The Moors

[Carl]

Hey, loads of thanks for this. Well done .

[SCRIBE]

Are the Moors still able to deploy the Almohad Urban Militia?

[grinningman]

Yes, but they aren't the early game powerhouse unit that they were in MTW. They're built at a level 3 barracks building in cities.

[grinningman]

The latest version of these tech trees, which print out properly, look nicer and include a lot more info on all the buildings, are now here:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/local...=156#linkid358

I had some free time on the weekend, so I did end up making a city chart. I also corrected a couple of mistakes on the castle chart.

They are now here:

*snip*

I've removed the link to the old version of the castle tech tree. As before, guilds aren't included.

[Slaists]

All in all, Moors are an enjoyable faction to play, after playing one of the Catholic factions.

Converting all your neighbors to Islam and not worrying about those marauding Inquisitors just feels refreshing (for a heretic like me). As a bonus - the faction campaign map music felt great to me (could be, it is the same for all the Islamic factions though). By the way, I played on H/VH setting with 2 years per turn.

Strategy wise, there is no need to follow the initial advice of the internal game advisor about rushing for Valencia - a poor, undeveloped castle with strong early defenders. On top of that, it is not on your initial Jihad target list, which means that taking it would drain your economic and military resources for quite some turns with no immediate reward. Meanwhile: the Spaniards and Portuguese might attack Cordoba.

Depending on your particular map situation, You might as well, declare a Jihad on Lisbon (a great cash city with few castle units in their garrison). This is what I did after Portuguese attacked my border fort. I guess, they did not have a family member in Bilbao, since the faction was destroyed after my Jihad. From then on - it was a bit of a marathon finishing off Spaniards in the peninsula (I did take my time with it).

Note, sending a bunch of your Imams into a Spanish province will convert the province to Islam fast and will boost your Imams' peity. This helps to counter efforts of catholic priests in your own provinces: 1) their priests tend to rush back to thier home provinces to counter spread of Islam, 2) higher peity helps your imams to convert your own provinces back faster.

Another side note (and a sad one): it seems Timbuktu gets flash floods some time in mid 1100-s. This means movement impairment for any units there, including your merchants (and this effect does not seem to go away. probably, due to a bug observed in RTW too). So, my advice, turn Timbuktu into a castle (cheaper to keep and no need to have a city there since the trade income (not counting merchants) seem to be low) and make sure you take West Sahara and turn it into a merchant factory to farm resources for both provinces. Otherwise, walking merchants through the desert from your mainland provinces will be a hellish experience.

[PureFodder]

I`m on my second campaign as the Moors now on H/H after the first one ended up grinding to a deadlock and a couple of trial runs, here's my thoughts so far.

Initial Building strategy

First turn you get the option to upgrade 2 castles, I upgrade both and set the other cities to make land clearance / ports / markets / roads to up income.
I set Granada to be my ranged troop production centre once the castle is built. Toledo will make foot troops and Pamplona, mounted units.

Agents

Send your spy and Imam towards Toledo to keep track of the Spanish armies. Send your emissary asap towards France then onto the Papal states. Making peace with both these factions will pay huge dividens, my lack of attention in this area on my initial attempt resulted in having a crusade called on me and being at war with all the Catholic countries at the same time.

Initial assaults

Force 1
Take all but one unit from Marrakesh with your heir and link up with the troops just standing around the desert, buy a couple of merc units and declair a Jihad on Lisbon. This means that half your troops don't pay upkeep giving a nice cash boost early on and you can get to Lisbon asap which is important. As has been mentioned, Portugal only has 2 family members, both in Lisbon, so battering them will destroy the Portugeese and make your life alot easier, plus you'll get a load of cash.
DON'T STOP, dump one or two units to hold Lisbon then send the rest north, along with some more Mercs towards Leon.

Force 2
Take your units from Granada, send them to Cordoba and buy some more milita units there. Once your Lisbon Force is roughly 3 turns from Leon, send this force out towards Toledo so they arrive at the same time.

