beating the game...

[wukie2001]

is it possible to even beat the game, ive been playing the early ages with the danes and i got another saved game with the english. im pretty far ahead but i got no allies and i get attacked almost every turn. ive been able to hold my own atm but is the game beatable without running outta floring/money?

wow am i the only one posting new threads around here or am i the only newb atm?

thx...

[seireikhaan]

Playing as the Danes, eh? Have you made sure to build a large and powerful navy? Controlling the seas is vital. Do that and you can pick your fights much easier than without. Further, if you are expanding into regions that are desolate or far flung, a good ol' viking spam can always be helpful, since they only need a fort and, even in the later stages of the game, can hold their own pretty well.

As for victory, it should be noted that there are actually two kinds. When you possess 2/3 of the provinces on the map, you will receive a message stating that, though you do not have total control, nobody on the map can contest your dominance. This is classified as a "lesser" victory. If you decide to not accept the "lesser" victory, you can attempt to steamroll the rest of the map into submission. Generally, this is more tedious than anything, as by the point in which you control that much territory, nobody can contest your sheer resources. If you reject the "lesser" victory, it should be noted that you will have to then proceed to claim Total Victory, which is every province.

As for a florins problem. Going back to my first point, make sure to have a dominant navy so that you will still be able to make good trade income with anybody who you aren't at war with. However, a good base is to make sure to build farmland in most of your provinces early on in the game, particularly in the very rich provinces such as Flanders or Sweden. To answer the question, yes. It is very possible, once you get the hang of managing an economy and avoiding rebellions. As a general rule, the best way to learn is to keep playing. Practice makes perfect.

[wukie2001]

sounds good ive kept my economy pretty good even though at times its drops like a bad habit...but it pics up after the sea battles.

about rebellions, ive kept them to were i alomst never get them by building certain buildings. i check every 2 turns or so almost every province to see if theres a chance of rebellions popping up, in some it says 0%, then the next yr theres a rebellion, why is this? i figured if u keep them happy/loyal they wont b any, so why is there rebellions? can they happen at any percentage under 100 or so?

[HopAlongBunny]

Ok, so you're building the Inns, Militia, Churches, Town Halls, Border Forts...etc.

How many Priests, Spies, Assassins and Diplomats do you have?

Outside of your holdings Priests are the best eyes you can have; less prone to assassination; makes the pope happy; converts any pagans or moslems in the area before you annex.

Inside your empire; spy spam. At least one spy per region + border forts; keeps enemy agents out, but more is better :) As Danes, I usually designate one region as the CIA/KGB "home". Generally a poor region that you are not worried about building up for econ. or troop prod. This decreases unrest and prevents the AI from using agents to create unrest.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=54932; good info scattered throughout the thread

[Fagar]

If during the calculating end of year something happens that would reduce loyalty to below 100% (ie a flood, famine a disease or an enemy spy finds it way into your province) then a rebellion can be triggered even if you checked and it was above 100% at the beginning of the turn.

A flood for instance can reduce your loyalty by 50% so I like to try to keep my province loyalty at a minimum of 150% that way nearly negating the risk of rebellion.

Also look to building farmlands and infrastrucure that will give your king and title holders loyalty and happiness traits.
As Hop Along said having your own agents is vital too. in seeing what is happenning in the 'world' around you and keeping control of what is happening within your own borders.

Also mate keep the new threads coming it is refreshing to get new topics to post about

[Jxrc]

Regarding rebellion, bear in mind that to avoid a faction resurrection (other than the Pope), you need to keep 120% happiness and not merely 100%. Can save you a lot of trouble late in the game.

[Fagar]

Very true.
You have about what 10 years to mop up the rebels or an heir will return and always always with super teched up troops.
Then you need to keep loyalty above 120% until any unborn heirs that the faction leader had when he was killed would have come of age and had a kingdom to rule.

[Brandy Blue]

Keep in mind that the closer your king is to a province, the higher the loyalty. This means that near the end of the game you get the dreaded bloat effect. Your empire is so big that no matter where your king is, there are bound to be outlying areas far away from him. You can solve that by putting your king in a province with a port and putting your navy all over the place. That way, most provinces are not far away by sea. Its a good idea to make sure that your most developed province has a port, because that is where your heir will teleport to when your king dies.

I wouldn't worry about money troubles too much if I were you. It is quite possible to overspend. So what? Just don't place any more purchase orders for troops or buildings until you have made more money. The point is that as long as you take care of your economy, you can outproduce your enemies.

