England is playable right from the start, without the need to unlock it or edit any files.
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England is playable right from the start, without the need to unlock it or edit any files.
Faction Infomation
Name: England.
The English have three provinces in the game, London, york and Caen. There starting map looks like this:
https://img381.imageshack.us/img381/...englandzy1.gif
What to watch out for
As you have Caen which is in modernday france you will need to watch out for them as they will expand and go to war with you. In my Current game as the English the Milanese are also attacking me so keep a eye out for those. This may seem a little unbelieveable but what out for the scottish too, You may think that there no match for your might but there no push over. Try and get trade rights with as many factions as possible and do all the missions you are given because you get money and units to fight for you.
Making Money
In this game it's alot easier to make money so just build the buildings that will make you money for instance roads, ports, markets and so on, Not forgettting to build barracks and churches aswell.
Castle or town?
There's two different types of settlement you can have in the game. One is a town and the other is a castle. They both have their uses. For instance if you want to make money out of the people inside your town then use a town but if you need to fkeep that region then use a castle as it can be upgraded to a Citadel which will have 3 levels that the enemy has to tackle. Thats what I think anyways.
Good luck on your Campaigns. :2thumbsup:
A tip if playing England is to send a diplomat to marry youre faction heir to a french princess to gain an alliance with france. Control whole Britain wipe out rebels and Scotland and you got a nice platform to lauch attacks were ever you want to. And get longbow men early as possible they will win you most battles for you.
The three settlements that England possesses at the start are actually London, Nottingham and Caen.
London is a town, while Caen and Nottingham are Castles.
The rebel held settlements in the British isles are:
York (Town)
Caernarvon (Castle)
Dublin (Town)
York can be captured quickly as it has no wall defences and only a few units of light infantry, and Dublin is similar except it has slightly more and better troops. Caernarvon is a Wooden castle that requires the walls to be breached by catapult, or assailed using ladders. The catapult is the best option as the Welsh have longbows who can decimate your assault siege equipment before it reaches the walls, while the catapult can fire from a safe distance.
I made a mistake it's not york you start with it's nottingham.
https://img166.imageshack.us/img166/...2747gz8.th.jpg
Some pointers from my first VH/VH campaign (on turn 60 so far):
Building strategy
Nottingham and Caen are castles; London is a city. Given the relatively tight early economy, I would be inclined to use extra settlements as cities rather than castles. You can't afford to build more castle troops than you can already get and it costs a lot of money to upgrade your castles to get the better troops that will give you an edge (armoured swords, longbows etc). I let all of the UK, except Nottingham, be towns in order to make money. So far, I am leaving continental settlements be whatever they are - they are a nice mix of cities and castles; and frontline castles are no bad thing.
My build priorities would be gradually upteching Nottingham and other castles to progressively get the best sword and longbow units available. I find missiles to be my war-winning arm against the AI. Swords are necessary because English spears and bills are inferior to the dismounted Feudal Knights and Huscarls that the Danes and others may throw at you. They are also crucial for sieges (as both defenders and attackers).
Aside from that, I would try to build up profitable economic buildings in my towns, using the building browser to see the incremental income (markets often have no effect, so I have delayed them).
I've constructed religious buildings in an effort to deterr the Inquisition but to no great effect. I try to make sure there is a general in a settlement when a religious building is finished, in the hope of getting a rise in piety.
Developing better ships and a decent navy becomes essential: the AI builds fairly large fleets and does blockade your ports.
Early strategy
Preferring to "turtle" for personal - not gameplay - reasons, I would target rebel settlements first, only fighting AI factions who attacked me first.
Taking rebel York probably should be your first move in Britain; Wales second.
On the continent, taking Rennes then Bruges would make sense.
Be aware that both Wales and Bruges have decent garrisons - longbows and Flemish pikemen - so don't expect an easy fight.
The Scots should be passive early on - they have only one province and seem awed by your might. For efficiency, it might be best to conquer them before they have a chance to build. However, personally, I think it is more fun to give them a headstart and I only turned north when they declared war on me.
You should be able to take Rennes just before the French can get it, but will soon got involved in a war with France. The French are not particularly challenging, but I fought a largely defensive war, only slowly taking the city east of Paris (on a mission) and then the capital itself. The Pope slows down your conquests - I just accept his missions and pace myself accordingly.
After taking rebel Bruges, you are likely to encounter a strong Danish presence at Antwerp - in my game, they had eliminated the HRE - and they soon turned on me, leading to a second war. Scotland joined in shortly after.
Once war begins, the first target should be to eliminate the Scots so there is no two front war and you can empty the British Isles of significant troops. The French, being the next closest are the second priority (heading off against Denmark, Spain or elsewhere just overstretches your front). Respecting the Pope's demands to cease fighting will slow down these conquests a lot and probably destroying your standing with the Papacy. One thing I learned was that maintaining a siege can also violate a cease and desist order from the Pope, leading to excommunication.
All bordering factions appear to attack you sooner or later - Milan, Spain and Sicily have all piled in, in my first game - but do not appear an overwhelming threat. As of turn 90, I am now fighting on five fronts: Denmark, Germany (against Milan), France, Italy (against Sicily) and Spain. After wiping out France, I am planning to push down into Italy. Hopefully a southern border with the Papacy will be secure - he will not attack.
From there, I will probably take out Spain and Denmark, as defeating these - like defeating Scotland - will reduce, not expand my front. I may then turn towards the Holy Land to take Jerusalem and pick up the last of the 45 target provinces.
Unit Stats
F= free militia unit
AP = armour piercing
2 HP = two hit points
PC = powerful charge (not sure if that just refers to the 8 charge stat)
Prequisites: C1 = level 1 castle; T5 = level 5 town etc.
Observations:
1. The key unit to work towards is the armoured swordsmen. (Dismounted feudal knights are available a little earlier and essentially the same unit, but with too high an upkeep.) Swords are essential to compete with the heavy infantry of other factions, particularly in siege situations. Upgrading other unit types is less essential: you have no upgraded spears, while the effectiveness of missiles and cavalry arguably relies more on finesse than on unit stats.
2. As stated, the English have only the most basic spears so receiving a cavalry charge is a problem for them. [Rant: this does seem bizarre, as the one thing the Medieval English army excelled at holding off an enemy charge while dismounted.] The stakes of longbowmen could be used to shelter behind in purely defensive battles. However, the AI is reluctant to approach them even with infantry so they are more for channelling attacks than repelling them. It is not clear whether armoured swords can receive a charge better than the basic spearmen - relying on their greater defence to compensate for the lack of spears. If they do, it may be worth dispensing with spears altogether. My experience is that neither does very well and it is more like mutual assured destruction for both the infantry and charging knights. Mercenary spearmen are essentially the same unit as the armoured sergeants available in MP but not SP. They are available in numbers on the continent and are worth considering to take cavalry charges.
3. The polearm units - billmen - have a relatively high AP attack but low defence and no anti-cavalry properties. They are unsuited to take a charge, particularly from cavalry, but are good as flankers even against well armoured enemies. The same comment applies to the polearmed dismounted English knights, although clearly they are far superior to billmen in absolute terms.
4. The English lack any fast cavalry so there is little reason to take hobilars or merchant cavalry. The differences between the core knights are rather marginal - largely incremental upgrades to armour - so there is great need to rush to uptech. In a pinch, your general's bodyguard, with their 2 hit points, can serve as the tip of your spear, if you really need an edge over enemy knights. However, as the upkeep of the core knights is the same, you should uptech when you can. English knights have lower attack than continental Chivalric knights, making the crusading and chapter knights particularly valuable (+3 attack, -2 charge compared to English knights), but they do have a higher upkeep. Demi-lancers do not seem worth bothering with: compared to English knights they trade defence for attack (+3 attack, -4 defence).
5. Archers have a fairly long upgrade tree and it is worth pursuing. However, the gains are rather incremental and plain longbowmen should perform well enough. Only retinue longbowmen should be thrown into a protracted melee - lesser archers will lose too much for it to be worthwhile. Mercenary crossbowmen are worth considering as their ammo lasts longer. But since this is presumably offset by a lower rate of fire, the benefits of this are probably largely psychological.
Battle tactics
My preferred army would be:
1 or 2 generals
2+ mounted knights
3 of the best missiles available + 2 others (e.g. merc crossbowmen for their longlasting ammo)
3-5 spears
3+ dismounted Feudal knights or preferably armoured swordsmen
2+ billmen
I find myself relying on missiles to win field battles. The choice of first target is important.
Often, I would aim for "missile supremacy" - targeting enemy missiles first to avoid return casualties and going to loose formation if enemy missiles are significant. The passive AI bug reinforces this tactic. However, it is slow and enemy missiles in themselves are not the major threats (they don't kill much and they are easy to kill by other means - e.g. your cav).
Whether to target heavy infantry or heavy cavalry depends on your relative strengths. If the enemy has a lot of heavy cavalry (often the French), it may be smart to thin them out first given how poor the English at receiving a cavalry charge. But if they have a lot of heavy infantry (the Danes), these may be the more important target - especially if you are short of swords. Armoured opponents seem more vulnerable to missiles than you might expect but it takes time. A rather passive AI often gives you that time.
The spears and swords would shield my missiles - swords to engage infantry, spears to engage cavalry.
Billmen serve as anti-infantry in the absence of swords. They are also excellent flankers due to their AP weapons and respectable attack. But they have a low defence and cannot take a cavalry charge.
The knights would go for the flanks once the enemy was committed - often driving off any remaining missiles in the enemy's rear first and/or charging already committed enemy knights. Rear charges into a committed enemy line are lethal, while pursuing routing enemy is particularly important in M2TW as they rally faster and more often than in RTW. (Writing this paragraph make me see the virtue in going cavalry-heavy). Just be careful not to let your cavalry get bogged down and then charged by enemy spears or cav. For this reason, I tend to commit them later in the battle - when the main enemy combat units are tied down.
Crusades
Successive Popes hated me - perhaps because of my conquests of Scottish, French and Danish settlements. However, even on VH, they can be easily brought round by a large tribute of florins. I offered 1000 for ten years, they asked for 3000+ for two. After that, I was always in their good books.
A very useful strategy is to declare a crusade on an excommunicated enemy. This gives you access to some crusading units, which are very useful for the English: armoured spearmen and knights that equal continental ones. Moreover, it makes an entire stack free of upkeep. Be aware that the target must be the enemy capital. However, this means that the crusade is likely to be particularly devastating to the enemy. Press the space bar before moving the crusade, so your stack moves slowly. This gives you time to change course to move around roadblocks and so avoid desertion due to making slow progress. There is a cooling off period between calling crusades.
When crusading to Holy Land you have a choice of going by land or by sea. Sea is potentially much faster, however, I suffered mass desertion twice - once going west along northern Spain (perhaps because technically, that was sailing away from the Holy Land); and once when a Moorish boat was blocking the Gibralter straits (thankfully, it moved on). Unfortunately, the Poles took the crusade target just as I was in sight of the Holy Land. A risk of going by sea is that your crusade is destroyed by pirates or enemy fleets (the French fleet in the Med was extremely strong in my game). When I then tried to sail home, but in the Med was targeted by many French ships which seemed to cheat in their ability to find me. My four boats were not enough and I only just landed the remnants of my army at Rhodes[1] before the fleet was anhilated.
Going by land is possible if you press the space bar and take time to avoid your crusade being slowed down by unseen cities and armies on the way. (Tincow reported crusading this way without losing a man.)
A compromise might be marching to the med by foot and then going by boat. You can hire mercenary boats on the coast, but these may not be enough to fend off pirates and enemies. South of France, north Italy or the area formerly known as Yugoslavia might be suitable staging points for this strategy.
[1]It may be smart to set up a base closer to the Holy Land, in order to facilitate future crusades. Crete and Cyprus are possibilities, but taking them will usually entangle you in a war far away. Rebel held Rhodes is a much easier target.
... to be continued...
Starting Guide to England:
Dificulty: medium/medium
Your have 3 starting Regions, 2 on the British Islands and 1 on the continent.
Caen: Castle
London: City
Nottingham: Castle
Your neighbours, apart from rebels, are Scotland to the north, France to the south and Denmark or HRE to the northeast.
1. Rebels:
Your first goal is to capture as many rebel targets as you can. These should be in Great Britain 1. York (city), then 2. Carnaevon (castle) and then 3. Dublin (city), thereby leaving only Edinburgh (city) and Inverness (castle) to the Scots.
On the continent you should go for Rennes, Antwerp and Brugges (all cities).
