England

[frogbeastegg]

England is playable right from the start, without the need to unlock it or edit any files.

[Bombasticus Maximus]

Faction Infomation

Name: England.

The English have three provinces in the game, London, york and Caen. There starting map looks like this:


What to watch out for

As you have Caen which is in modernday france you will need to watch out for them as they will expand and go to war with you. In my Current game as the English the Milanese are also attacking me so keep a eye out for those. This may seem a little unbelieveable but what out for the scottish too, You may think that there no match for your might but there no push over. Try and get trade rights with as many factions as possible and do all the missions you are given because you get money and units to fight for you.


Making Money

In this game it's alot easier to make money so just build the buildings that will make you money for instance roads, ports, markets and so on, Not forgettting to build barracks and churches aswell.

Castle or town?

There's two different types of settlement you can have in the game. One is a town and the other is a castle. They both have their uses. For instance if you want to make money out of the people inside your town then use a town but if you need to fkeep that region then use a castle as it can be upgraded to a Citadel which will have 3 levels that the enemy has to tackle. Thats what I think anyways.

Good luck on your Campaigns.

[Sumeren]

A tip if playing England is to send a diplomat to marry youre faction heir to a french princess to gain an alliance with france. Control whole Britain wipe out rebels and Scotland and you got a nice platform to lauch attacks were ever you want to. And get longbow men early as possible they will win you most battles for you.

[De Montfort]

The three settlements that England possesses at the start are actually London, Nottingham and Caen.

London is a town, while Caen and Nottingham are Castles.

The rebel held settlements in the British isles are:

York (Town)
Caernarvon (Castle)
Dublin (Town)

York can be captured quickly as it has no wall defences and only a few units of light infantry, and Dublin is similar except it has slightly more and better troops. Caernarvon is a Wooden castle that requires the walls to be breached by catapult, or assailed using ladders. The catapult is the best option as the Welsh have longbows who can decimate your assault siege equipment before it reaches the walls, while the catapult can fire from a safe distance.

[Bombasticus Maximus]

I made a mistake it's not york you start with it's nottingham.

[econ21]

Some pointers from my first VH/VH campaign (on turn 60 so far):

Building strategy

Nottingham and Caen are castles; London is a city. Given the relatively tight early economy, I would be inclined to use extra settlements as cities rather than castles. You can't afford to build more castle troops than you can already get and it costs a lot of money to upgrade your castles to get the better troops that will give you an edge (armoured swords, longbows etc). I let all of the UK, except Nottingham, be towns in order to make money. So far, I am leaving continental settlements be whatever they are - they are a nice mix of cities and castles; and frontline castles are no bad thing.

My build priorities would be gradually upteching Nottingham and other castles to progressively get the best sword and longbow units available. I find missiles to be my war-winning arm against the AI. Swords are necessary because English spears and bills are inferior to the dismounted Feudal Knights and Huscarls that the Danes and others may throw at you. They are also crucial for sieges (as both defenders and attackers).

Aside from that, I would try to build up profitable economic buildings in my towns, using the building browser to see the incremental income (markets often have no effect, so I have delayed them).

I've constructed religious buildings in an effort to deterr the Inquisition but to no great effect. I try to make sure there is a general in a settlement when a religious building is finished, in the hope of getting a rise in piety.

Developing better ships and a decent navy becomes essential: the AI builds fairly large fleets and does blockade your ports.


Early strategy

Preferring to "turtle" for personal - not gameplay - reasons, I would target rebel settlements first, only fighting AI factions who attacked me first.

Taking rebel York probably should be your first move in Britain; Wales second.

On the continent, taking Rennes then Bruges would make sense.

Be aware that both Wales and Bruges have decent garrisons - longbows and Flemish pikemen - so don't expect an easy fight.

The Scots should be passive early on - they have only one province and seem awed by your might. For efficiency, it might be best to conquer them before they have a chance to build. However, personally, I think it is more fun to give them a headstart and I only turned north when they declared war on me.

You should be able to take Rennes just before the French can get it, but will soon got involved in a war with France. The French are not particularly challenging, but I fought a largely defensive war, only slowly taking the city east of Paris (on a mission) and then the capital itself. The Pope slows down your conquests - I just accept his missions and pace myself accordingly.

After taking rebel Bruges, you are likely to encounter a strong Danish presence at Antwerp - in my game, they had eliminated the HRE - and they soon turned on me, leading to a second war. Scotland joined in shortly after.

Once war begins, the first target should be to eliminate the Scots so there is no two front war and you can empty the British Isles of significant troops. The French, being the next closest are the second priority (heading off against Denmark, Spain or elsewhere just overstretches your front). Respecting the Pope's demands to cease fighting will slow down these conquests a lot and probably destroying your standing with the Papacy. One thing I learned was that maintaining a siege can also violate a cease and desist order from the Pope, leading to excommunication.

All bordering factions appear to attack you sooner or later - Milan, Spain and Sicily have all piled in, in my first game - but do not appear an overwhelming threat. As of turn 90, I am now fighting on five fronts: Denmark, Germany (against Milan), France, Italy (against Sicily) and Spain. After wiping out France, I am planning to push down into Italy. Hopefully a southern border with the Papacy will be secure - he will not attack.

From there, I will probably take out Spain and Denmark, as defeating these - like defeating Scotland - will reduce, not expand my front. I may then turn towards the Holy Land to take Jerusalem and pick up the last of the 45 target provinces.

Unit Stats


F= free militia unit
AP = armour piercing
2 HP = two hit points
PC = powerful charge (not sure if that just refers to the 8 charge stat)
Prequisites: C1 = level 1 castle; T5 = level 5 town etc.

Observations:

1. The key unit to work towards is the armoured swordsmen. (Dismounted feudal knights are available a little earlier and essentially the same unit, but with too high an upkeep.) Swords are essential to compete with the heavy infantry of other factions, particularly in siege situations. Upgrading other unit types is less essential: you have no upgraded spears, while the effectiveness of missiles and cavalry arguably relies more on finesse than on unit stats.

