England

Let me clarify the siege points that have been made.

Once you have Armored Swordsmen and Dismounted English Knights, then you can attempt sieges without catapults or trebs. Not before. Your early infantry are simply unsuited to taking walls or gates. Spearmen are disposable horse killers, and billmen aren't wearing any armor. Swordsmen are a match for any infantry on the continent, and DEK are simply killing machines. None are very good at tight battles. Your lack of shock troops, combined with the trouble most new people have with horsemen (denying you an excellent means at sapping enemy morale), means you will incur large casualties in very early battles. That's why I suggested attrition. Set your empire up where you can afford the casualties, and the Scots cannot. Once you have control of the islands, you’ll be an economic force to be reckoned with, and you can tech up until you have a decent front line.

When I assaulted the city in Wales, I simply brought peasants with me to do the ramming and charge the breach. Who cares if they get slaughtered by the towers? They're pawns. They can die like pawns. Let the enemy wear themselves out killing the rabble, then send soldiers to batter them into submission. Every arrow one of them takes is an arrow that's missed one of my real soldiers.

. . . I think I may just be too good at this “king” thing.

Yes, there is a huge difference between sieges here vs. Rome. In Rome, your Roman infantry were invincible and unchallenged on foot. Here, the nations are on fairly even footing, so you'll find (gasp) a fair fight. It is not that easy to mount a foot attack as England early in the game, because Billmen are a little broken and Spearmen just don't act like they used to. I prefer the "knock knock" approach to sieges. Fight those big armies in the field where you can actually use your strengths, and then force the tiny remainder of their army back into the city. Then do the one-turn catapult siege so they don't have time to reinforce the city. If they won't engage you, siege them and wait for them to sally. Wait with Ballistas and longbows pointed at the gates.

I thoroughly agree with Malkut - peasants and Town Militia are great for scratching that rebel-town itch.

Seriously folks, I've been hearing a lot of trash talk about English Cav - sure, it's not the best, but I took out France in the early game with nothing but Mailed Knights and Hobilars. Oh, about those Hobilars - those little buggers are FAST. In Medieval 1, I had whole armies made of Hobilars, longbows, and spears. Of course, cavalry was waaay overpowered in that game.

Defeat the Persian Navy by Land. Defeat your enemy garrisons on the field.

Edit: Pilgrims - useful at ALL?

Taking caenarvon early pre siege equipment pre heavy infantry

I took caenarvon in my first game by running 1 unit ( you need numerical superiority and lots of ladders) on the walls to open the back door. Then rushed all the cav in the back way. If you clear out the city square the units that where previously on the walls will head towards the square. If you have a big gang of generals and mailed knights in the square the welsh spears and longbowmen should be easy especially if you can deal with each piecemeal.

Other points:

Gallowglaich ( or whatever they are called) can be hired in ireland I think. Pretty effective infantry for early assaults. Taking dublin first might be easier route to victory.

Waiting out the siege with a small cav heavy force might work. When the enemy sally you just hang back and deal with the spears and bows on the field, then run round using my sword of the infinte +10 and kill the goblin king!

It all goes back to my signature. You have to recognize your advantages and faults before rushing in to battle. Your early infantry is incapable of doing anything other then pinning a stopped enemy for about 50 seconds, billmen, even less than that. However, Longbows mow down anything standing in their way. With cavalry being pretty much the same as everyone else's, you need to utilize your longbow. In Rome, my army makeup used to be 4 cavalry (for 2 on each flank) 1 general 3 archers and the rest are the heaviest infantry I can make. I rarely actually ended up using my archers, it usually was a huge pin made by my infantry, follwed by flanking hit after flanking hit, going down the line with my cavalry. However, now almost half of my army consists of Longbows, maybe 3 or 4 spears, Dismounted Feudal Knights, and the rest are mailed knights. Just as in the 100 year's war, when the english pull the impetuous French out onto the field, they get absolutely wiped out with very little English casualties (i.e. Agincourt, Poitiers, and Crecy) but later, the French began to hide in their castles more, and the English had neither the time nor money, nor the manpower to sit there and seige (even Edward III's seige of Crecy cost quite a few men and 6 or 7 months.) Usually it's best to draw them into the field, even if this means taking up to 6 turns to wait it out, it is usually better to do it. Either do that or bring in artillery, anything you can to avoid fighting on the walls. Defenders get bonuses to the point in which even peasants are useful, meaning your spearmen will be defeated by anything and I mean
anything on the walls. It's the same with the Spanish, once you learn how to use the Jinetes, the Spanish are pretty much invincible.

People might want to try the M2TW: Lite Mod. It's basically a bugfix that helps gameplay bunches, fixes the two handed thing, and adds Armored Sargeants to England's campaign roster (they're avalible for England in the custom battles).

You still can't charge the walls with them, but at least the guys you're going to be putting in front of enemy knights are wearing something more than a raincoat and a shield.

I've found DEK pretty useless; they die far too quickly and easily. I prefer the hardier DFK instead, especially if you're besieging and likely to come under a lot of arrow/xbow fire. The better defense allows them to get to the walls and up the ladders/siege towers and actually fight at the top of the wall and not rout in a panic. :dizzy2: On an open field facing no missiles DEK might be pretty good but I almost never have such a situation.

Pilgrims are certainly useful to draw fire; set them on loose formation so they last a little longer. But they're otherwise not much good.

That's why I never use DEK exclusively. Dismounted English Knights are psychotic madmen who forsake the personal protection of a shield in order to use a weapon that really, really hurts bad. It can indeed be tricky getting them past missile fire, but I find the results well worth it.

Of course, by the time you actually get them, it would be cheaper just to bring trebs along with your siege forces than to replenish your army's losses from towers, so missile fire might be a bit of a moot point by then.

DFK, on the other hand, are almost exactly like Armored Swordsmen, except more expensive, so I almost never use them except as a temporary measure. However, either unit will probably form the center line of your later-game armies.

Yesterday I had literally a 3 hour battle. I was defending Angers with 3 bands of peasants agoinst the Milanese 3 Genoese Xbow militia, 1 general's bodyguard, and 3 spear militia. They came in with their militia and Xbows, and I beat them off. I was down to two peasant divs against thir 2 genoese Xbows, 1 spear militia, and General. They didnt move, and I waited for about 5 mins, and then took things into my own hands. I moved one peasant just outside of the gates, and when the general cam running, i ran inside the gatehouse, and the general turned around (even though a spy opened the doors for them:laugh4: ) So I did this for about an hour, and managed to eliminate the entire general's bodyguard (general included) I continued on to almost eliminate their last spear militia, but the Milanese finally got wise to my plan and answered my sallies with a hail of Xbow fire. So I was forced to charge, and just barely lost. 3 hours of my life wasted:furious3:

I had a similar battle. Well, sorta. I was in a Fortress under siege, and the attacking army just stood there forever. Didn't move at all. Has this bug been discussed before? I have patch 1.2 I turned on triple speed and read through the building tree until it ended.

Oh well, it's all good. I managed to retake Angers the next time (the seige was actually of little importance as that army was there the whole time) Preseed on and took Rheims, Difon, and finally Marselles. Then I turned my attention northward. I took Edinburgh, but lost too many troopps, and lost the town 3 turns later from a full stack of Scottish (although i cant help but be impressed because my Yeomans managed to elimate almost the entire army). I rebuilt my army, pressed on disregarded a few cease and desist orders (my standing was perfect, and it only took my standing down 5, nothing 5k florins cant change eh?) and finished them off. On to Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Portugal, who recently stabbed me in the back. Oh yeah Milan too! 3 front war FTW!

The first thing I tend to build when I capture a settlement is religious buildings. The first diplomats I train are immediately sent to rome. I don't know if it was this, or just dumb luck, but I never had any problems with the Pope, and my enemies tended to be excommunicated fairly frequently.

yeah same here, even if he threatens me, I rarely lose very much, and then i just send him more money if it gets too low!

Finally annihilated Milan, which was a source of great satisfaction to me. They had been reduced to holding Venice, thanks to my Pet Pope declaring a crusade against them in Rome (and I accidentally took Milan and Florence on the way), but they had a full stack of elite troops, with a bunch of xbowmen. A frontal assault looked pretty darn dubious.

