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In my game, i decided to move into florence in italy, only to have a series of sieges that failed from the milanese. I am seeking revenge and am bringing my all mighty cavalry army to defend my emperor in florence while blostering to stone walls in the other italian city :thumbsdown:
As a man of Italian decent, this campaign is making me hate my own guts. It seems near impossible to face down an army of their elite crossbow militia with nothing more than spearmen and mailed nights. Its about 30 turns in and my homeland is only now starting to build up economic momentum. I just received a Teutonic Knights house but its in Frankfurt and rather far from the frontlines with Milan and not really in a position to do me much good.
My question is, does anybody have any suggestions for tactics to defeat the Milanese in the early game? (other than simply spamming militia units and mailed knights)
Play it smart. Distract their armies while you target their cities. Bring a catapult and a good one-two punch will take them out.
Well, I tend to use a combination of Militia Spam supplemented by Mercs Milan isn't too bad.
I've played HRE several times and the Italians drive me crazy, so I've decided to try this:
Blitzkrieg Italy on VH/VH.
Take all my troops, except for 2 in each city and one archer in each castle down south with 3 generals, the two Sons of the Emperor and the Saxon. Bring all of them down to Italy for one decisive blow against Milan and Venice
I needed a big army to take Venice first with Saxon and the younger son. Henry, the Faction Heir, teamed up with Emperor Heinrich and his boys from Bologna to take out Milan.
So far I'm on about turn 10, been excommunicated and have taken Venice and in the process of taking Genoa and Milan.
I hate these two factions with a passion and thought "Why not just end it right now... F what the Pope says, F the rebel settlements."
I'm thinking if I end it quickly, buy back my way into the Pope's favor then I have the money making cities in Italy and then I can go take out the Danes.
I've allied with the French, Hungary and Poland. I just need them to behave for a while so I can crush Northern Italy and be on my way.
The way I see it, everyone decides to take out the North, by getting some rebel settlements and then moving onto killing the Danes.
But there's no real money in the North, and I'm not letting the Italians build up. I've done that before and while I won the campaign, it took forever and I ended up with a deep seeded prejudice against Milan and Venice.
Let me know if any of you have tried something like this and if you've got any ideas. It's tough so far, these Italians can fight and the Pope has got their back. Hopefully the Danes/Poles/French have their own crap to take care of before they focus on me, I'm counting on speed here.
Do not try this on VH/VH...Quote:
Originally Posted by CrusadeAgainstYourEnemies
Took out Milan and decapitated Venice, but the world came crumbling down after that. The Danes invaded from the North, the French into Northwestern (Milanese) Italy, the Sicilians into Bologna, the Hungaraians took Sicily.
I got back into favor with the Church but it was too late. Now I'm under siege on every front and have shrunk to 4 provences: Innsbruck, Staufen, Milan and Genoa.
I restarted and chose to take out only Milan this time and go for the rebel settlements in the North.
Took Leopold and the bulk of the Vienna/Nuremburg garrisons to take Prague then eventually Breslin, took Saxony and the utmost northern army to take Hamburg, Magdeburg and Stettin.
Then I used the Emperor and the Faction Heir to take out the Milanese after taking Florence. Florence I gifted to the Papacy, then eventually gifted Bologna as well - was planning on only giving Florence but Bologna became too difficult to defend/build up against the Venetians.
Now I've eliminated Milan, had Venice excommunicated for attacking me and the Hungarians; ironically they went for Vienna instead of any of the Milanese holdings. Crusaded against Venice, toppled it and now my Hungarian allies are seigeing Zagreb while I blockade Ragusa. The Danes and Poles have kept to themselves, the Sicilians are blocked off from me by three Papal State holdings, the French are locked up in a war with the Iberian states and I'm about to take Bern and move into Antwerp.
The lesson is to blitzkrieg Milan, wait for a Venetian attack and collect as many rebel settlements up North in the process. I haven't teched much but that's next on the agenda.
