Least attractive regions in M2TW

[Anonymous II]

Hello!

What would you say are the least interesting regions/cities/castles for you in Medieval 2 Total War? I'm thinking on general terms now... because it's obvious that it differs from faction to faction what regions you would want to control.

Are there any regions you have actually never held before?

PS: I'm not counting regions in the New World here...

I've been playing the game pretty much every week for about a year now, and these are the observations I've made from my games:

- There is only one region I've never attacked or owned before, and that is Stettin (I have no idea why it is so, becuause I've played all the factions around the baltic sea several times).

- There are some provinces I very rarely try to include in my empire, and that is Dongola (unless playing as Egypt), Jeddah, Arguin, Bulgar, Mosul, Bagdad and Inverness (though I always take Inverness when playing as Scotland).

I find most of those have no, or little strategic and/or economic importance to me, so I'd rather just leave them there.

- There are some provinces I sometimes choose not to take in order to stay out of trouble: Ajaccio and Cagliari because every faction in the area seems to want them no matter how good relations they have with the owner. Milan, Sicily, France, Moors and Portugal all seems to always land here. I also find Zagreb to be more resource-draining than gaining due to the fact that Hungary, HRE and Venice never seem to be content until they have secured the Croatian capital within their borders. It's a small settlement, and won't be profitable until later in the game (when I might consider taking it). Playing a muslim faction, my experience tells me that holding on to Constantinople, Antioch or Jerusalem in the end will bring me more headache than anything else (due to the crusades obviously). Holding muslim holy cities as a christian nation isn't a problem, because there are so few jihading factions in the game.



Soo... what are your thoughts on this topic?

[PBI]

Zagreb is pretty good IMHO, well worth building up to get the huge mining income. It's also roughly halfway between Vienna and the rich cities of Northern Italy, which makes a good economic axis to expand around.

I agree on Baghdad, it's always miles from your capital whoever your playing and is one of the few map-edge cities with a huge population, which means it needs a huge garrison and is more trouble than it's worth to hold.

Stettin is also pretty worthless, as are most of those tiny wooden castle settlements in eastern Europe; it's a pain playing as Poland, you end up with a huge amount of land but no developed castles.

Oslo is also pretty much pointless to take, poor province, remote location, honeypot for English and Scottish invasions and large garrison of tough troops.

In Britannia, I'd say Castletown (Isle of Man) since you will be constantly invaded by any or all of the five factions.

BC has absolutely loads of worthless provinces, it's important not to waste too much time taking them while your enemies build up reinforcements.

[Privateerkev]

I tend to avoid Antwerp. As the English, it ends up being the very frontier of my continental holdings and Denmark always attacks it.

But I have to defend Baghdad in here. As the English, I always take Baghdad. It has great resources and is big. Plus, it ends up becoming a tripwire. The Mongols and Timurids tend to spawn there in my games. With ballista/cannon towers and stakes, I can hold Baghdad fairly easy. Even if I can't, I can bleed the Mongols/Timurids and stall them enough to get my other armies over there ASAP. That ends up protecting the crown jewels of Outremer which are Jerusalem and Antioch.

And my favorite reason to hold Baghdad is so I can keep a governor there and recruit elephant mercs.

[Anonymous II]

And my favorite reason to hold Baghdad is so I can keep a governor there and recruit elephant mercs.

Nice one!

I actually never have tried Elephants before... I'm a bit turned off by their potential berserk-thingie.

How big are the risks for that compared to the advantages of this sturdy merc.?

Zagreb is pretty good IMHO, well worth building up to get the huge mining income. It's also roughly halfway between Vienna and the rich cities of Northern Italy, which makes a good economic axis to expand around

I agree, but only if you can keep it in the center of your empire. As Privateerkev argued on Antwerp, I have the same problem with Zagreb: it always ends up being a frontier-province. And it's not good at being that, due to the small population, and thus little availability of good militia and defensive walls. At least early on, I find it hard to build it up to become profitable (expensive to defend as a frontier city).

[PrestigeX]

The least attractive places to get for me are...

Inverness - too far from everything.
Oslo - too far from everything.

After that, i'd say it would be all the island provinces such as.. Iraklion and Caligari ..they aren't as usefull to me normally.

