England

[frogbeastegg]

England is playable right from the start, without the need to unlock it or edit any files.

[Bombasticus Maximus]

Faction Infomation

Name: England.

The English have three provinces in the game, London, york and Caen. There starting map looks like this:


What to watch out for

As you have Caen which is in modernday france you will need to watch out for them as they will expand and go to war with you. In my Current game as the English the Milanese are also attacking me so keep a eye out for those. This may seem a little unbelieveable but what out for the scottish too, You may think that there no match for your might but there no push over. Try and get trade rights with as many factions as possible and do all the missions you are given because you get money and units to fight for you.


Making Money

In this game it's alot easier to make money so just build the buildings that will make you money for instance roads, ports, markets and so on, Not forgettting to build barracks and churches aswell.

Castle or town?

There's two different types of settlement you can have in the game. One is a town and the other is a castle. They both have their uses. For instance if you want to make money out of the people inside your town then use a town but if you need to fkeep that region then use a castle as it can be upgraded to a Citadel which will have 3 levels that the enemy has to tackle. Thats what I think anyways.

Good luck on your Campaigns.

[Sumeren]

A tip if playing England is to send a diplomat to marry youre faction heir to a french princess to gain an alliance with france. Control whole Britain wipe out rebels and Scotland and you got a nice platform to lauch attacks were ever you want to. And get longbow men early as possible they will win you most battles for you.

[De Montfort]

The three settlements that England possesses at the start are actually London, Nottingham and Caen.

London is a town, while Caen and Nottingham are Castles.

The rebel held settlements in the British isles are:

York (Town)
Caernarvon (Castle)
Dublin (Town)

York can be captured quickly as it has no wall defences and only a few units of light infantry, and Dublin is similar except it has slightly more and better troops. Caernarvon is a Wooden castle that requires the walls to be breached by catapult, or assailed using ladders. The catapult is the best option as the Welsh have longbows who can decimate your assault siege equipment before it reaches the walls, while the catapult can fire from a safe distance.

[Bombasticus Maximus]

I made a mistake it's not york you start with it's nottingham.

[econ21]

Some pointers from my first VH/VH campaign (on turn 60 so far):

Building strategy

Nottingham and Caen are castles; London is a city. Given the relatively tight early economy, I would be inclined to use extra settlements as cities rather than castles. You can't afford to build more castle troops than you can already get and it costs a lot of money to upgrade your castles to get the better troops that will give you an edge (armoured swords, longbows etc). I let all of the UK, except Nottingham, be towns in order to make money. So far, I am leaving continental settlements be whatever they are - they are a nice mix of cities and castles; and frontline castles are no bad thing.

My build priorities would be gradually upteching Nottingham and other castles to progressively get the best sword and longbow units available. I find missiles to be my war-winning arm against the AI. Swords are necessary because English spears and bills are inferior to the dismounted Feudal Knights and Huscarls that the Danes and others may throw at you. They are also crucial for sieges (as both defenders and attackers).

Aside from that, I would try to build up profitable economic buildings in my towns, using the building browser to see the incremental income (markets often have no effect, so I have delayed them).

I've constructed religious buildings in an effort to deterr the Inquisition but to no great effect. I try to make sure there is a general in a settlement when a religious building is finished, in the hope of getting a rise in piety.

Developing better ships and a decent navy becomes essential: the AI builds fairly large fleets and does blockade your ports.


Early strategy

Preferring to "turtle" for personal - not gameplay - reasons, I would target rebel settlements first, only fighting AI factions who attacked me first.

Taking rebel York probably should be your first move in Britain; Wales second.

On the continent, taking Rennes then Bruges would make sense.

Be aware that both Wales and Bruges have decent garrisons - longbows and Flemish pikemen - so don't expect an easy fight.

The Scots should be passive early on - they have only one province and seem awed by your might. For efficiency, it might be best to conquer them before they have a chance to build. However, personally, I think it is more fun to give them a headstart and I only turned north when they declared war on me.

You should be able to take Rennes just before the French can get it, but will soon got involved in a war with France. The French are not particularly challenging, but I fought a largely defensive war, only slowly taking the city east of Paris (on a mission) and then the capital itself. The Pope slows down your conquests - I just accept his missions and pace myself accordingly.

After taking rebel Bruges, you are likely to encounter a strong Danish presence at Antwerp - in my game, they had eliminated the HRE - and they soon turned on me, leading to a second war. Scotland joined in shortly after.

Once war begins, the first target should be to eliminate the Scots so there is no two front war and you can empty the British Isles of significant troops. The French, being the next closest are the second priority (heading off against Denmark, Spain or elsewhere just overstretches your front). Respecting the Pope's demands to cease fighting will slow down these conquests a lot and probably destroying your standing with the Papacy. One thing I learned was that maintaining a siege can also violate a cease and desist order from the Pope, leading to excommunication.

All bordering factions appear to attack you sooner or later - Milan, Spain and Sicily have all piled in, in my first game - but do not appear an overwhelming threat. As of turn 90, I am now fighting on five fronts: Denmark, Germany (against Milan), France, Italy (against Sicily) and Spain. After wiping out France, I am planning to push down into Italy. Hopefully a southern border with the Papacy will be secure - he will not attack.

From there, I will probably take out Spain and Denmark, as defeating these - like defeating Scotland - will reduce, not expand my front. I may then turn towards the Holy Land to take Jerusalem and pick up the last of the 45 target provinces.

Unit Stats


F= free militia unit
AP = armour piercing
2 HP = two hit points
PC = powerful charge (not sure if that just refers to the 8 charge stat)
Prequisites: C1 = level 1 castle; T5 = level 5 town etc.

Observations:

1. The key unit to work towards is the armoured swordsmen. (Dismounted feudal knights are available a little earlier and essentially the same unit, but with too high an upkeep.) Swords are essential to compete with the heavy infantry of other factions, particularly in siege situations. Upgrading other unit types is less essential: you have no upgraded spears, while the effectiveness of missiles and cavalry arguably relies more on finesse than on unit stats.

