Spain

[frogbeastegg]

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

[SwordsMaster]

Ok, I guess I'll start...

The initial options are fairly clear: Valencia and Zaragoza. This achieves 2 things: prevents the portuguese somehow in Pamplona from growing powerful, and gives you a solid northern border, as well as a rich city. Keep them both as cities - Toledo will be enough to fulfill the troop recruitment purposes.

Valencia has a worthwhile general, but you may not be able to afford him straight off the bat, so IMO, don't bother.

Zaragoza has a fairly strong garrison, so I usually let the portuguese try and assault it first, and once the garrison is weakened, strike.


Get trade rights with as many neighbours as you can, and remember that you cannot get excommunicated by fighting muslims, so if you can afford it, hit Cordoba ASAP - again it is a rich city, and from here you can move on to Portugal (you will need 2 armies if you do not wish to get excommunicated, one to hit Pamplona, and another for Lisboa), and Granada starts as a strong castle, so you might want to wait to have the proper siege equipment, or just starve them out...

At this stage, France will usually DoW you. Don't let it bother you too much. but grab Bordeaux and Toulouse if you can. The french usually leave one or both those castles undefended in order to gather a sizeable army. If you manage to destroy the army completely, its free for your picking. After a couple of turns of war, the Pope will usually tell you to stop this nonsense so just accept the first ceasefire they offer you in exchange for trade rights and cash.

You should complete the missions given wherever possible. I usually ignored the outrageous ones - like going to Russia to kill a heretic - but stuff like blockade such and such port, or capture this city, are usually what you would have done anyway.

In any case, France will be your constant annoyance, so keep an army on their border at all times, and fortify Toulouse and Bordeaux. I find that these are great training grounds for assasins - I have a screen of about 12 in the area.

At this stage, begin developing the peninsular posessions: organise your garrisons so as to minimise costs, and build merchants, spies, watchtowers, and develop your fleet, because eventually you'll get missions to capture Ajaccio and Cagliari, and, my personal favourite: land 3 stacks in Rome, and show the pope who's boss....

After this, the world is your oyster. I personally like to sit back and build up.

You should have no trouble.

Good luck.

[Vicarious]

No trouble? I'm playing my first M2TW campaign as Spain, and it seems like I'm loosing my first game ever including allTotal War games..
(It's possible that I started a little optimistic with VH/VH on my first game...)

Like Swordsmaster I conquered Valencia and then Zaragoza, and kept them as cities. They're generating a descent income after I constructed Grain Market, Roads, Ports and then Market.

Then I set my eyes on the weak Portugese, and quite easily conquered Pamplona while the Portugese faction heir was watching it with half a army stack 1 day march away. In addition, I got the French as my allies, so my back was free. Then my trouble started, whan I of course was threatened with excommunication from the pope because of my hostiliy against the Portugese. What to do then? I had to anxiously watch this MY LITTLE PONY walking towards my capitol ("I'm soon gonna enjoy your land and your woman"). Fortunately, I got a peace with them before they attacked me. At least I thought so..

A few turns later, while I'm deploying my Faction Heir to face an oncoming full stack of Moor army, the Portugese (out of blue air... not) attacks me with a full stack in the flank. My movement points runs out, and escape is impossible. I have tried fighting this battle 3 times. I have the advantage of high ground and lots of archers, but I always end up loosing anyway. My best effort is to kill 80% of his army, but I lose all of mine including the Faction heir. The main reasons seems to be that his footsolidiers are supreme to mine of the same type, so it has to be the generals skills I think.

So now things look bad. The Moors and Portugese are flooding my land, with almost no defence left. I have a large stack ready to conquer a almost defenseless Granada, but since the combined forces I'm standing against is more than the double of mine, I see no hope.

So my first advice is: Don't go to war against both Moors and Portugese at the same time. Kill of one of them before you focus on the next. (prefarably the Moors, because of the excommunication I LIKE RAINBOWS AND BUTTERFLIES..).

[Vladimir]

Do you still have Jinette spam? I did a little experiment in MTW and on expert, conquered Iberia and finished two crusades with only Jinettes.

[Vicarious]

I had a unit of Jinettes, but they were slain.. Can still recruit 6 or something, but not too impressed by the Jinettes so far. They have good statistics, but they seem to fight worse and die faster than Heavy Cav even so..

[Vladimir]

That's why you don't have them engage in combat. Fire javelins, and retreat or isolate and sandwich units.

[Kekvit Irae]

Watch the language.

[Vicarious]

I had to anxiously watch this MY LITTLE PONY walking towards my capitol

This forum is even stricter than the sensoring on MTV.. You replace ******* with "MY LITTLE PONY"?? Tough to swallow for a hard-boiled Norwegian..

Anyway, let's cut to the case.

That's why you don't have them engage in combat. Fire javelins, and retreat or isolate and sandwich units.

Ok, this is of course a good advice. But my impression is that the units move much faster in M2TW than in RTW. So when you fight large battles (as is often the case...), your missile units get very short time to fire on approaching enemys before they are upon you. To use your Jinetes for firing/retreating demands a lot of micro-management, and you can't pause the game every 5'th second either.. So I often find my Jinetes engaged in hand-to-hand combat anyway.

Some posts earlier up here in this thread, I doomed my Spain campaign. Well, that was at little pessimistic. As I told, I lost my largest army and the faction heir. And the Moors and Portugese both had a full army stack that could just march on too my capital town and my largest castle, and I would've been out. But that was overestimating the AI. Instead of doing this, The Moor army headed back to their own land (maybe because I launched a sneak-attack and took Granada), and the Portugese army just sat still on a stupid ambush next to my spy.. So I had time to build up a new full army, and this time I beat the Portugese killing of their whole army and executing prisoners in revenge of my faction heir. So now I can grab Lisbon too in a few turns, and it also looks bad for the Moors.

