Turkish campaign: advice welcome

It is 1239. The Horde directed its wrath against the Russians in Kiev and Hungarians in Moldova. I was ovejoyed at this development, but my joy was cut short by a peripatetic HRE crusade. It was easy to repel, though. Seeing the Hungarians hard pressed by the Horde I started the offensive against them as well and captured Bulgaria and Serbia. The Horde did attack me from Georgia that very year, but not with its full might but with a couple of stacks. I defeated them in a touch-and-go battle, so I'm rather optimistic about the general outcome of the campaign. Meanwhile, I'm still teching up to JHI.

Hi Gilrandir, I’d like to give you some advice about the composition of your armies if I may…

First of all I’d suggest you create two different types of armies, one you will use for offense and one for defense. Be patient and stay on a low profile during early and high… in late, as soon as your faction switches from the Seljuk Turks to the Ottomans (about 1300) you will be able to train Ottoman Infantry and Ottoman Sipahi, don’t underestimate these units, they are very useful especially against Christian knights.

Your defensive armies should be composed of at least 6 battalions of Heavy Janissary Infantry, 4 battalions of Ottoman Sipahis, 4 battalions of Turcoman horse archers, a siege cannon (or demi-cannon) and your General… which would be a solid army of about 1400 men. You should use these kind of armies to defend against crusades and other invasions from your enemies and you will be able to repel them even when outnumbered (with one of these I’ve personally defeated enemy armies of over 6000 men!).

As for your offensive armies you should use 6 battalions of Ottoman Infantry, 4 battalions of Janissary Infantry (yes the normal ones, not heavy), 2 battalions of Janissary Archers, 2 battalions of Ottoman Sipahis, a demi-cannon (or siege cannon) and your General. This will be an army of about 1640 men, excellent for classical Turkish warfare. Almost all of your units will be archers and simultaneously melee troops which will give you an excellent advantage for attacking enemy armies even if they climb up to a hill like the Byz did during your first battle.
Of course it all depends on how you use these troops, the best way to lure the enemy down the hills will be to approach him until he is in range and start shooting. Also do not make your troops attack them on melee until they are out of arrows, you will do them a lot of damage even if they are positioned downhill.

I also suggest you to conquer Hungary asap and to train your Janissary troops there… the province has iron and will boost the attack of your troops immensely. Hope this helps you to conquer easily most of the map :)

Welcome to the Org, KaraDevil! ~:wave:

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Originally Posted by KaraDevil

Hi Gilrandir, I’d like to give you some advice about the composition of your armies if I may…

First of all I’d suggest you create two different types of armies, one you will use for offense and one for defense. Be patient and stay on a low profile during early and high… in late, as soon as your faction switches from the Seljuk Turks to the Ottomans (about 1300) you will be able to train Ottoman Infantry and Ottoman Sipahi, don’t underestimate these units, they are very useful especially against Christian knights.

Your defensive armies should be composed of at least 6 battalions of Heavy Janissary Infantry, 4 battalions of Ottoman Sipahis, 4 battalions of Turcoman horse archers, a siege cannon (or demi-cannon) and your General… which would be a solid army of about 1400 men. You should use these kind of armies to defend against crusades and other invasions from your enemies and you will be able to repel them even when outnumbered (with one of these I’ve personally defeated enemy armies of over 6000 men!).

As for your offensive armies you should use 6 battalions of Ottoman Infantry, 4 battalions of Janissary Infantry (yes the normal ones, not heavy), 2 battalions of Janissary Archers, 2 battalions of Ottoman Sipahis, a demi-cannon (or siege cannon) and your General. This will be an army of about 1640 men, excellent for classical Turkish warfare. Almost all of your units will be archers and simultaneously melee troops which will give you an excellent advantage for attacking enemy armies even if they climb up to a hill like the Byz did during your first battle.
Of course it all depends on how you use these troops, the best way to lure the enemy down the hills will be to approach him until he is in range and start shooting. Also do not make your troops attack them on melee until they are out of arrows, you will do them a lot of damage even if they are positioned downhill.

