Is Milan to Strong?

[King Elessar]

In my latest campaign as the Byzantines i have made it to 1200 Ad. Ive conquered the turks and the balkans. One turn i looked at the leading faction stuff at the bottom of the end turn scroll. It said that milan was both the richest and the strongest militarily. I thought, wow they must have conquered quite a bit i sent a diplomat to see if they would accept an alliance against venice. what i saw shocked me. after getting map info i saw they only had 2 provinces, milan and genoa. They had no less than 6 full stacks parked outside milan it also said they were the richest with me in second. I had 50000 florins too. I had an empire and they 2 provinces that were richer than my whole empire.

[Callahan9119]

weird, u sure they werent in africa too or something?

i notice the italian guys usually drift to africa, and if you got italian area and africa you got hard core trading cash

[King Elessar]

I'm positive they controlled nothing else i even got rid of the fog of war with the toggle_fow cheat to make sure.

[TevashSzat]

well, the ai doesnt know how to disband units and milan and genoa are quite moneymakers probably cranking out 6000-10000 each a turn for the ai. Also, militia upkeep is fairly low so they probably gain at least 7500 a turn

[Skott]

Milan can field some strong stacks but usually its an agressive faction and can expand rather quickly given the opportunity. I'd say you are seeing one of those random flukes that pops up every now and again. For Milan to not have expanded beyond two territories is more uncommon than common IMO. Considering it didnt expand I'm not suprised you are seeing alot of army stacks just standing about. When these flukes happen the offense expansion may not take place but the military build up continues. Its been know to happen with other factions as well. Just a game fluke.

[Marquis of Roland]

As far as whether Milan is a strong faction in the game, it is IMO, I think mainly because of what deathfire mentioned, their good units are militia units and cheap to maintain, whereas most people surrounding them (except probably Venice) have to build castle troops. This is why I think France always gets wiped out, their good units are expensive to build and probably can't build too much either since they're elite units (and basically 4 countries attack them). Those two cities they have are also rich, and with two cities your yearly expenditures will be very low.

[joe4iz]

In every game I have played so far as Roman Catholic or Muslim factions, Milan goes psycho, attacking every faction with which it shares a border ( and some that it does not) Then they end up getting tangled up with the Pope.
After a couple of Crusades against them by all the Christian factions, I find they generally end up on the cut to pieces.

I always target Genoa if possible as that really cuts their cash.

[Sheogorath]

In every game I have played so far as Roman Catholic or Muslim factions, Milan goes psycho, attacking every faction with which it shares a border ( and some that it does not) Then they end up getting tangled up with the Pope.
After a couple of Crusades against them by all the Christian factions, I find they generally end up on the cut to pieces.

I always target Genoa if possible as that really cuts their cash.

Indeed, Ive always found Milans psychotic-ness to be somewhat annoying.
especially when they take out the HRE, France and Venice all by themselves. Usually its the HRE OR France OR Venice, but its still annoying.

[pevergreen]

I hate Milan....kill them ASAP

They take over France and HRE.

HRE are cool! Keep them alive at all costs!

[KHPike]

Milan is one of the most dangerous factions to fight. It is also one of the easiest to play. They have a good port city and can produce near-pro units out of cities.

When I play they conquer very quickly, all the way to Paris. While they're large and annoying, their irregularly shaped borders make them ripe for the taking. Somehow they usually don't get excomm-ed.

But in my current game as Scotland THE POPE conquered all the Milanese territories up to Paris, and now he has a Papal empire and is sending his own crusades lol.

[snorky]

when i was playing with the English i thought Milan was weak

i mean my soldiers cut trough them like butter even the best of Milan are easy to crush with loads of heavy infantry and heavy cavalry

the first time i met them i was a bit scared of them because the had a huge army. but when i was forced in to battle it was the easiest battle ever met and they even outnumberd mee

[KHPike]

In my latest campaign as the Byzantines i have made it to 1200 Ad. Ive conquered the turks and the balkans. One turn i looked at the leading faction stuff at the bottom of the end turn scroll. It said that milan was both the richest and the strongest militarily. I thought, wow they must have conquered quite a bit i sent a diplomat to see if they would accept an alliance against venice. what i saw shocked me. after getting map info i saw they only had 2 provinces, milan and genoa. They had no less than 6 full stacks parked outside milan it also said they were the richest with me in second. I had 50000 florins too. I had an empire and they 2 provinces that were richer than my whole empire.

You could check if they have Ajaccio and Corsica. If you look at the scroll with graphs on it you can also roughly gauge how rich they are.

[Lorenzo_H]

There will always be one AI civ that will rise above the rest and become powerful. For example, in my game the Milanese are destroyed. In fact the nations left in the game at all are the Danish, the Spanish (me), the Holy Roman Empire, the English, the Papal states, Hungary, maybe Poland and maybe Russia and the Mongols and Timurids. Everyone else is utterly wiped out.

[R'as al Ghul]

Given the fact that in my game Milan was one of the earliest factions to have military buildings that allow for Pikes, Musketeers, Arquebusiers etc. and they haven't build a single Handgunner yet, I'd consider them pretty weak. I've no idea why they rather recruit a bunch of Mercenary Spearmen than one Pike unit. It's also silly of them to recruit Merc Xbows and keep them forever.

Apart from that they are very offensive and often expand quickly. They're also rich and they spam you with spies and Assassins but it's not as if their units were particulary strong or their armies of decent composition....

