M2TW FAQ and Strategy Tips

**econ21** · 11-14-2006, 11:17

CITADEL FAQ and M2TW STRATEGY TIPS

This thread is for Citadel frequently asked questions and for a compilation of strategy tips. Members are invited to use this thread to:
(a) ask or answer any important gameplay questions not answered in the manual;
(b) to post tips and strategies.
To avoid repetition, links to other posts and threads are welcome. No modding or multiplayer questions, though - we have other forums for those.

I will try to maintain the first post, although no promises. I apologise in advance but I am not going to religiously attribute every answer to a specific member, although I will if a particularly memorable substantive post stands out.

Index

Chapter 1: Combat
1.1…………….. How to use the various combat arms
1.2…………….. Special attacks and formations
1.3…………….. Sieges
1.4…………….. After the battle

Chapter 2: Managing your kingdom
2.1……………..Ships
2.2……………..Managing unrest and the economy
2.3……………..Training and recruitment
2.4……………..Buildings
2.5……………..Guilds
2.6……………..Diplomacy

Chapter 3: Characters and agents
3.1……………..Generals
3.2……………..Kings
3.3…………….. Princesses
3.4…………….. Assassins
3.5………….. …Spies
3.6…………….. Merchants
3.7…………….. Priests
3.8…………….. Inquisitors
3.9…………….. Miscellaneous Agents

Chapter 4: Specific historical aspects of the campaign
4.1…………….. The Pope
4.2……………..Crusades and jihads
4.3…………….. The Mongols and Timurids
4.4…………….. The Plague
4.5…………….. Gunpowder units
4.6…………….. America

Chapter 5: Settings
5.1……………..Settings
5.2……………..Miscellaneous
5.3……………..Bugs
5.4……………..Useful links

Chapter 1: Combat

Chapter Sub-headings:
1.1…………….. How to use the various combat arms
1.2…………….. Special attacks and formations
1.3…………….. Sieges
1.4…………….. After the battle

1.1…………….. How to use the various combat arms

Q: I don't know what the heck I'm doing in regards to what units do what and what the unit stats are also. RTW is easier to understand than this era!

A: What I recommend is pick your faction and start a campaign. Go to the building browser for a settlement and right click on the troop producing buildings. They will list what troops you can get at what level. If you right click on the unit, it will pull up the unit card with a full description and the key stats. That way you can see your entire unit line up and what buildings you need to get them.

Beyond that, M2TW is not that dissimilar from other Total War games. For example, here’s a breakdown of the English roster.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Q: Where can I find a list of unit stats?

A: R'as al Ghul has produced a comprehensive list here:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=76702

Yas has created a nice tool here:
http://www.totalwar.co.kr/

Brandybarrel has created very nice printable pdfs (the FAUST) with unit stats:

The FAUST v1.3 downloads:

for the Kingdoms expansion (8MB, 40 pages):
FileFront MediaFire

for the Grand Campaign with Kingdoms Stats (5MB, 25 pages):
Unit stats based on the Retrofit mod by Unspoken Knight (CA)
(applicable to other mods or updates which incorporate similar data files)
FileFront MediaFire

for the Grand Campaign (5MB, 25 pages):
FileFront MediaFire

Q: Which stats matter and how much?

A: In earlier Total War games, a good summary measure of unit combat effectiveness was their attack stat and their combined defence stat (armour+shield+defence skill). The chance to kill was driven by the difference between attack and defence stats, so each could be regarded as roughly of equal importance. In STW and MTW, a one point difference in the (attack - defence) differential led to an increase in the kill rate of about 20%. In RTW, the stats differed more and the corresponding increase was about 10%. In M2TW, we have no hard information yet but since the game uses a modified RTW engine, a 10% effect seems plausible.

However, in M2TW (and also RTW), the attack animations of the units also play a role, so the stats alone do not tell the whole story. This was seen most visibly in 1.0 and 1.1 when many two handed units could not damage cavalry much due to their animations. Due to differences in the animations, some units may hit more rapidly than others.

Beyond the attack and combined defence stats, the player should consider a range of other factors:
- Unit size: as Stalin said, quantity has a quality all of its own.
- Charge stat: this is particularly important for cavalry (it adds to their attack value if "charging" or if following through on a charge)
- Morale: on VH, militia will often prove fragile due to low morale
- The range, rate of fire and ammunition limit of any missiles
- Unit speed (this is especially important for cavalry wanting to catch routing enemy cavalry, e.g. defeated generals!)
- Armour piercing weapons: this may halve the effect of enemy armour.
- Spears vs swords? Spears are more effective against cavalry, less effective against infantry.
- Does the unit have a special formation? Phalanxes make pikes almost invulnerable to frontal melee attack on level ground. etc

General's bodyguards have two hit points making them twice as hard to kill. They also regenerate losses between battles.

In MP, the purchase price of the unit is the cost and should represent CA's assessment of the unit's overall combat effectiveness. However, in SP, upkeep is likely to have a much bigger effect on the overalll cost of a unit (providing surival prospect are not too grim). Upkeep is not closely tied to combat effectiveness and so some units are clear bargains (e.g. England's armoured swordsmen are more effective than the more expensive Dismounted Feudal Knights and cost about the same as far inferior militia).

Q: What is the difference between armour, defence skill and shield?

A: A unit's overall defence - if attacked frontally in melee - is the sum of its armour, defence skill and shield values. However, there are some differences in the way these three factors work.

Armour and shield influence both melee and missile combat; defence skill affects only melee.

The contribution of armour is reduced (halved?) if attacked by armour piercing weapons.

The position of the attacker relative to the defender also affects the contribution of these three stats in different ways:

Originally Posted by Daveybaby

You get 100% of the Shield defense at the front, and 50% at each side (nothing at the back).

Defence Skill you get 100% at front and at each side, nothing at the back.

Armour defence is 100% all round.

Q: What is the "ultimate stack"?

A: You tell us:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=73708

Q: How should I deploy my troops? Archers at the front, cavalry on the flanks or what?

A: Some suggestions about how to deploy various armies are here:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=73103

Q: Can I dismount cavalry?

A: Sadly, no. You can train "dismounted" units - like dismounted Feudal Knights - but not dismount mounted cavalry.

Q: My cavalry attack without being described as "charging". How do I get off a good cavalry charge?

A: Jason from CA has explained how charging works:

Regarding the new charge mechanic, there are two charges available to a cavalry unit: a formed charge which allows for most of the unit to charge into a target; and an unformed charge which stops the charge after 10% of the soldiers within that unit have made contact with the target. In RTW this wasn’t as much of an issue because cavalry did not have long lances and as such did not require two significantly different charge abilities. The M2TW charge system allows you to have a very powerful charge if you do everything right and a light charge if you don’t.

The triggers for a formed (powerful) charge include:

Line up the cavalry parallel to the target
Utilize a long straight run up toward the target
Prioritize stationary targets as moving targets may result in a last second turn and reform

The triggers for an unformed (weak) charge include:

The unit is spread out just before charging
The charge is issued while too close to the target
The charge is issued when the unit isn’t facing the target
The player changes direction just before the charge• The target moves and turns just before being hit

http://totalwarcommunity.blogspot.com/

Originally Posted by Daveybaby

In order to get a good charge going:
(1) you need to have a decent sized gap between your cav and your target
(2) Stop your cav to let them form up if need be (i.e. if youve had them running around).
(3) Target your enemy, but WALK DONT RUN. If you run your charge will lose cohesion
(4) Leave em to it. At the correct distance your cav will break into a charge.
If youre defending against elite heavy cav or bodyguards with normal (i.e. non-spear etc) infantry then expect to get slaughtered. This is as it should be.
Use spearmen and ensure theyre in guard mode, in formation, and NOT MOVING.

For further advice on how to get off a good cavalry charge, read Hashashiyyin's tips:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...41&postcount=1

And yet more discussion here:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=73535

Q: Which cavalry units are faster?

A: According to tests by Dopp and CBR, there are three horse speeds:

Fast: 630 metres/minute. (19% faster than normal)
This covers fast ponies.
Includes Alans, jinettes, stradiots, border horse, albanian light cavalry, most horse archers, Skys, Vards

Normal: 530 metres/minute
This covers heavy horses and ponies. Basically all horses that are not "fast ponies" and don't have any armour.
Includes mailed knights, mercenary Frankish knights, demi-lancers, Latinkons, Byzantince cavalry, lancers, hobilars, Danish scouts, French mounted archers

Slow: 420 metres/minute (21% slower than normal)
This covers mailed, barded and armoured horses.
Includes feudal and Chivalric knights, Italian men-at-arms, gendarmes, kataphracts. Sipahis?

Fast cavalry will have that mentioned in their unit description. For slow cavalry, you have to look at the picture of the horse - it will have armour or be covered by barding.

Note - there are also three infantry unit speeds: 157/215/255 metres per minute.

Q: Which infantry units are faster?

A:

Originally Posted by Miracle

Notes:
- May be incomplete; I did not test all infantry units
- Does not take into account slowdown due to straggling or fatigue
- The armour levels below refer to the base armour level, not what it can be upgraded to
- Upgraded armour has no effect on speed

Marching Speeds:

Very Slow
- All spearwall polearm units
Slow
- All pike units
Normal
- All other infantry and missile infantry units

Running Speeds:

Very Slow
- Dismounted Gothic Knights
Slow
- All infantry units with partial or full plate armour except Obudshaer
- All 2H Sword units except DGK
Normal
- Most infantry units
- Most mid to upper-tier missile infantry units
- All spearwall polearm units
Fast
- All unarmoured missile infantry
- All missile infantry with padded armour except Norse Archers
- All gunpowder infantry except Handgunners
- Aventuriers and Naffatun
- Sudanese Tribesmen and Highlanders
- Most Aztec infantry

Comments:
- It may be better to completely ignore DCK's in favor of DFK's. DFK's have better availability, faster running speed and lower recruitment price at the cost of only one armour point.
- If cavalry is completely unavailable, infantry units with the “fast” running speed may be used to chase routing infantry, especially if they are “slow” or “very slow.”

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=84334

Q: What bonuses do spear and pike units get against cavalry?

A:

Originally Posted by Carl

All spear and pike units get +8 attack against Cav, plus a further unspecified bonus from having the Spear Attribute.

they also get an unspecified defense bonus vs. charging Cav from their spear attribute and an unspecified penalty vs. infantry from the same source.

Based on the fact that (with fixed Shields or working pikes), many Cav seem to die on impact, I also suspect a reflected charge value.

More detail here:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Originally Posted by Carl

The formed charge is NOT a push-back type effect at all. A Cav-man that impacts somebody will inflict an attack on them (how this is calculated is unclear). If they survive it and are directly in front of the Cav-man, (he can hit those to the side as he plows into a unit), the Cav man then sometimes drops dead so the man hit must always get a kind of free attack in. I'd guess spears/pike get to reflect charge too as they seem much more successful than their performance in general melee vs. Cav suggests they should be.based on the fact that Spears will also often kill an enemy charging Cav man even if he kills them I would also say it is probable that in addition to reflect charge giving a Cav bonus, it also gives the model with it a free attack back regardless of weather the Cav man kills him or not. I'm not 100% sure of how this works, but based on the functioning of various units I believe the free attack of the spearman and the attack of the formed Cav charge are resolved simultaneously for them, rather than the Cav man going first and the impacted infantryman, (if they are not a spearman/pikeman), getting a free attack back if the survive If the Cav man survives the free attack back, then he may be stopped or he may inflict another hit on the guy he has collided with and even get it reflected back again. This is probably where momentum comes in in M2TW, and probably also mass as it would be that that determines momentum. Naturally the attack and defense of both the charging Cav and defending soldier are considered in this, but high defense is far more important for receiving a charge than high attack. If your defense isn't above a particular value (varies with the type of attacking Cav), you haven't got a chance full stop of stopping them.

A note on pikes: The formed charge effects seem to mostly rely on the Cav man hitting or passing extremely close to their target. Normally coming into contact with a targets weapon will also cause the model holding it to take a formed charge hit.

However, this is not the case with pikes against Cav charges. In this case the Cav man does not inflict a hit on the pikeman, but the Pikeman does inflict a hit on the Cav man. It is also clear that even if the Cav man survives this hit, he will not inflict a hit on the pikes.

On the other hand a Cav man that hits or passes very close to the pikemans actually body will inflict a hit on him. So it's clearly related to either the Spear-Wall or Long Pike attributes. I'll need to do more tests to confirm which attribute is responsible though.

However it's clear that Cav that do a formed charge into braced pikes are unable to inflict any formed charge attacks on the pikemen despite being in contact with their weapons. However, it is equally clear that the pikes can hit the Cav, and with some kind of reflected attack, and that doing so, (if it doesn't kill the Cav), doesn't always stop him from continuing to count as charging.

Most likely, (based on observational evidence), their is a line of code in either the spear wall formation or the long pike attribute that reads something like, "can_suffer_attacks_from_formed_charges=false" , and it is set to true for all other weapons, attributes, and circumstances. This would explain how the Cav can count as charging, whilst the pikemen still don't suffer any damage from it in a situation where for the effects of reflect charge they are in contact with the Cav.

Extra Reflect charge info: it's quite clear from the fact that only pikes attacked head on and spears hit head on actually get to reflect the charge, (and that spears and pikes that are moving and thus holding their spears/pikes up in the air), that the reflect charge ability is localized to only affect enemy that come into contact with the units actual weapon, and not just those that come into contact with the unit whilst it has that weapon out.

The defense bonus from spears appears to be quite large as fixed Spear militia with Gold Armour (base defense of about 14), are about as charge resistant as DFK (defense 21) so it looks like the bonus is about 50% extra to the defense score.

Q: How do I use pikes? They keep switching to their swords and dying!

A:

Originally Posted by Cheetah

...during the fight you have to "remind" your pikes that they are pikes by swithcing off the spearwall function then -more or less- immediatly switching it on AND ordering them to attack.

Note - there are "pike fix" mods that remove the sword, forcing the pikemen to use pikes all the time. However, these arguably make the pikemen too strong.

Q: How should I use missile cavalry?

A: Some tips from Doug-Thompson:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...28&postcount=1

Some key points:
(a) unlike RTW, skirmishing cavalry have the "skirmish" mode switched back on automatically after they come out of melee. This reduces micromanagement.
(b) The "Parthian shot" - shooting at a purusing unit - appears less deadly than in RTW.
(c) Javelin armed cavalry have rather long ranges, although limited ammo makes switching off "fire at will" mode recommended.

Doug is also working on a guide to missile cavalry units:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...58&postcount=1

Here are the boiled-down useful points:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Originally Posted by Doug-Thompson

1. Get to high ground.
2. Know the enemy’s weak spots. Exploit them.
3. Create cross fire.
4. Don’t get pinned.
5. Attack morale at least as much as units.
6. If enemies aren’t dying, get closer.

Now, thumbnail explanations of what those mean:

1. Get to high ground. That’s self-evident. If there’s a hill you can get to and fire from, get there first with the most men. If the enemy holds high ground, find the gentlest slope and go up it instead of riding directly at them. Missile cavalry are among the fastest units in the game. Use that.

============

2. Know the enemy’s weak spots. Exploit them. These spots are, in priority order:

a. From the back.
b. On the enemy’s “weapon hand,” his right flank. This matters less with units that have no shield, like peasants, but most units have shields.
c. The other side, “shield side.”
d. In front, from the “weapon” or right end. If you are in the enemy’s “2 o’clock” position, you get at least some of the raking effect.
e. In front, “shield” end.
f. Dead ahead.

(See the link to enfilade fire below)

Note that the ability of missile cavalry to get to those spots is its greatest advantage over missile infantry.

=============

3. Create cross fire. Shields can only face one direction at a time. Even shieldless, unarmored units present a smaller target when facing you. This is particularly true of horses and camels. This level of detail is apparently present in the game. Give units more than one direction to face. You will find that horses and camels make particularly inviting targets from the side. Also, see the tactics guide or this thread for an opinion on enfilade fire.

===========

4. Don’t get pinned. Battle map corners and sides are almost as big a threat as the enemy. Those borders are the anvil. The enemy is the hammer. Don’t get close to the anvil without a compelling reason, and keep a way of escape in mind. Also beware of getting one of your units surrounded and terrain obstacles like rivers or structures. See the main tactics thread.

=============

5. Attack morale at least as much as units. Nothing helps win a battle like a dead enemy general. Javelin cavalry are the best general-killers available. Also, note that having your missile cavalry behind and flanking units create big morale penalties for your opposition. Use it. If your melee units can rout one unit, the rest may soon follow.

