Strategy Forum

[HolyCross of Jerusalem]

Discuss and sent any Strategy for Winning MTW here! (u can include Historical Battles and Campaigns)


I've some strategy...
-KILLING THE PAPACY:
1.Invade and defeat the Papacy.
2.Once the Siege is over retreat to Milan/Venetia/Genoa or Overseas Territory (Leave Rome,Tuscany,Papal State, and Naples)
3.Let Bandits uprise
4.Wait for the Papacy to re-emerge
5.Once they finished with rebels, attack them and defeat them
6.Do from no.2 again.

-VENOM ATTACK:
1.Rise a huge Army
2.Attack your Enemy at ALL Territory which is bordered with your territory.
3.If there are still some territory hold by the enmies, just attack it, leave sieged enemy territory undefended. (This will make their good/bad generals have "Eager to retreat" or even "Retreat oftenly" trait)
4.Attack and Attack until their Territories are sieged.

-ARTILLERY FORCE (Only for attacking):
1.have your artillerry deployed just at the front of your battle line
2.bombard the enemy until some of them rout or their formation is broken
3.When this happened, advance your main force. When the main force are nearing the enemy/in combat, halt your artillery.

[doctrellor]

-KILLING THE PAPACY:
1.Invade and defeat the Papacy.
2.Once the Siege is over retreat to Milan/Venetia/Genoa or Overseas Territory (Leave Rome,Tuscany,Papal State, and Naples)
3.Let Bandits uprise
4.Wait for the Papacy to re-emerge
5.Once they finished with rebels, attack them and defeat them
6.Do from no.2 again.
.

I was playing as the rebels last night for fun, and wiped out the Papacy with 1 simple stack and a 3* gen...

I razed EVERYTHING and so when the Pope came back, his lands were nothing more than smoking ruins...lol I then left the Papacy to be conquered by the French who were on a rampage art that time..lol

[Noir]

Welcome to the org. and the Main Hall HolyCross of Jerusalem

That's quite some hints and tips you've got there.

A few comments from me:

1. It may be useful to separate strategy (campaign map play) and tactics (battle map play).

2. While your hints are undeniably succesful in the game, their success hinges on deficiencies of the game (for example the one with the Papacy eradicates it for the remainder of the game if repeated). Myself i find that playing without using such single disadvantages of the game might result in a more challenging campaign - even if its lost - and so more fun.

Also could you post more of your stretegies in a sense of broader plans in order to create/respond/take advantage of situations, for example: "A good strategy is to go after the richest provinces" or "a good strategy is to have naval superiority ensuring diplomatically the existance of trade partners" or "a good strategy is to create colonies in far off provinces to minimise the upkeep of your ships (say by launching Crusades)" or "a good strategy is to fight only one war at the time" etc.

Many Thanks

Noir

[Gimli]

As far as game-winning starategy goes, if you are in the Medditerrenean Sea, CONTROL IT!!! This allows for quick movement of armies from your developed bases to the front. One strategy that I have enjoyed is, rather than eliminating an enemy faction, leave them with a single, weak province (such as Norway). They will soon be unable to build anything as they gain heirs (and thus, expensive Royal Guard type units). This prevents them from "Faction Reappering" you right when you think you are in control! My personal favorite strategy is to form an alliance with a weak neighbor and then wait for him to be attacked (oh, for the record, I am generally Orthodox...) and then I can defend his lands and get a "free war" out of it! I don't have to start the war with the enemy of my ally and I get a nice buffer zone between the enemy and my lands. Overall strategy? Avoid France and Germany because their interior is void of coastline and thus SLOW to move through... AND always attack the richest places first! (Greece, Flanders, Constantinople, Egypt...) Happy winning!

