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Thread: Sicily

  1. #61

    Default Re: Sicily

    The fun for playing Sicily, for me at least, is how every game as Sicily is a completely unique, independent experience. With most other factions, there's a similar strategy you always follow to get from Point A to Point B. England is almost always going to consolidate Great Britain first, then march into France. Egypt is almost always going to expand into the Holy Land and react to crusades. Russia is almost always dominating the same corner of the map. You get the picture.

    With Sicily, the central location and the relative security of sharing a substantial land border with the Papacy gives you the opportunity to react to in-game developments by going wherever the wind calls you. It's a liberating experience.

    I'm on my second Sicily game now, after losing out with Venice. My first Sicily experience involved me purchasing Bologna from HRE, fighting off Venice, going into Durazzo to incite the wrath of the Byzantines, and taking out Constantinople. Sicily was only the second faction in M2TW I actually won the game (on my default setting of H/H) with (England was first.) My first Sicily experience had me expanding in the Byzantine's direction and, generally speaking, in that corner of the map, into places like Sofia and Budapest and Nicaea. The endgame was basically me, the Mongols (who had settled in Russia), France (they dominated the west, where I didn't expand much), and Egypt / the Timurids.

    Now my second game as Sicily has...well...it's been nearly the opposite experience.

    This time around I tried the buying-off-Bologna trick and it failed. I had no clue why, but I have a strict no-restarts (or reboot from autosaves) policy on my games (I'm a stickler for perfectionism), so when the Princess failed I decided not to bother. With Bologna out of the picture, I decided not to expand into Durazzo. Instead I did some moves similar to posts here -- converted Palmero into a town, took Florence out as soon as possible, got the Pope to commission a crusade into Tunis, took Tunis quickly, then gobbled Corsica and Sardinia. Milan (predictably) declared war, and I responded by taking Genoa. I was going to take Milan proper, too, but I was distracted when the Moors began a siege of my poorly-defended Corsica (!! -- I was surprised they went for Corsica before Sardinia), forcing me to re-prioritize.

    I was just about to get ready for a fun trek into Algiers when another crusade was commissioned -- before I thought another crusade could be commissioned. Another faction beat me to the punch and chose Jerusalem. So I decided, let's do an African march with my king from Tunis to Jerusalem, taking every Egyptian and rebel settlement I find along the way!!

    ...And I was immediately disappointed to learn that Venice took Tripoli (!!) As a sidenote, I allied with both HRE and Venice shortly before Milan declared war; this proved to be a prudent move as I'm pretty sure HRE and Venice will just turn traitor when they feel like it anyway, but right now I have enough enemies to worry about. Strangely, in this game Venice controls its starting settlements and Tripoli (that giant swab of useless african desert between Tunis and Egypt)...and nothing else. No incursions into Byzantium, no push into Hungary. A strange turn of events for Venice.

    Anyway, I marched through Venice's Tripoli territory with my king and crusaders, while my cadre of priests were taking the long journey as well (I wanted to convert Alexandria to Christianity as soon as I knocked the stuffing out of the Egyptians.) Weirdly, perhaps my priests' presence and their conversions actually helped my relations with Venice, which only improved to "Perfect" while my Crusaders were marching in their territory.

    It took some expensive mercenaries (you won't find too many of the traditional crusading fare in Africa) but I ended up taking Alexandria, Cairo, Gaza, and Jerusalem by turn 35...not bad. Actually, it's the best I've ever done in a crusade, but it's also the earliest I've ever had a crusade reach the Holy Land. (Mind you, I usually don't try for immediate crusades there in my games...maybe I should, as I really caught Egypt off-guard. Now Egypt controls only three settlements -- that southern Egypt one below Cairo that's mostly useless, Acre, and Damascus. Even Antioch is still currently a rebel settlement.) I did the smart thing and allied with the Turks, who now adore me. And I've found unrest comparatively manageable in my eastern settlements, in large part due to sending my cadre of Priests and Cardinals out there. Alexandria is already 70% Christian, Cairo is close to 50% Christian and I purchased two new Priests and a church that's working on Jerusalem too. (Can't care as much about Gaza as it's a castle, so they'll be content regardless.)

    So now my Empire is turning into a one entirely reliant on a navy (even if I did wrest Tripoli from Venice, I'd still have to ship generals and units from Sicily / Naples to Egypt by boat...it's too long a journey on foot. Not to mention Corsica and Sardinia and the divide between my northern and southern Italian establishments.) And I haven't even reached turn 50!

    Oh, and for the record? I can't even count how many times those Muslim Archers saved me. Muslim Archers saving a Catholic kingdom...ahh, the irony.

