Spain

Spain is playable right from the start, without the need to unlock it or edit any files.

Ok, I guess I'll start...

The initial options are fairly clear: Valencia and Zaragoza. This achieves 2 things: prevents the portuguese somehow in Pamplona from growing powerful, and gives you a solid northern border, as well as a rich city. Keep them both as cities - Toledo will be enough to fulfill the troop recruitment purposes.

Valencia has a worthwhile general, but you may not be able to afford him straight off the bat, so IMO, don't bother.

Zaragoza has a fairly strong garrison, so I usually let the portuguese try and assault it first, and once the garrison is weakened, strike.


Get trade rights with as many neighbours as you can, and remember that you cannot get excommunicated by fighting muslims, so if you can afford it, hit Cordoba ASAP - again it is a rich city, and from here you can move on to Portugal (you will need 2 armies if you do not wish to get excommunicated, one to hit Pamplona, and another for Lisboa), and Granada starts as a strong castle, so you might want to wait to have the proper siege equipment, or just starve them out...

At this stage, France will usually DoW you. Don't let it bother you too much. but grab Bordeaux and Toulouse if you can. The french usually leave one or both those castles undefended in order to gather a sizeable army. If you manage to destroy the army completely, its free for your picking. After a couple of turns of war, the Pope will usually tell you to stop this nonsense so just accept the first ceasefire they offer you in exchange for trade rights and cash.

You should complete the missions given wherever possible. I usually ignored the outrageous ones - like going to Russia to kill a heretic - but stuff like blockade such and such port, or capture this city, are usually what you would have done anyway.

In any case, France will be your constant annoyance, so keep an army on their border at all times, and fortify Toulouse and Bordeaux. I find that these are great training grounds for assasins - I have a screen of about 12 in the area.

At this stage, begin developing the peninsular posessions: organise your garrisons so as to minimise costs, and build merchants, spies, watchtowers, and develop your fleet, because eventually you'll get missions to capture Ajaccio and Cagliari, and, my personal favourite: land 3 stacks in Rome, and show the pope who's boss....

After this, the world is your oyster. I personally like to sit back and build up.

You should have no trouble.

Good luck.

No trouble? I'm playing my first M2TW campaign as Spain, and it seems like I'm loosing my first game ever including allTotal War games..
(It's possible that I started a little optimistic with VH/VH on my first game...)

Like Swordsmaster I conquered Valencia and then Zaragoza, and kept them as cities. They're generating a descent income after I constructed Grain Market, Roads, Ports and then Market.

Then I set my eyes on the weak Portugese, and quite easily conquered Pamplona while the Portugese faction heir was watching it with half a army stack 1 day march away. In addition, I got the French as my allies, so my back was free. Then my trouble started, whan I of course was threatened with excommunication from the pope because of my hostiliy against the Portugese. What to do then? I had to anxiously watch this MY LITTLE PONY walking towards my capitol ("I'm soon gonna enjoy your land and your woman"). Fortunately, I got a peace with them before they attacked me. At least I thought so..

A few turns later, while I'm deploying my Faction Heir to face an oncoming full stack of Moor army, the Portugese (out of blue air... not) attacks me with a full stack in the flank. My movement points runs out, and escape is impossible. I have tried fighting this battle 3 times. I have the advantage of high ground and lots of archers, but I always end up loosing anyway. My best effort is to kill 80% of his army, but I lose all of mine including the Faction heir. The main reasons seems to be that his footsolidiers are supreme to mine of the same type, so it has to be the generals skills I think.

So now things look bad. The Moors and Portugese are flooding my land, with almost no defence left. I have a large stack ready to conquer a almost defenseless Granada, but since the combined forces I'm standing against is more than the double of mine, I see no hope.

So my first advice is: Don't go to war against both Moors and Portugese at the same time. Kill of one of them before you focus on the next. (prefarably the Moors, because of the excommunication I LIKE RAINBOWS AND BUTTERFLIES..).

Do you still have Jinette spam? I did a little experiment in MTW and on expert, conquered Iberia and finished two crusades with only Jinettes.

I had a unit of Jinettes, but they were slain.. Can still recruit 6 or something, but not too impressed by the Jinettes so far. They have good statistics, but they seem to fight worse and die faster than Heavy Cav even so..

That's why you don't have them engage in combat. Fire javelins, and retreat or isolate and sandwich units.

Watch the language. :blankg:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vicarious

I had to anxiously watch this MY LITTLE PONY walking towards my capitol

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This forum is even stricter than the sensoring on MTV.. You replace ******* with "MY LITTLE PONY"?? Tough to swallow for a hard-boiled Norwegian..

Anyway, let's cut to the case.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vladimir

That's why you don't have them engage in combat. Fire javelins, and retreat or isolate and sandwich units.

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Ok, this is of course a good advice. But my impression is that the units move much faster in M2TW than in RTW. So when you fight large battles (as is often the case...), your missile units get very short time to fire on approaching enemys before they are upon you. To use your Jinetes for firing/retreating demands a lot of micro-management, and you can't pause the game every 5'th second either.. So I often find my Jinetes engaged in hand-to-hand combat anyway.

Some posts earlier up here in this thread, I doomed my Spain campaign. Well, that was at little pessimistic. As I told, I lost my largest army and the faction heir. And the Moors and Portugese both had a full army stack that could just march on too my capital town and my largest castle, and I would've been out. But that was overestimating the AI. Instead of doing this, The Moor army headed back to their own land (maybe because I launched a sneak-attack and took Granada), and the Portugese army just sat still on a stupid ambush next to my spy.. So I had time to build up a new full army, and this time I beat the Portugese killing of their whole army and executing prisoners in revenge of my faction heir. So now I can grab Lisbon too in a few turns, and it also looks bad for the Moors.

It seems like the AIs problem is that they don't use spies. At least I have seen no spies in my land, and I got a couple of them myself to spot enemy spies. (And hopefully the game is built so that the AI would only see what their spies and armies sees, which is nothing..) Anyone got an opinion on this?

This is exactly why in my post I said not to start fighting the portuguese unless you can take both Pamplona and Lisboa in the same turn, ie, you have 2 large armies. After you do that, you can march the army from Pamplona to defend your south, and the army from Lisboa to attack the remaining enemies.

Started a campaign yesterday (vh/vh), my pc is slow and I could only do some turns.

I wanted to assault Zaragoza first and then make a trip to France to weaken them from the beginning. However, the Portugese were faster than I was, the town was already under siege.

So I besieged Valencia. In the beginning the garisson was stronger than mine, so I had to wait. I gathered some reenforcements (archers, spearmen, even mercs) and then attacked. After breaking the gate the enemy made a full frontal charge against my spearmen. The rest is history.

I made an alliance with Portugal. So there were no more targest except in the south. I raised an army and entered muslim territory. The muslim declared war and attacked me. Although their army was twice as strong I had a good position on top of a hill. I had two Spanish knights, two armored knights, one archer and one spear unit. The enemy had loads of archers, mounted archers and so on. I waited on top of the hill, gave them some volleys and dived into the archers. The Spanish nights are very useful against horse archers. They are faster than the normal knights and can catch them. And they seem to be better than the muslims.

Quickly buildning up a strong fleet is also a good option for Spain. Blocking the landbridge at the Strait of Gibraltar means the Moors can't bring in any reinforcements from North Africa. Having a fleet also means you'll have an easier time capturing Ajaccio and Cagliari - take them whenever you get the mission, and convert them both to cities for some nice income... don't worry about defending them, the AI very seldom makes amphibious landings.

Also, remember that Spain has some really nice lategame city-units, so don't neglect military upgrades in cities! Militia swordsmen, tercio pikemen, musketeers and gendarmes are all built in cities, and are all good units. The spanish musketeers are especially fearsome, with long range, good damamage, and causing fear.

Some early observations of mine :

Whatever you do
1) the Portuguese (well, Aragonese ;) ) will reach Zaragoza before you do
2) they will always try to siege the city with a minimal army that is always sent back home when the rebs sally. This is your window of opportunity. With the defenders weakened already, the second Portuguese attack usually takes the city, but if you lay your own siege just when they are pushed back, the city is yours for the taking.


Try as I might, I have never yet succeeded in bribing El Cid to my side , which of course was everyone's first move as the Spanish in MTW. Big troop stack + mucho piety... Ah, well, at least the Moors don't get him either this time around. He is already married too, so the 2 princesses Spain starts with are of no further help there.


If you can spare the cash needed to build a few cogs or better yet war galleys (or if you get some from a mission), it's a good idea to put them in the strait of Gibraltar. Prevents the Moors from reinforcing Cordoba/Granada if you haven't seized them yet, and if you have it stops the retaliatory stack(s). Of course, you can expect the Moorish navy to try and force you out, but it will still buy you some time to dig in and, should the ships actually survive, exps your admiral(s) nicely.


Concerning agents, Spain has the considerable advantage of starting in half-Muslim lands, and of having vast expanses of 100% Muslim desert right on its doorstep, so all Spanish priests tend to exp fairly fast, giving you an edge on the road to Cardinalship and Papacy. Roving Moorish alims also have the courtesy of regularly spawning more heresy for you to squash.


On the other hand, there aren't that many good ressources in your private peninsula, so merchants and trade are probably not going to be neither your forte, nor good investments until later in the game, by which time the Byzantine, Danish and Venetian merchs will eat yours for breakfast...


As for troops, well, your early infantry is crud. All of it, even your cultural unit. Javelinmen are as useless as ever, especially with the skirmishing issues affecting M2TW as of now. Sure, they have armor piercing ammo, but what good is that when the range is so pityfull ? Maybe in sieges, and even then I'd opt for archers to take out rams and tower. Jinettes, on the other hand, are marvellous. Expensive, but worth every dime. They'll slaughter heavy cav, chase routers far and fast, rout out archers and militia, you name it, they do it, and do it well.