Every time I've started as the Moors pre and post patch, the Spanish did the same thing. They stick all their troops into two armies and march off towards El Cid and the rebel provinces there leaving their cities practically unguarded. Once they see you knocking on the walls of Toledo they turn round, but can't make it back in time to stop both provinces being taken. Bye Bye Spanish. Now Iberia is left to you and the rebels

Force 3
I guess it's up to you, you can take the forces at Algeirs down towards Timbuktu and the money pot there, but there's absolutely no chance that anyone will take it before you. I personally send that force plus a few mercs to take Tunisia before dumping them on a ship and heading to the really poorly held tiny rebel provinces in Sardinia and Corsica. Convert them both into cities to maximise income, the mines help the income too. A word of warning; Post patch, Sicilly has gone all out amphibious assault on Tunisia and Sardinia so watch out for them.

[PureFodder]

I've now finished my campaign as the Moors so I thought I'd add a bit to my last post.

Firstly, the Moors have a lovely feature of having absolutely no use for stables whatsoever. Your Castle walls provide the same cavalry as you'd get from building a stables there and the awesome Christian guards are available at any huge city. The stables don't even give any experience bonuses so don't build them and destroy any in castles you take for extra cash. Also the main bulk of your armies will be made up of dismounted Arab Cavalry which are also available at any fortress. This makes restocking your armies nice and easy.

Infantry
Spears spears and more spears. For the early and mid game your infantry will consist entirely of spearmen. Berber spearmen make up the main bulk of early armies and will take massive casualties whenever used, but they're cheap, easy to train and will hold up the enemy long enough for you to get round the sides and back of them to kill them.
Nubian Spearmen have the exact same stats and costs as Berber spearmen but lack the good stamina and fighting in desert bonus that the Berber spears have, making them an utterly pointless unit for the Moors to have.
Dismounted Arab cavalry are far better as they are well armoured but still you should expect decent casualties whenever you use them. These are your best troops for taking and defending castle walls.
Lamtuna spearmen do alot better in melee than their stats seem to indicate but get destroyed by archers as they have little in the way of defence, so be careful with them and they can excel.

A milita drill square in a large city will get you access you your first of two heavy infantry units the Urban Militia. Well armoured, cheap and free upkeep in large cities where they are trained makes them a very useful unit. Good against enemy spearmen and light infantry but lacking the offensive power to challenge good heavy infantry and win.
Finally you'll get a citadel, upgrade to an armoury and you get the Dismounted Christian Guard. An excellent heavy infantry unit that can go toe to toe with pretty well any infantry unit, 16 attack and 22 defence. Make loads of these and you won't regret it.

Missile troops
Sudanese Javelinmen are your entry level missile troop, bad in melee and far less useful than your javelin throwing cavalry, generally not worth it.
Desert Archers are a long range archer unit that are great for defending walls as they can fire flaming arrows almost as far as longbowmen with good damage for an early archer unit (just higher than longbowmen). They do suffer from quite a high trajectory of fire meaning missed shots don't hit other people very often. Terrible in melee and poorly armoured though, so they need protecting.
Crossbow militia. Made in barracks in small cities, ok damage, surprisingly small range and terrible in melee. Not a great unit.
Peasant Crossbowmen. Do NOT confuse this with the peasant crossbowmen that some Catholic factions get. These guys are great. Same long range as the Desert Archers, a very flat trajectory and a missile attack of 12. They are like Merc Crossbowmen with slightly lower defence and half the upkeep and recruitment cost.

Cavalry
Arab Cavalry. Cheap fast light cavalry that are very handy at killing, routing or simply disrupting enemy archers while your Javelin cavalry kill things.
Tuareg Camel spearmen. Actually make very good early game heavy cavalry. Generals bodyguard units will destroy them but against light cav, mailed knights and infantry they are lovely. The best bit is they are trained at a Caravan stop which can be made in any castle, only costs 1200 to build and increases trade in the settlement. The downside is they are financially crippling, with a whopping 300 a turn upkeep costs (they only cost 600 to train in the first place) so only train them when your are gearing up for an offensive.
Granadine Lancers are available at any citadel and are quite good heavy cav. Much better than your Camel Cavalry and with a lower upkeep cost.
Christian Guard. A great heavy cavalry unit, high attack, charge and armour make these guys invaluable. Same upkeep costs but slightly more expensive than Granadine lancers. Best bit is they can be recruited from any huge city, so with Citadels making lancers and huge cities making Christian guards you can very easily make and retrain your heavy cavalry armies.

