MTW TIPS and Observations

Feel free to add

1. Never accept alliances or ceasefires, simply decline and send your agent on the next turn to offer the same alliance or ceasefire to gain valor. This is how I quickly get one of my religious agents to 4star+.


2. When at war don't accept peace until you sunk every ship of the enemy or two turn later you will probably be at war again.

3. When playing as a Muslim Faction it is possible to maintain peace. With the Turk GA I only had one crusade attempt and its almost 1300:juggle2: Usually by 1150 Crusades will happen all the time making my faction enemies with everyone.............. At the beginning or game (early) once your ships can reach the pope, declare war until his faction is gone. Tear down everything of course only leaving a port so you can withdraw you troops. (Repeat Often)

Also, Set agents(emissary )in Europe to watch for powerful faction. If A faction is getting to big, declare war and tear down every building after taking over each land one by one. One this is accomplished withdraw your ships and accept your auto cease fires from not sharing any borders. (This is the true meaning of total war)

TRAITS
1.At the end of each turn always watch for Generals that gain virtues. Take note and designate a providence to only hold units that have received random virtues. This way they're easier to find when looking for potential generals. Look out for morale boosting traits.

PRIDE- Stay away from this trait it usually turns to lazy.

SECRET PRIDE- One of the best traits in the game, its never exposed and mean +3 to valor. Makes the best Generals, I always turn Saracen Infantry with Secret pride into a 9 star general. This unit can take out Lancer, VG, JHI, anything you can throw at it and you can use the unit right in the middle of battles because of the unit size, attack and defense stats.

DOUBTFUL COURAGE- After years of many games I know for a fact its random. I have receive this traits with Generals fighting in the Wedge formation 1 on 1 against a rebel unit after the battle.

Spy and Valor Easiest way to valor up spies is by finding a land with a low loyal level. The Byzantine island are usually great. Spam about 20+ spy and send them all to the island or land with no border forts. Let them sit and after each rebellion, each spy will gain a star. After so many battles the rebel forces will eventually win. Once this happens send your new 20+ .. 3 or 4 star valor spies on the next island. Because of their levels a rebellion should be easy. Repeat Repeat Repeat..... remember don't try this if a Border Fort is present or you will lose your high valor spies.

CTRL S should be a habit after every turn. I do this automatically now because MTW has a way of randomly crashing.



I have many more tips but feel free to add.

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Originally Posted by demfl

I have many more tips but feel free to add.

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Please do so. These are very useful strategies, good work :bow:

Welcome to the Org, demfl! Great to have you here. :medievalcheers:



Some good tips as well. I'm uncertain about a couple of them, however:

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Originally Posted by demfl

SECRET PRIDE- One of the best traits in the game, its never exposed

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Are you sure about this one never being exposed? I've had numerous generals with this trait over the years, and it seems to me that it has been exposed from time to time. My memory may be in error, however.

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Originally Posted by demfl

CTRL S should be a habit after every turn. I do this automatically now because MTW has a way of randomly crashing.

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While this is a good idea in theory, the problem with it is that the quick-save (ctrl + s) feature is often prone to corruption and can cause CTD's. I generally prefer to just do a normal save-game every 5-10 years (depending on what's going on) -- it may be not quite as convenient, but it's much less a pain in the rear than dealing with a corrupted save file. :sweatdrop:

That, on the other hand, depends on MTW's stability on the user's system. My MTW, for example, tends to crash when I try to access the Game Menu in order to do a proper save. I therefore developed the habit to CTRL+S everytime before I try to make a save game.

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Originally Posted by Martok

Welcome to the Org, demfl! Great to have you here. :medievalcheers:



Some good tips as well. I'm uncertain about a couple of them, however:

Are you sure about this one never being exposed? I've had numerous generals with this trait over the years, and it seems to me that it has been exposed from time to time. My memory may be in error, however.

