Total War Discussion

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The Milanese will attack you when you don't want them to. They are devious little gits.

 

Devious is exactly the right word. With the HRE, at least you know they're going to screw you over - usually sooner rather than later. The Milanese will play nice for a long time, lull you into a false sense of security, and then break their alliance. It is for exactly that reason that I haven't taken more from the French. There is a line of settlements I'm letting them keep to form a wall between me and the Milanese.

 

Well, they may take a long while to get their good units, but once you get there, the Moors have an excellent selection of units. Their elite castle infantry is the Dismounted Christian Guard and they will make mince meat out of any other heavy infantry. And since the description mentions only the late game units, it seems off to me. Their mid-game units are definitely sub-par, though. And you're definitely right about them being an urban faction, but I think I mentioned that point often enough throughout the last few pages

They do have halfway decent spearmen, the Dismounted Arab Cavalry. Their stats are pretty much the same as the Sergeant Spearmen you might get with other factions. They're nothing special and you get them later than you would get similar units with other factions, if I recall correctly, but still, they're there.

The Moors don't get musketeers, they're stuck with arquebusiers who lack the range of musketeers. I pretty much ignore most gunpowder infantry, except for the musketeers. The other gunpowder infantry will just get a trashing from most other ranged units due to their lack of armour and lack of range.

While I will not argue that the Mamluk Archers are a bad unit, especially not if you can recruit them from the beginning of the game, they're not that special either. I've posted stats for the Hungarian Nobles and Polish Nobles here before, both of which have better stats than the Mamluk Archers (also in melee) and can also be recruited from the word go. I just checked quickly, and it seems all of these units can be recruited from just building castle walls - Polish Nobles already from a wooden castle, even. Possibly the other units can be recruited from the wooden castle walls already, but they don't start with one, so I couldn't check.

On some further checks, it appears the Turks can build the Sipahis from the start as well, which have slightly better stats than the Mamluk Archers, but worse traits. They're cheaper too. The Byzantines can build the Vardariotai from castle walls as well, and these units have - aside from better stats in everything - also the fast moving trait.

That being said, Mamluk Archers are still a good unit and none of the western European factions will have an answer to them until quite late game.

The Tabardiyya suffer from the the same thing all of the high AR, low DR units suffer from - that they cannot stand on the front line without back up. The best way to use them is to use them in a flanking strategy, but the problem with flanking with infantry is that it's just too slow to be of much use in many cases. Or at least, that's the only thing I can think of for their use. And as such, they'll never be a big part of your army - at best you'll add them to your armies for the novelty, because they do nothing your cavalry doesn't do better.

The Spanish do have some pretty good units, but I was led to believe that the Conquistadores and Dismounted Conquistadores could only be build in the new world. I've never played them, but that's what I was told by some of the guys on the boards in one of the older M2:TW topics (possibly even by you, Aldeth). You'll find out eventually, I suppose. If they get Sword and Buckler men at the same time as the Sicilians do, they'll only get them at citadel level. They're worse than feudal knights in terms of stats, but are cheaper, so I used them mostly for castle garrison.

Musketeers are definitely an upgrade from arquebusiers, as I've mentioned earlier in this post. In fact, I usually ignore arquebusiers completely, and only use Musketeers if I can get them. The longer range the musketeers get is really a great help in keeping them useful.

[edit]Just noticed that the only difference between arquebusiers and musketeers for the Spanish is the long range missiles trait. Not as big an upgrade as I'd thought, though still worth it. If you really want to play some strong gun powder infantry unit, play Russia and get the Cossack Musketeers. Where most arquebusiers and musketeer units have only 3/6 DR/AR, 14 missile, the Cossack Musketeers get a hefty 9/12, 17 missile. The Portugese have a special gun powder unit too, the Portugese Arquebusier with 13/11, 16 missile. For them, the musketeers are a big step back, actually.

I'd still rate the Cossack musketeers higher, though.[/edit]

With that unit mix, I'd sally forth straight away. Let your cavalry circle around them and attack them in the back over and over again. Depending on the balance in numbers, you could cart out a couple of missile units and back them up with your feudal knights. If they end up closing in for a melee with your units, attack them in the back at that moment with your cavalry and watch them rout.

That would be the easiest option, I'd say. If you feel like you should give them a fair chance, you can let them attack. Plug up wherever they break through/climb over the wall, and send you cavalry units out and around through one of the gates on the sides, then again attack them in the back while they're engaged with your infantry.

Hit first and hit hard, I say. In my current game I emasculated them in maybe two or three turns, taking 3 of their 5 settlements. They never bothered me again.

 

I thought they couldn't be built until the new world was discovered. If it's only in the new world, I cannot see how you could possibly ever get those units. If you need a well developed city or castle to produce them, you'll never have such a city in the new world, as you don't have enough turns left in the game to develop any of the Aztec cities.

Regardless, if they can only be recruited there, the loss is the dismounted conquistadors. The regular mounted ones have the exact same AR/DR as chivalric knights - which most certainly can be built in Europe, their base cost is nearly identical, and their support cost is identical. So they are merely different versions of the same unit. The dismounted ones, however, are one of the best infantry units in the game. Their AR/DR is 16/20. That makes them better than any other infantry unit in the game. (There are other units with 20 defense, but none of them have 16 AR.)

Arquebusiers are useful for when the enemy marches towards you. If you are in a defensive position, they open fire on enemy infantry at close range, and a lot of times, a single volley gets them to rout. What you don't use them for is trading missile fire with enemies. As you said, bows and crossbows have a longer range than the arquebus. That said, they do not make up large portions of my army. In a full stack, I may have 3 or 4 units of them.

Aren't they also mounted? That alone would make them far better.

Nah - they didn't bring any artillery with them. If you're going to walk up with a battering ram and take forever to bash my gates down, I'll gladly let you do it while under a constant rain of missile fire. They lost 30% of their army before I lost a single troop. I routed the army while only taking 15 casualties - I probably lost as many troops in the round they were under siege as I did in the actual battle.

The Milanese are going to be put on the back burner for a while, although they are getting big. They eliminated France. The English are also getting big, and they just laid siege to Angiers. Bastards. On a humorous side note, the round after they did that, I got a "Relations report" and it said "England: Good". How good can they be if they're attacking one of my castles?