Started my 2nd campaign with Spain (my first with Byzantium on H/H I abandoned when the Turks added their weight to the 2front war I was fighting against the Venetians and Hungarians...) and it's loads of fun. On M/M because I wanted to get a grip on game mechanics and the campaign, so I have played only a few battles (the AI bonuses on H and VH make autocalc battles a suicidal option...).

Well... Spain is easy. I am already on turn 140 and I've got the whole Iberia, 1/2 of the French territories and the four westernmost african provinces.

I got Valencia off the bat, then went for Zaragoza (the Portuguese had already softened the defenders a bit) and got that too. I managed to defeat a strong moorish army (one of the few battles I didn't autocalc and damn the spanish cavalry units are very strong) and then the Portuguese attacked and I swiftly got their northern city. I had an alliance with the Frenchies so no problem there. After a few turns and an excom threat (and the subsequent truce) the portuguese attacked again, so I wiped them out swiftly without getting excomed.

Soon the Moors fell too and the Frenchies attacked. I had a solid income base in northern africa and spain (only one castle, Toledo, the rest cities). Managed to push them back and gained two castles in the process, and they gave me Marseilles too for getting a truce. Since then, I've used my advanced units to great effect, just got to the lower countries (antverpes and bruge I got from the once almighty danes) and now I am king of the hill... NOT. Bloody mongols have overwhelmed the Turks, the Egyptians and the Byzantines (whatever the Hungarians left of them, actually) and are moving on against me...

In the agents department, is it just me or are Spanish merchants total whimps? I had a few Venetian and Milanese traders roaming my place, killing off my merchants on the bat, and I didn't manage to make a single aquisition. A single. In the religion field, I soon got lotsa cardinals and the Pope was mone for more than 100 turns, only recently did the hungarians manage to overcome me.

Mass your opening units and take Cordoba right away.

This fatally weakens the Moors and cuts the Portugese off from expansion to the south. Yes, the Portuguese will take Zaragoza. Let them. The place is rebellious. The Portuguese are stuck building garrison units in Zaragoza while you're taking Valencia and kicking what's left of the Moors out of Grenada. Also, the Portugese make a handy, weak buffer state between you and France.

It's a shame, but apparently you can't afforably bribe El Cid. I'd be happy to be proven wrong on that point.

Ignore early calls for a Crusade to Jerusalem. Concentrate on whipping the Moors. Don't be shy about hiring mercs, either. However, do build churches and send priests to convert Muslims in your newly won territories. That will make the Pope happier with you, and you will need the Pope's support soon when the Portugese attack.

One effective trick is to keep beating units that the Moors send to try and retake Cordoba. Beat them off, rebuild units in Cordoba, repeat.

Eventually, the frustrated Portuguese will attack you. Despite complaints from players, the AI will probably excommunicate them. Once that happens, do not play a defensive game. Take all the troops you can spare and take Lisbon.

Chances are, the Portuguese over-extended themselves in Zaragoza. You'll find Lisbon relatively easy pickings. Once you take and sack that city, the Portuguese are crippled, a rump state that's still a buffer between you and Europe. Now their king or the Pope can die, ending the excommunication, and they're still in a hopeless situation. Kill as many Portuguese family members as you can before the war ends. Then you can even ask for a ceasefire if you want, and probably get one. If the faction goes bandit for lack of heirs later on, you can pick them up with no excommunication trouble.

Now you're home free to take North Africa. After you take Algiers, accept Crusades to Jerusalem. You can start the Crusade in Spain, where your Catholic homeland will provide exceptionally good troops, and take them by ship to North Africa. Seize Tunis, Tripoli and Alexandria. If some other crusader takes Jerusalem, that's no problem. You can now take Cairo and the rest of Egypt with no trouble.

By now, you're the most powerful faction on the map with plenty of trade. Your relations with the Pope should be quite good, with a lot of high-piety cardinals who have converted thousands of Muslims. From here, take advantage of excommunications and bandits takeovers as they become available.

I agree with DT. Do not waste too much time with the Rebel towns. They are not worth it.

In the beginning I ordered my spearmen from the north to Toledo, where I gathered an army to deal with the moslems. I also built archers there as soon as possible. Archers help against Muslims. While I was building the army, I laid siege on Valencia and ignored Zaragossa. I allied with Potugal.

Then I marched to Cordoba. The Muslims attacked me first. I defeated their armies outside of Cordoba, so there were little defenders left. Next turn I assaulted the town. Cordoba is really a money maker, much more valuable than any rebel town. At the same turn 'El Cid' sallied from Valencia and I took the town. The reward was four knight units.

I ordered these units north to push further to Granada. Do not stop your invasion until the Muslims leave Spain. It is not a big issue. To my surprise I noticed that Zaragossa was still rebel. I sent a small expedition force to take the town.

Right when I had taken Granada, portugal betrayed me and blocked one harbor (what a silly way to declare war!)

Immediately, I made ceasefire with the heathens and advanced to Lisboa. A big army tried to stop me, but my army was almost as big and half of it was heavy armed kights. :smash:

I took Lisboa without problems.

The Portugese were passiv. However, they did send an army to siege Zaragossa. I sent a release army, but before it arrived, they assaulted.

I had two archer, one peasant and one spear unit. Each unit had only 50% combat strenght. They had archers, peasants, crossbows and a general. Plus catapults.

I put my archers on the walls. Man, I did not know what these catapults could do to wodden walls. :dizzy2: I lost half of my archers and had to retreat to the center while the enemy demolished my complete front side.

When they finally atacked, I stopped their General with my spears. He will never do a frontal attack again. Although the enemy suffered high casualties, I finally was wiped out and lost the town.

But there is still my release army and they have three catapults. And there is my King, coming with the main force from Lisboa.

If the Pope does not stop me, Spain will soon be mine. Let us all thank the Lord and praise His glory.:shame:

You gotta go full bore when playing Spain, and trust to God that initally no bad luck comes your way. You roll on Cordoba right away and chase the Moors out of Espana. Then go clean up the rebal territories. By this time Portugal should be just about read to stab you in the back along with the French. You will be on the go from the first turn onward. :knight:

I was right. France does backstab. But I was ready and invaded them. A series of brutal battles later they sued ffor peace. I was tired and armies needed rest and refit so at 500 a turn for 15 turns tribute I was kind and granted it. But for strategy. Maybe two castles in Spain, rest cities to feed the war machine.

I am Pope!!

One big advantage of Spain is that you have access t the land of the heathens right from the start.

It is a nice strategy to produce priests. I made four or five of them. Take then to the new conquered lands, they will help you make the people catholic and happy. Then send them to Africa, where they can convert the (still) free moors.

Three priests were promoted to Cardinals, then the Pope died and one of my Cardinals was elected. :2thumbsup:

After finishing a short campaign as the Spanish, I decided to try a new strategy as the Spanish for a long campaign on H/H. The following is a synopsis of events so far:

My first council mission was to take Zaragosa, instead of Valencia. OK, works for me. I sent my army to take Zaragosa, which is an easier conquest anyway (El Cid can be be annoyingly tough and his entire garrison are veterans). Taking Zaragosa seems to stop French southern expansion plans. They went for the English instead. By this time, I managed to get both the Portuguese and Moors to pay me for alliances.

With Zaragosa mine, I began building a second stack with my new found wealth from extorting alliances from my neighbors, garrisoned Zaragosa and sent the army that took it south for Valencia. Valencia was tougher to take than Zaragosa, but fell after a long siege. I garrisoned it and sent my now fairly experienced army to get retrained and resupplied before heading north to wait on the border of Pamplona.

My second army was untried, so I made sure it had my best general (4 stars) and was a bigger stack, then sent it west to wait on the border of Lisbon. When both were ready, I attacked the Portuguese in the same turn. The Pope didn't even raise an eyebrow when both fell and the Portuguese were eliminated.

I then sent part of an army back to Zaragosa in case the French became annoying, and sent everything else to get retrained and resupplied. I now had one and a half armies, with good experience to take on the Moors. I also built a stack of 4 ships to use to block the land route from Africa. With it sitting on the land bridge, the Moors were unable to reinforce, and al-Andalus was mine. So I made the Moors pay me for a new alliance - again.

Now I had to make a decision. Moors or Europe. I owned the land bridge with my ships. The Moors were now impoverished and their ships aren't a match. So I went for Europe. So far it's going well. I took the still rebel Bordeaux while the French and English were at war. Then the English got themselves excommunicated. Too bad for them. I took Rennes, Caen and Angers (which was apparently the province that got them ex-commed) before they made friends with the Pope again. I sacked all three. Then I went after Toulouse. This made Il Popo annoyed. So, I gave him Caen and Angers after destroying all the available buildings in both and retreated to Rennes and Bordeaux. Now I owned Rennes, Bordeaux and Toulouse and the Pope was happy with me and acting as a nice buffer between me and England in the process. Woe to anyone becoming a problem on my northern border. The Pope makes a fine buffer. :wink:

At this point, I am about to go for the rebel islands, taking Ajaccio and Cagliari. I'm still allied with the Moors. That's about to change, however. After I take the islands and build up a nice army in Granada, I'm going to start a series of crusades, since the one in Jerusalem just failed (I didn't join). I've been saving the Moors for this. I ought to easily get to each target first. And I should succeed in each. I think I can take each Moorish town in turn and each as a single crusade. This will boost my armies' experience, give me plenty of loot, a new power base in the south, more income, and best of all make the Pope my best buddy. If I can manage to use crusades to take Marrakesh, Algiers, Timbuktu and Tunis, then I should have a very experienced army or two to take east toward the Egyptians for Jersualem crusade and the resultant relics; and hopefully be ready for the Mongols, who should be appearing soon.

