The Turks

[frogbeastegg]

The Turks need to be unlocked before you can play as them. To do this you can either complete a campaign (on any difficutly, long or short setting) with one of the five starting factions, or you can edit the preferences file. To do this open your Sega/M2TW folder/data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign, find the file called "descr_strat" and open it with wordpad. Now find the section which says

campaign      imperial_campaign
playable
   england
   france
   hre
   spain
   venice
end
unlockable
   sicily
   milan
   scotland
   byzantium
   russia
   moors
   turks
   egypt
   denmark
   portugal
   poland
   hungary
end
nonplayable
   papal_states
   aztecs
   mongols
   timurids
   slave
end

Change it so it reads

campaign      imperial_campaign
playable
   england
   france
   hre
   spain
   venice
   sicily
   milan
   scotland
   byzantium
   russia
   moors
   turks
   egypt
   denmark
   portugal
   poland
   hungary
end
nonplayable
   papal_states
   aztecs
   mongols
   timurids
   slave
end

[turnip]

Starting as the Turks, you're in a mixed position.

You do have 4 regions - 2 towns (Iconium and Yerevan) and 2 castles (Caesarea and Mosul) - but none of them make much money and what little income you do have mostly goes to pay your unit upkeep costs.
Also, your settlements are horribly spaced out with so many mountains separating West from East you'll find 'yet another damn bunch of rebels' hiding around each corner. This distance - and the inability to march in a straight line anywhere means it's a real pain trying to move troops around to defend your borders... Something you'll be doing quite a lot.

Put simply, the Byzantines will harrass you early. It took 11 turns for the first half-stack to besiege Iconium and only 5 more for them to send an army across to Tbilisi, taking Trebizond on the way.
At the same time, the Egyptians will be steamrolling everything South of you.

My advice is to think very carefully about each mission your Nobles give to you. Get your Diplomat moving NorthWest as quickly as you can and hopefully you'll get a load of 500 florin missions to make first contact with a load of factions you probably won't fight for a while.
I also grabbed every spare unit I could get and headed for Antioch, ignoring Adana for now. The money you get from Antioch makes it a life-saver, even with Byzantium blockading it every other turn.

Another reason I would advise avoiding Adana early on is that the units defending it are an uncomfortable mix when the bulk of your army is Horse Archers of some sort.

Any veterans from MTW will know about the unit mix in general for the Turks (Horse Archers for breakfast, lunch and dinner) and in fact it's probably closer to the Parthians from RTW. The early infantry is dreadful and you'll have so little money for non-HAs that you'll probably spend what you can afford on Peasant Archers (bait for enemy archers).
The main problem with the unit mix early on is simply that the Byzantines have access to an equally wide selection of Horse Archers as well, so you'll be relying on the AI to field inadequate armies quite a lot.

It's also worth noting a couple of oddities. Firstly the Race Tracks let Towns recruit HAs and secondly both Janissary units are recruited in Towns as well, so don't be stingy with the Blacksmiths (or even Swordsmiths Guilds, if you're lucky).

[NihilisticCow]

I recently completed the Turks campaign (VH/VH) and quite enjoyed it. I pushed on the Byzantines relatively early, and was able to take Nicaea, which seem to distract them so I was able to expand a bit more easily. I also took Constantinople before the Mongols arrived (in force....). Holding Antoich as the previous poster mentioned would probably be a good idea, I didn't, and I wasn't able to displace the Mongols from there for a considerable time. The reason I didn't hold it was due to a crusade though, which you do have to be careful of...

I found the Sipahi horse archers very useful, as they do quite well in melee too, so they seem useful in chasing down enemy horse archers while continuing to shoot at them, especially in groups. This was especially important early in the game, as my enemies seemed to have significant numbers of horse archers. Foot archers, especially the non-peasant ones also will do the job against them when they're not in cantabrian. Getting too absorbed with horse archer numbers probably isn't a good idea though, I was finding 4-5 per 20 unit stack worked quite well, otherwise you're risking a bit too much in lack of melee power.

The basic spear militia aren't great but they aren't too shocking either, but the dismounted sipahis and saracen militia (and ottoman infantry, an "archer" unit) make quite a capable holding melee force and often can break infantry lines of their own accord even without the cavalry you should be charging with.

When the millions of Mongols arrived I got rather bogged down fighting against them, defending cities with decent numbers of the heavier spears is a must (and having a production line for retraining losses), but you can attack individual stacks in the open if you're confident with your cavalry or have a good position. I did though try to make sure I kept pushing on the Byzantines and then Venice with anything spare so that I was still taking some territories. When the Mongols finally burnt out, it was relatively plain sailing (except having to be quick taking the 45 regions).

As mentioned the 3 Janissary units are recruited from high level cities not castles, but it costs quite a lot of money to get there when for the early to middle part of the game you're better off with spears, cavalry and horse archers.

ps. Artillery is also very useful for taking cities in a hurry (i.e. just turning up and attacking), though this is true for any campaign, but it is highly useful to be able to take advantage of poorly defended cities instead of sieging and more defenders turning up.

[Subedei]

I am playing the Turks right now on m/h.

I know this is pretty much "common knowledge" but: in the beginning you´ll be pretty poor for most of the time. This is bad. Your bigger cities start to rebel [in my case Antioch & Constantiople]. This is worse.

After that both cities fell within no time due to rebellion, and this is good...if you had a decent force there. Reconquer the city and rob it....

Should give you a good 10-20k to solve your financial problems before the Mongols come knocking on ya door.....I know I am a crook!

