Medieval 2: Total War

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I actually checked to make sure there was no authority affecting people in his retinue when I calculated his authority at -2. It still has me puzzled. He has added Deranged to his list of insanity related traits now so he is even loonier than before. Despite this he now has a nine command rating and a 10 authority.

Even more strange is that he has now shifted to be Sultan Ayyub the Merciless. He has not fought any battles since I last checked so just by sending spies and assassins (and going even more insane) he has somehow shifted from a Chivalry of six to a dread of two. I added his traits and retinue for chivalry/dread and the 2 dread is correct.

Actually it kind of makes sense that your King would gain a trait even if the assassin's mission failed. Firstly regardless of the results the very fact that you were willing to send the assassin says something about you. If your assassin failed and was caught then others would know you employ assassins which would definitely impact on how they view your leader.

 

Yeh, ive never been able to calla crusade on an Orthodox faction either. Nicea must of switched hands after you got their map info.

 

I'm telling you all - it happened. The Pope declared a Crusade against Byzantine-controlled Nicea. I'm positive that Nicea is still in Byzantine hands, as I am blockading the port of that city, and Nicea clearly has a purple and white flag flying over it. I received the mission to blockade Nicea the turn before the Crusade was called, when I was already at war with the Byzantines. So I can confirm that it was in Byzantine hands at the time the crusade was declared.

I will readily admit that the Pope calling a crusade against an Orthodox city is unusual, but this is actually the second time I have experienced it happening. (Not in the same game though - this was a game a while back.) The reason I have such a strong memory of this event - I even remember the city was Iconium - was because it is the only time that I've seen a Crusade and Jihad declared simultaneously against the same city. If you were the human player in that situation, how much would that suck? I wish I had taken a screen shot of that now, but I distinctly remember one turn seeing a Venetian Army, flying the cross on Iconium's western side, with the Turkish Army, flying the cresent on Iconium's eastern side.

I suppose that does make some sense, although my assassin escaped capture, so presumably no one knows what faction sent him. I also think it's kind of strange that even when your assassin or spy is killed in the mission, they know which faction is responsible. The assassin/spy usually meets with an abrupt end - there certainly isn't an interogation period - so unless he had some type of means of identifying him on his person, there's no way that they'd know who sent him even if captured and killed.

 

Ok, what is the computers problem with giving away its map information? I wanted to know how the situation in Turkey was, so i had my level 8 diplomat, who was hanging around Antioch anyway, go and speak to the first Turk i saw, i asked them for a straight swap of Map info for Map info, they said no, a proposed that i give them my Map Info for 370 florins, i said no and asked for there info plus there 370 florins, in exchange for my info, they said no and offered 500 and on and on this went until they were offering 2000 florins for just my map info. I told them no and they ended the exchange. Next turn i offered them my map info and 1500 florins in exchange for there map info, this was classed as Very Generous, they said no and again offered me 370 florins for my map info, and the cycle started again.

So why wont they give me the map info?

 

@ Aldeth - all countries brand their spies and assassins - just like cattle. Didn't you know that?

 

I was unaware of that JSSB. It makes perfect sense now.

@Dalveen - it appears that whenever the AI attempts to negotiate something, it will never, ever, give anything up that it didn't offer initially. In this case, it wasn't interested in trading it's map, and so there was no way you could have forced it to, no matter your offer. It's just like how the AI won't accept a ceasefire if you offer it. If they aren't interested in securing peace, you won't ever convnince them of it.

While I don't know if this works or not, one possibility of figuring out a foreign nation's borders would be to click on "give territory button". I don't know if it would list all the faction's territories, or just the ones you were already aware of.

 

Is it just me or are the benefits from joining a jihad considerably less than for joining a crusade?

Edit: Well, I guess the bonus for completing it was o.k. - I am just used to having the better mercanaries available for the crusade.

 

I got a problem related to the crusades:

Often, when I join my very first crusade, I get some fancy units to hire. However, after that first crusade, every single one I've joined since only offer the pilgrims, the slightly better pilgrims, and the cheap ships. Why is that?

Sometimes, it gets even worse. During this game as HRE, I never got offered the good units in the first place. =/

 

It is amazing how much easier this game is when you don't have to worry about ticking off the Pope.

I have taken the Costal cities from Caen to Marseilles. The English don't have any settlements left on the mainland and given how seldomly the computer sends armies by boat I think that means that I can safely ignore them. That leaves Milan as the only hostile faction right now and I have already cut their armies down from being the most powerful to being nothing.

The Mongols took the high road so they should not be a problem when I go for Jerusalem.

Lastly, I have a maxed spy/assassin pairing that has been making life miserable for Egypt. The Egyptian heir offered me 5000 Florins to bump off the faction leader. Given that I was going to do it anyway I jumped at that offer and I just collected my cash.

