Medieval 2: Total War

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I believe horsebreeder guilds are unique to the Muslim factions. I've only got one ever, and it was during my brief playing of Egypt. I'm guessing it's a balancing thing for the Christian factions getting the knight guildhouses, although it is hardly a fair tradeoff, as the only thing a horsebreeder guild gives you is increased recruiting rates of mounted units. While that is a benefit, I usually am not in a position where this is a major restriction - usually the number of units you can recruit per turn is the limiting factor. Of course with a sample size of only one, it could have been just chance that I got it as the Egyptians.

The longer I play as France, the less likely it seems that I'll go back to the game with Poland. Not only do I view the French as having superior units, but I'm actually enjoying this game quite a bit.

I have already eliminated Portugal and Spain, and I'm at war with the Moors, Milan, Denmark, and just recently the HRE. Denmark is down to two cities, and Milan is down to one, although it seems like they are throwing their entire army at Genoa to retake it, so they may soon be back up to two. The HRE empire started a war they cannot finish - I stationed my best army near that border in anticipation of an attack I knew was coming, and now that they started the war, it is retaliation time.

It was rather unusual that I didn't go into this game with a set plan - I started it because I had become annoyed with my game as Poland - but I'm developing one as I'm playing. Now that I know about the five enemy limitation, it does not make sense to completely overrun my current enemies, as I'll just make new ones by advancing eastward, and I'll be constantly on the Pope's bad side. The current plan is to take all the Danish settlements in Scandinavia (check) and then take Ahrus (no check yet). I'll let them keep Hamburg as a buffer. If I lose Genoa, I won't be in any rush to retake it, as Genoa borders on Venetian territory, and Milan with only two cities under their control do not pose any great threat to me.

What I can do is take a few settlements from the HRE. Their western-most settlements only border on me, the Danes, the Milanese, and/or other HRE territories, so taking them won't earn me any other enemies. The HRE is my biggest threat at the moment, so it makes the most sense to take them down a few notches.

So I've decided to carry out conquest of Africa once again. I did that with my game as Spain, and I have discovered that either of the two islands in the Mediterranean (Ajaccio and Caligari (sp?) are pretty good locations to use as your capital. Once western Europe is well developed, those cities don't have a need to be really close to the capital as they typically have lots of structures that improve public order, and decent-sized upkeep-free garrisons. Either of the islands provide a fairly centrally-located capital for the rest of your empire.

Once my immediate neighbors are beaten into submission, I can stop conquest in virtually all of Europe (thereby avoiding any unwanted Papal meddling), and concentrate on African settlements. As an added bonus, African conquests will allow me to make numerous Crusade requests that already fit into my plans for expansion anyway. As I will obviously be closer than anyone else, victory and Papal approval seem assured.

However, owning the Scandinavian settlements will also allow me a launching point if I wish to take any Russian settlements. I'm kind of on the fence with that option, especially with the possibility of the Mongols coming through there again. I have concluded that any fight with the Mongols is going to be on my terms, and will no longer involve attempting to defend cities that I have already made heavy investments into. Losing such settlements is aggrevating, whereas losing junk settlements in the Middle East costs me virtually nothing.

If, however, the Mongols take the more southernly route, then taking a few Russian settlements makes perfect sense - especially if I can avoid sharing a border with Poland. That would require taking Helsinki, Moscow, and points west, and leaving settlments like Riga and Kiev in Russian hands.

[ February 22, 2007, 19:53: Message edited by: Aldeth the Foppish Idiot ]

 

Actually I can confirm that there is no five enemy limit. I have been sneak attacked at least twice by my "allies" when I already had at least five enemies (not counting the Rebels). I was counting on the five enemy limit so I was a little miffed when I got attacked.

 

As was my understanding, not only do the rebels not count (as you are always at war with them), but none of the non-playable factions count either. So the list would expand to include the Mongols, Timurids, Aztecs and Papal States.

Granted I have no means of confirming if the five enemy limit is, in fact, in place. However, the AI typically will not start a war with you if it does not share a border with you. In fact, in my experience, I have never had a faction declare war on me in which we didn't share a common border. Water in between you and the enemy also seems to count as "not bordering" unless the land spaces are so close that you can walk across them without using a ship (like the straits of Gibraltar for example).

So maybe we have to revise the five-enemy limit. Perhaps it's more accurate to say you can be at war with as many factions as you share a border with. Even if this isn't a rule per se, taking an army into a rival faction's territory, even if you are allied with them, is usually considered an act of war. Therefore, if there is no land-based route to another faction without going through some other faction's lands, there effectively isn't going to be a war (I've never seen the AI launch an amphibious assault, even if travel by sea is much shorter than travel by land).