2. As stated, the English have only the most basic spears so receiving a cavalry charge is a problem for them. [Rant: this does seem bizarre, as the one thing the Medieval English army excelled at holding off an enemy charge while dismounted.] The stakes of longbowmen could be used to shelter behind in purely defensive battles. However, the AI is reluctant to approach them even with infantry so they are more for channelling attacks than repelling them. It is not clear whether armoured swords can receive a charge better than the basic spearmen - relying on their greater defence to compensate for the lack of spears. If they do, it may be worth dispensing with spears altogether. My experience is that neither does very well and it is more like mutual assured destruction for both the infantry and charging knights. Mercenary spearmen are essentially the same unit as the armoured sergeants available in MP but not SP. They are available in numbers on the continent and are worth considering to take cavalry charges.

3. The polearm units - billmen - have a relatively high AP attack but low defence and no anti-cavalry properties. They are unsuited to take a charge, particularly from cavalry, but are good as flankers even against well armoured enemies. The same comment applies to the polearmed dismounted English knights, although clearly they are far superior to billmen in absolute terms.

4. The English lack any fast cavalry so there is little reason to take hobilars or merchant cavalry. The differences between the core knights are rather marginal - largely incremental upgrades to armour - so there is great need to rush to uptech. In a pinch, your general's bodyguard, with their 2 hit points, can serve as the tip of your spear, if you really need an edge over enemy knights. However, as the upkeep of the core knights is the same, you should uptech when you can. English knights have lower attack than continental Chivalric knights, making the crusading and chapter knights particularly valuable (+3 attack, -2 charge compared to English knights), but they do have a higher upkeep. Demi-lancers do not seem worth bothering with: compared to English knights they trade defence for attack (+3 attack, -4 defence).

5. Archers have a fairly long upgrade tree and it is worth pursuing. However, the gains are rather incremental and plain longbowmen should perform well enough. Only retinue longbowmen should be thrown into a protracted melee - lesser archers will lose too much for it to be worthwhile. Mercenary crossbowmen are worth considering as their ammo lasts longer. But since this is presumably offset by a lower rate of fire, the benefits of this are probably largely psychological.


Battle tactics

My preferred army would be:

1 or 2 generals
2+ mounted knights
3 of the best missiles available + 2 others (e.g. merc crossbowmen for their longlasting ammo)
3-5 spears
3+ dismounted Feudal knights or preferably armoured swordsmen
2+ billmen

I find myself relying on missiles to win field battles. The choice of first target is important.

Often, I would aim for "missile supremacy" - targeting enemy missiles first to avoid return casualties and going to loose formation if enemy missiles are significant. The passive AI bug reinforces this tactic. However, it is slow and enemy missiles in themselves are not the major threats (they don't kill much and they are easy to kill by other means - e.g. your cav).

Whether to target heavy infantry or heavy cavalry depends on your relative strengths. If the enemy has a lot of heavy cavalry (often the French), it may be smart to thin them out first given how poor the English at receiving a cavalry charge. But if they have a lot of heavy infantry (the Danes), these may be the more important target - especially if you are short of swords. Armoured opponents seem more vulnerable to missiles than you might expect but it takes time. A rather passive AI often gives you that time.

The spears and swords would shield my missiles - swords to engage infantry, spears to engage cavalry.

Billmen serve as anti-infantry in the absence of swords. They are also excellent flankers due to their AP weapons and respectable attack. But they have a low defence and cannot take a cavalry charge.

The knights would go for the flanks once the enemy was committed - often driving off any remaining missiles in the enemy's rear first and/or charging already committed enemy knights. Rear charges into a committed enemy line are lethal, while pursuing routing enemy is particularly important in M2TW as they rally faster and more often than in RTW. (Writing this paragraph make me see the virtue in going cavalry-heavy). Just be careful not to let your cavalry get bogged down and then charged by enemy spears or cav. For this reason, I tend to commit them later in the battle - when the main enemy combat units are tied down.


Crusades

Successive Popes hated me - perhaps because of my conquests of Scottish, French and Danish settlements. However, even on VH, they can be easily brought round by a large tribute of florins. I offered 1000 for ten years, they asked for 3000+ for two. After that, I was always in their good books.

A very useful strategy is to declare a crusade on an excommunicated enemy. This gives you access to some crusading units, which are very useful for the English: armoured spearmen and knights that equal continental ones. Moreover, it makes an entire stack free of upkeep. Be aware that the target must be the enemy capital. However, this means that the crusade is likely to be particularly devastating to the enemy. Press the space bar before moving the crusade, so your stack moves slowly. This gives you time to change course to move around roadblocks and so avoid desertion due to making slow progress. There is a cooling off period between calling crusades.

When crusading to Holy Land you have a choice of going by land or by sea. Sea is potentially much faster, however, I suffered mass desertion twice - once going west along northern Spain (perhaps because technically, that was sailing away from the Holy Land); and once when a Moorish boat was blocking the Gibralter straits (thankfully, it moved on). Unfortunately, the Poles took the crusade target just as I was in sight of the Holy Land. A risk of going by sea is that your crusade is destroyed by pirates or enemy fleets (the French fleet in the Med was extremely strong in my game). When I then tried to sail home, but in the Med was targeted by many French ships which seemed to cheat in their ability to find me. My four boats were not enough and I only just landed the remnants of my army at Rhodes[1] before the fleet was anhilated.

Going by land is possible if you press the space bar and take time to avoid your crusade being slowed down by unseen cities and armies on the way. (Tincow reported crusading this way without losing a man.)

A compromise might be marching to the med by foot and then going by boat. You can hire mercenary boats on the coast, but these may not be enough to fend off pirates and enemies. South of France, north Italy or the area formerly known as Yugoslavia might be suitable staging points for this strategy.

[1]It may be smart to set up a base closer to the Holy Land, in order to facilitate future crusades. Crete and Cyprus are possibilities, but taking them will usually entangle you in a war far away. Rebel held Rhodes is a much easier target.

... to be continued...

[Hengist]

Starting Guide to England:

Dificulty: medium/medium

Your have 3 starting Regions, 2 on the British Islands and 1 on the continent.

Caen: Castle
London: City
Nottingham: Castle

Your neighbours, apart from rebels, are Scotland to the north, France to the south and Denmark or HRE to the northeast.

1. Rebels:

Your first goal is to capture as many rebel targets as you can. These should be in Great Britain 1. York (city), then 2. Carnaevon (castle) and then 3. Dublin (city), thereby leaving only Edinburgh (city) and Inverness (castle) to the Scots.