To achive this you obviously have to form 2 armies, one based in Nottingham and one based in Caen.
With these rebel settlements captured you have 9 Regions and Borders with Scotland, France and either HRE or Denmark, but in my campaign it was Denmark that captured Hamburg.
Meanwhile some 20 to 30 turns, depending on your speed and success should have passed. Of course you did all the fancy thing like sending out Diplomats and gather trade rights, alliance, changed map infos and explored the world.
I played a religion-heavy approach and build 1 priest per region and religious buildings asap, thereby being high in the popes favor. That should come in handy in the next stage, as we will see.
2. Scotland:
If you wait too long, Scotland and France might repeat history and form an alliance. They did so in my campaign and attacked me simultaneously while I was in the end of Phase 1. My GB army was on its way back to Nottingham to upgrade and my continental army was siegeing Antwerp.
I was able to fend of the French attack and destroy the full-stack Scottish field army. From other posts I got the impression, that the AI always builds exactly 1 strong Scottish army, so once that is defeated, you have some breathing room. Using that, I first took Edinburgh and then Inverness.
Inbetween the pope asked me to cease hostility with the Scots, but I didn’t listen to him and pressed on. Fortunately, the mission I failed was just about loosing standing (the weak version) and not threatening excommunication (the hard one). So the Scots died and I was master of the whole British Islands. The war with France grinded down and I finally was able to make peace with them.
So now you should be in control of all of GB and the channel coast of France and Netherlands. 11 Regions with 4 castles and 7 cities. If you feel like you can convert Inverness and Carnaevon to cities to get more cash. I didn’t do it, but I found them, especially Inverness, to far removed from the battle hotspots. I coulnt bring myself to build troops there and move them down, so you might want to make at least Inverness to a city.
3. The Holy Land:
After some quite turns the pope finally called the first crusade. My advice (to any catholic faction) Take part and win it! Apart from the game fun and satisfaction you get a very nice foothold in the Holy Land and there you can wage wars as much as you want without interference from the pope.
As England getting there might be abit hard, as you certainly have to walk and desertion is a big problem with all the obstacles like mountains, rivers, blocked bridges etc. in the way. I ended up at the gates of Antioch with an all-merc-army, mainly turks. But the city fell and I got nice rewards from the pope.
4. Expansion in Europe and the Holy Land:
a. Holy Land:
Depending on wether it is a city or castle you capture, you should take 1 or 2 more settlements (I took the castle of Aleppo) and then make peace with the Muslims if you can, to rest and secure your base. Spam priests to convert the population rather quickly. This has the nice side effect, that you have will have a lot of candidates for the college of cardinals and you will need it because of b. A nice side effect is, that all these muslim cities are around you and the target of the next crusade is surely close to you. If your timing is right, you can even call crusades on specific targets, shed some Catholics blood and before you get too low to be excommunicated, finish the crusade and be the pops best boy again…..splendid. :)
b. Europe:
You cant expand any further in Europe without fighting fellow Catholics and this is something what the pope doesn’t like at all (even if he is your creature). Your next enemies are probably France and Denmark and as both were high in the popes Favour, I constantly had to watch my standing or delay offensives to not anger the pope too much.
Against France you have one special strategic advantage at this stage: Angers, Paris and Reims all lie close to your regions borders, all with 1 turns march. So what I advice you to do is to load up all 3 with spies and make a blitz attack on the French, capturing all 3 within 2 turns. This way you might even be faster then a papal Mission to stop hostility. Afterwards the French are severely crippled.
Once France and Denmark are conquered the game is pretty much over. You should now have like 30 provinces in Europe, some holdings in the Holy Land, a cardinal college in you Favour (I had 13 of 13 :)) and can conquer the rest at your leisure.
5. Army:
I tried to stay close to history in my army composition, so my armies mostly contained archers, infantry and just some mounted units.
My ideal composition was:
- 8 archers (longbowmen, yeoman archers, companion archers)
- 8 infantry (dismounted knights, dismounted feudal knights, swordsmen)
- 3 cavalry (mailed knights, feudal knights, English knights)
- 1 general
I have worked the last couple of evenings on getting my start right with England.
I am now @ turn 60-odd and at war with NO-ONE. I am the most advanced and richest nation and I have one of the smallest armies, but I don't need them (yet!).
Here is what I did:
1) Build, build, build up all towns in Great Britain with money-making things and things that encourage growth. Any towns without generals set them to "Growth Build Policy".
2) I DID NOT attack the rebel towns to the east and west of Caen - Caen is the only territory I have on the mainland. In order to get your Council to not give you a mission to take the rebel towns, move an army near them - it does not seem to give you missions to take towns you have generals near.
My line of thinking here is that I want to make my territory easy to defend, and Britain, being an island, is just that.
3) Take all of the British Isles ASAP. I took York, then Caernarvon, then Inverness (was a rebel town, dunno if it is normally scottish), then dublin. I then attacked Scotland in their only remaining town of Edinburgh. (This was @ about turn 20-25). The pope told me to stop. I told the pope to shove it where the sun don't shine - he got over it! (Well he died, so standing got reset, but I was excommunicated at one point but who cares?)
4) Build as few troops as possible. Save your money. Personally I built nothing, but some stuff got built in settlements where I didn't have a general but you can take GB with just the troops you start with if you are sly. Asassins help here. As Scotland is a small nation, it is quite easy to assasinate your way through their family tree!
5) Expand trading as much as possible. I found some really nice amber mines up in the southern tip of sweden, that bit of land at the very top of the map to the east of the UK. The UK has lots of coastline and so open up those trade routes ASAP.
6) Build up your navy ASAP. Leave a bunch of ships in the English Channel (The thin bit of sea between London and the French coast) - these make a "bridge" of sorts that your troops can use to cross easily. You need a bit of a navy to protect your ports and the income they produce.
7) I ignored the call to the crusades, but that is only really because I wanted to play it that way.
8) Do not worry about the french going to war with you. Just make sure you have enough troops in Caen to hold out. They attacked me once or twice but with piddly armies as they had to defend too many cities on the mainland. I NEVER get attacked in the UK so I can afford to put 99% of my troops in Caen. Eventually, as I became the most advanced / richest nation in the world, they came begging for a ceasefire, which I charged them greatly for ;)
As I said, I have gotten to turn 65ish (In two or three evening's play - but I restarted quite a lot until I got the tactic down that I wanted to use), and I have built next to no army producing buildings or armies. However, all of the towns in the UK are mine and are at or nearly at full settlement size with plenty of income. I have no-one attacking me, I can play the game in turn based mode (ie on the world map) almost exclusively without having to resolve battles. That way I am spending all my time and money on ramping up production until I get to a point where I am maxed out and churning out the hardest troops like they were going out of fashion - then, watch out world!
QUESTIONS:
Do you NEED the catholic church? Can I not form the "Church of England" and convert to that? I figure you need a religion else there will be heresy / unrest etc, but I don't want to be the pope's lap dog.
At what point to gunpowder weapons come on the scene? Are my fully ranked up Retinue Archers (Best archers in the game) going to be worthless soon?
Is there a way to upgrade troops from one kind to another or is disbanding the only option? You don't appear to get any money or population from disbanding, so is there any way to get anything back when getting rid of unwanted units?
All in all, love the game to bits.
played MTW2 for the first time so my tactics probably need fixing a bit.
English M/M
I focused London on a Trade Growth build. Building merchants, farms and merchant structures.
The rest I raised armies and army building structures asap lots of cavalry and archers.
Made trade treaties with the french and scottish and took York and then wales( caonarvon sp?):
Wow
I am amazed out how hard sieges have now become. Managed to take Wales by running one spear through the now unconquerable towers round the back to open the back door.
Then I rushed my cavalry units round the back and took the place over. A messy fight in which lots of spear units where seriously depleted. Due to being stuck on the walls with the tough welsh.
Then onto ireland via the ships I sent round to the welsh coast an easier fight in which I used the street in the town that is a small hill running diagonally accross one corner of the settlement upon this I stuck my archers. At either ends of the street I kept my cav ready to strike the entrance from all angles.
The gallowglasses kept coming for the archers but got pwned by the cav encircling charges for the win.. After finishing off the gallowglasses I then wiped out the 2 archer units which sat in the centre.
Onto scotland I sent most of my armies bar the Caen one (that has done little since the start of the game). I managed to take the scottish in the field outside edingburugh. Using superior cav I managed to kill off both stacks to a man. 6 cavalry units ftw!
The hardest part was aberdeen, this was a stone castle fortified with highlanders and cavalry. I had 2 ballistas which destroyed the gate and proceeded to carefully snipe the highlanders inside.
Its worth mentioning ballista rock in this game, they can a fair number of enemies in one shot and tend to be incredibly accurate.
After this I rushed my infantry into the remnants and drove my cavalry in hard once they'd cleared the gate.
And thats it. I think I could of done more focused builds. The mailed knights unit rocks, I use a mix of nobles and mailed knights for hard strikes and I use hobiliars for routing units which I used to great effect in the edingburough battle. The peasant archers are pretty sucky as are the basic spear units. They tend to hold a line so my cav can ram the enemy from behind.
All that said the new build model means we can recruit large numbers of replacement spears and bows when needed. I tend to use the spears as expendable. In RTW and earlier games expandability wasn't an issue because we could only make one per turn in each settlement.
Now great britain is secure I guess I'll have to carefully consider my next moves.
Archers in MTW2 are much stronger than RTW or its prequel.
I have done tests on custom battle that retinue longbowmen are able to beat heavy infantry,and even heavy knights w/o using stakes.
Archers in this game simply kills 50%+ before the enemy reaches the line and when they reach the bowmen, high attack and defence stats are able to allow them to beat the heaviest cavalry and infantry.
I find that the English's best option against cavalry are to use archers and stakes.Quote:
Originally Posted by hotingzilla
It's best to try to have the archers focus on the enemy cavalry and "soften" it up before the lines meet.
My Tactics seem to have differed from everyone else so far -
First steps - I moved all the troops in mainland france to england and then sold caen to the French for 1000 a turn for 10 turns and an alliance
using the Troops that were in england to begin with i take York - using the troops fresh from caen i take Wales (i cant remmber the name of the province) - with the cash coming in from france im turning a tidy profit and iuse this to upgrade London into a trade centre and build Nottingham into a longbow producing castle and mass produce some longbows
using the new longbow equiped forces i split the caen and york armies into one army with the new longbows and march on scotland and take both scotish provinces and then ireland. I spend a few turns building up the new areas and bring nottingham up to the level needed for armoured swordsmen.
using the new armoured swordsmen i take both the Rebel flemish cities and then push south into the excominicated Germans taking one city and then recieving a second in a peace treaty (Ceasfire and trade rights for the city - the germans accpeted) At this point the pope called a crusade against the millanese who had taken a french city in the south - i joined but the papancy beat me too it so i used my failed crusaders to take another milanese city - which was promptly seiged - i destroyed the milanese army and then recieved a ceasefire offer the next turn - i asked for another milanese city in return and was suprised when they agreed - at this point the pope reconciled them and excomunicated germany (again) so my next move was to seize 3 german provinces (2 cities 1 castle) and thats the point im up to
Well, my smartest move playing as England was securiting an early alliance with the Pope... This made my Pope-o-meter jump up to the maximum. As a result, when the French declared war on me, they got excommunicated in two turns... The Pople even sanctioned a crusade to Bordeaux, which I managed to completed in three turns... And once, the Scotts became aggressive, the Pope did not seem to bother too much about me wiping them out (my standing with the Pope got a little beating though: the Pope didn't excommunicate them after their first attack...).
Question for those of you playing the English campaign:
What is the best way to fight France without angering the Pope? My campaign so far has been concentrated on Rebel towns/castles in the british isles and then Bruges, Rennes, and Antwerp, as well as the Scottish. But, strategically, I'm eyeing the French properties of late.
Do I just trying to fight as much as I can, but obey his orders when he asks me to back off? Doesn't just attacking the French lower my relations with the Pope?
Ideally, I'd like to fight my way down to the mediteranian before beginning a crusade...
Not much you can do about it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Flavius Gonzo
If France loses lots of favour with the Pope and you got tons of favour with him then maybe. I did it with Scotland the moment they started losing points.
Problem in my campaign is that the French are so keen in keeping me as an ally. I don't know why but there are times when our alliance breaks (But it's not due to blockades or seiges, it's something else, probably spies or assassins). Right afterwards they try to get into an alliance with me again.
