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Thread: Italy

  1. #31

    Default Re: Italy

    weegee, the Sicilian problem is a thorny one, but manageable.

    Auto-ceasefire is a wonderful thing. Simply, if you're at war with someone, and then have no contact with them for a turn (no borders, no naval contact with enemy provinces), a cease-fire is automatically called.

    Scenario 1: If you have Naples, then attack Sicily and storm the castle on next turn. On the same turn that you storm the castle, withdraw any ships from around Malta (and any other Sicilian held province). Auto-ceasefire should result.

    When the Pope warns you, you have two years to establish full control of Sicily (the province) and cut off contact.

    I recommend taking Sicily. It will cripple Sicilian economy and boost your trade income.

    Also, your Dromons are fast. Divide them into single ships (not groups) and attack one Sicilian ship with multiple Dromons (and/or Galleys, too).

    Good luck.
    In later days, a man can find charm in old adversity, exile and pain. -- Homer

  2. #32

    Default Re: Italy

    Unfortunately my forces are too thin to follow your wonderful recommendations for Italian campaign.

    Started in High, GA, vanilla MTW, Hard. After going for Serbia and trade I got amazing chance to take (in turn 15 + or so) Constantinople and bribe Trebizond from rebels.

    So here I stood with holdings scattered from Milan to Trebizond, linked with ships and waiting for Byzantium, Sicily or Turks to attack me....

    The Sicilians gave me a princess, I exchanged the alliance with Byz for one with much more powerful Turks and felt quite safe for turn or two.

    Now out of the blue - the HRE attacked and took Milan, I retaliated with force and took it back...

    Now the question is...

    Stay on defence on Italian-German border?
    Attack HRE owned Provence and tech -up?
    Muster all forces and punish the HRE for such a cheek move?
    Or unite my possesions - too costly , would require the war with Hungarians /and or Byz?

    It is my first campaign as Italians, so that is why the stupid questions.

    Thank you for your suggestions...

  3. #33
    Arrogant Ashigaru Moderator Ludens's Avatar
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    Lightbulb Re: Italy

    You seem to be doing relatively well, Sirron. I suggest minimizing the length your northern border, but also launching a few punishment expeditions to keep the HRE occupied. Also, keep an eye on the Sicilians: they are untrustworthy and are likely to attack your shipping or provinces when you are weak. Personally, I would take them out as soon as it is convenient.

    Holding onto Constantinople can be valuable: it is a cashcow once you have developed your trading network. However, if you are not prepared to face the ire of the Byzantine empire than it might be better to beat a tactical retreat. At this stage it may not be quite worth bleeding your armies. If, however, the Byzantines are not that powerful (and you have just taken the lynchpin of their economy), hold on and connect Constantinople to your cities by all means, even if it requires war. Do not attack Hungary, however. You position is vulnerable enough already.

    Lastly, Italy's main strength is its trade, so you should develop it and be careful when going to war. I would stay put and tech up until I felt powerful enough to expand into the east (preferably using crusades).
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  4. #34

    Default Re: Italy

    Thanks for advice, Ludens, it worked quite well...

    After heavy defensive battles (3 or so) in Milan, which I have won - the HRE gave way and disintegrated into the civil war. The emperor fell back, out of my sight into North Germany and rebels and isolated German garrisons were easy pickings for Italy!

    I took Provence, Burgundy, Switzerland, Tyrol, Bavaria and Austria and Italian Empire became the force to be reckoned with... Interssting is that the emperor was able to eventually reunite the rest of his empire (save my newprovinces) again and is my ally now (some 40 years after his treaacherous attack against me).

    I have slowly increased my trade, kicked the Byz out of Bulgaria, leaving them only on Rhodos and in Moldavia and prepared for crusade to tunisia verus Almohads, which succeeded after taking in many Spanish troops (I have marched it into Granada and then by the sea to the target province.

    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
    However the Spanish kicked me out of Tunisia in 3 years, with about 4 stack army....And in the same year the Hungary attacked and Turks followed suit. The black years, income down to - 1000 fl/year , trebizond and Georgia lost and retaken several times, two consecutive Seljuk attacks on constantinople, carnage all over the map...
    I was in no mood at that time to post, at all.

