Medieval 2: Total War (Cont.)

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Is this the option menu on the main screen, or the option menu of the screen where you select your faction? Maybe this is where I went wrong...

Vilnius perhaps? Although I'm pretty sure that was a city.

The only reason your ecomony will go in the tank is if your military is way too big. That means you either have to start disbanding troops or preferably, send them off to war. I say it's better to use them in combat because you will inevitably take some casaulties, reducing your upkeep costs, and also grab a few settlements in the process. The more I think about the economy, I'm coming to the realization that it really is all about the military. Even expensive structures are one-time costs, while a unit of heavy cavalry costs you 250 florins per turn, every turn. A heavy cavalry unit that you have around for 20 or 30 turns ends up being more expensive than 90% of the structures in the game.

In my current game the Pope has effectively sabotaged my economy by ordering me to stop attacking catholic nations. Currently, I have wars going on against Denmark, HRE, Sicily and Spain. No sooner had I finished constructing full stack armies for each of them than the Pope ordered me to stop attacking all of them. That's really bad, as I'm paying a ton of upkeep. It hasn't got to the point where my queues have stalled yet, but I am routinely spending more each turn than I'm taking in, meaning it's only a matter of time if I don't go on the war path soon enough. The other problem is that most of my cities are in that "middle stage" of development where public order can become an issue, and it's difficult to maintain very high tax rates. Currently, everyone has at least a normal tax rate, but that's still costing me potential income.

I have also spent a ton on merchants in this game. Once you gain control over the British Isles, since the computer rarely will send units across the ocean, it makes sense to have a merchant on every resource on the British Isles. And there's more resources there than you think - probably close to 20 altogether. While the resources there are not nearly as valuable as those in Timbuktu and similar areas, they are still worth it, as you never have to worry about the merchant having their assets seized.

Funny you should mention that, because I recently came to the same conclusion myself. My new strategy is keeping even fewer castles than before, but building just about everything in every castle. One point where we might be in disagreement is that I will always upgrade a city or castle as soon as the upgrade become available. This is especially true with castles, as you can upgrade to castle level nearly immediately, as there are no population requirements until you reach fortress. In my current game, things have worked out particularly well, as my two forward castles in Hamburg and Toulouse have swordsmith guilds. Hamburg already had one when I claimed it from the Danes, and just recently I invested in a master swordsmith guild in Toulouse. I've actually been particularly lucky with guilds this game, as Caen and Nottingham (my other two castles) got woodsmen guilds.

Also, the good times couldn't last with my reputation. It is now down to "mixed" and I expect it to deterioate further. However, I went to the diplomacy scroll, and apparently the computer AI is no better than most people in maintaining their reputation. None of them have a good a repuation, with "mixed" being the highest listed, and most of them being worse than that.

 

in my current game as Egypt, France has a reputation of Reliable and I'm in the 1320's. Apparently Denmark does too.

I got amazingly luck with the Mongols on this game, they all went for the only two cities of my 40 settlements that had cannon towers: Antioch and Jerusalem. I also had a 10 star Dread General in Antioch, where most of their army went, and a full stack army as well.(mostly Nafukan(sp?).

In Jerusalem I had a 10 star Chivaly General(technically like 15 chivalry =/) Who managed to wipe out the Mongol Khan.

 

I have not had much time to play over the last couple days but I am rolling the Mongols up pretty easily. I have taken six of their settlements now. Their Khan was in the last one.

Amusingly the army that took him out was horribly imbalanced - it was meant to reinforce my main armies but Krakow was so poorly defended I couldn't resist. As a result I was fielding a grand bombard and a bunch of Christian Knights. The thought of a Moorish army composed completely of Christian Knights seems pretty funny to me.

 

After restarting again today, I've found myself at war with England, HRE, Spain, Portugul, Venice and the Byzantines. I only started the war with the Byzantines because my Crusade army was about to desert after the death of my King so I sacked one of their cities to recoup some cost of the lost units. Venice then declared war and took the city before it could revolt (and before I could build some defences either).

What I'm doing is running a general south and after taking an objective and leaving a garrison, I'll then move the General back trhough my production centres on the way to the other front. This means I can fight on both fronts...

I've been converting any castles I take from the enemy (or rebels), or at least have given the order to take them. I think that the constant warring will get my economy back on track or flatline it again...

