Getting a good start - I could use help

Very few of the strategy oriented posts I've seen deal with the early game. I have been starting and restarting the first 15 turns or so as England and still can't work out how to get out from under really bad money problems.

On turn 1, I typically send a couple of archers from Nottingham up to reinforce the faction heir. I let the king set up the queue for London. He then moves to Nottingham to set up their queue; he'll return to London next turn. The leader in Caen sets up his queue and then heads out with some troops to join the army on the border of Brittany.

Turn 2 usually has the faction heir assaulting York, with the help of cavalry built in Nottingham on turn 1. The leader in Caen goes to besiege Brittany (I can't remember the name of the town). This force is also reinforced by cav out of Caen; even so, I just maintain the siege rather than storming the place.

Meanwhile my diplomat is heading towards Milan, he'll make that one stop before he gets to the pope. After the Papal visit his task will be to meet the HRE and the Venetians, and hopefully a Sicilian princess or diplomat. What should he do after that?

My Princess jumps on a boat and heads for Denmark, then Poland to make diplomatic headway and add hearts. Is there a faction out there with an unmarried heir that she should be looking for? How much might her hand in marriage be worth? Is is more profitable to negociate trade and alliances separately? How much money should they be giving me for trade or an alliance? Why the hell would they want to give me money in the first place?

On turn 1 the French princess shows up at Caen. My first move has been to have her give me 1100 Florins, give us trade rights and marry my faction Heir. My spy stands around looking at the world and giving me line of sight for a few turns until I try to spy on someone, he then invariably winds up on the wrong end of a spear. The odds say he has a 60% chance to spy on a leader or character, so far he is 0-for-the-game since the 1.2 patch.

The merchant heads to Bordeaux to ship wine back for a few turns until he gets taken over, though in the last game he actually survived a few takeover attempts and became a level 4. What do I have to build to get another merchant. I seem to have read that it is more profitable if I can have merchants operating on both of the wine resources in Bordeaux.

Turns 3 to 6 are finishing the siege in Brittany and getting the York army in shape to go take Caernavon, and getting messages about how my queues are stalled. After that, well I've never gotten so far as to take Bruges, though I have started the siege. Other times I've gotten my ass kicked by the Scots. Other times I've gotten my ass kicked by rebel fleets sinking the faction heir as he tries to sail around to the Scots rear and take Aberdeen.

What buildings should I be building? Where and in what order should I build them? What troops do I build and how many? What do I need to keep around as a garrison? What do I build in a province so that the militia can live on no maintenance in other places than London? What use are Priests? Where do you find the money to build spies? Do I need more than one diplomat? Which provinces, if any, ought to be converted to towns or to castles? Do I sound like a 3-year old with the continuous questions?

The one thing I always do is build dirt roads first. Lately I've liked building the leather tanner next as that seems to be a big edge for my troops in early battles. (Do I upgrade my older troops? 60 florins per unit seems expensive.) London usually concentrates on building financial things like farm, port, market, mines, and usually last on the early queue is a Brothel. Nottingham wants to concentrate on either archers or horse, but also likes to add a port and money earning stuff. Caernavon projects to be my archer source, so they work towards that. York typically builds what little it can build, then waits on growth. Caen usually doesn't build much, I can't really afford to build up all 3 initial provinces. They do have to build ships, and lots of them as Rebel ships are at least 50% better than mine. How big a navy do I need? Is there a way to get better ships?

The threads on improving your leaders suggests going on crusades with you faction heir. I'm sure someone has noticed that England is a long way from Jerusalem. Once you have joined, do you just do the obvious and march with your army in the general direction of the middle east for about 10 or 15years? How much army do you take. Remember I'm talking about the first crusade here, usually around turn 12 or so.

One other note. I usually let the computer resolve battles. I'll fight some of the smaller ones where I feel the need to wipe someone out to the last man, but the larger battles are beyond my ability to keep up with unless the enemy are content to sit still and wait for my plodding assault.

I think you should have bother to read all the awesome guides around. Most of your questions have an answer there and i bet you didn't even try to check it out.

