This is the most frustrating game ever

**Test112345** · 12-14-2006, 19:33

i mean...without cheating how the hell can i win?

Out of no where the Mongols decide to invade Italy and eastern Europe, and they are just destroying all of my places. besides that, HRE, Venice, spain, and Denmark are all attacking me. oh, besides that, my towns are falling to civil revolts, and i cant figure out why, even with the settlement scroll. unrest? how can i fix that? oh...and with the patch the Mongols will be MORE aggresive? great. this is impossible...how can you win without cheating lol

**ScrapTower** · 12-14-2006, 19:46

I think alot of people including me think the campaign is too easy. If you didnt play rome or any of the other TW titles it may take a couple campaigns for you to get the swing of things. Read the FAQ stickey at the top of this forum and your next game should pan out much better. To deal with the mongols you have to a war of attrition. Pack your border cities and castles with archers and slowly whiddle them down by letting them siege you.

**Bongaroo** · 12-14-2006, 19:47

You need to use spies in your own towns to combat the unrest. If unrest is high it is usually due to enemy spies infiltrating your towns. Otherwise you didn't really give much info on how many troops you have garrisoned, your tax levels, or if religion is hurting you. Perhaps you could give some more explanation and detail and we could assist you more.

If the mongols are invading Italy they must have dominated the eastern portion of the map in which case they will prove a handful. Try to fight them in forests or hilly terrain where you can get in cover where their arrows and cavalry will be handicapped.

I've beaten 2 h/vh campaigns and I still don't think I'm all that great, so I'm sure with some help and nudges in the right direction you'll get the hang of it.

**Quillan** · 12-14-2006, 19:48

There is a learning curve with all complex strategy games. I did well against the Mongols with the Byzantines, but then I played the BI expansion to Rome and learned how to deal with hordes there, the hard way. Long term success in this game is based on long term planning.

You might want to start over, with another faction. Personally, I'd recommend the Spanish as a beginning faction. They don't have a lot of glaring weaknesses in their troop selection. Starting infantry sucks pretty much universally for all factions. You can hire mercenary spearmen to fill the gap left by not getting armored sergeants. You get pavise crossbowmen from castles, so you have a good foot missile troop. Jinetes are a great light cavalry unit with javelins, so they work really well against armor. Spain has a natural foe in the Moors, so you can expand without irritating the Pope or the catholic factions. Iberia is easily defended once you control all of it. Spain is on the coast so can make a lot of money from sea trade. They have access to nearly all units once gunpowder rolls around. And they are so far to the west it's unlikely to encounter the Mongols for a very long time unless you aggressively expand into the Middle East.

The Mongols don't just appear in Italy. They appear on the far eastern edge of the map, someplace between Bulgar and Baghdad. They have to march to get to Italy, capturing or sacking settlements along the way, so they've been coming for a while and you didn't prepare for them. You know they're coming, so next time be ready.

**Musashi** · 12-14-2006, 19:52

I actually prefer to play the eastern factions, because I'd rather handle the Mongols when they appear than trust the AI to deal with them... If they gain territory and the ability to build more troops, they get near unstoppable.

**Zenicetus** · 12-14-2006, 20:09

Originally Posted by Test112345

i mean...without cheating how the hell can i win?

Out of no where the Mongols decide to invade Italy and eastern Europe, and they are just destroying all of my places. besides that, HRE, Venice, spain, and Denmark are all attacking me. oh, besides that, my towns are falling to civil revolts, and i cant figure out why, even with the settlement scroll. unrest? how can i fix that? oh...and with the patch the Mongols will be MORE aggresive? great. this is impossible...how can you win without cheating lol

In addition to what the others have said (especially the FAQ reference), here's a few more tips:

1. Start with Easy or Medium campaign difficulty while you're learning the game. Higher settings cause constant slipping of your relations with other factions unless you do something proactive to stop it, like constant bribes. At the lower settings (easy and medium), your relations slowly improve with each turn.

2. Start your first campaigns in protected map positions like England, Portugal or Spain, so you don't have to watch your back, and you don't have to receive the full impact of the Horde.

3. You need at least some military presence on your border provinces (strong garrisons in settlements or standing armies at major border crossings), otherwise your neighbors will see you as a juicy target for conquest. That's another advantage of starting with England, Portugal or Spain. Once you lock up your home territory, you only have to fight on, or protect, one or two fronts. The AI doesn't do many (any?) amphibious invasions.

4. If the unrest level (the yellow trident) is over 15% in your settlements, it probably means there's one or more enemy spies in there. The campaign AI is very aggressive about that. Get your own spies into those cities, preferably ones you've trained up a little, and you may need more than one.

**Shahed** · 12-14-2006, 23:39

Originally Posted by Test112345

i mean...without cheating how the hell can i win?

