Depressed - advice welcome

I've been reading the forum for some time. I installed M2TW around when it came out, didn't spend much time on it, had to reinstall more recently.

I like many things about it. But....

I just get very discouraged by not doing well. I've played England, the Moors, Venice, Poland, Byzantium. I never get anywhere near the victory conditions. Money is always tight. I can normally expand quite well but then everybody else jumps on me and I don't have enough resources to deal with them.

With MTW1 I was able to hit the trade very hard, build up lots of cash, then build up armies to deal with whoever gave me a hard time. Not every game but mostly.

I've tried the faraway merchants (Timbuktu etc) with MT2W and they help, but not enough.

I play on Easy/Easy. This does make the battles quite achievable but really I am more interested in the strategy side.

Can people suggest an approach (and/or a people) which will restore my confidence?

I think you will find the guides section of the ORG quite helpful in that case.

I've read most of them (should have mentioned that). Haven't found a reliable approach or faction so far. The writeup of Poland looked good. That was probably my most promising campaign so far but the HRE were too strong to eliminate, Denmark and Hungary kept giving me a hard time, then along came the Mongols (as in history, I accept). I think the key is money - I haven't so far found a reproducible way (or faction) where money is not a problem.

What about England, I played England on my first ever campaign in M/M and found it rather easy, bear in mind that am experienced in RTW beforehand. Anyway if you want I could you gave you a layout of my opening moves for England, that faction is possiblity the most secure on the map.

As Quintus wrote, England is a good choice. You should avoid all the central powers (HRE, Poland, Hungary, etc.) because you can get attacked from all sides, as you experienced with Poland.

As England, you could try to sell your mainland city (to France or to HRE if you want to mess things up) to concentrate on the british isles, eliminate the scots and conquer all the rebels there. Then you'll have a good position to play with the economic system and see what you missed.
Once you make enough money start to build an invasion force, see how that increase your expenses, don't make too big of an army. And then invade Scandinavia, normally you will only fight Denmark there.
Go on this way, carefully picking your opponents, trying to invade places where you won't have to fight a two or three fronts war.
And then of course you can try to present here your opening moves, as said, so that you have a kind of "step-by-step" guide.

Try putting a higher priority on building up your home-base economy in the early game. Build *all* the economic buildings that you can build in each of your towns. Ports, markets and mines and their upgrades should all be high on your list.

And specialize your castles on just one line of military units each, at least at first. For example as England, build the archery series (longbows!) in Nottingham and the drill field series (billmen, etc) in Caen. Each time your castle expands, the upgrade for its military building should be the first thing you build there.

And don't overdo the size of your armies before you've completed your economic buildup. Nothing can stall out your economy like too many Mailed Knights.

By the time you get the whole of the british isles in your hands, you should be raking in several thousand florins profit per turn, and then you can afford to go crazy on your enemies.

England is a rather easy choice, here's my advice for your opening moves (not a step by step guide, just a basic outline)

Firstly you have 2 choices regarding to the expansion of your kingdom:
Option 1: Expand within the British isles and be rid of your castle in the mainland, this is less profitable but more secure, and you'll only be likely to be at war with Rebles and Scotland.
Option 2: Expand both ways, this is much more lucrative but risks war against France, Denmark and HRE, but if you can handle it then it's obviously fine.

Okay, England starts in a very promising position, within castles both across the channel, they have plenty of rebel lands to take before getting involved in a war with another major power.

Dipolmacy:
Secure an alliance with at least one of the Iberian factions, 2 if you can. Alliance with the Pope and Poland would be a massive help, the benifit from former is obvious while the latter tend to grow into an awesome Eastern powerhouse, also for some reason I found Poland to always keep their words.

Expansion:
British isles: Leave William in London, he's old and all the fighting should be done with Rufus. York is your ideal first target (you should however aviod sieging it on turn 1. On turn 2 the council of Nobles should ask you to take York with a big rewards), it's very weakly garrisoned and shouldn't put up much of a fight. The next target is less clear; you can either go for Canneveron (spell?) or Dublin, both have pros and cons. Canneveron is well garrisoned, with plenty of Welsh Longbowmen that will make siege extremly difficult, it's best to starve them out, but that takes valuable time. The alternative is you take Dublin, the city has formidable garrison in the form of Galloglaich, but they shouldn't last long against cavalry and a few mail knights should be able to take care of them easily, also the settlement has no walls. I often finds taking Dublin to be more benifical because you are able to recurit Galloglaich mercernary in Ireland, very handy troops. After that you can think about eliminating the Scots, try to do it as quick as possible to aviod angering the Pope, send a spy in Edingborough and take it in a single go. After eliminating the Scots the rest should be elementary.

