Venice

[Quillan]

You can do the same thing with navies. The Papal States usually has one navy roaming around the western Med, and if you catch it next to an enemy fleet you can drag them into the war and cause your opponent to be excommunicated at the same time.

Me, I allied with the Papal States, HRE, and Byzantine Empire at the start, and made a hard choice to keep my global reputation up by not exterminating or sacking any cities and releasing all prisoners without asking for ransom. My relations with all 3 have been solid. Milan was treacherous as usual, and I had to take down their Italian cities (they had taken Dijon in my game) and Sicily jumped in at a later time. I just waited for the inevitable war between the Byzantine Empire and Hungary to break out, got myself dragged into it on the Byzantine side, then took Constantinople from Hungary after they took it from the Byzantines. This might prove to be a trigger for war with my ally, though. The turn I took it, during the end turn cycle, I was attacked by a Byzantine army. The game crashed a few seconds later and I haven't gone back to it yet to see if it will repeat.

[Skott]

I've learned 'sacking' a city, any city, is fine. What you dont want to do is 'exterminate' a city. Thats what gets you into trouble with the Pope and other countries. There are exceptions to this rule.

You can exterminate the town if its:
1)A rebel held town.

2)You can exterminate if its faction has been excommunicated by the Pope. He's never held it against me yet nor has anyone else except maybe the faction I'm at war with.

3)And you can exterminate the town if its a muslim faction and you are playing a Catholic faction. No Catholics care if you kill muslims.

With the exception of those three you can sack everything else and not incur anyone's wrath, including the Pope.

Ransoming survivors is kinda weird in this game. I always try to ransom just to get more cash but more often than not the faction in most cases refuses to pay and the survivors automatically get killed. The AI seems to be pretty harsh about ransoming IMO. It doesnt seem to matter if the amount is small or large. It doesnt like to buy back the lives of its own men. Not that it bothers me any.

[Lobosolitario]

I found the Papal states to be of great use in this campaign (as with any catholic faction). When playing catholics I tend to get an alliance and military access both ways with the Papal states ASAP. It's fairly easy to keep in the Pope's good books after this, by building churches and priests whenever possible, which is good for morale as well, and self-reinforcing, as it improves your chances to control the Papal elections (so far in every game I've played, every Pope after the first one has been from my faction) thus keeping Popes favorable to you in power. Step two of makes you even more popular with the Pope.

When I find myself in a difficult region, with multiple factions bordering me, leading to strained relations and possible military engagements I'd rather avoid, I use the Papal states to create a buffer state. The Pope has always been a great neighbour, with the aforementioned treaties I've never had to worry about Papal armies in the slightest, indeed they've helped me out more than once. This also makes living with the other factions a lot easier, as they're happy to ally and trade with you as long as there are no border clashes, and they're loath to attack the Papal states regions, or to send troops across them. And if they're not catholic, or are sufficiently angry at the Pope to attack, then you have an excuse to launch a crusade against them, restoring the buffer state, and knocking them down a few pegs in the process. If the buffer zone becomes more of a hinderance than a shield, just send troops through to attack the regions on the other side of it with relative impunity. I have Papal states regions dotted throughout my empire, with no problems at all. The only downside is having to follow the basic Papal mandates, so you may not always be able to attack the catholic regions you'd like to. Still, you can generally manoeuvre other rulers into getting themselves excommunicated, take their provinces through diplomacy, or wait for them to otherwise make a mistake. Failing this, spies and a good army mean you can take a city faster than you can be excommunicated, as many people have already pointed out on the forums.

On to Venice.