On the continent you should go for Rennes, Antwerp and Brugges (all cities).

To achive this you obviously have to form 2 armies, one based in Nottingham and one based in Caen.

With these rebel settlements captured you have 9 Regions and Borders with Scotland, France and either HRE or Denmark, but in my campaign it was Denmark that captured Hamburg.

Meanwhile some 20 to 30 turns, depending on your speed and success should have passed. Of course you did all the fancy thing like sending out Diplomats and gather trade rights, alliance, changed map infos and explored the world.

I played a religion-heavy approach and build 1 priest per region and religious buildings asap, thereby being high in the popes favor. That should come in handy in the next stage, as we will see.

2. Scotland:

If you wait too long, Scotland and France might repeat history and form an alliance. They did so in my campaign and attacked me simultaneously while I was in the end of Phase 1. My GB army was on its way back to Nottingham to upgrade and my continental army was siegeing Antwerp.

I was able to fend of the French attack and destroy the full-stack Scottish field army. From other posts I got the impression, that the AI always builds exactly 1 strong Scottish army, so once that is defeated, you have some breathing room. Using that, I first took Edinburgh and then Inverness.

Inbetween the pope asked me to cease hostility with the Scots, but I didn’t listen to him and pressed on. Fortunately, the mission I failed was just about loosing standing (the weak version) and not threatening excommunication (the hard one). So the Scots died and I was master of the whole British Islands. The war with France grinded down and I finally was able to make peace with them.

So now you should be in control of all of GB and the channel coast of France and Netherlands. 11 Regions with 4 castles and 7 cities. If you feel like you can convert Inverness and Carnaevon to cities to get more cash. I didn’t do it, but I found them, especially Inverness, to far removed from the battle hotspots. I coulnt bring myself to build troops there and move them down, so you might want to make at least Inverness to a city.

3. The Holy Land:

After some quite turns the pope finally called the first crusade. My advice (to any catholic faction) Take part and win it! Apart from the game fun and satisfaction you get a very nice foothold in the Holy Land and there you can wage wars as much as you want without interference from the pope.

As England getting there might be abit hard, as you certainly have to walk and desertion is a big problem with all the obstacles like mountains, rivers, blocked bridges etc. in the way. I ended up at the gates of Antioch with an all-merc-army, mainly turks. But the city fell and I got nice rewards from the pope.

4. Expansion in Europe and the Holy Land:

a. Holy Land:
Depending on wether it is a city or castle you capture, you should take 1 or 2 more settlements (I took the castle of Aleppo) and then make peace with the Muslims if you can, to rest and secure your base. Spam priests to convert the population rather quickly. This has the nice side effect, that you have will have a lot of candidates for the college of cardinals and you will need it because of b. A nice side effect is, that all these muslim cities are around you and the target of the next crusade is surely close to you. If your timing is right, you can even call crusades on specific targets, shed some Catholics blood and before you get too low to be excommunicated, finish the crusade and be the pops best boy again…..splendid. :)

b. Europe:
You cant expand any further in Europe without fighting fellow Catholics and this is something what the pope doesn’t like at all (even if he is your creature). Your next enemies are probably France and Denmark and as both were high in the popes Favour, I constantly had to watch my standing or delay offensives to not anger the pope too much.

Against France you have one special strategic advantage at this stage: Angers, Paris and Reims all lie close to your regions borders, all with 1 turns march. So what I advice you to do is to load up all 3 with spies and make a blitz attack on the French, capturing all 3 within 2 turns. This way you might even be faster then a papal Mission to stop hostility. Afterwards the French are severely crippled.

Once France and Denmark are conquered the game is pretty much over. You should now have like 30 provinces in Europe, some holdings in the Holy Land, a cardinal college in you Favour (I had 13 of 13 :)) and can conquer the rest at your leisure.


5. Army:

I tried to stay close to history in my army composition, so my armies mostly contained archers, infantry and just some mounted units.

My ideal composition was:

- 8 archers (longbowmen, yeoman archers, companion archers)
- 8 infantry (dismounted knights, dismounted feudal knights, swordsmen)
- 3 cavalry (mailed knights, feudal knights, English knights)
- 1 general

[evilc1]

I have worked the last couple of evenings on getting my start right with England.

I am now @ turn 60-odd and at war with NO-ONE. I am the most advanced and richest nation and I have one of the smallest armies, but I don't need them (yet!).

Here is what I did:

1) Build, build, build up all towns in Great Britain with money-making things and things that encourage growth. Any towns without generals set them to "Growth Build Policy".

2) I DID NOT attack the rebel towns to the east and west of Caen - Caen is the only territory I have on the mainland. In order to get your Council to not give you a mission to take the rebel towns, move an army near them - it does not seem to give you missions to take towns you have generals near.
My line of thinking here is that I want to make my territory easy to defend, and Britain, being an island, is just that.

3) Take all of the British Isles ASAP. I took York, then Caernarvon, then Inverness (was a rebel town, dunno if it is normally scottish), then dublin. I then attacked Scotland in their only remaining town of Edinburgh. (This was @ about turn 20-25). The pope told me to stop. I told the pope to shove it where the sun don't shine - he got over it! (Well he died, so standing got reset, but I was excommunicated at one point but who cares?)

4) Build as few troops as possible. Save your money. Personally I built nothing, but some stuff got built in settlements where I didn't have a general but you can take GB with just the troops you start with if you are sly. Asassins help here. As Scotland is a small nation, it is quite easy to assasinate your way through their family tree!

5) Expand trading as much as possible. I found some really nice amber mines up in the southern tip of sweden, that bit of land at the very top of the map to the east of the UK. The UK has lots of coastline and so open up those trade routes ASAP.

6) Build up your navy ASAP. Leave a bunch of ships in the English Channel (The thin bit of sea between London and the French coast) - these make a "bridge" of sorts that your troops can use to cross easily. You need a bit of a navy to protect your ports and the income they produce.

7) I ignored the call to the crusades, but that is only really because I wanted to play it that way.

