Where do you focus your energies in MTW?

Since MTW is such a rich game with several different dimensions to it I am curious to know where you guys devote your energies in your campaigns. Here is the break-down as I see it:

1. Military build-up and conquest.
2. Economics and land investment.
3. Diplomacy and Subterfuge.

To be perfectly honest I don't play a very sophisticated game and I'd say my breakdown would be 75% military, 20% Economics and only 5% Diplomacy. Nearly all of my energy is focused on conquest and I don't bother to develop trade networks and only upgrade land so that I can eventually get better troops. Having a humongous army and stifling costs I am forced to conquer my neighbors to gain more land to support them which of course requires more armies. Oh the vicious cycle, where will it end :)

I haven't really utilized assassins, priests, Crusades or leveraged my alliances which I'm sure would make me a better king overall. I'd like to know how you guys go about your empire building.

Focus shifts all the time: if I manage to get peace with most or even everyone diplomacy and economics takes over and e.g. I have a assassin fest :))

Military build up and conquest is the main focus for me, with a reasonable amount of economics and only a small amount of diplomacy thrown in. It's the most fun way of playing, IMO at least. ~:)

Killing everything and the Pope.

i focus on getting antioch, tripoli, constantinople, venice, kazhar, lithuania, sweden, ireland, venice and flanders, after that, its all about economy(and BIG TIME economy, must i add)

I focus on wiping out the French. Then I go ecenomic until someone has the gall to attack me, then I wipe them out. The game goes on like that.

I have been known to use assassins but I prefer a sword through the chest to a dagger in the back. There really should be V or Vs to reflect that.

It really depends on which faction you're playing. For example, if you're Aragon, the Danes, or the Spanish, then you pretty much have to start conquering land right away. If you're the Egyptians or Almohads, building up your economy and developing your infrastructure is often the better way to go (although the Almos have have excellent army with which to do some early conquering). If you're the Italians, you focus on developing your trade income while maintaining a precarious diplomatic position with France, Hungary, HRE, the Pope, and possibly the Byz. If you're the French or the English, you need to maintain a careful balancing act between your military buildup with your economic development.

And of course if you're the Germans or especially the Byzantines, then you need to focus on everything simultaneously. ~D

I like to keep the game well-balanced, by not letting any power take over Europe. I will always attack any faction that begins to get too big for its boots, until that faction is suitably weakened or wiped out. I expand slowly, because I tend to get bored if I rule half the map.

I also like to use spies A LOT. Get the spies to four or five stars and you can start causing rebellions almost anywhere in your enemies' lands.

Marquis

Aye, when i'm the Byzantines, I try and focus on building up a network of spies and assassins, but i always get sidetracked by some puny little country attacking me!

First i get all farming to at least 20% and get any mining developed.

Then I tend to assign a task to each province;
Provinces with unit bonuses or iron will be used for troops.
High income provinces for farming / trade.
At least one province is entrusted to shipbuilding.
Crappy provinces will be for political units - especially assassins.

As the game goes on I assess my situation to decide where money should be spent.

I haven't got the knack of using spies. Maybe somebody could give me some pointers on that. ~D

I can't do it either, they're good for giving warnings and stuff, but as soon as the province they're in builds up any kind of border forts, the spies get caught straight away, even if they're already inside the province. Short of sending a constant stream of spies in, I can't really see any other way of doing it.

I alawys build up a huge trading network that makes me millions. I then have very large armies and conquer the world.

When ever conquering i think about borders. For example conquering spain is a great idea cause it only has three borders(when you conquer morroco), and england only has one along with scananavia with saxony. When doing this i get all the rich provinces, make tons of money, have good province loyalty and dont need to have to many troops.

70% Economy
25% Military
5% Diplomacy

I never realy focus on the military that much, cause all I need is a strong navy (I play as English), and then I build farms etc.

To start with.

100% military


After I have secured a sizeable amount of land

20% military
75% economy (building a navy for those 10000 trade florins per turn)
5% subterfuge (an inquisitor to up some of my lord's piety and a few bishops to spy on enemy troops, this usually increases as my economic troubles wane and I set my sights on opposing religious provinces)


When I go forth from my homelands to conquer the globe

75% military (everything is focussed on making my troops the most powerful, efficient, conquerring and subjugating force possible)
10% economy (developping conquerred provinces
15% subterfuge (I often find myself churning out bishops and sending them to every non-christian province I can find, they rarely get assassinated and after 20 years or so these provinces get over 50% catholic)

Survival. I usually play small factions, and so everything you do has to be geared towards survival.

65% Military: I'm always worrying about my borders, and spend most turns of the game at war. Since I don't use emissiaries, I rarely ask for peace.
I also have a favourite general, lol. *Sigh* I can remember my campaign with Lord Pole and the endless horde of rebels in the east. He actually had a son in that army who was also called Lord Pole. We regularly faced armies more than double our size. And he had to hold off for several years because I couldn't send any reinforcements. Then there was the 10 year siege of Naples...

30% Economics: I always build farms when I can. Every province has at least level 1 farming. I go through every province and adjust taxes and do the building thing. I don't like to queue up buildings though.