    However the hungarian attacks on serbia were repelled, auto ceasfire helped to stop war with Spain as we had no land contact after the fall of Tunis.
    I have sent 10 spies to stir the Turkish lands up, and eventually they have fallen to my troops and after their king and his 2 sons died in epic battle in Nicaea, the Seljuk realm was history. Unfortunately I managed to retake only my original possessions (treb and Georgia) + Nikea. Unfortunate provinces of Rum , Armenia and anatolia fell to Egyptian forces (my dear but deeply hated ally).

    So then I moved against Hungary itself with three pronged attack from Austria, Serbia and Venice. Bloodbath, indeed, pope cancelled alliance with me, however, but the Hungarian king is hiding in Carpathians...

    Then, in 2 years, the France attacked to remind me of western part of my kingdom, but they have decided to attack across the river several times to Burgundy (the finest example - yesterday evening with about 1400 to my 470 troops, resulting with 1030 vs. my 130 dead...And they lost their king, three units of templar knights (part of the army was the crusade to Egypt, but I refused to let them in) and other nice forces as well). The spies are working in their lands, but no major revolts, still some of their troops are forced to quell the rebelions.

    So here I stand (pope has died, so he did not have time to excom me for the siege of Buda castle, btw) with my empire strenghtened, slowly the trade with egypt/spain grows and my income is now over 2000/year...

    Unfortunately the northern branch of the trade routes was lost to the French navy, alas...

    So my observations/tips are:

    1. The AI simply did not let me to tech up and cash up (see 3).
    2. There was no time to expand the trade routes and make them strong
    enough to survive the naval war.
    3. If you got involved in war (albeit defensive) and win, they all start to hate
    you.
    4. It is my campaign No. 7 that have seen the emergence and swift defeat
    of GH by Russsians. I have not observed any substantial gains by GH,
    ever, if the game starts in High period.
    5. The rebel ships indeed exist - iI am not able to catch one single ship which
    is sailing in and out of Black sea and harrases my trade lines from
    Constantinople (about 40 turns now).
    6. The Italian infantry is THE ULTIMATE SAVIOUR, this unit performs
    incredibly.
    7. It is not worth for Italy to move beyond the Constantinople if one does not
    want to fight with Turks early.
    8. MTW is great game (which is obvious).

    Thank you for your attention.

  5. #35

    Default Italy, war and trade...

    Hi all,

    Currently playing as the Italians in my first full campaign set in the early period on imperial domination and wanted to retrospectively consider a few points.
    Being a pretty cautious sort of player I sat back for the first hundred odd years and built up massive trade incomes then took some provinces off the HRE and knocked out the Alomohads and the Spanish. Yet I feel that I was too cautious early on concentrating mainly on building up my infrastructure and top class units. The Egyptians ended up dominating the east and me with the Italians the west. However, I kept on putting off the inevitable clash in fear of a massive drop in income. Thus the Egyptians dictated when and where it happened. Whilst I fought off initial their attacks and started to make inroads into their empire in the Balkans and central Europe I felt that I should have thrown the first punch(I had a couple of crusade markers set aside for that purpose!). Well I guess the purpose of this rambling is to ask whether over reliance on trade is best avoided.

    P.S. Currently running a deficit of around -12,000 florins a year(massive armies!) and wondered whether anything bad happens if your treasury has a massive deficit...even tho it's only money!

  6. #36
    Enlightened Despot Member Vladimir's Avatar
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    Default Re: Italy

    Well it's always best to have a balanced stream of revenue. You should have been able to build up your farms and need to reduce your borders with the Eggies. Once you have reduced borders your relatively few, high tech armies should slowly be able to roll back the Islamic tide.


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  7. #37

    Default Re: Italy

    Whilst all decent farmland is at least 60% trade income massively increased my revenue. So I'm looking at a situation where for the last 100 years or so I might well be unable to build any more units. This shouldn't be too much of a problem as I have consistly had the largest army and I just need to husband my forces to a certain extent. I'm just concerned about the impact on province happiness for being greatly in the red...is there any?
    As for strategy the Egyptians have a couple of provinces in central Europe(Swabia and Franconia) with about 2k troops in each. With forces in Bohemia, Friesland, Lorraine, Tyrolia and Burgundy I'm in a position to take Franconia and prevent any from Swabia escaping when I march in.

