best faction to turtle with?

[ArtistofWarfare]

@ 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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

[phonicsmonkey]

Venice is awesome, one of my favourite campaigns in vanilla

You can avoid an early war with HRE (leaving you to concentrate on Milan) if you can secure Bologna through diplomacy - otherwise you'll find the Kaiser's men traipsing back and forth across your territory which can get annoying and mess up your turtling strategy.

I strongly recommend building a blacksmith as soon as possible so you can upgrade the armour of your italian spear militia - when fully upgraded to mail armour they are kickass, plus they look great on the battlemap too.

One thing to look out for is that there is a bug with Venetian Heavy Infantry and Venetian Archers which means they start out with plate armour on the battlemap - they don't have plate armour stats, but the models are wearing it and when you upgrade their armour it changes to mail / padded which is just weird...

[G^2]

@ ArtistofWarfare

As phonicmonkey stated, buy Bolongia from the HRE then nock out Milan quickly (within first 10 turns). If done right you can take both Milan and Genoa without getting excomunicated. With Milan out of the way you can then afford to turtel for a bit. Keep your relations with the HRE good and keep an eye on the Sicilians which almost always end up attacking at some point. When turtling as Venice you have to keep your rep. up because you share alot of borders with many factions which will gain up on you. When your ready you can use Crete as a lanch pad into Greece.

Italy was also my favorite faction in MTW, Chivilric Spearmen with Crossbows defeated many an army. Thus, I was thrilled when M2TW had three Italian factions and more provences.

[Flavius Merobaudes]

You can easily fix the graphical bug of the armour upgrades by changing their sequence in the EDU:

armour_ug_models Venetian_Archers, Venetian_Archers_ug1
should read:
armour_ug_models Venetian_Archers_ug1, Venetian_Archers

The same goes for Retinue Longbows or any other unit with this kind of bug.

[ArtistofWarfare]

You can easily fix the graphical bug of the armour upgrades by changing their sequence in the EDU:

armour_ug_models Venetian_Archers, Venetian_Archers_ug1
should read:
armour_ug_models Venetian_Archers_ug1, Venetian_Archers

The same goes for Retinue Longbows or any other unit with this kind of bug.

1) is it simply a graphical bug , or are armor values of these units actually bugged?

2) As some have said about protecting against the HRE- This is entirely what I will be doing with a defensive border established to the north of my home cities...

I will place a couple of half stacks in ambush position, get some defences up and then begin focusing my efforts towards valuable lands south and east ...as I can't imagine I'll have much interest in Germanic regions.

[FactionHeir]

1) Just a reference bug in the EDU. Except for visuals, it has no effect.

[ArtistofWarfare]

cool...not too concerned about it then.

Either way, it's good information...I'd imagine that when I get a little more crafty with editing files I'll develop an interest in things like that as well.

[Chaotix]

Oh, btw ArtistofWarfare, a neat trick with Venice: On turn 1, you can buy Bologna from the HRE for just a regular tribute of 1000 for 6 turns! It helps to even out the score with Milan in the early game, and you even get 5 free merc xbows with it. Try to get to Florence first, too.

EDIT: guess I should have read the last 5 posts!
anyway, I think 6000 is probably the lowest you can buy Bologna for, so thats some "new" info there.

[ArtistofWarfare]

Oh, btw ArtistofWarfare, a neat trick with Venice: On turn 1, you can buy Bologna from the HRE for just a regular tribute of 1000 for 6 turns! It helps to even out the score with Milan in the early game, and you even get 5 free merc xbows with it. Try to get to Florence first, too.

EDIT: guess I should have read the last 5 posts!
anyway, I think 6000 is probably the lowest you can buy Bologna for, so thats some "new" info there.

Is it really worth that kind of expense, or would an early skirmish or two with the HRE be worth it for a province like that?

I understand that this would destroy longterm relations but- unless the HRE just becomes my #1 ally (they might due to their positioning and mutual enemies, I'll have to see the map) what difference would it make you know?

[Chaotix]

Hmm... I dunno, but if you spread it out as a 6 turn tribute of 1000, you barely notice it- the city pays for itself with interest, and yes, you can maintain peace w/ the HRE which is essential if you're planning on attacking other factions first. And you get 5 merc xbows as a garrison free after buying it, which I used some of to attack Florence on the next turn- considering you'll have to build fairly expensive archery ranges or militia squares before you can recruit them yourself.

