Medieval 2: Total War

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henkie, thank you for your detailed explanation. I'll give it a shot. Now, maybe I can help you.

You can't push the ladders away from the wall, but you can prevent them from getting up to the wall. As soon as the ladders reach the top, and the advisor says "the ladders have reached the walls" or something of the like, take a melee unit (and it can something as simple as a town militia unit) and right click on the ladders. Your town milia unit starts to go down the ladders, effectively preventing anyone from coming up the ladders. It clogs everything up, but I can guarantee you that no one will be able to get up to your walls. It is time consuming, but eventually your towers and missile units on the wall will kill everyone waiting at the bottom, trying to go up the ladders, and the enemy will eventually rout.

(I do NOT consider this cheesy as it is perfectly reasonable to assume that the people coming down the ladders will have a considerable advantage over the people trying to come up the ladders in preventing them from reaching to the top. Those ladders are like 20 feet high. Imagine yourself being on the ladder. Do you think it would be easier being on the top, trying to prevent someone from moving past you, or being on the bottom, trying to reach the top by getting the guy ahead of you out of the way?)

Now that I think about it, I think it is not possible to destroy ladders. I've never seen in happen. I've destroyed siege towers and battering rams, but I've never seen ladders catch fire or be destroyed in some other way.

 

But what gives with inquisitioners targeting your generals? Makes me wish I'd told the pope to go stuff his funny hat when he asked me to return rome to him after liberating it from Sicilly...

Another thing, Why can't get a reasonable cease fire offer? I got double corssed by Denmark, took two settlements from them, and the terms of the ceasefire was the return of the two territories I took. After taking a third, they wanted all three! Of course I refused. In my current attempt, I've knocked off Scotland, France and Milan, and am now at war with Sicilly, Denmark, Germany, Spain and Portugul. All started by them, I've lost no settlements to their attacks, but have taken settlements from all of them. The problem is that they insist on extortionate demands in order to get a cease fire--unless I have one of their settlements under seige...

 

This seems to be very variable from one game to the next, and I've yet to find a sure fire way to avoid the wrath of inquisitors. The only thing I have been able to determine from my observations (and unfortunately, it seems these are more qualitative the quatitative) is proximity and papal relations seem to factor into it.

If you are playing a nation like Denmark, Spain, or Poland, something that's reasonably distant from Rome, it seems like you get less inquisitors than if you're playing a nation like the HRE or Milan. It seems like if there are many purveyors of heresy in a region, the inquisitor cleans that up before moving on to other targets. So simply being distant from Rome seems to give the inquisitors someone closer and more convenient to bother. Of course, this is never a permanent solution, as it's hard to take 45 territories needed to win without having any of them being close to Rome.

The bigger factor, and one that you have much more control over is your Papal standing. In my current game playing Spain, my current Papal standing is very good (9 of 10 crosses), and I've seen exactly one Inqusitor all game, and that happened when my Papal standing was reasonable. During the entire game my Papal reputation has never been worse that reasonable (6 of 10 crosses), and it was very briefly rated perfect (10 of 10 crosses).

The reason it has always been so high is I've never done anything to tick the Pope off. The only Christian factions I have had wars with started the war with me, and the conquered territories I hold from Portugal (now eliminated) and France (Bordeaux and Tolouse) occured when those factions were excommunicated. The only other faction I have currently eliminated is the Moors, and the only other territories I hold were initially rebel settlements. Of course, the problem here is again, it's very difficult to get 45 territories without conquering some Christian territories along the way.

That is strange indeed. Usually, when I'm laying a butt whipping on an AI player, they offer a cease fire, no strings attached. (OK, they frequently break the cease fire some turns later, but at least the original offer is reasonable.) What I do find is if the war is going fairly evenly (i.e., no territories changing hands, no major battles won or lost by either side) they will only offer a cease fire by demanding a huge amount of florins, either per turn or one time payment. While the exact number is highly variable, it is usually tens of thousands of florins, which is just ridiculous.

About the only thing that I can guess is you have a history of breaking agreements. If you send armies into a neutral faction's territory, or just pass through their territory for a single round, it gives you a bad reputation, and the AI will give you very negative offers in all future negotitations. Granted, it's hard to get a good reputation in the game, but if you openly and repeatedly break deals, especially cease fires and alliances, you'll have difficulty negotiating similar deals in the future.

