Spain

You did notice that El Cid de Valencia was a 6-star general, yes? You need overwhelming force to crack that nut. If you're only 35 turns into the game I seriously doubt it's lost. You need to eliminate the Portuguese and Moors who are on the Iberian Peninsula and consolidate your hold there. Once done, you have a strong base which is both easy to defend and a great jumping off point for a military campaign in England, Europe or Africa, and is fairly decent for getting to the Holy Land as well by boat. You can block the straits of Gibraltar with a fleet and defend the 4 routes across the Pyrenees. The Moors make safe expansion territory as they're Islamic, so no papal problems will result, but Africa is huge with few territories. Europe will give you more provinces in a given amount of land area but has papal complications unless you pick only on the excommunicated factions.

How long untila submitted post/reply displays on the thread? I only asked because I submitted a few a paragraphs long one a couple of hours ago and still hasn't appeared. Maybe it didn't take when I pressed the button.I thought it confirmed, though. Alas, a waste of joint flexing:(

Please disregard my previous post inquiring about how much time elapses before one's submitted post appears. Thanks for the insights, Quillan. Command rating makes that much difference (sorry for the duh question)? oh, I guess I'm not very observant after all. I didn't notice the enemy general was a six-star on my first try and from then on, I probably kept clicking right past the pre-battle screen. never did notice that. I guess I need to build up a larger numerical superiority before taking Valencia. Thanks

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Originally Posted by sturmgrenadier

Please disregard my previous post inquiring about how much time elapses before one's submitted post appears. Thanks for the insights, Quillan. Command rating makes that much difference (sorry for the duh question)? oh, I guess I'm not very observant after all. I didn't notice the enemy general was a six-star on my first try and from then on, I probably kept clicking right past the pre-battle screen. never did notice that. I guess I need to build up a larger numerical superiority before taking Valencia. Thanks

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Yes, large disparities in command ratings for the commanding generals can make a large difference. As Nappy said, "morale is to the physical as three is to one." Command ratings have a significant effect on morale.

Cid's troops are comparatively crappy, but then so are yours at the beginning of the game. He's defending a settlement, so the major benefits of greater numbers (hitting the opponent on the flanks/rear) tends to be cancelled out by the restricted area. His command rating makes his troops fight harder than yours, the defense tends to cancel out your greater numbers, and the fact that troop quality is basically equal means that you tends to lose the fight unless something else is brought into play. That can be three things: a superiority of troop quality (requires you to hire mercenaries or wait until you've upgraded Toledo so you can go in with dismounted knights instead of spears), a vast superiority of numbers (3-4 times as many units as he has, and just wear them down through attrition) or a superiority of something else (like tons of missile troops and just shoot him to death before closing).

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Originally Posted by Quillan

Cid's troops are comparatively crappy, but then so are yours at the beginning of the game. He's defending a settlement, so the major benefits of greater numbers (hitting the opponent on the flanks/rear) tends to be cancelled out by the restricted area. His command rating makes his troops fight harder than yours, the defense tends to cancel out your greater numbers, and the fact that troop quality is basically equal means that you tends to lose the fight unless something else is brought into play. That can be three things: a superiority of troop quality (requires you to hire mercenaries or wait until you've upgraded Toledo so you can go in with dismounted knights instead of spears), a vast superiority of numbers (3-4 times as many units as he has, and just wear them down through attrition) or a superiority of something else (like tons of missile troops and just shoot him to death before closing).

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Or you can camp him until he sallies. He's much easier in the field than all walled up inside his keep. I leave him until last in the penninsula. If the "competition" beats on him, or takes him, less trouble for me.

I find that the best way to take care of El Cid is to get a mass of militia and siege and autocalc.

You can absorb the losses but he can't :yes:

I fought him in a battle once, and I found that if you kill him personally then the rest of his army is as good as fried mushroom with mayonnaise. I even had less men than him, but I had a good few Jinettes which always help.

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Originally Posted by diablodelmar

... but I had a good few Jinettes which always help.

