Still fairly new to MTW2 - some questions & observations

[NewJeffCT]

OK, I am still relatively new to Medieval Total War 2 after putting in hundreds of hours at single-player MTW.

First, some questions
1) When I started, I only had a few choices for factions – England, France, Venice, Scotland and I think one or two others. The box says 21 playable factions and I used to loved playing the Turks in MTW. What am I missing? I’ve gone through the rulebook several times, but didn't see anything about selecting factions?
2) I noticed there have been 3 patches released for the game. I downloaded the 1.2 patch since it says 1.3 is for Kingdoms and I do not have that. Do I first need to install patch 1.1, or does 1.2 supercede and replace 1.1? I did not see any documentation on the so-called “mirror” sites regarding that.
3) The old MTW was pretty easy for even an amateur like me to do basic modding where I could modify the starting buildings for various factions, maybe tweak some troops, starting florins, etc. I do not see any similar TXT files in MTW2? Are they available?
4) Why do my ships only move half the length of the Italian peninsula in a two year turn?

Second, my observations:
1) I do not like the 2 year turns. The game is a bit longer overall in years than MTW, but not that much longer. The old game went from 1087 to 1453, or 366 years/turns. The new game goes from 1080 to 1530, or only 225 turns for 450 years. And, I dislike it saying “1” instead of 1080
2) Like MTW, the attacker almost always wins naval battles, even when having fewer ships/troops. Luckily, the AI seems to not attack often when short numbers in naval battles.
3) The rebels are way tougher in MTW2 compared to MTW – they rarely had ships in MTW.
4) I have auto-resolved almost all battles because I am still not comfortable in fighting them on the map – MTW seemed much easier that way. I often have problems even telling my troops from the other troops.
5) My first campaign as the English stopped because of computer issues – I had to reinstall Windows Vista. However, I had barely beaten Scotland and then struggled to beat France.
6) I am currently playing Venice and control the Italian Peninsula (save the Papacy) plus all of central Europe from Marseille, north to Paris and east to Budapest. Also, Zagreb and Durazzo. Plus, I have Sicily, those two island north of Sicily, Irkalion and one or two other locations (Rhodes?). I held Jerusalem for 40-50 turns, but the Mongols whipped me and I have not been able to retake it.
a) My problem, however, is finances. I am barely staying afloat. I have built various shipyards that enable me to get trade fleets, sent out merchants all over the map, etc. The only way I seem to make money is by sacking conquered settlements. My merchants invariably get acquired by foreigners, and if I try to acquire them, it backfires. My building queues rarely get filled – the two castles on Corsica & Sardinia have not had any building done since they were upgraded to castles. Any advice? And, when I sack a city or citadel, I need to use that money for city wall upgrades to reduce squalor & improve loyalty.
b) It seems that any army that leaves a settlement that is not led by a general almost always turns to rebels a turn or two after leaving the city. Since generals seem to be rare, is there a way that could change?
c) Speaking of generals, my general-governors all seem to be adulterers, which decreases chances for heirs/offspring and creating future generals. Can that be changed if I keep building church upgrades? Something else?

[FactionHeir]

Welcome to the ORG.

1) You need to achieve victory objectives for one faction before all others are unlocked. Alternatively, you can mod the descr_strat.txt to unlock all to start with. Note that if you do so, you may have to reinstall before M2TW lets you patch up. Its that silly.

2) You seem to have downloaded the 1.3 patch rather than the 1.2. The file names are very similar actually. So get 1.2, install that, and then install 1.3 if you want (don't have to). Skip 1.1.

3) To do so, you need to unpack the files you want to mod. First you want to patch up though to get access to the unpacker.

1) You can change it to 1 year turns. 0.5 makes even more sense really as all generals age 0.5 a turn regardless of how many years a turn is. You can do that with the first link in my signature, but best after you patch up.

2) Its mainly fleet quality. Being attacker helps too in autoresolve engagements, but only if everything else is equal.

3) They are rather weak. Just at the start most things are rebel so you need to take the places first. The ships are rebel pirates. If you dislike them, mod them out.

4) Practice, practice, practice

5) You want to build economic and farm buildings first and expand only when you know you can win. If you manually fight battles, you can win them even against impossible odds as the AI isn't really smart at all.

6) There are countless "how do i beat mongol" threads out there. Have a read.

a) Same as 5. And don't bother with merchants unless you can send them all the way to Africa (Timbuktu)

b) Depends on your king's authority rating as well as where you send the captain stack. And of course random chance.

c) There is some major issues with traits and anc in that regard. I would recommend my mod to help you with it Do patch up first though.

