Medieval 2: Total War

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Sending an assassin to take out the current Pope does not end a crusade either - I have tried. The amusing thing is that it has been a huge amount of time since the last crusading army showed up but the crusade against Toulouse is still on. I keep expecting the crusade to be cancelled but it is not.

In terms of tactics I don't really use infantry much in the field either - I normally send my cavalry in/out to wipe out the enemy missile troops while having my own missile troops launch an arrow storm at the enemy infantry. If the enemy actually sends a cavalry charge at my missile troops I will have them fall back behind my spearmen and have thme take the charge but otherwise my infantry will normally just end up sitting there staring at the missile troops' backs.

I was planning on leaving England alone but the explorers' guild asked me to take London and I am obliging them in the hopes of getting a guild HQ eventually. I took Antwerp after they asked me to so I am hoping that this will put me firmly in their good books. I currently only have thieves' and hashashins' guild HQs.

Dijon just fell to my Jihad army. I wonder how many turns it will be before I can call another one?

 

I have had the Pope die during a crusade, and the crusade continued under the reign of his successor. So while I have never tried to assassinate one to end a crusade, my guess would have been that it would not work. Regardless, given that it is only about 20 turns into the game, I certainly don't have any assassins that are anywhere near proficient enough to be taking out a Pope. In fact, I haven't trained an assassin yet for lack of having the correct building. I need the inn equivalent. I know that's either a shisha bar or den - I'm not sure which one is level 1 and which is level 2. Being just 20 turns into the game means I have more pressing needs. But at the very least, Jerusalem as a level 4 settlement has the ability to construct the building.

Egypt starts off by itself. The closest opposing faction is the Turks, but there are a TON of settlements in and around modern day Israel between you and them. So I don't send assassins wandering through Turkey, hoping to find an eligible target.

However, with crusading armies on the way, I'll need assassins to take out their generals. Given your reported success, that definitely seems to be the most efficent way of fending off a crusade. Unfortunately, since I don't have any assassins yet, I obviously don't have the guild either. That means I'm likely going to have to train several assassins, hoping to get lucky and have one "born" as a skill level 3 assassin. Without the guild, most of my assassins will start as skill level 1, making them pretty useless when it comes to taking out targets. I frequently do this anyway, as the hardest skill point to get is the first one. If you start with a skill level 3 assassin (or at least level 2) there are many more targets you can take out. A skill level 1 assassin only has a 50-50 chance against a target with 0 skill rating, and so that's useless against a general. I may get screwed anyway - being so early in the game, there's a pretty good chance that the faction leader or heir is the general for the crusade, and any assassin is going to have a hard time with that.

It still ticks me off when the Pope calls a Crusade so early in the game, even if I'm playing a Catholic faction. If I haven't even finsihed securing my own borders and taking nearby rebel settlements, a crusade request is typically going to fall on deaf ears, or get minimal particiapation for my part.

Ditto. The thing I like the best about that strategy is that with missile troops in skirmish mode, it requires no micro-management on the battlefield. They run away on their own, and then the charge runs right into the spearmen, with cavalry on the way.

I have noticed that you seem to be able to get jihads called much more frequently than Crusades, which has a 10-turn limit. Of course, a reason for this may have to do with jihad requests not having to go through some central-authority figure like the Pope. I think the only thing you need to call a jihad is an imam with a sufficient piety rating (and I'm guessing that "sufficient" would be defined as 5). Is there any penalty for non-participation in a jihad? You can't get excommunicated, but is there any incentive to join a jihad other than the reward you get for completing it?

EDIT:

I've never had a guild ask me to take a settlement. Do they give any explanation? Especially something like an explorers guild - do they want to explore England?

[ March 07, 2007, 18:07: Message edited by: Aldeth the Foppish Idiot ]

 

Hmm, it appears that I will no longer be able to play Medieval on my computer so I'm going to have to use the study pc to play it. A shame, as I'm rather comfy here.