Mainland Europe: Use Robert, get some mail knights from Cane and recurit some Spearmen Mercenaries, don't bother about Crossbowmen. Take Renne and get the trade going nicely. Renne has a tough garrison and should be dealt with accordingly, starve them out if you find assult too hard. Afterwards Bruges is the clear target, it has some fearsome rebels (I think they have Flemish Pikemen + Crossbowmen), the best way is to starve them out if you want to aviod high casulties. Bruges makes plenty of money and boost your trades significantly. After taking these three mainland settlements + uniting the British isles you should of estalished yourself and the rest is your choice.

Further Expansion:
Most people finds Atwerp a tempting target, my advice is don't be tempted. Atwerp is a cannon-foder that would get you a war with either Denmark or HRE or both (even if you don't take Atwerp then you still will probably at war with one of them, Denmark most of the time). After taking all of rebels and eliminating Scotland you should concentrate on France, it will be tough, but at the end. You will succed.

What to build?
In cities trade is your priority, roads and other economical structures is a must. In castles you should be building missile ranges and infantry barracks. England have top-notch missile infantry plus excellent selection of heavy infantry (pity there lacks good spears). There cavalry also leaves much to be desired.

Extra tip: Try to limit the numbers of castles in your provinces. As far as I'm concerned you only need two. Nottingham and Caen. Caen is in a good position to reinforce all of your mainland provinces while Nottingham will play and intrustmental role in your effort to unit the Bristish isles. Keeping the number of castles to a minimum should make sure your treasurys always stays at a health amound.

and remember not to overbuild, if money is tight then dont build unnecessary stuff (except the front line there you should have atleast something building)i.e stables, barracks, brothels... When you check what to build and wonder how profitable it will be you can check it from the button in the lower left corner (when you opened the building browser) and you should see some grayd out carts when you have a trade building in cue. hovering the mouse over those gray carts shows you how much they will start to earn, building many of the same type like ports will of course add more to those carts. last thing would be that merchants are usually not worth it if you arent close to a good resource or if there is enemy merchants close by because you earn 500 florins from successfully taking over if i remember correctly

As others have stated, there are some factions that are far easier than others to build
up financially. These are the English/Scots,Denmark and to a lesser extent Egypt. They are
easier than others because of the lack of enemies at the start,the trade goods available
to them and also their geographic locations make them easy to defend.

The Polish and the Moors have historical enemies right at their doorstep at the beginning
of the game, making it more difficult to expand.

Try to make certain cities *trade cities* and build all the economic buildings there, other
cities that are in provinces of little value can be upgraded later. Example as the English
you should concentrate only on London initially for buildings,then as you take out the scots,
convert the castles in the british isles to cities.Keep 1 castle in every region only,theres no need
to have 2 or more castles in Britain for example.

In Mtw1 for example, most of the time it was wise to simply keep a city at a keep or castle level
and not upgrade further, the same thing generally applies in mtw2 for most areas that you are
simply conquering and not intending to invest for growth.

Keep only your militia in your cities as defense. A fully upgraded socio-economic city
in your factions heartland will in the end only require the free militia as a garrison.

If you are turtling, keep only 1 field army eq. for defense, esp at the game start theres no reason
to have multiple armies using your resources.

Your treasury (barring mass amounts of $)wont build all buildings simultaneously.
But it will give preference to the buildings being created. If you have 10
cities and not alot of money remove all ques except on the important cities that need to grow 1st.

If you are playing as the Scots,Danes or Brits, theres no reason to go for any military
building right away, at game start the AI can be wiped out easily with a combo of
spearmen,peasant archers and w/e officers you have hanging around for your cavalry.

(a note on cavalry... as opposed to mtw1, in mtw2 your officers recharge their bodygaurd units
after the battles, so in the early game you can consider the officers you have as free cavalry,
and so long as they do not die in battle, they will recharge and possibly grow in size after the battle.
as such often my first armies have 2 or more officers supplying the cav component.)