The second problem is that the pope loves the French but he loves me as well so there's zero chances of us going to war with each other. :sweatdrop:
In regards with Crusades, you shouldn't worry too much about it. Crusaders cannot fight other catholic units and they keep movement bonuses so you can get down to the target in no time. Turn 25 a crusade was called and I simply went through France, the balkans, the Byzantiums, and into egypt. No problem there.
Reasserting control of the English isles is critical to their success and you have to be careful on how you manage the pope, best is to build abbeys and cathedrals (I got several already). Nevertheless, you should have only 1 fortress on the island and the rest as cities as one fortress is more than enough.
The mailed knights which the council kept giving me I found to be very useful in my early battles so I think heavy emphasis should be placed on heavy cavalry until you tier up to longbowmen etc. I've taken control of northern france (It was all rebels and I'm stuck there, the french have very powerful armies along the borders as do the germans and now the Danish are attacking me).
To fight France without angering the pope, have France do the attacking (it hurts their reputation with the Pope) and send a diplomat to speak with the Pope and get a good reputation with them.
I once had France attack me, i drove them back. I then sent my best general to outside Paris. They surrounded me with 6 armies (not all full stack) and were defeated, allowing me to take the city. With it taken, the French sent a diplomat to me for peace, as apparently I had destroyed their main military force. In turn, I took Angers and Rheims as compensation.
In fact, I have conquered half of my empire without even fighting much. Denmark once attacked Bruges, and I landed my two full stacked armies next to them. Immediately, they sued for peace and I took Antwerp and Hamburg from them. When I crusaded successfully against Acre, Egypt sued for peace which prompted me to take Aleppo, Damascus, and Jerusalem from them.
I'm on H/H btw.
Here are a few things I've learned on Crusades and the Pope that are useful towards English strategy (my game is H/H).
1) Fighting Catholic factions is tough because you will usually only have 1 turn after you attack before the Pope demands you cease hostilities. The easiest solution is to focus first on all the rebel settlements nearby, but once you run out of nearby rebels, strategy will require more thought.
Be prepared to strike quickly against a Catholic faction in the Pope's favor, and be able to take 1-3 settlements in exactly one turn using seige engines to break down walls and avoid a seige. I've had a lot of success planning out large invasions against the French during "cooling off" periods, and then striking immediately when the ceasefire ends. For example, I took Rheims and Paris in a single turn by building up two separate armies and hiding them in the woods nearby, and when the ceasefire ended immediately taking both settlements in the same turn. The next turn, the Pope will likely call another ceasefire, giving you time to prepare for your next conquest.
You can take out Scotland with a similar 2 army, 1 turn approach: send a force up from York to attack the Scots on your northern border while sending another army from Dublin (or by sea) to beseige Edinburg. The Pope doesn't seem to consider it a hostile act if you have armies in enemy lands, only if they attack.
Another option is to wait for nearby factions to be excomunicated -- it's happened in my game to the HRE and the Danish. I've made defating the French a priority, however, in order to secure a Mediteranian port.
2) These were mentioned already but two huge ways to boost your reputation with the pope are to first, make sure you send an emissary to Rome early to form an alliance with the Papal States, and secondly, to win a Crusade.
3) I had success on my first Crusade by marching to Marseilles and then hiring Mercenary Galleys which I sailed to Antioch. I had some small desertion along the march but the 3 galleys I hired were enough to disuade rebel navies from attacking (or maybe I was just lucky -- move your crusading army at the end of the turn if you want to be safe.) Financially, it was well worth it, not to mention the huge boost it gave to my general. A note on this, however: my crusading general finished his crusade with a huge boost to Chilvary which was great, but had I decided to send a general with an already dreadful reputation, it may have been a waste. My advice is to send someone green. It's a great assignment for an heir apparent with little going on for him. Send spies and priests with your Crusaders too!!
Hi guys - What is H/H?
I had 3 awesome battles last night where I won when significantly outnumbered, 2 of them were siege battles, where they came out of the castle - one of those, I ran a company of cavalry to the square after they had all emptied out, and held it for the 3 mins. Awesome.
I have not had any luck with getting those kind of concessions from other factions in diplomacy... Do you guys keep a diplomat with your army?
Also, I have my spies up to 6-7th level, but my diplomats, who I use just as much, or 1-3rd level. WHat can I do to level my diplomats?
H/H means Hard campaign, Hard battle difficulty settings. So H/VH would mean Hard Campaign, Very Hard Battles. The default is M/M I believe. Very useful info because a strategy dominates on E/E might be useless on H/H, etc.
I've gotten tons of mileage out of my diplomats so far. I sent a handful out in different directions so far. My diplo strategy has been to try for the following:
1) Get trade rights with everyone
2) Get alliances with key factions (In particular, the Catholic ones I don't share a border with, and especially the Papal states, to get the Pope-o-meter bonus.)
3) Earn money. On my campaign (H/H) I've found it pretty easy to make money by offering Trade Rights, Alliance & Map Info, in exchange for regular tributes, some times even large ones over several turns. It looks like the AI bases its decisions on how much it will pay based on your relative strength, so if your faction strength is much higher, it looks like the enemy will be willing to pay large amounts to form an alliance. I can't remember specifics, but I think there was more than one faction willing to pay 1000+ for several turns for the privelege of an alliance. I play aggresively though and maintain large armies, so this might not work as well with a builder strategy. I'm also not sure if it's better to go with a big bang negotiation or sell each component (trade, alliance, map) one at a time.
I haven't paid too much attention to how my Diplos are leveling, it seems to me that by the time I march a Diplo all the way to Novgorad or Caesarea, I am going to negotiate with that Diplomat whether or not they are good negotiators.
Also, I don't see much of a point in having a Diplomat travel with an army. It might have an effect on preventing your general from being assassinated, but it's not much else good since your army is a useless large expense unless it is attacking and conquering. A Diplomat can't negotiate for much with a faction you're at war with.
So, my opinion is that the best way to deal with Diplomats is to send several out over the map to shore up trade rights & alliances. It's also handy to keep 1 or 2 at home so they can be used as emissaries for dealing with any foreign diplomats, armies, or princesses that enter your lands. It also comes in handy if you are getting beat badly and need to sue for peace.
Hey guys Im playing on m/m right now and I need some advice on what to do.
*How do you spot a full stack army?
My faction is currently holding Dublin,York, Wales, and Rennes. I have 3 huge armies, one in Caen, one in York, and my 3rd in Dublin(my faction leaders army). I have 2 cardinals spreading the word supported by at least 3-4 priests. I have one diplomat(lvl4) who is stuck in England while my navy is licking its wounds in Caen after 2 bad defeats against rebel fleets. Im still at peace with the Scots and after 40 turns of peace with France they declared war and I have thuroughly thrashed 2 of their armies. I also have peace with Milan and am thinking of making peace with the HRE since they are fighting France too. I have 500 florins (I was bankrupt until I razed Dublin:2thumbsup: ) in my bank. I have also takin care of 2 rebel armies that just "popped" out of no where in York and Nottingham provinces, has anyone else had this happen to them?
1) Im around turn 45-47(can't remeber) I had just voted for the wrong cardinal(an ally) and the new one Inquidated my best general in Caen:furious3: . The guy just walked up and just burned him with his army cheering for him to burn. Now my biggest army and best army is leaderless with the French eyeing Caen and my council friends pressing my to take Antwerp.
2) Also I can call to join the first crusade and get back on(hopefully) on the good side with the Pope and I was wondering if this would allow me to "walk":smash: thru Scotland with my 2nd best army lead by my faction leader. Would this be possible? And would it get that Inquisitor off of my back who has set up camp waiting for something that will never come?
3) I was thinking of taking Bordeaux with half of my army from Caen, and then offering it to the Papacy if possible? I am most curious about this one since that Inquisitor probably will not move until something happens.
Thanks for your help, and its a fun game. Plus how many turns/long is the game usually?
Spot full army? - with a spy.
Inquisitor go away because you join crusade? Not sure, but I would be much more concerned about getting from England to where the crusade is. If you don't make progress in the right direction every turn, goodbye army. Also, not that this will help in your current situation, keep in mind that more piety for the inquisitor's target = less chance of him getting burned.
Do whatever you an to get on pope's good side. I have been trying to give gifts to papal states, so far to no effect. Successful crusading gives huge boost to pope o meter.
I am on M/M also, and doing much better now sicnce I restarted campaign and took some advice from here. But I am struggling very badly now to hold my regions (currently largets and most powerful faction on about turn 25). Can't imagine what VH would look like.
Im a newbie on here but not to the Total war series, as I have owned and played the whole series, like a large majority here I expect. However, im no uber General and actually consider myself pretty pants and just manage to bumble through lol
Im on turn 125 playing the English and again, seem to have a completely different approach to others.
From day one I was put under pressure by the French in Caen. They would come and have a sniff, siege me for a turn or two before backing off and disappearing into the fog of war. I used this time to build up a decent stack of the mixed troops that are available at the beginning. My main concentration was the worrying fact that the majority of the british isles was owned by either rebels or the scots so turned all attentions in this direction. After being told to clear off by the rebel cities using diplomatic means, it was either force or nothing. Something had to be done as those damn heritics were worrying my townsfolk.
I bumbled an army together made up from troops from across the 3 towns owned leaving a minimal guard in each until I knew which, if any, would be seen as easy meat for a wandering band of rebel scum. Fortunatly after a good few turns, the rebels didn’t seem interested and more importantly my townsfolk seemed quite happy with little security and supervision. This enabled me to send my ramshackle army northwards to claim York. Taken within 2 turns the army turned west with wales in the sights. Slightly tougher but still no real challenge for my now confident general.
Diplomacy with the scots didn’t seem to work, they wouldn’t even be friends for a while as I figured a temporary alliance would stay and southward intentions they may have had and bide me time to build up my newly aquired towns. Fortunately they seemed content with trading so I sent my weary army over the irish sea to take Dublin. Again, easy pickings.
By this time my council of nobles and merchants guild had started to get a taste for continental life and asked me to take rebel towns of bordeau and one other (I forget which). Sounds simple but when the fog of war extends all the way up to my caen boundary, the first job was actually finding the towns!!!
After sending my diplomat in completely the wrong direction, I failed to meet the deadline imposed. This happened a few times until I decided that my council didn’t really understand the pressure they were putting my men under so chose to ignore them and concentrated on my campaign of taking the british isles.
This actually included moving all my armies out of Caen and Rhiens and shipping them over to back to Britain. France, as expected took the opportunity from this and marched on my two fortresses, easily suppressing the few units of militia I callously left barrackaded in. With my continental links now severed, I was able to finish off my British isles campaign.
As my towns were developing well (I find it suprisngsly easy to make money compared to previous versions) I took the fight to the dormant scots. A few guys in skirts couldn’t be too hard could it? After all, my all conquering army is now extremely battle hardened and confident. Well…. My complancy was my downfall. Those Scottish guys sure know how to look after their turf. Although they didn’t massacre me, I was sent home with my tail between my legs and a few broken bones. Oh and ¼ of my army left. Time to rethink. After a half a dozen turns sat mulling things over in York, I marched forward with a ¾ stack of fresh lambs to the slaughter. And slaughter it was. Now aware of my impending attacks the scots had hardened themselves, done a few extra push ups and were ready and waiting outside their door. In actual fact, they brought the fight to me as soon as stepped on Scottish soil and we had a decent battle in open ground. Embarrassed once again I returned back to york empty handed and bloodied.
Time to leave them alone for a while I think, so sent a faithful diplomat to Edinburgh to try and restore a few things to bide me some time for a rethink as my forces were now fairly depleted. Fortunatly my diplomat must have appeared arrogant enough to fool them into thinking I was still a threat and they agreed to a ceasefire and reintroduction of trade rights.
I left my Scottish neighbours alone to munch on their haggis, while I licked my wounds and concentrated on building up what resources I did have. If anything, it would shut the whinging pope up for a while who wasn’t overly impressed with my taste for catholic blood. He never really threatened to excommunicate me as I had quite a number of priests and cardinals by this point who were doing the lords work in the cities I did control.
This was actually a move that paid dividends as the relaxed scots, secure in their false impression I would leave them alone, marched northwards and took the rebel town of Inverness. This left them very overstretched and spread thinly. I seized the opportunity and within a few turns, I had a fresh army banging on the gate of Edinburgh. With a hastily recoiling pile of Scottish stacks heading back south to counter my offensive on Edinburgh, it was under my control before they even had the city on the horizon. Taking Inverness after this was a walk in the park and the deflated and broken scots fell easily before dispearing into the highlands and any official trace of the once mighty haggis eaters now in the past. The British isles was mine. And it felt good.