Also, you have to watch out for Sicily as well as Milan. In my VH campaign, they attacked Crete with their whole army and took it- course, it also left Palermo and Naples undefended. I think securing all of Italy and its rich cities is probably the best early strategy for Venice. Then you can go after just about anyone else, but I like to invade Spain or the Byzantines at that point.

[ArtistofWarfare]

Hmm... I dunno, but if you spread it out as a 6 turn tribute of 1000, you barely notice it- the city pays for itself with interest, and yes, you can maintain peace w/ the HRE which is essential if you're planning on attacking other factions first. And you get 5 merc xbows as a garrison free after buying it, which I used some of to attack Florence on the next turn- considering you'll have to build fairly expensive archery ranges or militia squares before you can recruit them yourself.

Also, you have to watch out for Sicily as well as Milan. In my VH campaign, they attacked Crete with their whole army and took it- course, it also left Palermo and Naples undefended. I think securing all of Italy and its rich cities is probably the best early strategy for Venice. Then you can go after just about anyone else, but I like to invade Spain or the Byzantines at that point.

In previous Medieval campaigns where I was controlling an Italian faction I obviously recognized the powerbase that the entire Peninsula and Sicily would be. However, due to the papal states, the pope and several other italian factions around, this looked to be a lengthy war that would require full committment. So usually, I've secured what provinces I could without getting into conflict with other christian neighbors and then scouting out the map for the most lucrative provinces and colonizing them.

I'll have to see how to handle this though with m2...as it would be nice to secure all of Italy and then begin looking elsewhere with a nice driver behind the wheel.

[glyphz]

I, too, believe that buying Bologna is better. You get an alliance and a city for just 6000 spread out. 6000 is cheap for me, esp. how expensive bribing is in RTW post v1.0.
one way to justify this is "The short wars are the best." OBviously, war with HRE is gonna be loooong, and not very profitable. Alliance is better, Bologna means one less border. You dont want them mixed with the Milanese, the Byzantines, and possibly the Hungarians.
Speaking of wars, you might do want consolidation of Italy. The other 2 Italians initially have only 2 settlements, not something ballista(e?)s, spies or a combo cant handle (maybe a fleet for amphibious assault). Sicily is easily accessed by fleet, while Milan can go for Bern, or worse Dijon (w/c is far inland). That makes Milan the ideal target for a blitz. (quick war) Having Bologna and, a city close to them makes things easier, getting Florence makes it even better. Cities for cash, troops for the assault. You wouldnt notice that 6000 you paid for investment. Getting both in one turn prevents Papal intervention, and dealing with pissed italian armies. OH and Milanese lands are close by with each other, its easy to defend. edit: ONce your done with Milan, Sicily is only a matter of having simultaneous assaults via fleet. Once you're done your holdings will look close to MTW Italians.

[ArtistofWarfare]

Well I'm starting it up...I'll take it to AAR at some point but it's a Hard/Hard campaign with Venice and I am using Huge unit sizes.

Just at first glance here- is not "greece" and the Agean the priority for expansion, as opposed to any effort made to get lands north?

Again, I'll take what I can get early, but I might develop a very stubborn/stiff attitude with nations surrounding me and become extremely defensive (the let them come in if they want attitude again) while I focus on the Naval buildup and the push east. Constantinople is the end goal- and it's not that far away.

I would already like to control Rome, Constantinople and Jerusalem at once...I just haven't played the game yet so I don't know how long that should take, or what is fast/slow.

Edit: Rereading your post, yeah that's a pretty ballsy push to take Italy early lol. How do you not get excomm'd? But I do agree about Bologna and Florence if I'm going to approach things this way though. It's just a huge advantage early and yes- the earlier the better for Italy.

Remind me of the rule on the papacy again? Is it like mtw where he can only track 1 warning at a time or whatever? And 10 turns to cease or something...(I was considering the pope's friend strategy for a while early and trying to get a Cardinal elected 1st election.)

Edit again: Started things before - As said, H/H difficulties so I start with 8,000 florins. 6,000 of those to buy Bologna? Is it that valuable?

[Chaotix]

Don't offer them a lump sum of 6000. Instead, give them a 6-turn tribute of 1000- that worked for me, and you can use the rest of the cash on turn 1 for other things.

As for early expansion, I've found that taking Italy before Greece is easier, but really either will work.

Taking Italy will get you 5 more high-money making cities (Bologna, Florence, Milan, Genoa, Naples), two of which (Milan, Naples) are ready from the start, as well as a good castle, Palermo, and two castles that you can change one or both of into a city if you decide to take Corsica and Sardinia. It's entirely possible to play the whole game without taking Rome, as in most cases it'll only get the Papacy pissed at you.