Plunder everything,take a province over and sack then sell everything thats there.
The only time you should exterminate instead and not sell off the buildings is if you
want to keep the province later. Example *a fully upgraded citadel close to your conflict areas.*

Re: Merchants, Id suggest in the beginning to keep them close to your cities and let them
gather what they can.When you see an AI merchant coming, put your merch back into
your city til he moves on unless you have a favorable chance of defeating him. In the
late game you can afford to expand your upgraded merchs around abit. You should
use merchants primarily in regions that have cities in them, and try to monopolize
the trade goods of that area. For the 4 factions I listed above, this is quite simple.

As the Danes or English, once their respective *islands* have been conquered,
you are able to turtle in them, grow your cities and have 1 stack of units as defense.
You also make a small amount of florins per turn as profit.


Some of this may help. Welcome to the ORG.

Do you use auto-calc a lot rather than fight your own battles? If so what you need to do is pick a single unit of heavy infantry, with swords if the faction allows to get the Swordsmith guild, and train only those. If you aren't fighting battles heavy infantry will give you the best auto-calc results by far. Your economy is also simplified by only following a single build chain in your castles.

England's Armored Swordsmen are excellent for auto-calc, but some of the hands down best are Poland's 'spearmen' and dismounted Polish nobles. They also have low upkeep and easy to upgrade armor. The Danes have a variety of excellent heavy infantry as well, and the Sicilians do well with dismounted Norman knights.

:egypt:

Originally Posted by dusherwo:
I've been reading the forum for some time. I installed M2TW around when it came out, didn't spend much time on it, had to reinstall more recently.

I like many things about it. But....

I just get very discouraged by not doing well. I've played England, the Moors, Venice, Poland, Byzantium. I never get anywhere near the victory conditions. Money is always tight. I can normally expand quite well but then everybody else jumps on me and I don't have enough resources to deal with them.

With MTW1 I was able to hit the trade very hard, build up lots of cash, then build up armies to deal with whoever gave me a hard time. Not every game but mostly.

I've tried the faraway merchants (Timbuktu etc) with MT2W and they help, but not enough.

I play on Easy/Easy. This does make the battles quite achievable but really I am more interested in the strategy side.

Can people suggest an approach (and/or a people) which will restore my confidence?

I feel your pain, dushwo. I have spent months (to the - to put it mildly - bemusement of of my partner) on this game, and before that on MTW1. Reading these forums has helped with both, but you have to put it into practice, and that can be really hard, believe me I know. I, too, had money coming out of my ears in MTW1 (1.5 million in the bank in one game), but it always seemed to be harder to come by in MTW2. I found the battles in MTW2 mostly unsatifying, the AI factions generally more advanced and the pope hated me, while everyone ganged up on me if I got strong. I never saw the new world or the mongols/timurids. However, I believe I am starting to make a few breakthroughs. I started on M/M, I now play on M/H. Money is no longer so tight (though not overflowing), I have had some epic battles, found (and conquered) the new world and defeated both Mongols and Timurids in battle. In my current game, the last 2 popes were mine.

I would like to suggest the following. Please note, I have yet to acheive full victory in the long campaign (I am currently trying Spain). Concentrate on specific improvements, don't try to build everything everywhere. Economy then military. Move fast in the early stages to capture available rebel settlements (As England you want to be first to York, Caernarvon and Dublin, as Spain it is Zaragosa and Valencia). Watch out for your neighbours, alliance or no, they will attack - when they do, take them down. Practice battle technique, as a human you will usuall have more balanced forces and better control than the AI. Use classic miltary strategy - fire and movement, massed artillery, whatever works - as before bridges are your friend! You can outthink the AI, 99 times out of a hundred. Read these threads! Read the AARs, huge source of good ideas. Be flexible, be cunning. Get loads of priests out converting and spies in (your) frontline settlements as a defence. Use auto-resolve only if the odds are overwhelmingly in your favour.

Finally, personally I find the lack of varied goals a bit of a bore. I set my own (a lot of people here do). I chose not to accept adoptions/man of the hour, so the family must survive. I sack only if a general is killed in an assault, or if the faction is not co-religionist. I don't use assassins. I want to be the Number 1 faction, my best so far is 32 provinces (no Jerusalem though).

Lastly, I don't think you will find the step to, say M/M very difficult.

Good luck, and let us know how you get on! It would be great if you posted some situation reports, then some of the great players (not me) on these boards will definitely help you out. I just love to read about other peoples games.