It seems like the AIs problem is that they don't use spies. At least I have seen no spies in my land, and I got a couple of them myself to spot enemy spies. (And hopefully the game is built so that the AI would only see what their spies and armies sees, which is nothing..) Anyone got an opinion on this?

[SwordsMaster]

This is exactly why in my post I said not to start fighting the portuguese unless you can take both Pamplona and Lisboa in the same turn, ie, you have 2 large armies. After you do that, you can march the army from Pamplona to defend your south, and the army from Lisboa to attack the remaining enemies.

[Franconicus]

Started a campaign yesterday (vh/vh), my pc is slow and I could only do some turns.

I wanted to assault Zaragoza first and then make a trip to France to weaken them from the beginning. However, the Portugese were faster than I was, the town was already under siege.

So I besieged Valencia. In the beginning the garisson was stronger than mine, so I had to wait. I gathered some reenforcements (archers, spearmen, even mercs) and then attacked. After breaking the gate the enemy made a full frontal charge against my spearmen. The rest is history.

I made an alliance with Portugal. So there were no more targest except in the south. I raised an army and entered muslim territory. The muslim declared war and attacked me. Although their army was twice as strong I had a good position on top of a hill. I had two Spanish knights, two armored knights, one archer and one spear unit. The enemy had loads of archers, mounted archers and so on. I waited on top of the hill, gave them some volleys and dived into the archers. The Spanish nights are very useful against horse archers. They are faster than the normal knights and can catch them. And they seem to be better than the muslims.

[Stolpmeister]

Quickly buildning up a strong fleet is also a good option for Spain. Blocking the landbridge at the Strait of Gibraltar means the Moors can't bring in any reinforcements from North Africa. Having a fleet also means you'll have an easier time capturing Ajaccio and Cagliari - take them whenever you get the mission, and convert them both to cities for some nice income... don't worry about defending them, the AI very seldom makes amphibious landings.

Also, remember that Spain has some really nice lategame city-units, so don't neglect military upgrades in cities! Militia swordsmen, tercio pikemen, musketeers and gendarmes are all built in cities, and are all good units. The spanish musketeers are especially fearsome, with long range, good damamage, and causing fear.

[Kobal2fr]

Some early observations of mine :

Whatever you do
1) the Portuguese (well, Aragonese ;) ) will reach Zaragoza before you do
2) they will always try to siege the city with a minimal army that is always sent back home when the rebs sally. This is your window of opportunity. With the defenders weakened already, the second Portuguese attack usually takes the city, but if you lay your own siege just when they are pushed back, the city is yours for the taking.


Try as I might, I have never yet succeeded in bribing El Cid to my side , which of course was everyone's first move as the Spanish in MTW. Big troop stack + mucho piety... Ah, well, at least the Moors don't get him either this time around. He is already married too, so the 2 princesses Spain starts with are of no further help there.


If you can spare the cash needed to build a few cogs or better yet war galleys (or if you get some from a mission), it's a good idea to put them in the strait of Gibraltar. Prevents the Moors from reinforcing Cordoba/Granada if you haven't seized them yet, and if you have it stops the retaliatory stack(s). Of course, you can expect the Moorish navy to try and force you out, but it will still buy you some time to dig in and, should the ships actually survive, exps your admiral(s) nicely.


Concerning agents, Spain has the considerable advantage of starting in half-Muslim lands, and of having vast expanses of 100% Muslim desert right on its doorstep, so all Spanish priests tend to exp fairly fast, giving you an edge on the road to Cardinalship and Papacy. Roving Moorish alims also have the courtesy of regularly spawning more heresy for you to squash.


On the other hand, there aren't that many good ressources in your private peninsula, so merchants and trade are probably not going to be neither your forte, nor good investments until later in the game, by which time the Byzantine, Danish and Venetian merchs will eat yours for breakfast...


As for troops, well, your early infantry is crud. All of it, even your cultural unit. Javelinmen are as useless as ever, especially with the skirmishing issues affecting M2TW as of now. Sure, they have armor piercing ammo, but what good is that when the range is so pityfull ? Maybe in sieges, and even then I'd opt for archers to take out rams and tower. Jinettes, on the other hand, are marvellous. Expensive, but worth every dime. They'll slaughter heavy cav, chase routers far and fast, rout out archers and militia, you name it, they do it, and do it well.

[Rosacrux redux]

Started my 2nd campaign with Spain (my first with Byzantium on H/H I abandoned when the Turks added their weight to the 2front war I was fighting against the Venetians and Hungarians...) and it's loads of fun. On M/M because I wanted to get a grip on game mechanics and the campaign, so I have played only a few battles (the AI bonuses on H and VH make autocalc battles a suicidal option...).

Well... Spain is easy. I am already on turn 140 and I've got the whole Iberia, 1/2 of the French territories and the four westernmost african provinces.

I got Valencia off the bat, then went for Zaragoza (the Portuguese had already softened the defenders a bit) and got that too. I managed to defeat a strong moorish army (one of the few battles I didn't autocalc and damn the spanish cavalry units are very strong) and then the Portuguese attacked and I swiftly got their northern city. I had an alliance with the Frenchies so no problem there. After a few turns and an excom threat (and the subsequent truce) the portuguese attacked again, so I wiped them out swiftly without getting excomed.