***Quick tip, bring lots of priests up North as those settlements are low % Catholic and you can get a couple of Cardinals in the process***
***Quick tip 2, convert some Castles, especially up north into towns. I've got Magdeburg and Stauffen as my only two Castles at this point and I'm doing very well economically***
As the HRE the Pope doesn't like you from the start. So ally with him from the start, as wait anybody else. Form mariage aliances with Hungari and Denmark (it is quite easy by the way) and you will be free to concentrate on North Italy and France. Allays keap the pope hapy, and be pations .I personely capture North Italy after no more than turn 25.
Its interesting that people say the starter provinces dont produce much...by turn 20 I had Vienna producing ~5,000 gold a turn (with the aid of a decent governor). Not much by late game standards, but a real nice boost early on. More, I found, than Venice was producing.
My strategy was pretty much to expand until I couldn't. This is mostly viable simply due to the fact that all your neighbors mostly expand towards you (or into you, as the case may be.)
As with all the other posts, I recommend taking out the Italians ASAP. Genoa and Venice are bastards and will backstab you rather quickly, whether they're ready or not. Your other neighbors (the Danes and French especially) will follow suite.
The Poles also attacked me, but, oddly enough, only did so by recruiting a merc fleet in the Black Sea, sailing it to Bologna and blockading the port. They then ignored me, but refused all peace offers. Go Poland >_>;
In regards to units, I'm still early in my game, so the HRE's roster is nicely summed up by the word 'generic'. No special, faction-unique units or mercs in the area, unless you count the Templars, who are nice, but are basically glorified Feudal Knights.
Your basic tactical strategy is generally to pin with spears and hit the flanks/rear with your knights. Crossbows are useful too, sometimes.
I stayed on the Pope's good side by participating in every crusade, and calling a couple myself, as well as having plenty of priests. (Insert obligatory 'no little boys are safe' joke here). I'm well on my way to dominating the College of Cardinals, and if I have my way (thanks to some handy assassinations) the next pope will be German.
Playing M/M 1.0 vanilla M2TW
The HRE is a truly satisfying game and will require you to muster every bit of your financial, diplomatic, and tactical skill to succeed. Your position in the beginning is indeed complicated. Not every faction will go to war with you at once, but be assured that they will at some point or another, and far before you can recruit your best troops. Your settlements are fairly productive, though they are no Genoa, Venice, or Milan; you will need them to boost your production, and it will be a long battle. Your northern frontier is quite secure, especially if you go for Hamburg and the Danes. Your south is divided and you produce inferior troops compared to the Italian militia units. Quite a few of the settlements you'll encounter will be castles, and many will require an investment to convert to cities for the production. Your initial treasury is relatively low, as well as your subsequent income, so an aggressive start is crucial.
I ended my game with Northern Italy minus Milan and Venice, and owning Prague, Metz, Bern, Hamburg, Stettin, and Arhus beside my original cities. While I was being besieged every other turn or so, without it I easily had an income of 8000-1000 florins. I had a Teutonic Knight's guild in Hamburg, and 2 to 3 full stacks of sergeant and mailed knight armies plus one of Teutonic , sergeant, and dismounted Feudal Knights. I gave up on the campaign because it was evident I'd mismanaged it, leading to the capture of Vienna and Venice by the Venetians and a Pope that loved me but refused to excommunicate Milan for attacking me, plus I could see a full stack of Sicilians coming up to take lightly defended Bologna. But I think I know how I should have played this campaign, and this is it.
From the beginning it is apparent that the Pope hates you with a passion. Even in M/M, he refuses at all cost to ally with you, something he grants to most Catholic and many of the non-Catholic factions in the game. It is absolutely imperative to avoid excommunication, or to reconcile if it has already happened, but to do that you need something to win back his favor - gold.
My first moves were to go north and destroy the Danes and take Venice. If the Danes take Hamburg they have the potential to become a massive power - quite often in grand campaign games, if it isn't Milan or France that capture Antwerp and Bruges, it is Denmark, and with the addition of Stettin, Scandinavia, and Hamburg as a fortress, they will become near unstoppable. So never, at all cost, let them have Hamburg! Once you've taken Hamburg, go for Arhus. There's a chance that they will be sieging Hamburg by the time you arrive to attack - worry not and attack their army and drive them off before taking Hamburg for yourself. It is crucial that at this point you do not siege Venice. If you attack the Venetians and the Danes at the same time, the Pope will consider Venice the priority and force you to stop attacking them. You do not want this, you want the Pope to ban attacking the Danes. This is because within the next few turns, you can destroy the Danish faction. Destroying a faction that you're not allowed to attack lifts the excommunication (either that or it does not apply to you at all). So take Arhus as quickly as possible - you'll need the troops to further your conquests.
