Medieval 2: Total War (Cont.)

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Reinstalled the game, patched it, played some online, and now I started a new campaign, this time as Poland. Quick expansions to the west gave me everything west of Krakow to the Prague-Madgenburg-Stettin line, and then my expansion continued east and north. Thorin, Riga, Helsini, Vilinus, as well as the fortress south of Vilinus are all mine, giving me a total amount of 10 settlements out of the fifteen needed.

Now, I'm sending two armies to the east to try to get as many regions that Russia haven't gotten yet as possible. If needed, I'll take some of theirs as well, as the Pope won't interfere and I only need five more.

 

Still having problems with Spain. On one hand, I don't want my economy to crash uinder the weight of huge armies (and many of them), but I also don't like being in 3 to 5 wars simultaneously because I can't finish one target off quick enough. It seems that the Iberian Penninsula is isolated from central Europe, and even converting most of the castles I take into Cities, eventually the economy crashes as more and more nations pick fights with me...

At any given point, Milan, France, the Moors, Portugul and England will double cross you, blocking ports, or even invading. One game Denmark even attacked me. Meanwhile, sooner or later, Inquisitioners will start targetting your royal family and best generals. And the Pope will demand that you stop beating up the other catholic factions (even though they aren't likely to stop pestering you).

If you can successfully unify the Iberian Penninsula, you'll probably want to convert 3 of the castles into cities (many games I run with only Toledo and Toulouse as castles).

I think I will need to develop one of my early cities to pop out assassins, and the first time I get a target, run sabotage and find soft assassination targets. It should pay off when Inquisitioners show their face near your generals (do unto others before they do unto you). Only once have I successfully wiped out the Moors, and only twice have I landed an army on the English mainland.

I think I'll want to send a force of Militia to claim Dublin, and another one to claim Ajiacco and Caligari. If I can beat England to Caernevorn, then I may be able to counter attack effectively when they act up.

 

My advice as spain or portugal is to take the Iberian Peninsula and build it up, and then leave a sizeable garrison in Granada, and then go after France, then set garrisons up on your French side, and go after the Moors. I generally get an alliance with the moors fairly early, and every once in a while toss some cash towards them to keep them happy.

 

With Spain, I first took the Iberian peninsula and blocked the passes to France, then took care of the Moors, and only then expanded into France - and a bit of Milan as well. I don't think I've ever been excommunicated, but the difficulty wasn't very high (it was my 1st game).

 

I am up to 90 settlements now. I have an income of something like 120,000 florins per turn but with most of the buildings costing me 10k I seem to be able to spend that pretty easily.

The Mongols are putting up a surprisingly good fight at their last settlement. My first army was almost there when it was attacked by an equal sized Mongol army plus a pair of smaller reinforcement armies so that I was actually fairly heavily outnumbered. I managed to win the battle but I didn't have enough surviving troops to have a hope of beating the settlement's garrison so I sent them back to get reinforcements.

The Russians actually put up a decent fight at their final settlement too but my army prevailed. The Egyptians on the other hand have not put up much of a fight. They still have one settlement but it is lightly defended so I should be able to roll them up in another couple turns.

I have just landed an army in Aztec territory and I am besieging their first city. I kind of messed up though - I didn't send any artillary along. I had a bunch of units heading to the boats from several different castles and evidentally the boats filled up before the artillary got there. Oh well, I guess I will just have to starve them out.

EDIT: Damned there are a lot of Aztecs running around over there. I took heavy casualties fighting off their two full stack armies defending their first settlement and the I wasn't able to hold it as the population rebelled. After that another full stack army came up and wiped out my remaining troops. Oh well, I have armies on the way to take Fortaleza and Caribbean. Once I have those I will worry about taking another crack at the Aztecs.

I now have 101 settlements. I have only four more to go in the old world of which three are currently under siege.

[ April 13, 2007, 05:18: Message edited by: JSBB ]

 

Another day, another attempt. This time, I focused on my economy again, but snuck forces to claim stray settlements like Ajiacco, Cagliari, Ireland and Caernevorn.

I haven't taken Granada yet, but I am at war with the Moors. When I get my second army ready to go, the Iberian penninsula will be unified. I'm going to build at least one, possibly two armies near Caernevorn. With that in place, I think I can grab London and Nottingham before they know what hit them. From there, I can nail York and the Scots at my leisure...