So I decided to take a two-step approach. I sent a stack that was half artillery and one-third missiles and the balance infantry for protection, bashed down the walls and rained death down on everyone I could reach. Once I was out of ammo, I withdrew, losing that battle. But then I brought up my real army, which was infantry and missile-heavy. Thanks to the shield bug, my hundreds of pilgrims ended up cutting a huge swath through the better-armored Milanese troops, and I took the city, sacking it and so happily getting that 'faction destroyed' message. Maybe that will cut down on the hundreds of assassination attempts....

Hey -
How are folks getting such an effective economy? I'm around turn 60. 21 territories, mastery of the Isles, I own the general France area, and 2 Middle Eastern provinces. I knocked out France, Scotland, and Milan by assassination. Unfortunately, Poland and the Danes are after me, and the Pope doesn't like me, and I'm not earning much more than 1500 per turn. Are merchants useful at all? I have roads everywhere, and ports, and markets and fairgrounds wherever I can get them.

My economy was solid because one of the first things I did was send an army to Algiers with 2 merchants and a priest. First 2 turns I recruited toops and ships from Caen and sent them south. Pirates almost got me at the end but was able to land there with one very leaky boat left. Now for the moment of truth, would there be a big army waiting there for me? The answer was a resounding "no". There was a family member and a light cavalry unit. This was cake as I just sent my archers up the walls and killed everybody without a loss as they walked around on top of the walls untouchable. I now had a Castle to headquarter my Africa conquests.

I sent the merchants down to Timbuktu along with a big enough force to take the town and Arguin while dropping watchtowers along the way while making sure I could keep Algiers with a sizable force. Anytime I could produce another merchant I'd do it in Timbuktu or Arguin until there were no more resources left. Nice that I never saw a foreign merchant there the whole time. An additional benefit was getting a church in Algiers so as to be able to produce priests in a place where they could really jack their stats up converting people.

I always end up getting good economies because the first thing I do is recruit two diplomats, the first I send to the pope, to secure an alliance, as well as securing alliance/trade rights/map info( and I ask formoney if my offer is still generous) on the way to Rome. The other, I do the same thing, send that diplomat around the world, but remember not to get alliances with everyone, usually you want it only with nations like France, Scotland, Portugal, and maybe Denmark, the rest just exchange map info and trade rights. Soon enough, you'll be trading with everyone, and you'll be rolling in money. The merchants, you place on rare recources, but I never use them because the most Ive ever gotten is 40 florins/turn, and they ALWAYS end up getting their assets seized, usualy by Venetians or Milanese.

I'm at around turn 90 in my English campaign and just got gunpowder. Does anyone know when you get to travel to the new world? I really want to see those ubercool Aztec cities.

Aztecs?

Not for a looong time. If you're playing standard turns then I'm told Timurids should pop up around 1380 (turn 150) and new world is, presumably, around 1490 (turn 205) with the game due to finish 1530 (turn 225). Although another poster said the game keeps going even after end date.

I'm playing on after victory until I've tested myself against mongols but I'm not waiting another 50 turns for timurids and then another 50 for aztecs when I won 30 turns ago.....It'll be a re-start for me.

The only way to meet these guys is to deliberately not play expansive and don't wipe out opponents it seems.

Other posters have argued you must impose restrictions on yourself to play badly so there remains a challenge which seems to me counterintuitive. How is a challenge a challenge if you need to choose not to play your best for it to be a challenge? If you lose you just handicapped yourself too much. If you win, then not enough. The only skill is against yourself.

Whoa. I just hit turn 108 and I'm just 5 regions (including Jerusalem) away from victory. I could play an entirely new campaign in that space of time... Thanks for the great response though. I couldn't find anything about it on the web.

yeah I'm turn 110-ish and I have 46 territories. I own Iberian Peninsula, France, Britain, Germany, Italy, and the northern Balkan Peninsula. Haven't taken Jerusalem yet, huge Mongol army guarding it. But I just captured Rhodes? one of those islands in the Mediterranean ownhed by the Byzantines, and near Anatolia. Im using that as a spring board into the Middle East. One question though, once I take Jerusalem, can I continue on like in BI, or do I stop like in the origional Rome?

You can play on. If you wait several hundred more turns like me, you get to see the Aztecs + Timurids (unless you already have). I have 44 regions, and landed a huge army to capture Jerusalem, but it got wiped out by the Golden Horde - it was outnumbered like 5 to 1 even when I switched it on to Night Battle mode. :furious3:

sweet, because the Moors just backstabbed me, and I gotta keep my posterity. Can't allow a nation to survive when they destroy half of my Crusading army due to a sea battle!

The Moors back-stabbed me as well, even when I granted them trade rights and map information. We had a good alliance going for like 30 turns and, as I conquered the rest of Spain, the Moors were very happy. Then, suddenly, they besieged Zaragoza. I quickly repelled the attack. However, heir betrayal gave me an excuse to destroy their entire empire. :beam:

Just finished the campaign by conquering several provinces in North Africa and taking Jerusalem back from the Mongols. For once, I outnumbered them: they only had 2 units of archers, while I had a 20-army unit of hardened veterans + my faction leader + gunpowder units. Revenge is sweet!:beam:

I was right about to move my army in, when I noticed 8, yes I mean litterally eight full stacks of Timurids all surrounding Jerusalem:sweatdrop: well, I figure I'll waste some time by capturing Rhodes, Southern Asia Minor, and Crete. It's around turn 160 and I just got the World is Round event. I'm upteching my docks to create carracks so I can take the new provinces. Rich trade recources here I come!!!

Turn 160, eh?
I suppose I could wait that long...
That is, if I survive the Timurids. :beam:

About how big is the New World? About how many provinces

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Originally Posted by OliverWKim

About how big is the New World? About how many provinces

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Six I believe

Six? oh so it's just the tip of mesoamerica and south america, not all of the continent... bummer.

ok been playing on and off for a while and just got hit by the black death! Man that sucked lost loads of my population and lots of troops is there any thing i could of done to avoid this at all?

The Black Death is scripted. The only thing you can do is review the Events file, see what towns are hit on what turns, and plan appropriately.

I don't worry about it too much. You may be getting hit, but so are the other factions.

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Originally Posted by sir smudge

ok been playing on and off for a while and just got hit by the black death! Man that sucked lost loads of my population and lots of troops is there any thing i could of done to avoid this at all?

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If you take your troops out of the cities I don't think their effected by the Black Death, or atleast not as badly.

is there any specific strategy to use against HRE? I haven't started fighting them, but they have sieged one of my cities a few times (each time they've called it off after a turn) and I'm starting to get annoyed by the three stacks they have near metz (something like that), Also, what's best to use against milan? I've been sending dismounted feudal knights and swordsmen at em, but anything more effective?

Everyone seems to be stuck because attacking catholic factions turns the papacy against you. Does anyone else know the diplomacy trick?

Basically, you send a diplomat to rome (or any faction) and offer trade rights, map info, alliance (if it's "generous" or balanced) and then offer as a gift an attack on each nation, one at a time, until your relations are excellent (I prefer perfect with the pope).

At this point, you can also request a crusade, and if you're at "perfect" relations, the pope will instantly accept your suggestion. But this is a side note. This is how to build massive, cost-free armies.

And by the way, as long as you aren't the aggressor, the pope usually excommunicates your enemies. Crusaders take them out.

And if you attack them with perfect papal relations, usually the worst that happens is a slight dip which you can fix again, and you lose points disobeying the pope, not excommunication.

Bascially, with a good princess or a mediocre diplomat, you can manipulate everyone, especially rome, to be your friend. (Although having disastrous reputation can put a damper on your diplomatic effect).

And by the way, your offers can be bogus. Example:

The pope seems to hate muslim factions, especially the turks, for whatever reason.

You can simply offer to strike them, over and over again, in the same diplomacy screen, on the same turn, until relations are perfect again.

I hope I haven't spoiled anyone's fun, but playing as ANY catholic faction is easy, no matter what, using the above trick.