Do you want advices? I can give you some though.

Building: build mines as soon as you can, 200 cash for only 2k is insanly good. The rest depends in what you need. Land clearences are a good investement too (60 for 600 is fairly decent) an gives a kick off in your population. I would not recommend you to build their upgrades though, usually this will mean massive population in the long run and what's the point in spending 4800 to get a simple 60 bonus? Also, turn all the castles from the british islands in cities, you only need nothingam and to tell the true, it turns to be quite useeess to have a big citadel in a place which the only problem are occasional rebels after, let's say, the 20 turn. So, it's better to turn the british islands in you economy base instead.

Military: in the begining you will rely on militias, so train them. Try to get some mailed knights, but not overtrained them our you wil lrun out of cash. In Caen start to investing in the pratice range buildings, because this will you can start to pulling out longbowmen pretty soon, and these guys are very nice in the battle field and in defending sieges (sharpened stakes in front of the gate rulez :laugh4:). After that, when you start developing a bit more, i will reccomend for you to invest in barracks. Armored swordsmen are your main force and they are quite inexpensive, basicly feudal knights with 150 upkeep (almost insane). Also, don't autoresolve battles. It's stupid because you will lose too many troops and kill too few in each battle, and also, what's the point of playing a total war game without battles?

One last advice: delaying crusades it's quite a good idea. Don't bother with the pope, if he starts pissing you off just bribe him and will smile to you even when you crush France, Scotland and Denmark at the same time. I usually like to wait until i have a secure base and economy in order to send a crusade. Also, don't send your faction heir for a crusade. I mean, what's the point? Because as soon as your king is dead, your faction leader in thousands of miles away, alone, useless.

Another thing mate is, DON"T try to be perfect on your first go. I have been playing as the English for my first campaign (H/VH), and I have been learning as I go (havent restarted once!). I battled on at first, even looked like I was going to get a wholloping, but I am now, after just over 100 turns, in possession of 25 cities and I have plenty of time to conquer the rest.

Things I have learnt...
Breaking alliances isnt a good idea because then the rest of the factions will never want to ally with you again. (Found this out after about turn 10- Poor scottish buggers didnt know that was coming) (Learnt this from the Guild)

Turn as many castles as you can into cities that no longer supply your main military forces with troops. More cash is then generated. (learnt this from the Guild)

Send your priests in stacks of 5 to the far east, this has a better effect on raising their peity and in tun helps you stack the College of Cardinals (learnt this from the Guild too.... Seeing a trend here?)

Just resign yourself to the fact that at the start, things are going to be tight with your income. Spend wisely and try to take as many rebel provinces as possible from the start.

Once you get rid of the Scots and the Irish (rebels), there is just about no need for any more than 1 castle for that whole island (I kept Canaervon just for back up. Portugese kept invading before I wiped them out), as Ixidor said, turn that into your financial hub.

Early on, around the turn 20-30 mark try and avoid conflict for a while and try to build improvements for your cities. Remember just adding nothing but troops effects your income, so adding financial buildings during this time to afford a greater upkeep is a must. Also disband any troops ( such as peasants and other militias) that are outdated and wont be used.

I also found that whilst you are trying to build your little empire into main land Europe, you will face a long grinding battle with factions such as Denmark, HRE and France. Take France out as quick as you can, and play defensive with the other factions (let them come to you) until it is their turn to taste steel.

Last thing, practice makes perfect. Have fun with your battles and keep your men in sight and organised as much as you can. Longbows are a great tool for the english, so utilise them well and keep them protected.

Just try and pick up one thing at a time! This site is a very useful tool for tips and hints, you just have to use it the right way!

Good luck

:2thumbsup:

I appreciate the advice. I don't appreciate the insult. I have read dozens of threads in this forum and none really seemed to get to specifics of what I was asking. That's why I asked. Most of those awesome guides deal with pretty specific issues, and I have not found any which cover the early turns of the game in any detail. They may be there, but between my lack of search skill and the limitations of the search engine I ain't found any. BTW many of those guides are very good and are also well written, but mostly I have not gotten to the point in the game where they are useful. One of them, btw, reccomends sending your faction heir off on crusade to build his skills.

