The Moors

[wzup]

what year to camel gunners come out? in all the total war series I tend to find when I hit the 1337er units the competition is pretty much dead and the game is a forgone conclusion. I wish we could select different times to start the campaign like in some of the earlier games.

as soon as gunpowder is discovered you'll be able to recruit camel gunners

[grapedog]

so, the general consensus is to ignore the missions, take the Iberian Penninsula first. Then take Timbuktu and just a couple of the North African provinces until you can recruit and field some of the better infantry and mobile cav units...

This is my first run as the Moors, and I tried taking out El Cid in Valencia and it took me a couple of tries to actually get him out of there. So far every army I have fought has made mince meat out of my troops save when I have them vastly outnumbered. I can't wait until I get at least one decent front line unit that won't wilt.

[Boyar Karhunkynsi]

I've read what's been posted here so far; some extremely sound tactics.

Units.

Mass Missile Fire (MMF) is the only good way I've found to play as Moors. An army ought to have at least half Peasant Xbowmen/Desert Archers/Xbow Militia, around a quarter spear infantry, and whatever is left as Garandine Jinetes/Desert Cavalry/ Garandine Xbow Cavalry.

I like things that kill people from far away. It just so happens that things that kill people from far away seem to generally die fast in melee, or a charge. The answer? Lamatuna Spearmen (sp?). These guys will slaughter any Jinetes, and most knights that come their way. Their defense is not nearly as good as Dsmtd. Arab Cavalry, but they make up for it with a good attack and charge bonus. They will have no trouble massacring Almughavars and other Javelinmen.

Tactics on the battlefield differ from person to person. I'm not going to lecture on how I play, it's up to you to decide how you want to kill Portuguese and Spaniards.


-Max

[vonsch]

I gave the Moors a try yesterday after reading this and found it all pretty accurate. While I like the desert cav, it can't go up against jinettes on equal hoofing. It's unwise to try to meet the other Iberians on equal footing. On top of that, your starting generals are not up to par. But jihads help (unless your one imam with enough piety to call one drops dead after the first!)

I found upping piety with imams harder than with priests.

It is nice to not have to worry about getting excommunicated, though. Even if you do have a large bullseye tatooed on your forehead from birth. At least you know where you stand.

Mercenaries make a real difference. A couple merc spear units and some turkoman HAs really earned their pay in the conquest of Iberia.

I wasn't playing vanilla, though, and decided I wasn't crazy about the particular mod I was using, so I quit about turn 30ish. The AI tweaks resulted in very passive enemy behavior strategically. Didn't like that. And there was way too much money in the game on all sides.

I prefer the strategy end to the tactics, so that one is counter my tastes.

[Callahan9119]

after playing as catholics for the past few times, i am really enjoying having my only worry about the pope being if i want to kill him or not

so far i quickly teched up marrakesh to provide catapults, i didnt really tech up anything else in any city besides ports to increase trade. i then just pumped out militia and arab cavalry in my iberian cities< i was able to make crossbows in cardoba, but i dont remember if they were available at the start>

i quickly sacked lisbon after i had enough to storm the gates with sizable manpower advantage, after healing up from that bloody battle i rolled in 2 units of my new catapults from marrakesh and was off to toledo <i was supposed to take valencia for a mission, but the sicilians (annoying buggers) got there first, and seeing as i didnt want trouble on my coastlines in africa, i let them be> i kept a constant stream of militia, crossbows and horses pumping out of my cities

my catapults and 2 ballista i had were the heroes, toledo's awsome castle fell to me easily, i repelled the last portugese army from here with a lucky? flaming catapult missle which killed the king and the faction turning pamplona rebel.

my second army took a poorly defended leon, zaragoza fell to my huge army with the catapults and ballista (note: experianced ballista put down enemy like crazy. one unit had like 225 kills in a battle)

i thought the spanish were done besides maybe a wandering king in french lands but before i took pamplona a full stack spanish army showed up. i attacked them, as the battle started i was at the bottom of a very very large mountain...looking up at my enemy, like a miracle i found a pass up to the top at the very edge of the map and rushed my men (minus my beloved catapults) up it, barely beating the spanish to the highest point and charged down routing them and capturing about 400 men+a prince (wheres the damn king) and killing the rest, i lost no more than 20 men. thank god for 30 year old 9 star generals.

now i am about to get the sicilians out of here and i am set to take islands from sicily and get saucy with egypt, cuz they are getting too powerful and need to be checked

my best advice would be make catapults early and assault cities after u have 2 ladders, the cost of repairing walls after u take the city seems far cheaper than lost time


i found the last of the spanish living in huts up in normandy, trying to decide if i sail up there and burn the city or not

[Mother Yoda]

PuerFodder,

That was ne of the clearest and most concise guides I have read here! Very nice work.