 

Well I finished my Venice campaign a few minutes ago. By the end of that I had damn near every faction against me, except the Mongols, who, while not allied with me, I was on very good terms with...and they kept the turks and Byzantines off my back for a while.

I ended up getting excommunicated with 37 settlements, because I forgot about a ceasefire deal with the pope, so I decided to use it to my advantage and finish of HRE, Sicily, and Milan, putting my Settlements at 43. I think took Kiev from the Hungarians for my 44th settlement, and finally I butched the Pope in his own city for my last kill. The pope didn't even have any extra units there so he was the first death from my mortars/cannons/trebuchet's. I couldn't tell you which one hit him.

Tbh I was extremely disappointed by the Venetian Heavy Infantry units, as dismounted feudal knights were still better, and only about 20 florins more.

My ending king had every knight that I've ever seen that can add Chivalry in your ratings, and several attributes that added Chivalry, but ended up with 9 dread, 10 command, 10 authority, and 8 Piety. I was definitely pleased with that .

Not sure who i'll start out with next though, I might go for the Danes, or possibly the scots.

 

As for loony sovereigns getting maxed out authority despite their traits being added up as negative it is a fairly common "bug". Seems like you get full authority as soon as you go into negative. Dont know if it truly is a bug or if it is there intentional. Makes some twisted sense that people would actually respect someone who wields the power over life and death a bit extra if that person is completely and utterly insane and unreliable. In my current game my king has more screws loose than an Aeroflot jet. Hoping to warp him some more and see the authority jump up. He got decent command and dread.

I am about to engage the Timurids on my Eastern front and moving troops there en mass while my wacky Emperor is wreaking havoc in Europe with his merry band of bloodthirsty mercenaries and jaded veterans.

In general the Byzantine troopselection isnt the best but tehy got one super unit. The Vardatoirai which rival mongol horse archers. They cost a bundle but are worth and usually make up half my army which generally leads to me waiting out so many cities as I can never be arsed to lug around slow artiellery pieces and the Byzantines best artillery is the bombard which plainly spoken sucks.

 

Well, I changed my mind and started as France, as I had not played with them before, and I wanted to try out one of the more powerful factions. I'm barely into it and already have 13 settlements, netting all the rebel settlements in the area. I decided to go for the ones that were furthest from me first: Antwerp, Bern, and Rennes, and then move in and take the ones closer to me. I also allied myself with England, and stole their mainland general, Robert, and right now I am basically just getting my towns set to keep me in decent shape financially. I think that I will move down to the Iberian Peninsula and then possibly around the Mediterranean , taking out the Spanish, Moors, and Portuguese.

 

Someone called a crusade against me at Toulouse. So far I have had two crusading armies show up. The first I attacked and defeated before it could get to Toulouse - most of my units are cavalry of one sort or another so it actually makes sense to fight them in the field instead of from behind walls.

At the same time I was moving a perimiter of assassins into place. I had a general on crusade die of old age on me once and there was nothing I could do but watch my entire army vanish. Ever since then I had this idea that if I could take out the enemy general then I could basically get rid of a full crusading army. Sure enough one of my assassins intercepted the second army and killed the general and at the end of the next round the army just vanished.

That really turns having a crusade called against me from being a problem into being a real opportunity to cripple the enemies' military. The thought of thousands of florins worth of troop just going up in smoke really warms my heart.

 

I've got my 45 settlements, but I decided to continue playing for a bit. And now the Timurids have entered the picture, entering near Baghdad. They've yet to move, but I'm hoping they'll go south, since my more northern settlements are more recent acquirements and, as such, are less developed.

The French have been annihilated, leaving behind 6 settlements, ripe for the plucking. I've send two armies to take advantage of this opportunity, before the English or the HRE decide to muscle in on my territory. Actually, the english already tried to take Dijon, but left after a single turn of besieging it. I don't blame them, since there's a full stack army in place in Dijon, and they had only a half stack army attacking it.

Speaking of the English, their paranoid king has gotten a few more personal security enhancing traits. Not only does he have the aforementioned Faction Leader, Guard Dog, Paranoid and Morbidly Mortal traits and retinue members, but he also acquired the Master of Spies trait, plus a Foodtaster in his retinue, adding another +3 to his personal security. I was thinking of annihilating the English too, leaving all of modern France to the rebels, but I'm not too sure that's within the realm of possibilities with this king. 6% success rating is not much to work with.

After I had eliminated the Moors, I had my spy and assassin check out Arguin as well. It was quite odd. As I had expected, it was still a rebel settlement, it was still a village, except it had a whopping 11 stack army defending it. That's more than the village's population!