2. As stated, the English have only the most basic spears so receiving a cavalry charge is a problem for them. [Rant: this does seem bizarre, as the one thing the Medieval English army excelled at holding off an enemy charge while dismounted.] The stakes of longbowmen could be used to shelter behind in purely defensive battles. However, the AI is reluctant to approach them even with infantry so they are more for channelling attacks than repelling them. It is not clear whether armoured swords can receive a charge better than the basic spearmen - relying on their greater defence to compensate for the lack of spears. If they do, it may be worth dispensing with spears altogether. My experience is that neither does very well and it is more like mutual assured destruction for both the infantry and charging knights. Mercenary spearmen are essentially the same unit as the armoured sergeants available in MP but not SP. They are available in numbers on the continent and are worth considering to take cavalry charges.

3. The polearm units - billmen - have a relatively high AP attack but low defence and no anti-cavalry properties. They are unsuited to take a charge, particularly from cavalry, but are good as flankers even against well armoured enemies. The same comment applies to the polearmed dismounted English knights, although clearly they are far superior to billmen in absolute terms.

4. The English lack any fast cavalry so there is little reason to take hobilars or merchant cavalry. The differences between the core knights are rather marginal - largely incremental upgrades to armour - so there is great need to rush to uptech. In a pinch, your general's bodyguard, with their 2 hit points, can serve as the tip of your spear, if you really need an edge over enemy knights. However, as the upkeep of the core knights is the same, you should uptech when you can. English knights have lower attack than continental Chivalric knights, making the crusading and chapter knights particularly valuable (+3 attack, -2 charge compared to English knights), but they do have a higher upkeep. Demi-lancers do not seem worth bothering with: compared to English knights they trade defence for attack (+3 attack, -4 defence).

5. Archers have a fairly long upgrade tree and it is worth pursuing. However, the gains are rather incremental and plain longbowmen should perform well enough. Only retinue longbowmen should be thrown into a protracted melee - lesser archers will lose too much for it to be worthwhile. Mercenary crossbowmen are worth considering as their ammo lasts longer. But since this is presumably offset by a lower rate of fire, the benefits of this are probably largely psychological.


Battle tactics

My preferred army would be:

1 or 2 generals
2+ mounted knights
3 of the best missiles available + 2 others (e.g. merc crossbowmen for their longlasting ammo)
3-5 spears
3+ dismounted Feudal knights or preferably armoured swordsmen
2+ billmen

I find myself relying on missiles to win field battles. The choice of first target is important.

Often, I would aim for "missile supremacy" - targeting enemy missiles first to avoid return casualties and going to loose formation if enemy missiles are significant. The passive AI bug reinforces this tactic. However, it is slow and enemy missiles in themselves are not the major threats (they don't kill much and they are easy to kill by other means - e.g. your cav).

Whether to target heavy infantry or heavy cavalry depends on your relative strengths. If the enemy has a lot of heavy cavalry (often the French), it may be smart to thin them out first given how poor the English at receiving a cavalry charge. But if they have a lot of heavy infantry (the Danes), these may be the more important target - especially if you are short of swords. Armoured opponents seem more vulnerable to missiles than you might expect but it takes time. A rather passive AI often gives you that time.

The spears and swords would shield my missiles - swords to engage infantry, spears to engage cavalry.

Billmen serve as anti-infantry in the absence of swords. They are also excellent flankers due to their AP weapons and respectable attack. But they have a low defence and cannot take a cavalry charge.

The knights would go for the flanks once the enemy was committed - often driving off any remaining missiles in the enemy's rear first and/or charging already committed enemy knights. Rear charges into a committed enemy line are lethal, while pursuing routing enemy is particularly important in M2TW as they rally faster and more often than in RTW. (Writing this paragraph make me see the virtue in going cavalry-heavy). Just be careful not to let your cavalry get bogged down and then charged by enemy spears or cav. For this reason, I tend to commit them later in the battle - when the main enemy combat units are tied down.


Crusades

Successive Popes hated me - perhaps because of my conquests of Scottish, French and Danish settlements. However, even on VH, they can be easily brought round by a large tribute of florins. I offered 1000 for ten years, they asked for 3000+ for two. After that, I was always in their good books.

A very useful strategy is to declare a crusade on an excommunicated enemy. This gives you access to some crusading units, which are very useful for the English: armoured spearmen and knights that equal continental ones. Moreover, it makes an entire stack free of upkeep. Be aware that the target must be the enemy capital. However, this means that the crusade is likely to be particularly devastating to the enemy. Press the space bar before moving the crusade, so your stack moves slowly. This gives you time to change course to move around roadblocks and so avoid desertion due to making slow progress. There is a cooling off period between calling crusades.

When crusading to Holy Land you have a choice of going by land or by sea. Sea is potentially much faster, however, I suffered mass desertion twice - once going west along northern Spain (perhaps because technically, that was sailing away from the Holy Land); and once when a Moorish boat was blocking the Gibralter straits (thankfully, it moved on). Unfortunately, the Poles took the crusade target just as I was in sight of the Holy Land. A risk of going by sea is that your crusade is destroyed by pirates or enemy fleets (the French fleet in the Med was extremely strong in my game). When I then tried to sail home, but in the Med was targeted by many French ships which seemed to cheat in their ability to find me. My four boats were not enough and I only just landed the remnants of my army at Rhodes[1] before the fleet was anhilated.

Going by land is possible if you press the space bar and take time to avoid your crusade being slowed down by unseen cities and armies on the way. (Tincow reported crusading this way without losing a man.)

A compromise might be marching to the med by foot and then going by boat. You can hire mercenary boats on the coast, but these may not be enough to fend off pirates and enemies. South of France, north Italy or the area formerly known as Yugoslavia might be suitable staging points for this strategy.