[Noir]

With a nice rush making full use of everything to the max - game can finish before the high era (1204). If you take the long road - building up and turtling doing trade etc. It ll take probably about the late era since someone will become large enough to challenge you and also you ll have to fight the Mongols.

Its just that you are a new player the game is fully beatable - dont worry you ll get there.

Noir

[LittleGrizzly]

Governors can help alot with your income, its best to find ones with decent acumen and usually a useless unit so it can just garrison the province and avoid getting killed, i always use peasents as my governors and garrison units.

Select a governor with decent acument, prioritise highest acumen for richest provinces, but take into account future trade income as well, as if you expand your navy and aren't at ar with everyone your trade income will usually blitz your farming income.

If you put a governor in before you start building up the province you can usually get a +10% happiness bonus (builder) or a 20% happiness and +1 loyalty (great builder) this helps keeps provinces in line at max taxation, for the farming you can get 10% and 20% bonuses and for trade as well you can get 10% and 20% bonuses. The +10% bonuses are pretty easy to get... the +20% ones don't always happen but i usually get them in in the important provinces....

[wukie2001]

With a nice rush making full use of everything to the max - game can finish before the high era (1204). If you take the long road - building up and turtling doing trade etc. It ll take probably about the late era since someone will become large enough to challenge you and also you ll have to fight the Mongols.

Its just that you are a new player the game is fully beatable - dont worry you ll get there.

Noir

sounds interested, u can rush thru the game? didnt know that, i mean as danes u basically have access to the vikings, are they strgong enough to get thru it? and/or what u mean by "everything to the max"?

[drone]

The Danes can definitely rush the map. Vikings are some of the best infantry available in Early, and with their low build reqs you can spam them like crazy and keep your armies supplied. Pump out longboats to control the seas, rake in the trade, and hit the other factions with coastal strikes.

At the very start, Vikings will really be all you need. After some time passes, you will need a few feudal sergeant units to pin cavalry, some mounted sergeants or horsemen to chase archers and routers, and some royal bodyguards for high impact charges. None of these require high tech provinces. Missiles will be needed only when you start to see horse archers, otherwise they will chew up your slow groundpounders. Have a few catapults following your armies around to smash down castle gates (to avoid the siege times), and peasants to garrison captured lands, and you can burn your way across the map fairly quickly. If you are smart with your attack routes, you can keep your lines short, and you can always use the sea to get around a well fortified border.

[Noir]

Drone answered that very convincingly and wholly but to add to that you can rush with any faction by using mercenaries that are very easily available. Rushing is actually not only feasible but dead easy - it keeps the kings influence high and maximises command stars of generals that make for more rush. In three four years the English say can take out the French and Aragonese. In ten, the French, Aragonese, Spanish and half the HRE. In 20 add the Italians to the list etc.

Its the *easy way* to play the game. I actually prefer by far the *long way* and do not use everything that the game offers to my disposal. What i mean by that? take a look in this thread i noticed;

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=110893

By maxing everything is meant essentially optimising and streamlining production (specialise province production) and using every means available by the game engine. It also means as Drone says maximising conquering efforts. Essentially you wipe out potential rivals before they can challenge you.

There was an iron man rules version of the game between players that required you to build every building in all provinces, prevented you from starting wars with neighbours unless they did first etc. That definitely made the game much better in my book.

Noir

[Fagar]

Wukie;
I recommend to get the most out of MTW don't blitz.

You miss out on the immersion factor and IMHO lose the feel of the game, lose the intrigue and political aspects.
To me MTW is as much about honour, alliances and historical accuracies as anything else.
If you just blitz across the map killing everyone in your path it somehow cheapens the experience. This is extremely easy to do as the Danes, especially in early with the ease with which you can build Huscarles.

Noir spoke about the Iron man rule, I definately recommend a similiar strategy in playing MTW.