I haven't fully decided how I want to operate in that battle, although seeing as how Angiers is already a fortress, it doesn't look good for them (they don't have any artillery either). And the next time I lose a fortress to a besieging army will be first time I ever lose a fortress to a besieging army.

Oh, and Venice blockaded the port of Naples. WTF? They aren't even a convenient target to wage war on. I suppose if I want to sail troops half way across the Mediterranean, or if they're interested in doing so, we can have ourselves a proper war, but really, what's the point there? Still, I'm not thrilled with the way this whole sneak attack thing worked out. The actual attack went fine, but the aftermath left me in a vulnerable position. I'm seriously contemplating a re-start with Spain. I only have a few hours of game time in at this point, so it's not a huge deal.

 

Could be, it does seem kind of retarded to make them available only there. I'm starting to sound like a bad record here, but Dismounted Conquistadores are the only heavy infantry unit that can stand up to the Dismounted Christian Guards from the Moors. They both have 22/16 DR/AR.

I just checked in-game a little bit, cheating to build everything, and didn't get the Conquistadores and Dismounted Conquistadores. You don't need the mounted variant anyway, you get chivalric knights anyway, which have slightly better stats than most chivalric knights - 17/13 DR/AR instead of 16/13 like most others. Conquistadores actually have slightly worse stats than the chivalric knights, with only a 6 charge instead of 8. Which makes them sort of redundant.

As I thought, Sword and Buckler men can only be recruited from citadel level and have worse stats than for instance the dismounted feudal knights with only 19/13 vs 21/13 for the feudal variant and 22/13 for the chivalric variant.

Interestingly, stables and barracks are mostly useless for the Spanish, because they can build feudal and chivalric knights right from the walls of their fortresses and citadels, respectively. Ditto for their dismounted variants.

Their cities are quite interesting as well. Aside from the usual suspects, they have Sword militia that are comparable to the Urban militia of the Moors. Quite decent heavy infantry. From the Plaza del Toro you can also build the Jinetes, which are quite decent javelin wielding cavalry. Later on - I think it was from the large city size - you can build a Military Academy, which allows you to build Tercio Pikemen. Then from huge city onward, you can upgrade this building to Royal Officer's Academy, from which you can also build Gendarmes, a type of heavy cavalry with worse armor than feudal knights, but with a higher charge.

The description suggests that you should also be able to recruit or upgrade gun powder infantry from here, but with just cheating like this I of course couldn't verify this.

Unfortunately, this doesn't happen too often. Half the time they will be content to exchange missile fire, the other half you'll be charged with cavalry before the infantry even arrives. And they don't rout from just the one volley, usually.

Anyway, I usually only supplement my armies with a couple of musketeer units and even then they're not the only missile units in the army. They're a nice addition, but are usually difficult to retrain because the cities you conquer will usually not be large enough to be able to build them in yet, and even then you still need the right barracks upgrade.

Nope, only the Moors and HRE get mounted gun powder units as far as I'm aware (aside from the Timurids, but they're not a playable faction).

That works too, I guess. I usually don't have the patience, though.

I don't know the precise disposition of your troops and the layout of your empire, of course, but usually even poorly defensible position you'll be able to defend from the AI.

 

Well, that sucks. It also doesn't make any sense. I'm sure there are pretty high requirements to build them, so the non-mexico based cities probably can't build them. And none of the Aztec settlements are castles, so they better be able to be constructed in cities. (btw, the Aztecs aren't considered rebel settlements - they have their own flag icon and are powder blue in color).

What's the benefit? Are the uber-cheap (in respect to upkeep)?

I noticed that too - your city garrisons should be quite strong.

 

I just checked if they were available from the normal buildings straight away, which they weren't. But that was only in turn one. It doesn't invalidate what you said earlier that they would become available in this side of the Atlantic once the new world is discovered. That would be more logical. Still, it would be very late in the game before they would become available either way. I was thinking too that it would make sense if you could build them from cities, as otherwise you wouldn't be able to build much of them in the new world.

In the one game in which I went to the new world, the areas of the Aztecs just appeared as rebel. Maybe I'd get a flag on their units or in the battle screen, but not in the world map.

Basically, yes. Sword and Buckler men cost 125 upkeep, dismounted feudal knights and chivalric knights cost 225 per turn. But even if they didn't it wouldn't exactly be unheard of for units to be completely redundant.

I haven't tried it, but I suspect that Tercio Pikemen and Gendarmes don't count as militia. There is a pike militia unit, though, but they're much weaker than the Tercio pikemen. Gendarmes are identical to the Gendarmes the French can build at some point.

I just took Hamburg and Caernarvon in the game with the Moors. Which puts me at 50 settlements at turn 105. The next turn gun powder was finally discovered, so now I should be able to build camel gunners. It appears that the Sudanese gunmen that the Moors get are another special musketeer unit. They're slightly stronger than normal musketeers, but considerably weaker than Cossack musketeers.

In another three turns I should have armies positioned to take another 3 settlements. Dublin - the last settlement to conquer on the British isles, Arhus - to increase trade on the Northsea ports and for aestethic purposes, and Ragusa - the last settlement the Venetians left behind after their faction was destroyed. Ragusa is now occupied with almost a full stack of rebels, which came from various Venetians armies that turned rebel at their end.

 

Speaking of redundancy, the Egyptian castle archery tree is a bit... weird.

Tier one: peasant archers. Seen'em.
Tier two: desert archers, standard Arabian fare. Long range, bonus in desert, good stamina. Nothing stellar, but the extra range and accuracy is appreciated - decent for their tier.
Tier three: nubian archers... 1 point higher in melee combat, long range, lack some of the desert archer bonuses, and are more expensive to raise and keep. WTF?
Tier four: same, nubian archers get +1 XP.

Kind of a letdown, isn't it?

 

Oh, if you need castles or better, you're hosed. That's another 5 turns to access them, and you only have around 50 turns left by the time you get to the Americas.

