How you play as the Moors

[Bijo]

I was wondering how you -- who have played as the Moors -- would go about playing them. Overall strategy, tactical use in combat, etc., and all of it in different periods through the game.

[Miracle]

I can only give you advice on the middle game because that's where I performed best.

Turn every Iberian settlement into a city except Valencia. Use your most chivalrous general to pop-boom Valencia into a Citadel ASAP. You want DCG's as quickly as possible. Also try to get Militia Barracks, Sultan's Racing Tracks and Huge Walls near your front lines so you can train Urban Militia, Granadine Jinetes and Christian Guard, respectively.

Establish naval superiority in both the Atlantic and Western Mediterranean early on. Use your navy to execute quick siege landings on rich coastal cities like Rennes, Marseilles, Genoa and Naples. By taking them by surprise they will have no time to prepare a meaningful garrison. Use either Urban Militia or DCG to assault the settlement. Be sure to bring catapults or trebuchets with you.

In field battles, a combination of Desert Cavalry/Granadine Jinetes, Arab Cavalry/Christian Guard and Urban Militia/DCG performs very well against spearmen/xbow armies. Use your melee cavalry to chase/kill the xbowmen and your swordsmen to mop up the spearmen. Support them with javelin cavalry.

Avoid fighting cavalry armies in the open. Your spearmen don't have enough armour to withstand charging European knights. Force them to fight a bridge or gate battle where you can beat them in a standing melee.

Moorish missile troops are generally quite weak so I didn't train them. I did hire merc xbows occasionally though.

Since you'll be attacking a lot your reputation will sink to Very Untrustworthy very fast. However, still try to obtain a strong Eastern ally early on. They'll provide a convenient distraction and may even aid you in battle. Avoid fighting the Pope, lest you bring the wrath of all Catholics upon you.

If you played your cards right you should have a sizeable chunk of Western Europe by the time gunpowder arrives. By then nobody can stop you, especially with your Camel Gunners...

[Monsieur Alphonse]

I wonder why we have such a excellent guide section:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=72060

[John_Longarrow]

Early on you have two very different fights you need to face. On the Iberian peninsula you will need a large number of Desert Archers to deal with the local Jav Cav. You will be facing armies with better spear chuckers than you've got, so the archers will level the playing field against enemy missile cav. I've found that by keeping your archers in thick formations (4 deep or more) you can take a charge by the local light cav. This should allow your Jav Cav to deal with enemy melee cav, something Desert Cav is very good at.

For anti-Melee cav, your desert cav charges towards the enemy cav, stops short, and opens up with the javelins. They then start skirmishing away, leading the enemy on a merry chase. This allows your archers to keep up a good fire on enemy infantry and missile cav. Once you have weakened the emeny with your archers and your Desert Cav has used up its supply of ammo, have your cav charge. Your units are not that great but they are cheap. 6 Desert Cav + 6 Desert Archers +1-2 infantry works well for the first couple dozen turns. You will have enought missile fire power to deal with just about anything.

For opening targets, I always give the Spanish a couple turns to empty out Toledo followed by a quick attack. This gives me a strong centeral position while removing the teeth from Spain. My next two targets are Leon and Lisbon, in that order. I also Jihad early to get half way useful infantry in numbers.

My first strategic goal is to secure everything south of the Pyrenees. After that I turtle and go for Urban Militia and Christian troops.

Once gunpowder is around, you can start building all Camel Gunner stacks. These are about the most effective forces out there. The only thing they have to worry about is Elephants.

[Bijo]

Monsieur Alphonse: I intended this thread as a personal one to my game, instead of a "general strategy" thread.


It's been a while since I've played the Moors (or played seriously at all).

Regarding the missile troops: they are indeed weakish, and I find those mercenary crossbowmen too expensive. The cheap own crossbowmen are not so bad, I think, but I generally dislike crossbows troops due to their slowness. If only the Moors had some good "longbow-like" troops. I guess horse archers and those Desert Archers will have to do.

I didn't think of the Urban Militia at all. I merely installed castles at my borders and mainly relied on units herefrom.