==========

6. If enemies aren’t dying, get closer. Self-explanatory.

Q: What is the rate of fire of missile units - e.g. longbows compared to crossbows?

A:

Originally Posted by Lord Hazard

I tested how many volleys the different missile units could fire within a minute.

English longbowmen = 6 volleys
Genose crossbowmen(arbalest) = 3 volleys
Crossbowmen = 3(almost 4) volleys
Archer = 5(almost 6) volleys
Composite archer = 5(almost 6) volleys

This info gave me a pretty clear view of how the game mechanics work.
1)Bows fire about twice as fast as crossbows.
2) Theres almost no difference between different types of crossbow units.
3)Theres almost no difference bewteen different types of archer units.

Miracle has collected similar data:

Originally Posted by Miracle

Notes:
- The following states the average time in seconds between the start of the firing animation of an individual soldier or artillery piece
- Gunpowder infantry are assumed to be in a two-rank dense line formation and in fire-by-rank mode
- Flaming, exploding or rotting ammo have no effect on artillery firing rate
- The larger the unit size, the more the firing rate may vary
- In some cases an individual may skip a volley even though there is a target in range and in clear line-of-sight

Infantry

Javelin 19
Bow 11/22
Crossbow 17
Naphtha Bomb 9
Gun 32

Cavalry

Javelin 9
Bow 11.5
Crossbow 14
Jezail 13.5
Pistol 14
Elephant Gun 11
Elephant Artillery 13.3

Artillery

Ballista 17.75
Catapult 22
Trebuchet 29
Bombard 30
Grand Bombard 30
Cannon 20
Culverin 20
Basilisk 20
Monster Bombard 26
Mortar 23
Serpentine 21.5
Ribault 25.5
Monster Ribault 30.5/88
Rocket Launcher 41.5

Here's a related test by Zpartan's:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Q: Are missiles more accurate in thinner formations?

A: No, it makes no difference whether you spread them out in a thin line two wide, or form them up into a dense square:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showpost.php?p=1354924

Note: missiles are affected by terrain, so sometimes a very narrow (deep) formation is more accurate as fewer men may be obstructed by terrain (e.g. use a column of archers to fire through a city gate).

Q: Can crossbows fire over the heads of intervening friendly units?

A: Yes, but their accuracy is so low, they are useless deployed like that. It is better to give them a clear shot.

Q: Are missiles less accurate in night battles?

A: Sadly, not:

Originally Posted by DVX BELLORVM

I just did a simple test, fighting 4 day and 4 night battles. HRE pavise xbow vs English peasants, without any upgrades. All battles had the same conditions, grassy plain, VH difficulty, dry weather. In each battle the xbows fired three volleys to the approaching peasants.

The results:
DAY: 32 27 28 33 - Average:30
NIGHT: 35 30 29 24 - Average:29.5

edit: I forgot to mention that those are the numbers of soldiers killed in each battle

Q: My archers don't do enough damage defending settlement walls - they fire high up into the air, rather than directly down to their targets. How can I fix this?

A: Lusted proposes reducing the max angle to 45 in this thread:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=83719

Q: How much ammunition do missile units have?

A:

Originally Posted by SMZ

Javelin Cavalry - 8
Crossbow Cavalry - 30
Archer Cavalry - 25
Gun Cavalry - 20

Javelins - 8
Crossbows - 30
Archers - 30
Handguns - 20

Q: How do I get my archers to stop firing?

A: Hit "backspace" will cancel a fire order. Make sure "fire at will" is off, too.

Q: How do I get units with a missile attack to enter a melee attack?

A:

Originally Posted by Ars Moriendi

Press "Alt" and right click (double right click if you want them to run to the destination).

Q: How I use firearm units effectively? A lot of times, they would just reform and reform without doing anything.

A: This may be a bug.

Originally Posted by Iposethequestionyoureturntheanswer

...deploying your gunpowder units in two ranks fixes the reforming problem for most gunners.

Q: What is the best anti-personnel artillery?

A: Some recommendations here:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=76167

Q: Is there anyway to detach artillery crews from their war machines?

A: Yes, ALT+click on an enemy will do this (it also happens automatically when they are out of ammo). This can be useful it you want to retreat the crews behind melee troops in the face on an AI attack. Selecting the crew and right clicking on their war machines will re-attach them. (This idea was originally suggested by Usurper on the twcenter.net forums).

Q: How do I kill elephants?

A: Missiles (esp. javelins) and artillery seem the safest bet:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showpost.php?p=1338083

Q: How do I set waypoints on the battlefield?

A: Hold down "shift" and right-click.

1.2…………….. Special attacks and formations

Q: How do I get my longbowmen to deploy stakes?

A:

Originally Posted by Nameless

1. Stakes must be deployed during the Deployment Phase.
2. Stakes cannot be placed on obstacles or hard surfaces like roads. You have to place stakes on soft ground. At least from what I have seen, I couldn't place stakes during a bridge battle since it was a road so I had to place it next to it.
3. Cavalry running through will be instantly killed.
4. Usually infantry running through will be slowed down.
5. Cavalry can bypass stakes by walking through them.

Note: Janissary and Lithuanian archers also get stakes.

You can, of course, deploy the stakes, then move the archers back and replace them with decent melee infantry to guard the stakes.

Q: When should I use the Cantabran circle formation?

A:

Originally Posted by Katank

It's useful only if you are getting hit hard by enemy missiles. Usually, with a large superiority in missiles of a pure HA army, it's better simply to sit in squares and flank with the units so your units sit in a circle around their army shooting. Multiple horse archers in circles collide with each other any how.

Q: When should I use flaming arrows in a field battle?

A: Flaming arrows have a larger effect on morale, but cause less casualties since they fire more slowly. Use them when you want to weaken the enemies morale (e.g. preparatory to a decisive melee), rather than just shoot them to death. The issue is discussed here:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=73879

BigTex hypothesises, based on BI, that flaming arrows may be more accurate at night time (they are on by default in night battles). They may be less accurate in day time.

Flaming arrows also seem to cause more casualties if they hit. They may be better to use against heavily armoured targets.

Q: When is the schiltrom formation useful?

A: It is a defensive formation against melee attack - it will not kill many enemies, but it should reduce casualties against a charge (perhaps especially from cavalry). It can be useful to deploy at the front, to take the initial hit of a charge. You can then send in other units kept in a second line to counter-attack the AI.

Schiltroms seems particularly vulnerable to missiles. An effective tactic in BI was to menace AI spearmen with cavalry to induce them to form schiltrom and then shoot them down with your archers.

1.3…………….. Sieges

Q: Should I sit out a siege or launch an assault?

A: Sitting out a siege reduces the number of tiresome siege battles you have to fight and also paces your expansion, perhaps producing a more challenging game since the AI has more time to build up. However, storming settlements may bring you closer to victory for the reasons RickooClan articulates:

Originally Posted by RickooClan

I have read some guides which suggesting saving your troops by sitting out the siege but honestly i think that is a very bad move. The reasons are:

1. Siege battle is the best place to clear out your low-tech troops such as militia which could give room to maintain better troops.

2. Each settlement at least give you 700 forin per turn which could recruit 2~3 low tech troops. Lets say you sit for 5 turns on a sieging a settlement you actually lost 4~5k forin potential income. By comparing the cost of the troops you may lost in battle, it does not worth it. [You will only lost 40~100 militia men in early game by taking a settlement even on VH/VH, and they only cost around 700 forin.]

3. Sitting on siege is a waste of your army force, especially for France you have lots of bother to defend.

4. Time is important, the faster to take the settlement, the quicker you establish your power and develop your faction. At least this is true for France.

Q: How can I set fire to rams and siege towers? They never burn!

A:

Originally Posted by Maestro

I always try to defend with at least 4-6 units of longbows or above and nearly always successfully burn anything that comes close.

And:

Originally Posted by Forward Observer

I'm playing Spain now, and although peasant archers ... in sufficient quantities they have also managed to set fire to well over half of the rams and towers that they have come up against.

I also park a unit of my best melee troops in the space between the gate towers in such situations. I don't think the area is wide enough for archers to be that effective, but a melee unit is fairly safe there and will be well positioned to rush to the walls on either side of the gate towers as the need arises.

Q: Can I re-use ladders and siege equipment, e.g. after taking down the outer wall?

A:

Originally Posted by Pickled Gecko

You can re-use ladders. You just need to wave your cursor around the bottom of one of the ladders until it turns into a hand cursor; the same one that lets you pick up the ram. For some reason my screengrab doesn't show my cursor, so I've added some arrows to show you where to put your cursor.

:

Originally Posted by TinCow

...ladders and rams can move through gateways. In addition, I have managed to move catapults through them as well. It also appears that anything (including trebuchets) can move through wall breaches, though I have yet to try that with a siege tower.

It appears that the restriction on gateways is limited to units that are too high. In addition to trebuchets, the tall Venetian morale-boost standard (Carrocio or something) cannot move through gateways.

I can also confirm that ladders can be moved after being placed. I have not done so myself, but I have seen the AI take a ladder down from an outer wall to assault an inner wall after capturing the outer wall and gateway.

Originally Posted by lecnac

... it is not necessary to break any wall or gate after having taken the first ring since all rings are interconnected and troops can pass from one outlying ring to the next inner ring.

Note: in my experience, attackers on the walls cannot alway pass from outlying rings to inner rings (1.2 unofficial leaked patch).

Q: How do I assault settlements without taking heavy losses?

A: For good insights into siege artillery and siege tactics, read SMZs faction-specific guide to siege warfare:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...88&postcount=1

Making or threatening multiple points spaced well apart in the settlement is useful, as explained here:

Originally Posted by JohnLongarrow

During a siege when playing single person, having multiple ladders can be extremely useful. I have gotten into the habit of attacking any castle or city from all sides at once and it seems the AI is not good at dealing with this tactic.

I will normally use one or two infantry units to do scaling per side and I normally have missile troops to back them up. The AI will generally concentrate on stopping one attack and allow the others to get in. This tends to cause the AI to retreat (if possible) to the center while allowing me to get the rest of my army inside to attack with. Then I can surround the AI’s troops and move in for the kill.

Note: multple rams rather than ladders will also work when used against cities (castles have only one gate). Having some redundancy and bringing more than one ram helps deal with the risk of it being set on fire.

Didz outlines his approach to sieges in detail:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Originally Posted by Didz

:Assuming you have the battle timer off I would recommend a systematic approach to any seige or assault.

Breach the walls (Not the gate) preferrably opposite one of the main raods to the settlement centre. If you have any artillery take out any dangerous looking towers first.

Having made the breach move forward your missile troops and place them as close to the breach as possible so that they fire through it into the defenders on the other side. (You will probably need to limit firing to one unit at a time, otherwise you are wasting missiles.)

If the enemy bunch on the approaches to the city centre as they sometimes do then then use massed fire arrows to thin their ranks and panic them.

If the enemy fall back from the breach and approachs to the town centre then move your best heavy infantry through the breach and order them to block the approach roads, remembering to cover the approaches from right and left not just the main route to the centre (especially if the enemy has cavalry). Choose this location with care preferably just behind a point where the street narrows and never with a side road just behind one of your flanks (unless you have a spare unit to block that too).

Having established a foothold inside the walls move selected units of missile troops through and deploy them just ahead of your blocking force on the road to the town centre. (Don't let them fire at will, they will just waste arrows in house walls, choose deliberate targets and use fire arrows if the fire is parabollic)

Move the blocking force and missile screen forward slowly preferably using the overwatch system where one group stands firm and the other moves.

Let the missile unit trigger counter attacks by the defenders along the street and then kite the attackers onto the heavy infantry or spearmen and let them deal with the attack. (Remember to switch 'Skirmish mode off' on the missile unit otherwise it will do really weird things, and don't leave your withdrawal too late as missile troops tend to dither before running.)

Rinse and repeat, until your assault group reaches the town centre or the enemy runs out of troops, or both. Upon reaching the town centre don't move anything inside the flagged objective area. Move forward and deploy your heavy infantry around the edge and then march any remaining missile units forward and empty the rest of your missiles into the defenders clustered around the objective.

If you run out of arrows before killing them all bring up your cavalry to deliver the 'coupe de gras' or merely have your infantry finish them.

I find this minimises my casualties during an assault and the only real threat is usually the General's Personal Bodyguard who can normally chew up the blocking force if its formation isn't solid enough to prevent penetration.

The AI seems to do best when the human player rushes the breach and then attempts to rush on to the town centre. Units get very distended in the narrow streets and if not allowed to reform regularly become easy meat for defending cavalry. Its much better to force the defenders to come to you and suffer this disorganisation themselves instead.

More discussion here:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=83930

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=88794

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=95294

Artillery can be very useful in sieges. Even ballista can knock down the gates of any settlement. This typically leads them to retreat to the city square, where ballsta can reek terrible damage on enemy troops massed in the centre of the settlement. See Forward Observer's account here:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...3&postcount=39

For my tips on sieges, read:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=74367

Note: wall towers provide powerful missile fire if the defenders have a unit stationed nearby. An important use of attacking artillery is to destroy those towers.

Originally Posted by Handel

Hust found out - the assasins can sabotage ballista/cannon towers too.

Q: How can I fire diseased sheep?

A:

Originally Posted by TB66

Well so far I think only trebuchets can do that.
It is pretty simple, you simply click the special ammo button.
You start with the normal ammo, you click once and you get your exploding rocks and then you click again and you get your diseased cows.

Can point out that the cows uses a seperate ammo then the others.
When you have selected the cows your ammo bar turns green.
And once that's empty you will still have the other ammo.

This causes a big morale effect on the battlefield.

Originally Posted by Roy1991

Green flashing banners mean that your/the enemies troops are affected by the disease from dead cows launched by trebuchets.

Q: How do you know if you have captured a tower in a siege?

A:

Originally Posted by Zenicetus

You "own" a tower when the flag disappears from the top, but it's not ownership in the sense of RTW where it will fire at the enemy. You're just turning it off so it doesn't shoot at your men.

And the dynamic for this is different too. You have to clear all the enemy units near the tower, not just on the walls but also at the base of the walls and nearby streets. You can't just run troops through the tower to turn it off, if there are still enemy units anywhere nearby. Anyway, check for a flag on the tower. If there's a flag there, it's still shooting at you.

Q: Sometimes I lose a siege when my catapults have no more ammunition. Why?

A: This is a bug/feature with castles with more than one wall (fortresses/citadels). The computer thinks you can't get through the inner wall (even though they are often connected to outer walls). Build a ladder or just save the lost round of your artillery.

Q: What makes a good garrison to defend a settlement?

A: Issue is discussed here:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=78177

1.4…………….. After the battle

Q: Should I ransom, execute or release prisoners after the battle?

A: See discussion in a poll thread on this question:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=75806

Generally releasing raises chivalry; executing raises dread so it partly depends on how you want to develop your general. It is generally better to have either dread or chivalry, so you may want to accentuate the current leanings of your general rather than reduce them by acting contrary to his nature. If the number of captives is less than 80, your choice will not affect your traits. Releasing raises your reputation and executing lowers it. Ransoming is neutral.

Ransoming is good when you need the cash and/or when the captured enemy troops are relatively low grade types, who you don’t mind eating up the AIs budget. It is particularly profitable if you capture a general. Kings fetch 10000 florins; family members 5000 or so. Note: often the AI factions cannot afford the ransom, so it is way of executing without penalty.

Releasing may be an attractive way to boost chivalry or reputation when the prisoners are not seen as much of a threat.

Executing is sensible if you are in a really tight spot or when you have captured an enormous amount of prisoners and fear the AI can afford the ransom.

Q: How do I control reinforcements?

A:

Originally Posted by Katank

On the screen where you get to choose whether to fight it manually, autocalc, or withdraw, you should see checkboxes for reinforcement armies. Uncheck all the boxes if you want to control your reinforcements.

Reinforcements will arrive until you have 20 units on the field (that's the max). If you want another unit from the reinforcements, you need to withdraw one of the units currently in battle. This is best for missiles troops that ran out of ammo, for example.

Q: How does unit experience raise combat stats?

A: From inspecting the unit cards in my VH/VH campaign:

experience 1: no effect
experience 2-3: +1 attack, +1 defence
experience 4-6: +2 attack, +2 defence
experience 7+: +3 attack, +3 defence

There may be morale effects, but these are not visible. Experience effects seem somewhat smaller than those in earlier TW games.