I also suggest you to conquer Hungary asap and to train your Janissary troops there… the province has iron and will boost the attack of your troops immensely. Hope this helps you to conquer easily most of the map :)

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Thank you for the tips, KaraDevil. I will take them into account. Division of armies into defensive and offensive is a natural thing for me to do. As for the composition of the army, I haven't reached the late period yet (it is 1305). Still, I don't think I will use Ottoman infantry much - for multipurpose melee/archer type of units I prefer Futuwwa. Secondly, I never (after some initial attempts at usage) train artillery of any kind - way too ineffective in defensive battles and unable to move when the enemy is out of range in offensive ones. And an essential thing you seem to miss is cavalry. You must have some of it to circumvent and smite the enemy in the rear and then to chase routers.
The Hungarians are confined to Walachia only now, so they do not present any particular problem at the moment. My empire stretches from Frankonia to Volga-Bulgaria, and in the south it is in Egypt (the Eggies are in Tunisia with Almohads in Cyrenaica between them and me).
My real concern now is the Italians - they managed to create a colonial kind of empire which beside their core starting provinces includes Portugal, Granada, Morocco, Algeria, Aquitaine, Brittany, all of Great Britain and Ireland, Pomerania, Finland, Livonia and Lithuania. I am reluctant to start a campaign against them so far as it will disrupt the overseas trade I'm having now (my treasury is more than 400 000 florins). As the Italians have a ramified navy network, I foresee the prospective campaign as predominantly a marine one the outcome of which is far from certain. The land campaign presents less difficulty with my beloved JHI up the sleeve. At least it is how I see it now.

Having to fight against a huge rival who posesses a navy is a pain. Especially naval factions like the italians will drop small raiding parties on your coasts if you don't 'garrison' all your seazones properly. For my late game muslim empires 5-6 baggalas per seazone should be a sufficient deterrent navy. Have 2 or 3 killing navies going around (booms mainly I think), preferably full stacks, to fight a naval war of attrition. Overkill and outbuilding is the key here. On the land you seem to be pretty safe but naval opponents are a real pita.

I do expect it to be a pain. The crumb of comfort that I have is the supposition (bordering on conviction) that with the start of a war the Italians will find it hard to retain a hold on their overseas provinces. The disruption of ties with the king will lead to the drop of loyalty and consequently to a number of rebellions, so they will face a continuous shrinking of their power. Hopefully, it will distract them from producing more ships.

This may happen but don't count on it. Keep us updated!

To tell the truth, I want to postpone this war for as long as possible and I'm not going to start it myself, anyway. At the moment I have the Swiss to deal with (they own only Tyrolia and Switzerland, but keep producing Swiss halbs - how can they afford it????) and the French became a handful of rebel provinces so I'm kind of jostling and pushing others to get my piece of their pie (I got Flanders!!).