    It's a completely different experience from my first Sicily game, though, and that's what I'm loving most about it.

  2. #62

    Default Re: Sicily

    This is my first post on the forums here, so I decided to make it about one of my absolute favorite factions to play, the Sicilians.

    I generally begin by using my Palermo troops + a little from the garrison to charge Tunis. From there, you can swing north with the troops or use the Napolean force to take the islands, leaving Tunis with a sizeable garrison. If you have 1.2 or 1.3, keep Sardinia a castle to defend against the invariable Moorish/Milanese offensive. From there, motor on through North Africa, but keep an eye on your Eastern flank.

    One other interesting strategy I saw here was to take Albania (The name slips my mind) and gift it to Il Papa.

    Crusades are useful, but there's very little water between you and Egypt. As far as I've seen, Egypt has complete naval dominance in the south Mediterranean.

    Long story short, defend your rear and East or West.

    Sicily also has a number of challenging opportunities-

    Drive north through Italy.
    Push across the Adriatic, all the way to Poland.
    Go southeast, Tripoli is closer to you than Cairo. Push to Egypt.
    Take Rome. See how defensable your region really is.

    Sicily is in a position to go anwhere in the Mediterranean. It's up to you.

    I'll post a link to a sketch I did of a good strategy in the next post... first post rules.

  3. #63

    Default Re: Sicily

    Here's a link to an illustration I made in Powerpoint...

    http://s435.photobucket.com/albums/q...SicilyPlan.jpg

    I believe I got the unit placement right.

  4. #64

    Default Re: Sicily

    After a break of a year, I restarted playing M2TW, and with sicily.

    Turn 1
    I immediately sent the princess with the fleet to bologna. Naples began to construct a diplomat.
    Alberto's army went with a galley to florence. The army from pamplona used another galley to go to tripoli. Pamplona is being converted to a city

    Turn 2
    Not much happens, troops/agents going to their destination.
    sending the diplomat from naples to rome

    Turn 3
    buying Bologno for a regular tribute 1250 for 4 turns.
    laying siege on florence.
    negotiating with the the pope, giving him trade rights, map information and 25 times 100 florins a gift, but not an alliance. Relations outstanding and crusade to antioch.
    Army that's sieging florence joined the siege and spent all the florins i got on merc.

    next turns
    Florence is captured=> the isles under siege => tunis under siege => quit the crusade
    attacking rome and killing the pope until your or one of your allies' cardinals become pope.
    giving tripoli to the pope and you are rid of him.

    Now i have the italian isle, allied with hungary, russia, portugal, france and hre.
    Reputation very reliable.
    the pope loves me.
    I'm building out my castle to play the rest of the game with upper-tier units.

    I choose my enemies from the ones who get excommunicated.


    anyone with an idea what armies to use against my 'kill the mongols' campaign?

  5. #65

    Default Re: Sicily

    As a Sicilian American planning on buying MII:TW, I appreciate this guide.

  6. #66
    Member Member Viking Prince's Avatar
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    Default Re: Sicily

    I enjoyed reading this guide. I have learned a bit as well as having a great read. I was surprised though that a particular opening strategy has not been mentioned.

    When you play France, you will find the Sicilians show up on your doorstep in Marseilles pretty much as soon as possible. Why is this? Marseilles is a great city with wonderful potential for profit. When playing Sicily, why do the same strategy? It seems good to me. Sicily will quickly run out of cash (I think the AI gets scripted additions, though I am not certain). So here is what you should try:

    Send the good princess up with the Adriatic fleet to make nice with Venice and HRE. Trade and alliances and you get florins -- florins to stave off the bankruptcy of Sicily. Train a diplomat to do the same with Rome and Milan. Yes, the Pope will be happy to hand you florins.

    Build the ballista facility and the archery levels in Pamplona and tech up Naples. You want everything including the levels of armory available.

    Keep your army in Naples in Naples. Combine your forces in and near Pamplona (leaving a general as garrison) using your Central Med fleet to invade Marseilles and then move the fleet to blockade Toulouse. Make certain you have your Italian alliances in place first.

    Use your Adriatic fleet upon returning from Venice to move an army to take Durrazo (hopefully for 2500 florins). Do not waste time though. You need to be in possession of the castle for the next step.

    After you take Marseilles (by occupation -- remember these are good Catholics), a French diplomat should arrive in Northern Italy. I think you should find the French will now be happy for a ceasefire. You will find that they are also willing to throw in Toulouse. Be certain to include a ten period tribute of 200fl, 1000 fl cash and trade. You want the French to be happy so that you will be able to ally with them later. Oh yes, make certain that you also include Durazzo in the trade/ceasefire as well. Nothing like that worthless castle in French hands to tie them into several future wars that you will be able to come to their aid in.

