low-level Inquisitors could teach him some Bible Basics and bring him up to "Born Again". They went a bit too far however and declared him an atheist on the spot! Oops.... better not invite more Inquisitors to Rome then, things might warm up a bit.

So apparently the Papacy's best general becomes the new Pope upon succession... that's very nice to know, opens up lots of possibilites with choosing your own Pope. Which is why I've bribed myself two very nasty Byzantine royals to lead the church into the 14th century.... ~:cool:

Pope Innocent, being a military man, decided to take Constantinople by force to symbolize the defeat of the Eastern Church. The city will be rebuilt to an even greater splendour than before, making Rome and Constantinople the twin beacons of international Christianity, under one Papal authority.

Crusades are going well, with three successful Spanish crusades to the Holy Land and one German to Khazar (Lebensraum!). I'm now promoting the Germans as my "Champions of the East".

https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y225/hroskar/lebensraum.jpg

'Tis the start of a Great Eastern Empire.... meanwhile, Inquisitor gangs are building up zeal in the steppes (and other parts of the map).

https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y225/hroskar/christianrebs.jpg

As you can see the missionary work is starting to pay off - the non-Christian factions are barely able to hold onto their territories due to Christian opposition.

As for the Golden Horde, I decided to let the Khan live for a while since the Horde posed no threat to the Catholic world and would mostly serve to deplete rebel stacks and keep the Turks busy in Asia Minor. Historically, the Catholics were enthusiastic about the Mongol invasion since they hoped for an ally against their enemies in the Middle East... this was very much the case in my campaign, except I wanted them to bring down the unstoppable Byzantines.

PittBull260

05-20-2005, 01:31

wow oskar that's a very nice campaign u got there man, I might try that myself :)

Patron

05-21-2005, 13:19

https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y206/asdasdasd2/Englandpwnz0r.jpg

This is my progress so far. I'm taking around 30 minutes to complete 1 year, so I haven't progressed much since last time I spoke here. It's not boring, it's like playing lost of little games on one big map, with the added bonus of being able to distribute resources. The knight with the bronze weapon enhancement and silver armour enhancement represents the peak of my technology, with an attack of 6, a defence of 7 and armour of 8 and that's without the valour bonus from my jedi generals (+3 or +2) and by 1205 I shuld have the facilities needed to produce chivalric knights with the same bonuses!! Along with Longbowmen and billmen with the same enchancements all of them mass produced (I have 2 provinces training a unit because it takes 2 turns to produce 120 longbowmen etc.., I then send them to other provinces to get their upgrades, so 120 longbowmen are upgraded each turn).

How many mb is the bkb super mod?

PittBull260

05-21-2005, 16:03

it's about 130mb i think

TwinMfg

05-21-2005, 18:27

I was cleaning out my TGA folder when I came across this shot. I don't remember a thing about the particular campaign, but thought the kill/capture ratio of 17:1 was impressive- at least for my games it is.
https://photobucket.com/albums/y240/twinmfg/?action=view&current=Turk001.jpg

PittBull260

05-21-2005, 19:31

PittBull260

05-21-2005, 20:10

Well I started a Catholic campaign aswell.

Faction:Teutonic Knights
Starting point:High Period
Current Year:1352
Goals:destroy all muslims and other forces who are against catholics.

History:
well I started off with 2 small provinces, I barely ahd any money, fortunently lithuania was controlled by the rebels, so I took over it, from there I started building farms etc. once I got the money I built an army to defend agaisnt the mongols who will arive soon.

The mongols came, the russians and Turks kept them busy for a pretty long time unitl they reached me. Once they reached me the first province they attacked was Lithuania, i had a good 2000-2500 men there to defend it along with my king a 6 star general. For the first few years that army by itself defended well against the enemy who outnumbers them, but they needed reinforcements, the tides then turned...

I had a large enough army to destroy the mongols, so I went on the offensive, expanded all the way into Muscovy and Volga-Bulgaria, and then at Khazar defeated the Mongols.

That's when I started making Crusades and Bishops and Inquistidors etc.

Whatever faction attacked a catholic country, I would send a crusade at them (notice the southern Muslim lands are all under my control :) )

My only danger now is the Danes, they've been excomunicated and their armies are huge, the borders between me and them are getting tighter and tighter, in 2 years his forces on the borders have doubled...suspicious..

https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/DEADLIFT/tk1.jpg

https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/DEADLIFT/tk2.jpg

Patron

05-21-2005, 21:48

It might be an idea to Garrison up prussia and focus your attention on the middle east, unless the ukrainiansm (or whoever those dark blue with red flags people are) get conquerred, the Danes shouldn't bother invading. I suggest taking Syria and driving west along north Africa with your Middle eastern armies, you appear to have a navy capable of dominating the mediterranean.

BAD

05-22-2005, 03:17

damn thats pretty impressive

Aye TwinMfg's is great but check out what you can do with a more advaced Turkish Army. Gold armoured Armenian Heavies, carried the day. Plus "That" Valour 7 unit of Turcoman Horse. ~:cool: 40:1 kill ratio. ~:cool:

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v469/Nimwan/St00pid%20Stuff/Turkishpwnage.jpg

Was only on hard though, not expert. . . ~:handball:

PittBull260

05-22-2005, 03:57

haha holy shit man that's crazy

Patron

05-22-2005, 09:26

:dizzy2:

This reminds me of this game I played once where the papacy kept on reappearing, except I never got my kill ratio up to 1/40. Except in small battles against rebels, where I can get my kill ratio to 0/infinite, cause none of my soldiers die.

TwinMfg

05-22-2005, 15:52

@ Bad:

Well, I'm suitably impressed. :jawdrop: Mine was still in Early, and I play on Hard.

PittBull260

05-22-2005, 19:01

well here's one of my good battles, not as good as BAD's but the ratio is 25-1 so I guess its good :)

WHO SAYS ALL CAVALRY ARMIES SUCK?

https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/DEADLIFT/25-1killratio.jpg

BAD

05-22-2005, 21:13

Hahahaha! Now that's the kind of Bada$$ army I like to see. Nice to see someonelse using Gendarmes aswell. I love em. Give me two units of Gendarmes over one unit of Chivalric Knights anyday. Ahhhh I remember one of my earliar Spanish Campaigns, Gold weapons and Gold armoured Lancers. ~:) Man Lancers rock! :charge:

PittBull260

05-22-2005, 21:54

Patron

05-23-2005, 18:29

England can't build lancers :embarassed:, though I'd have to wait 150 years to start building them anyway.

The pope died and I blitzed into Hungary and am currently holding 4 castles under siege, the king escaped to Serbia and I can't attack him or I get excommunicated though.. My crusade has reached Constantinople and I killed the Emperor in a bloody battle in western Turkey in which a melee consisting of 240 of my knights, 120 of my viking huscarles, 120 varangian guards and 80 über jedi kataphraktoi was reduced to 30 or so feudal knights vs the Byzantine king. The byzantines brought a few peasants along with them aswell, but they were wiped out in the first few seconds of the battle.

Patron

05-23-2005, 18:42

https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y206/asdasdasd2/Englandpwnz0r2.jpg

1190^

PittBull260

05-23-2005, 19:38

impressive Patron, looks like u'll get 100% soon :)

littlebktruck

06-02-2005, 04:30

After dropping two easy campaigns (Spanish and English) and a once promising normal campaign with the English that turned disastrous, I decided to to revisit the Spanish for my second normal attempt. Things are going decidedly better in this one. I attacked Navarre but lost it to rebels. I then eliminated the Aragonese, but rebel reinforcements (from Valencia) kept me from taking the province. I bribed the rebels and then used them to take Navarre back. Meanwhile, the Almohads waltzed into undefended Valencia. They also took Portugal, but they couldn't manage it and it rebelled many times. After some more buildup, it was time to take on the Almohads.

My first move was to take Valencia, which I did without issue. However, the Almohads strongly reinforced Cordoba and my offensive was stalled. I built some more, but I still didn't have the strength to take it from them. In a desperate move to keep my offensive going, I sent all my troops from Leon, Castile, and Valencia into Cordoba. The numbers were quite a bit in my favor (2400 to 1600 or so), but I didn't trust myself with such a large battle, so I autoresolved. I won! This broke the Almohads' back, and I pushed them back to Tunisia without a fight. They looked a bit more formidable at this point, so I stalled. Then France, much to my joy, sent a crusade to Tunisia. They took it through my provinces, but the Muslim provinces had low zeal, so they didn't take many troops and lost quite a few. They attacked until they were exhausted, but they could not crack the Almohad defense. However, they were weakened to the point that, with the crusade gone, they retreated when I sent my stack again. I captured Portugal a little later, putting me where I am now.

It's 1156, and my economy is doing pretty well. To make sure that I don't make the mistake I made last time (letting my navy get destroyed, making my entire country open to attack), I have 4 provinces pumping out a barque every three turns. I'm also preparing an army that will crusade to Aquitaine or Toulouse, as the French have recently been excommunicated and are at war with almost everyone in Western Europe.

Here's a screenshot. Notice the Crusade marker and growing army in Castile.

https://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y263/littlebktruck/Spain1156.jpg

Martok

06-02-2005, 08:01

Sweet, man. Who's going to command the crusade?

littlebktruck

06-02-2005, 16:05

Sweet, man. Who's going to command the crusade?

I have a five-star royal (not anymore a prince) who will take charge.

Crush the apostates! :charge:

bretwalda

06-02-2005, 18:06

Dont. I always read that it is not advised to take you king on a crusade. I believe there are more reasons but here is one: when attacking with the king the distance of your king is always considered to be the max from all provinces, thus it is very likely that your empire will revolt and crumble into civil war. It is the same effect as if you took your king to Ireland and never had or burnt the port...

edit: I case I missunderstood you and you dont refer to your king (on second reading it seems likely) then disregard what I have written :wink: /edit

littlebktruck

06-02-2005, 20:50

Your second instinct was right; it's not the King. It's a former prince that didn't accede to the throne. My king, as of this point, has only a son who is about eight (!), so I have to protect him well.

By the way, how can you tell which prince will become the King? Is there any way to affect the selection? It seems to usually go to a young one, I guess so he has time to have heirs, as it doesn't seem that princes have children. I could be wrong about that, though, as I have seen it where I had heirs after someone just took over the throne.

I train troops in France and England, send them to specialist provinces which build armourers, master weaponmakers and valour bonuses, then send them to spain to get their attack bonus. Currently my specialist provinces are upgrading to fortress and my training grounds are preparing for when I reach the high medieval period, in 1205. I am training feudal seargants and archers with a +1 valour bonus from master spear and bow makers, they also get a +3 armour bonus and just recently a +2 attack bonus. So my feudal seargants are the equivalent of men at arms -1 defense and +1 armour, I think.

I don't quite understand. What is the advantage to this strategy? Is it the ability to customize for desert warfare?

Patron

06-02-2005, 21:03

If you click on the crown icon it shows you a list of your heirs. Only Princes can become Kings, so no queen matildas :(. The heir at the top will become King once your king dies.

"I train troops in France and England, send them to specialist provinces which build armourers, master weaponmakers and valour bonuses, then send them to spain to get their attack bonus. Currently my specialist provinces are upgrading to fortress and my training grounds are preparing for when I reach the high medieval period, in 1205. I am training feudal seargants and archers with a +1 valour bonus from master spear and bow makers, they also get a +3 armour bonus and just recently a +2 attack bonus. So my feudal seargants are the equivalent of men at arms -1 defense and +1 armour, I think."

I have my unit size set to maximum, so cavalry units get 80 cavalrymen, archers and melee infantry get 120 men and spearmen get 200 men, per unit. However this means it takes 2 years to train one unit, so I made this organization so that I retrain a unit per turn in provinces which give armour, valour and attack bonuses.

So instead of trainined a unit in a stat boosting province in 2 turns I retrain a unit per turn in the province. I don't worry about fighting with armoured units in the desert, I just attack quick and once my knights are tired I use the ol' archers and spearmen tactic to kill the rest off through attrition.

littlebktruck

06-03-2005, 03:24

Oh! I see now. Yes, that is a very efficient system.

One more question: can you choose which prince is at the top?

nd Aquitaine, and I may have to abandon Brittany to have any hope of doin
The crusade to Aquitaine met no resistance, and my combined defensive armies from Navarre and Aragon took Toulouse. After a few turns of reorganization, I attacked Brittany and Anjou in the same turn. They abandoned Brittany but decided to defend Anjou. They had about 1700 to my 950, but they were all peasants, archers, urban militia, with a few militia sergeants (and some hobilars and royal knights that entered the party late that I wasn't aware of). Still, I figured that my solid force of feudal troops could carry the day. Once I got to the battle screen I realized that I had greater problems than I realized. I had forgotten all the archers, and I only had one unit of men-at-arms. The attack went extremely poorly; my feudal sergeants held but could not win, and some rear charges by my knights did not have the effect that I had hoped. My general (who was also a 5 acumen governor) was killed, and I lost over 700 troops (to the enemy's 500 or so). I'm not sure now whether I can hold Toulouse and Aquitaine both, and I may have to abandon Brittany to save one of them. I'm building more troops and may try another crusade to regain the offensive. And this time I won't forget the archers. The reason I had no archers was that I had shuffled and added to make good defensive armies in both provinces; the rest of the units in Toulouse were just lumped together while I decided what to do with them. I forgot their poor balance, however, and sent them anyway. My good offensive army is in Brittany, but I expect that it shall have to be recalled.

Martok

06-03-2005, 05:01

Patron

06-04-2005, 14:17

This picture gives you the general impression of my power. As you may have noticed I crusaded into Russia about 50 years ago, but the situation here is similiar on all my other conquests. Here, the Novgorods noticed their impending doom as I began to eradicate the rebel states borderring them and decided to charge south into Smolensk with it's garrison of 20 men peculiarly at exactly the same turn as I blitzed into their pitiful realm. When the year was ended an army of 4000 loyalists appeared in a region of the planet not traditionally associated with England and the last scrap of land held by the Novgorods.

https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y206/asdasdasd2/WorldLoyalty.jpg

Smolensk was sparsely populated during the 12th century, so it's my guess that the 4000 consists of peasants whom out of their own free will decided to take up arms in the event of a Novogorodian invasion. I'm not going to let them fight though, I'm going to lift the siege using my conventional forces and send them into western europe to be properly trained :). My only challenge now is to complete the 100% conquest before 1205, which will be quite difficult as I have to kill the pope before I invade Hungary and I have to time it right so I can claim the entire of europe to be mine before the pope reappears. The Italians have an army of 3000 and a lvl3 general in Naples, but my armies are so advanced and my anti-computer early medieval warfare skills so fine tuned that I cannot possibly lose.

manbaps

06-04-2005, 23:19

Last time i got that far my king died and the biggest ever civil war occured and then at least 2 factions reappeard; spanish and egyptians if i remeber rightly. I was not a happy man. Getting 100% is difficult, well at least ive always found it hard.

