Special Tips and Tricks

[Slicendice]

I've been wondering what the special tips and tricks are out there. I have a few I've started to use but I don't know how original they are.

1. Egypt, using it's spy, can take Jerusalem using a Jihad on the first turn. If you succeed you will immediately have another Jihad available.

2. You can build forts at rivers to block the hordes but also just putting a single unit there will work in a pinch. This also works to block Crusades or Jihads.

3. On the turn you take your Jihad/Crusade target you can create as many other Jihad/Crusade armies as you want and recruit those special mercenaries. Some of your generals will get a chivalry boost, and a mercenary captain, and all units will get the experience increase. Also make sure the first army (the one capturing the target) has two generals in the army. Both will receive the chivalric knight retinue as well as other chivalry bonus' thus making them excellent governors.

4. If you want to increase the dread of a general then put him in a city where you plan to build an assassins guild. As the city begins to crank out assassins (hopefully to target a nearby rebel stack) your general will begin to rack up dread. If he gets more than 4 dread he contributes to the likelyhood of the city getting an assassins guild.

5. If you want rapid expansion in the early game then use the above mentioned Crusade/Jihad tactic. You can instantly create massive armies of quality troops that have low support cost and dirt cheap recruitment cost. As the armies begin to take casualties just consolidate them or if you have only a couple left use them as a garrison for a fort. When the next Crusade/Jihad comes you can replenish them quickly again.

6. When you make your priest/Imam hit squad and start marching them it's a lot easier to shove them all inside a cavalry unit. You can move up to 20 with one move.

7. You can increase the queu limit by putting units in the queu after the units that you actually want to build right now. For instance, you want 3 archers now, but want to increase swordsmen or knights which are already maxed out. Put the 3 archers in the queu, then a knight and a swordsmen. The castle/city will replenish those units because you've put them in the queu. Now on the next turn take those units out and you will have say 4 instead of the maximum 3.

8. Destroying a guild might seem taboo but really it's not. I've destroyed countless theives guilds that I've captured and I can still get the HQ.

OK maybe you already know all these or some of these, and maybe you have some of your own. So let's hear 'em.

[Askthepizzaguy]

I have some exploits for you....
These are from a previous post, so I am cut and pasting to make it easier on me. Ignore something if its not relevant.

"As France, I have become an expert crusader. France starts out with quite a few generals, and once I get a diplomat to Rome and nab "modern day" france as a base of operations, I lump all my generals together and persuade the pope into a crusade of my choice. Generally, any catholic faction that has been excommed is your target. Barring that, a distant Muslim province that has several rebel/non cath regions in between allows you to get a nice swath of destruction on the way there.

With all my generals in one stack, I join a crusade. Then, I abandon the crusade. Then I join the crusade. Over and over, again and again, until the general leading the expedition has "the saint" after his name.

Then I rinse and repeat for all the generals in the stack.

Then I remove all the generals, save one, and send the crusading army on it's way.

With the rest of the generals still in "crusade" mode, but with no accompanying troops, I return them to my best castles and towns as governors.

The chivalry bonus makes this all worthwhile, because your towns will explode with population and your castles will be ready for improvement faster.

Then, build up some troops at home.

Next, let one of your (still technically "crusading") generals move to the middle of your territory, and send some of your best (and most expensive) troops to join him

Then, when you're ready, hit the leave/join crusade button twice. Boom, all of your troops have joined the crusade.

Now repeat the process until most of your generals are on a long crusade eliminating a catholic faction that has been excommed or into muslim territory, or my personal preference, through Byzantine territory and Turkey.

For non catholic factions, exterminate the populace to maintain order. build a church the first turn, and then pop out as many priests as possible.

Bonus here being, not only will you convert the populace faster, but you will get several cardinals. Next papal election is pwned by you.

sacking cities while crusading is easy, just make sure you're traveling in a straight line as best you can towards your target, and end your turn much closer to it, and end the turn besieging the city. Sack it next turn, leave a garrison, and move quickly forward.

In 30 turns I eliminated the HRE, Turkey, and Byzantium, and made it all the way to Baghdad. I have about 15 generals with 5 or above chivalry, and a massive army sacking the entire middle east.