The treacherous French now have engaged me and even the Papacy attacks me, as well as England, Milan, and Venice. I gambled my strategy and gambled wrong. Now they are storming me and their knights are... well, you know them.

Portugal is my ally and so is Egypt and the relations are good. I think I should also launch a jihad but against one of the foes soon.

When gunpowder arrives, I think I will get the edge if I manage survival.

I have most of Spain (as Portugal is still there with two provinces) and most of Africa, and merchants in the south. A chunk of France too, but as said England, France, Milan, and Venice are giving it to me.

[El Diablo]

Whilst I agree with Monsieur Alphonse - the faction guides sections are excellent and the main reason I initially started reading these forums, I do feel that sometimes, with bug being eliminated/(created?) by newer patches, that the guides need to be tweaked.

I am not sure that the "all uber-peasant" armies of M2TW 1.0 would fare that well in 1.2.

Although I am sure some of the players here could do it!!

I wonder how much peoples strategies have changed from 1.0 to 1.2?

Comments?

Note that "the game is too easy anyway" comments are not what I was wondering about. What I want to know is has your army makeups/tactics changed because of the elimintation of the 2H bug or some other????

[Guru]

Talking about "uber-peasants", I have to mention Moorish peasant crossbowmen. They are excellent against the heavily armoured men of the cross... Missile attack of 12, cheap to train and upkeep.

- Guru

[John_Longarrow]

Bijo,

As Portugal is still around, you may want to give them (or sell them) your French territory. That should keep everyone from walking over to attack you by having a buffer zone.

What is your situation in Africa? How far east do you control? Also, have you taken the islands off of Italy yet?

[Bijo]

Yes, I was wondering about that -- the patches and such.

Bijo,

As Portugal is still around, you may want to give them (or sell them) your French territory. That should keep everyone from walking over to attack you by having a buffer zone.

What is your situation in Africa? How far east do you control? Also, have you taken the islands off of Italy yet?

Oh the blasted buffer zone. Why haven't I thought of that?

In Africa I only have taken the rebel provinces south and west and concentrated on Spain and then France (and others who stormed me). Egypt has most of its territories and I keep them happy as ally, and Sicily has only the settlement that used to be Carthage in RTW (Tunis?) Yes, I think I will attempt the creation of a buffer zone, keep Portugal happy, cease fires with France, England, and such, then go by boat to Italy and take Sicily and go further up. In the meanwhile, when it is available, I will call a jihad upon any foe whom I think needs more force applied upon him.

You can tell I've lost some skills throughout time, heh heh :)

[John_Longarrow]

If you want to grab Italy, you may want to start with Bologna. Grab that, give it to the Pope, and head south. That should make a nice buffer, especially if you can get on his pointy hattednesses good side.

[Zarky]

I suggest you mop off Portugese, take their wealthy city with good port and their strong castle and mess English and French against each other. If English dont have Rennes, assassinate and sabotage everything in Caen and cause mass unrest, while make sure you have fleet large enough to hold off Englishmen, If it Rebels its far easier to take and maybe give forward to French, since keeping it might get you at war with Danes which is last thing you want to do. Take Tunis and Tripoli, kill off Sicilian before take Corsica and Sardinia (Ajaccio and Cagliari) or they will take them since their fleets and ports are far better positioned there than yours. Milan will be though deal either on land or on sea, use missile cavalry and keep them moving, they don´t get any real cavalry.
If you can Support Scottish with Dublin/Caernarvon or better, both they should start fighting English, or other way around English start buggering them.
AI will be short on gunpowder units and cannons when Gunpowder first comes so make sure you got cannons to scare the hell out of everyone on battlefield, don´t give away and inch!

[Bijo]

Hmm, I see.

Well, I have to tell you the papacy is now actively attacking me in Africa starting with my castle there east of Tunis (Tunis, which they've taken from either Sicily or rebels). I will have to take them out and push hard, enter their lands to conquer all of Italy. My navies are weak however, so I will have to, indeed, build them up once more.