According to my guide book (which has been proven wrong before) Swordsmen militia are the last unit you get with free upkeep in cities, but still have a rather low cost of 100 even if they aren't in cities. (By way of comparison, regular town militia have a support cost of 125 outside of cities.) But they are hardy troops. I cannot imagine why you wouldn't garrison all your cities with them once they become available, as they are much better militia troops than you get with just about anything else. Hell, you could even bring a few with you in your army to act as the new garrison of a conquered city (while not being a liability to your army).

Terico Pikemen have a support cost of 155, so more expensive than militia and missile units, but considerably less than heavy infantry or cavalry. Gendarmes are among the most expensive upkeep units in the game - 320. Only some of the high end artillery and high end naval vessels go higher. They also aren't that great - their base stats are about the same as mailed knights (same attack, one higher DR). The only benefit is that you can train them in cities, so if you see a big enemy stack move into your territory, you can use your one prep turn to train a few up.

I have a question - you have said in the past that you don't like fielding more than 2 or 3 standing armies at a time. Yet, you hit your target requirement of 45 settlements prior to the 100th turn. With so few conquering armies on the field, how do you take so many settlements? I know I'm rather methodical in my conquests. I always retrain my troops after a battle before moving on to the next target, but it still seems like you expand very quickly.

Yeah, well, this game isn't as balanced as something like Warcraft or Starcraft. There are definitely factions that will have a harder time of it than others. I don't think that it's a coincidence that you're much more likely to have one of the "big 5" factions become your primary competition.

But your Egypt example is in no way unique. Take the Scots. Level 1 cavalry in their castles allow Border Horses (light) and Mailed Knights. Level 2 gives you access to Feudal Knights. Level 3 and beyond gives you... nothing. That is the extent of the cavalry available to the Scots - three units (although to be fair, they can get chapter houses for the Templar Knights, as well as the Knights of St. John. (I find it odd that there is not consistency in the naming convention of Knights of Saint John in the game. I understand that the terms "Knights of Saint John" and "Hospitaller Knights" were used interchangeably, but the chapter houses you get for them are "Knights of Saint John Chapter House", while the units are listed as "Hospitaller Knights".)

Which brings up another interesting point, and I don't know if it's just me, or random luck. We'll exclude the HRE because they can only get Teutonic Knights, as well as Portugal and Spain as they can only get Knights of Santiago. All of the other catholic factions appear to be able to get both Templar and Hospitaller Knights. For whatever reason, I get many, many more offers for Knights of St. Johns Chapter Houses than I do for Templar Knights. In fact, the only time I ever get offered Templar Knight Chapter Houses is when I play France. Despite the historical accuracy of such, it seems beyond the realm of random chance that I only get Knights of St. John Chapter houses as the other catholic factions. It ultimately makes no difference in game play, as the two orders produce knights with identical stats. You can even argue that Knights of St. John Chapter Houses are slightly more valuable, as they give a small health bonus to the city.

In looking up the requirements for gaining guild points, the only thing that gets you points towards getting a Knights of St. John Chapter Houses that doesn't also give points towards a Templar Knight Chapter House is a settlement that shares a border with a Muslim neighbor gets +10 points per turn. This would seem to be a rather small difference. Sure, Spain starts with Muslim neighbors, but they can only get Knights of Santiago Chapter Houses, and no other Catholic faction has such borders at the start of the game. The only thing I can think of is that if you successfully capture a city on your crusade, there's a high chance you'd now have border with a Muslim faction. But that doesn't explain it all either, because the chapter houses are castle-only, and most of the crusades called by the pope to the middle east target cities.

I also think that the HRE and Portugal and Spain are given great advantages in acquiring their chapter houses. First of all, they aren't competing with anyone else for the higher level chapter houses. Only the HRE can get Teutonic Knights, so they have no competition at all, and typically when you play either Portugal or Spain you eliminate the other one pretty early on in the game. Moreover, Portugal and Spain can request crusades against nearby Muslim settlements, which would be part of their expansion plans anyway. The main limiting factor for these factions is getting the castle developed well enough to attract the guild in the first place. You cannot get the basic guild until your castle upgrades to a Fortress, and the master and HQ are only available in castles that have been upgraded to citadels.

 

Actually, that's precisely what I do with the Urban militia of the Moors. Their unit mix is quite different, of course, but I use them to complement the units of Hashashim in my armies. Urban militia has 125 upkeep, though.

Well, it's not so much that I don't like having so many armies, it's just that normally the financial situation doesn't allow me to have many more units. This game is a little different that way in that I have a ton of money so I got to around three armies more quickly than normal.

Another thing is that for all the jihads I like to have full stack armies to make the most of the experience boost. So what happens is that I take a full stack army on a crusade, take the target, then leave behind a couple of units in the newly conquered city and move on the rest to take another few settlements. After several turns, my army is spread out over a couple of cities, then I retrain them and regroup, hopefully in time for the next jihad.

Whenever possible, I try to ferry over militia units from nearby towns, as it usually takes a while before unit production gets up to speed in newly acquired towns.

In the beginning it goes a lot more slowly than later on, partially because you can of course support more armies later on, but also because at some point there is less chance that you will have to keep your army in a city for a while because a big stack from the enemies are stalking around near your borders.

And of course I don't have to deal with the pope, so I can conquer whatever I want, whenever I want.

I'm also curious how you manage your games then, if you retrain after each battle and lay siege to each settlement. It seems to me like that takes a very long time, not only something like 5-9 turns to conquer each settlement, you retrain afterwards as well. I suppose you'll have plenty of time to ferry over some militia from another town so you at least won't have to wait for that also, but it seems rather time consuming.

I don't think I've ever been offered a Templar guild house, and there's not really any benefit to getting one if most of the chapter houses you have are St. John's, because retraining them later would be a pain in the bottocks. And I wouldn't worry too much about getting an HQ before any other faction does. Usually other factions will not get these chapter houses but will rather have a swordsmith's guild instead. I would prefer to quickly get the swordsmith's guild HQ, because that one is actually difficult to get before anyone else does.

 

IIRC the Hospitaller building actually gets you a bonus to public health, does the Templar one give anything except access to the unit?

 

I guess I should clarify both my statements. First, while I have no problem with laying siege to a settlement and waiting them out if they have a big stack in the settlement, it's really silly to do that if you have a much larger force than what is garrisoned. So yeah, if I have a 15+ unit army, and the settlement has less than 10 units inside, I'm probably going to take the walls.