[KhaderKhan]

Ditto what everyone has posted so far but I like to add a few suggestions:

1) Try to push (be it through force or bribery) south as far and fast as possible. Why? Antioch, Damascus, Edessa, Aleppo have the potential to become large money spinners. Capturing Acre is important as it can quickly be upgraded to a fortress.

2) To save money and to get the most out of your troops merge all your units to 2 or 3 full stack (that's if you have the money) and based at least one in each half [i.e. 1 in ME and another in Anatolia] of the empire.

3) Brace yourself for the inevitable invasion of the Byzantine/Egyptian/Crusades. Don't worry if you are outnumbered, provided your opponents doesn't have as many Archers and HA's as you your armies can roll-over full stack with relative ease because of your superior fire-power and mobility.

Btw: Has anyone else notice the fact that Turkish Archers have a defence skill of 6? The same level as JHI?

[MadKow]

Don't be let dwn by the apparently low stats of Janissary Heavy Infantry, compared to other heavy infantry (Western Dismounted Knights and such), they are in all tests i've done the BEST heavy infantry unit one on one. They have however to be protected from heavy cavalry charges and missile fire.

[Shahed]

The Turks need to be unlocked before you can play as them. To do this you can either complete a campaign (on any difficutly, long or short setting) with one of the five starting factions, or you can edit the preferences file. To do this open your Sega/M2TW folder/data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign, find the file called "descr_strat" and open it with wordpad. Now find the section which says

campaign      imperial_campaign
playable
   england
   france
   hre
   spain
   venice
end
unlockable
   sicily
   milan
   scotland
   byzantium
   russia
   moors
   turks
   egypt
   denmark
   portugal
   poland
   hungary
end
nonplayable
   papal_states
   aztecs
   mongols
   timurids
   slave
end

Change it so it reads

campaign      imperial_campaign
playable
   england
   france
   hre
   spain
   venice
   sicily
   milan
   scotland
   byzantium
   russia
   moors
   turks
   egypt
   denmark
   portugal
   poland
   hungary
end
nonplayable
   papal_states
   aztecs
   mongols
   timurids
   slave
end

Greetings Noble Frog

Not sure if someone has already pointed this out, or, even if it makes a difference.

That file is read only. I don't know if it's necessary (probably not) but just thought I'd mention it, that you'll have to click properties and change the file from read only, before you make any changes, which can be saved.

Salute !

[Onemanshow]

I'm used to play with Turks and I have some suggestions :
Give up Erevan and Mossoul, sell all buildings and use all the soldiers in the 2 cities for plunder Antioche. Now you are rich ! Then, give up Antioche right away (crusaders will come soon) and move your army to Adana. Once you have captured Adana, turn it into City and build a dock as soon as possible.
While Byzantium attack you, make one boat and go to capture Cyprus island. There is only 1 or 2 units garrisoned so it's easy and the docks already build will help you to get some money. Now you have to defend your borders against Byzantines and later, Egyptians. Make 4-5 Turks archers in Caesarea, send them to the mountains left to Iconium with 1 or 2 infantry units and let Byzantines army attack you. In battle, put your army on the higher position in mountain and watch your Turks archers devastating the ennemy army. If you play well, you can kill an entire 20 Units army with your 7-8 units. All you need is to place your archers very high in the mountain and protect them with your small infantry.

Right to Adana, you can see 2 mountains between the only road to Antioche. You will wait Egyptians attack here and use the same tactics than above.
When border will be safe, expand you territory only to the west, cities are more interesting. Don't forget to take Heraklion and Rhodes islands, many trades and money are available here.

Let the East cities to Egyptians who will have to fight Mongols alone, later in the game (good luck to them)

[GrandInquisitor]

Here's some early game suggestions of my own after getting pulverized, then restarting.

No, it's not a secret that the Turks begin poor, but that can change in a matter of two or three turns. You won't roll in money, but you'll be able to field a solid force. And always remember, in a nutshell on previous statements, that Turkic cities produce better infantry than castles, but ultimately no heavy cavalry (Sipahis are solid, however, for quite some time).

First, take Mosul and turn it into a city. It's so far back and in a valuable stretch that keeping it a castle is more an expense. Develop your eastern cities for cash. Take the two Turkish Archers from Mosul and the city to the north and combine them with one to two spear militia. These guys should immediately go to Trebizond, which the Byzantines will also be gunning for with a sizeable stack, and which you should be able to break once inside the castle if you wait out the siege instead of storm it. (Note: After you defeat the Byzantine army going for this castle, change it into a city. Caesarea, Adana, and Aleppo are the only castles necessary at the start.)

In the western part of your empire, build Iconium up to port status, but think about getting yourself up to Saracen Infantry and catapults quickly. Saracens can beat any Infantry unit the early Byzantines will throw at you, and your cavalry/foot archers likewise. So pull together all your spare forces in the west on turn one and start thinking about Antioch -- this city and Mosul's transformation were the difference-makers in my campaign. Build Antioch the same way as Iconium, up to port status and with a level two or three market. After that, get Saracens, then more money.

If you can take the castle south of Antioch, good, but the Egyptians usually get there quickly. Absolutely take Adana and Aleppo and keep them as castles. The added defense buffer between money-making cities is paramount at this stage, and they connect your empire better.