In other news, I think I set a new record for shortest crusade ever. The current Pope called for a Crusade against Tunis, in north-central Africa. I had a full-stack army that was besieging Algiers, which is the territory immediately west of Tunis. I called off the siege there, joined the crusade, and sent the army to Tunis. I didn't even bother hiring mercenary units (although given I was in Muslim dominated Africa, there likely wouldn't have been many takers anyway). Tunis was weakly garrisoned, and therefore I attacked directly without waiting to lay siege. Total time from the time the Pope called the Crusade until I took Tunis: two turns. No other nation had enough time to join the Crusade before it was over. I've never joined (nevermind successfully completed) a Crusade before this game, and now in one game I've successfully completed two. Of course, the only reason I've successfully completed two is that both requests were relatively close by to where I was campaigning anyway. If they had listed the target city as Jerusalem, or something else that was way off in the Middle East, I never would have agreed to the request.

EDIT: Does anyone have a list of which equivalent structures are convertable when switching a settlement to a castle or a town? I know that structures that are identical (like roads, blacksmith, etc.) always convert, and that structures that are unique to castles or unique to towns never convert (like marketplaces for towns, and stables for castles). But what about structures with different names that fulfill similar purposes?

I have noticed that a small chapel will convert to a small church, and a chapel will convert to a church when switching from a castle to a town. I assume that the reverse is also true if you switch a town to a castle. In the church example though, it would only work for structures up to church, as castles cannot build the equivalent of abbeys, cathedrals, and huge cathedrals. However, there are other similar structures that I have no idea about like the structures for recruiting infantry troops. Both towns and castles have them, but they have different names and allow for different recruitment of troops.

Towns have: Town Watch, Town Guard, City Watch, Militia Drill Square, Militia Barracks, Army Barracks, and Royal Barracks.

On the other hand, Castles have: Mustering Halls, Garrison Quarters, Drill Squares, Barracks, and Armories.

So what's the deal?

[ January 31, 2007, 19:11: Message edited by: Aldeth the Foppish Idiot ]

 

Well, just started my second my second Long Grand Campaign (my first was France) as the Byzantium Empire which should hopefully be fairly interesting. No Pope for starters! It is a fairly exposed position you start in, but I am less than 10 turns in and have negotiated an Alliance with both Hungary and the Turks- which leaves Venice as the only adjacent nation to fight.

Has anyone else noticed how easy it is to get an Alliance with another faction early on and yet difficult later when you have had Trade Rights up and running? Secondly, how far can I rely on my allies not to turn on me as soon as I start moving toward Italy and have less military strength near them?

 

That's true, and I don't know why it works that way. My only guess is it has something to do with how powerful the two nations are, with a weaker nation more likely to form alliances than a stronger one. In the beginning of the game, all nations not among the Big 5 start the game with "meager" as their military strength rating. In fact, some of the Big 5 start with meager too. The only ones that are better than meager are Enlgand, France and the HRE, and even they are rated as "modest". I'm thinking the only reason they get a slightly better rating is that most factions start with only 2 cities, whereas England, France and the HRE start with more. The HRE are particularly impressive early in the game, as they start with 4 or 5 family members/generals.

Don't rely on them at all. First of all, you cannot rule out that they won't make an alliance with Venice. If either of them do, and you attack Venice, then you will be considered the one violating the treaty.

That possibility aside, the second and more important reason not to rely on them is because it is almost impossible to maintain an alliance between a faction you share a border with, and as soon as all of the nearby rebel settlements are conquered (regardless of which faction ends up getting which ones, you are likely going to be sharing a border with both Turkey and Hungary.

I'm not too keen on making alliances with anyone, but generally speaking, alliances are more productive between nations that have another faction between the two of them. For example, if you are playing Spain, forming an alliance with France isn't likely to go to well, but forming an alliance with England or Milan may pay off. That's because just as it is likely that there will be friction between you and France, it is also possible that France will get into disagreements with it's other neigbors as well. That means when hostilities ultimately commence with France, it may find itself in a two-front war, which only helps you in the long run.

In my most recent game, I have had two factions, Milan and Hungary, both become vassals of the HRE. What happens to a nation when it becomes a vassal? I know what becoming a vassal meant in medieval times, but how is vassalage incorporated in game?

In my current game, after conquering the Moors, I set my sights on the Egyptians. When I had a big army on a ship bound for Egypt, the Pope declared a crusade on Jerusalem, and since I'm on my way to general area anyway, I might make Jerusalem the first settlement I attempt to conquer from the Egyptians. My first several games I entered no crusades. Now, assuming I succeed at this one, I will have completed three crusades in the same game.

 

As the Byzantines you need to cripple the Turks asap if not they will be a true handful to handle. Try to be buddies with Venice and Hungary for as long as possible and hope you will be able to take out the turks before hungary and Venice turns against you cause they will backstab you. It is just a matter of time.

