Expansion and Finances

[mdutr0]

Hi all -

Just got MTW/VI. Great game, loving it, etc. I'm no dummy so I read the manual and the Guides forum for some advice since the strategy in this game leans to the deep side.

So anyway, after a brief (but glorious) false start as the Spanish, I've started up a campaign as the Hungarians/Early/Easy thinking a change of scenery (and skill level) might do me good.

It does.

Right of the bat, I tech Hungary up for Sceletys (close enough on the sp), build forts everywhere, and move my king and everyone over to get Moldovia. It goes pretty well, and I manage to get the other rebel provinces surrounding my starting territory fairly quickly. I make alliances with everyone and tech it up I go straight for Avar Nobles in Moldovia (Avar is Hungarian for Stomp face btw) and money making stuff (farms, mines, etc.)pretty much everywhere else. Once that's done I go for some spearmen (and then armoured spearmen) to go with my Sce.. (you know) and Avars. The money is ROLLING in (for early in the game anyway). Anyway, the game is called Total War so I start looking around for a likely target.

I have three real options here. First there's the Byzantine Empire. They've got lots of huge stacks and lots of shiny stars next to their generals. No way I'm attacking them at this point Besides, they already seem to have bigger probelms with a bunch of guys wearing towels on their heads so I pull my armies off that front and forget about them.
Then there's the HRE. Now, they don't have quality in their armies, but they seem to have a hell of a lot of quantity. I'm still a little guy so I FedEx them a daughter or two and look elsewhere. And then there's Poland.
Not too many provinces, not too much millitary, and nothing that looks like it could stand up to my Avars, spearmen, and Sceleketies. So I waltz in and casually take them out. I grab Poland and the one to the right of it on the first turn, get warned by the Pope, and assault Poland's castle. Now all they've got is Pomerania and Prussia; Prussia promptly goes rouge and I buy it.

I decide that it's time for a break so I sit back and let the boys down at HIT (Hungarian Institute of Technology) do their thing. The money rolls in. Start trading with Byz via Moldovia.

I have all this money so what do I do? Build lots of armies. The cash goes away and I'm making less due to support costs. So I decide to try and get some use out of those armies, get some guys killed off, lose some of that support cost, and expand. Coincidently, HRE get excommed.

A few turns later, no more HRE and I'm shaking hands with the Spanish in France (Oui, Oui Senor). I'm thinking, more land = more taxes, farms, = more $$$. But no, I'm still losing money every turn, even after doubling the size of my empire What gives? Granted, I didn't develop each province much, but I'm trying to make it not spend it What did I do wrong?

Thanks,

Micah

[Tozama]

Well you didn't describe much a a vast trading empire so my usual answer to this won't apply. You obviously just have too many armies vs. the amount of income. Stupid answer but that IS the answer.

Solution? Cash raising expedition. If you are losing money every turn you cannot wait around. It won't change magically on its own. If you cannot afford to build farms and trade posts you MUST do something ASAP.
ATTACK and pillage
Look around you. Anyone in a rich province you think you can woop real quick?
Go attack...take the pillage money...then walk back to your home without taking the castle. Yes he'll take the province back. But you just pillaged 1000 or 1500 florins. Do this as you see fit and able. Use the cash to build farms and traders and ships.

One thing I think players fail to realize at first but learn later is you make SOOOOOO much money with a trade empire compared to what you get farming.

It's really quite simple:
If you have 5 trading guilds in 5 of your ports all trading with province X you are getting $100 or $180 or whatever it is per turn for each of the 5 trading ports you have usually.
So having province X as a neutral or ally trading partner earns you say $700-900 per turn. If you instead invade province X it would need to immediately yield you the same amount to just break even ....unlikely until you build it up....which also takes $$$ and time. Many provinces will NEVER yield direct income even close to what they sent you as trading partners.
Add to that all the other provinces owned by the former owner of province X now are at war with you so no trade with them either now. On top of all that you need garrisons for it now which cost build money and then maintainence costs.

You repeat the scenario above a few times all at once and if you were cutting it close on profit margins before your attack you will be quickly losing cash every year.

I keep all this in mind as I advance. Build those coffers up real nice to a point that a negative cashflow won;t kill you for a long while....then go dancing er....ahem...attacking

[mdutr0]

Do you mean to say that I should have stopped with Poland and started trading, sat back, and teched up?

Thanks,

Micah

[Tozama]

Maybe you should have kept a bit more $$$ reserved to tech up trade and farms rather than military buildings until your economy was more sound.
Go straight for a port province that has tradable items and then stop and build a port, shipyard, some ships, and a trade post. Get that trade in gear and THEN expand and tech up.

IMO the build cycle is:
(Province has tradable goods)
Build port
build shipwright
build ships non-stop
build trade post
upgrade castle and that allows higher level trade post with each new castle upgrade (which earns way more $$$ as its upgraded).

