How to Win Friends and Influence People in Africa

[GuyofJerusalem]

Africa, with its vast and windy deserts, is simply one of the most fun parts of the game, not many know. As Sicily, in the first turn, I loaded up all of my troops and sailed west. I ignored the rebel castle of Tunis and unloaded and took the next Moors castle, immediately reboarding to sail and take Marrakesh. The next ships (you have two settlements initially) will garrison and clear up units on an overland march and the cardinal which you picked up with the second wave is very useful to evangelise the population. Just make him walk all the way to the easily rebellious city of Marrakesh, converting all the way. The good thing about this tactic is that you can use all four initial boats to blockade the crossing between Spain and Africa and watch the AI whir in frustration stuck in spain as you take all of Africa and defeat isolated elements. Then after pacifying the populations, you can march up with a new army when you're ready to take all of Spain.

Five good reasons to take Africa as an Western power as soon as possible:

1) It is historically accurate for Sicily. The Normans were one of the most dynamic forces of the Mediterranean, invading not only Sicily, but also the Byzantine empire and North Africa. But you can play as any Western faction. The tactic above is not really blitzing because you have to defeat three factions and it's around turn 20 or so by the time you start on Spain.

2) Timbuktu and its good mines. I use the Sinan exploit and fill the gold mine camp with merchants. 18 merchants currently make an average of 600 gold every turn. To balance, I use money liberally as a kingmaker (having Spain, Africa and Sicily), passing on huge amounts to losing factions. I have given away over 100,000 gold before turn 80. Do not take the province next to Egypt because he will then start blockading your ports.

3) Africa needs police forces. With the huge landmass you need two small forts between the three North African cities, and one before Timbuktu, not to mention watchtowers along the roads, as rebels are numerous. Garrison each fort with only one unit of archer militia and two mounted Sergeants/Jinetes. It makes it very fun to have a weak general as Champion of Africa, who runs around the huge spaces with his fast bodyguard horses and using the Mounted Sergeants or Jinetes (as Spanish factions) as police forces to put down brigands (as they move fast), and having the only recruitable mercenaries Sudanese Tribesmen with big swords and no armour. The archer garrison is for when a serious rebellion breaks out and you need fire arrows. If you're tired of fighting in the gross landscape of Europe here you can practise true maneuver warfare in the open sandy desert, and there is the feel of Empire around it when your General is European but your levies and the enemy are all local natives, colliding in a huge scrum. Ensure that your forces are much weaker for a genuinely good time. It is incredibly fun and there are moments of greatness in this game here that I did not find in Europe proper, where the enemy are all spears or milita. Here you fight Berber or Nubian spearmen, Nubian archers, Tuareg camels, tribesmen all in one army! Fantastic when you also only have a small force of light calvary and swords and must use them properly.

4) Spain is a great place to ignore the suicidal AI. By building three forts on the roads into France, each manned by only one spearman, blocking the AI sight into conquered Spain, and having a full stack of advanced soldiers marching too and fro, it is possible to turtle very effectively, mainly for the benefit of the other factions else I have to wipe them out. Spain is very rich when you build it up through sea trade. Then the fun begins, interfering with your diplomats giving money to losing factions. The Scots pushed the Brits out of England so I married an English princess for 15,000 florins, now Brits have taken Rheims and Paris lol.

5) Crusades are easy. Take Corsica and Sardinia for trade then sail East to take Iraklion (for priests, diplomats and seige engines, plus trade), Rhodes (because I can) and then the Byzantium island. Paid Venice and Byzantium 10,000 florins each (to be fair and resume trading) and viola, your own bastion for crusades (very important for a far away Western power and to boost your generals). Simply land a prepared force on the middle East, declare Crusade (you have a footland in Italy so getting a diplomat to go to Rome and pay him off heavily is easy) and you can get there before anyone else. I usually also give the conquered holy land castles and cities to different Western powers, so it looks that a real Outremer and because I still want to trade with Egyptians and Turks (just bribe them later and don't have a bordering land with them, then their insane AI don't kick in).

At turn 80 or a bit more, Toledo is already a citadel and the rest of the Spanish and Italian cities are already huge or large cities, with full trade improvements. African cities are all minor or large cities and the best thign is you don't have to wreck Europe's cities, and the other faction units in Europe tech up to at least dismounted knights then you have real fun fighting instead of miltia all the time. You also get to use interesting combinations like my "1950's army" using only black and white units, like Hospitaller, Pavise Crossbowmen and armoured sergeants.