With Venice, pretexts to fight other catholic rulers aren't much of an issue outside of the Italian peninsula. I decided to focus on the Mediterranean, and develop as a naval and trade power. My main early goal was to expand along the coast to Constantinople, thus ensuring that my main enemies were orthodox or rebels. I also grabbed Florence, sending an army through the Empire territories to do so, in order to keep a favorable power balance in Italy.
To the north of Greece, Zagreb and Sofia can be gifted to the Papal states in order to create a massive buffer zone protecting you from interference by Hungary and the Empire in all of the region. I held onto Zagreb, as it's my only castle in the area, not wanting to sacrifice any of the coastal provinces for this task. This caused a lot of headaches with both the Empire and Hungary, eventually leading to a short vicious war which could probably have been avoided, and has benefitted me very little, as I still haven't had much use from the Zagreb troops. I engaged in extensive diplomacy in the opening turns in Italy, gaining alliances with all the local factions bar the Empire, although only the Papal states had a full military access agreement with me. A possible early move would be to buy Bologna (from memory, may actually be a different region, the region directly south of Venice) from the Empire before it is built up too much, as this would save a lot of friction. I didn't manage this either, another cause of the later war. Still, intensive diplomacy managed to keep northern Italy in an uneasy peace until I had conquered Constantinople, reduced the Byzantine empire to a handful of far flung colonies and gifted Nicaea to the Pope, giving me a buffer from the Turks.
Around this time, Milan betrayed our alliance, and started a pointless blockade on Florence. Their land armies didn't press the advantage, and I was able to snatch both Genoa and Milan (with the help of a good spy) from them in one turn, placing them firmly on the back foot. I consolidated this advantage by quickly pushing forward to Marseille, which became my western Papal states buffer, keeping Milan, France and Spain out of my affairs. Now separated from me by this new buffer state, the Milanese were quick to agree to a ceasefire, which lasted until I had a force in place to take over their island holdings, reducing them to a land power. This damaged my standing a fair bit with the other factions, and noone trusts me any more, but since I'm ranked first across the board, it's not much of an issue.
With east and west secured for the time being, I turned my attention north. Abysmal relations with the Empire (which now had both Milan and Hungary as vassals, thus taking up 100% of my northern border) had deteriorated into open war after the Milan crisis, a few clumsy bribe attempts on Bologna and finally, a failed assassination attempt on an Imperial family member (who was sitting a few miles from Milan with a decent sized army). I took advantage of the opening turns to smash Bologna with three armies from Florence, Genoa and Venice, and then sat back to defend my northern border. Not long after, the Emperor had been excommunicated, and I was able to call a crusade on a city deep in the middle of Imperial territory. In this short but nasty war the Empire lost around three-four stacks of troops, and the regions of Innsbruck, Vienna, Budapest (the last remaining Hungarian region), and I lost two stacks of my own. When the dust settled, however, I had a solid Papal border consisting of Marseille-Innsbruck-Vienna-Budapest-Sofia cutting me off from the whole of catholic Europe. The two Imperial territories I took beyond this buffer I gifted to Scotland and Spain, improving relations with them dramatically, as well as making northern Europe even more chaotic.
Since that war, the only catholic opponent I have had has been Sicily, who I have methodically ousted from Italy, Sicily and northern Africa as I attempt to dominate the mediterranean. Progress is slow, as the Pope doesn't approve, but city by city the Sicilians are being wiped out, and Papal relations are good due to all the huge cathedrals being built with the mediterranean riches.
Now my attention has been drawn back to the east, with the turks warring on the Pope in Nicaea, I went to his rescue, and met the Mongols coming the other way. Currently I am bogged down in a massive war of attrition in Turkey as I wear down the Mongols and their damned full silver chevron starting armies. One full stack of my troops can just about defeat one of theirs in the open (medium difficulty), which seems a good deal, as mine are raw recruits, and therefore limitless, and theirs are elites, and therefore limited. So far this is the only serious military opposition I've faced in the campaign, and I'm enjoying it, or at least I was up until, after a long and arduous siege battle where I managed to fight off a full stack of Mongols with a half stack of mercenaries and cavalry militia, the game promptly crashed as they tried to withdraw through a mountain :/

Future targets are to gain the upper hand against the Mongols, and spread along the eastern and southern Mediterranean. After that Russia is a good source of non-catholic provinces, or I hope to opportunistically pick Europe apart with crusades as various faction leaders fall out with the Pope, in order to complete my region quota. Or perhaps a few ships from Venice can set sail to America, once it becomes available.