Down south, I tried to attack Venice, but they had a pretty decent stack waiting inside consisting of those Italian spear and normal militias. My own spear militia and my cavalry would be slaughtered, so I decided to attack Florence instead. Venice will be the first faction that openly attacks you, so prepare well. Stock up on cavalry in Innsbruck, and built the barracks series - you'll need the sergeants.
Convert as many castles to cities as possible. Castles you should keep are: Innsbruck, Hamburg, and Bern if you can get it (the Milanese tend to ignore Bern in M/M, so you can wait a long time, but don't do that. Bern is an integral castle, the focal point of your attacks on Milan. I realized that way too late.) Staufen can serve as a secondary cavalry factory for a short time - only until you capture Bern and Metz. Metz should become a city as well, it tends not to be attacked for quite a while (the French seem to have no interest in me at the moment).
Capture Stettin with your Arhus army only for the religious conversion mission. Your current cardinal, Peter, is unlikely to become the Pope, as he will die before Gregory. Instead, train a new priest (the Pope may give you 500 florins to do so in Hamburg) and use him and Peter to get the new priest some piety points. Heretics tend to pop up a lot especially in the northern HRE, so use them wisely. You always want to have at least one cardinal in the college as the HRE, and for the moment that's all you can really ask for considering your income.
Be careful when trying to capture Prague. Firstly, it is fairly well garrisoned for a rebel settlement, similar to Antwerp, Bruges, and Bern. Secondly, the Venetians will go for Vienna if you do it too late, and Vienna is a major cash settlement. Prague is fairly safe in M/M from the Poles, for some reason they want dirt poor Stettin. Vienna and Venice will be the focus of attacks from the Venetians, so prepare.
Buildings should focus on the economic. In castles, always build with castle upgrades as a priority followed by barracks upgrades to get to your spearmen. In cities, go roads first - the bane of the HRE is the incredibly long time it takes to traverse it. Moving troops is impeded by the mountains and the far too numerous rivers. farm upgrades should come next - the population boost will be extremely important for your finances (more people=more taxes), followed by market upgrades. In attack-prone cities, however, you want to modify the order a little bit. Get those city barracks upgraded, at least to crossbow militia level, if not halberd militia level. Cities this applies to are all of the northern Italian cities - Venice, Bologna, Genoa, Florence, and Milan, as well as Vienna. These cities are your economic base - you must protect them at all cost. A lot of the time, the 5 free militia garrison will be enough if you know how to defend chokepoints, but there will always be a few times when the enemy will bring a number or quality of soldiers you cannot defend against. This applies most to Venice and Bologna, with Vienna also being included occasionally. Ballista towers may be a good investment to protect against siege towers and the like, but in all likelihood you won't get these until very late in the game.
While it may not seem to make a lot of sense, release prisoners often. Get your generals' chivalry up. Try to do this in Bologna with your king, as he already has 4 chivalry in the beginning. This is to attract a Teutonic Knights Guild to your cities. While I did not manage to get one in Bologna, I did in Hamburg, and these are without a doubt the best units you will get for a very, very, very long time, and you'll likely be using them even toward the end of the game. If I had managed to get one in Bologna, the game would have gone much, much, much easier for me. Those Italian spear militias would have been toast with strawberry jam on one side and stale butter on the other.
Remember, even with armored sergeants and sergeant spearmen, the Italian militia units will fight on par with your infantry (they are, after all, pretty much equivalent to the mercenary version, and the pavise crossbows are equivalent to the mercenary crossbows plus extra defense while reloading). Innsbruck will not upgade to Fortress for a long, long time, so in the south, those sergeants are all that you'll get, plus whatever militia you can come up with in the cities. You will have a noticeable lack of missiles - it's too much of an investment, and all you get really is a support troop, nothing that can overcome the pavise and genoese. It is imperative to use your cavalry well. Either make use of hills and mountains to make your charges unstoppable, or use the standard anvil and hammer. This would be a lot different if you got access to dismounted Feudals in Innsbruck a lot earlier.
