How do you load troops into ships?

[Horatius]

I am new at Medieval Total War, and I tried to put my French Army on ships bound for the Middle East, however it just made the reject sound and my army appeared where it started.

So can anyone tell me how to bring soldiers around the seas?

I know the click on the army then click on the fleet to get it on board, I do it all the time in RTW, however it just isn't working in MTW.

[NodachiSam]

Its different in MTW. In order to move men around you need 3 things. Sea superiority is crucial for this and takes awhile to achive.
1. a port in the province the army resides in
2. ships all the way to your desired destination with at least 1 ship in each ocean area.
3. unblockaded sea tiles, so crucial is this I divide it from above. If there is one enemy ship in the way you can't move men through and also can't trade.

For example, as the danes, in order to invade northumbria from denmark you need ships in that little scandanavian sea where the denmarkian port is and also one or more ships in the north sea. If the english have one boat in either spot you can't invade. Even if you are neutral to the English at the time you invade they won't let you through. If you have sea superiority you can drag the your army from denmark and plop it down in northumbria.

For you in invade the middle east you'll need an unbroken chain of ships all the way from France or where-ever your army is to which ever territory you wish to occupy and no hostile ships can be in your way. Remember, you can't invade a neutral province if they have ships in the water as well. Your quickest bet might be a crusade but you can do it if you build up sea superiority.

Welcome to MTW by the way :D I hope that clears it up, if not post any problems.

[Horatius]

Thanks Nodachi, that is very helpful, I am going to give up glorious achievement for now because my Frenchmen just tend to get stuck in a heavily defended Rum Provence and unable to go further, and it will probably be hard to get so many ships by 1200.

I wonder why do the French need to march through Rum anyway, they historically marched through Anatolia anatolia.

[NodachiSam]

You're welcome, glad to help:2thumbsup:

You're crusading I guess? Crusades can be tricky. If they fail you get a massive influence drop.(well maybe only 2 or 3 points, still considerable since each point of influence adds to every general's loyalty) Its important you build up enough momentum (read enough zealous soldiers(hungarians and italians often(or better yet go through papal land))) to get where you're going or you'll get stuck in some uncatholic province and face a long death.

If you can launching a crusdae over sea is the quickest way to get to one of the holy lands. Usually I use crusades to hit territories close by to my own territories or just off next to other catholic territories, especially in conjunction with other military advances. Crusades always try to take the shortest route and can't go back so you have to be careful.

[ajaxfetish]

I remember trying to figure out how the heck the ships worked when I first got the game. I bought the bargain bin version with no manual, and learned most of the game by trial and error. The rest (including how to move troops by sea) I picked up from right here. I still appreciate those who took the time to help me in my noobish ignorance to understand the nonintuitive aspects of the game.

Ajax

[Horatius]

As you read same here.

I have another question to the two of you.

How do you retrain soldiers?

Is it possible or is retraining unique to Rome?

[NodachiSam]

To retrain soldiers you have to get your exhausted squad to a province with the appropriate facilities. It can be tricky (I find it tricky anyways), so experiement it up, but to retrain you need to select your stack or the individual unit and also open the unit production window and then drag them over. Then next turn the unit should be restocked. The valour will go down but your veterans will still have higher valour. The valour of a unit is only its average. Individual units are tracked seperately. I'm not too sure about armour and weapon upgrades (the new guys have what the province supplies for sure but I'm not sure what the veterans get. I don't know off hand if the comp tracks that individually)

Hope that helps.

[Peasant Phill]

About armor and weapon ugrade: The unit will have the same as what the leader of the unit has, even if the province your retraining your unit in doesn't have the upgrades.

If the province has certain upgrades (armourer and weaponsmith) that your unit doesn't have then your entire unit will get those to.

[Horatius]

Thanks it does.

I have another question though this one is specifically about a game I am playing.

For homelands I need to capture Cyprus from the Egyptians, however the Byzantines are blocking my path with one single ship, so I order my fleet of ten ships to attack it but it refuses, whenever I end the year the byzantine ship is still there and my fleet has done absoloutly nothing and I still can not capture Cyprus, and my expert general I had stationed waiting to lead the troops has been assassinated which is especially annoying.

Is there any way to order the execution of the Admiral? I Medieval French King would have done that instantly on hearing that the Admiral had mutinied.

[NodachiSam]

You can disband his ship if you wish but I've never experienced ships not following orders. Are you sure that you arn't killing the ship and it isn't being replaced every turn? If it is a quick ship it can travel two sea areas in a turn and also can run away before you catch it. I'd reccomend attacking it with one (or more) quick ship and your other ships. That way it won't escape; even if it defeats the lesser ships it can't run from your heavy duty ones.

[HopAlongBunny]

Thanks it does.
For homelands I need to capture Cyprus from the Egyptians, however the Byzantines are blocking my path with one single ship, so I order my fleet of ten ships to attack it but it refuses, whenever I end the year the byzantine ship is still there

The Byz have the Dhow I think. The ship has a speed of 4 and is very hard to bring to combat. Try attacking with 5 stacks of 2 ships each; the idea is to get as many chances as possible to "tag" the Byz fleet.

If you right-click on a ship you should get a parchment that shows the speed. offence and defence of that style of ship. Ships intercept and travel at the speed of the slowest ship in the stack (not entirely true for the AI)

[caravel]

Ships always follow orders. Disbanding the fleet won't make any diference. The Byzantine ship (probably a Dromon, as the Byzintine can't build Dhows as this is a Muslim culture vessel) is probably moving to another sea zone and escaping your fleet. Another ship from a neighbouring sea zone is moving back into that sea, making it appear as if neither ship has moved. In short they're swapping about. This is difficult to detect, as ships can't be seen moving, so you'll have to check which admiral is in control of that particular fleet, and if next year it has changed then it's the swapping issue. The Dromon is the fastest ship in the game (speed 4) so you have a smaller chance of catching it if it chooses to flee when attacked. There is a chance however, and breaking up your stacks and sending about 6 individual ships against it may yield better results.

[Horatius]

Thanks for the answer guys, I will try splitting up my giant fleet now.

[Ludens]

The problem is that the A.I. both has an edge in naval combat (success in naval combat seems inversely proportioned to success in land battles) and knows when you target its fleets. Therefor it will automatically run from larger fleets. The chances of succesfully evading an attacking fleet depend on the speed of both the attacking and the fleeing fleet, so the best way of catching them is by separating your slowest from your fastest ships. A fleet is only as fast as its slowest ship. However, once one attacking fleet has succesfull caught the fleeing fleet, all following attacking fleets during the same turn will catch them as well. Thus it may be best if you make fleets of two or three of your lighter ships and order them all to catch the coward. Do not send them in fleets of one, however, because the A.I. has an edge in naval combat and you may end up losing a lot of ships this way.