[1]It may be smart to set up a base closer to the Holy Land, in order to facilitate future crusades. Crete and Cyprus are possibilities, but taking them will usually entangle you in a war far away. Rebel held Rhodes is a much easier target.

... to be continued...

[Hengist]

Starting Guide to England:

Dificulty: medium/medium

Your have 3 starting Regions, 2 on the British Islands and 1 on the continent.

Caen: Castle
London: City
Nottingham: Castle

Your neighbours, apart from rebels, are Scotland to the north, France to the south and Denmark or HRE to the northeast.

1. Rebels:

Your first goal is to capture as many rebel targets as you can. These should be in Great Britain 1. York (city), then 2. Carnaevon (castle) and then 3. Dublin (city), thereby leaving only Edinburgh (city) and Inverness (castle) to the Scots.

On the continent you should go for Rennes, Antwerp and Brugges (all cities).

To achive this you obviously have to form 2 armies, one based in Nottingham and one based in Caen.

With these rebel settlements captured you have 9 Regions and Borders with Scotland, France and either HRE or Denmark, but in my campaign it was Denmark that captured Hamburg.

Meanwhile some 20 to 30 turns, depending on your speed and success should have passed. Of course you did all the fancy thing like sending out Diplomats and gather trade rights, alliance, changed map infos and explored the world.

I played a religion-heavy approach and build 1 priest per region and religious buildings asap, thereby being high in the popes favor. That should come in handy in the next stage, as we will see.

2. Scotland:

If you wait too long, Scotland and France might repeat history and form an alliance. They did so in my campaign and attacked me simultaneously while I was in the end of Phase 1. My GB army was on its way back to Nottingham to upgrade and my continental army was siegeing Antwerp.

I was able to fend of the French attack and destroy the full-stack Scottish field army. From other posts I got the impression, that the AI always builds exactly 1 strong Scottish army, so once that is defeated, you have some breathing room. Using that, I first took Edinburgh and then Inverness.

Inbetween the pope asked me to cease hostility with the Scots, but I didn’t listen to him and pressed on. Fortunately, the mission I failed was just about loosing standing (the weak version) and not threatening excommunication (the hard one). So the Scots died and I was master of the whole British Islands. The war with France grinded down and I finally was able to make peace with them.

So now you should be in control of all of GB and the channel coast of France and Netherlands. 11 Regions with 4 castles and 7 cities. If you feel like you can convert Inverness and Carnaevon to cities to get more cash. I didn’t do it, but I found them, especially Inverness, to far removed from the battle hotspots. I coulnt bring myself to build troops there and move them down, so you might want to make at least Inverness to a city.

3. The Holy Land:

After some quite turns the pope finally called the first crusade. My advice (to any catholic faction) Take part and win it! Apart from the game fun and satisfaction you get a very nice foothold in the Holy Land and there you can wage wars as much as you want without interference from the pope.

As England getting there might be abit hard, as you certainly have to walk and desertion is a big problem with all the obstacles like mountains, rivers, blocked bridges etc. in the way. I ended up at the gates of Antioch with an all-merc-army, mainly turks. But the city fell and I got nice rewards from the pope.

4. Expansion in Europe and the Holy Land:

a. Holy Land:
Depending on wether it is a city or castle you capture, you should take 1 or 2 more settlements (I took the castle of Aleppo) and then make peace with the Muslims if you can, to rest and secure your base. Spam priests to convert the population rather quickly. This has the nice side effect, that you have will have a lot of candidates for the college of cardinals and you will need it because of b. A nice side effect is, that all these muslim cities are around you and the target of the next crusade is surely close to you. If your timing is right, you can even call crusades on specific targets, shed some Catholics blood and before you get too low to be excommunicated, finish the crusade and be the pops best boy again…..splendid. :)

b. Europe:
You cant expand any further in Europe without fighting fellow Catholics and this is something what the pope doesn’t like at all (even if he is your creature). Your next enemies are probably France and Denmark and as both were high in the popes Favour, I constantly had to watch my standing or delay offensives to not anger the pope too much.

Against France you have one special strategic advantage at this stage: Angers, Paris and Reims all lie close to your regions borders, all with 1 turns march. So what I advice you to do is to load up all 3 with spies and make a blitz attack on the French, capturing all 3 within 2 turns. This way you might even be faster then a papal Mission to stop hostility. Afterwards the French are severely crippled.

Once France and Denmark are conquered the game is pretty much over. You should now have like 30 provinces in Europe, some holdings in the Holy Land, a cardinal college in you Favour (I had 13 of 13 :)) and can conquer the rest at your leisure.


5. Army:

I tried to stay close to history in my army composition, so my armies mostly contained archers, infantry and just some mounted units.

My ideal composition was:

- 8 archers (longbowmen, yeoman archers, companion archers)
- 8 infantry (dismounted knights, dismounted feudal knights, swordsmen)
- 3 cavalry (mailed knights, feudal knights, English knights)
- 1 general

[Emperor of Graal]

For beginners and people on Easy/Easy
starting guide for FIRST TURN (Because I hate Easy)
By now you should know you Start with London,Caen and Nottingham
Get Rufus to stay where he is on the first go (because the council give you a mission to take it on
the next couple of goes,and you get money or units.)!!
Now you build roads in Nottingham and Caen to get trade
That's always good.
The 2 fleets with cogs need to combine together (ALWAYS TO THE ONE CLOSEST TO NORFOLK) or you kinda So be careful,move Aston and Cecile your bishop and princess
onto the fleet and mover fleet to disembark them next to Bruges
Near Rennes you should have a Captain get him to lay siege to Rennes https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/image...s/misc/hmg.gif

Get Robert in Caen to join the captainhttps://forums.totalwar.org/vb/images/smilies/misc/brakelamp.gif

End your go and you have a good start

[Fizz]

2. As stated, the English have only the most basic spears so receiving a cavalry charge is a problem for them. [Rant: this does seem bizarre, as the one thing the Medieval English army excelled at holding off an enemy charge while dismounted.] The stakes of longbowmen could be used to shelter behind in purely defensive battles. However, the AI is reluctant to approach them even with infantry so they are more for channelling attacks than repelling them. It is not clear whether armoured swords can receive a charge better than the basic spearmen - relying on their greater defence to compensate for the lack of spears. If they do, it may be worth dispensing with spears altogether. My experience is that neither does very well and it is more like mutual assured destruction for both the infantry and charging knights. Mercenary spearmen are essentially the same unit as the armoured sergeants available in MP but not SP. They are available in numbers on the continent and are worth considering to take cavalry charges.

