Primary vs. secondary weapons and other noob questions

[Myth]

Hi and welcome! Glad to see fresh blood around here. When you get the hang of M2TW, come over to the Throne Room right here on the .org and try a hotseat game with other humans!

I downloaded this game from Steam and after getting a little bit of experience from getting a poor start as France in Vanilla (and I also played Shogun and M1 a long time ago), I'm starting an M2TW Crusades campaign with the Byzantine Empire. I have been reading totalwar.honga.net, FAUST, and this forum so I this time I can actually know what's going on. I had a few questions:

1. What is the significance of the primary or secondary weapons? If one is missile and one is melee this makes some sense in that one is used at range and the other in direct combat. Some mounted of mounted units have both the primary or secondary as melee and this a bit confusing. It seems like it would always whichever one is higher. If there both the primary and secondary attacks are melee, what determines when one gets used and at not the other (or both)?

For ranged units or those with ranged capabilities (javelin throwing skirmishers), they use their ranged attack when not engaged in melee, and their secondary melee attack when they are. The difference between the attacks is that ranged attacks ignore part of the defensive bonus of the enemy. Certain missiles have the armour piercing capability which further reduces the impact of enemy defense. Usually ranged units have a melee attack that has a very low kill chance and a poor animation. Mostly.

For melee units, usually cavalry have a secondary weapon. They use their lance or spear to charge and obtain that great charge bonus to attack, then if you do not pull them out to regroup and mount a second charge, they pull out their secondary weapon and slug it out in melee. Secondary attacks with the armour piercing capability (Maces for example) are great in a melee fight and shred even heavy infantry in a fight.

A notable bad example of a secondary attack are pike units like Royal Pikemen for example. They really like to pull out their weak shortswords when they please. Mods like Stainless Steel remedy that, amongst a multitude of things. Do try it out.

2. Can a cavalry missile unit be ordered to melee attack? (Likely related to question #1)

Most certainly. As Darth said, just hold Alt and right click. Make sure you are charging into the rear of an otherwise occupied force, or if you must charge frontally - do so after weakening them with arrows.

3. What are the different levels of armor upgrade for a unit? Just to take one example, if you look at Trebizond Archers at honga.net it shows an armor upgrade as a leather tanner. Do Trebizond Archers benefit from any other upgrades further down the armor tech tree or is the tanner the only one? Likewise, Byzantine Cavalry is showing upgrades at both Blacksmith and Armorer, so does this then mean that any armor building more advanced than an armorer doesn't offer any benefit to Byzantine Cavalry?

Yes. Some units get only leather, which you get from the lowest level of the smith. Others benefit from leather and then chain or half plate. Yet others start with great armour and only benefit from plate which you get last. You will see which upgrade is next on the unit card. Armour is awesome in M2TW, especially if you use autoresolve a lot.

4. Are the economic traits of your faction leader empire wide or only applicable to province to that he is stationed in?

No, he is just another general in that regard.

5. Are the economic benefits of governors only in effect if there are in the town or castle?

Yes

6. How are retraining costs calculated? Does retraining only upgrade equipment (and possibly experience) or can it also replenish a unit's numbers back to full strength? It seems this is something I should know already, but in game I've seen retraining not put it back in full strength yet at the same time I thought I remember reading somewhere that this was how it was supposed to work.

Retraining does all the things. If a unit is damaged, it attempts to replenish it and upgrade it. If it's full health, it will add weapon and/or armour upgrades. The costs for replenishing are what you would pay for the unit minus the remaining men in the unit being retrained. Armour and weapons have a fixed cost per unit IIRC.

[somedude]

Hi and welcome! Glad to see fresh blood around here. When you get the hang of M2TW, come over to the Throne Room right here on the .org and try a hotseat game with other humans!

Thank you and I will!

Mods like Stainless Steel remedy that, amongst a multitude of things. Do try it out.

That is something I was wondering about. I didn't know to what extent the game had been patched or if I should get a mod and if so which one.

1. So would you say that stainless steal is the best?

2. Does it update the scenarios or just the big European campaign (by scenarios I mean 4 campaigns that came with kingdoms: Crusades, Teutonic, etc)?

3. Are you using steam and if so did you need to do anything to resolve any conflicts between the mod and steam?

Also, a few more non-mod related questions:

4. I noticed that if an army of raiders (or bandits, I forgot the actual term) is on your territory and they are not wiped out within a turn or two, the land where it stands appears burnt. Even after the raiders are wiped out, the burn mark remains. Is this strictly appearance or does this represent a permanent reduction in the economic productivity of the province?