I generally prefer keeping my reputation honorable until I am vastly superior to all my neighbors in terms of immediate "blitz and sack their territory" ability. Then, without warning, I amass about 3 full stacks or more, and attack on multiple fronts and end the war as quick as possible.

Note that when you are a lone general on a crusade, you can move in ANY DIRECTION and not lose troops (your body guard will remain the same size).

Use this technique to move your general far away from the crusading target (say, Scotland or Russia or Africa)

Once there, recruit as many mercenaries as possible and sack all surrounding cities on your way towards the "target" of the crusade.

I think the crusade concept means the catholic factions are overpowered. If you had to pay for the troops you recruited (say, maybe at half the maintenance cost) it would be realistic. This way you can't have 25 stacks completely full on crusades and still be making 10000 florins per turn.
Note well-
I have been informed that apparently, the 5 chivalry exploit for crusades does not work after patch 1.2

So tough luck all you patch users. I guess now all you can do is build dozens of free full stack armies and also send crusading generals in any direction and leave crusading generals inside cities so that if you need an instant army for an upcoming battle you can leave the city and hire a bunch of crusader mercs and kill whatever approaches you.

Crusades... are... still overpowered!"

Pretty much the way to win is the expert use of crusades and jihads. As Britain, I own all of the British Isles, Spain, France, and northern Africa... on TURN 25. I have about 10 full stacks that just finished crusading, and I am about to mop up the Germans.

You can use 'house rules' to make the game easier if you want a challenge, but these methods assure quick expansion.

Oh, by the way, ANOTHER exploit…

Leave/Join crusade every turn for all crusading generals at the end of their turn, until the 10 turn limit for joining expires. Why?

YOU NEVER LOSE TROOPS TO DESERTION IN ANY DIRECTION YOU TRAVEL.

Pwned!

[Slicendice]

If you seige a city and it sallies you will get the income from that city on the turn you just ended. Some cities will only sally if you don't have a general in the unit and others sally with just a few units.

Here are a few of my favorite sally cities:

1. Dublin will sally with General Bodyguard, Mailed Knight (optional) and Peasant Archers. Easy Heroic Victory.

2. Bordeaux will sally with Mailed Knight and Peasant Archer. Easy Heroic Victory.

3. Rennes will sally with the stack that England start with that is closest to it with Mailed Knights added to the stack to have a chance of winning.

4. Alleppo and Adana will sally with a GBG and a Heavy Cavalry or Hore Archer. Challenging but do-able.

Anyone know of some others?

[Askthepizzaguy]

Again you've taught me something I didn't know.

Dublin has always been a pain in my ass. In the early game I find I cannot afford to send my main/2nd army to sack something as remote and largely useless as Dublin, but I do it anyway and shrug off the waste of time. The fact that there are no city walls actually makes it harder unless I have a horde of troops because pinching off their sally at the gate is my specialty.

So... it was you that I heard the purchase settlement trick from, much gratitude. I've had to include that bit of advice to anyone I think is worthy of it because it basically doubles your empire on turn one. Very nice tip.

I Note that as a western christian faction, you can decimate the Moors, Turks, and Egyptians with your first crusade. Get perfect relations with the pope and on that same turn, request a crusade for Baghdad.
Ouch!

Then, ignore your crusade target and head toward the Moorish territory. Use the tips I presented for not losing troops to desertion. It's best to get a bunch of captain promotion/adoption generals to bolster your family first.

Smash the Moors within a few turns, and then split your forces.

2-3 stacks should head toward Alexandria, Egypt, and the rest should head to Byzantium/Asia Minor.

If you feel like it, take out the Byzantines on your way... but remember your 10 turn join/leave crusade limit has probably been reached by the time you attack. Which means your troops have to be guided missiles. If you cannot beseige/sack a city in 2 turns and then move on without losing troops to desertion, let a straggler general/stack get it and keep moving.

You may not be able to smash every single Turkish city, but you will cripple them, utterly destroy the Moors, and leave Egypt with at most, Jedda as a province. You should be able to take Egypt and Syria without losing too many troops.

If you sack all castles and exterminate all cities, you should be able to leave minimal garrisons. But frankly, if they revolt, you don't care. You've eliminated all 3 Muslim factions and sacked a lot of cities. Expect to keep all castles no matter what (recruit garrisons as they become available), and keeping cities is recommended whenever viable.

