Early Turkish Strategies

[dragonchr15]

the English campaign which was a lot of fun but Im tired of playing Catholic factions. I need to know how to play the Turkish in the Early period. I read a few posts and some say attack Byzantines becasue you will have to deal with crusades if you attck Egypt while others say attack Egypt becasue they have rich land and can finance your war with Christendom.

I am not sure whom to attack.

Also, can someone tell me a good Turkish army? I read Horse Archers are the key and historically (if i am not mistaken), the Turks massacred the Crusaders using Horse Archers.

[The_678]

Me I like to rush the egyptians for the richness of their lands. Also if you can capture their king in Antioch its a major advantage for the early game.

My army was mostly Turcoman horse and AHC(Armenian Heavy Canalry) until I could tech up to Saracens and Ghazis.

One thing with Muslim faction though is that you to learn to deal with losing alot of your men. THey just don't have the defense and Armour. But Ghazis are great for flanking and rears. Just don't expect to survive long.

[MadKow]

Likewise.
When playing the turks i always jump on Egypt and annihilate them ASAP. The chance to ransom their king is a bonus but the provinces you conquer are reward enough. I tend to leave the Byzantines alone, and dig in and build after conquering Egypt. I probably shouldn't stop and go all the way to Morocco.

The reason to leave the Byzantine is to later let them handle the Horde, and attack them afterward. This not always works depending on how the western powers expand.

An early attack to reach Constantinople is very tempting, but you really have to be good at using horse archers because that will be your main unit. Kats with a good general can be a very tough nut to crack. And if you give the Egyptians time to build up you will be facing hordes of camels in their element, the desert.

[Doug-Thompson]

Another Egyptian attacker here.

The best argument for attacking the Byz first is to get to them before they are too strong. However, I usually find that a strong Byz Empire is my best trading partner after I attack the Egyptians and hold the key trading provinces of Antioch, Tripoli and Egypt.

You have to build a navy to prevent a Crusade from landing on the key coastal provinces directly by sea. That naval protection has to extend to the Black Sea to prevent a Crusade from going through your back door through Georgia and Armenia. So, you have to have fleets in the eastern end of the map to begin with.

When those fleets are connected, trading with the Byz becomes a treasure trove and a solid base for expansion. Antioch is making more than 3,000 florins a year in trade income alone in my current game. The year is 1192. I have 82,000 florins in the treasury, at least two citadels building and at least two fleets in every Mediterranean sea zone, plus some in the Atlantic.

With an income like that, let the Crusades come. I thoroughly defeated a German Crusade long before making that kind of money.

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Turks do depend on horse archers and fighting with horse archers, frankly, takes a certain knack and a lot of practice..

Some people can fight a whole battle with nothing but horse archers, but that's far beyond my skill level.

It's perfectly feasible to drive the Egyptians as far as the Sinai without even fighting a battle, since their armies of mostly peasants will usually withdraw. However, eventually you are going to have to fight them and they will have plenty of camels and Nubian spearmen. This is bad, because camels will more than trump any Ghulam bodyguards or Armenian Heavy Cavalry you have, and Nubians are much better than your regular spearmen.

I build a Jihad very early, let the Eqyptians re-take the Sinai and then declare Jihad on the Sinai. I also hire some well-armored mercenaries. The Jihad gains strength marching through Syria and Palestine. The showdown in Eqypt has me winning by sheer force of numbers. After that, I can afford better troops.

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Phase one: Horse archers with basic spearmen, plus desert arches, and a few camels. Turcoman horse start replacing the cav archers.

Phase two: Turcomon horse completely replace the horse archers. Saracen infantry replace the spearmen. Turcomon foot replace the desert archers. Armenian heavy camels start replacing the camels, but keep some camels around. They're good for killing crusader knights.

Phase three: Ghulam cavalry starts replacing the Armenian Heavy Cavalry. AHC have a wonderful charge, but can't melee. If the enemy doesn't break in the charge and the AHC can't re-form to charge again, the AHC are in serious trouble.

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5 Saracen infantry, 5 turcoman foot, 2 Ghulam cav and 4 Turcomon horse is my typical army until I can afford better units.

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Finally, it should be mentioned that Syria produces +2 assassins.

[Imperial Buffoon]

Quote[/b] (Doug-Thompson @ Mar. 19 2004,09:53)]5 Saracen infantry, 5 turcoman foot, 2 Ghulam cav and 4 Turcomon horse is my typical army until I can afford better units.