5. I wanted to sort out an economic policy more intelligent than More People + More Economic Buildings = Good, which is a true statement but isn't specific enough to prioritize anything. Taxes, mining, and farming revenue seem fairly straightforward (or maybe they're not and there is some horrible iceberg underneath). Trade is a bit mysterious though. Presumably, your investment dollar will go farther in provinces that have more valuable trade goods, but again this really doesn't get to the point of how trade revenue works. Although all the trade boosting buildings will generate revenue, any given building may be a good investment in one province and a poor investment in another. Roads, ports, wharfs, markets, all boost trade revenue but are they only raw multipliers or but do they may do they act in different ways in different contexts (setting aside the military usefulness of roads, strictly looking at money)?

6. Do each of these trade building types interact with each other? (for example, do roads and ports increase the effectiveness of markets but not visa versa)

7. Does population size impact trade (not tax revenue)? Lets say that you have 2 identical provinces with the exact same natural resources and infrastructure and the only difference is that one has a higher population (set aside any benefit from its position relative to other provinces if one exists). Would adding a market to the larger population province have a bigger impact or would it be the same impact for both provinces?

[Myth]

1. So would you say that stainless steal is the best?
- Yes, one of the best. Also try Third Age Total War if you're a Lord of the Rings fan.

2. Does it update the scenarios or just the big European campaign (by scenarios I mean 4 campaigns that came with kingdoms: Crusades, Teutonic, etc)?
- It's an independent (mod foldered) modification that vastly improves the big European scenario. It does not disallow you to also play regular Medieval 2 or the Kingdoms campaigns.

3. Are you using steam and if so did you need to do anything to resolve any conflicts betwe
en the mod and steam?
- I myself am not using steam for M2TW in particular. However, there are some things that you need to take into consideration when installing for the steam version. Here is a list of great mods for M2TW with Kingdoms installed. Here is the SS thread for downloading it. Here is the FAQ, steam installation included.

Also, a few more non-mod related questions:

4. I noticed that if an army of raiders (or bandits, I forgot the actual term) is on your territory and they are not wiped out within a turn or two, the land where it stands appears burnt. Even after the raiders are wiped out, the burn mark remains. Is this strictly appearance or does this represent a permanent reduction in the economic productivity of the province?
- It's called devastation. Usually it will go away, but there is an annoying bug in M2TW that makes it permanent. Sadly the only way to avoid it is to curbstomp them asap. Also, they're called rebels (legacy of Rome Total War)

5. I wanted to sort out an economic policy more intelligent than More People + More Economic Buildings = Good, which is a true statement but isn't specific enough to prioritize anything. Taxes, mining, and farming revenue seem fairly straightforward (or maybe they're not and there is some horrible iceberg underneath). Trade is a bit mysterious though. Presumably, your investment dollar will go farther in provinces that have more valuable trade goods, but again this really doesn't get to the point of how trade revenue works. Although all the trade boosting buildings will generate revenue, any given building may be a good investment in one province and a poor investment in another. Roads, ports, wharfs, markets, all boost trade revenue but are they only raw multipliers or but do they may do they act in different ways in different contexts (setting aside the military usefulness of roads, strictly looking at money)?
- Trade is different from Merchant Income. For now remember this rule of thumb: sea trade (ports), connected with paved roads and large mines give the most income. If you have a cluster of rich port cities, move your capital there to negate corruption. For more indepth strategies, check out my guide on playing hotseats (but also on playing M2TW in general)

6. Do each of these trade building types interact with each other? (for example, do roads and ports increase the effectiveness of markets but not visa versa)
- All of them increase the export of the city in question. This has a double effect, because that export then becomes the import in another city. The building bonuses stack, you can see their effects in the city details as you add a building, it will show half-transparent carts which when you mouse over, will show the income value added to that settlement by the upgrade.

7. Does population size impact trade (not tax revenue)? Lets say that you have 2 identical provinces with the exact same natural resources and infrastructure and the only difference is that one has a higher population (set aside any benefit from its position relative to other provinces if one exists). Would adding a market to the larger population province have a bigger impact or would it be the same impact for both provinces?
- Population does not directly influence trade to my knowledge. Adding a market will give you an increase in tradeable goods, which is good.