I would have to agree with what IvarrWolfsong said. Kudos PuerFodder

Ok some quick tips...

I haven't tested it again, but this does mean that sometimes it will be possible to eliminate portugal with one battle.

Yep, it's possible to do that. I tried myself and have to say that it has worked for me using a Jihad.

[Sir Greenfear]

After buying the game and playing a few Catholic factions I decided the Pope and Inquistors were too much of a pain so I decided to give the Moors a try. Playing the Moors has been a much more enjoyable campaign. Here's the way I've played the Moors.

1st Phase: Consolidate North Africa.

I decided that before I took on Spain and Portugal in Iberia, I would conquer North Africa. My first priority was Tunisia. I gathered a small but adequate army in Algiers and crushed the rebels in Tunis. Turn Tunis into a city. Garrison with about 4 militia units. Rebuild a small army in Tunis and march on Tripoli. Turn Tripoli into a city. Garrison Tripoli with about 4 militia (Egypt nor the Monguls who conquered Egypt have never sent an army to Tripoli, the most they have done is blockade my port so don't worry about a big garrison in Tripoli). March remainder of army back to Algiers. Build up an army in Algiers and begin the long march to Timbuktu. The march is long but well worth it finacially. Take Timbuktu. Garrison appropriately. Take the city on the west African coast and Garrison appropriately. Keep a small force in either sub-saharan town to deal with pesky rebels and disband the rest of the army. Build merchants to exploit the ivory and gold mines in the sub-saharan countries. The key to the Moors is to not have too many military units because your economy is not very strong in the beginning of the game. It is a balancing act but you should get the hang of it. During the turns that you are on your African conquest the only thing you should do in Iberia is play defence and keep Cordoba and Granada in your hands. This was extremely tricky and a couple of times I almost lost Cordoba to Spain but my defenders pulled out some heroic victories and Spain was turned back at the walls.

2nd Phase: Conquer Iberia and Southern France

After conquering Africa I turned my attention to Iberia. By this time my economy was getting strong as were the military units that I could bring to bear on the enemy. Wait as long as you can and build up your economy and military potential. When you think the time is right, build an army made up of mostly militia crossbowmen and urban militia. Sprinkle in some camel spearmen, grenadine jinettes, and arab cav. Leave a strong garrison in Cordoba because once you strike out into Iberia you will be counter-attacked there. I chose to go from west to east. I conquered Lisbon first, followed by Leon, next was Toledo, then it was on to Valencia. After taking these countries you can finally relax in Cordoba. I make all castles into cities. The only two castles I have at this point is Granada and Algiers. I garrison my cities after conquering them with 4 urban milita and 2 militia crossbowmen. After Valencia I rebuild army and conquer Zaragoza and Pamplona, thus completing my Iberian conquest. After this I gave my military a rest and just concentrated on economy and military buildings. By this time I had access to all of the Moorish military units so now I was ready to cross the Pyranese into France. I built two very powerful armies consisting of 1 or 2 Generals, 8 dismounted Christian Guard, 4 mounted Christian Guard, 2 Camel Gunners, 2 Peasant Crossbow, and 2 Sudanese Gunners. All I can say is the the Christian Guard are bad asses. I highly recommend fighting with them. Anyway, I took these two armies and pushed France out of Toulouse and Bordeaux. I left my two powerful armies there to serve as gatekeepers to my Iberian Empire. Nobody has tried to take on these armies yet so I have a very quiet border in Southern France.

3rd Phase: Island Hop and Conquer Egypt and Middle East

This is where I'm at in the game. I am building up my newly aquired territories economically and I have started island hopping. I took Corsica and Sardina first. I probably should have taken these two islands earlier in the game because of the silver mines to be had. After taking these Islands I conquered the three island in the eastern med. Now I am ready to take on the Monguls in Egypt and the rest of the middle east. I have two more bad ass armies sailing to Egypt as I type. I'll let you know how it goes...