Thanks to all posters for advice and support. Looks like I made the wrong move by playing the 'unlocked' factions too early. I'm UK based and a travel nut (worked in Egypt quite a bit in the last 12 months) so have a taste for the exotic. So back to the English it is.

Practice some custom battles, the better you get the less troops you will feel you need when conquering in the campaign, and the less troops you have to build/maintain the more money you have left over for buildings etc.

If money is tight then you need to reduce your army upkeep by reducing the size and investing that money into profitable cities. Some cities aren't worth the investment, some cities return a lot more. look for good trade connections/mines.

I've started a campaign as the English (after modding the game so the turns are monthly) and ended up at war with the Danes and took Scandinavia before attacking france,. Instead, my council asked me to take bordeaux, but portugal took it. Then the iberian christians started attacking me, hence I ended up taking Leon and destroying them. France went to war with me, I took some of their provinces and offered a ceasefire. meanwhile russia came into the picture with some blockading. I took novgorod after some failed assaults. Eventually, the catholic factions ended up disspearing slowly one by one, got excommunicated three times, and now I have three quarters of the map. Egypt, Hungary, The Papacy and the Mongols are all that's left. I have way over 3.5 million florins and about to attack egypt. I also removed sicily attacking Cagliari with and elite force of 2 Ret. Longbow, 1 Yeoman Longbow, 3 english knights and 2 armoured swordsmen. I ended up shooting the army off the field. I amazed myself.

Advice from an extremely aggressive player:

My personal strategies and tactics may not help someone who wants to roleplay or is uncertain of his abilities. So I am modifying them to suit someone who needs a confidence boost.




1. Pick your fights.

You can't tell the rest of the world not to declare war on you. Your neighbors will eventually declare war on you. You must be prepared to defend against this threat, and limiting the number of enemies you fight at once is your top priority. There's a lot of other nations out there.

As a less experienced player, you may not want to declare war on your largest neighbor first. So pacify them. Send a diplomat to make trade rights, and offer them an incentive to remain at peace with you. Send them 100 (or 200, if that doesn't work) gold per turn for 100 turns. Cancel that later when you feel comfortable. The big bad neighbor won't attack you, especially if you manage an alliance and youre also giving them tribute, most of the time. Unless you own a city that that faction always wants to capture (mission-related, most likely) then they might not attack you.

They will be less likely to attack you if you have a garrison in your border cities. Even peasants and peasant archers are a cheap, and somewhat effective in battle, deterrent. Now, focus on your other neighbors.

Keep a spy on any undefended border to watch for invaders. Even put a spy on a ship for added line of sight, and keep an eye on the undefended ocean. Be ready to pull your main armies back or recruit a huge defensive force at a moment's notice.

2. Watch your budget, and begin your expansion.

Oh, you can try to win the economic war by peaceful means, but in the end it comes down to armies on the ground. You need to be able to defend yourself, yes, but you need to eventually kill your invader. That means offensive power as well.

In my opinion, you need to prioritize what you build. If you build a grain exchange in a town which has little population and no trading partners, you're wasting your money for a gain of... what, 12 florins per turn? Not even worth it.

Ports, on the other hand, provide sea trade, which works just as well, and allows you to build ships, which are a military goal. Two for one. Largest cities first, then largest castles, build ports sooner than later.

Farms? Most factions get the same tiny bonus from a farm that they get from having good trade or a chivalrous governor. If you raise population growth high enough, you even get a public order bonus, which is a two-for-one idea. The higher your population, the higher the trade a place can provide, which means more taxes, which means more and better armies. Raise population. Farms aren't always the first and best way to do that. Chivalrous governors are by far the best, followed by high trade and some buildings affect factions' growth. Brothels sometimes give you a growth bonus, but also provide you with spies. Better than farms. Farms should be last on your list, because all they do is provide a small boost to growth, and nothing else.

Instead of fully upgrading your most worthless provinces, realize that your neighbors possess very good provinces. Their capitals, castles, and trade centers... Capturing these places doubles the size of your economy, eliminates or weakens an enemy, and gives your core provinces more breathing room in case of invasion. You also get more things you could sell off in an emergency, and a larger population to tax. Sacking cities also gives you insane boosts in income, especially if you're super-aggressive. But you dont even need to sack cities, just keep expanding until you're very powerful, or keep expanding until you win the game. Early expansion helps.