Oh, and P.S:

When you're on a crusade or about to go on one, build up lots of little town militias around all of your generals that are just sitting at home.

Turn ALL your generals (except maybe your faction leader who can sit at home and babysit the home front with his usually high piety/chivalry rating) into crusading forces as quickly as possible, and lay seige to every non catholic city in your path, (one, two turns of seige max) until you have sacked and pillaged (or exterminated those you wish to keep) and bloated yourself on pillaging florins.

When invading factions with differing religions, always convert the town on the first turn with a church, pop out a priest the next turn. Why?

Because even if the town rebels, it will now be catholic. your priest will slowly convert the populace, as will the church, until you wish to reclaim it.

Works well for stubborn Byzantium and Antioch.

Anyone else have hints or tips to share?

Here are the keys to a good economy:

watch how expensive your standing army is. If you own lots of cities, you can usually keep some town milita (or better) troops there for free. Always do so. Free troops are nothing to sneeze at, especially when your empire is FULL of them. Any non-free troops sitting in your cities are usually a waste of money unless they are cheap and you NEED them to maintain order or defense. I usually don't waste time defending anything unless it's really important. I can always reconquer little provinces later.

Make sure you are being cost effecient with your invading/seiging armies. Mercenaries are great for crusades, but only for emergencies otherwise. They are almost always 1.5 times as expensive to maintain as any other troop. On the empire scale, thats a LOT of wasted money.

Make sure you have unblocked ports and roads. I found that sometimes a market doesn't do anything. Glitch?

Castles don't earn squat. Make lots of cities unless you're feeling wimpy or overly aggressive.

look out for invaders and rebels, and corruption. Any army standing in your territory affects your trade.

If your conquests take too much money to maintain and properly staff, let it revolt and then exterminate them again and convert the populace with priests/churches. Less garrison troops means less expenses.

Look at your budget scroll. What's the most expensive stuff? Eliminate it.

You automatically make money. You go bankrupt by spending too much and not upgrading your trade and cities.

I have more suggestions... please message me if youre interested.

AND PS:

Merchants are fine, but only use them when your empire is massive and has expanded far from your capital.

Then what you do is pop out like ten of them and suck up the resources around your furthest big city. Silk, spices, etc very good.

Byzantium is a great place to pop out merchs because of the 4 silks. Antioch is near cotton, sugar, and spices. Russia is surrounded by amber, which is useless unless it's far away.

And buy off little merchants that you see. Save first, and attack. Make sure it's even possible, check both ratings first. You get a bonus for buying a merchant off because you seize their biz and get their money.

Merchants can earn you lots, if they are good, but never as much as sacking cities and being cost effective.

I know merchants kind of suck, but if you use them right you can earn 500/turn with just one.

fancy resources. Distance from capital. Trade rights. Merchant rating.

add them up, and you get a bang.

For example. You're england, and you have trade rights with the egyptians. Now you have 6 merchants sitting near Antioch, each earning about well... 400 a turn?

That's like a FREE CITY.

Conquer far from your capital, towards a trade resource like Zagreb's gold, and plop a merchant there. Make sure you steal from other merchants to build up their rating. And be sure to save first!

save before you hit the turn button with ctrl + s.

quicksave, and then quickload ctrl + l and you can try again if a merchant was stolen during the turn.

I just got the 'World is Round' event and am loading up a ship of units to take the new world by force! I assembled a fleet of 20 gun holks (cost a fortune) so my supremacy over the Atlantic and the Mediterranean is unopposed. I also lost Jerusalem again to rampaging rebels, but then recaptured it with a 25 unit army! However, I probably need to ship more units into the area as the city is in a constant state of riot and discontent, due to its distance from the capital. Does anyone else suffer from the problem of a discontent, revolting Jerusalem?

I believe that as was the case in RTW, Jerusalem has a hardcoded unrest factor making it hard to hold onto (which makes some game sense in M2TW, given it's one of the game-winning goals). The Pope took it in my game, lost it to rebellion, and the Timurids moved in and lost it to rebellion twice. I'm going to wait until the Timurids take it and them I'll take it FTW (since there's a full stack of elite rebel troops in it right now---let them and the Timmehs wear each other down first).

Oh, and Oliver, you didn't specify but you can't take Holks to the New World, only Carracks. Just wanted to make sure you knew that. I've taken four of the 6 territories there and I'm wishing that I had brought more spies, merchants and especially cavalry. The Aztecs are tough but they crumble beneath the horsies.

R+To get Sherwood archers you need a certain guild woodsman guild I think I've got them with about 70 turns remaining. On this topic of billmen what would every one sergest to counter a cav charge with the english?

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Originally Posted by gardibolt

Oh, and Oliver, you didn't specify but you can't take Holks to the New World, only Carracks. Just wanted to make sure you knew that.

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Uh oh. I only have like two units of carracks, and I think I may have disbanded one of them. So I guess I'll have to spend another fortune just to upgrade my fleet. :furious3: ARRGH!

Sir Smudge,

As a tactic, one of the best units I've seen for the English against Cav is longbows. Lay out stakes and shoot them as they close. If the Cav charges your stakes you get a bunch of horsemeat, free of charge.

Just grabbed my first foothold in the Americas by capturing Cuba. There was little resistance; I just recruited a 6-unit mercenary army of light native warriors to supplement my main force and defeated them with that. I only lost 4 of my 'regulars', 4 Flemish Pikemen who got a little too close to the action. Gunpowder works great against the Mesoamerican civs, as I routed half of the enemy army just through several volleys from my ribaults. Hopefully I can conquer the New World before the weekend ends!

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Originally Posted by pianonator

I had a similar battle. Well, sorta. I was in a Fortress under siege, and the attacking army just stood there forever. Didn't move at all. Has this bug been discussed before? I have patch 1.2 I turned on triple speed and read through the building tree until it ended.

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you don't have patch 1.2 because it hasn't been released.

You have the unoffical, leaked 1.2...which is filled with problems.

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Originally Posted by John_Longarrow

Sir Smudge,

As a tactic, one of the best units I've seen for the English against Cav is longbows. Lay out stakes and shoot them as they close. If the Cav charges your stakes you get a bunch of horsemeat, free of charge.

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I think I'm being stupid but i can't work out how to get the Longbowmen to lay stakes :help:

Don Esteban it's their "special attack" (like setting the arrow on fire for most other archers).

I think the keyboard shortcut for the "special attack" is "h"...

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Originally Posted by McIwoo

Don Esteban it's their "special attack" (like setting the arrow on fire for most other archers).

I think the keyboard shortcut for the "special attack" is "h"...

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For some reason i thought they had fire arrows special attack as well....

Like I said, I was probably just being dumb, i'll check again.

Thanks!

P.S. It would have been handy for my last battle where they got charged by a bunch of Danish war clerics :wall:

Dude, you can lay stakes only before the battle begens.

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Originally Posted by Iavorios

Dude, you can lay stakes only before the battle begens.

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AAAH, Cool. Cheers, problem solved :laugh4:

Makes sense actually

You can get a good start by sending Cecilia (first princess) to Denmark and the Diplomat to Spain. Marry the princess to the Danes faction heir for an alliance + cash and offer a marriage between a Spanish princess & Rufus. At the same time, take York, Caernafron, Rennes and block the land bridge between Ireland and Scotland. This will stop the Scots taking Dublin. Send diplomats to Byzantine, Rome getting some good allies & trading partners if possible. Keep the Pope sweet with a gift of 100 per turn tribute for 10 - 20 turns & maps.

Build up a force in England as you advance on rebels there. Now you can either take Edinburgh or take a gamble with Dublin by allowing the Scots to cross to Dublin after you have established a sizable army. Two things can happen. They can seize it or die trying. Ideally they'll blow half their army in a failed assault on Dublin, leaving the Scots very vulnerable. Take Dublin then siege Edinburgh. If this gamble fails and they take Dublin the Scots are still reduced in strength and by re-establishing the blocking of the land bridge you can keep a lot of their forces busy touring Ireland.

Every settlement on the Isles becomes a city except Nottingham. Flog all buildings that will be destroyed before the conversion completes (not sure if you get the cash anyway, but it's easy enough to destroy 'em yourself).