Missile Cavalry
Desert Cavalry. These Javalin throwing cavalry can gut most western Catholic armies before they have a chance to fight back. Run them round the back of their formation while your arab cavalry disrupt their archers and lob Javelins into the back and sides of the General/Heavy cav/heavy infantry. Fast but vulnerable to missile fire and melee they take quite a bit of micromanaging to get the most out of them, but the results are worth it. A word of warning; Spain and Portugals Jinetes outclass desert cavalry in every respect and will massacre you so keep away from them!
Granadine Jinetes. Exactly the same as desert cav but with some armour, still not as good as Jinetes though but against French, HRE, Milanese, Venice, English, Scotts and Papal armies they shine, provided you can kill or occupy the enemy archers.
Granadine Crossbow Cavalry. If you can get a citadel well before gunpowder these are a relatively useful unit to have. Use them in a similar way to your javalin cavalry. Slower firing but with much more ammo they can happily sit behind the enemy formation slowly killing their heavy cav/infantry. Fast enough to escape from most cavalry attacks too.

Camel Gunners
These are good enough to get their own section. Make sure every citadel you own has a Caravansary asap. The building cost 3600 to make and only building you before you can make them is a caravan stop. As mentioned they also up your trade income. So the entire tech tree required to make one of the games greatest units costs a mere 4800 to complete, takes 6 turns and will eventually pay for itself .
You can make one unit every 2 turns, they cost 1180 to make and have an upkeep of 300 a turn. If they cost twice that they'd still probably be worth it. They have long range shots that drop the enemy morale quickly, they have a missile attack strength of 16 and can easily flank round the back and sides of an army to hit their weaker rear armour. An almost flat trajectory of fire means that when shooting at a unit near the middle of an enemy formation even if they miss they will almost certainly kill something. The are best used with fire at will off to conserve their 20 shots to do the maximum damage to the enemy army. They aren't good in melee, but that's unlikely to matter as they have a great range and any enemy cav that attacks will be under constant high power demoralising fire as they chase them and if they manage to get into melee combat the camels cause fear to the horses. If you can afford it I reccommend 6-8 units per army.

Artillery
Pre gunpowder you get the Ballista, catapult and Treb just like everyone else.
Gunpowder gives you the Bombard, the Grand Bombard and the Cannon. Your selection may seem limited, but these are enough for blasting walls down and defending bridges. The role of anti-personel artillery is more than capably handled by you camel gunners.

Stuff I didn't use
It took me ages to be bothered to tech up to make Handgunners and Sudanese Gunners, but as camel gunners have the same shot power as them, longer range and the ability to hit the sides and rear of the enemy formations it didn't seem worth it.
I was never given the opportunity to make Hashisham infantry but they seem quite similar to Dismounted Christian Guard but have 30 units with 2 hitpoits instead of 60 units with one.
In custom battles you can get Dismounted Tuareg but I've never seen them in the campaign so I figured they were partially removed from the game (the last thing the Moors need is yet another spear infantry unit).

