Venice

[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.