I know it was kind of long. But the above illustrates my idea that attacking the Moors too soon wastes an opportunity to use them later on for Pope manipulation and building armies through a series of crusades. It's not historically correct, but it sure has been fun so far. :grin:



Note: How to attack and then garrison cities immediately.

I try to always have at least one useless general who has at least 3 loyalty and 2-3 or more piety and some chivalry helps too - the more of each, the better. I don't care how may stars he has. I allowed him (and hopefully one other general too) into the family for one thing - garrison commander of newly taken cities. Behind my armies, when I can, I try to have a baggage train/follow-on force ready to garrison. This small stack army consists of my lovable but militarily useless general, 2-3 or sometimes 4 milita units and 1-2 priests/imams. Their only purpose is to immediately garrison a newly conquered province so my main army can immediately move on to new things. Just a little tip from your uncle Aenlic. :wink:

Here are some observations I have made with the Spanish Campaign:

• They have excellent Cavalry in the beginning.
• But no real infantry.
• Portugal is a joke of an enemy at the start (left pamplona virtually unguarded- much too tempting) take advantage of it.
• Their early game economy is mediocre at the worst.
• Their Merchants are weak.
• Their Papal missions so far seem to be realistic and almost easy.

Altogether I like the Spanish, and I am looking forward to accessing some of their really good units like Conquistadors (which can only be trained in America).

So My Spanish Campaign isn't going good.

I started off taking Valencia easily then Zaragosa with the rest of that army. Valencia is loyal but Zaragosa is not. I leave my army here in Zaragosa for awhile to quell the unrest.

At this point in the game I am allied with the English, French Portugese, and oddly enough the Moors, who sent a diplomat and asked for a alliance.

The Moors now demand my attention as I wish take their cities. I start with the army I'm building up in Toledo and take Granada. Over in the East I notice that Bordeaux just repulsed a French army. I rush an army up and take Bordeaux with ease, but apparently steped on a few Portugese toes to get there and they break their alliance with me.

Apparenly the French feel as if Bordeaux is there's by divine right because they send an army to seige it. Its a pitiful army and I sally out of my castle and destroy the crossbow men and spear militia.

Unfortanily next Turn I realize that Bordeaux was only a cunning trap, those devious French lust for Zaragosa and send a giant army to capture it. The Army I was raising to finish off the pitiful Moors finds itself heading East. Next turn I am warned by the pope not kill other Christians, but apparently it doesn't count if you attack an army that is sieging your city. I bring down reinforcements from Bordeaux and with my mixed army that should be off slaughtering heathen muslims I decemate the French and they scury back to their own lands.

Things seem to be getting back on track, but wait, those bloody portogese didn't like me trampling through their pastures. They attack from Pamplona with a weak army that breaks against Zaragosa's walls, but oddly enough leave a large army standing around on the border.

Meanwhile I ceasefire with the French apparently at the urging of the Pope. Other than an isolated Pampalona it looks like The East is fine, I turn my attention back to the Moors and take a newly built army into Cordoba. The Moors don't put up much fight and I kill their faction leader and sack their capital for 11000 florins. Things are looking up.

I decide it would be a fetching time to make those Pampalonian's pay for their insolence. I send my army out of Zaragosa, almost a complete stack. But Zaragosa citizenry need a larger garison to keep them under control so I move back my general along with a few units of caverly. Apparently the army was bitter of spilling Christian blood so they turn on me. The entire stack becomes rebel. Oh and did I mention that Lisbon is fielding a large army against my capital, and did I mention the French just showed up at Zaragosa again but this time with a large force of Feudal Knights.

So I am now fighting a 4 front war, Portugal to the West and Northeast, French to the East, my own rebel army, the French from the East, and the Moors from the South. Looks like things couldn't get any worse.

On a happy ending note for some crazy reason the French left all their troops at my border and attacked Zaragosa with none other KING HENRY the MEAN and his 40 royal gaurd, he stands at my door. I engage him with two units of peasants to the front and flank him with a calvery on either side, his guard crumbles and he dies.

Next turn I am attacked from all directions. Game over.

I am at approximately the year 1340 in my Spanish campaign, on VH/H. Either that or H/H. I can't remember.

I started out by taking both Zaragoza and Valencia. It was a long time ago so I can't remember exactly how it went, but I remember I built up forces for a few turns before I did it. I probably took both by starving the enemy rather than fighting, because that's how I often do things.

I was allied with Portugal as well as the Moors.

My first war was against France. The first Franco-Spanish war was pretty uneventful. I think the only battle against France in that first war was when they made a half-assed attempt at Zaragoza which I repelled. I sent a big army up towards Toulouse. I had the city under siege when the most confusing diplomatic turn of events ever happened.

France demanded that I become a vassal state. As a joke I counter offered with ceasefire + they give me Toulouse. They accepted, and I got Toulouse.

I can't remember the exact sequence of events, but basically I found myself in a two front war when Portugal and the Moors declared war on me. I took all of Iberia under my control. I never fought a field battle against Portugal from what I can remember, I defeated them strictly by starving their settlements out.

I enlisted the help of the church to fix my Moor infestation. I got the Pope to call a crusade on Corduba, which was like opening up a can of instant army. I took Corduba pretty easily, and mopped up the rest of the Moors. Once I pushed them out of Iberia, we made peace.

The peace didn't last terribly long. I kept building up until France clued in that they got a bad deal last time, the Moors decided they wanted their Spanish holdings back, and Milan gave into peer pressure because all the cool kids were doing it.

I never fought a battle with the Moors. They sent an army over the land bridge and did nothing with it, they just left it there.

I did fight several with France and Milan. Thousands of Frenchmen and Milanese have died at Toulouse. Seriously, I've never seen so many full-stack armies sacrificed in vain. It was like world war 1. It was the same story each time. My understrength garrison gets set upon by 2000 enemies, I fight them off in a close battle in which I take 33-50% casualties, the next full-stack arrives to try again before I'm even fully recouperated from the last attempt, and it happens a few times.

I just held my ground at Toulouse while I sent an army up France's West coast to take a few cities. Bordeaux, Angers, and Rennes were mine, while France was still routinely sacrificing thousands of guys at Toulouse.

I then raised another big army to try and take some of the pressure off of Toulouse by moving for Marseilles, which I took. Toulouse was still getting bombarded with attacks.

My lines were kind of extended. I had to keep sizeable garrisons in five cities because they were all potential French/Milanese targets. That's why progress was kind of slow.

The latest city I've taken is Milan. I raised another army and slipped it through the front lines and it took Milan.

I made a move for Genoa with a slightly understrength army (Genoa was lightly defended) but I was intercepted by a full-strength Milanese army plus reinforcements. My 1080 guys took 70% casualties in the spanking by the 2400 Milanese. I did kill 55% of the Milanese though. It wasn't enough and a few hundred depressed Spaniards had to hobble back to Marseilles to brace for a Milanese offensive.

The whole time I neglected my navy. My navy was getting its ass kicked by the French and the pirates and I was poor, so I gave up on it. At one point in the war, just a few turns after the three-front war started, I was severely in the red and I was actually in danger of losing the war as casualties were mounting and I had no money to replace them. I lucked out though by sacking a settlement.

If M2TW's AI didn't suck so badly, I wouldn't be doing so well. When assaulting cities, the AI is just terrible and every other battle I am saved by a glitch.

I started a Spanish short campaign. I'm looking forward to killing someone other than just Christians so I felt Spain offered me a chance to fight both Muslim and Christian nations.

On turn one I took my starting army and headed towards Zaragoza. On turn two I got the mission to take Valencia but I kept going to Zaragoza hoping to beat the Portuese to it. No luck, they were besieging it when I got there. I hung around for a couple of turns hoping they'd get repulsed but after two turns they took it. During the wait I made alliances with both the Moors and Portugal figuring that would buy me time to build up. Once portugal took Zaragoza I turned my army around and marched on Valencia. I laid siege to it to weaken El Cid and his defenders. On the last turn I assualted the Motte & Bailey Castle and won the day.

I then continued my economical build up. I didnt build my army up much but I did build a nice little fleet that could wether pirate attacks. I sent diplomats out to get trade going. I even sent a diplomat to camp Rome. Yes, I have learned finally the way to control Papal diplomacy is by having a diplomat near Rome to grease the Pope's hands with small gifts of money. I'm not sure what the minimum is but I know each time I give a thousand florin he praises me and looks the other way. It keeps me in high esteem with him. I made one other alliance. With the French. In case i wanted to play them and Portugal off one another later on.

The Pope called for a crusade against Antioch. So far in two previous games (England & Denmark) I went on crusade three times and each time my army deserted. I'm convinced the Crusades in this game are a joke. No matter what I do desertion happens and I lose good men and time so from now on I'm just going to ignore crusades in all my games. CA needs to fix/tweak how crusades work. They simply are useless in my opinon. Besides that I can give the Pope one thousand florin and he forgives me not going on crusade.

Anyway, once I got a good economical build up going I looked around to see what rebel towns I could pluck without starting any wars. The Moors were to my south and the Portuguese to Southwest and North. Bordeaux sat lonely. The French hadnt gotten to it yet and it only had a three or four units defending it. Lowly units too. So from my Toledo docks I sent an army to invade Bordeux and capture it. It was a easy take. I kept the army there to discourage the French from getting ideas. Meanwhile I looked around for other targets.

About this time the Pope dies. Having kept in perfect esteem with the old pope with a couple of small gifts my Cardinal had four votes going into the election. I easily won and my Cardinal was made Pope. Things were looking good. Portugal and the moors went to war against each other. I decided to let them fight while i looked for easy targets. I assumed the Moors would be better fighters than the Portuguese so i didnt attack them. I was actually hoping they'd take Lisbon so later I could snag it and not get any gruff from the vatican. I build another small army and sent it east towards Corsica and Sardinia. After a time my army captured the rebal towns of Ajaccio and Cagliari.