Anyway good luck with 100 ~:)

littlebktruck

06-05-2005, 04:09

Interestingly enough, the game crashed as I was going to save right after the battle that I lost badly. I reloaded the autosave, which didn't record my horrible loss. How fortunate!

This time, I sat tight and prepared troops for a go at Egypt. After sinking their navy, I declared a crusade to Palestine (I know that the trading provinces are richer, but it just felt more...appropriate). In the same turn my armies in Cyrenacia invaded Egypt. Both provinces fell after I defeated counterattacks. The Egyptians declared a Jihad against Egypt, but it has always retreated instead of attacking. Last turn, though, Palestine was invaded from all directions by a force of 4100 men. I only had 1800 (and many were a bit too heavily armoured), but I decided to fight it. There were some tense moments early, but I beat back their first wave and sent the Sultan fleeing. They sent wave after wave after my position, but most of their troops broke and ran before they even made contact. They would then regroup to approach again, and would again flee before hitting the lines. My troops saw little fighting after dispatching the first wave, and most of that was at my initiation. This lasted about an hour until (mercifully) the timer ran out. While the casualty count was many times in my favor, the fact that they didn't fight much meant that the victory was far from decisive. As you can see in the picture below, Palestine is still surrounded by hostiles.

On the French front, I sent a second crusade, this one to Flanders. After taking Flanders, I blitzed troops from Flanders to Normandy; from Aquitaine to Brittany; and from Toulouse and Aquitaine to Anjou. The French retreated from all attacks, so I've managed to take most of western France without a single battle.

Spain in 1188:

https://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y263/littlebktruck/Spain1188.jpg

Plans:

Probably another crusade against the Egyptians, probably to Antioch or perhaps somewhere in (very lightly defended) Asia, which will help spread the Egyptians out. Acheiving that, I will move my armies slowly up the eastern deserts, hoping to avoid battles until I get into a more favorable position. Also, I hope to avoid offensive battles as much as possible, as I'm completely inept at attacking.

Patron

06-05-2005, 07:39

What types of units do you have? What ypes of units do the Egyptians have? I think you should do a proper invasion, you should take Silesia as it is a choke point into north Africa and you appear to have naval superiority. Then you can combine your forces to invade Arabia and Syria. If you succeed the rewards will be great, you will be in a position to pound the Egyptians to death. You will have 2 provinces to defend whereas the Egyptians will have 4 or 5 provinces to defend aswell as the provinces you can attack by sea. Everytime you see a province poorly defended you can drive out or kill the army and if the province has no castle you can loot it, then leave and use the barren province as a forward for your future invasion (this might not be a good idea on coastal provinces). If you keep on doing this you will certainly make progress somewhere and will probably eradicate the Egyptians in 2 decades.

littlebktruck

06-06-2005, 05:08

My units in Egypt are remnants of an early army, with Jinettes, archers, and (mostly unupgraded) feudal foot troops. My units in Palestine, and my possible reinforcements, are upgraded feudal foot troops, archers, and feudal knights. Despite their local superiority, I think another large infusion of troops will knock them back on their heels. I could send it away from the Levant and hope to split them up, or I could use it to reinforce my holdings and unite my forces, hopefully pushing them back into Asia. I think I also have the upper hand in France, as they just launched an attack at a province (Anjou?) that cost them 1600 troops. That was a big hit to their strength, and almost all of their melee troops are peasant militia anyway.

Patron

06-07-2005, 06:01

Counter attack vs the French immediately and drive them into 1 province and let them rot, or if you think you can prevent them from reappearing after you eradicate them, do so.

Use spearmen to lock the Egyptians into position then attack the rear of their units methodically with your knights, engage quickly and you should be able to get your knights up an elevations and do this effectively. Watch out of their armoured spearmen, it might be worth bringing along 2 units of feudal men at arms along with whateer masses of seargants and knights or other cavalry you can muster.

Also

VICTORYYYYY VICTORRYYYYYYY!!!!! :charge:

~:cheers: ~:cheers: ~:cheers: ~:cheers: ~:cheers: ~:cheers: ~:cheers: ~:cheers: ~:cheers: ~:cheers: ~:cheers: ~:cheers: ~:cheers: ~:cheers: ~:cheers: ~:cheers:

https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y206/asdasdasd2/Peaceatlast.jpg

littlebktruck

06-15-2005, 00:57

I've passed on into the High era, and my troop-producing provinces are now producing arbalesters, CMAA's, chivalric sergeants, and chivalric knights. I've advanced up the eastern coast of the Med some, and I've moved further into France. I attacked Sicily so that I could get my Papal warning and then hit France. I'm also attacking the English. The Egyptians and French have both suffered from rebellions, and the Turks reappeared in Armenia with 2 stacks and then proceeded to bribe the Egyptians in Georgia. With the Horde coming in 16 years, I think I'll let the Turks live as a buffer between my lands and those of the Horde. Meanwhile, I'll try to take the rest of Asia and more further into Western Europe.

Spain in 1214:

https://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y263/littlebktruck/Spain1214.jpg

-Amon-

06-18-2005, 10:18

damn thats pretty impressive

hey!here are my best ones:

1-Bridge Battle..Expert..Turkish..Early..(it's my Favourite ~:cheers: )(damn futuwwas are really cool ~:cool: )

https://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b183/shadowthief_1/amonresult_1.jpg

2-I don't remember,possibly a land battle..Medmod-Hard..Italians..Early...
https://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b183/shadowthief_1/amonresult_2.jpg

Patron

06-18-2005, 17:32

Wow! You killed 1045 without a single casualty! I always seem to get at least 1 casualty.

-Amon-

06-18-2005, 17:42

yep!it was very funny battle..but i have to say that these futuwwas are damn cool..

PittBull260

06-26-2005, 21:07

I started a campaign today as the Bosnians, and here's the info

Faction:Bosnians
Year:1131
Plans:Take over the Pepacy and leave them Sicily to starve on :)

https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/DEADLIFT/Bosnia.jpg

The Blind King of Bohemia

06-26-2005, 22:26

Are you sure its not the Croatians? ~D

PittBull260

06-26-2005, 22:37

Are you sure its not the Croatians? ~D
:p I changed it cause I'm Bosnian, mwahahah :charge: :charge: :charge:

The Blind King of Bohemia

06-26-2005, 22:47

Fair enough mate. Its nice to see some pics of the mod. Hope your enjoying it ~:cheers:

PittBull260

06-26-2005, 23:46

Fair enough mate. Its nice to see some pics of the mod. Hope your enjoying it ~:cheers:
oh I'm enjoying it :)
oh, can u tell me how to change a faction's religion?
if its too long/complicated then u dont have to tell me :)

PittBull260

06-29-2005, 18:13

i just wanted to show this sweet swiss campaign from the super duper awesome BKB super mod :)

https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/DEADLIFT/swiss.jpg

Mikeus Caesar

06-29-2005, 19:33

The Italians: I started a campaign with these, it went pretty well. I expanded north, into HRE, until they were completely eradicated. I then proceeded to blitz all of the French provinces, beating them within 3 years. The English quickly went the same way. Then i proceeded to invade Denmark, only to get exocommunicated. Started to move east and south-east into Poland, Russia and the Balkans. Eliminated Poland within 5 turns, and destroyed Hungary within 10. Was doing quite well with all the rebels out in Russia when suddenly the entire empire fell into bits within one turn, due to the fact that there was civil war and the re-emergance of HRE and the French, all in one go. I ended up defeated with about 20 turns, because i picked the crap side by accident. It said they had the most men, but they were all rubbish....oh well...better luck next time, ey?

PittBull260

06-30-2005, 01:49

here's how my swiss campaign's going, i attacked the english and got me a few extra provinces cause i needed the money

https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/DEADLIFT/swiss2.jpg

Martok

06-30-2005, 05:16

here's how my swiss campaign's going, i attacked the english and got me a few extra provinces cause i needed the money

Cool. Who's the light green over by the Turks, by the way?

PittBull260

06-30-2005, 12:14

Cool. Who's the light green over by the Turks, by the way?
that's the Ikhanate i think, a muslim faction.

PittBull260

06-30-2005, 20:05

here's a small taste of the Pipe & Musket Mod still in progress
I am playing as the "Roundheads"(English) and the year is 1687
this mod is great, the battles are crazy, everyone should try it!

the french have been trying to take flanders back for decades, but my great musketeers and artilery won't allow that ;)

https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/DEADLIFT/roundheads.jpg

Evil_Maniac From Mars

06-30-2005, 20:31

Is there a reset date cheat? My Novgorods have almost conquered the world but have only 20 years to take Africa, Spain, and parts of France.

PittBull260

06-30-2005, 20:33

Is there a reset date cheat? My Novgorods have almost conquered the world but have only 20 years to take Africa, Spain, and parts of France.
the end date is 1700 i think, u better hurry up then lol

Evil_Maniac From Mars

06-30-2005, 20:37

I'm not playing a mod, for Medival, full patched and unmodded, the end date is 1453.....

PittBull260

06-30-2005, 20:45

I'm not playing a mod, for Medival, full patched and unmodded, the end date is 1453.....
oh thought u were talkin about the mod
and no i dont know of any reverse date cheat sorry

cegorach

07-01-2005, 10:15

A piece of information. :bow:

PitBull - if you started in 'late' of PMTW the closing date is 1800 - I extended it for some factions.

IN future I might add few years more in 'late' because of two new very demanding factions I am going to add - Barbary States and Montenegro. :bow:

BTW - I can see that the Portuguese defeated the Spanish ~D Georgia somehow survived clashes with the Ottomans ~:cool: but who re-appeared in Ireland ? I don't remember this colour scheme ~:confused: Cavaliers ? :book:

My regards Cegorach ~:cheers:

PittBull260

07-01-2005, 16:03

BTW - I can see that the Portuguese defeated the Spanish ~D Georgia somehow survived clashes with the Ottomans ~:cool: but who re-appeared in Ireland ? I don't remember this colour scheme ~:confused: Cavaliers ? :book:

My regards Cegorach ~:cheers:
yea the stupid cavaliers :dizzy2: anoying little turds, i'll take care of em soon lol

Zarax

07-01-2005, 17:55

ZXMOD, started as Danish GA in Early after a lot of turtling i watched many empires rise and fall...

Byzantines, Spanish and English all became superpowers and fell, with finally the Italians ready to challenge me for the last race to grab the decisive points (I lead with a 3 point margin, so it's very close) with the Huns as unsuspected third power acting as artificial chockepoint for my smaller army.

In this screenshot you can find a typical late AI Italian army featuring a good quality mix of their militia units

https://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a100/zarax/27906f53.jpg

Zarax

07-01-2005, 18:03

Same scenario, danish side.
The Danish roster, like the Italian, is infantry heavy and so the player must rely on the eastern lands to get a good cavalry supply, even though their heavy inf is capable of taking care of almost anything alone...

https://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a100/zarax/be92d486.jpg

PittBull260

07-01-2005, 19:46

heres how my english campaign's going,
on here you can see I am allied with the french now, and we were both fighting the huge Russian empire and caused it to go into civil war, I also took denmark and Sweden from the russians :)
https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/DEADLIFT/round1.jpg

on this screenshot u can see I took over Portugal and Leon, they were both being controlled by Rebels so I said what the heck, I can use the money :)

https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/DEADLIFT/round2.jpg

this mod pwns

Patron

07-01-2005, 20:49

Some of these modded games look awesome.. Though I can't download anything because I have a cr***y 56 k which disconnects randomly. I started a new game, early again, Aragonese, unmodded.

Sancho and his princes led a war against the English and the Germans, (taking provence, then cease firing with french), before finally surrounding France and blitzing in with mercenary heavy cavalry and valour 2 elite urban militia. Sancho I died and Sancho II was crowned, so I had to lower tax ands sent my mercenaries south to expend themselves on the Spanish and Almohads. I kicked the Almohads out of Valencia first, but then the Spanish invaded and by pure military genius (luck) I killed the command lvl 8 spanish king and 800 of his men and my counter attack scared him into Leon where his son would dwell for a decade before finally being extinguished.

A slowy drawn on campaign to push the Almohads into Granada and take Morroco and Portugal followed, all the while my entire conquest of France funded a 100% funded military construction scheme as I did in my last campaign, to mass produce armoured and metalsmithed elite troops.

I also donated a provionce to produce assassins and spies and another to make inquisitors and cardinals, though I intend to demolish the cathedral there and build a new one in Palestine, when I have conquerred it and built a citadel there..

The Almohads were obliterated by a Crusade I sent from my religious province, I had sent it to Sinai to seal off North Africa.

At the moment I am recoverring from an annoying invasion by the deceitful Italians and a subsequent excommunication for bribing some Italians cowerring in a keep in Tyrolia. I killed off the popists and have withdrew from the Italian peninsula and I intend to churn out some of my well armed units and conqwuer europe up to Poland and Hungaria, before taking the middle east up to Turkey...

Patron

07-01-2005, 20:50

https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y206/asdasdasd2/screeniAragon1158.bmp

The image thing won't work, so i hope this turns out ok...

Zarax

07-01-2005, 20:55

Some of these modded games look awesome.. Though I can't download anything because I have a cr***y 56 k which disconnects randomly.

If you're looking for something quick to download try the mod in my sig...

Patron

07-01-2005, 21:03

oops..

https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y206/asdasdasd2/screeniAragon1158.jpg

Patron

07-01-2005, 21:06

The page cannot be displayed
The page you are looking for is currently unavailable. The Web site might be experiencing technical difficulties, or you may need to adjust your browser settings.

http://microsoftusernetwork.com/hosted/ZxMod.exe ^
:(

PittBull260

07-01-2005, 21:16

Zarax

07-01-2005, 22:43

PittBull260

07-02-2005, 04:08

omg I was having such a great battle, and my general dies and I loose, arhghh I'll never send my general in to fight again >_<

https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/DEADLIFT/damnit.jpg

Martok

07-02-2005, 05:57

Arrgh, stupid computer..... [post deleted]

Martok

07-02-2005, 06:01

omg I was having such a great battle, and my general dies and I loose, arhghh I'll never send my general in to fight again >_<

What the..... How on earth did you lose that battle? It looks like you were mopping up already. Did you run out of time?

PittBull260

07-02-2005, 06:12

What the..... How on earth did you lose that battle? It looks like you were mopping up already. Did you run out of time?
i was demolishing them, my general got killed lol, he was in the frontlines :)
it was a historical battle, so if my general dies i loose

Martok

07-02-2005, 07:48

Ah yes, that would explain it. Unfortunate; you were really cleaning up there!