Diplomatically, make alliances with everyone but the Byzantines, unless you sell it. They'll attack you as soon as you or they take Trebizond. Very important in my campaign was NOT destroying the initial Byzantine stack. When I did (it's a lot of spearmen) they replaced them with huge horse archer armies, which can really hurt you. Instead, field a mixed force of spearmen, Turkish Archers (which beat Byz spearmen in melee), a couple horse archers, and catapults. Artillery is wonderful against the early Byzantine army. If you wait to destroy the first stack, any new units they've made will likely go west to fight other wars, leaving you with a far less able enemy. Once you crush this force, move west and take Nicaea or Constantinople; simultaneously, take your Antioch conquerors and move them over to Cyprus, which might have a unit or two defense, and take it. At that point, you might have Trebuchets to make your efforts easier against Constantinople. After you drive them out of their Turkic holdings and secure the coast (and Byzantium), you can do whatever. The Egyptians have yet to attack me, but I've kept strong garrisons to deter them. I'll soon move on both Edessa and Baghdad.

This is, so far, my most successful beginning, and no one is yet strong enough to stop my advance. The only threat yet to come (overdue) is the first Crusade. With luck, it'll pass through to Egypt's Jerusalem. If that happens, usually, they grind each other down and make room for your next conquests.

[lalartu]

I haven't tried turkey yet, but in my other games eventually turkey gets whooped big time, so I got a few questions for those that made it that far:

1- how do you survive the mongol onslaught?
2- how do you survive the even more terrible timurid onslaught which lands in armenia and ravages your every city?

[Onemanshow]

I haven't tried turkey yet, but in my other games eventually turkey gets whooped big time, so I got a few questions for those that made it that far:

1- how do you survive the mongol onslaught?
2- how do you survive the even more terrible timurid onslaught which lands in armenia and ravages your every city?

With my tactics explained above, i let all the cities east to Adana to Byzantines and Egyptians. When barbarians invades they fight only Byzantines and Egyptians. Then, when they come on me, they are less powerful, i'm ready and very strong. I put 3-4 full armies east to Adana in the mountains with many and many archers and usually i stop them here. Don't forget you can reform your armies after every battles, barbarians can't do it...

[KARTLOS]

I'm used to play with Turks and I have some suggestions :
Give up Erevan and Mossoul, sell all buildings and use all the soldiers in the 2 cities for plunder Antioche. Now you are rich ! Then, give up Antioche right away (crusaders will come soon) and move your army to Adana. Once you have captured Adana, turn it into City and build a dock as soon as possible.
While Byzantium attack you, make one boat and go to capture Cyprus island. There is only 1 or 2 units garrisoned so it's easy and the docks already build will help you to get some money. Now you have to defend your borders against Byzantines and later, Egyptians. Make 4-5 Turks archers in Caesarea, send them to the mountains left to Iconium with 1 or 2 infantry units and let Byzantines army attack you. In battle, put your army on the higher position in mountain and watch your Turks archers devastating the ennemy army. If you play well, you can kill an entire 20 Units army with your 7-8 units. All you need is to place your archers very high in the mountain and protect them with your small infantry.

Right to Adana, you can see 2 mountains between the only road to Antioche. You will wait Egyptians attack here and use the same tactics than above.
When border will be safe, expand you territory only to the west, cities are more interesting. Don't forget to take Heraklion and Rhodes islands, many trades and money are available here.

Let the East cities to Egyptians who will have to fight Mongols alone, later in the game (good luck to them)

all this is completely unecessary. there is no need to give up on any cities! i would heed anyone reading this not to follow you advice. playing on h/h i was able to take the sorrounding rebel provinces, without any of these drastic steps and then see off the egyptians and byzantines fairly earlly.

i would suggest playing very agressively at the beggining, and taking out the egyptians and byzantines before they become too powerful.

with the turks it is favourable to use armies with alot of horse archers (you have no choice at the beggining). just surround the enemy and shoot the to peices - there is very little the enemy can do to respond. if they have some ha's of their own, surround them and then charge into melee with several ha units is usually sufficient. the horse archers really do allow a very agressive style of play as it is possible to wipe out large armies without sustaining many casualties at all.

dont be afriad to use the horse archers agressively as melee cav at the right moment. the siphais are decent melee troops, and though the others are less good being charged from all sides is often good enough to route the enemy. they will take casulaties but the ha's are a generic cheap unit and you can send them off to the nearest fort to heal after the battle. (also you will find that your ha's end up with really high experience as they take so many kills and this improves their melee stat not ranged.)

USE JIHAD - cynically use the jihad- this is the best way for the turks to get decent infantry at the earlly stage. (i believe i declared a jihad on baghdad at a very earlly stage and this will give you the footsoldiers to take on the egyptians.

it is possible to complete the long campaign before the mongols arrive. however if you are thinking you will still be around then it is important to prepare. i think they arrive around 1215. I would suggest builidng any farm upgrades you can in the middle east as you want all these territories to be be as highly developed as possible - eg big walls with ballista towers etc. this is another good reason to take the middle east as earlly as possible so you can start preparing.

I didnt have any problem with crusades - early in the campaign the pope declared a crusade on antioch (my city). a full stack army with the portugese king arrived near constantinople. i totally massacred the army to a man in one of my most enjoyable victories. they had few if any ranged units and were slaughtered by my horse archers whilst my sultan and his ghazis watched from a hill above. no one else seemed to have joined the crusade and it failed. i dont recall if any more crusades were called after that but i was too busy pushing west to be threatened by one.

[Julius_Nepos]

The Sultanate of Iconium is an interesting faction to utilize. Although money can be scarce at the outset, and travel times painfully lengthy, the advantages of creating and maintaining a Turkish Empire in the Eastern Mediterranean far outweigh the pitfalls.

As the new Sultan you control 4 regions, these regions at the outset are not connected, Yerevan and Mosul are in the East, whilst Iconium and Caesarea are in Asia Minor. Your chief rivals in the early going will be the Byzantine Empire in western Asia Minor and the Fatamid Caliphate out of Egypt. In the early years aggression and rapid expansion will be key to the survival of this fledgling Turkish Powerhouse.