[Empirate]

Blitzing is easier with some factions than others, but the reasons differ much.
For example, in Early your Danes have Vikings: obtainable from a fort, cheap, and quite powerful. Those can quickly be produced in almost every province you lay your hands on, meaning even the dreary eastern steppes can become your troop production center if necessary.
Similar factions with one high-powered unit in Early are the Almohads (Almohad Urban Militia is easily recruitable Feudal Men-at-Arms) and the Italians (Italian Light Infantry is Order Foot obtainable from every province!).
The Hungarians and Turks have the ability to quickly gobble up highly developed provinces by "checking" out their neighbours: attacking a province containing the enemy king with superior force. The AI will retreat fully and leave no castle garrison, increasing the chances of you taking it intact and shortening the time to victory. After the Hungarians have Venice, Milan and Genoa, and after the Turks have everything down to Egypt (ransoming the Sultan up to three times in the process!), they're already regional superpowers.
The Russians have large swathes of rebel land to take. Druzhina cavalry (in their dismounted form of 60 Feudal Foot Knights) will crush all opposition in early. If you manage things right, the Mongol Invasion will never happen.
The English can rush the French, and the French can rush the English, it all depends on the first few small-scale battles, which a Human player has no trouble of winning. After clearing out the respective other, both factions are in an extremely strong position to overrun the center of Europe.

Other factions are not so good to rush with, however. For example, the Sicilians have it much easier just sitting back and relaxing (after taking Naples from the Byz and auto-ceasefiring, of course). From just three provinces (which are, incidentally, almost impossible to take for any other faction), they can make 9,000 fl a turn after buildup. You really have no reason to rush - and from your geostrategic position, rushing is also quite difficult.
The Byzantines have a huge empire when the Early game starts, but rushing is difficult for them, as most provinces have next to no infrastructure, and your many neighbours are quite aggressive. Expect to lose some territory before taking new provinces. A little buildup is also necessary for almost all of your better units - can't conquer the map with Slav Warriors.
The Germans have similar problems to the Byzantines. But if they manage to quickly destroy a neighbouring faction (say, the Poles or the Danes), that's one less front to worry about. Over time, as you grow secure in more directions, you can get the steamroll starting. Still, it's one of the most difficult factions to play, regardless of starting date.
The Aragonese are probably the worst off in any period. They simply have next to nothing to work with. You almost have to wait until a few heirs have matured (for the Royal Knights), then pounce on whoever loses the Spain-Almohad struggle, or the French-English struggle, doesn't matter which. Even after conquering two or three other provinces, your neighbours are probably still stronger than you, and your economy will be meager, meaning you must pick your targets carefully and opportunistically. That's not a good base for a rush.

So you see, with some factions rushing is quite easy (Danes actually among them), while with others, it gets exciting. Don't expect a rushing game to give you as mush satisfaction as a longer, "well-played" game. But the pure intensity of a blitz can make it worthwhile from time to time!

[Noir]

Nice mini-guide,
some innaccuracies from my point of view;

1. AUM are more similar to Chivalric men at arms than feudal men at arms - essentially a high era unit given with low requirements in early.

2. The Byzantines are perfect for Blitzing - their borders are clearly defined and before long you can wipe out the Turks and the Egyptians and find yourself safe with Egypt-georgia-constantinople after which you can move through Mahreb to Iberia or take out the Huns and Poles and slice the map in two.

The only faction that is actually hard to blitz with are the Germans since they have too many neighbours and concentrating on one quickly tempts the others. The fact that all their neighbours are catholics doesnt help either.

Noir

[Geezer57]

1. AUM are more similar to Chivalric men at arms than feudal men at arms -

FMAA: 3/3/2/3/2 Elite Unit Cost 175 Florins (Charge/Attack/Def/Armor/Morale)
AUM: 3/3/3/4/2 Non-Elite Cost 200 Florins
CMAA: 3/4/3/4/4 Elite Unit Cost 250 Florins

AUM are somewhere in the middle between the two MAA - you be the judge which to which they're closer.

[Trapped in Samsara]

Hi

I don't disagree with anything Empirate et al have said in their last few posts, but I just want to point out that if rushing is taken too far, too quickly, such that insufficient garrisoning / lack of 'happiness buildings' occur, etc., you'll quickly find out that your new subjects may not be very happy under your rule.

The AI factions regularly fall victim to their own landgrab lust, overreaching themselves and overstretching their resources, and then imploding as rebellions and re-appearences kick in.

Regards
VGB

[caravel]

Correct. In order to blitz successfuly you have to priotitise the massed construction of happy buildings and train of spies. Otherwise once you get to around 60% your empire will dissolve into rebellion.

Personally I hate blitzing, spamming and razing as they ruin the game. You will soon become bored of blitzed campaigns but if you play the game with some self imposed rules and turtle then it will outlive your expectations of it.