Your budget must allow for more income than expenses. If you have troops just sitting at home playing defense, they are draining your budget. You can recruit a defensive army later, saving you money every turn. Your inner provinces dont need anyone except militia or peasants to keep order, and very few of those. Don't kill your budget defending against an attack which may never come, and when it does you have ample time to prepare and fight back. Save cash, disband what isn't being used for critical defense of your outermost provinces on your most hostile borders, or what isn't going to be used to assault and defeat a faction.

Mercenaries should only be used for offense. They are too expensive to keep, and eventually you will have better troops of your own. Use them as meat shields for short offensives, then disband them or kill them off in glorious battle.

Offensive armies need not be the best in the game. Just make sure you have a General with high command, chivalry, dread, or morale, a bunch of meat soldiers (cheap infantry), and a tactical edge. For most field battles, that's horsemen. For taking settlements, you need artillery and archers. You could advance ahead with one army that specifically deals with field battles (large amounts of infantry, cavalry, and a powerful general) and one that lags behind with the heavy seige equipment, carrying catapults, large amounts of archers, some heavier infantry, and any general with good morale. (Chivalry works best for this)

Your troops do not need to be of better quality unless the enemy is more numerous. Try to be more numerous yourself later on... for the opening assaults, just have a good battle plan and bring enough men to win the battle.

Spam a larger army of cheap infantry, some cavalry, and a good general, and make your opening attack on an enemy faction. Don't overextend yourself, allow the enemy to come to you. If you beseige an important settlement, even if it has large amounts of enemy troops inside, that cuts off their trade and slowly drains the army inside. If the enemy sallies out, keep your general behind your infantry and try to rout them quickly with repeated cavalry charges from the wings. Strike before the enemy can organize outside their settlement.

Win your first battles and try not to lose too many troops. Capture a settlement belonging to your enemy and push up some defensive troops from within your empire. Recover if you took heavy losses, pillage the settlement or destroy useless items inside (ballista ranges that you no longer need, trade buildings for tiny settlements, armor shops which are redundant and in provinces you wont need for training purposes...) for cash if you need them.

Now, you have made forward progress against an enemy you intend to destroy. Don't let your invasion forces be destroyed, because they are acting not only as invaders, but also as your front line of defense against that faction. Aggressive defense. Saves money and expands your population and trade. In chess, the best move is the one which accomplishes the most things, and the most important things. Do the same here... dont settle for a good move when a great move is even better.

Once you expand a little, you may have some core provinces which require few defenses. Push any defenders towards your front line. Save money by not wasting troops. Make sure the total expense for your army is not greater than your income, and have some left over for recruitment or buildings.

3. Prioritize your economy

Once you have captured larger castles and cities, focus on improving those areas. Let your minor provinces develop on their own or send a high chivalry general to boost growth. Get your largest provinces the ports, grain exchanges, and recruitment facilities you need. Think about your next conquest, make sure your borders are defended, and maybe relax for a bit. Disband useless mercenaries, armies that aren't being used and have low experience, are far from your next conquest, etc... balance your budget such that you can really boost profits and reduce expenses. if you aren't at war, keep it that way for a while, and build your economy and cash reserves. Spy on your enemies for undefended borders and few standing armies, and strike them when you are done wasting time.

4. Build a real army.

Now, you should have a good castle with the proper armour shops, recruitment facilities, and cities with proper militia recruitment buildings and agent recruitment buildings to begin churning out your war machines.

Militiamen with silver or gold armour, spammed in great quantity, form a very large, very reliable, very cheap, very expendable, and very easy to regenerate invasion force. Form large armies out of militia infantry and militia bows or crossbows, unless you have castle grade forces which are far superior.

Get the best dang cavalry you can recruit, and lots of them. Especially if they are cheap. Leather or chain armour on your cheapest horses can do quite well.

Get some large groups of long range, flaming archers, and lots of artillery, and Castle grade infantry, and form a stack which specifically attacks huge settlements with large garrisons. Add some heavy cavalry and you have your large settlement attack group.

Lead this group with your field unit, a seperate stack dedicated to field battles. Go for mostly cavalry, especially same-type cavalry so they can regroup into fully powered units as they take casualties, and have some great general command them. Keep them light, mobile, powerful, and numerous. Use this to engage enemy forces which will kill your settlement attacker stack easily in the field, or to stand next to your settlement stack during seiges to defend them from seige relief forces suited to killing archers and artillery.