[mdutr0]

Gotcha. I think I'll reload to an earlier save from before I went after the HRE. If I have to I'll disband some units and do more trading. I was already trading with Const. and Tripoli via Moldovia, but I could do more in the Med. Sea. Where do I go? Venice? Sicily?

I've also got a trade province on the baltic now, can I go to the Danes?

Also what about expanding to the east rather than the HRE? There's nothing out there except rebels. Is it worth it? Or should I leave some buffer room between myself and the Horde provinces since there's not going to be anything between me and them?

Thanks,

Micah

[katank]

learn to use basic units like spears and archers well.

with Hungarians, you have jobbagies and szeks so you are better off than the rest.

all coastal provinces tech straight for ships (fort, port, keep, shipwright).

crank ships from at least 6 provinces and make a connected loop from baltic to the black sea.

upgrade trade like crazy.

right click on farming upgrades before trade gets online and see what income it will generate. if that is roughly 10 times the percentage of upgrade, then build, otherwise no.

don't build military units unless you have too.

have only 1 slav warrior as garrison in internal provinces.

use happiness buildings to provide rest of loyalty neessary to hike taxes.

check out MTW economics 101 thread in guides forum and the Hungarian guide there too. check out my Hungarian strat section to grab Venice early and how to secure a Huni empire in general.

[mdutr0]

I've read the Hungarian guide in the Guide section but where's your strat guide for them?

Thanks,

Micah

[katank]

hmmm, didn't write up a full guide on Huns.

just read the posts.

essentially, Venice on the very first turn and then offer your princess.

nabs you a keep, shipyard (early ships=early trade=rich) and one of the best trade provinces on the map.

then grab some neutrals and cut the Polish off from the Steppes using Volhynia, Moldavia. Lithuania is stationed with a hefty rebel garrison so you don't have to worry for a while

ally with Polish to make them lose influence when they stab you and attack the Byz.

their armored beasts will be dragged ragged after chasing your szkes and you can ambush them wth javs.

learning to use the HA jav combo is awesome and you can totally destroy them.

Const. is a second great trade location as well as chokepoint and also gives 2 command stars.

[mdutr0]

I actually have Venice now. They went rebel when I smashed through the HRE. But if I take Const. then I can't trade with them right?

Btw, if a province has a port, does that mean that it will trade with me assuming I'm not at war with them of course?

Thanks,

Micah

[mdutr0]

Also, I tried attacking the Byz in a false start with the Huns. I got creamed every time. I've gotten the hang of the Scels. but I'm crap with the javs

Where are your other guides, btw, just for future reference?

Thanks,

Micah

[Blodrast]

Quote[/b] (mdutr0 @ July 16 2004,17:10)]I actually have Venice now. They went rebel when I smashed through the HRE. But if I take Const. then I can't trade with them right?

Btw, if a province has a port, does that mean that it will trade with me assuming I'm not at war with them of course?

Thanks,

Micah

Yes. Anything that has a port and you're not at war with them should be regarded as a prospective customer ;)
Well, almost. You can't sell a trade goods to a province that already has that goods. But that's the only limitation.

From your story, you don't seem to be too big in trade. Don't just trade locally, expand all over the seas. Trade with everybody, that's how the big money comes in.

One of my last campaigns, I held Antioch, Tripoli, and Flanders, and they were raking in more than 25k per turn together. Bottom line is, with 1-2 good trade provinces with high acumen governors and decent trade network (and ofc trade buildings), you can probbaly support your entire army. This is w/out even considering farming, mines, etc.

The biggest lesson in MTW Economics 101 is, in my opinion, this: Trade = buckets of money.

[katank]

trade is uber lucrative but also it evaporates when world erupts.

@ mdutr0, I practically posted in every thread in the guide forums on blitzing with that faction. some more detailed than others.

[RedKnight]

Like they say,

Overseas trade is great money - go for trading ports as you can. Here's an Excel spreadsheet of which provinces have the best income, in general. As Tozama aptly points out though, sometimes it's better to NOT get a province, so it can be a trading partner. I once snapped up Med islands as soon as convenient, because they were easy to hold. They're best kept as trade partners, though... you can always take them out later. Conversely, try to get great trade regions like Antioch, Constantinople, Sicily, or Venice when available.

I also tend to choose my enemies (when possible) based on how much it will impact my trade. IOW, choose enemies that have a higher ratio of number of provinces they own vs. number of provinces I trade to. Also remember that with some countries you can force a peace (and start trading again) if you can manage to have zero contact with them for a turn. This means that, if you have no land adjacencies, move all your ships so that they aren't next to any land of the enemy (or any enemy ships where yours are) for a turn and poof, instant peace. This includes rebels but they're a little trickier because e.g. sometimes occupants of castles go rebel, causing you to be at war with them when you didn't want to. To check whether you are indeed trading with somebody, hit the Economy (coins) button, then click on one of your provinces with trade, and it will show you all the regions it trades with. If you're not sure if you're Enemy to Rebels (and not trading with them), have tooltips on and hold the cursor over a rebel province.