I'm not completely useless at this game.

I wasn't using them to lead a charge against missile troops. In most of the times I used them, my infantry force was a bunch of missile troops with some Dismounted Fedual Knights close behind. The Dismountd Chivalric Knights formed a third line. When the enemy came at me, they hit the Feudal Knights as the missile troops fell back. As this happened, I advanced the Chivalric Knights and charged the already engaged enemy flanks.

As I am aware of their lacking defense, this protected them from arrows and gave them the advantage of the charge. Despite this, they still didn't do much for me.

 

There was no real explanation given as to why the explorers' guild wanted me to take either of the settlements - it just said that they would give me a pittance in Florins and like me if I did it and that I would be high disfavoured if I didn't. Given that I already had taken over Paris and had planned on gobbling up Brussels next taking Antwerp instead wasn't a big deal. Shipping troops over to England is a significant deviation from what I planned but I think I should be able to manage to divert the troops without weakening my mainland position to the point where the HRE can actually do something about it.

After I took Antwerp I demolished the Thieves Guild there (I already had the HQ) and I was offered an explorers' guild there the following turn.

As far as Jihads go - there is no real incentive to join unless you actually think you can succeed and claim the bonuses for completing the Jihad. There is no one to impress with your piety and the other Islamic factions don't seem to care. I think the general will usually get some piety related trait for joining the Jihad but that is about it in the way of benefits from joining. Basically I am just using the Jihad to get some free Florins and unit experience boosts for taking cities that I was about to take anyway.

I know that there is a time delay between when you can call Jihads but I have not been able to figure out how long it is. All I know is that the call Jihad button is grayed out and I see a 'it has been too little time since the last Jihad' message.

 

Well you are using them correctly - especially with dismounted feudal knight as support. The feudal knights are pretty much the exact opposite of chivalric knights, as they are high in defense but only average in attack. I think the reason that I like the chivalric knights better is that it is easier to increase their defense rating by equipping them with better armour than it is to increase the attack rating of the feudal knights. I typically have a few armour-boosting structures scattered throughout my empire, but I have woefully few swordsmiths guilds - typically only one, sometimes none. That's why I'm more inclined to take a unit with a high attack value and work on improving its defense than the other way around.

 

Another difference of tactics. I never wait them out. The closest thing I had, was when I was recently besieging Nicaea and continued to lay siege on them for a couple of turn until the town was no longer infected with the plague. But normally, I always attack in the same turn as I start the siege. And when I don't have any artillery yet to bash down their gates, I wait only until I've build a ladder and a ram and then immediately attack.

Quite so. I did just have a fairly classical battle with the Byzantines. They had two fairly large armies posted just outside the gates of my freshly conquered Constantinople (which I conquered at the urgings of the Explorers' Guild, you might be interested to know). One army was the recently expelled garrison of Constantinople, kicked out after a revolt. The other was presumably an army send to reinforce the garrison prior to the revolt, though the AI does tend to work in mysterious ways. They had been standing there for quite a few turns, just idling, watching me conquer Constantinople right under their noses. Once safely entrenched in Constantinople, I send out my own army to remove their presence from my land.

Uncharacteristically, I had as much as 3 Muslim Archer units in that army, which I positioned in the typical formation: First a line of archers, backed by infantry close behind, and the cavalry at the flanks. The opposing party had three trebuchets, so I wasn't about to just trade missile fire for a while, and send out all of my cavalry around their army, to attack the trebuchets directly. I didn't need all of the 5 units of cavalry to this, so I send the rest to harass the enemy flanks. Meanwhile, their army was marching happily towards my lines, taking withering crossfire from my archers all the way. Their eventual charge followed the typical pattern: They charge, my archers retreat, they meet my infantry, my cavalry charges into their backs, they rout.

In the following chaos of me sending my cavalry in every direction trying to mob up as many of their routing infantry as possible before their reinforcements got close to my lines. Then the whole scene was replayed again as their reinforcing army arrived. With the notable exception that their emperor's bodyguard unit gave me quite some trouble before I had freed up enough of my infantry to crush them.