By now the Portuguese had taken Cordoba from The Moors. This only left Granada left on the peninsula so I decided I better take it before the Portuguese do and totally surround me. I still had the alliance with them but I knew eventually war would come. I recalled my army from Bordeux since my other small army was at Cagliari rebuilding there. I pulled my Bordeux army home via boat and marched them southeast from the Toledo docks as quick as possible. I threw in some extra good troops and bought some mercenary spearmen. I sent them to valencia where I had a fleet waiting to pick them up and sailed them south to Granada. At the same time I got a mission to blockade Granada so this worked well. I also took my small army stationed at Cagliari and sailed them to North African coast of Algiers and stationed them near the town there ready to pounce.

In one turn I landed my troops at Granada and laid siege to it. I then had the ships blockade the Granada docks. At the same time my small army near Algiers landed and laid siege to it as well. The Moors were completely unprepared for this attack. They only had one unit at Granada and a few at Algiers. On the next turn I assaulted Algiers and took the town. I kept the siege at Granada going one more turn to get the 'mission complete' notice. that gave me an extra 1000 florin for no extra effort.

During this phase the French attacks both Portugal and me. Near as I can see its just a naval war so to keep myself from getting into hot water with the vatican I'll let the French blockade what ports of mine they want. its not a worry really. Bordeux is the only region they can attack me directly and it has a good garrison waiting in case they do. Otherwise they have to go through Portugal to get to me. Meanwhile I sent my Granada force to Marakeesh to take it and my Algiers force to Tunisia to take it. For all pratical purposes The Moors are done for. Its just a matter of time now.

Once the Moors are exterminated I'll just wait and see if the French or Portuguese will attack me directly. If so they'll probably get the Pope's wrath and get excommunicated. Then I can waltz in and take them down. I'm still allied with Portugal however so I'll just build up for now. Maybe send a expedition force to the Americas. I havent been there yet and Spain should offer a good springboard for that campaign. I could go after Egypt as well or any excommunicated nation. Sicily is currently excommunicated and so is England. Lots of choices for land grabs.

Thats it so far. Looking forward to sitting down and playing this faction some more.

Once you eventually get to gunpowder, Spain becomes really powerful. In land units, Spain has the full spectrum of gunpowder troops: handgunners, arquebusiers and musketeers. I personally didn't bother building any handgunners; I've faced those in battle in a previous campaign and wasn't terribly impressed. I skipped over the arquebusiers as well, just because once you can build them it's only one more barracks until you can build musketeers. Musketeers are a graphic demonstration why gunpowder weapons supplanted swords/bows/crossbows as the primary weaponry of armies. They have high attacks, long range, accuracy, and the ability to penetrate armor. They seem to cause more casualties at long range than pavise crossbowmen do, and at closer ranges, I've seen armored sergeants break with a single volley of fire. The fear effect does seem to require you to be moderately close to work.

In artillery, Spain doesn't have access to mortars, monster ribauds or serpentines. They can build bombards, grand bombards, ribauds, culverins and basilisks. Their gunpowder ship from the dockyard is the lanternas, the same as most of the other Mediterranean factions. The Venetian galleas is a better ship, but is also more expensive.

My field army is now transitioning to the end period weaponry, as I can build them. My usual stack now consists of 4 musketeers, 5 Tercio pikemen, 6 sword & buckler men, 2 jinetes, and a general. I leave two spots open for artillery pieces, and use them as necessary. I've found times when I have to leave the artillery behind to move quickly, and am adopting the strategy of leaving a piece or two in every front-line city so I can pick them up as needed.

So Spain eventually does get some pikemen? Thats good because so far their infantry isnt too good. I have to hire mercenaries to use as my main line right now. Spain does have some good mounted troops though. Good crossbow men too.

my latest update is this...

I landed troops at Merrakesh and as I was laying siege to it Portugal decided they wanted Granada. I guess they were mad that my army beat them by one turn to Merrakesh. So, The Spainish-Portuguese War starts. Portugal took Granada without much effort. I only had three militia units there. I wasnt expecting a war with Portugal so soon. They had me surrounded on the Peninsula and it was touch and go for a while. My best two armies were in Bordeux and North Africa. I had to build a third army to help stave off the Portuguese. Finally I got all three armies into Spain and began taking territory. Portugal kept asking for a ceasefire but I wasnt willing. I wanted them dead and gone. I retook Granada first and then Cordoba. Pamplona and Zaragoza fell next. Then finally I took Lisbon. During this time I greased the Pope's hand to keep him happy and my rating high.

At one point the pope died but my rating was so high and everyone was so happy with my piety (or how I was conducting warfare because in reality I'm as pious as a rock):laugh4: that they all were voting for my guy. I won that election easily and retained the papacy.

Then France tried for Bordeux. Luckily my northern army was near Pamplona at the time so I marched them up to break the siege. It was a bitter fight. Their mounted knights did a number on my front linemen but I won the day. I marched a small army over to tulouse because it was lightly defended but the French had a major army neaby and routed my smaller army. And then the Pope intervened so I had to break off or face his wrath. He's my man on the chair but I still gotta listen when he says, Back Off!

The Moors still got one territory left in Western Africa. Its way down below. Its taking a while to march an army down there to grab it. Other than that right now I'm just building up my tired armies and my economy. I'm turning all my castles into towns and cities now since all of Spain and most of North Africa is mine. Just leaving Pamplona nd Bordeux as castles for now to guard my northern border.

Once I take that last Moorish territory the campaign is technically over. I dont know if I'll play more or move onto another faction. I'll probably save the campaign in case I want to come back to it. I still havent seen the Americas yet nor have I seen these Mongols and gunpowder. I'm still in the very early 1200s.

I'm playing as Spain currently with one year = one turn on VH/VH and i'm in the late 1200's now (which would be 1400's in a standard year game) and let me tell you something: late end Spain units are unstoppable.

In fact, the only "knight" units I use now, are Gendarmes, which don't really count as they are just heavy professional cavalry from cities. A line of Tercio Pikemen, supported by Musketeers or Pavise Crossbowmen, Sword and Buckler melee support, and a mix of artillery or Mounted Crossbows for skirmishing is incredible. Couple that with their fast movement speeds and lighter armor (only Gendarmes really face any penalties vs. units that are effective vs. armor) and i've been able to mow down army after army of all sorts.

Yes, Spain does get pikemen, and good ones too. I expect the Holy Roman Empire might have better, but nobody else does. Swiss pikes are in the game, but only as mercenaries after a certain date. To train Tercio pikemen, a city has to get to huge unit size, and then build a Military Academy (4800 florins and 4 turns, IIRC). The academy is well worth building anyway; park a general there for a while and he'll pick up the Academy Trained trait later superceded by the Officer Training trait. These are worth +1 and +2 to command, respectively. There are no building prerequisites for the Military Academy either, just the huge size requirement. It can later be upgraded to a Royal Officer's Academy, for 9600 florins. This allows the building of Gendarmes and increases the pool of pikemen from 4 to 6 units max.

The gunpowder infantry are also trained in cities. Once gunpowder is developed, you get two new barracks buildings. The highest level barracks buildable prior to the discovery (Militia Barracks) enables the recruiting of handgunners once gunpowder is developed. Following the militia barracks, you build an Army Barracks (6 turns and 12,000 florins) to allow recruitment of Arquebusiers, and then upgrade that to a Royal Barracks (8 turns and 15,000 florins) to be able to recruit musketeers.

Well, this will be my first post on this forum, and I am making it about my current favourite faction, the spanish.

It was said earlier that the spanish do not have good infantry in the early stage. Tis is not really true, you get the almughuvars, and those are great if used right. The almughuvars are javelineers with decent to good melee ability, and that makes them a great asset.
A typical main army of the spanish in the early stage should consist of 2-3 jinettes (javelin cavalry), 2-3 mailed knights, a general, 4 crossbows (peasant archers will do in a pinch if those are not yet available) and 4-5 almughuvars (with skirmish turned off). Top this up with spear militia if you feel like it, but it's not really necessary.
Use your jinettes to harry the enemy heavy cavalry, as those are the greatest threat to your main line. Neither the crossbows nor the almughuvars will take a cavalry charge without falling like flies. Place the crossbows in the front line with the almughuvars behind. The knights secure the flanks. Advance into range and bombard with crossbows and, when you get closer, javelins. The latter are really deadly, especially when you have the high ground. Don't be afraid to maneuver at speed to gain that advantage, you have mostly light troops who can take it pretty well. Concentrate your barrage on one section of the enemy line, then cease fire and let your knights punch through (don't let 'em linger in melee). immediately after that, charge the almughuvars forward and use your knights and jinettes to attack the rear if the enemy cavalry is dealt with, if not, concentrate your horse on those. Your shooters can run to an opportune spot to shoot the flanks or rear or engage in melee, if that is too risky. Use them to complete envelopments, never on their own. They should only add to the "oh hell, we are surrounded"-syndrome.
This works great against most armies, against cavalry-heavy troops, increase the number of jinettes and knights and concentrate your fire accordingly.

Some random thoughts on Spain.

Starting out
Spain’s strength is defiantly their cavalry in the starting phases of the game. I found myself filling my armies with at least half to two thirds Calvary, add a few spears and a few archers and great army for early warfare.

My general strategy would be to use mailed knights or spear to attack the enemy from the front while Jinettes would attack the flank / rear of the unit at the same time. When able I'd wait out sieges to force the battle outside where I could make full use of my cavalry.

