Spain

[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::

[KARTLOS]

playing on h/h

i started off by allying with both the portugese and the moors.

i musterd all my forces (leaving toledo unguarded for a couple of turns) and took zaragosa first - as has been mentioned the portugese will get their first and fail in their attempt to take it - thats your chance.

i decided to wait on valencia - it is a tough city to take, so i thought it was unlikley that the moors would get there before me (which proved to be correct)

i moved my army (now nearlly a full stack) up into france - i tokk bordeaux off them and Rennes which was rebel. under pressure from the pope I managed to negotiate toulouse off them for a ceasfire ( it came equiped with troops - never done this before imp impressed)

i then pursuaded the pope to declare crusade on jerusalem. I took a couple of generals, some troops and recruited to full stack with crusade mercs. I had another non-crusading general follow along behind with some milita troops.
I hired cursade merc boat in south of france. first stop ajaccio, second stop florence. The cusade army moved on imediately after taking these territories and the following non crusade general came in after to garrison the new territories. I recruited more crusade mercs in italy and split into two forces. and moved overland down towards the heel where i recruited two new crusade merc ships.
next stop durazzo and corinth both byzantine territories. both taken after one turn of seige. ( tip - to garrison territories whilst on crusade move your general out of the crusade stack recruit mercs - put them in the city, move the crusade stack back to the general and rejoin the crusade. I have also noticed that if you leave crusade troops behind in a city they dont desert into thin air, but just stay in the city.)
The army from corinth moved on to take smryna, whilst the durazzo army too corinth and then byzantium. I ignored nicosia as it was too well defended and moved both armies on to take iconium (also byzantine at this point). i have scurted around adana as it was guarded by almost a full stack of byzantines and i ma about to start moving through the middle east - where helpfully i hhave been able to replenish my severely depleted armies with fresh crusade mercs.
amusingly when i arrived in anatolia i was aproached by the egyptians for a ceasefire (They own Jerusalem so when i joined the crusade it automatically declared war on them) I was able to get 8grand for this! and im just about to break the peace!
Ive been left with a very scattered empire so it should be fun connecting the dots. I think the byzantines might take back a few of their cities but i am not too bothered by this as i got a lot of loot from them, plus i think the idea of a crusading army going on the rampage and taking every city they can is quite historical.

note- i have lost a few troops to desertion, when ive waited to pacify a territory, but not too much, and the cost of rectruiting new mercs pales against the plunder + income from a city.

[Owen Glyndwr]

In my Spanish Campaign, the Pope called a crusade on Rome (The Sicilians took it, making it very hard for me to butter up the pope, because i can't find him), and it was pretty much a joke from the getgo. I only joined it because my standing with the pope was suffering, and I was planning an invasion of Briton. I was getting desertion after desertion because I was having a hard time simply getting off the Iberian peninsula lol. But now that I'm going, I'm well on my way to rome!

[sturmgrenadier]

Vicarious' post was funny; I didn't realize that 'MY LITTLE PONY' was a sanitized substitute for a curse word until I read the later posts by the moderator and such. This newb thought that he was saying that a cavalry heavy, computer-controlled enemy was marching on one of his cities:) I want to commend him for his exceelent command of the English language; I was very surprised to find out that he is a native Nrowegian and not an ex-pat Yankee living in Oslo. To business, though...

I'm playing my first campaign as Spain on VH/H (am I correct in discerning that the protocol is to list the difficulty of the game setting as a whole (strategy) first and then battle difficulty?). Although I've been a big fan of the TW series having played each of its main variants (Shogun, MTW, Rome), I've experienced much more success (and far sooner at this point of playing in comparison) with MTW2 than with any of its predeceessors. I won the long campaign playing HRE on M/M after only restarting once. And recently, I won playing France on H/H on my first try. Maybe this was luck and/or these are easy factions. At any rate, my first campaign with Spain has been far more difficuly (and my position is probably doomed at this point).

