Is Milan to Strong?

In my latest campaign as the Byzantines i have made it to 1200 Ad. Ive conquered the turks and the balkans. One turn i looked at the leading faction stuff at the bottom of the end turn scroll. It said that milan was both the richest and the strongest militarily. I thought, wow they must have conquered quite a bit i sent a diplomat to see if they would accept an alliance against venice. what i saw shocked me. after getting map info i saw they only had 2 provinces, milan and genoa. They had no less than 6 full stacks parked outside milan:dizzy2: it also said they were the richest with me in second. I had 50000 florins too. I had an empire and they 2 provinces that were richer than my whole empire.:inquisitive:

weird, u sure they werent in africa too or something?

i notice the italian guys usually drift to africa, and if you got italian area and africa you got hard core trading cash

I'm positive they controlled nothing else i even got rid of the fog of war with the toggle_fow cheat to make sure.

well, the ai doesnt know how to disband units and milan and genoa are quite moneymakers probably cranking out 6000-10000 each a turn for the ai. Also, militia upkeep is fairly low so they probably gain at least 7500 a turn

Milan can field some strong stacks but usually its an agressive faction and can expand rather quickly given the opportunity. I'd say you are seeing one of those random flukes that pops up every now and again. For Milan to not have expanded beyond two territories is more uncommon than common IMO. Considering it didnt expand I'm not suprised you are seeing alot of army stacks just standing about. When these flukes happen the offense expansion may not take place but the military build up continues. Its been know to happen with other factions as well. Just a game fluke.

As far as whether Milan is a strong faction in the game, it is IMO, I think mainly because of what deathfire mentioned, their good units are militia units and cheap to maintain, whereas most people surrounding them (except probably Venice) have to build castle troops. This is why I think France always gets wiped out, their good units are expensive to build and probably can't build too much either since they're elite units (and basically 4 countries attack them). Those two cities they have are also rich, and with two cities your yearly expenditures will be very low.

In every game I have played so far as Roman Catholic or Muslim factions, Milan goes psycho, attacking every faction with which it shares a border ( and some that it does not) Then they end up getting tangled up with the Pope.
After a couple of Crusades against them by all the Christian factions, I find they generally end up on the cut to pieces.

I always target Genoa if possible as that really cuts their cash.

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Originally Posted by joe4iz

In every game I have played so far as Roman Catholic or Muslim factions, Milan goes psycho, attacking every faction with which it shares a border ( and some that it does not) Then they end up getting tangled up with the Pope.
After a couple of Crusades against them by all the Christian factions, I find they generally end up on the cut to pieces.

I always target Genoa if possible as that really cuts their cash.

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Indeed, Ive always found Milans psychotic-ness to be somewhat annoying.
especially when they take out the HRE, France and Venice all by themselves. Usually its the HRE OR France OR Venice, but its still annoying.

I hate Milan....kill them ASAP

They take over France and HRE.

HRE are cool! Keep them alive at all costs!
:laugh4:

Milan is one of the most dangerous factions to fight. It is also one of the easiest to play. They have a good port city and can produce near-pro units out of cities.

When I play they conquer very quickly, all the way to Paris. While they're large and annoying, their irregularly shaped borders make them ripe for the taking. Somehow they usually don't get excomm-ed.

But in my current game as Scotland THE POPE conquered all the Milanese territories up to Paris, and now he has a Papal empire and is sending his own crusades lol.

when i was playing with the English i thought Milan was weak

i mean my soldiers cut trough them like butter even the best of Milan are easy to crush with loads of heavy infantry and heavy cavalry

the first time i met them i was a bit scared of them because the had a huge army. but when i was forced in to battle it was the easiest battle ever met and they even outnumberd mee

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Originally Posted by King Elessar

In my latest campaign as the Byzantines i have made it to 1200 Ad. Ive conquered the turks and the balkans. One turn i looked at the leading faction stuff at the bottom of the end turn scroll. It said that milan was both the richest and the strongest militarily. I thought, wow they must have conquered quite a bit i sent a diplomat to see if they would accept an alliance against venice. what i saw shocked me. after getting map info i saw they only had 2 provinces, milan and genoa. They had no less than 6 full stacks parked outside milan:dizzy2: it also said they were the richest with me in second. I had 50000 florins too. I had an empire and they 2 provinces that were richer than my whole empire.:inquisitive:

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You could check if they have Ajaccio and Corsica. If you look at the scroll with graphs on it you can also roughly gauge how rich they are.