 

Two points of comment here:

1. You may also want to try to get an alliance with the Papal States. Even though you aren't Catholic, having to deal with any Catholic nations isn't good, and having a crusade called against you is never a good thing.

2. I'm a little hazy on the Byzantine units, but IIRC they do not have particularly good late game units. I seem to remember them being particularly weak in the gunpowder department. Early expansion is very important as a result, as you aren't going to get the late-game benefit of super superior units.

 

Good early/middle game infantry. Weak at the end of the game.

 

So in other words, Assume that any war that is declared against me is to the death and rush them accordingly...

 

The Byzantines have one unit that is very very good, the Varditoroi or however you spell it. Extremely good missile cavalry that can charge over most infantry units. Expensive as hell but completely worth it.

On the point of inquistors I think they move towards areas where there are a lot of heretics and they generally dont turn on non rebels until the heretics are gone and then they just take out anything close to them. Keeping heresy under control will mostly keep the inquistors away. Most of the time when you have problems with them it is in new territories where the former owner had let heresy run rampant.

 

I agree with joacqin, in my game with England, my papal rating has dipped to 3 crosses before, and still no inquisitors because I kill any heretic that appears within max 3 turns of him/her appearing.

 

Well, if you're going to be weak in a certain area, infantry is definitely the place you'd take it. As I become more proficient in battles, I notice I am become less and less reliant on infantry. While I have not been able to completely eliminate infantry from my armies, I have been able to keep them down to just a few units per army. Their primary purpose at this point is to protect the infantry and siege weapons. So my typical army breakdown at this point is 40% cavalry, 40% missile, 10% infantry, 10% siege.

For settlement defense, infantry is still essential. I don't see anyway to try and fend off a besieging army without infantry. In fact, infantry is still the main focal point of my garrisons. They are about 75% infantry and 25% missile. The only time I have cavalry defending a city is if a settlement happens to come under siege while they are there for retraining.

Not necessarily. An all out rush to take as many cities as possible as quickly as possible should not be a goal. I would recommend taking one or two enemy settlements quickly, and then stop and make sure the defenses of those cities are up before continuing on. Once the AI loses a city or two, you will find that their ceasefire offers become much more reasonable. They only become extortionate if the war is fairly even.

 

Clearly you and I have a very different way of defending our settlements. While I always keep 2 units of spear militia in a city, I much prefer to use missile units. The main goal for me is to keep them from my walls at all costs. First, I'll sally forth, usually using some cavalry units to do some damage, preferably to take out any general that may be leading the army. With 2 cavalry units, it's usually even possible to rout a medium size attacking army. Though before I do that, I make sure that I've exhausted all my missile ammo. If I've got any form of artillery, I'll use those first too. In fact, later on they'll become my main defense against besieging armies.

If they're still besieging me after the sally, I'll let them come to me, trying very hard to torch their siege equipment, so they'll have to bleed if they want to gain my walls. It usually doesn't come to this, though, unless they've completely outnumbered me, and I'm in deep sh*t anyway.

 

Clearly indeed. It should be pointed out that my description of garrisons are not for front line settlements. My front line settlements are always heavily garrisoned with an assortment of different types of troops. However, for anything that's not on the front line, cheap defense is what I'm shooting for. Therefore, everything that I use to defend my inner settlements are militia units with free upkeep. Most missile units are not militia units - in fact the only one that is available early is crossbow militia. Since garrisoning a settlement nearly exclusively with crossbow militia is a recipe for disaster (they can't fire flaming missiles to light siege equipment on fire, and they are nearly useless in melee combat), having about 50% of your garrison consisting of at least town militia (or preferably spearmen, or even more preferably higher level milita troops that won't be available to at least mid-game) is essential.

However, for the sake of arguement, let's assume that one of my front line settlements is under attack, and it's a sizeable army attacking me, and then ask how I am going to face this challenge. First, to put things in perspective, I play with the standard unit sizes: infantry 75, missile 60, cavalry 40, siege crews 20. As a result a full size army usually numbers somewhere in the range of 1,000 to 1,500 troops - the 20 units per army maximum effectively prevents me from ever seeing 2,000+ army sizes. I know there's a way to increase unit sizes to double all of those values, but because it doubles the enemy size as well, I don't see any advantage or disadvantage to doing it. Since larger armies may cause some speed problems for my computer, I stick with the standard sized units.

Onto how I defend my settlements. There are two factors that need to be considered here, and I will handle them separately. The first thing to consider is whether the enemy is attacking straight away without sieging the settlement first, and thus relying on siege weapons to break through your defenses, or if they are using siege equipment to try to get through/over your defenses. The second factor is what kind of walls do I have? While there is a vast assortment of walls, they basically fall into three categories: (1) wooden walls that you can't station troops on; (2) stone walls where you can have troops on the walls; and (3) multi-layered stone walls in which you can station troops on the walls at the different layers.