8) Do not worry about the french going to war with you. Just make sure you have enough troops in Caen to hold out. They attacked me once or twice but with piddly armies as they had to defend too many cities on the mainland. I NEVER get attacked in the UK so I can afford to put 99% of my troops in Caen. Eventually, as I became the most advanced / richest nation in the world, they came begging for a ceasefire, which I charged them greatly for ;)

As I said, I have gotten to turn 65ish (In two or three evening's play - but I restarted quite a lot until I got the tactic down that I wanted to use), and I have built next to no army producing buildings or armies. However, all of the towns in the UK are mine and are at or nearly at full settlement size with plenty of income. I have no-one attacking me, I can play the game in turn based mode (ie on the world map) almost exclusively without having to resolve battles. That way I am spending all my time and money on ramping up production until I get to a point where I am maxed out and churning out the hardest troops like they were going out of fashion - then, watch out world!

QUESTIONS:
Do you NEED the catholic church? Can I not form the "Church of England" and convert to that? I figure you need a religion else there will be heresy / unrest etc, but I don't want to be the pope's lap dog.

At what point to gunpowder weapons come on the scene? Are my fully ranked up Retinue Archers (Best archers in the game) going to be worthless soon?

Is there a way to upgrade troops from one kind to another or is disbanding the only option? You don't appear to get any money or population from disbanding, so is there any way to get anything back when getting rid of unwanted units?


All in all, love the game to bits.

[Nepereta]

played MTW2 for the first time so my tactics probably need fixing a bit.

English M/M

I focused London on a Trade Growth build. Building merchants, farms and merchant structures.
The rest I raised armies and army building structures asap lots of cavalry and archers.

Made trade treaties with the french and scottish and took York and then wales( caonarvon sp?):
Wow
I am amazed out how hard sieges have now become. Managed to take Wales by running one spear through the now unconquerable towers round the back to open the back door.

Then I rushed my cavalry units round the back and took the place over. A messy fight in which lots of spear units where seriously depleted. Due to being stuck on the walls with the tough welsh.

Then onto ireland via the ships I sent round to the welsh coast an easier fight in which I used the street in the town that is a small hill running diagonally accross one corner of the settlement upon this I stuck my archers. At either ends of the street I kept my cav ready to strike the entrance from all angles.

The gallowglasses kept coming for the archers but got pwned by the cav encircling charges for the win.. After finishing off the gallowglasses I then wiped out the 2 archer units which sat in the centre.

Onto scotland I sent most of my armies bar the Caen one (that has done little since the start of the game). I managed to take the scottish in the field outside edingburugh. Using superior cav I managed to kill off both stacks to a man. 6 cavalry units ftw!

The hardest part was aberdeen, this was a stone castle fortified with highlanders and cavalry. I had 2 ballistas which destroyed the gate and proceeded to carefully snipe the highlanders inside.

Its worth mentioning ballista rock in this game, they can a fair number of enemies in one shot and tend to be incredibly accurate.

After this I rushed my infantry into the remnants and drove my cavalry in hard once they'd cleared the gate.

And thats it. I think I could of done more focused builds. The mailed knights unit rocks, I use a mix of nobles and mailed knights for hard strikes and I use hobiliars for routing units which I used to great effect in the edingburough battle. The peasant archers are pretty sucky as are the basic spear units. They tend to hold a line so my cav can ram the enemy from behind.

All that said the new build model means we can recruit large numbers of replacement spears and bows when needed. I tend to use the spears as expendable. In RTW and earlier games expandability wasn't an issue because we could only make one per turn in each settlement.

Now great britain is secure I guess I'll have to carefully consider my next moves.

[hotingzilla]

Archers in MTW2 are much stronger than RTW or its prequel.

I have done tests on custom battle that retinue longbowmen are able to beat heavy infantry,and even heavy knights w/o using stakes.

Archers in this game simply kills 50%+ before the enemy reaches the line and when they reach the bowmen, high attack and defence stats are able to allow them to beat the heaviest cavalry and infantry.

[nameless]

Archers in MTW2 are much stronger than RTW or its prequel.

I have done tests on custom battle that retinue longbowmen are able to beat heavy infantry,and even heavy knights w/o using stakes.

Archers in this game simply kills 50%+ before the enemy reaches the line and when they reach the bowmen, high attack and defence stats are able to allow them to beat the heaviest cavalry and infantry.

I find that the English's best option against cavalry are to use archers and stakes.

It's best to try to have the archers focus on the enemy cavalry and "soften" it up before the lines meet.

[Sir Moody]

My Tactics seem to have differed from everyone else so far -

First steps - I moved all the troops in mainland france to england and then sold caen to the French for 1000 a turn for 10 turns and an alliance

using the Troops that were in england to begin with i take York - using the troops fresh from caen i take Wales (i cant remmber the name of the province) - with the cash coming in from france im turning a tidy profit and iuse this to upgrade London into a trade centre and build Nottingham into a longbow producing castle and mass produce some longbows

using the new longbow equiped forces i split the caen and york armies into one army with the new longbows and march on scotland and take both scotish provinces and then ireland. I spend a few turns building up the new areas and bring nottingham up to the level needed for armoured swordsmen.

using the new armoured swordsmen i take both the Rebel flemish cities and then push south into the excominicated Germans taking one city and then recieving a second in a peace treaty (Ceasfire and trade rights for the city - the germans accpeted) At this point the pope called a crusade against the millanese who had taken a french city in the south - i joined but the papancy beat me too it so i used my failed crusaders to take another milanese city - which was promptly seiged - i destroyed the milanese army and then recieved a ceasefire offer the next turn - i asked for another milanese city in return and was suprised when they agreed - at this point the pope reconciled them and excomunicated germany (again) so my next move was to seize 3 german provinces (2 cities 1 castle) and thats the point im up to

[Slaists]

Well, my smartest move playing as England was securiting an early alliance with the Pope... This made my Pope-o-meter jump up to the maximum. As a result, when the French declared war on me, they got excommunicated in two turns... The Pople even sanctioned a crusade to Bordeaux, which I managed to completed in three turns... And once, the Scotts became aggressive, the Pope did not seem to bother too much about me wiping them out (my standing with the Pope got a little beating though: the Pope didn't excommunicate them after their first attack...).