There will always be one AI civ that will rise above the rest and become powerful. For example, in my game the Milanese are destroyed. In fact the nations left in the game at all are the Danish, the Spanish (me), the Holy Roman Empire, the English, the Papal states, Hungary, maybe Poland and maybe Russia and the Mongols and Timurids. Everyone else is utterly wiped out.

Given the fact that in my game Milan was one of the earliest factions to have military buildings that allow for Pikes, Musketeers, Arquebusiers etc. and they haven't build a single Handgunner yet, I'd consider them pretty weak. I've no idea why they rather recruit a bunch of Mercenary Spearmen than one Pike unit. It's also silly of them to recruit Merc Xbows and keep them forever. :dizzy2:

Apart from that they are very offensive and often expand quickly. They're also rich and they spam you with spies and Assassins but it's not as if their units were particulary strong or their armies of decent composition....

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Originally Posted by King Elessar

In my latest campaign as the Byzantines i have made it to 1200 Ad. Ive conquered the turks and the balkans. One turn i looked at the leading faction stuff at the bottom of the end turn scroll. It said that milan was both the richest and the strongest militarily. I thought, wow they must have conquered quite a bit i sent a diplomat to see if they would accept an alliance against venice. what i saw shocked me. after getting map info i saw they only had 2 provinces, milan and genoa. They had no less than 6 full stacks parked outside milan:dizzy2: it also said they were the richest with me in second. I had 50000 florins too. I had an empire and they 2 provinces that were richer than my whole empire.:inquisitive:

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If you play on hard/very hard campaign difficulty, the AI gets cash bonuses at the end of every turn. Thus, especially, since Milan has city units with low/no upkeep and highly profitable trade city: Genoa, they can accumulate cash even with those stacks sitting around idly.

As France, I've always had problems with the Italians. First the Milanese and then the Sicilians. Milan definitely seems to be a power-house with little territory. I remember fighting for dear life against them over Genoa and then Marseille. Or maybe I'm just a terrible player:laugh4:

It's not that they're really strong unit-wise as they tended to have massive numbers of crossbowmen which usually fell prey to my usually large quantity of cavalry. But they DO have numbers which tend to bog down any campaign.

One interesting thing about Milan, in my game anyway, is that for some reason pretty much every single one of their family members gave me a really really good chance to assassinate them. I swear I've knocked off about 10 that had a 95% success rate. ;-) Anyone else seen that happen?

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Originally Posted by rosscoliosis

One interesting thing about Milan, in my game anyway, is that for some reason pretty much every single one of their family members gave me a really really good chance to assassinate them. I swear I've knocked off about 10 that had a 95% success rate. ;-) Anyone else seen that happen?

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I think the game gives the AI free generals when they're running low and that these free ones tend to be easy to assassinate for some reason. I've been playing as Milan and assassinating Turkish generals with a full-subterfuge assassin. I've killed so many of them that now there is one stack where every time I kill the general, another one instantly spawns to replace it the next turn. They all have 95% success rate. There are other generals out and about that I haven't killed, but they are at the normal 40-60ish percentage success.

Are you sure these are not captains? I've never seen a stack just spawn a general without being in combat.

@Sextus: I have, and it's pretty easy to tell when it's a captin as you don't get the portrait or stats so i doubt he's got it wrong.

Hmm, that's weird. What exactly are the conditions for that? Because I wiped out France when they had been down to just their king for awhile...

In my current Egypt campaign Milan has about 30 provinces. I am wittling that number down, though. :whip:

In my Scotland Campaign and in my previous Russian Campaign, they always wipe out France. Merchants knocking off their heirs of Charlemagne? (The French ones, not the Rhinelanders)

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Originally Posted by Carl

@Sextus: I have, and it's pretty easy to tell when it's a captin as you don't get the portrait or stats so i doubt he's got it wrong.

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when you target a stack with a captain, you do get a portrait, unlike generals though you get 2 rows for stat instead of 3 and the name starts with captain. Just rather odd that a general would spawn one right after the other like that and each giving 95% chance to kill.