  8. #38
    Man behind the screen Member Empirate's Avatar
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    Default Re: Italy

    With most of the western part of the map in your pocket, and your sitting tight for a hundred years making money, I can't see where your financial problems can possibly be coming from.

    You should have been able to set aside close to a million florins by trading like that. Furthermore, your provinces should by now be able to produce a lot of money even if trade links are down. So you should be doing fine for a long time still, even if your armies are really big. I don't quite get why you're 12,000 in the red each turn due to upkeep. How many armies DO you have? Sounds to me like rather too many. After sitting tight trading for so long, your cash flow should be more than sufficient to support large armies - at least large enough to hold all you have and take some more. Try to disband some units here and there, where none are needed, especially mercenaries - these are usually unnecessary in this late stage of the game. Try to make do with way less troops than you seem to have. I can't even imagine the number of troops it must take to go so far into the negative.

    And also, put your troops to some use! They're not there to look shiny, but to defend or to conquer land, which in turn generates money. Think of troops as an investment, which ultimately has to pay for itself in some way. An army of 16 units may cost something like 5,000-10,000 fl in training, and about a fifth that in upkeep each turn. If it is not used to defend provinces that are worth that much, nor to conquer some other provinces that are, it's not seeing enough use and doesn't pay for itself. Meaning: You probably don't need it.

    Don't take me wrong: I'm not criticizing your style of play. I just think you should by now have what it takes to destroy all your enemies and take over Europe, and counsel you to do just that. And quickly, before your money runs out!
    People know what they do,
    And they know why they do what they do,
    But they do not know what what they are doing does
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  9. #39

    Default Re: Italy

    Quote Originally Posted by weegee
    What's the next step? How do I get rid of Sicily without being ex'd. They will not take my marriage/ceasefire proposals. They're tying up most of my trade routes. I can probably squash them in about 2-3 rounds now that I'm building catapults. I also have some assasins in the builds, so maybe I'll risk excommunication and then kill the pope. How long does it take to organize a crusade against me? I'm assuming that killing him before then will cancel out any possible damage.
    There are a couple options here.

    1) Drive the Sicilians in Sicily into their castle, and if you get threatened with excommunication, suck up the losses and assault the castle. I prefer to autocalc these as it seems to dull the loss of potentially hundreds of fodder... ;)

    2) Drive the Sicilians into the castle and use an Emmisary to bribe the garrison. This can work so long as the faction leader or heir is not in the province. Hopefully it won't cost too much.

    3) Drive the Sicilians into the castle, and use a Spy to try to open the gates. If you have limited time before the Pope Excoms you, this might not work.


    I've found that even when you manage to get a ceasefire, it sometimes won't change the factions disposition, and they'll go right back to war with you. In this case it's best to simply sink their fleets

    Quote Originally Posted by Ledge
    Being a pretty cautious sort of player I sat back for the first hundred odd years and built up massive trade incomes then took some provinces off the HRE and knocked out the Alomohads and the Spanish. Yet I feel that I was too cautious early on concentrating mainly on building up my infrastructure and top class units.
    I wouldn't necessarily call this too cautious. Depending on the provinces you hold, and where the soft targets are, it can be worth it to build up a large treasury in the form of trade for your eventual full blown troop movements. Being the Italians this means you're stuck dealing with The HRE in the north, the Pope in the South, and whoever is to the east. These are not necessarily great targets to go to war with, particularly if like me, you want to accelerate your economy by getting trade going asap. In many games, I usually only train enough troops to stabilize my position. On top of that my troop training tends to focus on ship building where posible. Not to mention that early in the game, if you don't control what you are training/building, you can run out of money quickly.

    Well I guess the purpose of this rambling is to ask whether over reliance on trade is best avoided.
    I don't think it'd be possible to be over reliant on trade, unless the trading that you do have setup has minimal military backing. With that said, it's possible to be in a position where losing your trade income due to sea blockades can discourage you from taking any military action against some of your neighbors or trade rivals. This is particularly difficult if your rivals outnumber you in ships. If you do rely on trade, it's vital to establish a large shipbuilding effort. This shouldn't be too difficult with what coastal provinces the Italians start out with.