Use the archers, artillery, and heavy infantry to bombard, weaken, and reduce the numbers of heavy infantry and archers in the settlement. Use archers to take out mounted units, spearmen as well, and archers and heavy infantry to take out the enemy infantry. Don't use mounted units except if you're like me and you know how to steal settlements with horses due to AI incompetence, and also except if the enemy sallies and you have some to prevent cavalry from charging your infantry. Engage cavalry with spearmen after disrupting their charges.

Keep your real professional army alive and well with ships carrying reinforcements or reinforcements hopping from forts to castles en route to your front line. Replenish your losses and send more top generals in case you lose one or two. Send more artillery, archers, horses, and infantry. Spam your most popular and favoured unit, even if it isnt the best one you can recruit, until you overwhelm the enemy's defenses and spread your empire even further out.

5. Build a real Empire

Owning all of France is not enough. Time to take over the world.

Wait as long as your heart desires. Build your economy, disband useless armies, don't waste them in your core provinces, get rid of mercenaries, and go into a kind of vigilant hibernation unless you have invaders at your gates. Build the best recruitment facilities in the game, and lots of them, and have your best castle and best city become your great, massive, armourer.

Have your other castles and cities mass produce cavalry, infantry, archers, and so forth, then send them to your best cities to be fitted with armour. Make sure your artillery ranges are not being produced or wasted far from the front lines. Produce them near large port cities, near the center of the map, and be sure to have drillmaster generals control them on cleared roads until you can get to a ship or your final destination.

You can create your dream army, and be very uptight about gaining experience, keeping casualties low, and replacing lost troops, until all your battles look the same. Super army versus same old enemy. How boring... but some like to roleplay one specific general, so go for it.

As for myself, I've long since conquered the world by this stage, but if I had not, I would just continue to spam an ever-growing standing army and relentlessly ship them off to war until the enemy was totally annihilated, gaining ground, ransoming or executing prisoners, gaining experience, destroying targets, sacking cities, destroying infrastructure, and growing in population and economic strength the entire time.

Relentless. Heartless. Soulless. Endless. Aggression.

Until nothing stands but your own empire. Once you have done this for the first time, the formula only needs to be modified slightly per the geography and units of your particular fashion, until you know how to dominate the AI like a hellish demon on steroids.

Then, you will never be without confidence in your game.

What remarkable advice that is Askthepizzaguy, before now I have found that elite players keep their tactics to themselves but you have really bared all.

Relentless. Heartless. Soulless. Endless. Aggression. ... And what a remarkable line.

Even though that advice is aimed directly to the begginner it is good advice for everyone.

To totally simplify the game: The best empire is the one who can recruit the most amount of the most cost-effective, battle-effective, troops, per turn.

That means you need a huge economic base, which can be built over a large span of time, or conquered in a short span. That means you need a huge amount of recruitment facilities, which can be built over a large span of time, or conquered in a short span, or built while conquering. Cost-effective troops have armour and good stats, but aren't expensive. And you can recruit large amounts of them. If you lose a large amount of troops in a few battles, you need to replenish them at equal or greater strength, quickly. Can a small empire do that?

More troops means more enemies under seige... means more sacked cities... means more money for more troops.... means more captured capitals and citadels... means more territory, more bases, more economic centers.... means more troops and more buildings to recruit them from... means more and better armies conquering territory... means core provinces can be left undefended... means your budget begins to explode... means more armies and more armies and more armies.

Exponential growth is my strategy. It works. It can be modified to fit your play style, because you can always stop expanding, disband troops, and concentrate on your economy.

To counterpoint Ask the Pizza Guy's excellent advice, those same tactics can be used to a significant extent by those more interested in a less aggressive, or even turtle-like approach to the game---there are a bunch of ways to play it, and it's up to you which suits you best. ATPG's approach is certainly astonishing, but personally that's not at all how I like to play the game.

