What to specialize on if you have three iron provinces?

[bretwalda]

If I had 3 iron provinces I'd use one for Militia Line and Spearmen, one for swordsmen and one for the royal cavalry line. You can probably add in a few multi's because some units require multi tech lines, such as Mounted Seargeants and Kwarzmian Cavalry need spear and horse buildings.

Then again if I ever got some iron provinces for Turks they's get one for The Jannisary Heavies (spearline), one for the Hybrid archers/Futtuwa's/Jannisary Infantry/Hashishin (Bow and swordline) and one for the Ghulam cavalry and Kwarazmanians.

All depends really.

I can agree with you except for the JHI and JI: Turks dont start out with iron provinces, so capturing one and developing it to full armor, full weapon, Grand Mosque and Military Academy is waaaaaaaay to long IMHO... You are better of capturing 'Stambul and roll out JHI like half century earlier...

[Mujalumbo]

I think teching up for knights in an iron-resource province is a bit of a waste; I generally don't use knights to wade in and hack it out. They're more for charges into the flank or rear, or defeating enemy cavalry. As the Catholic factions, I prefer to use iron-producing provinces for the men-at-arms tree.

As the Byzantines, I use 'em for pumped up Byzantine Infantry and Varangian Gaurds.

I agree with bretwalda; teching an iron-producing province up for the Janissary line takes wayyyyyyy too long.

Off topic, I played an Early campaign, Conquest mode, and just abandoned my starting provinces. Sold all the the buildings off, jacked the taxes up and went bye-bye. Took my horde up through Georgia, across the steppe, through the northern Baltic provinces (and through the Polish and Germans forces there), held onto Saxony, and booted the Danes out of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. I jacked up the prices and put down rebellion after rebellion after rebellion and used the cash to establish a small trading fleet and trading posts in all my provinces. It was enough. Eventually, I teched Sweden up to gold-armoured, gold-weapon JHI..

Ahem, back on topic. If I have multiple iron-producing provinces, then I'll use one to produce men-at-arms units with armour and weapon upgrades, and one to produce men-at-arms units with weapon upgrades only. That way, I can better customize my armies for nothern or desert duty.

Producing weapon-upgraded spears isn't a priority; I generally use them to pin enemy forces, and in the rare instances where I have only spears, I'll just flank with, surprise-surprise, more spears!

[dgfred]

I like your of non-armored swords/etc for desert battles. I haven't
specialized enough to even think of that .

[antisocialmunky]

JHI really don't need any iron deposits. The valour they'll get from their 'evaporation' effect is more than enough.

Unless you want 9 Valour, 24 karot shield and sword JHI of course. Then by all means, grab Iberia, it's the only place you can get that type of JHI in a reasonable amount of time.

Almohads and Eggys suck compared to Turkey.

[BAD]

That's if your playing conquest I guess. I prefer to play GA and just do excursions to get what I need and then try to hold out a colony like the 3 Spanish Iron provinces. Horses for courses. . .

[dgfred]

That's if your playing conquest I guess. I prefer to play GA and just do excursions to get what I need and then try to hold out a colony like the 3 Spanish Iron provinces. Horses for courses. . .

I always play GA and use your method too . I mostly play as HRE and
take Sweden and Flanders asap for economics, Denmark for ships and
Prussia for Teutonics later on .

[bretwalda]

I like your of non-armored swords/etc for desert battles. I haven't
specialized enough to even think of that .

It is a good idea not only because of desert battles but also you can get uber troops sooner: you focus on shield in one (non-iron) province and on weapon in your iron province... And of course you retrain (but for free as it has been established!)