Abokasee

07-02-2005, 10:11

how you play as a unplayable faction?

cegorach

07-02-2005, 10:58

Ah yes, that would explain it. Unfortunate; you were really cleaning up there!

That is right. Another thing is the fact that the battles in PMTW are really massive ~D and historical battles have several additional victory conditions e.g. do not lose too many men, do let the enemy to flee ( Karachev 1615) - or survive ( Obertyn 1531) ~D ~;)

BTW - Pittbull I have noticed you are using westerneuropean panel/menu - do you like it ? ~:)

And a piece of advise - when using Husaria set their formation to melee - keeping them in formation doesn't help at all ~;)

PittBull260

07-02-2005, 14:49

BTW - Pittbull I have noticed you are using westerneuropean panel/menu - do you like it ? ~:)
yes sir i do

PittBull260

07-02-2005, 21:33

well the year is 1800, and I'm done, I had a lot of fun with this campaign
As you can see me and the french ganged up on the portugese :)

I had 10 fortresses, the french had 12 >_<

Links are down but were replaced by other images (photos) that were irrelevant to the post.

PittBull260

07-11-2005, 01:48

come on ppl, lets see some more campaigns!

littlebktruck

07-11-2005, 02:41

I finished the Spanish campaign. The Turks were a useless buffer. The Horde attacked me twice in Syria, but my army of arbalests, feudal and chivalric sergeants, and knights took care of them easily. I finally had numerical parity and I sent huge stacks to take them out of the game. That done, I took out the last few Egyptian provinces and sealed the 60% win by invading three Polish provinces on the same turn. I'm now working on a game as the Italians. I'm around 1115 and I've taken out a good chunk of the HRE (I've taken Provence, Tyrolia, Burgundy (I believe), Austria, and maybe some others that I forgot). I'm rebuilding my military (I'm spread pretty thin right now, and those Hungarians have tons of horse archers and milita sergeants) and teching up to get some cavalry. I don't have a good trading fleet yet, and I'm really missing the early cavalry I had as the Spanish and English. Also, I require a defensive army in the large majority of my provinces.

Plans: Once I get some mounted sergeants I'm going to go after the French and English and I'll finish off the HRE so I can get a nice, 2 province border at the Pyrenees and no northern border (unless I stop at Flanders and/or leave the Danes alone).

EatYerGreens

07-12-2005, 06:26

By the way, how can you tell which prince will become the King? Is there any way to affect the selection? It seems to usually go to a young one, I guess so he has time to have heirs, as it doesn't seem that princes have children. I could be wrong about that, though, as I have seen it where I had heirs after someone just took over the throne.

Go to your family parchment. Whoever is listed at the top of the sheet (he should be in red lettering instead of black) is the guy next in line for the throne.

Yup.

If you check the list often and recheck just after a succession, you'll notice the difference. His younger brothers will have vanished from the list but then conveniently become 'eternal', in the form of generals, for the rest of the campaign.

I actually think this partially spoils the game, in that empires really should wax and wane according to the varying quality of their army leaders, with the passage of the decades. Good quality generals, in real life, come with an inbuilt expiry date. You simply have to make use of them while you can.

Whilst it is feasible for a great general to pass on his skills (by means of tuition, not genetics, I hasten to add) to his offspring, you can't guarantee that some descendent won't turn their back on their family heritage and take up something less martial as a career. In the game this could hit as hard as a general being assassinated and weaken a border province if an adequate second in command hasn't been stationed close by.

Meanwhile, the son inheriting command of a unit could be implemented in the game by having his individual valour level revert back to that of a fresh trainee (dragging down the unit average until he wins some fights). Also, whilst the father may well have gained star ratings from successful battles, eventually they retire and perhaps the son should have a reduced star rating, maybe no more than 85% of his father, to reflect that he's been schooled in the techiques but lacks actual experience. If the son fails to gain stars in his lifetime, perhaps due to a period of extended peace, the grandson's rating will be further dented as the knowledge becomes third-hand and anachronistic. So an 8-star early-era Byz prince would become a 3-star general after six generations unless skills are kept fresh by frequent victories in each generation. (And, if I understand correctly, the star ratings are 1 = 1 win; 2 = 2 wins; 3 = 4 wins; 4 = 8 wins; 5 = 16 wins; 6 = 32 wins ; 7 = 64 wins; 8 = 128 wins, as unfeasible as that last one sounds)

In this sense, we're probably lucky that the game doesn't make troop units grow old, gradually lose the odd man to disease, or decline in physical fitness (reduced default level of energy bars, in battle mode), or suffer from lack of real battle experience whilst on prolonged garrison duty (valour bonus gradually decays) and so on.

Seeing these screenshots with piles of unspent money in the bank, I wonder if the extra costs of continually having to disband aged units and train fresh ones - not to mention the logistics of getting them to the right places at the right time, across a large, sprawling empire with awkward naval blockades in the way and so on, would add to the overall challenge?

As seen on one of these screenshots, in the game, you can crusade to Palestine and hold it for decades, remote from your homelands. In reality, all their opponents had to do, rather than fight at great cost into strong fortifications, was to wait for the occupiers to grow old and die (20-40 years), or for them to simply give up and head back home (5-10 yrs). They didn't bring their families with them and properly colonise the place, did they? (I need to check up on the history at this point).

I don't have a knowledge of modding but it obviously entails unit parameters being tweaked, provided the game designers decided to include it. However, adding a whole extra variable, which has to be incremented on each turn and individually kept track of for every single unit on the map, is an entirely different matter. I doubt the game-save file structure would allow for it and, if it did, it would increase its size quite substantially.

If there does happen to be a mod which has somehow managed to implement this, I'd be extremely interested in trying it. ~D

ChaosLord

07-12-2005, 20:01

Well, you can get something like that. In the last patch for VI CA programmers included a little extra. The -greengenerals command line. With this active your generals lose some of their stats when they die of old age. So it makes building up das uber general a little harder rather then farming battle and titles for one. I never really liked playing with it though. Because its not random, theres no chance of keeping stuff its just a set decrease it seems. But it sounds like you might like it better that way. Since i'm not sure if -greengenerals is the exact command line search around for it, there should be a few threads on it.

EatYerGreens

07-12-2005, 21:56

Thanks ChaosLord. I'll probably give that a try, sometime.

I'm not too sure about what you mean by 'farming' generals but I can certainly see how it's possible to 'work the game' rather than do things which would be done in reality. For example winning a territory then repeatedly pulling out on the following turn, allowing the sieged force to retake it then attacking again the year after and every other year in a similar pattern, to clock up multiple victories and increase the general's command rating.

If I'm right about the exponential increase in numbers of victories per star then at least there's an issue of diminishing returns on this practice though you might pick up some usevul V&V's like 'skilled attacker', which gives the equivalent of an extra star when on the offensive.

One of the things I don't like about the game is the emphasis on outright victory. When faced by multiple huge stacks and you can only afford to keep a single stack but of better quality troops, logic dictates that the way to go would be to make repeated raids, inflict as many casualties as possible but without making the outright win and then withdrawing (not routing) to prepare for more the following year, or however long it takes to bring in your replacements for your own losses.

The side benefit is that as long as you keep initiating attacks, the enemy force has to sit and defend, thus stopping the multiple stacks from breaking into your lands.

There is potential for generating income out of repeated ransoming of prisoners but in many ways this is counter productive as you only have to fight them all again in the next round. Oh hang on.... come to think of it, if you don't score the win, you automatically lose your prisoners and the right to ransom them, so you'll just have to keep hitting the button to slaughter them all. The general may get 'butcher' through this but there's another one ('scant mercy'???) which says something about discontent in the ranks due to lack of opportunity for a share of the ransom.

Anyway, attempts at nuisance raiding or the full-blown attrition style penalise you heavily by making generals lose star-rating if they fail often enough and also pick up vices like 'coward' , 'good runner', 'retreats often' which hit their unit morale and valour rating hard.

There are times when you want to send a raiding party to a territory next door to the one where your real attack is to take place, to pin down the AI units there and discourage it from moving them in to bolster the defence against your main attack. You know full well that the odds for this feint will be hopelessly against you and that it will be called off but, for your troubles, that general picks up 'hesitant' and so on.

I could understand if you got those vice as a result of at least three occurences but you only need to do it the once - and that can easily happen purely because you decide the weather was unfavourable for an attack (you brought gunners with you and it tips down for several days in a row).

It's a real pain.

EatYerGreens

07-12-2005, 23:08

I liked the look of those battle results screens earlier on in this thread but I started another one about what I thought was odd about them...

Ludicrous prisoner numbers!! thread (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?p=843529#post843529)

PittBull260

07-24-2005, 21:57

New campaing here
eary-expert-Welsh-bkb super mod

the start was really hard, i had like 200 men and 1 small province sourrounded by the huge british armies, but here's how it is right now :)

the pope's definently the biggest and strongest and richest empire, I'm just waiting till is collapses into civil war...

Links are down but were replaced by other images (photos) that were irrelevant to the post.

THE POPE'S EASTERN ARMIES

Links are down but were replaced by other images (photos) that were irrelevant to the post.

The Blind King of Bohemia

07-24-2005, 23:34

Jesus that's one weird map - and look at the size of some of those eastern armies! ~:eek: I've never seen the Papacy do that well!

Zarax

07-24-2005, 23:52

That and the Danes... Even after massive work I never managed to have them become a world class power in ZXMod...
I think it's more a matter of inefficent resource management (and weird low loyalty generals) because once they reach a decent level of development fares well even against significant numerical odds on AI vs AI... The overall balance is quite good though, no power manages to own more than 40% of the map.
That's enough digressing, I'm going to upload some screenshots of my own...

antisocialmunky

07-25-2005, 00:28

Has anyone ever managed to get a massive Danish empire in Vanilla VI/Expert/Late?

I kidna want to try except +3 Armour Boyars and Gothic Knights frighten me dearly.

Zarax

07-25-2005, 00:36

https://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a100/zarax/fc3e2075.jpg

Here's my latest testing...

I played an ultra defensive game as the Italians, believe it or not I have to fight a battle in this game yet, all the conquered territories are the results of bribed rebels.

The actual scenario is just after the Spanish (who owned the western half of the map) suffered a civil war due to a failed crusade against a surprisingly resilient Byzantine Empire, who unlike in most games survived the golden horde.

Despite the major setback the Spanish managed to launch another crusade, that grew quite big (I've seen up to 4000 men per crusade) thanks to their clever use of the inquisitors (who are burning up my generals like paper despite my attempts to kill them).
They have a scary 8 stars guy that might be able to kill my royal line, is pretty much invulnerable to assassination and caused me much grief when he killed my favoured general (8 stars and 9 acumen)...

The current crusade is wreacking havoc through the Byzantine empire (that had to massively cut the size of the army after having lost the seas) thanks to the top quality troops they "recruited" in Venice (100% zeal, raised by the AI) and the use of my neutral navy as a trojan horse... Really clever move, there are instances where the AI almost reaches human player levels of strategical thinking it's really a pleasure to see...

PittBull260

07-25-2005, 04:43

nice campaign u got there zarax

here's how my campaign is going

well the pepacy is nothing right now, cause i allied with the danes and demolished the pope from both sides, I'm having trouble keeping my loyalty up, but its nothin too serious
here's how it is :)

i think this is the biggest empire I've ever had on expert level :D =)

https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/DEADLIFT/untitled.jpg

Zarax

07-25-2005, 04:54

Nice strategic move...

I see you're training Slav Warriors... Are they of any usefulness in BKB except for garrison and cannon fodder?

PittBull260

07-25-2005, 04:57

Nice strategic move...

I see you're training Slav Warriors... Are they of any usefulness in BKB except for garrison and cannon fodder?
I used them in the east because that was the best unit I could train over there, but they're very good for their price

NodachiSam

07-25-2005, 04:59

Holy!! (no pun intended) I am guessing your excommunicated now :P I've never seen the Pope so large! That looked intimidating! ~:eek: Looks like you're on the way to win now :D

Zarax

07-25-2005, 11:15

https://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a100/zarax/85440b42.jpg

A few decades later, my emissary bribed half Europe after the spanish had... err... some embarrassing offspring management problems... I swear I wasn't involved on the matter ;-)

I'm finishing the creation of my attack army, which includes some of the best units western Europe has to offer, including Lancers, Gothic Sergeants, deadly Swabian Swordsmen and the supremely flexible Almughavars...

I'm planning a 5 pronged offensive, with one army led by my King that will do the camp battles (my RP rule is that only the king should play the battles, anything else is autocalc, that gives a touch of realism imho), 3 with 9 star generals (some former royals, not even the Byz Katanks can stand jedi late RK) and one crusade that will be fitted with an elite mercenary army (a mix of foot knights and foreign elite units) to give it the right punch... Too bad the HRE didn't want to let Switzerland rebel but i guess vanilla pikes with maxed bonuses (Cathedral and Master Weapon+Armour) will do the work allright...

Endgame is set to 1491 so I'm pretty sure to reach almost 60% with ease, 100% doesn't interest me...

Zarax

07-25-2005, 12:27

https://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a100/zarax/Image1.jpg

And finally the offensive starts!
The home army marches across central Europe, while the highlighted crusade opens a second front in Egypt...

PittBull260

07-25-2005, 18:24

damn zarax, that's pretty cool, getting all that land without any bloodshed (from battles at least), pretty impressive, nice empire too

Zarax

07-25-2005, 18:30

Well, the bloodshed is coming now, I discovered the hard way that the Byz developed a big bloody veteran troop pool that is a real match to my more advanced but unexperienced army, thank you very much Spaniards... I should win before 1491 but that 60% isn't a piece of cake

littlebktruck

07-25-2005, 23:25

I've reached 1130 in my Italian game, and I've attacked the Germans again in order to get Switzerland and Swabia under my control, keeping my borders the same length. I also took Toulouse off the French, but they've moved larger armies into Anjou and Ile de France, threatening my hold on Burgundy. I've slowed military building drastically until I get into a better financial situation. Unfortunately, I also had to slow province development, and my knights will be behind schedule. The HRE seems to be gassed after one bad defeat, but I'll wait to finish them off, as I don't need to add more border provinces. I'm building my trade network and waiting for more money to come in before I do too much more.

Results from a particularly auspicious battle:

https://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y263/littlebktruck/Greatbattle.jpg

Italy in 1130 (notice the menacing French forces):

https://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y263/littlebktruck/Italy1130.jpg

Evil_Maniac From Mars

07-25-2005, 23:36

As the HRE I've conquered France, Italy, Corsica/Sardinia, Hungary and Poland, Prussia, England/Scotland and Ireland, am threatening the Byzantines and Egyptains with huge armies, uncluding a 3 stack army of Crusaders, but the Spanish uber-generals are giving me trouble, they have a 5-9 star general in every province, sometimes two. I have Portugal, Navarre, and Aragon, but the rest of Spain still eludes me. I have hordes of soldiers, many of them under the uber-general I have dubbed "Friedrich the Great", the 20 year old brother of the Emperor. I've already assasinated most of his brothers, giving him a clear route to the throne when the 65 year old Emperor dies. Novgorod is powerful, and Poland is my anti-Mongol buffer for when they appear. That's pretty good, seeing as it's only the 1100s. Pics to come soon.

dgfred

07-26-2005, 15:16

You are an evil maniac- that is good fighting. I too have had many problems
before with the Spanish uber generals as the French, those dudes are tough.
I also like your Friedrich the Great, my last name is Frederick :grin2: . Keep us
updated.