The problem is I really hate battling through the city, and I take many, many more losses than I would on the open field. That brings me to my second tactic. Sometimes, when you lay siege to a city, another enemy army will come up in support. When that happens, I attack the approaching army (which lifts the siege). At that point, the garrison inside the city comes out in support, and provided I win, you get the now empty settlement after the battle.

On retraining units, it really depends. Obviously, if there are no castles around, taking several turns to walk all my units back to the nearest castle is not efficient use of time. On the other hand, if the settlement I took IS a castle, then there's no sense in not spending a couple of turns retraining everything before proceeding on. Also keep in mind that I don't work settlements one at a time. I'll send at least two armies out to take neighboring settlements, and then only one of those settlements needs to be a castle. So the general rule is I take cities with the intention of moving on fairly quickly - just a few turns to build up a small militia garrison. But castles - even if I have no intention of keeping them as a castle - I use for retraining first.

It also works decently if it was a Muslim castle, as you can usually avoid exterminating the populace there. By the time you're done constructing both the small chapel and chapel (and training at least one priest as soon as the small chapel is done), and retraining everything, you've usually converted enough of the population to your religion that you can move out (as soon as you get like 10%-20% converted, it becomes MUCH easier to control the population).

Oh, I'm not saying I would prefer having multiple different crusading knight chapter houses - I just find it odd that I hardly ever see a Templar Chapter House.

So long as you are playing a faction that makes use of sword units, I find that getting swordsmith guilds are rather easy. As I said previously, the limiting factor is typically getting a castle upgraded to citadel to get the Master and HQ guild. If you are playing one of the western European factions, most of your castles will have a base level swordsmith guild around turn 100.

You're right with the Hospitallers - it does give a small, 5% boost to public health. AFAIK, the Templar Chapter Houses give nothing beyond the ability to train Templar Knights. Same thing with the Teutonic Knights, and the Knights of Santiago, although those are far more faction specific than anything. Still a small health bonus is better than the nothing else you get by comparison.

For most factions, the various crusader knight chapter houses are superfluous unless you manage to get them pretty early. Henkie brings up an excellent point that unless you have a lot of them, retaining these units becomes completely impractical. The Scots are the exception, as they have poor cavalry, but most factions can produce cavalry that is as good or better than these knights once they develop castles into citadels. Chivalric knights are superior, and quite a few factions have access to them (Spain, France, Sicily, Denmark, Hungary and possibly others that I'm forgetting). And the factions that don't usually have some other decent, high-end cavalry unit, like English Knights, Polish Knights, Gothic Knights, Familglia Dulcale, etc. Now that I think about it though, the Scots may not be unique - I don't think the Venetians get Chivalric Knights, and I cannot think of any other high-end cavalry unit they have access to either.

I did restart the Spain campaign a couple of days ago, and I like the way this one is working out much better. France keeps getting excommunicated, so I'm expanding that way for the most part, with only one army slowly working their way through the Moors. I do own the entire Iberian Peninsula, and this time I managed to eliminate the Portuguese without getting excommunicated myself. I've taken all of western France all the way up to Rennes, and I've taken Marrakesh and Algiers as well.

 

That's what I usually do too when conquering a castle of a faction with a different religion than mine, to retrain a couple of units while building a chapel or something similar.

On the subject of dealing with the populace of a castle belonging to a faction with a different religion, in my game with the Moors, I took Hamburg and Caernarvon without sacking the settlement, but just occupying it. Interestingly, this led to higher unrest in the castle than I usually see when sacking a settlement.

Probably it's because I usually just retrain units and don't build many new ones, but I usually don't get any offers for swordsmith guilds. In my game with the Moors I managed to get one, but only because I just started building lots of sword wielding units and then disbanding them, just to get points for this guild.

The health boosts from the St John's chapter houses also increases for the master and hq upgrades, ending up at 15%. Not that you'd need it in a castle, but I've noticed that in cities that were originally castles, you can still sometimes be offered a crusader knight chapter house.

If you get the chapter houses when you're still at fortress level, it's definitely an upgrade because you won't get chivalric knights or equivalent until citadel level. According to that list you posted earlier, you would therefore always want a general with at least 4 chivalry stars in the castle where you want to get a chapter house, as this apparently increases the points you need for a chapter house.

I was just looking a bit through when you get which unit for the HRE. According to the custom battle screen, though, the HRE should get Dismounted Gothic Knights and Forlorn Hope as well as the Zweihander as units with two handed swords, but I could get only the Zweihander from the last barrack upgrade and didn't see the other units. Do you know if the other two handed sword units become available later in the game at certain points (I checked while remaining in turn 1)?

 

Well, the Moors are one of the harder factions to get the guild. There's just so few units that are built in castles. You'd pretty much have to do it just as you said: keep building and disbanding just to get the points towards the guild. Don't forget that the armorer series of buildings (for some reason) get you a ton a points. You would think that the mustering hall series would be the one that would give you the points, as they are buildings that, you know, let you build those sword wielding units.

Although some of the guilds have really strange point setups. Like the Mason's Guild. You get bonus points for building stone walls (OK, that makes sense), but you also get bonus points for the armorer series, mustering hall series, and bowyer series. The problem with that is two out of three of those are castle only, and you can only get Mason's Guilds in cities.

And not by a small amount either. According the guide, it's +5 PER TURN. Even with the -1 penalty after turn 25, that's still a net of +4 per turn. What I don't know is this: do the points start accumulating prior to getting a castle upgraded to at least citadel? For example, if I have a governor with 5 chivalry sitting in a castle, do I get those points, or do the points only start once I hit fortress level?

It's been an eon since I played the HRE, but I do seem to recall that all of the two-handed wielding units were relatively late-game. You certainly get dismounted feudal and imperial knights before you get the dismounted gothic knights, zweihanders, or forlorn hope. But I seriously doubt you'd need the last barracks upgrade to see ANY of them. In fact, I thought zweihanders were available from fortress level. Is it possible that one of them is a city-produced unit?

As an aside, IIRC, dismounted imperial knights were worthless. They have a lower attack and defense rating than dismounted feudal knights. They're slightly less expensive to build, but they have the same upkeep, which is the lion's share of the cost of any unit. And you got access to the feudal knights first. I think the only redeeming feature was they had the "good against armor" trait that the feudal knights lacked, but overall, not worth it.

