The Moors

**Nepereta** · 01-18-2007, 12:05

did you ally all the italian factions prior to all this going off? My diplomatic policies ( in every game bar the first as english which was of mixed success because I practiced a great deal of catholic killing) are based around allying everyone and let them do the aggreement breaking. It makes them appear dishonorable and hence potentially gives them more problems because the other factions should trust them less.

Until in theory all aggresor factions become inherently venal and their word isn't worth a damn and they just get caught up in an endless cycle of war with each other.

**tequila** · 01-19-2007, 15:20

Didn't really bother with diplomacy. On VH all the AI factions are rabid dogs out to get you.

**invalidopcode** · 01-21-2007, 15:35

When playing as the moors, be very careful about auto-resolving battles. I found that some battles that should have been guaranteed wins turn out to be devastating loses. I guess I attribute it to the fact that the game does not properly assess the advantage of the moorish army (i.e. mobility).

I also want to second the battle strategy mentioned already. Harass the enemy with the mobile archers, spear chuckers, and camel gunners (w00t!). Then when the ammo is used up, use them to attack the enemy archers/crossbow from the rear and side. The whole point of this is at best, to demoralize the enemy so he turns and runs, or at worse, kill enough off to make it easy for your infantry and mounted units to clean up.

As a side note, make sure you use your camel gunners on the most heavily armored unit in the enemy stack and from the flanks. They appear to run out of ammo pretty quickly. Concentrate gunner fire on a single unit at a time to try to "encourage" them to run away, run away....

Early on I was having trouble playing the moors because I kept on trying to go toe-to-toe with the European infidels. However, once I switched to these tactics the battles got a whole lot easier!

**tequila** · 01-22-2007, 04:23

Let me second the enormous effectiveness of camel gunners. I just started buying these bad boys, and in every single battle I've fought with them (mostly targeting heavy armored Western units, mostly General Bodyguards and Dismounted Feudal/English Knights), every camel gunner unit has had 150+ kills at least, and I don't use them to chase routers. You don't really notice how effective they are until you see the enemy line thinned out halfway into the battle. I mostly use them as recommended by others above: string them out in long range on the flanks and enfilade the enemy line. Note that if enemy cav gets at them, these guys are still meat --- the scare-horses feature can't make up for their lameness at close range. But they are well worth that risk. One unit in a massive battle that destroyed the last hope of Sicilian independence had 355 kills.

**Nepereta** · 01-23-2007, 17:31

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.

**grinningman** · 02-06-2007, 00:02

I've posted another updated, and probably final, version of the Moor castle and city tech trees. They look nicer, have more corrections and more info than my previous ones. They should also print out correctly (unlike the previous versions). They can be found here:

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

**grapedog** · 02-23-2007, 17:37

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.

**Seabourch** · 06-22-2007, 13:22

great strategy guide!

**wzup** · 02-19-2007, 17:00

Originally Posted by Nepereta

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