5% Diplomacy: When I get princesses I send them off to some country to get married. If I have a favourite general at the time, I'll marry a princess to him. I don't build emissiaries, but I use the one I start the game with. Hmm.. Now that I think about it, he's more of a liability than useful... *Kills emmisiary* I don't often build spies or assasins, but when I do I'll use them for something.

Beginning: 80% military, 10% economy, 10% diplomacy. IMHO a state must have at least 10 provinces to call itself a State...

Once I got 10-12 provinces: Well...... "It's the economy stupid!" 90% economy, 5% military, 5% diplomacy. I may build up a border defender army, assassinate a curious emissary or two, but I 'll never engage, on my initiative, in any major conflict, diplomatic missions or subterfudge activities.

Once I made my first 100.000f: 70% military, 20% diplomacy, 10% economy. Having a large treasury allows me to strike any factions that have more GA points, and I try to build a coalition to ensure I won't have to face multiple enemies. I find it though hard to forge alliances... I keep developing economically only the rich provinces I get to conquer.

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Originally Posted by Joshwa

I can't do it either, they're good for giving warnings and stuff, but as soon as the province they're in builds up any kind of border forts, the spies get caught straight away, even if they're already inside the province. Short of sending a constant stream of spies in, I can't really see any other way of doing it.

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Step 1: Use your emissaries, princesses or holy men to scout around for provinces which lack border watch towers/forts and, importantly a route to it similarly free of these things.
Step 2: While seaching, build a team of 5 or 6 spies.
Step 3: Send all of them to the target province together and move them manually if the route is complex (left to its own devices, the AI chooses odd routes sometimes, likely straight through BF'd places you'd want to avoid).
Step 4: On arrival, the compound effects of multiple spies will cause the loyalty to tumble drastically, instead of just dip slightly, well short of causing trouble. That loyalty dip may even be what triggers the AI to decide to build BWT's in the first place.
Step 5: If you're lucky, the province will rebel and be lost in the ensuing battle before the AI can respond by building BWT's.
Step 6: You will now have 4 or 5 spies with one-star EACH. Move on to the next target and see if you can get them all to 2-star.

Basically, this is just playing the odds. BWT's aren't an absolute dead-cert to catch a v0 spy but BWT's are supposed to be equivalent to a valour 1 spy in their own right. Your valour 0 spy probably stands 95%, or worse, chance of being caught per year spent in that province. BF's are equivalent to v2 spy and even worse odds.

If the game only allows one capture per province-watch per year (that would be dumb!) then spamming the province will probably succeed, even if you lose a few spies before it revolts.

From Shogun days, I recall v1 spies seeming to be not much better at surviving than v0, versus BWTs. V2 could penetrate BWTs, sometimes got caught by them yet definitely fell victim if it was BF's. V3 could get past even BF's pretty reliably but it's still a roll of the dice for each turn and they could still get caught at any time.

What you can't see at all is if the victim province has it's own resident spy as well. Drip-feeding low-valour spies in large numbers might only serve to give them a high valour spy who will nearly always catch yours. Every 'big catch' boosts his rating all the faster, so he'll always be ahead of your best.

In fact, the best use for 'green' spies is on home soil, especially in your ports. Let them catch incoming spies and assassins until they're up to v2 or v3 before sending them into enemy territory. You may need a province with a port but deliberately lacking in BWTs/BF's to encourage them to even attempt sending agents via there.

I should add that the spy spam technique is an old Shogun trick which was workable because you could get spies on the go very early in the game and not many AI factions bothered with BWT's etc until later on.
With MTW, by the time you've developed a keep + tavern, in a 'spare' province not preoccupied with troops each year, most factions have BF's just about everywhere.

1) Killing French Army
2) Killing English Army
3) Killing Polish Army
4) Killing Italian Army
5) Killing all other armies

I love playing as the HRE. ~:)

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Originally Posted by EatYerGreens

I should add that the spy spam technique is an old Shogun trick which was workable because you could get spies on the go very early in the game and not many AI factions bothered with BWT's etc until later on.
With MTW, by the time you've developed a keep + tavern, in a 'spare' province not preoccupied with troops each year, most factions have BF's just about everywhere.

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Yeah, that tactic still works if you start as the Byzantines in early. I built Constantinople up for spys and had a good network going before anyone even built border towers. Then they built border towers, and all my spys got pwnd :furious3:

Thanks EatYerGreens... very good advice overall about the spies and also leading me to think beyond the length of my sword.

As the English I've just completed a humongous war with the Germans and fought to the end of my 2 year warning from the Pope. I took over most of their empire and they were left with a few separated provinces... since I can no longer attack them I've gotten two of their provinces to revolt using spies and I have just about enough money to bribe their second to last region...

Cool... definitely cool.

I like my Byzantines so I play defense until one of the muslim factions hits me. By this point, I've got my peasants holding provinces and hopefully Trebizond up with their archers so I smack back. Tends to a lot of pushing and pulling until I get enough troops over to start some fun strategic traps. Nothing quite like drawing all the Turks into a province...then slamming the door on them.