    This will result in a duplicate of your starting potential on the Riviera which is very good population base. Now sit and tech up waiting for the eventual conflict in Northern Italy. The perfect storm would be war between Venice and Milan where you can side with Milan. And then when Milan launches into France, you will side with France to complete the conquest of Northern Italy.

    If you are truly lucky, the Pope will gift you 500fl while you are at war with France.
    Last edited by Viking Prince; 04-10-2010 at 07:50.


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  7. #67

    Default Re: Sicily

    I started my Sicily campaign yesterday. I am about turn 50 or so, but i play 1year=1turn.

    How do i play?

    Well i start with makind Sicily (the island) a town. C'mon a naval province, with 4 trade resources, great naval trade options is a castle? Change it as fast as you can.
    My diplomat goes through Papal states, Milan, Venice (he gets map and trade with all and ally with pope) to Bologna where he is pumped up so he buys it from the HRE with no problems.
    I usually marry my princess to the French as they will be a good ally against the Milan and the Moors early.
    One part of my army i take to Sardinia and corsica (the worse part of it), take both islands and make them cities. I take Florence with free units from Bologna. My best general (or generals) group the best units and go for a crused to Tunis. I sack the provice and leave it a castle. I think that north Africa beeing all castles is such a bonus to Sicily. You maintain the order more easily, and can train your army quickly in different spots. Before i go west though i beat the enemies first in the North of Italy. Venice and Milan field the same armies early. Lot's of spear militia and some crossbows with a general or two. You can field the same army yourself so it's up to you strategic genius to beat them :) I uusually wait for them to leave the city for some reason and then just jump it with superior forces, if you play it good Milan can be destroyed as they tend to move around Dijon with their main force, leving the cities unprotected. Venice will be a longer conflict, but i don't go to Durres so it's not a problem for me. The key alliances for ma are Pope, Hungary, HRE, France and Byzantines. Once i have all of italy except Rome + the two islands and Tunis i run a little 2 front war. I make Milan a castle, the trade is excellent so i can suffer less income, this way i'm protected well in Italy. I make a crusade for Marakesz from Tunis taking Algier on the way, then i block with the nave the road to Iberia. This allows me to slowly own all of West Africa, i take Tripoli earlier with a smaller normal foce and make it a city. It develops slowly and i don't need another castle so near. While my crusade rides through Africa, i take some developed troops and land a little naval attack on Iraklion to weaken the Venetians.

    that how it looks at the moment. The Venetians have only Ragusa and Durres but the Byzantines are going to crucsh them soon. My alliances i mentioned earlier hold but there is some movement in Hungary and as i belive HRE and the Byzantines have allied against Hungary. In Africa i controll the coastline, the Moors are cut off in Iberia, i march slowly to Timbuktu and Arguin. I have a frtress in Milan, Tunis and Marakesz (switched with Algiers for a city for better troop management). All my castles produce the "norman" line of troops.
    I have lot's of gold so i can support 4 full stacks of troops. I prepare now for a full attack on the Byzantium. They own Sofia so it's great as i can take it first with Coryth and cut the off from two sides at the same time.

    As for the military. The bulk of the army are the "Norman" troops supported by armoured sergants and pavise crossbows and muslim archers. The good thing is that you can train your armies early on and you will use most troops to the end.

  8. #68
    Member Member Viking Prince's Avatar
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    Default Re: Sicily

    @dzidek -- you did not mention Crusading to Cairo? I would think that Alexandria and Cairo would be an easy and profitable front to control with an early Crusade. Then is is only a ten turn wait (using the normal 3 years in 2 turns) for for your march to the west.


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  9. #69
    Strategist and Storyteller Member Myth's Avatar
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    Default Re: Sicily

    dzidek what difficulty are you playing on and how do you fight the Catholic factions early on without the Pope calling for a mass sodomy on your faction?
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  10. #70

    Default Re: Sicily

    Started playing again after quite some time - vanilla 1.3
    Started a game with Sicily, this time playing a more 'normal' game than my usual strategy of crusading to holy land first then use the troops there to lay waste to the whole civilized world, sacking and abandoning cities, getting rich and building up at home meanwhile.

    Grand plan was to develop a powerful economy while campaigning in the process to make use of the troop quality advantage the normans have early on. I know it seems a bit weird since building up might mean less troops production but it worked somehow.