It is important to recognize that the Byzantines will be very aggressive if you allow them to expand at their leisure. Given time to themselves the Byzantines will acquire Smyrna and Trebizond and if that happens you can expect attacks on Yerevan, Iconium and Tibilisi (if you have it). The Egyptians have lots of room to expand and are less concerned with attacking you, so in my experience (at least early on) they can be safely ignored.

On the military side, the Seljuk Turks main strength lay in their projectile cavalry. As such it will be to your benefit to fight as many engagements in the open as possible. Your early infantry is fairly weak, and Janissaries are, unfortunately, a long way off. If you find a city under siege it is probably going to be more to your benefit to sally out and attack your opponent rather than try to fight them within the city walls. You'll also want to keep your units repaired and up to date, this means keeping a couple of castles around in order to replenish your horse archer forces (more on this later).

Now for the campaign itself. Tibilisi should be your first target of expansion, typically you'll get a mission to take the castle there early on, and I suggest you do so. Mosul will be the main source of units for taking this castle, so train and move up a general and horse archer units from there ASAP. The army you use to take Tibilisi is not done however, take the largest portion of the army you can spare and swing around west to Trebizond to take the city before the Byzantines can do so. While you are doing this, put the utmost effort possible into producing enough additional units at Mosul to take Baghdad (using the method of starving out the garrison). This way, you will have a large infusion of cash and you wont be in danger of getting into the minuses treasury wise anytime soon.

Now concurrently with this Eastern campaign Iconium and Caesarea should be building units, and in Iconium a port and several ships should be built as well. What your going to want to do is take the combined forces from your Castle/City in Asia Minor and use them to take Cyprus. This will be your first big score against the Byzantines it will undoubtedly get their attention (and not in the good Las Vegas way either). You will need a little bit of luck here, in so far as you'll need your ships to survive long enough to transport the largest portion of your stack back to Asia Minor to continue the campaign against Byzantium.

At this point you will be hurting financially. There's not much you can do at this point, since you have invested lots of money in units and the cash being brought in from your new provinces will not redress the balance completely for some time. Don't worry about money just yet, for now take your large stack now back in Asia Minor west, avoid Smyrna and instead head towards Nicaea. You will have to engage multiple Byzantine armies here, fortunately with a large force of Turkish horse archers, foot archers and militia spearmen on your side dealing with them will not be as hard as it might seem. Eliminate the field armies within reach and lay siege to Nicaea.

Now before you get any ideas Nicaea is NOT your goal. Taking the city is just part of a larger plan of attack for the Seljuks. For, once the city falls, your going to want to destroy its buildings and evacuate. Take the remaining army down towards Smyrna and watch the fun begin. the Looted cash from Nicaea should redress your money issues, and once the city rebells it will have a large rebel garrison which the Byzantines will now have to deal with. Head south and take Smyrna. Remeber to sack each city you take, even if you'll only recoup of a few florins, you need all the money you can get early on. Deal with any remnant Byzantine forces in the area and send your diplomats over to your Greek neighbors, very likely they'll sue for peace.

Now your free to begin building up your regions and earning some cash. Before you invest too much money in that quarter however, you need to transport a small army to Rhodes to capture the island for the Turks as well. This will be an easy conquest and it will round out the basic lands of your new Seljuk Dominion. Byzantium will likely recapture Nicaea but only after expending time and forces in sieging the rebel city. It will also be lacking in upgrades and that will occupy their time as well. Now, for me, I usually turn Cyprus and Rhodes into cities. I don't count on drawing military units from the islands and they bring in more revenue as cities. I keep Smyrna, Caesarea and Tibilisi as Castles, but much later down the line I like to transfer Mosul into a city too (but early on, leave it as is).

Here are some final thoughts on the Seljuk campaign. Bear in mind, there will be a jihad called against Baghdad, you want this city, do not let Egypt take it. Looting the town will reap large financial rewards and the proximity of Mosul will allow horse archers to be produced in quantity, typically I simply starve Baghdad out as this is much easier than trying to storm the walls and results in far fewer casualties. You can deal with the Byzantines and Egypt at your leisure once you've solidified your basic provinces which should total ten: Iconium, Cyprus, Rhodes, Baghdad, Smyrna, Caesarea, Mosul, Yerevan, Tibilisi and Trebizond. In my case I only had one European possession for many turns, that was Constantinople. I focused mainly on my Asiatic domains, supplementing my early conquests with Antioch, Aleppo, Edessa and Adana. This of course requires war with Egypt, but I never found them to be particularly imposing, army strength wise.

Bear in mind that over the years Constantinople and Tibilisi will be under an almost constant state of siege from Hungary, Byzantium and Russia (in my experience). Defending these cities will be most important. Antioch will also face numerous Crusader armies which will also have to be dealt with time and again. After my early conquests I largely play a defensive campaign, taking regions a few at a time and developing my internal economy (which is HIGHLY necessary). Just remember, take on the Byzantines early, focus on unit production ahead of city improvement until your position is secure, and focus on the defense of the cities which are most targeted by your enemies. Hopefully this guide will help those of you who are fans of the Seljuk turks operate an effective campaign, cheers!

[Valentine82]

The Turks are quite unlike most other factions, the first thing you should do with them is pick out a nice section of the map North or West that you'd like to take over, get all your starting units gathered up. The towns and castles you start with are a nightmare, mountains are in the way, you have FoW causing a problem, almost no income, and that's the good news.