Militarily I haven't got much advice to give. I'm still working out the ins-and-outs of the Venetian units, which are quite specialised. Pike militia have performed well, holding Mongol full silver chevron units far longer than my other units (my cavalry invariably vanishes under a pile of light horse, and dies to a man). Musketeers have shown promise in the first battle I fought with them. The army was decimated, but the muskets caused some serious damage before it happened, and I look forward to seeing them defending castle walls. Venetian heavy infantry give a good account of themselves, and work well with the pike militia, although I preferred dismounted knights for the flanks, due to their morale bonuses. The heavy infantry performed much better against cavalry though, the knights tend to get massacred if caught out by cavalry units. A half hexagon in a wooded area, with pikes on the front, supported by heavy infantry, knights and a carroccio, and with decent ranged and cavalry support (so far my default army is 5 pike, 2 heavy, 2 knights, 1 carroccio, 5 ranged, 5 cavalry) performs pretty well against the mongols. I tend to lose a lot of the ranged support and cavalry, the first because I prefer to sacrifice them rather than risk the integrity of the pike wall, and the second because I hit any weak spot I can see with the cavalry until the enemy routs or the cavalry are all dead (and since the mongols are so damned tough, even archers can absorb a charge, and give back a fair bit of punishment, so the cavalry tends to get steadily chewed up). Still, at the end of the battle, the mongols have taken heavier and more valuable losses. On hard/very hard this will probably not be possible though, as it's a pretty close battle on medium.

-Lobo

Congratulations on maintaining such a great forum by the way, the Org has been my first stop for TW information since Rome, and I wish I'd known about it when I had Shogun. I've never got round to posting before, but I figured it was about time I gave something back ;)

[XiahouPing]

I've noticed in my 2 campaigns as Venice, as soon as one faction attacks you, another 2 or 3 will jump on the bandwagon next turn, even if you have had alliances with them and whatnot. Make sure you have enough power to push the enemies back. Just thought I would point it out to the people who are thinking of playing Venice. :)

[Owen Glyndwr]

idk if ythis is a little off-topic or anything, but how do you make the merchants better. Even with a master merchant's guild, my merchants get wiped out 2 or 3 turns after i make them. It's really frustrating to me.

[oz_wwjd]

yeah I've just about given up using them cause there's a swarm of HRE and Milan merchants roaming around,and as soon as I produce a merchant they follow it until they catch up with it and exterminate it,so any help on how to aviod this would be appreciated.On another point is having a castle neccesary? So far I've defended my cities nicely with Italian Mitilia and Italian Pavise crossbowmen mitilia,with a few calvary units thrown in for good measure

[Nepereta]

the venetian archers and infantry are very respectable units. Well worth producing the infantry at least. For cavalry my suggestion is go on the crusades and get a chapter house.

[rvg]

When playing Venice I find that securing Northern Italy for yourself is the best way to ensure total economic domination. I do take Durazzo to prevent the Byzantines from having a port in the Adriatic, but other than that, my cities of interest are Bologna, Florence, Milan and Genoa.

Buying Bologna from the Germans is a must, as is the immediate attack on Florence. Milan and Genoa can wait until after the imminent sneak attack from the Milanese. In the meantime, send your best diplomat on a naval world tour and get trade agreements with EVERYBODY. As far as defense goes, I set up a couple of forts in the mountain passes near Durazzo; this usually makes the Byzantines completely lose interest in waging war on me. They become a reliable trading partner + training grounds for my priests.

Some light expansion onto mediterranean islands is okay, but not overall crucial. Ragusa is the only castle you'll ever need, so dont forget to convert those island castles into something more useful.

Some forts in the mountains North of Venice and (eventually) around Milan will completely secure your money pit. Now settle down and build-build-build.
I tend to ignore crusades, as they accomplish little other than disrupting my trade, just remember to buy the Pope's affection as necessary. Chivalry points are nice and all, but my army of assassins that I employ on a regular basis means that the Doge slips back into dread within a few turns, and I dont really *need* the Crusading Orders anyway. Yes, they are cool, but overall unnecessary. Not to mention that keeping an outremer city happy and productive is a royal pain, and not worth the lost trade revenue in the long run.

Anyhow, from this point on the Venetian faction will be making so much money that victory will be a 100% certainty, so I tend to take it easy and enjoy the game without the need for a mad expansion in all directions...

From here on I start to quietly kill the weak (Sicilians, whatever remains of the Milanese) without attracting too much attention from the Pope.