I tend to use something similar but with some futtawas (2) replacing 2 turcomans if I have them and 2 gazis replacing 2 sarracens. When attacking, it's worth replacing one of the sarracens by muwahids.
Compared to Doug-Thompson's army, mine has a weaker core but is more mobile (gazis are fast) and has better morale. Plus, gazis are really cheap so if I can, I tend to have a couple in reinforcement as well.

[Mouzafphaerre]

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Here's what I have been doing:

In the first few decades, or even for a century, I didn't add to my armies. Just built my starting provinces up steadily. Once I was near 100,000 florins (farms provide great income in the Turkish/early provinces), I slowly started taking on arms.

I didn't wage war at anybody; neither the Byz nor the Egy. Instead, built dozens of âlims and flooded the entire Mediterranean world with them, starting from my own lands.

I tried to persuade both the Egy and the Byz for alliances, at the beginning to no avail because of my kings' poor influence, but it proved correct lately.

The Egyptians were too greedy and attacked me from the south, which ended up with them eliminating and me holding the eastern shore and Egypt for level 2. After my first victory or second, the Byzs accepted my alliance proposal.

Level 2 involved building up Egypt against the inevitable Spanish assault, which indeed happened after they customarily ate up the Almos --a rule without exception in my games Also at this stage, I started building my navy and filled the eastern Mediterranean parts.

I had to start over two or three times because the Horde blew into Armenia. That was inevitable death in my strategy but I noticed that the AI is cheating It plays as if it knows about 1230 and the Byz leave Khazar and Armenia empty I imitated that and retreated every single soldier from Armenia in 1229. It worked They invaded Khazar and we haven't engaged yet. ;)

I built all upgrade facilities available so that my armour is level 2 while my rivals' are either absent or partly level one.

Units:

Turcoman Horses are preferable over Horse Archers, while Desert Archers keep up pretty well too. You can use them in melee against routing or really downgraded units. Forget Bedouin Camels unless with really high valour. They route on sight of marching peasants

In general, Turkish/erly units are inferior to everything else around. That's why I didn't engage in hostilities with the Byz from the beginning. However, once you get to Ghazi Infantry and Futuwwas, they pay off well.

Make a lot of spearmen and Muwahhid Infantry in defensive positions.

Hth
_

[katank]

why not take on the byz early?

unless you want to make the game hard, take out the byz as soon as you are done with the eggy.

my HAs can run circles around the byz inf and shoot up that unit of varangs while they can't touch me.

then, my heavy mercs roll over the remainder.

the byz have no good production facilities early on except for const. and can be overrun easily after you take trebizond and then const.

popping out a jihad and letting the byz take it back and then hitting it with the jihad also helps for some nice troops and can help ensure you hold const.

once you have const, secure the rest of asia minor and throw the byz back to their measly islands.

I use const. for silver armored ghazis which have much better survival rates and then to build a grand mosque for spamming Imams who naturalize the byz provinces and help improve zeal for better jihads.

I actually find it preferable to build a load of jihads in a province, leave a border province weakly guarded and tempt an attack, retreat my unit to the castle and then launch all my jihads at it which hits the province in a turn due to my navy and then provides a huge influence boost for my new sultan and also give some kick ass troops for cheap.

the eggy are gone for 50 years now and the byz are relegated to a pitiable force wiht no navy stranded on cyprus and forced to trade with me while I make money from their homelands

[Fragony]

Isolate the Egypt King second turn, and kill the bastard. Why the turks are regarded as hard in early is beyond me. You can overun either egypt or the byzantines in 3 years.

[Nowake]

Also, can someone tell me a good Turkish army? I read Horse Archers are the key and historically (if i am not mistaken), the Turks massacred the Crusaders using Horse Archers.

Use them for luring the enemy, but don't try to shoot a unit down with HA, they'll dissapoint you. Use Armenian Heavy Cav and Ghulams, Saracan Infantry and arbs. When late era comes, you're going to have janissary

[Mouzafphaerre]

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Why I didn't take either before building myself up is because of external factors. The crusades suck once you get at the initial shot area of them.

I let them die off in Ortho. provinces or get repelled/weakened by the Egys.

Two years ago, I played Turks in high taking Byzs before the first decade was over.


_

[Doug-Thompson]

Quote[/b] (katank @ Mar. 19 2004,19:24)]why not take on the byz early?

Once the Egyptians are down, the timing of taking out the Byz is up to the player. The question was, who to take out first. I vote for the Egyptians.