Evil_Maniac From Mars

07-27-2005, 01:44

I've taken all of Spain but Cordoba and Leon, the Enlish have re-emerged with 4 full stacks and taken Northumbria, but beaten out of Scotland. I'm sending the "3rd Mainlander Army" under Friedrich, and I have my "1st Amphibous Army" taking Sicily and Naples from the Sicilans, quelling Malta as well. The Pope refuses to take sides, I am at war with almost everyone but the Byzantines and Turks, I have a front with the English, another with Spain and Almohads, another with Poland, another with the Byzantines (neutral), I've taken Anatolia from the Egyptains on a Crusade, and Prussia has a front with the 5-6 star Russian King (neutral). I managed to get the Princes Rudolf and Heinrich slain in battle (on purpose), but then Prince Heinrich comes of age before Friedrich can take the throne, and Heinrich is a 5 star general at 16 ~:eek: , so he stays.

Roark

07-27-2005, 02:24

(Sicily/Early/Hard/GA/1170)

First Sicilian campaign. I have crusaded 4 times, all successful. My most advanced unit is the Feudal Knight. I swallowed the Holy Land and everything South and East of Cordoba, virtually removing Islam from the map. My northern borders extend to Anatolia and Georgia. Now I am sitting on a $25,000 profit per year because of my wicked trade network. My 17 year old heir is a 7 star skilled attacker/defender, 6 dread, 7 piety and 8 (!) acumen.

Love the Sicilians...

PittBull260

07-27-2005, 03:20

Roark

07-27-2005, 03:51

Well, it's about time I had a decent heir...

My English royal line was like a freak show of the barking mad. In my campaigns, the Plantaganets are usually a seriously messed-up family...

PittBull260

07-27-2005, 03:57

well my welsh campaign ended with me controling 60% of the map, and not havin enough time to take over 100%

here's my turkish campaign, super late (modded to start from 1300, and end at 1500), is going good, the danes have big armies, and they might be a threat to me...but here's how it is

https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/DEADLIFT/turks.jpg

Martok

07-27-2005, 08:01

Well, it's about time I had a decent heir...

My English royal line was like a freak show of the barking mad. In my campaigns, the Plantaganets are usually a seriously messed-up family...

Really? That's surprising. My roommate and I both play as the English fairly often--my roomie more so than myself--and the the male Plantaganets generally turn out pretty good for us. The one large exception to this rule is one of the Edwards (I forget which). Whenever he comes of age, he's almost always a strange, perverted sybarite with too many toes. He's usually guaranteed to die in a suicide attack--er, "glorious battle"..... ~D

Zarax

07-27-2005, 11:50

https://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a100/zarax/8247946c.jpg

Finally the campaign is getting towards the end, I'm getting ready for the final push in the steppes and asia minor but it's slower than expected as the lands are underdeveloped making the supply lines longer...

A tricky castle assault costed me on of my prized 9 stars generals, while losses are keeping the others on the defensive.

My king took out Constantinople with only his bodyguards supported by 15 cannons that reduced the citadel defenses to rubble...

I've got some minor concers in the north, where the Danish are getting developed enough to deploy the most advanced units, something that would cost a lot of troops to face...

Advo-san

07-27-2005, 12:13

I thought the game ended in 1453... But if my eyes aren't playing games, it s 1471 and you re still going! I suppose it is a mod?

Zarax

07-27-2005, 12:21

I thought the game ended in 1453... But if my eyes aren't playing games, it s 1471 and you re still going! I suppose it is a mod?

Yep, that's the ZXMod, the game ends in 1491 there, plus there are extra features like improved strategic AI and more specialized factions.

Zarax

07-27-2005, 13:23

https://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a100/zarax/4f077738.jpg

After a 60% victory as the Italians and some new tweaks on the AI I'm starting something more challenging.

ZXMOD, Byz High.
I made a small change that is quite historical, as the latin emperors were Venitian puppets in reality and so they should behave in the game.

Claiming back Constantinople will be a serious challenge, so I'll start the opening move by retaking Asia minor...

PittBull260

07-27-2005, 17:42

thats gonna be an inresting campaign Zarax, keep us updated, I wanna see how it turns out.

PS
that pm that i sent u with my aim, xfire and all, ignore it, I found out how to do it :)

PittBull260

07-27-2005, 18:44

new campaign here

BKB Super Mod-Early-Expert-Norse

History:
I started out taking over iceland and Sweden to make good money, I tried to conquer scotland with Viking Landsmen, but they weren't good enough. So I made some expensive Viking Huscarles, and took over Scotland easily, then I went on south and conquered all of England and Ireland. Denmark was gettin a big army, so I took over them too.

The Almoravids were conquering Europe QUICK, they reach poland, and everything from poland on west, and north africa was all under Almoravid Control. I attacked them, made them loose about 6 provinces, then the Kievans attacked them too, and the Almoravids collapsed into civil war, they're still large and powerful, but not a big threat.

https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/DEADLIFT/viking.jpg

Zarax

07-27-2005, 18:58

thats gonna be an inresting campaign Zarax, keep us updated, I wanna see how it turns out.

PS
that pm that i sent u with my aim, xfire and all, ignore it, I found out how to do it :)

It's got an hard start, will post some pics later...

Other than that, I've got you on my MSN should you need any help

Zarax

07-27-2005, 20:06

https://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a100/zarax/f1bbb713.jpg

It took me 70 years and a Hungarian civil war to take back Constantinople.

Asia minor isn't the richest place ever, especially for trade so I had to beat the Turkish and do it with the cheap stuff...

Just when things started to look better the horde came and I had to make a quick retreat from Georgia and Armenia, now I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hope the mongols find the eggys a more appetible target than me, at least until I can rebuild the economy...

yesdachi

07-27-2005, 20:32

[IMG]
It took me 70 years and a Hungarian civil war to take back Constantinople.

nice to see they left you some decent buildings.

Zarax

07-27-2005, 20:37

nice to see they left you some decent buildings.

Yeah, I'm going to send them some Varangian Gratitude sooner or later ~;)

PittBull260

07-28-2005, 01:51

dman Zarax, that looks like it's pretty challenging, just make some good units to defend from the Mongols, cause they usually go unti they reach nicea, and then they stop (tahts what they always do to me)

Roark

07-28-2005, 08:28

It took me 70 years and a Hungarian civil war to take back Constantinople.

70 years!! You get 10 points for tenacity, bro... I go literally nuts when Constantinople is out of my hands. It's the jewel of the East IMHO.

Zarax

07-28-2005, 08:34

Well, the Turkish are an excellent target if you take them quickly.
Once you got Asia Minor you'll be still pretty much cash strapped but you will be able to afford a decent army.

It will be just a matter of waiting the right moment for the assault, just remember that you most likely will have to siege so don't take too many prisoners.

Babij

07-28-2005, 10:35

I am about 30% into my second game as the Byzantines. I'm on easy mode because I suck.

1087-1100:
1087:
https://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b57/Babij1/Byzies1087.jpg
1097:
https://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b57/Babij1/Byzies1097.jpg
I just stayed where I was and built up my economy. I left Hungary alone, due to some bad experiences with them in the past.

1100-1117:
1117:
https://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b57/Babij1/Byzies1117.jpg
After over 10 years of peace, I launched an attack against Turkey, as they were weakened by a war against Egypt. After I had destroyed them, I took several lands to the north that were occupied by barbarians.

1120-1122:
1120:
https://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b57/Babij1/1120.jpg
1122:
https://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b57/Babij1/Byzies1122.jpg
Egypt was destroyed, eliminating the last threat from the south.

1122-1128:
1128:
https://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b57/Babij1/Byzies1128.jpg
I paused for breath as my forces gathered to retrain in Constantinople. By this time I had three full stacks led by my fine princes.

1128-1132:
1132:
https://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b57/Babij1/Byzies1132.jpg
A massive assault against the north began. I penetrated deep into Russia, and from there established a foothold.

1132-1137:
1137:
https://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b57/Babij1/Byzies1137.jpg
My troops gathered momentum and rolled through the northern provinces, crushing all resistance. Now my empire rivals the ancient Roman empire, and my armies are the finest in all the world. I look to the west at my ancient rival Hungary, or perhaps defeating the Almohads would enable me to dominate the south, and provide a stepping stone into Western Europe.

dgfred

07-28-2005, 15:45

PittBull260

07-28-2005, 16:02

nice empire babij, but don't forget the Golden Horde will attack u with like 20,000 troops lol. So I would've just stoped at Georgia and set a nice border there, and then expand south into africa, then spain :)

PittBull260

07-28-2005, 16:06

i just a had a sweet battle
I modded it so that it's not 40 men in a unit, but 60 (same with cavalry) and I put the unit size on HUGE :), so this was a big battle lol

https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/DEADLIFT/sweetmuslimbattle.jpg

Evil_Maniac From Mars

07-28-2005, 16:46

https://img280.imageshack.us/img280/2474/medievalmap8sh.jpg

I've conquered Spain, I'm at war with the Polish (they're just a buffer between me, the Russians, and soon the Mongols), the Egyptians, and the Byzantines (though that's mostly just naval battles, they have some kickass armies ready, as you can see in the screen), I also have an uneasy neutrality with the Pope Clement, though I have some 4-star assasins closing in in case he x-coms me, I am also neutral with the powerful Russians and Almohads, though that could change any second. I have strong border armies, and have quelled an English reappearance in Northumbria. My Prussian army is owning in Italy, with its sister army guarding the homelands. Friedrich "the Great" has now be renamed "Friedrich Karolinger" from "Prince Friedrich" because his nephew is on the throne. The Russians may honour me with an alliance soon.

dgfred

07-28-2005, 17:54

@ Pittbull- Why didn't your troops gain ANY valor? ~:confused:

PittBull260

07-28-2005, 18:18

@ Pittbull- Why didn't your troops gain ANY valor? ~:confused:
cause that was a custom battle =)
i gave them all knights, I wanted to see how mamluk troops do against high tech knights, and they did good :)

PittBull260

07-28-2005, 18:20

evil maniac are u using cheats? cause I duno how u can get a fortress in serbia that quick....lol, just wondering

dgfred

07-28-2005, 19:52

cause that was a custom battle =)
i gave them all knights, I wanted to see how mamluk troops do against high tech knights, and they did good :)

Gotcha buddy! They sure did do well. ~:eek:

Evil_Maniac From Mars

07-29-2005, 01:09

evil maniac are u using cheats? cause I duno how u can get a fortress in serbia that quick....lol, just wondering
The Hungarians were on some kind of economy spree, I've only used the .matteosartori. cheat.

littlebktruck

07-29-2005, 04:57

@ evil_maniac: Ok, I'm officially in awe.

NodachiSam

07-29-2005, 04:58

littlebktruck

07-29-2005, 05:58

I don't know whether I'm more shocked at his expansion or his financial state. I couldn't dream to match either of those.

PittBull260

07-29-2005, 06:03

I don't know whether I'm more shocked at his expansion or his financial state. I couldn't dream to match either of those.
well its easy to get that kind of money when u control most of central europe

dgfred

07-29-2005, 15:14

I don't know whether I'm more shocked at his expansion or his financial state. I couldn't dream to match either of those.

I was thinking the same thing :jawdrop: ...... at least financially :embarassed:

Babij

07-30-2005, 03:57

Nice work Babij! ~:thumb: You are playing better than you think. I would
go after the weaker of the two between Aloms and Hungary, but you could
probably take out either or both ~;) . Keep us updated and thanks for the
great screenies ~:cool: .

Thanks for the encouragement, I just recently took over the two provinces in the north owned by Novgorod and HRE. My next target is a toss up between Hungary and the Almohads... I just can't make up my mind. ~:)

nice empire babij, but don't forget the Golden Horde will attack u with like 20,000 troops lol. So I would've just stoped at Georgia and set a nice border there, and then expand south into africa, then spain :)

Oh crap, I forgot about that. I'd better start building armies, lol. There's gonna be some pretty damn massive battles soon...

Anyway, here's the latest. It's just one pic, because I haven't had much time lately.

1138:
https://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b57/Babij1/Byzies1138.jpg

There's a bit of trouble loyalty-wise, but otherwise things are great. I've slowed production of armies a bit and I have decided that my next target should be Hungary. They shouldn't be too much of an issue, as they only control about five provinces. My sea trading empire controls the entire Mediterranean, but I'm hoping to be trading with England in due time. ~;)
I was just studying that map, and it looks like the Almohads are on the move... Spain appears to be in a spot of trouble. ~;)

PittBull260

07-30-2005, 06:15

here's a campaign with one of my favorite factions, the Russians/Novgorodians.

High period/expert/bkb super mod

The beggining of course was the hardest part, I had a few yrs to get rdy for the mongolian's attack. So I trained a lot of boyars =)
so the mongols came, i had 5 battles with them, all huge, the first few i didnt even have to command to win because I had great generals, there was 1 battle where I had to command and had one of my best battles :)

so now I'm pretty far in the game, and the pepacy and swedes seem to be doing the best. There were 9 crusades against me, all targeting Novgorod, none of them succeded :), one reached novgorod but didnt take it over =)

I have no allies, I'm at war with the danes currently, and they're not a threat to me anymore =)

https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/DEADLIFT/russia.jpg

Babij

07-30-2005, 07:22

Nice job vs the Mongols. :thumbsup:

Well things have really hit the fan for me...
There I was, things going great, nothing to worry about except who to kill next. Then, WHAM! Italy nicely declares war by ambushing my trading fleet and sending a crusade towards Constantinople. If that's not bad enough, the Almohads direct their attention away from Spain and invade Egypt. :bigcry:

Then Malta rebels. I have a small veteran army stationed there, and because Italy attacked my trading fleet, I can't get anyone in or out of Malta! By now I'm openly cursing myself for declaring war on the HRE, who seem to have become rather powerful.