After the parties had died down, I was actually rewarded not long after with one of my cardinals being voted in as Pope. However, this little upstart soon forget who put him their in the first place and showed little regard for his English heritage as he condemned my march over the English channel to give the French some pay back for exploiting my poorly defended French cities. As enough time had passed that gunpowder had been invented, my generals seemed to get a little overexcited by the new technology and went a little overboard on recruiting bomdards and cannons. In hindsight, it wasn’t a bad thing as my show of flamboyance with the gunpowder arts was enough to scare the French into handing over both Caen and Angers with only the threat of offensive action.
A shrewd move to stay any reprisals by asking them to be friends again (my diplomat assured me he had his fingers crossed at the time) has given me a little time to strengthen these citadels into my main battle HQ of the mainland. Little do the French know of my future plans. I think the Spanish do though as they has sent an eager messenger to offer friendship and an alliance, which I accepted.
That’s where I am at the moment. Ive no doubt there will a be a few blooded noses on the horizon and I know my progress is slow, but im definitely enjoying myself.
Hi guys,
I am playing England too, already got through the short campaign :yes:
My approach: The begining is clear - conquer the isles. Then I faced south, and waged war with France. The pope didn't like it, and I got quite beaten by the damn inquisitors - they kill my best generals, even a king! :embarassed: And the funny thing is, almost all the popes have been elected from my cardinals! I start off well with them, but it turns out bad afterwards. To get your men elected pope - place priests in places with lower catholic poppulation, so the priest converts, and burn heretics!
I also accepted crusades - this was the coolest portion of my game - the battles were awesome, this is a whole another story. But the crusader units are brutal! As soon as I conquered Antioch, I got into war with Turkey, and won a fortress. From there, I built an army, and spreaded into the rest of their lands - they have nothing to put against my knights! I keep an alliance with Egypt, and crushed France relatively late (had reduced them to a single town for a long time). Of course, when I became very powerfull, The danes, milanese and sicilians declared war. I succeeded in thwarting their attacks, but now the HRE is probing me too... From another crusade, I won Tunisia, so now I am having a base of operations against Sicily too...
The game is turning great! Fighting both muslim and catholics, very diverse and tense. Difficulty is H/H.
Have a great time!
Something interesting I found when doing an experiment as england on M/VH
before waiting for the patch but it shouldn't matter when it comes out.
The council of nobles will provide you with missions that usually provides you with mailed knights and I found that early in the game, mailed knights are very very useful, especially against the scottish and rebels. Ratio in my armies were at least 10:10 with levy spearmen and archers which are easy to get. You can quickly build up armies this way.
Priority first is to take control of the English isles ASAP. That means conquering all nearby rebel settlements as quickly as possible including Dublin. Another good idea is to send your princess down to France and marry to solidfy an alliance with them.
At the same time, have your continental army take control of all of the surrounding rebel towns. Once your alliance is made with France, you should be okay for the time being so long as you maintain decent garrisons. Which I should also add the rebel towns are quite strong so you'll need to either starve them out or increase the army's strength.
I decided to turn the continental settlements into fortresses since their the most vulnerable. I gathered whatever remaining troops I had in England and launched an assault as quickly as possible on the Scottish main captial. The Scots had been passive for the first 14 turns by building up their forces and readying to attack the other rebel town up north so the captial was weakly guarded by two generals and spearmen. I had a spy open the gates and quickly attacked the first turn. I sent militia spearmen to wear down the generals before sending in the levy spearmen followed by 10 mailed knights.
As a result I wiped out the Scottish without angering the Papacy since it was quick and short. Eventually the last rebel town will be taken in the next few turns. At this point, I made sure that all settlements in the English isles were turned into cities since they are the most safest. By Turn 15 I had control over England with cities pumping out money and the 3-4 continental settlements acting as fortresses and the Pope loves me the most.
I quitted the game as this was an experiment but I found that due to the speed, the HRE was keeping the Danish busy which left the two rebel towns up north of it open for the taking. If you can take these towns quickly, you'll add onto more, you'll receive greater control over the northern sea and areas remote enough to keep it safe. Plus, you can wipe out the Danish which should be weak by pulling the same strategy, either with siege weapons or a spy to open the gates. If you can wipe them out in one turn, the Pope won't mind.
This allows you to assert dominance in the north western section of the map which is a good position to start out from.
actually i found it quite an entertaining read as im going through the same ups and downs heh :book:Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew of Newcastle
There is a lot of talk on the M2TW official boards that this may be a bug. People are writing about how even against incredible odds, cavalry is walking all over billmen and dismounted knights. Combine that with the unit description of billmen that states they're effective against cavalry, and it does seem like it could be a bug.Quote:
Originally Posted by econ21
The thread can be found here:
http://p223.ezboard.com/fshoguntotal...cID=8201.topic
-Fizz
Has it occured to you that Billmen do not...GASP....have anti-cavalry properties?
Billmen for dummies (Two handed swordsmen)
http://p223.ezboard.com/fshoguntotal...cID=8420.topic
Had the game a week - coulpe of gripes.
As been said earlier, I agree and I've been quite dismayed at the performance of the Billmen dealing with cavalry. The bill was very effective at unhorsing knights in the medieval period, which isn't reflected in the game. I'm generally finding that billmen are pretty poor all round to be honest.:embarassed:
Another question is - Has anyone managed to get Sherwood archers yet? I'm england and controlling half the map and haven't got one city or castle anywhere that can produce them. I haven't checked the population of all of my settlements, but most are on full advancement as far as I can see and many have bottomed out and are at 0% growth when they get up around the 20,000 mark. I'll have conquored the world by the time I manage to produce 1 single unit at this rate.
Princesses don't marry into your faction as often as in Medieval 1 total war - which is a bit annoying. It should be a bit easier to arrange marriages and have 'claims' on rivals lands as a result. The foreign princesses seem to prefer to wander the depths of europe than marring an heir to the most powerful kingdom in europe, even after numerous attempts - yeah right!
The family tree is sometimes a bit wild. Leaving the throne to a distant cousin, rather than a true 'Grandchild' of a monarch. Wish you could set the heir to correct this.
Don't like the naming of kings either. Used to say King William III (for example). Now doesn't mention the roman numerals.
Can't give titles to nobles - which used to be a bit of fun. Creating someone a duke or an earl was great on Medieval 1 total war.
Another last gripe - Mongols are far too powerful and ruin the game a bit. Within about 50 years of appearing, the Egyptians, Turks and Byzantines had been wiped out by them. It's now 1650 and it's basically me against the Mongols. Both with half the map each. I get bored of the mongols. They just have horse archers all the time.
Most of my gripes are minor and don't interfere with the game too much (except the mongol bit), and I have enjoyed the game enormously. I keep feeling this is just the same as Rome though and not enough of the old medieval game was transferred to it.
Billmen and other 2 handed axemen are indeed bugged. When engaging against cavalry they will only attack at the initial charge. After that they cease to attack and just stand around maneuvering to kill but they never will swing. It's a very odd bug, one that's also hard to detect unless to pay close attention. My suggestion is that you take some billmen, varangian guard, have them stand their ground in a custom match against mounted sergeants or militia cavalry. You'll notice that the cavalry suffer horrendous casualties on impact, but after the charge not a single one will die. They are just incapable of attacking cavalry.Quote:
Originally Posted by nameless
They work perfectly fine against infantry. It's just their bugged versus cavalry. Now this for some reason does not apply to zweihanders, dismounted gothic knights, forlorn hope, and other 2 handed sword carrying units. Something tells me that it may be related to the armor piercing stat, or maybe just a reach problem.
If anyone knows of a 2 handed swordsmen with an AP stat would love to see them tested.
I couldn't agree more.Quote:
Originally Posted by PhilM
I see so many people griping about stuff that really doesn't matter at all, and almost noone griping about some of the collosol problems in the game.
One example of a good gripe, not mentioned in the thread linked below, is that cavalry charges are WAY underpowered in this game. I see people here complaining about the billmen not attacking at all against cavalry - a worthy gripe, for sure. But I can charge a tight company of militian spearmen with a full company of heavy knights with lances, and only kill about 6 of them on the charge. absolutely ridiculous. In reality, a cavalry charge should easily kill or seriously wound half the company on the charge. Even the knights/horses who are skewered would still plow forward and crush the defenders. At an easy 1,000 pounds per unit, moving 30 miles an hour.... It's a no brainer. Did I mention that the lances have at least 50% more reach than the spears? Even if it wasn't a crushing wall of 30 mph 1,000 pound locomotives, the lances alone would kill at least 1/2 of the men making up the first 2 rows.
How about the fact that knights often charge without using their lances??!?!?! The charge right in with lances raised, do nothing to the enemy at all (even without any weapons at all, a very substantial portion of the company should be trampled or crushed to death), then get their swords out and chop away. Absurd.
I find the extreme inaccuracy of the crossbowmen and archers, even at close range, to be rather dubious also. And what's much worse - bowmen could fire as many as 20 arrows per minute under the right circumstances (probably most of the time) and in this game, it seems more like about 4 per minute.
Please see this thread for more real gripes:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=72771
Almost certainly not the solution for all scenarios, but in my current (and first) game patience has proved to be a virtue....I'm up to around turn 50, have secured the British Isles and have Caen, Rennes and Antwerp on the continent. On reflection, following the obvious strategy of securing my "home" territories first may have been a mistake; though I grabbed Rennes early on, by the time I was able to turn my attention to Bruges and Antwerp they'd already been swallowed by Denmark. This has meant that I've nowhere to expand without incurring the possible wrath of the Pope. It may have been a better bet to go for the three continental rebel provinces in a blitz and then worry about my rear later.....Quote:
Originally Posted by Flavius Gonzo
Anyhow, after a short campaign against the Danes in the Low Countries (short due to a "cease and desist" order from his Holiness) I've got Antwerp and they've retained Bruges. Been kicking my heels for a few turns, mustering a sacrificial army of peasants and town militia to send on Crusade. It has to be sacrificial 'cos the Danes will obviously want revenge at some point and whilst the French have shown no sign of hostility so far, I'm sure that it is, as they say, in the post. So I need to keep my best troops close at hand.
My relations with the Vatican are decent - we've got an alliance, I'm rigorous about burning heretics in my lands and have even sent my top assassin to pop a few Bretheren of the Free Spirit types outside my realm. But the French have an even better relationship with the Pope. Suddenly, they join the Crusade and, bosh, they're instantaneously excommunicated. :laugh4:
Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I've beseiged Angers and then taken it by way of ceasfire treaty in the very next turn (a nice touch in this TW instalment that in such circumstances, you also take the garrison) but the French are still excommunicated. Paris next or maybe Metz? Hmmmm.....
I have been unable to ever take any city with diplomacy, regardless of any circumstances, and I have tried many times, with many factions and diplomats.
In fact, I usually find that I am lucky to even get map information, let alone trade rights. But I have seen a number of people posting about getting plenty of free territories with diplomats. Free territories? Are we playing the same game?!?! I would think this type of diplomacy would be even less successful in a harder game.... and my current campaign is M/M.... so I dont see how it is possible to accomplish that.
ALso, I finally got tired of the pope and his BS, so in my second campaign, once I became powerful, I obliterated the papal states, and assasinated a couple of popes in a row (lost about 6 assassins doing this, and this all took well over 10 turns), just to prove to myself my suspicion that the pope, and excommunication, appears to be of no real consequence. Even having gone so far as to obliterate and assassinate the pope and his people, I never had a holy war called against me, or anything else really - as I have read somewhere is a possibility.
I am unclear as to the use or purpose of the pope, and I have found diplomacy to be good for nothing but establishing trade rights, and occasionally, alliances (which appear to be useless, because I have never been able to convince an ally to attack anyone.)
AKA, this is not a board for discussion. This is a board for tactics and strategy. Discussions on billmen and their usefulness can be directed toward the main M2TW board.Quote:
Originally Posted by frogbeastegg
I figured out during this weekend's campaigning something about cavalry that would have been critical to know earlier in the game. It is:
DON'T RECRUIT MAILED KNIGHTS WHEN HOLIBARS WILL DO THE JOB
There are a few key advantages that your light cav offers over knights:
1) They are much cheaper to recruit & maintain
2) They do *almost* as good of a job outflanking a "pinned" unit, though they die quicker due to the lack of armor.
3) Most importantly: they are faster. Holibars can actually ride down an enemy general whereas mailed knights our your own general cannot! Having a unit of Holibars on hand when an enemy king flees the field is really important. They also do a better job riding down infantry and archer types than mailed knights.
