The Moors

[invalidopcode]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

[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...

[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