Medieval 2: Total War (Cont.)

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Not building castles as Venice seems a tad silly to me. It makes more a bit more sense as Milan, but even with them you should keep a few castles around.

The Venetians can train some truly superior units from their castles, like Venetian Heavy Infantry. These are Venice's signature unit, and they are widely considered one of the best heavy infantry units in the campaign. They have low upkeep, good attack, decent defense and their weapons are effective against armor. Also notable in castles for Venice is Venetian Archers, which have great range and flaming arrows (which Pavise Crossbowmen lack), and can hold their own in melee if need be. You should also be striving to get mounted crossbowmen. While these guys aren't unique to Venice, they are a great help when going up against eastern factions that employ a large number of Horse Archers.

Also, certain key guilds like St. John's Chapter houses (which give you access to the superior Hospitaller Knights) and Swordsmith guilds (which allow you to upgrade melee weapons) are generally only available in castles.

You don't build stables in your castle(s)? Well you're going to miss out on THE BEST light cavalry in the game, Stradiots. They are fast, have good attack, great morale and stamina AND their weapons are effective against armor.

I've actually played Venice twice now, and I've found that even with having 20 - 25 % of my settlements as castles I end up with too much money. Also, you should realize that if you start hording too much money your generals will decide to live extravagantly and begin to drain your coffers. Look out for traits like "royally extravagant" once your florin total goes above 50k at the start of each turn.

Agreed that Venice, like all Italian factions, can train excellent militia, and later, firearm troops, from their cities. But to all but neglect castles is a really bad idea as Venice.

I strongly recommend that you keep castles as part of the equation, or you are really going to cripple your military potential (unless you're looking for a more challenging game, then by all means, go for it).

 

Italian spear militia and pavise crossbow men are literally everything you will ever need. Sure it is nice to vary your armies a bit but it is purely for novelty value. ISMs and PCMs can take out everything from the mongol horde to new world savages.

 

Milan are so easy to win with. The only units you will ever use are available from the start of the game, at dirt cheap prices... and you're always swimming in cash anyway. Taking over mainland Europe is a piece of urine.

I still play this game a bit. England are still my favourite, because Retinue Longbowmen are embarrassingly good. All you really need are a truckload of those, 6-8 units of heavy cavalry and a few units of shock infantry.. all expensive troops, so the English campaign demands you spend time building your empire up first.. just how I like it .

Currently got one going as the Spanish. I've been struggling for the past 25-30 turns trying to keep afloat, as I've bitten off a bit more than i can chew. I'm fighting the Moors, the French, Milanese, and the English - and everyone hates me so I can't get ceasefires. I plug one gap with a decent force and get attacked somewhere else. It's mainly those damn Milanese, aggressive little craps. I've attacked too many nations without eliminating them, so they just rebuilt whilst I was busy with someone else. I'll prevail though, all makes for good fun.

Had great defences of Paris though. I got attacked 3 times in the same turn on Paris, and beat them all off without the chance for any reinforcements. they were all battle hardened veterans (loads of shevrons). Defending a castle against great odds is enormous fun.

 

What would be the point of doing this? Is it because you're struggling with money and can't afford to maintain castles? As I mentioned previously, as Venice I quickly end up with way more money than I need, so I'm not understanding why you'd want to play an entire game with nothing but those units (I'm assuming you're exagerating a bit, since I can't imagine that don't also use cavalry and siege units).

I usually end up lowering taxes in my settlements, building ridiculously large navies and lots of expensive units like Broken Lances and Monster Ribaults just to keep my florin count from going too high (and even then, I tend to have too much money).

And well, Stradiots are incredibly awesome for running down enemies... no one can outrun them. Mounted Crossbowmen are also extremely convenient units to have around. Not to mention the cool factor of having plenty of plate clad knights, VHI and VAs.

I dunno... different strokes for different folks, I guess.

--by the way... what's the deal with this whole multiple daily posts in this forum all the sudden? Spooky.

 

I hear you. The Milanese and Sicilians are taking turns in besieging Ajaccio. They've attacked four times by now, the last three times in as many turns. Each time the computer didn't rate my chances highly, and each time I got the enemy to rout. Flaming arrows are your friend.

 

I also build all manner of units when I play as any Italian state but as I said, it is just for the fun of it. It doesnt really get much better than Italian spears and pavise crossbows. Although money is rarely an issue further into the game I enjoy having a limited amount of troops and I especially enjoy having high level ones and seeing as you get ISMs and PCMs so early you can have some nice gold chevroned militians chewing multiple mongol armies to pieces. Also if all else fails, you can build HUGE amounts of these units in no time and field army after army. Generally by the time you can build later era units you have already won and mostly build stuff for the fun of it. If you dont win your game in the first 20-40 turns or so there is something seriously wrong with your strategy. The rest tends to be just a mop up business which is why I sadly have gotten a bit bored.