[Alpedar]

I'm currently playing my 2nd campaign, so i'm relatively noob.
Currently i'm playing milan, so thats almost same as your venice. Key is that italian factions does not need castles (with few castles its better than totaly without, but you don't realy need them (milan needs them even less than venice). Itlaian spear milita + pavic/genose crossbow militia is solid base for army (some swords from castle are usefull though). For cavalry try to get knight hospitallers guild and you does need any other melee cavalry. And this guild can make cav in cities.
This army composition allows you to concentrate on economy while expanding.

After taking available rebel setlements, i sailed south to africa and conquered algere, then joined crusade to jeruzalem, on way there skipped tunnis (was in catholic hands) and conquered cahira and other city nearby and gaza castle. Then someone else took jeruzalem, so i stopped expansion this direction.
Becose these egeptian cities were hard to govern, i let them rebel and sacked them again ($$$ and less population).
From this point i had enough money until black death.

[predaturd]

in med 2 you can raise an army in 3 turns to do some conquering so dont worry about constantly keeping a standing army for conquest

make sure you garrison citys with militia units for free upkeep

keep only settlements bordering the enemy as castles or as the italians even less

[Alpedar]

Yes.

[ReiseReise]

look in data/world/maps/imperial_campaign/desc_strat.txt for faction starting locations, buildings, armies, etc. That is also the file you edit to unlock all the factions if you don't want to do it the normal way (finish any campaign (short or long) with one of the 5 starting factions) It should be pretty obvious what to change by looking at it. If you want directions look in any of the faction guides (any except the 5 starting factions) in the 'M2TW Guides' section on the front page of The Guild.

[NewJeffCT]

Welcome to the ORG.

1) You need to achieve victory objectives for one faction before all others are unlocked. Alternatively, you can mod the descr_strat.txt to unlock all to start with. Note that if you do so, you may have to reinstall before M2TW lets you patch up. Its that silly.

2) You seem to have downloaded the 1.3 patch rather than the 1.2. The file names are very similar actually. So get 1.2, install that, and then install 1.3 if you want (don't have to). Skip 1.1.

3) To do so, you need to unpack the files you want to mod. First you want to patch up though to get access to the unpacker.

1) You can change it to 1 year turns. 0.5 makes even more sense really as all generals age 0.5 a turn regardless of how many years a turn is. You can do that with the first link in my signature, but best after you patch up.

2) Its mainly fleet quality. Being attacker helps too in autoresolve engagements, but only if everything else is equal.

3) They are rather weak. Just at the start most things are rebel so you need to take the places first. The ships are rebel pirates. If you dislike them, mod them out.

4) Practice, practice, practice

5) You want to build economic and farm buildings first and expand only when you know you can win. If you manually fight battles, you can win them even against impossible odds as the AI isn't really smart at all.

6) There are countless "how do i beat mongol" threads out there. Have a read.

a) Same as 5. And don't bother with merchants unless you can send them all the way to Africa (Timbuktu)

b) Depends on your king's authority rating as well as where you send the captain stack. And of course random chance.

c) There is some major issues with traits and anc in that regard. I would recommend my mod to help you with it Do patch up first though.

Thanks - a lot of useful information. I did notice there were several desc_strat.txt files, so I'll wait until I install the patch.

I do think rebels are tougher in MTW2 than they were in MTW. In the old one, they almost never had ships and never had much in the way of an army beyond the basic early era troops - peasants, archers, spearmen.

I was slowly wearing the Mongols down, but was caught by surprise by them in Jerusalem. I had figured with Jerusalem having a full complement of troops and my allies the Egyptians all around, I was pretty safe since the city had Huge Stone Walls.

I had later captured Smyrna & Nicea from them, and then Constantinople from Hungary - oddly, my Council of Nobles had asked that I take Constantinople from our enemy Hungarians. I finally got there and took it over, and I got the message that since another faction now controlled Constantinople, I was no longer required to take it from the Hungarians??? It seems like a good portion of my council of nobles missions were in direct conflict with the Pople. Council demands I take Constantinople, then the next turn the Pope demands I cease hostilities against Hungary for 5 or 7 turns. However, I ran out of time to get Jerusalem back, and after turn 225, the Timurids were poised to roll over at least a few of my possessions in Germany like Frankfurt & Nuremberg.