Milan will attack you after Venice does, followed by the Poles quite a while later in my game. Read the diplomatic information scrolls - are the Poles suddenly allies with Milan? If so, you can be sure that they will launch an attack on Stettin very shortly. The Sicilians will attack around now as well.
Very likely you will not have the resources to specialize your cities for guilds until the Italian factions are done with. Milan is pretty much done for once Genoa and Milan are taken. Venice is a harder nut to crack - take down Venice, Zagreb, and Ragusa, as Zagreb and Iraklion will do for the Venetians what Venice cannot once you take it, and Ragusa will be their unit factory. Be agressive. You can afford to lose these provinces to, say, the Hungarians, who won't be much of a threat for now. Venice with its high quality missiles and infantry will. Sicily is not a threat for most of the beginning, but when they become one, take Palermo using a navy. In M/M it is usually very lightly defended, as very few armies if any come to attack it (Moors are too busy in Iberia). Once they lose Palermo, you have gained a very well upgraded fortress and they can only come at you now with militia, which your Teutonics should slaughter. However, attacking Sicily is too much of a risk until you can secure all of Northern Italy and the Venetian lands. (I wonder if giving Zagreb and Ragusa to the Pope will be a good Idea - they don't tend to be very valuable settlements and often suffer attack when I play as Venice.) It will be a very difficult time for the HRE - the Pope is constantly warning you against attacking, and agression is hard when your enemies can launch waves of cheap yet superior units at you. Even once you drive Milan from Italy, be on your guard - they tend to have full stacks wandering around waiting to siege your cities. Destroy them utterly, and be at peace.
Things not to do. Remember, everything depends on Italy.
I feel you should not try to take Scandinavia. It takes a very long time to conquer these areas because of lack of any roads, and while they may provide good Baltic trade, they are hopelessly undergraded settlements. Oslo in particular will be a horrible battle considering the units garrisoned there and the units you can afford. If you have secured Italy, and you have an extra general wandering around Hamburg, give him a few strong units and send him to take the towns. Otherwise, just bide your time.
Magdeburg seems to incite the wrath of the Poles. You don't need another castle, you certainly don't need another war this early.
Antwerp and Bruges have always been early-game no-no's for me. Those Flemish Pikemen paired with those mailed knights are quite frankly scary to confront. By all means, wait. These are rich provinces, yes, and they do boost North Sea trade, but you don't have that many North Sea ports apart from Arhus and you don't have the resources to protect cities that far from Hamburg.
Do not expand farther east than Stettin and Prague, father west than Metz. Avoid war.
Cagliari and Ajaccio, the isles off Italy, are good settlements to take, however they begin as castles and you want them as cities. Only go for them if you're absolutely certain you can spare the troops and time spent upgrading to produce town militia.
Do not attack Zagreb until you have a sizable military base. Otherwise you thin your lines too much between Zagreb and Vienna.
I have won BIG time with several M2TW factions. However my very best campaign was with HRE. I say this because i tried to make the name alot more truthful. At the end i had Germany, France, Spain, everyone of those american territories, the Holy Land(German Crusades ftw) and all of Italy, including Rome. I must say that if you can get off the ground, you can crush ANY faction, those sergent spearmen are a staple of my armies at least until you get to near end game.
BTW ALWAYS get the Teutonic knights if you can, excellent heavy cavalry.
If you take (or bribe) Florence and then send a diplomat to the Papacy, you can offer them an alliance and give them Florence, and if you do it before the fifth turn, they ought to accept, just occasionally give them a gift to ensure the alliance holds, and you've got favour with the Vatican, not to mention that if you ask for military access (with, of course, a fitting price) you've got easy access to the Cornered Republic of Sicily. Have fun, hehe.