3. The polearm units - billmen - have a relatively high AP attack but low defence and no anti-cavalry properties. They are unsuited to take a charge, particularly from cavalry, but are good as flankers even against well armoured enemies. The same comment applies to the polearmed dismounted English knights, although clearly they are far superior to billmen in absolute terms.

There is a lot of talk on the M2TW official boards that this may be a bug. People are writing about how even against incredible odds, cavalry is walking all over billmen and dismounted knights. Combine that with the unit description of billmen that states they're effective against cavalry, and it does seem like it could be a bug.

The thread can be found here:
http://p223.ezboard.com/fshoguntotal...cID=8201.topic

-Fizz

[nameless]

Has it occured to you that Billmen do not...GASP....have anti-cavalry properties?

Billmen for dummies (Two handed swordsmen)
http://p223.ezboard.com/fshoguntotal...cID=8420.topic

[PhilM]

Had the game a week - coulpe of gripes.

As been said earlier, I agree and I've been quite dismayed at the performance of the Billmen dealing with cavalry. The bill was very effective at unhorsing knights in the medieval period, which isn't reflected in the game. I'm generally finding that billmen are pretty poor all round to be honest.

Another question is - Has anyone managed to get Sherwood archers yet? I'm england and controlling half the map and haven't got one city or castle anywhere that can produce them. I haven't checked the population of all of my settlements, but most are on full advancement as far as I can see and many have bottomed out and are at 0% growth when they get up around the 20,000 mark. I'll have conquored the world by the time I manage to produce 1 single unit at this rate.

Princesses don't marry into your faction as often as in Medieval 1 total war - which is a bit annoying. It should be a bit easier to arrange marriages and have 'claims' on rivals lands as a result. The foreign princesses seem to prefer to wander the depths of europe than marring an heir to the most powerful kingdom in europe, even after numerous attempts - yeah right!

The family tree is sometimes a bit wild. Leaving the throne to a distant cousin, rather than a true 'Grandchild' of a monarch. Wish you could set the heir to correct this.

Don't like the naming of kings either. Used to say King William III (for example). Now doesn't mention the roman numerals.

Can't give titles to nobles - which used to be a bit of fun. Creating someone a duke or an earl was great on Medieval 1 total war.

Another last gripe - Mongols are far too powerful and ruin the game a bit. Within about 50 years of appearing, the Egyptians, Turks and Byzantines had been wiped out by them. It's now 1650 and it's basically me against the Mongols. Both with half the map each. I get bored of the mongols. They just have horse archers all the time.


Most of my gripes are minor and don't interfere with the game too much (except the mongol bit), and I have enjoyed the game enormously. I keep feeling this is just the same as Rome though and not enough of the old medieval game was transferred to it.

[BigTex]

Has it occured to you that Billmen do not...GASP....have anti-cavalry properties?

Billmen for dummies (Two handed swordsmen)
http://p223.ezboard.com/fshoguntotal...cID=8420.topic

Billmen and other 2 handed axemen are indeed bugged. When engaging against cavalry they will only attack at the initial charge. After that they cease to attack and just stand around maneuvering to kill but they never will swing. It's a very odd bug, one that's also hard to detect unless to pay close attention. My suggestion is that you take some billmen, varangian guard, have them stand their ground in a custom match against mounted sergeants or militia cavalry. You'll notice that the cavalry suffer horrendous casualties on impact, but after the charge not a single one will die. They are just incapable of attacking cavalry.

They work perfectly fine against infantry. It's just their bugged versus cavalry. Now this for some reason does not apply to zweihanders, dismounted gothic knights, forlorn hope, and other 2 handed sword carrying units. Something tells me that it may be related to the armor piercing stat, or maybe just a reach problem.

If anyone knows of a 2 handed swordsmen with an AP stat would love to see them tested.

[ChewieTobbacca]

To fight France without angering the pope, have France do the attacking (it hurts their reputation with the Pope) and send a diplomat to speak with the Pope and get a good reputation with them.

I once had France attack me, i drove them back. I then sent my best general to outside Paris. They surrounded me with 6 armies (not all full stack) and were defeated, allowing me to take the city. With it taken, the French sent a diplomat to me for peace, as apparently I had destroyed their main military force. In turn, I took Angers and Rheims as compensation.

In fact, I have conquered half of my empire without even fighting much. Denmark once attacked Bruges, and I landed my two full stacked armies next to them. Immediately, they sued for peace and I took Antwerp and Hamburg from them. When I crusaded successfully against Acre, Egypt sued for peace which prompted me to take Aleppo, Damascus, and Jerusalem from them.

I'm on H/H btw.

[Flavius Gonzo]

Here are a few things I've learned on Crusades and the Pope that are useful towards English strategy (my game is H/H).

1) Fighting Catholic factions is tough because you will usually only have 1 turn after you attack before the Pope demands you cease hostilities. The easiest solution is to focus first on all the rebel settlements nearby, but once you run out of nearby rebels, strategy will require more thought.