Lastly it would have to be the provinces that are far east such as Sarkel.. because they are too far from everything, and unlike the island provinces , you can't use a boat to travel faster

[FactionHeir]

Durazzo. I think it grows even slower than Sarkel.

[JCoyote]

It has to be Fortaleza... it's just never worth the trouble. I've never found anything there that made it worth the effort and garrison required.

Baghdad has potential as a decent city. And as for Mosul and Jedda, I got a tip for you guys, after gunpowder arrives, BUY THEM. Do not conquer, BUY. Trust me, what you'll pay for the cities is an incredible deal for the garrisons you get. Jedda gets you 8 units of Elephants, and Mosul gets you 8 units of Elephant Artie.

If you buy those cities instead of conquering them, you needn't fear the Timurids, you can have toe-to-toe open field slugfests with them. I had fun taking my 8 Elephant units from Jedda over to the Americas to introduce them to the Aztecs. That, and you can recruit both types of Elephants as mercenaries from Mosul, Baghdad, or Jedda. These provinces are tank factories.

Arguin is worth it just so no one else has it. Good merchant fodder, and if it's in rebel or enemy hands you will make less of them than you would if you owned it.

[glyphz]

IF it's hardest to reach... Arguin followed by Bulgar are most unattractive.
IF it's tiny and and a drain as a border, I'd go with Durazzo.
IF it looks land-locked, small, and dull (no resources on map, barely any land trade, just plain gloomy to look at from the screen) i pick Innsbruck

[Privateerkev]

Nice one!

I actually never have tried Elephants before... I'm a bit turned off by their potential berserk-thingie.

How big are the risks for that compared to the advantages of this sturdy merc.?

You can keep your elephants behind your lines so they shoot over your men. Or you can keep them on a far flank so they cause enfillade fire down the enemy army's line. Either way, that tends to protect them from getting attacked. Use your Panzerphaunts as counter-battery fire first. They outrange most artillery so you can destroy the pieces before they start firing at your precious elephaunts.

It has to be Fortaleza... it's just never worth the trouble. I've never found anything there that made it worth the effort and garrison required.

I have to defend Brazil here. I always take an army, send it south to Timbuktu, swing it west to Arquin, and then have it sit there until "world is round" happens. When it does, I sail that army right over to Brazil. You can immediately recruit enough native mercs to garrison the city. Then sail that army north to help with conquering the Aztecs. Brazil has good trade resources and will pay for itself. Florida and Cuba are far more useless than Brazil but I take them anyways.

Baghdad has potential as a decent city. And as for Mosul and Jedda, I got a tip for you guys, after gunpowder arrives, BUY THEM. Do not conquer, BUY. Trust me, what you'll pay for the cities is an incredible deal for the garrisons you get. Jedda gets you 8 units of Elephants, and Mosul gets you 8 units of Elephant Artie.

If you buy those cities instead of conquering them, you needn't fear the Timurids, you can have toe-to-toe open field slugfests with them. I had fun taking my 8 Elephant units from Jedda over to the Americas to introduce them to the Aztecs. That, and you can recruit both types of Elephants as mercenaries from Mosul, Baghdad, or Jedda. These provinces are tank factories.

Arguin is worth it just so no one else has it. Good merchant fodder, and if it's in rebel or enemy hands you will make less of them than you would if you owned it.

I never knew that about buying cities. :D

[JCoyote]

Fortaliza's resources are 1 Timber, 1 Dyes, 1 Iron, 1 Tin, 2 Gold. And no, there isn't a Chocolate, it's just a mirage. For most factions only the Gold are worth putting a Merchant on. Even then, that takes mines set up to get good production. The garrison has to be decent size... it is completely cut off from the rest of the map, help can never get there fast enough. It is the farthest from anything else of any settlement. Decent production on Gold nets around 600-800 each after a Merchant levels up a bit and mines are in, for most factions. So 1600 for the Gold. Putting enough native mercs on to take care of rebel pops... and the initial religious unrest issues... say a dozen... at 155 a turn upkeep each... there goes all the money from the gold and a chunk from the town as well.

Of course you can then build up the town and remove the mercs once you have a militia garrison and the ability to recruit extra as needed. But that's a long way in for anything usable.