The bad news is that if you make the HORRIBLE mistake of staying where you are, you're going to war with Byzantine and Egypt very soon, and worse still all of the catholic world will start marching through your land and inevitably go to war with you on some crusade or attack of convenience during a crusade. Not bad enough? The Mongols will eventually pour into your land and sandwich you between constant crusaders, angry catholics, hostile egyptians (unless you wipe them out, then all the crusaders come for your cities) and more.

Needless to say you need to pack up and relocate your empire, and this is one of the great things about the Turks, You choose where you want to land and carve out an empire. There are three obvious directions, through the ever more powerful Byzantine (they'll carve you up for good, and Hungry will be north if you do... Hungry doesn't like you.) or you can get on a boat and go west to a variety of exotic locals, though I highly advise against taking an Island until your capital is relocated. The third and maybe best option is to go north.


Option 1: Military Campaign to the West
If you're bold enough, or foolish enough, to try to martial a military force and cleave a path through the Byzantine, you should also end up at odds with Venice and Hungry before you're ready. Venice is naturally neutral toward you so you can get on their good side, they're less reliable than Poland but at least they can protect you from Hungry if they attack. The problem is if you're taking this path you're going to want provinces that Venice has, and they're not likely to sell them short of say, oh, a few hundred thousand gold! This means you'll eventually be going to war with them, and if you strike first it will hurt your global reputation. Still in the end you get some clearly defined borders to the north, and you can sell Hungry's provinces to Poland or the Papal States (a good way to position yourself to suck up to the Papacy).

Option 2: Naval Conquest
If you have your eyes set on any of a number of locals reachable by sea, you may want to build a dock and ship at your capital and head out. You can choose to land wherever you want, if you're going to make your empire on Italy by crushing Sicily you start with ample forces and get a position next to the pope so that you can influence the Papacy.

If you plan on taking Iribia it's good to choose a good capital city like Toledo, pushing out the Moors, and crushing the Spanish and Portuguese shouldn't prove too difficult. You should consider reconciling with the Moors though, their lands to the south are inconvenient to govern and have little real value but you get a good trade income from them and they should be peaceful allies unlikely to wage war once pushed out of Iribia. If your form an alliance with them they're somewhat reliable, though slightly prone to try and take back their old capital if access to Iribia isn't blocked (just build a fort and put some units in it). Other than that they add clout when dealing with the french, since the french are less likely to attack you if you have an ally.

Lastly a bold move would be to sail all the way up to Caen just south of London, making it your new capital then crushing England and Scotland. You can carve a good notch out of the french from there, but the HRE and Denmark naturally hate you for some reason. On the bright side Milan should prove reliable if you give them a gift of a hundred gold or so every five turns. This is good because Milan builds up a fast army, and they're normally hostile to other catholic factions.

Option 3: Northern Expansion

The objective of this path is to take over all the provinces Russia seeks to take, and destroy Russia in the process. Russia and Poland don't get along, so you can use this to your advantage if you have trouble with the Russians (weak as they are to start).

You can easily start by taking Tbilisi and making it your new capital. It's just north of Yerevan and acts as a gateway into the great north. You can easily block all access to the north with forts preventing your nosey southern neighbors from poking around where they're unwanted. Just push your way north and west until you have a line of provinces bordering Poland. Poland is a very reliable ally if you cozy up to them, and giving them your junky old provinces will throw them into war with Byzantine, endearing you to them in the process. This kills two birds with one stone and lets Poland act as a meat shield on both entrances to your empire and keeps Byzantine out of your hair, you could even sign a peace treaty and trade rights once they're in conflict with Poland, but Poland will consider this dubious (and thus it effects your reputation with them, and your world reputation). If Poland grabs Kiev, Vilnius, or Riga buy it from them, don't take it, you have junky start settlements to trade so you can get a discount and you don't want to cross Poland trust me, they're the only reliable eastern ally you have.

By the end of the third option you have three major port cities that provide easy access to your faction's main target goal, Constantinople, but why not have some fun first? You can sail out from Riga and invade the English and the Scotts, or you can crush Denmark, or go capture all the Islands, invade Iribia, and do all that other stuff you were going to do anyway. Go nuts.

[comareddin]

I will now provide you with a unique way to deal with the Mongol invasion in the Turkish campaign. (The rest of this paragraph is an introduction to my situation. You may move on to the next paragraph if you wish :) )I was playing with the Turks on VH/VH. My main armies were defending against a crusade on Constantinople and on a campaign to conquer North Africa. I had already dealt with the Byzantines and the Egyptians and was in control of all of their lands. Most of my provinces were cities so producing those massive stacks to battle the Mongols were out of the question. I could produce them but I could not replace my armies. I was ready to lose all my provinces as far as Antioch and hold them there. Then this idea struck me.

Since I had a really powerful economy, I could afford many agents, namely assassins. I mass produced them and sent them to the eastern border. The Mongols invasion began in the Baghdad province. I had about 25 or so assassins in the region and every turn every city continued producing assassins to replenish the ones lost during missions. After 3-4 turns I had slain all of the Mongol generals and the beautiful faction destroyed message appeared. I did the same thing against the Timurids as well. So I was able to destroy those Mongols without firing a single arrow. Hope this helps...

[AlphaDelta1]

I've been playing a new campaign as the turks and I have a few notes on why the mongols beat me, and why this time I have destroyed their faction (3 times so far).

Why I failed in my previous campaign:

* I converted all my far eastern settlements (Baghdad, Mosul, tiblsi, Edessa etc) into castles thinking they would produce the best troops and would be the easiest to defend.

* I neglected to tech up my cities to produce the top level Janissary troops.

* I was playing on the default 2 years per turn setting. This didnt give me anywhere near enough time to tech up my settlements before the mongols arrived.