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This is a truth that cannot be overstated. Jinetes are, properly utilized, one of the strongest units in the Spanish order of battle. As general killers, nothing is better. The only real drawback is a limited ammo supply. Learn to use them, and you'll learn to love them.

As far as I'm concerned, Jinettes are the best western cavalry. They are versatile, fast, have armour piercing ability, and kill more units than any other cavalry unit of my armies.

After soaking up some of the insights/experiences of posters here, I started a new campaign on VH/H (strategy/battle). This time, I took the advice of a couple players and focused first on capturing Zarazoga (instead of Valencia like on my first campaign), because of its apparent greater strategic importance as a gateway to the European mainland and/or a defensive bulwark to keep forces from said region out of Iberia. Much to chagrin, even though I made like 'Charlie Hustle' trying to bust out a run to first, the Portugese beat me there. But apparently, a few turns later, they broke off their siege laving the rebels in control still. This allowed me to successfully infiltrate with my spy and assault (after recruiting two units of mercenary spearmen to supplement my modest forces). I shoudl also mention that for the first several turns, I spent my dough exclusively on upgrading the miltary production capabilities of Toledo and my other nothern city.

Fine and dandy so far, right? Well, I amassed about a modest force under my general's leadership (about half of this banner filled with color) and decided to make haste towards Lisbon (the west coast Portugese city). I moved my one spy all the way down there to infiltrate, but partly owing to the scarcity of even 'soft targets' for accrruing experience at this point of the game, he was only a level four, and failed to open the gates. At this point, there was only a tiny garrison in the city. I guess it was moot, because by next turn, this massive, full stack Portugese force had appeared on the scene and chased me away. So it is doubtful that I would have been able to hold the city even if I had captured it he previous turn.

In the meantime, my Sicilian pal, after having apparently grown quite disgruntled with the fact that I had not purchased my regular, monthly order of his new, deluxe pies (maybe securing trade rights/allying would have prevented this? Or rather, I suspect he or another faction would have attacked at this time given the difficulty setting in any case?), decided to seize my newly won city asset up in the northeastern part of the peninsula.

I charge hell bent for leather back up there but lost the first time I tried to relieve the siege. I've saved and will try again after work this evening, but my guess is that I've probably lost the city because he has several units of mailed cavalry and my garrison consists of only one merc spearmen (I disbanded one earlier in an ill-advised cost-cutting move, militia and such) and my general's forces doesn't have the mid-level infantry unit yet (can't remember it's name; it's one upgrade up from the puny javelin throwers that rout easily). Now that I see everyone is pitching the virtues of Jinettes, I probably should ahve recruited mroe of them. At any rate, this is a tough faction to play on these difficulty settings (at least for me it is:)

My question/dilemma is this: seeing as how I haven't wasted any time and have poured all of my resources into upgrading my military capabilities, how do I realistically have any chance to expand (hold on to conquered cities while I conquer new ones)? I just don't see how it is possible to build up the two (I'm assuming full stack in size) armies that some posters have mentioned here. There just isn't enough time before you have to build up and expand before you have to divert a lot of resources to defend against invasion (in my case it was seaborne)? What am I missing with this timetable? Is there a way to buy myself more time strategically before I have to contend with the competing demands of expansion and defense? Thanks for your ideas and comments!

sturmgrenadier,
Regarding the army expansion question, if you have a balanced economy (also invested in some money-producing buildings) you should just about be able to maintain your borders. What you must avoid is rapid expansion, followed by heavy debt, followed by heavy loss of new territory. I fully feel for your concerns; I often feel myself that I need to expand, but to expand I need to expand to fuel the expansion. Time is not an issue. As long as you are 1. economically stable (the most important factor) 2. increasingly aggressive 3. intelligent in how you go about expansion (don't bite off more than you can chew). To hold onto settlements you might want to consider keeping the population happy, otherwise the settlement might fall to internal struggles, perhaps a more frustrating way than losing it to another faction.

For success in battle, even when outnumbered:

When in doubt, use Jinettes! They have many uses - but my favorite and the one I currently employ whenever I have a battle, especially when outnumbered, is to circle around the enemy and take out the General, who usually leads from behind. It doesn't take long, and might only use up the javelins of 3 Jinette units, and is well worth it.