Soon the Moors fell too and the Frenchies attacked. I had a solid income base in northern africa and spain (only one castle, Toledo, the rest cities). Managed to push them back and gained two castles in the process, and they gave me Marseilles too for getting a truce. Since then, I've used my advanced units to great effect, just got to the lower countries (antverpes and bruge I got from the once almighty danes) and now I am king of the hill... NOT. Bloody mongols have overwhelmed the Turks, the Egyptians and the Byzantines (whatever the Hungarians left of them, actually) and are moving on against me...

In the agents department, is it just me or are Spanish merchants total whimps? I had a few Venetian and Milanese traders roaming my place, killing off my merchants on the bat, and I didn't manage to make a single aquisition. A single. In the religion field, I soon got lotsa cardinals and the Pope was mone for more than 100 turns, only recently did the hungarians manage to overcome me.

[Doug-Thompson]

Mass your opening units and take Cordoba right away.

This fatally weakens the Moors and cuts the Portugese off from expansion to the south. Yes, the Portuguese will take Zaragoza. Let them. The place is rebellious. The Portuguese are stuck building garrison units in Zaragoza while you're taking Valencia and kicking what's left of the Moors out of Grenada. Also, the Portugese make a handy, weak buffer state between you and France.

It's a shame, but apparently you can't afforably bribe El Cid. I'd be happy to be proven wrong on that point.

Ignore early calls for a Crusade to Jerusalem. Concentrate on whipping the Moors. Don't be shy about hiring mercs, either. However, do build churches and send priests to convert Muslims in your newly won territories. That will make the Pope happier with you, and you will need the Pope's support soon when the Portugese attack.

One effective trick is to keep beating units that the Moors send to try and retake Cordoba. Beat them off, rebuild units in Cordoba, repeat.

Eventually, the frustrated Portuguese will attack you. Despite complaints from players, the AI will probably excommunicate them. Once that happens, do not play a defensive game. Take all the troops you can spare and take Lisbon.

Chances are, the Portuguese over-extended themselves in Zaragoza. You'll find Lisbon relatively easy pickings. Once you take and sack that city, the Portuguese are crippled, a rump state that's still a buffer between you and Europe. Now their king or the Pope can die, ending the excommunication, and they're still in a hopeless situation. Kill as many Portuguese family members as you can before the war ends. Then you can even ask for a ceasefire if you want, and probably get one. If the faction goes bandit for lack of heirs later on, you can pick them up with no excommunication trouble.

Now you're home free to take North Africa. After you take Algiers, accept Crusades to Jerusalem. You can start the Crusade in Spain, where your Catholic homeland will provide exceptionally good troops, and take them by ship to North Africa. Seize Tunis, Tripoli and Alexandria. If some other crusader takes Jerusalem, that's no problem. You can now take Cairo and the rest of Egypt with no trouble.

By now, you're the most powerful faction on the map with plenty of trade. Your relations with the Pope should be quite good, with a lot of high-piety cardinals who have converted thousands of Muslims. From here, take advantage of excommunications and bandits takeovers as they become available.

[Franconicus]

I agree with DT. Do not waste too much time with the Rebel towns. They are not worth it.

In the beginning I ordered my spearmen from the north to Toledo, where I gathered an army to deal with the moslems. I also built archers there as soon as possible. Archers help against Muslims. While I was building the army, I laid siege on Valencia and ignored Zaragossa. I allied with Potugal.

Then I marched to Cordoba. The Muslims attacked me first. I defeated their armies outside of Cordoba, so there were little defenders left. Next turn I assaulted the town. Cordoba is really a money maker, much more valuable than any rebel town. At the same turn 'El Cid' sallied from Valencia and I took the town. The reward was four knight units.

I ordered these units north to push further to Granada. Do not stop your invasion until the Muslims leave Spain. It is not a big issue. To my surprise I noticed that Zaragossa was still rebel. I sent a small expedition force to take the town.

Right when I had taken Granada, portugal betrayed me and blocked one harbor (what a silly way to declare war!)

Immediately, I made ceasefire with the heathens and advanced to Lisboa. A big army tried to stop me, but my army was almost as big and half of it was heavy armed kights.

I took Lisboa without problems.

The Portugese were passiv. However, they did send an army to siege Zaragossa. I sent a release army, but before it arrived, they assaulted.

I had two archer, one peasant and one spear unit. Each unit had only 50% combat strenght. They had archers, peasants, crossbows and a general. Plus catapults.

I put my archers on the walls. Man, I did not know what these catapults could do to wodden walls. I lost half of my archers and had to retreat to the center while the enemy demolished my complete front side.

When they finally atacked, I stopped their General with my spears. He will never do a frontal attack again. Although the enemy suffered high casualties, I finally was wiped out and lost the town.

But there is still my release army and they have three catapults. And there is my King, coming with the main force from Lisboa.

If the Pope does not stop me, Spain will soon be mine. Let us all thank the Lord and praise His glory.

[Von Nanega]

You gotta go full bore when playing Spain, and trust to God that initally no bad luck comes your way. You roll on Cordoba right away and chase the Moors out of Espana. Then go clean up the rebal territories. By this time Portugal should be just about read to stab you in the back along with the French. You will be on the go from the first turn onward.

[Von Nanega]

I was right. France does backstab. But I was ready and invaded them. A series of brutal battles later they sued ffor peace. I was tired and armies needed rest and refit so at 500 a turn for 15 turns tribute I was kind and granted it. But for strategy. Maybe two castles in Spain, rest cities to feed the war machine.

[Franconicus]

I am Pope!!

One big advantage of Spain is that you have access t the land of the heathens right from the start.

It is a nice strategy to produce priests. I made four or five of them. Take then to the new conquered lands, they will help you make the people catholic and happy. Then send them to Africa, where they can convert the (still) free moors.