Curiously, after a crusade, all my units were rewarded with going from zero to one experience and this single point did raise their attack and defence.

Unlike RTW, missile attack is not raised by experience, but experienced archers do get more kills. Tests by CaptainSolo reveal that three gold chevrons of experience roughly doubles the kills from longbowmen and Genovese crossbows against Scottish noble pikemen:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...36&postcount=1

Q: When I retrain my a depleted unit, are the replacements of the same experience as the unit?

A: Yes. That quirk of RTW is unchanged (one might imagine replacements have zero experience.)

Q: How can I shuffle unit cards to get them in an intuitive order?

A: There is no easy way to do this (you can't drag them from place to place).

On the battlefield, you can group and ungroup them to switch their order.

On the campaign map, you can control click them in an army or town and click for them to move somewhere. They will form a stack in the order you clicked them. However, IIRC, you cannot do this for all units - one must be left behind.

Q: Can I retrain mercenaries and Crusader units back to full strength?

A: Yes, under some circumstances.

Originally Posted by Basileus

You can retrain all mercs as long as its possible to buy the same kind of merc in the region youre in, oh and there needs to be some available otherwise you cant retrain you will need to wait like when training your normal units.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=72686

**econ21** · 11-14-2006, 11:18

Chapter 2: Managing your kingdom

Chapter sub-headings:
2.1……………..Ships
2.2……………..Managing unrest and the economy
2.3……………..Training and recruitment
2.4……………..Buildings
2.5……………..Guilds
2.6……………..Diplomacy

2.1……………..Ships

Q: Can ships block landbridges?

A: Yes:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...18&postcount=1

Q: Does carrying artillery slow down ships?

A: Yes, but there's a workaround:

Originally Posted by BiGTex

The movement points of a ship is determined by its passengers. If a ship has none then it has it's regular movement points. Artillery having fewer movement points then infantry make the ships move slower.

There is 1 way around this though. Before, or after you move the ship, go to the page with the ship unit card. Click select the ship('s) unit card, make sure if there's ships its all the ships. Once the card is highlighted the game ignores the fact that there's passengers on board and your given the ships full movement points. During the movement it also keeps up with the fact that the passengers have moved though. So if you use this method you wont be able to unload in the same turn if you use the maximum possible movement points of the ship.

Q: Which factions have the best ships?

A: For good insights into ships, read SMZs faction-specific guide to naval warfare:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...88&postcount=1

2.2……………..Managing unrest and the economy

Q: Should I occupy, sack or exterminate?

A: It depends. Note with sacking, the city is still yours - unlike in BI.

Sacking cities provides a good cash injection. Also, by reducing population, it reduces squalor and unrest, as in RTW. Extermination has a smaller cash benefit and a larger effect on population. Sacking large cities is extremely lucrative and if done regularly arguably becomes akin to playing the game on an "easier" setting. Extermination may be more appropriate when population control is an urgent need.

The costs of sacking and extermination are longer term. You are killing future taxpayers. And you are delaying your settlement reaching the threshhold levels of population required for higher tech buildings. There may also be damage or destruction to some buildings (I need more info on that).

In RTW, there was an argument for not exterminating small settlements as they grow very slowly, whereas extermination could be very helpful in dealing with a huge city which already met the size requirements to build everything. A similar argument probably applies to M2TW.

Note that your choices will affect your general's dread/chivalry, so you may want to roleplay it - there are bonuses to being chivalrous or dreadful, but not to being "balanced". There are also likely to be diplomatic repercussions to your choices - your reputation with all factions will fall if you exterminate. The Pope does not like you sacking Catholic settlements; still less exterminating them.

Originally Posted by HoreTore

What I know about occupying, sacking and exterminating, is this:

Trais on the General taking the settlement:
- Occupying gives you a 100% chance of StrategyChivalry
- Sacking gives you a 20% chance of Despoiler
- Exterminate gives you a 100% chance of StrategyDread and Genocide and a 10% chance of Bloodthirsty. Note that the first level of the Genocide trait is at treshold 3, you'll have to exterminate 3 cities with the same guy to get it. It also gives you a 50% chance of DiscontentGeneral if you exterminate with more than 4 chivalry on your general.
- Your leader is not affected traitwise by what his generals do to cities. So you don't screw up your noble leader if you exterminate to train a fearsome general.

Reputation:
- Occupy increases it
- Sacking decreases it slighty, even against rebels
- Extermination decreases it a lot, even against rebels
- in addition, your pope rating will decrease if you sack or exterminate a catholic city

Building damage:
- No damage from occupy
- Sacking has a random chance of damaging, but not destroying, buildings
- Exterminating has a random chance of destroying buildings

Sacking gives you the most money, but when deciding what to do, you'll have to consider all of the points above to decide what to do. It might not be the best thing all of the time.

More discussion here:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=72034

Q: Is there still a penalty to unrest due to distance from capital?

A: Yes, but it seems to be roughly half as sharp as in RTW and to be less for castles than towns. therother presents some data here:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...24&postcount=7

Originally Posted by TroyMcClure

After a hundred years or so of conquering you may notice that your having trouble with rebellions on the edge of your empire. Well distance to capital can greatly affect public order. So after you've done some conquering don't forget to move and centralize your capital (it costs nothing, doesn't even take any time) and enjoy the benefits.

Q: Is squalor still a major constraint in the game? Should I not build farms to avoid it?

A: Squalor is still in the game but has been toned down from RTW. therother has done research on the penalties are concludes that the penalties have been "reduced markedly" from those in RTW. To get the numbers, read his post:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...67&postcount=9

Farming gives income and, via population growth, technology so may be safe in M2TW:

Originally Posted by Andrewt

Huge stone wall gives 15% order. Mayor's palace gives 45%. Pleasure palace gives 25%. City watch (3rd barracks) gives 15%. Huge cathedral gives 30%.

Sure, the final upgrades are expensive but the mayor's palace is only 4800 for the last upgrade and gives 45% total. You'll need to upgrade your settlement level so you'll have the 15% from huge stone wall. The city watch is only the 3rd barracks upgrade so it's pretty cheap. You can build church and brothel upgrades depending on which is cheaper at the moment. Since squalor is capped at 80% (30k pop at huge stone wall), you can put low taxes for an additional 30%. You also get 6 garrison units for free upkeep and these should give 10%.

The fact is, the squalor cap pretty much means building farms is ok. The first 2 upgrades pay for themselves pretty fast and allow you to tech up fast and get higher trade income faster.

Q: I’m having economic problems, any advice?

A: Read this thread:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=75976

Originally Posted by Sinan

1. need one castle right now. Convert the rest to cities.
2. Destroy buildings you don't want.
3. Reduce military to absolute minimum.
4. Disband mercs.
5. Build all farms, markets, mines, ports, series.
6. Train merchants and go for gold in Timbuktu.
7. Sack the next city (Lisbon) you conquer, and be quick about it.

2.3……………..Training and recruitment

Q: How do the "free" militia work?

A: A unit with the word "militia" in its title can be free of upkeep in a settlement that has the buildings required to train that unit. The number of such units that can be supported depends on how upgaded the settlement walls are. 2 at town, 3 at large town, 4 at minor city, 5 at large, and 6 at huge city. Free militia units are immediately visible by their blue, rather than grey, borders on the unit cards.

Q: Why can't England train armoured sergeants? (Or another faction not get a unit in its MP roster)

A: Some MP units are not trainable in SP. This seems to be intentional, perhaps to prompt army diversity between factions. Known cases:

England: armoured sergeants (tip: mercenary spearmen and Crusader sergeants are substitutes)
France: dismounted Franc archers; dismounted chivalric knights
Venice: Dismounted Broken Lances;
HRE: Dismounted Gothic knights

Post other units here:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=72360

Q: What mercenaries are recruitable where?

A: As provided by Xdeathfire, descr_mercenaries says this:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Q: Are armour upgrades worth it? They only give +1 armour.

A: The +1 armour effect of each upgrade appears to be misreporting by the game. Testing by SMZ, Carl, Lusted and Foz implies that armour upgrades work roughly as expected, in that each upgrade provides the reported type of armour (padded, light mail etc). The upgraded armour stat does not appear to be correctly reported, but the unit is still as resistant to missile fire as you would expect from a unit with that type of armour. Here is Palamedes description (as reported to Lusted) of what armour stat corresponds to each armour type:

none no valid armour 0
Unarmoured Unarmoured 0
Padded Padded or leather 4
Light Mail Chainmail shirt 5
Light Brigandine 6
Heavy Mail Heavy Mail 7
Half Plate Breastplate and helmet 7
Heavy Brigandine 8
Partial Plate Fully armoured. Mostly Plate 8
3Q Plate Three quarters plate 8
Plate Full set of plate armour 9
Gothic Advanced Plate 10
Late Plate Renaisance suit of plate 11

The implication is that the lowest type of armoury is a great bargain - raising the armour stat of your initially unarmoured troops by around 3-4 points.

Discussion and original research here:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=79784

Q: Is the armour factory useless?

A: Pretty much. Here are all the units that can use Armour Factory:

Originally Posted by Miracle

Dismounted_Broken_Lances
Dismounted_Mercenary_Knights
Dismounted_NE_Bodyguard
Broken_Lances
Condottieri
EE_Late_Bodyguard
Famiglia_Ducale
ME_Late_Bodyguard
Mercenary_German_Knights
NE_Late_Bodyguard
SE_Late_Bodyguard

Basically all these units have an armor value of 9.

Originally Posted by dopp

Yes, the late bodyguards of western generals can be upgraded to advanced plate. They are the only ones I can think of.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=73690

2.4……………..Buildings

Q: How many castles relative to cities should you have?

A: Castles often provide the better troops, while cities provide more income. Economic constraints typically mean you only need a few castles to provide enough troops. Plus upgrading castles to have the best troops is expensive. Consequently, most players choose to have fewer castles than cities. Discussion here:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=76254

Q: What are the requirements to upgrade a castle?

A:

Originally Posted by PaulTa

Castles are indeed dependant on population, but not the first three upgrades. Going from motte and baily to wooden castle, and then to just Castle are not dependant on population. You can do that for any settlement. To upgrade to fortress you need a population of 4500, and to go to citadel you need 9000 population.

Q: Are farms worth building?

A: Following on from the last question, farming is an attractive way to get the population needed as prerequistes for fortresses and ctiadeals.

Originally Posted by Oaty

From my observation all farms increases farm revenuse by 50 florins no matter what the quality of the farmland and what level farm you are building. So the first 2 levels seem well worth the return you get from it after that, you have to factor in wether you want the extra population or not.

More discussion here:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=72673

Q: What's the point of building markets? (Often no projected income gain shows up in the settlement details).

A:

Originally Posted by Quillan

It does seem to vary depending on the size and resources of the province. Markets in Constantinople pay off very well (two silk, one wine, one grain resource). Also, the educational line of buildings require great markets and merchants quarters to build.

More discussion here:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=72675

Q: What are the effects of the various economic buildings on trade income?

A: ArchieGremlin has produced a nice table:

The buildings listed in this table are the ones that are shown in the game with the property "Increase in tradeable goods". (This matches the "trade_base_income_bonus bonus" property in export_descr_buildings.txt.)

* I've checked the behaviour of most buildings but the ones I couldn't check are marked with a *.

Some commentary:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Q: On the city details screen, what does it mean if an icon - e.g. for income - is flashing? Or is greyed out?

A: Flashing icons mean an effect is ending this turn. Greyed out mean that they will happen in the future (e.g. project rise in income due to a queued economic buildng).

2.5……………..Guilds

Many questions on Guilds are answered in Daveybaby’s excellent guide to them:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=75649

Another superb guide is DarkKnight's over on twcenter:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...ghlight=Guilds

Q: I am offered a guild. Should I automatically accept it?

A: No. It is undocumented but a settlement can only have one guild. This means that you should think carefully when accepting a second guild of the same type in your realm.

Originally Posted by Quillan

You can only have a single guild house in a city, and it has to be at least minor city in size. So if all your cities already have guild houses, you won't ever get offered any. So far, I've accepted two merchants guilds, two assassins, one thieves and one explorers guild. I've got master merchant, assassin and thieves guilds, but I'm not accepting any more duplicate guilds in my other cities. I'm going to hold out for different ones.

Note:

Originally Posted by Quillan

...you can only have one of the Hospitalar and Templar chapter houses. You can have one of those two, plus a Teutonic or a Santiago depending upon your faction.

Originally Posted by Excalibur Bane

It goes without saying, that destroying a guild in a city won't stop you from being offered another one, so you if you have one that isn't proving useful, you can always scrap it and wait for another, more useful one, to cycle around.

Q: What do guilds do?

A: Some effects are documented in the building browers. Some undocumented ones raise the starting stats of the relevant agents (e.g. assassins, spies, merchants). Explorer's guilds are reported to increase trade routes and increase army movement speeds, but more information is needed on these effects.

therother designed this table:

Originally Posted by Quillan

With the assassins guild, the first level gets assassins built in that city the "Trained Killer" trait, +1 to agent's skill. The Master and Headquarters are global effects, they give "Apprentice" and "Journeyman" assassin traits to any assassin trained anywhere in your lands, which are worth +1 and +2 to skill respectively.

Some guilds allow unique units to be recruited by a specific faction (e.g. Sherwood Forestors from the highest Woodmen's Guild). The manual flags these and the building brower gives the details.

Originally Posted by Beefeater

One thing I can confirm is that family members in a city with an explorer's guild are likely to pick up the 'explorer' ancillary, who gives +15% movement.

Q: Which guilds can be built in castles and which in cities?

A: This information is provided in the in-game building browser - there are tabs for cities and castles. Press one and you can scroll down all the classes of buildings. Greyed out ones cannot be constructed.

IIRC, the woodsman guild (better archers) and the swordsman guild (weapon upgrades) are for castles only. Crusading orders can be built in both castles and cities (putting them in a city might be good, as it gives the city access to heavy cavalry and leaves the castle free for swordsmen guilds). Other guilds can only be built in towns.

Q: What are the triggers for guilds?

A:

Originally Posted by therother

Epistolary Richard has released (with CA's permission) the data text files: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=73971

export_descr_guilds.txt would seem to have all the various guild triggers.

Daveybaby has provided a great analysis based on this of how to attract guilds. In fact, it is so good, I am going to quote it in full:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Originally Posted by Daveybaby

From perusing the contents of export_descr_guilds.txt i have determined the following:

Each guild type has 3 levels, to get a guild at each level the player has to score a certain number of points for either their faction overall, or for that particular settlement.

Guild: 100 points
Masters Guild: 250 points
Guild H[U]Q: 500 points

The player gains (and loses) points for each guild for each settlement, and for their entire faction, by performing certain deeds. In general, settlements will gain more per deed (typically 10-30 points) than the overall faction score (typically 1-5 points per deed).

Not sure how the overall faction score works, presumably if your overall faction score exceeds the required amount you will get offered a guild even if none of your individual settlements qualify - thus you can still get guilds by, say, training lots of priests all over the place - but it will still be far quicker if you train them all in the same settlement.

Agents can also gain points. Assume that this is once per agent, and that these points add to the overall faction score. Edit: hmmm... this may refer to achievements rather than agents.

Edit: According to work done by Kobal2fr it looks probable that all scores are added to each settlement, or at least the settlement and overall faction scores are (dont know about the agent stuff yet).

Edit: Eldon made the observation that the three tags in export_descr_guilds.txt refer to the specific settlement, other settlements, and all settlements, respectively. This makes a whole lot more sense than the whole the whole faction and agent scores i came up with, so i've edited the stuff below to reflect this.

In summary, points are gained for:
1. The specific settlement where the event occurred.
2. All settlements other than where the event occurred (usually a smaller number of points).
3. All settlements regardless of where the event occurred.

General
Upgrade a guild (+20 settlement bonus for that guild type, +10 to other settlements)
Destroy a guild building (huge penalty for that guild type, -100 settlement, -20 others)
Upgrade a settlement (+10 settlement bonus for all guild types)
Every 25 turns every settlement loses 1 point for all guilds (or 1 point every turn after turn 25?)

Missions
Bonuses are also given for successfully completing a guild mission, but failing to complete the guild mission will incur a penalty for that guild type.