[Slaists]

In my latest campaign as the Byzantines i have made it to 1200 Ad. Ive conquered the turks and the balkans. One turn i looked at the leading faction stuff at the bottom of the end turn scroll. It said that milan was both the richest and the strongest militarily. I thought, wow they must have conquered quite a bit i sent a diplomat to see if they would accept an alliance against venice. what i saw shocked me. after getting map info i saw they only had 2 provinces, milan and genoa. They had no less than 6 full stacks parked outside milan it also said they were the richest with me in second. I had 50000 florins too. I had an empire and they 2 provinces that were richer than my whole empire.

If you play on hard/very hard campaign difficulty, the AI gets cash bonuses at the end of every turn. Thus, especially, since Milan has city units with low/no upkeep and highly profitable trade city: Genoa, they can accumulate cash even with those stacks sitting around idly.

[Derfasciti]

As France, I've always had problems with the Italians. First the Milanese and then the Sicilians. Milan definitely seems to be a power-house with little territory. I remember fighting for dear life against them over Genoa and then Marseille. Or maybe I'm just a terrible player

It's not that they're really strong unit-wise as they tended to have massive numbers of crossbowmen which usually fell prey to my usually large quantity of cavalry. But they DO have numbers which tend to bog down any campaign.

[rosscoliosis]

One interesting thing about Milan, in my game anyway, is that for some reason pretty much every single one of their family members gave me a really really good chance to assassinate them. I swear I've knocked off about 10 that had a 95% success rate. ;-) Anyone else seen that happen?

[dunno]

One interesting thing about Milan, in my game anyway, is that for some reason pretty much every single one of their family members gave me a really really good chance to assassinate them. I swear I've knocked off about 10 that had a 95% success rate. ;-) Anyone else seen that happen?

I think the game gives the AI free generals when they're running low and that these free ones tend to be easy to assassinate for some reason. I've been playing as Milan and assassinating Turkish generals with a full-subterfuge assassin. I've killed so many of them that now there is one stack where every time I kill the general, another one instantly spawns to replace it the next turn. They all have 95% success rate. There are other generals out and about that I haven't killed, but they are at the normal 40-60ish percentage success.

[Lord Fluffy]

Are you sure these are not captains? I've never seen a stack just spawn a general without being in combat.

[Carl]

@Sextus: I have, and it's pretty easy to tell when it's a captin as you don't get the portrait or stats so i doubt he's got it wrong.

[rosscoliosis]

Hmm, that's weird. What exactly are the conditions for that? Because I wiped out France when they had been down to just their king for awhile...

[King Bob VI]

In my current Egypt campaign Milan has about 30 provinces. I am wittling that number down, though.

[IrishArmenian]

In my Scotland Campaign and in my previous Russian Campaign, they always wipe out France. Merchants knocking off their heirs of Charlemagne? (The French ones, not the Rhinelanders)

[Lord Fluffy]

@Sextus: I have, and it's pretty easy to tell when it's a captin as you don't get the portrait or stats so i doubt he's got it wrong.

when you target a stack with a captain, you do get a portrait, unlike generals though you get 2 rows for stat instead of 3 and the name starts with captain. Just rather odd that a general would spawn one right after the other like that and each giving 95% chance to kill.

[ASPER THE GREAT]

In all the games I have played Eng, Scot, Spain, Milan has always been aggressive. Full stacks running around conquering Hre, Ven, fighting the Pope, Sicily, France... Then there always seems to be a ton of agents running around causing trouble till you wipe them out!!!!!

[Foz]

In all the games I have played Eng, Scot, Spain, Milan has always been aggressive. Full stacks running around conquering Hre, Ven, fighting the Pope, Sicily, France... Then there always seems to be a ton of agents running around causing trouble till you wipe them out!!!!!

Yeah, the agents are especially annoying. As England, before I had even turned my attention to Scotland (let alone the European mainland) there were 3 or 4 Milanese spies in Caen, and a little bit later there are usually droves of assassins running around whacking away at any and all governors I have in Europe. It's insane, and I haven't yet seen such behavior from the rest of the AI factions. Enough to drive you nuts...

[Musashi]

Venice is just as powerful a unit lineup as Milan... Their Pavise Crossbows and militia are only slightly less cool than the Genoese ones, and Venetian Heavy Infantry are just OMG, just made of pure pwnage.

So if Milan is doing better, it must either be more aggressive, or have weaker enemies than Venice...

[Lorenzo_H]

Does Venice not have Genoese Crossbowmen?

[Musashi]

No, they have Pavise Crossbowmen/Crossbow Militia. They're the same model more or less, but their stats are slightly lower. They're still awesome though, and the fact that the militia version is perfectly acceptable for all purposes is a huge strength, just like it is for Milan.

Venice's unique infantry are absolutely shockingly good though. Use them to storm walls some time, you'll see what I mean :D

[sbroadbent]

Yeah, the agents are especially annoying. As England, before I had even turned my attention to Scotland (let alone the European mainland) there were 3 or 4 Milanese spies in Caen, and a little bit later there are usually droves of assassins running around whacking away at any and all governors I have in Europe. It's insane, and I haven't yet seen such behavior from the rest of the AI factions. Enough to drive you nuts...

I have seen massive numbers of spies from Milan, but absolutely no assassins (atleast assassins who have either attempted to assassinate or sabotage my buildings (unless all those "natural deaths" were Milan's doing). In my campaign they mostly sent them after Dijon and Marseille which I had previously taken from them. They started going after these territories hard core when I started receiving 65% unrest penalties, threatening to cause those two places to go rebel. I have not seen any other faction so far put so much focus on spies.

I always wondered what that heartbeat I kept hearing when it was showing Milan's turn