I also heartily recommend the use of Tercio Pikemen. Their stats may decieve you into thinking they are unimpressive, but I have found them in practise to be most reliable. Pair with Dismounted Chivalric Knights and Sword and Buckler men to kill infantry.

Another thing - when you conquer new settlements, sack them. The boost in Florins is worth it, in my opinion.

Diablodelmar,
Thanks for sharing your observations. When I play Spain, I'm going to focus on finding that 'optimum' level of expansion in the early game. If I am losing newly conquered cities while running budget deficits, that's a good sign that I am expanding too much without investing enough in infrastructure (re: income producing activities: creating buildings and fostering trade agreements, etc.) That's obvious to me. What's the good indicator that I'm not moving quickly enough? I guess that's when adjacent cities become uber-fortified/defended w/ massive garrisons by the time I try to take them?

Truth be told, in playing games in the total war series (including this one), I've always tended to pursue a economic development heavy strategy in the early game and this has usually worked for me. But then after reading a lot of these posts here (and the stories about neighboring factions grabbing adjacent cities very rapidly and permanently damaging your chance of a successful campaign, it's caused me to reconsider and think that maybe speedy expansion (and by extension, funneling more money towards military development) was much more important early on than building my economy. That's why I've tried a different tack with Spain. Now, I guess after reading your post, I'm moving back towards my old strategy. Maybe the type of strategy just depends on the clan that you are playing as and the difficulty setting? I can more experienced players saying, 'DUHH!':( In any case, I'll definitely have to try the Jinette attack. When you say circle around the enemy, do you mean there is a way to get them to do the special attack circling lliterally around the enemy? Or did you just mean that figuratively in the sense that they are running in circles (next to the enemy unit) while they pick away at it? I'm guessing it's the latter, because I can only get them to run in a standard size circle when I activate the special ability.

Non-sequitir: as a coin collector, I find it neat that your island is permitted to mint its own coinage on a restricted basis (if I understand correctly) that is legal tender within the island. Obviously on this side of the swamp, only the national government has the power to mint coins and currency. I suppose in your country there is a rather different division of powers that permit particular municipalities, regions, etc. to execute such powers and that these are rooted largely in history, culture and tradition. If so, is it true that there are twin, maximum security correctional facilities on your island where they send the most violent offenders? And is the island heavily subsidized/compensated for taking on this burden? Sorry for the irrelevant prattle.

Sturm,

Yes, Portugal always beats you to Zaragoza. And, yes, they usually don't take it first try, but they will the second once the garrison is worn down. Doesn't matter if they're wiped out as a faction. :smash:

I haven't played Spain a lot yet, but have started up Portugal a lot of times. I've gone through the Spanish start-up five times or so. That said, as I recall all the Portuguese royals start in Lisbon. An all out attack there first removes them, often without getting excommed. But an excom that early isn't too bad, just get a diplomat to Rome fast and start dropping some indulgence money on the Pope. When you get up to perfect relations, he'll talk reconciliation for a larger indulgence. Or he'll croak before things get too nasty. You do want to get recommunicated before going seriously into conquest. The added penalty in unrest really hurts as you move away from your capital. And the threat of having a jihad AND a crusade aimed at you should be intimidating. :help:

If you can get rid of the Catholic "competition" on the penninsula early (and make nice with the Pope), you're better off. Make nice with the Moors until then, and let them waste manpower on Valencia. You can usually pick up Zaragoza without much trouble, but the French move pretty fast, so get it under seige and they will (at least the always have for me) back off. Same for Pamplona which goes rebel when the Portuguese royals all die.

Then you can pretty easily swat the Moors. I drop my navy into the straits ASAP. A couple ships do fine unless I get really unlucky with rebels. Get a close port going so you can repair one while the other stays on station. The Moors take a while to build ships in my experience. Choke the flow of reinforcements from the south and taking out the Moors is a lot easier too.