Another consideration is to keep to a minimum number of borders (which means less troops and less maintenance). Hungary is pretty messy relative to borders and thus more difficult in this regard... anyway, if you can take Lithuania, Kiev, and Constantinople, you've got everything but the western edge covered by only needing to hold three provinces. Within your borders, you can use low-maintainence troops like peasants to maintain order.

Other factions (regardless of whether an ally) are apt to attack anywhere they see a weak border or attack of opportunity, so if you want to keep the peace, keep big borders.

A few thoughts. Welcome to the game, and welcome to the Org

[mdutr0]

Thanks for the advice guys

Following this advice I reverted back to an earlier save (the point just after I took out the Polish) and started trading. With costal provinces on the North and South end of things, it went relatively quickly. Soon I had TONS of money

The 1200s rolled around and suddenly I remembered the Horde I knew I didn't have much time so I teched up a couple of provinces and pumped Halbs and Xbows like crazy. Unfortunately, I had only produced enough for one stack when the Horde was suddenly on my doorstep.

Their first attack was in Kiev; where my halb stack was luckily enough. I chose to command the attack personally (saved just in case). This was a biggie. If I lost, there was practically nothing standing in their way (all my other forces were arrayed allong my border with the HRE where tensions had been rising and passing crusades had been cheesing me off).

Lucky for me, it was a bridge defense. As soon as the battle started I put the Halbs in a column formation and sent them to attack the lead group of MHC. They met on the center of the bridge and what do you know? The halbs worked A little help from the Xbows and soon I got message saying that I had killed the enemy king The Horde army routs and I win the battle. No heirs so the rest of the Horde goes rebel I beat the Horde in one battle (sort of - they would reemerge twice before it was over with)

I bribed the rest of them and took the Byzies and Const. before they knew what hit them. Commanding MHC is fun

Then I went west and took the 60% victory when it came. The Hungarians are fun, but there are other factions...

No if the Ruskies were only playable in early.....

[Mith_]

Quote[/b] ]I also tend to choose my enemies (when possible) based on how much it will impact my trade. IOW, choose enemies that have a higher ratio of number of provinces they own vs. number of provinces I trade to.

Very important trade strategy that took me a while to learn-- don't use your massive navy to attack every single coastal province, because you then have 0 trade and have pissed off the entire known world. When you have a very large empire, however, the AI hates you anyway and you'll still lose trading partners fast. I usually have a pattern in my campaigns now of early expansion, naval build-up, forming a trade empire, raking in the cash for a while and teching up militarily, and then picking off enemies one by one in the order you described.

Quote[/b] ]Their first attack was in Kiev; where my halb stack was luckily enough. I chose to command the attack personally (saved just in case). This was a biggie. If I lost, there was practically nothing standing in their way (all my other forces were arrayed allong my border with the HRE where tensions had been rising and passing crusades had been cheesing me off).

Lucky for me, it was a bridge defense. As soon as the battle started I put the Halbs in a column formation and sent them to attack the lead group of MHC. They met on the center of the bridge and what do you know? The halbs worked A little help from the Xbows and soon I got message saying that I had killed the enemy king The Horde army routs and I win the battle. No heirs so the rest of the Horde goes rebel I beat the Horde in one battle (sort of - they would reemerge twice before it was over with)

That sounds like how I defeated the Horde as Turks, except I was preparing a long time for their arrival, and thus had Jannisary Heavy Infantry in place of halbs and mercenary longbows and catapults in place of crossbows. I find its better not to send troops onto the bridge in defense but rather to form a sort of enclosure right in front of it so that as enemies cross, they get attacked on all sides by your heavy infantry of choice and rout within seconds, while your missile troops have a clear shot at the enemies on the bridge without risking friendly fire.

Also, when and where did the Horde reemerge in your game? I left the Horde sitting in Khazar because I wanted to fight them more (but not in a 6-hour-long slug fest in Khazar-- I don't have that kind of endurance, or time), hoping that they would reemerge, but they never did... which I found extremely odd, considering that reemergences are very common in rebel provinces because of the constant 100% loyalty (as opposed to 100+ loyalty, which helps prevent reemergences). I eventually sent a Jihad there, and since the province was mostly Muslim they surrendered without a fight and I had 13,500 captured rebels to deal with.