    I've been playing an XL Fatimids campaign where I had ship building capacity in each province from Anatolia around to Egypt. Being able to pump out 7 ships every 3 years, combined with the Fatimid's rich provinces pushed me ahead of everyone in naval superiority. I also had Morocco, Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily, Malta and even Ireland pumping out ships, and by 1130 I had managed to place 6 ships in every sea zone.

  10. #40

    Default Re: Italy

    I guess playing Shogun too much made me forget about the impact of 'real' ships on trade. That and building too many troop producing centres. As such my war chest reached about 150,000 tops which didn't last long once the balloon went up and I had yearly expenditure in the 40,000 region. Anyways the war is going ok at the moment as I've taken Switzerland, Swabia, Franconia amd Saxony in a couple of years whilst holding the Egyptians off in Austria. Furthermore gaining naval supremacy in the eastern Med has allowed me to launch a second front in the Balkans taking Greece and Constantinople whilst launching raids into Asia Minor. Unfortunately the British Isles and Iberia are a bit rebellious at the moment. Got about a thousand men and 10 spies in Portugal which is still only about 102% happy at a normal tax rate. Probably gonna carry on fighting until I take Bohemia, Bulgaria, Hungary and Serbia, alongside wiping out the Egyptian navy, then look for a brief peace settlement while I organise for the next push.
    Oh yeah the Egyptians did wipe out the Papacy which has reemerged. Hopefully they'll fight each other to a standstill leaving a weak Papcy in Italy which I can overrun as my last victim...being excommunicted is such a drag.

  11. #41

    Default Re: Italy

    Quote Originally Posted by Ledge
    I guess playing Shogun too much made me forget about the impact of 'real' ships on trade.
    I only had the opportunity to play Shogun for a short period of time, but now that I have the Eras collection I should have more opportunity to fully explore that game.

    That and building too many troop producing centres. As such my war chest reached about 150,000 tops which didn't last long once the balloon went up and I had yearly expenditure in the 40,000 region.
    I think it is important to build alot of troop producing centers, but not to be training troops all the time. I generally only build troops when I get the sense that another faction might be itching for war, or I intend to expand my territory. In this case I do a quick recruitment blitz by filling up the queue in every decent troop producing province, and only if additional troops will be required do I continue further production. I might have periods of 25-30 years where I am training no units (other than ships), and in those periods I'm mostly focusing on teching up. I'd rather not train a set of units when in 3 or 4 years an armor upgrade will be completed, therefore requiring me to retrain the same units if I want to improve their armor.

    What can happen in these situations is your nation will seem to stand still while other factions grow and other factions die.

    While playing the Italians in one of my first campaigns I hit around 150K florins before I had to go to war and my treasury was devastated. I've hit 200-300K while playing other factions, and in my current Fatimids XL campaign I almost reached 500K. This was not too hard to reach when I had profits of 15K florins each year. With the buildup for the Horde, and a followup war with the Byzantines my treasury dipped below 200K (the Byzantines either didn't like the fact that I was building up to protect Armenia), or it was scripted for the Byzantines to attack the Fatimids about the time the Horde appeared. What was annoying was that for the 150 years previously we were best of allies.

    Unfortunately at this point I effectively own all mediterranean coastal provinces so the big profits from trade are no longer flowing. My only major hurdle now is the English which have way too many ships for their own good.

    Oh yeah the Egyptians did wipe out the Papacy which has reemerged. Hopefully they'll fight each other to a standstill leaving a weak Papcy in Italy which I can overrun as my last victim...being excommunicted is such a drag.
    A great way of getting rid of the excom status is to train some Grand Inquisitors, and send them after the pope. Presuming the Pope is in a province with high zeal, you could have up to a 25% chance to burn the Pope, presuming of course that the Pope's Piety score is 0 Even if the Pope doesn't fry, what can happen is you can get a Pope with the VnV's of God Fearing and Atheist :D

    The other option is to send waves of assassins after the Pope and hope one succeeds. In one of my games I modded the building files to remove the Watch Tower and Border Fort from the game. I also made Brothels and Taverns easier to build. During the game I swear there was a period of 5-6 years where the Pope got assassinated each and every year. Once I finish my Fatimids campaign that's the first thing that I'll be doing.