Cordoba is great income. Get it as soon as you've settled the north and before Valencia. Granada isn't worth rushing for its own sake, just to clean the Moors out. Once they are gone, and Valencia is in the fold, then you can put more navy to guard the straits, build up the Pyranees defense force (the French will come for you sooner or later) and tech up a bit.

I do use some merc to make sure I win the key battles. Spears are a good value. With them pinning, you can use your general's cav to charge, after the jinettes have used up their javs in the backs of the enemy (or his general).

Keep those jinettes. Don't combine them and end up with fewer units. If you keep rebuilding them (which you can do just about anywhere!) they get some nice experience and become both tougher and deadlier. I combine them only when I can make a full unit and have "change" to retrain. That cadre is the key to ensuring their experience is put to work with the fresh recruits!

You should be able to do this in 10-15 turns.

Use your free upkeep slots religiously. I use Carl's fix which tweaks how they work so I'm unsure now how vanilla does that. You may need to use just militia units for that with vanilla. With the fix you can use anything you can build in that city, which means jinettes can be used too early on, which is nice. In all cases the game does seem to make the most expensive that fits the role free, so it optimizes that part for you.

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Originally Posted by sturmgrenadier

When you say circle around the enemy, do you mean there is a way to get them to do the special attack circling lliterally around the enemy? Or did you just mean that figuratively in the sense that they are running in circles (next to the enemy unit) while they pick away at it? I'm guessing it's the latter, because I can only get them to run in a standard size circle when I activate the special ability.

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I think he means neither.

The enemy general sits behind the lines until he sees the chance to charge something worthwhile. If you loop a couple jinettes around one or both flanks and come up behind him, he'll usually chase one (jinettes are faster) and you can send the other in behind and ping-pong him. But it takes micro-management. And have to watch to be sure nothing else decides to help him out. It's a good use of those javs since they do anti-armor damage (better than sticking them in peasants or even spear militia). Let your archers handle the unarmored stuff.

It's worth meleeing him (unless he's huge on stars) once you're out of javs too, if you think you can kill or capture him. Have one unit pin him, then other charge into his rear or flanks over and over. Remember, jinettes are faster. But avoid getting a whole jinette unit killed. Withdraw them if they are really hurt badly. It's worth saving them to keep that experience.

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Originally Posted by vonsch

I think he means neither.

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Isn't it that Can(something) shooting circle ability that Jinettes and other horse archers have?

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Originally Posted by Gingivitis

Isn't it that Can(something) shooting circle ability that Jinettes and other horse archers have?

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Cantabrian circle, yes. But don't think that's what he was referring to when talking about taking out the opposing general. :dizzy2:

The circle is mostly an anti-missile maneuver while firing yourself. Unless you're going up against some sort of general that's in a missile cav unit, probably not too useful in this circumstance.

This may sound strange but I'm looking for late game advice. As Spain I have siezed all of the Iberian Pennisula, Italy, the western half of africa, and all the islands in between. But while I was doing this, the Mongols have taken over a third of the map and still have most of their elite veterans around. The timurids have recently arrived but they are not attacking the Mongols and show no intrest in doing so. Taken the Mongols down seems up to me, so how do I wear them down. I have some ideas, but I want to hear from the community.

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Originally Posted by sturmgrenadier

Diablodelmar,
Non-sequitir: as a coin collector, I find it neat that your island is permitted to mint its own coinage on a restricted basis (if I understand correctly) that is legal tender within the island. Obviously on this side of the swamp, only the national government has the power to mint coins and currency. I suppose in your country there is a rather different division of powers that permit particular municipalities, regions, etc. to execute such powers and that these are rooted largely in history, culture and tradition. If so, is it true that there are twin, maximum security correctional facilities on your island where they send the most violent offenders? And is the island heavily subsidized/compensated for taking on this burden? Sorry for the irrelevant prattle.

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Are you asking me about the Isle of Man?

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When you say circle around the enemy, do you mean there is a way to get them to do the special attack circling lliterally around the enemy? Or did you just mean that figuratively in the sense that they are running in circles (next to the enemy unit) while they pick away at it? I'm guessing it's the latter, because I can only get them to run in a standard size circle when I activate the special ability.