Either way, keep your cavalry mixed, a stack with many knights and no holibars is much less preferable and much cheaper than a mixed stack.
England is in a fantastic position with its multiple secure island provinces. You can sit and build up your infrastructure for as long as you wish without fear of invasion.
For income, England is trade dependant to a large degree. Much of England's trade will be sea-born with the north Europe coastal provinces. This poses a problem when it comes time to expand off the island home territories, for those who like to hold back and build up before expanding.
To counter this problem, it can be useful to plan a 3 step, phased expansion.
Step 1: Take the Danish homeland and the 2 provinces north of that first. You don't have to worry about wiping out the Danish faction at this phase, just take those 3 provinces, soldier them up well enough to ensure their defense and then pause to rebuild your trade infrastructure. Once the trade cash if flowing well enough again, then...
Step 2: have at least 100k in the bank and begin building enough of an army to be able to seize all the northern European coastal provinces from Antwerp to Rennes in one amphibious push. If you can manage it, one full stack of good quality troops for each province. If not then as much of a full stack per province as you can.
Your eastern flank is secure and trade will continue there. The euro coast is your next target so that you can reestablish your trade there, free of blockade and piracy. If you spend the time and loot to build the larger armies, even though the garrisons on the coast will be light, then you'll have enough troops on the continent to react and respond to counter attacks as well as maintain momentum by seizing desired inland provinces or seeking out and destroying enemy force concentrations without having to build crap troops to fill the ranks.
By taking all the coast at once, you minimize the amount of time that trade is disrupted and will begin to recover the costs of the invasion quicker.
Also, you should have nearly enough troops of good quality already on the continent to at least double the number of your provinces without having to rush in building and transporting new troop replacements.
If you plan on using the forces you land with as your main core all the way to finish, you also maximize experience gains along the way.
Anyhoo, this is the method that has worked for me, and given me less headaches in having to pick and choose when to build, what to build, etc as there tends to be sufficient income to just keep building.
Step 3: which I forgot to add earlier is, of course, the continued fight to secure the rest of the continent and battle on to victory. The only thing I'd caution here is to watch out for over expansion and remember to pause in territory acquisitions on occasion to allow for financial infrastructure building to catch up to army maintenance costs.
The demi lances that come with the Military Academy in cities make a good replacement for hobilars. They've got better armor than hobs and are still faster than knights so can chase down fleeing generals.
Grimmy, I don't think this is a viable strategy. Playing England in my current campaign (H/H) I think the Angles are way too easy and can overcome any difficulty with little or no hassle. Just try to keep a good buddy relationship with the Pope, and you are going to own the continent in no time. My initial expansion was two rebel provinces on the isle, next the three coastal rebel provinces around Caen (Renes, Antwerp and the other Icantremember) and then I wiped out the Scots and secured the isles for good. By that time Germans and Milanese were after me. They both got excommed soon enough and a well-placed crusade got me Hamburg, while I took a couple Milanese cities and gave them... to the pope.
Right now I am in turn 130 or so, I have wiped out the Danes and got their lands, got almost all of the HRE, got half france from the milanese (they took it from the French, who have just three provinces in the south) and the only serious threat appears to be the Mongols - they sacked Byzantium, Egypt and Turks and have now three provinces in Europe, including Constantinople (and a rather impressive Crusade is on its way to the Big City).
I am wondering what a SO STRONG Mongol faction will do against the Timurids...
It is viable in as much as those that dont rush to expand will run into financial problems once they start.
Personally, I like to hold off expansion once I've got the islands secure until I have armor factories and the swordmakers guild so that what I produce as troops are what will be there to the end of the game. I dont like messing about with trying to upgrade units in the field or disbanding experienced troops because a better type is now needed.
So, for those that do like to hold off until they're building the best that can be built by England, taking the Danelands first and then rebuilding trade, then taking the French coast and holding until trade is rebuilt again, helps alot in avoiding going bankrupt with the more expensive armies.
For those that like to jump out and expand at the beginning...yeah, this wouldnt help them much at all.
I've never been one to play the TW games as a speed drill. Since I've no one to beat but the AI, I like to take my time and then break out with "best of breed" forces and that gets real expensive, real fast.
Well, I did as I suggested I'd do in my previous post - started a new game and went for a land-grab on the continental rebel provinces first. Basically, this involved taking Rennes with the army in Caen, shipping an army from England to take Antwerp and building another army in Caen to move on Bruges all in the same go.
It worked well, giving me a decent continental base (and trade) early on. I used the army in Nottingham to take York (which has the bonus of limiting Scotland's options to Inverness and Ireland) but otherwise didn't worry about the rest of Britain until I'd secured the continental provinces. When it came to it, Scotland still hadn't moved on Inverness or Ireland, so I took Inverness first then snuffed them out in a pincer move.
Admittedly, this was on M/M and the AI might be a little more aggressive on harder settings. That said, my first campaign was also on M/M and in that game the Danes had taken both Antwerp and Bruges by the time I'd secured Britain.
You'll need to use your king and all available generals to pull it off, as you'll not be able to take Antwerp in the first couple of turns without hiring almost all the available mercenaries - but these can be disbanded as soon as the job is done.
I did a bit of both strategies. I grabbed all I could along the English channel and also grabbed as much of the rebel towns in the British isles. I failed to get Dublin before the Scots did though. Then I sat and built up. I went for Scotland first. I made the mistake of taking too long though and the pope excommunicated me.:oops: The best strategy as to take Scotland with two armies all at once before the Pope realizes what you are doing.
Then I turned my attention south. Franze got excommunicated so I concentrated on them. I had an alliance with the Danes and THE HRE. The HRE stayed allied with me till the end. The Danes however attacked me after a while even though I married my princess off to them. Ingrats. No matter. I held Antwerp and they couldnt take it from me even though they tried a few times. The HRE and I worked together on taking out France. Once that happened game was over. I met all my victory conditions for the short game.
England is a good faction to start out learning with. Even if you make mistakes (I made quite a few trying to figure out some tatctics)you are in a good safe position to work from. Especially once you take out the Scots. Basically the strategy is Blitzkrieg, build up, Blitzkrieg, build up, Blitzkrieg. During build ups you build up your economy and troops meanwhile waiting for the Pope to excommunicate someone and then you push your armies forward as fast as possible. Dont fight open field armies. Go straight for the towns and castles. Thats the quick method anyway. If you want to fight open armies you can. It just slows you down though.
I'll come back to England again after a while when I'm ready to do a full campaign but right now I want to try some other short campaign factions first. I'm craving some variety right now.
My strategy on campaign H/ battle VH was very simple. Tech up on cities to gain the most income. If you cannot maintain trade rights with a foreign coastal settlement, just take it otherwise it's no use. I didn't really bother with diplomacy or many other micro stuff. I focused 100% on military and a strong economy. Raised the best longbowmen, some armoured swordsmen and a few knights. I am at around 120 turns with over 60 regions (just not taking Jerusalem in order to play on).
Every turn I was sieging at least 4 settlements so it ended up sweeping up the map quickly. I sack almost every settlement and that almost always bring you 20k florins per settlement ( some can even reach up to 60k). I always try to engage an enemy before they come to besiege me. it's much easier to fight on open plains than behind walls.
For middle-late game I would suggest the following types of troops (listed in decreasing importance):
1. Retinue Longbowmen (+2 exp) (use archers effectively - keeping them alive; shooting the best target and on the best terrain and angle)
2. Armoured Swordsmen (these are cheap to maintain and well round good infantry)
3. Merc Xbow w/ Pavise (excellent meat shield)
4. Sherwood Archers
5. Demi Lancers (great flankers, just don't prolong melee)
6. Culverins, bombards, mortars (the AI taught me the importance of these units)
I personally wouldn't bother with Billmen and English knights (foot or mounted) simply because that they are weak and expensive to maintain respectively.
I got excommunicated soon after I had a strong income and force when I began conquering territory like crazy. The Pope doesn't stand a chance... buried their godly papal forces under arrows and cannon fodder..
If, for what ever reason, you are late in expanding (either got held up by a defeat and loss of forces or turtled) then a way to get established on the mainland without getting Pope problems is to target towns and take them in one turn.
Hit the coast with large enough invasion force and the arms necessary to break down a city wall and take it the same turn you set foot on their lands.
It also helps if you have a good diplomat sitting outside Rome to grease some palms with alms and buy your way back up the respect meter.
The same can be done with castles, land and seize in the same turn but those tend to be bloodier and potentially messy so it might be better to take the towns first and the castles in a follow on wave.
But, so far, if I manage to take a town or castle too quickly for the Popes messenger boy to reach me with the "back off or else" letter, then I get no grief for it.
Two questions:
1)Where can i find the papal states to make an alliance with them?
2)How the heck can i join the Jerusalem crusade if im all the way in england? there is no way for me to get there!
thanks
Also, since i can't edit:
how come i joined the crusade along with a bunch of other people, and we're all laying siege to the town, but nothing happens? no one is attacking...
Roughly the equivalent of modern day Rome. You may be lucky enough to find one of their wandering diplomats anywhere, though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Test112345
You get double movement points when crusading. Moving your army next to the sea will also allow you to hire mercenary shipping. March your army through France to the Med then hire a boat. Simple.Quote:
2)How the heck can i join the Jerusalem crusade if im all the way in england? there is no way for me to get there!
thanks
It's treated sort of like a "normal" AI siege - the beseiging AI army may decide to assault or may try to starve the defenders out. The defenders may decide to sally or they may not. If things aren't moving quick enough for you - hit the assault button yourself.Quote:
Also, since i can't edit:
how come i joined the crusade along with a bunch of other people, and we're all laying siege to the town, but nothing happens? no one is attacking...
ps - general gameplay questions such as the above are better suited to the "Citadel" section.
One good strategy that I do is send a diplomat to Rome to camp the city. His main job is to grease the Pope's hands with gifts in money. 1,000 florin will get you at least one step up on Pope's view of you. Sometimes it'll give two steps up. I've gotten three steps with 2,000 florin. This is a good way to keep in the Pope's good graces whenever he starts to get upset with you. When your diplomat enter's his mid-50s in age then its time to send a replacement. Characters in this game tend to die not long after they reach 60 years of age I have noticed.
Crusades in this game kinda suck IMO. Too often the crusading army deserts before you even get near the target. Especially if you are traveling from northern Europe to the Middle East. I have found it better to just not go on crusade and give the Pope a small gift when he frowns on my lack of participating.
When attacking a faction a blitz type of strategy works best IMO. Build up and try and attack as many towns as possible in one or two turns and then stop. If its a nation with few territories you can take them out in one or two turns. Then grease the Pope's hands with a one or two thousand floring and he'll not get upset with you.
If you can get get your Cardinal elected Pope then you can do alot with him on the chair. He's more likely to call a crusade of your target of choice because typically he's liking his homeland more than anyone elses. :yes:
Something to keep in mind when considering Papal interferance with your plans of conquest.
IF you begin the tussle with high standings with the Pope, then you'll get a "cease and desist or you'll lose favor with the Pope" instead of "knock it off or you'll be discommunicated".
That can buy you the time you need to finish that wave of conquestering. So, as England, build up your Pope standings prior to hitting the Scotts and or the French.
If you get an alliance with the Pope, you max out your standings and that's a good time to start your necessary attacks on other catholic factions.
If you can't get an alliance just prior to attacking then it is a good idea to spend a few turns bribing your way up the favor ladder to at least 3/4ths the way to the top before launching your offensive.
The pope's really annoying me at the moment, but it is manageable ;)
I was at 10 on the pope-o-meter at one stage, then he tells me to stop fighting france. Of course, they attacked first and wouldn't accept a peace. 20 turns later, i get reconciled, 5 more turns later, i've got the same mission...and again, no way to complete it :(
Hi all.
I'm new to these forums, but have been playing the total war games since the original Medieval TW.
I'm doing the English on M/M difficulty on turn 90ish.
Firstly I assaulted York an Wales, sieging them, but not directly attacking to so I could keep the army in tact for the Scotts. Once the Rebels had been sorted out Scotland was assaulted and defeated(resulting in me being excommunicated, but with an aging king it doesn't matter too much as you'll get reconciled as soon as he dies) . After taking Ireland too I converted all of the castles in the British Isles to towns to make maximum amounts of money and plunged money into any building that will generate money.
In my game the French seemed much more interested in going South and East so I used the foothold in Northern france to take the entire North and West coast of France up to Antwerp off the rebels. This gives plenty of places to produce an army, so the British Isles can concentrate on funding me. The French repeatedly attack my settlements in France, but the pope has been doing a great job of stopping us from having any sort of propper war.
