without actually playing as the Turks, are there any tips

[chris34au]

that anyone can give me on how to help them become a major power in a campaign? every now and then, they'll take a few provinces early on and seem like they're in really good shape but the Byz and Egypt always seem to team up on them until they're either eliminated or trapped on an island. just once, i'd like to see them survive long enough to produce their Janissary units.

i've thought about trying an Armenian campaign and just trying to help them when they need it but it seems like it'd be kinda crazy to play as Armenia and not make acquiring Armenia a high priority(for +1 AHC and the fact that it's "Armenia" ).

[Trapped in Samsara]

Hi

Not entirely sure I've understood your objective, but...

The Ottoman's/Seljuk's main threats are the Byzantines and Fatamids (Egypt). So, if you want to assist the Turks you need to stick it hard to one of those two. From distant memory, the Byzzies pose the more immediate threat, so engaging them (maybe as the Hungarians) might get their attention and divert resources away from the Turks.

I also seem to recall that the Eggies ruler is very exposed in somewhere like Tripoli, which gives the Turks a chance of a huge ransom if they blitz and capture him.

Hope that helps.

Regards
Victor

[Lexio X]

yeah, attacking the Byz is about the only way to help them get their much needed breathing room. Esp. if they're able to penetrate the Balkans; after that they can pretty much steamroll their way through Eastern Europe or Russia. So attack the Byz and conquer some provinces, leave the provinces you want the Turks to have empty and then declare war on them and get Armenia and then try to get a truce out of them whenever you feel like they'll be able to survive. Knock two birds with one stone.

Only problem is that you'll probably their first target unless Crusades star popping up and they take advantage of the Egyptians situation or they focus more on Europe.

Hope that helps!

[drone]

You could always mod them to have more money/troops at the start...

[Lexio X]

You could always mod them to have more money/troops at the start...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Of, course just pump them up with florins and play as England then you're all good to go.
Now why didn't I think of that.

On a side note, that reminds me of the epic 4 crusades I launched against them to recapture Constantinople after I lost it. Half a million men died for that province and then the Black Death scroll popped up. That was a bad decade for my virtual representation of medieval European History.

[chris34au]

thanks for all of the tips. i haven't ever tried to mod anything in the game before but it sounds like it might be a good time to give it a shot. if i have the gnome editor, is that all that i need to be able to mod the game?

without going too far off topic, is that how some people are able to play as the Swiss? i've always wanted to try playing a Swiss campaign but i haven't ever been able to find them in the game.

[drone]

If you just want to mod in starting cash or troops, you just need the Windows Notepad or other text editor, since this info is kept in the startpos file for the era. In the "Medieval - Total War\campmap\startpos" directory, there are 4 files called EARLY.txt, HIGH.txt, LATE.txt, and VIKING.txt. These are the files used when starting campaigns. So if you want to experiment with Turks in Early, you want to modify the EARLY.txt file. (backup the file first...)

To change the Turks starting cash, look for the line:

SetTreasury:: FN_TURKISH  10000 8000 6000 4000

This line determines the starting cash for the Turkish faction for the 4 difficulty levels (in order: easy, normal, hard, expert). So if you want to add 3000 florins to their starting treasury on Hard, you would change the line to this:

SetTreasury:: FN_TURKISH  10000 8000 9000 4000

Adding troops is done by adding MakeUnit:: lines for the Turkish provinces. So say you want to add a unit of 60 Desert Archers to Rum, you would add the line:

MakeUnit:: ID_RUM  DesertArchers 60

to the file down with the rest of the MakeUnit lines. This is a little more difficult, since the MakeUnit line requires the internal game name of the troops which can differ from the english descriptive name.


To play the Swiss, you need to modify the LATE.txt startpos file, change the line:

SetActiveFaction:: FN_SWISS		FT_MINOR

to

SetActiveFaction:: FN_SWISS		FT_MAJOR

and they become playable when starting a Late campaign. It's not easy, you can survive but money is tight, time is limited, and you must attack either the HRE or France quickly before you go bankrupt (I recommend France). If you manage a 60% victory, excellent job. If you manage 100%, you cheated!

[chris34au]

thanks so much for all of the help. i can't wait to get started on this next campaign to see how it goes. i'm going to try helping the Turks before i give the Swiss a try. i'm kinda intimidated by Late era campaigns.

[bondovic]

The Turks are at a huge disadvantage due to their crap melee units. About the only real fighter available to them until Jennies is AHC. Since all comp vs. comp battles are simulated, the faction with the stronger melee units is going to win, c'eteris p'aribus.

Someone suggested a while back that one needs to remove the crap melee units from the Turks' roster. Away with DA and vanilla archers. Away with vanilla HAs and peasants. Etc. That way they'll be 'forced' to build slightly better melee units, and, as a consequence, survive better.

I would like to suggest that one also modifies the starting provinces so that they start with Master Horse Breeder. This to give them a little sume sume of a head start in cavalry, especially then regarding the TH. Maybe also move the camel bonus from Arabia to Syria (you play XL, right?) to help stem the Egg tide.