If you decide to assault Greece first, start with Corinth- It's a good castle and makes a good base of operations. You get 3 more cities, one of which is useless until later (Durazzo), another that's decent, but not as good as Italian cities (Thessalonica), and a third that is only matched by Venice itself in money-making ability (Constantinople). You can also get a good castle to defend from Hungary at Sofia, and you can take Nicaea to finish of the Byzantines, although it may get the Turks to war with you.

You should prbably take Zagreb early whichever path you choose, but it may get you into conflict with Hungary.

Usually non-agression missions from the pope are for 7 turns, and he can call them against you for multiple factions at the same time. You can get an alliance with the pope early on and gift him money every few turns to keep him happy.

Phew. Hope all that writing helps ya.

[ArtistofWarfare]

Thanks for that post...I read every word and yes, it is helpful. I'm completely map ignorant when it comes to M2 so any and all information is nice.

I spent a lot of time familiarizing myself with the UI and Venice's starting position. I'm going full blast tonight playing so I'll send pm's to update where things went before I open an AAR later.

I'm honestly, stumped as to which direction to go first. You're right, Italy probably IS more lucrative and attractive...as well as religiously in line with my faction.

I have to say though that Bologna is just so isolated and the Emperor of the HRE is in the settlement. I'm tempted to launch an attack there, while securing all the bottlenecks that lead north toward the HRE's main lands. I would imagine capturing a Faction Leader this early and also taking the province, would bring in a lot of money.

The one thing holding me back from starting any war right now is the total lack of intelligence. I have to get some agents moving around and see who has what and where. I know the HRE is isolated in Bologna but I really don't know how hard they'll fight to retake it (if at all) or if they would continue to attack me on principle. What I do know from the HRE is that they really can't afford to be in a full blast Italic war early..or the rest of the "empire" fractures. So I may become diplomatic with France and Denmark/Poland etc and just start a war with the HRE...and then we'll see where Milan stands on things.

I really would like to win the first papal election though. Do more churches built effect this- as in, a higher overall Christian population throughout your Kingdom raises your reputation with the Pope?

[G^2]

It really is alot better to buy Bologna than to take it.
1) You keep you global rep up, which will help you only fight one faction at a time (although you are playing VH/VH in which your global rep will go down no matter what you do making diplomacy worthless, I play M/M where diplomacy works somewhat.)

2)Stay on the HRE good side because you won't want to invade them anytime soon making them great early game allies.

3)Save up you pope points for when you knock out Milan. You want early florins? sack Milan and Genoa in two turns wiping out the faction.

4)You get four units of Xbows which can be used to take out Florance.

As for churches, they help you in a roundabout way win papal elections.

1)You can make more priests which gives you a better chance of having more cardinals, which increases your pope voting power.

2)When you build churches and recurite priests your pope standing should increase.

Keep in mind having your pope in power does not make him your pupet. Your pope standing will be around perfect so you can get away with more but it really is a limited advantage.

[ArtistofWarfare]

It really is alot better to buy Bologna than to take it.
1) You keep you global rep up, which will help you only fight one faction at a time (although you are playing VH/VH in which your global rep will go down no matter what you do making diplomacy worthless, I play M/M where diplomacy works somewhat.)

2)Stay on the HRE good side because you won't want to invade them anytime soon making them great early game allies.

3)Save up you pope points for when you knock out Milan. You want early florins? sack Milan and Genoa in two turns wiping out the faction.

4)You get four units of Xbows which can be used to take out Florance.

As for churches, they help you in a roundabout way win papal elections.

1)You can make more priests which gives you a better chance of having more cardinals, which increases your pope voting power.

2)When you build churches and recurite priests your pope standing should increase.

Keep in mind having your pope in power does not make him your pupet. Your pope standing will be around perfect so you can get away with more but it really is a limited advantage.

1) I'm on H/H not VH/VH ...so that diplomacy wouldn't be entirely useless, but the game would still be pretty challenging for me. I wanted to learn the game on h/h first just ...because lol.

2) I have definitely considered making the HRE my main ally early but the thing is that a) they are a natural non ally of the pope and b) If I was to attack Bologna and capture their faction leader, I just don't see how they can do too much about it. Their attack into my lands can only come from a couple of bottlenecks and what I do know about the map is that as HRE, funneling troops into the Italian peninsula and points East takes a pretty full blown effort due to the movement restrictions in the provinces they would be coming from. I dunno, it's just so tempting.