[Flavius Gonzo]

Question for those of you playing the English campaign:

What is the best way to fight France without angering the Pope? My campaign so far has been concentrated on Rebel towns/castles in the british isles and then Bruges, Rennes, and Antwerp, as well as the Scottish. But, strategically, I'm eyeing the French properties of late.

Do I just trying to fight as much as I can, but obey his orders when he asks me to back off? Doesn't just attacking the French lower my relations with the Pope?

Ideally, I'd like to fight my way down to the mediteranian before beginning a crusade...

[nameless]

Question for those of you playing the English campaign:

What is the best way to fight France without angering the Pope? My campaign so far has been concentrated on Rebel towns/castles in the british isles and then Bruges, Rennes, and Antwerp, as well as the Scottish. But, strategically, I'm eyeing the French properties of late.

Do I just trying to fight as much as I can, but obey his orders when he asks me to back off? Doesn't just attacking the French lower my relations with the Pope?

Ideally, I'd like to fight my way down to the mediteranian before beginning a crusade...

Not much you can do about it.

If France loses lots of favour with the Pope and you got tons of favour with him then maybe. I did it with Scotland the moment they started losing points.

Problem in my campaign is that the French are so keen in keeping me as an ally. I don't know why but there are times when our alliance breaks (But it's not due to blockades or seiges, it's something else, probably spies or assassins). Right afterwards they try to get into an alliance with me again.

The second problem is that the pope loves the French but he loves me as well so there's zero chances of us going to war with each other.

In regards with Crusades, you shouldn't worry too much about it. Crusaders cannot fight other catholic units and they keep movement bonuses so you can get down to the target in no time. Turn 25 a crusade was called and I simply went through France, the balkans, the Byzantiums, and into egypt. No problem there.

Reasserting control of the English isles is critical to their success and you have to be careful on how you manage the pope, best is to build abbeys and cathedrals (I got several already). Nevertheless, you should have only 1 fortress on the island and the rest as cities as one fortress is more than enough.

The mailed knights which the council kept giving me I found to be very useful in my early battles so I think heavy emphasis should be placed on heavy cavalry until you tier up to longbowmen etc. I've taken control of northern france (It was all rebels and I'm stuck there, the french have very powerful armies along the borders as do the germans and now the Danish are attacking me).

[ChewieTobbacca]

To fight France without angering the pope, have France do the attacking (it hurts their reputation with the Pope) and send a diplomat to speak with the Pope and get a good reputation with them.

I once had France attack me, i drove them back. I then sent my best general to outside Paris. They surrounded me with 6 armies (not all full stack) and were defeated, allowing me to take the city. With it taken, the French sent a diplomat to me for peace, as apparently I had destroyed their main military force. In turn, I took Angers and Rheims as compensation.

In fact, I have conquered half of my empire without even fighting much. Denmark once attacked Bruges, and I landed my two full stacked armies next to them. Immediately, they sued for peace and I took Antwerp and Hamburg from them. When I crusaded successfully against Acre, Egypt sued for peace which prompted me to take Aleppo, Damascus, and Jerusalem from them.

I'm on H/H btw.

[Flavius Gonzo]

Here are a few things I've learned on Crusades and the Pope that are useful towards English strategy (my game is H/H).

1) Fighting Catholic factions is tough because you will usually only have 1 turn after you attack before the Pope demands you cease hostilities. The easiest solution is to focus first on all the rebel settlements nearby, but once you run out of nearby rebels, strategy will require more thought.

Be prepared to strike quickly against a Catholic faction in the Pope's favor, and be able to take 1-3 settlements in exactly one turn using seige engines to break down walls and avoid a seige. I've had a lot of success planning out large invasions against the French during "cooling off" periods, and then striking immediately when the ceasefire ends. For example, I took Rheims and Paris in a single turn by building up two separate armies and hiding them in the woods nearby, and when the ceasefire ended immediately taking both settlements in the same turn. The next turn, the Pope will likely call another ceasefire, giving you time to prepare for your next conquest.

You can take out Scotland with a similar 2 army, 1 turn approach: send a force up from York to attack the Scots on your northern border while sending another army from Dublin (or by sea) to beseige Edinburg. The Pope doesn't seem to consider it a hostile act if you have armies in enemy lands, only if they attack.

Another option is to wait for nearby factions to be excomunicated -- it's happened in my game to the HRE and the Danish. I've made defating the French a priority, however, in order to secure a Mediteranian port.

2) These were mentioned already but two huge ways to boost your reputation with the pope are to first, make sure you send an emissary to Rome early to form an alliance with the Papal States, and secondly, to win a Crusade.

3) I had success on my first Crusade by marching to Marseilles and then hiring Mercenary Galleys which I sailed to Antioch. I had some small desertion along the march but the 3 galleys I hired were enough to disuade rebel navies from attacking (or maybe I was just lucky -- move your crusading army at the end of the turn if you want to be safe.) Financially, it was well worth it, not to mention the huge boost it gave to my general. A note on this, however: my crusading general finished his crusade with a huge boost to Chilvary which was great, but had I decided to send a general with an already dreadful reputation, it may have been a waste. My advice is to send someone green. It's a great assignment for an heir apparent with little going on for him. Send spies and priests with your Crusaders too!!

[Dalrogad]

Hi guys - What is H/H?

I had 3 awesome battles last night where I won when significantly outnumbered, 2 of them were siege battles, where they came out of the castle - one of those, I ran a company of cavalry to the square after they had all emptied out, and held it for the 3 mins. Awesome.


I have not had any luck with getting those kind of concessions from other factions in diplomacy... Do you guys keep a diplomat with your army?

Also, I have my spies up to 6-7th level, but my diplomats, who I use just as much, or 1-3rd level. WHat can I do to level my diplomats?

[Flavius Gonzo]

H/H means Hard campaign, Hard battle difficulty settings. So H/VH would mean Hard Campaign, Very Hard Battles. The default is M/M I believe. Very useful info because a strategy dominates on E/E might be useless on H/H, etc.