In all the games I have played Eng, Scot, Spain, Milan has always been aggressive. Full stacks running around conquering Hre, Ven, fighting the Pope, Sicily, France... Then there always seems to be a ton of agents running around causing trouble till you wipe them out!!!!! :smash: :smash: :smash:

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Originally Posted by ASPER THE GREAT

In all the games I have played Eng, Scot, Spain, Milan has always been aggressive. Full stacks running around conquering Hre, Ven, fighting the Pope, Sicily, France... Then there always seems to be a ton of agents running around causing trouble till you wipe them out!!!!! :smash: :smash: :smash:

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Yeah, the agents are especially annoying. As England, before I had even turned my attention to Scotland (let alone the European mainland) there were 3 or 4 Milanese spies in Caen, and a little bit later there are usually droves of assassins running around whacking away at any and all governors I have in Europe. It's insane, and I haven't yet seen such behavior from the rest of the AI factions. Enough to drive you nuts...

Venice is just as powerful a unit lineup as Milan... Their Pavise Crossbows and militia are only slightly less cool than the Genoese ones, and Venetian Heavy Infantry are just ~:eek: :jawdrop: OMG, just made of pure pwnage.

So if Milan is doing better, it must either be more aggressive, or have weaker enemies than Venice...

Does Venice not have Genoese Crossbowmen?

No, they have Pavise Crossbowmen/Crossbow Militia. They're the same model more or less, but their stats are slightly lower. They're still awesome though, and the fact that the militia version is perfectly acceptable for all purposes is a huge strength, just like it is for Milan.

Venice's unique infantry are absolutely shockingly good though. Use them to storm walls some time, you'll see what I mean :D

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Originally Posted by Foz

Yeah, the agents are especially annoying. As England, before I had even turned my attention to Scotland (let alone the European mainland) there were 3 or 4 Milanese spies in Caen, and a little bit later there are usually droves of assassins running around whacking away at any and all governors I have in Europe. It's insane, and I haven't yet seen such behavior from the rest of the AI factions. Enough to drive you nuts...

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I have seen massive numbers of spies from Milan, but absolutely no assassins (atleast assassins who have either attempted to assassinate or sabotage my buildings (unless all those "natural deaths" were Milan's doing). In my campaign they mostly sent them after Dijon and Marseille which I had previously taken from them. They started going after these territories hard core when I started receiving 65% unrest penalties, threatening to cause those two places to go rebel. I have not seen any other faction so far put so much focus on spies.

I always wondered what that heartbeat I kept hearing when it was showing Milan's turn :laugh4:

As a matter of fact, if an assassin succeeds against one of your people, the message you get is "natural death". You only find out about the assassin if he fails and gets caught.

So if you have generals or agents dying suspiciously young, someone is probably using assassins against you.

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Originally Posted by Musashi

As a matter of fact, if an assassin succeeds against one of your people, the message you get is "natural death". You only find out about the assassin if he fails and gets caught.

So if you have generals or agents dying suspiciously young, someone is probably using assassins against you.

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one naturally tends to die when they're stabbed in the heart.

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Originally Posted by Musashi

As a matter of fact, if an assassin succeeds against one of your people, the message you get is "natural death". You only find out about the assassin if he fails and gets caught.

So if you have generals or agents dying suspiciously young, someone is probably using assassins against you.

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That makes no sense (but you're probably right)

Stabbing and poisoning would be obvious, wouldn't you think?

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Originally Posted by sapi

Stabbing and poisoning would be obvious, wouldn't you think?

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Stabbing? Yes. Poisoning back then? No.

Remember, this was an age when the average life expectancy was still often around 35. That's not to say 35 was old, but that many diseases and maladies befell people the killed them often, at any given age.

With many poisons available then, the target would often have just apparently fallen ill and died... tragic, but not uncommon for the time.

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Originally Posted by Marquis of Roland

As far as whether Milan is a strong faction in the game, it is IMO, I think mainly because of what deathfire mentioned, their good units are militia units and cheap to maintain, whereas most people surrounding them (except probably Venice) have to build castle troops. This is why I think France always gets wiped out, their good units are expensive to build and probably can't build too much either since they're elite units (and basically 4 countries attack them). Those two cities they have are also rich, and with two cities your yearly expenditures will be very low.

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I have to disagree...

Playing as the French in a patched H/H campaign, I've just finished Milan in one turn... on turn 70 or so...

Milan was holding at the time Genoa, Venice, Florence and Bern.

Milan was in the hands of the Sicilian with whom I was at war from two turns before when he attacked Dijon. Responding to that I took Milan...

What happened ?