Now I know why this game is called TOTAL war - within three of four years I found myself engaged in active warfare with three out of four most powerful factions of my time - the Polish, the Danish and the Italians - and it was through no initiative of mine!!! The fourth (the Aragonese) just sent a crusade, so this war can't be called "active hostility". The Danish twice invaded my Muscovy from Novgorod, Italians twice attacked me in Chernigov (their Lithuanian force had five stacks), the Polish captured my Volynia and stormed the fortress. Plus four newly-captured Fench provinces rebelled, plus substantial loyalty drop in Levant provinces, plus the mentioned crusade attacking my Croatia from Venice. And, intensive sea battling to boot. Someone said that the AI is not especially aggressive on expert - bullsh... oops - fiddlesticks!!!
But I'm proud to say I weathered the gale. Trusting my armies to hold back the invaders I decided to deal with the enemies piecemeal.
I started with the Polish by invading Poland and Silesia and besieging both fortresses. I repelled the Italians who attacked from Pomerania to deliver their Polish allies besieged in Warsaw but the Polish, leaving Volynia attacked me with all their might. But I knew it to be an agony. I withdrew and attacked the next year bringing more troops. The Polish being short of manpower after their two phyrric victories in Volynia were utterly defeated and are now confined to Prussia and Carpathia, being unable to garrison either of them properly. Then I evicted the Danish from Saxony and Brandenburg and the Italians from Lithuania, Venice and Milan (by the way, the Italians were foolish enough to start a war against the Danish over Novgorod; moreover, their overseas provinces are rebelling one by one). The crusade is no more and I control all the coasts of Eastern Mediterranean. Well, the wars are not over yet and I have to deal with the resurrected French in Wessex and Normandy, but at least I can draw a breath after those 5 eventful years.
If anyone is interested let me know and I'll report on my campaign later.

I am! Sounds really entertaining, this campaign of yours.
Whats the year again? Also, do you happen to have a screenshot of the map that you could upload?
Keep it up!

Sounds like a fun couple of years. Let them expend their armies in the attack, make them pay dearly for every yard, then crush them when they have exhausted their men!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

So wishing I could play now, RL is killing me....

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Originally Posted by I of the Storm

I am! Sounds really entertaining, this campaign of yours.
Whats the year again? Also, do you happen to have a screenshot of the map that you could upload?
Keep it up!

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It is about 1325. As for the screenshot:
1) I don't know how to make it;
2) I don't know how to upload it.
So, if you tell me (preferably in a foolproof step-by-step way) how to do it, I will try to provide the evidence of my joys and sorrows.

The campaign sounds great!

I can't give a step by step (too long since i did it myself) but here's an outline:

1)get a screen capture (PrintScreen; PrtScn will usually work, although if you examine the game default keys there ought to be one that will do the trick)

2)locate the screenshot and convert to jpeg; Irfanview ought to work

3)load the jpeg to a free hosting site like photobucket

4)use the tools here to link to the jpeg.

I couldn't be more specific than that either, so if this doesn't suffice, maybe some kind soul will drop in and give a step-by-step instruction.
Anyway - keep it up!

In game, the F2 button will take a screenshot (battle and campaign map). It will put the shot, as a TGA file, in the Medieval Total War\TGAs directory. Convert the TGA to a jpeg using some kind of pic editor (I use GIMP), upload it to photobucket or imageshack, and link to it in a post.

Out of all the steps the only one that turned out to be foolproof was making screenshots. I found the folder where they are stored but I don't have any program to convert them to a desirable format nor do I know how to do that. So probably I'll just give you a short rundown of my current campaign.
Well, it somehow stopped being exciting after I squeezed Italians out of the Continent. They hold only Cyprus now and are left there to gnaw the ends of their old plots against me. More problems were caused by their fleets. I sank all their single- or few-shipped navies, but the one with 10 ships in it was really a poser. I attacked it many times with different number of ships (up to 10) hoping to diminish its size even losing most of the sea battles. But it NEVER lost a single ship sinking all mine. So I decided to build a huge navy (of three full stacks at least). But then Italians were foolish enough to split their navy into two (2 and 8 ships) and I moved in with my 2 full stacks and now they are left shipless.
On land I started a war against the Aragonese but I mostly autoresolve the battles deeming my supremacy impregnable. As I found out, battles don't seem interesting when the campaign is not.

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Originally Posted by Gilrandir

Out of all the steps the only one that turned out to be foolproof was making screenshots. I found the folder where they are stored but I don't have any program to convert them to a desirable format nor do I know how to do that.

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GIMP is an open source alternative to Photoshop. You can download it here. It probably does way more than you need, but it's pretty easy to change image formats, resize, and crop images.

GIMP is an excellent editor, and free.