Through the marriage alliance to Spain and Denmark you have reduced the difficulty in mainland Europe by effectively ruling them out as enemies for a while. It's still possible they'll turn on you but in all likely hood they'll concentrate on their immediate neighbors rather than you if the take the rebel provinces near Caen. You can then focus on France. Sometimes Portugal thinks it can have a go at you early on even though that's suicidal.

If they ally with Spain the marriage alliance you have means little chance of Spain dropping you for Portugal. When they attack you pay Spain to attack Portugal or bide your time until either the Moors or the Spanish decide to have a go at them. Deal with any forces that come up to France and send em packing. This is pretty much guaranteed to end Portugal if they're stupid enough to attack you. Their forces will be split fighting you and their Iberian enemies. The Pope won't like it either and may be open to excommunicating them early allowing you to take their territory through early Crusading. Assuming you've been stuffing the Popes coffers of course.

I convert every province in France to a city with the exception of Caen, Toulouse. Toulouse is used to reinforce incursions in Iberia and discourage Moorish/Spanish expansion into France. When Iberia is almost all English territory it is converted too. Toledo then serves as the main garrison in Iberia after taking out the Spanish a while later.

I can usually do ok with this strategy until the Milanese and HRE show up on my Eastern front. Then all hell breaks loose and the real fun begins. I just watch the western side of my empire looking for opportunities to strike into Iberia/Africa while at the same time plotting the demise of the HRE, Milanese, Venitians, etc.

Unfortunately in my current campaign the Pope allied (only!) with the Moors, so it's put a bit of a spanner in that plan at the moment. He also has El Cids' region for some reason I don't quite understand. It's like the Pope decided El Cid is getting it, loaded up a boat full of troops and off he went. Seen him take random places around Italy but never seen him sail for an attack on anyone before. Anyway, this is making the campaign a little tricky. Don't really want the Pope to gain any more territory. It's all mine!!!

Another word of advice is to use crusades continuously to strike out. This is especially true as England is unlikely to gain easy access to the south of France for a bit has to send navies around the Iberian Peninsula before it can start policing those waters. Using a crusade against the Moors say for Marikesh, allows you to travel really fast, sacking and swallowing their land very quickly while giving you lucrative trading ports & easy access to the Med is it called?

Hi everyone ~:wave:

After reading the strategies on here and playing the English in M2TW I would like to share some thoughts with you all.

From my earlier experience of Shogun/MTW/RTW I understood that many of you rush to develop a settlement as quickly as possible to churn out your better troops. In RTW for example this meant disbanding units etc in order to get settlements up to the next level as quickly as possible. My experience of M2TW is that I am unable to disband units in order to grow settlements and that producing units in a settlement does not reduce the population.

As the English your key historical unit is the Longbow. The majority of strategies on here recommend building Nottingham up as a Castle in order to get access to that unit quickly. After my initial campaign using this strategy I felt that it had taken a long time to get in a position to produce Longbows so it set me thinking. Nottingham starts with a population of 3,000 and a base farming of 1 whereas London starts with a population of 3,800 with a base farming of 1.5.

I decided to stage some tests.

Firstly I started a campaign and immediately converted London to a Castle whilst developing Nottingham and then London with roads, farms and ports. To my pleasant surprise once London was converted to a Castle it had basic roads; a drill square; and a chapel in place. This meant London had access to infantry already at a higher level than Nottingham. At turn 14 London was ready to upgrade to a Fortress and by turn 22 was ready to produce Longbows. Nottingham meanwhile took until turn 28 to be ready to upgrade to a Fortress and turn 36 before it was ready to produce Longbows.

Upon looking at the population growth of London I realised that as a Town it grew at a faster rate than a Castle. I wondered if I built up the Town first until it hit the population cap for the Fortress what would the result be. This I did and managed to hit the population cap on turn 8 and after converting to a Castle was ready for a Fortress at turn 10 and Longbows at turn 18.

The final 2 tests involved timing the conversion to a Castle and setting the tax level on low. The optimum result was setting the tax level on low and building Land Clearance for 2 turns and a Port for 2 turns. On turn 5 converting to a Castle meant on turn 7 just being a few individuals under the population cap. On turn 8 London was ready for upgrading to a Fortress and on turn 16 Longbows were ready for production.

So to summarise.

Following the standard strategy of recruiting from Nottingham England does not have access to Longbows until turn 36. Using my strategy the benefits of town growth and lowering taxes means Longbows can be ready for production in London on turn 16, a full 20 turns earlier. In addition to this London gives you a Castle on the main entrance to England from France as well as enabling you to build higher level infantry from your starting drill square.

I hope this is of use to somebody.

:charge:

Hello again ~:wave:

After playing a game again last night and advice from other members I did realise I could get both the Bowyer and the Practice Range at the Castle level which would mean Nottingham would have access to Longbows quicker at turn 6.

My idea still works well for teching to the Fortress and then getting access to Yeomen Archers as well as superior infantry. I am going to see the best strategy for obtaining a Citadel later.

For my style of play I like to get access to my higher-end troops as it is they that will be with me at the end of the campaign. I prefer them to mercs so that I can build up their experience and retrain them as needed.

Generally I don't have cash problems as I prioritise building in my key settlements if funds are tight.

In 1 campaign I noticed I got a population boost because of my governor but it appears their starting stats do not give it. I will look into this further.

:charge:

Hi again ~:wave:

After further testing this morning I found I could have a Fortress ready 1 turn earlier on Turn 10 thanks to the advice from Foz.

Turn 1
I would set the taxes on London to Low and start building Land Clearance. Rufus would take York (using mercs if necessary) and Robert would set off to Rennes. Also I would set 1 fleet moving to Rennes.

Turn 2
If Rufus gained 1 chivalry without any dread then I would set him off to govern London. Robert would lay siege to Rennes. The fleet would move next to Rennes.

Turn 3
Start building the Port in London. Robert would take Rennes (using mercs if necessary). If Rufus hadn't gained 1 chivalry then Robert always had in all my tests. If this was the case then Robert would get on the fleet and set off to govern London.

Turn 4
Continue moving Rufus or Robert to London depending on who has the highest chivalry.

Turn 5
Convert London to Castle. Either Rufus or Robert should now be governing London depending on who has the highest chivalry.

Turn 6
Nothing to do in London.

Turn 7
Upgrade London to Fortress.

Turns 8 and 9
Nothing to do in London.

Turn 10
Fortress ready !!!

From here you can go for whichever high-level troops you desire !!!


I did find that sometimes Robert or Rufus would pick up additional chivalry but this was not always guaranteed.

Using this method it's possible to keep running London as a Town until near the 9,000 population mark and then converting to Castle; upgrading to Fortress and upgrading to Citadel 1 after the other. I think this should make it possible to obtain a Citadel by around Turn 30 but may vary depending on chivalry ratings and timing of conversion.

I hope this helps further.

:charge:

Thanks for all the tips. It's my first game, M/M, didn't dare to go higher, patch 1.2 if that makes any difference (got the game only a couple of weeks ago). Anyways, I just learnt first-hand, how powerful are the longbows (I didn't build so many of them before reading this thread). I'm at turn 60, and I've put an army near some german town, 6 longbows + 1 peasant archers, 1 general, 1 armored swordsmen, 1 levy pikemen and 6 horses, 4 light and 2 heavy. Germans attacked me with 3 armies, one big and 2 small ones, about twice my size in total. They had almost no archers, just a few siege units, the bulk of their army were armoured sergeants, and a couple of heavy knights. Luckily for me, it was happening in a mountainous area, so I holed up in there, and my archers literally ripped the germans apart. I mean hundreds in casualties (i'm playing at huge scale), even before they got close enough to get in hand-to-hand combat... As a result, I lost about 10% of my army, mostly cavalry which I had to use to protect flanks and chase down the routing enemy... Germans lost 95%!

I know it's a little off-topic but it illustrates pretty well one of the main points in this thread - use longbows... a lot! :yes: In this particular case, they saved my neck :2thumbsup:

BTW, the mongols have arrived and I have to figure out how to prepare myself... I've got a couple of cities in the middle east, which I kept after crusading down to jerusalem, now I need to make sure they survive the mongol onslaught... those archer cav really scare the crap out of me :embarassed:

Bit of advice for anyone that turtles on VH campaign difficulty.