I only control four cities after about turn thirty-five (Valenica and Lisbon eventually fell). I think my main mistake was squandering so much time trying to take Valencia. I did the spy infilitrate tactic and it worked at opening the gates. And I thought my assault force was big enough. Unfortuantely, my army got routed on three successive tries (save restart used). Ont he first, I made the mistake of charging through with all of my units and (as other posters have pointed out in many threads here) that is a recipe for defeat as the attacker. next two times, I split my forces in two and attacked through two different gates and did a good job of timing my split forces to engage the enemy's (similarly dvided forces) simultaenously. Alas, the result was still the same. My forces ultimetly were routed. I had to go to plan B and seige them until they came out at me (and I easily beat them). But this fatal waste of several turns set me back at a critical time. Mr. Moor was on themrach in the meantime (I had to fight off a couple of sieges by him) and diverting resources to Valencia gave him the time he needed to entrench in Zaraoga (huge army threre) and from reading the posts from more experienced players, I know understand that taking this city early is critical:(

As opposed to with other factions I've played where it is fairly obvious to me where I need to spend haeavily in the eraly going,with Spain, I'm not really clear on whether I should focus on investing in military development, economic development or what in the infancy of my campaign (first thrity turns or so). I suspect that my strategy of taking a middle ground is probably a loser. It doesn't help that Mr. Moor is particuarly aggressive with his prosleytation of my lands early on. I should probably have put fighting this threat to the backburner though (and not spent money on churches and priests, and delaying my delveopment/force building) since it likely only takes a toll in the long run, like a slowly-spreading cancer.ANyway, these are just my newb observations. Any other rookies experiencing thse kind of growing pains? Thanks for your time!

[sturmgrenadier]

How long untila submitted post/reply displays on the thread? I only asked because I submitted a few a paragraphs long one a couple of hours ago and still hasn't appeared. Maybe it didn't take when I pressed the button.I thought it confirmed, though. Alas, a waste of joint flexing:(

[CMcMahon]

I'm at turn... 87, I think, in my Spanish campaign right now. Thus far, I've knocked the Moops (No, it clearly says "The Moops!"), Portugal, and France out of the game, in that order, and am working on taking out Sicily and Milan, which should be semi-easy, if I hadn't taken over half of Egypt early in the game in a crusade, and (to save cash) razed all the buildings in the cities I took before gifting them to Milan. Anyway...

I could go through how I went about it, but all I really have to say is this: every army should be half jinetes, at least until you can start getting KOT and chivalric knights.I have a tactic that pretty much works without fail, as long as you don't choose a wooded area, and the armies are closely enough matched that the enemy will march on you:

1) Set up your infantry in a straight line, general dead center in the back, with any mailed/feudal knights or missile infantry on the flanks. You want them as far back as the map will allow, in order to tire out the enemy as much as possible. These units will NOT move until the enemy general(s) are dead, and half their units are routed.

2) Set up your jinetes in single file formation, off to whatever side the enemy won't be coming from, preferably behind a hill or a stand of trees.

3) Start battle.

4) Walk your jinetes around the enemy, and pull in straight from behind. Turn off skirmish mode, auto-fire, and cantabrian circle. Individually have each unit attack the general unit. Since you're nailing them from behind, they usually won't turn around at all, and usually will be dead before they even have a chance to rout (and, even if they did, they'd have to run through all of your jinetes to begin with). Now start pounding away at whatever units look the strongest with your jinetes, since they're all going for your "heavy" units (the infantry and mailed knights and general), they usually won't turn around.

5.1) If they turn around, charge right into them, as long as they dont have spears. Go two on one if possible, and have one group swing around from the side.

5.2) If they don't turn around, keep killing until you run out of javelins. Then pull your units back a bit, and charge. But don't aim at units... just set all of your jinetes to run straight back at your general, through the the enemy units (who should be fairly close to your infantry line now). Now have your heavy cavalry swoop oin from the sides, while your infantry marches headon.

Works every time, at least for me.