[oz_wwjd]

I must say Everyone being at war once one person attacks in pretty spot on.First the Byzantines attacked to try and take Ragusa,and promptly got their butts kicked,then the next turn The Polish attacked Zagreb,and the HRE and Hungarians decided to set up a naval blockade of all my ports.I wasn't able to get them to agree to sell Bologna to me early on so now the HRE are being a pain and using it as there base,and I'm having a hard time scraping together the cash for the units to take it,and fight off 2 naval blockades and the Polsih at the same time. I control Venice,Florence,Zagreb,Iraklion, and Sofia,Rhodes, Antioch,and Aleppo.Any tips about how to fight out of the 3-sided war?Rhodes is my only castle as I thought I'd make a good base for my conquest of the Bzyantine Empire eventually.

[PseRamesses]

Hmm, there´s a lot of blitz-strategies in this thread so here´s a different approach:
1. Ally with all neighbours. I tend to go with "pay me 100f/turn for X turns-alliances"
2. Take Rhodos, convert to town.
3. Take Durazzo. Will act as bait for the Byzantines later and I´d rather have Cyprus than Durazzo, he he!
4. Buy Bologna from the HRE. A 500f/ turn for 10 turns or 1000 for 5 will do it.
5. Launch a crusade on Tunis and on the way there take Florence, Ajaccio, Cagliari. (After taking Tunis I usually let it rebel)

I play RD´s Iron mod so taking Zagreb is not an option since the Magyars has a stack there and will take it on turn 1 or 2. The starting strategy with Venice is weather to take Italy or Byzantium. Personally I don´t like destroying factions so I tend to go with making Milan and Sicily my vassals and later removing the Byzantines from the Balkans and Greece. In all my camp´s as Venice I´ve only used one castle - Ragusa. Venetian HI and archers are really good units but the bulk of my army the first 100 turns are the excellent militia units reinforced with some knights from Ragusa castle.

6. I keep the pope busy with crusades against x-coms. I´d like to arrive in the Holy Lands late to fight stronger muslim forces. The muslims in M2 are redicilously weak. One of the largest flaws in the game IMHO. The RD-mod however allows homelands to bolster besieged settlements with additional troops which really makes it hard to take them. Jerusalem is one of thoose.
7. The crusades. Most of the time I just settle for Antioch, Aleppo, Damascus, Acre and Jerusalem converting all castles to towns since Acre is more useful economically as a settlement. If I must have a castle in this region my choice will always be Aleppo.

Venice is all about trade and naval domination. The faction specific buildings doesn´t directly hurt those ambitions.

[xseabrookx]

Just completed a long campaign with Venice. As said before, move your whole army out with your faction leader from Venice and siege Bologna right away on the first turn. You should have two units merc spearmen to hire and one unit of merc crossbow? On the 2nd turn I auto calc the battle and I won on VH/VH. Once I got excom. on turn two but I restarted and the Pope didn't excom me. After that HRE asked me for peace. Taking Bologna really helped.
After you take Bologna on turn two, move your army out again to take Florence.

My mistake was letting Milan stayed around for too long. They kept attacking me in Florence and Bologna.

The town Duranzo has only a 400 starting population and I had to wait a very long time for it to be of any use. For some reason I can't find its name in desc_strat.txt. The AI seems to have population + bonus on harder difficulties. You can use this small village as bait for the Byzantines. They'll send armies to Duzano. If they do send armies, send some militia units on ships your island city and take Corith in two turns.

[Quillan]

It's Durazzo. The files may spell it differently than it shows on the map, not sure.

[PseRamesses]

I did a search today, after xseabrookx´s post, but didn´t find it either.

[Gingivitis]

And now I had to go try and find it. No luck. Searched by population and not name and there wasn't anything in the file with a starting population of 400. Saw Durazzo in other files, but not in the strat one, weird.

[Didz]

Having read this thread I am now really worried about the future of my current Venetian campaign. I have succeeded in making just about every mistake this thread warns against.

I have taken Zagreb, and I have also taken Durazzo and Rhodes in accordance with council requests.

I have also allied with the Milanese, the HRE, Hungary and Byzantium.