Be prepared to strike quickly against a Catholic faction in the Pope's favor, and be able to take 1-3 settlements in exactly one turn using seige engines to break down walls and avoid a seige. I've had a lot of success planning out large invasions against the French during "cooling off" periods, and then striking immediately when the ceasefire ends. For example, I took Rheims and Paris in a single turn by building up two separate armies and hiding them in the woods nearby, and when the ceasefire ended immediately taking both settlements in the same turn. The next turn, the Pope will likely call another ceasefire, giving you time to prepare for your next conquest.

You can take out Scotland with a similar 2 army, 1 turn approach: send a force up from York to attack the Scots on your northern border while sending another army from Dublin (or by sea) to beseige Edinburg. The Pope doesn't seem to consider it a hostile act if you have armies in enemy lands, only if they attack.

Another option is to wait for nearby factions to be excomunicated -- it's happened in my game to the HRE and the Danish. I've made defating the French a priority, however, in order to secure a Mediteranian port.

2) These were mentioned already but two huge ways to boost your reputation with the pope are to first, make sure you send an emissary to Rome early to form an alliance with the Papal States, and secondly, to win a Crusade.

3) I had success on my first Crusade by marching to Marseilles and then hiring Mercenary Galleys which I sailed to Antioch. I had some small desertion along the march but the 3 galleys I hired were enough to disuade rebel navies from attacking (or maybe I was just lucky -- move your crusading army at the end of the turn if you want to be safe.) Financially, it was well worth it, not to mention the huge boost it gave to my general. A note on this, however: my crusading general finished his crusade with a huge boost to Chilvary which was great, but had I decided to send a general with an already dreadful reputation, it may have been a waste. My advice is to send someone green. It's a great assignment for an heir apparent with little going on for him. Send spies and priests with your Crusaders too!!

[Dalrogad]

Hi guys - What is H/H?

I had 3 awesome battles last night where I won when significantly outnumbered, 2 of them were siege battles, where they came out of the castle - one of those, I ran a company of cavalry to the square after they had all emptied out, and held it for the 3 mins. Awesome.


I have not had any luck with getting those kind of concessions from other factions in diplomacy... Do you guys keep a diplomat with your army?

Also, I have my spies up to 6-7th level, but my diplomats, who I use just as much, or 1-3rd level. WHat can I do to level my diplomats?

[Nepereta]

played MTW2 for the first time so my tactics probably need fixing a bit.

English M/M

I focused London on a Trade Growth build. Building merchants, farms and merchant structures.
The rest I raised armies and army building structures asap lots of cavalry and archers.

Made trade treaties with the french and scottish and took York and then wales( caonarvon sp?):
Wow
I am amazed out how hard sieges have now become. Managed to take Wales by running one spear through the now unconquerable towers round the back to open the back door.

Then I rushed my cavalry units round the back and took the place over. A messy fight in which lots of spear units where seriously depleted. Due to being stuck on the walls with the tough welsh.

Then onto ireland via the ships I sent round to the welsh coast an easier fight in which I used the street in the town that is a small hill running diagonally accross one corner of the settlement upon this I stuck my archers. At either ends of the street I kept my cav ready to strike the entrance from all angles.

The gallowglasses kept coming for the archers but got pwned by the cav encircling charges for the win.. After finishing off the gallowglasses I then wiped out the 2 archer units which sat in the centre.

Onto scotland I sent most of my armies bar the Caen one (that has done little since the start of the game). I managed to take the scottish in the field outside edingburugh. Using superior cav I managed to kill off both stacks to a man. 6 cavalry units ftw!

The hardest part was aberdeen, this was a stone castle fortified with highlanders and cavalry. I had 2 ballistas which destroyed the gate and proceeded to carefully snipe the highlanders inside.

Its worth mentioning ballista rock in this game, they can a fair number of enemies in one shot and tend to be incredibly accurate.

After this I rushed my infantry into the remnants and drove my cavalry in hard once they'd cleared the gate.

And thats it. I think I could of done more focused builds. The mailed knights unit rocks, I use a mix of nobles and mailed knights for hard strikes and I use hobiliars for routing units which I used to great effect in the edingburough battle. The peasant archers are pretty sucky as are the basic spear units. They tend to hold a line so my cav can ram the enemy from behind.

All that said the new build model means we can recruit large numbers of replacement spears and bows when needed. I tend to use the spears as expendable. In RTW and earlier games expandability wasn't an issue because we could only make one per turn in each settlement.

Now great britain is secure I guess I'll have to carefully consider my next moves.

[hotingzilla]

Archers in MTW2 are much stronger than RTW or its prequel.

I have done tests on custom battle that retinue longbowmen are able to beat heavy infantry,and even heavy knights w/o using stakes.

Archers in this game simply kills 50%+ before the enemy reaches the line and when they reach the bowmen, high attack and defence stats are able to allow them to beat the heaviest cavalry and infantry.

[nameless]

Archers in MTW2 are much stronger than RTW or its prequel.

I have done tests on custom battle that retinue longbowmen are able to beat heavy infantry,and even heavy knights w/o using stakes.

Archers in this game simply kills 50%+ before the enemy reaches the line and when they reach the bowmen, high attack and defence stats are able to allow them to beat the heaviest cavalry and infantry.

I find that the English's best option against cavalry are to use archers and stakes.

It's best to try to have the archers focus on the enemy cavalry and "soften" it up before the lines meet.

[Sir Moody]

My Tactics seem to have differed from everyone else so far -

First steps - I moved all the troops in mainland france to england and then sold caen to the French for 1000 a turn for 10 turns and an alliance

using the Troops that were in england to begin with i take York - using the troops fresh from caen i take Wales (i cant remmber the name of the province) - with the cash coming in from france im turning a tidy profit and iuse this to upgrade London into a trade centre and build Nottingham into a longbow producing castle and mass produce some longbows

using the new longbow equiped forces i split the caen and york armies into one army with the new longbows and march on scotland and take both scotish provinces and then ireland. I spend a few turns building up the new areas and bring nottingham up to the level needed for armoured swordsmen.

using the new armoured swordsmen i take both the Rebel flemish cities and then push south into the excominicated Germans taking one city and then recieving a second in a peace treaty (Ceasfire and trade rights for the city - the germans accpeted) At this point the pope called a crusade against the millanese who had taken a french city in the south - i joined but the papancy beat me too it so i used my failed crusaders to take another milanese city - which was promptly seiged - i destroyed the milanese army and then recieved a ceasefire offer the next turn - i asked for another milanese city in return and was suprised when they agreed - at this point the pope reconciled them and excomunicated germany (again) so my next move was to seize 3 german provinces (2 cities 1 castle) and thats the point im up to

[evilc1]

I have worked the last couple of evenings on getting my start right with England.