Irfanview is just a viewer but it will open TGA's, and you can "Save As" jpeg; also free.
If you download the pack for additional extensions or filetypes you can also use it to view most movie files and listen to MP3's.

True, the battles seem a bother when thew game is already won, but you can use them to experiment :)

I would like to thank you, Drone, for the link. I downloaded GIMP and, well, I'm posting three screenshots. Hope they you will see there everything you want. In case any questions arise, I will try to answer.
Attachment 3243
Attachment 3244
Attachment 3245
To post them I didn't go all the way Drone described. After converting them to jpeg format I just used "insert image" option on the bar used for posting messages at this forum.

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Originally Posted by Gilrandir

but I mostly autoresolve the battles deeming my supremacy impregnable. As I found out, battles don't seem interesting when the campaign is not.

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You could try going all out for the enemy rulers - to kill or capture them in battle. I believe it counts as a win when you eliminate all the other factions.

Also, when using the GIMP, reduce the Quality when saving jpegs. I myself use 85%; this means smaller filesizes while not making the picture noticeably poorer.

You seem to have beat them all into their respective corners :)

From what I can see the Sicilians have the only fleet; I would make their elimination a priority. Sicily and Naples give good trade goods as well.

Beating down the Papacy might be worthwhile. I try to wear out his army w/o killing him; saves on re-emergence. Unfortunately that means fighting the battle yourself and using captains that have no V&V's (you don't want a good commander to end up as "hesitant" or a "coward")

Is that a Hungarian re-emergence i see?

Thank you for the screenshots; looks like an epic campaign! :)

As for the Hungarians - yes. They had gone extinct with no help of mine (I never kill off a faction completely and leave them one province through having no wish to see them re-emerge in the heart of my realm with no armies within the easy reach) but then popped up and some years later attacked me. I didn't want to bother with a battle and autoresolved it - and lost. Luckily, I had quite large forces billeted nearby, so next turn the Huns were driven from Hungary with slaughter. Still next turn they attacked Bulgaria across a bridge - got repulsed and calmed down.:2thumbsup:
The Sicilians had some kind of civil war (probably this time is reflected in the screenshots), but later on they resumed control over the whole territory and now they are the only faction (beside me) that has a fleet. That is the primary reason I don't want to start a war against them. Yet.
The papacy repeated the faith of Hungarians and I'm considering invading Rome just to reduce the amount of their forces. But I can take my time now being preoccupied with the war against the Aragonese.
A funny thing I noticed autoresolving the battles. If I do that with defending bridge battles my armies bereft of my wise generalship tend to take losses several times greater than I would expect them to. So, my new rule is: never autoresolve defending bridge battles.

This campaign stopped being languid. The Sics launched a crusade against me and all the eastern part of my realm (from Saxony to Volga-Bulgaria and from Finland to Egypt) went red with anticipated rebellions. I'm expecting a lot of them. Yet I hope that with sinking of the Sics' ships the loyalty of my provinces might improve. I'll report on the devlopments later.

Did you get your ruler isolated? Are you using spies in all your provinces to help keep loyalty up?

1. I did not.
2. I am.
I guess that the enemy's ships disrupted connections between the parts of my empire. The sultan was in Castilla which has land borders with my other provinces so I'm at a loss in trying to find explanation to the sudden loyalty drop.
But I'm hanging on. I repulsed the crusaders in Venice and the Sicilians in Tuscany. By varying tax regime and relocating troops I managed to reduce the number of rebellious provinces to about a dozen and a significant number of rebels appeared in just two of them (curiously those whose loyalty didn't go below 100% - Moldova and Chernigov). By the way, have you ever encountered rebel JHI? I have - in Volynia.
After sinking most of the Sics' ships I saw the inflammation of my realm subside, so now I'm thinking of the way to deal with the Sicilians - no mercy and no prisoners.

Have not seen rebel JHI. I did once have a rebellion containing Pictish cavalry, a VI only unit...