Get off my land, you trespasser!!!

[Don Corleone]

Hi,

So, I finally broke down and bought MTW2 (on Steam, so I have something to keep me occupied on long nights in hotel rooms when I travel for work). I'm still getting used to a few of the quirks, but one particularly irritating one...

In MTW1, moving an army into somebody else's territory was an act of war. Just moving your stack automatically started a conflict. But I keep finding my neighbors, neutral or allied, moving around my territories. GET OFF!

I've tried sending diplomats, biships, generals, etc out to go tell them to get lost, but it seems to just start negotiations with the faction. How can I order them out of my territories, or do I have to send an army out to attack them?

Sorry if this has been covered elsewhere. I did go through the FAQ and didn't see it in there.

[A Nerd]

I think this is just an annoying feature that is prevelant in M2TW and RTW. The AI likes to send large armies into your territory and have a tea party there while doing nothing else but smelling the flowers and hindereing the movement of your own armies. Often in times it is your ally or a neutral 'friendly' faction. Perhaps part of that 'we share a border' syndrome. I thought I read somewhere that this is often done when a neutral or allied faction plans to attack you in some unknown amount of time, but I am not sure. I also think I read that the only way to move them was thru the 'move army' cheat, but I don't know how to do that nor have ever tried it. In my campaigns, I don't understand faction standing with other factions nor how to affect it and am eventually at war with everyone anyway, so I usually just attack them or assisinate them to get rid of the army. Kind of a pain, but one of the flaws that M2TW has that I haven't figured out a good counter for. However, there might be some other informed posters here that have a good solution to your problem. I really don't think I do.

On the bright side, it might be a good excuse to go to war and expand your borders if you grow restless?

[Ratwar]

Basically, 'A Nerd' covered it. Enemy troops in your territory are a sign that the AI was at some point planning to attack you (or will in the near future). Most long term 'resident' armies are left overs from a planned AI attack that was disbanded for one reason or another (Diplomatic changes, seeing your armies and thinking better of it). The AI never uses the troops for anything else, so you're stuck with them in your territory. There's nothing to stop it from happening.

[_Tristan_]

One way to prevent AI factions armies from crossing into your territories is keeping large forces on your borders as a deterrent. As covered by previous posters, the AI tends to send stacks into your provinces when it perceives you as weak/weakened and poises to strike. But is the cost worth it ? I'm not sure, keeping large garrisons facing allied/neutral territories is perhaps not so good management policy...

You can also try to maintain high relationships with your neighbours (through gifts, notably...) If you succeed in keeping the relationship level at good or above, you should see less trespassers.

[Myth]

You don't really need LARGE forces at your borders. Even a fort with one unit of Peasants will do. Just place them at choke points. The AI has to either attack or just sit there.

Alternatively, move out. In MTW2 even 100 turn alliances backed up by marriage don't stop the greedy AI (on VH though) from attacking you if it's starved for land, and it's your neighbor and you move out on a Crusade or similar task.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

This is one of those little inequities that favor the AI.

You set a force down in neutral territory and watch your diplo relations with that faction plummet. They do the same and you have no such option. You can attack them and draw the ire of the Holy Father or you can let them quietly build up their force prior to an attack. Some choice.

Mostly, I just let them throw their sucker punches, having prepared the obvious target in question to gut them when they siege assault. If I have the forces, I have a force of my own ready/positioned to take a plum from them. Sadly, I have to saddle these counter forces with artillery, since if I lauunch a siege of my own, the Holy Father puts a stop to it until the enemy can reassemble it's pre-positioned army.

[sharpshooter]

It is very annoying when other factions do this, especially supposed "allies".

I think it's important who actually starts a war. My impression was that the other faction was trying to get you to start the war, so you're the one who "threw the first punch". I think this affects reputation with other factions, and, especially, the Pope.

If you play Poland, and take the council's mission to take Prague you will find the HRE shortcuts from Vienna to Nuremberg across your land. Taking Nuremberg produces the same problem between Stauffen and Innsbruck. Playing Venice you will find the HRE does this between Bologna and Innsbruck from the start. (Of course, many missions are designed to instigate trouble with others, or to damage your reputation. Assassinate a heretic for the Pope and your leader will be named "malevolent".)

In one such Poland campaign I gave Prague to the Pope, and the HRE continued with the same behaviour. While they didn't come to blows the HRE's reputation remained at zero from then on.

My solution is "confront" the trespasser with a single unit in their red zone. Mostly they back off. Sometimes they attack. As people say above, though, I think trespassing is always hostile, and does signal both attitude of the other faction, and the probability of an attack at some point. I take this trespassing as a sign that the other faction wants that territory.