While this is a good idea in theory, the problem with it is that the quick-save (ctrl + s) feature is often prone to corruption and can cause CTD's. I generally prefer to just do a normal save-game every 5-10 years (depending on what's going on) -- it may be not quite as convenient, but it's much less a pain in the rear than dealing with a corrupted save file. :sweatdrop:

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Secret Pride is never exposed since the AI doesn't send spies on your generals. In all my games since MTW first came out, I never had Secret Pride exposed. With Ctrl + S I have only experienced a corrupted file once. Its rare from my experience and seem less risky than waiting 10 turns to save, alot can happen in those turns. I even Ctrl + S before each battle because with MTW, CTD's are truly random.

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Originally Posted by demfl

Secret Pride is never exposed since the AI doesn't send spies on your generals. In all my games since MTW first came out, I never had Secret Pride exposed.

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I've actually seen it exposed on numerous occasions... You're right that AI spies don't expose vices in MTW, but they do still get exposed randomly. Thus Secret Perv' get's exposed to Perv' and Secret Adultery is exposed to Adultery - it's just a matter of time. What version are you running?

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Originally Posted by demfl

With Ctrl + S I have only experienced a corrupted file once. Its rare from my experience and seem less risky than waiting 10 turns to save, alot can happen in those turns. I even Ctrl + S before each battle because with MTW, CTD's are truly random.

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The quicksave (CTRL+S) does cause save game corruption - usually at the worse possible moment. I remember playing a large campaign once relying on the quicksave and it let me down badly. I think my previous real save was about 100 turns prior... so it was game over. The worst quicksave is the pre-battle save. I've seen a lot of random corruption from that in the past.

A good policy is to quicksave first and then head to the main menu and make a real save. If the game does CTD when you try to go to the menu then the quicksave will be the short term backup.

I build up my best general with secret pride and not one has ever been exposed. I have never seen secret pride exposed unless I dropped one of my spies on another factions general. I'm playing Viking Invasion 2.01 patch. My battle quick saves don't become corrupted so i believe its trial and error depending on the system I guess; but I do quick saves after every turn.

Welcome to the org and the main hall demfl, ejoy your stay. Some useful tips you have there.

Secret pride gets exposed routinely in my games - which difficulty level you are playing by the way? The quicksave also frequently gets corrupted. Its best to save every 30 turns or so formaly, while using the quicksave for the in between, although 2.01 is remarkably stable in the system i useto play MTW.

:bow:

I have a tip for something I used to do in game. I used to place an assasin in a busy port provice. Everytime an enemy agent or assasin would enter that busy port province (became more frequent as he valored-up) he would catch the agent and gain experience. Got one guy up to 5 stars once, rather quickly if memory serves, just sitting him there. Sorry if this has already been touched upon.

This is actually a great tactic Nerd, and it can be used for spies too. It pays off not to build the border forts in selected busy port provinces and use them to train your agents in this way.

Definately. It's useful in STW too!

Here is a few tips:

Unless you are really short on money don't disband Royal Units. Save them to replenish your generals units when you can't no longer re-train them.

Religious agents seem less likely to be killed then Emissaries so put one in each province to have eyes everywhere.

Remember to scout rebel forces after civil wars for good generals at a cheap price.

Even if you kill the Golden Hoard Khan and they go rebel they may still attack you.

-Use Crusades in a high catholic zeal era to drain your future enemies' power. If you are, say, English, and French have amassed troops on your border, send a crusade through and it will take many of their troops.
-Joining your Faction Leader into a crusade zeroes his influence!
-I believe that spies can lower loyalty just to a limit. I had 6 spies (all 3 star) in a province, and somewhere around 12 cath bishops (it was an Almohad province). The loyalty never went below 95% on very low taxatation.
-A good strategy is to ask for hand of a foreign princess and then slaughter her entire male family with grand inquisitors, I've done it numerous times. But make sure you move your inquisitors, because inquisition, when started, halves the catholic zeal. Also make sure that you kill heirs first, and faction leader last.
-Once your faction leader becomes a good steward, don't upgrade farms until he's succeeded. Also, don't try to promote faction leader with steward/builder traits if he's too old.