So, basically, if this thread is correct I have set myself up for a crushing defeat. However, at the moment I seem to be doing ok…the Byzantines especially seem to be ignoring me completely. Nevertheless I am worried.

What I have done, which might save my hide later is build a number of watchtowers along my Eastern and Northern borders which allow me to monitor foriegn troops movements well into their own territory. So, for example, I was able to watch the Byzantines muster a huge army just outside Thessalonica and was able to watch with relief as it marched off to the East instead of towards me.

The other precaution I have taken is to post a diplomat permanently outside Rome ready to rush into an audience with his Holiness at the first sign of serious trouble and hand him any of my doomed cities as a personal gift.

So, my strategy, such as it is, is to milk Durazzo and Rhodes for as long as I can, but if it looks like they are going to be taken to sell up and give the empty shell to the Pope. Hopefully, that will either dissuade the invasion force from attacking and earn me some final brownie points with his Holiness or better still instigate a Holy War between the Pope and the aggressors which I can exploit to my advantage.

What I am actually more worried about is the fact that I have left the Milanese and HRE alone for too long. The HRE still rule Bologna and have a massive army in it which keeps dithering in and out of the city as though the Emperor would like to do something with it but can’t make up his mind what. I assume he is thinking about taking Florence which is still rebel, and also happens to be my next likely target too.

I suspect that war with the HRE is going to be inevitable, but is going to place enormous strain on my armed forces particularly as my main arsenal is based in Ragusa. Ragusa is a long march from Venice, let alone Florence and the only sensible option is to retain naval dominance in the Adriatic Sea so that my armies can be ferried rapidly back and forth as demands require. So, far that has just involved dealing with the odd pirate fleet, but sooner or later my 'allies' are bound to start sending fleets in there and a naval arms race is going to kick-off.

Its all a bit dodgy and ‘defeat is a distinct possibility’.

[Quillan]

Not necessarily, Didz. In my Venetian campaign, I took Zagreb, Durazzo and Rhodes as well. I was betrayed and attacked by Milan in the early going, and Hungary made a few threatening moves, but my alliances with the Byzantines and Holy Roman Empire were rock solid for a century and a half. Of course, I deliberately released all prisoners and never sacked or exterminated a city in order to keep my reputation up, and gifted those two factions with money a lot to keep our relationships up as well. Venice is a potent faction with good troops. Just make sure you take Florence, and get Genoa when the inevitable war with Milan breaks out. Genoa/Florence can make an obscene amount of money, especially if you own Ajaccio and Cagliari as well.

[Didz]

Well I bottled out on my original strategy and decided to take the general advice given above and attack the Milanese.

To be honest they were asking for it as both Milan and Genoa were hardly garrissoned and their armies were out of sight campaigning somewhere in France. I took Milan in a rush assault, at which point Hungary and the HRE immediately cancelled their alliances, but did nothing else.

The Milanese threw everything they could muster at a counter-assault on Milan which only acheived a further weakening on Genoa which I walked into and took the next turn after an epic field battle outside its walls.

With my army now split between garrisons in Milan and Genoa the Milanese attempted another counter strike at Milan with an army marched in from France. This resulted in a pretty close fought battle in the streets of the city in which the 'arse-kicking' incident I mentioned in the 'Hooked on Detail' thread occurred.

The Pope had already issued his 'stop killing christians' warning and so having fought off this assault I stopped all further aggressive action and satisfied myself with bolstering my garrissons in my new acquisitions.

In the meantime, the Byzantines have been getting more aggressive. They actually landed a small army of 2 units on Rhodes and it still sits there, although the fleet that dropped it off scarpered when my own galleys appeared on the horizon.

Elsewhere, I watched the appearance of a full stack Byzantine army near Thessalonica which closed steadily on Durazzo. However, I had plenty of time to prepare my contingency plans and when it was only one turn away I simple sold all the buildings in the city, loaded my garrison onto my waiting fleet, sailed away to Venice before handing over Durazzo to the Pope as a personal gift.

At this point the Byzantines did a rapid U-Turn and marched back the way they came.

So, I've lost Durazzo but gained Milan and Genoa, next stop Florence and then perhaps those germans in Bologna will need some attention. Also Hungary just got ex-commed but at the moment I don't have the troops to expliot it.