Overall my basic plan was to focus on taking the entire Spanish peninsula. This would give me a large area that should be fairly well defended

In my first turns I ignored El Cid and grabbed a fair stack and headed to Zaragosa, I also send a princess to Pamplona. I manage to marry her to the family member on Pamplona and as such could grab the city without a fight (though it does result in war with Portugal). I decided to stay out of southern France.. Plenty of opportunities towards the south and with England, France and Milan all shooting for the area i figured I'd stay clear.

Already at war with Portugal it seemed clear that I needed to finish off Portugal asap before the moors decided to join the fun. Ultimately they declared war on me a couple of turns before I attacked and occupied Lisbon.

I scrambled to regroup, after some tough fighting I drop the moors out of Spain.

The joy of crusading
The dissertation issues with crusades can be a hassle, but for Spain these can be avoid relatively easily, and crusades provide an idea way to expand your influence without breaking your finances.

You can avoid crusades as long as you move closer (or at least don't move away) from your destination). So the trick is to plan tings so you can continue moving towards your destination while still picking up a few holdings on the way. There are two huge benefits to crusades: 1) Crusading units has no upkeep, being able to send a full stack of high end units into battle without upkeep saves you a quick 2-3000 a turn. At the earlier stages of the game, this is the kind of money that can make or break your empire in the making. 2) Cheap powerful units. Crusader knights and sergeants cost next to nothing (I can’t remember the precise numbers but good spearmen for under 300 and knights for less than 500? and no upkeep?).

As I see it you have two ways to use your crusade:
1) When the crusade is called quickly gather the general you want to use, a ballista (or catapult) and 6 other units (archers might be a good idea as there is no cheap crusade ranged units to be bought) in Valencia. Gather as many ships as you can spare at the time (5-6 would be a solid fleet this early in the game) and join the crusade. Your real goal is not actually the holy land but rather establishing a solid base of operations in the central and eastern Mediterranean. First stop is Corsica. The two islands in-between Spain and Italy and almost certainly still rebel. Disembark, siege and attack in the same turn. With your siege weapon and full stack of crusading units there is no reason to waste time. By the end of your turn you should have taken the settlement and be back in your ship and heading towards the second of the islands. Next turn take the second island in the same way as the first and head into East. You second stop is almost all the way to the holy land. Rhodes (along the Turkish coast) tends to remain rebel for a long time and would be an idea staging point for future crusades and East Med navel base. The last leg of the journey can be tough as you’re likely to be hounded by enemy ships. Get there, unload and grab the castle. You now have three island bases giving you great coverage of the Mediterranean. You have a strong stack already in the east if you want to continue to the holy land, else consider disbanding many of the crusade units as the upkeep becomes brutal once the crusade ends one way or the other, no one is likely to attack your islands anyways.

2) The second approach to the first Crusade.
I haven’t had a chance to experiment with this approach but if done right you should be able to hop to North Africa and march your upkeep free super army easy at a sedate phase, crippling the moors as you go. By the time the crusade ends you should have taken 2-3 Moorish settlements in North Africa, leaving you in a strong position to wipe out the rest of the faction.

I got my tech built up to Bombards and the 2nd level Bombards (foget name) I also have access to those pikemen now. I stopped the campaign there. I took the last Moorish territory finally and put the Moors out of the way which ended the short campaign. I saved game so I can come back to it later if I want.

I started a English long campaign now. My first long campaign. Now that I know what I'm doing I want to see how the English do. I like their infantry better anyway. My strategy is a holdover from RTW basically. Get a good solid line. Back it up with some ranged artillery units (archers and ballistas) and a couple of cavaly units to cover the flanks. Move in to artillery range and let the ranged units weaken the enemy and then once its exausted move line up to engage and send in cavalry to the flanks and roll the enemy flanks up. Standard classic strategy really.

I been doing this with M2TW as well. Knights instead of RTW cavalry. Catapults instead of balista and still using archers but crossbowmen now mostly since they hit harder. And they go up front instead of being behind the linemen. Archers in M2TW arent as accurate it seems. You put them behind troops and they shoot up but not very effective when landing from above. Put them out front they do pretty good in a direct LoS attack but subject to assaults by the enemy lines. And they dont retreat as fast as the RTW units did. The crossbowmen can melee better though than archers from RTW.

The AI more or less stands about and lets me move my lines up just like in RTW. So far M2TW does the same basically in my experiences on M/H and H/H. Kinda dissapointed CA hasnt improved battlefield AI from RTW. I had hoped they changed it. Maybe if I try it on VH?

I did enjoy the Spanish more than I did the Danes. So far though the English suit my tactics best with their better infantry but to be honest I didnt try the Spanish pikemen yet. I want to tech up the English and then compare them to the Spaniards in mid-late game play.

Edit: I didnt try doing a crusade with the Spanish. In other previous games it didnt work for me at all. Nothing but desertions. Plus you can camp a diplomat at Rome and grease the Pope's hand with a little coin and keep him from getting mad at you for not going on crusade. Far as I'm concerned the game's crusade aspect is seriously flawed and I dont like it at all. Not even going to bother with it anymore. I'd love to partake in it but if all thats going to happen is mass desertion then its just pointless. I know I'm being overly critical of it but there it is ::chuckle::

playing on h/h

i started off by allying with both the portugese and the moors.

i musterd all my forces (leaving toledo unguarded for a couple of turns) and took zaragosa first - as has been mentioned the portugese will get their first and fail in their attempt to take it - thats your chance.

i decided to wait on valencia - it is a tough city to take, so i thought it was unlikley that the moors would get there before me (which proved to be correct)

i moved my army (now nearlly a full stack) up into france - i tokk bordeaux off them and Rennes which was rebel. under pressure from the pope I managed to negotiate toulouse off them for a ceasfire ( it came equiped with troops - never done this before imp impressed)

i then pursuaded the pope to declare crusade on jerusalem. I took a couple of generals, some troops and recruited to full stack with crusade mercs. I had another non-crusading general follow along behind with some milita troops.
I hired cursade merc boat in south of france. first stop ajaccio, second stop florence. The cusade army moved on imediately after taking these territories and the following non crusade general came in after to garrison the new territories. I recruited more crusade mercs in italy and split into two forces. and moved overland down towards the heel where i recruited two new crusade merc ships.
next stop durazzo and corinth both byzantine territories. both taken after one turn of seige. ( tip - to garrison territories whilst on crusade move your general out of the crusade stack recruit mercs - put them in the city, move the crusade stack back to the general and rejoin the crusade. I have also noticed that if you leave crusade troops behind in a city they dont desert into thin air, but just stay in the city.)
The army from corinth moved on to take smryna, whilst the durazzo army too corinth and then byzantium. I ignored nicosia as it was too well defended and moved both armies on to take iconium (also byzantine at this point). i have scurted around adana as it was guarded by almost a full stack of byzantines and i ma about to start moving through the middle east - where helpfully i hhave been able to replenish my severely depleted armies with fresh crusade mercs.
amusingly when i arrived in anatolia i was aproached by the egyptians for a ceasefire (They own Jerusalem so when i joined the crusade it automatically declared war on them) I was able to get 8grand for this! and im just about to break the peace!
Ive been left with a very scattered empire so it should be fun connecting the dots. I think the byzantines might take back a few of their cities but i am not too bothered by this as i got a lot of loot from them, plus i think the idea of a crusading army going on the rampage and taking every city they can is quite historical.

note- i have lost a few troops to desertion, when ive waited to pacify a territory, but not too much, and the cost of rectruiting new mercs pales against the plunder + income from a city.

The Portuguese do go for Zaragosa right off but in my campaign they did take it after two turns of sieging it so its not a gurantee they get beaten back. Whats interesting was that in my campaign the Portuguese did it with only two units total. I expected them to lose but they didnt. I guess its safe to say in most cases they lose but one cannot rely on it everytime.

Hi, I´ve played a couple of caimpaigns with the spanish.
O agree with mosto of you that the first you have to do is wait for the portuguese, they are not aragonese i´d like to remark, to attack zaragoza and thn it will be very very easy.
Pamplona gets blocked and undefended. Portugal then tends to conquer cordoba, but is not easy for they.
Then I allied with the moors waiting Portugal to wear a bit. In the other side try to ally with english by marriage, and probably you´ll get a nice cpatain, and then attack with your ships french ports, of Toulousse, Rennes and Bordeaux. Shipping should be your main goal because your strategical position. English will attack form northern france. First time, when I succeded allying the english, your princess is not Claudia Schiffer, I got Toulousse and Burdeaux just as a reward for ceasing fire.
Attack Portugal whnever possible, always Lisboa and Pamplona in the same turn, in a very quick action because you will be excomulgated by the "·$%%# Pope.
Don´t expand yet to Europe, Bourdeaux and Toulousse is enough. Don´t get Rennes in Bretagne when the council ask you to do so because it will be too far to help them when the french try to recover it. Go for the moors.
I even joined the crusade and conquer Jerusalem and Acre but had to burn it and lost it later but the money was a great reward for the crusade. I went back with my troops conquering south af africa burning all the cities and keeping Tripoli, argel as castles and marrakesh as city. Priests will be neeeded to keep thes muslims cities in order to convert people.
I tried to bribe el Cid for a long time but he is not aggresive so wait until he dies and Valencia will be very very easy to conquer. keep it as castle and use it to expand to mediterranean. South of marrakech is a cupole of regions, and the southest has even gold but they are to far and as merchandising is not your principal strength you wont get too much. I conquer it but I regret of doing so. Is a long walk, very long.
Then, when you have the whole Peninsula, north of africa, and, perhaps, southern france, go with your ships to attack milanese and french in europe and northern italy. They will attack you first so dont bother about diplomacy. And center europe is very vert very funny. Milan, genova and marsella are very good cities and will serve you as starting points to conquer center europe. When the popes asks you to cease fire with french, attack milanese, and viceversa. Maintaining a siege doesn´t count as excomulgating action, and if they try to defend they will be excomulgated.