* I decided to fight them on the walls of my castles instead of the many river crossings in the area. This gave them time to bring all their stacks onto the map before they attacked me.

Why I have succeeded (so far) in my current campaign:

* All far eastern settlements have been converted (or left as) cities.

* I changed to using the 1 year per turn setting and this has enabled me to tech up all infantry buildings and armouries in the far eastern settlements to the highest level.

* I have attack every Mongol stack less than 3/4 full in the field with overwhelming missile superiority with the intent of killing their general.

* I used the bridge crossing south of Baghdad and the river crossings south of Mosul and west of Baghdad to destroy every stack that has been sent onto the map.

The secret Mongol killer

Stakes! Jannisary archers can place the same stakes longbow men can. This means you can destroy Mongol stacks on bridges and river crossings without losing more than 10-15% of your stack.

I am hoping that stakes work against timurids because if they do I think they can be wiped out fairly easily aswell.

Thanks to all the suggestions posted here, my present campaign is far more enjoyable than the last Turkish one I played.

Cheers

[Gingivitis]

Just as a heads up for people using assassins to kill off the Mongols, there are 3 waves I believe, and even if you kill the first stack and get the "Faction Destroyed" message they will come back. I was quite surprised as I had planned for their arrival and had a stack of trained up killers waiting. They came at Yerevan and they were eliminated in 4 turns. Thinking they were done I sent my assassins north to harrass Sarkel when much to my surprise a new stack appeared myabe 10 turns later. The bad news was they sacked Tbsili and it went rebel before I could eliminate them again, but at least they just sacked it and didn't occupy it. So now I'm leaving the assassins there for the third and final wave. One moire thing, don't just leave one Mongol Khan/General/Heir alive at the end of the turn if you can help it, as they always seem to respawn one the next turn. Leave 2 and don't bother killing just one if you just have one assassin turn left, wait til next turn when you have them all ready.

[PseRamesses]

The Turks are probably my most played faction so I´ve elaborated a lot with different strategies. One thing that I´ve yet NOT found an optimal solution for is placement of castles.
In my first games I kept castles only in Adana, Acre and Gaza but later found that I really was making alot more money if I converted theese to settlements instead - "if u can build a port, choose settlement". So I moved my few castles to provinces like Yerevan, Aleppo and in some cases Mosul or Baghdad.
With the Turks I like to blitz then turtle. Coquering the ast needed settlements in the very end of the game. Initially I try to secure the Bosphorus and Kaukasus. Towards the Fatmids I usually secure Acre, Jerusalem and Damascus. Taking Edessa and Baghdad usually leaves them with only Jedda on "my" side of the fence. I try to keep the peace with them for as long as possible since I consider them my brothers but eventually, before the mongol and timurid onslaught they are usually gone and sometimes I even go for the rest of Africa.
I´ve found that a very few amount of castles are needed, for any faction, much fewer than I initially understood. So for a Turkish empire stretching eventually from the Kaukasus to the Gibraltar I ususally settle for castles in Timbuktu, Aleppo and Yerevan.

Any other strats or input?

[Jonathan_Thompson]

I've just started A turks campaign on H/H and having a great time. The only problem I've found is that with HA heavy armies sieging becomes infuriating. I'll end up being hemmed in narrow streets by spearmen and theres no room for my cav to move. Any Advice

[TheJace]

Any one know the details about vassals? I have the byzantines in a pinch and think I may be able to make them my vassal.

[Moah]

Any one know the details about vassals? I have the byzantines in a pinch and think I may be able to make them my vassal.

It's very hard. I think you have to have them down to one city, surrounded at least 3-1. You must have overrall 5-1 military (easy enough by this point) and offer upwards of 30k. That's from what others have said. I've never managed myself (laziness more than anything else. If you're that weak you deserve to become part of my glorious empire. You'll thank me in the long run...)

[Bongaroo]

Yes, the crusading armies are a bit ridiculous, since the dirty crusaders usually have 2 or 3 waves of 2 or 3 full stacks. At least you know they are coming and can prepare some ambushes along the normal routes. Now if they drop them by sea you might not have time to see it coming but trying to sink those fleets is about the easiest way to stop them.

Once caught a mongel jihad full stack in a fleet of 3 ships and was able to sink them, felt pretty good.

[bbrass10]

The Turkish are a lot like the Italians inasmuch as they have excellent garrison units; all of their best standard infantry are produced by cities rather than castles. Because you don't need to pay upkeep costs for garrisoned units, and because cities generate much greater revenue than castles, it makes sense to convert most of your starting castles and captured castles to cities. That allows you to field a massive army of strong but cost-free infantry units while generating a large income. With one or two cash-cow settlements (like Antioch) added to this mix, the Turks will never have cash-flow problems. For this reason, I don't understand a couple of posts which complained that the initial disadvantage of the Turkish is that they are poor.

Furthermore, most cities will be able to train Turkomans and Sipahis early in their tech development, so castles are only needed for archers and occasional elite units, like Naffatun, Sipahi Lancers and Dismounted Sipahi Lancers. Afghan Javelinmen mercenaries are so superior to Turkish Javelinmen that I prefer them despite their higher upkeep costs.

I used only two castles to crank out my archers and the occasional elite units for my empire. I teched up the cities to produce Saracens and cavalry as soon as possible, then the Janissary units.

I alway try to get the Horsebreeders Guild Headquarters and Swordsmiths Guild Headquarters, no matter which faction I try to play, but the Swordsmiths Guild Headquarters is nearly impossible for the Turkish. The only way that you can get a Swordsmiths Guild early in the game is by getting a Citadel (or Huge City) as soon as possible, and then building the entire line of smiths -- from Leather Tanner all the way to Armour Factory -- at the fortress.