Here's some pics:
War in the Mediterranean+ Rebellion in Malta:
https://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b57/Babij1/ByziesCamp1140.jpg

Italian crusade:
https://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b57/Babij1/ByziesHungary1140.jpg

Almohads invade Egypt:
https://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b57/Babij1/ByziesEgypt1140.jpg

Right now, I feel like jumping out my window. I am attempting to pull back my armies towards Constantinople. I have two full armies in the north, so it will take them several turns to pull back. I also need one to guard against the HRE. My navy is gathering for a counterattack, so far I have won a few victories. One army is on the Hungarian border to intercept the crusaders, while a fresh army is waiting in Constantinople. Another army has pulled into Egypt to fight back against the Almohads. ARGGHH!!! MY EMPIRE!!! I'm going to kill anyone who dares to threaten my borders, and this time, it's personal... :evil:
*Calls out to imaginary advisors* Prepare for war!

Evil_Maniac From Mars

07-30-2005, 14:15

Wow you expanded pretty quickly for just 60 years!! Unless that is a modded somehow. If only it were a little closer to 1230 and the russians wouldn't be so much of a worry :D
Blitzkrieg, simultanious invasion of Prussia, France, and Denmark. Then Poland attacked me, so I finished off them and Spain with my former Crusader armies. I'm just pooling my finances, after a huge gain, I'm losing about 200 florins a turn.

dgfred

08-01-2005, 21:50

Has the Horde hit yet? ~:confused: That could really present a problem :furious3:

dgfred

08-01-2005, 21:51

Sorry about that, the Horde comes later on :embarassed: .

Evil_Maniac From Mars

08-02-2005, 02:24

Now I'm losing up to 3000 florins a turn, but I'll let the Russians and Mongols duke it out then sweep up the remainder. (I hope)

Graphic

08-02-2005, 11:48

XL Mod
Conquest
Late
Golden Horde

This is very early on. I first focused on making forts in most procinces so I can start churning out Mongol HA's and foot soldiers while at the same time subdueing the local rebels. At some point the Russians invaded Novgorod and lost most of their troops, so I siezed that opportunity and started a siege in Muscovy (that lasted like 12 years. gah!) Novgorod got greedy too at one point, breaking the alliance to take up the seige themselves in Muscovy. I withdrawed my few units and attacked next round with a whole bunch, scared em off. I still haven't made them pay for that but in due time.

Then Lithuania decided they wanted to attack Kiev. They had the pleasure of occupying it for one turn before I scared them off too with a massive force, then I attacked them and took up siege there. It's STILL being sieged, I think there's six years left. I have a problem with beating them too badly then having to wait forever during sieges.

The Bulgarians and Byzantines have been fighting a petty war for a while. I saw an opportunity to take Constantinople when there were only three units there, them being Bulgarias last units. I tried the attack several times but it turned into an infinitely long siege. After a while I got frustrated, turned bitch, then auto-calced until it worked out so the king and heir were dead so instead of waiting 20 years I could just bribe them, which I did.

I plan on attacking Greece next as it looks very weak. That will take care of Byzantine as far as the mainland goes. I'm a little afraid of Hungary right now so maybe after that I'll use the high class boats I got with Constantinople to attack a weak Almohod province or something.

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v77/ubersoldat/MONGOLCAMP1.jpg

yesdachi

08-02-2005, 20:27

I had an interesting thing happen to me recently. I am playing a Spanish campaign early/hard or expert (I cant remember) and I am in total control, I really want to try out the lancers so I am taking it easy but the GH year, 1230, is quickly approaching so I decide to push the Russians big armies back into the corner so they can battle the Horde for me and I can wipe out what is left, at this time the Russians are the second most powerful. Well this works great until 1229 when they go into civil war and wipe half of themselves out ~:doh: . They totally ruined my plans but I guess the situation is worse for them. :smug2:

dgfred

08-02-2005, 21:07

Very interesting :thinking2: . So it will be you vs the 'Horde'. Please keep
us posted on the battles/outcome ~;) .

littlebktruck

08-03-2005, 05:16

After having an idiot assume the throne, being excommunicated, being at war with all my neighbors, and approaching bankruptcy at an alarming rate, I decided that the Italian campaign was not going so well. I scrapped it, and I'm now playing an early, normal campaign as the French.

It's 1115, and I'm proud to report that things are going well at the moment. After a few turns of building I attacked the French. Normandy and Anjou fell quickly, but the English sent everything they had at Flanders. I had expected this, so I had an 800 man defensive army to face their 480 troops. Their four units of royal knights inflicted grievous casualties, but I managed to carry the day. After the battle was over, I found that I had killed all the English king's heirs! I took Aquitaine myself in 1097, and, about 15 years later, William II died, heirless. I'm currently moving through Britain and mopping up the rebels.

After England died out I started planning a war against the HRE. I just began the war; so far I've taken Lorraine and Friesland. They are spread thin; once I defeat that large army in Burgundy I don't think I'll meet that much resistance from them. I am very concerned for my southern border, though, as Aragon has the usual 5-6 units of royal knights and spain has their extremely high valor/command royals running around, too. In the "learned my lesson" category, I've concentrated on farm upgrades so far. In fact, I haven't even started on a trade network, and I'm still projecting over 1100 florins a year profit.

The requisite screenie:

https://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y263/littlebktruck/France1115.jpg

Graphic

08-03-2005, 05:56

Not to stray off topic, but what year does the campaign end? in other words, how long do I have? I may want to scrap this mongol campaign if im going to run out of time, because i like to take it slow

Roark

08-03-2005, 07:40

@ Graphic: I think the end date is 1453. You can mod the end date as well... There was a thread around here somewhere...

After having an idiot assume the throne, being excommunicated, being at war with all my neighbors, and approaching bankruptcy at an alarming rate, I decided that the Italian campaign was not going so well.

:laugh4:

I love a dry sense of humour...

Graphic

08-03-2005, 07:45

Jeez, that's only like 100 turns. No way I could manage that. Thanks.

Advo-san

08-03-2005, 09:47

Oh boy.... I just finished reading Monk's Great Khazarian war, a battle Monk fought against the mongols a couple of years ago.... This guy killed 26.000 mongols with 13.000 Danes... Damn, that is something I ve never seen before..

dgfred

08-03-2005, 14:47

Nice work littlebktruck! ~:cheers: I also enjoy playing the French. Love their
economy when run right :juggle: . Please keep us posted with your game.

EatYerGreens

08-05-2005, 03:50

but the GH year, 1230, is quickly approaching so I decide to push the Russians big armies back into the corner so they can battle the Horde for me and I can wipe out what is left, at this time the Russians are the second most powerful. Well this works great until 1229 when they go into civil war and wipe half of themselves out ~:doh: . They totally ruined my plans but I guess the situation is worse for them. :smug2:

From things I've read elsewhere, I gather that loss of a number of territories in successive years, perhaps as few as two territories (recent description by antisocialmunky of an attack against Spain) is enough to cause such a loyalty dip as to provoke a Civil War in another faction. Similarly so for the player.

I would guess it varies, depending on the situation though. Perhaps in a.s.m's example the Spanish leader's influence was low to begin with, trouble was already brewing and loss of key provinces (Leon and Castile, which he took, are homelands, to boot) was more than their loyalty could stand - time for an upstart prince to make his bid. Net result is the faction implodes and becomes easy pickings for everyone on their borders.
In your case, pushing the Russkies into a corner meant loss of so much territory that they did the self-destruct trick too.

If you expect another faction to act as a buffer against the Horde, or any stong faction for that matter, they will need big armies but these obviously need financial support, so you need to let them keep hold of their lands. Give or take the risk of CivWar on yourself, you may even want to concede territory to them, in order to aid this - undergarrison then abandon when attacked. Ask for a ceasefire and even full alliance again when the Horde arrives, making you become the lesser of two evils. You might even get two stars on a green emissary if that trick pays off.

The AI seems to be very bad at demobilising troops it can no longer afford, so boxing them in probably left them broke AND with negative cashflow. Civil War and slaughtering lots of their own men seems to be the only way the AI can dig itself out of this hole.

As we all know, since the AI resolves battles by autocalc, the typical response to the Horde-outnumbering will be to abandon provinces without fighting until they can retreat no further but have big enough stacks to mount a decent defence or even counter attack. The latter becomes more feasible if the Horde stacks are separating, spreading out and colonising in all directions. They can't do you this service if you don't allow the Russians land into which to retreat and pull off their own maneuvres whereby they can maybe encircle a lost province, attack it and vapourise its garrison army when it has nowhere to retreat.

That could be precisely why the Horde wins and is straight onto your border. Say you boxed 3000 Rus into Khazar as their one and only province. The Horde arrives with 20,000+ and we know autocalc will give them the victory based purely on the odds. How frustrating would it be if you had a way to see the battle result and found out the Horde had only killed 600 but the calc assumed they had routed/captured the rest? No path of retreat means that the other 2400 simply got vapourised, so there will be no second or third battles and no further attrition on the GH.

littlebktruck

08-08-2005, 18:48

It is now 1161, and I'm in a very precarious situation. First, some background:

Phillipe II will go down as one of the greatest kings in French history. His long reign saw massive gains against the HRE, the complete defeat of the Danes, and the capture of all of Britain save Scotland, where the English re-emerged. He had many worthy, capable brothers that served him loyally and helped him carve out his impressive realm. However, he had but one son. When Phillipe died at age 79, this only son took over. He was 52.

He is now 58, and he is still heirless. He must have a son very soon, or I will go to civil war or lose the game. He has the "perversion" vice, which, I think I've heard, makes him less likely to have children. The problem is that, since all the other royals left are his uncles, they would accede to the throne at a very advanced age themselves. I've never quite been at this point before. What should I do? Should I prepare for civil war and wait for him to die, or should I suicide him as quickly as I can, hoping that there's still someone young enough to have children and restart the line?

France (at its height?) in 1161:

https://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y263/littlebktruck/France1161.jpg

Marquis de Said

08-08-2005, 18:55

He is now 58, and he is still heirless. He must have a son very soon, or I will go to civil war or lose the game. He has the "perversion" vice, which, I think I've heard, makes him less likely to have children. The problem is that, since all the other royals left are his uncles, they would accede to the throne at a very advanced age themselves. I've never quite been at this point before. What should I do? Should I prepare for civil war and wait for him to die, or should I suicide him as quickly as I can, hoping that there's still someone young enough to have children and restart the line?

I suggest you just suicide him and let one of his uncles take over the kingdom. My experience with uncles inheriting is that the AI will give them a random age between 20 and 30 when they take over, even if they were 50 before they stopped being heirs. It's a bit stupid really, but I'm pretty sure that is what will happen. But save the game and reload it just in case I'm wrong.

Marquis

yesdachi

08-08-2005, 19:24

Very interesting :thinking2: . So it will be you vs the 'Horde'. Please keep
us posted on the battles/outcome ~;) .
My battle vs. the GH was very anticlimactic. They came in with a huge army in 3 provinces, 1 was mine (east of Rum?) I backed out and let them have it. I spent the next few years producing troops in every province. Yep, every province. I thought of it as a situation where if the entire population of my kingdom didn’t rally then the pagans would wipe us from the history books! Well I already had a pretty substantial army and combined with about 120 more units of all kinds was just way too much for the Mongols. I just rolled past them and everyone else. Game over by 1250. Interesting note, I had sooo many troops that I was loosing money from support costs even though I had a great trading fleet and many upgraded farms.

I have started a new Spanish campaign where I will be going a lot slower, the last one went too fast.

dgfred

08-08-2005, 20:09

We should have known ~;) . Keep us updated on the Spain-game ~D .

PittBull260

08-08-2005, 21:45

well here's my first ever german campaign, and I chose to rush

Early/normal/bkb super mod (I put it on normal so I can win 100% lol)

current year:1155

History:
I control central Europe, Early in the beggining I expanded to the west until I took all the English, French and Aragones territories there. Then I went east, not too far only to Poland and Hungary, so I can have nice borders.

Then I attacked Spain (controled by the Almoravids), it was a challenge, because the muslims had good generals and nice units. But eventually I conquered all of spain, then the Castilian-Leonese reappeared, and the Valencians too...which sucked, they both had like 5,000men each, I retreated back to aragon, but now I'm regaining it back again.

Then I attacked the Danes, norway and sweden, then the Italians, Sicilians, Geonese and the pope. :)https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/DEADLIFT/hre.jpg

littlebktruck

08-09-2005, 05:44

I sent Jean II to deal with the English by himself; his 20 bodyguards were killed, and, after a long fight, Jean II was captured. I did not ransom him, and the next year 40 year-old Henri II was crowned in Paris. Almost the entire empire accepted; The 100 peasant garrisons of Brittany, Champaign, and Sweden, my most impressive stack (led by my 6-star 9-acumen governor of Flanders and brother to the king), some peasants and archers in Franconia, and some other units in Toulouse, however, were not pleased and led a rebellion. I killed off the peasants in Brittany, Sweden, and Champaigne and bribed the others back. I now had control over all my lands, but the toll was heavy. Trading infrastructures were lost in Brittany and Sweden and my newly-finished feudal knight production center in Toulouse was halted by the loss of the Royal Palace and Royal Court line, setting me back 12 years. War has come and gone with the Almohads, and their large stacks with high command and valour Ghulams in charge make me nervous. They are trouncing Spain currently. I've spent the time since the civil war (re)building my trading infrastructure and accumulating cash. I probably won't advance east until the Horde comes, though I may make a run at the Almos if the opportunity presents itself.

Martok

08-09-2005, 06:47

Knight Templar

08-09-2005, 10:15

I know I'm a bit off topic, but how do your screenshots size 200 kb (mine are about 1200 kb) ~:confused:

Dutch_guy

08-09-2005, 10:40

save as a .jpg file, that will make it smaller.

:balloon2:

Graphic

08-09-2005, 11:46

I started an early period campaign as the Egyptians in Total War XL mod and it's gone a lot easier than I expected. I'm loving the Arab Infantry with javelins. God it's so satisfying to see a volley of them go out and take out a third of a unit. First the Almohods went into civil war pretty early so I bribed the rebelled princes then killed the king with ease. The Portugese have taken over most of Spain, I'm allied with them but have a moderately sized garrison in Grenada to dissuade them from trying any funny business. Then the Turks. I never was allied with them but they never attacked me for one reason or another. They were hemmed in by the Byzantines and the Cumans on their other boarders so they didn't get to expand much. Had some interesting battles with them but they went down with relative ease. Byzantine was a little big and and strong to attak after the Turks so I set up a strong boarder and forgot about that sector for the time being. Then Sicily goes to war with my Byzantine ally so I figure what the hell, I land an army in Malta. I don't have a strong enough navy at the moment to attack Sicily itself so I'll leave it alone for a bit. I think I started probing the eastern Spain/southern French coastline for opportunities. I invaded some province with a citadel, auto calced, won, then commanded the defense of their counter attack personally. That was a slugfest but I won with a decent ratio. Germany is crusading against some province of mine (I don't know which because after around I was just clicking okay over and over to get on with it and a few seconds later I realize it said something about a german crusade. Opps. Oh well. I got two Jihads in Egypt in the middle of my empire so whatever they take will be swiftly tooken back.