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What I meant is that I send them behind the enemy lines to attack from the rear - Jinette hammer, pikemen anvil type thing.

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Originally Posted by TheJace

This may sound strange but I'm looking for late game advice. As Spain I have siezed all of the Iberian Pennisula, Italy, the western half of africa, and all the islands in between. But while I was doing this, the Mongols have taken over a third of the map and still have most of their elite veterans around. The timurids have recently arrived but they are not attacking the Mongols and show no intrest in doing so. Taken the Mongols down seems up to me, so how do I wear them down. I have some ideas, but I want to hear from the community.

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I find that the Mongol generals are usually quite dangerous. They have high dread, high command. If you have any decent assasins, try them against the Mongol generals. If not then get some high Chivalry generals of your own in there to balance out the morale loss issue in battle.

Speaking of battles, guess what unit performs well against the Mongols? Yeah, you guessed it right, Jinettes!

Thanks for further explaining about how to use Jinettes, folks. One other thing that I've learned here is that not all 'special abilities' are necessarily useful. I learn something valuable each timne I visit and read this forum. In playing Spain, I have the feeling that I am (ahem...) 'attempting to extinguish [multiple and continually erupting] conflagarations with my bodily waste fluid' to quote a sanitized version of the old slang expression. First, the Sicilians, then the Milanese, the Germans then the French all laying siege to my cities. The first two were half-hearted assaults that I easily beat off, but the last two were no joke-good units and numerous. Strangely enough, they all (even the French) came by seaborne invasion. This is really unpleasant because they appear out of nowhere with little warning (can attack on the same turn). Then, there's the English and Papal States that like to poke around my territory but haven't attacked, but cause me to have to keep an eye on them and tie down resources. Oh well, I guess that's what happens on VH (strategy) setting...

And yes, diablodelmar, I was asking you about the Isle of Man, but feel free to tell me to grab a 'Fodor's' guide at the library (bugger off, as the say:)

I'll be happy to answer your questions about the Isle of Man.

We do have our own currency, correct (the Manx Pound Sterling, worth the same as English pound). We have parliament (the oldest in the world, as a matter of fact). It however, does not have much power, for we are not independent; England truly rules over us.

We have two prisons, if thats what you mean. I don't think they are "maximum security," but nobody has escaped for a very, very long time.

Anyway, that is about as far off-topic as you can go, lol. It would be my pleasure to answer any more questions you might have, but use PM, or else start a thread in the Frontroom. Btw, I used to collect coins too. Nice one. Have any gold? I once found a gold coin in my house when I was very little, (promptly relinquished by my dad!).

Hey, folks. This is the last time I'll take up thread space commenting on my observations about the difficulty level settings, because I suspect most players here are fairly experienced and/or skilled (and wouldn't gain anything from reading my novice comments). At any rate, here goes...

I was eliminated from my campagin yesterday (not completely annihilated, but it became clear that my position was unsalvageable; that's probably what most players mean when they say've they've lost/were eliminated in this context). After beating off an underwhelming repeat invasion by the Milanese (and gaining some false confidence in my growing, battle ability), I was simultaneously triple-attacked by the Portugese, French and Scottisch, each of whom laid seige to one of my cities. I had left a half to two-thirds stack of troops garrisoned in each at the time of attack (mostly spearmen, a couple of bows, a horsie, a light infantry, etc.) and Toledo had even been upgraded to Fortress (not the largest upgrade-I might have the names mixed up), but I just didn't have enough other troops on the board/troop producing capability to save any of them. One was assaulted after only a turn and fell (the enemy used ballistas to bash the wall down in five spots-this was way overkill, but I digress). And unfortunately (for me) each of the sieging armies were full stack and had pretty good unit types (mailed knights and other mid-level troops).