  12. #42

    Default Re: Italy

    Finally got to 60% domination on the main map and decided to call it a day. It served pretty well as a campaign to learn the game mechanics on and the high initial trade income made me pretty secure and meant I could pick and choose when to act.
    The decisive battle came in Bohemia with about 7k troops on each side. With the Egyptians attacking to save their besieged forces I had the advantage of defence. I killed 3000 Egyptians and lost about 800 myself but slaughtered the 3000+ prisoners I had taken which broke Egyptian power in Europe. Furthermore the Egyptian empire descended into civil war and I easily took seven provinces in the last turn.
    By the end of the game I must have had over 70 Gothic and Chivalric Knight units which was far too many. I ended up throwing them away on castle assaults and uncontrolled pursuits.
    I can see your point about multiple troop producing centres especially if you need forces at a certain point and lack sea transport. Furthermore my armies tended to be too large and unbalanced. I pretty much ignored militia units which would have been handy in certain defensive battles. Certainly building specific armies with roles in mind seems the way to go.
    Trade certainly influenced my style of play and choice of enemies but I should have rationalised my spending right from the start. This also applied to my unit producing centres which lacked effective specialsation.
    All in all it was a pretty interesting starting game and I think I can improve a great deal on the back of it.

    P.S. Assasinate the Pope...but I'm a good Catholic boy...well most of the time I was!

  13. #43
    Jillian & Allison's Daddy Senior Member Don Corleone's Avatar
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    Default Re: Italy

    I love playing as Italy. They were the first faction I went to when I started playing (and since I started with Vanilla MTW and Sicily wasn't on the radar), it's where I took my Org name from. Periodically I'll start games as Italy, but I do go long periods without playing as them. When I do revisit them, it's almost like I'm starting the game all over again. Well, I just started an Italian campaign (results coming soon to Pics n' History thread).

    First, a bit about how I play. I almost always play on GA, usually on Hard. I've never tried expert, but based on Adrian's comments in several of the faction guides, I'm considering it soon. But I'm about role-playing and working the GA goals into a story.

    Second, I like to look at what strengths and what weaknesses a faction has going for it. For the Italians:

    Strengths
    -Italian Light Infantry: You could build an army out of these guys alone. They kick ass. They almost unbalance the faction in Early. The build requirements aren't easy, but they're not impossible either. Don't armor these guys up though, or you won't be able to take them with you into the desert.

    -Genoese sailors: Better than average archers and cheaper support costs to boot. As soon as you can, convert all your regular archer units to these.

    -Tuscan UM: Not great, but for the very early game, a steal. Their extra valor point really helps and they can typically take on a spear unit single handed and come out with 25% casualties or less.

    -TRADE: In case you missed it in the first 2 pages, Italy can be a cash cow! Lots of money to be made. In fact, playing as the Italians early on made me stunted in my understanding of the economics of the game. I had to play as the HRE and England a few times to learn how to budget and conserve.


    Weaknesses
    Starting Position: With the exception of Venice, rather undeveloped provinces at start.

    Expansion: Not many places to go without getting into a fight with an enemy stronger than yourself. What's more, most of the immediately accessible neighboring provinces aren't worth the money you'll have to spend to go get them.

    Cavalry: No early cavalry units. Mounted X-bows aren't that bad in melee, but they're too expensive to throw around like knight-wanna-bes.

    So, here's how I played them this last go round:

    -I abandoned conventional wisdom and didn't take Serbia right off the bat. Instead, I took Naples. I left weak garrisons everywhere but Milan and Venice. Why? When you take Serbia, you put yourself between the Byzantines and Hungary, both of whom are more than happy to hit you when you're not ready for it. This requires a large army (forget garrison) in Serbia. For a gold mine, it's just not worth it. Besides, if you leave Serbia, Hungary and Byz will fight over it. Let them fight it out in the Balkans, which leaves you to take your true goals, the GA point rich Levant.

    -Taking the bait, the Pope broke an alliance with me and invaded Tuscany. One of my role-playing rules is that when an ally backstabs me, I take one province as punishment. Hello Rome!