In order to do this, I moved my governor with the highest Chivalry rating into Caesaria and converted it to a town on the first turn of the game, and set the taxes to "Low". I then built all 1-turn and 2-turn structures that improve population growth (small mahjid, an inn, land clearance) followed by all 3+ turn farm upgrades, which would stay intact after converting it back to a castle. (Of course, when you convert the town back into a castle, the new recruits are going to destroy the inn. You know how much those ancient soldiers hated their inns!)

I ignored the alert when the population reached 6000 and avoided upgrading it to a Minor City so that I would be able to convert it back to a castle when the population was a little closer to the 9000-population-requirement of a Citadel. After exhausting the farms upgrades, I built a town watch which only takes 2 turns and translates into a Drill Square after the conversion to a castle (whereas it would have taken 3 turns if I'd waited until after converting it back to a castle, because the mustering hall must be built first.) After converting it back to a castle, I immediately upgraded it to a fortress and then a citadel and purchased the entire line of smith upgrades, one right after the other. After the Armor Factory was built, the Swordsmiths Guild was immediately offered.

However, a Swordsmiths Guild is more useful in a Turkish City than a Turkish castle, since the castles are used primarily to train archers (as I mentioned earlier), which don't receive the Swordsmiths Guild weapons upgrade. So I changed Caesaria back into a city immediately after it had been awarded the Swordsmiths Guild.

I then cycled my existing units through Caesaria to receive their upgrades, and started using Caesaria as the central location for producing new garrison units. This not only prevents the logistics problems of sending units to Caesaria to get upgraded, but it prevents the additional cost of upgrading a unit after it has already been built.

In fact, this approach was so successful, that I did the same thing in Adana, except that I left it as a castle. Now I had two settlements for training units with the Swordsmiths Guild's weapons upgrade, one for garrison and city-based units and the other for elite castle-based units; either one could be used for upgrading mercenaries, generals, or units that were trained at a different settlement. My second castle was a little easier to develop, because it did not have a Swordsmiths Guild, as it was used exclusively for building archers, horse archers, and Naffatun.

For the Horsebreeders Guild Headquarters I chose Iconium, which was a simple matter of developing the racetrack line of buildings, throwing races, and cranking out cavalry (and sometimes immediately disbanding them, just so I'd get points toward the Horsebreeder Guild objectives.) Of course, you also need to focus on population growth so that Iconium becomes a Huge City as soon as possible, in order to qualify for the guild headquarters.

While I was gearing up Caesaria and Adana to give me a technological edge by the time the Mongols arrived, I expanded my empire as usual, starting with rebel provinces. I found it possible to take Tbilisi, Trebizond, Adana and Antioch by Turn 7 without building a single military unit, just using my starting units. (If you have trouble with this you can always hire a few mercs and disband them after taking a settlement.) Several people mentioned on this forum that the forces in Yerevan should immediately invade Tbilisi and then move on toward Trebizond from the first turn of the game, and I agree. I also used my forces in Iconium and Caesaria to take Adana, and combined them with my forces from Mosul to take Antioch.

One other thing that I try to establish each game, regardless of which faction I'm playing, is the Merchants Guild Headquarters. Antioch, being a cash cow, was the obvious choice. Constantinople would have been another good choice if I had attacked the Byzantines first rather than rebel territories, but I chose the Antioch route. I built the merchant and shipping line of buildings as quickly as possible and kept the taxes as high as possible in Antioch, and cranked out as many merchants as possible in Antioch and sent them to nearby trade goods (like the spices in Aleppo). I also had my diplomat establish trade agreements with everyone I could find. Soon I was offered the Merchants Guild, and I used similar techniques until I had a Merchants Guild Headquarters.

Although my taxation was set as high as possible in Antioch, which counts toward points for a Merchants Guild, taxation was kept as low as possible in all other provinces n order to encourage growth. This is particularly important early in the game, since small cities grow much more slowly. My main sources of income were Antioch and my diplomat, who was busy on the Italian Peninsula selling trade agreements and alliances for obscene amounts of money.

The trick with alliances is that an alliance isn't worth very much to anyone if you're not allied with anyone else. So you give away or sell cheaply the first couple of alliances, until an alliance with you is worth something to someone. It becomes worth something to them if it will keep someone else from attacking them. So they look at who you are already allied with and decide if it's worth anything to purchase an alliance from you to keep themselves from being attacked for a while, so they can build their infrastructure a little before warfare becomes inevitable.

It seems like everyone sends their diplomats to Rome, and several factions have settlements there, so it's a good place to establish/sell trade agreements (which count as points toward the Merchants Guild) and to establish/sell alliances. In addition to generating a lot of cash, it will protect you to some extent from early invasion threats other than the Byzantines, who will attack the Turks fairly early no matter what the political scene looks like.

The very first alliance to establish is with the Pope himself. Don't sell him anything, just give him free trade rights and a free alliance and he'll like you and your relationship will improve. Then you can butter him up by giving him a few gifts of 500 to 700 florins (depending on which difficulty level you selected when you started the game). In fact, if you want, you can butter him all the way until you're relationship is "Perfect." With the Pope as your bosom buddy, you'll find that the other Catholic factions are open to an alliance too, especially if you already have several of them established. Your alliances will become worth more and more. Establishing alliances with all or most of the Christian factions has the additional benefit of temporarily protecting you from a Crusade in Antioch early in the game; even if a Crusade is called, few will answer.