[rvg]

A few of my observations on the Moorish campaign...

1. At the start Lisbon seems to be the most obvious target. I usually declare Jihad on it around turn 2 and take it by turn 5.

2. it is a good idea to let the Portuguese take Zaragoza while keeping the rest of Iberia for yourself; a small Aragonese kingdom is a perfect buffer between you and the rest of Europe. Ally with them while you're at it.

3. If you take Tunis, expected it to be perpetually under siege by Sicilians, Milanese, Papacy, i.e. pretty much everyone. I've even seen the Byzantines and the HRE land assault stacks there. If you don't take Tunis, Algiers will suffer this fate instead.

4. While having excellent merchant spots, Timbuktu is a hotbed of Paganism and heresy. Oh, and bandits. They seem to love the Saharan climate.

5. Jihad!!! I find moorish economy to be sub-par early on (which is really the only time when it matters), so the liberal use of Jihads goes a long way in fixing that problem (free upkeep even for a couple of turns makes a huge difference).

6. Mercs. Iberian peninsula spawns plenty of Merc Spearmen, who happen to be better than any spear units in the moorish roster. I hire them at every opportunity at least until I have a steady flow of lamtunas at my castles.

7. Desert Cavalry is great, Arab Cavalry -- not so great. I always train the former and never the latter*. Sudanese Javelinmen are *very* good on the walls and not too bad in the field either. Desert Archers are just plain awesome.

*Results may vary.

8. Once you start getting Christian guards (of both mounted and dismounted variety) your troubles are over, and from that point Moors play like any Catholic faction, but with Camels and without the Pope's constant finger-wagging.

9. You start out alone and you will stay alone. Other than trying to force an alliance upon the Portuguese, I wouldn't worry about diplomacy too much, since there will be none: Moors imho have the ultimate Total War game.

10. After securing Spain and North Africa I tend to go after Egypt (mostly to satisfy the Jerusalem requirement for the long campaign.

11. Neither Mongols nor Timmies present any problem for the Moors, both are pretty easy to beat as long as you have enough spears and foot archers. Elephants are dogmeat for the Granadine Jinetes and Camel Gunners. Jinetes especially, shred those Phants very-very quickly.

[Seabourch]

great strategy guide!

[Raizen]

I've finished a long campaign as the Moors and I've actually found them to be the easiest to play of the factions I've tried. My early moves were to take a main force from Marrakech and Cordoba and move into the Iberian penninsula. I declared a Jihad into Lisbon, finished there, and immediately moved north into Toledo and Leon on the same turn. In the meantime I trained up some garrison units in Cordoba to take over in Toledo, and immediately moved north into Pamplona. By turn 10 Spain and Portugal were both out of the picture entirely, and I had all of the Iberian area except for Valencia, which I needed a few more turns to crack. I took Zaragoza with a smallish force in the meantime.

In the meantime, I took a token force from Algiers and moved into Timbuktu, and then on to Anguin. This is my merchant stronghold, no one comes in so I'm free to merch up the ivory and gold in these two Sahara provinces.

Following my early conquest of the penninsula, I took some basic armies to both Ajaccio and Cagliari and took those both. France had entered into a war with England, leaving both Toulouse and Bordeaux in my sights with minimal garrisons, and Imams converting the populus into Muslims. Two full stacks rolled through France, with a third clearing up the easier to take provinces. France was eliminated quickly. The English were boxed in at Rennes and Caen, I consolidated my new territories and went into Caen and Rennes.

It's all pretty simple as the Moors, you basically have one strategy and it's easy to follow since you aren't very surrounded. The units are quite capable, crossbow militia are great, as are Arab cavalry. I recently got the gunpowder event, giving me Camel Gunners, which are well worth both the 1190 per unit price, as well as the wait between producing. An army of those, Christian guard, and Dismounted Christian guard has turned around a dangerous spot where I've been attacked by England, Denmark (who lost Bruges to rebels leaving me free to take it), Sicily, Milan, and the Papal States. Only Milan is left now, stuck in Innsbruck. The final push is into the Middle East, my big army stacks are moving into Egypt and Jerusalem should be my 45th province captured if all goes to plan. I don't hold much hope of keeping it as the Mongols are heavily fortified in the area, but if I take it last I'll have my victory conditions completed. All in all they're an easy faction to play, good for getting acquainted with the game and Muslim factions. Money is rarely a problem since there are rich territories in the Sahara that provide a lot of gold, and are safe to tech up to maximum money making potential. As well many of the Iberian provinces, if taken quickly, are good money producing cities. Ignoring Tunis until you're well established also helps you avoid early conflicts with Sicily that can drain your early resources.