I recommend the train method for converting Muslim lands.

Start whereever your conquests are closest to your faction. Spam 5-10+ priests in your border city during or after your invasion. Then send them single file, on a non-stop tour of the Muslim territories. Each region you are in should gain 15% or more catholocism per turn until it reaches nearly 75%. You will probably get cardinals this way.

You can afford to dawdle a little in regions with cities as opposed to castles, but keep moving from (I recommend) Spain to West Africa, North/Central Africa, Egypt, the Holy land, and then Asia Minor.

This tour may occupy the priests entire lives, but you are sure to get a few cardinals for your trouble and viable colonial states in Africa and Asia.

If you'd like a quick return from the crusade, be sure to build up a decent navy on your way there. (The only thing I really use navies for).

Then send several clusters of your armies back on clusters of ships, avoiding pirates and strong navies. You can get back from your long crusade and even begin an attack against your rivals on two fronts; from the direction of your homeland and from the east. Or you could simply conquer Hungary, Poland, and the HRE on your way back.

I find that massive crusades usually involve massive loss of florins/turn afterward. But keep your armies healthy and keep sacking cities, and you can nearly keep your budget afloat or at least not too terribly in debt until the next crusade.

Then, have everyone join up again... by the second crusade, you should not have to deal with massive deficits again.

[mbrasher1]

To get experience faster --

After your crusader army has besieged the target city, before your army attacks, have every leader join the crusade. This permits 300 units or more to gain a chevron in experience.

Say you have lost 25 men in each of two 60 man units. Having the higher EXP unit fill out the lower EXP unit lets you retrain the higher EXP unit to full strength. This saves a recruitment slot, and will give EXP to your lower ranked units.

To get higher level buildings faster --

-- build farms, brothels and government buildings early. This compounds the op growth rates faster.

[Atreides]

My exploit when playing with the English are the stakes.

If your enemy is overpowering your army and is attacks your city/castle you can put stakes behind the gate and the forced openings in your walls. After the battle started put your archers on the wall (preferably after braking the wall) and your enemy will rush in, foot troops are slowed down by the pikes, cav is kabeb in progress….

[Generals_Bodyguard]

1) Place defensive forces on bridges. i dont really build forts as rivers crossings are the best natural forts. You earn good experience for the defense force too and a lot of heroic victories.

2)Place stronger infantry/anti cavs on your flanks as the AI cav tend to move to the flanks with 1.2 more.

3)When an enemy unit routs, use that momentum to charge the enemy with your cavalry. That can cause a chain reaction of routs.

4)With more than a single cav, you can fake charge your enemy frontline and cause his pike to chase your cav. Retreat that cav and draw them away. Hit them with your other cav unit on their unguarded front.

[DeathBUA]

I've posted this before. But its a trick you can use with any archery units with the long range missiles trait and mounted missile troops, example here is the Turks

I've use Sipahis or Turkomans to rush up to the enemy under cover of long range archers usually in the early game, Turkish Archers, then later Jannissary or Ottoman Archer/Infantry. With Jannissary HI to cover and maybe a naffatun or two to really break their morale

Harass the enemy with your horse archer, get them to chase, commit and get spread apart slowly retreating towards your infantry archers, at some point they'll be under fire from 2 different sources. You might lose a few HA's to friendly fire but thats ok. By the time your HA's reach your line of infantry the enemy will be tired, beaten down in number and probably have low morale, then I'd simply rush in with any and all infantry. 95% of the time worked like a charm with minimal losses on my side, usually 5-10%.

This can actually work in the late game as well with factions that don't necessarily have HA's. Use mounted X-bow men or anything mounted that shoots missiles really, Jinetes, Reiters whatever.

[John_Longarrow]

Generals Bodyguard,

I have been testing a trick lately that will aid in your tactic.

I form a line of pikes with archers in/behind them. On the ends I stick spearmen in Schiltrom formation. Just behind them I have the heavy infantry. What normally happens is that the cav that tries to wrap my lines gets caught up in the spearmen. The spears take the charge and hold the cav. My heavy infantry then comes forward to tear them apart.

When you look at your forces it also looks like you've got a walking castle wall. The pikes form the wall and the spears form the towers.