I am now @ turn 60-odd and at war with NO-ONE. I am the most advanced and richest nation and I have one of the smallest armies, but I don't need them (yet!).

Here is what I did:

1) Build, build, build up all towns in Great Britain with money-making things and things that encourage growth. Any towns without generals set them to "Growth Build Policy".

2) I DID NOT attack the rebel towns to the east and west of Caen - Caen is the only territory I have on the mainland. In order to get your Council to not give you a mission to take the rebel towns, move an army near them - it does not seem to give you missions to take towns you have generals near.
My line of thinking here is that I want to make my territory easy to defend, and Britain, being an island, is just that.

3) Take all of the British Isles ASAP. I took York, then Caernarvon, then Inverness (was a rebel town, dunno if it is normally scottish), then dublin. I then attacked Scotland in their only remaining town of Edinburgh. (This was @ about turn 20-25). The pope told me to stop. I told the pope to shove it where the sun don't shine - he got over it! (Well he died, so standing got reset, but I was excommunicated at one point but who cares?)

4) Build as few troops as possible. Save your money. Personally I built nothing, but some stuff got built in settlements where I didn't have a general but you can take GB with just the troops you start with if you are sly. Asassins help here. As Scotland is a small nation, it is quite easy to assasinate your way through their family tree!

5) Expand trading as much as possible. I found some really nice amber mines up in the southern tip of sweden, that bit of land at the very top of the map to the east of the UK. The UK has lots of coastline and so open up those trade routes ASAP.

6) Build up your navy ASAP. Leave a bunch of ships in the English Channel (The thin bit of sea between London and the French coast) - these make a "bridge" of sorts that your troops can use to cross easily. You need a bit of a navy to protect your ports and the income they produce.

7) I ignored the call to the crusades, but that is only really because I wanted to play it that way.

8) Do not worry about the french going to war with you. Just make sure you have enough troops in Caen to hold out. They attacked me once or twice but with piddly armies as they had to defend too many cities on the mainland. I NEVER get attacked in the UK so I can afford to put 99% of my troops in Caen. Eventually, as I became the most advanced / richest nation in the world, they came begging for a ceasefire, which I charged them greatly for ;)

As I said, I have gotten to turn 65ish (In two or three evening's play - but I restarted quite a lot until I got the tactic down that I wanted to use), and I have built next to no army producing buildings or armies. However, all of the towns in the UK are mine and are at or nearly at full settlement size with plenty of income. I have no-one attacking me, I can play the game in turn based mode (ie on the world map) almost exclusively without having to resolve battles. That way I am spending all my time and money on ramping up production until I get to a point where I am maxed out and churning out the hardest troops like they were going out of fashion - then, watch out world!

QUESTIONS:
Do you NEED the catholic church? Can I not form the "Church of England" and convert to that? I figure you need a religion else there will be heresy / unrest etc, but I don't want to be the pope's lap dog.

At what point to gunpowder weapons come on the scene? Are my fully ranked up Retinue Archers (Best archers in the game) going to be worthless soon?

Is there a way to upgrade troops from one kind to another or is disbanding the only option? You don't appear to get any money or population from disbanding, so is there any way to get anything back when getting rid of unwanted units?


All in all, love the game to bits.

[Callahan9119]

i like turtling as english and taking the lands on the french coast as a buffer for my island, and like econ said, just do what the pope and the council tells me, i prefer not to war monger and stay pretty peaceful unless attacked

[asurin]

Hi, I'm playing on the default M/M settings.

My basic strategy has been based around the goal of having a solid advantage when the time comes to invade the new world.

As I have heard nothing about how that part of the game works I am proceeding under the assumption that fleets will need to sail across the european map first.

Thus my plan is to capture the western coast of europe and blockade the straits of Gilbitrator with a massive fleet. To do this I shall endevour to annihilate the Scots, french, Dutch, Spanish, Portugese and Moors.

Thus far I have played for 78 Turns, and controll 32 provinces. This gives me the bulk of Western Europe. I have also captured the rebel Island near to the Holy lands.

Thus far I have destroyed the Scots, French and Milanese. I also assisted the Spanish to destroy the Portugese(Too tempting a turget).

My initial moves.
Focus on two front war. English Isles and the Ferench coast.
Built up my forces and immediatly moved north into York. The Forces in Caen immediatly moved north east to capture the two coastal rebel Towns. I then kept these armies inplace at York and Antwerp. I then built two new armies to capture the town west of Caen and West of Notingham.

Then I declaired war on the scots and forced them to fall back into Ireland. The pope threatened excommunication so I arranged a ciecefire.

As I was preparing to move on Bordeax the French Besieged Caen and England entered into a war that has continued is one fashion or another up till the present day.
I did then muster my forces and struck back against the French taking 3 Provinces in total but during this the Scots got the fool notion that they could beat me and declaired war. Appeals for a Ciecefire were in vain So I now was fighting a two front war.

Not that it mattered. I always keep strong standin armies on my borders, or close by in case of need. Then, having earlier rejected the invitation to join my war against the french, the HRE broke our alliance and sided with the scots and the frogs!

Their first move was to take Antwerp, successfully holding it against two counter attacks by strong forces. Mostly this was due to my lack of artillery and the inabillity of spearmen to capture held ramparts, even enmasse.