It seems like you are suggesting that I don't build any troop generating buildings except for archery buildings in Caen until later in the game. I can see where this would be a money saver.

I understand that fighting the battles is what most people play the game for. As far as I am concerned the large ones are too much trouble, and the small ones are too inconsequential. Automating them might cost me troops, but that just makes the strategic game harder, which really won't bother me too much, once I get past the hurdle of trying not to bankrupt myself in the first 5 turns.

Since you want some advice on the opening moves, here is what I do:

Check the box: manage everything before you start a campaign.

Your opening moves result in capturing York and Rennes.

York
Move your units in London including your faction leader to Nottingham (except the town militia). Train in Nottingham a mailed knight and a hobilar. These forces should join your northern army. Leave the peasants to garrison Nottingham. Once these forces have joined your faction heir attack and capture York. I suggest you manual fight the battle to get some experience.

Rennes
In Caen you train a levy spearmen, a mailed knight and a hobilar. Join these forces with the army near Rennes and leave only a spear militia as garrison in Caen. I advice you to hire some mercenary crossbows because you need some missiles.

Building
Since you are manually controlling the cities build roads in your castles and a harbor in London. If done correctly you have 6,170 florins left in your treasury.

Now for some uber exploit (this one is optional)
Move your diplomat to Angers and buy Angers and Toulouse in exchange for an alliance and some 4,000 - 4,500 for three turns. If you use this you will be in the red for a couple of turns but you get very nice units and after uniting the British Isles money isn't an issue anymore.

Move your merchant on the one ship and sail him to the tin mine in Cornwall. Sail your ship to Caernarvon because you need a ferry to Dublin.

Your next moves should be:
Sent your diplomat to the pope and try to get an alliance and give him 100 per turn.
Capture York
Capture Rennes, let them sally
Attack Caernarvon and let them sally (change in to town)
Attack Bruges and let them sally
Cross the Irish sea and capture Dublin
Sail back in the direction of Scotland (it might be useful to retrain your forces)
Attack Scotland and unite the British isles under its rightful king.

Further reading;
1. the guild-section: England threat.
2. There are lots of threats about your economy.

Have fun

Thanks, that helped. The most helpful thing was Ixidor's suggestion not to build any military buildings until later, save for the archery range in Caen. I'm just finishing the Practice range there and I have gotten through to this point without having to build any additional peasant archers.

I did also find that Guild set of threads. I had thought that this was the main M2TW board. There are a few early game reports there, though, as I mentioned, Ixidor's suggestion to hold off building any military buildings was the most helpful.

I'm not manually controling my cities; it is an important limitation to have to move a leader there to get things done. I started anew, M/M. Things have gone as planned, mostly. On turn 14 I captured Dublin, though my first attempt at around turn 9 had been repulsed as I automated a close fight. I did manually fight against the sally from Bruges, and won, when I was a significant underdog. I've saved as of turn 14 in a position to rebuild the armies which took Dublin and Bruges and proceed to Scotland and Antwerp. I do wish that Rufus would get busy with the French Princess I got for him on turn 1. I have alliances with the French (marriage), Danes, HRE, Milanese, Pope, Poles, Hungarians and Venetians. After dealing with the Scots, I imagine that I will head after the Spaniards, unless some treacherous scoundrel volunteers to jump in line ahead of them; however, I intend to spend a few turns getting the economy primed first.

Good to see you are doing it fine. I didn't intended to offending you, i just wanted you to try to look for yourself instead of wanting everything done already, but if you felt offended then i apologise.

Another advice: don't go for Spain, crush the danes or french instead. It will be much better for your development, believe me. Yet, don't forget to break the alliance before, if possible in the same turn you attacked. And bring some spies so that you can kill the guys before the pope starts complaining abou it. Also, i recommend you to kill the danes first, at least unitl the french princess gave you 1 or 2 male heirs. After that just blow France to pieces.