FMAA: 3/3/2/3/2 Elite Unit Cost 175 Florins (Charge/Attack/Def/Armor/Morale)
AUM: 3/3/3/4/2 Non-Elite Cost 200 Florins
CMAA: 3/4/3/4/4 Elite Unit Cost 250 Florins

AUM are somewhere in the middle between the two MAA - you be the judge which to which they're closer.

AUM are closer in performance to CMAA, this is due to the armour and defence stats alone, plus the large shield. Morale is a factor but a decent general or other morale upgrading buildings can compensate for this. As a whole AUM are real killers.

[drone]

Correct. In order to blitz successfuly you have to priotitise the massed construction of happy buildings and train of spies. Otherwise once you get to around 60% your empire will dissolve into rebellion.

This is one reason why the Danes can do it better than most. They don't need to waste time with military buildings to get a really good front line unit, they can focus on social infrastructure as they cut a swath. It a shame the AI can never really run the Danes well.

I don't like a pure rush either, but I will be pretty aggressive to create a better strategic situation. Minimizing borders, crippling a potential threat, increasing income. Generally as a smaller faction you have to make some quick moves or else bankruptcy is in your future. Larger factions have more exposure early on, and a rush can leave you vulnerable.

[caravel]

Indeed as the Danes you can concentrate on such buildings and on those buildings that improve morale as well as on armour and weapon upgrades where possible. This gives you a force that can still compete well into the high era. A campaign as the Danes can be a blast, though it's a good idea to set yourself a rule to avoid the VI units. Once you start churning out Huscarles, the campaign get's boring.

[drone]

I rarely build any of the VI units aside from Huscarles and Horsemen. Carls aren't as good as FMAAs and can't be maintained once High comes around. Landsmenn are a little better than Vikings, but not by much and again you essentially lose them in High and can't build them outside Scandinavia anyway.

I have a weird psychological hangup with Huscarles. I know they are good, but I also know that I lose them in High so I will hoard them. I'll pump them out from Sweden with upgrades, but then I tend to use them sparingly. Can't waste a single one, might need them later! They are my precioussss.

Huscarles should probably be a 2 turn build.

[Fagar]

I have a weird psychological hangup with Huscarles. I know they are good, but I also know that I lose them in High so I will hoard them. I'll pump them out from Sweden with upgrades, but then I tend to use them sparingly. Can't waste a single one, might need them later! They are my precioussss.

Huscarles should probably be a 2 turn build.

I am exactly the same with Huscarles.
They are so deadly and can be dominant right up till the end, the problem is building enough of them.
I normally pump them out of as quick as possible but then find I don't rush them into battle, I don't use them in castle assaults and I move them out of provinces were I am siegeing...Basically not doing all the things they are best at...Drives me crazy

I agree probably should be a build time of 2 years.
If Varangian guard are then Huscarles certainly should be as well.

[wukie2001]

Huscarles? what are this units, i searched and the requirements for this are armor and sword smith, thats the maxed upgraded type or what cause i upgraded most of them and cant seem to find/know were/who the Huscarles are... is there another name for them?

or am i wrong?

[caravel]

Which version of MTW do you have?

[wukie2001]

Which version of MTW do you have?

regular, MTW not VI...

is that what u asking....

[caravel]

regular, MTW not VI...

is that what u asking....

Then I'm afraid Huscarles are not in your version of the game. I suggest you pick up the VI expansion as it will open up many new possibilities for the vanilla game itself and with respect to the various mods available such as SW, XL, BKB etc.

-Edit: If you're going to continue using MTW V1.x then ensure you install the V1.1 patch. The version number appears in the top right hand corner of the main menu screen.

[wukie2001]

Then I'm afraid Huscarles are not in your version of the game. I suggest you pick up the VI expansion as it will open up many new possibilities for the vanilla game itself and with respect to the various mods available such as SW, XL, BKB etc.

-Edit: If you're going to continue using MTW V1.x then ensure you install the V1.1 patch. The version number appears in the top right hand corner of the main menu screen.

well i do have that patch....is there another name for the Husclars....

how many upgrades on the armor and sword do u have to do to get them in the VI....

[caravel]

I mentioned the patch only because the original release has some bugs and issues.

The Viking Huscarles are only available in VI and are not known by any other name. I cannot remember their requirements offhand because I've played a modified version of the game for so long.

[drone]

With the VI expansion, to build Huscarles you need an Armourer and a Swordsmith in Denmark, Sweden, or Norway to build. They can only be built in the Early era.