The most interesting thing in this battle was that all three of the remaining Byzantine family members participated in it. I managed to capture both their king and their prince as they routed, and could have ransomed them for a hefty 22000 florins. I executed them instead, since I was looking to destroy their faction. Plus I'm at a point where my income exceeds my expenses, even when I build everything I possibly can in every city, so I'm not in need of extra funds.

The remains of that battle fled back to the Smyrna region, including the last surviving family member. Seeing him there, with one whole member of his body guard, 18 spearmilitia and 1 guard archer, I send a couple of cavalry units forth from Nicaea to mob them up. Poof. No more Byzantines.

And, in the next turn, I assassinated the last three members of the Danish royal family. The HRE are down to three family members as well, but I'm keeping them in place for the time being, to keep Poland and Hungary from gaining too much ground. I am camping out outside of the cities the prince and king are in, though. They continually spit out new family members, which I'm trying to kill off as fast as possible, to prevent their family from growing too big.

And since Hungary managed to get itself excommunicated for one thing or another, so I'm looking to take Sofia from them, as I need a castle there for retraining; the trec back to Adana or Palermo is getting far too long. I noticed they have an academy in Sofia too, which allows for the training of spies, assassins and diplomats in castles. I wonder if I'll be able to use it, or if it is another faction-specific guild. I called for a crusade for Sofia too, and got it granted. My army should be knocking on their gates the next turn. Free experience for everybody! I've actually, for once, got a full stack army together, which is assembled mostly from infantry of two different armies, which I send to Sofia so I could retrain them once I captured the castle. And since Hungary for some unfathomable reason recalled all but two units from Sofia, I should be able to comfortably walz right over them.

 

Interesting. I had an army just sitting there idle on the island west of Rome. I managed to free up a ship, ferried them back to the mainland, and since they were there anyway used it to capture Rome. Most of the defenders went down pretty easily but the Pope and his bodyguards put up a hell of a fight - no meek holy man there he was definitely one tough SOB. I have had less trouble fighting high command & dread generals than I did with the Pope.

Anyway, as soon as I occupied Rome the crusade against Toulouse ended. I suspect that after the cool off period ends the first thing the new Pope is going to do will be to call a crusade against Rome.

I took London without any problem. I was worried for a minute that I had unbalanced the British Isles too much because it looked like the Scots were going to come down and scoop up England's remaining settlements but England drove them back. Actually this is a good development - England is far too busy with the Scots for them to try to retake London. However, I didn't get my explorer's guild HQ so I am kind of disappointed. 300 Florins and then getting a regular explorer's guild in Paris the next turn seem a bit skimpy given that now I am going to have to be constantly worrying about England and/or Scotland.

My assassins eliminated Milan - they were down to their last two settlements. I scooped one up afterwards but Sicily has already put Milan under siege so it looks like I won't be able to get both of them.

[ March 08, 2007, 15:22: Message edited by: JSBB ]

 

can a demo of this game be downloaded somewhere?

 

http://www.gamershell.com/pc/medieval_2_total_war/downloads.html

should be the first download link.

 

I've given up on rhyme and reason in the AI, and in trying to please the pope, only backing down in the face of excommunication. Screw crusades, maybe build a church or priest that I need anyway when the pope asks, but when he calls on me ot back off someone, screw him...

It leaves enemies alive too long. Dead enemies don't gang up on you...

 

OK, the Crusade failed! All told, I destroyed full stack armies from France, HRE, Venice, Poland and Denmark. All fell to my mighty armies. The only general I was able to assassinate was the French one, because all the other armies had faction heirs or faction leaders as the commanding generals, so I had pitiful 5%-8% chance of success there.