[katank]

depends though. although it may not matter to you, I find my self wanting to take const. for the income and also make sure they can't even produce byz inf.

giving the byz time to tech up is a very bad IMHO. You can pump turc horse with very low reqs while the decent byz units require far more so taking const. early would be the easiest time.

as well, I don't even need to disband my mercs who survived the egyptian campaign but I can use em directly against the byz.

Also, how can you resist getting a grand mosque up or having silver armoured ghazis?

spamming Imams for better jihads and produce tons of muslim revolts is cool and silver ghazis pulverize enemy troops and actually make it back in semi reasonable numbers

[Doug-Thompson]

Quote[/b] (katank @ Mar. 22 2004,20:44)]Also, how can you resist getting a grand mosque up or having silver armoured ghazis?

spamming Imams for better jihads and produce tons of muslim revolts is cool and silver ghazis pulverize enemy troops and actually make it back in semi reasonable numbers

Now that's the best argument for Byz first I've heard yet.

Building a fort-keep-mosque-castle-fortress-citadel-grand mosque is a real pain. Don't forget that Heavy Jannisary infantry in the High Period onwards, either -- which requires a military academy and all the spear upgrades, too.

I remember the first time I used JHI. People had raved on this forum about how great they were, so I sent them straight up a hill to see.

The Sicilians charged them -- with 200 peasants.

The pitchfork crowd didn't just get beat. They evaporated on contact. You could have run a small engine on the steam.

I think the JHI lost four people out of 200. The next effect of the peasant attack was a delay in the uphill march by about 10 seconds, mostly to let the fleeing peasants get out of the way. The JHI then killed or captured about half the Sicilian army while everybody else tried to help..

Imans are great. The combination of high-zeal provinces they create, a sultan who boosts his piety and influence with successful Jihads and control of the sea is an incredibly powerful combination.

One of the great things about Jihads in high-zeal provinces is the good units you get. You get large numbers of cheap ones, but you can simply disband those. I get tons of Janissary Archers and a few Janissary Heavy Infantry with Jihads. I pick then out after the Jihad's over like gold out of a pan of gravel.

I play with huge units, so the more partial units I get that I can rebuild as complete ones, the better. I'll often run a Jihad from Arabia, for instance, through a province that has some JHI in it just so they'll pick up a few and create another unit.

[dragonchr15]

Thanks for the replies, they helped alot.

After much though, I attacked Egypt first as suggested earlier and had little trouble slaughtering their peasant/Nubian army. But then, I was hit with a crusade from France and Germany at the same time and to make matters worse, the Byzantines broke our alliance and sank all my ships. I reloaded from a previous point (I knew I was going to get slaughtered for I had no real army), and attacked Byzantine first and I am doing ok for now.

What type of army do I need to take on Byzantines? Also, does anyone here ever do a Braveheart style charge by selecting all your troops and double clicking behind the enemy and watching the action? When would such a tactic be recomended?

[Doug-Thompson]

Guess we should have mentioned that attacking Egypt first requires a pretty quick build-up afterward to be ready for Crusades, huh?

Sorry about that.

[katank]

well, I think you should pull all troops to syria on the first turn and then attack the eggy on the second.

going with this, I was able to wipe out the eggy at around 1092.

heading north, I start war with byz in 1095 or so and typically get const. by 1100 or so.

I then clean up asia minor and consolidate into building econ.

by this time, I don't have a navy for byz to attack or chance for them to double cross me.

also, it's physcially impossible for any catholics to launch crusades at me in that time frame unless it's the spanish and they teched straight for crusades.

Perhaps you don't like toplay with my breakneck rush style but I find no problems that way.

for the byz, if you have strong mercs, then head on charge is OK but skirmishing is really the best.

If you have loads of merc heavy inf and cav then you can do head on charge and win.

beware of supa katanks though as they may signlehandedly chew up half your army.

use javs on em. also, if you play VI, hire some druzhina as they are almost always available and dismount them int 60 men FFK which are absolutely fab at chewing up most anything that moves in early.

[katank]

thanks for doug thompson's comment but I still believes in that as more of a byz fast comment.

If I go byz first, my muslim brethren the eggy like to back stab and then I'm between a rock and a hard place.

they get time to mass darn nubian spears and peasant and desert archers which is not cool.

also, I might not be so sure of sultan ransom opportunity in antioch if I go after the byz first.

I love the guaranteed 10k or so of ransom as it finances my rushing strategy and later for economy.

[dragonchr15]

Quote[/b] (katank @ Mar. 23 2004,19:37)]Perhaps you don't like toplay with my breakneck rush style but I find no problems that way.

on the contrary, your strategy sounds most intriguing and insane enough to work. But do you just burn your way through Antioch, Tripoli, Palestine, Arabia, Sinai, and Egypt in 10 years with just your initial starting troops? And how can you take Const by 1100? The game starts in 1095 unless im mistaken.

