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Ok, I've played short campaigns for both England and Scotland on N/N and have never really gotten any advanced units.
Currently, My long H/H French Campaign has me on the border with Poland and Northern Italy and still I seem to only be able to create mailed knights and Spear militia and sergeants. I don't think there's a bug or anything, but it's just that it seems to be taking quite a while. Any tips on how to get better/advanced units quicker?
NOTE: I'm thinking particularly about swordsmen.
Well, it varies from faction to faction. For most factions, your good infantry is trained in the castles, which means first, you need them to grow quickly. Build farms, the first two levels for certain and possibly the third as well. Then you need to build barracks. I think the level of Castle (the stone one) enables dismounted feudal knights and Fortress enables dismounted chivalric knights, but I might be wrong and the barracks enhances those in any event. Also, if you have any faction specific troops you'll need the higher barracks for those (Venice has Venetian Heavy Infantry, for example. You need a Fortress with the 4th level barracks minimum to be able to recruit these).
Cities are the same. First the city has to grow, and then you have to build the necessary structures. With France, once you get to the huge city, you can build a military academy, which will enable new troops to recruit in cities. If I'm not mistaken, the first level gives you Scots Archers and the second level gives Gendarmes.
Some troops require even more than that. The troops with firearms can't be built until gunpowder is developed, which is around 1240 AD. Some of the buildings (the top level barracks buildings) can be built prior to this, but the troops can't be recruited. Others (the dockyard and the cannon buildings, the academia line of buildings and the alchemists guilds) can't be built - and don't even show up on the building browser - until the development of gunpowder happens.
In a nutshell, first grow the settlements, then build the buildings. That's how you get advanced troops.
In your campaign strategy, target the largest cities and castles of neighboring factions, if they've managed to tech up faster than you. Then after taking the settlement, throw money at the building tree that gives you what you want. That's the only shortcut I know to better quality units.
Aside from that, it's just a question of maximizing your economy, so you have a nice positive cashflow and can invest in the tech tree, and have enough cash reserve to increase city/castle size when you get the "ping" for an upgrade.
I confess I'm not very good at that. Right now I have several big settlements that are waiting to upgrade to the next size, but they've been held back by my expansionist blood lust that's pouring money into my armies. Oh well.
I believe that the French do not have the ablility to recruit Special Swordsmen, only the dismounted variations of the mounted Knights (Feudal Knights, Chivric Knights, etc.)
Well it's not even "special swordsmen"... Just swordsmen. I've yet to get any of those:brood:
You don't and won't get anything called "Swordsman". That's specific to other factions. Spain and Sicily, and possibly Portugal, get Sword & Buckler Men. Spain and Portugal, and possibly Sicily, get Swordsman Militia. France gets Dismounted Noble Knights and Voulge Militia. However, the dismounted feudal and dismounted chivalric knights are swordsmen, so they count towards getting a Swordsmith's Guild.
Take one of your biggest cities in the beginning that doesn't have a stone wall yet, and turn that sucker into a castle. You'll be able to pump out sword units while your neighbors are just starting to scratch at armored sarges.
For France, I go paris.
For germany, I go Bologna (it's right in the middle of most of your early wars anyways, so why not?).
Etc.
Oooh, good call! Thats very cunning
Or just juice up a city with farms, do not upgrade to stone city walls, and convert to castle when the population hits 9000 (I think that's the requirement for a citadel). Throw in a chivalrous general too and you'll hit 9000 in a few turns ;)
Yep, farm spam with a chivalrous governor is the way to go. Get that pop up!
Converting some of your cities can be a downer to the economy though. However, the governor buildings give you a health bonus IIRC, and the merchant line of buildings help growth. You might want to build those too (however, beware that those will be destroyed in the conversion process).