Venice

**Prussian to the Iron** · 01-23-2009, 16:21

venice was actually my first faction playing m2 the first time around, and i continued on it until my comp. crashed and had to start over. i loved venice, mostly the balance of units, with the venetian heavy infnatry, the venetian archers, the cavalry, the exotic units, as well as the generic west european units(i use retrofit mod 1.0 with the grand unit addon mod on it now) i think venice is a very stable country to start with, being wealthy, in a good starting position, and with strong units all together.

with the islands, i usually turn them into huge cities with a small garrison of militia units, and secure trade rights with just about everyone around, making them trade centers in the eastern mediterranean. same with italian islands

**Polemists** · 02-15-2009, 12:48

I think i'm going to have get fraps again once etw comes out, I forgot how fun it is to video tape your empire and battles.

Anyway,

I am playing venice at the moment, after a not so hot run with sicily and denmark (Go read Mtw2 general forums)

Venice is SHOCKINGLY easy for me thus far.

Early on I made a alliance with the pope and bribed him, and since I had a large navy and several ships I simply sailed south and took out sicliy. At this point the Byzatines attacked me and I struck back at them as well taking the small city on eastern greece. Usually when I kill leaders it dosn't help me but for whatever reason when I killed the leaders of both sicily and By somehow this made them enter a ceasefire.

I just launched a crusade against the turks, which I think is best as you want to keep the byzatines surrounded.

Right now the By's are taking the other turkish terrotories. My hope is to take The byzantine lands of west and let them fight the mongols later on.

The key for me has been sacking cities, these guys get a wide variety of good city troops, so not as much need for castles.

**anweRU** · 02-16-2009, 15:46

I hadn't played METW2 for a while, but installed it on my new comp, along with the Kingdoms expansion. I'm currently playing the Grand Campaign with the retrofit mod I downloaded from the Total War site.

May be it is a peculiarity of the retrofit mod, but most of the dire warnings in this thread did not come to pass. I started out with allying with HRE & buying Bologna, then got the Florence mission. My Doge besieged Florence all by himself, and utterly vanquished the garrison when they sallied forth. I allied with the Pope, kept bribing him. In the mean time, the councillor captured Zagreb, left the garrison, and immediately returned to Venice, building watch towers along the mountain passes to the north.

I had started building the first level siege works in Venice the first turn, built a ballista as soon as I could, then a ballista. By turn 7 I captured Milan, which the Milanese had left with only a couple of units as they attacked a rebel stack to the west... It took me several turns to get into a position to capture Genoa. Again the Milanese Duce took the majority of his units out of Genoa, apparently to reinforce Dijon which he had captured. The Milanese were stuck in Dijon, with two full stacks, one in the city, and one outside. Then they went to war with the French as well, but didn't actually attack any French cities.

In the mean time, I captured Durazzo within the first 7 or 8 turns, and built two watchtowers (immediately to the east, and one close to Corinth) on the border with the Byzantines. They came asking for an alliance, which I accepted. I noticed them preparing a huge stack outside of Theselonika, but it turned rebel! It took the Byzantines a long time to finally get rid of it.

I noticed the same thing happen with a number of different armies with almost all the AI countries. They keep their stacks outside of the cities, and sooner or later those without generals rebel. The Turks had a 3/4 stack outside of Edessa, which just stood there for several turns. It then rebelled, and joined the Edessa garrison!

I called a crusade on Antioch (rebel), and sent two stacks to capture it, and then Acre. Acre was at ~ 4200 population, so I immediately started on the armourer and barracks series to get a swordsmiths guild. Later I had a mission to capture Damascus, captured Aleppo, and then called a second crusade on Jerusalem.

In the mean time, I sent a bunch of assassins and spies to Theselonika, along with three priests (one of them became a cardinal). The city rebelled, and a Venetian Crusader army captured it en-passent

, and is now garrisoned there, as another Venetian Crusader army took Jerusalem the same turn.

The same crusade was instrumental in the final destruction of the Milanese, in the thirty-something turn. An army under the councillor had captured Bern, and after replenishing went to the north of Dijon, with a full stack. A second army, joining the Jerusalem Crusade just before I captured the city, approached the city from the south. I fought a major two stack vs two stack battle outside of Dijon. My second army (the mostly infantry army from Bern) had to go around a mountain, and my 3/4 stack valiantly martyred itself. The three Cavalry militia units, and the general made glorious charges (and got up to gold chevrons). Finally the second stack arrived and destroyed the second Milanese army (the lone Feudal knights unit went up to two gold chevrons in one battle!). Incidentally, the battle took over 40 minutes... I thought I had killed all three Milanese general units, and happily accepted the ransom - only to discover a Milanese Duce and a full stack of Italian militias & spear militias left in Dijon! I set up siege, and waited several turns to wear down the defenders (my armies were in no shape to fight the Milanese survivors until I could send reinforcements). Milan has finally been destroyed.