1. Pick your fights. Absolutely. Under any approach this is key, because trying to fight everyone at once is a recipe for disaster. If you're less aggressive, you may want to let others pick the fights. And by that I don't mean your Council of Nobles or the Pope. Do their missions if they coincide with your goals--the first one or two usually do--and ignore them otherwise. Never go on a crusade unless it's part of your own goal. The pope can always be bought off by a tribute of a couple hundred per turn, and the Nobles can't do anything whatsoever to you. I generally prefer to let enemies attack me, taking a diplomatic hit and getting themselves excommunicated. Then call a crusade against one of their major cities, if you like, preferably the most distant one, and then rampage across his territories with your holy army of vengeance, being sure to follow a route that gets you the best economic territories and occupying them if feasible. Being somewhat passive in MIITW can generally get you so you aren't fighting on multiple fronts very often, and allows you to build your econ through something other than loot and pillage. ATPG's advice about spies, watchtowers and diplomats are all well founded and work under a nonaggressive approach just as well. One point to remember in deciding who to antagonize is to pay close attention to the allies of your potential foe; you may take a massive hit in your economy if you lose trade rights with sufficient numbers of your foe's allies.

2. Watch your budget, and begin your expansion. and 3. Prioritize your economy. For the most part this advice applies in a nonaggressive game just as much. In a nonaggressive game, you'll want to think about converting some fortresses to towns (especially those on seacoasts so you can build more ports, which are great cash cows) and converting troublesome border towns to fortresses. You'll want to make sure your roads are as good as possible, because you're going to not keep a bunch of armies around. Rather, you'll have the fortresses equipped to build them quickly and with all the armor and bonuses they can muster, but your main focus has to be your economy. That said, generally avoid building mines in border territories, since those can provoke attacks. When you want someone to attack you and earn the pope's ire, the mines can do that for you. Make sure you squash rebels ASAP because they do a lot of invisible damage to your economy. A very key point: Don't forget that economic expansion can be done very effectively *without* ever declaring war. Build four or five merchants, four or five priests, two spies and two assassins, and put them on 3 or 4 boats. Don't let them rot in your homeland; they won't learn anything. Instead, send them to a very distant land, preferably a non-Christian one, moving the boats slowly (that is, click them ahead a little to clear sightline, and if clear, click them ahead a little more, etc.) during your turn so as to avoid pirates whenever possible. Once you land, keep the priests together in one province, and they will convert the populace quickly without falling to heresy, and greatly increase your chances of making cardinals and eventually popes. This has the bonus of increasing unrest there, so that when you come in later in the game the population is already Catholic and ready to greet you with open arms. Send the merchants to far-off goods along with the spies and assassins, using the spies and assassins to kill off any competing merchants, where the merchants willl generate tons of money and increase in skill so that you can use them to seize other merchants' assets. Timbuktu is best for this, though it takes a while to get there, and it has a bunch of ivory and gold for trading. The reason I say two spies and assassins is that they have a bad habit of dying on shipboard, but you really only need one of each to arrive with the merchants in order to get the job done. Build more priests and merchants while you send the ships back to get them. Lather, rinse repeat, and soon you're generating 20,000 per turn from your economic conquests alone, without conquering anyone. That said, never leave a merchant sitting on a financial asset when there's another enemy merchant within one move nearby; the risk of losing your 500 ducat investment (and more importantly, your investment of time and patience) is too high. Take your merchant off the asset, and move the spy and assassins in for the kill. When it's safe, put him back. Once your merchants are powerful enough (this doesn't take long if you have a monopoly on an asset in the region), then have the merchant do the asset seizure himself rather than using the assassin. If the merchant is too tough to kill with your assassin, or to seize his assets with your merchant, bide your time; usually when they see you're not on the asset they'll wander off the next turn. This does require some micromanaging on the map, but it's well worth it.

4. Build a real army. Your initial forces should be able to take any nearby rebel settlements without adding mercs or additional forces; combine stacks if necessary to accomplish this, but make sure you get all of the adjacent rebel territories first so your economic base is larger. Early on, your army will be defensive in nature and needs to be very mobile, and thus a cavalry based approach, mixed with some archers, will be preferable. But in that early going, keep it as small as possible, while still being effective for the defense of the realm. Horses aren't cheap, and every one you add is a major drain on your economy that would be better spent on more roads, ports and markets. The horses can always be split off from the archers to maximize the range of what you can defend. On the plus side, cavalry is devastating to most early forces so you should be able to repel most invaders without much effort. Depending on your situation, you may need 2 or 3 of these small defensive patrols, which may or may not be headed by a general, depending on whether they're more valuable to you as governors. Armies in the actual cities you control should be small, reliant on spears (to kill cavalry) and archers (to kill everything else). Milita, which require no upkeep, are perfectly fine for this purpose. Defensive fortifications are key; build ballistae towers and cannon towers as soon as you can. They're cheap, and they're deadly to besieging forces. Only when you're being attacked in force should you generate the larger armies, and even then you should encourage your foe to get excommunicated so you can use the crusade tactic whenever possible to eliminate upkeep and get even better troops. Once your economy is going great guns, you should be able to support the larger forces necessary to keep expanding without doing any sacking. For these purposes, always target seacoast provinces and build up the ports and roads first, if they're not already. Expect your early game, before you get around to building a real army, to last 100 turns or so if you're not being aggressive. Bend, but don't break, is the motto here. It takes long enough to besiege a city that you should be able to get your patrol there before the city falls. Once you're on a sound financial footing, then it's time to build the real army and equip them in style.