Three priests were promoted to Cardinals, then the Pope died and one of my Cardinals was elected.

[Aenlic]

After finishing a short campaign as the Spanish, I decided to try a new strategy as the Spanish for a long campaign on H/H. The following is a synopsis of events so far:

My first council mission was to take Zaragosa, instead of Valencia. OK, works for me. I sent my army to take Zaragosa, which is an easier conquest anyway (El Cid can be be annoyingly tough and his entire garrison are veterans). Taking Zaragosa seems to stop French southern expansion plans. They went for the English instead. By this time, I managed to get both the Portuguese and Moors to pay me for alliances.

With Zaragosa mine, I began building a second stack with my new found wealth from extorting alliances from my neighbors, garrisoned Zaragosa and sent the army that took it south for Valencia. Valencia was tougher to take than Zaragosa, but fell after a long siege. I garrisoned it and sent my now fairly experienced army to get retrained and resupplied before heading north to wait on the border of Pamplona.

My second army was untried, so I made sure it had my best general (4 stars) and was a bigger stack, then sent it west to wait on the border of Lisbon. When both were ready, I attacked the Portuguese in the same turn. The Pope didn't even raise an eyebrow when both fell and the Portuguese were eliminated.

I then sent part of an army back to Zaragosa in case the French became annoying, and sent everything else to get retrained and resupplied. I now had one and a half armies, with good experience to take on the Moors. I also built a stack of 4 ships to use to block the land route from Africa. With it sitting on the land bridge, the Moors were unable to reinforce, and al-Andalus was mine. So I made the Moors pay me for a new alliance - again.

Now I had to make a decision. Moors or Europe. I owned the land bridge with my ships. The Moors were now impoverished and their ships aren't a match. So I went for Europe. So far it's going well. I took the still rebel Bordeaux while the French and English were at war. Then the English got themselves excommunicated. Too bad for them. I took Rennes, Caen and Angers (which was apparently the province that got them ex-commed) before they made friends with the Pope again. I sacked all three. Then I went after Toulouse. This made Il Popo annoyed. So, I gave him Caen and Angers after destroying all the available buildings in both and retreated to Rennes and Bordeaux. Now I owned Rennes, Bordeaux and Toulouse and the Pope was happy with me and acting as a nice buffer between me and England in the process. Woe to anyone becoming a problem on my northern border. The Pope makes a fine buffer.

At this point, I am about to go for the rebel islands, taking Ajaccio and Cagliari. I'm still allied with the Moors. That's about to change, however. After I take the islands and build up a nice army in Granada, I'm going to start a series of crusades, since the one in Jerusalem just failed (I didn't join). I've been saving the Moors for this. I ought to easily get to each target first. And I should succeed in each. I think I can take each Moorish town in turn and each as a single crusade. This will boost my armies' experience, give me plenty of loot, a new power base in the south, more income, and best of all make the Pope my best buddy. If I can manage to use crusades to take Marrakesh, Algiers, Timbuktu and Tunis, then I should have a very experienced army or two to take east toward the Egyptians for Jersualem crusade and the resultant relics; and hopefully be ready for the Mongols, who should be appearing soon.

I know it was kind of long. But the above illustrates my idea that attacking the Moors too soon wastes an opportunity to use them later on for Pope manipulation and building armies through a series of crusades. It's not historically correct, but it sure has been fun so far.



Note: How to attack and then garrison cities immediately.

I try to always have at least one useless general who has at least 3 loyalty and 2-3 or more piety and some chivalry helps too - the more of each, the better. I don't care how may stars he has. I allowed him (and hopefully one other general too) into the family for one thing - garrison commander of newly taken cities. Behind my armies, when I can, I try to have a baggage train/follow-on force ready to garrison. This small stack army consists of my lovable but militarily useless general, 2-3 or sometimes 4 milita units and 1-2 priests/imams. Their only purpose is to immediately garrison a newly conquered province so my main army can immediately move on to new things. Just a little tip from your uncle Aenlic.

[Lorenzo_H]

Here are some observations I have made with the Spanish Campaign:

• They have excellent Cavalry in the beginning.
• But no real infantry.
• Portugal is a joke of an enemy at the start (left pamplona virtually unguarded- much too tempting) take advantage of it.
• Their early game economy is mediocre at the worst.
• Their Merchants are weak.
• Their Papal missions so far seem to be realistic and almost easy.

Altogether I like the Spanish, and I am looking forward to accessing some of their really good units like Conquistadors (which can only be trained in America).

[mgholson]

So My Spanish Campaign isn't going good.

I started off taking Valencia easily then Zaragosa with the rest of that army. Valencia is loyal but Zaragosa is not. I leave my army here in Zaragosa for awhile to quell the unrest.

At this point in the game I am allied with the English, French Portugese, and oddly enough the Moors, who sent a diplomat and asked for a alliance.

The Moors now demand my attention as I wish take their cities. I start with the army I'm building up in Toledo and take Granada. Over in the East I notice that Bordeaux just repulsed a French army. I rush an army up and take Bordeaux with ease, but apparently steped on a few Portugese toes to get there and they break their alliance with me.

Apparenly the French feel as if Bordeaux is there's by divine right because they send an army to seige it. Its a pitiful army and I sally out of my castle and destroy the crossbow men and spear militia.

Unfortanily next Turn I realize that Bordeaux was only a cunning trap, those devious French lust for Zaragosa and send a giant army to capture it. The Army I was raising to finish off the pitiful Moors finds itself heading East. Next turn I am warned by the pope not kill other Christians, but apparently it doesn't count if you attack an army that is sieging your city. I bring down reinforcements from Bordeaux and with my mixed army that should be off slaughtering heathen muslims I decemate the French and they scury back to their own lands.