The following guilds offer missions:
Assassin's/Hashashim's Guild
Merchant's Guild
Explorer's Guild
Theologian's Guild
Thieves Guild

Assassin's/Hashashim's Guild
Train assassin/hashashim: +10 settlement
Successful Assassinations: +20 all settlements
Governor with dread >4: +4 settlement bonus (per turn?)
Build brothel series buildings: +10/15/20/25/30 settlement, +0/0/0/2/5 others
Succeed/Fail guild mission: +/-10 all settlements

Alchemist's Guild
Train Cannons etc: +10/15/20 settlement
Train handgunners etc: +15 settlement
Build cannon maker series: +10/15/20/25/30 settlement, +1/2/3/4/5 others

Explorer's Guild
Train merchants: +10 settlement
Build shipbuilding buildings: +15/20/25/30 settlement, +0/0/2/5 others
Build merchants wharf series: +20/25/30 settlement, +0/2/5 others
Fleet distance from capital 50-99: +3 all settlements
Fleet distance from capital >100 : +5 all settlements
Succeed/Fail Explorer guild mission: +/-30 all settlements

Horse Breeder's Guild
Train cavalry: +10 settlement, +1 others
Build stables series: +10/15/20/25/30 settlement, +1/2/3/4/5 others
Build racetrack/sultan's ractrack +50/75 settlement, +5 others
Governor throws races: +5 settlement

Mason's Guild
Build Stone wall series: +10/15/20 settlement, +2/2/3 others
Build mustering halls series: +10/15/20/25/30 settlement, +2/2/2/2/3 others
Build town watch series: +10/15/20/25/30 settlement +2/2/2/2/3 others
Build armourer series: +10/15/15/20/25/30 settlement +2/2/2/2/2/3 others
Build bowyer series: +10/15/20/30 settlement +2/2/2/3 others

Merchant's Guild
Train merchants: +10 settlement
Build merchants wharf series: +20/25/30 settlement, +0/2/5 others
Build market series: +10/15/20/25 settlement, +0/0/2/5 others
Make trade agreement: +10 all settlements
Successful aquisition: +10 all settlements
Income > 1000/2000/5000/10000: +1/2/3/4 all settlements(per turn?)
Succeed/Fail merchant's guild mission: +/- 10/20 all settlements (depending on difficulty?)

Swordsmith's Guild
Build armourer series: +10/15/15/20/25/30 settlement, +0/0/0/1/2/5 others
Train sword unit: +15 settlement
Units: Sword and Buckler Men, Sudanese Tribesmen, Swordsmen Militia, Armored Swordsmen, Highland Nobles, Zweihander, Noble Swordsmen, Forlorn Hope, Byzantine Infantry, Battlefield Assassins, Norse Swordsmen, Dismounted Feudal Knights, Dismounted Chivalric Knights, Dismounted Gothic Knights, Dismounted Conquistadores, Dismounted Italian MAA, Dismounted Broken Lances, Dismounted Norman Knights, Dismounted Polish Knights, Dismounted E Chivalric Knights, Dismounted Byzantine Lancers, Dismounted Latinkon, Hashishim, Urban Militia, Dismounted Christian Guard

Theologian's Guild
Train Priests: +10 settlement
Build church/masjid series: +10/15/20/25/30 settlement, +0/0/1/2/5 others
Get your cardinal elected pope: +30 all settlements
Governor's piety >5: +5 settlement (per turn?)
Succeed/Fail theologian's guild mission: +/-10 all settlements
Priest becomes a heretic: -5 all settlements

Thieves Guild
Train spies: +10 settlement
Build brothel series: +10/15/20/25/30 settlement
Governor with dread >4: +2 settlement (per turn?)
Spy in a settlement: +2 all settlements (per turn?)
Succeed/Fail theives guild mission: +/-10 all settlements

Woodsman's Guild
Recruit archers (England only!): +10/15/20 settlement (depending on unit)
Build brothel series: +10/15/20/25/30 settlement, +0/0/0/2/5 others
Governor with chivalry >4: +5 settlement (per turn?)

Various Knight's Chapter Houses
General joins crusade: +25 all settlements
General abandons crusade: -25 all settlements
Recruit Specialist Knight: +10 settlement, +1 others (knight type tied to guild type)
Governor Chivalry >4: +5 settlement

St. John's guild get a +10 settlement, +1 others bonus when the settlement has muslim neighbours
St. John's guild get a +10 bonus for all settlements when you declare war on a muslim faction.
Teutonic guild get a +10 settlement, +1 others bonus when the settlement has pagan neighbours

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=74072

A very nice tip on guilds:

Originally Posted by Maestro

In my latest campaign (H/VH England), having read a lot of anecdotal evidence on the forum about guilds and who got what, when and why, I decided to test some theories.

Basically, when your City becomes Level 3, you get offered a guild. This seems to happen every time a city reaches that level. This has been documented before, but I'm pretty sure I know what determines which guild you get - to a great extent.

From turn 1, I specialised my cities. this is something veteran totalwar players have always done cause it's the most efficient way of getting high ranked buildings. But I think it's even more important in M2TW cause it determines your guilds, too. In this campaign i've made sure every priest I've trained has been trained in London, and London got offered a Theologians' Guild. I made sure I trained all my swordsmen in Caen and Caen got offered a Swordsmiths' Guild. I made sure I trained all my spies in York, and York got offered a Theives' Guild. I made sure I trained all my archers at Nottingham, and Nottingham got offered a Woodsmans' Guild. I made sure I trained all of my Merchants at Bruges, and Bruges got offered a Merchants' Guild. I made sure that the place next to Bruges (forget the name) trained all my assasins .... well, you get the picture.

Note the benefits from master and higher guilds in different cities often stack. Having multiple master swordsmiths in your kingdom allows you to train very high experience knights from the start.

Q: How do I get knights' guilds in particular?

A: Daveybaby's information above covers this, but here's a more focussed explanation from Horetore:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Q: What happens if I turn down a guild?

A: According to research by Foz, there appears to be a 10 turn "cool down" period for a settlement. You may well be offered the guild again after 10 turns have passed:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...8&postcount=38

2.6……………..Diplomacy

Q: Someone attacked me. Why is my ally not automatically at war with them?

A: Being in an alliance does not mean your ally automatically enters any wars you get in.

Originally Posted by Rpkmann

:From what i've heard the only major benefit of alliances is if you happen to be at war with an enemy, the two armys will fight together.

Q: Can you ally with a faction already allied to your enemy?

A: No. (Although the AI can be your ally and then ally with your enemy - this brings peace between you and your enemy.)

Q: What does becoming a vassal do?

A:

Originally Posted by Quillan

I don't know if it's the same as Protectorates in RTW. In RTW, becoming a Protectorate gave alliance and military access to both parties. The client wasn't supposed to be able to break the agreement (though it did happen in the game), and if the client had over 15K denarii in the treasury then they wound up paying tribute to the patron of the relationship.

Tip:

Originally Posted by Hashashiyyin

Just started over with the turks on VH/VH and found that I can get the AI to pay for alliance and trade rights! byzantine gave me 2200, Hungry 800 and Egypt gave me 2800.

Q: What is the range of relations you can have with other factions?

A:

Originally Posted by HoreTore

Abysmal
Terrible
Very poor
Poor
So-so
Reasonable
Amiable
Good
Very good
Outstanding
Perfect

Q: What can I do to improve relations?

A: Based on the text files:

Originally Posted by Bob the Insane

a list al ALL the things that you can do in game to improve relations:

Get Trade agreements
Get Alliances
Help out your allies militarily
Hand out cash
Do not be demanding in your deplomacy
Release prisoners
Occupy settlements

The gory details:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Originally Posted by Bob the Insane

Your relationship score goes from 1.0 (Perfect) to -1.0 (Abysmal). This should give context to the increase values noted below, additionally where you see normalized in general the large the number to the right, the small the potential change will be:

Trigger: Forgiveness (I am not sure when this is fired)

Trade_Treaty +0.07

Military_Assistance +0.12

Obvious_Bribe - fired for every 100 gold given as gift + 0.14
(this is why a big bribe gets a good improvment, but in theory a 2000 fl bribe should mean perfect relations which is obviously not the case so there must be another factor in play)

Demeanour 0.001
(I think this relates to getting a nice response in negotiations?)

Update_Religion - Make other factions like factions of the same religion a bit more normalise 1.0 100
(Automatic, should slowly improve your relations with factions of the same religion)

Update_Band_Together1 - Make factions try and band up with smaller factions
(No numbers here because there are 3 versions. This is the opposite to the tall poppy thing which automatically improves a faction's relations with the 5 smallest factions in the game)

Update_Easy_Difficulty - Adjust the AI relationships towards each faction normalise 1.0 50
(Playing the game on easy automatically improves relations every turn)

Update_Normal_Difficulty - Adjust the AI relationships towards each faction based on difficulty level (AI factions have normal difficulty) normalise 0.0 50
(Playing the game on Medium auromaticallu imporves realtions each turn up to a max of Neutral)

Increase_Global_Standing_New_Turn normalise 0.0 200
(Automatically moves all factions towards being Neutral).

Increase_Global_Standing_When_Allied,normalise 1.0 400
(Automatically moves Ally's relations towards Perfect)

prisoners_released_increase_global 0.02
(Every time you release more than 80 prisors)

occupy_settlement_increase_global 0.02
(Every time you Occupy a settlement, don't sack or exterminate)

....

Finally a note for those playing on Very Hard. Your relations automatically degenerate towards Abysmal (-1.0) every turn at the rate "normalise -1.0 40".

I believe this mean if you have Perfect relations with someone that your faction stand with drop by 0.05 the next turn and at a slowly decreasing rate every turn. So you should be able to stabilize this affect with a 100 fl gift every two turns.

Rothe has posted a very good collection of tips:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Originally Posted by Rothe

I have found that the diplomacy system is actually quite "playable" despite many complaints about it. I am currently playing a grand campaign as Venice (H/VH).

I have found that you can make treaties and with relative reliability keep them if you give tribute/gifts to the faction you are in alliance/peace with.

For example, 100 florins per turn has kept the HRE off my back as Venice with trade rights granted all the way, even though they are also allied with my enemy, Milan. It seems that a continued tribute makes them hesitant to attack you.

Also, I keep an eye on the relationship meter and when it drops to so-and-so I give some gift, like map information or 500 florins to get it back to reasonable. I also think that the longer you have had peace with a faction, the less it takes to keep the relations up.

The second thing to keep diplomacy up is to ally with the pope and keep gifting him with suitable stuff (not necessary regions even though many do this as well). I find that a 100/turn is enough to keep decent standings as long as I also give some 500 florins as a gift if I do something to upset the pope.

So far I have consistently kept England, Denmark and HRE in peace, with England and Danes as allies even. This also helps with trade income, which in turn helps with the tributes.

The gifts do not have to be big, just that you have to keep on giving.
The odd part is that this sort of skews the game against the player, but I suppose it must be so to level the field a bit.

I tend to make up for this by selling off trade rights and alliances to other factions, which will in time betray me, attack and then when I beat them they will again pay me for the priviledges.... The trick seems to be to keep a few (2-3) factions gifted up and happy, so you have some safe fronts. Also, make sure that you have a diplomat in their areas. I suppose that muslim nations are more of a problem for the player as there are plenty of enemies that will probably not even take the gifts.

Originally Posted by Oaty

Also don't milk the AI for all its worth. Making a diplomatic deal that is either considered genorous or very genorous increases relations. So if you can sell map info for 2000 at balanced and 1300 for genorous, you dhould opt for 1300 unless you need every florin you can get. Also selling the map info for 2700 at demanding may or may not be accepted but it can decrease relations.

Q: What are the different ranks of reputation?

A:

Originally Posted by alpaca

0 Despicable
1 Deceitful
2 Very Untrustworthy
3 Untrustworthy
4 Dubious
5 Mixed
6 Reliable
7 Very Reliable
8 Trustworthy
9 Very Trustworthy
10 Immaculate

Q: What can you do to increase your reputation?

A:

Originally Posted by Muashi

*Having alliances and maintaining them increases your reputation.
*Having good relations with a faction increases your reputation.
*Having bad relations decreases it.
*Having a high chivalry faction leader increases your reputation.
*Having a high dread faction leader decreases it (So best to keep your main bloodline as high chivarly generals, and let some other line of the family be the bastard enforcers).
*The best thing to do is to make alliances with EVERY faction in the game at the start, so that you have allies far off who you don't share a border with and who won't be tempted to attack you.
*Give gifts to any ally who your relations decline with IMMEDIATELY in order to keep your relations at so-so or better (Preferably better, because that increases your reputation faster).
*Pick a couple of factions to be super allies with, and push your relations with them to perfect, and KEEP them there.
*Don't attack an ally ever (Ever).
*Don't attack a non-ally unless they attack you first. In fact, don't retaliate even, only break their forces in your territory (This is good strategy anyway, fighting them on your home territory gives you the advantage because you should be able to choose your battlefields). If you let them keep entering your territory a few times before retaliating and taking one of their territories, you are much less likely to take a reputation hit. See, if another faction has a BAD reputation, you can attack them freely without losing reputation (In fact you seem to gain reputation for attacking them, as long as you're at war with them and THEY started it). So let them attack you a few times before you retaliate, let their reputation fall and fall and then retaliate. Additionally, the higher your reputation goes, the bigger hit the enemy will take if they attack you. I've seen factions go from mixed to despicable after attacking me just one time, when I had very high reputations.

Discussion here:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=78429

Some other thoughts in the spoiler:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Q: How can I tell the priorities of my neighbours?

A:

Originally Posted by Slaists

Keep a spy in your closest neighbor's cities. Then, when offering a gift to the faction you are likely to see their "priorities" revealed. I had Germans at "amiable" level for some time, however, their priorities were clearly stated as "war"... In about ten turns (from the time the war priority appeared) they attacked...

A nice tip on how to make diplomacy profitable:

Originally Posted by Maestro

Again, by using the diplomatic channels, I have secured tens of thousands of cash from warfare. I have never started a war, but have brought about devastating retribution for those who have crossed me and as a result my diplomatic reputation is reliable. By demanding extortionate money for cease-fires when enemies realise their error of attacking me and for attacking common enemies with allies and again demanding monies there's a lot to be made through diplomacy and this can be used to pay for diplomacy. Diplomacy pays, folks, diplomacy pays.

Q: How do you arranged a Royal Marriage if given a mission to do so?

Originally Posted by Shimmeringsea

On two occasions my council has suggested that a marriage between my English princess and one of the English generals would be favourable - and the faction has between 6 and 10 turns to arrange the matrimony and complete the mission. How do you arrange it? The princess character does not see the general character as being available for marriage.

A:

Originally Posted by SnowlyWhite

right click on the town where your guy is with the princess; you'll be shown a portrait with the general in cause and 100% chances of success for marriage. Press the button on the right side of the panel.

Misc. diplomacy tips

For Catholics, the Election of a Pope allows you to conduct diplomatic negotiations with Catholic powers without having to go to the trouble of sending a diplomat to them.

**econ21** · 11-14-2006, 11:19

Chapter 3: Characters and agents

Chapter sub-headings:
3.1……………..Generals
3.2……………..Kings
3.3…………….. Princesses
3.4…………….. Assassins
3.5………….. …Spies
3.6…………….. Merchants
3.7…………….. Priests
3.8…………….. Inquisitors
3.9…………….. Miscellaneous Agents

3.1……………..Generals

Q: What are the triggers for the various traits my generals can get?

A: A good list is provided at:
http://www.noctalis.com/dis/totalwar/m2tw_traits.shtml

Q: My armies keep going brigand - what can I do?

A: Armies commanded by captains can go brigand; it is better to lead with a general. Alternatively, you could build forts as waypoints for transporting reinforcements to the front. Generals may rebel too, depending on their loyalty and the authority of the king. Accompanying spies or assassins may make this less likely (not confirmed).

Q: What are the effects of command stars?

A: In STW/MTW, your generals' command stars were very important - affecting their troops combat stats. A high star general could make peasants as good killers as decent infantry. It appears, an explicit CA statement to the contrary notwithstanding, that this was changed in RTW so that command stars only raise morale (empirical testing by therother found no effect on kill rates). As M2TW is based on the RTW engine, I assume command stars only raise morale not attack stats in that game too. Note that the morale benefit only applies to units near the general - often it may be good to keep him near a key spot in the line. Higher command generals may have a higher command radius within which their morale bonus applies.

Command stars do appear to have a large effect on autoresolve results.

Q: Should I leave generals to govern settlements?