In RTW if you allowed this to happen you could get a negative trait that was like "allows others to use your land".

The forts solution is also a good one, but can be expensive in the early stages. I've noticed that factions do it to each other, and I've wondered if the "instigator" trait is a result. (Portugal is very prone to do this to Spain across Toledo).

[PrestigeX]

I know you just bought the game so you'll probably want to play the heck out of it before you think of doing anything regarding "add-ons".

However, I'm still playing the original MTW now and then because there were a lot of things about it that m2tw lacks - the sort of difficulty or menance of war is kind of gone. M2tw has more of a 'annoyance' in war than fear lol. Especially in the vanilla it's a lot of sieges with the enemy attacking your settlements with 5-7 siege pieces etc...

I'd recommend either one of these mods to try out.. Long Road, or Darth Mod 1.4 (the last version) because they keep everything pretty much the same as vanilla - the focus isn't on new units and graphics, but on improving the vanilla experience.

Some of the things that make it better is that the AI campaign and battle is just a heck of a lot smarter. Your armies can march farther, as with your units , which does kinda of give that MTW feel because you don't need to wait 3 turns to attack an enemy province. Thats why MTW was better, you could just 'attack' by moving once not so much of this character movement problems. You'll see things like the AI buying mercs and even upgrading their weapons. The AI doesn't spam artillery, and builds formidable armies of foot and horse knights, in addition to their militia units. (in vanilla all the european powers just seem to build town millitia, cross bow milita and catapults!). Pikemen and 2-handed units work very well, pikemen in these mods dominate the head-on melee (as they would in real life) and the battle ai/system is just a lot better. Even the rebels will occasionally siege your cities , with a full army. . . Just check it out sometime .

[PittBull260]

I get frustrated with the same thing. What I do is find a bridge that allows others into my territory, a bridge or a pathway through the mountains or whatever it is. And I build a fort there with just one unit of peasants in it, so if somebody wants to get into my territory they will have to declare war first....usually it stops them

[Viking Prince]

All of the above is great! One thing to add -- you will notice that mostly you are finding AI faction stacks without a general. I think this was a part of the design to generate rebels. The AI factions are often bankrupt and this might help solve the gold outflow.

[elbasto]

I recommend using forts at geographical choke points.

This does not only prevent enemies from entering your territory, it has other advantages at well:
- Trapping neutral but unfriendly armies that can't be used by its owner but that cost money to mantain.
- It allows you to have many cities and defend them with only a small amount of armies thanks to the time forts buy (in the example of France I had one "marauding army" stack in the western border and two in the eastern border, once on the Soth and the other on the Center).

Here is an example with France:



If you check the campaign map, you can see that for the case of France you could easily expand your borders to include Bern and Staufen.

Another examples of regions were you can do this are:
- The Pireni at the limit between the Iberian Peninsula and modern day France
- The British island at the borders of England/Scotland and Scotland/Ireland
- Russia (former Soviet Union's borders) using rivers
- Large areas of the Balkans
- The Italian Peninsula
- Sinai province (the border between Asia/Africa)
- Gibraltar, either side of the crossing
- The Bosphorus, either side of the crossing, although having it on Constatinople does not make much sense since any attack would use your garrison as reinforcements.

I am probably leaving many areas behind.

If you are playing as the HRE and want to refrain yourself to modern Germany, you won't be able to seal large areas of your empire.

If you are playing Denmark you could simply take Hamburg and fortify it, attacking or marauding armies shouldn't go north unless they take this settlement (except of course the hordes, but they don't seem to reach that area).

Good luck

[phonicsmonkey]

I recommend using forts at geographical choke points.

This. I find it acts as a deterrent as much as a physical blocker. Quite often an AI army will stroll up to the choke point, notice the fort and wander off again. Also, of course, it buys you at least an extra turn to bring troops to that part of the front to take out the invading force.

Having said all that, have you considered that these guys might simply be birdwatching?

[elbasto]

Having said all that, have you considered that these guys might simply be birdwatching?

Maybe, but they are not paying my mandatory birdwatching tax.

[edbenedict77]

adding to the armies, if u r looking for economical bliss early on when the florins are trickling every merchant counts so keeping 1 unit peasant or the lowest upkeep unit on a bridge is a two way advantage, they block neutral/enemy agents getting into ur territory esp those pesky merchants, and if thos units turn traitors, as in rebels u can have ur general unit alone take them out and by that get Very good Military general traits and retinues :D

*** will post screenies once i get home from work :) i'm currntly playing as HRE on H/H :)