About increasing the variety of guild houses in your realm, even late game, remember that you can always demolish a few of the ubiquitous Thieves' Guild houses, and get an offer for other guild houses in that town.

[ March 04, 2007, 00:37: Message edited by: henkie ]

 

My assassins managed to take out another two crusading armies' generals but unfortunately a third army made it through as the assassin covering that area died during the attempt.

Amusingly the troop make up of the attacking army was three units of archers, a ton of spearmen and the general with his bodyguards. During my first sally I lured the archers into ballista tower range and wiped them out while taking something like 5 casulties. The rest of the troops wouldn't come within ballista range so I marched my missile troops out and sat there taking pot shots at them until my missiles ran out. I ended the sally at that point having wiped out around 50% of the army.

Next round I sallied again. The general apparently decided to buy some mercs as there were now three units each of crusade cavalry and sargeants. There were no new missile troops and again they wouldn't budge so I just waltzed my missile troops out and sat there taking pot shots again. Without the ballista kills the casualties were not as bad as the first time but I still wiped out 400 troops without taking a single casualty.

Unfortunately most of my missile troops are cavalry units that have relatively few missiles. If I had a couple more units of crossbowmen I would have annihilated them by now.

I just quit for the night but it will be interesting to see if the crusaders will attack and try to take three sets of walls while getting pummled by ballista towers or if they are going to continue waiting and allowing me to decimate them during my sallies.

To make things even more interesting I have an army with a bunch of camel gunners and hashashins that is nearly there. I just got both of those troop types for the first time so I am eager to try them out. If they don't attack first i will have to decide whether or not I should attack and force the poor crusaders to face two full armies of mostly cavalry in the field.

Edit: They did attack, and my ballista towers made pretty short work of them. I pulled back to the second wall instead of trying to kill their infanty who went up the ladders and siege towers. The infanty was wiped out by the second wall's towers. Their four units of heavy cavalty ended up just sitting there like stupid lumps so I actually had to go out and kill them.

I just took a look at the family tree and I am just amazed at how the Moorish royal family breeds. There are currently 33 children! If they mature and start having kids at the same rate I am going to be able to field entire armies of generals and bodyguards!

[ March 04, 2007, 19:58: Message edited by: JSBB ]

 

Well I let my friend play for a bit yesterday without thinking that i hadn't saved my France game as anything but autosave, so now i'm finishing his game as spain. I have the whole Iberian Peninsula, and skipped over and took Rennes, Caen, and Angers. I'm Debating on taking the UK or moving down and eliminating Milan. I might Gift France with a few settlements as they are my allies.

 

The game continues, and the playfield is thinning out. Most notably, Spain, England and Turkey have become as nothing as my assassins swept over their lands. Funny how you can be successful in an assassination attempt, even with only 7% chance of success (thinking of the paranoid English king here). This has left the whole of modern France to the rebels. First priority are Metz, Caen and Rheims, so I will have a complete front towards the HRE, which will give me all the time in the world to conquer the remaining 5 settlements.

I think that of all the eliminated factions right now, only Egypt was wiped out because they ran out of settlements. And perhaps Portugal, but I had no hand in that. It might be that the Byzantines will be the second, seeing how they're down to 2 settlements and one of those will be under siege from a rather large army as soon as my fleet arrives on their doorstep.

In the mean time, the Timurids have had their asses handed to them by the catapult towers (which thought they were cannon towers) of Mosul. In addition to their first 6 armies, another four have arrived. Curious how they seem to ignore Baghdad, even though they spawn in that region. As I recall, the Mongols did the same.

I should probably send a few assassins their way, but any city or stray captains on which they can practice are a long way away.

And can anyone tell what a chapter house of the Knights of Santiago does? The manual tells me that I should be able to recruit knights from them (like from the chapter houses of St. John's), but I'm not getting any such option, nor does it say in the in-game description that I can recruit anything.

Edit: The Byzantines are now down to one settlement. I didn't even have to conquer one of their towns either, the populace just decided to toss them out of Constantinople. The fact that a Hungarian cardinal was preaching nearby and a couple of my assassins had taken out some of their public order improving buildings, may have had something to do with it as well. Interestingly, the Explorer's Guild asked me to take over Constantinople immediately after the Byzantines got kicked out of it. I had initially planned to take over Smyrna first, but the possibility of pleasing the Explorers' Guild and hopefully getting an HQ as a consequence is just too good to pass up on.