Dont go for the castles across europe, I've had England build up with Nottingham and Caen up to Citadel level and got into a fight with Denmark (up to that point I had "general peace") because I tried to help them get rid of a bad familie member wich they didnt seem to like when my assasin failed as big has he could (wich he thankfully payed for with his life ..:P)

Denmark declared war, France wich was their ally stopped being mine and later on declared war on me, Spain and Portugal joint soon after.
Not to worry as I had a good big garrison in Caen and more troop where already on their way, so I in the momentum of others attacking me took Bordeaux and Toulouse and that city in the corner(wich you often get a mission for to take at start of a campaign), bit later bumped Portugal out of their Citadel in North-Spain.
At that point my forces where being rebuild in the castles taken, but before I could decide to take them back out I was being attacked at all sides, France from the center, Denmark from Sea and assaulting Caen, Spain and Portugal mostly pressing the south but also making naval invasions on Caen.
I could handle it, barelly, but every turn being under heavy fire my bank dropped an other 10k florin wich had ~50k in it, so after 5-ish turns I got pretty desprate, collected my full armies from castles into 1 full stack with a general and launched an attack on the Citadel a bit South of Caen wich had a close to full garrison wich included lots of French Nobles.

Never ever have I lost an evenly matched open battle from the AI, they triggered the battle by having 1 Crossbow unit attack me wich I accepted as it would save me a heavy siege.

Anyway the advice would be, come with as much cav. vs France as they do and leave your archers at home .... (or expect to lose ..:P)

Things looked great untill my center broke, they rushed out 2 pretty much intact nobles and caused havoc among my archers, my chances where lost, I managed to use my general and remaining cav. to take down some infantry that where still fighting my swordmen than retreated wich my general and a very crippeld set of cav. units made, it proved to be of no use as in a couple turns I got pushed back into England ... :s

That battle should have saved me as getting that Citadel would have broken the Frances back and given me a much better front(and hopefully a more stable econ.)


G

Red Spot,

Did you lay out stakes for your archers first? If so, you can make a pretty effective wall behind which to fight against cavalry. That is where long bows shine against French cav.

If you did not, or if you were not able to, I'm not surprised that a strong French cav army would do nasty things to your troops.

yeah I know, thing is they didnt attack and I have battle timelimit off, so all I could do is launch the attack myself or retreat.

they came with pretty much as much crossbowmen as I did archers so I didnt wait for an unexpected charge, if it wasnt that my general took too long routing some cav. I wouldnt have lost, than again I could have expected their cav. to last a bit longer than others ...

still the only fair battle I've lost so far ... and I dont like it (I want to lose more ..:P)


G

Don't know if it will work (havn't tryed it!) But gain controll of whole England (and Ireland). If you have to, evacuate Caen (destroy every building) and reatreat to England. Build up a navy and declare war against the Scots and Danish. Eliminate the Scots, and Invade Denmark (and Norway and Sweden) Also, if you are lucky, Denmark wage war against THRE so the armys are fielded there.

When taken Denmark, you have two choiches:
- East to Russia
- South to THRE
- South west to France (and retake/fortifie Caen)
- South east to Polen

Also you can send a huge army with a huge navy to Jerusalem (will take many turns to do) and establish a strong "country" there. Scicilia can also be invaded for quick invasions (by sea) against any European faction (almoast)

As said before, not tested out by me!

England has the strongest archers in the game and many of them can stand up and fight with other infantry. That coupled with stakes to stop Horse makes them very powerful. If you are looking for the killer faction against the Mongels etc. this is it.

To go along they have great infantry...only lacking pikemen. But hay the archers fill that role with the stakes!

The English also build horse in cities (Demi Lancers). From a tactial standpoint there is not much more to ask for.

Overall I would say that they are the most militarily potent faction in the game.

england lack four things to be uber: good quality spearmens, guys with pike wall formation, mobile skirmishers and red coat's- long range musketers. But actually lack of those typos makes playing with other factions worth a try.

Hi,

I'm playing on VH/VH with patch 1.2. I have huge experience from RTW but this is my first campaign; started with England.

I'm surprised how easy it has been, at least, so far. Currently I'm on turn 26 and have 19 settlements. My strategy so far:

1. Taking York, the city in Wales and Rennes ASAP.

2. Then Bruges and Antwerp.

3. Scotland made 2 siege attempts that failed on Inverness and I had 1 spy in Edinburgh that opened the "front door", so with my faction heir and his 51 knights I was able to defeat the Scottish faction leader and his bodyguard (their only unit there at the moment). When the battle was over my faction heir and 6 of his bodyguards remained and the Scottish were eliminated. I lost 2 in rating at the pope but no big deal.

4. After this, Inverness and Dublin was conquered.

5. At the second turn my faction heir married a french princess, and my relations with France is and has been superb so far. So I have bought cities from France; in exchange for giving tribute to them for a couple of rounds.
The cities I have bought from France are Rheims, Angers and Toulose.

6. From the Spanish I bought Bordeaux.

7. I conquered the rebel settlement Metz.

8. Sicily attacked me and the turn after I defeated them I proposed peace in exchange for 5000 florins and their 2 provinces in Northern Africa; Tunis and Tripoli. They accepted.

9. I'm allied with France, Denmark, Spain, Portugal and the Pope.

10. The Denmark king has been excommunicated so it is hunting season now on the Danes.

11. 1 thing I made asap was to send diplomats to the Pope; I give him tribute and map information from time to time. I proposed an alliance which they accepted. So currently I have a "pope rating" of 9. So high that he accepted the crusade I proposed to Antioch.

12. I have currently only 2 forts; Toulose and Caen. The rest are cities; making a lot of money.

There has not been so much fighting yet; mostly with rebels. Perhaps it will happen when I engage the danes.

mcpa - you can do with this info what you will. It may be considered spoilerish so I will give some space so you can choose not to read it!
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Don't trust the French!!! No matter how good of a relationship you have with them. The Portugese also seem to have a thing for going after the British Isles. Don't ask me why. And finally, if you go on a crusade, be prepared for a jihad to be called against the city that you take. Sometimes it happens, sometimes not. Deal with the Portugese and control the northern sea and your motherland should remain secure. You seem to be spread pretty thin so early in the game.

one thing about crusades and that is if you have a priest/bishop/cardinal your men are less likely to desert (the higher priest/bishop/cardinal even less likely to desert), I had two crusading armies on with a priest/bishop/cardinal and one without, the army with out the priest/bishop/cardinal deserted, and the one with a cardinal didn't

A little about early game.
Send a spy to Edinburgh, the Scots keep sending an army by sea to camp outside of York.
I recently started a new game and the rebels sunk the Scottish fleet.
I went straight to Edingburgh with Rufus, militia Spear and an archer unit.
Took it as they only had the faction leader in.
Must have taken me about 7 or 8 turns.

Early English expansion should be in two directions, one in mainland Europe while one in Britain, York and Caernarfon should be left alone, and they’re in your pocket anyways, head for Edinburgh as early as possible, Scotland needs to be destroyed no matter what, after that you can tour the country, Inverness, York then Caernarfon, after that Dublin. In mainland go for Brussels first then Rennes. Try to capture Antwerp if you can, this will bring bags of revenue but will likely to bring you into war with another major faction. After these conquest your purse will be filled with treasure and could look to expand elsewhere.

Strangely, I left Scotland last to avoid exommunication. I advanced my armies early on and conquered the rebel territories, stretching to Dublin. I had a very hard time dealing with the French as they kept attacking fiercely and, despite the damage I've been causing them, they still attack with large armies that I had a hard time with. I pushed them back to their final province near northern Italy and finally eliminated them.

I had Acre and Antioch at my disposal and my relations with the pope were unmatched, so I attacked Scotland's capital and ended the game without having to be excommunicated.