I've gotten tons of mileage out of my diplomats so far. I sent a handful out in different directions so far. My diplo strategy has been to try for the following:

1) Get trade rights with everyone
2) Get alliances with key factions (In particular, the Catholic ones I don't share a border with, and especially the Papal states, to get the Pope-o-meter bonus.)
3) Earn money. On my campaign (H/H) I've found it pretty easy to make money by offering Trade Rights, Alliance & Map Info, in exchange for regular tributes, some times even large ones over several turns. It looks like the AI bases its decisions on how much it will pay based on your relative strength, so if your faction strength is much higher, it looks like the enemy will be willing to pay large amounts to form an alliance. I can't remember specifics, but I think there was more than one faction willing to pay 1000+ for several turns for the privelege of an alliance. I play aggresively though and maintain large armies, so this might not work as well with a builder strategy. I'm also not sure if it's better to go with a big bang negotiation or sell each component (trade, alliance, map) one at a time.

I haven't paid too much attention to how my Diplos are leveling, it seems to me that by the time I march a Diplo all the way to Novgorad or Caesarea, I am going to negotiate with that Diplomat whether or not they are good negotiators.

Also, I don't see much of a point in having a Diplomat travel with an army. It might have an effect on preventing your general from being assassinated, but it's not much else good since your army is a useless large expense unless it is attacking and conquering. A Diplomat can't negotiate for much with a faction you're at war with.

So, my opinion is that the best way to deal with Diplomats is to send several out over the map to shore up trade rights & alliances. It's also handy to keep 1 or 2 at home so they can be used as emissaries for dealing with any foreign diplomats, armies, or princesses that enter your lands. It also comes in handy if you are getting beat badly and need to sue for peace.

[Decker]

Hey guys Im playing on m/m right now and I need some advice on what to do.
*How do you spot a full stack army?
My faction is currently holding Dublin,York, Wales, and Rennes. I have 3 huge armies, one in Caen, one in York, and my 3rd in Dublin(my faction leaders army). I have 2 cardinals spreading the word supported by at least 3-4 priests. I have one diplomat(lvl4) who is stuck in England while my navy is licking its wounds in Caen after 2 bad defeats against rebel fleets. Im still at peace with the Scots and after 40 turns of peace with France they declared war and I have thuroughly thrashed 2 of their armies. I also have peace with Milan and am thinking of making peace with the HRE since they are fighting France too. I have 500 florins (I was bankrupt until I razed Dublin ) in my bank. I have also takin care of 2 rebel armies that just "popped" out of no where in York and Nottingham provinces, has anyone else had this happen to them?

1) Im around turn 45-47(can't remeber) I had just voted for the wrong cardinal(an ally) and the new one Inquidated my best general in Caen . The guy just walked up and just burned him with his army cheering for him to burn. Now my biggest army and best army is leaderless with the French eyeing Caen and my council friends pressing my to take Antwerp.

2) Also I can call to join the first crusade and get back on(hopefully) on the good side with the Pope and I was wondering if this would allow me to "walk" thru Scotland with my 2nd best army lead by my faction leader. Would this be possible? And would it get that Inquisitor off of my back who has set up camp waiting for something that will never come?

3) I was thinking of taking Bordeaux with half of my army from Caen, and then offering it to the Papacy if possible? I am most curious about this one since that Inquisitor probably will not move until something happens.

Thanks for your help, and its a fun game. Plus how many turns/long is the game usually?

[Dalrogad]

Spot full army? - with a spy.

Inquisitor go away because you join crusade? Not sure, but I would be much more concerned about getting from England to where the crusade is. If you don't make progress in the right direction every turn, goodbye army. Also, not that this will help in your current situation, keep in mind that more piety for the inquisitor's target = less chance of him getting burned.

Do whatever you an to get on pope's good side. I have been trying to give gifts to papal states, so far to no effect. Successful crusading gives huge boost to pope o meter.

I am on M/M also, and doing much better now sicnce I restarted campaign and took some advice from here. But I am struggling very badly now to hold my regions (currently largets and most powerful faction on about turn 25). Can't imagine what VH would look like.

[Andrew of Newcastle]

Im a newbie on here but not to the Total war series, as I have owned and played the whole series, like a large majority here I expect. However, im no uber General and actually consider myself pretty pants and just manage to bumble through lol

Im on turn 125 playing the English and again, seem to have a completely different approach to others.

From day one I was put under pressure by the French in Caen. They would come and have a sniff, siege me for a turn or two before backing off and disappearing into the fog of war. I used this time to build up a decent stack of the mixed troops that are available at the beginning. My main concentration was the worrying fact that the majority of the british isles was owned by either rebels or the scots so turned all attentions in this direction. After being told to clear off by the rebel cities using diplomatic means, it was either force or nothing. Something had to be done as those damn heritics were worrying my townsfolk.

I bumbled an army together made up from troops from across the 3 towns owned leaving a minimal guard in each until I knew which, if any, would be seen as easy meat for a wandering band of rebel scum. Fortunatly after a good few turns, the rebels didn’t seem interested and more importantly my townsfolk seemed quite happy with little security and supervision. This enabled me to send my ramshackle army northwards to claim York. Taken within 2 turns the army turned west with wales in the sights. Slightly tougher but still no real challenge for my now confident general.

Diplomacy with the scots didn’t seem to work, they wouldn’t even be friends for a while as I figured a temporary alliance would stay and southward intentions they may have had and bide me time to build up my newly aquired towns. Fortunately they seemed content with trading so I sent my weary army over the irish sea to take Dublin. Again, easy pickings.

By this time my council of nobles and merchants guild had started to get a taste for continental life and asked me to take rebel towns of bordeau and one other (I forget which). Sounds simple but when the fog of war extends all the way up to my caen boundary, the first job was actually finding the towns!!!

After sending my diplomat in completely the wrong direction, I failed to meet the deadline imposed. This happened a few times until I decided that my council didn’t really understand the pressure they were putting my men under so chose to ignore them and concentrated on my campaign of taking the british isles.

This actually included moving all my armies out of Caen and Rhiens and shipping them over to back to Britain. France, as expected took the opportunity from this and marched on my two fortresses, easily suppressing the few units of militia I callously left barrackaded in. With my continental links now severed, I was able to finish off my British isles campaign.