[macsen rufus]

I have a specific strategy for dealing with His Infallible Meddlesomeness, the Pope, which I call the "Pope on a Rope" strategy:

In my Genoese (XL) campaign, I'm keeping the pope as a tame poodle. Destroyed his faction once, waited for the re-emergence in Rome and Papal States, defended Rome (and kept it) and abandonned Papal states, which I had stripped of everything but the fort and 20% farmland (I have a "rule" to never destroy farmland, and leaving the fort was part of the cunning plan....). Second year after the re-emergence I attacked Papal States once more, ensuring the Pope survived with so few men they could fit into the fort. Kept him under siege til he had approx 200 men left, then abandonned the province. This gave me an auto ceasefire, and the Pope was left with a useless army that cost more in upkeep than his territory could supply in income. He can never build ANYTHING else ever again Not even a border fort, which means I can afford to leave a Grand Inquisitor and Assassin (now up to 6*) and spy on permanent duty in the Papal States. Any trouble with excommunication, well, I go off and do my Catholic bashing for a while and when it's convenient I knock off the Pope with my 6* killer and get re-commed and carry on Crusading as if nothing had happened.

You can't keep the Pope out, but you can keep him down

In this particular campaign it worked out perfectly, and the Pope was the least trouble ever. Since then I've always tried to do this whenever I play a Catholic faction and my empire reaches that part of the world. Another aspect I didn't mention before was that the high-valour spy also keeps the loyalty in his province low, so there's no way he can afford to send ANY troops out on the attack, either.

[Betito]

You know, for ages, i struggled to win Jaffa, and once i got almost all Saladin's cavarly to rout, but i had no cav to chase them, so they rallied and crushed me.

So, with this being the winning things thread, does anyone ahve a replay of a victory in Jaffa? I'd really appreciate it

[Noir]

You mean in the tutorial right?

The easy way is to get Saladin himself out of the way - they'll all rout then if you have managed to reasonably keep the battle line.(concentrate your forces and Richard's bodyguard in Saladin's unit).

The other way is to hold off the waves of cavalry by playing good defense, remember: protect the missiles and make sure they are shooting - put hold formation/position to sword units when receiving charges and switch to engage at will when in melee - make sure your units do not chase the enemy (play defense and keep your defense line) - make sure Richard's knights do not get booged in melee (charge pinned crucial targets and withdraw). If you get Saladin that way, all the better.

Maintain the line - your units are stronger but slower - encirclement and pursuits need to be avoided at all costs - straight fight is at your favor. Stay close to the walls and protect the flanks - try to avoid their collapse (for that keep your front line relatively small and so manageable). Do not leave units alone - have them mutually supported.

Also swordsmen kill camels by the dozen once engaged.

Many Thanks

Noir

[Agent Miles]

@Betito-Like this?
https://s132.photobucket.com/albums/...ntMiles/Jaffa/
I did get Saladin, although not with Richard's unit. They all routed, then rallied and I routed them again for the win.

[Noir]

Nice screenshots Agent Miles,

i tend to play closer to the walls (to take advantage of the slight ground slope) and with a lesser front and more concentration generally (to avoid losing flanks and being encircled). I also tend to use more than 2 line formations for receiving charges (low morale units may brake or lose cohesion i reckon).

The Saracens come in waves until Saladin is comited to the battle and by that time, if he falls - they do rout and never come back. It depends also on ｈow many there are left of them and with whome they are engaged at the time of the Sultan's death.

Many Thanks

Noir

[Agent Miles]

Thanks! It was the first time I played the battle and I kind of winged it.
I save my battles and then take screenshots from the playback with a flight sim screen shot program that is freeware (It's called FSScreen, only 24 kb, and it works with the campaign map as well). This gives me the best chance to take the right shot, as I can freeze the playback, change the angle, zoom in or whatever. The snapshot is saved as a .bmp file to a picture directory I made where I keep the FSScreen file. This keeps things organized. I use Paintbrush to review the pics, add text and save them as .jpg files. Photobucket is also free, so the whole process is painless. This makes posting battle shots really easy for tactical discussions. "A .jpg is worth a kb of text."
I suppose that we could even post our entire saved battles for review, if there was a place to upload them.

[Betito]

@Betito-Like this?
https://s132.photobucket.com/albums/...ntMiles/Jaffa/
I did get Saladin, although not with Richard's unit. They all routed, then rallied and I routed them again for the win.