The problem was solved by teching up to catapults.

I finished off the Scots and began to expand into french territory untill once again I found myself attacked by Millan in the south and by the dutch at Antwerp in the North.

It was during this time I sent a force to join in the first of three Crusades so far. My forces traveled by sea around spain into the Med and on to the holy lands. After taking losses from disertion they landed and marched on Jeruselism only to see the stout stome walls and sigh in disappointment (I didn't sent Catapults with them). So I moved them south and attacked the Castle there. And was swiftly defeated, my King leaving a yellow streak so long that its stench reverberated throughout Chrissendom.

A quich application of "rent an army" fixed the problem of him having lost his and I was set to try again on a different target.
In the end I sailed East and captured the Rebel island I had passed on my way to the Holy Land.

I then decided to bring the fleet, my king, and his daughter back to England. They had scarcely made it back to Italy when the King, his daughter were killed by the Villanous Millanese on the high seas.

Back in Europe I was able to rout the invading armies and moved my forces south and East in two frounts to take two vital HRE Fortresses, Push the French back into Spain and the Milanese back Across the Alps.

Stage Two.

With large areas of Western Europe under my control, I was uble to finally move south into Spain to exterminate the French. (French Popes to date = Two, so the pope hates my Guts). The portugese left a nice unprotected forts next door so I promptly took that too. I also moved west into Millan and via several well fought battles destroyed their millitary might. Constant sabotage my my spy of their Cultural Infastructure eventually leading to their final defeat when their last two provences were lost to rebels.

Stage Three

The Spanish the decide to attack me as well. When will they learn? Again forcing me to fight on multiple fronts. I have just completed the destruction of the Dutch forces between my and Poland, and have started to advance into the HRE once more.

My next moves will be to Exterminate the Duch and HRE. And move South to Conquor Spain, Followed my North Africa.

I plan to stop my advance east at poland but that will depend of wether or not they will hold off attacking me.

And finally, at last, the Pope is ENGLISH!

[nameless]

Ever since patch 1.1, Portgual seems obessed in invading the British Isles no matter what.

I'm not exactly sure what's the best option because ever since then the Spainards, Portugese, and moors rarely touch each other, hence, Portugal is free to do whatever.

Best option of course is to exterminate them but that's difficult without angering the pope and such.

[pianonator]

Difficulty: VH/VH

Well, actually, I think it's VH/VH, but I can't remember. Is there a way to check?

Well, I'm on turn 40 about, and I have 19 provinces. I think it's actually easier to expand on VH/VH than it is on Medium, simply because everybody just attacks you. I formed a marriage alliance with the French, and they betrayed me 4 turns later. They laid seige to Bruges - in revenge, I took Paris, Rheims, and Angers. Then I killed the king, and the pope told me to stop attacking them for a while. This was fine, because they attacked me again later, so I took their last royal town and their king.

As far as the Scottish go, I foolishly let them sit while I took rebel settlements and dealt with the French. Then, they attacked me, so I was forced into some tricky battles. In general, engage (trick them into engaging you) large armies on the field. The enemies are a little more confident and skilled on VH and last longer in a prolonged melee, but it is a lot better than dealing with a huge force in a city. One of my favorite things to do is to win a battle against a huge army, and force them into a city. Then, lay siege to that city. Usually, another huge army led by a noble comes up to save them. Kill the ENTIRE garrison when they sally, and as much of the other army as you can. I wiped out both Scotland and France this way. In one battle against Scotland, I killed their King and Heir and their main force. While one army was engaging them, I sent a small strike force to enter their capital and kill the king - winning the battle was not necessary, but it helped.

France was the first faction I killed, and then Scotland. Right now, I'm in a Pax Anglica of sorts, so I'm using it to build some of the more important buildings I didn't get a chance to build while I was building armies. I currently have the English Isles, the France-ish area, that little town next to Antioch (forget what it's called), and some towns in northern Europe. I'm waiting for the Danish to betray me.

Somebody brought up this point before, and it's a good one. Even if somebody beats you to the first crusade, take one of the rebel towns around the Holy Land and build it into a fortress. You have a huge stack in there already, and probably your faction leader. This is very nice, because new nobles come to age there, so you have the makings of a very nice expansion force. Convert the populace to Catholicism to make the pope like you.

Battles: I'm still working out a Medieval II mindset here, so much of my strategy is leftover from Rome. The trouble is that my spearmen aren't phalanxes. Oh well. Typically, the enemy tries to flank. Not a problem if you have lots of light and heavy cav to chase them off. Then, they're without cavalry, except for the heavy stuff they plan to charge up the middle. This is usually (stupidly) their general. My spearmen typically get pushed, and occasionally rout. Not a bad thing. Then I move my cav back in and squish the center assault. It seldom works out this nicely. Thus far, I've always been on the defense when fighting in the field, so this strategy works nicely. Haven't gotten longbows yet - when do those show up? Also Armoured Swordsmen would be nice. What buildings do I need for them? Also, again, does anyone know how to check the difficulty level in a game?

[mdterp]

campaign: hard Battles: Very Hard

I found it best to start the campaign by completing the missions and conquering the UK.

I then established strong alliances with Spain and the Holy Roman Empire, thus surrounding France with enemies. Use trade rights, map info, and monetary gifts to gain good favor with them.

Using these alliances and my 2 cardinal votes I got my cardinal elected. Note that it is extremely important to watch your cardinal's retinue and characteristics to elect a pope favoring your upcoming plans. The manual explains how to groom your cardinals.

Using the pope and longbowmen France was unable to wage war on me or take my lone continental province of Caen.

Ignore attacking present day France and instead join (or call) a crusade and establish a base in the east. Do your main campaign expansion here. This avoids all the problems with fighting catholics.