Even so, they'll be lots weaker than the Byz in melee. A few units of BI will cause serious problems for any Turk in a simulated battle. But compare the typical Turk army of:

Archers/DAs, Spearmen, HAs, AHC

to:

TFS, SI, TH (+1 valour), AHC (+1 [2] valour)

To compensate for their melee weakness, I feel that drone is right on - give them more money. Not only for starters, but lower support costs for their unique Early era units also. It might feel like cheating, but if that's what it takes to even out the playing field... it's really not.

Lastly! You absolutely have to tie up the Byz in order to help the Turks. Egg armies are less of a threat to them. Maybe the Cumans are your go to faction for this? I find that their roster is quite the match for Byzantium.

[HopAlongBunny]

Just so you don't have to reinvent the wheel: read https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=31294; read katatanks post far down the first page.

He describes, quite clearly, an opening move that almost guarantees a capture of the Eggy sultan; more money=good!

[chris34au]

this is really embarrassing to admit, but i can't figure out where i need to go to edit the start up cash for the Turks(or any of the other factions). when i load the game, all i can find is a map editor.

i've also tried looking in the program files or whatever but i'm not having any luck finding the start up cash for any of the factions. i feel like an idiot but i'd love to be able to learn how to make these changes.

[HopAlongBunny]

You do not load the game to change starting gold values :)

Open your Total War folder; open campmap; open strartpos; there should now be files labeled "Early", "High" and "Late"

drone's instructions should take you the rest of the way to your goal =)

[chris34au]

thanks sooo much for the help. i can't wait to start a new campaign.

i finally realized that i was looking in the wrong folder. there was a Medieval Total War folder and a Creative Assembly folder and i'd been looking in the MTW folder,instead of CA.

i tripled the start up cash for the Turks but i didn't give them any new units or anything. hopefully, they'll have enough cash to get rolling and dominate that part of the map.

[bondovic]

Chris,

Get a copy of the Gnome Editor. From there you can, very easily, change building requirements and support costs etc. It really is a game changer when you learn how to text mod yourself.

Gl!

[chris34au]

i downloaded the gnome editor awhile back but i've never used it. can it be used to change the buldings that factions start out with? i'd love to be able to give the Teutonic Order a Citadel, instead of a castle in Livonia.

[bondovic]

No. To change starting buildings and rosters you need to work directly in the startpos dir. But that's kinda straight forward, so shouldn't be a problem. Just scroll down in your "HIGH.txt" 'til you see "Makebuilding::" Find Livonia and replace the information. Citadel is called "Castle10". That's it.

[chris34au]

thanks for the help. i think i'll go ahead and add some buildings for the Turks, as well. it doesn't seem like giving them extra cash is enough help. they're still getting crushed by the Byz in the last couple of campaigns that i've tried to play.

[gollum]

Despite most people thinking otherwise, the Turks are very easy to play in early if you blitz the Egyptians while making an alliance or maintain peace with the Byzantines. There is no need to give them more troops or money.

Blitzing the Egyptians can take as little as 10 turns, and if lucky you may ransom the Khaliffa too in the process that will boost even further the finances. The main key to the blitz is the mounted missiles, horse archers and turcoman horse, that used en masse can make anything the Egyptians field easy prey.

After the Egs have been wiped out simply build up farms and the foundations for trade in Antioch, Tripoli and Egypt and proceed to make a fleet and an army to trade with the Italians and take on the Byzantines. All this might take 40 to 60 turns, after which the player may attack the Byzantines with the main aim to take over Constantinople. The Citadel there should allow for Grand Mosque and master spearmkaker which should pave the way for the Military academy to be ready by the time the Mongols show up.

Fighting the Mongols with JHI is sheer pleasure. Just let them take on the steppes while you only keep them out of Georgia/Armenia.

After the Mongol invasion ebbs, just take it to the Balkans to continue the conquest. Once Hungary and Poland and subjugated, Eastern Europe is divided in half and the player can take the steppes. After that you can open a second front in Spain through the Mahreb or move straight into Germany and the North of Italy.

If you mean seeing the AI making the Janissary units, then you should lower the build requirements. no matter how advanced,large and prosperous the Turkish AI has never produced Janissary units for me while starting in early, simply because the build requiremets are too complex for him.

Your best bet to make the Turks powerful is to make small changes to their roster to fill the notable gap/absense of widely available dedicated melee units, for example giving them a semi-decent melee unit like the Militia Seargents, might ameliorate considerably things in autocalc.

If you want to mess with initial forces, you can reduce the BIs the byzantines can field at the start of early. They are too many. Take out 2/3 of them i'd say. This should help not only the Turk Ai to have a better chance but also the Byzantine player to have a more challenging campaign.

[chris34au]

thanks for all of the tips. i'd love to try a Turkish campaign but i'd also like to see them thrive when the A.I.'s controlling them. it seems like in most of my previous campaigns, the Byz dominate that part of the map about 80% of the time and if it's not them, it's Egypt. i've even seen Armenia thrive in that region but i've never been lucky enough to get a campaign going where the Turks were thriving and i had to worry about facing them on the battlefield.