[mdutr0]

They reemereged, both times actually, in whatever province is right below Georgia. They were down there originally and the Byz and Turks were mucking around with them. When I killed Khan, they went rouge too and I bought them up in due course. In fact, I took all of Byzantium with Mongol armies A few years later though, they came back to that province and I had to fight them off only to have them appear again a few years later

The reemergences were in pretty rapid succession. After the THIRD ass-whooping they didn't come back again. More than I can say for the damned French...

Thanks,

Micah

[Papewaio]

In Total War the first battle is always with the treasury.

[katank]

note: count your provinces and try not to go over 40% otherwise you get tons of nasty vices for govs and it's insanely difficult to turtle.

also beware of packs of 3-4 strategic pieces in a province at once.

this usually means imminent attack if you dont get rid of them so have packs of dagger happy assasins around all the time.

[mdutr0]

What do you mean 40%? 40% of the map? Way too late for that man I got all the way to 60% and ended the campaign without that happening. I mean it happened to a few of them but I had so many provinces (and so many trade provnces) that it really didn't effect me. Half of the rest of the map was rebel anyway from various factions going under and then reemerging in strange places (like the Spanish reemerging in Scotland...). I could have gotten 100% pretty easily I guess; the only real threats were Egypt and a backdoor reemergence of the Poles or someone like that. But I've read what happens to those who choose to go for 100% and I didn't want to deal with that.

Besides, Western Europe is a messy place //shudders//. If I ever play a faction that starts over there it seems like the best strategy is to try and bring some order to the chaos very quickly. That and guard against the inevitable reemergence of the French...


I think I'm ready to try another faction now. Any suggestions consistent with my skill level?


Thanks,

Micah

[katank]

well, I got tired of finishing game in the 1140-1170 range (100%) and wanted to turtle so now I always have

[RedKnight]

hey katank, a few questions please?...

you say you used to get 100% by 1140-1170... do you have a guide or long post you can paste a link, showing how? (this is your blitzing strategy, right?) I am always starting off slowly and haven't gotten anywhere near that.

when you say turtle, you mean the economy imploding?

Quote[/b] ]also beware of packs of 3-4 strategic pieces in a province at once.

you mean several enemy strat pieces in one of my own provinces? or...?

thanks, master kat

[Ludens]

Quote[/b] (RedKnight @ July 23 2004,02:34)]hey katank, a few questions please?...

you say you used to get 100% by 1140-1170... do you have a guide or long post you can paste a link, showing how? (this is your blitzing strategy, right?) I am always starting off slowly and haven't gotten anywhere near that.

Well, Katank is the master of Blitzing techniques, you just need to read some of his guides in the guide forum. I don't think there's a standard guide for blitzing all round the map: it depends on so many factors.

Quote[/b] ]when you say turtle, you mean the economy imploding?

Turtling means 'not expanding', usually because you are teching up or building an army while defending a few chokepoints (you have an enclosed, well protected empire, like a turtle and his shell).

Quote[/b] ]

Quote[/b] ]also beware of packs of 3-4 strategic pieces in a province at once.

you mean several enemy strat pieces in one of my own provinces? or...?

Three or four enemy agents turning up in the same province at the same time usually means the AI is going to launch an invasion, probably by sea.

[massamuusi]

So you need the help of an experienced strategist? I'm always here.
As Hungarians, you need to take the rebels from around you, in such a way that it will give you good staging areas for your campaign against Byzantine, as that is, after all, the only place a hungarian king can go.
If you go to poland, your borders become stretched and your men get bogged down in a frontier province from which you can't attack anyone really. If you attack HRE, you will also get your borders overstretched. Only place you can attack is Byzantium, as there you can advance very long (all the way through turkey to egypt and westernmost northern africa) without stretching your borders. After that you can get enough surplus to go to russian steppes, and from there flock the polish borders. Rest is obvious.

Always calculate the required forces for expansion. What counts is not the size of enemy army or their generals, what counts is how many borders each province has. For example, if you advance from Hungary, take greece and other regions there, and stop in constantinople, you have only one border province in that direction, only one province that needs your troops. If you don't take constantinople, you have two border provinces, both requiring castle upgrades and troops.

And about Byzantines, yes, they may look impressive, but throw a bunch of crazy spearmen and archers at them and your cavalry in their rear (after they're tied) and you win. Of course, there is a bridge battle against them when you launch the attack, but that's what jobbagy are for die my stupid peasantly men. Take 3 units of them along, put one to cross the bridge, and press stop when they're on the middle. Enemy archers will deplete their arrows, and if enemy infies close in you kill them with both spears and your own archers. Do it correctly, and you will be able to take constantinople almost for free after the two harder battles in greece and the other.
Oh, and if you're doing some rapid advance, always consider the option of butchering the prisoners. If you are advancing against poorly defended yet deep enemy teritory you don't want to kill the same people 3 times in a row