[pockettank]

i played a sort campgain w/ Venice to unlock all factions quite fast:

1.build up armies conquer Milan ASAP while slowly taking greece
2.if milan didnt have it try to beat france/germany to dijon and bern
3.after taking all of greece let constantinople fall to rebels -to expensive to hold up- then conquer all of asia minor
4. -Victory-

PS) i never got ventian heavy inf but i did have a 9* general who conquered asia minor

[Unorthodox]

I usually leave Durazzo alone (or if you want to take it for a Council of Nobles mission, that's fine, but after that you should sack it and let it rebel). The Byzantines want to take it and you really don't need to be in a war with them early on, when you've got the rest of Italy to deal with. The direction the Byzantines are coming from means they'll be attacking Ragusa, which is your strongest point to defend anyway. Initially you should focus on Milan and Sicily. Milan will attack you and eventually get excommunicated, which makes it easy to take their cities (you can even call Crusades on them, which is a nice boost). Buying Bologna from the HRE is also useful, since it means you don't have to get them involved in the Italian war. Once you've got all of Italy (Sicily will eventually attack you too), Cagliari and Ajaccio, then I think is the ideal time to turn on the Byzantines.

You should have a very strong economy, and as such, can afford a very wide and crippling attack on the Byzantines. Your first moves should be to take Rhodes (if you haven't already done so) from the Rebels and Nicosia from the Byzantines. Assemble powerful armies at the following locations: Ragusa, Iraklion, Rhodes, and Nicosia. Then, all in one go, march/sail your armies like so:
Ragusa -> Durazzo OR Sofia
Iraklion -> Corinth
Rhodes -> Thessalonica OR Smyrna
Nicosia -> Smyrna OR Iconium

If they've taken Iconium, then use your Nicosia army to take that, and then move your army from Rhodes to Smyrna. This means you don't attack Thessalonica yet, but it'll be easy pickings after you gain control of both Corinth and Sofia/Durazzo. This means that in the matter of a few turns, you'll have control of the Byzantines' coast on the Mediterranean, which takes away a huge number of their settlements and cripples their economy. The large scale of the attack also makes it hard for them to respond - they may be able to reinforce or counter-attack into one region, but either way, you'll still take at least 3 of their settlements. Then, from Durazzo/Corinth/Thessalonica, you can march on Constantinople or Sofia (if you left it alone - if you didn't, then you can easily take Durazzo, which should be isolated in the middle of your provinces anyway), and use the armies in Smyrna/Iconium (if you took it) to take Nicaea.

[Didz]

Another option is to capture Durazzo and then gift it to the Pope, that gets you extra POM points (I'm current his most loved follower with 8/10) and leaves Durazzo as a buffer zone between you and the Byzantines with Papal protection. I did this just before a large Byzantine Army descended upon it and they did a very rapid U-Turn and dissapeared back over the border sharpish.

However, I'm playing the short campaign so I have no real interest in starting a global war. I've eliminated the Milanese faction and so all I need to do is eliminate the Byzantines to win.

I tired buying Bolgona but the Emperor wouldn't sell so at the moment I am allied with them and won't bother them unless they bother me. Venice, Milan, Genoa, Florence, Zagreb, Ragusa and most recently Bern are all I own atm but I am getitng decent revenue and so far I am the strongest faction. I am just building up my ecomony and technology before striking eastwards to win the game.

[Unorthodox]

As far as I know, the HRE will always sell Bologna (at least in the early game, where keeping it doesn't seem to be in their interests - understandably so, because I've never seen them hold on to it for longer than 10-15 turns), as long as the price is right. Some people have gotten it for something like 500/turn for 10 turns, but for me it always cost over 10,000 florins. However, in all my games, they've ended up selling to me, even if I was at war with them.

[Didz]

Hmm! well I tried right at the start of my latest campaign and they wouldn't sell it. Perhaps I just didn't have enough money at the time.

The situation there is rather weird atm, as I am allied with them and the city was just put under seige by an amphibious assualt force from the Byzantine. I thought I'd let it fall and then liberate it as I need to start a war with the Byzantines anyway as I have to eliminate their faction. But on the second turn of the seige they suddenly agreed terms and ordered a ceasefire, so atm I have a massive HRE Army and a massive Byz army both camping in Bologna.