Milan took Bern (from Rebels) and attacked Marseille (French-owned) at almost the same time thus declaring war on me... Wa had an equal standing with the Pope (Lvl 9).

I sallied from Marseille and booted him back to Genoa...
I followed up and attacking jis army outside the gates, drew the city defenders into the fray... Score one city for me...:smash:

At the same time, my general from Dijon retook Bern from those Milanese mongrels...

The next turn, though I tried to get a ceasefire, he refused and sent his heir Count Nicola to reclaim Milan from Venice.

At the same time, one of my 12-eye assassin (Yes my king was Philippe the Tyrant with 9 dread and over 10 authority) happened to notice than the Milanese faction leader Duke Solderino the Honest was a potential target in Florence (34%). Worth trying even if risky...

The last member of the line was located by my spies taking a stroll through the venetian country... Alone...

So, my assassin performed his mission with success thus making Count Nicola the new faction leader and the other one (can't remember his name) became the new heir.

I then sent two generals unit from Genoa to catch and kill him...

Last but not least I sent a relief army from Genoa to Milan and sallied out.
The new milanese Duke was sent to hell when a shot from a trebuchet gave him a first taste of the flames of hell...

Then it was a walk in the park...

So is Milan too strong ? I don't think so...

I've had more problems with Portugal and Spain or even Sicily than Milan

Pretty much any AI is in trouble vs a human, though...

I think the point is that Milan always does incredibly well vs other AI factions, and in my games they always carve deep into France (unless I'm nearby, when the manic "dogpile-the-player" mentality sets in with everyone). It's got to be a combination of good, cheap units from cities, lots of cash and accessible French targets nearby. Venice never does nearly so well (although they often cripple themselves by sending a huge army over to Africa [why?!], thus leaving their European lands vulnerable).

I'd like to see another AI smash Milan occassionally, but it doesn't hugely bother me as is.

I have been watching and reading the forums for a few months, and have decided to post a reply to this thread as I think that Milan is both a pain in the arse...and that they can be quickly dispatched.

If you dont want Milan to pose a problem later for you... just rid yourself of them... I have Played thru with the French and HRE twice.. both on Medium and Hard settings.

When I was either the French or HRE I prepared for Conquest against the Milanese, seeing there utter Phsycotic behavior in prior games, along with the Dutch.

Conquering them may take some pre-planning but it is feasable. As HRE I became probably the most powerful, in Coin and Army strength. My boundries had put the Dutch in a corner, and extended a little East, and as far south as the Papal states of Rome. I then decided to go further East, wiping out Hungary in the process so that I could have better access to Constatinople.

Playing the French, I allied myself with HRE, and made freinds with the Polish and Spain. The Milanese and Dutch always attack no matter what, so as the French I decided to attack the Northern Rebels first, not only cutting the English off, but not giving the Dutch a chance to take any Port cities I could use.

After that was complete, I set my sites for England... at the Same time beefing up my South Western borders from the Spanish and Portugal. By the Time England was almost finnished I began my campaign to the East vs the Milanese as I did not want the HRE to be destroyed. By turn 185 I had aproximately 38 provinces. Again not difficult if you dont mind being ex-communicated... and who cares what the Pope thinks when he does not punish the bloody Milanese for being Warmongers....LOL

I enjoy playing the French or HRE, and the English. Next I think I will try the Byzantine's

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Originally Posted by SextusTheLewd

Are you sure these are not captains? I've never seen a stack just spawn a general without being in combat.

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I have. Playing as Scotland, I controlled all of the British Isles. The Spanish landed a full stack army led by a family member in Whales, then just sat there without attacking. I sent a ten star assassin and killed him. I hit end turn and watched to my surprise as the army marker changed from "captain" to "general" during Spain's turn.

"That's odd," I thought. So I whacked the new family member. End turn. All of a sudden there is another Spanish general who has appeared in the stack.

Lather, rince, repeat 12 more times.

Finally I just sent an army to wipe out the stack.

Rolling with what Tristan said about Milan being quite easy to defeat, I've found this only to generally be the case when you start out very close to them, typically sharing borders. France and HRE are among the factions positioned to reach Milan very early in the game, and as such when you play those factions Milan seems largely like any other faction you encounter early in the game in any campaign. Milan really only becomes a powerhouse when you're playing a faction that reaches Milan in the mid or late game stages, as its had a lot of time to beat down its AI neighbors by that point and rake in obscene amounts of money from its starting provinces, at which point it is often fielding a lot of stacks. So in general I would say that the superiority of Milan is only really a big factor when it survives into the mid to late game stages. You might get a good feel for this if you play Portugal/Spain and set about conquering your way through Europe. Russia may be another good example if you're trying to ensure you encounter Milan once it's had adequate time to really develop. Even a faction seemingly as close as England often gives Milan a chance to gain momentum, as England is often more concerned with taking over the isles before it starts pushing through Europe.