I'm going to push south to fight the Moors, building from Toledo. I am also at war with Venice, and if I need additional forces, Angers is set as a forward base (you never know when Milan and Denmark will act up, only that they will). I think that getting the 44 regions is the priority (mid to high 20's now) then sailing a couple large fleets with full stack siege forces up to Jerusalem when the time comes. I think I'll do it this time (but I've said that before)...

 

Yeah, taking over the Americas is definitely NOT a one army job. I have found that you need two armies (preferably with similar troop compositions) to do it. That way, as one army takes casaulties, you have additional troops ready as reenforcements. As for the settlement rebelling, didn't you exterminate the populace? It's almost impossible to hold the city without doing so, as you get massive penalties from being mega-far from your capital, and huge amounts of religious unrest.

What year are you in now?

If your economy flat-lines again, try working through it. I have reached the point where economy is rarely a huge problem for me, as I try to minimize troop production early on by only having one forward army, and garrisoning my cities exclusively with free upkeep militia units. However, I have never experienced a situation where my economy was so bad that I had my queues stall for more than about 10 turns. Getting a message that the queues have stalled is just an indication from the computer that your army is big enough - get to conquering!

Keep in mind, you get the "queues stalled" message even if you were only short of funds on one building. You might have 15 settlements, and 14 are producing what you told them to, but because one was short of cash, you get the queues stalled message. Obviously, I have no idea how bad the economy gets in your games, but even when I have scenarios where my queues stall repeatedly, it's not like I'm massively short of funds and half of my cities aren't producing anything. Usually it's more like 2 or 3 cities that have to wait to start producing what they build. The other thing to keep in mind is if it is only 2 or 3 cities that are affected, you'll usually rotate which cities are not building things, because if you have things that can't be afforded in your queues, the computer seems to rotate which ones start as the funds become available. I'm not sure, but it seems that the ones that have been waiting the longest get priority. The cost of the structure also matters though. Even if one city has been waiting longer on a build than some other city, if the funds are available for a cheap sturcture but not an expensive structure, the cheap structure will be built regardless of which city has been stalled longer.

 

I am in the late 1400s.

I have not exterminated any populations in this game - instead I have been putting in a strong garrison, reduce the tax rate to low and bring Imams along to rapid convert the population. I have not had a lot of problem doing so.

It could be that the Americas are just too far away from my capital for this to work but on the other hand my remaining army was too small to get a decent garrison effect.

Actually the rebellion was probably for the best. The Aztec army that wiped me out would have done so in a siege if the population had not rebelled. Instead they will have to take even more casualties fighting the absurdly high number of rebel troops that spawn when you are booted out. By the time I get back the Aztecs will probably have retaken the settlement after taking far more casualties than I could have inflicted on them.

I am bringing along five Imams with my next wave armies. I did bring artillary this time but I might just starve them out to let my Imams get a good head start on converting the population.

 

That's always a solid tactic. With 5 imams working at once, if the city has enough food to hold out for several turns, you can probably convert half the population before you even take the city. That would solve one of the two big problems you'd have concerning unrest. You can't really do much regarding distance to the capital (other than making a city in the Americas your capital which would just cause your cities in the Middle East to be a mess).

I agree that there is a greater long-term benefit of occupying a settlement than exterminating it. While you do get a one lump sum of cash through extermination, you will quickly make up for the losses through extra income in taxes you get from the larger remaining population. And the time to make up that income is pretty quick when dealing with a larger city. In about 10 turns you will take in more tax revenue that what you would have got by exterminating the city.

It sounds like you just had a bad confluence of events there. Religious unrest + really far from the capital + small garrison = rebelious population. I have never been able to conquer all of the Americas. It's a very time consuming process that you can't get stared on until relatively late in the game. Another problem is it requires a ton of troops, because troop replacement becomes difficult in the Americas. You don't have the available structures in conquered settlements to retrain your armies. Although I must admit that I never tried recruiting mercenaries in the Americas. Is that possible? Mercenaries are expensive, but by that late in the game money is rarely a factor.

 

Yeah mercanaries are one thing that I have never really taken advantage of. Just before I quit last night I hit the hire mercanary button by accident and I was practically drooling over the monster bombard. 1000 damage vs structures! Talk about making walls and towers completely obsolete.