Things seem to be getting back on track, but wait, those bloody portogese didn't like me trampling through their pastures. They attack from Pamplona with a weak army that breaks against Zaragosa's walls, but oddly enough leave a large army standing around on the border.

Meanwhile I ceasefire with the French apparently at the urging of the Pope. Other than an isolated Pampalona it looks like The East is fine, I turn my attention back to the Moors and take a newly built army into Cordoba. The Moors don't put up much fight and I kill their faction leader and sack their capital for 11000 florins. Things are looking up.

I decide it would be a fetching time to make those Pampalonian's pay for their insolence. I send my army out of Zaragosa, almost a complete stack. But Zaragosa citizenry need a larger garison to keep them under control so I move back my general along with a few units of caverly. Apparently the army was bitter of spilling Christian blood so they turn on me. The entire stack becomes rebel. Oh and did I mention that Lisbon is fielding a large army against my capital, and did I mention the French just showed up at Zaragosa again but this time with a large force of Feudal Knights.

So I am now fighting a 4 front war, Portugal to the West and Northeast, French to the East, my own rebel army, the French from the East, and the Moors from the South. Looks like things couldn't get any worse.

On a happy ending note for some crazy reason the French left all their troops at my border and attacked Zaragosa with none other KING HENRY the MEAN and his 40 royal gaurd, he stands at my door. I engage him with two units of peasants to the front and flank him with a calvery on either side, his guard crumbles and he dies.

Next turn I am attacked from all directions. Game over.

[Dunc]

I am at approximately the year 1340 in my Spanish campaign, on VH/H. Either that or H/H. I can't remember.

I started out by taking both Zaragoza and Valencia. It was a long time ago so I can't remember exactly how it went, but I remember I built up forces for a few turns before I did it. I probably took both by starving the enemy rather than fighting, because that's how I often do things.

I was allied with Portugal as well as the Moors.

My first war was against France. The first Franco-Spanish war was pretty uneventful. I think the only battle against France in that first war was when they made a half-assed attempt at Zaragoza which I repelled. I sent a big army up towards Toulouse. I had the city under siege when the most confusing diplomatic turn of events ever happened.

France demanded that I become a vassal state. As a joke I counter offered with ceasefire + they give me Toulouse. They accepted, and I got Toulouse.

I can't remember the exact sequence of events, but basically I found myself in a two front war when Portugal and the Moors declared war on me. I took all of Iberia under my control. I never fought a field battle against Portugal from what I can remember, I defeated them strictly by starving their settlements out.

I enlisted the help of the church to fix my Moor infestation. I got the Pope to call a crusade on Corduba, which was like opening up a can of instant army. I took Corduba pretty easily, and mopped up the rest of the Moors. Once I pushed them out of Iberia, we made peace.

The peace didn't last terribly long. I kept building up until France clued in that they got a bad deal last time, the Moors decided they wanted their Spanish holdings back, and Milan gave into peer pressure because all the cool kids were doing it.

I never fought a battle with the Moors. They sent an army over the land bridge and did nothing with it, they just left it there.

I did fight several with France and Milan. Thousands of Frenchmen and Milanese have died at Toulouse. Seriously, I've never seen so many full-stack armies sacrificed in vain. It was like world war 1. It was the same story each time. My understrength garrison gets set upon by 2000 enemies, I fight them off in a close battle in which I take 33-50% casualties, the next full-stack arrives to try again before I'm even fully recouperated from the last attempt, and it happens a few times.

I just held my ground at Toulouse while I sent an army up France's West coast to take a few cities. Bordeaux, Angers, and Rennes were mine, while France was still routinely sacrificing thousands of guys at Toulouse.

I then raised another big army to try and take some of the pressure off of Toulouse by moving for Marseilles, which I took. Toulouse was still getting bombarded with attacks.

My lines were kind of extended. I had to keep sizeable garrisons in five cities because they were all potential French/Milanese targets. That's why progress was kind of slow.

The latest city I've taken is Milan. I raised another army and slipped it through the front lines and it took Milan.

I made a move for Genoa with a slightly understrength army (Genoa was lightly defended) but I was intercepted by a full-strength Milanese army plus reinforcements. My 1080 guys took 70% casualties in the spanking by the 2400 Milanese. I did kill 55% of the Milanese though. It wasn't enough and a few hundred depressed Spaniards had to hobble back to Marseilles to brace for a Milanese offensive.

The whole time I neglected my navy. My navy was getting its ass kicked by the French and the pirates and I was poor, so I gave up on it. At one point in the war, just a few turns after the three-front war started, I was severely in the red and I was actually in danger of losing the war as casualties were mounting and I had no money to replace them. I lucked out though by sacking a settlement.

If M2TW's AI didn't suck so badly, I wouldn't be doing so well. When assaulting cities, the AI is just terrible and every other battle I am saved by a glitch.

[Skott]

I started a Spanish short campaign. I'm looking forward to killing someone other than just Christians so I felt Spain offered me a chance to fight both Muslim and Christian nations.

On turn one I took my starting army and headed towards Zaragoza. On turn two I got the mission to take Valencia but I kept going to Zaragoza hoping to beat the Portuese to it. No luck, they were besieging it when I got there. I hung around for a couple of turns hoping they'd get repulsed but after two turns they took it. During the wait I made alliances with both the Moors and Portugal figuring that would buy me time to build up. Once portugal took Zaragoza I turned my army around and marched on Valencia. I laid siege to it to weaken El Cid and his defenders. On the last turn I assualted the Motte & Bailey Castle and won the day.