As my towns were developing well (I find it suprisngsly easy to make money compared to previous versions) I took the fight to the dormant scots. A few guys in skirts couldn’t be too hard could it? After all, my all conquering army is now extremely battle hardened and confident. Well…. My complancy was my downfall. Those Scottish guys sure know how to look after their turf. Although they didn’t massacre me, I was sent home with my tail between my legs and a few broken bones. Oh and ¼ of my army left. Time to rethink. After a half a dozen turns sat mulling things over in York, I marched forward with a ¾ stack of fresh lambs to the slaughter. And slaughter it was. Now aware of my impending attacks the scots had hardened themselves, done a few extra push ups and were ready and waiting outside their door. In actual fact, they brought the fight to me as soon as stepped on Scottish soil and we had a decent battle in open ground. Embarrassed once again I returned back to york empty handed and bloodied.

Time to leave them alone for a while I think, so sent a faithful diplomat to Edinburgh to try and restore a few things to bide me some time for a rethink as my forces were now fairly depleted. Fortunatly my diplomat must have appeared arrogant enough to fool them into thinking I was still a threat and they agreed to a ceasefire and reintroduction of trade rights.

I left my Scottish neighbours alone to munch on their haggis, while I licked my wounds and concentrated on building up what resources I did have. If anything, it would shut the whinging pope up for a while who wasn’t overly impressed with my taste for catholic blood. He never really threatened to excommunicate me as I had quite a number of priests and cardinals by this point who were doing the lords work in the cities I did control.

This was actually a move that paid dividends as the relaxed scots, secure in their false impression I would leave them alone, marched northwards and took the rebel town of Inverness. This left them very overstretched and spread thinly. I seized the opportunity and within a few turns, I had a fresh army banging on the gate of Edinburgh. With a hastily recoiling pile of Scottish stacks heading back south to counter my offensive on Edinburgh, it was under my control before they even had the city on the horizon. Taking Inverness after this was a walk in the park and the deflated and broken scots fell easily before dispearing into the highlands and any official trace of the once mighty haggis eaters now in the past. The British isles was mine. And it felt good.

After the parties had died down, I was actually rewarded not long after with one of my cardinals being voted in as Pope. However, this little upstart soon forget who put him their in the first place and showed little regard for his English heritage as he condemned my march over the English channel to give the French some pay back for exploiting my poorly defended French cities. As enough time had passed that gunpowder had been invented, my generals seemed to get a little overexcited by the new technology and went a little overboard on recruiting bomdards and cannons. In hindsight, it wasn’t a bad thing as my show of flamboyance with the gunpowder arts was enough to scare the French into handing over both Caen and Angers with only the threat of offensive action.

A shrewd move to stay any reprisals by asking them to be friends again (my diplomat assured me he had his fingers crossed at the time) has given me a little time to strengthen these citadels into my main battle HQ of the mainland. Little do the French know of my future plans. I think the Spanish do though as they has sent an eager messenger to offer friendship and an alliance, which I accepted.

That’s where I am at the moment. Ive no doubt there will a be a few blooded noses on the horizon and I know my progress is slow, but im definitely enjoying myself.

[Glacierise]

Hi guys,

I am playing England too, already got through the short campaign

My approach: The begining is clear - conquer the isles. Then I faced south, and waged war with France. The pope didn't like it, and I got quite beaten by the damn inquisitors - they kill my best generals, even a king! And the funny thing is, almost all the popes have been elected from my cardinals! I start off well with them, but it turns out bad afterwards. To get your men elected pope - place priests in places with lower catholic poppulation, so the priest converts, and burn heretics!

I also accepted crusades - this was the coolest portion of my game - the battles were awesome, this is a whole another story. But the crusader units are brutal! As soon as I conquered Antioch, I got into war with Turkey, and won a fortress. From there, I built an army, and spreaded into the rest of their lands - they have nothing to put against my knights! I keep an alliance with Egypt, and crushed France relatively late (had reduced them to a single town for a long time). Of course, when I became very powerfull, The danes, milanese and sicilians declared war. I succeeded in thwarting their attacks, but now the HRE is probing me too... From another crusade, I won Tunisia, so now I am having a base of operations against Sicily too...

The game is turning great! Fighting both muslim and catholics, very diverse and tense. Difficulty is H/H.

Have a great time!

[nameless]

Something interesting I found when doing an experiment as england on M/VH
before waiting for the patch but it shouldn't matter when it comes out.

The council of nobles will provide you with missions that usually provides you with mailed knights and I found that early in the game, mailed knights are very very useful, especially against the scottish and rebels. Ratio in my armies were at least 10:10 with levy spearmen and archers which are easy to get. You can quickly build up armies this way.

Priority first is to take control of the English isles ASAP. That means conquering all nearby rebel settlements as quickly as possible including Dublin. Another good idea is to send your princess down to France and marry to solidfy an alliance with them.

At the same time, have your continental army take control of all of the surrounding rebel towns. Once your alliance is made with France, you should be okay for the time being so long as you maintain decent garrisons. Which I should also add the rebel towns are quite strong so you'll need to either starve them out or increase the army's strength.

I decided to turn the continental settlements into fortresses since their the most vulnerable. I gathered whatever remaining troops I had in England and launched an assault as quickly as possible on the Scottish main captial. The Scots had been passive for the first 14 turns by building up their forces and readying to attack the other rebel town up north so the captial was weakly guarded by two generals and spearmen. I had a spy open the gates and quickly attacked the first turn. I sent militia spearmen to wear down the generals before sending in the levy spearmen followed by 10 mailed knights.

As a result I wiped out the Scottish without angering the Papacy since it was quick and short. Eventually the last rebel town will be taken in the next few turns. At this point, I made sure that all settlements in the English isles were turned into cities since they are the most safest. By Turn 15 I had control over England with cities pumping out money and the 3-4 continental settlements acting as fortresses and the Pope loves me the most.

I quitted the game as this was an experiment but I found that due to the speed, the HRE was keeping the Danish busy which left the two rebel towns up north of it open for the taking. If you can take these towns quickly, you'll add onto more, you'll receive greater control over the northern sea and areas remote enough to keep it safe. Plus, you can wipe out the Danish which should be weak by pulling the same strategy, either with siege weapons or a spy to open the gates. If you can wipe them out in one turn, the Pope won't mind.

This allows you to assert dominance in the north western section of the map which is a good position to start out from.