Sicily is left only with Tripoli, after foolishly betraying our alliance around the 10th or so turn, after I captured Ajjacio. This was just before the first crusade. I sent out a Crusader army from Milan & Venice, with a ballista, which made its way down to Naples. Ironically enough, it bypassed a Sicilian crusader army which got stranded in Bologna. After the crusade ended, my army found itself right in front of Naples, defended only by the Sicilian king and an Italian militia unit. Burn in heck, o foul Sicilian! Palermo was taken several turns later, and Tunis during the second crusade.

In the mean time, the Moors took Cagliari from the Sicilians. The Pope attacked Cagliari with two full stacks, while it was defended by a single Moor unit. Besieged the city, and .... did nothing! Several turns later he declared a cease-fire with the Moors. Repeated the same several turns later! Now there are two full stacks of the Papal army just hanging out, outside of Moorish Cagliari!

England and HRE have attacked France. On principle, I canceled my alliances with both aggressors, but somehow my reputation fell from Very Reliable to Reliable. France lost Rheims to the HRE. My assassins and spies are working on inciting a revolt, along with their French counterparts.

I have a Master Assassins guild in Bologna, a Master Thieves guild in Milan, a Master Merchants guld in Venice, a Master Explorers guild in Antioch, and an inherited Master Masons guild in Naples. I have two Templar's Guilds (Iraklion and Tunis), and just got a Swordsmith Guild in Ragussa, which I plan to upgrade to a Master S.G. soon.

The funny thing is, the rebel-held Antioch has an Explorers Guild!

(which I upgraded later).

At the moment I am allied with most factions, and at war only with Sicily, which has only Tripoli left. My original Doge died just a couple of turns ago, in his late sixties, so did Pope Gregory just this last turn. One of my cardinals was elected Pope this morning, before I left for work...

Overall, I've enjoyed the campaign so far. Most of the other factions (except for Russia!) have had stunted growth, due to rebelling armies. I'm at a lost to explain why! I don't remember such issues in METW2 1.1, which is what I played before.

**anweRU** · 02-16-2009, 16:14

Sorry for the double post. Can't we edit our own posts?

I forgot to mention that I was playing on H/H. I've flooded the map with emissaries, spies & assassins, and Damascus has been my priest factory. I've been hunting other Catholic factions' priests & killing them. Unfortunately, England has three cardinals, all in England, and I can't get there yet - my navy is concentrated in the Central and Eastern Med, and I don't have a settlement on the Atlantic coast yet.

**Gaius Terentius Varro** · 02-20-2009, 18:15

Originally Posted by anweRU

I hadn't played METW2 for a while, but installed it on my new comp, along with the Kingdoms expansion. I'm currently playing the Grand Campaign with the retrofit mod I downloaded from the Total War site.
May be it is a peculiarity of the retrofit mod, but most of the dire warnings in this thread did not come to pass. I.

A well know "feature" of the retrofit mod is a passive campaign AI: it virtually just stands there hardly attacking anything. Fire up a vanilla VH/VH campaign and enjoy the fireworks instread.
VHI is bugged it should have same weapon stats (incl animation speed) as dismounted boyar sons/dhruzhna or dism huscarls (other one handed armor piercing axe units). Instead it has the stats of a 2 handed axe unit AND a shield. Look up retrofits rebalance of VHI if you don't believe me...

**Agent Miles** · 03-16-2009, 15:12

I took a slightly different blitz path (VH/VH) in my campaign. On the first turn I started construction of the first level siege building in Ragusa along with a knight and two sergeants. I sent the units there on a long trip to Thessalonica bypassing the worthless Durazzo. The fleet near Iraklion took all of my forces there to land near Corinth and was then disbanded. I sent the King and all of the other military units in the north to Naples. I sent the spy to Thessalonica/Constantinople and the priest was sent as a scout to Naples/Sicily.
I then laid siege to and on the very next turn sacked Corinth after hiring some mercs. The cavalry and the other units from Ragusa met up with this force at Thessalonica, which was also sacked after a quick siege. Without HA’s from Corinth, the rest of the Byzantine armies were no match for my cavalry. I bulled my way through them and siege/sacked Constantinople.
While this was going on, my King’s army used the ballista from Ragusa and sacked Naples without a siege, while the Sicilian navy was unsuccessfully trying to get an army past my fleet into the Adriatic. I then waited out the Pope’s ban on attacking Sicily before eradicating that faction.
By turn 14 Sicily is gone and the Byzantines have only two weakly garrisoned settlements. My faction is largest and numero uno in everything except finance (where 15k florins in the bank earns me only second place). I can now take all the rebel settlements that I ignored and then spank little Milan.

P.S. On turn 37 I completed the elimination of the Byz and Milan factions (and took Antioch to complete the crusade). That's it for the short campaign. I don't think that I will continue, as this was a slam dunk.