Tactics
These tactics are based on fighting the armies found in western Europe which is pretty much the only type of army I fought against (France, Milan, Venice, Sicily, Denmark, Papal states and Scotland). Spain and Portugal died too quickly and with too few battles to really see how to fight them and I never went into the holy lands except to take Jerusalem (which was in the hands of the Danes)

In the early and mid game an all out melee brawl in the middle of the map will get your armies very dead. On the open field deploy your infantry and archers as close to the back of the battlefield as possible this gives your cavalry extra time to demolish the enemy, your light and heavy cavalry at the front in the centre and your javelin cavalry at the front to either side of the melee cav.
Use your cavalry to charge and kill the enemy archers first. I either spread them out into a long line and charge head on into the front archer rank, kill as many as possible before the front rank of spearmen can get to the rescue. I've also has success using a tight formation and charging from the side of the archers as this way when they run away they don't head towards their waiting spearmen. Also do this to any artillery they have.
Once they're dead send your Javelin cavalry round the sides to hurl pointy stick death at the general and any cavalry they have, then any remaining ammo can go into the backs of their heavy infantry.
Now move your heavy cavalry round the back of the enemy and wander your archers and crossbows (supported by your spear line) into range and give the enemy a good blasting. If the enemy formation decide to rush your position, let them come while constantly harrassing them with your cavalry. Again, concentrate melee cav on any archers, and Javelin cav on their cav followed by their heavy infantry if you still have any ammo left. If the enemy make it to your spear line charge them into melee and hit your cavalry into their backs. Generally the enemy will be routing en mass just about now.

In the later game replace the archers in your army for as many Camel gunners as you can afford and replace all heavy and light cavalry with Granadine Lancers and Christian Guard. Make sure you keep a decent number of Dismounted Arab Cavalry as bait to make sure the enemy is always aiming their formation towards these guys and not concentrating on your cavalry. Add some Dismounted Christian Guard to the mix so you can pummel the enemy if they manage to get into melee. They're also very useful fighting on the streets during siege battles.

Timbuktu
Make sure you take this and Arguin to the west of it. To find it select an army and tell them to move to the bit of green land to the south of the massive dessert, the arrow to it will show you the only way they can get there and highlight that it'll take about 6-8 turns to get there. Before America is discovered you can't sail there apparently.

Expect a decent defence garrison too (8-10 units i seem to remember). To get to Arguin go west of Timbuktu til you hit the sea then go North a bit. The two gold mines in Timbuktu earn 1400 a turn with a Mining network. A simple mine in Arguin earns 400 a turn. I had a merchant on every trade good and mine in these two settlements and between the 8 of them (3 mines, 4 Ivory and one slaves) they were pulling in 3561 every turn (cost of 4400 to train them all). This is how you can afford all those lovely Camel gunners .

General advice
If you go my route taking western Europe keep a diplomat next to Rome to drop a few thousand gold on the Pope when you sack a Catholic settlement. You don't want a Crusade called against you, especually when the crusading armies can get there in 2-3 turns. If you look like loosing a settlement to a huge army, sell every building you can, retreat out of it and sell the settlement to the Pope for a few thousand gold. They will most likely carry on the attack and in doing so become enemies of all the catholic countries, slowing down their offensive against you. Also keeps the Pope from setting crusades against you.

Expect to see Sicily in north Africa if you have the patch installed. It's well worth going and crushing the Sicillians as they will cause you alot of strife. It also provides a nice launch pad to go take Italy. I found it quite easy to grab france and slowly grind my way through northern Italy. If England or Scotland has taken all the provinces in the British Isles then a co-ordinated assault with a couple of armies and some garrisoning troops can take the whole place very quickly. The AI won't station much in the way of a garrison there as there are no bordering enemy armies for it to worry about. Land one in London and one in Edinburgh and you can take the Island in 4 or so turns, before the computer has time to reinforce itself.

Egypt seemed happy to totaly ignore me and went off killing the Turks and Byzantines and were almost matching me in populace, settlements and army strength for the entire campaign.

Jihads are great. Find a Jihad target that you were going to take soon anyway, send an army off to capture the place. Just before you fight the siege battle to take the jihad target, take every general who can amass an army of 8 units just out of their settlements and join the Jihad. Take the city and each unit in a jihad army will now have an extra experience level. You also get about 3000 florins bonus for a successful Jihad and you general gains a load of Chivalry, which means you can get to the Huge cities/Citadels faster.

I hope this has been of some use to someone and my hangover hasn't resulted in a complete breakdown of spelling and grammer.