A: Before the 1.2 patch, generals who governed settlements seemed more likely to pick up bad traits than good ones. However, the situation may have improved. Here are some observations by Dopp based on looking at traits after the 1.2 patch:

Originally Posted by Dopp

1. Not having a market in a town is 100% chance of BadTrader for the governor every turn (!).
2. Not having a town center is 6% chance of Unjust for the governor every turn.
3. Generals stuck on a boat will pick up drinking and arse (sodomy) easily. Watch out for those American expeditions especially. No more cryofreeze cruises for generals.
4. A princess can become a HumbleWoman or PretentiousWoman depending on your treasury level. PretentiousWoman leads to WifeIsBitch.
5. Not having an academic building of some sort in a town gives any character there a 4% chance of Ignorance (since not every faction gets academic buildings, and they require pretty high population to build, this may be a little unfair) per turn, which is fairly high.
6. Being outside a settlement for no good reason is a little chancy now, with several bad traits waiting to be picked out. Don't stay still for too long.
7. Having a church/mosque can help keep your characters on the straight and narrow with Prim and Upright. Lots of positive traits waiting to be picked up if you have the right buildings built.

If you are really frustrated about vices, you can use the consol to cheat. For example, for good governors:

Originally Posted by King Azzole

There is an easy way to get around this...

Step 1: Remove desired governer from a settlement.

Step 2: Click on the future politician and open console.

Step 3: Enter the following lines in the console (without quotes) "give_trait this GoodTaxman 3" and "give_trait this GoodAdministrator 3"

BAM instant fix. I do this for every governer I intend to keep in any city.

Q: How can I train a general to be a good governor?

A: Kobal2fr's Prince guide explains this in detail:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=86130

Q: What does the piety stat do?

A:

Originally Posted by Factionheir

Piety increases (slightly) the amount of additional income as governor and determines who is governor, when multiple generals are present. It also influences the level of religious unrest, based on the religion spread in the region. Its some whacky formula which is quite elusive, but as a general rule, a high piety general should govern a settlement with high OwnReligion and a low piety general should govern a settlement with little OwnReligion.

Q: How can my general's gain piety?

A:

Originally Posted by HoreTore

The way to get pious generals, is first to either install the 1.2 patch, or if that's not an option, fix the religionstarter trait. In the trait description, change "characters general" to "characters family".

Second, build churches, priests and join crusades. These are the traits giving piety, and how you get them(all v1.2):

PublicFaith: staying in a settlement with a level 2 or higher religious building gives a 15% chance each turn of getting one point. If you have a cathedral in your empire, characters have a 35% chance of gaining it when they are born. For a huge cathedral, the chance is 65%.

TouchedByTheGods: 4% chance of gaining it on birth, which is then selfperpetuating at 4% each turn. Nothing can be done about it.

ForcedReligious: 10% when damaged by a natural disaster(like flood). 100% chance when found innocent of heresy.

CrusaderHistory: first level gained when joining a crusade. Second trait when arriving at the target. Third level when you take the target.

AdoredbyPope: only way I've got this trait, was when rome fell, and I took it back. When I did, the following turn I got a mission from the pope to give it to him. I did, and got the first level of the trait.

ReligiousActivity: 1 point per priest the governor recruits. 12 priests needed for the final level, giving +4 piety and +2 chivalry.

PublicFaith and ReligiousActivity are the easiest and most convinient ones. CrusaderHistory is an option once in a while. So, stay in a settlement with a church and train priests.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=83673

Q: What are the pros and cons of chivalry and dread?

A:

Originally Posted by Handel

As I understand it dread causes morale in the enemy, while chivalry cause morale boost in your troops. As for me I prefer the enemy to rout than my troops to fight longer before rooting. but surely some people prefer chivalry.

A working assumption is that one point of chivalry raises own morale by one and one point of dread lowers enemy morale by one.

Snipafistargues that dread may work well with a cavalry based army that likes to shatter the enemies morale on the charge, while chivalry may help an infantry based army take damage and keep grinding away at the enemy. More generally, dread lends itself more to attacking and chivalry to defending:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...64&postcount=5

In addition, one point of chivalry on a settlement’s governor increases population growth by 0.5%. This can be useful for developing settlements early in the game.

In a governor, either chivalry or dread may make it easier to maintain order in the settlement. Chivalry increases settlement happiness, but dread also reduces unrest via a fear factor.

Originally Posted by dopp

If your king has less than 3 chivalry your chivalrous generals start becoming discontent. You have been warned. On the other hand, dreaded generals couldn't care less how nasty your king is, and are actually more reliable overall.

Q: What can you do to alter your general's chivalry or dread?

A: the_foz_4 lists the more common traits for improving chivalry:

Originally Posted by the_foz_4

CrusaderHistory: Joining up, Arriving, and Assaulting net you 2 pts, and Winning gets 3. Crusading can easily make a general governor-worthy.
BattleChivalry: General makes more than 8 kills in a battle (50%). Outside of that, having the general fight in the battle, in various circumstances, often gives a chance of it happening.
StrategyChivalry: Refuse a bribe. Have Low taxes with Happy people and TimeInRegion > 3 (25% 1 pt). Build any building from the church/chapel line (100% 1 pt). Build Jousting Lists (100% 1 pt). Occupy a settlement (100% 1 pt). Have a crusade-virgin general join one (100% 1 pt). Take Crusade target (100%/2pt).
CaptorChivalry: Release more than 80 captured soldiers (100%/1pt).
RansomChivalry: Ransom > 80 captives for > 1000 cash (100%/1pt).
ChivalryLegacy: Father with >=4 Chivalry (100%/1pt). >=7 gets another pt.
TourneyKnight: Be in town with >= Jousting Lists (10%/1pt). Inherit from father (20%/1pt).
ReligiousActivity: Train a priest (100%/1pt). Build a religious building (100%/1pt). Abbey or better gets a 2nd pt. Huge Cathedral a 3rd.

Originally Posted by Slaists

Not keeping your taxes at VH but rather at High when your general is governing is likely to give him "fair in rule", "chivalrous in rule" line ot traits. Note, that having taxes at VH even just for a turn with this general is likely to take points away from the aforementioned traits... knowledge earned the "hard way".

Using spies and assassins (especially the assassins) is likely to reduce your king's chivalry and increase his dread.

Q: Why is it hard to keep my King Chivalrous?

A:

Originally Posted by foz

Continued use of spies and especially assassins will end up netting your leader StrategyDread points again. Spies give 5% chance of 1 point every time they complete a mission successfully, and assassins give 50% chance of 1 point when they have a successful mission. Assassins even give a 25% chance when they FAIL the mission! And those points have nothing to do with the Master trait lines at all.

Discussion of chivalry and dread here:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=74200

3.2……………..Kings

Q: What are the triggers for the various traits my faction leader can get? Why does my leader have a particular name (e.g. "the killer")?

A: There is a good list of triggers and titles for Kings at:
http://www.noctalis.com/dis/totalwar/m2tw_leader.shtml

Q: What can I do to raise my King's authority?

A:

Originally Posted by Factionheir

Using a diplomat every turn (for a successful negotiation, not gifting), fighting, using assassins/spies, staying in towns with racing tracks/tourneys, using up all movement points, releasing or executing prisoners (not ransoming), exterminating cities.

Originally Posted by TinCow

...get your King's bodyguard into the thick of it for a good period in each battle. He will get a good amount of authority from both the scarred line of traits and the brave line of traits.

Whacker has sifted through the vice and virtues file to identify those affecting authority:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=75008

Q: How can I change my faction heir?

A: Unlike RTW, you cannot do that directly. The faction heir is the oldest son of the current faction ruler or, if he does not have a son, his brother.

You can use the console to give your desired heir the Factionheir trait:

Open the console during your campaign by pressing the ~` key.

Now type:

QUOTE
give_trait <character> Factionheir

This is case sensitive and does not include the <>.

But then you have to kill off the existing faction heir, which sounds rather brutal (the above mechanics were investigated by Factionheir, appropriately enough).

3.3…………….. Princesses

Q: How do I get princesses?

A: Watch for when they are about to come of age and make sure you turn down marriage proposals for them around that time.

Originally Posted by Quillan

From what I've found over two weeks of solid play, girl children who turn 16 either become Princesses or "noble daughters". She only becomes a princess if her father is the ruler or faction heir, at the time she comes of age. I only had 2 my entire campaign as Byzantium. As Spain, I started with 2, and have gotten 3 more in the 90 turns I've played so far. It's luck mostly, the rulers have to have children early enough in their lives so they're still around when the kids grow up. I had a couple I lost out on because the Emperor died when she was 14.

Q: How do I get a marriage alliance?

A: These are formed when the faction heir gets married. The manual says they are treated with great seriousness.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=72031

Q: How can my princess gain charm?

A:

Originally Posted by Willknott

Unsuccesful diplomatic attempts usually result in losing charm. Save before attempting to use a princess for diplomatic purposes. Likewise successful diplomatic proposals will increase charm. You can also use the give_trait cheat for princess characters. I'm not sure yet what all the possible princess traits are, but "PrettyWoman" level 1-3 can turn her into a real beauty. Many people don't like to use cheats, but you can at least use this beauty cheat when marrying your heir to a foreign princess (yes, the cheat works on foreign princesses). This way you won't jump through hoops to marry a certain princess who looks good in the picture only to discover after the wedding she's really a wretch which will decrease your likelyhood of producing offspring.

3.4…………….. Assassins

Q: How do I get new assassins to work when they have such low chances to kill anyone?

A:

Originally Posted by Carl

DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES attempt ANYTHING other than Sabotage until their skill is AT LEAST 4 points. Sabotage will give you +3, (it takes a LOT of time though, probs 10+ sabotages missions that are sucsesful), and almost all start out with 1, so 3+1=4. Then send them after Captins and Dimplomats and Princesses, they are easy kills, don't even try to attack anyone with more than 2 skill or who is a named general/family member until you have 6-7 skill.

Originally Posted by Lord Condormanius

Assassins can take a while to build up, but I have two guys now that are killing family members at 72-93%. Start small, rebels (if you get caught there are no diplomatic repercussions), captains, buildings, and make a lot up assassins some of them will die, but some won't. New young priests can also be good targets.

Some discussion here:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=71999

And a nice post here:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...4&postcount=21

Assassin's subterfuge may not be capped at the 10 that you see visible in the game:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...1&postcount=12

Q: Can assassins kill my own generals?

A: No, but pirates, rebels and enemies can.

Q: I have a mission from a faction heir to kill a faction leader. Can I kill him in battle?

A: No, the mission only succeeds if an assassin kills him. However, killing him in battle will get rid of the mission which might be annoyingly hard (thanks to Chunkynut for that).

3.5………….. …Spies

Originally Posted by Zenictus

If the spy opens gates, it's all the gates. This can be very useful for splitting up a big defending army by attacking through three gates at once, or running in a cav unit quickly through an undefended gate.

Originally Posted by Lochar

When viewing you settlements and noticing high unrest, could be a good chance you have a spy in town. Plop one or 2 down and flush them out. I ususally have 2 now on my frontlines and its ammusing watching them send spies to fail. If one gets thru I just try plopping a 3rd.

Also spies are by far the easiest to level up, just spy everyone and thing around you. Diplomats, merchants,priests, etc. You usually get a trait increase doing so.

[b]Zenictus[b/] reports that spies, even low level ones, provide a valuable defensive role against assassins and exert a protective influence over characters near them as well as those stacked with them:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...04&postcount=7

Originally Posted by Handel

Spies greatly reduce the enemy happiness. Simply send in any city or castle 3 spies and demolish the "happiness" buildings with couple of assasins. Aften 3 turns at most the city becomes rebels for you to grab. Or you can send 5 spies w/o any assasins.

Originally Posted by Subterfuge

a spy will cause 5% unrest total, regardless of subterfuge, and that this unrest caps out at 5 spies (for a total of 25%)

3.6…………….. Merchants

Q: How I make money with merchants?

A: Some discussion here:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=71833

Note - they have no upkeep. Returns increase with distance from lands; with having a monopoly on resources and with having trade rights with the owner of the land on which the resource is sited:

A nice heads-up:

Originally Posted by Vlad the Impaler

Around timbouktu in Africa are some very good resources; 2 ivory and 1 gold. i play as the Moors and the region isnt mine yet. the merchant that trade gold make 237 / turn and the two other that trade ivory make aroun 120 /turn almost 500 gold/turn only with merchants until now, almost 40 turns, nobody tried to assasinate or buy them.

And advice on using merchants aggressively:

Originally Posted by BigTex

Merchants pay for themselves. But not by standing on a resource. Standing on a resource is only useful to get them up a few levels so they can start eliminating the competition. You can get an easy 1-2k florins from buying out a rival merchant alot of times. You've also denyed the computer the income from him and made them lose the 550 investment.

More here (how to get 20,000 florins a turn):

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...2&postcount=38

And a lot of information, building up to a case for using merchants here:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...2&postcount=51

Daveybaby and therother have compiled lists of the resources in each province and the value of resources respectively in this thread:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=72609

Note: mines also count as resources that merchants can trade.

Timbucktu sounds like a profitable place, at least for the English:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...5&postcount=73

More tips for using merchants, posted here by Slicendice:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...59&postcount=1

Musashi suggests building a fort on a resource to protect your merchant from rival merchants.

Q: How can I raise my merchants' acumen?

A: A master merchants guild usually allows them to start off with 3-4 acumen.

Originally Posted by Rothe

So far I have found 3 ways to do it:

- Monopoly in a region: Just make sure that one resource type in one region is manned by your merchants only. For English, wine works ok, but you have to use two merchants to tackle the 2 wine resources per region. This seems to get you some positive virtues over time.

- Travel: By traveling a lot and stopping on some foreign resources for a turn on two, I seem to develop the "Knowledge of customs" chain of virtues.

- Acquisitions: Whenever you defeat another factions merchant, you are almost surely going to get more of the finance rating.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=72880

Q: How can I ensure my merchants have high acumen when recruited?

A: seneschal.the has listed the relevant traits and factors:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Q: How can my merchant become a monopolist?

A:

Originally Posted by HoreTore

You don't need two merchants, you need two resources of the same type in the same region. Put a merchant on one of them, and he'll have trading monopoly, if there are none on the other resource(excluding your own, of course).

After 5 turns, he'll get the first level of the trait, another 5 turns(10 total), he'll get the second and he'll get the third level ten turns after that(20 total). This doesn't have to be consecutive though, if you have him on the resource for 6 turns, and an enemy merchant sits on the other resource for the next 2 turns, he'll still only need to sit on the resource for 4 more turns to get the second level. Also, the type of resource doesn't matter, ie. he can get 7 turns from Iron, 5 turns from silk and 8 turns on textiles to get the third level, for example. This is why it's a good idea to end their move on a resource he can monopolize when you are moving him towards the resource you want him to trade. For example, if you train a merchant in Rheims and you want him to trade silks in constantinople, you can stop by the iron in metz, the textiles in milan and venice and the iron in zagreb. He'll probably get to constantinople with the first level, which helps a lot in dealing with the merchants hanging around there...

NB:
1. level is capitalist, 2. level is market controller, 3. level is monopolist.

3.7…………….. Priests

For information and tips, read Neoncat's Guide to Priests/Imams:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...35&postcount=1

Originally Posted by Freedom Onanist

Pope - Really does help if you can get on his good side. The best way to do this is to consider all the religious buildings and send your priests off to be missionaries. For the English send them to Russia. Preaching in non catholic lands really puts the piety quotients up, which in turn makes your priests eligible for promotion to cardinal and on to pope.

Q: What is the minimum piety is required to be eligible for promotion to Cardinal?

A: About five (refutations welcome). Discussion on College of Cardinals here:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showpost.php?p=1305234

Q: How do I get cardinals?

A:

Originally Posted by Lars573

Building priests is a good way. I've been putting them in the country side (one per porvince) to see if that builds them up. So far I've (as England) got 7 Cardinals in the colledge plus the Pope is mine. But I'm on medium.

Note - Cardinals are immune to heresy (but not to being burned for it!).

Q: Which cardinals get to be the preferati?

A: The three with the highest piety.

Q:

Originally Posted by BobsYourUncle

What's the best/most effective way to use priests to get a favorable college of cardinals? Spam priests and set them off for Muslim/Orthodox lands? Just have the wander around looking for heretics witches?

A:

Originally Posted by Wonderland

That's exactly right. That's all you can do with them.

More discussion here:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=72660

Q: How do I build bishops?

A:

Originally Posted by Nonopust

to build bishops you need a cathedral or a huge cathedral in that city, and even then i dont know if they build bishops everytime

Originally Posted by Bob the Insane

Yeah that's right, it is basically a Priest with a Bishop trait and a slightly different model...