[katank]

nope, game starts in 1087, the death of william the conqueror.

my starting troops are enough to take first palestine adn tripoli, trapping their sultan in antioch which I attack on the next turn for the ransom.

I use the network of inns that the eggy leave behind to hire some troops to be my spear head.

I then take sinai to trap the eggy sultan in either arabia or egypt and then attack him to get another ransom.

I always have a moving wall of best general leading merc force attacking every turn while my king brings national troops behind for sieging and initial pacification of populace while a contigent of peasants move behind to pacify.

This works really well and builds up my general.

The strategy does work. I played at least 3 Turk games this way and my most recent case had me sacking const by 1100.

I've perfected my Turkish start now and by targeting carefully ransom opportunities of sultans and emperors, managed to also accumulate 27k in my treasury by that time even when using two stacks of mercs try it, it works

[Jamais Le Dimanche]

I attack Egypt First The Egyptian King starts in Antioch.
I move all me units into Syria and Edessa. I attack from Syria into Tripolis, which is usually abandoned by the Egyptians, stranding their King in Antioch. I then attack Antioch from Edessa and Send half of my forces in Tripols back into Syria. This usually results in the capture and the ransom of Egyptian King for 10,000 florins give or take.
If you spend wisely and build some inns, you can then lure the new Egyptian King into Palestine and do the same thing over again by attacking through Arabia and Sinai stranding their King in Palestine, getting a second ransom. This puts a heavy crimp in the Egyptian Economy.
I then consolidate and concentrat on Byzantium.
Occaisionally the Byzantines will attack in collusion with Egypt, so you have to do all this as quickly as possible.

Note than early Turkish units are all light, so build quickly to upgrade to Saracen Infantry and Futuwwas befor taking on Byzantium aas their infantry slices through the regular spearmen easily.

[Doug-Thompson]

Quote[/b] (katank @ Mar. 23 2004,19:37)]well, I think you should pull all troops to syria on the first turn and then attack the eggy on the second. (etc.)

The blitz katank describes is very feasible. We Eg beaters ignored the time element in earlier posts, it appears.

You should manage your own taxes, IMO, to avoid revolts, but I invade Tripoli and Antioch on the second turn I don't get the kings ransom as regularly as katank, but I use huge units. Maybe that has an effect. Maybe it doesn't. I don't seem to have as many units to spread around all over the map and catch the guy. When I do catch up to him, his successor won't pay the ransom.

Still, I grab Antioch and Tripoli on the second turn. Then concentrate troops in Tripoli on turn 3 and take Palestine on turn four. (Don't leave anything in Rum or Armenia but peasants. I haven't been bothered by the Byz yet.)

Notice that you've grabbed most of the Middle East before the Egyptians have had time to build a fort.

By turn five or six, you can attack both the Sinai and Arabia. None of this requires beating the comp in a battle. The Egyptians just withdraw because peasants can be shot to pieces by horse archers, and the AI knows it. So, don't fill your army with trash spears and peasants, which would be wiped out by Nubians. All those units do is encourage the Egyptians to fight.

Now it gets interesting. As katank mentions, there's an former-Egyptian inn within Palestine. You can hire mercs and have a big battle in Egypt. Or you can bide your time a bit, build a Jihad in Rum, withdraw from the Sinai and declare Jihad to get it back. The Jihad gains troops marching through Syria and Palestine. Then you add some mercs and simply overwhelm what's left of the Eqyptians.

Whether or not you can turn right around and attack the Byz is TOTALLY dependent on whether you got a king's ransom.

[katank]

well, this is kinda relying upon my knowledge of the game engine but the AI sultan always tries to move from antioch to tripoli on the scond turn and thus if you attack antioch and tripoli, he is able to run to palestine.

for some reason, with kings at least, the province they can retreat from is the one they try to go to.

thus, by taking tripoli and palestine, he has to retreat back to antioch, trapping him for a guaranteed ransom.

I thus feel that the Turks have the best starting position in early, esp. on the higher difficulty levels as money is my biggest issue on the higher difficulty levels.

the ransom is also sizeable as the eggy sultan would also have a heir by then for a total of around 10k which is very sizeable.

he then usually gets ransomed to arabia and you can sack sinai to trap him again.