I'm in a very sticky situation with the Spanish now. After easily conquering Iberia early on in the game (something I suggest strongly as it offers a good basis for monetary support during the rest of the game) and eradicating the Moors, I began to build a buffer zone between the rest of Europe and myself, conquered the Western Med Islands and moved to finish the conquest of Africa. All went pretty smoothly with a few bumps on the way until...
I am at war with the Mongols in the Holy Land, (the point at which my Empire spreads furthes Eastwards is Jerusalem and Jedda). The Russians, who own most of Northern Europe and a large chunk of central Europe, are attacking my buffer states just before Iberia (Toulouse, Bordeaux and Marseille) whilst Milan is attacking my city of Naples. For once I find myself wishing for the Timurids to attack so that Russia will have to redirect its forces...Still got another 50 years til that though!

I posted this elsewhere but here goes:

One of the things I learned in the history of the late Middle Ages was the rise of Spanish dominance towards the end of the Medieval era. Spanish armies from the late 15th century through to the 17th century went relatively undefeated in its major battles, largely through the effective use of its tercio formation. In essence, the formations were pikemen being used in conjuction with firearms, and light infantry.

In the M2TW description of Spain, they are described as having excellent light infantry. At the end of an era where heavy armor and knights were the dominant force, Spain adopted lighter and more mobile infantry forces. Now while Tercio formations had gunners mixed in with the pikemen and other infantry, the units that come in M2TW are not mixed units. Instead, you have to mix them yourselves.

So I started up a custom battle and created an army late era professional units of 5 Arquebusiers (meant to do Musketeers but clicked the wrong unit), 3 Gendarmes, 6 Tercio Pikemen, 5 Sword & Buckler Men, and one Late General's Bodyguard.

I loaded up a French army of Voulgiers, Dismounted Chivalric Knights, Aventuriers, Pikemen, and Lancers/Gendarmes. The French army actually cost more than my army by a significant amount (over 10k florins), but both sides were equal in terms of experience, armor, and weapon upgrades.

In my formation, I lined up pikemen in a line, at an angle from the corner of the map. The reason for that? Well being near an edge of a map means that the flanks have a smaller amount of room to manuever. As always, picking the right terrain to fight on is a key to victory.

Then, what I did was, I mixed my gunpowder units in with the first rank just in front of the first rank of pikes. I then put my sword & buckler men within the Tercio formation, about 2-3 ranks deep, in the back. Picture:
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v...bacca/0001.jpg

Another view:

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v...bacca/0002.jpg

Now why would I do this?

First, only the first rank of gunners fires, so the back ranks within the pike formation wouldn't affect anything. Next, the gunners will not have any infantry obstructing them, as it would be possible that some gunners won't fire if put behind. Finally, the pikes being there means that no cavalry can be used to attack your gunners while they are shooting at enemy skirmishers or formation.

With musketeers, and their very long range, being at the front of your formation means that you have an even longer range than before. Thus, you can hit longbowmen before they can even hit your pikemen. If muskteers are put behind pikemen, the first few rows of pikemen may be hit by enemy elite archers without your musketeers being in range.

There is another benefit - gunners tend to be weak against enemy archer fire, and take lots of casualties. However, while stuck in a pike formation, it's more likely your pikemen take the arrows, and so you can protect your ranks better against enemy skirmishers. Furthermore, this formation tends to prompts the enemy to hit you head on, even when they aren't ready. The reason? First, if they skirmish, your musketeers will likely kill their skirmishers handily. Second, pikemen are so numerous in number, that skirmishing against them will take a VERY long time to kill enough to make a dent, and it's more likely the musketeers will kill all the enemy skirmishers before they make a dent in your numbers. Finally, the musketeers cannot be attacked by enemy cavalry directly in this formation, and enemy archers are more likely to hit your pikemen or overshoot/undershoot the formation (as it is thin facing the enemy).

Do, however, move your musketeers out to provoke the enemy into attacking you if they are just sitting there out of range to bombard you with artillery, if they brought any.

If the enemy charge your pikes, the trick is to move your gunners back while you move your sword & buckler men forward. This keeps the gunners out of melee, allows them to continue fire, though now from behind, and the sword & buckler men can fight enemy infantry at the front, while the pikes still protect the sword & buckler from enemy cavalry.

Your own cavalry must be deployed along the flanks to defend against enemy cavalry. If the enemy cavalry are defeated, you will then conveniently be along the flanks to hit the enemy from the side or from behind.

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v...bacca/0004.jpg

Keep your pikemen in guard mode to recieve the enemy charge. Now a lot of people have been saying that pikemen do not attack properly - they actually do, you just have to tell them to attack them. As seen in the picture above, they are attacking the Voulgier's with their pikes. What you do is you have to select your pikemen, and SINGLE right-click the enemy. This worked for me both in and out of guard mode. DOUBLE right clicking the enemy will force your pikemen to run at the enemy and thus they will break formation and drop their pikes. If you single click, they will try to stay in formation and in line and will engage the enemy with pikes. Only if the enemy gets too close/breaks formation will some of them use swords to fight their nearest threat. The rest of the formation, if not hampered, will continue to use pikes.

As you can see in this picture: https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v...bacca/0003.jpg

My pikemen are advancing with pikes at the enemy unit. This is quite devastating - even against halberds, mounted & dismounted knights, my pikes were able to inflict massive casualties. In fact, once you get some practice with pike formations, you can use pikes on the offensive and to "push" the enemy.

A few tips:

-Use the "alt" button to rotate your formation. Holding alt while moving the mouse will rotate the army around its center. It's great for moving your formation to face the enemy if they try to flank.
-When moving your formation at the enemy, always SINGLE right click a spot either in front or behind the enemy. Do not have them attack or units will start to converge to attack that targetted unit. Furthermore, after you have clicked, you can hold the "shift" button to see where your units will end up. This allows you to adjust the angle and direction of your formation.
-To attack the enemy with pikes, even in guard mode, make sure you SINGLE right click. On the offensive, if you single right click, pikes will stay in formation and will keep their line intact. As you see in my last picture, the pikes try to stay more or less in a line and will rotate the entire line at a target if the enemy formation is at an awkward angle. Pikes will only be dropped for swords if the formation is too thin, the formation is broken, or there is a more immediate threat to the pikemen than what the formation is targetting (for instnace, a flanker or straggler).
-Use sword & buckler men to flank or to defend pikes against infantry that are good at killing pikes, such as Zweihanders, other Sword & Buckler, and dismounted knights.

The weakness of these formations?
-First, they take a lot of practice, especially pikemen. They are tricky units to get used to.
-They take a lot of casualties! Late medieval armies got very large in part because they started to trade away armor for firepower. Most of these units aren't armed with shields or heavy plate armor and will thus take lots of casualties from enemy ranged units. Be prepared to lose a large amount of your army to enemy fire, but hey, in MP battles, winning is all that matters ;)
-Against an enemy that is artillery heavy, your bunched up units will present juicy targets. To counter enemy artillery, either swap in some light cavalry (such as Jinetes), or your own artillery to counter the enemy. Formation positioning is also key - if you can position your units where the artillery has a hard time hitting you, you will also be good. Finally, use your musketeers/ranged units to provoke the enemy into attacking, so they cannot bombard you at will without causing friendly fire casualties. Again, use your musketeers range to your benefit.
-Against an enemy that is horse archer heavy, you will have to use lots of bowmen and light cavalry to counter them. Heavy ranged infantry armies, however, shouldn't be a problem, as you should use your units on the offensive (and musketeers do a great job at killing enemy ranged infantry anyways).
-An enemy that is very heavy cavalry in numbers will present a problem if you pick the wrong terrain to fight on. If your cavalry guarding your flanks falls, they will be at your flanks and your pikemen will be toast. To counter this, either bring more heavy cavalry (and less sword & buckler), use gunners to aid the flanks, or once engaged, swing unengaged pikemen at the horses. They will make mincemeat of them.

The battles results:
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v...bacca/0005.jpg

A lot of casualties, and my general died, but my formations stood their ground and didn't rout. Furthermore, this army was much cheaper to make than the French one, and surprisingly, one unit of pikemen inflicted the most casualties, at over 250 in this battle!

Just a few short notes confirming what a lot have already said here:
. taking all of the Iberian Peninsula and moving over to Marrakesh causes trade income to really jump. Up.
. you can't trust the Portuguese (the in-game Portuguese, of course).
. buffer states (donations of acquired real-estate to the Holy See) are most useful in shortening borders. I found that an alliance with the Pope and mutual rights-of-passage makes life easier.

Im-presionante!

I can not help you with the battlegame cause I´m still managing the campaign and do not play tha battles , yet, but I´ve seen that some units are able to do an specific formation called schirron or something like that, that makes a circle with pikes outside. That´s what spanish tercios did in that era. But don´t know if it works in the game as it says.

Anyway, your strategy is spectacular, historically and tactically perfect. Well done. Im impressed, and as I am spanish , glad to see the photos.
Have you seen Alatriste film? They show tercios battling.

Well done!

I played a short campagin with the Spainish on VH/VH and found it very entertaining. Firstly I rushed to gobble up the rebel provinces while securing an alliance with the French. The alliance lasted right up to the end when I was close to victory and the AI decided it didn't want me to win.

The Iberian penisula is a very strong position to defend with a bottleneck of 3 mountain passes to the northeast and a single approach from the south. After defeating the portugese and moors on the mainland I spent about 10 or 20 turns teching up and upgrading my front line armies. A crusade aimed at the moors pushed them over the edge and besides spending some time hunting down armies in the desert while moving east, mopping up was a cinch.

At this point I was only a few provinces short for victory. The french backstabbing provided an easy choice for what to take for the win.