That having been said, how often does your faction share borders with more than five other factions? I'm currently at war with four factions, which also happens to be the number of factions I share a common border with. Technically, I also share a border with the Venetians, but probably not for long. It may be fair to say the best way to prevent numerous simultaneous wars is to limit the number of factions you border upon, while simultaneously preventing your neighbors from holding more than a few territories, and ideally just one or two. That's why the plan with the HRE is to take only a select two or three HRE settlements - enough to limit their military capacity, but not so much as to get me into additional conflicts.

 

You can have more than five enemies:
http://www.forumopolis.com/showpost.php?p=1199774&postcount=217

 

Egad! There are 12 enemies there, 9 of which are playable factions! I wonder if he had shared borders with all of them? Another point that I had not considered - if your city is the target city of a crusade - as is the case in the example linked by Register - then you can obviously be at war with a ton of other factions. That was an obvious fact that I had overlooked. Of the seventeen playable factions, there are only five non-Catholic ones by my count (Byzantines, Russians, Turks, Egyptians and Moors), so right there the possibility of all of them joining the crusade could give you 12 simlutaneous enemies. Add in rebels, Mongols, Timurids, and perhaps the Aztecs and Papal States, and neighboring Islamic factions you share a border with, and you can easily get the number even higher.

 

Of course you can. I currently have more than 5 enemies too (not including the rebels, and discounting the Mongols too, as they're no longer existing), but this is more or less my own fault. I had been bordering the french and venetians for a long time, and only got into a war with the french by my own doing. They had been allied with the moors, and when I picked a naval fight with the moors, they actually got french reinforcements. I told them "Don't do this sh*t, man", but they wouldn't listen and thus I found myself at war with more than the normal 5 enemies.

It will be very interesting to see if I get attacked again once I eliminate the turks and moors in my current game. I've been bordering the venetians for something close to 80 turns, and in fact they are almost hemmed in in Venice, which is bordering to Milan, Bologna and Innsbruck, yet they have not attacked me (yet).

And if you get a crusade called against you... Well, let's say that when in my current game Spain got a crusade called against them, they suddenly, and in a single turn, found themselves at war with every catholic nation still in existance. So the 5 enemy limit hardly seems a hard set limit, but it does seem to have some validity.

 

I was at war with France, Portugal, Egypt, the Moors, and Hungary when my Spanish allies attacked me.

Later on I was at war with Spain, Denmark, Milan, Hungary, Egypt, and the Mongols when France violated a ceasefire.

France has really been amusing me this game. They attacked me. I killed the attackers but didn't attack any French cities. France offered a ceasefire and I asked for a settlement in return. France accepted my terms.

A few turns later France attacked again and we reenacted the entire process including them giving me a settlement in exchange for the ceasefire.

Three turns later they attacked the settlement that they just gave me - they took it without too much trouble as it was almost undefended but that ticked me off so in the round while they were building rams and ladders (I don't know why they bothered - they had catapults and bombards and never even used the silly ram or ladders) I gobbled up two of their settlements. I am now about to zip over and retake the city that they captured.

 

Then perhaps the 5 enemy limit doesn't really exist, and it was merely a coincidence with me and Aldeth. Or perhaps it's just one of the parameters in deciding if they attack or not.

The english are sort of pissing me off at the moment. I had just overcome a plague infestation in freshly conquered Paris, when I find Paris reinfested. Seeing an english spy standing right next to the town of Paris and getting a message pertaining to his discovery, the conclusion is obvious: He was still infected and reinfected Paris while trying to infiltrate. Seeing how I have some fairly elite unit (golden chevrons and such) in Paris, and the nearest other settlement being Innsbruck, so I can't easily retrain them, I've half a mind to take one of the neighbouring english castles (Caen or Angers) to repay the favor. This would mean getting into a war with England and losing my good graces with the pope, so I'm not entirely certain about this. I could care less about the english being another enemy, as they're a potential threat anyway, but I like to have good standings with the pope. In the mean time, a spy fresh from Paris is infecting every english settlement on the continent (which may or may not be every english settlement, as the scots seem to have taken over all of the english isle).

On the other hand, the french may get themselves excommunicated soon, as they're attacking Paris at this moment, and when that happens, I might just decide to connect Paris to the rest of my kingdom by walzing over the three or so french settlements in between.

