best faction to turtle with?

**ArtistofWarfare** · 07-07-2008, 07:20

I like to turtle early myself...identify where my attacker will come from, and prepare my first "push" in the way of a counter attack. For various reasons.

Is Venice a decent faction to turtle with? I've heard their late game is strong...navy/tech. And I do like Venetian Heavy Inf already.

**G^2** · 07-07-2008, 22:07

@ ArtistofWarfare

Personally, everytime I play as Venice someone tends to attack me early on. Thus, I personally would not use them as a turtal faction. Even when my reputation was high, there are just too many factions that share borders with Vinece.

Turtling aside, Vinece is one of my favorite factions to play as and has great units and plenty of options for expantion which makes for an interesting game.

**ArtistofWarfare** · 07-08-2008, 00:23

@ G^2:

Cool thanks.

I might go with them anyway. I've decided that for my first m2 campaign I would accept the "game's challenge" and only select my faction from the ones first available (as opposed to unlocking the others manually).

I spent a good 3 hours in custom battles last night on h and vh with venice vs france...in all sorts of scenarios. Was fun stuff, and yeah Venice seems to go in line with my infantry sided mindset.

I'm going to try out France, England and Spain a bit tonight just to be sure...but from what I already know of them, Venice might be a good place to start.

**G^2** · 07-08-2008, 02:38

Venices has a great unit roaster. Italian Spear Militia are awsome, Venetian Archers are also a great choice, (I think there is an armor upgrade bug though) along with Venetian Heavy Infantry. If you upgrade ISM to partial plate, they are perhaps the most powerful spear unit in the early game.

**Eikon the Magistrate** · 07-08-2008, 20:39

Denmark,Scotland,England are quite easy to turtle with and flourish economies so far as catholic factions go. I tried Egypt recently and they to are not bad for this style of play theres noone around for a long time and your pretty much safe from anything esp if you dont straight after the holy lands. I find it difficult to play "turtle" with factions that share long borders with other factions (france,hre,poland,hungary etc) because its almost certain that somewhere along the line you will be invaded even if you have played by the book.

I was disapointed with sicily as a turtle I found them to be quite poor, also the nearby settlements require more advancement prior to getting a good return, the need for ports for example to connect your trade routes, and of course the biggest florin-sink of all the navy to keep the ports active. The 3 factions listed above (scots,danes,brits) have land and sea routes available so at least in the short term the cities are trading better.

For those that find denmark difficult for this style of play I would suggest the blockade as a way to render impotent the assumed threat of the poles/hre, the north sea area is easily sealed off and you get a small boost from the blockade.If you are at peace with the russians the number of ports is only 3 I believe with 2 of them being able to blockade in the same turn. While this would be a slight breach of the turtle rule, it would only be employed if/when they do attack.

**ArtistofWarfare** · 07-08-2008, 23:38

Originally Posted by G^2

Venices has a great unit roaster. Italian Spear Militia are awsome, Venetian Archers are also a great choice, (I think there is an armor upgrade bug though) along with Venetian Heavy Infantry. If you upgrade ISM to partial plate, they are perhaps the most powerful spear unit in the early game.

Again, I'm just digging into M2TW still ...but from everything I have seen so far, Venice's roster looks to be arguably the most underrated roster in the game.

It's not just the infantry either...as there are unit rosters that have more powerful heavies than Venice. It's the quality of their combined arms. They have the best artillery against units (France has the best against buildings as far as Catholic factions go...just by stats) and they are capable of fielding every major catholic faction gunpowder unit.

Further, their troop availability (due to their high quality militia) is such that you should never be lacking manpower, and regularly outnumbering any opponent. Sure, they can spam lower quality units but as you said- italian spear militia. That's quality spam.

Venice also has a great Navy apparently, and of course- starts with control of an eastern med island..ideal for so many reasons.

I'm about 99 percent sure at this point that campaign 1 for me will be with Venice. From that campaign, I'll learn all I need to about the other factions on the map.

At first glance already though, I have a feeling that my worst case scenario would be dealing with a French/Milanese coalition. If those two factions are allied against me, that turns into a major war.

**glyphz** · 07-09-2008, 00:05

Originally Posted by ArtistofWarfare

At first glance already though, I have a feeling that my worst case scenario would be dealing with a French/Milanese coalition. If those two factions are allied against me, that turns into a major war.

Indeed, bordering the Milanese war factory is never a good thing, since they field very similar city roster except more devastating (or annoying

) crossbows, + it's 2 vs 1 (Milan, Genoa vs. Venice), unless your navy can quickly reinforce from Ragusa. If you ever secure northern Italy it becomes less of a hassle to defend

**ArtistofWarfare** · 07-09-2008, 00:26

Originally Posted by glyphz

Indeed, bordering the Milanese war factory is never a good thing, since they field very similar city roster except more devastating (or annoying

) crossbows, + it's 2 vs 1 (Milan, Genoa vs. Venice), unless your navy can quickly reinforce from Ragusa. If you ever secure northern Italy it becomes less of a hassle to defend

Well, I had a good Italian campaign going on MTW:VI back in February before I got my new PC ...which is a Vista and wants nothing to do with MTW:VI.

I would imagine in this campaign, I will approach the beginning of the game similarly. I do not need to flex muscle early, simply create the potential to do so. So I start with a digging in, getting an early start on fortifying everything that is mine to start, and making it impenetrable. Plus, with this campaign map I can go about doing so far more in depth.

While I'm doing this, I like to put the majority of my resources and efforts into establishing myself as a naval power...or "the" Naval power. I like to quickly get to the point of saying "yeah, you have the #1 Navy on the map". This way, in the situation we're talking about, step 1 of any war would be to completely destroy the enemy's entire navy and blockade all ports. Just reduce their sea trade and naval capacity to zero immediately.

At that point, planning for army mobilization and ground action would come into play. But in my experience, dominating the seas early is a trump card advantage that an enemy just can't do anything to negate. Once you control the seas, it takes a monumental effort from an enemy to remove you.

edit- I've also found that in doing this, and providing your allies/neutrals with massive amounts of trade that you are doing one of the few things to actually strengthens diplomatic ties between yourself and other factions.

**russveld** · 07-16-2008, 21:05

Most definatly veice. they have amazing opportunities for profit on their capital. and they get amazing units. venitain achers are my favorite unit. they can hold their own in hand2hand for long enough for the veneians heaveys to get there. i always turtle with venice. and have never lost. and ive only been bankrupt once.