But I'm mystified as to why you aren't seeing those units. They must have a turn limit before they arrive. That's the only explanation. One of the best features of the HRE is that they have above average units in just about every area, although not great units in any area, and there is a rather linear progression in getting access to better and better units throughout the game.

Now that I've got back into this game, it has confirmed what I originally suspected: that the English longbowmen (and the subsequent bowmen after that) are the most overpowered unit in the game. There isn't really anything that retinue longbowmen can't handle.

 

True, but I had the same problem with other factions as well. Basically, if I assume three armies to use for expansion, I will have at most 3-4 sword wielding units - usually something like dismounted feudal knights - per army, so that's actually not a lot of units to produce, especially if you consider that if you didn't know about the swordsmith's guild way of accumulating points you would most likely build them all at different location as well.

I would expect that would count towards the points needed. I know that you do get guilds straight away once you get the proper wall versions, but these cases may be coming from the global point, not the specific settlement points.

On the other hand, if what the guy in that guide says is true, it should be possible to get a swordsmith guild for the Turks by building lots of Hashashim in a city, then turn the city into a castle and then get offered the guild. If this actually works, it would imply that you do accumulate points even if you don't meet the requirements for a specific guild yet.

I checked again last night and you're right, you can get the forlorn hope from cities. Counter-intuitively, you get them from the mayor's palace, not the barracks line of buildings. Although, considering that they should be recruited from prisoners and such, it would make some sort of sense.

Zweihander are citadel only, from the final barracks upgrade. Which is the only way it could work, considering that you get dismounted imperial knights before, and you get them from citadel walls (and strangely, only from citadel walls). Still didn't see the dismounted gothic knights, though.

I agree with you on your assessment of the dismounted imperial knights. They're quite interesting with their armour piercing trait, but in terms of stats are strictly inferior to feudal knights. The HRE is not the only faction where the pinacle of heavy infantry is actually the feudal knight and not the later units - Sicily and, if I recall correctly, Milan get Dismounted Broken Lances who are actually also inferior to feudal knight. Though at least dismounted broken lances get better armour than dismounted imperial knights.

Actually, Zweihander are not that much better either. They don't get the armour piercing trait either (though argueably they should), have poor armor and their AR is only one point above that of feudal knights. And considering that you'll very likely will get forlorn hope far earlier than zweihander, they're pretty much useless anyway as forlorn hope are better in every way.

As such, I don't really agree that the HRE have above average units during most of the game. The only thing could be that you have access to a lot of reasonably good settlements from the word go so you can build these pretty much average units a bit earlier than others.

I actually started a game with the HRE and expanded aggressively. I'm at turn 5 now and have 13 settlements. I took Hamburg, Magdeburg, Breslau, Prague, Bern, Metz and Florence. I don't know which settlements other factions consider 'theirs', but I'm pretty sure I'll be at war with Milan, France, Denmark and Poland in the not too distant future because of all this expanding.

Antwerp and Stettin are still up for grabs, and I would like to get at least Stettin, but my units are stretched very thin and there's a decent garrison in Stettin, so I don't know if I'll be able to get there before the Polish do. Especially because my queues are constantly stalled so I don't really have money to build new units either. The economy is getting better now, though, as the money flow is slowly increasing now with all the extra settlements and the trade agreements coming in.

This game has gone a bit differently than usual, too. When taking Hamburg, the battering ram would constantly get lit on fire by the archers defending the castle and even though I had superior forces, they would all get routed if I sent them up the ladder. So on a whim I decided to autoresolve and it actually went really well. I lost only a fraction of what I would have lost had I tried to take the castle myself.

As long as the enemy doesn't have a wall on which they can park units, I'm usually ok just to take it with battering ram, but if they do, it's actually better to just autoresolve if I have the superior force. I believe I did the same for Prague, which also went reasonably well. Not so good for Magdeburg, as the armies strength was rated about the same, so I had to take that one the hard way. Lost almost half my army and it was a close thing for a while, but in the end I managed to win. I could've waited it out, but I wanted the extra income. And on the upside, at least this army costs less upkeep now.

In Bern it was also a little different than usual, because here the AI felt confident enough to actually sally forth. I was quite happy, because taking the walls would've been a hard thing against their superior forces. As it turned out, the Milanese were also marching on Bern, but it appears the swerved off to the side to take Dijon. That's probably going to put them at odds with the French, so this should be interesting.

I will agree that Longbowmen are pretty powerful by the time you get them, because they have the armour piercing trait (although that really isn't that useful early game, but it makes them useful for a longer period). Statswise, retinue longbowmen are not that special, really. Dismounted Dvor are strictly better, though lacking the armour piercing trait. Genoese Crossbowmen are far superior to retinue longbowmen in the relevant stats (they have a worse melee attack, but who cares, really), though they have a slower firing rate.

I played England way, way back, though, and it was my first attempt at M2:TW, so I may not have been very effective then and I don't remember much of it anyway, so longbowmen may have been more effective in actual gameplay. I actually loaded up a save game from that run not too long ago and was surprised to find my queues stalled even though I had 45+ settlements. Didn't know much about the economy then, I guess. I do remember once running my cavalry into the spikes. Lost nearly half the unit, as I recall. To clarify, that was me running my cavalry into my own spikes. Yeah...

As for most overpowered unit in the game, I would still go for the Hashashim. You can build them pretty much as soon as you have a city with stone walls (assuming you've been assassinating a couple of people here and there). They're better than every other heavy infantry, with the exception of dismounted christian guards and dismounted conquistadores, and other factions will have to wait until they have at least fortresses so they can build dismounted feudal knights which at least can compete a little bit. Not only that, they gain experience very quickly as well, due to their small unit size and 2 hit points, so they can become even more powerful quite quickly.

 

Sorry, I don't know if there is off the top of my head but I would say you may want to email support about that glitch since is seems to be wrecking your experience with that version of the game.

 

That must be it, because I've never had a problem with getting that guild. In my current game, I have three citadels, all of which have swordsmith guilds.