My observations after 80 turns on M/M on my English campaign:

Focus on maintaining and building two armies, one for the British Isles and one for France. If possible, keep a General in charge of both. Don't invest in mail knights because you can easily get -4- of them from a number of mission rewards, once you get them put in a set of hobilars to do your cavalry flanking and archer rundowns. They are even faster then mail knights so it makes the above activities all the more easier. Longbowmen will be your first godsend as you'll be able to hit city walls without being in range of their archers (not to mention that extra time and distance for an attacking enemy on field). Billmen will be your second because you'll have something in heavy infantry finally. You'll own once you get up to Dismounted Feudal Knights and Armored Swordmen. Alot of archers do make the difference for English armies, I won one battle down to all my (very tired) archers and 2 enemy units left and I won by skirmishing then meleeing, rinse and repeat.

Specific units for specific usages. Spear Milita shouldn't be used as your heavy offensive force once you have later units, I kept them as movable defense for my archers, for assaulting cavalry and for reserves for my heavy infantry. Billmen are the other side of the coin with spear milita, they are your offensive chargers but they are not quite as good with defense. Hobilars do just as well for most things then mail knights do, however mail knights can be used against other cavalry (and against more infantry units) more effectively in my experience. Having merc xbows, peasant archers and longbowmen makes for having three different ranges of archer attack. Longbowmen are the point of playing the English, having alot of them will decimate attackers and defenders. Infantry kind of sucks until you get Dismounted Feudal Knights followed by Armored Swordsmen (Swordsmen are the better option however, so use them if you get the choice). At that point, you can crush almost any infantry thats thrown your direction and you don't have to worry about using them just as offense or just as defense since they outshine Spear Miltia and Billmen in both departments. Always keep some spear milita around to act out as reserves, archer protection and anti cavalry. Your spear options will always suck, so you just have to be creative when dealing with enemy cavalry charges.

Use the castle in Nottingham to build your British army, use the castle in Caen to build your French army. Convert everything to cities, you will need the income to keep your two armies, especially for the more expensive buildings.

York is easy, use archers to give them heavy losses and lure their archers out and run them over. Don't make it a solid rush and you can keep your losses under 50 (or less!). Rennes is the first town with a wall, but easy enough. Soften with archers and just ram on in.

Caernarven is easiest if you wait out the siege because the Welsh forces will sally forth and you can outflank the longbowmen with anything with hooves. Having an intact army means you'll be setup for your next target all the more sooner.

Don't walk into Dublin expecting as easy a fight as York, the heavy infantry will eat you up if you're used to sending in your spear milita directly into a fight. If you can thin them out with your archers, it helps alot. Having Billmen and Longbowmen by this point will make a massacre of the Irish heavy infantry, as long as you use them offensively. If you have a ballista by now (which I didn't), taking out some of the nearby arrow towers means you can get in much closer before taking down the wall.

Burges can be a tough fight, but your French army by now should be a pretty heavy stack. Don't feel bad if you bring along a full stack.

At that point I stopped in my first wave of conquest, having the Rennes-Caen-Burges combination means I have firm control over the English channel. As long as either the French, or whoever controls Antwerp eventually, isn't hostile to you it won't be a stretched front. I kept both as allies initially so that when the French eventually attacked me I was more or less ready for it.

Apparently Inverness can stay as a rebel settlement for a while, I saw Scotland fail in several attempts to take it. After you have cleaned up from Dublin, if Iverness is still a rebel settlement then take it and you'll make your eventual Scottish conquest far more easier. Make sure everything but Caen and Nottingham are converted to cities and build up your economy, use assassins and spies on the Scottish once you're ready for a possible war and then move on Edinburgh. If you have catapults and ballistas by that point, you can have the Scottish conquered in one turn. Remaining Scottish forces will turn rebel and are even easier targets at that point. Once Scotland is toast, you can stop worrying about any problems in Britain.

In terms of economy, get trade rights with everyone and pick up a number of alliances. I took alliances with all my neighbors initially (including a royal one to the French in the beginning) since it stays to keep them at bay for a while. However always keep your French forces full and ready, else the French will take advantage of your lack of defenses.

In terms of religion, bribe the Pope from time to time and try and keep in that 7-10 range so you can avoid the threat of excommunication. Send your first Cardinal and some priests to foreign lands (southern Spain) to spread the faith and build their pieties up. Have some local priests to make sure all of Britain is firmly Catholic (90%+).

Keep building up those naval forces, having 1-2 stacks of 3-4 of your best ships is effective against pirates. If you run into war with another faction, make one of them a bit bigger as a surefire fleet against theirs. First move in a major war should be to eliminate as many of the enemy fleets as possible, if you are lucky you can even destroy one of their entire enroute armies that way.

After you have all of Britain and the triple-three in France, you should have more then enough resources for a major war with France, Spain, whoever. You can move your British army to France at that point.

Having two full stacks ready for conquest means either France or Spain is ready for a spanking. By this point one of them probably will be ready to attack you, I fought two small wars with Spain but they were stupid enough to send their family members as Generals which meant they lost their fleets to me, followed by some rather unguarded Generals including two faction heirs. They were begging for a cease fire soon after and I netted more then 10,000 florins in tribunes after each. The French will eventually attack, I got them excommunicated. At that point I actually had 3 armies, since one General with a few mercs had just joined the Crusade and was in Southern France when war broke out. Crusader units are amazing, even the Pilgrims are great. I took Marsielles, their biggest port, with relatively few losses giving me a foothold in France. I quickly took Angers and Paris in the span of 2-3 turns then eventually Rheims. At that point the original triple of Rennes-Caen-Brugges is no longer my frontline but by then they have amazingly solid defenses (I think I had ballista towers on Rennes by the time I took Rheims).

As it stands now, I am poised to hit Dijon then Bern (in my game, the French took Bern) on my one side. Bordeaux and Toulose on the other. I have blocked Corsica, which is French and will be simply destroying any French naval forces that spawn there and my eastern army, once it has taken out Bern, will go down and take it for the coup de grace.

Diplomatically, Spain is forever a pain in my ass but my military forces both naval and land are far superior so they are simply on my targets list after France. Portugal keeps getting excommunicated so they'll be an easy target. The Danish are pretty powerful and cocky, so they'll probably pick a fight with me before long. I am bribing them for the moment. Milan is getting very aggressive without actuallly declaring war. They want Marsielles the worst in the world, and even assassinated my General there. In truth I assassinated two of their family members and half a dozen of their spies and assassins in the area. I am banking on keeping my royal alliance with HRE intact, it is still fairly recent so it should hold out. I figure once I have all of France, I may even have the resources for a 3rd permenant army so Spain and Portugal will be feudal stampedes, which should give me enough resources for a 4th permenant army at that point. At some point after that, I will start sending Crusades to take Jerusalem and the Middle East (How do you say East England in Arabic anybody??). My plans of course hold out on being long term friends with HRE, if that breaks down my plans will be a-changing.

Turn 120 something:

Spain kept being a pain in my backside, not enough to be a severe pain but enough to keep threatening one city over and over again. However things were still pretty good as I sliced through France, eventually having to include Adjacco (I think thats Corsica?) to finish them off. However the second I did, Milan immediately after me and they were basically the rulers of Italy (minus Sicily). I really wasn't expecting them so soon, I had hoped for a few turns worth of building up time so they had Bern from me pretty quickly (I had taken it from the French earlier) and kept threatening Marsielles.

Once I had a decent army on field in Northern Italy, Portugal (which ruled most of the Iberian pennisula at this point) went after me and allied with Milan so I had two major fronts to contend. I had started to hold my own by making peace with Spain (which they almost immediately broke the cease fire yet again) and keeping Portugal at my borders, I had taken Genoa and almost had taken Milan. I had gotten Bern back and fought off several sieges of Dijon and Marsielles. Unforunately the worst, and unescapable, thing happened to me when my chief ally, HRE, declared war on me and frankly I can't fight that kind of war.

So that ends my first English campaign.

Some final observations:

Genose Crossbowmen are a pain in my backside, they seem to have the range and damage of longbowmen while having the strength of good light infantry, they are more then fast enough to run away from anything that isn't on horseback and they'll easily fight to the last man. Unforunately its all Milan seems to field, and I really need some tactics to combat more effectively in my next campaign.