[kvbrock82]

EDIT.... ive just read that this is probably not of any real tactical benefit to members so my apologies and please move it to the general section if needs be

actually i found it quite an entertaining read as im going through the same ups and downs heh

[Fizz]

2. As stated, the English have only the most basic spears so receiving a cavalry charge is a problem for them. [Rant: this does seem bizarre, as the one thing the Medieval English army excelled at holding off an enemy charge while dismounted.] The stakes of longbowmen could be used to shelter behind in purely defensive battles. However, the AI is reluctant to approach them even with infantry so they are more for channelling attacks than repelling them. It is not clear whether armoured swords can receive a charge better than the basic spearmen - relying on their greater defence to compensate for the lack of spears. If they do, it may be worth dispensing with spears altogether. My experience is that neither does very well and it is more like mutual assured destruction for both the infantry and charging knights. Mercenary spearmen are essentially the same unit as the armoured sergeants available in MP but not SP. They are available in numbers on the continent and are worth considering to take cavalry charges.

3. The polearm units - billmen - have a relatively high AP attack but low defence and no anti-cavalry properties. They are unsuited to take a charge, particularly from cavalry, but are good as flankers even against well armoured enemies. The same comment applies to the polearmed dismounted English knights, although clearly they are far superior to billmen in absolute terms.

There is a lot of talk on the M2TW official boards that this may be a bug. People are writing about how even against incredible odds, cavalry is walking all over billmen and dismounted knights. Combine that with the unit description of billmen that states they're effective against cavalry, and it does seem like it could be a bug.

The thread can be found here:
http://p223.ezboard.com/fshoguntotal...cID=8201.topic

-Fizz

[nameless]

Has it occured to you that Billmen do not...GASP....have anti-cavalry properties?

Billmen for dummies (Two handed swordsmen)
http://p223.ezboard.com/fshoguntotal...cID=8420.topic

[PhilM]

Had the game a week - coulpe of gripes.

As been said earlier, I agree and I've been quite dismayed at the performance of the Billmen dealing with cavalry. The bill was very effective at unhorsing knights in the medieval period, which isn't reflected in the game. I'm generally finding that billmen are pretty poor all round to be honest.

Another question is - Has anyone managed to get Sherwood archers yet? I'm england and controlling half the map and haven't got one city or castle anywhere that can produce them. I haven't checked the population of all of my settlements, but most are on full advancement as far as I can see and many have bottomed out and are at 0% growth when they get up around the 20,000 mark. I'll have conquored the world by the time I manage to produce 1 single unit at this rate.

Princesses don't marry into your faction as often as in Medieval 1 total war - which is a bit annoying. It should be a bit easier to arrange marriages and have 'claims' on rivals lands as a result. The foreign princesses seem to prefer to wander the depths of europe than marring an heir to the most powerful kingdom in europe, even after numerous attempts - yeah right!

The family tree is sometimes a bit wild. Leaving the throne to a distant cousin, rather than a true 'Grandchild' of a monarch. Wish you could set the heir to correct this.

Don't like the naming of kings either. Used to say King William III (for example). Now doesn't mention the roman numerals.

Can't give titles to nobles - which used to be a bit of fun. Creating someone a duke or an earl was great on Medieval 1 total war.

Another last gripe - Mongols are far too powerful and ruin the game a bit. Within about 50 years of appearing, the Egyptians, Turks and Byzantines had been wiped out by them. It's now 1650 and it's basically me against the Mongols. Both with half the map each. I get bored of the mongols. They just have horse archers all the time.


Most of my gripes are minor and don't interfere with the game too much (except the mongol bit), and I have enjoyed the game enormously. I keep feeling this is just the same as Rome though and not enough of the old medieval game was transferred to it.

[BigTex]

Has it occured to you that Billmen do not...GASP....have anti-cavalry properties?

Billmen for dummies (Two handed swordsmen)
http://p223.ezboard.com/fshoguntotal...cID=8420.topic

Billmen and other 2 handed axemen are indeed bugged. When engaging against cavalry they will only attack at the initial charge. After that they cease to attack and just stand around maneuvering to kill but they never will swing. It's a very odd bug, one that's also hard to detect unless to pay close attention. My suggestion is that you take some billmen, varangian guard, have them stand their ground in a custom match against mounted sergeants or militia cavalry. You'll notice that the cavalry suffer horrendous casualties on impact, but after the charge not a single one will die. They are just incapable of attacking cavalry.

They work perfectly fine against infantry. It's just their bugged versus cavalry. Now this for some reason does not apply to zweihanders, dismounted gothic knights, forlorn hope, and other 2 handed sword carrying units. Something tells me that it may be related to the armor piercing stat, or maybe just a reach problem.

If anyone knows of a 2 handed swordsmen with an AP stat would love to see them tested.

[Dalrogad]

Had the game a week - coulpe of gripes.

....Most of my gripes are minor and don't interfere with the game too much.....

I couldn't agree more.
I see so many people griping about stuff that really doesn't matter at all, and almost noone griping about some of the collosol problems in the game.

One example of a good gripe, not mentioned in the thread linked below, is that cavalry charges are WAY underpowered in this game. I see people here complaining about the billmen not attacking at all against cavalry - a worthy gripe, for sure. But I can charge a tight company of militian spearmen with a full company of heavy knights with lances, and only kill about 6 of them on the charge. absolutely ridiculous. In reality, a cavalry charge should easily kill or seriously wound half the company on the charge. Even the knights/horses who are skewered would still plow forward and crush the defenders. At an easy 1,000 pounds per unit, moving 30 miles an hour.... It's a no brainer. Did I mention that the lances have at least 50% more reach than the spears? Even if it wasn't a crushing wall of 30 mph 1,000 pound locomotives, the lances alone would kill at least 1/2 of the men making up the first 2 rows.
How about the fact that knights often charge without using their lances??!?!?! The charge right in with lances raised, do nothing to the enemy at all (even without any weapons at all, a very substantial portion of the company should be trampled or crushed to death), then get their swords out and chop away. Absurd.

I find the extreme inaccuracy of the crossbowmen and archers, even at close range, to be rather dubious also. And what's much worse - bowmen could fire as many as 20 arrows per minute under the right circumstances (probably most of the time) and in this game, it seems more like about 4 per minute.

Please see this thread for more real gripes:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=72771