One last tip: If you're taking a Christian town, always exterminate. Makes it much easier to handle your new lands without religious revolt.

[ixidor]

Yeah, i agree with most you said, Moors are actually very easily to play. Also, take adventaged from the jihads. In something like 40 turns i made 3 already, 1 to Lisbon, in a battle that destroyed Portugal faction (both King and heir dead), 1 to zaragoza (the french occupied them meanwhile) and now one to the heart of France, Paris himself (after obviously taking Bordeaux and Toulouse.

By the way, don't exterminate, simply sack the cities it's much better, you still put the population in order, actually win more money without destroying buildings and you don't compromise the development from the city/castle, which will be greatly retarded if you just exterminate...

[MarNasr]

I agree with the sacking idea..
it's my fav. choice always/ unless I got too angry from a city the resists too much. I exterminate it, but regret it later

[Dysmal]

Just going to add my strat on my Moors Campaign. Playing on H/H btw :

Diplomacy : I immediately sent a diplomat north to open diplomacy with Portugal and the Spanes. I found that by giving map information and trade rights(and sometimes a couple turns of 100 florins tribute) I was able to gain an alliance with them both. My diplomat continued north and offered the same with the French, English, Milan, HRE, Venice, Papal States, Sicily, and then more East to the same factions. To those who wouldn't/couldn't accept an Alliance I would at least gain trade rights. By doing so I had great relations with all factions as I consolidated my position.

Early Build Strat : I converted Algier into a City. Every building I built early on focused on improving growth. Be careful about what you build early on. Always queue up a building and then check the Settlement Details to see the effects of the building. In cities I would build mines first(when available) and then the first couple level farms and town halls. Same with castles(except for the town halls of course). Send all Merchants you can train to Timbuktu on the Gold there. Also whenever you have extra Merchants move them to the other ressources there. Later on you'll have a Market in Timbuktu and you'll be able to train them locally.

Early Expansion : I kept my faction leader in Corboda with a decent garrison and sent my heir and other family member, as well as all remaining troops south to take Timbuktu. I kept a minimum garrison in Granata, Marketh and Algier, while keeping a semi strong one in Corboda. I didn't build any troops at all in the early going since you start out breaking even money wise. I took Timbuktu, left a minimum garrison and moved to Alguin. I took my heir and other general back north right after taking those. I took Valencia right before I had to face the Spanes. The Spanes will betray you first. You can tell when they're about to attack you since they start moving an army towards Corboda. Beat them off and then take them out. Destroy the Spanes totally before taking out Portugal. Portugal was warring with the French and the Spanes and was easy enough. DO NOT move East. Taking Tunis and Tripoli will just embroil you in a war with Sicily. Besides, I find Tripoli adds minimal income for the trouble of keeping it. Whenever you can call a Jihad and bring as many generals in the conquering army as you can. The bonuses are well worth it. After using the same army for 3 Jihads, my troops were all in the Silver-Gold Chevrons.

Early Army Composition : Since you'll be fighting your first few battles in sieges taking Timbuktu-Alguin-Valencia, you'll find yourself using less cavalry than you'd like. You're always outclassed by the enemy, so you'll need better tactics and superior numbers. Early on my meatshields were Sudenese Javs and Spear Militia. In sieges i'd send in the Spears first, backed up by Sud Javs throwing javs with skirmish off along with Desert Cav and Desert Archers. In the field I'd have a line of Spears backed up by a line of Sud Javs with Desert Cavs and Arab Cav on the wings. Honestly though your Generals will cause the majority of casualties in the early going. I found the siege of Timbuktu the toughest battle in the early going.

Make sure you send Imams near Settlements you plan on conquering. Also always build one Imam in newly conquered Settlements as well as the first 2 religious buildings. This helps alot in keeping Pub Order.

