Medieval War Help - New Player

[CybrGamr]

I spent my first few hours with Medieval Total War this weekend. The battle mode was rather intuitive, so I don't have too many questions on it (yet...).

I started a campaign on easy in the Early period with the Egyptians - seemed like a good balance of units and land to work with, easy enough to defend at first. I do have a few questions on the campaign mode:

1. It appears you can only build one structure and/or train one unit per year. Does it make sense to build each structure available in a country as the years pass? Should every country have some sort of fort/palace/town, etc. in it or do I want just one per region? If a territory can support an inn, should I build it?
2. How quickly should I be expanding by attacking my neighbors? Immediately? Take time to build a decent army? Should I be waiting to acquire more resources before attacking?
3. What can I do with emissaries other than spy on my neighbors? Can I initaite treaties with the surrounding countries?
4. Is it smart to use assassins to kill other emissaries?
5. How often do you auto-resolve battles? I did this last night for every battle as I was just trying to learn the campaign interface. When I start playing for real (if you will), should I start commanding my own battles? Is there an advantage to that?

I am part way through the manual (which may answer some of these questions). I spent about 2 hours with Egyptians. I didn't save the campaign, I just played for a while to get the feel of the game. I think I may try the Spanish tonight.

Just looking for some suggestions. Thanks in advance for your help.

[Sir_Hawkwood]

Evening CybrGamr,

Good initial questions there, lets go through them...

1, I wouldent look to build each available structure in every town, but aim to specialise different settlements in different areas. One of your settlements could specialise in spys/assasins, so you would build that tech tree.

Playing the Egyptians, I would, however build militia buildings in each province, as you're going to need to be able to support lots of cheap troops to defend your disparate territory.

Dont accept every guild building offered, as you can only get one guild per settlement, and try to upgrade walls/fortress' as soon as you can... Like I hinted at earlier.. You're going to need them...


2, If you can score easy victorys against rebel towns, then do it... theres no faction thats going to get annoyed and come looking for you.
If you can score easy victorys against a faction thats already at war, then it might be a good plan to do that too...

Takeing a poorly held castle with a reasonable stack is worth it, as your opponents can waste large amounts of resource trying to get them back.

Look to your neighbours hinterlands with a large army, you can find several easy targets there, but above all dont over reach yourself into territory difficult to defend against/re-supply.

3, Your diplomats can offer trade rights to other factions that will greatly increase the amount of money you make, this works double if you have a merchant trading there. (look around Bagdad and Timbuktoo), you can also form alliances/ceasefires with other nations.
best of all you can sell all of the above to other factions for profit...

Quick word of warning though, like all special characters, failing tasks might make them loose ability, so start on simple things like offering trade rights to build them up levels.

4, Assasins start at a pretty low level, so put a spy in an enemy settlement to have a look around followed by an assasin to blow the building up, this will improve your assasin quicker than plain assasinations.

When he's at a good level, I use them to kill everything I dont like the look of... Although I might only look to kill my enemys diplomats if their in my territory and I dont want a ceasefire... They might be trying to bribe one of your settlements away from you...

5, I never auto resolve battles (exept naval battles that you have to AR them), even the most hopeless position should be fought on the battle map as you might get lucky and have the chance to kill off some of your enemys significant units...

Good luck!, and.. Er... check your history books for events during the period around the Bagdad/Red sea area... Its going to really upset your day...

Hope this helps?
Many thanks
SJH

[Kralizec]

Just to be sure: are you talking about MTW or MTW2? For 2, look at Sir Hakwoods post.
For MTW (original), read below.

1. It appears you can only build one structure and/or train one unit per year. Does it make sense to build each structure available in a country as the years pass? Should every country have some sort of fort/palace/town, etc. in it or do I want just one per region? If a territory can support an inn, should I build it?
2. How quickly should I be expanding by attacking my neighbors? Immediately? Take time to build a decent army? Should I be waiting to acquire more resources before attacking?
3. What can I do with emissaries other than spy on my neighbors? Can I initaite treaties with the surrounding countries?
4. Is it smart to use assassins to kill other emissaries?
5. How often do you auto-resolve battles? I did this last night for every battle as I was just trying to learn the campaign interface. When I start playing for real (if you will), should I start commanding my own battles? Is there an advantage to that?