 

Gnarff,

Having the economy going OK is one of the most difficult aspects of the game. Basically, if you want to have a big army, then you must also use said army to its fullest extent. While it might be nice to have big garrisons in every city, it's simply not practical to do so. In my cities that are away from the front line, the only troops garrisoned in them are the ones I get free upkeep on. That means my smaller settlement have 3 or 4 spear or town militia in them, and that's it. Front line settlements have to be better defended, but you still want to make sure you always start those with the free units as well.

After that, I start building my armies for taking settlements. Early in the game, when you are just taking rebel settlements, you can probably get away with only using the troops you start the game with. However, by the time you start taking on other factions, you're going to need a combination of units, and the number you build should be based on what you can afford. I start with one army that is the sole offensive punch of my military. As the cash starts rolling in I build a second, and so forth. Right now, I have 3 full stack armies on the field, with a fourth that will be ready as soon as I get the sword upgrade for all of them, so about 3 or 4 turns yet. However, it should be pointed out that I control 27 settlements at this point. When I only had about 5 or 6 settlements there was just one army.

Another strange guild event happened in my game. I had a master's swordsmith guild in Toulouse, and I was under the impression that each faction was only allowed to have a single master's guild of any one type (so you could have an assassin master guild and thief master guild, but not two master thief guilds or two master assassin guilds). Anyway, the only other swordsmith guild I had was in Hamburg, which I had captured from the Danes. Despite already having a master swordsmith guild, I was offered to upgrade the regular guild in Hamburg to a master version, which I happily accepted. I suppose that perhaps the limit is only for guilds you started? That if you take a guild from another faction you can potentially upgrade it to a master version of the guild?

My current game is going OK, although my expansion has slowed considerably. Through various Papal warnings to cease hostilities, I can't go and stay on an offensive for any length of time. I also have an entire host of new enemies, including HRE, Portugal, Spain, Sicily, Denmark and Venice. I assinated the Milanese out of the game, and their three remaining settlements were parcelled out to me, Sicily and the Papal States. The HRE is also on the ropes. Currently their only family member is the 58-year old leader. Assassination attempts on his life have thus far proven ineffective, so I'm hoping that no other family members come of age soon, and that the faction is eliminated through natural causes.

The Danes are down to three settlements, and do not pose much of a risk. Sicily once again seems to be a rather large faction. As I said, I am at war with Venice, but so far the only settlement that I can determine they possess on the European continent is Venice. I assume they still control their island capital, but I cannot seem to locate anything else. The Moors also appear to have been pretty successful in battling the Spanish and Portugese. So even though I'm at war with a lot of factions, the only war that I'm really concerned with is the one against Sicily.

The others are a nuisance. I was considering taking my fourth army onto the Iberian Pennisula to work with my third army. The plan was to just steamroll the entire Pennisula clean, but it appears that the army will be needed on the Sicilian/Venetian front. Finally, I have to say that the English are definitely the faction that fits best with my playing style because of their uber missile units. Everyone raves over the longbowman, although IMO the longbow is just the third-best missile unit the English produce. Both the Yeoman archers and Sherwood archers appear to be superior.

[ March 23, 2007, 15:18: Message edited by: Aldeth the Foppish Idiot ]

 

Those two you mentioned are also longbowmen, just upgraded ones.

 

Yeah and the building requirements to build longbowmen are so much easier that I had pretty much won by the time I started to build any Yeoman archers or Sherwood archers.

 

Wow JSSB - you did that game really quickly. Yeoman archers can be produced as soon as you build the archery structure at the fortress level. It's not like it's a huge requirement. Sherwood archers are citadel level units are do take some doing, although with a missile attack of 13, and a melee attack of 16, they are worth every penny.

And yes, technically yeoman and sherwood archers use longbows. I was just saying that England's advantage throughout the game is in their archer units, and is not just a simple advantage of producing longbowmen early on.

 

I thought you needed a Woodsmen guild in the settlement to produce Sherwood Archers? Also a drawback with them is that they have half the unit size of a normal Longbowmen or Yeomen unit.

 

Yeah I blitzed so quickly that I was pretty much using just longbowmen, catapults and the first level of heavy cavalry in my game as England. I captured my 45th settlement after the Mongols showed up but well before the black death.

I thought that the woodsman's guild was required for the Sherwood archers too. That is certainly how I trained the few that I had. Which led to the problem on not being able to retrain them easily.

 

You're right - my bad. The biggest drawback with them is actually that you can only recruit a maximum of one, and that it takes several turns after recruiting one for another one to become available.