Annihilating the turks is taking a little longer than expected, as they've taken the rebel settlement to the north of Tblisi as well. They're fervently trying to recapture Tblisi too, but without much success. In their first attack, I managed to cut off their reinforcements by sallying forth at night. Their resistance was pitiful, as I had them routing at the very first cavalry charge. That's 1 unit missile cavalry, 4 catapults, 1 ballista and 2 javalin men units, all routing at the first sign of a charge by all told less than half a stack of chivalric knights, a quarter stack of norman knights and my general's unit. I wonder if the fact that my general had 10 command stars (normally 8, but +3 (!) for fighting at night) and 10 stars in dread had anything to do with how easily they routed.

Interestingly, that general is named 'Guido the Saint'. Whether it's his awesome dread rating, or his non-existant piety rating that made the game decide he was a saint, I don't know. Regardless, the reinforcements of the previous battle are now deciding to attack, and it's becoming a tad annoying, as the army occupying Tblisi was in dire need of retraining, and all this attacking is preventing me from doing so. I'll have to make a point of repaying the favor.

 

This is it. Chivarly gives morale to your troops, but Dread is much better for combat, it lessen the morale of the enemy and they much easily rout in fear.

As for morale for your own troops if you got high dread? Some traits fix that, and high Command makes it easier to keep the morale going.

 

It's truly amazing that you get them to agree to things like this. I remember you saying that this has happened in the past too. Typically, the only time the computer offers me a ceasefire is with unrealistic demands attached. Something like several thousand florins per turn over several turns.

However, the way the computer does calculations is very strange. In my current game, before I actually got into a war with Portugal, I had one of their princesses talk to me and demand 90 florins with the condition "Accept or We Attack". I actually laughed when I saw that - and gave it to them. I mean, 90 florins? Are you kidding? I can't recruit a unit of peasants for 90 florins, but if it makes you feel better, sure you can have 90 florins.

Oh, if you haven't had the joys of playing a maxed out dread general, you don't know what you're missing. I agree with Register that having a high dread rating is usually preferable to having a high chivalry rating. As an added bonus, it's much easier to get a high dread rating than a high chivalry rating. Just execute any and all captives after a battle, and exterminate the populace in every town you take, and your general's dread rating will be getting high in no time.

In my current game as France, I just might have my best king ever. He has 10 in command, 10 in dread, and 8 in authority. Now, I realize that this has just as much to do with luck as it does with skill (espeically as regards authority - I don't think there's anyway to increase that in the game). You also don't have a heck of a lot of control over what modifiers, items or retinue characters your generals pick up, and typically the best general is someone other than your king. It has just worked out that the king has picked up a ton of good traits, and hardly any negative ones.

I may set another personal record soon as well. The king is getting up in years - he's nearly 60 years old. Assuming he dies in the next few turns, I could conceivably have the new king be less than 20 years old. All three of the king's sons are dead. I wasn't stupid enough to lose them in battle, but lost all of them at various points to the wrath of an inquisitor. Actually, it's been a bad game in terms of inqusitors - all told in addition to the king's three sons, I lost two other generals to inquisitors as well. (Such is the problem of playing a faction next to the HRE, which in nearly every game I play is an inquisitor magnet.)

Anyway, the heir apparent is actually the king's grandson, and is just 17 years old. The prince is currently not married (although given how young he is, that isn't particularly surprising - he just "came of age" a few turns ago). Even if he does get married, there is a decent chance that he will not have any kids (at least yet) when the current king dies. He will take the throne, and I have no idea who will be the new heir apparent. Now, I have had games in the past where the king had no children, and the heir then comes from a different branch of the family tree. However, Prince Leroy is currently my youngest family member (well, there are others that are younger, but they have not "come of age" yet). As the game will not designate someone who hasn't come of age yet as the heir, it is quite possible that two rather unusual things take place: 1.) the king may have sons, none of whom will be the heir apparent and 2.) it is more than likely that the heir apparent will be older than the current king. Of course, if the heir is older, it's more than possible that the king outlives him. So, then would the next heir become one of the king's sons (at that point any children he has probably would have come to age) or the old heir's sons?

I didn't do much in my game last night. I did call a crusade to take one of the Danish cities - I wanted the crusade against a Moorish city, but the one I wanted wasn't on the list. I quickly took the Danish city. The only reason I even bothered requesting the crusade was I didn't want the Pope calling one to some far away place I didn't want to go to. Hopefully, the current Pope will die before another Crusade can be called, thus ensuring the excommunicated factions are reconciled, and expanding the crusade targets to more Muslim territories. That does bring up a interesting question - The list of Crusade targets is highly variable, and more often than not, the list excludes many settlements for no apparent reason. Does anyone have any idea why/how the list of eligible cities for a crusade is compiled?