That will do, wish someone had an actual MTW replay, but many thanks Agent Miles!!

[Agent Miles]

Por Favor! Does someone have an actual replay of the battle? Is a parsec 3.26 lightyears? Of course! I don't know if I can PM the replay to you. Do you have an e-mail address? Although, it is not much to see. First it looks like all the Arabs in the world are going to stomp you into dog food, then I counterattack, Saladin dies and they all ride home to mamasita.

[The Darkhorn]

While playing as the Genoese in XL, I found the best way to get the Pope of my back was to sort of make a patron out of him in my mind. I securely had Corsica, Sardinia, Genoa, Tuscany, Venice, Milan, Naples and Tyrolia. Venitians were wiped out. I was in early stages of trade. Pope went to war with Serbia who had taken rebel Sicily after I had cornered and killed the excommunicated Sicilian King and all his heirs in Naples with a Crusade. How convenient for me. Being the good CATHOLIC I was, I launched a crusade for heathen orthodox Sicily, figuring the Pope would love me. His holiness sunk my ships. I'm sure Jesus was real proud of him for that!
So, I attacked Rome and he of course retreated leaving me a fine provence with no fight! Then I attacked him in the Papal states being careful not to kill or capture him in the battle (I admit I had to reload it once when the old bastard just wouldn't run and got himself killed by Tony Soprano of my urban militia. What was Tony to do, let his emminance whack him?). Then I besieged him as long as I could without taking his fort. Guess what, he's weak, will not re-emerge, and has been VERY quiet! I keep 4-5 units in Rome, Tuscany, and Naples so he has no hope of a successful attack!!

[MeglaGnome]

My mos effective papal control game looked like this:

I was the Italians in a vanilla MTW game. I contolled all of the north of the Italian penisula, Naples, Sicily, Corcisa, Sicilay and was working my way through the GA crusade procinves in the holy land. I had also controlled malta for a good few decades, and had been "farming" it for rebellions, thus I had 6 separate 9* generals with Field Defender virute..... I know - I'm bad.

His holiness was being a huge pain in the butt, so I fixed him.

So,

I took Rome and the Papal states, and garrisoned each with 4 arbelists.
I had a mobile naval "rapid response defender squad" consisting of:

4 gold armour and weapon upgrade italian infantry
1 gold/gold 9* II general (most often Italian Infantry, but one was Uban Militia
8 arbelists
2 chiv knights (to dismount and form the corners of a defensive half hex).
1 cannon of some sort

Now, Rome and th Papal states are nice and hilly, so any uprising by his holiness - no matter how well equipped, will fall to a half hex hilltop defence with 8 units of arbelsits and a cannon raining death. Once you run out of ammo simply bring in the spare arbelesits.

Much fun, in a turkey shoot kind of way, and no more issues with excommunication :-)

[Gimli]

My mos effective papal control game looked like this:

I was the Italians in a vanilla MTW game. I contolled all of the north of the Italian penisula, Naples, Sicily, Corcisa, Sicilay and was working my way through the GA crusade procinves in the holy land. I had also controlled malta for a good few decades, and had been "farming" it for rebellions, thus I had 6 separate 9* generals with Field Defender virute..... I know - I'm bad.

His holiness was being a huge pain in the butt, so I fixed him.

So,

I took Rome and the Papal states, and garrisoned each with 4 arbelists.
I had a mobile naval "rapid response defender squad" consisting of:

4 gold armour and weapon upgrade italian infantry
1 gold/gold 9* II general (most often Italian Infantry, but one was Uban Militia
8 arbelists
2 chiv knights (to dismount and form the corners of a defensive half hex).
1 cannon of some sort

Now, Rome and th Papal states are nice and hilly, so any uprising by his holiness - no matter how well equipped, will fall to a half hex hilltop defence with 8 units of arbelsits and a cannon raining death. Once you run out of ammo simply bring in the spare arbelesits.

Much fun, in a turkey shoot kind of way, and no more issues with excommunication :-)

BRILLIANT!