Medium-Late Game : By now the Iberian Peninsula is yours. You have tons of cash, and are beginning to field decent armies. The backbone of my armies were Dismounted Arabs, Urban Militia, Lamtuna Spears, and Granadine Jinetes. The Jinetes are just amazing units. My armies were usually half the stack infantry and the other half Jinetes. RETRAIN retrain as much as you can. You don't lose any experience by doing so. If you keep retraining units you end up with some real 'veteran' armies. Use Canons and Camel Gunners as soon as they become available. My sieging armies would have 2 Canons and alot of infantry, and my field armies would have alot of Camel Gunners and Jinetes/Cav. Since you Sack everything you conquer you WILL get a crusade called on you. By then you should be making enough money to field several powerful armies. Use a rotation. Defeat a crusading army with army A, then bring it to retrain and defeat the next with army B. Rinse, repeat. Once you hold the Iberian Peninsula you should have the income and tech to take on everyone without much problems. Don't be afraid to stop building in all settlements when at war. The money saved from stopping construction will give you plenty of cash to continually pop out units.

[locked_thread]

edit

[BharatRakshak]

The first thing I did was to get trading rights and alliances from both Spanish and Portuguese in exchange for money. I started building up in Cordoba and Granada with a mix of economic and military buildings (in Granada it was mostly military), and mostly economic in Marrakesh, and I built up Algiers too but slowly. I also went and got trading rights with the French and kept sending my diplomat eastward getting more trading rights from Milan, Sicily, Venice, Pope, etc.

I did NOT take Valencia. Let that place be. I sent a full stack there of pretty elite units and mercs and was sieging the place, but I saw a Spanish full stack coming in at the same time, so I decided its best to leave siege and wait out for the Spanish to get butchered by El Cid. At the same time, I saw the Portuguese faction heir sending his army into Cordoba, so I broke off from the siege and sent the army west towards Cordoba. In Cordoba I had a full stack already, so they fought off the Portuguese prince. Then with Lisbon practically unguarded, I declared jihad and used the army that would have been sieging Valencia. It was first time I used a Jihad and it was incredible the number of cheap troops you can get easy.

One thing I understood is that the only provinces that need to be defended with a proper standing army are the ones that border foreign countries. Therefore I didn't waste money recruiting in Marrakesh or Algiers, I did recruit in Granada simply to feed Cordoba. I believe by the time I took Lisbon I had already taken Tunis, but it wasn't that important anyway.

So after Lisbon, it seemed natural to take Leon. The Portuguese sued for peace along with hefty tribute and trading rights. Now the Spanish were already beefing with me, sending spies into Cordoba and also trying to siege me there. I sent in another Jihad into Leon and took it easily.

By now, an interesting situation showed up in Iberia. The French were all the way into Zaragoza (although lightly defended), the Spanish had a two-unit garisson in Valencia, and a moderately strong full stack army left in Toledo. I focussed on developing my economy at this stage. I think I might have also taken Cagliari at this point as well with a force from Tunis. I didn't want to take either Toledo or Valencia at the moment because it would leave me open to French mischief. The Portuguese were still in Pamplona and had also taken Bordeaux. I was blockading both Toledo and Valencia, and I thought I was crippling the Spanish economy, but apparently not (unbeknownst to me, they had taken Jerusalem and were making some serious dough over there). Their armies simply kept revitalizing with real nice units, and they sieged Cordoba twice. I beat them back of course, but I got sick of the cat and mouse game. I declared Jihad on Toledo and beat up the Spaniards, and by the next turn, I cleaned them up in Valencia (this means I can leave Cordoba and Leon lightly defended, leaving only Valencia and Toledo to be defended properly).

In the meanwhile I went for Ajaccio, and continued developing markets and ports and stuff all over Iberia now. I started sending Imams into Timbuktu as well as an army. While that happened (like 7-8 turns), the Portuguese and the French went to war. I took Zaragoza, and right after the French sued for peace and I was happy to take it because I would rather stay in my comfort zone behind the Pyrenees. Then the French even allied with me, so I set my sights on the Portuguese in Pamplona, took them over.

My goal has always been to have two frontier provinces at most at all times. So I figured that if I take Bordeaux, Pamplona doesn't need too much defence, so I went and finished off the Portuguese in Bordeaux (they weren't listening to my terms for ceasefire). I realize the French are looking in bad shape by now, they just have Toulouse, Marseille and Rheims. In the middle they are separated by the Danes and Milan. I really don't like to border the Danes, they look like they can rip through me. Anyway, Bordeaux is fully stacked with 7 star generals and military buildings are going on. Toulouse is mine too now just because even though the French look weak, they have a few full stack armies. And just to finish off the French on this side, I go ahead and take Marseille as well. Now, I have 3 frontier provinces: Toulouse, Bordeaux and Marseille. But I felt Marseille was worth it because of its money, and I was bordering Milan as it was in Dijon.