    -I then continued building my fleet up. Another ally got the idea to backstab me, and after 5 years of sea battles, Sicily is mine and what remains of that faction is holed up (without a castle) in Malta. Imagine the king and 7 units of royal knights, sitting around a field dreaming of the day they will 'make those Italians pay!"

    Now, you've got two ways to go. You can help your Spanish friends polish off the Elmos (by taking Tunisia and working up the other side of North Africa) or, as I usually do, build up for the conquest of the Holy Land.

    -I queue up 3 crusade markers. I wait for the Eggys to get a good war going with the Byz. Their aggression and their tendency to push far into Asia Minor works for you. By the time I start (by invading Palestine) typically the majority of the Eggys are in stacks in Nicia, Anatolia, maybe even Trebizond. Too far away to help their brethren back in Jersusalem. This time, I timed it just right and I put a fleet into the English channel the same turn... I noticed no drop in trade income. The 3 Eggy ports I lost I gained from the English and French.

    -As soon as the Eggys move their stacks into Tripoli, lay a crusade on Antioch. The money from Anitoch is too much to pass up and as you're weakening the Eggys, you don't want the Byzantines to snatch your reward while you're doing all the work.

    -The 3rd crusade can come when you're ready. Basically, let the Eggys tire themselves trying to fight two fronts (just have LOTS of spears and arrows handy for all those camels). When you feel comfortable, launch the 3rd crusade into Tripoli. Once you take it, Egypt will probably have a civil war, effectively taking them out of contention.

    -I'd launch the 4th crusade at Syria. THat's too many backdoors to have to cover in your Crusader states. Save Edessa for #5. It's only 1 point anyway.

    Don't take anybody else. I've noticed that the AI bases it's assement of your relative strength by the number of provinces your faction holds, even in an GA game. Taking Serbia, Crete, and Cypress... yeah, they're easy at first. But they're all running your tally up. Other factions will become more and more wary of you and will eventually slice your trade route. If you're going for global domination, ignore this. But if your goal is to rack up the GA points while keeping the game fairly balanced, don't take any more provinces than you need.

    From here, just rack up the cash and let the game play itself out. I have to agree with Katank's advice somewhat.... if somebody ever hits your tradefleet, destroy every ship they have. Faction leaders might sign peace treaties, but existing fleet captains never honor them. You'll have them continuously sneaking up and breaking your trade links. Clean out every ship in their entire fleet, then make peace. They seem much less likely to break their peace treaties when they have to start from scratch every time they do.
    Last edited by Don Corleone; 05-02-2007 at 16:54.
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  14. #44
    Enlightened Despot Member Vladimir's Avatar
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    Default Re: Italy

    Good write-up Don. Italy is my guilty pleasure.

    I prefer the Venetians in XL though and I usually take out the Pope. The only downfall is no Genoese sailors. Otherwise, it isn't much of a challenge anymore. You can get some really good defender virtues out of the Pope. He also likes to strike when you aren't expecting it so it causes you to be more careful, slowing your expansion and increasingly the enjoyability of the game.
    Last edited by Vladimir; 05-02-2007 at 16:34.


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  15. #45

    Default Re: Italy

    Quote Originally Posted by katank View Post
    also, too much territory rapidly means bad vices for your govs.
    hi first post here. read a lot already in this forum and liked it very much so far. especially katanks opening moves.
    was thinking of playing italians next after finishing a HRE conquest on normal. i was wondering why my generals were getting such bad virtues after conquering 60% of the map. is there a thread about the penalties you get when conquering the world?
    is there any thread about vanilla viking invasion 2.1 AI strategies?
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  16. #46

    Default Re: Italy

    Quote Originally Posted by xearor View Post
    hi first post here. read a lot already in this forum and liked it very much so far. especially katanks opening moves.
    was thinking of playing italians next after finishing a HRE conquest on normal. i was wondering why my generals were getting such bad virtues after conquering 60% of the map. is there a thread about the penalties you get when conquering the world?
    is there any thread about vanilla viking invasion 2.1 AI strategies?
    Hi, xearor, and welcome to the org~ I think you'll find here all the MTW information you seek and more. As a starting point, I highly recommend frogbeastegg's all-encompassing guide to everything MTW:

    https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...eval-Total-War

    It's a few years old, but still as relevant to the game as the day it was written (it helps that the game hasn't changed in the last, oh, nine years ).