I then continued my economical build up. I didnt build my army up much but I did build a nice little fleet that could wether pirate attacks. I sent diplomats out to get trade going. I even sent a diplomat to camp Rome. Yes, I have learned finally the way to control Papal diplomacy is by having a diplomat near Rome to grease the Pope's hands with small gifts of money. I'm not sure what the minimum is but I know each time I give a thousand florin he praises me and looks the other way. It keeps me in high esteem with him. I made one other alliance. With the French. In case i wanted to play them and Portugal off one another later on.

The Pope called for a crusade against Antioch. So far in two previous games (England & Denmark) I went on crusade three times and each time my army deserted. I'm convinced the Crusades in this game are a joke. No matter what I do desertion happens and I lose good men and time so from now on I'm just going to ignore crusades in all my games. CA needs to fix/tweak how crusades work. They simply are useless in my opinon. Besides that I can give the Pope one thousand florin and he forgives me not going on crusade.

Anyway, once I got a good economical build up going I looked around to see what rebel towns I could pluck without starting any wars. The Moors were to my south and the Portuguese to Southwest and North. Bordeaux sat lonely. The French hadnt gotten to it yet and it only had a three or four units defending it. Lowly units too. So from my Toledo docks I sent an army to invade Bordeux and capture it. It was a easy take. I kept the army there to discourage the French from getting ideas. Meanwhile I looked around for other targets.

About this time the Pope dies. Having kept in perfect esteem with the old pope with a couple of small gifts my Cardinal had four votes going into the election. I easily won and my Cardinal was made Pope. Things were looking good. Portugal and the moors went to war against each other. I decided to let them fight while i looked for easy targets. I assumed the Moors would be better fighters than the Portuguese so i didnt attack them. I was actually hoping they'd take Lisbon so later I could snag it and not get any gruff from the vatican. I build another small army and sent it east towards Corsica and Sardinia. After a time my army captured the rebal towns of Ajaccio and Cagliari.

By now the Portuguese had taken Cordoba from The Moors. This only left Granada left on the peninsula so I decided I better take it before the Portuguese do and totally surround me. I still had the alliance with them but I knew eventually war would come. I recalled my army from Bordeux since my other small army was at Cagliari rebuilding there. I pulled my Bordeux army home via boat and marched them southeast from the Toledo docks as quick as possible. I threw in some extra good troops and bought some mercenary spearmen. I sent them to valencia where I had a fleet waiting to pick them up and sailed them south to Granada. At the same time I got a mission to blockade Granada so this worked well. I also took my small army stationed at Cagliari and sailed them to North African coast of Algiers and stationed them near the town there ready to pounce.

In one turn I landed my troops at Granada and laid siege to it. I then had the ships blockade the Granada docks. At the same time my small army near Algiers landed and laid siege to it as well. The Moors were completely unprepared for this attack. They only had one unit at Granada and a few at Algiers. On the next turn I assaulted Algiers and took the town. I kept the siege at Granada going one more turn to get the 'mission complete' notice. that gave me an extra 1000 florin for no extra effort.

During this phase the French attacks both Portugal and me. Near as I can see its just a naval war so to keep myself from getting into hot water with the vatican I'll let the French blockade what ports of mine they want. its not a worry really. Bordeux is the only region they can attack me directly and it has a good garrison waiting in case they do. Otherwise they have to go through Portugal to get to me. Meanwhile I sent my Granada force to Marakeesh to take it and my Algiers force to Tunisia to take it. For all pratical purposes The Moors are done for. Its just a matter of time now.

Once the Moors are exterminated I'll just wait and see if the French or Portuguese will attack me directly. If so they'll probably get the Pope's wrath and get excommunicated. Then I can waltz in and take them down. I'm still allied with Portugal however so I'll just build up for now. Maybe send a expedition force to the Americas. I havent been there yet and Spain should offer a good springboard for that campaign. I could go after Egypt as well or any excommunicated nation. Sicily is currently excommunicated and so is England. Lots of choices for land grabs.

Thats it so far. Looking forward to sitting down and playing this faction some more.

[Quillan]

Once you eventually get to gunpowder, Spain becomes really powerful. In land units, Spain has the full spectrum of gunpowder troops: handgunners, arquebusiers and musketeers. I personally didn't bother building any handgunners; I've faced those in battle in a previous campaign and wasn't terribly impressed. I skipped over the arquebusiers as well, just because once you can build them it's only one more barracks until you can build musketeers. Musketeers are a graphic demonstration why gunpowder weapons supplanted swords/bows/crossbows as the primary weaponry of armies. They have high attacks, long range, accuracy, and the ability to penetrate armor. They seem to cause more casualties at long range than pavise crossbowmen do, and at closer ranges, I've seen armored sergeants break with a single volley of fire. The fear effect does seem to require you to be moderately close to work.

In artillery, Spain doesn't have access to mortars, monster ribauds or serpentines. They can build bombards, grand bombards, ribauds, culverins and basilisks. Their gunpowder ship from the dockyard is the lanternas, the same as most of the other Mediterranean factions. The Venetian galleas is a better ship, but is also more expensive.

My field army is now transitioning to the end period weaponry, as I can build them. My usual stack now consists of 4 musketeers, 5 Tercio pikemen, 6 sword & buckler men, 2 jinetes, and a general. I leave two spots open for artillery pieces, and use them as necessary. I've found times when I have to leave the artillery behind to move quickly, and am adopting the strategy of leaving a piece or two in every front-line city so I can pick them up as needed.