Given that I have been waiting so much lately for my slow moving artillary to join my sieges I think that hiring mercanary artillary may be something that I consider doing.

One thing that I will have to say - it makes absolutely no sense to try to get to 45 settlements by taking settlements in the Americas. It is too far away, there are too few settlements available, and the Aztecs are too numerous to make it worthwhile. There are 105 settlements in the old world and pretty much every single one of them is easier pickings. Transporting enough troops across to the Americas is just too much work for far too little reward.

 

How many settlements are in the Americas? 5?

 

There are six settlements in the Americas. the Aztecs have three on one land mass and then there are three others each on a separate land mass.

 

By my economy flatlining, it means that I'm in the red and getting lower every turn, Any armies I have will be pinned down and unable to push to conquer more turf, and enemy agents manage to cause rebellions in key cities close to home. I find that playing Spain is the only time I have ever had a problem with that.

 

I finally took all of the settlements. There was a text message and then it forces you to exit to the main menu. There are 112 in total with the breakdown being 106 old world and 6 in the Americas.

The mercenaries in the Americas are truly pathetic so I wouldn't count on them. I ended up using my second wave armies to take Caribbean, Miccosukee and Fortaleza. I sent over a third wave of four full stack armies with 25 Imams and they wiped the floor with the Aztecs. Tlaxcala was completely undefended when I got to it which has never happened to me before.

 

Gnarff, I have no idea what you are doing but it must be something horribly wrong. If you are flatlining that badly you must have way too much troops for you to be able to support them send them off and just live by pillage for a few turns while your army is cut down. It is fairly normal to have shoddy finances for a long part of the early game. I can rarerly build everything I want or as many soldiers as I want until quite late in hte game. There is a "bump" oyu need to get over and when you do there is florins everywhere but before that it can be a bit rough.

 

I just started a game as Milan. It is certainly a huge change going from the Moors with whom my offence was almost exclusively cavalry to the Milanese with whom I am using mostly militia infantry and crossbowmen.

 

Just started playing the game again, and I just can't help notice the horrible battlefield AI.

Example, I was fighting a big battle against the French (playing the ENGLISH) and one of my generals was hacking up some archers just in front of my main army.
The French do not like this and send some of their cavalry in to attack my general. I order my general to take a position behind my main force so that I can stop worrying about him and use some spearman to counter the enemy cavalry.

Suddenly, I receive a message: "Henry has died a noble death on the battlefield."... wtf? I look at the degeneraled bodyguard unit and I see that there only 5 left, but there are no enemies around that could have attacked them! I start looking for his body and then I discover this gem

Indeed, it seems that Henry takes a liking to shortcuts, I wonder if he also jumps down from a wall instead of taking the stairs.


Okay, so a cavalry unit comes to a full halt if there is a frikkin tree standing between him and a very vulnerable general(another beautiful display of dumbass AI), but he'll be damned if he lets some sharp stickies force him to take a turn while traveling from point A to point B!

I actually like the battlesystem in Rome better than this one.

Edit:
Sorry Barmy, it was late, fnocking hot, and I'm actually still pissed off at that fact that Antwerp is the capital of the Netherlands ;P

[ April 15, 2007, 02:05: Message edited by: Morgoth ]

 

I've never had that happen to me before, and I play the ENGLISH (note to Morgoth, use the brain that you obviously have) all the time. Although, to be fair, I've never been stupid enough to try and walk cavalry directly through a row of wooden stakes........

 

I find that the problem stems from being at war with multiple enemies, who are blockading ports and generating unrest in my cities reducing my income, while rendering me unable to advance my armies without leaving frontline settlements prone to revolt.

This time, however, that's not happenning. I have a couple patrial armies (remenents of more aggressive forces) around and an army holding Corduba until I'm ready to push the Moors. I've got another army in production for just that purpose. I'm also working on getting another army ready to put some pressure on Venice, who've declared war on me for no reason (blockading a port). I've relieved them of Milan, and will press forward if they continue to piss me off...

 

You dont have to actually wage active war on every little banana republic declaring war on you. Most of the time the AI's view of a state of war is one round of port blockade every now and then. I try to not care about who wants to fight with and focus on which factions I myself have an interest in fighting.