Playing on VH (strategy) for the first few times has been shocking: it was a rude enough surprise to be continually attacked singly by various factions (this is what I experienced with playing on H (strategy) and to a lesser degree M). But in my most recent playing session, this is the first time I've experienced simultaneous attacks by multiple factions (who are not even allied and this early in the game?). It occurs to me that the increase in the difficulty setting is not a linear function in MTW2; I have found the jump in difficulty to be much, much greater in going from hard to very hard in comparison to the leap from medium to hard (more of an exponential function:( Has anyone else found this to be the case? I'll give this campaign a few more good tries on VH, but I fear that it just doesn't constitute a reasonable challenge for a player of my capacities. And that really stinks, because the alternative, playing on H probably wouldn't be very satisfying, because I can probably beat it almost all of the time. Any others found that there's a ceiling they reach and it just isn't fun anymore to play the game. I wish they had a hard-veryhard setting. Or maybe they could utilize a 1-100 slider gauge that players can select. Thay way, players can gradually build themsleves up through meeting progressively, moderately greater demands instead of continually getting waxed or walking over the game (I know what they naysayers will chime: they can only discretely partition the difficulty settings so many times before it becomes meaningless and the differences between settings negligible!) And there's truth to that. But maybe they could come up with some kind of compromise device. Thanks!

Yeah, VH is sorta silly in my eyes. The AI gets big advantages, plus it's programmed so that all the other factions will rapidly develop serious hate for you unless you can afford to actively bribe them constantly. I will play at hard, not higher. I want smarter AI, not more brute force overkill.

But it sounds like you were either perceived as vulnerable on the power meter, or you were tall poppy, and everyone was aiming to take you down a few notches. I suspect the former from what you've said.

Your better hope is for a mod that makes things more to your taste. Carl is working on one now. He's aiming for diplomacy that actually means something (unlike the VH one), and alliances can be binding if your rep deserves it and your ally has that record too. And a few other tweaks to make the AI perform better at lower levels from a production standpoint so it can compete better.

I'm testing and complaining. Spain has some issues due to the way jinettes were ubiquitous. But we're trying to hammer out something that makes sense, keeps jinettes in their role, but doesn't throw the AI into fits at creating viable armies. Portugal has it worse in this regard due to its exterior lines.

Drop back to hard and have fun. If VH POs you as it does me, avoid it. ~;p

I get annoyed when everyone decides to declare on me at once and I'm not in a position to handle it too.

I have read through the guide here and think it covers just about everything. I am curious though have any of you guys successfully bribed El Cid?

If so how much was it?

I am aware of the pros and cons and dont want to get into a discussion of how to defeat him in the field of via seige as its been covered. I am really just curious to know how much it would take to bribe him. Bribing seems ridiculously high as it is, so I assume in his case its a hefty sum.

anyone succeeded in doing so ?

I don't think I've seen a single person spell "Jinete" correctly in this thread.:laugh4:

Anyway, when playing with Spain, I think it is pointless to ally with Portugal or the Moors. They're going to betray you anyway, and if they don't, then you'll want to betray them - before you expand any further, you'll definitely want to control all of Iberia. You'll be expanding soon, since there are only 2 rebel settlements on the peninsula. Allying with them and then betraying them hurts your reputation, which you don't want.

My first move is usually Zaragoza, since it's a relatively easy take (especially after Portugal sieges it first and weakens the garrison) and prevents Portugal from growing stronger. Valencia is a hindrance to begin with due to the strong garrison; leave it alone until you've dealt with the Moors and Portuguese. Once Zaragoza is yours, I suggest a quick strike on Cordoba, and a few turns later, Lisbon. After this, you have 5 regions on the peninsula, and your enemies have one each. Pamplona isn't going to do the Portuguese much good when they don't have the income from Lisbon, and Granada is a pretty easy take most of the time as well. Calling Crusades is very handy, although I usually save it until I'm going for Marrakesh or Algiers, since those are far away and you can certainly use the additional movement speed.