    1. Get in touch with the pope and please him well (i know it may sound kinky but ...)
    2. Keeping Palermo a castle! At least for a while. Despite the popular (and correct) view that Palermo must be converted to a cash cow asap i.e. turning into a city because of its fantastic trade opportunities, this time i had another ideea: Palermo needs only a few touches to start churning out Norman Knights and their dismounted version. Sicily's greatest military advantage in this game is the ability to field, i dare say, the best heavy cavalry and heavy infantry in the world in just a few turns (considering the early period that is). So I think it is better to exploit this feature from the headstart - Sicily's golden age is in the beggining and things start to decline in later periods when other factions become able to field superior quality troops and weaponry.
    From this perspective, a natural way of playing this faction is to be aggressive from the beginning and make the most use of your initial advantage and getting prepared for the late era, that is having lots of cash for employing expensive modern mercenary units for example.
    Another rationale for keeping Palermo a castle early on is its position (exact the one for which everyone loves it as a city:) ) - it provides quick access and reinforcement options for the areas you will expanding first.
    Later, when your conquests take you to distant places, Palermo will be converted into a city after losing its military operations' close support role.
    3. Obvious crusade to Tripoli, conversion to city - mass catholic propaganda initiated, tons of priest training there and in the additional moorish province.
    4. Conquest of Cagliari and Ajaccio.
    Cagliari converted into a city (it's potential nowhere as Palermo's but at this stage will do fine in getting the much needed florins)
    Ajaccio left as castle - this is a province claimed by the milanese. I took it so early because I want the milanese to declare on me ASAP so i can kick their butts without having to ruin my relations with the Pope. Milan is one reason you want to push your initial advantage - they can become very strong so the sooner you take them out, the better. Their italian militia is no match for norman knights and dismounted norman knights at this stage.
    The castle at Ajaccio has the role of producing ranged units while Palermo trains NK and DNK and occasionaly some armoured sergeants.
    5. I have allied only with the French and the Pope so far - i don;t see a need for more alliances at this moment tbh.

    These were the opening moves.
    My long term plan is to use crusading opportunities at all times but to be careful not to damage irreparably the muslim factions in the east. Also to try and keep rather good relations with the byzantines (difficult one because at some point we will). The reason is that i want them strong enough to be able to absorb a fair chunk of the mongolian and perhaps timurid shock later on.
    I will Focus my attention, after initial consolidation, on the northern italian states and the moors since these guys will attack you at some point no matter what.

    Actually this is my 2nd attempt at this. The first one i made a terrible mistake (despite observing the general plan rather carefully) - i joined a crusade for Jerusalem but decided to land in southern sicilian held Tunis, take rebel Tripoli and walk to Jerusalem thru the northern african desert while bulding watchtowers along the way to have the fog removed. Very bad ideea :( Troops move extremely slow in those sands and in 3 turns my experienced NK and DNK started to desert en masse...

  11. #71

    Default Re: Sicily

    Another tip:

    While norman knights and DNK are truly awesome be sure not to recruit too many of them. They are damn expensive to upkeep and if you recruit too many, your finances go down the drain instantly. Th egood thing is that in the beginning you don't really need many of them. Also their survival rate is very decent and you're better off retraining them and keep using the same units over and over rather than getting impatient and commit new troops to cover the losses. It takes a bit of time to ferry them over and retrain but it is better this way.

    Typically, the army i used for the first turns is made up of 2 NKs, 3 DNKs, 2 armoured sergeants, 2 squire cavalry. You don't really need more even against Milan. Use the DNKs in the centre to advance and lock their italian militia in melee and use your cavalry to flank and rout the units fighting your DNKs.
    Spears are there to provide defence against enemy cavalry (not too much around though in the beginning).
    Beware the milanese crossbows - these guys are more than able to damage your precious knights. If the enemy employs them, use the faster squires to run fast in the enemy rear and try to engage their xbows in melee while doing the same thing as above with the rest of their main battle line (militias) - fix them with DNKs and charge from the rear or flank with the NKs.

  12. #72

    Default Re: Sicily

    Played a little more than 100 turns following the above mentioned strategy - the results are very decent so far.