-Trade with as many nations as possible
-Never use your king in battles unless he has high command
-Constantly build and upgrade your cities. After you've built military buildings make an armorer, church, tavern, border forts, monastery, farm upgrades, etc. Eventually, you will even get +10% happiness in all your provinces.
-Keep loyalty above 100% at all times or risk rebellion
-Bribing rebels in the beginning of the game, (i.e. wales rebels) can be very beneficial: You can acquire good units (i.e. welsh longbowmen) early on, acquire rebel territories before others can, and not to mention it saves the lives of your soldiers. :medievalcheers:

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Originally Posted by nzd07

-Never use your king in battles unless he has high command

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I'm going to disagree with this. As long as your King does not have any negative vices I think he should be used. It seems that a Kings that leading an army tends to produce better heirs.

Actually i think that the threshold for rebellion is 120% loyalty in MTW. Bribing enemy stacks in the early game, saves you forces and gives you formiddable units, true, it kills however your cash flow. It all depends what your strategic goals of the early game are. If they associate with quick and drammatic expansion, i say bribing rebel armies is not worth it.

:bow:

100% loyalty to prevent rebellion: 120% to prevent reemergence. A spy in each province does the trick nicely.

It's actually as follows:

100% loyalty to prevent peasant/religious* revolts.

120% loyalty to prevent loyalist revolts (also trigger for faction reappearance)

I can't remember about bandits offhand. I think 100% loyalty, a castle and/or 100 man garrison is required.

*Religious percentage is not a factor - a province can be 100% catholic and the occupying faction orthodox, so long as this can be countered with garrison size and spies/happiness buildings and the loyalty kept >= 120% no revolts/uprisings should occur.

On using your King on attacks, once your empire begins to grow, it is probably a bad thing to use him, as the attack will isolate him from your other provinces, leading to a temporary drop in provincial loyalty. Use heirs instead, to groom them for their future role. And whatever you do, don't use the King to attack an island... :no:

100% loyalty will prevent revolts inside a province. If there is a faction reemergence in nearby provinces, you need to have the loyalty up to 120% to avoid being sucked into it.

Spies will increase provincial loyalty by 40% + 20% per star. Only the highest valoured spy counts, so having multiple spies in a province is a bit of a waste.

There are however cases where bribing is very much desirable, like say especially in high and late eras starting positions. In those occasions there are well developed rebel provinces that are worth a bribe. Remember that this needs be done after you put them under siege (invade and win) and then try to bribe the garrisson with an emmissary, in which case the whole of the province and its infrastructure falls in your hands without the customary pillaging that happens after the castle falls.

The Russians in high and the Byzs in high and late have ample such occasions for bribing. Such occasions can also naturally present themselves in the normal course of a campaign.

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Originally Posted by drone

Spies will increase provincial loyalty by 40% + 20% per star. Only the highest valoured spy counts, so having multiple spies in a province is a bit of a waste.

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The only benefit to multiple spies per province is when attempting to instigate revolts abroad. The highest valour spy is again the only spy that counts, but if he pulls it off and gains valour, so do all of his fellow spies. This is a cheap and nasty way of valouring up your spies quickly.

Not sure about counterspying. It may be that the highest valour spy always acts as the counterspy, rendering the others useless, or it may be that all counterspies in a province act in turn. If the latter case is true then multiple counterspies in a friendly province may be worthwhile.

:bow:

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Originally Posted by Asai Nagamasa

The only benefit to multiple spies per province is when attempting to instigate revolts abroad. The highest valour spy is again the only spy that counts, but if he pulls it off and gains valour, so do all of his fellow spies. This is a cheap and nasty way of valouring up your spies quickly.

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I did not know that, that's evil! :evil:

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Originally Posted by Asai Nagamasa

Not sure about counterspying. It may be that the highest valour spy always acts as the counterspy, rendering the others useless, or it may be that all counterspies in a province act in turn. If the latter case is true then multiple counterspies in a friendly province may be worthwhile.

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I don't know for sure, but judging from what Border Forts do in counterspying, I doubt credit would be spread amongst the spies.

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Originally Posted by drone

I don't know for sure, but judging from what Border Forts do in counterspying, I doubt credit would be spread amongst the spies.