The HRE is probably not far from extinction either. I don't have a complete picture of how many family members they still have, but I don't think there are much more than two left. If I do manage to wipe them out, Hamburg is a first priority, to plug the Danes up in their northern settlements. At the moment the Danes have got three full stack armies hovering on the border between Arhus and Hamburg, and I don't think they'll wait long to pounce on Hamburg, should it become a rebel settlement. On the other hand, I could quite easily exterminate the Danes as well, since they're holed up in only three settlements, which shouldn't be too hard to cover with a few assassins. That would probably be more prudent, as I don't see the HRE taking advantage of the sudden appearance of several rebel settlements to their north.

[ March 05, 2007, 00:19: Message edited by: henkie ]

 

Well I decided to go ahead and take out Milan. I have captured all the way up to Caen, Paris, Marsielle, Genoa, and Milan. They only have Mets, Dijon, and Venice left, which I should be able to net in the next 5 turns or so.

I'm sitting at 23 settlements or so, and about 15 turns ago I made the Moors my vassal, because I didn't see the point in fighting them for lands that I really don't want all that much.

Is there anyway to change who your faction heir is in medieval 2? I'm pretty sure that you could in Rome, and if possible I'd like to set my faction heir, as the next 3 in line are 55 or above age-wise. I have a very talented dread general coming up right now, having destroyed most of Milan for me. Has the trait "Born Conqueror", starting him with 4 stars, and with only 3 battles under his belt has increased 7 dread and 2 command, 2 loyalty, and 3 authority.

I currently have 8 Cardinals, so I control the Papal elections: should the Pope decide to excommunicate me, I will just assassinate him. But my next question is: should I go and destroy HRE, or take of England and Scotland? They are both restricted to their island, so neither should be very powerful, and HRE has been getting their ass handed to them by the Polish so far this game so they aren't too tough either. Bruges and Antwerp Both Rebelled last round because, I'm assuming, I had 8 spies in each to cause the unrest they had fairly small garrisons too so I will definitely take them next.

As for the Knights of Santiago thing, I'm not sure, I don't believe that I have ever had that chapter house, just the retinue knight (+1 chivalry +1 command)

 

@iLLusioN' - The only way that I can think of to change the faction heir volunarily is to send the current one out on a suicide mission. Of course that doesn't guarantee that the guy you want will get the job so you might need to repeat the process a couple times.

 

And they are causing me fits in my current game as Venice. I actually have taken a few Hungarian cities in the meantime, as my front along the Byzantine border has stalled, after taking Corinth with relative ease. I can't seem to break through Thasi-whatever even after the Egyptians did me a favor by taking Constantinople in a jihad - I would have thought that would have cut off reinforcements, but even after killing off a couple of big Byzantium armies, I don't have enough remaining troops to press on.

The last attempt I was defeated in a particularly cruel twist of fate. Just outside of the target city, my army of 800 met and defeated two Byzantine armies that attacked simultaneously. The combined size of their force doubled mine. I had about 550 troops remaining after the battle, and I thought that finally I would have enough troops to lay siege and take the town. The next turn I began the seige, pressed the finish turn hourglass, and during the AI turn the area was hit by a flood, and both my generals were killed in the flood, along with over 200 of my troops. Now, without heavy cavalry and up against a nearly full stack settlement with only about 300 troops, the Byzantines sallied forth and easily drove me off.

I have found that France is probably the easiest starting faction to play for that very reason. It's not that unusual to have a dozen settlements with the first 20 or so turns of the game. In my game, I even nabbed Valencia before the Spanish or Portugese got there.

I never thought of that, but it makes perfect sense. I also lost a crusading army due to the death of a general, and you're right - you're totally screwed unless there's another family member in the army to take over.

What specifically was this bug again? I have the fix now, so I don't remember what it used to do. I know that it had good sides and bad sides to it. I seem to remember that in certain conditions ballista towers acted like cannon towers, and other conditions they acted like regular arrow towers, and in no conditions did they actually behave as ballista towers. What was the criteria again?

I have got the chapter house plaing the Spanish once, and it should allow you to recruit Knights of Santiago. I just checked the strategy guide to refresh my memory, as that game was a while back. According the guide it gives the following details: Allows for recruitment of Knights of Santiago. It goes on to give the stats of the knights. It appears that the Knights are comparable to all the other orders, i.e., Templar, St. John's, and Teutonic Knights. They all only vary slightly in the attack and defense ratings.

However, this last point may be important - according to the guide the only factions that have Knights of Santiago available to them are Spain, Portugal and Venice. Are you playing one of those factions? Obviously, you wouldn't have been offered the guildhouse if you weren't playing one of those factions, but did you capture the guildhouse from one of those factions? I have noticed that when I have conquered certain Muslim cities they let me put on horse races, provided there are racing tracks already existing in the settlement. I can't build race tracks in a settlement that don't have them already, but I get to keep the already constructed race tracks. Maybe the same thing applies to guild houses?