3) France and HRE will assumably go to war...a lengthy war. If I had Bologna and didn't pay for it, had already disrupted the HRE's royal family and am allied with France...things should sit nicely for me to be able to address Milan and Sicily in the south, while the HRE wastes efforts trying to attack me while contending with France (and whoever else they wind up @ war with). Further, this would allow me to build nice relations with France so that in the longterm, war is avoidable with them until I am ready.

4) What actually is the extent of this advantage provided by having the Pope be from your faction? I understand it's not a puppet, but what exactly is the benefit of this situation?

[glyphz]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The one thing holding me back from starting any war right now is the total lack of intelligence. I have to get some agents moving around and see who has what and where. I know the HRE is isolated in Bologna but I really don't know how hard they'll fight to retake it (if at all) or if they would continue to attack me on principle. What I do know from the HRE is that they really can't afford to be in a full blast Italic war early..or the rest of the "empire" fractures. So I may become diplomatic with France and Denmark/Poland etc and just start a war with the HRE...and then we'll see where Milan stands on things.

I really would like to win the first papal election though. Do more churches built effect this- as in, a higher overall Christian population throughout your Kingdom raises your reputation with the Pope?

The AI in M2TW gets screwed up when a territory of their is isolated from others, especially if there is no sea connection between the main homeland, and the isolated settlement. Troops in the isolated settlement usually become very passive, as in Bologna. You might notice they'll just hole up in there and won't send any reinforcements. ( unless war is triggered with the faction that holds the settlement that separates the 2 meaning, Venice, you). If you get Bologna (by conquest or diplomacy), any troops in around Bologna will retreat back to their territory. This means they won't be gunning to get it back, but would rather take Venice 1st then Bologna . The AI likes their settlements "connected," and are probably be more willing to lose Bologna, as they can now "function" properly (no more issue of isolation). All in all this means the AI has lacking capabilities when handling separated territories (again, separated by sea does not count), though this is issue is diminished partly in certain mods. (I hope this explanation is not confusing)

Building churches may help you increase your rep with the Pope, but you do not get a chance to vote for your own cardinal unless he (or secretly she) is a top 3 Preferati. This means you need your cardinal to get a lot of piety via converting, purge heretics. As Venice this means, sending your cardinal into Byzantine lands early. He should be followed by priests, who are less likely to turn heretic, if accompanied by a cardinal. As a group, they'll convert quickly. Converting quickly means your priests gain piety quickly (Battler/Enemy/Purger of Heresy), and more likely to become cardinals if seats become available. More cardinals of your own means more votes for you, cause even if you have a preferati, he has to emerge the winner first, after a voting among the cardinal occurs, before he gets to sit in Rome

[Chaotix]

1. ^ what glyphz said
2. I don't think you can capture a general in a siege- all enemy troops automatically get executed, regardless of whether they routed first or not. So... it might be tough to capture the Emperor.
3. The HRE will be too poor to even pay the ransom even if you do manage to capture the Emperor- Faction Leaders go for around 15000 and the HRE starts w/ like 5000

[russveld]

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.

[TheLastPrivate]

i do love spain, but their early game is much too fast paced for me. I was just doing sicily until about turn 50, when i randomly went deep into debt in one turn (wtf???). lol, i had like, 9000 florins one turn and then the next i had -1032 or something like that lol...weird...

That's probably not caused by a single origin but make sure that the rebels/enemies are not blocking your trade roads as well. Enemy army (especially rebels) blocking road to harbor is fatal to income.

[Ibn-Khaldun]

That's probably not caused by a single origin but make sure that the rebels/enemies are not blocking your trade roads as well. Enemy army (especially rebels) blocking road to harbor is fatal to income.

This could be caused by plague though ...
In my Spanish campaign a long time ago the plague took my about -30k in dept
That happened within just 3 turns if I remember correctly...
And that time I was fighting against almost everyone
I managed to balance the income so after the plague went away (It took more than 20 turns to get rid of it because of a single French spy who traveled between my towns) I had the one turns income somewhere around 50-60k
To balance the income I had to disband most of my armies though

EDIT: My 400th post!!!!!

[oz_wwjd]

I'm finding that Portugal isn't too bad, I conquered the penisula early,and Portuguese Arquebusiers + jinettes combo works well on defense

[Askthepizzaguy]

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...49#post3512549


I like the Evil Polar Bear faction.

[FactionHeir]

Somewhat OT I suppose, but there was this Santa faction over at TWC I saw once. Hilarious!