 

If you are winning long campaigns in as few as 20 turns, my hat's off to you. I think the record in the grand campaign is currently held at 19 turns as HRE. So you've gotten pretty close to that record if you've done it in 20.

That said, I'm not sure why you'd say something is wrong with a person's stategy if they aren't winning the game in 20 - 40 turns. You get like 225 turns to win, LOL. Some like to take it slower. The game can actually be more a challenge if you avoid early growth, and let AI factions grow and tech up.

Based on your boredom comment, perhaps there's a flaw in your stategy of blitzing-- you make the game too easy too quickly.

 

I do fall into the builder mode, and perhaps I spend my "sacking money" on building important structures in my cities. I also like to keep the cities I take (not having luck with that this time around).

I started another game today. At about 90 turns, I have Palermo and Aleppo as my only castles. I'm sitting around 12 to 14 cities, and preparing to retake Corinth and then move on Turkey. I've had trouble holding Tunis, Corinth and Thessalonica due to rebellions, and had but lost Antioch.

Get this, I get my crusade army to Antioch, but the turn before I can assault the walls, the prince in charge dies. I take the city so I don't lose the army, but I don't get credit for a successful crusade. Then I lose it to rebels, take Aleppo, and when the next crusade comes through, I'm one turn away from the walls when France takes it. Not my game for crusades. I do have troops in Aleppo and Damascus, and next crusade, I'll send a fresh force to move into the region.

 

I don't think he is saying that he takes over 45 settlements in 20-40 turns but rather by that number of turns he has managed to position himself so that it is nearly impossible to lose.

Personally I tend to find that the Total War series does work that way. Once you have obtained a certain number of settlements and have a decent economic base you tend to pretty much steamroll the opposition. Sure you might have the occasional minor setback and lose a settlement or two but there is almost no way that you are going to lose the campaign.

In my current game it was pretty guaranteed that I was going to win the campaign when I blitzed Milan's non-Italian settlements. I probably only had 12 settlements at that time but my position was rock solid and my neighbours were too weak to be able to do anything to stop me.

Really the only challenge left at that point was the need to take Jerusalem from the Mongols. I have not actually done that yet and the Mongols seem to have taken over a large chunk of the middle east but I have 35 settlements now, most of which are set up very strong economically. As such I can bury the Mongols in a flood of soldiers whenever I feel like it. Regardless of having a nice horde and awesome generals to start with there is no way that in the long run their eight settlements can stand against my 35.

 

Indeed JSBB, you set up your core provinces, build up your economy fight your first wars which tend to be the only ones even remotely challenging and it is just about getting your 45 settlements. Even getting Jerusalem from the Mongols isnt very hard as you dont need to keep it, get 44 settlements and then send a fleet to Jerusalem, take it as the AI sucks at garrisoning and you have won. Most of the time I RP quite strongly though and play as a "real" ruler would and not only someone who know how to exploit the game mechanics to his own advantage.

 

Okay then, by that definition of "winning" I guess I'd have to say that I generally win by turn 1

With very few exceptions, M2 just isn't that hard of a game. Even in Kingdoms, where several of the factions are designed to be much more challenging, I've kind of breezed through. I will concede that the that the early turns (say turns 1 - 10, maybe 15) tend to be somewhat more difficult than anything in the grand campaign.

Take England in the Britannia campaign as an example. They start with a large number of provinces spread across mainland England and Ireland, and are arguably stretched way too thin. In Ireland, public order is very challenging to maintain because Irish culture dominates all your settlements. So you really start out in a lot of trouble-- you're a big unwieldy empire that everyone else seems to want a piece of.

Most users recommend abandoning Ireland entirely because it's "not worth it" to maintain. I say, those users must have been doing something wrong . When I played on H/VH, I never lost a single province (even the ones that are usually lost to rebellion I managed to hang onto by making some tactical decisions to boost public order as much as humanly possible. I had some rioting early on, but I soon used the iron hand of the english to squelch such foolish activities. Within around 15 turns Wales was reduced to 1 province, and within 20 turns Ireland was also reduced to 1 (which I decided to let them hang onto for a while). Those 15 -20 turns were the most challenging of the campaign, and then it got much easier from there. Abandon Ireland. Pfaw!

In the grand campaign the Mongols and Timurids (and to some extent, the Aztecs) are about the only truly challenging Aspects of the game. And by the time you encounter those factions, your foothold in the world will be unbreakable, even if you do lose a few provinces.