I actually manage to ransom the sultan twice and total of something like 6 eggy princes during a blitz once and along with trapping of byz emperor, got 27k sitting in my treasury even after the extensive merc use to gain the continental lands of the eggy and byz.

notice, blitz technique requires extensive peasant pumping to maintain loyalty and seeking out super scary govs even if they are dumb (you can always strip them of the title later).

[PseRamesses]

I actually play the Turks in the same fashion as Katank and in 75% of my games isolate the egyptian sultan twice. It´s the easiest way to start a Turk campaign.

[Gregoshi]

Welcome to the Org Jamais and thanks for your contribution to the discussion. May you have many more.

Looks like we have the start of an Eg Beater club bent on overthrowing the yoke of Egyptian rule in the region. You start by pancaking them with Syria and Edessa them up. Once their defenses are cracked and their king poached, your war with the Eggies is over easy. If the Byz attack, you'll have to scramble to meet that threat. Just keep your sunny side up and be hard boiled with the dastardly Byzantines.

Check please

[Doug-Thompson]

Quote[/b] (Gregoshi @ Mar. 25 2004,08:06)]Welcome to the Org Jamais and thanks for your contribution to the discussion. May you have many more.

Looks like we have the start of an Eg Beater club bent on overthrowing the yoke of Egyptian rule in the region. You start by pancaking them with Syria and Edessa them up. Once their defenses are cracked and their king poached, your war with the Eggies is over easy. If the Byz attack, you'll have to scramble to meet that threat. Just keep your sunny side up and be hard boiled with the dastardly Byzantines.

Check please

The pun may be the lowest form of humor, but I still have to admit that was pretty good.

===============

Boy, don't I feel stupid for not getting $10K ransom per game.

[Gregoshi]

Quote[/b] (Doug-Thompson @ Mar. 25 2004,09:00)]The pun may be the lowest form of humor, but I still have to admit that was pretty good.

Weren't you ever told not to feed animals lest they follow you home? Same applies here.

Follows Doug...


BTW, back on topic, I'm getting ready to start a new campaign and the Turks are #1 on the list of who to play. I got an indirect taste of their campaign thanks to Grothgar's MTW Interactive AAR game. It was very much fun and I'm sad it didn't progress very far, but I hope Grothgar's real life troubles have gone away. Anyway, it got me interested in the Turks. Needless to say, me being me, I will totally ignore the advice given here and forge my own path. Then when I get my head handed to me on a platter, I start over and do it the right way.

[Crash]

Thanks for the great tips, Katank. I'm still learning how to play the Turks now, looking for new challenges.

I have the most trouble with the frequency of Crusades that come through my lands, immediately followed by the GH arriving in Armenia and Georgia. Even if I beat the Byz and the Egyptians one-on-one, I get hammered by Crusaders and Mongols. It gives me a lot of new found respect for the real Ottoman empire.

Personally, I tend to favor the quick strike against the Byz, let the Egyptians fight off the crusaders for awhile. Once Constaninople is secured, then take grab Antioch and Tripoli before finally taking out Egypt.

The Turks are great fun, but take a lot of effort.

[Hakeem928]

I just tried the 'ransom trick' three times in a row and neither time did it work. Every time, I moved all my forces to Syria on turn one and invaded Tripoli on turn two, and every time they reinforced Tripoli with the Sultan from Antioch, and then proceeded to retreat him to Palestine. You guys must be special or something

[Doug-Thompson]

You have to invade Tripoli and Palestine at the same time.

[katank]

invasion at the smae time on the second turn is key to trapping the sultan.

this means you capture him on third turn and 10k ransom by 1090 makes even the expert level quite a bit easier as I can win most battles agaisnt crazy odds but can't just pull cash outta my @ss.

I think byz first is great and everything but 10k ransom that early guaranteed is too hard to risk losing.

also, the ransom + inss left in plaestine means mucho mercs with which to kill those crazy katanks that the byz field.

then, flood with imams, silver ghazis, etc. for a nice game.

I never have problems with GH when starting in early.

however, today, I forgot about the horde in my high turk game and had my @ss handed to me.

One ways to counter the horde is to have a gazillion Jihad markers around, retreat to castle and the launch all the jihads at the GH.

I was able to outnumber the GH with this tactic

chessy variation,

take the provinces, convert them to 100% muslim using Imams.

assasinate khan and all heirs to make em rebel. shouldn't be hard with 5* assasins from syria.

once rebel, launch a jihad at the province.

rebels owuld hand over province without fight if muslim and this eliminates horde with minimum fuss.

I find the jihad thing even better than bribing for taking them out as the other way is more expensive and you can't bribe them all reasonably.