    Wiped out the Moors and Spanish (moors' best friends and allies - quite unnatural), managed to keep outstanding - perfect relations with the Pope in the meantime.
    Actually the spaniards' lasct city (Rennes) was subject to a crusade :)
    Traded Rennes for Zaragoza with my former french allies and now Sicily controls Iberian lands excepting Lisbon and Pamplona (portuguese worship me), Northern african desert all the way to alexandria. Genoa is mine as well as the starting provinces, ajaccio and cagliari.
    Super relations with the HRE and Venice (weird i know) - but Venice succumbed to milanese attacks eventually.
    Milan is a potential threat (relations degraded to so-so recently) but because i am seen as 'very reliable' and have 'supreme' military power, they really don't want to mess with me atm.
    Mongols settled in Kiew so it's russia, hungary, poland and byzantines' job to deal with them for now. Which prompted me to crusade egyptian Jerusalem and after i took it, I agreed to make peace with Egypt in exchange for the castle of Acre.
    Timurids appeared though:(
    Since my plan requires to let others deal with those 2 hordes at first, if Timurids attack middle east, I will just abandon the Levant cities (probably sell them to egyptians) and let them war in order to weaken themselves.
    Economy is running very well, troops' quality is decent (i still have a lot of the early era units but VERY experienced) - so far the strategy is working.
    Waiting for the Black Death event to kick in now :(
    Probably i will opt for expanding my realm into the catholic west since every now and then england or france get excommunicated and it's a pitty not to take advantage of it. This and the fact that my military facilities in Italia and Spain are very well built making it very easy to war a western nation.

  13. #73
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    Default Re: Sicily

    Quote Originally Posted by hellraiser View Post
    Played a little more than 100 turns following the above mentioned strategy - the results are very decent so far.

    Wiped out the Moors and Spanish (moors' best friends and allies - quite unnatural), managed to keep outstanding - perfect relations with the Pope in the meantime.
    Actually the spaniards' lasct city (Rennes) was subject to a crusade :)
    Traded Rennes for Zaragoza with my former french allies and now Sicily controls Iberian lands excepting Lisbon and Pamplona (portuguese worship me), Northern african desert all the way to alexandria. Genoa is mine as well as the starting provinces, ajaccio and cagliari.
    Super relations with the HRE and Venice (weird i know) - but Venice succumbed to milanese attacks eventually.
    Milan is a potential threat (relations degraded to so-so recently) but because i am seen as 'very reliable' and have 'supreme' military power, they really don't want to mess with me atm.
    Mongols settled in Kiew so it's russia, hungary, poland and byzantines' job to deal with them for now. Which prompted me to crusade egyptian Jerusalem and after i took it, I agreed to make peace with Egypt in exchange for the castle of Acre.
    Timurids appeared though:(
    Since my plan requires to let others deal with those 2 hordes at first, if Timurids attack middle east, I will just abandon the Levant cities (probably sell them to egyptians) and let them war in order to weaken themselves.
    Economy is running very well, troops' quality is decent (i still have a lot of the early era units but VERY experienced) - so far the strategy is working.
    Waiting for the Black Death event to kick in now :(
    Probably i will opt for expanding my realm into the catholic west since every now and then england or france get excommunicated and it's a pitty not to take advantage of it. This and the fact that my military facilities in Italia and Spain are very well built making it very easy to war a western nation.
    You will probably lose Jerusalem, but with the right mix of troops you can butcher the timurid hordes at a developed castle. You need stake archers (buy them in Italy and ship them over) to booby trap gates. With canon towers, stake archers, good infantry and maybe a bombard you can really pound the Timurids around. Need a large garrison to activate lots of towers for shooting.
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  14. #74

    Default Re: Sicily

    finished the campaign, rather easy one i may say
    and although timurids invaded, i've never encountered them :P

  15. #75

    Default Re: Sicily

    Which neer might be repeated; who could guess,
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      The life |from out |young wow powerleveling hearts, |and chok|ing sighs,
      Long, long afterwards, in an oak,
      In such |a jo|cund com|pany.

  16. #76

    Default Re: Sicily

    I played Sicily once. I had quite the Mediterranean kingdom going on, and a sizable portion of the Middle East as well.

    I had the swordsmith guild HQ at Palermo. I decided since I was the big bad Sicilians, I was going to kick the crap out of the Mongol hordes. I made about 7-8 full stacks of cavalry, Norman dismounted knights, and archers. I believe I took on the Mongol forces of about 12,000 with my armies of about 10,000-11,000. It may have been more. The battles were centered around Antioch and the upper regions of the Holy Land. This was on VH/VH.

    Needless to say, they were some of the worst and most confusing battles I have ever had, with hundreds of cavalry charging at each other, spearmen and archers fighting, siege weapons firing, and the battlefield being extensively large and spread out all over the place. Corpses strewn from one side of the red line to the other.

    I kicked the crap out of the Mongols, and I killed all of their leaders in some epic battles. Which took hours.

    People say you can't win against the Mongols in open land battles, however that is because most of them have never really attempted it.

    Sicilians - They're badass.

  17. #77

    Default Re: Sicily

    Oh yes, and I did all this by declaring a crusade at Antioch, which was where the Mongols settled. It was quite literally the situation where an unstoppable force met an immovable object.

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