I don't know about that. In the early going, you have armored sergeants and dismounted feudal knights, which are more than capable of forming the backbone of your army's infantry. (Actually, armored sergeants are among the best anti-cavalry unit in the game, as their low attack rating is much higher against cavalry.) Later in the game, you get Dismouted Gothic Knights (14/18), Forlorn Hope (17/16), Pavise Crossbowmen (12/9 - which is pretty good for missile units), Gothic Knights (13/15 - with a pretty good charge), and of course Reiters (20/13). Throw in the artillery selection that includes the Basilisk and Grand Bombard, and that's a unit assortment with no real weaknesses, with good units being able to be produced from castles and cities. In what area do you find them wanting?

How the hell do you do that? HRE starts with what, 6 settlements? So you took 7 settlements in 4 game turns? Hamburg Magdeburg, and Florence are all easy to get early on. It's often possible to get Breslau or Prague as well (but rarely both - it's usually an either/or type deal). Bern has a sizable garrison and is tough to take early, and Metz is pretty far afield. How do you even have the army that early to take that many settlements?

Antwerp always has a sizable garrison in it, even though it's a city. The garrison includes a couple of units of Flemish Pikemen, making it a fairly tough settlement to take if you rely on cavalry. It's also one of the last rebel settlements to be taken for this reason. If you want to prioritize, go for Stettin first, as I've seen Antwerp remain rebel until round 20 or so.

Correct on all counts, but due to your settlement selection, you won't have much in the way of problems. Denmark doesn't start with any castles, and you took Hamburg, which is the only one that can get units to the field quickly. IIRC, Oslo starts as a Motte and Bailey, and is incapable of producing anything beyond the most basic units early on, plus Denmark has to take it to begin with.

You've also deprived Milan of a castle. They don't start with one either, which is why Bern is usually a priority. While both Milan and Denmark have some decent units that can be produced in cities, they need to be pretty well-developed to do so, and so even though you'll likely be at war, you'll be facing stacks of spear and town militia, because that's all that they can build. In other words, the exact unit compositions that you love to see lay siege to your settlements. I love those battles where the enemy army takes 30% losses before they even batter down the gates, only to find some pretty good infantry on the other side of the gates.

So the only two you have to even be somewhat concerned about is Poland and France. It's impossible to deprive either of them of castles, as they each start with one. It's also near impossible to deprive France of getting Bordeaux and Toulouse - or at least one of them. Same goes with Poland in acquiring either Vilnius or Hylach. Although given Poland's early game reliance on missile cavalry, I'd probably go after France first.

[quote Especially because my queues are constantly stalled so I don't really have money to build new units either. [/quote]

I would think so! I'm all in favor of early expansion as the HRE, but this is more extreme than anything I've ever attempted. I mean, what are you doing, taking towns with a couple of units of town militia?

Perhaps it is the faster firing rate, perhaps it is the flaming arrows, but I found them to be more effective overall than the Genoese Crossbowmen. If you can get your hands of Sherwood Archers, they are the freakin' bomb. They are 13/9 armor piercing, with a 16 melee attack! The problem in getting them is twofold. You need a Woodsman Guild. Even if you are playing England and have all of the archery building upgrades you still don't get to build Sherwood archers if you don't have a Woodsman Guild. The other problem is the recruitment rate is terrible. You can never get more than 2 capable of being recruited at any given time, and it take 3 turns to make a new one available. Also, they can only be retained in a castle that has a Woodsman Guild, and chances are, given the difficulty in acquiring this guild, you don't have them scattered around your kingdom.

My game with Spain is going well. I've eliminated the French and Moors, and Milan is left with only a settlement or two. Gunpowder just got invented, and I already have 28 settlements. You can pretty much draw a line straight down from Antwerp, Milan and Tunis, and everything west of that line is mine, except the British Isles. At this point, the only thing left for me to decide is whether I want to go after the HRE, England, or Scotland. All three are at war with me. I'm more than a match for any of them. I'm thinking I want to invade England. The Scots and English are small enough to not be a huge threat, but just big enough and advanced enough to be a real nuisance.

In other news, I've discovered Timbuktu is a gold mine in both the literal and metaphoric sense. Three gold resources, three ivory resources and two slave resources. Technically some of these resources are in the neighboring Arguin territory, but with the exception of one of the slave resources, all are closer in absolute distance to Timbuktu. (As an aside, it took me a long time to get to Arguin - why can't you sail boats down there? You have to take the long way to get there by going past Timbuktu!) Anyway, the three gold resources are all worth over 300 florins per turn, the ivory ones are worth over 200 florins per turn, and the slave resources are worth over 100 florins per turn. This is with merchants with a 3 finance rating or less, so the gold resources have a potential value of close to 1000 florins per turn once these merchants mature. A far cry indeed from most merchants which have to be on the board for about 20 turns to cover their recruitment costs. As soon as I built a grain exchange in Timbuktu, I've been churning out a merchant every turn. I already had a healthy merchant force on the Iberian Peninsula, but this is where the money is at. I can easily see my merchant force being able to produce about 5000 florins per turn, which is nothing to sneeze at.

 

I'm curious then, how do you afford to build so many units? Doesn't your economy come tumbling down because of the overhead? And how many units per army do you have then? As I recall you're not overly reliant on infantry, prefering mostly cavalry and archery units, so if you have less infantry per army as me, how many armies do you have then?

Define early going. For me, that's the first 20-30 turns. And I certainly don't have access to a fortress yet, so I don't get these units. You're right in that as soon as you have these units, you're pretty much set, but the same goes for almost every catholic faction. Most if not all of them get the feudal knights and at least England, France, Milan and Venice get the exact same armored sergeant unit as well. Quite probably more factions get this unit too, but I didn't check comprehensively. Italian Spear Militia is almost as strong as this unit (13/7 DR/AR vs 14/7 for the armored sergeants) and given that you're likely to go up against Milan and Venice, you're severly at a disadvantage as long as you don't have a fortress. And even then, militia can be upkeep free, but armored sergeants will never be.

Anyway, I don't mean to imply that I found them wanting. But I would disagree that their unit mix is above average. Rather, their unit mix is precisely that - average. And well balanced around the board, though their early game units (spear militia and peasant archers and such - basically what you start the game with) are nothing special. It's rather annoying to notice that the rebel town militia units are just as strong as your spear militia.

