Spain

[Lorenzo_H]

Hey I am now at turn 129+.

How do I get Pikemen? I presume the Spanish get them, but I haven't been able to get any yet...

[Quillan]

Two ways, and both require a huge city. First, build the Militia Barracks (6 turns and 9600 gold). This will let you build pike militia (150 to recruit and 100 to maintain), and will also let you build handgunners with the development of gunpowder. The other way is to build a Military Academy (4 turns and 4800 gold). This will let you build Tercio Pikemen (350 or so to recruit and 155 or so to maintain), and will give the Officer Training trait to generals left in the city for a while (+2 command). I prefer the Tercio to the militia pike.

[Lorenzo_H]

Ahhh thankyou. You see I have only built any military improvements in Toledo, my Citadel (which obviously cannot be a huge city). I didn't bother making any in my Towns.

What other buildings does a Military Academy require? And while I'm at it, what other surprises do non Castle towns have the ability to do?

[PaulTa]

Well late game you could get away with nothing but cities. The military academy offers tercio pikes, but the upgrade to that offers more tercio pikes and Gendarmes (heavy cavalry. Not bad either, since they are pretty well armored). Once gunpowder hits, you can build musketeers in your huge cities too, which means that you can produce good melee units (sword militia, tercio pikes), good cavalry units (gendarmes), and one of the best ranged units (musketeers).

Obviously, the city has more income. The city also has functioning cannon towers (according to Katank), horse breeder's guild, top tier ports (?), and still has the top tier armor facilities.

[Spark]

In settlement details, there's a button that shows you the entire building construction tree as well as where all the faction's units offered by each building. That should answer all your questions.

[baron_Leo]

Hasn't got Spain pikeman in citadels? Portugal has aventuros...they are not bad, actually they pwn cavalry. (but i find them slow and don't build them, I only trust in Knights of Santiago - man they look good, and with maxed out XP after some battles they are just the coolest cavalry unit (I know they are not the strongest, but the coolest - no discussion:-))

[General Zhukov]

...I only trust in Knights of Santiago - man they look good, and with maxed out XP after some battles they are just the coolest cavalry unit (I know they are not the strongest, but the coolest - no discussion:-))

Could you tell me, and this would probably be of interest to other Spain players, when in the game you got offered the Santiagos, and which settlement they appeared in? If you have any clue what you did to trigger them, that'd be nice too. I played a whole Spanish long campaign and the guys never showed. Did a successful crusade too.

[sapi]

This should help

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

[baron_Leo]

I got them in Tolouse after capturing that city by a crusade (guess who called that crusade:-) I did nothing else. Is it possible you didn't get it offered because there were already guilds in your castles (This guild will show up only in castles)? By the way I never got them on the Holy Land onlay in Spain and Southern-France...maybe this is also a matter

[General Zhukov]

Right, think I got it:

1) Spam Crusades and generals joining those crusades
2) High Chivalry Govs. in possible host castles
3) Declare war on Muslim factions, make peace, declare again to raise chances.

perhaps a combo deal of all those simultaneously would help me.

Thanks guys/gals.

[dopp]

It seems that you can get castle-only guilds in cities and vice versa when you convert them. The guild "score" remains even when the settlement has been converted to another type, so if you gain a few more faction-wide points you will go over the threshold and get offered a guild, regardless of settlement restrictions. In this way I received swordsmiths for Palermo and Toulouse, and horse breeders for several castles.

[baron_Leo]

2) High Chivalry Govs. in possible host castles

If that would be necessary I would never get any Templars, Hospitalers or my beloved Knights of Santiago. All my generals are sooooooo evil. Record is executing 1812 prisoners...without ransom chance. (sinister laugh)

[lobo76]

Knight of S is good, but they are so hard to reinforce. ONLY one castle produces them. Building more green troops to merge with depleted (but seasoned) units, brings down the experience of the seasoned troops. So the only choice, (to keep the experience) is to go all the way back to that one castle to retrain.

[Lorenzo_H]

How (and round about when) do I get a hold of Knights of Santiago?

Also, I can't seem to remember ever upgrading my towns, though I got messages saying "Leon is ready to upgrade because it has enough population". What exactly is nesesary to upgrade a town/city?

[PaulTa]

Well first you upgrade the walls, and then you can upgrade other buildings, like town center, militia barracks, etc.

Knights santiago come from crusading often (successfully).

[Lorenzo_H]

Well so far I have done 2 crusades. Both were successful and one of the times my troops were the ones which captured the Crusade target. Right now the Pope has just called a Crusade on Constantinople. Do you reckon that if I take it I will get Knights of Santiago? Bear in mind that I skipped the first crusade of the game...

[Wizzie]

To those of you saying the Knightly Orders/Knights of Santiago appear only in castles:



And Zaragosa has always been a city throughout that campaign, never converted to castle etc.

P.S.