Originally Posted by Quillan

Bishops do come from a catholic city with a cathedral. They have +1 piety out of the box, but that doesn't stack with the bonus they get for being a cardinal later. It effectively gives them the cardinal bonus early.

Note: Bishops are just priests with +1 piety.

A nice tip on effective use of priests:

Originally Posted by Quillan

When creating a Papal Hit Squad (what I like to call the mass conversion priest groups), I recommend putting 4-5 bishops together. You get the Bishop trait when training a priest in a settlement with a Cathedral - as Sapi said the huge cathedral doesn't give you that bonus because the trigger has an omission in it. If you have a Theologians guild in that city it's even better because they'll all get another +1 for Orthodox Training. Take those 4-5 priests and move them together into a territory that's mostly Orthodox or Muslim.

There are two traits you'll generally see with priests that increase their piety after the start, aside from the "Servant of God" line that you get from burning heretics and witches. The first one is the "Enemy of Heresy" line of traits, which comes from reducing the level of heresy in a given province. The second is the "Growing Faith" line of traits, which comes from causing a massive increase in the level of your own religion in a given province in a short period of time. You'd have to look at the file to make certain, but I think level 1 pops up if you make an 8% or greater difference in 3 turns or less. So the idea is to move the entire hit squad into the province on the same turn, and let them convert the population en mass. I get the most piety increases from going from province to province doing this. Make a squad, head them towards Constantinople, and stop in the Sofia region at the end of a turn. Move them all into Constantinople the next turn, and head towards the Hellespont (the southern land bridge to Nicaea). Again, cluster up there, and once all the priests gets the Growing Faith trait, move them all in a single turn over to Nicaea. Go from there to Iconium (it's Muslim) and repeat across the middle east going from Muslim province to Muslim province. They'll pick up Shining Faith and eventually Beacon of Faith for +3 piety from this.

For the "Enemy of Heresy" traits, just park them in a province with a high level of heresy for a while and let them reduce it. They'll pick up the trait that way.

3.8…………….. Inquisitors

Q: How do I stop inquisitors frying my generals?

A: Before the 1.2 patch, inquisitors were very dangerous. After the patch, they are much less likely to succeed.

There is a "work-around" you can use to neutralise inquisitors. Take 9 units and position 8 them around the inquisitor, like so:

UUU
UIU
UUU

then move the ninth unit on top of the inquisitor. He will not be able to retreat and will die, apparently with no adverse diplomatic effects:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...5&postcount=52

Keeping good relations with the Pope may help avoid them coming to your lands, as will quickly stamping out any heretics and witches who spawn there. Otherwise, just try to keep your characters out of the way of inquisitors. (In my games, they tend to mill around specific areas and not go too far a field). Surviving an inquisition, being in a settlement, even being the faction heir does not mean a character is immune to an inquisition.

You can try to kill them, but doing this with assassins is not easy (at least before the 1.2 patch):

Originally Posted by Darkmoor_Dragon

I "cheated" (load/relaod) an Assassin to master +5, with 3 extra entourage and sub rating close to max - took him to kill a low-level Inquistor and the chance to succeed was %12.

3.9…………….. Miscellaneous Agents

Q: Can I transfer retinues (ie by dragging the retinue from one character to another)?

A: It appears for the large part, no. Dismal has provided a list of all the transferable ones; they are mainly relics and weapons:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Originally Posted by Swell

You can make all retinues transferable.
In the export_descr_ancillaries.txt, change "Transferable 0" to "Transferable 1".

An florin-saving tip:

Originally Posted by Biggus Diccus

One hot tip to save loads of money on recruiting of Merchants (or other agents as well) is to check if one of your family members get a discount for recruiting agents. If you are fairly active with spies and assassins it seems that the espionage line trait easily triggers for your faction leader. In addition there is a fairly good chance that the faction leader will aquire the Spymaster retinue. Both of these give a discount on agents recruited, and the discounts stack.

My current faction leader has a Spymaster retinue which give 20% discount, and a Master of espionage virtue (lvl 3 espionage I think) which give 30% discount. In the city where he is the governor I can now recruit merchants for 275 dough, that's half the price

Q: What traits can characters get?

A: Maestro has listed all the traits and what they do here:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...05&postcount=1

Q: What ancillaries can characters get?

A: seneschal.the has listed them, their effects and how to get them here:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=77228

Q: How can I cheat to get better traits for my characters?

A: Good will shopping has compiled a list of commands:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...42&postcount=1

Q: What determines how many agents I can have?

A: Religious agents are 1 per religious building in your settlements. Merchants are 1 per mercantile building in your settlements.

**econ21** · 11-14-2006, 11:20

Chapter 4: Specific historical aspects of the campaign

Chapter sub-headings:
4.1…………….. The Pope
4.2……………..Crusades and jihads
4.3…………….. The Mongols and Timurids
4.4…………….. The Plague
4.5…………….. Gunpowder units
4.6…………….. America

4.1…………….. The Pope

Q: Can I destroy the Papacy?

A: Not easily: if all its provinces are taken, it can still exist (like a horde in BI). If the Pope is killed, another is elected to replace him.

Note: if all the Cardinals are dead, then no Pope will be re-elected if the existing one dies.

Originally Posted by Sapi

Since the papacy acts at the end of a turn, if you kill a pope per turn they are unable to elect new cardinals and are eventually destroyed.
I did this in my hre game (and got a nice surprise when i got a pope automatically promoted on winning).

Q: The Pope thinks hell is too good for me. How can win the favour of the vatican?

A: Hard cash can play a role. A donation of 1000 gold for 10 turns can do wonders.

Originally Posted by Zanderpants

I gave them a lump sum of 5,000, an additional 1,000 for trade rights, and built two cathedrals, and occasionally I'll have a priest burnt (once every 8 turns or so) , but they always have low piety. Now I'm all but one cross from the top. Also, I built a major guild of theology, so my priests come out with half full piety. This coupled with my high standing with the Pope, and some timely cardinal deaths, has practically given me control of the college. I've got 5 priests in the college now.
This was on Very hard.

Q: What are the benefits of having a Pope from your faction?

A: Some discussion here:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=73930
Points made (not all confirmed):
High approval rating makes it more likely he will agree to a crusade.
Makes it less likely you will be excommunicated if you defy a "cease and desist order".
Makes it cheaper to pay him to get a high approval rating.
Makes it more likely your cardinals will be promoted.
Gives a boost with a the theologians guild.

A nice tip:

Originally Posted by Grimmy

IF you begin the tussle with high standings with the Pope, then you'll get a "cease and desist or you'll lose favor with the Pope" instead of "knock it off or you'll be discommunicated". That can buy you the time you need to finish that wave of conquestering.

Q: How can I tell which factions are excommunicated?

A:

Originally Posted by Slaists

... holding a cursor over the Pope-o-meter bar will in due time show a tool-tip saying whether a faction is excommunicated. However, this is not available to non-Catholic factions...

Q: The Pope has threatened to excommunicate me if I attack a specific Catholic faction. What action can I take without being excommunicated?

A: You can lift AI sieges of your settlements without being excommunicated - either sally with the defenders or even attack with a relief army. You may even be able to attack other enemy armies on your land (I need confirmation on that). The game will warn you if you are about to undertake an attack (e.g. of an enemy ship) that would result in excommunication. If it does not warn you, you can safely do it.

Q: What are the effects of excommunication?

A: Your settlements suffer a 20% unrest penalty. And you become a potential target for Catholics to crusade against.

Q: How can I take an enemy city if the Pope threatens me with excommunication if I continue hostilities against its owner?

A:

Originally Posted by Quillan

Drop 4-5 spies into the city, and swarm it with assassins. Sabotage everything that gives public order: church, barracks, tavern, plaza del toro, etc. Between unrest from the spies and lack of bonuses you may drive the city into revolt. If it's their last settlement it will eliminate the faction. Even if it does not, you're free to take the now-rebel settlement without screwing up your Papal directive.

4.2……………..Crusades and jihads

Q: How do I start a crusade?

A:

Originally Posted by Dutch_guy

Click on your faction icon, then open the pope Tab. Next to the current Pope's avatar, you'll see a button which is called ''request a crusade''.

However, do note that you need to have good relations with the Pope to have a chance to get the requested crusade.

Q: How do I call a jihad?

A:

Originally Posted by Basileus

You use Imans that have more then 4 or maybe its 5 piety, Imans have an icon at the bottom of the screen when you right click their portrait. You can hire some special Jihad units, Ghazis and some other ones which i cannot spell heh.

The target province may need to have a certain % of the population Muslim.

Q: How long do you have to wait between crusades before the Pope will sanction a new one?

A: The shortest interval reported so far is 10 turns.

Q: How do I join a crusade?

A: Read your manual. You need at least 8 units in an army and then, if you have a crusade mission, right click on the general. There is a "join crusade" button at the bottom which you can press. If that crusading army takes the target city, the crusade will end successfully.

Q: How can I get a crusade across land without being blocked by enemy armies and cities, suffering mass desertion?

A:

Originally Posted by TinCow

Whenever you are moving a crusade army, make sure that you do not have movement accelerated (space bar). Then click on your destination and CAREFULLY WATCH the path your army is walking along. The very instant you see any army or settlement along that route, immediately hit backspace. This will stop the army where it is. Then click on your destination again. The game will plot a new path that avoids the obstacle. Rinse, repeat every time you encounter another army or settlement.

Using this method, I was able to get an army from Caen all the way to Antioch without losing anyone to desertion and I got to the city before anyone else. I also highly recommend taking a spy along with the Crusade Army to aid in spotting.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...4&postcount=10

Q: I suffered desertion sailing a crusade from England to the Holy Land. Why?

A: If it happened while sailing round northern Spain, it may be because technically you are sailing in the opposite direction to the Holy Land. Be careful of Moorish ships causing a log-jam at Gibraltar - that might also delay progress and lead to desertion.

Some have suggested cutting through to southern France or the Balkans, then sailing on from their. You can often hire mercenary fleets to pick you up, but beware pirates and enemy fleets. (Thanks to BKS and Wartz for those ideas.)

Originally Posted by Basileus

I suggest you don´t add any agents on the crusading army either cause you will lose your extra movement points heh i found that out the hard way.

Q: Do AI crusades suffer from desertion? Would my blocking their progress weaken them?

A: No, apparently the AI does not suffer from desertion:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=80168

Q: Can other Catholics attack crusading armies?

A: Yes they can, at the cost of excommunication.

Q: I attached an agent to my crusade and it seemed to lose its move bonus.

A: Yes, that's a bug or quirk, but:

Originally Posted by Flavius Gonzo

However, you CAN get them the double movement points even with agents in the stack. Click on your crusader stack with agents in it, and click cntrl-a. Boom, you've got your double movement points back. This works on land and sea FYI. It wasn't until my third crusade that I realized how quickly you can move a crusader army with agents over the sea... double movement points in a ship is phenominal.

Q: What is the glory bonus for successfully completing a crusade?

A: You get a 10-15% loyalty bonus to all settlements that lasts around 5 turns. There is also a 30% glory bonus associated with the New World.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=73593

Q: Any other tips on successful crusades?

A: Some good tips on crusades:

Originally Posted by Kobal2fr

When the Crusade is called, I have my heir (and always him - that way, he'll benefit from the huge stat boost a general gets when he successfully leads a crusade, meaning when his dad dies and he rises to power, he'll boost my economy even more) hire 8 mercenary units, join the crusade, buy some more crusade-only mercs around Venice, hop in boats and move towards Antioch by sea, joining with my by-then very experienced navies on the way. A powerfull 10-12 boats fleet is enough to fend off both pirates and the egyptian navy should they come my way. Reaching Antioch, again I'll buy every crusade-only mercs I find there (I have a soft spot for the Big Towed Cross ;) ), assault the city and take it, usually without much resistance.

A thread devoted to crusade tips:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=75047

4.3…………….. The Mongols and Timurids

Q: Can I play them without modding?

A: Yes, very easily. Episolatory Richard explains how to do it here:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showpost.php?p=1357320

Q: When do the Mongols appear?

A:

Originally Posted by Subedei

Round 1206 you will get the info, that old Ghengis is summonming his horseys in the steppes & about 10-15 turns later [in my game] he comes knocking on the door round the Caspian Sea, IIRC

.

The actual arrival of the Mongols on the map will be marked by an FMV. This comes quite a few turns after the first in-game info about them. From the screenshot in this post they look mean:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...15&postcount=1

Q: When do the Timurids appear?

A: Around 1370 or 1380.

Originally Posted by QUILLAN

Timurids are late 1300s, historically. I think Timur took over in 1369 or thereabouts, and it was over the next 35-40 years he systematically carved out his territory.

Q: Where do the Mongols and Timurids arrive?

A: The Mongols appear in three waves with a total of around 10 stacks. They may arrive north or south of the Caspian Sea; near Baghdad; and near Yerevan. The Timurids appear in similar places. The second and third Mongol waves sometimes appear in the same place as the first, but at least one report indicates this is not always the case. There are conflicting reports on whether later waves are stronger or weaker than earlier ones (they do tend to have some rockets)

Q: How tough are they?

A: Reports indicate they are formidable in battle - hard to outshoot and with powerful heavy cavalry or elephants. As for numbers:

Originally Posted by Gampie

The Mongols and the Timurids are scripted and come in waves of several stacks. The Mongols have around 8-10 stacks and the Timurids a bit less.

Note - most of their units have zero upkeep.

Here's a nice screenshot of the Timurids, by nheero143:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Q: How should you fight Mongols?

A: One tip:

Originally Posted by chunkynut

Stay behind your walls and hope they don't have seige engines, if they only have seige equipment then their foot soldiers are poor, only thing thats worked for me so far without having pretty bad casualties .... and that didn't actually really work as they took my 2 middle eastern regions.

Seeking out a river crossing as a chokepoint is worth trying too (MTW vets will remember Kiev).

[b]Furious Mental elaborates along these lines:

Originally Posted by Furious Mental

I just let them attack a city and beat them in the streets and on the walls. Even with all that experience they can't beat good European heavy inf in that situation. If you mod polearm units to work properly they are very good for dealing with the mass of soldiers which will form in the street. This is pretty elementary but don't put your soldiers right in front of any breach because they will just get overwhelmed by the charge- use them instead to block the adjacent streets and box the attackers in in three or four places. You will end up with a big mass of enemy soldiers but one which will have trouble overwhelming your own soldiers because it is more dispersed than when they charge through the gate but only has very limited frontage on which to fight. If you have cavalry, especially heavy cavalry, send them around from another gate and attack from behind (try to pick a good moment to do this, so as to trigger a rout). If you can get some missile infantry onto a place on walls where they can get enfilade on the big mass of enemies in the streets, put them there- they will cause insane casualties.

Otherwise a bridge battle is the best way of doing it. Again I find it far, far better not to try to fight any enemy at the very end of the bridge because the concentration of enemies is such that they will just push through anything you put there. I usually draw my army up in a line just within missile range of the end of the bridge.

Other players have reported good results with field battles against the Mongols using cavalry heavy armies (ie massed knights).

Assassination of all characters would also finish the faction.

Further discussion of anti-Mongol tactics here:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=73751 https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=74475

A nice tip for Catholics:

Originally Posted by Burns

If you are able, try to call a Crusade onto a Mongol controlled city. Hopefully that will bring in some assistence whether or not they get to the target city.

Q: How do I deal with the Timurid's armoured uber-elephants?

A: With great difficulty, it would seem:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=73428

Reading the thread, the anti-elephant tactics of RTW still seem relevant - avoid contact to avoid trampling (use skirmishers) and concentrating missile fire to break their morale.

Q: Do the Timurids and Mongols use the "horde" feature of Barbarian Invasion?

A: Yes - if you take their last settlement, several stacks of their troops will spawn representing a "people in flight".

4.4…………….. The Plague

Originally Posted by Stoplemeister

I've had it hit around 135 both times I've played that far... that's year 1350... which is cool, since the real plague hit Europe around 1347. Playing as Spain and holding 40 territories, it killed off 45000 citizens and 1500 soldiers and 10 family members on one turn. That was at its peak, but it was always pretty bad

Originally Posted by Steev

It definitely pays to stock up on cash well in advance of the plague. The first time I had the Black Death I had a huge cash balance of about 300K, but the Black Death wiped over 100K off it. Last campaign I noticed i was taking a hit of about 30K per turn while it went on. Usually when i have about 30 provinces I'm building like crazy to avoid getting a huge balance, so when the plague hits I just stop building, recruiting, replacing, fighting etc. Seems to hit the AI worse, as it doesnt plan in advance too well.