 

Generally speaking I have found that if I ask for a ceasefire then I will not get one but if I have a huge advantage in army strength then the computer will occassionally approach me and ask for a ceasefire. When the computer has asked me for a ceasefire then they will sometimes accept when I propose a counter offer that includes them giving me a settlement that is far away from their capital.

 

Hmmm. That addition is interesting, and also makes sense why I rarely can get a settlement from them. I typically go for slow steady expansion of my empire, and don't jump around to many areas. In fact, in most games you can reach every settlement in my kingdom through land based routes without ever entering another faction's territory along the way (except for settlements on islands of course). Therefore, I probably would never request a far away settlement as compensation, and if I never asked, it figures that they never agreed. Then again, unless your opponent was the conquering faction of a crusade, it is unlikely that the faction will have a settlement far from its capital.

I soon will be able to finalize my gameplan for the French. I got the first notification of the Mongols coming, the one where they say they don't know which direction they are going to head around the Caspian Sea. Which way they decide to go will go a long way into determining my future plans.

If they go south of the Caspian, then I will consider conquest in Russia early on, and let the Turks and Egyptians deal with the Mongols first. Basically, as soon as I'm confident that the Danes are too weak to put up much opposition, I'll go to Russia.

If they go north of the Caspian, I may hold off an invasion of Russia until I find out where the Mongols settle down and attampt to get a crusade called. That would mean taking over most of Aftica in the meantime and eventually taking on the Egyptians. The Russians and possibly the Turks depending on how far they have expanded will have the Mongols to deal with.

Regardless of which happens, the next goal is to begin the invasion of western Africa, with the Moors as my target. The Moors actually conquered Timbuktu, so even if I thought about skipping it, I have to go there now, which means I may as well take a walk over to that other settlement while I'm down there too. This is a game where I can really take my time. I've only used about 1/4 of my turns - I'm on turn 63 or so, and I already have 22 settlements under my control, thanks mostly to an exceptionally good early expansion. This will allow me to be methodical in handling the Danes, Milanese and HRE, with the idea being to keep them weak without eliminating them entirely.

I've been putting some more thought into taking down enemy factions to one settlement and then leaving them alone. At first (like I did to the Milanese), I left them with a city. I felt that stripping them of their ability to field cavalry and the better missile units was my best bet, as they would only have basic infantry and missile units produced in cities to rely upon. What I failed to account for was that cities can also build siege equipment, and because they still have family members, they do have some ability to field cavalry.

So now I'm thinking it may be better to leave an enemy faction with a castle instead. While it is true that castles can produce better military units than a city, a castle doesn't produce nearly as much income, gets no free upkeep units, and as a result, is probably incapable of supporting much of an army of any type. I seriously doubt that a castle takes in enough income to support a full stack army, never mind build structures and maintain a garrison while the army is away. So I may leave the Danes with a castle (specifically Hamburg) instead of a city (which would be Arhus).

 

I guess it depends what you call far. For the French it was the furthest city from their capital at that time but it wasn't off in the middle east or anything like that.

Egypt giving me Jerusalem to end the crusade was a bit of an oddity in that Jerusalem was in the middle of several of their settlements.

The first one that France gave me was Zaragoza when their capital was Paris. The second time around their capital had shifted to Marseilles so I asked for Angers. Both were bordering upon my existing settlements when I asked for them so it wasn't like Jerusalem where I got a colony away from my main empire.

I do have a fair bit of disconnect in my empire though. I have one cluster being the British Isles, Northern France and the former HRE territories. My second cluster is Spain, Portugal and Western Africa. Lastly I have a cluster in the NOrthern Middle East that spanned from Adana to Jerusalem (until the Mongols took it) but now has been reduced to going from Adana to Damascus.

 

I don't really see why you would bother going through all the trouble of leaving a couple of cities in place, just so you don't get into any new wars. Unless you're playing at a difficulty higher than the medium difficulty I'm currently playing at, you'll never need lose a single city. I really couldn't be bothered if I got an enemy more or less, it just gives me a fresh target for further expansion.

I just got a request from the prince of England, if I couldn't see about killing off his old man. Never one to turn down any good paying offer, I decided to check it out. So I send a spy over, only to discover that this particular king is the most paranoid figure ever. Not only does he get a bonus to personal security (or was that public security?) from being the faction leader, he's got the guard dog thing in his retinue, paranoid as a trait, and to top it all off, he's got another whopping +4 to personal security from the morbidly mortal trait. That's +3 (for being faction leader) +2 (guard dog) +3 (paranoid) +4 (morbidly mortal) = +12 to personal security. This will either take a lot of luck, or I'm just not going to bother with it at all.