I usually just take 4 quality stacks straight to Tenochtitlan. I take enough to do job, head straight to their capitol before starting a fight, then work my way back out. Footholds in the new world take too long to produce anything useful to be worthwhile, better to take what you need, go for the throat of the big dog over there, and hire some local arrow fodder when you arrive.

[St.Jimmy]

It has to be Fortaleza... it's just never worth the trouble. I've never found anything there that made it worth the effort and garrison required.

Baghdad has potential as a decent city. And as for Mosul and Jedda, I got a tip for you guys, after gunpowder arrives, BUY THEM. Do not conquer, BUY. Trust me, what you'll pay for the cities is an incredible deal for the garrisons you get. Jedda gets you 8 units of Elephants, and Mosul gets you 8 units of Elephant Artie.

If you buy those cities instead of conquering them, you needn't fear the Timurids, you can have toe-to-toe open field slugfests with them. I had fun taking my 8 Elephant units from Jedda over to the Americas to introduce them to the Aztecs. That, and you can recruit both types of Elephants as mercenaries from Mosul, Baghdad, or Jedda. These provinces are tank factories.

Arguin is worth it just so no one else has it. Good merchant fodder, and if it's in rebel or enemy hands you will make less of them than you would if you owned it.

At which point do you buy them? Iv only just tried this out and all i got was some sort of cav?
Its way past gunpowder and the mongols own at the min if that makes any difference?

[ArtistofWarfare]

I haven't played a campaign yet (yeah, yeah- I'm taking my sweet time learning the factions and the battle mechanics) but still, I'll reply based off of my MTW map experience and my limited experience of M2TW thus far. That said, I know this will not be a popular opinion:

Northwestern Europe.

1) I think the quality of mercenaries that this region yields are the lowest quality in the entire game world. Sorry- Kerns and the like are just laughable when you see them approaching your army on the battlefield to pepper your front lines

2) No lucrative trade. Not compared to the rest of the world at least. Whether by land, or by sea, I think these are the least lucrative provinces on the map.

3) Weather. At land and sea, it just sucks. Too much snow, too many storms at sea.

4) It's just totally out of the loop. England and northwestern "France" and the western Scandanavian provinces are just so far removed from the most strategically important locations in the game world. Of course, the exception is the new world - but that's so late in the game and so minor compared to Rome, Constantinople or Jerusalem that it really doesn't change the fact.

In RTW and at times even in MTW I liked the strategic opportunity that this region would provide my military on the battlefield. I liked to use cover and hidden units to surprise/ambush the enemy. I don't know about the campaign map yet, but on the battlefield- this does not seem to be the case with me and M2TW. I like open battlefields more...less obstruction, more room for manuevering. So where this region would typically would appeal to me in the past, it has so far failed to do so with M2TW.

All in all, I can't think of any positive this region has going for it. "Defensible" English lands don't really count in my book because let's face it- What major power ever targets the English islands anyway? It might as well be connected to the mainland.

We'll see if my opinion changes in the coming months - but I doubt that it will. Southern Europe is my ideal starting position it seems- with the Holy Lands perhaps becoming a regular target for me.

[coldpolar]

i've always felt florence is a bit pointless. so much less important than all the other italian cities and never becomes very interesting anyway.

[Caliburn]

Durazzo is a gift for the Pope. You can make the Pope very happy when you lift a few sieges from their new settlements.

[Old Geezer]

Paris is surprisingly poor at producing a decent income. If you convert Metz to a city it will shortly surpass Paris in income and not much after that in population. Frankfurt never grows much either; certainly not as much as Vienna. Cairo is amazingly poor at producing florins unless you conquer Dongala and convert it to a city and take Jedda and improve it. Aguin and Bulgar are a waste of time and resources as is Timbuktu unless you need to eliminate the Moors or want to exploit by stacking merchants with a unit on the 2 gold resources there. Caen isn't much unless you convert it to a city; with Angers next door who needs another fortress in the neighborhood? (Same with Bordeaux) Oslo and Inverness are good places to give to the Pope (unless you are the Scots). Alpo (that miserable little town north of Damascus) is such a backwater boondock of a place by the time a western power can take it that it takes until after the Mongols are "history" until it is a large city.