In the meanwhile, Timbuktu and Alguin are mine and I'm planning an invasion of Sicily (Palermo is the name of the boot region right?). My main motivation is to finish off Sicily so I can make them playable. Just when I'm about to land in Sicily, they say faction destroyed, and funny thing, the Sicilians had everything in Italy except Rome (Pope) and Genoa/Milan provinces. So all these are ripe pickings for me. But I still have to move slow because of the religion converting factor. So far I have Palermo and Naples. Looking towards Bologna. The Milanese are at war with me now, so I'm wondering whether to take Genoa with a naval landing force from Cagliari/Ajaccio. Their ships are killing me here, but once I take Genoa, there port is gone, so I can finish off their ships.

I am just praying the Danes don't start something funny, but they are already sending spies, so its not boding well. I don't want to get into the whole continental tit for tat business. I did that with Scotland, no fun at all. I like to be secure with 90% of my provinces. That's why right now, I'm trying to push up north through Italy. Then I might go for England.

[Fadly]

Is there any moors unit that can be kept inside a city for 0 upkeep like the Italian Militia?

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Is there any moors unit that can be kept inside a city for 0 upkeep like the Italian Militia?

Town militia, spear militia, crossbow militia and urban militia

[RollingWave]

I loved the Alomhads in the first series so after finally finishing off the British game I decided to give them a go.

they're even more fun this time around! just in a different way!

the desert cavs (or really javlin cavs in general) are pretty rigged. just have about 4 units (or more is fine) running around them when your main body approachs and you should be winning easily unless your massively outclassed or out positioned. pelting them from the sides or back with javline is pretty devastating. espically since they can then double up and just charge the enemy missile units after they use up the ammo.

They do have some serious trouble fighting in seiges though, in those cases auto resolve might work better. they need a lot of urban militas and christian guards to win in those. sudanese jav man are pretty useless in the open but could be useful in this situation i suppose.

I'm doing just a M/M so obviously I can do thing a bit differently. I played nice with the Christian factions to start while i take the two crazy mine rebel province and build up a reasonable structure. particularly getting lots of agents going. by the time the first Crusade was called I had most of Iberian converted to muslim and considerable amount of spies and assasins ready. I saw that Lisban had virtually no garrision and just took it. then Leon had a muslim revolt (assinating priest and sabatoging churches for the win!) and i took that out easily. then calling a Jihad to finish off Spain.

Since the Crusade is still going toward Jerusalm and most of the middle Europe states are busy killing each other. I'm having a field day so far. finding all the rebels in your large provinces are a pain though. espically when you have nothing but militas at youre disposale. (i had to build ballistas in there just so I have something more effective then risking my generals against javlin.)

[kitbogha]

the desert cavs (or really javlin cavs in general) are pretty rigged. just have about 4 units (or more is fine) running around them when your main body approachs and you should be winning easily unless your massively outclassed or out positioned. pelting them from the sides or back with javline is pretty devastating. espically since they can then double up and just charge the enemy missile units after they use up the ammo.

You got that one right. They are much better than I originally thought. Their dual use is very handy. I often use them to start off routs by charging en masse into units they have been depleting with their javelin attacks.
I do, however think that they can be useful in seiges too. I am currently holding Ajaccio, much to the displeasure of various Catholic factions and am being repeatedly attacked by Milan, The Papal States and Sicily. My Desert Cavalry are fantastic at just harrassing the flanks of the invaders as they approach up the hill then staying off to one side and picking them off as they rout. Honestly between the two units (which are now on Gold chevrons for experience) they have got to have taken 2000-3000 prisoners, and killed 300-400 attackers. I have been using the same stack-Two units desert archers, two nubian spearmen and two Desert Cavalry, time and time again (always retraining after each seige), and they have seen off about seven seiges.
I think that the Moors are a great faction to play and I am really enjoying them.
Two questions-
1) When do I get gunpowder (I'm already on turn 101)?
2) How do I get Christian Guard?