On another note, I noticed today that the current pope is actually female. I had noticed one of my priests (not even a cardinal at the time, but with a massive piety rating nonetheless) having the secretly female trait, and it looks like she was the one that got promoted to pope! I laughed my ass off at seeing that. Awesomeness incarnate to have the pope being a female.

In other news, I finally got a knife to stick into the moorish faction leader's back, annihilating the moors. I've still to assemble an army to send down to Timbuktu to take over from what the moors left, but I'm feeling inclined to leave that until I've conquered the Iberian peninsula.

Which leads me to a question: Once I've retrained my infantry in Toledo, Valencia will be my next target, but I've no need of another castle on the Iberian peninsula and had planned to turn it into a city. However, a spy of mine discovered that it harbors a Knights of Santiago minor chapter house. Seeing as I don't have any of those, I really want to keep it, so I was wondering if any of you knows if it would survive the transition from fortress to city.

 

I think all chapter houses except the Horsebreeder's guild survive the transition, henkie.

 

Thanks. Having a cavalry producing city would be pretty nifty, so I'll give it a go.

I just requested a crusade with the pope, and got a green light to go for Lisbon. I had actually been hoping for Iconium, as I had a kick ass army standing ready to take it. But as I'd just finished retraining everyone in Toledo, I simply whipped together the biggest army I could find and joined the crusade. The size of this army is severe overkill, as there's currently only two units defending Lisbon, but since every unit gets an experience bonus at the end, I figured I might as well go all out.

The HRE got themselves excommunicated as well by assaulting, and taking, Venice. An excellent opportunity for some aggressive expansion into midlle Europe, and finally get to take over all of northern Italy as well. A hastily assembled army is knocking on Venice's doors as we speak, and even the french attacking Milan can't stop the fun. The fact that the french actually decided to attack my huge city, fully equiped with cannon towers, with a mere four stacks is nigh incomprehensible. Perhaps they figure I'll wait complacently until their other armies arrive to reinforce this army.

Actually, if not for the fact that I'd have to retrain every unit in the city, it might've been interesting to see cannon towers at work in an actual attack, rather than a sally. Plus France would most likely get excommunicated too. I think I'll just sally forth regardless, as I had just trained some artillery units to help break down the walls of Venice, and it would be a shame not to use them for that occassion.

 

The Mongols seem to have started behaving like a normal faction since they actually took over a settlement. However, they let me develop Adana, Antioch and Aleppo too much before attacking them. If they had gone for those cities first instead of picking off my completely undeveloped settlements thay would probably have wiped out my middle eastern cluster but instead I have Ballista towers that think they are cannon towers in Antioch, actual cannon towers in Adana and Aleppo has enough archers that they have managed to wipe out around 40% of the Mongol armies in the first round sally and then torched the Mongol's siege equipment with ease every time the Mongols have attacked.

In a "what the heck were they thinking" moment the French king (and last remaining royal family member) decided to go for a ride with no troops other than his bodyguards and end end up right next to one of my settlements that had a fairly large army. I am currently working on taking over the formerly French rebel settlements.

 

Holy crap it's easy with the HRE. Just finished, and I did with about 20k left in the coffers and being able to take out France, the sixth largest faction by my estimates, within a matter of three our four turns. The year was only 1382 when I finished, so my troops were almost completely Mercenary German Knights, Mercenary Spearmen, Mercenary Pavise Crossbowmen, and General's Bodyguard. In fact, the army that I used to take the final settlement, Antwerp, consisted of those exact units.

Now Poland is my next faction to try. Any tips? Thinking of expanding to the west first, taking everything up to Steufel and Hamburg and then heading north to finish of the Danes before they grow too powerful. After that, I move my army over the Baltic Sea and take out the Russians and then move south to take out Hungary.

The problem with this tactic is that when the Mongols arrive, I'm ****ed. When the Tirumids arrive, I'm ****ed twice over. Thinking of leaving Hungary and Russia alone and just consentrating on the west.

 

I've only 3 more settlements to take, one of which I'm taking this very turn, and it's the year 1356. Aggressive expansion is your friend. I could probably finish it in two or three turns, being mostly limited by the movement speed of my armies, but there's no rush.

The black death is almost over, and once I've trained a few militia units in Lisbon, I'll send my ex-crusading army to Valencia. The final settlement will probably be one of the remaining spanish towns, though I'm going to continue this game, at least until the Timurids attack. I want to see how well I can fend them off.

Not necessarily. If you're not opposed to some cheese, you can simply have your cannon towers tear them apart. Alternately, send 2 to 3 high level assassins their way, preferably well before they reach your lands, and annihilate them that way. The latter is probably the more reliable technique.

 

I don't use assassins, they are not worth the frustrating trouble they give.