The Danes decided to assault Antwerp, getting themselves excommunicated. This allowed me to remove them entirely, taking provinces all the way to Stockholm. The Portugese did the same, attacking with an underpowered army, getting themselves excommunicated and allowing me to take the Pyrenees region.
The best way I've found to conduct a war with Catholic contries like France is to build up 2-3 large armies, typically 2 artillery, 6 Archers, 1 General, 1 Mounted unit, 3 Spears and 7 Heavy infantry. Get all armies within striking distance of cities then in one turn each one assaults a settlement, using the artillery to batter down 2 adjacent holes in the wals and any nearby archer towers. The computer will then stick a few units infront of the gaps. Now take your archer units one at a time and walk about 10m away from the hole in the wall, set them to fire fire arrows and shoot the defenders almost point blank till they run out of ammo, then bring in the next archer unit. The computer is too dumb to send units past the wall to engage your archers, so you can inflict easily 50-70% casulties to the defenders doing this before charging in with the rest of your army to mop up when the timer/ammo runs low.
Doing this will allow you to take a few provinces before the Pope orders you to stop, by which time the damage is alredy done. It's also worth noting I haven't shared any land borders with a country who didn't decide to randomly attack me.
I'm at turn 100 with the English and tried the turtling strategy for a long time. I even sold Caen to the French in order to help in my conquest of the British Isles. Everything was good until I decided to go on a crusade to Jureselam, the Crusade went well enough and ended up controlling Gaza, Jeruselam, Acre and Antioch, unfortunately after being in the Holy Land for 15 years, I was in deep debt, facing a problem with heretics and my troop numbers were dwindling. I was forced to disband my forces and sent my best general back to England which took about 15 years, in addition to this I had to disband half my troops in England in order overcome my budget defecit.
As soon as my general returned, the Pope excomunicated France and I crusaded to Paris, and used another army of 1 General, 4 Armoured Swordsmen, 2 Foot Knights, 6 Yeoman Longbows, and a Bombard to capture Rennes and Anger. Unfortunately the HRE managed to take Paris from me and kill my best general in the process.
I've been playing on H/VH with the expanded gametime patch from the Org main page (which I absolutely love, as I like to take my time and not rush it too much. 1200 turns is a beautiful amount of time, heh) Anyways, my first goal as the English, as it was in MTW, was to secure the British isles, which I did so swiftly. I beat the French to Rennes, Antwerp, and Bruges, at which point the Danish began attacking me, probably because Hungary was completely dominating everything east of Denmark, and the HRE had become mostly Milanese territory. After a gruleing amount of turns to defeat the French; they somehow were recruiting at least 2 full stacks of armies every turn despite only holdling Paris, Rheims, Bordeux, and Angers, I'm facing Milan, the clear second strongest faction at the moment, second of course to myself in everything but financial. I'm about 125 turns in, I believe.
Anyways, I absolutely hate and despise the Milanese in this game. I don't know if other people have encountered the same thing, but generally a Milanese army is entirely composed of Genoan Crossbowmen, with a spattering of ridiculously accurate catapults and ballistas and the usual general's bodyguard (they have killed my general severl times now after only a couple barrages, which is incredibly annoying...). They also sometimes tow along one or two units of infantry, I think it's broken lances, which they rarely seem to use.
My problem is a cost-effective way to deal with these armies. They seem to be able to produce 2 or 3 full stacks of these clone armies every turn. My armies are generally made up of 5 units of retinue and yeoman archers right now, with the rest of the stack split between Demi-lancers and armoured swordsmen. I've found the most effective way of beating them seems to be forming a long line of battle with my cavalry, then walking towards them and engaging a massive charge, which usually crushes about 45% of enemy troops on impact and routs the rest. However, it's rarely cost-effective as to train 6-8 units of cavalry every other turn is taxing, especially when I need to maintain a strong prescence in Antwerp to fend off numerous attacks by the Danes.
I've tried simply matching them blow-to-blow with archers, but their pavises make the the kill ratio something like 7:3 in my favor, not nearly cost-effective enough, especially as their catapults, ballistas, and treb's absolutely devastate my expensive units, even when put on loose formation.
I've also found that unless I can overwhelm units of GXmen, they will inflict large amount of casualties on my swordsmen and cavalry. Has anyone found a better tactic at beating the pesky Milanese consistently with less than 10% losses? It doesn't help that my pope-o-meter sucks (that's probably my worst ability in this game, or perhaps stems on laziness of not interacting much with the Papal States...) and that the Milanese have a knack for stacking the College with their home-grown Cardinals.
When i was facing the Milanese, i simply used my financial advantage to overwhelm them with mercanaries, focusing my elite troops on the danes and the french. After i'd taken them out, i was able to focus on milan, which is currently dieing nicely ;)
As stated in the above quote, Get that diplomat to Rome quickly as possible.Quote:
Originally Posted by Skott
Then I load up ships with three priests and sail them to muslim lands as fast as possible. They preach, get piety. This will help get them a cardinalship. I fort up in Cain untill England is secure. While you are doing this build forces and ships. (Your other ships are busy getting priests south to convert muslim lands.) When England is secure you are ready for the war on the mainland.
I hadn't really done that and my standing with the pope is pretty low, but as previous posters have said I always take towns in one go so when the pope tells me to stop I can. I did try and send a dip to rome, but he got as far as northern italy then got burnt by an inquistor. There's also one near my lands but I've managed to avoid and family members getting burnt, just a few priests.
My strategy so far on Vh/vh has been to take as far as antwerp and wait until the danes get excommed as they usually do, ally with the milanese and help defeat france (who also in my game seem to like going south more), and try and take the british isles. As it's my first game, it's not going that well as I was very focussed at the beginning, should have had clear aims really, but i think i'll play it out and see how it goes.
I've also got a little colony in the holy land around aleppo and antioch from a too slow crusade stack, the problem with that is that the mercs are really expensive to keep, any ideas about how to prop them up?
I find that light cavalry does pretty well against all foot ranged units. This does take a lot of micromanagement as you need to charge and recharge until the enemy breaks but as long as you are willing to do that, it works very well. I even use them against the filthy Mongols to shatter their foot units and siege weapons. Just don't let them stay in hand-to-hand, they aren't made for it.Quote:
Originally Posted by CharleyLFC86
Second Braedonnal. Playing England, Hobilars are your best friend against the Italian crossbow/pavise militia units. To achieve consistently low casualties, aim for four units of light cav: two to draw or herd the missile units out of position, and two to attack from the flank once the missile units are engaged.
It seems they've learned their lesson after I've been crushing their armies repeatedly now, and they've begun creating more typical infantry-oriented armies, which I can easily defeat with superior ranged units and tactics. Hopefully they won't switch back to assembly-line speed making Geonoese xbowmen, I hate them so much.
And despite only holding two cardinalships, one of them was extremely pious and has been elected Pope. With only a few major Catholic Factions remaining (HRE, France, Scotland, Portugal have felt my wrath), everyhting is looking up England.
When i've played England before, i used the first 10 turns to capture the rebel settelements of Bordeaux, Rennes, and Bruges in the continent while attacking Dublin. i made an alliance with France initially by marrying their princess (constance) to my faction heir (rufus) during the first turn. when i runned out of rebels settelemts to capture, ive began my covert operations against the french. ive trained spies and assassins in rennes, i used the spy to enter the french castle of Angers, then used my assassins to sabotage their chapel and kill off their priests! eventually after several assassinations, the Pope excommunicated them! so the french territorities is up for the taking. the strategy relied heavily on lots of saving and reloading. also it is better to have an assassins' guild on rennes for better effect.
just my two cents:2thumbsup:
Hiya, just adding my two cents here.
I played on Medium for both parts of the game and played a short game with England where the end goal was destroying the French. Since it is on Medium you can often get away with some things that in a harder game would be suicidal.
Anyway, like others stated, I concentrated on the main isles first. I left Nottingham as a military city as well as Caen but all other cities I turned into villages. I concentrated on the Scots last after taking out all other rebel factions. I never ransacked or exterminated the population on the main islands but instead just occupied the settlements.
By about turn 20, the Pope calls for a Crusade. I had one general who I didn't like much so I sent him on the Crusade with a small army. To my surprise, he made it to Jerusaleum in only one boat and so after getting a few more units attached to him the little army took the city. But, having them just sit there wasn't helping me much so I abandoned the city and turned south thinking I could go west across Africa and take some more cities now that the Army was quite large and even the Pilgrim units were seasoned veterans.
I found that sacking Cairo and Alexandria is very profitable making about 40000 gold off those two cities, money which I used to upgrade all of my provinces.
A little later another Crusade started and it went to Antioch. I took that same Army up there and then tried to sail them home because by this time the general was getting old. But, their ships were attacked and sunk.
As for the French I took some of their territories but the Pope kept telling me to stop. During those times I would just shift units and rebuild. By about turn 50, Denmark and Milan also posed a threat. They would attack me but I could normally stave them off easily enough allowing me to focus more units on France.
By about turn 70 the French were gone so now I might restart and try a larger campaign.
Having finished the long English campaign on m/m here are my thoughts.
1) The best thing I ever did was to turn take the whole of the Uk and Ireland ASAP before teching the settlements up much, then converting all of it to towns and using it as a money maker. The computer will almost never go for amphibious assaults, so you can leave it poorly protected and it'll finance anything you do.
2) Iberia is the best place to assault, possible even before taking France. It's easy to defend once taken and provides a great staging area for you to head towards north africa and into the non-Catholic regions.
3) The French may hate you with a passion, but the pope never let any attack by me or the french last more than one turn before threatening excommunication. This means all French aggression towards me got thwarted and any assaults against France required a mass assault on several provinces, backed up by artillery in order to take several settlements in one go before the pope could get involved.
4) Yeoman Archers can decimate armies, especially when backed up by armoured swordsmen. Retinue archers probably aren't worth the 9600 to upgrade the facilities, but the Sherwood archers are worthy (available through the woodsmen guild, great at killing heavily armoured troops and cavalry)
5) Mounted missile troops can absolutely demolish most English armies, but the English starting position means this shouldn't be much of a problem till the very end stages of your campaign.
Currently playing my first game as England on m/m. I started with taking my army from the isle and taking York, Caernaveron (sp?), and Dublin asap. I made a move after York to take Inverness but the Scots already had it under siege so I moved on to Caernaveron. At the same time as that I took Rennes with my mainland forces and a few added units from Caen. I waited for missions to try and make some extra cash but I took Dublin and Rennes early because the Scots and France had guys on their way there.
I made an extra diplomat so I could have one to negotiate with near my settlements and one to head south. The south one I used to do a few diplomatic missions from the nobles and ended up using him to form an alliance with the papal states and the HRE. HRE took an alliance with nothing extra, but the papal states took a little but of bribing. I offered them cash gifts when I could spare it, which they really seem to love as well as cash tributes and map info. After a few turns of doing this I formed a perfect relationship with the pope which was very helpful. Of course you can't forget to keep up with churches and priests as well.
During this France got aggressive and started a siege on Caen. I took my units that were still in Rennes and positioned them directly behind the French and as soon as they were excommunicated I decimated them and moved to take Angers. The French army was decimated very badly after this so they sent in a diplomat to talk to my general and I negotiated a ceasefire in return for giving me Rheim, which they barely accepted.
When the pope called for the first crusade I was in the middle of my war with France so I decided to ignore his call and take the consequences which weren't too bad at all because of our diplomatic relationship. About 10 to 20 turnws after that I recruited about 7 priests from Caernaveron and Dublin along with a stack of 5 cog units and shipped them to Africa while I was screwing around in Europe. Once there they were they started converting the muslims and their piety skyrocketed. Once the Cardinals started dying the pope was more than happy to replace them with my missionaries from Africa. When the pope died my cardinal was a complete shoe in. Now I have nearly free reign over anyone with less than 5 papal rating.
Scotland proved to be the thorn in my campaign's side. They became aggressive right around when I sent the priests to Africa. During this time Milan had started a war with me and Scotland started soon after them. The Scots took York for a few turns and I took it back after mustering all my isle troops. They ended up becoming allies with nearly all my neighbors (Portugal, France, HRE, and Milan) so when I sacked Edinburgh they started to get pissed at me and eventually started to attack me.