Out of no where the Mongols decide to invade Italy and eastern Europe, and they are just destroying all of my places. besides that, HRE, Venice, spain, and Denmark are all attacking me. oh, besides that, my towns are falling to civil revolts, and i cant figure out why, even with the settlement scroll. unrest? how can i fix that? oh...and with the patch the Mongols will be MORE aggresive? great. this is impossible...how can you win without cheating lol

ROFLMAO MAN THAT WAS HILARIOUS !!!

I love the part "Mongols will be MORE"....
ohh... I really needed that good laugh right now ! THANKS !

Hey give some details ... who are you ? Milan ?

Here's my advice, build up your army and make a plan to fight them, at locations of your choice. Not much I know, but everything's been covered already.

**KARTLOS** · 12-15-2006, 01:29

in nearlly every campaign i have played, regardless of faction I have ended up being in the eastern edge of the map and face the mongols earlly on in their invasion. This is either the result of successful crusades with a catholic faction or due to geographical proximity (turks,byz russians etc). I have never even seen the mongols ocupy a city - in my campaigns they always sack and move on. It may be easier to fight the early but here area a few tips.

1) prepare for their arrival. you want the cities in their warpath to have full stacks by the time they come at you. balista or cannon towers area real plus as well. I would suggest that you want about 8 units of archers and plenty of spearmen. you cant really use cavalry effectively against them in a seige so gen wil be sufficient. use the best archers you can get, those with reasonable melee stats are useful for holding the walls vs me coming up ladders or in seige engines.
In my experience it is usually a good thing if they successfully use a ram, place all you spearmen at the entrance and the cav heavy mongols will all charge into them resulting in mass slaughter.
if they use seige engines/ rocket launchers to blow holes in the walls then plug the gaps with spearmen = mongol kebab.

2) Try and fight bridge battles against them - this is the most cost effective way to thin out the hordes in my opinion. To do this place a full stack sitting on a bridge in their path and hope they attack you. for army composition - again you want alot of archers, maybe 5 untis of spearmen, 1 or 2 heavy inf, a good general and maybe some missile cav if you can get them. rush your spearmen into the entrance of the bridge. they will again charge headlong into your spears, hold them there whilst raining arrows on them. usualy their general impales himself and after heavy casualties the army routes - chase down the routers with your gen and the missile cav (using alt + rigt click to get them to chop down the routers).
They may repeatedly atack the bridge army with multiple stacks- if you run out of speamen withdraw from battle.

3) use assasins - if you kill the leaders the horde seems to die out.

4) accept that you are going to suffer some heavy casualties - keep a few "spare" garrisons in the region. after you successfully fight off a seige, you want to be able to re- garrison the city (or bridge army) imediately.

5) try and use good quality generals - all the mongol generals are super hard with very high dread, if your general is no good your troops will have a dissapointing tendency towards routing.

p.s if you think the mongols are tough - wait for the timurids! the bridge defence stategy doesnt work in the slightest vs them they just charge your defenders with elephants.

**Musashi** · 12-15-2006, 01:40

Heh, I hold Bulgar, Sarkel, and Tbilisi in my current Russian campaign. I've set all three up as Castles and I've been sinking all my surplus money into them, prioritizing their development over the rest of my empire. I intend to have at least three full stack Dvor armies to bleed them in the fields before they even reach my castles.

My intent is to beat them at their own game.

**ScrapTower** · 12-15-2006, 02:10

Originally Posted by Musashi

Heh, I hold Bulgar, Sarkel, and Tbilisi in my current Russian campaign. I've set all three up as Castles and I've been sinking all my surplus money into them, prioritizing their development over the rest of my empire. I intend to have at least three full stack Dvor armies to bleed them in the fields before they even reach my castles.

My intent is to beat them at their own game.

Haha 'sashi you sick puppie! Catch me online sometime (M0rph30us), Ill smash that Russian rabble back into the stone age.

**RZST** · 12-15-2006, 02:12

haha, you should try the game "crusader kings" by paradox plaza. if you think the m2tw campaign map is hard youll go insane playing crusader kings.

**Test112345** · 12-15-2006, 02:24

thanks for the tips guys...i was going to just give up with the mongols. but the attrition advice helped. theyre still a huge presence, but i deal with them now. for some reason the computer is really generous when you auto battle :D

whats the fastest way to get to a crusade in jerusalem?

thanks

**katank** · 12-15-2006, 02:31

Building hordes of trash units like cheapo spears/woodsmen etc. with a high star general and autocalcing is an option.

For speed crusading, taking Rhodes early on as a Catholic faction is a good idea. The AI rarely, if ever, invades amphibiously. That base is thus quite sheltered and allows you to beat everyone else to a crusade target easily.

**ScrapTower** · 12-15-2006, 02:34

It depends on where the crusade starts, but by water is usually the way to go. Try to join the crusade right before you board the ship to avoid desertion. Keep in mind that you have use almost all of your movement points each turn making progress. Even a slight detour will cause desertion. Sailing around the tip of spain on a crusade to the holy lands for example.