[RollingWave]

1. I'm pretty sure it's 1400, so your pretty close.

2. IIRC Christian guards are build at the largest city. i'm not sure if you need the highest barrack or just the walls.

I've decided to play the peaceful Muslim and didn't run at Spain / Portugal right away. waiting for the Christians to start killing each other (and go on a endless Crusade to the other direction) but then Spain attacked Cordoba while i'm busy killing El Cid's empire . but early game it's pretty hard for anyone to win a heads on seige without massively out numbering the opposition. and I just had all my desert cavs stationed near the gate house and barraged them with javlin after they broke through (pinning them down with Spear militas.. who i don't care much if they took friendly fire anyway) now that the Crusade is heading towards Antioch and my economy is almost set... they'll get it ... soon.

[kitbogha]

1. I'm pretty sure it's 1400, so your pretty close.

2. IIRC Christian guards are build at the largest city. i'm not sure if you need the highest barrack or just the walls.

Thanks RollingWave. I played last night (until 1.30 am, not the best idea when I needed to be up at 5.15 to go to work, but hey, it's an addiction an I am not responsible for my actions), and just as my vision was beginning to blur along came gunpowder!
I am not a peaceful Muslim, although early in the game I did ally with Portugal and Spain (a ploy for peace until I had dealt with all of the Rebel settlements in the area, but they weren't to know) and they both stabbed me in the back. Rather foolishly for them as it transpired...
Since then my campaign has been one of relentless war on the treacherous Catholics. I have taken all of Western Europe, except for Caen (which is the last French castle) and Rheims (England's last toehold on the continent) and my armies follow the orange banners into the Italian peninsula. My mighty warriors have defeated five crusading armies at the gates of Bordeaux and eight sieges of Ajaccio.
Money is finally starting to roll in (as soon you can take Timbuktu and get spamming merchants-there's serious trade opportunities down there!!). Strangely, my stock is going down with the other Muslim factions, although I have never been anything but nice to them. Thye don't even feature in my short-medium term plans of conquest. Maybe I'm just getting too powerful for comfort. I await Egypts ill advised attack on my Eastern border..
Now with the coffers filling and the armies of Islam awaiting, the Sultans thoughts turn towards another jihad-possibly directed at the foolish HRE, who have just failed in their attempts to take Milan from me.....

[Iavorios]

Gunpowder after ver. 1.02 comes around 105-112 turns. Crisitian guards come out of huge walls or chaliph stables. Dismounted ones come from armory in citadels.

[Fadly]

Moors early infantry are suck. until the urban militia and the dismounted christian guard are available i relied heavily on cavs. by 100 turn, most of my early light cavalries are gold or silver chevron and i'm loth to disband them. the best cavs that i think available early on are Granadine Jinetes. it excel in both range and melee fighting, given the right tactics, though you can't expect it to go toe to toe with the heavy cavs or charging directly into a line of spears.

[locked_thread]

edit

[RollingWave]

it's pretty hard to get Hashishim early (not impossible, but hard)

they're two higher level spear units aren't that shabby technically. but aren't a strong suit that's for sure. and its not like they're in serious needs of anti cavs when they're usually the once that put more horses on the field. not to meantion tuleg camels completely annihilate light cavs and can stand up to heavier onces with some armor upgrades too.

Grandinet Jinets are better then desert cavs in that they can win most fights against light cavs. though for the pure purpose of pelting they're not that much more effective.

I took out the back stabbing Spaniards from Spain, Portogul is still allied with me but Spain took out most of their army. I'm trying to kill them without breakin the alliance... by converting their towns to all muslim and mass spieing them into rebellion :P

[Fadly]

Grandinet Jinets are better then desert cavs in that they can win most fights against light cavs. though for the pure purpose of pelting they're not that much more effective.

at least it simplified production. no longer i have the need to make a hard decision of portioning my cavs between missile and melee.

I don't like to use camels. they were pretty slow. it took forever to maneuver them into flanking position.

[locked_thread]

edit

[RollingWave]

dang that's pretty sick when you have one of the best infantry in the game when most guys are running around with town militas!

here's a question on Arguin, early in the game if you build a port there you don't get any sea trade.. thats intended right? (cause you can't sail there) but does that change once you get to ocean faring ships and / or Americas?

[Fadly]

Last night I tested this out. I built an assassin as soon as possible and put him to work... killed two cardinals right off the bat

i did just that, but my assassin are innefective. they were either missed or being killed. How do you make a good assassin?

[locked_thread]

edit