 

I'm finding now the biggest problem that France has is the HRE. Their production facilities are right on the front lines, while France has theirs closer to the Iberian Penninsula. I'm thinking that I have to grab Bern and Metz fast (converting them to Cities of course) so that the HRE is forced to settle for Stauffen and Innsbruck for castles.

I think I'll also need to go after Milan early to get their cities...

 

I took Jerusalem to end the game but as I indicated earlier am continuing on.

I finally found the Timurid . They look pretty much the same as the Mongols except for having elephants. One thing that I found amusing was that Timur was there but he was only a general - some randomed name dudes were the Khan and Prince. The whole lot of them are just standing there in the middle of nowhere. Given that they have been around for several turns now that is pretty sad really.

I am quite rapidly rolling up the Hungarians. I have gotten used to fighting the Mongols and as a result the Hungarians seem like a joke. I caught the Hungarian King in a city with only one unit of crossbowmen to support him. Needless to say I was quite quickly hearing the standard Moorish "The Enemy King was bolder than a rooster" speech.

 

I think I'm going to win the long campaigh with France this time through. I'm only keeping 3 castles at this time (Angers for Cavalry, Toulouse for Crossbowmen, and Bordeaux for infantry), and the rest as cities. I think I have over 30 settlements, and an army that can take Acre from some nearby Rebels (to build up some forces to bring Jerusalem to heel). I'm on my secons excommunication and currently at war with Spain and Denmark. Technically I think I'm still at war with HRE but only until my army gets to Bologna. I'm also eyeballing taking down Scotland as well.

The trick to bringing the HRE to heel is to take Metz and Bern early on if you can. With only Stauffen and Innsbruck (horribly inconvenient placement for anyone), they don't become a major player, and can be picked off while they war with Venice, Poland, Milan or Denmark.

Another thing is that as you go further in the game, Cities can produce some nice troops. Scot's Guards are basically armoured longbowmen, and with St. John's Chapter houses, Cities can provide some more heavy cavalry.

By keeping the three castles producing, you don't see an economy flatline and keep building armies that you need to fight. I have one army headed for Hamburg, one headed for Bologna, one consolidating in the Iberian penninsula (Lisbon is Spanish hands), and one moving on Dublin at the behest of the Council of Nobles.

I shall have an update for you next time...

 

Seems like you got things pretty well figured out Gnarff. And yes, it is true that level 5 cities can produce some pretty darn good troops, especially infantry. There is some variability though based on what faction you play. Evidently (I never played them long enough to find out), the Milanese produce their best late-game cavalry in cities as well. They are rather unique in that regard though, as the vast majority of factions can only build cavalry in cities if they have a merchants guild, which allows for the recruitment of merchant cavalry militia (which is pretty crappy by cavalry standards - not even as good as mailed knights - but better than nothing, and they have no upkeep).

In my game I am finding great success using the elimination by assassination strategy. Usually, the way I have implemented it is to eliminate everyone exceed the faction leader, and letting him die of natural causes if he is already up in years. I have noticed that it is really only the faction leader that you have problems with. The faction heir you usually have about a 50% success rate with a maxed out assassin. However, with the faction leader it is not uncommon for a maxed out assassin to still only have a success rate of about 20%. Seeing as how you have to invest quite a lot to get an assassin maxed out, I definitely don't like losing one to a fool's errand. So this weekend I eliminated both the HRE and Spain. The HRE I implemented the aforementioned strategy exactly, as the king was already in his late 50s when I started offing the family members, and he conveniently died two rounds after I had eliminated everyone else except the leader. With Spain, I did have to kill the king, as he was only 40 years old when I started killing the others, and that's just too long to wait. It worked out well though, as I had a surprisingly high 37% chance of success, which came through for me.

I also bagged my first pope this weekend. It took me two tries, and I did lose an assassin in the process. I was a little bummed out because the first attempt my assassin tried to take the pope out with a crossbow from the balcony of the cathedral, and he evidently missed by hitting his hat, but not his head. I would have liked to see that one work, as it's an assassination shot I've never seen before. My second attempt, which was successful, was a more typical movie - the one where the house gets lit on fire as he sleeps.

 

Yeah the crossbow balcony assassination video is probably my favourite one but I have only seen it twice (one miss and one hit so at least I have seen both versions).

Oh and if anyone reading this thread is interested in a virtual freebie in the Game Quote Game you should take a look at my quote.