And I don't know if what the game says is wrong or if your guide is wrong (it could well be that the in-game descriptions are different from what is actually in the game mechanics), but in the custom battle screen it looks a bit different from what you've written down:
- Dismounted gothic knights: 14/14 (DR/AR), 6 charge
- Forlorn hope: 12/17, 6 charge
- Zweihander: 11/14, 6 charge
- Pavise crossbowmen: 14/6, 12 missile
- Gothic knights: 15/13, 8 charge
- Reiters: 13/11, 20 missile, 5 charge
I'd agree with you if their stats were actually as good as what your guide says, but unfortunately, I don't see much special about the two handed sword units.

Pavise crossbowmen are pretty much awesome and are all you will need in terms of ranged units until you get the Reiters, but as Milan and Venice get the same unit as well, it won't feel very special. They'll be very useful if I run into trouble with the Hungarians and Polish in the future, though, to deal with their missile cavalry.

Gothic knights are certainly not above average, rather slightly worse than all chivalric knights and equivalents, who'll typically have 16/13 or 17/13 DR/AR. I doubt this difference will actually be noticeable in actual gameplay, though.

Reiters are quite simply the bomb. As far as ranged mounted units go, they should make mince meat out of everything else. I would wager they wouldn't fare too badly against the Timurids even. Even general units will be as nothing before these guys, because they can just stay out of their reach and shoot them while running away.

Quite simply put, I don't. I just venture forth with a general, two spear militia units and one or two peasant archer units, typically scraped together from the garrisons you already have, then set out to take a settlement. Once that is done, I take whatever I can spare, and go towards the next settlement.

Hamburg is easy, you start with an army already practically parked right outside the castle walls, then after taking it, I left two units as garrison and moved the rest to Magdeburg. Raiding the garrison from Frankfurt, I sent a general with two spear militia and peasant archers to take Metz. I basically did the same for Staufen to send an army to Bern, though I sent a few extra units after them. An extra unit of peasant archers and mailed knights, as I recall. As I mentioned before, if the rebels hadn't sallied forth, I would've probably been out of luck and would never have been able to take the settlement without waiting them out until they were forced to sally forth.

For Prague I combined garrisons from Vienna and Nürnberg. As that army was reasonably large, I decided to try for Breslau as well, and because the Polish seemed somewhat indecive (moving an army in and out of that region a few times), I decided to try it anyway. It rounds out my empire nicely, because if the Polish had managed to take it, it would've been like a splinter in my realm. I found it very aesthetically pleasing to be able to take it.

In the mean time I built very few units, basically trusting that while there were rebel settlements left, the other factions wouldn't bother attacking me. Many settlements had a garrison of only two units. The problem is that though you start with mostly spear militia and peasant archers, none of the settlements you start with can actually train these units. That also means that spear militia are not free of upkeep, as you need to be able to produce them before they are upkeep free.

This is precisely what I did too. First I saw the Polish move an army into the Stettin area, so I gave up on it and then I saw the Danish sending an army towards Antwerp as well, so I figured that one would be lost to me as well.

Interestingly, by turn 15 or so, Stettin was still rebel, so I decided to investigate and when I found it still free, I quickly assembled an army (again, mostly from plundering garrisons) and took it anyway.

The Danish army marching for Antwerp had in the mean while come within sight of Antwerp and had apparently decided it didn't like what it saw there, then came straight back again. I noticed that while this was happening, the French had besieged Bruges also, but were actually driven off by the rebels there. At the moment of writing - at turn 24, both Antwerp and Bruges are still rebel, though the English have just landed an army near Antwerp, so this may soon change.

The Danes won't be a problem anymore. The army that was marching for Antwerp somehow became stuck in a loop and was getting to Hamburg, then going back to Antwerp the next turn, then back to Hamburg again the next turn. I've noticed this behaviour before from the AI, and they can keep this up forever if you let them.

However, I noticed that in the mean while, the Danish king was all alone in Arhus. And since they hadn't yet taken Oslo or Stockholm, it was their only settlement. Which meant that if I could take Arhus - only garrisoned by a single unit - I could immediately wipe out the Danes. So that's what I did. Oslo and Stockholm are now mine for the taking, I'm pleased to say.

On the other side of the empire, Milan predictably attacked. Fortunately, they chose to try for Bern, which, equally predictably, ended in total failure for them.

As an aside: even though their half stack army consisted of only Italian town and spear militia, I still had to fight them with my own (vastly inferior) spear militia and peasant archers. Until I get to fortress level, their armies will be far stronger than anything I can field, because they have Italian spear militia and pavise crossbow militia, while all I have is spear militia and peasant archers. I could throw some more numbers around, but suffice to say that the gap in unit strength is vast.

This is also the reason I have as yet been unable to take the fight to the Milanese. I would very much like to get my hands on Genoa and Milan, if only because especially Milan is much more advanced than any city I have. Still, the population in Bern is growing quite fast (for some reason much faster than Hamburg, which started out much bigger (3000 vs 2000) but is now only a little ahead of Bern), so I should have access to some units that will allow me to put the hurt on them.

Meanwhile, the Venetians also decided to attack me. For some reason, they had left Zagreb alone until at least turn 20, so I send an army over to capitalise on the situation. While I was doing this, I noticed a Venetian army apparently making its way to Vienna and sure enough, when my army was close to Zagreb and one of their armies ran into mine, they attacked straight away. I defeated them, took Zagreb and then for good measure assaulted Venice, where they'd been so kind to park a single unit directly outside the city walls. I love it when they do that, because if you attack that unit, the garrison will usually join the fray as reinforcements and if you wipe them all out, you can take the city without besieging it.

But of course you already know this (I recall you mentioning last week or so). Unfortunately, they had two general units in the city, so it was a rather tough battle (two Italian spear millitia units and two general units (one of which was their king) against two spear militia, a peasant archer unit and my king), and a few of their units managed to escape so I had to besiege the city anyway.

This netted me a cease and desist from the pope, but I wasn't going to let such an easy target slip by and assaulted Venice anyway. Got excommunicated for that, but luckily already had an assassin under way to take out the pope so I could get myself reconciled.