5. Build a real Empire This all applies, other than the sacking bit. By this point, you shouldn't need to sack and you'll be able to occupy cities (exterminate only if the unrest is too high to control), generating even more income. The cycle repeats and off you go to the races.

Gardibolt is correct- you don't need to play ATPG style.

The same tactics are successful when done in rapid succession, or in a few turns, or over a long time. I simply am an impatient kinda guy who demands to be bathed in blood from turn 1 to... well, turn 20 something.

I like battling with those late period troops, I'm just not patient enough to ever see them.


ADD: Good points on the use of merchants. They CAN be effective, and priest spam is how you win yourself a Pope.

I'd rather just kill the Pope.

This thread should go on the guides section.

Originally Posted by Freddybear:
Try putting a higher priority on building up your home-base economy in the early game. Build *all* the economic buildings that you can build in each of your towns. Ports, markets and mines and their upgrades should all be high on your list.

And specialize your castles on just one line of military units each, at least at first. For example as England, build the archery series (longbows!) in Nottingham and the drill field series (billmen, etc) in Caen. Each time your castle expands, the upgrade for its military building should be the first thing you build there.

And don't overdo the size of your armies before you've completed your economic buildup. Nothing can stall out your economy like too many Mailed Knights.

By the time you get the whole of the british isles in your hands, you should be raking in several thousand florins profit per turn, and then you can afford to go crazy on your enemies.

Back in the old days of 2003 when I started playing Total War games I had similar issues as the OP. Any large scale conflict would drain my resources rapidly and put me in a situation where I just ran out of steam early.

My problem was that I was clueless really - but in all seriousness- I always put an emphasis on recruiting and organizing a large army for an early offensive. However, my goal was never to blitz. Obviously, this caused a conflict. I would wind up with tons of low quality troops sitting all over the place, eating up my finances. Further, I wouldn't have enough money in the bank to change direction and start building the kingdom from within, and the troops weren't of a high enough quality to be effective in an actual offensive into enemy lands. The result was almost always the following: Build large army, start going towards the red (finances), try to reverse this by building- run out of money before either the economics or anything else fall in line with expansion. In the end, I would be totally vulnerable to invasion myself and due to the large army I would always have, I would wind up being invaded by a neighboring faction - and totally unable to wage a war against them. Just sit back, try to defend what's mine, and lose more and more money.

Eventually, I started to grow more interest in the financial aspects of empire building and placed more of an emphasis on an early "power base". That's why I'm quoting the above post. It's not necessarily "turtling" but for the first few turns, you want to lay the tracks for your kingdom to have consistent and reliable income. You want a guaranteed form of income that will support any hypothetical war that is possible. Further, you want enough income that you can not only support a war but continue to build your economy and technology (military and non military) during large scale recruiting before or during a war.

Most of this will be covered in detail by other posters...but I just wanted to add my 2 pennies to the discussion. Believe me, 4 major economic upgrades in your starting provinces will bring you MUCH more power and influence than capturing rebel provinces early. Expansion is often costly in itself initially (and long term if not planned properly). You want to be literally swimming in cash before you commit huge expensive armies to campaigns.

As long as you have wealth- you will have numerous options during any major war. When you run out of money, you have NO options. The greatest single "unit" you can have in your stack is a nation behind that army that has attained and can maintain wealth. This is the driving force behind all military action. Also- Do not engage in a war because you need money- this is a common mistake. You don't engage in war to raise a red bottom line back to the black. You go to war to expand and increase power/influence - and the time to do that is when you're MOST economically stable, not least.