The Moors

[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.

[IvarrWolfsong]

PuerFodder,

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

[Gingivitis]

My winning campaign also saw me mopping up Europe and leaving the rest of North Africa alone east of Tunis. For some reason I really wanted Tunis and every time I started a game Sicliy got there first, so I decided to call a Jihad there and was able assult it the the same turn Sicily landed there. I kept that army there after turning it from a castle to a town and Sicily never stepped foot there for the rest of the game. With the part of North Africa that I controlled completely peaceful I only had one battle front the whole game. Add the resource jackpot of Timbuktu and Arguin and I was basically able to expand as fast as I could build troops.

[Nepereta]

my Moor campaign so far consists of beelining for the 2 saharan territories asap. Meanwhile I have just been maintaining good diplomatic relationships with everyone I see. One diplomat is currently passing the alps having made friends with the portuguese, spainish, french, milan and english. Gonna try and make good friends with the Papists if that some how helps.

A little hint with timbuktu is get it in order (green face) prior to building merchants. Even if that means lowering taxes. I find yellow and blue face cities tend to generate negative trader traits. Each merchant is bringing in 300 or so from the get go on the gold and ivory.

Also to get your soldiers back its a good idea to use a jihad to tunis and rush your troops home using that and the roads.

The portuguese war decced me by virtue of a failed espionage attempt on there part. I used this to seize Lisbon which was undermanned and the El Cid territory ( which was upgradable to fortress straight away). Portugal are sitting in pampolona.

A good way to get heavier ( read marginally heavier than weak spears) city assault troops is to make use of the sahara ( saharan tribesmen) and also make use of jihads Using the jihad you can get Ghazhis and a peasant shock troop Muutwa'Ekekeke'Ptang! ( all these light infantry units have really low upkeep and are ultimately expendable.

Troops I use in the early game:

Saharan Tribesman ( Light infantry swordsman) good v weak spear types. You can pickup 3 or 4 of these units during the Saharan campaign.
Ghazis ( Light infantry axeman) good v weak spear types. Purchase cheap in large numbers during jihad. ( cheap upkeep)
Muutwa ( Fanatics) good flanking junk unit. ( Massive attack value). Purchase cheap in large numbers during jihad. ( cheap upkeep)

All of the above will disapear under a cav charge.

Spear Militia pretty rubbish especially if you ever played Italian at some point. Expendable meat wall.

Desert Cavalry: javalins ftw ( seriously use these to strafe command units from a couple of sides)

Desert Archers: not as good as longbows but v cheap. A number of these dudes will help a fair amount.

Arab Cav: don't think they are mailed knights they aren't. Skinny spears use these for flanks and rear attacks they run down light inf and archers handily. They also don't fare too well v jinnettes which is a little sad.

Basically compared to european games each fight has relied on hideously large stacks overwhelming heavier troops with sheer numbers. Expect to be using you generals more at the hard end to break up the harder units.

The dhows are a little weak looking. Consider getting war galleys for your navy?

Keep you main city growing as quickly as possible. Its not that far off large city == urban militia ( your godsend infantry unit). Go all out on farm upgrades and city hall upgrades.

[tequila]

Just a quick note. If you are playing on Hard or VH on the strat map, DO NOT GO EAST as the Moors --- at least before you take all of Iberia. Taking Tunis will just bog you down in a neverending war against the Italian powers --- Sicily, Venice, and Milan, who post-patch go crazy for North Africa. Even worse, after I took Tunis I foolishly launched an island invasion to Sardinia, where my armies were assaulted regularly by massive full-stack Italian armies. The Sicilians in particular were nasty --- swarms of Norman Knights, Muslim Archers, and Dismounted Norman Knights that made mincemeat of my Lamtuna and Berber spearlines (only massive doses of javcav saved me). They got so bad that I eventually conquered Palermo and Naples to destroy Sicily, which has alleviated the problem somewhat as Milanese and Venetian armies are nowhere near as challenging. This has probably been the toughest M2TW campaign I've had so far --- gotta admit it was fun as hell, though.

Also on VH, expect to see regular invasions of English and even Scots from the North into Iberia. Plan naval allocations accordingly.

[Nepereta]

thanks for the FYI tequila, this is my first new game since the patch on an earlier pre patch game that I loaded post patch playing as Venice I noted sicily island hopping. Which is a vast improvement on the usual Sicily hitting bologna in turn 30 or 40 which was pitiful imo.

[tequila]

No problem, I was quite surprised to see massed Italians outside my walls, especially with the quality of the Sicilian troops. Very nasty surprise when my first full-stack army (made up primarily of Berber spears, Desert Cav, and Touareg Camels) was utterly destroyed by a half-stack of Norman Knights, Muslim Archers, and Dismounted Normans. Those Dismounted Normans pack a punch, and Muslim Archers shredded my Desert Cav like paper when I trotted them out there unsupported (which made it so much sweeter when I later used Christian Guards to crush the little bastards in an avalanche of steel).

I would advise going full bore to conquer Iberia first and foremost. This will give you the safe haven and the economic foundation to do whatever else you want to do. What really killed me was having to conquer the Spanish and Portuguese (still haven't finished the latter, they are clinging to a citadel in Toulouse) at the same time fighting off British/French invasions of Iberia AND contending with the Italians. A major cost factor in trying to do that was maintaining a massively farflung empire that required massively large fleets to safely convey my troops from Iberia to North Africa/Italian islands/Sicily, never mind fighting off constant blockades of my crucial port moneymakers. Constant naval battles against all the Italians and the French in the Med was both extremely expensive and had no guarantee of success.

[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.

[testhero]

AS the English I had an first crusade fail #1. So I dropped in on the Portuguese for a quick smash and run at Lisbon. Their garrison rallied forth #2. The first two Cavalry units through the gate were Family bodyguards and my 600 longbowmen harrowed them before they fataly charged the balista in my van. Placed in a ravelin formed with overlapping archers stake hedges, Defended by my Sherwood archers #3. Just before their rest of the Cavalry charged the 2 Spear militia and 2 fanatics guarding my archers in a classic pincer, both Bodyguards broke! A charge by the remaining Sherwood men Taking the king and ballista bolt to their prince's back decapitating their leadership. Once my archers had swept the battlements of their archers. The balista finished demolishing the gate #4. The fanatics took the Barbican #5. So my longbowmen could gain the walls and mop up the survivors.
Once I had decided to sack the city #6 and returned to the strategic game I was greeted with that most noble of Announcments! Faction Eliminated, Portugal.
#7

#1 The Sicilians took Jerusalim with an audacious amphibious assault.
#2 probably to stop my only ballista shooting their gate in.
#3 It was very early. They were the best Infintry I had.
#4 And Decimating Sundary other units behind it.
#5 We won't mention their casualties, simply stunning morale! despite formed units in front and the occasional missaimed 'friendly' balista bolts in the back they didn't rout.
#6 8000 all told with Loot and Building destruction
#7 As is traditional in these circumstances I gifted Lisbon to the Pope to raise favor (and avoid Excomunication) Neatly honking off the Moors and Spaniards plans into the bargin