A Few Questions

[King Bob VI]

I'm 110 turns into a long Egypt camp on 1.0 timescale and I was wondering about a few things that I've noticed and I also have a few strategy questions.

1.) Every turn about 3 or 4 diplomats that are surrounding Constantinople will bow down and do the offer animation but the diplomacy screen never comes up. Are they making bribery attempts or what?

2.) How do I get every Catholic nation to stop hating me? It's been years since the last round of crusades and I'm still at war with all the catholics. I think the lack of trade agreements is really hurting me, but they wont agree to peace without demanding big bucks. Is this a lost cause?

3.) Does anyone else tend to neglect siege weapons? I very rarely build the siege works line of buildings and I never have catapaults or trebs in any of my armies. I just build rams and towers when i get to a city. Am I missing out on some big advantages here?

4.) What should I be doing, unit wise, in preparation for the Mongols? I've heard mixed reports that Horse archers are the best way to go and others say Kurdish Javelinmen. What about halberd militia?

[Callahan9119]

1) i dont know, i see that too

2) dont expect any friends in europe my good man, i always expect as a muslim, and even an orthodox faction to just be at war with the west

3) catapults are your friend, i like to assault cities to end problems fast, catapults are godly early on, and REALLY help defend bridges

4) mongols will die on your city walls, or if your a braver man than i, you need light cav to hold the mongol HA and heavy cav to wipe them. as egypt you kinda have a problem as you dont have uber western infantry or good xbows...when u know they are coming make sure you have a very good full stack of cav, and your best infantry in another...then pray hard or play well

i think they are more annoying than hard

[JCoyote]

1) Yes. Fortunately bribery almost never works. And if it does, it'll cost them far more than they could possibly gain.

2) If you are directly fighting them, check diplomacy with them after you've given them a good stomping. It can make a difference.

3) Siege weapons are good for opening gates, walls, and knocking down towers without losing soldiers. Getting rid of the towers will save you a lot of losses when you move in.

4) Don't worry about the Mongols as much as the Timurids.

[Daveybaby]

Catapults are fantastic fun in any battle IMO (flaming ammo), and are an essential addition to any bridge battle (attacking or defending). Plus they give you the ability to attack immediately in a siege situation without all of that tedious waiting to build stuff, which comes in very handy on occasion.

Also they can be very useful when defending in sieges once the enemy has broken through your walls. A couple of catapults in the city square can wreak incredible carnage if aligned down the street the enemy are advancing down - have a good solid defensive unit hold them in position then unload on them as they bunch up - its similar effect to a bridge battle.

Note: as in MTW1, green artillery is very inaccurate - as they gain experience this improves drastically, so its worth taking some along for training purposes even if theyre not essential for a particular battle.

[dismal]

3.) Does anyone else tend to neglect siege weapons? I very rarely build the siege works line of buildings and I never have catapaults or trebs in any of my armies. I just build rams and towers when i get to a city. Am I missing out on some big advantages here?

The big advantage of siege weapons IMO is the ability to assault the turn you arrive. This often lets you fight a small garrison instead of a large enemy force lurking nearby.

For catholic factions, it also offers the advantage of taking a city before you get the pope warning. I have been know to spend my 7 turn pope warning period positioning armies with cannon next to 3-4 enemy cities. The turn the pope warning expires, you take them all which usually results in another pope warning.

Catapults are generally not worth much more besides knocking a quick hole in the wall or gate so you can rush in and overwhelm. A couple cannons can usually take out all the towers around your breach as well making more defended targets fair game.

I tend not to build siege buildings, but to rely on capturing cities that have them. You want to make them near the front anyway. They take too long to lug up from the rear of the empire.

[Razor1952]

2.) How do I get every Catholic nation to stop hating me? It's been years since the last round of crusades and I'm still at war with all the catholics. I think the lack of trade agreements is really hurting me, but they wont agree to peace without demanding big bucks. Is this a lost cause?

I think this is mostly about your relations. Try bribing these factions(I'm trying 100florinsx100 turns at present). Unfortunately once lost relations can be costly to rebuild but I think dooable. You can also give maps and any useless province to improve relations.

Having a good reputation will also help. Try not to exterminate any city, sack if if you have to but occpuy mostly. Also release or at least ransom prisoners.

There is a thread on reputation which you should read.


Basically particularly on VH the ai is programmed for relations to deteriorate so you have to be pro-active to counter this. Of course you can always forget them and just blitskrieg everyone, depends on your playing style.

[gardibolt]

1) Yes, it's bribery and it almost never works, other than making your generals less susceptible to bribery, so on the whole it's a good thing.

3 and 4 are connected. Building siege weapons is a useful thing (never wondered why the AI is so hot on building them?). Catapults allow you to besiege and take a city in the same turn, wiping out the ballista/cannon towers that can wreak havoc on you. Trebuchets are the best defense against the Mongols that I've found. When they come calling, have half a dozen archer units on the walls and 2 trebuchets at your walls set on FAW and you can blow them apart defensively. Sally with a schiltrom unit activated (I think Saracen Militia for Egypt) and the Mongols will be sorely tempted, at which point the archers and trebuchets will make short work of them.

[Kraggenmor]

Most of the high points have been hit already but, I wanted to add a point about fighting the Mongols:

Any chance you get to choke point them at bridges should be taken. My best success came by planting troops in a fort right on "my side" of the bridge, right at the end of the bridge, with a second set of troops along side the fort so that any mongol stack would have to assault the fort to get off the bridge, and in doing so would be engaging both stacks of my troops. I held off an entire Mongol troop train of units this way.

The 'outside' stack of troops was roughly half spears (saracens) and a mix of missile cavalry with some mercenary crossbows. The 'inside' (the fort) stack of troops was mostly desert archers, some foot troops and a couple of Trebs.

I choke pointed two bridges this way. One bridges was only attacked by a couple of stacks, the other had a queue of upwards of 6 Mongol stacks waiting to cross. That fort was falling under siege constantly so, even though there was castle nearby I was mostly unable to add relieveing troops to the fort, but was able to cycle troops in and out of the 'outside' stack.

After the Horde lost three or four full stacks on that bridge - they had previously made a habit of executing troops of mine they'd captured so, I returned that kindness on theirs - the rest walked away.

That was a particularly satisfying series of battles.

[The Teacher]

Seige weapons - utterly brilliant.

Once you get to turn 100 you should be able to raise multiple stacks for assults.

Im playing the French at the minute and am about to invade England/Scots.

With the seige weapons you can assult their walls immediatly.

If timed correctly throughout their lands you can terminate an entire nation with a lightning assault. There is an added advantage that you will not need to worry about the Pope telling you to stop your attack as they will all be gone in a single assault.

This will also stop the problems of being in long protracted wars if you strike first.

T

[zstajerski]

Try teh trebs. with diseazed cows for ammo

Then you ll see what turn they can make in a battle

[King Bob VI]

Well, I had a massive force waiting around Baghdad.... but the mongols appeared in Poland-owned Sarkel, up above Georgia (Well, that's what the message said, I haven't managed to find them yet.) Will they head south or am I in the clear?

[gardibolt]

They may head for you; they seem to have multiple goals. There seems to be a desire on the Mongols' part to get Jerusalem and Constantinople, regardless of who owns them. They also show a preference for heading to the player (as they should for a challenging game). But if there are a lot of provinces between you and them there may be little left of them when they finally arrive.