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v77/ubersoldat/egypt1.jpg

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v77/ubersoldat/egypt2.jpg

Knight Templar

08-09-2005, 17:15

save as a .jpg file, that will make it smaller.

:balloon2:

Thanks ~:)

My French campaign, high, conquest, normal

I'm already in war with English, HRE and Egyptians and Pope warns again. Down there is my army in Antioch

https://img103.imageshack.us/img103/5782/0640dj.jpg

littlebktruck

08-09-2005, 18:17

Cool; sounds like a fun game you've got going there (the loss of some of your infrastructure notwithstanding)! So is Henry II another of Jean's brothers then?

I don't specifically remember the name, but the rebel faction leader was a brother and, when Henri was crowned, my garrison in Lorraine was suddenly missing its general. I'll assume that he was, though I'm sure that he should have been older than 40 at the time. Fortunately, Henri had a 7 year-old and a 1 year-old already born when he acceded to the throne, so my line is back on track.

Hôjô Ujimara

08-10-2005, 14:18

Pics to come soon.....

I started a game on BKB mod, High, Bohemians and Normal.

The first thing I did was took Bavaria. Without this key province the Germans would be nothing. After a few turns I had really dug into their empire. Without Bavaria, only a few provinces kept in touch. I the stormed on and took neighbouring provinces, and the Venetians, Swedes, Hungarians and Poles helped me in this joined attack.

During this attack Germany suffered 3 Civil Wars. Yes, THREE. I used this to my advantage and bribed my way into some provinces. They are now trapped in Savoy, with a no-star 1 Influence leader.

I bribed a high ranking General in Cyprus, and I'm looking at Egypt, curretnly garrisoned by around 200 troops. The stupid Bulgarians won't let me crusade, So I'm loading a save and conquering them.

Martok

08-11-2005, 06:06

I don't specifically remember the name, but the rebel faction leader was a brother and, when Henri was crowned, my garrison in Lorraine was suddenly missing its general. I'll assume that he was, though I'm sure that he should have been older than 40 at the time. Fortunately, Henri had a 7 year-old and a 1 year-old already born when he acceded to the throne, so my line is back on track.

Nice! I'm glad your "patient" has made such an excellent recovery. ~:cheers:

littlebktruck

08-12-2005, 06:50

For a long period I sat quietly, building up troops, but in 1187 I decided to have my revenge against the Almohads. They had 4 large stacks in Tunisia, but their Iberian holdings were quite poorly garrisoned. Noticing this, I sent a massive seaborne invasion to Cordoba (as it's a nice chokepoint).The Almos sent a huge (over 4000 man, I think) invasion force at Cordoba. It was one of the weirdest battles I've fought. I tried to reposition my army immediately, but the enemy completely outflanked me. There was a desperate melee at my right flank, and I finally, after grievous losses (especially to my knights), made them flee. However, most of my troops were badly depleted at this point. I had to send almost all of them away for reinforcements. Here I made 2 mistakes:

1) I was near the middle of the field, so reinforcements took forever.
2) I left the reinforcements line at archers, so all my new reinforcements were archers.

So there I was, practically all my melee troops leaving the field, and I'm left with my 7-star royal general, a bunch of archers, and maybe a unit each of FMAA and Feudal Sergeants, both far from my main line. And here, streaming onto the battlefield, come tons of Berber camels and Saharan cav. At one point one of the cav units charged my archers; I though I was done. Miraculously, though, the archers held. I charged that unit with my general's RKs and it fled. Finally I had some foot units come around. After the archers were spent, I called the rest of my reinforcements (cavalry mostly) to finish the job. The casualty rate was high, but I inflicted a devastating blow to the Almohads. I cleaned up the rest of Iberia, and then I sat.

It's 1204 now, and just last turn I broke the stalemate in Iberia by sending large stacks (and a crusade) at Granada and Morocco. They retreated in Morocco and I autocalced Granada, winning easily. That destroyed most of the Almos troop pool, and I should be able to race pretty quickly across North Africa. My troop producing centers are ready to progress to chivalric troops (save knights), and I've been teching Friesland up for halberdiers, which I will use mostly in my baltic holdings.

Invasion of Cordoba in 1187:

https://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y263/littlebktruck/AlmoInvasion.jpg

Some interesting things happened in other parts of the world since my last pic. As you can see, the Hungarians are quite large. They have been so much of the game. However, at one point they looked to be on the brink of destruction. 4 of their 5 neighbors (the Italians, the HRE, the Poles, and the Byzantines) were at war with them, and they were losing territory. Then, for some reason, both the Italians and Germans had a civil war at the same time. The Hungarians were then able to reconquer their lost lands. Italy died out a few turns later.

Defense of Cordoba (I took the -1 morale and killed the troops; I couldn't chance letting them keep all those)

https://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y263/littlebktruck/stoutdefense.jpg

France in 1204:

https://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y263/littlebktruck/France1204.jpg

On the royal front:

I must have been mistaken about the 1 yr old heir; that might've been a princess. Henri II only had one son. Anyway, Henri II has given way to Henri III, and he has continued the slightly disturbing trend among my recent royals of having but one heir. Oh well, I guess they can't all "multiply" as much as good ol' Phillipe I. I'd like some more good generals, but almost all of my knights are coming out with stars, and I've had plenty of FMAA coming out with command, too.

I'll probably go across North Africa then take it easy. I've also considered invading Papal territory and taking Rome and Naples. The current pope is 0 command and I have 4 3-star assassins ready, so he should be easy to get rid of. I don't need either province, I've just never used assasination to get out of an excom before. None of the other crusading factions are worth anything (save the Spanish, who are far away, boatless, and posessing nothing more than simple forts), so it's quite low-risk.

littlebktruck

08-12-2005, 07:00

Graphic

08-12-2005, 13:43

My attempt to establish a foothold in Toulhouse failed. The crappy merc troops I used, random unit types and severely depleted, were enough to stop that German crusade but couldn't withstand their attack the next year. Oh well. I then decided to man up and take out Byzantium. Spent several deccades making large amounts of high quality troops: Saracens, Arab Infantry/Heavy Arab Infantry and Armenien heavy cav mostly. By chance I got an EIGHT star Saracen infantry unit, Nur al-Din. I blitzed into Trebizond and Nicaea. The Trebizond army retreated without fighting. The battle in Anatola was just lovely. 2,000 vs. 1,000 I believe. Lost 100 men for about 600 of theirs, then pushed their routs home before they could call in their reinforcements and won. :charge: I just invaded Constantinople, this battle should be a breeze as well.

When it's all done, Nur al-Din will become Amir Nur al-Din of Constantinople for all his troubles. Cheers for him ~:cheers:

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v77/ubersoldat/egypt3.jpg

Before I forget, I need to reinforce Grenada. I sense a disturbance in the force.

Hôjô Ujimara

08-12-2005, 13:47

Starting a new campaign today. I might try the HRE or some Eastern European faction.

dgfred

08-12-2005, 15:14

Starting a new campaign today. I might try the HRE or some Eastern European faction.

Go for the HRE and keep us updated the entire way ~:cool: ~D .

Evil_Maniac From Mars

08-12-2005, 16:49

I'm almost done my HRE campaign, I'll post it soon.

dgfred

08-12-2005, 17:27

I'm almost done my HRE campaign, I'll post it soon.

~:thumb: :jumping: :drummer: :grin: Lurking forward to it.

Procrustes

08-12-2005, 18:54

Well... let's see if this works....

https://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b15/Procrustes/horde_appears.jpg

I'm playing as the People of Novograd, MTW-VI, unmodded, hard. I started in Early by using the -ian switch on the first turn of the game. I've avoided cheats, other than to unlock the battlefield camera (I love those overhead shots.) The year is 1230 and the Golden Horde has just emerged in Khazar with 20+ stacks, all gold armor.

I've been steadily agressive the whole game. My early princes had a tough time, given the poor economy and the proximity to a huge Byzantine empire. But through careful management of the economy and wisely choosing their battles, they made themselves masters of the steppes. In the middle of the 12th century, the Byzantines collapsed in civil war and we raced the Turks to pick up the pieces. Soon thereafter we were embroiled in wars against the Hungarians, Poles and the Papists - the Pope had aquired huge land holdings in central Europe. Warily the Turks and Russians avoided each other.

Then at the beginning the of the 13th century all hell broke loose. Every one of the Catholic factions save Sicily, alone in their Maltese fortress, attacked across my western borders. The French, English, Germans and Papists sent armies while Spain launched a crusade. At the same time, the Turks launched massive attacks out of Contantinople and Georgia. I was able to hold the line against the Catholics, but the Saracenes really caught me by surpise. One of my best generals was mauled and twice chased from the field - he gained the reputation of a coward and was unable to lead his men anymore - so I recalled him and executed him for treason as an example to others.

About the time I finally finished the Turks off I hit the 60% mark, and the vices have been piling up ever since. I pressed on and vanquised the remaining Muslim factions - Egypt and the Almohads. Now I'm pressing Spain at Morrocco and the HRE and French in Europe. I tried to engineer a good Horde appearance, so I built a citadel and +2 armorer in Khazar. Good investments in farms, mines and trade buildings early on is really paying off now - I have large numbers of troops scattered around, includind a fair number of mercs, yet I'm still making ~15k/year in profit. I'm still able to trade with four island provinces held by the Sicilians and the Byzantines.

I have three strategies in mind for the Horde: (1) Try to stop them in their tracks - gather every troop I can into Khazar and have an all-night conflageration. (2) Fight a delaying action - take a couple of good stacks and try to inflict as many casualties as you can before withdrawing your depleted but newly valored troops to your citadel. Hope they assault the next year. (3) Skip that step and just withdraw the bestest to the citadel to start with. See if they assault next year. Khazar has several river crossings around it - you may even get lucky and see them split their forces and try to force a bridge at the same time. Right now I'm leaning towards #2, but either way I'll save the game and try it a few different ways. I also managed to hire two merc organ guns a while ago - I'm really hoping I get to use them in a castle defense.

Well, that was pretty long. This has been a fun campagne - in the past I have always quit and restarted a new one before I got this far. Novograd is fun to play - Boyars, steppe cav and FFK are a blast. Couple of odd little things, like Rus spearmen went away at high and I couldn't build any spears unless I teched up to armoured spearmen - who's stats are worse! Lack of heavy cav has been a limitation, too - Avar nobles from Moldavia were a bonus in Early, but now I'm relying on mercs when I can get them.

Best,

PittBull260

08-12-2005, 19:25

good job Procrustes, that was pretty ruthless what u did to that general lol, very nice empire, good luck with the mongols, make lots of Boyars, they're good :)

m52nickerson

08-12-2005, 20:34

I decided to start a new game with Poland, but this time with the Viking Invasion add on. I just got it. At first i thought the lack of my Polish Retainers in early was going to hurt my attemps to take over the rebel land to the east. To my suprise i found the Slav warriors and javelin men great, they are cheaper then the Retainers so you can use them much more. I also bribed the rebels in Volyhnia giving me four more units of horse archers. By 1114 I had a nice little kingdom. https://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y160/m52nickerson/year1114.jpg
For the next years I started to build up and continued to expaned into the Stepps. Around 1140 I found my self in my first real war with the Russians. There Boyars took there toll on my armies, but in the end they were crushed. Over the next 30 years I also bribed armys in the Holy land, Egypt, and Norway.https://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y160/m52nickerson/year1176.jpg
I contiued to expaned my trade network, and keep the peace with my neighbors. By 1200AD I had added Sicily and Irelend to my empire, and had a massive trade income. https://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y160/m52nickerson/year1200.jpg
I have the builds in place to build chivic units, and polearms as soon as 1205 rolls around. Then I will get ready for the Hoard.

Dutch_guy

08-12-2005, 22:35

m52nickerson, I was wondering in your campaign with whom are you trading ?
And which city's are you using to produce the ships ?
Just wondering since I was going to start a Polish campaign in the near fututre - when I'm done with my Italian campaign.

:balloon2:

m52nickerson

08-12-2005, 23:13

I am using Lithuania, ans Kiev to produce ships. They start with a few buildings on them so it is easier to get your ship builder up and going. As for trade, everyone. I have at least one ship in every sea zone. So I'm getting trade with every port on the map. Other factions seem to stay allied or not bother with Poland to much. Quick expansion in to the Stepps is the key to Polish victory.

PittBull260

08-14-2005, 04:11

here's my cool Russian campaign

high-expert-bkb super mod

I barely survived the Mongol Invasion, I didnt have a lot of troops, but most of them were Boyars :), after the last mongol battle I think i had a total of 300men in my entire empire lol, but I had plenty of money so i was OK :)

the pink faction is the portugese, they have HUGEEEEEEEE armies.
https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/DEADLIFT/rus2.jpg

here's the crusade that the Portugese sent against me :( I'll kill it easily, its only a 2 star general, my boyars and Voi will take care of em :)
https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/DEADLIFT/rus.jpg

Patron

08-14-2005, 09:26

I've always wanted to play the role of a heretic Irish warlord who converts Ireland to a heretical cult and goes off to challenge the world and after some experimentation I managed to make a mod of my own.

I started off with peasants as my heretical king unit (I turned sherwood foresters into my royal unit, but there were no sherwood foresters in Ireland so the computer chose the peasants as my starting king unit) in Ireland with 2000 florins in a 99% catholic province. I don't know how to create my own factions, so I just activated the Swiss, converted them to heresy and dropped them in Ireland. I also converted orthodox bishops to heresy and reduced their converting ability to that of an ordinary priest and converted grand inquisitors to heresy so I can increase zeal later on.

In the beginning there were not many choices and a lot of famines. I had to build a border fort first to prevent the risk of rebellion, I then had to go straight to building a fort -> keep -> port -> boat builder -> barque so I could at least have some sort of contact with the world. This took a while due to Irelands poor florin yield and famines combined with the peasant's disloyalty. After Ireland declared it's existence to the world a prince was born and my king was nearing his demise, so I spent whatever few florins I had on a town guard and some urban milita to help bulk up my 24 sherwood foresters and invaded England's most poorly defended province, Wales.

The following decades were a rennaissance for Ireland and a dark age for Britain as I used my naval superiority to attack England's weak points, pillage and retreat to Wales. Eventually, whilst I was holding Mercia, the French invaded Wessex, destroying the bulk of the English army and leaving the King stranded in Northumbria. For a while Britain was split between the Irish, French, English and Scots, as no party was capable of mounting an invasion. The tides looked as though they were about to turn against my favour in these dark years as somehow the English managed to build a barque and sink my only barque in Ireland. The French army was huge and the English army was formidable enough and I had to keep my urban militia and my king's disloyal brothers in Mercia and Wales and lower tax to prevent rebellion from in now split kingdom. I was in debt, but I managed to squeeze out 400 fyrdmen before I went into the red, place a batterred unit of urban milita in Wales and Wessex to hold the forts during the inevitable rebellion and send the rest of my army to kill off the english King. There was no rebellion and after his death I began to make 200 or 300 florins per turn and sort the kingdom out.