[Quillan]

At the start of my Venice campaign, it cost me 1000 per turn for 7 turns to buy Bologna, but I didn't bring up the subject until after I'd secured an alliance with them (paying them for it as well), so that might have influenced the cost. You have to play around a bit with the figures to see what they'll accept.

[KyodaiSteeleye]

Well, I'm just at the start of (my third attempt) at a VH/VH venetian campaign, and I have some advice on how NOT to start. I've decided to play this campaign with the aim of securing the whole Mediterranean - anyway, the first two campaigns I did my usual of leaving factions alone unless they attack me first, and went after Durazzo. Unfortunately, the Byzantines seem to always be after this too, so will attack you at the first opportunity. The Sicilians also seem to be scripted to land a full stack outside of Ragusa and attack it in about turn 6. Then you just have to deal with a follow up attack from Milan on Venice, and if you have taken Florence, and amphibious assault by the Moors (the Moors? what the hell do the Moors want with Florence?).

Anyway, both campaigns ended with me having my arse handed to me. Unfortunately, at this level, it seems the only way to survive is to buy Bologna, which comes a bit into 'cheesy' tactics in my book, but hey..
So, in my third attempt I now have a small power base of Venice/Bologna and Florence. I didn't go after Durazzo this time, but left the Byzantines to get it - they're now gunning for Ragusa, but at least I had time to build up some forces there. The Sicilians didn't send all their armies to Ragusa this time, which is a relief, except they've just sent them up to Bologna instead. The Moors have just started seiging Florence again. I'm in a better position as I have a good stack in northern Italy to take these two armies out, I'm just hoping that Milan doesn't join the party, or i'll be stuffed again.

This is by far the hardest faction i've played so far, at least in the early game (experience of England/Poland/Egypt).

[Didz]

....the first two campaigns I did my usual of leaving factions alone unless they attack me first, and went after Durazzo.

I did that also, but I waited until the Council offerred me 2,500 florins for doing it. Its quite easy to take and so worth doing just for the cash, the trick is not to keep it too long.

What I do is capture it and milk it for as much tax revenue as I can for as long as possible. By building a watch tower at the head of the pass to the East you can easily monitor Byzantine activity as far away as Thesselonica and when it becomes apparent that the Byz are coming to get you, wait till the last moment and then sell all your buildings except the Church, load your garrison onto your waiting fleet and then sell, or more realistically gift, Durazzo to the Pope.

This will earn you several brownie points on the Pope-o-Meter, send the Byzantines scurrying back to thesselonic with their tails between their legs and set Durazzo up as a buffer zone between you for a hell of a long time.

I use the same strategy with any cities I capture during crusades. I am not interested in liberating The Holy Land, particularly with the Mongols and Timurid's on the horizon, and so for me the crusades are just money making ventures. Any cities I capture are milked for as much revenue as I can squeeze out of them, then stripped of their assets, and handed to the Pope. Consequently, his Hattiness likes Venice a lot.

....The Sicilians also seem to be scripted to land a full stack outside of Ragusa and attack it in about turn 6.

That's never happened to me, certainly not on turn 6, perhaps it depends on the difficulty level you have chosen to play. In my game the Sicilians have been 'pussy cats' and no real trouble at all.

....Then you just have to deal with a follow up attack from Milan on Venice,

I have accepted the advice given elsewhere on this thread and concluded, that no matter how 'peaceful' one would like to be, leaving the Milanese Faction in the game too long will reap you a shed load of grief later.

For some reason the Milanese seem to be able to churn units out at a phenominal rate, I've literally seen slaughtered armies withdraw into Genoa restock completely in one turn and come right back at me the next.

Take 'em out as early as possible, is the only strategy that seems to make sense. They seem to be the Hojo's of MTW2.

....and if you have taken Florence, and amphibious assault by the Moors (the Moors? what the hell do the Moors want with Florence?).

Not seen this before either, but as a general observation, playing Venice and not having naval dominance in the Adriatic is dodgy at best. If nothing else, in the early game the benefits of being able to ferry units back and forth from Venice to Ragusa necessitates not giving pirates or rival factions the chance to interfere.