If you want to defeat the Italian powers, convert a large town into a castle, you will be able to upgrade it to a fortress straight away. Build military production buildings and you'll eventually be able to recruit Feudal knights (mounted and dismounted) and pavise crossbowmen. These can defeat most Italian Militia units.
Ah the HRE.... This was my very best M2TW vanilla campaign.
I tried to make the name "real" so to speak. As we all know at 1080 in the campaign this name is a total misnomer. I began by taking hamburg, and the other German reb settlements, including Metz. Then i went to war with Northern Italy. At one point both Milan and Venice were allied against me. While this was going on i allied to both Poland and Hungary to keep that front from exploding. It was at about this time that the Danes attacked hamburg and Antwerp so i fought them off then invaded Denmark. This started a two front war. That lasted for about 10 turns after i broke both Venice and Milan. Denmark took another 5 turns after that.
Honestly the HRE early units are very generic Catholic units and tactics, however i find that they are the most powerful of the early Catholic variations and have everything you require with few weaknesses.
After i finished off Denmark, i hyper-grew my kingdom. Built economy, ect. Then the Pope called his Crusade against Jerusalem around turn 39 i think. I was the first on the bandwagon cuz he was PISSED at me for breaking 3 different Catholic factions so fast. I barely beat a Portuguese army to Jerusalem. After that i expanded to form the Outriemer of old, including Edessa. Mass recruitment of priests and merchants to make the region !!!MINE!!!
Then i was brought back to Europe by the Sicilians attacking Bologna (spelling?) Of course it was underdefened so it was lost, then exterminated. I immediately got two FM's and a HUGE force of mercs to take it back. Then i side-stepped the Pope and hit Naples. The Pope then keels over, and elections.
???????
RECESSION!!!! The French guy won by one vote, (damn the Portuguese:furious3:). So i quickly crushed The Sicilians and sacked them both for vengeance. At this point i did not hit the Pope, cuz that would cause WAY too much crap unless i could obliterate him in one turn. Which was impossible. However i did take the Med Sea isles. Another short period of mass building. The Mongols show up in Russia, nothing too major.
Then comes France attacking Metz. While i managed to repel them it kicked off the biggest war i had fought in the campaign up to that point. This was about turn 62 or so. The French its turns out had !$#!@loads of fullstacks waiting to say hi to me. About this time the Frenchy Pope dies. I have about 1/3 of the Cardinals on the map so i win of course. So now the Pope is my bestest friend EVARZ!!!!!!!
The High HRE units are bland at best. Imperial knights, im sorry, SUCK! I cant use them for anything at all. I was still recruiting feudal knights and Teutons for most of my campaign. ALWAYS get Teutons, these are the very best of the HRE high units.
Anyways i was at War with France. The fighting was fierce especially around Rhiems for the first 25 turns of said war. That place changed hand like 10 times or so. French cav is demonic, i swear. At turn 5 or so the the Death hits. Lots of dieing for 6 turns or so. I lost at least one army completely. After it was over i gained the upper hand against France, around turn 96 i finally took Paris. BRUTALITY for all the crap they put me through. Taking Paris destroyed the French, for while they still sent full stacks at me they were full stacks of crap. I take Caen from the English and am at eternal war with them for awhile, but nothing happens there. I get to Toulouse and is in the hands of the Spanish. Around turn 106 i crush The French and make peace, trade, then alliance with them. Scotland disappears soon after. Then i attack Spain. The Iberians must have fought themselves to death cuz there werent a lot of stack in any of the iberians nations. Spain and then Portugal fell fast. The Moors were a different story. I had to kill 2 Sultans to get them outta Spain. But after they were shoved out i made peace with them.
Then a period of mass building occurs. The new territories are brought up to scratch fast. The only real prob is Corduba. Not being my culture and so far from cap i have several rebellions there. As a huge Moor city i cant do nothing about it. Then the Americas open up. By this time i have all of the Cardinals and elections are at my disposal. I invaded Brazil first the Cuba and NA. It took me a while to find the entrance to the Aztec lands. and i underestimated them as well. First army to land got rolled under by 5 fullstacks:furious3::furious3::furious3::dizzy2::furious3:. It took me twenty turns to finish off the Aztecs. i killed all of their FMs before the walls of Tenochtitlan and took that settlement as a rebel one. At this point i was about 3 territories from victory. i took two ME settlement and then to finish it all off, ROME!!!!!! All in all it was a fun campaign.
