Taking cities without war: A guide to medieval low-intensity warfare.

Maybe this is known to you all and maybe not but as I didn't see it listed as such (or I missed it) I decided to write this up for those that didn't know. Without further ado, I'll get down to business.

Crusading Catholics got you down? Muhammedan anti-liquor laws making you grumbly? The Emperor of a long decaying empire annoying you but you don't want to lose his trade? Do what I do, fight a covert shadow war and topple them without a 'hot' war.

How does one fight a war like this, you ask? Well, it is all about public order. Drop this low enough and the citizenry gets mad and eventually goes rebel, making for some easy pickings. With that as the goal, let's see what will get you to your goal.

You need several types of agents to make this work well.

The spy: He is a major component of the bloodless (to you anyways) conquest. His drop to public order is significant (about -30%) and he makes it easy to take the city when it finally goes rebel assuming he survives the rioting. I suggest 2-3 per city for some backup and possible capture by enemy agents.

The assassin/hashashin: He is very important for a few reasons. He kills off priests and imans that might ruin your converting fun if your target isn't of the same faith and offs generals/family members that have bonuses to popularity, law, and squalor reduction.

He also gets to play with explosives and generally just act like a crazied anarchist, blowing stuff to whichever Hell you choose to believe in. I try to blow up everything I can but it is vital to start with public order type buildings. Race tracks, city halls, barracks, baths, churches all need to burn. After the order buildings are gone, I wage economic warfare and target markets, banks and whatnot. I leave armorers, labs and such junk for last. This can take some time as the AI burns what cash reserve it has on the initial repairs but eventually it runs out of money and the buildings stay damaged. You have your enemy by the short hairs when you hit this point.

You'll want plenty of assassins on hand as they do tend to die a bit, especially on assassinations. I like a city/castle to be surrounded by them if I can manage it. A note to overzealous agent activity, this phase is dangerous as if you bumble too many assassinations/sabotage attempts, you will end up at war with your target which is what we are hoping to avoid. The assassinations are pretty high risk normally, sabotage is generally easier.

The priest/iman: They are useful in two capacities. Firstly, if you target is not of your faith, you can convert the entire population and the public (dis)order effect this has is rather large at 100% wrong faith. The 'God Squad', as I've heard it called, is a potent weapon of medieval covert warfare. Grab a mob of priestfolk and convert away.

The second way the 'God Squad' can help is against either a co-religionist or a different faith by having one go heretic. This tends to happen more often than not and you should be glad of the event. Heretical beliefs really hurt your target city's public order and you should NOT wipe out the heretic immediately. Move away from him with your priests/bishops/imans but if you happen to be a Catholic faction, you can fence it in with cardinals as they are immune to heresy. You do have to be careful as heretics can get out of control fast if they manage to turn several priests to the dark side. It might get ugly but heresy is a great weapon to make a city go rebel. Cleaning up a horde of heretics is a pain, however, so do be careful and manage things carefully.

The siege army: Someone has to mop up those rebel cities you have made and these guys are it. Heavy infantry and a few sieges weapons work well and some heavy cavalry to charge breeches/mop routers also do good work.

My general order of operations is this. First, I move in the priests into one territory and attempt to get some spies into every city/castle. I eliminate all priests/imans that I can via assassination. I then unleash my assassins to sabotage missions and target the barracks first as you want to keep him from recruiting larger garrisons. Your enemy will try to rebuild his agents as well so watch for that but generally they are easy pickings. This is the burning the cash reserve stage, just keep at it as he rebuilds agents and buildings. Eventually you will torch everything or the city will be in revolt. Then besiege the city and eliminate any heretics that might have popped up and then move your assassins/priests to the next target.

You've made it to the end. Well done and may your low-intensity warfare bring you much joy!

Ah! This is exactly how I sometimes play :P Nice guide.


Playing as HRE fighting two or three fronts to the east and south, I couldn't afford to start another war with my English allies to the west. So I sneakily took over most of their lands by making them rebel (though couldn't use priests of course). Relying on spies and assassin does wonders, and it's a fun way of conquest. The military aggression gets old at some point.

When they were severely weakened, I could've marched in and finish them off, but I chose to assassinate the remains of their family. A lot more fun *grin*

Pretty good tips. I gotta try that now. Good thinking regarding the barracks. I should target it earlier in my attempts. This should be fun for my Russians in Britain campaign (converting all of Western Europe to Orthodoxy, a little at a time).

I'm playing my first game in Medieval 2 Total War and in the Total War series.
I'm playing exactly how you described it :) except the part with assassins. I'm saving before they do assassinate someone and if they fail I reload and move some other agents or general before trying again and it works great, most of my assassins are over 7 skill level. Also I use no siege weapons, 2 spies are enough to open the gates :laugh4:

You missed Diplomats. Nothing so nice as getting factions to give you settlements without bloodshed of any type. Good for the reputation and relations as well... If there's any way to get a place with diplomacy, do so.

Interesting view...but I think nothing is more enjoyable than a good bloody bath (especially if it is not with your own blood).