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No indeed, every spy would not gain valour. In fact it seems to be always the highest valour spy that catches rival agents (assuming border forts are not present). But my point is, that supposing you have 4 spies in a province, 3 with 0 valour and one at 2 valour. If the 2 valour spy attempts to counterspy against a rival agent/spy and fails, then do the other three 0 valour spies have a go as well? Supposing they do, they're also likely to fail anyway due to being lower valour, but the point is: do they even get to try?

Personally I'm leaning towards the theory of highest valour spy or assassin in the province acting as the nominated counterspy, but it's not easily tested - even in debug mode.

:bow:

This happens with ship/fleet battles (as many know). However stacking ships do give them strength i find, if and only if, there is a single starred captain and all the others are of captainship 0. Then the stacking really works it seems to me. Otherwise a stack of multiple captains operates as a collection of individual ships ie the highest captain fights it one on one out with the enemy then the next, then the next etc.

:bow:

PS This thread starts feeling like the separated (and ocasionally crossed) monologues of old men who know much more about a certain something that is good for them...:laugh4:

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Originally Posted by gollum

This thread starts feeling like the separated (and ocasionally crossed) monologues of old men who know much more about a certain something that is good for them...:laugh4:

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Keep it up, at least I learned things from your senile ramblings :wink:

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Originally Posted by gollum

PS This thread starts feeling like the separated (and ocasionally crossed) monologues of old men who know much more about a certain something that is good for them...:laugh4:

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Get off my lawn!

Get off my cloud!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq3YdpB6N9M

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Originally Posted by Asai Nagamasa

No indeed, every spy would not gain valour. In fact it seems to be always the highest valour spy that catches rival agents (assuming border forts are not present). But my point is, that supposing you have 4 spies in a province, 3 with 0 valour and one at 2 valour. If the 2 valour spy attempts to counterspy against a rival agent/spy and fails, then do the other three 0 valour spies have a go as well? Supposing they do, they're also likely to fail anyway due to being lower valour, but the point is: do they even get to try?

Personally I'm leaning towards the theory of highest valour spy or assassin in the province acting as the nominated counterspy, but it's not easily tested - even in debug mode.

:bow:

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Fascinating stuff. But it is rather easily tested, no? Only extremely tedious! I'd say you need about 15-20 instances of a valor 1 missing with a valor 0 back-up. If there's been no occurence of a "0-valor-sweep" by then, surely it's settled - no sloppy seconds.

As I mentioned before if you have 50 zero valor spies in a place during rebellion all will gain one star, this is the most efficient way to gain many stars with lots of spies at once.

Muslims and Loyalty
Unlike Catholic factions you can't simply married a general to increase loyalty. Lots of time many players will assign that 4 acumen general who loyalty will be very low especially at the beginning a title. The problem is when a new king is assigned his 5 loyalty will drop even low which could caused a Civil war.

Some times you have to sacrifice acumen and assign that 3 acumen general the title who's loyalty is max. That way when a new king is assigned even with a drop in loyalty his loyalty bar will be so high that it won't be anything to worry about.

Use these generals to command all the troops in every providence and a civil war is never a problem.


When on Defense vs. many Turks HA, Spanish Jinetes, and especially the Golden Horde in Kazar
set every unit in the forest. Does wonders for not taking any missille damage forcing them to evenually moved into the forest for quick ambushes.

Best tip of all.....

Never rush. Take your time, in battle, on the map, everywhere. It only take one mistake to.....well we all know!

stay with the machine in battle. more than a few times i've set up movement commands with a force that will work fine under player control and then stepped away to take care of something while the army moves. i forget whats going on and come back a half hour later to see the remnants of my now AI controlled men scurrying away.

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Originally Posted by demfl

set every unit in the forest. Does wonders for not taking any missille damage

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Indeed. But I noticed something else. An unit of GH warriors was firing at me concealed in a forest whilst I was slaughtering other routed warriors with my cavalry. I do not whether the reason was that the enemy was hidden in a forest i.e. hampering the arrows or the fact he was firing at fast moving cavalry. Or both. Anyway, the forest hampers your own arrows as well, I believe.