Originally Posted by HoreTore

it's about 10-15 turns without doing anything, nothing more really...The economy will get back up again as soon as it goes away, no need to worry about it. The thing you should worry about however, is the timurid invasion coming in just afterwards... That's the real hit you get from the plague.

Originally Posted by Nestor

In the event of a plague take your named characters out of the settlement at once and keep them separated in the countryside for the next turn. I found that there is a good chance they don't get affected on the first turn. You have to be careful though with the message after the next turn to see who is really affected and who is not.

More discussion here:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=73250

and here:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=84291

Q: How do I know if one of my general's is infected?

A:

Originally Posted by lezniefek

The plague indicator is still there. If you take a look at a general, look at their unit portrait on the top left-hand corner of the character scroll. There, it should show a little mouse if the plague is with that unit.

4.5…………….. Gunpowder

Q: When is gunpowder invented?

A: 1240 in the 1.0, delayed to 1290 in the leaked 1.2 patch.

Q: How important are gunpowder units?

A:

Originally Posted by Iposethequestionyousupplytheanswer

Gunpowder infantry come out of cities, and are trained from the Barracks buildings like militia units are. They require really high level barracks, though.

I haven't really used cannons that much. But I do know that the better the cannon, the more damage, the more accuracy, and the faster reload rate. Cannons like the Monster Bombard can one-shot any wall and actually reload very quickly, it does NOT take an "eternity" like the description says. Basilisks are better against walls than cannons, but more inaccurate against troops. Serpentines are terrible for walls, but are like laser cannons when dealing with units. Get a battery of them and target the enemy general, he usually goes down pretty quickly.

Some of the gunpowder infantry are fairly useless. Don't bother with handgunners, they are inaccurate and never kill anything. Arquebusiers aren't very good either, mostly because their guns explode randomly and kill the user, so it's not uncommon for you to end a battle with half the unit left alive despite them never being attacked. Musketeers are where it's at. They're accurate, powerful, and reload quickly. The best gunpowder infantry in the game are the Russian Cossack Musketeers and the Turkish Janissary Musketeers, with the Janissaries being the very best. These units are the only gunpowder infantry with long range missiles, and can rip apart any heavily armored unit very quickly from a huge distance.

4.6…………….. America

Q: When is it possible to get to the New world?

1400 AD (turn 160).

Q: How do I get to the New World?

A:

Originally Posted by TanOrpheus

Sometime towards the end of the campain (turn 180 ish?) Sorry don't know exactly when, you will notice that the minimap in the bottom left of the campain gets an extra 20% of black nothingness added to it. I'm fairly sure there's a message at this time to hint that it's there. When that black area appears you just need to send a boat directly west from Lisbon or directly west from Ireland and you'll find it, eventually.

Originally Posted by Lalartu

ok the following must be met:

-explorer's guild in any city
-last level navalyard in any city
-an event about craziness of a round world (copernicus thingy)

when you get that, you can send your lvl 4 (long range) ships (caracks?) to the west part of the map, which has now become black (but used to be just empty).
it'll take a little longer than swimming near cost, so it's gonna be 10+ turns

Discussed here:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=72011

Q: What should I expect when I land in the New World?

A: Some answers - they could be regarded as spoilers - here:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=72822

What army to take to the New World is discussed here:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=73742

Q: How exactly do I get conquistadores?

A:

Originally Posted by Carl

...they are available to Spain and Portugal only, and only from the Americas (hidden_resource america is used to label the Americas). They are available from wooden walls, and every higher wall level as well that cities get (not castles).

4.7…………….. Miscellaneous

Q: How do I get to Arguin?

A: It is shrouded in a "fog of war" in the bottom left of the map. To get there, go west from Timbucktu towards the coast. You have to inch forward, removing the fog of war: you can't just point and click. Here's a map:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Originally Posted by Gardibolt

Or build caravels in Portugal/Spain, and send them south along the African coast with an army. You'll eventually see Arguin, and then drop them off and conquer. I've taken it going both ways.

But it has to be a fleet of caravels *only*, or you can't get there. Think Prince Henry the Navigator. And don't just send one or two---there's a full stack of pirate ships sitting there waiting for you.

**econ21** · 11-14-2006, 11:21

Chapter 5: Game information

Chapter sub-headings:
5.1……………..Settings
5.2……………..Miscellaneous
5.3……………..Bugs
5.4……………..Useful links

5.1……………..Settings

Q: What does battle difficulty affect?

A: Palamedes from CA has reported that the AI is smarter at higher battle difficulties. And that morale and fatigue have stronger affects (although apparently on both the player and the AI). In the manual it states VH as being the most realistic level to fight on.

These claims are supported by testing by Hashashayyin:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...11#post1336111

As far as I can tell, he finds on VH battles, the computer does well when terrain is a big factor. This may be due to smarter AI tactics and/or an increased effect of fatigue (climbing hills) on the human's troops.

Q: What does campaign difficulty do?

A: On the diplomatic effects:

Originally Posted by Bob the Insane

To explain H and VH are normalised to Abysmal and will shuffle that direction every trun (with VH moving faster).

Easy is normalized to Perfect so relations will continually improve (provided you do not do one of the other many things to anny the AI).

Medium is normalised to Neutral so if bad relations will improve but if good they will worsen.

Add to this the AI is effectively set to Medium difficultly when the AI factions interact with each other.

And the relations for the top 3 scoring factions will tend to worsen with everyone as well.

Lastly when you fight a member of a particular religion everyone else in the religion will start to take a dislike to you.

You can see how easy it is to get bad relationships with everyone, especially on Hard or Very Hard.

VH campaigns presumably have financial effects too, as in RTW: the AI can afford to hire more troops on harder difficulty levels.

Q: What are the unit size settings?

A: For the largest units, 150/112/75/60 compared to Rome's 240/120/60/40

Q: How do I unlock other factions?

A: Finishing a campaign unlocks the "unlockable" factions (not Mongols, Timurids and Aztecs). Eliminating a faction in a campaign also unlocks it.

In addition, there are two ways to mod the game to unlock factions, EITHER:

Originally Posted by Throumbaris

Open medieval2.preference.cfg and add this:

Code:

[misc]

unlock_campaign = true

OR edit the descr_strat.txt file. Delete lines number 10 and 11, ie:

Code:

end
unlockable

Q: How do I get the game to display years in stead of turns?

A: Delete the line "show_dates_as_turns" line in descr_strat.txt.

Originally Posted by Chosun

Or you can put a ; in front of the line...

example: ;show_dates_as_turns it makes it easier to change back if you want to for any reason.

Q: How long is the game?

A: 225 turns. It starts in 1080 and ends in 1530. You can elect to play on beyond that, however.

Q: What's up with the passage of time? Characters don't age properly!

A: It's a temporal paradox. One turn covers roughly two years. But characters age one year every two turns. I recommend not thinking too hard about it.

OK, you're not satisfied? Well, in defence of CA, characters will last as many turns as in RTW, which arguably is long enough to get used to them but not so long they last forever. Two year turns arguably allow technology to develop before the player has completed his victory conditions - in MTW, most players would never get the chance to play with Gothic knights.

You can mod how years relate to turns. But so far, characters will always age at one year per two turns.

Originally Posted by Lusted

Characters age 1 year every 2 turns, so if you mod it to 2 turns a year, they will age 1 year a year. But the campaign wil last for 900 turns.

To carry out the change Lusted mentions, edit the "timescale 2.0" line in the descr_strat.txt to be "timescale 0.5".

Still not satisfied? I recommend not thinking too hard about it.

Q: How do I edit the descr_strat.txt file?

A: The file is usually located in:

C:\Program Files\SEGA\Medieval II Total War\data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign

First, make a backup copy of the file, just in case.

Second, change the file so that it is not read-only. Right click on the file, choose properties and untick "read-only".

Then, edit the file using a text editor. Double clicking the file should open it in notepad.

Note: the game only reads the descr_strat.txt at the start of a campaign. So if you mod it, you will need to start a new campaign for the changes to take effect.

Q: How do I reduce rebel spawn?

A: There are two lines for the spawning of rebels and pirates in your descr_strat.txt file:

Originally Posted by Derfel von Saljeth

you have to higher the value... more high it is, less chances of spawn
I've set x4 , and their spawn is realy low .. almost none :)

brigand_spawn_value 120
pirate_spawn_value 168

Q: How do I get rid of banners?

A:

Originally Posted by Thorn Is

In the medieval2.preference.cfg in the video section there is a line that says
showbanners = 1
turn this to 0

Q: How do I get rid of the green circles under the selected unit(s)?

A: In medieval2.preference.cfg, there is a line that says:
disable_arrow_markers = 0
Just change the 0 to 1

Q: How can I disable in-battle cutscenes?

A:

Originally Posted by Whacker

Look for the [game] section in your medieval2.preferences.cfg file and change the following:

event_cutscenes = 1

to

event_cutscenes = 0

Q: How do I get rid of the user interface in battles (e.g. to get better screenshots)?

A:

Originally Posted by Pevergreen

In the options panel, under gameplay, there is an option for Minimal UI. Enable it.
OR
Options in battle, same thing.

Q: How do I get rid of the radar map?

A:

Originally Posted by D Wilson

You can set it to hide during the battle by pressing esc, finding the UI options, having minimal UI selected and selecting hide (or slide if you want it to appear when you mouse over that area). I play with the radar hidden, the orders bar on slide so it's out of the way most of the time, and the unit cards in view permanantly.

Q: How do I open the battle editor?

A:

Originally Posted by Orda Khan

Open your M2 preferences.cfg file and add the following......

[features]
editor=true

Be aware that there seems to be a bug at the moment. Those lines will disappear next time you start up the game, hopefully CA will fix this. In the meantime apply the change before you start up the game

Q. How do I open up the console (Medieval Shell) to enter cheats?

A: This seems to vary with people's keyboards. On some it is the '/@ key, next to the semi-colon. On others it is the ` key, next to the 1! key.

Q: How do I remove fog of war:

A: Open up the console and type "toggle_fow"

Q: What other useful cheats are there?

A: I have found the five very useful in PBMs (typically to help the AI):

(1) add_money: For example, the console command to give 10000 florins to Hungary is:

Code:

add_money hungary, 10000

The names of the major factions recognised by the computer are in your descr_strat.txt file and listed in the spoiler:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

(2) show_cursorstat: This gives the x,y coordinates of your cursor. It is useful for teleporting units using:

(3) move_character: This will move a specific unit. For example:

Code:

move_character "Captain von_Mahren" 199,200

would move Captain von Mahren to the location x=199, y=200

(4) character_reset: to give a character back their full movement points. For example:

Code:

character_reset "Captain Jack"

(5) "create_unit": generates units with experience and armor/weapon upgrades. The format is as follows:

create_unit "PERSON/PLACE" "UNIT NAME" W X Y Z

W = Number of units to spawn
X = number of exp chevrons the unit has
Y = armor upgrades
Z = weapon upgrades

So

Code:

create_unit Ragusa "Dismounted Feudal Knights" 2 4 1 1

would create 2 units of DFK in Ragusa, both with 1 silver chevron and bronze armor and weapons.

Q: What other cheat commands are there?

A:

Originally Posted by zstarjerski

add_money 99999
add_population "London" 99999 (or any other settlement)
process_cq London (or any other settlement) (Finishes the Construction Queue of the settlement)
give_trait this Fertile 3 (or any other trait) (a full list is here in the forums)
toggle_fow (removes fog of war)
create_unit "London" Longbowmen (or any other)
give_ancillary

There is no list of confirmed M2TW cheats, but several cheat commands from RTW still work. Here's one list of RTW cheats:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Originally Posted by Finn

toggle_tow : shows/hides the tabbed output window
add_money : adds an amount of money to a faction's coffers, can be negative, default is player faction
add_population : adds an amount of population to a settlement, can be negative
move_character , : moves named character to position on campaign map
auto_win : the attacker or defender wins the next autoresolved battle
create_unit : creates one or more units of the specified type
toggle_fow : toggles the fog of war on or off
toggle_restrictcam : toggles camera restrictions on or off
give_ancillary : gives the character an ancillary
give_trait : gives the character a trait at level (default = level 1)
process_cq : Completes all (possible) construction pending in queue
character_reset : resets the character back to it's start of turn settings
show_cursorstat : shows the cursor position and region id
bestbuy : sells units cheaper
oliphaunt : the biggest around
jericho : and the walls came a-tumblin' down
write_ui_cache: writes out the ui texture cache to disk
toggle_terrain : toggles the terrain to display various data sets, no param resets to normal
give_trait_points : gives the character points for trait
list_traits : lists all the available traits
list_ancillaries : lists all the available ancillaries
mp : gives the character movement points
list_characters : lists all the characters in the world or those belonging to a faction
show_landings : shows the landing positions available to the ai from a given region, default hides them
filter_coastlines : applies filter to world map coastlines
toggle_coastlines : toggles strategy map coastline display
set_building_health : sets health of a building of the specified type (eg core_building) in a settlement, so that the final health percentage is as specified; for building chains see export_descr_building.txt
ai_turn_speed : sets the maximum speed of turn processing during the ai round
amdb_min : sets aerial map overlay depth bias for min zoom
amdb_max : sets aerial map overlay depth bias for max zoom
amdb_offset : sets aerial map overlay offset towards camera
zoom : zooms to specified aerial map zoom
set_ranking_interval : sets the denominator of the faction ranking graph interval which is calculated as (number_of_turns / denominator). If set to 0, then the denominator will be set to number_of_turns, giving an interval of 1
regenerate_radar: Does what it says on the tin
adjust_sea_bed : adjusts whole sea bed to specified height
reload_shaders : reloads all vertex shaders
reload_textures : reloads all textures
toggle_perfect_spy : toggles everyone's spying ability to perfect and infinite range, and off again
building_debug: toggles building debug mode. TAB to toggle view modes, RIGHT SHIFT-TAB to reset mode, LEFT SHIFT-TAB to go back modes. G damages mouse-over building. P displays plaza.
reset_display: Forces a display_close(); display_open() display reset cycle
toggle_underlay:
toggle_overlay:
process_rq : Completes all (possible) recruitment pending in queue
force_diplomacy : Forces the negotiator to accept or decline a proposition
diplomatic_stance : Set the diplomatic stance between the two factions
shadow
ie
invulnerable_general : makes that named general invulnerable in battle
test_ancillary_localisation: adds all ancillary to the character info display. Ancillaries aren't actually added to the character
perf_times: Toggle display of simple performance times of game update vs display
burn_piggies_burn : ignite all the piggy winks
test_message: Test the event message specified in descr_event_enums.txt
show_terrain_lines : display defensive terrain features
message_collation_set: Set the message collation on or off (sets all factions)',0
show_all_messages: Show all messages to all factions (on/off)
clear_messages: Clear all the current stacked messages
puppify_my_love
reapply_rigid_model_influence
toggle_flowing_water: toggles display of campaign map flowing water
nw_stats: toggles display of network stats.
toggle_pr: toggles pr mode.
list_units : lists all of the units in an army, with details.
victory : show victory message for faction for short or long campaign.
trigger_advice: triggers an advice thread
damage_wall : Damage wall of settlement. Forces 40% damage to a random gatehouse and a nearby straight section. Destroys gatehouse if 'gate' parameter present; breaches wall if 'breach' present'
test_victory_scroll : 'Opens up the victory scroll declaring that the given faction is the victor
date : changes the campaign date to the given year
season : changes the campaign season to the given season
upgrade_effect : triggers unit upgrade effect
force_battle_victory : forces the local player's alliance to win the battle, completely destroying the enemy alliance
force_battle_defeat : forces the local player's alliance to win the battle, completely destroying the enemy alliance
output_unit_positions : output the positions of all units in the battle to the specified file
show_battle_paths : show all valid processed paths in the pathfinder
show_battle_paths_for_unit : show all valid processed paths in the pathfinder for a specific unit given a unit id
show_battle_street_plan : show the street plan for the settlement
show_battle_marker : display a marker at (x, y) for t seconds
show_battle_circle : display a circle at (x, y) of r radius for t seconds
diplomacy_mission : creates a diplomacy mission
event : creates an event at position
kill_character : kills a character with the given name
control : switches player control to specified faction; old faction may not act correctly as ai faction
create_building : creates a building of the specified type in a settlement; for building level id's see export_descr_building.txt
capture_settlement : evicts any resident characters and armies and gives the settlement to the local player
disable_ai : disables the ai, so that it does nothing
halt_ai : halts the turn sequence just before the start of the specified faction's turn, or the current faction if no faction given
run_ai : re-starts an ai turn sequence after disableai or haltai has been triggered

Q: Which RTW cheat codes are the same in M2TW and which ones still work?