1. There's no need to have each and every building in each province. I usually specialize my provinces: one to build siege engines, one for knights, one for infantry, etc.
Inns can be built in any province. The problem is, that the higher you upgrade your fort/castle, the less chance you'll have of getting mercenaries. If you have a citadel, don't count on getting any useful mercenaries.

2. Mostly a matter of personal preference. Some like to "turtle": playing in a relaxed manner, building up your empire and giving the AI the opportunity to do so. Others like to attack the AI on turn one and generally play in an agressive manner. There's no right or wrong way to go about it.
If you're playing GA mode, there's an extra incentive to be agressive if conquering provinces gives you a lot of points.

3. Yes, emmissaries can request alliances. Click and drag them on kings or other emmissaries for that. They can also request marriages by dragging them on foreign princesses (this gives you an alliance with that faction, and allows your heir to produce children as soon as he becomes king)
Emissaries can also bribe foreign armies. Rebel armies are the cheapest.

4. Yes, emissaries are probably the easiest targets for your assasins (except emissaries with a lot of stars)
There's not much harm in letting them live, except the small possibility that they might bribe one of your armies.

5. By commanding battles personally you can win battles you might have lost if you had auto-calced, and you can minimize losses.
If you do particulary well, your general might receive a beneficial trait (V&V) like "good attacker".

I am part way through the manual (which may answer some of these questions). I spent about 2 hours with Egyptians. I didn't save the campaign, I just played for a while to get the feel of the game. I think I may try the Spanish tonight.

Just looking for some suggestions. Thanks in advance for your help.

Every faction has some good points. I personally like the Almohads a lot, but they're tricky to play in the High and especially Late Era.

[Martok]

Welcome to the Org, CybrGamr!

Just so you know, junior members can now post in most game-related forums. So if you have further questions about MTW, feel free to visit the Main Hall (or the Citadel if your question was related to Medieval 2). Now to answer your questions (although Kralizec has covered them quite well already):

1. It appears you can only build one structure and/or train one unit per year. Does it make sense to build each structure available in a country as the years pass? Should every country have some sort of fort/palace/town, etc. in it or do I want just one per region? If a territory can support an inn, should I build it?

I'll reinforce Kralizec in saying that it does generally pays off to specialize your provinces to produce certain units (or at least certain types of units); building every structure in a province is unnecessary and (usually) unproductive. You can build inns where you wish, but just keep in mind that mercenaries are more likely to show up in less-developed provinces and regions bordering that of a hostile power--they're attracted towards areas of conflict.

As for castles, I always build one in every province I own. One need not upgrade to a Citadel/Fortress everywhere, however--I find a simple keep is usually enough in my lesser provinces.

2. How quickly should I be expanding by attacking my neighbors? Immediately? Take time to build a decent army? Should I be waiting to acquire more resources before attacking?

It really depends on the faction. With the Egyptians (a personal favorite of my mine), you can easily do either. The "Eggies" (as they're fondly referred to) start with some of the richest lands in the game--especially if you start using ships to establish trade routes--so they can afford to be aggressive, or just sit back, as they choose.

3. What can I do with emissaries other than spy on my neighbors? Can I initaite treaties with the surrounding countries?

One last thing about emissaires (on top of what Kralizec has said): If you wish to strip a general/governor of his title(s), just drop an emissary on top of the general in question, and his title will be removed.

4. Is it smart to use assassins to kill other emissaries?

Where possible, yes. Be careful with your assassins, however--if they stalk an enemy agent outside your own lands, there's a high likelihood they'll be caught and executed. This is especially true for assassins with less than 4-5 stars.

5. How often do you auto-resolve battles? I did this last night for every battle as I was just trying to learn the campaign interface. When I start playing for real (if you will), should I start commanding my own battles? Is there an advantage to that?

Again, it really depends on the individual player. I tend to auto-calc battles where I either a.) have an overwhelming advantage; or b.) both sides have huge stacks of troops, and manually fighting the battle would take me several hours.

I am part way through the manual (which may answer some of these questions). I spent about 2 hours with Egyptians. I didn't save the campaign, I just played for a while to get the feel of the game. I think I may try the Spanish tonight.