[Skott]

So Spain eventually does get some pikemen? Thats good because so far their infantry isnt too good. I have to hire mercenaries to use as my main line right now. Spain does have some good mounted troops though. Good crossbow men too.

my latest update is this...

I landed troops at Merrakesh and as I was laying siege to it Portugal decided they wanted Granada. I guess they were mad that my army beat them by one turn to Merrakesh. So, The Spainish-Portuguese War starts. Portugal took Granada without much effort. I only had three militia units there. I wasnt expecting a war with Portugal so soon. They had me surrounded on the Peninsula and it was touch and go for a while. My best two armies were in Bordeux and North Africa. I had to build a third army to help stave off the Portuguese. Finally I got all three armies into Spain and began taking territory. Portugal kept asking for a ceasefire but I wasnt willing. I wanted them dead and gone. I retook Granada first and then Cordoba. Pamplona and Zaragoza fell next. Then finally I took Lisbon. During this time I greased the Pope's hand to keep him happy and my rating high.

At one point the pope died but my rating was so high and everyone was so happy with my piety (or how I was conducting warfare because in reality I'm as pious as a rock) that they all were voting for my guy. I won that election easily and retained the papacy.

Then France tried for Bordeux. Luckily my northern army was near Pamplona at the time so I marched them up to break the siege. It was a bitter fight. Their mounted knights did a number on my front linemen but I won the day. I marched a small army over to tulouse because it was lightly defended but the French had a major army neaby and routed my smaller army. And then the Pope intervened so I had to break off or face his wrath. He's my man on the chair but I still gotta listen when he says, Back Off!

The Moors still got one territory left in Western Africa. Its way down below. Its taking a while to march an army down there to grab it. Other than that right now I'm just building up my tired armies and my economy. I'm turning all my castles into towns and cities now since all of Spain and most of North Africa is mine. Just leaving Pamplona nd Bordeux as castles for now to guard my northern border.

Once I take that last Moorish territory the campaign is technically over. I dont know if I'll play more or move onto another faction. I'll probably save the campaign in case I want to come back to it. I still havent seen the Americas yet nor have I seen these Mongols and gunpowder. I'm still in the very early 1200s.

[ChewieTobbacca]

I'm playing as Spain currently with one year = one turn on VH/VH and i'm in the late 1200's now (which would be 1400's in a standard year game) and let me tell you something: late end Spain units are unstoppable.

In fact, the only "knight" units I use now, are Gendarmes, which don't really count as they are just heavy professional cavalry from cities. A line of Tercio Pikemen, supported by Musketeers or Pavise Crossbowmen, Sword and Buckler melee support, and a mix of artillery or Mounted Crossbows for skirmishing is incredible. Couple that with their fast movement speeds and lighter armor (only Gendarmes really face any penalties vs. units that are effective vs. armor) and i've been able to mow down army after army of all sorts.

[Quillan]

Yes, Spain does get pikemen, and good ones too. I expect the Holy Roman Empire might have better, but nobody else does. Swiss pikes are in the game, but only as mercenaries after a certain date. To train Tercio pikemen, a city has to get to huge unit size, and then build a Military Academy (4800 florins and 4 turns, IIRC). The academy is well worth building anyway; park a general there for a while and he'll pick up the Academy Trained trait later superceded by the Officer Training trait. These are worth +1 and +2 to command, respectively. There are no building prerequisites for the Military Academy either, just the huge size requirement. It can later be upgraded to a Royal Officer's Academy, for 9600 florins. This allows the building of Gendarmes and increases the pool of pikemen from 4 to 6 units max.

The gunpowder infantry are also trained in cities. Once gunpowder is developed, you get two new barracks buildings. The highest level barracks buildable prior to the discovery (Militia Barracks) enables the recruiting of handgunners once gunpowder is developed. Following the militia barracks, you build an Army Barracks (6 turns and 12,000 florins) to allow recruitment of Arquebusiers, and then upgrade that to a Royal Barracks (8 turns and 15,000 florins) to be able to recruit musketeers.

[Aldaris]

Well, this will be my first post on this forum, and I am making it about my current favourite faction, the spanish.

It was said earlier that the spanish do not have good infantry in the early stage. Tis is not really true, you get the almughuvars, and those are great if used right. The almughuvars are javelineers with decent to good melee ability, and that makes them a great asset.
A typical main army of the spanish in the early stage should consist of 2-3 jinettes (javelin cavalry), 2-3 mailed knights, a general, 4 crossbows (peasant archers will do in a pinch if those are not yet available) and 4-5 almughuvars (with skirmish turned off). Top this up with spear militia if you feel like it, but it's not really necessary.
Use your jinettes to harry the enemy heavy cavalry, as those are the greatest threat to your main line. Neither the crossbows nor the almughuvars will take a cavalry charge without falling like flies. Place the crossbows in the front line with the almughuvars behind. The knights secure the flanks. Advance into range and bombard with crossbows and, when you get closer, javelins. The latter are really deadly, especially when you have the high ground. Don't be afraid to maneuver at speed to gain that advantage, you have mostly light troops who can take it pretty well. Concentrate your barrage on one section of the enemy line, then cease fire and let your knights punch through (don't let 'em linger in melee). immediately after that, charge the almughuvars forward and use your knights and jinettes to attack the rear if the enemy cavalry is dealt with, if not, concentrate your horse on those. Your shooters can run to an opportune spot to shoot the flanks or rear or engage in melee, if that is too risky. Use them to complete envelopments, never on their own. They should only add to the "oh hell, we are surrounded"-syndrome.
This works great against most armies, against cavalry-heavy troops, increase the number of jinettes and knights and concentrate your fire accordingly.

[Mazoch]

Some random thoughts on Spain.