A:

Originally Posted by majesticchapel

Well they have certainly changed, I've tried some of them for you:

add_money: Works, though I couldn't get it to give money to another faction.
create_unit "City or character name": Works, units from other factions will not work for you however ( you get riderless horses for gothic knights).
process_cq:Finishes buildings you wanted to construct. Works, somewhat, it doesn't finish the ENTIRE building queue only the first building in the queue.
list_names: Doesn't work anymore.
give_trait: Will only give traits to characters with one name, create_unit and other character specific cmds still seem to work with double names.
process_rq "City name": Doesn't work.
move_character "name" x, y :Works
show_cursorstat: Works.
add_population "city name": Works

I can't get the other ones to work, I didn't try them all though...
Most notably process_cq is now only for one building, which may be a bother for modders, give_trait seems to ignore ALL names except single ones (Henry, Heinrich, Leopold, Robert) it won't work with underscores like Henry_Squirrel or "Henry Squirrel". This means you can't add traits to assassins, spies, admirals, princesses, merchants or priests since all of them ( except maybe the one you get in the beginning ) have multiple names.

This is the list of commands that Caliban of CA reported work in the retail 1.2 M2TW; whether all work directly from the console - as opposed to scripts - I do not know.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Q: How can I use cheat codes to give my characters a trait if they have a long name?

A:

Originally Posted by GeneralAsh

use:
give_trait this GoodAssassin 5

etc

Will work with all names - first select, right click, the person (I always move them out of a city so they are on their own) then run the console command.

For me, it works with all my characters.

Alternatively, for names of three words, an underscore between the second and third will allow the game to recognise the game. For example, Huo de Cervole would be Hugo de_Cervole.

Q: How do I turn back on the videos, if I ticked the "show no more similar videos" button but want them back?

A: In medieval2.preferences.cfg change

infiltration_movies = 0

to

infiltration_movies = 1

Q: How do I play a hotseat campaign with my son?

A:

Originally Posted by Lusted

Here is the code i used to activate hotseat in 1.2:

[multiplayer]
playable = true
hotseat_turns = true
hotseat_scroll = false
hotseat_autoresolve_battles = 0
hotseat_disable_console = 0
hotseat_disable_papal_elections = 0
hotseat_save_prefs = 0
hotseat_update_ai_camera = 0
hotseat_validate_diplomacy = 1

5.2……………..Miscellaneous

Q: Is the Strategy Guide worth getting?

A: The main benefit to me from the RTW Strategy Guide was being able to browse all the units and their stats. However, it seems the stats in the Strategy Guide are wrong, so caveat emptor:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=72173

Q: Where can I find a map of the M2TW campaign?

A: Omni over in the Mod Chat forum found this:

https://img237.imageshack.us/my.php?...tw2map2qh7.jpg

I think it is based on a beta, so one or two details are wrong (thanks to Katank for spotting these):
- Bordeaux starts as rebel
- Helsinki looks connected to Stockholm in this while it should be connected to Novgorod.

Q: What are the system requirements?

A: Note that you need a DVD drive:

English version of Microsoft® Windows® 2000/XP.
Celeron 1.8GHz Pentium 4® (1500MHz) or equivalent AMD® processor.
512MB RAM.
8x Speed DVD-ROM drive (1200KB/sec sustained transfer rate) and latest drivers.
11.0 Gigs of uncompressed free hard disk space.
100% DirectX® 9.0c compatible 16-bit sound card and latest drivers.
100% Windows® 2000/XP compatible mouse, keyboard and latest drivers.
DirectX® 9.0c.
128MB Hardware Accelerated video card with Shader 1 support and the latest drivers.
Must be 100% DirectX® 9.0c compatible.
Monitor must be able to display 1024x768 resolution or above.

A useful on-line facility to check if you meet the system requirements is provided by:
http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/referrer/srtest

Q: How do you take a screenshot, and what folder does it go to?

A:

Originally Posted by Quillan

It's the PrintScrn button, and it goes into the Program Files/Sega/Medieval II Total War/tgas folder, if I remember correctly. They always seem to scale down to 1024x768 in size, and are always .tga files, so I wind up having to fire up PhotoShop to convert it into .jpg format.

With RTW, I got into the habit of using FRAPS for screenshots and Irfanview for converting to jpg. Both programs are available to download on the web.

Q: The screenshots are in TGA format. How do I view them?

A: I recommend Irfanview; it is freeware:

http://www.irfanview.com/

Originally Posted by Ars Moriendi

Pro-tip : TGA files are huge, use Irfanview's Batch Conversion ability to compress them to jpegs, reducing their size 20-40 times. Helps with storage and uploading / posting.

Q: How do I view replays of custom battles?

A: [QUOTE=Sinan]I think it's Single Player -> Load Game -> Load Battle Replay

Note - to record a custom battle, press the save replay button on the post-battle screen.

Q: Why do battle replays sometimes show different results from the battle I actually fought?

A: Apparently, replays save only the forces and your commands. The effects of those commands may differ depending on other factors. There are reports are some very large discrepancies, with player micromanagement of units not being apparent in the replays, so the replay function may not be reliable:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=82618

Q: Is there a M2TW savegame editor?

A:

Originally Posted by therother

ShellShock has released an excellent little utility to help manage M2TW mods and save games files. It allows you to change difficulty and unit sizes, within a ongoing campaign, by editing the save. Particularly handy for game mechanics researchers. See this thread for more details:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=72254

Q: Are there any features from RTW that are lost?

A: To stop people asking how to do stuff that's not in M2TW, note:

You can't change your faction heir.

You can't view your settlement outside of battle.

Originally Posted by Lusted

Unit recruitment doesn't affect settlement populations like in RTW

Towers on walls are not automatically manned: they need a unit near them to fire. Driving away nearby defending units will stop the towers firing.

5.3……………..Bugs

Both the Org and the .com maintain comprehensive buglists, see those for more information.

Q: Is it important to patch my game? What were the "passive AI bug", "shield bug" and the "two hander bug"?

A: The 1.0 game suffered from "passive AI". Sometimes on the attack, a powerful AI melee oriented force would march up into range of your missiles and stand there forever as you shot them down. The AI could also be very passive in response to a sally. The general passive AI problem was largely fixed in the 1.1 patch, although the problem in sallies in particular was only fixed in 1.2.

Before the 1.2 patch, there were two serious bugs affecting unit performance.

The two hander bug was that the animations with some units with two handed weapons reduced their effectiveness, particularly making it almost impossible for them to kill cavalry after their initial charge has worn off.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

The shield bug was that experimentation with varying the shield parameter implies that raising it reduces defence. This implies that infantry with large shields have a -12 to their defence stat beyond that intended. It particularly manifests itself in spearmen being unable to hold off a cavalry charge.

Both bugs are only of historic interest, having been fixed in the 1.2 patch.

5.4……………..Useful links

Faction specific advice and other tips are available in the guides forum:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=185

There's a very good M2TW FAQ over on the official totalwar.com forums:
Frequently Asked Questions & Game Fixes

If you want to read some (initial) Orgah reviews of the game, have a look at the initial impressions thread:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=71631

**lecnac** · 11-14-2006, 13:13

Originally Posted by tinCrow

As far as I can tell, no siege equipment of any kind can get through a gate. I haven't tried a wall breach, but I assume it's the same. Essentially you need trebuchets or long range gunpowder artillery in order to be able to hit the third wall of a citadel. I found 3 units of trebuchets were just barely enough to breach all 3 walls before running out of ammo. 4-5 would be necessary if you wanted more than a single breach in each wall plus disabled towers. Perhaps gunpowder units are more effective, but I have yet to try them.

That is incorrect.

Ladders and rams CAN be carried though gates, even the AI does this! Furthermore Cannons and other ranged siege equipment can pass the gates and / or wall breaches.

Even so it is not necessary to break any wall or gate after having taken the first ring since all rings are interconnected and troops can pass from one outlying ring to the next inner ring. The AI uses this fact as well ( at least in my game on vh )

**Ja'chyra** · 11-15-2006, 14:25

A small tip:

If you are planning on starving out a settlement don't build any siege engines. 9 times out of 10 the AI will sally forth rather than then go quietly to the grave (good on them too) and any siege engines in your troop line up will only delay and disrupt your defensive line.

**hirins** · 11-15-2006, 14:37

about assasin
actually i some how managed to kill inquisitor was not the strongest one but still an idiot who hates everybody (assasin had 4 star level)..

**KhaderKhan** · 11-15-2006, 15:28

Just curious but does anyone know how to switch off the video/movie for assasinations and spy infiltrations?

My (tired, knackered) computer has the nasty habit of turning (with the music in the background) whenever I send my spies or assasins on their missions.

**Daveybaby** · 11-15-2006, 15:53

There's a 'dont play this type of animation again' checkbox when an animation is playing, so assuming your PC manages to get that far, you should be able to disable them one by one for a given campaign.

**LordMorgan** · 11-16-2006, 00:12

Q: How do I unlock other factions?

A: Either finish a campaign or:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Throumbaris
Open medieval2.preference.cfg and add this:

Code:
[misc]

unlock_campaign = true

Just wanted to point out this does not work. I guess you have to play with the starting Factions first no matter what. SO far there is no way around playing first with the start ups in order to play with the unlockables.

**Lusted** · 11-16-2006, 00:14

It does work, i've used it in my med2.

**econ21** · 11-16-2006, 00:14

It works for me.

There's also another workaround detailed in the Guides section - look at the first post of any unlockable faction.

I've tried both separately and they do work.

**LordMorgan** · 11-16-2006, 00:51

I have tried both and neither work for me. Wow I wonder what I am doing wrong. I am at work now so I cant do it. But last night I tried both ways and bam no unlocakables. Any advice? Anyone got an how to unlock factions for dummies for me.

**King Noob the Stupid** · 11-16-2006, 17:05

Perhaps it woul be nice to confirm in here that factions can't reemerge or turn horde (unless they are the pope) in M2TW. (or CAN any playble factions turn horde? I haven't got the game...)

**Biggus Diccus** · 11-16-2006, 19:12

It seems you can actually block land bridges:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...76#post1306676

**lakedaemus** · 11-16-2006, 20:34

I hope this is the right place for this question, I apologize if it is not.

I feel like I'm being a total brick about this, but I can't figure out how to offer specific sums of money as Bribes. So far, all I have been able to do when offering Bribe is leave it blank, it says "Your offer reasonable to our demands" or something like that. I can't find where to enter a sum. I know in RTW that it was possible to offer specific amounts when bribing, did they take that functionality out of the game? Or am I just being blind?

**Quillan** · 11-16-2006, 22:27

You can't offer specific amounts when bribing, as in trying to disband/steal and army and/or character away from another faction. You try to bribe, they tell you what the price is, and you agree or disagree. Or they reject you outright. You can offer specific amounts in normal diplomacy only.

**Darkmoor_Dragon** · 11-17-2006, 04:39

Originally Posted by lecnac

That is incorrect.

Ladders and rams CAN be carried though gates, even the AI does this! Furthermore Cannons and other ranged siege equipment can pass the gates and / or wall breaches.

Even so it is not necessary to break any wall or gate after having taken the first ring since all rings are interconnected and troops can pass from one outlying ring to the next inner ring. The AI uses this fact as well ( at least in my game on vh )

Just to clarify one point: You can not RE-USE ladders: so if you have used them on the outer wall then you can not take them down and use them again on an inner wall.

You CAN, as Lecnac points out, carry them through to any inner wall though (SO long as you have not used them yet), so build extra before you assault the castle and leave the extras on the ground outside the outer wall in case you need to go back and pick them up later.

**PickledGecko** · 11-17-2006, 14:36

You can re-use ladders. You just need to wave your cursor around the bottom of one of the ladders until it turns into a hand cursor; the same one that lets you pick up the ram.

For some reason my screengrab doesn't show my cursor, so I've added some arrows to show you where to put your cursor.

**Daveybaby** · 11-17-2006, 15:15

*squints*

Arrows? Where?

**Clearchus** · 11-17-2006, 17:13

Question: How do you take a screenshot, and what folder does it go to?

**Quillan** · 11-17-2006, 17:30

It's the PrintScrn button, and it goes into the Program Files/Sega/Medieval II Total War/tgas folder, if I remember correctly. They always seem to scale down to 1024x768 in size, and are always .tga files, so I wind up having to fire up PhotoShop to convert it into .jpg format.

**therother** · 11-19-2006, 21:06

ShellShock has released an excellent little utility to help manage M2TW mods and save games files. It allows you to change difficulty and unit sizes, within a ongoing campaign, by editing the save. Particularly handy for game mechanics researchers. See this thread for more details.

**phoule** · 11-20-2006, 19:42

I noticed last night that there is another way to unlock playable factions. Exterminating a faction while playing will open up it's availability, play as the English and exterminate the Scots in 4-5 turns you can now play the Scots. Play as HRE and send every army up north to kill off the Danes within the first 3-5 turns and you'll be able to play the Danes. Kind of a fun way to get the hang of the game, spending a few games trying to optimize initial builds while ignoring all else other than the complete annihalation of an opponent you want to play.

**TinCow** · 11-20-2006, 23:00

I need to revise my quoted statements about moving siege equipment. As others have pointed out, ladders and rams can move through gateways. In addition, I have managed to move catapults through them as well. It also appears that anything (including trebuchets) can move through wall breaches, though I have yet to try that with a siege tower.

It appears that the restriction on gateways is limited to units that are too high. In addition to trebuchets, the tall Venetian morale-boost standard (Carrocio or something) cannot move through gateways.

I can also confirm that ladders can be moved after being placed. I have not done so myself, but I have seen the AI take a ladder down from an outer wall to assault an inner wall after capturing the outer wall and gateway.

**Hashashiyyin** · 11-21-2006, 03:49

Typed up a guide on how to get effective charges with infantry and calvary in M2:TW. As well as discussion on how/why it's different from other total war games, and how to effectively use heavy calvary. link is below

Guide to charging:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=72726

**Spendius** · 11-22-2006, 11:02

All the playable factions were unlocked after I won a long campaign

**urbancohort** · 11-22-2006, 15:53

Re FAQ above - Inquisitors do come back for a second bite if they have already decided your innocent, usually the turn after or untill they decide your guilty and have found the petrol

If you have been cleared once get your general out of there, if you don't chances are he won't be there for long if you really need him.

**Comrade Alexeo** · 11-23-2006, 02:53

A word on diplomacy (as taken from a previous posting):

1) This is not supposed to be Civilization. Totally different mindset - not power through peace, but peace through power.

2) In Shogun, you have all these different Japanese families who loathe each other because they're standing in each other's way of controlling Japan. In Medieval and Medieval 2, you have all these different European familes who loathe each other because they're standing in each other's way of controlling Europe. In Rome, you have all these different cultural groups who loathe each other because they're standing in each other's way of controlling Europe.

3) The games are vastly more accurate than you might guess. Alliances in ancient and medieval times almost never lasted very long. The Persians and the various Greek cities had so many diplomatic intrigues with each other (Athens allies with Ionians against Persia, Persia attacks Athens, Athens and Sparta ally to push back Persia, Athens and Sparta declare war with each other, Sparta allies with Persia...) that you could write an epic that could well dwarf Homer's Iliad. Rome was particularly notable for almost never allying with anyone because, after all, there was Rome and there was everybody else, and who wants to ally with barbarian scum? (Realistically, "alliances" were made for the sake of expediency-Greeks support Rome against Macedon, Rome support Aedui in Gaul to defeat Avernii-but they were almost always used for stalling, as the Greeks and the Aedui rather quickly found out). And of course in medieval times, there was hardly ever a time when "peace" was widespread, and notable "alliances" like, say, the one between the French and the Scots were more out of a mutual hatred of England rather than any real sense of committment to each other. The Shi'a -Sunni conflict was as volatile back then as it was today in the Middle East - read up on how Saladin came to power. It is extremely easy but extremely wrong to assume that the ancient political world was anything like the political world today; while this is a major generalization, alliances today are generally to avoid war altogether, while alliances back then were generally to stall war.

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