Knight of S is good, but they are so hard to reinforce. ONLY one castle produces them. Building more green troops to merge with depleted (but seasoned) units, brings down the experience of the seasoned troops. So the only choice, (to keep the experience) is to go all the way back to that one castle to retrain.

In my game I specifically denied many guild offers to keep several of my cities free for Santiago chapter houses, and it worked. At the moment I have KoS in Toledo, Ragusa and Zaragoza, making retraining fairly easy. To get more than one chapterhouse offerings, make sure to build alot of Knights Santiago from whatever settlement gets the first chapterhouse, as this boosts the likelyhood of getting further offers.

[Lorenzo_H]

Are you really at turn 1200?

When I open up my faction overview it says I only have 71 turns left to conquer 45 territories! I only have 13 so I am going to have to get a move on if I want to win. Am I thinking correctly?

[sapi]

Yes, you are, but it shouldn't be a problem.

[Lorenzo_H]

Yes but I haven't even got to the new world yet! I think it is going to be a problem...

[sapi]

Not one of my games has got to the new world....

I've got 45 territories as both France and Egypt at around turn 50, and 60 as the HRE at about the same time...

[Lorenzo_H]

wow then maybe you can give me advice as to which direction to conquer in because I desperatly need to conquer 32 more territories as quick as possible.

[Quillan]

Mainland Europe and the British Isles. The Isles have 7 territories in them, and Europe will give you what you don't have of Toulouse, Bordeaux, Marseilles, Angers, Rennes, Caen, Paris, Bruges, Antwerp, Rheims, Dijon and Metz. Expanding on into Italy can add Milan, Venice, Genoa, Florence, and Bologna just in the north, and in the mountains north of there you can snag Bern, Stauffen and Innsbruck. There are some more closely packed territories in northern Europe, but beyond that things start spreading out a lot.

[dopp]

Have you taken Africa yet? You need Jerusalem in order to win, so unless you want to do a crusading hit-and-run in the final few turns, you should pick up Africa and Egypt before taking Jerusalem. If your navy is large, gobble up the islands as well. Northern Italy, France and the coastal provinces of the Middle East have numerous provinces clustered close together, so grab those. Beat up the Egyptians until they accept vassalage if you don't want to manage all those cities yourself. 65 turns before the campaign ends you'll get world-is-round event. Shuttle 2 stacks of your best troops across to America and capture the six cities there. You should then have more then enough to win.

[Wizzie]

Are you really at turn 1200?

[...]

No, I set the turn counter to display the date rather than the turn number, so I'm at turn 60.

[Kraggenmor]

wow then maybe you can give me advice as to which direction to conquer in because I desperatly need to conquer 32 more territories as quick as possible.

Heh. I'm right there with you DelMar.

I got the game for Christmas and once I loaded it, I spent many turns of my vh/vh Spain campaign were sepnt getting turned every which way but loose by Sicliy, Milan, France, Portugal and the Moors. To the point of restarting the whole thing several times.

In some defense of myself though, I never played RTW and came in straight from MTW and so had a lot to learn about the value of certain units, buildings as well as needing to learn various game mechanics - like the value of converting castles to cities etc.

Now, with 75 turns left I feel like I finally have a solid grip on things and will be racing from here on out to capture the remaining 34 territories I need as well as Jerusalem.

Should be fun!

Certainly has been so far, despite all the beating I've taken. ;)

[Wizzie]

Yes, I think campaigns become much more interesting as the game matures. Certainly now that I know how the more arcane and obscure mechanics of the game work (thanks to the research of many a hardworking code-monkey here on the Org) my campaigns have become infinetly more interesting.

[Kraggenmor]

Bah!Just as I'm in position to launch my siege on Bordeaux, which will eliminate Portugal, the Pope dies and the first act of the new Pope was to immediately issue a 'Cease Hostilities against Portugal' mission to me.

The last thing I need is to be excomm'd at the outset of a lengthy campaign that will see Spain marching against her Christian neighbors and time is running out and I need to take provinces, so I cannot afford to wait out the cessation order and moved north to attack Britain in Rennes.

Our allies - the Danes - have a full stack army parked in Bordeaux and will likely be the ones to have the pleasure of eliminating the Portugese once the cessation is lifted. The Danes did not attack during the time it took me to move north and successfully seige Rennes so I can only assume they received the same warning I did and there are some 3 or so turns left on that order.

All of that to get to this question:

If you have an 'eliminate faction' victory condition, must that faction be eliminated by you? Does it 'count' if they are simply eliminated?

My assumption is that as long as they're eliminated, it doesn't matter. If it does have to be by the player who's victory condition it is, then I'm hosed anyway as the Moors were eliminated some turns ago by - I assume - Sicily

[danfda]

No, faction X can be killed by anyone, and it does not have to be you. Its often easier to let others do your dirty work, in fact...

[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.

Edit- Oh, if time is running out, why worry about excommunication? Just take what you need to win and end the game. The only problem I see is if some of your larger cities are hovering on the brink of revolt, and the 20% penalty to public order would push them over the edge.