English cam.

[jedi121212]

I am having trouble with my campaign I have all of britain scandanavia, and most of france. I am at war with the french, sicilians, and italians.

[gollum]

What about the Iberian factions jedi121212? The Spanish and Aragonese (and Almohads)? How are they doing?

Can you tell which year it is, which era you started and what difficulty are you playing?

[jedi121212]

well the spanish have most of the penninsula and Aragonese still have one province and I own one province in the penninsula. I wiped out the Almohads with a crusade. I started with early and the year is 1203 the diff. is normal.

[gollum]

Right - soon the era will change from early to high (1204); this means that you will be able to get the chivalric line of units (chivalric knights ie enhanced knights, chivalric men at arms ie heavy swordsmen, chivalric seargents ie heavy spearmen), crossbows and arbalelesters (heavy crossbows) plus their pavise versions plus your unique units, billmen and longbowmen. Your Royal Knights (your family's Bodyguards) will also upgrade to High Royal Knights that are a 20 man version of Chivalric knights essentially. The other factions will also receive the upgrades and roster enhancements of course.

Are you in trouble because you are losing battles or because you are not making enough money to support the armies needed to fight all your enemies?

[jedi121212]

hmm the money not really defending I had a trade route but the sicilians took out half it and I am trying to make more ships at the moment.

[gollum]

This is the disadvantage of trade - although it has the highest return than any other source of income/investment it is temporal (this mechanic is actually very nice imho and quite underrated). When you go at war the enemy's fleets block your trade lines - at that moment you have to decide whether you will try to keep the ship production in an effort to clear the seas (which might take a while and hence be expensive in the long run and hinder your development as you will invest in ships and not higher level castles, buildings etc) or alternatively try to conquer more land to compensate which is another risk. The last option is to defend passively and wait until your enemies calm down and eventually accept a ceasefire - but this might also take a while.

[jedi121212]

I am going to try to get a ceasefire with the italians and sicilians. The only one I attacked were the french. They only have 4 provinces left.

[gollum]

Usually the Italians and Sicilians dominate the seas early in early campaigns - they start with ships, ports and shipwrights IIRC.

Indeed the French are your primary enemy - the one you have to erradicate and supplant before doing anything else.

Remember that the cost of maintenance of ships increases linearly in direct proportion with their distance from a home port.

For example if your only port is say in Flanders, a ship in the English channel costs 20 flrns. A ship in Bay of Biscay 40 flrns. A ship in the Spanish cost 60 florins etc. This means that for really long chained networks of ships the cost can rise very quickly. The best way to reduce it is to conquer ports on the way to whatever provinces you are trading with.

With the above example in mind, if you have a port in say Leon in the Spanish cost (ie having conquered Leon and captured/built a port), the ship in the English Channel will cost again 20, the one in Bay of Biscay 40 but the one in the Spanish cost 20.

If you do the math for really long trading distances, say Flanders to Egypt you'll see that conquering say ports along the way for example in Malta or Crete or Sicily, radically reduces the meintenance costs (and hence increases the profits) of trade.

Also notice that all trading goods aren't of equal value - some are far more valuable than others, such as silk and spices as opposed to hides and wood.

[jedi121212]

Yeah. If I lose this campaign that is ok. It is my first one. I am more used to RTW than these but they are still awesome. I have played M2TW but It cant play worth crap on my computer.

[gollum]

Dont worry - all things new take time to learn - dont worry so much about winning and losing just remember always to have fun with the game; for me discovering its nuances was part of the fun when i was new to it.

You can check out this guide in economics, its a good piece of work
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=32726

Eventually you'll get a new pc/upgrade and be able to have fun with M2TW and its many mods.

Speaking of mods, there are many interesting ones for MTW too. Some on the Medieval theme (XL, BKB, MedMod), others in different ones, such as the Napoleonic Era (napoleonic tw), the Renaissance (Pike and Musket), the Sengoku jidai (Smaurai Warlords), the Classical Antiquity (hellenic tw), and even fantasy ones (the silmarillion tw, conan the barbarian tw).

You can find mods here;
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=40

[jedi121212]

Yeah i got a few mods downloaded for MTW and Rome.

[gollum]

Nice
Did you like any of the ones you tried for Rome?

[jedi121212]

Yeah I really Liked Rome Total Realism and The Fourth Age Total war. I would be playing Rome as well But a friend is borrowing it. I need to get it back.

[gollum]

I see, both excellent mods with great reputation. I played quite some RTR back in the day too; it had a lot of interesting sub-mods too; i particularly liked the one that was giving walls only to major cities; this made the many sieges more interesting (as you know better than me RTR had way too many regions/cities and thus sieges).

[jedi121212]

Yeah.

[gollum]

Well here are some more links to guides in case you find something interesting from the main hall sticky;
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=109390

I unfortunately have to log out now. Been nice talking to you; see you soon and let us know about your campaigns!

[jedi121212]

k. later.

[jedi121212]

[jedi121212]

This is what I got so far. Any Suggestions on what to do next.

[caravel]

Looking good. I would consolidate the Iberian Peninsula and work on those Egyptians. This will allow you to improve trade - giving you a very good income - and avoid annoying the Pope for a while.

[gollum]

Agreed with Asai - the Iberian peninsula is the most rich area of the map - just take over at least of the Northern part; Leon, Castile, Navarre, Aragon, Valencia. Avoid Portugal as it has a high rebelliousness and it will give you grief - take it after you have taken Cordoba and put spies and lots of peasants as garrison.

[jedi121212]

Thanks. I was thinking of that. I may do that. But first I need to build up a navy cause the Egyptians have a good amount of ships and could disrupt my trade routes.

[jedi121212]

The Egyptians probably regret attacking some of my ships they shall be exterminated from spain.

[HopAlongBunny]

Looking very good! :)

Securing Spain looks like a done deal Grats! Can you manage a force to grab Morocco? Seals the area and easily defended :)

If you are used to RTW and MTW2 desert warfare may be an unpleasant surprise for you. Armour and fatigue are a killer in MTW (as it should be) Fortunately the English have an excellent roster to counter these problems: feudal sarg's, longbowmen, highlanders, and the lunatic 2-hand swordsmen from Ireland; pump out Jinettes for some light horse and you will rule the sands! (-er, well, almost...beware the camel horde :p)

And yes, your fleet looks a little thin. If your fleet is outnumbered in any region, expect it to get attacked eventually. Unpleasant surprises can also occur. The Byz may appear with a full stack or two.

Enjoy

[jedi121212]

I will have to do that.