The strategy I used was to build up an army of mounted desert archers - 12 units specifically. These guys are about the equivalent of the mounted crossbowmen that western European factions get late in the game. While these units will be far from ideal as the game progresses, they are overpowered early in the game, especially when fighting armies consisting mostly of infantry units. They are mobile enough that the infantry can't catch them when you place them on skirmish mode, and yet they can fire while moving, thus greatly increasing their kill rate. The strategy I used was to attack while staying out of melee range the whole time, then withdraw as soon as I ran out of arrows. Using this strategy I was able to engage armies containing well over 1,000 enemy troops, kill over half of them (one time I actually killed 70%) and only lose the equivalent of about one full unit of mounted desert archers in the process (about 40 troops). A couple of times, I killed the general, which effectively ended their hopes in the crusade. Even the armies that made it with the general to Jerusalem had their ranks sufficiently thinned that they had no hope of taking Jerusalem as they were now seriously outnumbered (Jerusalem was garrisoned with a full stack army.)

I have now also expanded my empire considerably. I control most of the west bank. I got into a brief war with Turkey that only lasted a few turns. I pwned a large Turkish army, and they agreed to a ceasefire with terms of them reliquishing one of the settlements that bordered on my empire. After the crusade, I was able to agree to favorable ceasefire deals with Poland, Denmark and France, all of whom paid a considerable sum of florins in the deal, and I got trade rights between them now as well. The HRE and Venice weren't having any of the cease fire, so I sent a ship and took the Venetian capital on the island. I still don't know if they've had enough. Now it looks like I'm going to get into a war with the Byzantines as they have a sizeable army that just crossed my border into my newly acquired territory (Adana) from the Turks.

There are two really stange things though that I can't figure out: 1.) How the heck do you call a jihad? I know I've done it before, but there's no "Pope" scroll to pull up as a Muslim faction (well I wouldn't expect a Pope scroll, but an equivalent), and I have no idea how to request one.

Secondly, I now have a Master's Hashasin guild. It was pretty cool too. One turn I got offered the first level guild, and the very next turn I got offered the upgrade to the master's guild. In the description in the strategy guide it says that it is the Muslim equivalent of the assassins guild, although it doesn't appear to function that way at all. First of all, it allows me to recruit Hashashin infantry units, which are pretty beefy with a good attack and defense rating. So if they do give the same benefit as the assassins guild - which I have yet to attempt as I already have several skilled assassins at work - then they are clearly superior to the Christian counterparts in that they allow for the recruitment of a really good infantry unit in cities. Anyone have some more info on this? Do you get improved assassins as well?

So far I think Egypt is very powerful. It is probably the only game I have played where I have not had a single turn where my building queues stalled. Even when I was building units like crazy in preparation for the crusade, I always had enough money for all of my construction projects. In all of my other games, there were always at least a few turns where some of my cities had their construction projects delayed due to lack of funds.

The other concern I have is I just got the first notification of the Mongols. I still don't know if they are going to show up near Sarkel or near Bahgdad. Obviously, I'm rooting for the former. About the only positive in this is that the Turks control the eastern-most settlements in the Middle East, meaning they will have to deal with the Mongols first. I didn't plan it that way, but it just happened to work out that the Turks were able to expand quicker than I was because they didn't have to put up with a Crusade early in the game. I'm probably going to hold off on future expansion beyond the seemingly inevitable fight with the Byzantines until I figure out what's going on with the Mongols. I had hoped to expand westward into Africa, but now the Moors have conquered all the African territories from Marrakesh to Tripoli - also because I didn't have time for expansion with the Crusade which they didn't have to deal with - and given the Christian problems I'm going to have I don't need to get on Muslim faction's bad side - except for the Turks, which won't be avoidable.

[ March 09, 2007, 16:36: Message edited by: Aldeth the Foppish Idiot ]

 

You can call a Jihad from the information screen for one of your Imams if that Imam has a high enough piety. At the bottom of the information screen there is a tiny circular button that is used to call the Jihad. It should have a cresent moon symbol or something like that.