Just in time too, as the papal states had an army right outside of Florence's walls when I got reconciled. It seems to move on into some other territories now, apparently looking for expansion opportunities too.

The new pope is Hungarian and with an army of Hungarians apparently marching for Vienna now, I'm not very hopeful of intervention on my behalf.

Well, as I explained, my armies are pretty much what I started with, but still all the building in each settlement is draining my coffers. As I mentioned I'm now at turn 24 (and 17 settlements, not so much expansion now anymore) and still my queues occasionally stall if many settlements start building something new all in the same turn.

It's a bit better now than it was before, though, but still not at the level I would like as I still don't have much cash to build up an army. If I had, I'd have taken Antwerp and Bruges already.

According to that guide the problem is also that you get points for building the brothels series, which you can't build in castles. A high chivalry general would do the trick too, apparently. I checked in an old game of mine with the English and found I had one Woodman's guild there, but it didn't allow me to train sherwood archers, it just gave a +1 experience to all archer units recruited there. Don't know if I was missing a requirement there.

You only discovered this now? I though it was widely know that these settlements were a pain in the ass to get, but are hugely profitable to get. What you describe, was pretty much exactly what I did in my game with the Moors. Just churning out Merchants as soon as possible and put them one the ivory, slaves and gold (mines). The higher ranking ones on the ones that produce the most money.

You can actually sail there, but only with Carracks - i.e. the same things that can cross the Atlantic.

I noticed in my game with the Moors that the textiles in Northern Italy also bring in a pretty penny. For me it was around 100 gold per turn with a 2 star merchant, up to close to 500 gold per turn for a 8 star merchant. Furthermore, the satin around Constantinople and further in the Middle East are also truly gold mines to park your merchants on.



P.S. that is one long ass post. I wouldn't blame anyone for saying TL;DR. It's probably what I would do

So to summarise: I took most settlements simply by using the units I already had, leaving only one or two as garrison in other cities.

/edit
Ok, wtf? Just got an offer for Teutonic Knight chapter house in Frankfurt. I thought these things were only offered to castles. Declined the offer because the positioning is not very good for retraining (would prefer Bern), but hopefully Bern will get an offer soon too, then.

 

Started a game as the HRE as they are the only major faction I haven't played to exhaustion mostly due to them being placed smack in the middle and I am never too fond of running around expelling one small invasion after the other from unfriendly neighbours. As I knew that is exactly what I have been doing and despite doing everything the pope says he hates me. It is not really an issue since the game is extremely easy on medium/medium but still annoying. I am having a cashflow problem which I shouldn't have, not a big one but I can't keep the production queues going in all cities at all times which I prefer. I also can't field any massive armies since no front is safe so I can't really concentrate my forces. The Venetians are being arses in the south east, the Poles in the east, the Danes in the north and France in the west. As soon as someone attacks and I start pushing them back the pope tells me to seize and desist. Hopefully my army of priests busy converting central asia and the middle east will all soon become cardinals. Surprised that the Milanese haven't attacked me from the south west yet but they seem to be busy fighting the Papal States which is never a good idea. As for units the HRE are extremely underwhelming early on, they nothing special or very good in the beginning and I am just now starting to get the basic catholic units. The complete lack of archers is bugging me, love archers I will get the pavise crossbowmen and they are good but crossbows are *slow*. I like armies made up half of archers and frankly crossbowmen never get enough volleys off for my taste.

I am playing with huge unit size now something I never did before as my old computer couldn't handle it and I am wondering if artillery is less useful then? You get the same two catapults just more men to lug them around, do they do equivalent dmg or does a small catapult unit do the same dmg as a huge one?

 

Yup, sounds familiar. I'm now at turn 26 or so and the money flow is finally starting to come in so that I'm making a profit each turn and I can finally start building up a half way decent army now. Now only have to wait until I get some fortresses so I can actually build halfway decent armies.

The pope pretty much hates me with a passion and the feeling is mutual. To make matters worse, he for some reason parked a 3/4 stack army right between Florence and Genoa and it's annoying the hell out of me, especially now that I finally was able to make some progress against Milan and took both Milan and Genoa away from them in two turns. Love how they first exhausted their units against Bologna's wall, then got excommunicated for it and had only token garrisons in Milan and Genoa. Better yet how my spy managed to open the gates for Milan and how they parked a single unit right outside Genoa. Easy pickings.

I don't know if they do different damage, as I've pretty much always played on huge unit size. They still have only two units for catapults (or any other artillery unit). I don't know if they're less useful as compared to before, but due to the huge unit size, they're at least more likely to hit some units when firing.


/edit
Just had my most ridiculous victory yet, it deserves to be recounted here in full.

In the previous turn, I had used my general to place a watchtower in the Metz area, near Dijon. I didn't have enough movement points to get him all the way back to the settlement, but didn't think much of it. He didn't have an escort, by the way. Then, the Milanese attack me with everything they've got from Dijon. One of their generals plus 6 units of Italian spear militia and Italian militia, I think 3 of each, maybe 4 units of spear militia.

Since I was out of movement points, I couldn't retreat, so I figured I'd go to the battle map and then retreat. Then when I was on the battle map, I figured I might as well give them a bloody nose while I'm at it.

The map was kind of hilly, so I parked my general on the highest top I could and figured I let them get at me. So what happened is that after the first charge, I had their general unit chase me all across the map, with his infantry lagging behind a bit. And me constantly turning around and charging in to him whenever I had the advantage of the upper ground. Luckily my general already had some bronze chevrons on him or I don't think it would've went this well.

After chasing all the way across the map, I finally managed to kill the enemy general. From then on, I just ran up a hill, and charged at them when they were at the bottom. In the end I managed to make them all rout, having only 12 out of the 43 units in my general's bodyguard left. I managed to get 903 out of 941 units that entered the battle.

And then, because the last battle obviously went so well, the Milanese sent another army with three Italian militia and a Italian spear militia unit after me. Basically, it was the same, except that I entered the battle with only 19 units (against 601!) and that they didn't have any general unit this time. I left with 11 units, they with 16

He got a gazillion new traits from that, including the "Calm when outnumbered". Never saw that one before, though oh so apposite here.

This was two of the most hilarious battles I've ever had in my history with M2:TW. Awesome.