Starting out
Spain’s strength is defiantly their cavalry in the starting phases of the game. I found myself filling my armies with at least half to two thirds Calvary, add a few spears and a few archers and great army for early warfare.

My general strategy would be to use mailed knights or spear to attack the enemy from the front while Jinettes would attack the flank / rear of the unit at the same time. When able I'd wait out sieges to force the battle outside where I could make full use of my cavalry.

Overall my basic plan was to focus on taking the entire Spanish peninsula. This would give me a large area that should be fairly well defended

In my first turns I ignored El Cid and grabbed a fair stack and headed to Zaragosa, I also send a princess to Pamplona. I manage to marry her to the family member on Pamplona and as such could grab the city without a fight (though it does result in war with Portugal). I decided to stay out of southern France.. Plenty of opportunities towards the south and with England, France and Milan all shooting for the area i figured I'd stay clear.

Already at war with Portugal it seemed clear that I needed to finish off Portugal asap before the moors decided to join the fun. Ultimately they declared war on me a couple of turns before I attacked and occupied Lisbon.

I scrambled to regroup, after some tough fighting I drop the moors out of Spain.

The joy of crusading
The dissertation issues with crusades can be a hassle, but for Spain these can be avoid relatively easily, and crusades provide an idea way to expand your influence without breaking your finances.

You can avoid crusades as long as you move closer (or at least don't move away) from your destination). So the trick is to plan tings so you can continue moving towards your destination while still picking up a few holdings on the way. There are two huge benefits to crusades: 1) Crusading units has no upkeep, being able to send a full stack of high end units into battle without upkeep saves you a quick 2-3000 a turn. At the earlier stages of the game, this is the kind of money that can make or break your empire in the making. 2) Cheap powerful units. Crusader knights and sergeants cost next to nothing (I can’t remember the precise numbers but good spearmen for under 300 and knights for less than 500? and no upkeep?).

As I see it you have two ways to use your crusade:
1) When the crusade is called quickly gather the general you want to use, a ballista (or catapult) and 6 other units (archers might be a good idea as there is no cheap crusade ranged units to be bought) in Valencia. Gather as many ships as you can spare at the time (5-6 would be a solid fleet this early in the game) and join the crusade. Your real goal is not actually the holy land but rather establishing a solid base of operations in the central and eastern Mediterranean. First stop is Corsica. The two islands in-between Spain and Italy and almost certainly still rebel. Disembark, siege and attack in the same turn. With your siege weapon and full stack of crusading units there is no reason to waste time. By the end of your turn you should have taken the settlement and be back in your ship and heading towards the second of the islands. Next turn take the second island in the same way as the first and head into East. You second stop is almost all the way to the holy land. Rhodes (along the Turkish coast) tends to remain rebel for a long time and would be an idea staging point for future crusades and East Med navel base. The last leg of the journey can be tough as you’re likely to be hounded by enemy ships. Get there, unload and grab the castle. You now have three island bases giving you great coverage of the Mediterranean. You have a strong stack already in the east if you want to continue to the holy land, else consider disbanding many of the crusade units as the upkeep becomes brutal once the crusade ends one way or the other, no one is likely to attack your islands anyways.

2) The second approach to the first Crusade.
I haven’t had a chance to experiment with this approach but if done right you should be able to hop to North Africa and march your upkeep free super army easy at a sedate phase, crippling the moors as you go. By the time the crusade ends you should have taken 2-3 Moorish settlements in North Africa, leaving you in a strong position to wipe out the rest of the faction.

[Skott]

I got my tech built up to Bombards and the 2nd level Bombards (foget name) I also have access to those pikemen now. I stopped the campaign there. I took the last Moorish territory finally and put the Moors out of the way which ended the short campaign. I saved game so I can come back to it later if I want.

I started a English long campaign now. My first long campaign. Now that I know what I'm doing I want to see how the English do. I like their infantry better anyway. My strategy is a holdover from RTW basically. Get a good solid line. Back it up with some ranged artillery units (archers and ballistas) and a couple of cavaly units to cover the flanks. Move in to artillery range and let the ranged units weaken the enemy and then once its exausted move line up to engage and send in cavalry to the flanks and roll the enemy flanks up. Standard classic strategy really.

I been doing this with M2TW as well. Knights instead of RTW cavalry. Catapults instead of balista and still using archers but crossbowmen now mostly since they hit harder. And they go up front instead of being behind the linemen. Archers in M2TW arent as accurate it seems. You put them behind troops and they shoot up but not very effective when landing from above. Put them out front they do pretty good in a direct LoS attack but subject to assaults by the enemy lines. And they dont retreat as fast as the RTW units did. The crossbowmen can melee better though than archers from RTW.

The AI more or less stands about and lets me move my lines up just like in RTW. So far M2TW does the same basically in my experiences on M/H and H/H. Kinda dissapointed CA hasnt improved battlefield AI from RTW. I had hoped they changed it. Maybe if I try it on VH?

I did enjoy the Spanish more than I did the Danes. So far though the English suit my tactics best with their better infantry but to be honest I didnt try the Spanish pikemen yet. I want to tech up the English and then compare them to the Spaniards in mid-late game play.

Edit: I didnt try doing a crusade with the Spanish. In other previous games it didnt work for me at all. Nothing but desertions. Plus you can camp a diplomat at Rome and grease the Pope's hand with a little coin and keep him from getting mad at you for not going on crusade. Far as I'm concerned the game's crusade aspect is seriously flawed and I dont like it at all. Not even going to bother with it anymore. I'd love to partake in it but if all thats going to happen is mass desertion then its just pointless. I know I'm being overly critical of it but there it is ::chuckle::