I built copper mines in Northumbria and Wales and began upgrading my 4 provinces to keeps and building churches to increase loyalty. A few more princes were born and my King died and a new King was Crowned in Mercia, where I built a swordsmith, went north with a band of princes, feudal men at arms and urban militia and conquerred the Scots. Only the French were left.. After securing Scotland and reconnecting Ireland back to my kingdom, the King marched his new royal army to Wales and attacked from the highlands into Wessex scaring the French back to the continent and the tower of London. The king, not wanting to bother his new fine troops with siege, decided to sail after them, leaving the quaint urban milita who were once the scourgeous vandals of Britain to this burden. The French once again retreated and the King led a personal led the assault of the wooden fort at Ghent, where 100 of his feudal men at arms with +1 armour upgrade and 15 of his sherwood foresters were killed by 20 valour 6 royal knights and 120 militia seargants led by some French prince. After this the war was ended. The Army garrisonned in Flanders and the Navy turned it into the only entrance into the new heretic kingdom. Slowly England was rebuilt and joined in Irelands rennaissance, engaging in trade from Northern Spain to Denmark, the economy grew and the new kingdom enterred the world stage as a high medieval power.

https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y206/asdasdasd2/hereticswissirish.jpg

m52nickerson

08-14-2005, 19:29

Nice campaign, keep us informed.

Now in my Polish game. Peace contiued until 1206, at which time the Huns decided that they had a problem with the Pope. So being the good catholic I am I declared war on the Huns. The french attacked the Huns and my self, and then got attacked by the English. So all hell broke loose in europe, and at the worst time for me. I was just building chivic armies but could not produce chivic knights yet. This would not have been bad, accept for the fact I was using Avar Nobles as my heavy cav. You can't make them after 1205, shit I can't replace any loses.
So for the next few years I hold on to Bohemia as the Huns try to take it back, and hold the french as they attack Pomerania. The French who had launched a Crusade against the Huns before they got excomicatied went in to civil war when the crusade failed, they got Xed, and there King was killed by the English. Thats got to suck.

Pics to come later.

Patron

08-15-2005, 07:59

An update. My kingdom is now a small northern empire, stretching from Ireland to Sweden and Champagne and my trading fleet is now going as far afield as the eastern mediterranean and is by far the most powerful in the known world.

The conquest of Scandinavia was the result of a stalemate between me and the French around Flanders, I did not have the ability to cross the several rivers to raid Normandy and Ile de France. The French tried once to attack, but their forces were decimated, aswell as mine, though my booming economy soon rebuilt the army and the stalemate returned. This stalemate led to a lot of spare troops and disgruntled, disloyal ex-princes and high ranking generals and my naval power made it easy for me to take these thugs over to Norway and set them loose without loosing control over them.

The presence of 500 hardenned men at arms and gallowglasses sent the Norwegians running into Sweden they were so scared in fact, the battle in Sweden consisted of my army chasing their army across the highlands until a unit of sherwood foresters managed to catch up with some urban militia, drawing the rest of the army of thralls and vikings into the slaughter.

The invasion of denmark was a pitched battle, with men at arms in front to hold the masses of danish ex-princes, whilst my gallow glasses chopped through the peasantry to surround the knights, a lot of casualties were sufferred, but all of the combatants were titled with their new conquests.

https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y206/asdasdasd2/religiouscivilwar.jpg

yesdachi

08-15-2005, 14:29

Thanks for sharing everyone, there are some really great campaigns going on out there. :bow:

I have finely had a quiet weekend and got to make some progress on my Spanish early/expert game. Here is where I’m at…
It is almost 1300 and life is good, the GH and the Egyptians (who were my only major competition) wiped each other off the face of the map. Almost everything east of Poland and down to Tripoli goes rebel. I have the best king ever with virtues including the builder, trader and steward ones. His heir, the next in line to be king is also awesome, but wait another heir has come of age and replaced the awesome one for the next in line to be king spot and before any action can be made my king dies and the ripe ol age of 86!!

I get a few revolts, the new king has some pretty lame attributes and vices (chinless and gambler I think). I decide to let him die in glorious battle and let the awesome heir take over so I send him to Ireland where he meets a quick end after I refuse his ransom ($130,000 +/-) but then before the next king is crowned the whole world goes crazy.

I have about 40% of the map and almost all of my provinces get 3 stacks of bandits popup into them!!!! ~:eek: (I have a good screen shot of this but I am having photodump issues). At first I think no big deal my garrisons will probably take care of them but no-way! They are totally mean armies, longbows, Italian infantry, cavalry, etc. this was not going to be pretty. I consolidate all my forces into the most important provinces and start fighting my way back. It is now about 40 years later and I am almost back to where I was before, I don’t think I will send my king off to Ireland to be killed again but it has been fun! ~D

EatYerGreens

08-16-2005, 22:00

Nice recovery, yesdachi!

I don't quite understand how it wasn't instant game-over, though. From what you described, it would appear that the uber-heir was the 86-year-old king's younger brother and the newly come of age chinless prince pips him at the post. Strictly speaking, the uber-heir should have converted to a general and the loss of your new king, presumably so young as to have no sons of his own, leaves your kingdom heirless, so that's the end of it. ~:confused:

It pays to check the heirs status parchment immediately after a succession event, to see who has disappeared off the list.

I can't confirm this but, during the time between the sons coming of age and the eventual succession, I reckon that some of the 'wife gives birth' events being reported are actually the king's grandchildren being born. They therefore show on the list and are the only ones which don't disappear following the succession event.

Whilst it's easy to see who the current heir is, since it's marked in red, it's often trickier to work out who is the son or daughter of whom.

It's worth remembering that a king's younger brothers remain as valid heirs for as long as he has no sons of his own. It appears that he fathered a son at age 71 (!!), who just came of age at the right time for the year he died, thus taking the place of the uber-heir.

As for the bandits, it just goes to show what happens when the kingdom refuses to pay ransom on it's own king. If it won't pay ransom for him, what hope is there for the lesser orders? Heavy loyalty hit, I'd imagine. ~:eek:

EatYerGreens

08-17-2005, 01:13

I've been having some strangeness in my TGAs folder whereby, for some reason, there are always a lot of screenshots of the main menu popping up. It's rather annoying to wade through them. Has anyone else had this problem?

It might be a physical problem with your keyboard, like a sticky contact under that key (the key may not be visibly in the down position but the microswitch under it is somehow making intermittent contact).

Simplest fix is to tip the keyboard upside-down and slap it from above, to shake out any dust, grit, crumbs and general desk-debris which they tend to trap. If the next game session generates yet more menu shots then maybe dismantle the keyboard case and check for more dust/dirt inside and for any signs of condensation, corrosion on the circuit board or anything obvious to the eye.

After that shows everything clean, dry and normal, I'd tend to put it down to a fault in the keyboard driver or any software (including Windoze accessibility features) which might be mapping a mouse-click, such as you'd make on the menu pages, to an F2 keypress. This includes centre button or mouse-wheel clicks. Unintentional presses might explain some randomness about when these menu shots crop up.

HTH

Marquis de Said

08-17-2005, 02:17

I was going through the stacks of some former Serbs who had gone rebel in my current campaign with the HRE on the XL Mod, and I saw this general who made me ROTFLMAO.

I bet he ran off the field in a more-or-less terrified state.

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v497/said_dakash/SemiPanic.jpg

dgfred

08-17-2005, 03:56

That is really funny... 'panic' ~D :laugh4: .

Knight Templar

08-17-2005, 11:48

Byzantines/normal/conquest

After taking Serbia and Wallachia, it took me 20 years to deal with Turks and Eggs. Then I attacked Hungarians (took 5 years to eliminate them), and HRE (still in war). Before 2 years there was a civil war between Almohads, so I used to to conquer Tunisia and Cyrenacia. :charge:

http://images5.theimagehosting.com/65.25.jpg

Zild

08-17-2005, 13:33

After several months away, I decided to start with a quick Viking game, playing as the Mercians.

Started the campaign by taking out the Nurthumbrians, although I had to let the Vikings walk in and pillage a couple of provinces before they left just as quickly.

The Norhumbrians fell quickly and I mopped up the rebels. I could choose to fight the Welsh, the Saxons, the Picts or the Scots, and wasn't sure where I was going to go next - I wanted to deal with the Welsh or The Saxons, as my northern border would have been a lot easier to defend (only three provinces wide). But my King was stuck in the north, and I hate not using my King when he has a squad of 21.

In the end, the decision was made for my by the Saxons. My lines were spread thin all over - typically 100 Fyrdmen in each province with nothing else, due to my expansion, so they took I think three of my southern provinces before I could mount any real retaliation - they even took my capital, if only for a couple of turns.

The fight back went well, retaking a province of mine and one or two of his, when I hit on an idea - I would circle around the King, who had been waging war deeper into my territory, then cut him off from the rest of his kingdom and watch the peasants revolt. They did - a civil war ensued!

Without support, the Saxon King's army fell quite quickly, and the provinces he had managed thus far to keep from falling to the rebels now lacked any real leadership. Mopping them up was easy.

I had gained alliances with every other faction early on in my war against the Saxons, and once again needed an enemy to fight. My choice was the Welsh (despite several Pictish agents being captured at my borders), and they seemed to know this - they attacked me before I could prepare a solid defence.

Fortunately, many of the Welsh provinces rebelled, and the Irish came across the waters to take over the rebel provinces. The Welsh were backed into a corner and I sent my King's army into a relatively easy fight.

Alas, I didn't pay enough attention to my King and he fell needlessly. I knew immediately that this would spell my doom, but continued the battle, withdrawing my other, untouched squads (all artillery!) - and then withdrawing the other 32 or so units I had in reserve as soon as they appeared! My Kingdom may have died, but I did not want to lose any unneccessary men!

I returned to the campaign and a miracle happened. Not an heir maturing - I didn't deserve that kind of luck - but instead a civil war in my own faction!

I could choose between either side, neither of which had a King to support. I backed the rebels and continued with my ruthlessly-forged empire cut in half - and the bulk of one half going to the re-emerging Saxons.

I continued the game, dealing swiftly with the Saxons to reunite the majority of my Kingdom. The Irish attacked me, but I had prepared for that - 9 ships (2 rowing boats and 7 Longboats) started cutting through their one-ship fleets, in an attempt to cut the Irish homelands off from their King.

Then the game crashed, and every time I reload the autosave, it cuts out after a few minutes! :dizzy2:

yesdachi

08-17-2005, 13:44

Nice recovery, yesdachi!

I don't quite understand how it wasn't instant game-over, though. From what you described, it would appear that the uber-heir was the 86-year-old king's younger brother and the newly come of age chinless prince pips him at the post. Strictly speaking, the uber-heir should have converted to a general and the loss of your new king, presumably so young as to have no sons of his own, leaves your kingdom heirless, so that's the end of it. ~:confused:

It pays to check the heirs status parchment immediately after a succession event, to see who has disappeared off the list.
Thanks, I thought I was done for and if the bandits would have attacked I think I would have been but they just sat and waited for me to "clean house".

The uber-heir was actually one of my 86 year old kings other sons. I am not sure why he was still available and not switched to a general but I checked the heir status parchment and he was next in line. All the kings other sons were still on the list too.

And yes it was a huge loyalty hit. Even after the new uber-heir became king NONE of the bandit armies switched over to my faction, even in provinces that I held from the beginning. I was really hoping that some would so I wouldn’t have to fight so many battles.

Patron

08-17-2005, 21:20

https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y206/asdasdasd2/empire.jpg

The real conquerors of France were the French themselves, after the English perished they re-unified their kingdom and their huge armys led me into believing the cracks were being filled in and I had a powerful empire on my border and the only way I could protect my knigdom was to build a strong navy and pool my military in Flanders. The rest is history up to the last update.

I didn't have much intelligence on the country, but it appeared that the reappearance of the English ripped open northern France and turned the large French armies into heretic rebels (I had been converting the provinces around the Albigesian heretics in Provence and surrounding Flanders). I invaded Champagne as I could not deal with the English and take advantage of the situation, or attack from sea as the French had a navy. There was a brief stalemate thereafter, where I decded to conquer Rhodes, for the purpose of storing a fleet there, in case somone decides they don't like my presence in the mediterranean.

The "peace" was shatterred though, when the English suddenly decided to march into Ile De France. They split their forces and I noticed that my garrison in Flanders and a small force of chivalric maa could destroy the English in Normandy and the garrison could be big enough to deal with the English besieging the heretics in Ile De France, which they did.

The English finnished assaulting Paris Castle, only to have their forces decimated and sent into the castle by a French invasion from the south. I waited for the French to besiege the small English garrison for a while, then invaded Ile De France and took over. As I did this something unexpected happenned. My German allies declared war and sent a crusade through Flanders to attack Ile De France, with some conventional forces.

I reacted insantly. I left a few men in Ile De France to retreat to normandy when the crusade reached them, because I wanted to see what would happen if a crusade goes against the same religion. I sent the army in Ile De France into Lorraine and another force into Saxony and to liberate Flanders. By now I was churning out 120 woodsmen and 120 chivalric men at arms per turn and 120 gallowglasses every 2 turns.

This threw the Germans into civil war and something odd happenned. As I liberated flanders, the Crusade was long gone, it went into Ile De France, supposedly just after my troops had lifted the siege, who subsequently were orderred to abandon the province. The Crusaders completed their objective, packed it in and joined the German army, only to find civil war had broken out and decided to rule over their province as rebels and decided to become heretics as the majority of the population were heretics. Yep, the Germans were in civil war now!

More importantly, several provinces became up for grabs. I invaded Friesland, Lorraine, Brittany and later Anjou. This opportunistic expansion is continuing with no sign of end, consisting of me gnawing away at the carcass of 2 once great empires.

https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y206/asdasdasd2/deadfrenchking.jpg

In the last year of the existence of France, the French King, with an influence of 0 invaded Anjou and was slain in battle there. Not a very impressive battle, but I saved it anyway as there is something noble about a king tormented by the dissolving of his kingdom through treachery and religious turmoil to the point where he sees no alternative, but to die battle royale and ensure his end is at least rememberred.

Graphic

08-18-2005, 02:13

I need a little help. I was gonna take a shot at the Constantinople battle today. I could easily auto-calc it but I can't bring myself too. It's a bridge battle, and I'm having trouble. Instead of auto-calcing I'll take this as an opportunity to learn bridge battle attacking strategies.

I tried attacking with a normal army make-up, no dice. Formed a semi circle and cut me down once I got in. This was with one bridge.