The late unit were bland as well except for the Zwihanders. Those guys are FUN!!!:laugh4::yes::beam::beam::beam:
I have to say that while HRE is not my favorite faction, it's close to it. Their position on the map is one of the most diverse and offers so many options. It requires a good bit of defense as well, but that's part of the fun.
The only mod I'm using is the Vanilla Mod which is more like a bug fix than anything else.
I was allied with Venice and France from almost the beginning of the game, they kept two sides of my frontier from being attacked almost totally. Poland after an early foray into my territory left me alone for the rest of the game. I was lucky in that Scotland, England and Denmark amounted to next to nothing for a large portion of the game and so my northern area was pretty much left alone. It's why I spent so much time in Africa...I didn't want to go causing ripples in a nice calm pond...plus, for some reason even though 3 popes in a row were my own, I was constantly on the bad side of the pope as Hungary and Sicily constantly poked at me and kept poking back some of the time.
I made the tactical blunder of waging an extended campaign in north africa and the middle east region with any close by castles. Both the Mongols and Timurid had invaded very early in this campaign and I joined into the fighting probably 40-50 turns in when the Mongols had already pretty much eradicated everyone from the area up to and including Nicea and Constantinople and some of the Turkish cities in the mountains. I started the slow process of having all 4 of my home castles(Bern/Metz/Hamburg/Innsbruck) pumping out troops which would slog their way over to port near Bologna and then take a ship to North Africa or areas near Antioch, Acre and the like.
It took me quite a while to get a foothold in that area with huge mongol armies all over the place and longer still to get a castle or two up to speed to start pumping out troops locally. I think the one thing I would change now, if I could go back to just before I started my north african campaign is that I would have probably taken Corinth and Palermo at least, to have some closer castles pumping out the much needed re-inforcements. Eventually, somehow, England started producing MASSIVE amount of high end troops from it's broken up hold on the UK and really started going after Brughes and Antwerp, both of which I lost at least once and had to take back right while I'm in a full scale fight with the Mongols and Hungary getting uppity.
Great game though overall!
Anyone have any ideas for making the Royal Family better?
I play an aggressive early game and always set up my successor, the faction heir, to be a strong King and make sure he's producing with a hottie for many children in all my campaigns.
Henry, the first faction heir for the Holy Roman Empire, though, I always have problems with. He gets sloppy tax man and religious problems all the time. His command stars don't rise as quickly or as high as Otto Von Kassel or Dietrich Von Saxony. And I've done a campaign before by teching up his brother, Leopold, and killing Henry off, but I want to try once to make Henry a badass.
Has anyone achieved this?
Keep him in the field. Keep the Cardinal with his army as well. Be certain to use him in combat with close odds rather than easy to win battles. And, of course, hope for the best.
I wonder why HRE gets such crappy units?
Don't get me wrong, they are on a acceptable level but can be beaten easily with other factions counterparts.
F.ex. the foot soldiers. What's with the 2h swords, it looks like a little obsession for me. DGK are a joke, such high era and expensive unit that gets butchered by Viking Raiders.
DIK, ok so they have AP attack, so what it's at 8 :/ IARC.
Shooters... standard stuff... nothing to write about. Avarege as they get.
Cavalry, thank got for the Raitars. They by far the best flanking cav for me. If you get them aroung anamy unit and they shoot in the back, it's an sure root. And they are decent in melee too.
Imperial knights are a little better then feudal knights. Gothic knights on the other hand are worse then other factions best cav. In fact they die rather quickly which really surprises me.
So i'm wondering why is HRE really an averege nation? Shouldn't they be a top nation?
Make sure you spread your spearmen out and use your family members. The more settlements you have the more family members you have so expansion is key.Quote:
Originally Posted by BetterDeadThanRed
You may need some mailed knights but not many. You can't match their crossbowman and you do not want a long fight so make sure you do your best to get you flank them ASAP.