Meanwhile, another diplomat can forge an alliance with the Egyptians and butter them up a little too. Early in the game, you'll only have to worry about incursions by the Byzantines, allowing you to develop your settlements for a larger income and better military technologies.

With a +2 valor bonus for all cavalry from the Horsebreeders Guild Headquarters, and the ability to provide all melee units with weapons upgrades from the Swordsmiths Guild, and the massive income established by the Merchants Guild that is not squandered away on your sizable army of strong and reliable garrison units, you should be in a good position to conquer the other factions.

[Boyar Karhunkynsi]

I've began playing the Turks, third time 'round, and have done things much better. I'm at turn 97 and am fighting a long war with the Mongols.

A few things I've learned:

1) When facing Mongols, don't use Horse Archers. This is how so many people get screwed over. Used spears and Archers. Mass archers. Preferably Ottoman Infantry, as they can deal with almost anything that come their way.

2) Flanking their Cavalry with your Cavalry works well. Sipahi Lancers or the unit who's name I can't spell (it starts with a Q, it's heavy cavalry, you know what I mean) are ideal for the job. Their charge should flatten a sizable amount of their cavalry.

3) Gunpowder. Janissary Musketeers own all Mongol units. A couple of veteran cannons will level the opposition general.

4) Yerevan will always hate you. Try to keep it under your control, though.

5) Get an alliance with Hungary and tell them to provide military assistance against the Byzantines. When you kick the Byzantines out of Constantinople, they will go and attack Bran, more often than not. Optionally Venice, too, but I haven't seen the Byzantines try to fight them in anything more than skirmishes.

6) Turn Mosul into a city in the early game. It has a good population and will become one of your main centres, and when the Mongols come, stock it up with Militia and Janissary Archers. They probably won't attack, but it's good to have something there to reclaim a settlement after a now-wounded Mongol army takes it.

7) Take Alexandria and Jerusalem. You will get huge money out of these places, don't need to bother too much with the rest of Egypt, though. The Mongols will never go to Alexandria, either, so it's pretty safe.

8) Take Iraklion, Rhodes and Nicosia(sp?). Convert all to cities. Seen as AI will extremely rarely attempt an amphibious assault, these places are more of less assured incomes. Nicosia is also a good place to launch a reclamation mission to Antioch, Aleppo, Jerusalem or Damascus.

Well, this is what I've come up with third time around. This time it's on the hardest setting possible, though, so I have had to think things through more.

I hope this benefits someone.

-Max

[RpR_ati]

i have finished the holy roman and the turks on hard it was real fun they have complete different armies.
Holy romans had attacks from everywhere because they are in the middle of europe that was pretty hard.
Playing the Turks was not that hard in early i think. Yes, you dont have enough money thats true. And i didnt know how to declare a jihad after playing with roman because they had a Pope:)) i discovered it on late period. it really works though even in that time. the byzantines and the crusades are nothing especially crusades if you play well in battlefield. i even managed to conquer Rome and all of italia for fun:) i got bored of crusades and took action. sent ships full of armies, conquered sicilia first. went to north.
but something worse than crusades and byz. and egypt was coming:) i was waiting for them in baghdad.. it was a terrible mistake.. they came from northern bordes.. their armies are the same of turkish armies. all of their inf. are archers like the ottoman inf. ive put full armies in cities but it can not work because they engage in combat 3 to 1. 3 mongol armies are invading your city and you can just control one:) i have left those cities and decided not to fight with them until i am ready. that really hurts:) they say" i will take your lands and women soon" when you click on them.it must have been hard times:) i weakened them over the mountains. waited them to attack 3 to 1 but with janis. heavy inf. and archers you can easily defeat them on mountains. just place them like in the lotr the two towers. after that i have finished all their armies with janisseriies and some hand gunners(they are not that good janisseries are far more better)

[qal]

Where can one find what r the Turks units ??? and what r the best

[Moah]

Where can one find what r the Turks units ??? and what r the best

A) Start a Turk Campaign. Go to a city. Click on building browser. Click on the top building in the barracks/archery/stables list. Right click on each unit and read stats. Repeat with a castle. This is the only way to see what builds them and how hard they'll be to get. The methods below are easier for jsut seeing all the different units.

B) Start a custom battle. Choose the Truks. Read each unit in the list.

C) Go to http://www.totalwar.co.kr/ Click on the Turks. Click on each unit.

D) Go to the Units thread on this forum. Read all units (not easy to isolate just turks but best comparison for seeing if you get better units that, say, venice.

Hope that helps.

[Tugrul Cagri]

Playing with Turks may be hard for you depending on your skills on battle map.If you're an experienced player,inspecting their archers and horse archers,you will have no problem.If you are noob and don't know what to do,Turks won't be very comfortable for you.

My suggestion is "fighting".Fight all the way.You will have money problems at first but your 1st quality Turkish archers and Sipahis will get rank and crash whatever they hit.Don't hesitate attacking byzantine cities and castles.Take Smyrna(Izmir) first and drive to the north to Nicea.Meanwhile your units will be very experienced.Use your Bodyguard units wisely to exterminate all of the encountered units.Have at least 2 bodyguards in imperial army.Do not reject adoptions for Sultan Jalal and Crown Prince Mustafa.They will help you in your campaigns.If they lose unit(s),go to city and spend 2 turns,they will complete themselves quickly.Have some Turkomans or Peasant Archers in case of spending them for False Attack.Make a false attack and surround main units of enemy,use your archers and finally charge with Bodyguards.

[Mete Han]

Can anyone give me some advice for managing my imams? they tend to become heretics quite easily... also how can I counter the conversions of the priests? is there a way to kill them without assasins?