In Spain England came ashore already but we have ceasefired though they are still present. They will probably attack at some point.

In the meanwhile I have been destroying Milan along the coast and giving these lands to Egypt to keep them happy and to quickly get rid of those lands I can't properly defend anyway. The sacking gives me enough monetary resources. Quite nice: sacking, keeping my allied neighbour Egypt happy, and decreasing Catholics' power in Europe, spreading the faith of Allah

Of course I should've known that Portugal would stab me in my tall-standing back. What a foolish move: they had only two settlements, now they have one while they are under attack by France, England, and I. Must be the papacy forcing them :) I will make certain they perish horribly.

In the meanwhile gunpowder has finally arrived. I will put it to good use.

[Midnight]

My game as the Moors was basically carried on the back of Granadine Jinettes - they're surprisingly good against knights (although I had one particularly painful run-in with a knight-heavy English army), and have enough melee to rout most weakened units. I obviously didn't use them exclusively, but they were a notable presence in most of my armies and held their own against almost everything (having an absolute field-day against DFKs). Dismounted Arab Cavalry did most of the wall-taking.

[Matty]

1) get camel gunners
2) kill everything in your path.

[Skott]

I been playing my first Moor campaign for a little while now. I quickly took out Spain and Portugal then sat back and built up (tech wise) for quite a while. Then I set out pushing north and east. I'm in the 1350s now and got about 35 territories. The camel gunners are okay but my main gripe with them is that they run out of ammo too fast. So far I like the Moors better than the Turks. I havent tried playing Egyptians yet. No real desire to. So far I like not having to worry about the pope's feelings or commands like when playing a Christian faction.

The Danes and HRE are still my top two fav factions though.

[Czar Alexsandr]

The Moor's are actually a really good faction. They're really quite powerful if you're good with them. And very enjoyable if you ask me to. The Morrish campaign I played really made me think. I had to use a lot more strategy than I did with other factions. But I've come to believe that regardless of the time period the Moor's are extremely good.

In the Early periods you can train Desert Cavalry, Arab Cavalry, Desert archers, Sudanese Javelienmen, and Berber Spearmen. In other words.. a Jinette that could never possibly ever get tired.., a decent cavalry unit, an archer that can run around all day and has long range, spearmen that aren't likely to get tired, and ap piercing troops. The terrian of Spain has a lot of mountains and hills and passes and used correctly the land you fight on can give the Moorish faction a advantage over their Catholic neighbours. Spain and Portugal can't field long range archers so your men will do excellent work before the meelle begins. Your Jinettes, Desert Cavalry, can run faster than most cavalry and can run longer than Spain and Portugals. Your Javeliens though inferior could also be of use. Mostly I've just been talking about the initial skirmishing. This is very important for the Moors. You Archers, Jinettes, and Javeliens should always open the battle I believe. It'll take care of the tough units eg. Mailed Knights, Jinettes, and Almugavars. Once thesse soldiers are defeated.. the Moors will have the advantage on the battle field due to the rabble that makes up the rest of Spanish and Portugese early armies. Your Arab cavalry are nearly as good as Mailed Knights and if you skirmish before battles anyways your 40 Arab Cav men can easily take 20 Mailed knights that have been assualted by what should be the deadly Moorish missle troops attacks.

That said, Moorish armies often do have a hard time with the Spanish and Portugese. The computer once rated the odds I was in a battle in as 1 to 2. Favoring Portugal when I had 1000 men in my army. But like I said advantage of terrign and effective skirmishing will win you battles as the Moors. I like to think of Morrish strategy as a delicate art. The whole battle will depend on the grace and effectiveness of each initial move of the battle and will either end in disaster or a great triumph, skillfully executed and glorious to behold. On a final note, the key to understanding the Moors is to understand the early troops and tactics cause as time goes on the same tactics work with better troops and the only defference becomes the fact that not only are the tactics better, a lot of the troops are to. The Moors become easier as time goes by but really the key to playing them I belive lies in the early tactics. Skirmish, flank, charge, chasse down the routers.

Of course, this is just what I think.