What might be fun is to play a campaign where you don't expand at all for the first 30 - 50 turns. Perhaps you could roleplay that your starting king is a pacifist, and refuses to order an attack against another human (he'll defend if need be). And that Pacifism stays until that King dies, and his much more abitious son takes the throne. That would mean that a good ways into the game, you would have only around 3 or so provinces (depending on the faction you play). Now when you wish to expand, YOU will be the underdog rather than the AI. I'm betting things would play out rather differently, or it least, it would a dramatic change of pace.

If only I had more free time....

 

I find that maintainance flatlines my economy when keeping sufficient troops to prevent revolt even. Maybe I need to mix in stuff like Town watch and the like in addition to the economic stuff like markets...

 

You're doing something wrong somewhere. If you have loads of order buildings, you don't need much garrison. My average garrison consists of 2 units of peasants, or town militia. Nothing else. My good troops are usually engaged in battle somewhere.

You should look at the settlement details window, to see what is bringing income/order down (they are usually one in the same), and correct it. IE.. religious issue, get some priests in there. Garrison issue, buy a few more peasants in there.

 

Gnarff, one of the most important things is to not buy any troops at all for the first ten turns or so. Nada, zip, zilch the troops you start with are enough for all your needs in the beginning and will alone strain your finances. Also, any economy can flatline, if it does it means you have lots of soldiers. Use them, grab a couple of provinces or just disband a few your economy do recover. I once demanded and got Jerusalem from the Egyptians in a cease fire and with the city I got 10 units of turkomans, this was reasonably early in hte campaign but those mercenaries were the death of my economy and I just couldnt disband them. They were rather useful when I had finally gotten them to Europe.

 

AND

I don't even put that much effort into it. If I don't play a faction that is directly confronted by the Mongols, I tend to not bother fighting the Mongols at all. If I'm playing any faction from western or central Europe, I get my 44 settlements, and then I send a diplomat over to the Mongols and buy Jerusalem for the sum of around 50,000 florins.

Absolutely you need to do this. Having high order will allow you to have a high tax rate, which will bring in more income than building economic structures will ever allow. In fact, building structures that improve public happiness can also be a better investment in the early going than building markets. My strategy is always to keep public order and happiness up high enough that I can maintain a "high" or "very high" tax rate, and then work on the economic structures.

The final piece of advice I can give you is always train the free militia units. All of your towns will get some number of zero upkeep militia units, but all units, regardless of whether or not you need to pay upkeep for them, improve public order. So it's foolish to not always miantain the maximum number of free upkeep units in all of your cities.

 

Yeah, Gnarf, agreed. You NEED to build structures that improve public order. This question is like asking whether one should eat if they are hungry. If public order is bad, and you have structures you can build that will improve it, spending the next 6 turns to uprade to a great market is NOT your best bet.

Those structures exist for a reason, and you need to build them. Huge cities should have city halls in them, if not a Mayor's Palace. They should have City Watch's, Cathedrals, Tavern's etc.

Also, make sure that you are keeping your religion dominant in your provinces, and leaving some spies garrisoned to kick out any potential enemy spies that might be bring down public order.

You should NOT have big problems with public order, but you have to make smart decisions about what you build. Economy is not the only factor to be considered in this game.

 

Started one as Hungary last night, they're well hard. Allied with Poland, HRE and Venice, so I could move south and take out the Byz. I was surprised how easily I crushed them. Those Hungarian Nobles are the Don.

I've access to dismounted feudal knights and feudal knights now, so guess what my army will be composed of... .

I think I'll hold where I am now, then consider moving into western Europe. I don't want to get caught into a situation where I'm trying to beat the Turks and the Egyptians, then the Venetians or HRE decide to attack.. nothing worse than not being in a position to defend yourself.

 

Thanks for the comments. I'll go into a period of development to stabilize my empire--mind you I will have to deal with the Turks as they won't leave well enough alone...

 

My game as Spain is actually getting kind of interesting, I am up to 40 settlements now and that number will probably hit 44 in a few turns but the Mongolian Empire has been spreading like wildfire. They are up to 22 settlements now - which means that they have pretty much taken over the entire middle east and asia minor. Furthermore, they blockaded one of my ports so we are technically at war. On the one hand I would say that these raw numbers indicate that there will be a pretty good fight coming up but I have an assassin roaming around the middle east and it looks like the Mongolian settlements are barely garrisoned meaning that I can easily land a task force near Jerusalem and take it long before the Mongols can recall their main armies which appear to be in asia minor. Still, I think I will fight this one out to the end rather than just meeting the victory conditions.

 

Has anyone played as the Teutons on the Teutonic Campaign in Kingdoms? Talk about overpowered. Their troops are like tanks. Just steamroller anything in front of them.