After I finish off the east...well...fleet time!

Azi

I usually expand as hard and fast as I can in the beginning to get the land that I want to keep secure then turtle until my trade is generating enough to build a good offensive army or 2. I will typically attack 2 enemies at once. The pope will usually warn me on one then I focus both armies on the other.

If I like my neighbors or just don’t want to expand there I will watch for provinces that go rebel and pounce on them via crusade or just attacking. I have only recently explored the crusade; I didn’t realize you get some troops with one, duh. Now I figure if I am going there/enemy province I might as well take some choirboys with me.

I almost always try to put a priest/bishop in each province to spy w/o worry of the BF catching my spies. I don’t use spies very often it is just too tedious but when I have they are successful and I sometimes keep a province making them just incase I need a handful to sway a province to rebel.

One area I know I should be better at is marrying off my kids. If not to another faction to a governor in one of my crusaded lands. A while ago I crusaded 4 Egyptian provinces and gave them all good govs, not even 10 turns later they all had vices that effected $. A little more loyalty might have kept a few govs from getting the ax.

So I guess I spend 80% of my time fighting and building to fight and 10% on running the kingdom and another 10% kicking myself for not spending 20% on running the kingdom.

Hm... I don't usually have any set objectives, I just push my nation's abilities to it's limits, taking advantage of every opportunity in a constant state of war. I think of many different objectives and scenarios and try to think ahead, so I usually start preparing provinces for their roles in the future after the first few turns of the game. I've never sat still and snug within some neatly captured borders and decided, "I'm going to build a navy" and do nothing else but before. Usually I say to myself, I will protect these border provinces and these seas at all costs, but this usually involved me attacking anything next to my border provinces. I also start building a navy well before my country can be said to be secure or rich.

I like to raid.

Yeah, um, what I do is build a great navy and upgrade Economy while taking over land at the same time as long as my army can hold the new territories and save the others from others.

Then, I click on auto tax and auto construct buildings and let them build the majority of what I need.

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Originally Posted by Patron

Hm... I don't usually have any set objectives, I just push my nation's abilities to it's limits, taking advantage of every opportunity in a constant state of war. I think of many different objectives and scenarios and try to think ahead, so I usually start preparing provinces for their roles in the future after the first few turns of the game. I've never sat still and snug within some neatly captured borders and decided, "I'm going to build a navy" and do nothing else but before. Usually I say to myself, I will protect these border provinces and these seas at all costs, but this usually involved me attacking anything next to my border provinces. I also start building a navy well before my country can be said to be secure or rich.

I like to raid.

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Yeah, I do that too.

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Originally Posted by DensterNY

Since MTW is such a rich game with several different dimensions to it I am curious to know where you guys devote your energies in your campaigns. Here is the break-down as I see it:

1. Military build-up and conquest.
2. Economics and land investment.
3. Diplomacy and Subterfuge.

To be perfectly honest I don't play a very sophisticated game and I'd say my breakdown would be 75% military, 20% Economics and only 5% Diplomacy. Nearly all of my energy is focused on conquest and I don't bother to develop trade networks and only upgrade land so that I can eventually get better troops. Having a humongous army and stifling costs I am forced to conquer my neighbors to gain more land to support them which of course requires more armies. Oh the vicious cycle, where will it end :)

I haven't really utilized assassins, priests, Crusades or leveraged my alliances which I'm sure would make me a better king overall. I'd like to know how you guys go about your empire building.

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I too am new to the game and our playing styles are very similar ~;) , but I
seem to focus a little more on economics and land investment. I also like
having strong, well-balance armies and alot of assassins :evil2:

~:) If i actually want to win a total dom game quickly then just focus on military actions, build up 3-4 provinces focused on a certain troop type, the rest of your provinces build the basics farms, towers, ports etc and build up to keep level in each province then just forget about them for the time being. Centralised troop production is by far the cheapest way and on a coastal province with a good navy you can get an army practically anywhere in a couple of turns. Make sure you faction heir leads most of your battles; gets more command stairs so your heirs from this leader will be better. From early with the english ive manged to beat the game before 1205, 1201 i think is my record for winning the game.

Having said that i think total dom is a tad boring and prefer GA then you actually can act like a real nation rather than a steamroller

After unifying the medieval map under my flag I wouldn’t mind going after the rest of the world. It would be sweet to fight against Native Americans (moral and valor bonuses), Chinese (armies so big they could block out the sun) or the Australians (blood thirsty koala bears with razor sharp boomerangs, just kidding).

Japan is not nearly as juicy a target as the gold filled south Americas but I would love to take a crusader army up against an army filled with samurai!

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Originally Posted by yesdachi

After unifying the medieval map under my flag I wouldn’t mind going after the rest of the world. It would be sweet to fight against Native Americans (moral and valor bonuses), Chinese (armies so big they could block out the sun) or the Australians (blood thirsty koala bears with razor sharp boomerangs, just kidding).

Japan is not nearly as juicy a target as the gold filled south Americas but I would love to take a crusader army up against an army filled with samurai!

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this should have been in the "New Total War Game!: Your Suggestions!"