Does anyone else have problems using pike men?:help: One time I could have sworn I saw enemy cavalry move straight through dropped pikes like weren't even their.:inquisitive: Do I have to have the spear-wall ability activated for them to work?:book: Do pike men even work?:furious3: Will adding more smily people make them work better:dizzy2:

TheJace-
Pikemen need to be "braced" when the cavalry hits them. This means that they have to be standing completely still for like 10 seconds before they charged, and they'll do it automatically. Spear wall helps. If they are properly "braced" (put the mouse over them and it will give you the normal info-fatigue, morale, etc., as well as the "braced" notification) then a full charge of 60 chivalric knights against 112 decent pikes will result in massive casualties for the knights and only a few for you. If anything is behind the knights, though, your formation will be broken up a little bit. When they work, it's pretty awesome to watch massive numbers of knights just melt.

For everyone else discussing difficulty levels, I would recommend Lusted's Lands to Conquer. I recently decided to give it a shot and it has made things sooooo much more fun than ever before. For instance, alliances last! This makes the early Spanish game much more manageable, without making the late game too easy. I've always refused to play on anything except VH/VH, which as you all know, means that everyone attacks you viciously for no reason, which means constantly defend yourself or, usually, conquer the offending nations. And most of the time, I really don't want to get involved in central Germany (I like islands and coasts) or I want to roleplay being allies with the French. This is even more important for the Spanish, who start off with only two territories, on a small peninsula with two other factions and the French will be showing up soon. In my game, I allied Portugal (faction heir married their princess, my princess married one of their generals-important later) while I forced the Moors off the peninsula and blockaded the straits. I didn't want to blitzkrieg anyone and cheapen the game (although now I realize this is nearly impossible to do on LtC), so I sat around for a little bit and took Valencia and Zaragoza. Pretty soon, I had a general descended from the Portuguese general and a Spanish princess who married my heir's daughter (who was 50/50 as well), and that gave me enough roleplaying justification to attack Portugal (under the claim that my Spanish-Portuguese general was a legitimate heir to all Iberia).

This was the status quo for a little while, while I teched up and supported the French. They were under attack from dominant English and Danish forces, and I had a few marriage alliances with them, so I gave them some money, got military access, and kept an army up there to keep them from collapsing-they were reliable, and I didn't want one of the more powerful nations to establish a border with me. However, you can't just sit back and trust in alliances; after about 100 years of support, the French rallied under their 30 year old 10 star general (who had been 10 star since he was 19, when I married my princess to him...one of the greatest generals I've ever seen) and struck into northern Spain. I defeated his two full stacks in a single battle (one of the most fun battles I've ever had) and forced them to become vassals. Yep, you can do that with LtC too. Basically, it just makes diplomacy so much more reasonable. You can't push anyone around, but you can get alliances and reasonable ceasefires and the AI will honor them.

Also, LtC makes the late game very interesting. I've always stopped campaigns when I hit "critical mass," when no one else has a chance of stopping me. In this game, it looks like everyone has a lot of big armies, and they're all high-quality. The average army I've faced in LtC looks like this: 4 light cavalry, 4 heavy cavalry, 3 artillery, 4 missile, 5 good infantry (usually armoured sergeants). This is much more rewarding to beat than the typical 15 artillery, 2 town militia, 3 peasant crossbowmen. I'm basically facing off against armies similar to the ones I build, so battles actually come down to tactics instead of being decided before the battle actually starts.

I have one complaint with LtC-some of my family members don't show up on the tree. I married a French general into my family, but he never showed up on the tree and my princess disappeared. I think they had kids, but they didn't show up, I didn't get notifications, and the people they marry don't show up either. Every now and then I get a new general notification or I start getting marriage offers for a princess who isn't on my tree. This kind of sucks for me, because I use marriages mostly to increase the prestige of my bloodline, and then to get alliances, and lastly to snag a good general.

In any case, it's a minor flaw in amod that greatly increases my enjoyment with the game as a whole.

So what makes Tercio Pikemen so special as to be a top-end unit, let alone a cultural specialty?

They have no armor, and no shield. Only a 4 defense. These guys are just begging for archer fire to come and melt them. The only thing I see going for them is running them through an armor-factory for some defense, then they might have a little durability to them. Otherwise, you'd better have a lot of mass graves dug ahead of time.

Am I wrong? Where's their strength?

How many armor upgrades can they get?