    Also, if you're looking for some good MTW-related camaraderie (as well as answers to your questions), I recommend you check out the Main Hall, where all lovers of the game are welcome.

    Finally, since I assume you're playing Vanilla (or the original MTW), may I recommend some of the famous mods that have been pioneered by fans of the game?––namely gollum's Caravel Mod (a vastly improved but not altogether unrecognizable version of the original):

    https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...he-Caravel-Mod

    and Vikinghorde's XL mod (which adds a ton of units and several new factions to the game):

    https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...l-Total-War-XL

    As a relative newcomer to the Org myself, I trust you'll find your stay as pleasant as I have.

    All the best.

    EDIT: oh, and to attempt a very quick answer to your question about generals getting bad traits, it's simply the game-engine's response to your empire's expansion. When your income reaches a certain level, your empire is seen as essentially "decadent" and bad traits accrue to your generals and their loyalty diminishes (especially after the death of a faction leader), thus increasing the possibility for civil war and paving the way for a whole lot of fun! I'm sure there are others here who can give you a more technical explanation (e.g. coding, etc.), but I've always found that to be the case in games where I've expanded disproportionately to the AI.
    Last edited by Cyprian2; 05-30-2011 at 08:05.

  17. #47
    Needs more flowers Moderator drone's Avatar
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    Default Re: Italy

    Welcome to the Org, xearor!

    There are strategy threads here in the MTW Guides forum for VI factions. If you have some specific questions, feel free to post them in the Main Hall, VI is good fun.
    The .Org's MTW Reference Guide Wiki - now taking comments, corrections, suggestions, and submissions

    If I werent playing games Id be killing small animals at a higher rate than I am now - SFTS
    Si je n'étais pas jouer à des jeux que je serais mort de petits animaux à un taux plus élevé que je suis maintenant - Louis VI The Fat

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  18. #48

    Default Re: Italy

    Quote Originally Posted by Cyprian2 View Post

    EDIT: oh, and to attempt a very quick answer to your question about generals getting bad traits, it's simply the game-engine's response to your empire's expansion. When your income reaches a certain level, your empire is seen as essentially "decadent" and bad traits accrue to your generals and their loyalty diminishes (especially after the death of a faction leader), thus increasing the possibility for civil war and paving the way for a whole lot of fun! I'm sure there are others here who can give you a more technical explanation (e.g. coding, etc.), but I've always found that to be the case in games where I've expanded disproportionately to the AI.
    thank you very much, explains a lot already. i was making 40k profit in a year and almost everybody was getting bad virtues, e.g. less farmincome,trade,etc...
    paradox and confusing as hell, the more money you make, the worse your governours :(

    i will definetely enjoy myself in the org :D

    hmm will try out XL mod most probably,sounds interesting.
    Last edited by xearor; 05-31-2011 at 15:21.
    "Hoffnung ist der erste Schritt auf dem Weg zur Enttäuschung"

    - desparus et mortis -

  19. #49

    Default Re: Italy

    Quote Originally Posted by xearor View Post
    thank you very much, explains a lot already. i was making 40k profit in a year and almost everybody was getting bad virtues, e.g. less farmincome,trade,etc...
    paradox and confusing as hell, the more money you make, the worse your governours :(
    I should also add that keeping your generals inactive (as often happens once you own 60%+ of the map ) will also give them bad traits.

    i will definetely enjoy myself in the org :D
    I look forward to reading your posts in the Main Hall. As drone says, there are always folk on hand to answer questions, or just talk about cool stuff (not as many folk as there once were, of course... But it's a good community all the same).

    hmm will try out XL mod most probably,sounds interesting.
    Good choice. One of the best, imo. And I'd recommend installing Tyberius's graphics submod, found here:

    https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...rsion-Released

    (a version 3.0 was made some time ago, but it got canned due to dissent between Tyberius and another orgah. A shame. 2.0 is still pretty awesome.)

    all the best!

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