I usually have at least 2x5 vessel fleets on patrol in the Adriatic at all times and upgrade them to Wargalley's as soon as funds allow. This might be why I haven't witnessed these naval invasions you mention, which is even more reason for doing so.

Fleets are expensive to maintain, but I find them essential for Venice. Not just to ferry armies back and forth quickly, but also because I need strong fleets to get my Crusading Armies back after their trips to The Holy Land. The revenue from these trips more than pays for the galley's needed to bring my troops home and once they are safely in Venice, I disband the mercenary galleys and merge the best of the rest into my Adriatic patrols,

An obvious pre-requisite of this strategy is to keep a Diplomat on permanent duty outside Rome, ready to rush into the Papal Palace and give the Pope anything which it looks likely I am going to lose anyway. That Diplomat also manages to pay his own wages by constantly pestering the Pope with copies of new maps he has been sent by my Crusading Armies. They usually sell for around 200-400 Florin's each but he won't buy a new one every turn.

[oz_wwjd]

I have a question. If the byzantines start fielding large amount of their HA units specifally Vardariotai in their armies what's the best way to counter? I can whiddle them down with my crossbowmen but it takes a while and I seem to suffer more losses in the process....

[Didz]

I have a question. If the byzantines start fielding large amount of their HA units specifally Vardariotai in their armies what's the best way to counter? I can whiddle them down with my crossbowmen but it takes a while and I seem to suffer more losses in the process....

As I've said elsewhere HA's are probably the most frustrating units in the game to deal with. With the Mongol ones I dealt with them by letting the Mongols beseige my cities and shooting them down from my castle walls durnig sally battles.

In the open field I haven't really found any alternative that works consistently other than Mutaully Assured Destruction. Crossbowmen in open order can usually give as good as the get and at least kill them. Chasing them around with cavalry can sometimes corner them and drive them off the battlefield but they just come back next turn.

Very occassionally they get 'too cocky' and you can slip units behind them and sandwich them between several units so that they don't have anywhere to run but thats pretty rare and not very practical if they are part of an army. I even tried bringing back mercenary horse archers from the crusades but that's really just a more expensive version of the M.A.D. solution, its probably cheaper to use crossbowsmen and use your own HA's against a opponent that doesn't have any.

[KyodaiSteeleye]

Thanks Didz - interesting - I guess playing Venice means I have to change my playing strategy and be more agressive (which I don't like doing - I'm not an agressive person!). I have to say I've had to disband the starting fleets for Venice as in the early game they've been too expensive for me to maintain, whilst also fielding an adequate set of northern and eastern armies and some city/castle building. Granted, once I get better finances i'll be making sure my war galleys rule the waves.

[Didz]

I have to say I've had to disband the starting fleets for Venice as in the early game they've been too expensive for me to maintain,...

Well whilst I can't swear to it, it sounds like you have paid a heavy price for disbanding those fleets by encouraging the Moors and Sicilians to get aggressive. I don't know if the AI is sophisticated enough to recognise the concept of 'a fleet in being' but given that you have had these problems whilst I haven't it sounds like the AI is sensible enough not to risk naval transportation of its armies when his opponent has a strong naval presence.

I suggest in future that you keep at least a token naval force in the Adriatic. Enough to keep the pirates under control and to allow the transport of units to and from Ragusa Castle in safety.

It will be interesting to hear if you still get problems from enemy naval landings having done so.

Money problems for Venice is another issue. I never had much trouble with my economy playing Venice, certainly not as much as playing Russia. Venice is in a good position tradewise which suggests this is another area that needs attention.

[Quillan]

Byzantium in the AI hands never fielded the numbers of horse archers I did when I was playing Byzantium. My typical Byzantine army consisted of 4 Vards, 2 Skythikons and about a dozen Byzantine cavalry with one general and zero foot troops. However, if you do happen to face the predominately horse archer army, I'd recommend using Venetian Archers instead of the crossbow militia to counter, simply because of rate of fire. The archers also have the long range missiles and a higher rate of fire. Turn skirmish off so they don't move, start shooting before they can respond, and concentrate your fire.