After taking Edinburgh the pope (this was still the original pope) told me to cease hostilities with Scotland because they had managed to keep a 6-cross rating. So I sent a spy to Inverness and kept my troops in Edinburgh while the Scots kept sieging it and being beaten back, and as soon as the ceasefire was over I rushed Inverness and wouldn't ya know it, my spy came through and I didn't need to siege it, I rushed the gates and killed off the Scots, finally giving me full control of the British Isles.
During tthe Scot invasions I also had to fend off southern invasions by Milan and HRE, who turned on me after allying with Scotland. I was able to take Bordeaux, Paris, Bruges, and Antwerp, which has made me very financially secure. I'm currently in the middle of a four-front war with France, Milan, HRE, and Portugal, but with my pope I should have no problem with him interfering with my slaughtering.
My biggest mistake was ignoring diplomacy with everyone aside from the pope. Of course I granted trade rights and was nice to everyone at first I let that go away and now I have a bunch of angry neighbors who are allied with each other. Luckily Spain hasn't allied with anyone except for the Moors (go figure) so I'm currently trying to secure their alliance and hopefully I'll be able to marry into their family to form at least one secure alliance.
i like turtling as english and taking the lands on the french coast as a buffer for my island, and like econ said, just do what the pope and the council tells me, i prefer not to war monger and stay pretty peaceful unless attacked
Hi, I'm playing on the default M/M settings.
My basic strategy has been based around the goal of having a solid advantage when the time comes to invade the new world.
As I have heard nothing about how that part of the game works I am proceeding under the assumption that fleets will need to sail across the european map first.
Thus my plan is to capture the western coast of europe and blockade the straits of Gilbitrator with a massive fleet. To do this I shall endevour to annihilate the Scots, french, Dutch, Spanish, Portugese and Moors.
Thus far I have played for 78 Turns, and controll 32 provinces. This gives me the bulk of Western Europe. I have also captured the rebel Island near to the Holy lands.
Thus far I have destroyed the Scots, French and Milanese. I also assisted the Spanish to destroy the Portugese(Too tempting a turget).
My initial moves.
Focus on two front war. English Isles and the Ferench coast.
Built up my forces and immediatly moved north into York. The Forces in Caen immediatly moved north east to capture the two coastal rebel Towns. I then kept these armies inplace at York and Antwerp. I then built two new armies to capture the town west of Caen and West of Notingham.
Then I declaired war on the scots and forced them to fall back into Ireland. The pope threatened excommunication so I arranged a ciecefire.
As I was preparing to move on Bordeax the French Besieged Caen and England entered into a war that has continued is one fashion or another up till the present day.
I did then muster my forces and struck back against the French taking 3 Provinces in total but during this the Scots got the fool notion that they could beat me and declaired war. Appeals for a Ciecefire were in vain So I now was fighting a two front war.
Not that it mattered. I always keep strong standin armies on my borders, or close by in case of need. Then, having earlier rejected the invitation to join my war against the french, the HRE broke our alliance and sided with the scots and the frogs!
Their first move was to take Antwerp, successfully holding it against two counter attacks by strong forces. Mostly this was due to my lack of artillery and the inabillity of spearmen to capture held ramparts, even enmasse.
The problem was solved by teching up to catapults.
I finished off the Scots and began to expand into french territory untill once again I found myself attacked by Millan in the south and by the dutch at Antwerp in the North. :juggle2:
It was during this time I sent a force to join in the first of three Crusades so far. My forces traveled by sea around spain into the Med and on to the holy lands. After taking losses from disertion they landed and marched on Jeruselism only to see the stout stome walls and sigh in disappointment (I didn't sent Catapults with them). So I moved them south and attacked the Castle there. And was swiftly defeated, my King leaving a yellow streak so long that its stench reverberated throughout Chrissendom.
A quich application of "rent an army" fixed the problem of him having lost his and I was set to try again on a different target.
In the end I sailed East and captured the Rebel island I had passed on my way to the Holy Land.
I then decided to bring the fleet, my king, and his daughter back to England. They had scarcely made it back to Italy when the King, his daughter were killed by the Villanous Millanese on the high seas.
Back in Europe I was able to rout the invading armies and moved my forces south and East in two frounts to take two vital HRE Fortresses, Push the French back into Spain and the Milanese back Across the Alps.
Stage Two.
With large areas of Western Europe under my control, I was uble to finally move south into Spain to exterminate the French. (French Popes to date = Two, so the pope hates my Guts). The portugese left a nice unprotected forts next door so I promptly took that too. I also moved west into Millan and via several well fought battles destroyed their millitary might. Constant sabotage my my spy of their Cultural Infastructure eventually leading to their final defeat when their last two provences were lost to rebels.
Stage Three
The Spanish the decide to attack me as well. When will they learn? Again forcing me to fight on multiple fronts. I have just completed the destruction of the Dutch forces between my and Poland, and have started to advance into the HRE once more.
My next moves will be to Exterminate the Duch and HRE. And move South to Conquor Spain, Followed my North Africa.
I plan to stop my advance east at poland but that will depend of wether or not they will hold off attacking me.
And finally, at last, the Pope is ENGLISH! :beam:
Ever since patch 1.1, Portgual seems obessed in invading the British Isles no matter what.
I'm not exactly sure what's the best option because ever since then the Spainards, Portugese, and moors rarely touch each other, hence, Portugal is free to do whatever.
Best option of course is to exterminate them but that's difficult without angering the pope and such.
Difficulty: VH/VH
Well, actually, I think it's VH/VH, but I can't remember. Is there a way to check?
Well, I'm on turn 40 about, and I have 19 provinces. I think it's actually easier to expand on VH/VH than it is on Medium, simply because everybody just attacks you. I formed a marriage alliance with the French, and they betrayed me 4 turns later. They laid seige to Bruges - in revenge, I took Paris, Rheims, and Angers. Then I killed the king, and the pope told me to stop attacking them for a while. This was fine, because they attacked me again later, so I took their last royal town and their king.
As far as the Scottish go, I foolishly let them sit while I took rebel settlements and dealt with the French. Then, they attacked me, so I was forced into some tricky battles. In general, engage (trick them into engaging you) large armies on the field. The enemies are a little more confident and skilled on VH and last longer in a prolonged melee, but it is a lot better than dealing with a huge force in a city. One of my favorite things to do is to win a battle against a huge army, and force them into a city. Then, lay siege to that city. Usually, another huge army led by a noble comes up to save them. Kill the ENTIRE garrison when they sally, and as much of the other army as you can. I wiped out both Scotland and France this way. In one battle against Scotland, I killed their King and Heir and their main force. While one army was engaging them, I sent a small strike force to enter their capital and kill the king - winning the battle was not necessary, but it helped.
France was the first faction I killed, and then Scotland. Right now, I'm in a Pax Anglica of sorts, so I'm using it to build some of the more important buildings I didn't get a chance to build while I was building armies. I currently have the English Isles, the France-ish area, that little town next to Antioch (forget what it's called), and some towns in northern Europe. I'm waiting for the Danish to betray me.
Somebody brought up this point before, and it's a good one. Even if somebody beats you to the first crusade, take one of the rebel towns around the Holy Land and build it into a fortress. You have a huge stack in there already, and probably your faction leader. This is very nice, because new nobles come to age there, so you have the makings of a very nice expansion force. Convert the populace to Catholicism to make the pope like you.
Battles: I'm still working out a Medieval II mindset here, so much of my strategy is leftover from Rome. The trouble is that my spearmen aren't phalanxes. Oh well. Typically, the enemy tries to flank. Not a problem if you have lots of light and heavy cav to chase them off. Then, they're without cavalry, except for the heavy stuff they plan to charge up the middle. This is usually (stupidly) their general. My spearmen typically get pushed, and occasionally rout. Not a bad thing. Then I move my cav back in and squish the center assault. It seldom works out this nicely. Thus far, I've always been on the defense when fighting in the field, so this strategy works nicely. Haven't gotten longbows yet - when do those show up? Also Armoured Swordsmen would be nice. What buildings do I need for them? Also, again, does anyone know how to check the difficulty level in a game?
campaign: hard Battles: Very Hard
I found it best to start the campaign by completing the missions and conquering the UK.
I then established strong alliances with Spain and the Holy Roman Empire, thus surrounding France with enemies. Use trade rights, map info, and monetary gifts to gain good favor with them.
Using these alliances and my 2 cardinal votes I got my cardinal elected. Note that it is extremely important to watch your cardinal's retinue and characteristics to elect a pope favoring your upcoming plans. The manual explains how to groom your cardinals.
Using the pope and longbowmen France was unable to wage war on me or take my lone continental province of Caen.
Ignore attacking present day France and instead join (or call) a crusade and establish a base in the east. Do your main campaign expansion here. This avoids all the problems with fighting catholics.
I ended my long campaign by conquering the east coast of the mediterranean from the rich Egyptian provinces all the way into the Byzantine's empire. Remember the Mongols will pose an enormous threat in this area so prepare for them.
I tried playing England once, but have, well I wouldn't say failed, more like am stuck. I have blown 2, count em 2 armies trying to take down Caernarfon. That is mainly because I never get to exploit the power of the Longbowmen, because all my battles have been seiges, and my spearmen and billmen just absolutely get wiped out by even the Welsh Longbowmen:furious3: although I can't help but be pleased:laugh4: ) . Man those defense bonuses are killer, but I gotta ask. How dya'll do it? Do you maintain seiges and just wait 'em out, that's how i did it in M1, or dya try to lure them out so you can effectively use your Longbows?:help:
Quote Owen Glyndwr: I tried playing England once, but have, well I wouldn't say failed, more like am stuck. I have blown 2, count em 2 armies trying to take down Caernarfon. That is mainly because I never get to exploit the power of the Longbowmen, because all my battles have been seiges, and my spearmen and billmen just absolutely get wiped out by even the Welsh Longbowmen although I can't help but be pleased ) . Man those defense bonuses are killer, but I gotta ask. How dya'll do it? Do you maintain seiges and just wait 'em out, that's how i did it in M1, or dya try to lure them out so you can effectively use your Longbows?
Some people consider it a Bad Thing to use cavalry on sieges. It's not. It's tricky, but in small castles and towns, it's useful. Even though it's Lots of Fun to take out a castle with a small strike force, it's also not a Bad Thing to outnumber the defense by several hundred.
You want to use Spearmen and Billmen if you have them (it's not a Bad Thing if you don't. Also be sure to have a few units of Mail Knights and Hobilars. Quickly engage the melee troops that are protecting longbows. This can be done by simply charging your infantry at the longbows, and then the enemy infantry will engage you. Or, you could charge some Hobilars at them and see if you get a few before you have to pull back. Go around the back of the Longbows and charge the dying nightlights out of them with Mail Knights. Watch out for spearmen, though.
One strategy that I kind of did accidentally is to deploy at a part of the castle that has lots of buildings and a kind of crooked path in between you and the square, where the longbows are, and where the main melee might be. This minimizes their effectiveness. Be sure to give your spearmen leather armor or better.
If you feel Really Confident, have two rams attack two different gates, each force consisting of some cav and infantry. This way, the enemy might split their forces. Or they'll leave one gate undefended, so you can do a lightning flank with one gate team. Have fun!
Caveat - I haven't tried the last idea, but I think it'll work.
Edit: You have longbows already? How? Caernafon is best taken out early.
I have a couple of items to discuss.
First. I agree on the part about the Billmen. Maybe my brain is fired, but didn't someone post a mod to fix the Billmen. If they did and any of you know where or how to do it please let me know. I don't even recruit them anymore.
Second. I haven't really noticed a problem with an "underpowered" cavalry charge. Though my cavalry doesn't really crash into the opposition like I'd like them too. They kind of pause right when they hit the enemy, but I notice the enemy lose a satisfying amount of people. Satisfying to me I mean.
I just got the game at Christmas and only started playing it two days ago. I'm playing Hard campaign/Very Hard Battle.
I've conqurered just about all of France except Bruges, Rheims and the city in the Southeast corner by Genoa. I forgot the name of it.
I've conquered Ireland (but lost it to the Scots), but I"m now on the offensive in Scotland. I took Edinburgh and just assaulted Iverness.
Here's a question for the crowd. My general died while I was assaulting Iverness. Immediately the battle ended and went to the Battle REsults screen. It was a defeat for me. So far that's the only time I lost a commander. Is that supposed to happen in this game? Your commander dies and you automatically lose the battle? That's horse droppings if it's true.
Secondly. I agree with all the approaches to the English Campaign. Just wanted to throw a little tactic that I stumbled on accidentally that some of you might want to try intentionally.
Scotland does leave you alone much at the beginning. Well, once they did grow a sack and decided to attack me I built up a full army and put them on a boat so Scottish spies couldn't see it.
