Help With England

I've recently bought this game and have applied the patch 1.2 but after several hours of playing I'm still a but overwhelmed and not sure how to start when playing as England. I want to focus on trade so I can make lots of cash to buy mercanaries and disband them after battles. I used this technique to achieve total domination by 921ad when playing as the Irish in MTW VI.

Can anyone give me any hints on how best to get started. Something that I find confusing is France are happy to form an alliance straight away and this never changes but the first time I suggested an alliance to Scotland they weren't happy about it however when I reloaded and did it again suggesting an alliance made the deal more attractive to them. Why is this?

Many Thanks,

Jamie

- the reloading thing is (correct me if I'm wrong, TW gurus) a leftover from Rome. Basically, the longer you play, the more the game's strategic AI "remembers" what it wants/needs. When you save/reload, said "memory" is cleared and they act like nothing ever happened at all and they have to re-understand what their best interest is etc...
IIRC, back in RTW you could get factions who wouldn't speak with you at all to accept anything you offered, even becoming protectorates (vassals) just by a save/reload if the situation was right.

- England is probably the most played faction of them all. Check the Guides section of the forum, you'll find lots of tips and strategies there.

Mercenaries? As England? Why? You can train retinue longbowmen and armoured swordsmen and you want mercenaries? Well whatever. The British Isles have nothing to offer in terms of merchant trading. Some parts of the map offer excellent trading opportunities- the Sahara, the Italian peninsula, the Middle and Near East. But as England, unless you want to go on crusading or whatever, your best bet is to take over Scandinavia. Frankly though there is little reason to use mercenaries as England. Ten retinue longbowmen and ten armoured swordsmen (give or take a couple either way. Dismounted english knights and billmen are dastardly if you change their retarded animation) will wipe out anything in my experience. Mercenaries might offer something to supplement them (and since England does not by default get armoured sergeants mercenary spearmen are useful at the start) but frankly if you hire whole armies of mercenaries you'll be doing yourself a disservice because they are expensive and generally worse than your own native soldiers. Get those archery ranges, pump out those longbows and build those woodsmens' guilds is my advice. Showering your enemies with bodkins and watching their cavalry impale itself on stakes only for the survivors to get their heads cleaved open by a poleaxe or a billhook is the best part of playing as the poms!

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Originally Posted by Jamie the Shrubber

I've recently bought this game and have applied the patch 1.2 but after several hours of playing I'm still a but overwhelmed and not sure how to start when playing as England. I want to focus on trade so I can make lots of cash to buy mercanaries and disband them after battles.

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Hi Jamie,

I assume from your OP that your looking for pretty basic advice so, my suggestion is that you visit the MTW2 Guides thread and read the English Faction Guide.

This is the link: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=72050

That should give you some good advice.

My personal suggestions are as follows:

Trade: Concentrate on getting merchants to Africa (Timbuktu), this pretty much the best option for merchants from more or less any faction and getting there early merely maximises the profit and ensures your merchants are strong enough to cope with any competition by the time it does arrive.

Mercenaries: Contrary to the advice given by others I would recommend hiring Mercenary Crossbowmen as early as possible and using them to overpower the defenders of York and the Scottish as quickly as possible.

My usual opening strategy is to create the United Kingdom, e.g. Scotland, Ireland and Wales all under English rule. Once you've acheived that you can concentrate on defending your shores with a powerful fleet which by implication will also mean that you can strike more or less where you want along the coast of Europe.

The short campaign requires that you eliminate France, which is never going to be bad thing if your English. But other strategies might be the expansion of an African trading Empire or even an English dominated Holyland.

Remember, that you can't trade with people you are at war with so don't go overboard with the aggression unless you plan to rely on conquest and pillaging for cash.

Taking scandinavia is always a great idea - once you do, get trade agreements with whoever owns Stettin, Thorn & Hamburg. In my game as Denmark the two Scandinavian settlements, converted to cities, were bringing in 4k+ & 6k+ a turn at the huge city level. The Swedish city alone brought in around 6,300 income/turn, over 3k of it from sea trade and another 1.5 from mining. Get scandinavia & those trade agreements and you will have, basically, unlimited money.

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Originally Posted by Kobal2fr

- the reloading thing is (correct me if I'm wrong, TW gurus) a leftover from Rome. Basically, the longer you play, the more the game's strategic AI "remembers" what it wants/needs. When you save/reload, said "memory" is cleared and they act like nothing ever happened at all and they have to re-understand what their best interest is etc...

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I haven't noticed too much of that, at least in comparison to RTW. Diplomacy doesn't seem any different after a load, and sieging armies don't run away anymore.

off topic:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kobal2fr

- the reloading thing is (correct me if I'm wrong, TW gurus) a leftover from Rome. Basically, the longer you play, the more the game's strategic AI "remembers" what it wants/needs. When you save/reload, said "memory" is cleared and they act like nothing ever happened at all and they have to re-understand what their best interest is etc...
IIRC, back in RTW you could get factions who wouldn't speak with you at all to accept anything you offered, even becoming protectorates (vassals) just by a save/reload if the situation was right.

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I sincerely hope this in not the case. I remember that so called save/load bug was a major gamekiller in RTW, because after reloading, the AI would completely forgot its plans, would turn its armies around and lift any siege. But IIRC it was fixed with the 1.2 patch. Let's hope it didn't reappear.

on topic:
as anyone else already said, do not rely on mercenaries, except maybe for spearmen, because the English ones are not worth much.

Stay defensive in Caen, and meanwhile conquer the British Islands. Don't let Caen fall, you will have hard time fighting French if you do.

Keep good relations with Denmark so you can trade with them, or make the quick conquest, but don't get into a prolonged war with them or you will lose a lot of trade.
Build roads and ports to increase your profit.

Don't forget to bribe the Pope every now and then, or else he will constantly nag you to stop attacking the fellow Christians.

If you can afford it, enter a crusade as early as possible, and establish a self-sufficient empire on the East. Beware the Mongols when they come.

If you play the long campaign, it might be a good idea to wipe out Portugal and Spain. Then you will have more manageable border and you can concentrate your forces on a smaller front in Central Europe.

All of this is based on my M/M campaign, it might not work on different difficulty settings.