Lots of ships, broken up into small fleets and large navies, to discourage naval landings.

Africa is way way fun.

[General Zhukov]

I despise your Imperialist mentality.... J/K Actually I enjoyed reading your post.

Couple of things about Africa. While North Africa (esp. Timbuktu and Arguin) is a nice jewel for any power's tiara, it seems that anytime I move in down there, no other empire wants to come and take it from me. Gets kind of lonely.

Due to the above phenomenon, western North Africa, at least, can with proper management be cultivated into that promised land of the strategy gamer: the Safe, Economically Lucrative Area.

One possible downside is the micromanagemet of heretics in Africa. Should a high piety priest go heretic in Timbuktu for example, he could be difficult to get rid of. Surely any weenie priest produced from Timbuktu couldn't kill him. Perhaps it would be wise to build up a "spiritual center" , complete with Master Theologian's guild, to serve greater North Africa. Algiers perhaps?

[baron_Leo]

Should a high piety priest go heretic in Timbuktu for example, he could be difficult to get rid of. Surely any weenie priest produced from Timbuktu couldn't kill him. Perhaps it would be wise to build up a "spiritual center" , complete with Master Theologian's guild, to serve greater North Africa. Algiers perhaps?

I totally have to agree. The only time I cheated was when a priest with 9 piety went heretic and in 4 turns 4 of my counter-priests went heretic. I cheated a super-priest and still took 4 turns to take him out...and after that his friends. But as I see if you have more priests around the heretic he will more likely be denounced. And I swear I never cheat again.:-)

[John_Longarrow]

Here's an interesting question, how do you fight corruption in Timbuktu? As the Scots, I've held it for over a hundred turns, its 100% christian, and I STILL have about 50% corruption.

Any options?

[Shahed]

LOL

That was a great post. I'm gonna play Sicily next.

HEY !? What do you mean Sinan exploit ???... it's called a MERCHANT FORT ! ... Dude! where's my GOLD ?

[HoreTore]

Here's an interesting question, how do you fight corruption in Timbuktu? As the Scots, I've held it for over a hundred turns, its 100% christian, and I STILL have about 50% corruption.

Any options?

Law reduces corruption. Build town halls and have a governor with law bonuses. And moving your capital closer. Aside from that, you don't have much choice but to live with it. Far away provinces are always going to be corrupt...

[John_Longarrow]

HoreTore

Thanks for the answer. I've got all the building built, so I think I'm going to have to move from Edinburg down to Granada.

[Shahed]

Hehe... Scottish capital in Iberia.

Well I routinely move my capital around as the front grows. It can make a big difference to corruption, happiness, and in fact it makes the most difference to your merchant income. That depends of course, on what your starting capital is since that is what all your trade values are based on.

You can also mod the distance to capital penalty.

I don't know how to do that but I guess it would be as simple as changing a figure in one of the files ? Anyone know the answer to that one please ?

As it is now it's a bit too much, although it is nice to have some trouble as England controlling the Outremer. Still I'd be happier with a little less penalty.

[FactionHeir]

should be the settlement_mechanics file

[Shahed]

Which folder is that ? Is that what it's called ? Never seen it.

I've been messing about as the English and Inverness gets 10% distance to capital (from London) penalty. That's silly.

[FactionHeir]

You need the unpacker to get hold of the file.
Open it with notepad and look for the distance to capital section (just search for capital)

file exact name is: descr_settlement_mechanics.xml

Note that changing the value will change distance mechanics for all capital calculations.
Personally, I didn't find the penalty too harsh after deactivating the base 15%-25% unrest.

[Shahed]

Thanks for the info. Changing the base unrest may be a good idea as well.

[FactionHeir]

You can do that in the descr_rebel_factions.txt (also unpack)
You'll see:

rebel_type			Livonian_Rebels
category			peasant_revolt 
chance				1					
description			Livonian_Rebels
unit				Woodsmen
unit				EE Peasant Archers
unit				Lithuanian Archers
unit				Viking Raiders
unit				Lithuanian Cavalry

Change the chance to any number lower (or higher...) than 3. Where this number is multiplied by 5. 0x5 = 0 for example :)
Not sure if you can make negative unrest, but I doubt it.

Change it for all entries btw (except the very first two above the example I posted)

[Shahed]

Great. Thanks for the explanation !