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Originally Posted by Goofball

I have. Playing as Scotland, I controlled all of the British Isles. The Spanish landed a full stack army led by a family member in Whales, then just sat there without attacking. I sent a ten star assassin and killed him. I hit end turn and watched to my surprise as the army marker changed from "captain" to "general" during Spain's turn.

"That's odd," I thought. So I whacked the new family member. End turn. All of a sudden there is another Spanish general who has appeared in the stack.

Lather, rince, repeat 12 more times.

Finally I just sent an army to wipe out the stack.

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On the subject of generals appearing...

I have seen it happen time and again and it was already a feature in RTW..

When you kill an army general, a captain takes his place... If you look closely on the next turn you will see that the new general is in fact the Captain raised to general (same first name with the additio of a surname or DE or OF XXXX...)

I think it's a kind of reversed MOTH giving the AI a chance to get more generals...

I've seen in this forum somewhere there was a max cap to the number of generals so why not imagine there is also a min cap...

Finally, FOZ, I tend to agree that Milan must not be let to develop too far as it is a big money machine and in the latter stages may well become very hard to defeat...

Ralatively to the other posts, it's one of the most agressive faction perhaps with Sicily and one of the rare ones to make intensive use of spies and assassins, I have to agree so leaving a lot of spies and assassins on a common border might be a good idea...

Well, in my E/E (don't laugh, okay) campaign as English Milan was pretty passive. They had lost Milan and Genoa to Venice but had managed to keep Bern. I didn't see many agents at all (probably because Bern is a Castle, though). It was Venice that was extremely aggressive and kept attacking me with full stacks after I had gotten rid of France. Denmark was also quite aggressive. It may just be one of those 'glitches' as others have pointed out. In general, the level of aggression of most factions tends to drop later in the game, and only a small number of factions keep trying to expand. Could that be because the others have obtained their scripted target cities? But then I should expect every faction to try to get to Jerusalem and/or Constantinople, but they never come.
Btw: now I am playing as Milan and I absolutely love them.

From a pure trading standpoint, I think Genoa is one of the most valuable cities in the game. It generates income like Athens or Sparta did in RTW, primarily because it has easy trade links with Florence, Rome, Ajaccio, Cagliari, and Palermo. In my Venetian campaign, it made more money per turn than Venice did. The Aegean Sea isn't the gold mine it was in RTW; the reduction in the number of provinces over there reduced the trade value significantly. Venice can trade with Ragusa (castle), Durazzo (tiny) or Naples, of the nearby cities, and Naples is the only one that generates significant value. Bologna is too close to trade, I'm pretty sure.

Combine high money with cheap troops and Milan can produce larger armies than most factions in the early going. Venice is scattered, while Milan is compact. This gives them an edge. Milan usually winds up taking Dijon, in my experience, and almost always winds up with Florence no matter who gets it first.

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Could that be because the others have obtained their scripted target cities?

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There are no 'target' cities other than those stated in the objectives. I've modified my short campaigns to include specific city objectives and the AI seems to follow it to a degree.

For example I gave the Byzantines a bunch of specific cities to capture and they went about doing exactly that.

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Originally Posted by Skyline Pete

There are no 'target' cities other than those stated in the objectives. I've modified my short campaigns to include specific city objectives and the AI seems to follow it to a degree.

For example I gave the Byzantines a bunch of specific cities to capture and they went about doing exactly that.

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Then why doesn't anyone go after Jerusalem? That is in most faction's long campaign objectives. Nobody ever came close to attacking me except the Mongols. Or is it because I'm on E/E? (Of course, I'm only playing on E/E for research purposes... :sweatdrop: )

In my game, Jerusalem has been held successively by Egypt, HRE, the Mongols, the Pope, the Timurids, the Pope again, and the Timurids again.

I'm playing as the English on M/M---I have more than 45 territories, but I'm enjoying the back and forth over Jerusalem. I'll probably wait till turn 224 (I'm on 208) before taking it.