I ended my long campaign by conquering the east coast of the mediterranean from the rich Egyptian provinces all the way into the Byzantine's empire. Remember the Mongols will pose an enormous threat in this area so prepare for them.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Everyone seems to be stuck because attacking catholic factions turns the papacy against you. Does anyone else know the diplomacy trick?

Basically, you send a diplomat to rome (or any faction) and offer trade rights, map info, alliance (if it's "generous" or balanced) and then offer as a gift an attack on each nation, one at a time, until your relations are excellent (I prefer perfect with the pope).

At this point, you can also request a crusade, and if you're at "perfect" relations, the pope will instantly accept your suggestion. But this is a side note. This is how to build massive, cost-free armies.

And by the way, as long as you aren't the aggressor, the pope usually excommunicates your enemies. Crusaders take them out.

And if you attack them with perfect papal relations, usually the worst that happens is a slight dip which you can fix again, and you lose points disobeying the pope, not excommunication.

Bascially, with a good princess or a mediocre diplomat, you can manipulate everyone, especially rome, to be your friend. (Although having disastrous reputation can put a damper on your diplomatic effect).

And by the way, your offers can be bogus. Example:

The pope seems to hate muslim factions, especially the turks, for whatever reason.

You can simply offer to strike them, over and over again, in the same diplomacy screen, on the same turn, until relations are perfect again.

I hope I haven't spoiled anyone's fun, but playing as ANY catholic faction is easy, no matter what, using the above trick.

Oh, and P.S:

When you're on a crusade or about to go on one, build up lots of little town militias around all of your generals that are just sitting at home.

Turn ALL your generals (except maybe your faction leader who can sit at home and babysit the home front with his usually high piety/chivalry rating) into crusading forces as quickly as possible, and lay seige to every non catholic city in your path, (one, two turns of seige max) until you have sacked and pillaged (or exterminated those you wish to keep) and bloated yourself on pillaging florins.

When invading factions with differing religions, always convert the town on the first turn with a church, pop out a priest the next turn. Why?

Because even if the town rebels, it will now be catholic. your priest will slowly convert the populace, as will the church, until you wish to reclaim it.

Works well for stubborn Byzantium and Antioch.

Anyone else have hints or tips to share?

[Askthepizzaguy]

Here are the keys to a good economy:

watch how expensive your standing army is. If you own lots of cities, you can usually keep some town milita (or better) troops there for free. Always do so. Free troops are nothing to sneeze at, especially when your empire is FULL of them. Any non-free troops sitting in your cities are usually a waste of money unless they are cheap and you NEED them to maintain order or defense. I usually don't waste time defending anything unless it's really important. I can always reconquer little provinces later.

Make sure you are being cost effecient with your invading/seiging armies. Mercenaries are great for crusades, but only for emergencies otherwise. They are almost always 1.5 times as expensive to maintain as any other troop. On the empire scale, thats a LOT of wasted money.

Make sure you have unblocked ports and roads. I found that sometimes a market doesn't do anything. Glitch?

Castles don't earn squat. Make lots of cities unless you're feeling wimpy or overly aggressive.

look out for invaders and rebels, and corruption. Any army standing in your territory affects your trade.

If your conquests take too much money to maintain and properly staff, let it revolt and then exterminate them again and convert the populace with priests/churches. Less garrison troops means less expenses.

Look at your budget scroll. What's the most expensive stuff? Eliminate it.

You automatically make money. You go bankrupt by spending too much and not upgrading your trade and cities.

I have more suggestions... please message me if youre interested.

AND PS:

Merchants are fine, but only use them when your empire is massive and has expanded far from your capital.

Then what you do is pop out like ten of them and suck up the resources around your furthest big city. Silk, spices, etc very good.

Byzantium is a great place to pop out merchs because of the 4 silks. Antioch is near cotton, sugar, and spices. Russia is surrounded by amber, which is useless unless it's far away.

And buy off little merchants that you see. Save first, and attack. Make sure it's even possible, check both ratings first. You get a bonus for buying a merchant off because you seize their biz and get their money.

Merchants can earn you lots, if they are good, but never as much as sacking cities and being cost effective.

[Askthepizzaguy]

I know merchants kind of suck, but if you use them right you can earn 500/turn with just one.

fancy resources. Distance from capital. Trade rights. Merchant rating.

add them up, and you get a bang.

For example. You're england, and you have trade rights with the egyptians. Now you have 6 merchants sitting near Antioch, each earning about well... 400 a turn?

That's like a FREE CITY.

Conquer far from your capital, towards a trade resource like Zagreb's gold, and plop a merchant there. Make sure you steal from other merchants to build up their rating. And be sure to save first!

save before you hit the turn button with ctrl + s.

quicksave, and then quickload ctrl + l and you can try again if a merchant was stolen during the turn.

[OliverWKim]

I just got the 'World is Round' event and am loading up a ship of units to take the new world by force! I assembled a fleet of 20 gun holks (cost a fortune) so my supremacy over the Atlantic and the Mediterranean is unopposed. I also lost Jerusalem again to rampaging rebels, but then recaptured it with a 25 unit army! However, I probably need to ship more units into the area as the city is in a constant state of riot and discontent, due to its distance from the capital. Does anyone else suffer from the problem of a discontent, revolting Jerusalem?

[gardibolt]

I believe that as was the case in RTW, Jerusalem has a hardcoded unrest factor making it hard to hold onto (which makes some game sense in M2TW, given it's one of the game-winning goals). The Pope took it in my game, lost it to rebellion, and the Timurids moved in and lost it to rebellion twice. I'm going to wait until the Timurids take it and them I'll take it FTW (since there's a full stack of elite rebel troops in it right now---let them and the Timmehs wear each other down first).

Oh, and Oliver, you didn't specify but you can't take Holks to the New World, only Carracks. Just wanted to make sure you knew that. I've taken four of the 6 territories there and I'm wishing that I had brought more spies, merchants and especially cavalry. The Aztecs are tough but they crumble beneath the horsies.