Agent Madness

[lobo76]

If you share a border with a different religion and find lots of priest/imans converting your population, the correct response is NOT defense. It is very hard to win, due to the way conversion is calculated. iirc, if both priest and iman can convert 5% each turn, it is actually 5% of the opposite religion. assuming you are a Chirstian city, 10k chirstians, 1k of muslims. An iman comes and start converting. The iman will be converting 500 per turn, while your own priest (not counting the church) converts at only 50 per turn. The 'invading' religion nearly always convert faster than the resident one.

What you should do to STILL build priest/iman units, but don't try to convert back your population. Go to the neighbouring country and start coverting theirs! Sooner or later, their priest/imans go back and 'defend' their religion instead of converting yours.

[Wizzie]

If you share a border with a different religion and find lots of priest/imans converting your population, the correct response is NOT defense. It is very hard to win, due to the way conversion is calculated. iirc, if both priest and iman can convert 5% each turn, it is actually 5% of the opposite religion. assuming you are a Chirstian city, 10k chirstians, 1k of muslims. An iman comes and start converting. The iman will be converting 500 per turn, while your own priest (not counting the church) converts at only 50 per turn. The 'invading' religion nearly always convert faster than the resident one.

What you should do to STILL build priest/iman units, but don't try to convert back your population. Go to the neighbouring country and start coverting theirs! Sooner or later, their priest/imans go back and 'defend' their religion instead of converting yours.

I found this too. Particularly helpful playing as Spain with the Moorish Imams all over Iberia!

[A. Smith]

I have a question about tumbuktu; i dont seem to be able to go there by boat, since the water seems to be impassable. am i missing something? because if i cant send them by boat, its not worth making thme wander in the desert for 20 turns as they will die of age a few turns afterwards.

[Quillan]

When you consider that a single merchant has the potential to make over 1000 florins a turn standing on one of those gold or ivory resources, I'd say yes. You can't reach Timbuktu by sea anyway; it's a landlocked province. Arguin is the seacoast one, and yes, it is unreachable by sea until after oceangoing ships are developed in the 1400s. You have to march overland. Go east from Marrakesh towards Algiers. At the mouth of the river turn south and head through the pass. Once across the mountains bear back west for a short distance and then turn due south across the Sahara. Timbuktu is way down there. It takes about 8-9 turns of walking from the coastline to the city, plus another turn or two to the nearest resource.

Once someone has taken the province, it's possible to build a road there that shortens the traveling time a little. The Moors will get it at some point, though there's no telling if they'll manage to keep it. In my last game it revolted on them.

Side note: Sahara is Arabic for desert, so wouldn't the name "Sahara Desert" be a multi-lingual redundancy? Desert desert?

[Zenicetus]

I have a question about tumbuktu; i dont seem to be able to go there by boat, since the water seems to be impassable. am i missing something? because if i cant send them by boat, its not worth making thme wander in the desert for 20 turns as they will die of age a few turns afterwards.

You can't sail around to Arguin (the coastal province west of Timbuktu) until the "World is Round" event.

It doesn't take that long to march down to Timbuktu from Marrakesh, and it's a very rich area (along with Arguin). If you can send an army for conquest it's even better than just sending a merchant or two, since both Timbuktu and Arguin can build mines on the gold resources, and you also have ivory and slaves that can be exploited by merchants. Once you take the towns, you can upgrade the roads to increase trade and movement speed, and you can start pumping out additional merchants directly in Timbuktu when the city is upgraded. It's remote, but it's a real cash cow.

[Deneldar]

Just a quick add to this because it made life much easier. On my second Timbuktu fleet in my current campaign (England) once I had some cash in the bank I sent a general on the boat with a couple of units(make sure he's a family member*). When we got down there I sent a diplomat who I had walked down through Spain to the Moors and offered them trade rights and 5000 for Timbuktu. They came back asking for TR + 18600, we finally settled on TR + 14500. Once you have Timbuktu you can create your traders, priests and spies on the spot.

*If he isn't he's likely to desert as he's so far away from home.

[Neoncat]

Use lots of spies and assasins. After a while your king/sultan will get assasin&spy masters and some traits. Those will reduce amount of gold required when training agents. This is especially good for merchants, which have to make less money to be profitable. However their price won't go ever under 50%. And for priests wait for my guide. :)

[Ethelred Unread]

@Quillan

Sahara is arabic for "plently of" or "an abundance" so in Arabic Sahara desert can be translated as "lots o' sand".

There is a place near(ish) to Cadiz in andalucia that's called Zahara Atun or similar because that's where they used to catch lots of tuna.

[Ciaran]

Any good tips for training up assassins? In RTW it is simple, just target the assassins of other factions, it is almost always a 95% sucess. In BI it got harder, but Captains still gave enough of a soft target, provided you were prepared to lose some blundering idiots (always target rebels). But in MTW2, it´s extremely hard to train up my assassins, the chances for sucess are very low to begin with AND the assasin who firstsuceeds and then fails in a second attempt loses his experience immediately.