Unit-wise, the Jinettes are a blast. Keep them out of combat until they've chucked all their harpoons. Those things pack a punch. They are quick and manueverable as well and if you use them right can easily start the enemies battle line routing.

I'm using 6 Jinettes in my armies against the Moors. They're perfect for absolutely destroying the front lines of any infantry army they go up against, and also for threatening archer and crossbow heavy armies as well. Circle a few Jinettes behind, and often opposing armies will rout after a few seconds of melee with your own infantry line.

In my game (turn 117 or so), so far I have taken over completely the Iberian Peninsula.

At one time I had control of the North African City whose name escapes me (but it is the most westerly province in africa) and Bordouex. They have both, sadly, rebelled against my rule. I intend to take both of them back, but I will exterminate the population, not sack as usaul.

Toledo is by far my best city, even though it is not my capital. It has never been anything but a green face, and right now it stands at my nationwide best 150% public order minimum. It is a citadel and is capable of producing Chivalrous Knights, Fudal Knights, Sword and Buckler men, Jinettes, bombards and then all the usual stuff like diplomats, priests etc. So far I love S&B men and dismounted Chivalrous Knights. I have a shortage of Infantry throughout my kingdom.

Economically I am getting by, just about. I practically live off sacking though. I only get max 1000 florins a turn, and I'm lucky to get that if I do.

I have several pressing questions:

What are guilds? (ie Swordsmans Guild, Explorers guild) I keep establishing more and better ones without knowing what they do!

I have gunpowder, and the Buildings which will allow me to create cannons are cheaper than the ones for catapults and trebuchets. Which should I go for?

Are crusades worth it? I went on a crusade, sent my best young general and took the target city. At first, I was pleased with my achievement and glad to have made the investment of devoting my best troops to such a worthy cause. That was until about 5 absolutly bloody huge Mongol stacks each led by a general with at least 7 command stars came and killed my Alonso the Crusader who was promising to be a very good addition to my royal family (he was very young and very experienced too).

From now on what I intend to do is to keep doing the crusades just for good measure, but upon taking and sacking the city, I will collect my rewards and then leave, abandon the place, drop it like a hot potatoe and hope that all the Mongol stacks leave me alone.

Got the game for Christmas and have been playing almost non-stop since (generous company holiday time FTW!). I started my first campaign Vh/Vh as Spain and have had to re-start or go back to a save point more times than I can count.

I'm astonished by everyone here who seems to have had the luxury of only dealing with the Moors and Portugal. Every time I've taken either Zaragosa or Valencia within a couple of turns I'm dealing with Sicilians (or Milanese) landing at the former rebel holding while Portugal launched an assault on either Leon or Toledo and whichever they don't attack the Moors do. While all that is going on, the French send armies to queue up behind the Sicilians while the Milanese (or Sicilians) wander over for no reason whatsoever and blockade any port or sink any boats I managed to build.

Seriously I've counted myself fortunate any time I haven't had at least four enemies actively engaging me. I've just managed to take all of the Iberian plus Toulouse but, if I field any substantial force for expansion my income goes red in a big way. Now that the threat of Portugal is for all intents removed, suddenly England, Scotland, Sicily, Milan, France, the Moors, the ever present Rebels and God knows who else are now openly marching troops through my lands and navies across my seas with obvious intent to attack holdings in Spain.

The game has been fun for the most part but I have to say the absolutely treacherous AI players really take a lot away from it. Alliances mean nothing and trade rights even less. What good are trade rights really when you can fully expect anyone you gave or got trade rights from will be attacking you within five turns. I am not exaggerating that either. I have yet to have trade rights last more the 5 - 6 turns before they're canceled for that faction attacking me.

My experience has been that game is every bit coded to be the world against human player. How else do you explain factions who have a declared war marching massive armies alongside each other without attacking each other while moving to hit my (the player's) holdings? I find it terribly frustrating.

Though I hold all of peninsular Iberia, I'm barely pulling in a couple of thousand florins/turn and if pull troops out of garrison in order to make support moves or to march on a new target my economy immediately plummets to the red. So my choices seem to be to sit tight and hope to weather siege after siege trying to build/retrain and save up for a long campaign while being nibbled to death by ducks OR field armies and try to expand as long as the funds from sacking towns sustain the drive meanwhile barely building at home and watching the armies I use to make that drive dwindle by attrition until the whole thing sputters out.

Kind of frustrating to say the least.

VH campaign is a bit broken in that regard. You need to resort to constant bribing to make even far off factions sensible.

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Originally Posted by katank

You need to resort to constant bribing to make even far off factions sensible.

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Aye. If I could afford it.

I did get my economic issues sorted out - at least a little bit. In my gains making I had not converted any settlements from what they were when I took them. So I had four cities and five castles. I have converted Valencia and Pamplona which leaves me with Toulouse, Toledo and Granada.

I know diminishing my garrison forces will alleviate the problem to a great extent but, I also know that as soon as I do that massive AI armies will show up and I'll lose those locations.

I've recently added Marseilles as a holding and the black death has just (hopefully) finished ravaging through Iberia so, maybe this would be a good time for troop consolidation and see what happens.

In my Spanish Campaign, the Pope called a crusade on Rome (The Sicilians took it, making it very hard for me to butter up the pope, because i can't find him), and it was pretty much a joke from the getgo. I only joined it because my standing with the pope was suffering, and I was planning an invasion of Briton. I was getting desertion after desertion because I was having a hard time simply getting off the Iberian peninsula lol. But now that I'm going, I'm well on my way to rome!

Started what looks to be the first non-English campagin I'm going to stick with today.

I was going to assault the rebel towns first, but a quick check by my first spy showed that Cordoba was defended only by the Moorish faction leader, one of his sons, and a single militia unit. From the first turn, I gathered all my forces, adding a few Jinettes and Javelinmen, and made a quick, surgical strike against him. Even though doing all this at a rush nearly bankrupted me, the sacking made it profitable enough for me to raise an army to take Zaragosa after the Portugese failed to do so.

The Moors responded with a large stack lead by another general. I fought them in the hills around Cordoba. From my superior position on top of a very large hill, I rained fire arrows and javelins down on them, flanked them with my Jinettes, and charged them with my general, all in very quick order.

Total chaos. Most of their line broke coming up the hill. Only one group of spearmen met my front line, and they were overwhelmed. Their general was captured by mine. The last group tried to make a final stand on a hilltop nearby. My Jinettes engaged in a deadly duel with their desert archers, during which their mobility and power proved superior. The remaining forces were charged down and captured as they ran by the Jinettes. Moorish power in Europe was broken in that one heroic victory.

By turn ten, I expect to have fully driven the Moors out of my country. Then, I need to concentrate on my economic status, and prepare for Portugal’s inevitable betrayal, assuming it doesn’t come in the next two turns.

Bribing to keep alliances doesn't have to be that expensive.

200fl/10turns keeps the happiness up and is affordable. In teh long run far better than a straight gift of 2000.

I'm Scotland and paying the pope and the french. my pope-o=meter is perfect and the French haven't betrayed me...yet. (Turn 30ish)

A lesson from my game: if you're going to backstab Portugal, do it quickly and cleanly. If you wait too long, they'll expand somewhere where you can't reach them, like Britain.

I still suggest sacking Cordoba very early. It's larger and better developed than your other cities. Once you take that city and smash their main force, the Moors will sue for peace at every opportunity. They know you can block the land bridge and crush them piece by little piece.

It might be best not to betray them, once you have peace. Everyone allies with the Moors early on. I led a crusade on Marrakesh for some quick rewards, and that made the French and Portugese very mad, even though they were brother Catholics.

It’s a long, long way to Timbuktu, but it might be worth the trip. Ever wanted to trade in African slaves and ivory? No? Well, me neither. Still, I can’t deny that it’s extremely profitable. Besides, is it really worse than warmongering and assassination? Be sure to bring priests, because there isn't a single Catholic in miles.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Moah

Bribing to keep alliances doesn't have to be that expensive.

200fl/10turns keeps the happiness up and is affordable. In teh long run far better than a straight gift of 2000.

I'm Scotland and paying the pope and the french. my pope-o=meter is perfect and the French haven't betrayed me...yet. (Turn 30ish)

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Ah well it was good while it lasted. French betrayed me on turn 50ish. Seems like the Pope is the only man you can trust to stay bribed...

On my Spanish Campaign, I am pushing through what the English conquered of France.

I sent my main force to attack Caen, which is a Citadel, but the turn before I could assault it with my 4 culverins they sent an army of c950 men to retaliate against my force of c550 men. They also had reinforcments from the town which amounted to c105 men. So essentially I am fighting the English in a Battle outnumbered doubly.
It was probably my most fluky victory. The 4 culverins were only able to fire 3 shots each (all of which missed) and then the enemy closed in. To make a long story short I won the Battle, after killing 3 enemy generals, with less than 10 men left! (this is unit scale normal).

I took Caen and now I plan on taking the rest of the English cities in France.

I am also setting out on an expedition to the new world. I wonder what type of units I should take...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by diablodelmar

I am also setting out on an expedition to the new world. I wonder what type of units I should take...

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Not to belabour the obvious but, since you asked:

A.) At least one extremely loyal family member general. Distance from capital is a major issue and so, troops rebelling is too.

B.) Jinettes, goes without saying. I did well with an inital army that was almost exclusively pikes with a few Jinis and a general. If you can spare gunpowder infantry, that would be great too.

c.) Agents, agents AGENTS! Priests, spies, assassins, merchants maybe even a diplomat or two.

Like mentioned about Timbuktu, there's not a shred of Catholicism about, so Priests are a requirement not an accessory. Cardinals would be even better - again - if you can spare them. They'll be spending a long time floating over there so, account for that in the 'can I spare them?' decision. It's a long time they'll be doing nothing but, once they land they'll be busy, busy boys.

