Disrupting Trade

Hi,

Sorry if this has been covered before a lot. I was wondering whether anyone uses economic warfare much?

By this, I mean the usual thing of blockading ports and taking merchants over. However, I'm also wondering about putting in harrying cavalry units into enemy territories to block roads, and so trade (does this work?).

I'm playing as Byzantium and the Poles are one of the 3 major powers i'm competing with. I have no real desire to take their lands, so i'm really confined to the above, and the odd foray into some of their outlying provinces, sacking and letting them rebel.

I was thinking that by recruiting a bunch of single low-cost horse archer units, I could sit them on enemy roads, and if they are attacked, they can just retreat out of harms way. Hopefully they'll also contribute some desolation their way, to return to a different stretch of road later. I think this approach conforms to what i've read of medieval wars, which were mainly more about harrying the opponents lands and burning their crops, rather than taking their castles.

Anyone else used this tactic (and does it work?)

Methinks you've got the wrong forum. You seem to be looking for the citadel.

Economic warfare is a must when playing the byzants, if you dont do it then turkey or egypt will. i think it all depends in where your going and who your fighting if your to consider blockading ports. Sometimes its a waste of resources.

This is going to sound stupid but i didnt think there were roads in MTW, i thought that only started in RTW. OR do you just generally mean blocking their path

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Originally Posted by Youngie

This is going to sound stupid but i didnt think there were roads in MTW, i thought that only started in RTW. OR do you just generally mean blocking their path

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KyodaiSteeleye is referring to Medieval 2. Moved to the Citadel. ~:)

If you are at war, then putting a unit on a road will block the trade and cause devastation which apparently from what I have seen in the last year does damage the AI. Blockading ports with ships or by sitting on the road from the settlemant to the port works very well, as does destroying warehouses and markets, and then anything else available. Also eliminating the AI merchants will cripple them and eliminating their priests will help slightly. You will know when the tactic has worked because they will stop rebuilding because they are out of money and by seeing they are bankrupt on the Diplomacy screen. The AI is so unable to counter such tactics that this might be considered an exploit, but it sure does work well until the faction gets down to 3 provinces (from what I have heard) at which time it gets extra cash and seems to be able to still maintain existing large armies.

I use Economic Warfare where brute force fails. I blockade Ports and seal off trade routes and kill enemy Merchents. When the enemy is bled white...I strike swiftly.

I use a form of economic warfare when attacking enemies, in that I try to target their most wealthy cities first in order to cut of their cash flow and thus their supply of reinforcements. I find this works very well against the HRE, taking vienna essentially stops them building any decent sized armies.

Though it's an interesting idea to use assassins to destroy their economic buildings, I've tried this in the form of "psychological warfare" before to make cities rebel, but I guess it could work very well to knock out an important port or mine on the eve of war.

On my new campaign as scotland, scotland, spain and england are constantly blockading ports, blocking roads etc. Just a few turns ago they manage to get Angers of me, but not without pinning perhaps 1600 losses on to them, and destroying half the castle at the same time :laugh4:Disrupting trade could work, especially at the start of the game where all of the enemy are bankrupt.

Warfare is all about hitting them where it hurts and hard!

The cost of maintaining your pillaging troops may outweigh the advantage of economic starvation..particularly if you are in a province with a castle...or its very early in the game. I might suggest putting your pillagers in a stack and sieging a city instead. The trade florins gained by an upgraded city will provide more in the long run. If you do not want to take territories you can always gift them away to a "stable" faction like the papacy afterwards.

You could always build mass assasins and merchants and try to take em out like that... a couple things to consider.

1) your agents cost money to build
2) a merchant in the early game wont be producing all that much per turn, even a late merchant will depend on location and resource .. and all in all most cities (some exceptions) wont have an enormous diff with merchants or not.
3) the AI will cheat on its finances always and regardless of your efforts
4) does the cost of producing the buildings then producing the agents then moving the agents and using/losing them equal a greater or lesser amount than could be gained by simply attacking?

Usually the best option for me at least when I wanna "hurt" the faction w/o attacking too much is the vaunted viking raid ....(which is why the danes are my fav....) make a low cost inf heavy stack and put em on a boat...now raid and pillage!!! head for your opponents capital, which unless they are HRE is gunna be attackable from the coast...you dont even need an officer in this army cuz its on a boat most of the time. Land em, pillage and move on the boat again after their capital has been reduced to a florin-less shanty-town. This is actually pretty much my strat period for most factions as the coast is far to easy to conquer.

About the coasts... I always thot that they should have made armies disembark at a port instead rather like romance of the kingdoms series,also this would provide some protection from the menacing hordes I send... alas this is not the case..

Disrupting Trade Eikon? That will cripple them.

Intersting raids Eikon, i may try it... Just bleed them dry of money early on and they will never recover

I agree that it is a very good and effective tactic but i'm sure that it does more than just disrupt trade and therefore is out of place in this thread. Like I have said it is really good advice though.

How is it out of place, i didnt think anything was out of place, this is like a misc forum

tactics advice? nevermind I am out of place.

Economic warfare does not seem to be "profitable" to me until at least mid game (100 turns in) because the AI usually is not developed enough for it to hurt and it takes a lot of time to recruit, train, and destroy. It seems to work marvelously well against the Mongols once they have settled. You can drag them down quickly to no longer being the richest faction by destroying their buildings especially stables and archery ranges which they will keep on rebuilding.

I reckon this would be fairly useful against HRE in the early stages, as if you can stop their income, they have larg armies and they would certainly suffer, also they are spread thin so you could just sack all the cities and kep them so far under they can never recover