Crusade armies are awesome in combat, I used one against the French and even the Pilgrims seem far better then town milita (which I guess supposed to be about their equal?). They do mostly desert after a while, but thats no big deal if I need an army for a few battles.

Ideally, if it wasn't for the economy I'd forget France and even abandon Caen and focus on the British Isles and then hit the Iberian pennisula, then Scandavia but unforunately it seems the money making cities are in France and without the Rennes-Caen-Burges triple I can't seem to have enough to support my military, especially early in the game.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GC1CEO

So that ends my first English campaign.

Some final observations:

Genose Crossbowmen are a pain in my backside, they seem to have the range and damage of longbowmen while having the strength of good light infantry, they are more then fast enough to run away from anything that isn't on horseback and they'll easily fight to the last man. Unforunately its all Milan seems to field, and I really need some tactics to combat more effectively in my next campaign.

Crusade armies are awesome in combat, I used one against the French and even the Pilgrims seem far better then town milita (which I guess supposed to be about their equal?). They do mostly desert after a while, but thats no big deal if I need an army for a few battles.

Ideally, if it wasn't for the economy I'd forget France and even abandon Caen and focus on the British Isles and then hit the Iberian pennisula, then Scandavia but unforunately it seems the money making cities are in France and without the Rennes-Caen-Burges triple I can't seem to have enough to support my military, especially early in the game.

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1) A combination of good artillery, placed facing their flanks on each side is absolutely devastating, support them with heavy infantry or spearmen, a company or two of archers to oppose them and give them a reason not turn their flanks round and for a final flourish a squad of light cavalry to finish off any routers.

2) Crusade armies are great and pretty much the only benefit of taking up the cross. A sneaky but useful tactic-use your crusading general to recruit an army of crusader knights etc, then accompany him on crusade with another general, when you get in sight of your objective seperate the spare general off from the main body and fill his army stack with crusading recruits from the first stack. Use the original crusading general to continue recruiting crusader troops and you end up with a great, cheap second (or third, or fourth) army. You can retain these after you have used your initial stack to complete your crusade objective. This is particularly handy when you want to consolidate the whole area around the original target.

3)What fun is it being England if you don't get the chance to wipe the French from the board. To me, the rest of the game is a bit of an anticlimax....


I played this faction first, and found it to be really entertaining and fun. You get a really good selection of troops, and fight all the old traditional European enemies, as well as some new ones.

My second campaign:

- I was more ready, least early, on to deal with Scotland then France. I avoided a few mistakes this time, my tactic also had me taking Antwerp because I was having so much luck with my continental army with Rennes and Brugges. However it also meant I had to deal with assassins and the like from the Danish trying to screw over Antwerp.

- My Scottish campaign was the same, take everything but Edinburgh then take out Scotland in a single action.

- This time around I readied myself for hitting France and attacked first with two armies, interestingly enough they begged for a cease fire after I took two of their cities. This gave me time to rebuild my armies and such for the second wave, dealing with France was so much easier in my second campaign. I used a rather unorthodox tactic, I used assassins constantly to take down their entire family line.

- Milan was even more aggressive this time around, they had cities as far north as Dijon by the time they first attacked me. Likewise they were more popular with other factions so they had plenty of allies.

- I found a great tactic for assassins is to make sure you get a master assassins guild, always put it France-side. Build assassins from there, I call this Stage 1. Stage 2, move them to a city half-way between that city and where ever you really want to use them constantly. Around that city, assassinate a variety of smaller targets (rebels, captains, diplomats, other assassins/spies, etc) until they are Rating 7-8 then once you have 3-4 like that move to target. I wiped out the French family tree in a couple of trees, they went through as many as 2 kings a turn.

- I'm still having trouble with the Genovese Crossbowmen in the Milanese armies, they seem more accurate, greater defense and more luck then my longbowmen. I have a few Yeoman Archers but unforunately they aren't in mass in my armies yet, they seem to have a -little- difference.

- The Pope is too weak militarily which works against me, since it doesn't matter if I'm in his good graces since those he excommunicates are too powerful to be opposed to anybody anyways.

- Something that might end my campaign is HRE is now my enemy, once France was done for. Unforunately they are pretty powerful and I got taken by surprise, I had been trying to keep Milan out of France and it took all of my armies to do so which left Northern France and the Netherlands too unguarded.

- I am continuing the campaign until I get a third enemy, I can handle Milan and I might be able to handle HRE. Unforunately nobody will talk peace, apparently once the AI decides to attack you first they won't even consider a ceasefire proposal no matter what you offer. I had tried to make France a vassal, and several ceasefire attempts, even when they were down to 2 cities but they wouldn't hear me even though I offered to essentially rebuild their treasury.

- Blocking passes and bridges seems to be just as effective as in RTW, which is what has kept Milan from running me over in Southern France.

- I need serious work on improving my battlefield skills, the AI handles it far better for me.

The reason NOT to angry the pope is not his army, but the crusades. With them you can make a mockery out of anyone. Give him 10-15K and he will call a crusade against just about anybody ho has the stupidity to be exomonished. Then all you need is seven units of any type, and a few generals (3 unleased). Get them in one stack, join the crusade, then get the all the generals but one out of the main army. Recruit crusade merks all the way to Milan.There is enough of them in France and Italy for 3 full army's. They are cheap and have no upceap as long as they are in a crusade. And they stay with you after it is ended, altoug they are quite expencive to maintain then.You have to move fast, in order to outrun the rest of the crusading army's, but this is not a problem. The only problem is how many times do you want to do this. I mean check the Pizzacuy posts, you can conquer Western Europe for less than 30 turns. Just crusade against the infidels, use the army's left after the crusade against the good catoliks, bribe the pope, crusade again, and again and have fun. It is all up to you.

after previously playing as Venice and milan, i tend to forget that my militias aren't up to par with, sometimes, even rebels... :embarassed: any way just started as England , M/M, 1st 20 turns

*1st turn, it's nice to have the british isles for myself, so to do that asap, *Scotland has to go. :whip:
*Spy gets as much exp. as he can so get him to work.
**London goes for a Ballista maker for a quick strike, w/o papal interference.
*Prince goes for rennes w/ reinforcements
*Same goes for the other guy in york . both wait it out.
**diplomat gets an alliance w/ the french. i wanted them to betray me. Dip. then makes a beeline to rome.

*York sallied as did rennes later on, but w/ added reinforcements no problem.
**1 starter cog to the west of rennes, picks up heir w/ some troops headed for bordeaux.
*Henry who gained chivalry replaces th king at London
**Other starter cog + additional 3-4 takes the 1st ballista, king, picks up all available troops and heads for edinburg

*Scots by turn 6, failed to take a 2nd settlement, and my spy was able to open the gate, so the king and his troops were able to siege scottish capital w/o the ballista (not have made it).
**The scots were out early on turn 6.:balloon2:
)**The french left bordeaux alone, so i attacked w/ th heir.
*The Danes were next. I left wales and inverness for my leisure.
*Alliance w/ the Pope, spanish and the HRE were negotiated.
*Nottingham became a town.

**Around turn 10-ish, assault army led by the king, in 10 cogs heads east.
**Turn 14, the french captured both dijon and metz, giving them 7 provinces.
A diplomat of mine then purchased angers, toulouse and rheims, took me 2 tries. about 2000 gold in 11 turns.:juggle2:
*Yay! :balloon2: Caen and bourdeaux can now become towns, to try and compensate lost cash.
*8Grand fleet, which cleared some pirates along the way,separates into 3, each having a ballistae

**Turn 16. Simultaneous amphibious assaults went well. Flushed the danes out of arhus, hamburg and stockholm.
*News of faction destroyed meant the Danes didnt get a 4th settlement
Cheers!:balloon2: :balloon2:
*But, the french decided to backstab me early, w/ the heir by himself assaulting toulouse. I thought they'd at least let me finish paying for my purchased territories.:furious3:
*I tried to guickly send reinforcements (w/ a ballistae) from the Brit. Isles.