 

Where does the bolt hit the pope? The game isn't big on blood-and-guts in the assassination videos - about the bloodiest is the guy entering the room with the assassin behind the door, and even then you don't actually see the attack other than the shadow.

 

The bolt hits the pope in the chest - roughly where the heart should be. There is a growing blood stain seen around the bolt but nothing too gory.

There is actually a Free Viewer that I just found that allows you to watch the video clips. It is the first one on the list. There are actually three types of assassination videos that I have never seen. Those would be the European and Middle Eastern princess/thrown knife videos and a special Cardinal assassination video.

Edit: Well I watched the previously unseen videos after I downloaded the viewer but I have never seen them in the actual game. I just watched the pope assassination videos and the successful assassin does indeed pull off a heart shot.

[ March 26, 2007, 23:40: Message edited by: JSBB ]

 

About 110 to 115 turns in I have 44 settlements and a Crusade Army headed for Jerusalem and a backup Crusade also on the way. Spain, England, HRE and Milan eliminated by me, Portugul eliminated by Spain, I'm fighting the Sicillians, Venetians (pope tole me to cool it), Danes, Moors and Mongols (Who have Jerusalem). Sicilly is down to Naples and an Army is on the way, while I have armies on the way to Oslo and Stockholm but will try to take both of them down the same turn to be safe. I'd like to wrap this up before the Timurids show up. Interestingly enough, I only kept three castles the whole game (would have kept Acre as a castle had the Mongols not declared war on me to take it as soon I claimed it...)

I expect to wrap this up tomorrow afternoon or evening...

 

The only princess assassination video I have ever seen is the one where she's sleeping and the assassin slips a snake under the covers. It's the only one I get regardless of whether the princess is from a European or Middle Eastern faction. So I didn't even know there was one with a thrown knife (although the knife throw is a common video for non-princess assassinations).

Surprisingly, I do not think I have ever attempted to assassinate a Cardinal. I can see why you would - if you belong to an Orthodox or Muslim faction and they keep sending missionaries over to convert your population, you may have to. But I can't recall ever seeing one specifically for a cardinal. There are two assassination videos that take place inside the church - one just inside the entryway, and the other in the confessional, but I don't think those are Cardinal specific.

@Gnarff - You should easily be able to win long before the Timurids show up. The Timurids show up during the last 50 or so turns of the game. It's something like game turn 170 or 180 - I don't remember exactly. The point being you have at least 50 more turns before they show up, and then they usually wander around aimlessly for several turns before you actually have to fight them. Of course, seeing as how the Mongols are in control of Jerusalem (and likely the surrounding regions as well), even if the Timurids take the same southern route as the Mongols (with the same 50-50 chance) the Timurids main adversary will be the Mongols, which frankly, could only help you by opening up another front on the Mongols. As for having a backup Crusading Army, You may want to have that army attack Jerusalem simultaneously with your other army.

Basically, you have two choices with two full stack armies. Option 1 (not recommended): You can have the AI control the second army during the battle. The advantage with this choice is that you will get all 40 units on the map at once, which obviously makes it more difficult for the defenders. The reason I don't like doing this is that the AI controlling the second army doesn't run the battle as well as you would. (Which is not really surprising, seeing as how you almost always win a battle with approximately even forces, and you can usually win even when the opponent is somewhat superior.)

Option 2 (recommended): Uncheck the box for AI control, giving you the ability to control all of the units, but still limiting you to 20 units at a time. This has both positive and negative points. The disadvatage is that while you will get control over all of your units, your army size is still restricted to a maximum of 20 units, so you won't be able to use them all at once. On the battle screen, all of the second army's units will wait just outside of the fighting area. The advantage is you get to decide when you bring in fresh troops, which can be a huge advantage in a long battle where fatigue comes into play.

New units are automatically brought on the battlefield as your initial units leave play. Obviously, your unit leaves play if it is eliminated or if it routs, but you can also order a unit to withdraw from the battle by clicking on the unit and then the white flag. As soon as that unit leaves, you'll get to bring a new unit in. This is the only reason you'd ever use the withdraw button - if you had additional reinforcements to bring to the battle, which you typically don't. But in this situation there are several reasons why you may want to get rid of an existing unit. Obviously, a unit that has taken many casaulties and is highly fatigued is not nearly as good as a fresh unit. A missile unit that is out of ammo is also quite worthless. Instead of them standing around doing nothing, order them off the field and bring in fresh troops to replace them.