Stéphane

After finishing 3-4 grand campaigns with strong military forces and rush, I have started to play Russia in this style. First I conquered nearby rebel towns and became neighbour with Poland and Hungary. Due to some reasons like distances between cities I have, weaknesses of Russian units in early period, I decided to deal with Hungarians with religion and espionage. It needs patience (yep, its slow mode but I do not want campaign which finishes even the Timurid invasion) but I got nearly 300k florins in no time cuz of less military upkeep cost(using LtC mode). I'm 6th in overall ranking but even England which is 2nd in overall ranking and has 8 territories accepts to become my vassal for just 170k florins.(Money talks.~:) )
Now Mongols invaded from Sarkel and I send assassins on their generals.

Strategies like this really need a mention of difficulty rating used.

I'm skeptical of the ability to win by agents on VH, where the choice seems to be between fighting your neighbors on offense or on defense.

But then, I haven't tried...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by dismal

Strategies like this really need a mention of difficulty rating used.

I'm skeptical of the ability to win by agents on VH, where the choice seems to be between fighting your neighbors on offense or on defense.

But then, I haven't tried...

---

Win? I never said you'll necessarily win a campaign but it is a fun and different way to take a city while at peace (or even at war). I make my own goals for a game as I find the campaign 'victory' conditions to be boring. It works just fine on all difficulties but, naturally, it is slightly harder on VH.

Skeptical, that's all well and good, but I highly doubt you could possibly be more skeptical or cynical than I. I invite you to try it out and see if your findings are similar to my own. Who knows? Maybe you can find something I've missed and add something of substance to this thread.

JCoyote: Well, diplomats certainly can be a component of bloodless conquest if you are wealthy and powerful enough. I generally only use them sparingly and usually only grab land when I am offered a ceasefire. The AI has enough problems with me outgeneraling them on the battlefield, outproducing them in the economic aspect of the game and gutting their population centers via agents. I'll toy around with them more and add my findings.

Another method, if you have a decent repuation, bring some full stacks and stand outside the city, then demand that they give it to you on pain of an attack. You may have to pay some money, but its cheaper and less risky IMHO than the agent invasion. Or do a combination of the two.

I also find that when you do get a city via diplomacy, around a half stack of units comes along for free. Not bad.

While it certainly is true that you get a half stack or so of units when successfully demanding a city in diplo, these units are always producable in the settlement in question. I once took Saragossa from the Spanish by force (crusade, to be exact - they were excommed), after annihilating 2000 troops in the field. They sent a diplomat and begged for a ceasefire. I OKed that, on the condition that they give me Pamplona and Valencia for free. They were so awed by my military that they agreed, and I got two settlements half full of Mailed Knights! Both weren't able to produce anything else besides basic militia/levy spear. While the Spanish reformed a largish army and brought over their assault troops from northern Africa, where they had been whacking the Moors. Suddenly I faced an imminent attack on my shiny new prizes, having nothing but lots and lots of Mailed Knights!
I had to bring in reinforcements from France, and when they got there, I began disbanding the MK - they simply were no use to me whatsoever and were a drain on my budget.

Good strategy overall with the assassins but I think that espionage should be part of every good campaign. Aside from just taking cities, spies and assassins are a good way of keeping everyone, friend and foe, just a little weaker and a little distracted. I hone my assassins on my enemies, first by getting bonuses on easy sabotage and then by killing the easiest targets. Later these elite assassins are sent to nearby "allies" whom I can hobble just a little and make spend time and money replacing resources that I remove.

Hehe, it must be great to be my neighbor, huh? (Jeez, Mike your house caught on fire too? Damn, your car just burned down yesterday)

Actually one thing interesting that I'm noticing and I'm not sure if its intentional on the part of CA designs but I'm now the strongest, richest, most populated faction in my game and neighbors are lining up to ally and it seems they're so very friendly. However, I do see espionage agents, including diplomats and princesses, trickling into my lands and all of a sudden I'm getting more, ahem, natural deaths. They're in essence using my own strategy but I find it quite cunning and smart of them to launch a shadow war as they can't win an outright one. I don't know if this is programmed into the AI but its certainly brought a new twist into the game as we're all running around trying to twist knives in each others' backs all the while smiling to each other and proclaiming friendship.

Note that failed assassination attempts will reduce your goodwill level with the targeted faction, and if you have an alliance this will get rid of the alliance as well. So be careful when stabbing your friends in the back!

Only if they're caught...

"Win? I never said you'll necessarily win a campaign but it is a fun and different way to take a city while at peace (or even at war). I make my own goals for a game as I find the campaign 'victory' conditions to be boring. It works just fine on all difficulties but, naturally, it is slightly harder on VH. "

I cetainly dont play to control the whole map its get boring after a while. i do miss GA mode. my current strategy is trying to get england to become my vassal. ive destroyed thier navy and they cant get any reinforcements onto the mainland. i certaily enjoy the conversion and enpionage part of the game. though it does take some micro management

on a side not i have never had an assasin get a trait increase from sabotage! is this only me?

Yes, your assassins can gain skill levels from sabotage but not as quickly as from assassinations... I'm not sure if the experience you gain in accumulative towards leveling up but I use my assassins every turn to sabotage and when they do level up its more than just a single point. I have six level 8-10 assassins in contested areas and I've sent more out abroad to train up likewise.

Oh, upon further reflection... I realize that it seems only the first assassin to hit a city/town will likely get a point increase so its not a bad idea to let them go from place to place.

As for alliances, I find that its merely an intention between two parties to not attack each other unless it becomes opportune to do so. For me that's about as good as having someone neutral... trade rights have more of an impact on my game cause at least that helps my income.