*I sallied from Toulouse and killed the heir, then defended northern France + Rheims from... the French... awaiting for reinforcements to counterattack Paris.
*A succesful jihad on baghdad by the egyptians... eh?
**Turn 20, After multiple French offensives were repulsed, i besieged and attacked Paris, w/ a good-sized army.
*Defense had the king in it.
*When Paris fell, the French blue suddenly became, rebel gray!!!
I guess there was no chosen heir, despite thm having loitering generals...
**An unexpected early exit for the French:balloon2: :balloon2: :balloon2:
*Pope calls for a crusade at Egyptian Antioch.
*My faction leader dies in stockholm, my new king was readying an assault on a now rebel marseilles.
He'll be the perfect candidate for a crusade.

*I took a quick toggle-fow, before I hit the sack.
*the danes and the french's early exit left a large stacks of rebels...
I might receive a nasty ambush if i'm not careful.
*Milan moves a huge stack towards Dijon. I should prepare for the worst.
*Portugal's army went missing, and their princess approached me earlier w/o offering nothing... i hope it's just me being paranoid.
*Venice is th biggest threat overall, taking Vienna, bologna, durazzo, zagreb.
The italian cities could become the bane of me.
I'm #1 in everything except overall (Venice). Strange:inquisitive:
**Metz antwerp bruges are my top priority to connect my territories and i need a castle too.
*Milan's demise may seem to be a higher priority compared to th crusade.:sweatdrop:
*oh, and inverness and wales are still rebel.:oops:

So far so good, i g:sweatdrop: uess

My second English campaign continues:

I was able to buy off Milan with a ceasefire which let me focus on the HRE, and took a few cities. However as it was very difficult to get excommunicated, my progress was mostly getting reorganized and getting my forces through the Alps.

Unforunately I made a mistake and got excommunicated after Milan was reconciled, however in the exact same turn I was reconciled. This meant I had a 0 in my papacy rating for a few turns and badly needed to raise it, my luck was that the Pope called crusade on Milan and taking Rome benefitted me greatly once I gave it back to the Pope. Unforunately it killed my ceasefire with Milan, which I was never able to get another (so far).

As a stroke of luck, I got a ceasefire with HRE and took Florence then Milan but unforunately the ceasefire only lasted maybe 10 turns with the HRE and now they are on my backside again...

To complicate matters, I am dealing with the Black Death which has killed off two of my kings, a couple of family members and severely weaked my city garrisons. On top of that, it harmed my income greatly so I had several turns of next to no profit (even one turn in the red) which meant I couldn't rebuild my armies to take on HRE..

I had two really cool battles though, one was in the Alps where I fought defensively and my 600 men took on 900+ Milanese, I took a defensive position on a hill and my catapults and archers massacred the advancing Milanese. Ironically enough my own catapult killed my general and the enemy's catapult killed their own general.

The other was defending Marsielles against Milan, I had a bunch of archers and set everything on fire. A siege tower, some ladders and a bunch of ram happily littered in pieces in front of my walls. I only lost maybe 30-40 from enemy archers, I only had to send out some knights to take care of the rest.

Milan has hand gunners now, which massacres my missile troops while HRE seems to not have been affected by the plague and is pumping out armies on two seperate fronts, it is currently fighting England (me) and Poland but it seems to be holding its own unforunately. Likewise nobody is excommunicated right now, every time they get excommunicated they are reconciled within a turn and I am trying to keep in the Pope's good graces to get some new Cardinals. Currently I have none.

I am probably going to end my campaign and start a third, considering I fudged up alot of things about mid-campaign and its left me pretty bad off right now.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GC1CEO

To complicate matters, I am dealing with the Black Death which has killed off two of my kings, a couple of family members and severely weaked my city garrisons. On top of that, it harmed my income greatly so I had several turns of next to no profit (even one turn in the red) which meant I couldn't rebuild my armies to take on HRE..
Milan has hand gunners now, which massacres my missile troops while HRE seems to not have been affected by the plague and is pumping out armies on two seperate fronts, it is currently fighting England (me) and Poland but it seems to be holding its own unforunately.
I am probably going to end my campaign and start a third, considering I fudged up alot of things about mid-campaign and its left me pretty bad off right now.

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1) The Black Death effects everyone, the HRE are just as effected as you are. Sit tight as it sweeps through your lands and then rebuild. It does help to have all the health buildings (town halls etc) as they reduce the devastation. Once it passes you can rebuild. The first England game I played I was in the red for ages it seemed, due to the plague, but I still went on and showed them who was the dominant force in the world. You can do it!

2) Attack handgunners with artillery and light cav units and watch them rout...Neither Milan or the HRE are unbeatable, go for the throat. If you have "spare" armies, use them to take out castles etc as these are producing all their best units. Without their best troops they are much easier to beat. You can always recruits arquebusiers etc as mercs if you want gunmen.

3) Don't give up. Sit back, plan your next ten-twenty moves and take the fight to them. No general ever won a war by saying "I could have done things better, I think I'll start again".....

England are my 1st faction, not much has happened yet apart from me taking York and securing trade with Scotland. I think that i'll allow them to build up a bit as I am reluctant to make war. Next turn i will try to get trade with France and maybe other factions if I can reach them. My immediate plan is to take whatever settlement is located in Wales then maybe Rennes or other Rebel towns.

My first mission is to give Nottingham a 6 units or more garrison for some troops. Should be easy with 5 turns to do it.

Very good game so far! :beam:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tom0

England are my 1st faction, not much has happened yet apart from me taking York and securing trade with Scotland. I think that i'll allow them to build up a bit as I am reluctant to make war. Next turn i will try to get trade with France and maybe other factions if I can reach them. My immediate plan is to take whatever settlement is located in Wales then maybe Rennes or other Rebel towns.

My first mission is to give Nottingham a 6 units or more garrison for some troops. Should be easy with 5 turns to do it.

Very good game so far! :beam:

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Bruges and Antwerp are good choice, although this might drag you into a unwanted war with other major factions, but the revenue is superb. Be wary of the Scots, try to destroy them quickly to prevent future trouble.

Can someone tell me what to do if,when you enter medieval 2 total war is showing a video,its going fine and menu the same.When i enter the game everything is moving dead slow,except the mouse,mouse is moving fine.So can someone help me please? by the way i have windows vista.:wall:

try the apothecary:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=15

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tom0

England are my 1st faction, not much has happened yet apart from me taking York and securing trade with Scotland. I think that i'll allow them to build up a bit as I am reluctant to make war. Next turn i will try to get trade with France and maybe other factions if I can reach them. My immediate plan is to take whatever settlement is located in Wales then maybe Rennes or other Rebel towns.

My first mission is to give Nottingham a 6 units or more garrison for some troops. Should be easy with 5 turns to do it.

Very good game so far! :beam:

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Destroying the Scots serves two ends:

1) They are going to attack you anyway, so you might as well get it over with early (as soon as Billmen and Longbows become available) and quickly (bring siege equipment, even Ballistas, and try to take them out in one turn to avoid Papal wrath).

2) With the Scots gone, you can leave town militia or peasants behind and empty the Isles of quality troops as soon as they are conquered.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by QuintusJulius-Cicero

Bruges and Antwerp are good choice, although this might drag you into a unwanted war with other major factions, but the revenue is superb. Be wary of the Scots, try to destroy them quickly to prevent future trouble.

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Plan for 1st moves:-
1) Take York. Consolidate towards taking Scotland, you will need a good sized and well constituted army (ie ballistae, longbowmen,heavy cav, sergeant spearmen etc). At the start of the game the northernmost Scots town (Aberdeen?) is a rebel settlement, so you can always send a small army up by boat to take it.
2) Build for invading Wales. They should present little in the way of opposition if you go tooled up.
3) Rebel settlements in Europe-Antwerp and Bruges are tempting targets but are often difficult/expensive to retain, as for some reason they are prone to rebelling, so you blow a lot of cash building happiness buildings, lowering taxes and keeping very big garrisons. They also are targets for the Danes, so you will inevitably come into conflict with them if you take these settlements. That's no reason no to, but do be aware. I would tend to expand south and west rebel settlement wise. By this time you may well be at war with the French anyway, so you can take their towns/cities, they are quite frankly a big disappointment on the battlefield...

Thanks for the info