[gollum]

Its because of how the autoresolve system works - basically it does not take anything other than melee stats into consideration which means that missile heavy factions like the Turks "lose" their battles against other AI factions; which is why i've suggested that the militia seargents may help.

[chris34au]

this is probably a really stupid question but can i just type "Militia Seargent 60" where the other units are located? i tried to find another faction in the list that has Militia Seargents at start up but i couldn't find any...just to use that as a comparison. thanks again for all of the help.

[drone]

this is probably a really stupid question but can i just type "Militia Seargent 60" where the other units are located? i tried to find another faction in the list that has Militia Seargents at start up but i couldn't find any...just to use that as a comparison. thanks again for all of the help.

From HIGH.txt:

MakeUnit::  ID_VALENCIA   MilitiaSergeants   60   //FN_ALMOHAD

[chris34au]

thanks. i must have did something wrong. i tried adding militia sergeants but when i loaded up the game, the early period had disappeared from the options for a campaign. i was able to get it back by undoing the changes and i ended up just replacing some catapults and desert archers with seljuk lancers. i have no idea if this will help them or not but i'm just about to get started on a new campaign.

can you add as many units as you want, or do you have to use the existing slots? sorry for all of the stupid questions but i'm kinda intimidated by the modding the game thing.

[gollum]

As far as i know you can add as many units as you want.

Usually its mispellings (or failling to keep the "gaps") in the txt files that cause bugging. Always keep copies for every few changes that you do - and always testload your changes for you to be able to spot the mistake quickly.

[Heidrek]

if you want to help them, and yourself at the same time - biuld your army, ally with the turks, and as soon as the byzantines or fatamids attack one of their provinces and force them into the stronghol, march a relief army into the threatened province.

Provided you have a decent enough force, the enemy will retreat and abandon the province, and the turks will ove you. You'll also up your kings influence stats so good heirs are on the way. I've been doing this with the Volga Bulgar against the People of Novgorod. I like the VB's. Bashkorts and SHC ftw.

[Roark]

Bashkorts are insane.

From memory, the Volgas also have an uber-barbarian-halberd type unit as well. Really expensive, but, basically, access to a heavy Swiss unit in the East!!

Unless my memory totally sucks and I dreamt the whole thing.

Sorry for off-topic blurt.

[phred]

I've modded the Turks to give them a helping hand, but it didn't help much.
I gave them lots of florins and I upgraded Rum with all the buildings it needed to make Heavy Jannissaries. All they had to do was hold on to Rum until the High period. Silly Turks left Rum unguarded and the Egyptians waltzed right in. You may want to mod a province (or two) away from the Egyptians and give it to the Turks.

[sharpshooter]

Another mod thing to help the Turks is to give them armour.

In vanilla (unmodded) MTW the Turks usually defeat the Byz.

Like Gollum, I have never seen them make JI in years of play regardless. My impression is that the AI has it's own agenda for the factions depending on which one you choose to start with. I've never been able to successfully help someone survive who is going under - they end up doing things like leaving territories undefended. So your best bet may be to mod the Turks and start as England, as someone suggested.

Taking the Eggy sultan works for the Turks on early in vanilla MTW, where the sultan starts in Antioch. You have to take Tripoli from Syria with everything you've got on the first turn. Sometimes you'll get him twice if he's repatriated to Arabia, and you can take him again. Usually then the Sinai goes rebel, so the Eggy's are down to one province, Egypt, with a rebel buffer. You can go neutral with Egypt then, or march on in. The big trick with this strategy is keeping the loyalty of your and the newly captured territories. Further on, if you don't want conflict with the Almohads then don't send any ships along the North African coast - just cover off Egypt in the gulf of the Nile, and trade with the north Med.

I'm curious about why you don't try playing the Turks ...

[sharpshooter]

Another mod thing to help the Turks is to give them armour.

In vanilla (unmodded) MTW the Turks usually defeat the Byz.

Like Gollum, I have never seen them make JI in years of play regardless. My impression is that the AI has it's own agenda for the factions depending on which one you choose to start with. I've never been able to successfully help someone survive who is going under - they end up doing things like leaving territories undefended. So your best bet may be to mod the Turks and start as England, as someone suggested.

Taking the Eggy sultan works for the Turks on early in vanilla MTW, where the sultan starts in Antioch. You have to take Tripoli from Syria with everything you've got on the first turn. Sometimes you'll get him twice if he's repatriated to Arabia, and you can take him again. Usually then the Sinai goes rebel, so the Eggy's are down to one province, Egypt, with a rebel buffer. You can go neutral with Egypt then, or march on in. The big trick with this strategy is keeping the loyalty of your and the newly captured territories. Further on, if you don't want conflict with the Almohads then don't send any ships along the North African coast - just cover off Egypt in the gulf of the Nile, and trade with the north Med.

I'm curious about why you don't try playing the Turks ...