Merchants to drop on valuable resources and start the expedition paying off ASAP.

Spies for the obvious. Extend your line of sight, gather intel and open gates. An open gate really extends the functional life of an army.

EDIT: Consider also creating a fresh batch of agents to be put immediately on the boats. As mentioned, it's a long float over and you can expect a long lead time to being able to build back up to the point generating quality agents once you're there. You don't want to send a 50 year old agent over there and get only a turn or two out of them before age catches up.

Your expedition fleet should also be several ships Carracks in size at least and should be renamed Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria ;). Its good to have extras in case of storms, pirates, etc.

Hmmmm...

I have right now is one Merchant, one Priest, about 7 Sword and Buckler Men, 3 mounted chivalrous knights, a few Tercio Pikemen and then a culverin. Right now I don't have access to any (worthwhile) gunpowder units aside from cannons. I also, wondered whether the Pikemen are worth bringing. I read they were oddly effective against the Aztecs - but since there is not much Cavalry over there I don't know... As for Jinettes, well I didn't think of bringing any of them because they seemed to me like they might be getting obsolete now and I haven't built any for a while but since you mention it I will be sure to bring some.

Should I:
Wait for more gunpowder units?
Build more cannons?
Build more cavalry?
More agents?
I suppose I should bring along a few more priests and Merchants and then some spies.

You can always make a new batch of agents and send them along following the initial force.

I wouldn't wait for gunpowder infantry, I was just saying that if you have them and can spare them, it's a good call.

I like Jinettes because...well the obvious, they frigging rock during every age and, because of their speed and flexiblity. Aztecs are fast, jinis are too and good for disrupting them, like they are good for disrupting everyone.

Remember too - the Aztrecs are 'kind of' outdated by nature. So your 'outdated' units are good over there.

Either way, if you feel like you're ready to roll on the new world, rock on.

Well at this stage I have sent my fleet packed with all the aforementioned goodies and units and its currently sailing towards the New World. I almost forgot to add a loyal general! This is mainly because I am sadly low on generals at the moment therefore I had to take the Governer of my only decent Huge City (Cordoba). You see, I only realised halfway through the game that to upgrade Cities you needed to build better walls, so my Cities are all behind the times apart from Cordoba and Toledo.

Anyways, with the conquering army sent to the New World I now have several more objectives:

1. To beat the crap out of the English which is proving quite challenging (they seem to be better than the Moors) and now they have allied with the Mongols who already hate me.
2. To join the crusade and go take Jerusalem which is a City in the middle of the Mongol territory who have a bigger military than the rest of the world's armies put together!
3. To make Valencia, Pamplona, Zaragosa and Leon into productive Huge Cities.
4. To make a bigger army, and take the 45 territories required to win (right now I have 15 or so, and its turn 175, so some urgency here).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by diablodelmar

I have gunpowder, and the Buildings which will allow me to create cannons are cheaper than the ones for catapults and trebuchets. Which should I go for?

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I like cannons myself.

Quote:

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From now on what I intend to do is to keep doing the crusades just for good measure, but upon taking and sacking the city, I will collect my rewards and then leave, abandon the place, drop it like a hot potatoe and hope that all the Mongol stacks leave me alone.

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Probably a good idea. This kind of "recycling" also means that you can do the Crusade again, later... ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Trithemius

I like cannons myself.



Probably a good idea. This kind of "recycling" also means that you can do the Crusade again, later... ;)

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Doing it this particular way instead of giving it to the pope or selling it to another faction does insure that you can pillage and plunder under divine sanction again and again. I'd like to have a standard along the lines of a Great Cross or Carrochio Standard that said - "Crusade Over-Free Beer for Mongol or Timurid Army who attacks first" that I could park outside the city as I left.

Ok, right now there is about 17 turns left in the game, and I have to capture about that many provinces in order to win.

I will post a screenshot or two (could someone PM me about how to do this because I never seem to be able to do it).

Anyway, I have captured most of North Africa (but can't find the two cities belonging to the two provinces that are most west and south on the entire Map - Help?), All of France, Sicily, Milan, of course the entire Iberian Peninsula, Jerusalem, Tlaxca, Caribbean, London, North America. I have sent a ship to capture Brazil, and one to reinforce Tlaxca because three Aztec stacks have just attacked it.

I am going to have to resort to attacking the Papal States, who have grown very powerful indeed. Aside from owning all of Italy apart from Milan (Spain) and Venice (Holy Roman Empire) I also noticed that their Mediteranean holdingd are quite substantial. I am going to launch a nasty Surprise attack on them. My invasion of England is going quite well, having destroyed the only English Army in Britain the whole Island is at my mercy which will not be spared. Tip: Jinetes; you know they are good, but I recently found out that they work wonders against the English especially.

Quote:

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A lesson from my game: if you're going to backstab Portugal, do it quickly and cleanly.

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I agree with you completely. From my experiences, not just in M2, but in R also, wars need to be dealt with efficiently. Especially in the early game where money and troops are light. On my campaign, I got whatever troops i could spare and moved right over to Zaragosa 1st and 2nd turn. the Portuguese beat me to it so I sat around and waited. they lost, so I took Zaragosa and make a temporary alliance with Portugal. The trade will give you an extra kick to make the armies needed. I prepared armies because I knew either Portugal was going to betray me, or I them. I had about 20k florins, so I made two armies. I learned that in these games, good logistics are key. Not only to avoid the Pope, but money constraints make it so that you can't afford to have these wars drag out. I finished off Portugal in two turns, and then quickly kicked the Moors out of the iberian Peninsula. These took me about 15-20 turns, and it gave me just the start I needed to get a good foothold in the campaign (helped prevent the multi-frontal wars that I experienced as the English)

I actually managed to destroy Portugal with a much smaller overall military than them. Since they only had two cities I attacked Pamplona first, and while the Portuguese Army was circling around south of Lisbon to presumably attack my Cordoba or Toledo I had a small army take Lison. The huge Army turned to Rebels and is still there now - I havn't bothered to destroy it. Is this causing devastation or something like in RTW?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by diablodelmar

The huge Army turned to Rebels and is still there now - I havn't bothered to destroy it. Is this causing devastation or something like in RTW?

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Probably. I've certainly had that happen in my own campaigns under similar circumstances. If that rebel army is parked on a road they are almost certainly hosing up trade along that route as well. Doubly bad if its a road to & from a port. If its just out in the wilderness then, its probably "just" causing devastation - you can tell by the ground around the army turning gray and looking charred.

Either way, you want to deal with that army in some fashion. Either destroy it or bribe them. How urgently that needs to be done depends on just what its doing to you.

Vicarious' post was funny; I didn't realize that 'MY LITTLE PONY' was a sanitized substitute for a curse word until I read the later posts by the moderator and such. This newb thought that he was saying that a cavalry heavy, computer-controlled enemy was marching on one of his cities:) I want to commend him for his exceelent command of the English language; I was very surprised to find out that he is a native Nrowegian and not an ex-pat Yankee living in Oslo. To business, though...

I'm playing my first campaign as Spain on VH/H (am I correct in discerning that the protocol is to list the difficulty of the game setting as a whole (strategy) first and then battle difficulty?). Although I've been a big fan of the TW series having played each of its main variants (Shogun, MTW, Rome), I've experienced much more success (and far sooner at this point of playing in comparison) with MTW2 than with any of its predeceessors. I won the long campaign playing HRE on M/M after only restarting once. And recently, I won playing France on H/H on my first try. Maybe this was luck and/or these are easy factions. At any rate, my first campaign with Spain has been far more difficuly (and my position is probably doomed at this point).

I only control four cities after about turn thirty-five (Valenica and Lisbon eventually fell). I think my main mistake was squandering so much time trying to take Valencia. I did the spy infilitrate tactic and it worked at opening the gates. And I thought my assault force was big enough. Unfortuantely, my army got routed on three successive tries (save restart used). Ont he first, I made the mistake of charging through with all of my units and (as other posters have pointed out in many threads here) that is a recipe for defeat as the attacker. next two times, I split my forces in two and attacked through two different gates and did a good job of timing my split forces to engage the enemy's (similarly dvided forces) simultaenously. Alas, the result was still the same. My forces ultimetly were routed. I had to go to plan B and seige them until they came out at me (and I easily beat them). But this fatal waste of several turns set me back at a critical time. Mr. Moor was on themrach in the meantime (I had to fight off a couple of sieges by him) and diverting resources to Valencia gave him the time he needed to entrench in Zaraoga (huge army threre) and from reading the posts from more experienced players, I know understand that taking this city early is critical:(

As opposed to with other factions I've played where it is fairly obvious to me where I need to spend haeavily in the eraly going,with Spain, I'm not really clear on whether I should focus on investing in military development, economic development or what in the infancy of my campaign (first thrity turns or so). I suspect that my strategy of taking a middle ground is probably a loser. It doesn't help that Mr. Moor is particuarly aggressive with his prosleytation of my lands early on. I should probably have put fighting this threat to the backburner though (and not spent money on churches and priests, and delaying my delveopment/force building) since it likely only takes a toll in the long run, like a slowly-spreading cancer.ANyway, these are just my newb observations. Any other rookies experiencing thse kind of growing pains? Thanks for your time!

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

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

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

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sturmgrenadier

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

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

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

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Quillan

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

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

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

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

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

Quote:

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Originally Posted by diablodelmar

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For success in battle, even when outnumbered:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sturm,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sturmgrenadier

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

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I think he means neither.

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

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

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Originally Posted by vonsch

I think he means neither.

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

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Originally Posted by Gingivitis

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

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

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

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

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sturmgrenadier

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

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Are you asking me about the Isle of Man?

Quote:

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

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

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TheJace

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

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

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