You're a man after my own heart, CybrGamr. The Spanish are my absolute favorite faction to play....just ahead of the Egyptians.

[CybrGamr]

Thanks for the suggestions above. I just found frogbeastegg's guide to Medieval Total War. That looks quite helpful also. I shall try to learn from all of the suggestions as I play...

[macsen rufus]

Welcome CybrGamr

One extra comment: I rarely autocalc as I like to fight my battles! But it also has the benefit that battles you command personally will earn you virtues like "skilled attacker", and generally you can get better results by fighting than by autocalcing. One of the few exceptions is if you have an enemy king under siege, it is best to autocalc the assault on the grounds that the king is more likely to be captured, so he can be ransomed for... well, a king's ransom If you fight it yourself he'll usually fight to the death and you get no ransom.

And if you've found Froggie's guide, you'll be learning all the subtleties. It's a great guide. And the game is so rich you'll still be learning new stuff this time next year, believe me

[Alexios]

Hi CyberGamr and Welcome to the Org!

There's some excellent advice here, but I just wanted to add a few ideas in regards to deciding what to build and where:

- One of the first things I consider is valor bonuses - whether a unit valor bonus exists in a particular province (such as Longbowmen in Wales, Billmen in Mercia, Turcopoles in Antioch, and Assassins in Syria). If a valor bonus does exist, then I will usually build the necessary upgrades there until I can create that particular unit (refer to the tech tree to find out where the valor bonuses are and what you need to build in order to get them). One caveat, however, is that not all units are available to every faction. For example, if I'm playing as the Byzantines, I would not have the ability to create Longbowmen. So taking over Wales, then building the upgrades there to get to LB, would not help me in that regard.

- Another strategy I like to use is to focus most of my building upgrades in the coastal provinces rather then the inner, at least for military purposes anyway. The reason being is that if I'm fighting in provinces that are across the seas, which invariably happens, then by having my coastal provinces upgraded to build most troop types, I can quickly deploy my troops to the battlefront (that is, as long as I maintain clear shipping lanes). I can also get my troops back faster, so that they can be rebuilt and quickly redeployed. In contrast, if I had to build/rebuild my troops in an inner province (say Switzerland, for example) then it may take me an extra three to four moves to get them there and then back out again to the front. During wartime, sometimes having a smooth-flowing operation of troop deployment/redeployment can make all the difference between winning and losing.

- In regards to the monetary side, I almost always build the upgrades that provide greater income (such as farming, mining, trading posts, etc.). It's important to keep the cash flow going in order to have the necessary funding to build large armies and continually expand your empire. I can't count the number of times in my initial campaigns that my expansion efforts came to an abrupt halt, all because I had neglected to pay attention to my monetary upgrades. So now I tend to give those a higher priority over the others.

[Sensei Warrior]

Alexios pointed out the benefits of valor. I figured I would chime in with morale. It is very useful to have high morale troops. Buildings that give morale bonuses such as a church and a requilary(?) are also another thing to consider building in your troop producing provences.

Having a high morale means your troops will not rout as quickly as troops with lower morale. They can take more morale reducing situations, such as being flanked or missile fire, longer. This keeps them in the field killing instead of being captured, and high morale units are more forgiving if you accidentally throw them in a tough situation. Very usefull for those that are new to the game and even some of the more experienced but less adept tacticians among us.

I think morale is the most underated stat of all the unit stats, so I often feel its necessary to chime in when I can. Think of me as a Morale Advocate.

[Alexios]

Excellent point, Sensei. Troop morale is an extremely important part without a doubt. There's nothing more frustrating then going into a battle knowing you can massacre your adversary, only to find that shortly after it all begins, 3/4 of your army tuck tails and runs.

I usually start building the religious upgrades (Church, Mosque, Cathedral, etc.) after I get all the buildings in place that will allow me to create the units I want. And for those units I may have created before I finish the religious upgrades, I try to mix them in with some of my other higher morale units, or add them to an army with a general of high command rating. In this way, I won't have my entire army running off the field, and hopefully, my lower morale guys will stay on the field long enough to get some battle experience.