Let's consider the AI use of siege equipment first, as it's the easier of the two conditions. If I have a large number of cavalry in the garrison (for whatever odd reason) I will sally forth and attack them. However, I usually don't which means I let them come to me. Fire arrows are used on the enemy siege equipment, with the battering rams always being the priority. Since cavalry cannot make use of siege towers or ladders, you can often win a battle simply by destroying the ram, as all of cavalry are taken out of the equation.

The least desireable defense position for this type of attack is a settlement with wooden walls. Not only are they the weakest, but since you can't position missile units on the walls, they will be less effective (you get a height bonus when you fire from walls). Obviously, it's preferable to have a stone wall to place your missile units. For the purposes of this type of attack, it doesn't matter, as the tactic is the same. I never retreat into the city square in this type of attack. Since there is going to be a choke point at the city gates, and you have the advantage of your towers, there is no tactical advantage to retreating. There is never going to be a better place to make a stand than right there. So the strategy is simple. Use your missile units to kill/destroy as much as possible as they advance to your settlement. Keep one unit of infantry on each wall (if you have stone walls) to prevent enemy troops with ladders or siege towers from taking your walls, and the rest of your infantry and cavalry right at the gates. Try to torch the siege equipment, and failing that, cram as many people into the breached gate as possible to keep your towers firing. Fight to the death. In these battle conditions, infantry are a far better option than cavalry. Without having charges possible with the tight conditions, infantry are the better unit type. As an added bonus you can get more infantry into the breach than cavalry, which betters your odds of winning. This is especially true if you are using spearmen, and the enemy is using cavalry of their own.

Now, if you have a second layer of defense the strategy changes completely. It starts the same in that you use your missile weapons to inflict as many casaulties as possible before they reach your gates. However, as soon as it becomes apparent that the battering ram is not going to get torched, you pull all your missile weapons off the walls and get them on the walls of the second layer of defense. The earlier you recognize that your primary defensive wall is going to fail the better. You don't want to wait until they are actually battering down your gates to pull your archers as that means you'll have to leave your infantry and cavalry to deal with the invaders to give your archers time to retreat. If done properly, you can get everyone back to the second level of defense by the time the enemy gets through the first gate. Most of the time, I can kill off 20% - 30% of the enemy while only losing a 2% - 5% of my own troops. In multi-layers castles, it's almost impossible to lose the second wall to siege equipment. Typically, the ram has to be pushed along the entire castle wall before reaching the gate, all the while taking fire from towers and missile units on the second wall. However, if by chance the ram actually reaches the second gate, the strategy shifts back to the first example. Fight at the final gate to the death, however, it rarely comes to that.

Siege weaponry is much trickier. There is almost no condition where I would consider sallying forth to meet an enemy with siege weapons. It takes a long time to get your troops through the gate, and it seems like they always get hit with one good fireball on the way out that decimates a good number of them. So here defense is more reactionary. I just take the enemy attacks on my walls, acknoledging that some walls will be destroyed. I keep moving my missile units around so they don't get killed on the walls, and once holes in the walls are formed I adjust my cavalry and infantry to deal with them. One thing I like to do here is if I have siege weapons of my own in the city, I will move them to the gap in the walls and have them fire through the gap at the enemy. Otherwise, it's the same thing: if it's a single walled settlement, your best chance at holding is at the wall. If it's a multi-layered settlement, you need to decide as soon as the enemy starts advancing if you want to make your stand here or at the inner wall. Regardless, infantry are a much better option than anything else. The idea is to allow your missile units to remain on the wall for as long as possible, constantly inflicting casaulties on the enemy. The best way to maintain that is not with cavalry units, but with infantry units.

 

Based upon reading this thread I have decided that I am going to buy this game. I can either get it alone or for $20 more I can get it bundled with all the previous Total War games and expansions.

Can any of the Total War series veterens let me know if they think it is worth it to get the earlier games?

 

If the price difference is only a few bucks I say get them all. Especially Rome is worth playing alone and I personally almost prefer it the more. It is very similar to Medieval 2 except that it is ancient units instead of medieval and I tend to like that more.

 

So how many free militia units can you have in each settlement?

 

Depends on what buildings you have in the settlement. The better military buildings, the more you can garrison. Right-clickin on a building say if it allows more garrisoned units.

 

Actually, it depends on the wall type.

Small wood = 2 free militia units
Large wood = 3
Stone = 4
Large stone = 5
Huge stone = 6

 

Ah yeah, the walltype it was. My bad, haven't played in a couple of weeks.