Fine, so I make the entire army horsemen hoping to just rush through the bridge before they can position, but they already had byzantine infantry blocking it. Couldnt get through, my precious Armenien Heavy Cav routed :'( . This was two bridges.

I can't seem to break through damnit! What do you suggest? Link me to an existing guide to bridge fights?

Procrustes

08-18-2005, 05:08

My thoughts regarding bridge assaults....

You need heavy infantry that can stand there and slug it out, and you need enough of them that you can go through a few. Keep a couple fighting at a time - preferably one with an AP bonus - and make sure you have other units handy to switch in when they wear out/flee. Halbs work nice, men at arms, vikings, etc. Any extra valor and moral you can give them is well worth it. Get some good missiles to stand on your shore and pelt the enemy the best you can - arbs have good range, long bows if you can hire them. Parvise arbs are a big plus in a bridge battle. Arty can help sometimes - though I have a tendency to kill a few of my own men as well. I like to bring some javelins when I can - put them on the bridge behind whoever is engaged up front and let them chuck javelins into the melee. Not many will be able to fire and many will die to arrows, but they are cheap and the kills you get are worth it. When the enemy breaks charge as many men across as you can and try to start to form a line up the ridge from the bridge - there is a good chance they will rallly and you don't wan't to be caught still on your side, or stretched out in some haphazard pursuit. Only bring a couple of cav with you - keep them out of the way until now, when you can get them across the bridge quick. Raise as much havoc as you can while you get the rest of your men across.

Just some quick thoughts - hope they help some. Good luck!

Roark

08-18-2005, 07:36

My recipe for a single-bridge battle:

- 2 of the highest valour artillery (Cat or Higher) in your forces. If they are non-rotating units, point them from left and right towards the far side of the bridge (triangulation etc).

- As many pavise missile units as you can muster. Sit them right on the shore.

- At least 4 units of Halbs with as many morale bonuses as possible.

- 3 units of Normal to fast cavalry to catch routers.

- Quality swords to fight for space on the other side if necessary.

Knight Templar

08-18-2005, 11:31

Fine, so I make the entire army horsemen hoping to just rush through the bridge before they can position, but they already had byzantine infantry blocking it. Couldnt get through, my precious Armenien Heavy Cav routed :'( . This was two bridges.

I think bridge decreases strength of cavalry, so I never send them to fight on bridge. Once happened that my 20 Trebizond archers defeated enemy 20 High Royal knights on the bridge.
First unit you send across the bridge should be heavy inf like CMAA, Chiv sergeatnts, halbs, Saracen inf or sth like that. Also set archers on the coast. If there is a second bridge on the map, it is usually undefended so I send 2-3 units of cav to attack enemy archers on their side of coast.

dgfred

08-18-2005, 17:23

Bridge battles can be aggravating. I try to have a couple of missile units
on the shoreline on each side of the bridge. You also need a 'bait' unit-
sometimes I even use archers :dizzy2: - to throw across the bridge. This
is about the only way to get the AI to sometimes cross to your side ~;) .
Once the AI goes for the bait, I'll smash the bridge crossers with a couple
of sergeants or men at arms, which will maybe be able to smash their way
over the bridge. Every so often I will have to bring a reinforcement unit or
some Royal Knights to help turn the tide on the bridge. Most times the AI
will send its units peacemeal down to the bridge and keep the rest secured
up on a hill. If the AI doesn't go for your bait, you may have to assault
across asap and put your other units in wedge formation and charge across
to positions just on the other side. I am no expert by any means, but these
tactics seem to work most of the time.

Graphic

08-18-2005, 19:17

Thanks for the responses! I will try these tactics.

EatYerGreens

08-19-2005, 02:47

My bridge tactics are similar but the biggest difference is that I send my cheapest units across the bridge first and save the good stuff for after I've established a bridgehead on the other bank.

Bear in mind that there's no real rush when you have the numerical advantage on your side. You'll probably be allowed 40 minutes or upwards to complete the battle.

Pavise units sound ideal as they're shielded against return fire but they aren't available until high/late so the following is all about how to work this in early.

I bring 4 units of archers onto the field but only ever have two units firing at a time, one either side and click-dragged into shape at 2 or 3 ranks deep. Once out of ammo, I set them to withdraw and rotate in the next pair, to keep firing as continuous as possible. The first units in the reinforcement queue are another pair of archers. The first pair will take a while to make their exit but the replacements should arrive in position in plenty of time for the second pair to be nearly running out of ammo. Rinse and repeat.

Crossbows have slower rate of fire, so their ammo lasts longer but I haven't experimented enough to find out whether all this is doing is getting the same number of kills, just taking longer to go about it. I've also read about flatter projectile trajectory, which may affect your rate of friendly fire losses.

Since Shogun days, I developed a trick whereby I'd place one or two badly broken foot units into the initial army stack (different troop types, to prevent merging). These are the first to cross the bridge. A unit of 10 men will draw the AI units into coming into my archer's range just as effectively as a full unit and, if they have some valour, they last a surprisingly long time. The bridge is narrow enough for 10 men to fight as effectively as 100, since only 3 or 4 can bring weapons to bear at one time, leaving the rest idle but exposed to archer fire at the same time.

(Remember that battlefield archery isn't as precise as you might imagine. Wind can deflect an arrow easily, unlike a bullet. So they fire at 'area' targets and a big formation suffers losses to a volley rapidly but a tiny unit of 10 men takes high precision to hit. Use this to your advantage).

Yes, they WILL lose against a full enemy unit and they will rout until off the back of the map but I'll have shot a lot of theirs in the meantime and the kill ratio is already in my favour. My full size units are steadily brought in behind them to continue the meleé.

The important bit is to continually change the archers' targeting (fire-at-will OFF and HoldPos ON) so that they only fire at enemy units approaching the bridge end and thus still completely out in the open. Once engaged in the bridge meleé, I try to leave them alone, to avoid excessive FF kills. My units on the bridge (usually spears in the early phase) can generally cope.

If the enemy has his own archers on the opposite bank, I always fire at them in preference to the meleé troops as this tends to lead to an archer vs archer duel and removes the under-fire morale hit from my men on the bridge.

At some point, the bridge fight will break through, onto the opposite bank. At this point, you have to remember to stop any router pursuits. If they still have archers nearby, I will briefly shift to attacking them to make them stop firing and start running. I can now send my best units, still fresh, to cross over and take over any fighting on the opposite side with next to no missile fire against them.

The spears who won the bridge will be formed into a protective line (holdform/holdpos) to counter attempted cavalry charges at this point and will be rested until the battle is over.

More often than not, my archers never even cross the bridge at all.

The key point of the battle is when the AI stops sending more units down to the bridge fight itself and begins to retreat to a defensive position on a hillside (and sometimes they just give up entirely, keep on going and retreat off the back of the map, reinforcements and all). That's the point at which I form my spears into a bridgehead protection line and begin the crossing in earnest and not before. If done too early, you may find yourself not in good formation on the other side and up against their freshest troops or reinforcements.

dgfred

08-19-2005, 03:46

Excellent stuff EYG !!! ~:thumb: :yes: One could follow your post and in most cases win every bridge battle. Thanks for the info. I never even
thought about sending under-strength units first because of the bridge
fighting area :embarassed: , I would usually send peasants or some not
too precious unit first to their demise. It works but your way is much, much
better. :crowngrin:

Knight Templar

08-22-2005, 10:16

I finished my Byzantine/normal campaign ~:cheers: ~:cheers: ~:cheers:

https://img360.imageshack.us/img360/1908/660ua.jpg

Ludens

08-22-2005, 17:23

Then the game crashed, and every time I reload the autosave, it cuts out after a few minutes! :dizzy2:
Blast, that must be frustrating. To win against such odds and then lose because a glitch.

Any chance of recovering it through another savegame?

dgfred

08-22-2005, 18:09

Nice fighting Byzantine Knights Templar :smash: ~:thumb: .

Graphic

08-22-2005, 21:46

I started a new campaign with the Genoese in the XL mod. I don't usually have fun playing as Catholics but this has been an interesting, if slow-going, campaign so far.

I teched up for a while, then I made my move on Naples before any of my neighboring paisan had the same idea and then took some of the Byz' islands too. I love it's set up so that you can attack them but they can't attack you ~D.

I then chilled and teched up for a long time. The Germans were at war with everyone and excommed and very weak so I invaded Venice. The little bastages kept "sallying forth" with no possibility of winning just to prolong the siege. It broke finally and is mine.

Teched up some more, got a chapter house, and sent a crusade for the Almohads. Gah, a bridge battle! Wish me luck, because this brings us to present day.

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v77/ubersoldat/genoesecampaign.jpg

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v77/ubersoldat/genoesecrusade.jpg

HunkinElvis

08-23-2005, 20:35

https://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b217/eesang2006/TW/sultan.jpg
This sultan has a lot of history in him. Look at his age. ~:eek:

dgfred

08-23-2005, 20:44

He looks in excellent shape for a 75 yr old :sultan: .

Patron

08-26-2005, 03:36

With an overwhelming naval superiority and the entire of France, Scandinavia and the British Isles under my heal, Germany was at my disposal. With no real distinction between the Germans and other foreigners I didn't feel the need to kill off the German royal bloodline and set about securing only strategic points from the Baltic to the Alps, however I did kill the German King whilst attacking Tyrolia, curiously with the same group of mercenary halberdiers that killed the French king.

On the macro scale there was still one weakness, which is the gaping maw which is Provence and Northern Italia, which you can see on the last map. The Italians and Sicilians were tiny compared to the 4 superpowers of the continent, (Egypt, Spain, Hungary and the Irish) their survival entirely dependant on their navy, or to be more specific, my money's dependance on trade in the mediteranean. I had to first suprise attack their navy before invading and securing my empire from those annoying little opportunistic invasions that plague long borders. The Italian navy was weaker than the Sicilian navy, so I decided to invade them first, resulting in a few epic battles in which I used several troop types to compliment one another in a melee.

https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y206/asdasdasd2/battleofvenicegallowburst.jpg

I'd form a thin line of gallow glasses (you can only train them in Ireland) behind a thin row of chivalric seargants and behind them both, some chivalric maa 3 ranks thick with some maa in a square (11 ranks) formation on either side. On the flanks I'd have either halbs or more chivalric seargants (I didn't have many halbs either..) I would also bring along quite a few mounted crossbowmen to gallop around the outskirts and be an annoying presence until the battle plan falls to pieces (to be expected) and I need them to charge into someone's rear.

The chivalric seargants are there to prevent the enemy from penetrating my lines and gaining a local superiority and of course to prevent a cavalry charge. Once the enemy is distant enough for me to succesfully charge, but near enough so that when I charge I don't get flanked, my gallowglasses burst forth from the rows of spearmen and draw first blood. Then my chivalric men at arms charge and my chivalric seargants aswell if there is any cavalry in front of them. On the flanks my chivalric seargants or halbs occupy any enemy cavalry and do their best to create gap between the enemy's flanking units and their line, allowing the 11 rank thick unit of men at arms to negotiate around the line, form into 3 ranks and charge directly onto the exposed rear of the enemy line. So I gain an infallible superiority throughout the entire line. I am beginning to produce feudal knights now and their place is obvious.

The unfortunately during this war the Sicilians attempted to invade Toulouse, so I had to contend with their navy aswell. Causing the inevitable collapse of trade in the mediteranean. The naval battles are continuing and I suspect it will continue for quite some time, but I have taken back the straits of Gibraltar allowing trade with the Egyptians to flow again.

During this same time 2 Hungarian princes and a group of horse archers decided to slaughter some 480 woodsmen garrisonned in Bohemia, whom were slaughterred even though they were uphill and in a forest. I had larger garrisons in Austria, Silesia, Pomerania and Brandenburg and strategically I could use all of them to expand my borders and retake Bohemia without decreasing my military force per length of border ration, which I did without meeting much resistance and with only 2 castles to siege/assault.

I'd say my success is due to corruption in my enemy's governments. My king only ever does the fighting when he is a prince and I never send more than 1 prince into battle at a time, both the French and Germans fell into Civil war and now the same is happenning with the Hungarians, allowing me to take all the strategic points on a macro scale as I have done over and over. I also spend a lot of money on peasants and try not to waste them in battle which allows my harder chivalric troops to keep on fighting and not have to bother securing the local population first. My empire is huge now, outweighing the Egyptians and making the Spanish look like this guy.

https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y206/asdasdasd2/manatarms.jpg

:knight:

Patron

08-26-2005, 03:37

https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y206/asdasdasd2/empirebuilding.jpg
~:cheers: :medievalcheers:

Graphic

08-30-2005, 21:45

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v77/ubersoldat/godamongstinsects.jpg

Best. General. Ever.

dgfred

08-30-2005, 21:51

Dang!!!! What are his vices/virtues? ~:cool:

Graphic

08-30-2005, 22:46

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v77/ubersoldat/god2.jpg

Shahed

08-31-2005, 01:07

Love all these screenshots!

dgfred

08-31-2005, 04:39

That's great ~:cool: --- affable with killer instinct ~D .

Graphic

08-31-2005, 06:22

Multiple Personality Disorder maybe?

*waits for "Strange" vice*

Graphic

09-02-2005, 02:26

Finally a campaign it looks like I'll complete...

Byzantines, started in Early, Normal difficulty, XL mod.

When I first began I intended to go at the Turks first but people kept attacking me on the opposite side. First the Cumans who were swiftly dealt with, then the Germans. Without thinking about what I was doing I pushed them all the way back to western Europe, taking the Hungarians out along the way. When I got them weak enough to where they HAD to accept my truce, I left the invading armies there for insurance and got on with the business of fighting the Turks. I invaded Rum with 2500 brand spanking new troops led by "the best general ever" and kicked their ass. After that they kept throwing lame counter-attacks at me which were too pathetic for me to waste my time with personally - auto-calc. I took a few more provinces from them by force and then bribed the rest of their delapitated army, aside from the Sultan's stack of course. When I first went to war with them the Egyptians allied with me (finally, they've been trying to ally with me for decades but I wanted to keep things quiet with the Turks while I dealt with the Germans). Then when the Turks are reduced to insignificance they attack one of my ships. Poor them, they'll go the way of the Turks soon enough.

This is one of the most fun campaigns I've had. I have Constantinople so teched up it's amazing (just got Gold armor). And as long as I keep conquering at a steady rate I have a practically unlimited income, no matter how many troops I raise. I can't remember the last time my annual income was below 5,000 florins.

Can any of you tell me how close to 60% I am? I don't have the stomach for 100% as it's already becoming aparant that everyone wants me dead (for the first time people cancelled their alliances with ME when Egypt attacked).

Rum:
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v77/ubersoldat/byz3-rum.jpg

Current Campaign Map:
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v77/ubersoldat/byz2.jpg
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v77/ubersoldat/byz1.jpg