I think Zageb is a great city. It is very strategically located. Lots of factions have it in their "to conquer list" so you can get them to be the aggressor easily and have the fun if you want of defending an assault and destroying the enemy with glee. Zagreb can grow rapidly in population and makes considerable geld. If you recruit merchants there it is a relatively short hop over to the gold mine in the Balkans and to the silk near Constantinople.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Helsinki for every faction besides Russia, Dublin for every faction, Arguin for every faction. Better to have them given to the pope (OR A VASSAL) so that you can get the foreign trade bonus.

I like Dongola because of the resources and ease of getting there, and to boost Cairo. I like the easternmost provinces because those are Mongol battle zones. You're going to end up there evenutally, might as well prepare some defenses!

[RollingWave]

Arguin is pretty solid as long as you don't keep much of a garrison there ( no need to anyway) the resources for merchants are nice. even the pope occasionally pop a few merchants to acquire you :(

It sucks that the port there doesn't work though, so unhistorical. the Moors traded along the west african coast all the time, i think it might have been an unintentional bug . if the port worked their income would be very solid (though they would then require a more reasonable garrison from potential sea strikes

most of the north east stepp is garbage in vinilla.

[Anonymous II]

It sucks that the port there doesn't work though, so unhistorical. the Moors traded along the west african coast all the time, i think it might have been an unintentional bug.

Well, it actually "works", but not until the seafaring carracks are available.

I'm not so sure if it's an "unintentional bug", because, if that port was open from the start, Timbuktu would be too easy to conquer early on without any warfare. This could, off course have been fixed by letting Moors own Arguin, or having Mali as a faction with Timbuktu as capital.

[Pater Familias]

Helsinki for every faction besides Russia

My beloved and most holy Roman emperor sent a small force against the pagan rebels in Helsinki early on and built a modest but capable defensive fort to discourage invaders, as well as a church. Our cadres of Helsinki-trained priests then went out into Orthodox Novgorodian lands and converted them to the One True Faith, quickly turning the priests into cardinals. Between that and donating a couple of troublesome duchies to the Church, Pope Gregor the Corrupt and his eight Imperial cardinals have ruled the Roman throne for over a decade, and I assure you it will be one of Gregor's pupils who next takes the crown of John the Baptist.
And when the Mongols weaken Novgorod from the East (they were first reported about 15 years ago), my invasion force, built up gradually over the years, will have easy access from out of Finland and will be welcomed as brothers in faith by the 80 percent of Novgorod's citizens who are Catholics, undoubtedly chafing under their heretical Orthodox masters. And my Helsinki-based navy in the Gulf of Finland will make sure the Imperial-Novgorodian War doesn't spill onto my home territories. It shouldn't take more than five years to polish them off, I think.
No, Helsinki's a fine little spot, if you're in for the long haul.

[Pater Familias]

I forgot who I was quoting ... of course ATPG doesn't do "long haul." My bad.

[KingKnudthebloodthirsty]

Durazzo is a horrible region. It's basically an empty wasteland with almost no potential. when capturing it, i get no $ for sacking or exterminating it and only 2$ for occupying. Is that a joke??!!?? the only usefulness for durazzo is playing as venice, take the city and give it to the pope as a buffer to protect u from the byzantines. Playing as Sicily, i avoid missions to take durrazo and id always launch an invasion of the byzantines directly from italy rather than via durazzo. Even if the byz take it, i save it for last since without the other wealthy provinces, its just a matter of time till theyfall with only durazzo.

[FactionHeir]

That's what happens if you take it early. Its a 400 people settlement with low farming level.
Let the AI take it and build it up as they get a bonus to growth.

[ReiseReise]

I asked the same question 6 months ago but got some different answers.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=99557

[Lancome]

Definitely I would say Tripoli... sucks at as a dough maker, no settlements near by except Tunis for Reinforcements when Attacked by the Mogols, It doesnt even make A good staging point when you start take the battle to muslims to the east. Might as well end up taking Cyprus.

[Ratwar]

I'm actually really surprised that nobody's mentioned Bern yet. Landlocked castles bordered by 3 other landlocked castles (all of which are in a better position to control the area's choke points) don't rank very highly in my book.

[Sebastian Seth]

The african one between egypt and carthago... It's kind of middle of everyhing but everything around it is better.