The Scots then assaulted York and took it. The Scots throughout the game I learned have one major field army and usually independent units or a minor field army wandering somewhere else. So, I sent my army on boats north of York and waited for the Scots to take York over.
They did. I besieged York and forced them to attack me by waiting out the Siege. They ended up attacking me earlier (thank God/ 8 turns would've sucked) with their minor field army. I waxed them all. The Scottish military out in one simple fell swoop.
I garrisoned York and went to Edinburgh and Exterminated the population. It was effortless. I then marched unopposed to Iverness where I had that little issue with my general dying. But in two more turns I'll be back there with 1500 troops to their 200 or so and I'll exterminate them easily. (My general will not engage in this fight).
Then I'll march to Dublin which is guarded by a few units. Scotland... gone in a flash of light.
This game is pretty good though. NOt as bad as I initially thought it would be; but it could definitely be much better if they'd fix the bugs.
I have a couple of items to discuss.
First. I agree on the part about the Billmen. Maybe my brain is fired, but didn't someone post a mod to fix the Billmen. If they did and any of you know where or how to do it please let me know. I don't even recruit them anymore.
Second. I haven't really noticed a problem with an "underpowered" cavalry charge. Though my cavalry doesn't really crash into the opposition like I'd like them too. They kind of pause right when they hit the enemy, but I notice the enemy lose a satisfying amount of people. Satisfying to me I mean.
I just got the game at Christmas and only started playing it two days ago. I'm playing Hard campaign/Very Hard Battle.
I've conqurered just about all of France except Bruges, Rheims and the city in the Southeast corner by Genoa. I forgot the name of it.
I've conquered Ireland (but lost it to the Scots), but I"m now on the offensive in Scotland. I took Edinburgh and just assaulted Iverness.
Here's a question for the crowd. My general died while I was assaulting Iverness. Immediately the battle ended and went to the Battle REsults screen. It was a defeat for me. So far that's the only time I lost a commander. Is that supposed to happen in this game? Your commander dies and you automatically lose the battle? That's horse droppings if it's true.
Secondly. I agree with all the approaches to the English Campaign. Just wanted to throw a little tactic that I stumbled on accidentally that some of you might want to try intentionally.
Scotland does leave you alone much at the beginning. Well, once they did grow a sack and decided to attack me I built up a full army and put them on a boat so Scottish spies couldn't see it.
The Scots then assaulted York and took it. The Scots throughout the game I learned have one major field army and usually independent units or a minor field army wandering somewhere else. So, I sent my army on boats north of York and waited for the Scots to take York over.
They did. I besieged York and forced them to attack me by waiting out the Siege. They ended up attacking me earlier (thank God/ 8 turns would've sucked) with their minor field army. I waxed them all. The Scottish military out in one simple fell swoop.
I garrisoned York and went to Edinburgh and Exterminated the population. It was effortless. I then marched unopposed to Iverness where I had that little issue with my general dying. But in two more turns I'll be back there with 1500 troops to their 200 or so and I'll exterminate them easily. (My general will not engage in this fight).
Then I'll march to Dublin which is guarded by a few units. Scotland... gone in a flash of light.
This game is pretty good though. NOt as bad as I initially thought it would be; but it could definitely be much better if they'd fix the bugs.
Ok, thanks for the help, the english campaign was my first, and I think I was jes used to my powerful roman legions mowing down everyone stupid enough to get in their way (which was pretty much everyone considering it was the ai:laugh4: ) Yeah, I was a little slow to get gowing on taking out Wales, and focused more on sucking up the towns near Caen (i.e. Antwerp, and whatever the town is in Brittany). And while I was doing this, I was building Caen into a powerful castle and got Longbowmen on i think around 20th turn or so. I also encountered the same problem as dead knight of the living, how my cavalry stupidly stop right in front of the enemy, which is frustrating because that makes a cavalry flanking action nowhere near as decisive as it was in Rome. This causes most of my battles in M2 to be full-on head to head slaughterfests where I lose 200 men against an army with 500 (compared to the average 35 I'd lose in Rome, even when I was outnumbered while seiging). Its a little frustrating, but hey! at least i get to see all the neat little stabbing and decapitation animations the CA added, great job guys! Now we jes need to work on the head falling off when they decapitate!:2thumbsup:
Yes, I have noticed that cavalry problem too. Make sure you tell them to charge from a fair distance away, and make sure they are all formed up when you give the order. DO NOT change targets midway. If you have to break off, tell them to go somewhere else, and make sure they're running. If they're not, click on the run button in the corner. That's another problem with cav - they tend to walk everywhere, even if you double-click.
Dead Knight of the Living, you probably lost the battle because your moral was so low that all your units began routing the instant that your general died. When you lose a general, it's a massive hit to moral, and if your units are on the breaking point, it turns into a massive rout.
What building does one need for Longbows and Armoured Swordsmen?
Again, does anyone know how to check the difficulty levels during a game?
:help:
Longbowmen show up with the second level archery range, I forget its name, the one after bowyer. It's always a priority for me in Nottingham and Caen.Quote:
Originally Posted by pianonator
Armoured swordsmen come considerably later. I think you might need your castle upgraded tp fortress or even citadel level to get them.
Armored Swordsmen come from the fourth-level barracks, and I'd give just about anything to have them avalible at Nottingham from the beginning, to deal with the Scots.Quote:
Originally Posted by MilesGregarius
Two other units of note, and how to get them:
Sherwood Archers: These Robin Hood wannabes have incredible range and power, but small unit sizes and high upkeep. If you have a really good economy, they might be worth it. They come from the Woodmens’ Guild. There is a chance you'll be offered the opportunity to build it every time you train longbow units in Nottingham.
Templar Knights: Templars help make up for England's heavy cavalry deficiency. Move a character with high chivalry to a fortress, and begin pumping out knights each turn. This gives you a chance at earning a Templar Guildhouse. Bigger guildhouses give experience bonuses that stack with tourney fields. Combine that with the highest-level smith, and you’ve got a really incredible unit, for roughly the same cost as the English Knight. I totally and unequivocally recommend this, especially when fighting France. Don't let them have any advantage over you!
Some other pointers:
Get the 2H Animation Fix, so that you can actually use Billmen: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=74094
England’s strategy for the past thousand years has been to have no permanent allies, just permanent interests. While this is true to an extent for every faction, you actually have a secure power base to build from early on, so you will always be in a position to undermine whoever is strongest on the Continent.
Sieging Dublin during the first five turns will marganalize the Scots. I’ve never managed to get to Iverness before they do, but getting to Dublin is easy via boat from Caen. Doing this will leave them with one town and one castle, while you can quickly swallow up York and Wales, too. After that, it’s just a matter of attrition. You can afford the losses, they can’t. Eventually, they’ll put a nice portion of their men on a boat, and sail down the eastern side of the island. That’s the perfect time to attack.
Fill Great Britain with paved roads, and keep a single castle (I picked Nottingham, for it’s central location), and a stack on hand to blunt naval invasions from Denmark or Portugal. Both of these factions will need to die, sooner or later, but you have other problems, first.
After wiping out the Scots, your enemies will be France and the HRE. Make an alliance with France as quickly as possible, so that everyone will blame them when they betray you. This will cause them to lose standing with the Pope, and that will keep him from interfering for a long while, as you swallow up their lands. As I said above, fill Europe with Templars or Hospitilars.
Speaking of His Holiness, the first pope needs to die, and the sooner the better. Seriously. He’s a very fair man, and for a dirty, underhanded dealer like you, that’s bad. You need an Englishman in Rome, or at least someone from one of your current allies.
Milan will probably be your third enemy. As an aggressive, expansionist power, they have never failed to draw the Pope’s ire in any of my games, so they question isn’t rather or not to call a crusade against them, but when.
If they’ve gone to war with either of your first two enemies, it might be in your best interests to let them both bleed themselves dry, constantly aiding both sides with regular injections of cash. Have an army ready for a crusade the second Milan betrays you. If the war with France is going well, and if Milan is not at war with any of your enemies, it might be prudent to nip this little potential problem in the bud early.
Crusades into the Holy Land are great, but make sure you aim them at a castle, either a nice, developed Turkish one, or a small rebel one, if any still exist. Jerusalem is nice, but hard to control, where as castles are easy. Bring many agents with your army. Once you’ve acquired your objective, spam priests each turn, and begin converting the Middle East, to ease your eventual conquest and undermine the Muslims. The Middle East is a great place to train cardinals, so start assassinating your enemies’ priests.
Now, go forth and conquer!
In my latest game as England on H/VH I marched straight on after taking York and reached Edinburgh before the Scots had taken Inverness, my spy opened the gates and it was bye bye Scotland very early in the game. This leaves the remaining Scottish ( now rebel ) armies and settlements to deal with at your leisure with no pressure from the Pope.
I've been playing mtw2 for a few weeks now and I've just started a new campaign as England. the problem I'm having is when attacking a city i seem to be takeing huge casualties compared to what im use to in rtw. Is there anything I can do to make things a bit better.
If you're taking casualties from the towers, try and have a few ladders and/or towers spread the fire from your rams. If you mean from just general fighting, make sure you aren't using unit types that are weak against what the enemy is using.
I'm playing an England game right now and I went after Scotland from the onset. I gathered up every troop I could spare short of emptying my 3 cities/castles , bought up a load of mercs and hit Edinburgh on, like turn 3 or 4. Bypassed right past York. Turned the Scot's 2 roaming armies into rebels. After that, took the rest of the British Isles at my leisure. Portugal came up and took that city just east of Dublin, can't remember the name, so I had to declare war on him.
Eventually France came after Caen allied with the Portuguese. Pretty amusing fight. They attacked with over 1000 men to my 600. I had Armored Swordsmen by then and billmen. Of their 1000 men they had 1 ballista plinking my wall, so I decided to sacrifice a Mailed Knights unit to destroy it. It worked. I couldn't close the gate though so I was ready for a tough assault but it never really came. They hit the gate with a couple units of cavalry, but the Spear militia bounced them easily enough. Creative Assembly really needs to fix their siege AI. They managed to get one ladder group to the wall and the almost entire 1000 man army tried to climb those 3 ladders, with the gate open right next to it! I just moved up a swordsmen and billmen to kill them when they reached the top of the wall, rotating them out when they tired, with the general rallying them when their morale was low. It was carnage.
I managed to turn my campaign around. After losing yet another army to Caernarfon, I have finally come to a revelation. Much like the English in the 100 years' war, the power of the English lies in their longbows. However, i never get to use them in seiges because the walls make the longbows fire arching shots which doesn't do much damage. Which brings me to my first point Never Under any circumstances should you EVER let your longbows fire arching shots. All it ever does is wastes valuable ammunition. You always want to manouvre your archers into a position where they can fire in a straight line, which means dont but longbows right one behind the other. My second point is this, you will almost never win seiges while your assaulting, especially in the early game, and if you do win, you'll incur heavy losses in the process. (this is coming from someone who is about 35 turns into the game and just got to feudal knights however) So, unless you have seige equipment, it is best to wait for them to attack you. When they come to you, their defense bonuses are gone, making them easier to kill, and you can bring the full power of your longbows to bear. For example, in the seige of Caernarfon, the first 3 fights were a waste of time, money and troops. However, the next time I waited it out, they sallied forth, and my longbows killed almost the entire army before they even reached me. Afterwards, it was a simple massive flank and i had won with only 35 men lost. The third point I will make is this: Your spearmen are pretty much worthless, they can't take a cavalry charge, so dont try it. it is better to lure the cavalry out into the open ground, place a few spearmen and cavalry nearby to keep theirs at bay, and waste half their cavalry force with longbows. After this, fix their cavalry with a few spears (make sure you'll do the chargeing, as your spears cant take a jit very well) and just flank them several times with whatever you got, which brings me to my final point. You pretty much have no cavalry, so you'll need to find other means of providing that shock I usually only bring along a few divisions of cavalry. A lot of my flanking I do with longbows. I fix with either spear militia or billmen. and then flank with maybe one mailed knight and whatever longbows i got. This usually works pretty well. If you can, try to completely envelop their cavalry. Like chariots, if you split their force up, even that invincible General's Bodyguard goes down quick. With tese strategies, I managed to take over all of france (except for Marseilles), wales, and Ireland. I finally got Yeoman archers and feudal knights in Nottingham, and am building an army to destroy Scotland. Then I am going to attack the Milanese who just stabbed me in the back. With England, once you pull away from the Roman Infantry can take anything mentality, they are pretty much unbeatable.