The Hashashin's guilds give you better assassin subterfuge just like the assassin's guilds do. Plus you can recruit those very sweet Hashashin stealth infantry units.

 

Yea I've pretty much come to the point that I really don't care what the Pope says. The only thing that gets irritating is that I lose public order for being excommunicated, as I high tax every city I can for maximum money, when i get excommunicated, I tend to Have public order much lower than I like.

I have to say, the Danes are probably the easiest faction to use for me, their infantry early game is just insane. I walk through opposing armies like they aren't even there with Norse swordsman and dismounted huscarls.

I'm sitting at 28 areas so far, and I'm pretty sure that I just passed 1200. I think that I'll take Rome soon, just for the hell of it. I already have Venice, Genoa, Balogna, and Florence right next to it, so i should be able to field a pretty decent army.

 

I knew that. In fact, I think I may have told you that you needed a decent piety imam to request a crusade. I know I've done it in the past, but I never saw it on the info screen - and I did check with one of my higher piety imams. You did say it's a small button though, so maybe I missed it.

Yes, the Danes are a very strong faction early. You also can take several settlements early on if you're quick. The biggest problem is obviously the HRE, who never play nice. As the game progresses however, you will find that their higher level infantry units - which are still pretty good - are not nearly as overpowered as the early ones. Also, barring the possibility of getting one of the knight guilds you will have less than stellar cavalry.

 

It is quite possible that you missed it - if I remember correctly there is no writing to label it or tell you what the button does unless you scroll the mouse pointer over the button. It looks like a small decorative flourish.

 

If you're really concerned about this, know that you can manipulate the game in this respect. Save the turn before your get the notification of where they'll arrive, and if you don't like the place where they spawn, reload. Their location is chosen randomly each time.

Sofia has fallen before my crusading army, and, as it turns out, I can't use their academy to train spies, assassins or diplomats there myself. Not that I really care, as I have plenty of cities for this. Sofia is a citadel, but doesn't as yet have the highest level of buildings, meaning I can only retrain a few of my army's units. I plan on sending these retrained units to Bucharest, which is rather poorly defended at the moment.

On the other side of Europe, Toulouse and Rheims have been annexed into my kingdom. Next stop will be Angers, which is conveniently equiped with a Swordmasters' Guild.

The one faction sharing the longest borders with me, the HRE, is down to a prince and an emperor. I'm contemplating whether to keep them alive for a bit longer, until I have one or two (or three) armies ready to annex some of the ex-HRE towns, to keep the eastern european faction from gaining any ground. I'll probably just assassinate them before that, though, waiting only for a single army to be prepared and send to Vienna, which has been on my wishlist for some time now.

Today, as I looked to what factions were still left in the playing field, I realised that the Russians are the only non-catholic faction left. This sort of limits the choices of choosing any future crusade to excommunicated factions.

Last turn I finally got the message that the world is round, so now I'm building a couple of dry docks, and I'm hoping to be able to sail for the Americas soon. I understand that I should create armies with plenty of infantry for the invasion? If this is true, then I'm curious about how many battles will be out in the open, where the dense forests will hinder missile units and cavalry. At present, most of my battles are siege battles, and for those I can just send a conventional army, since I assume the battles inside the towns will be the same as normal.

 

Well, I've only played to the Americas once, so I may not be the best person to ask. From my admittedly limited experience, it seems that infantry are simply the most practical choice for use in the Americas. Missile troops are practically useless due to the dense forrests. Since cavalry have high melee ability they can still be used, although you won't be able to charge effectively. Still, if you can spare a few teenagers who have just come of age to throw on your boats as generals, they will be well worth having.

Another thing that you need to remember to bring are priests/imams (I forget which faction you're currently playing). Conquered settlements are extremely difficult to maintain order in because (1) they obviously don't share your religion and (2) they are very, very, very far from your capital - regardless of where your capital is. While there is no practical way to change #2 (other than relocating your capital to America, which simply transfers the problem of having a few settlements distant from your capital to having nearly the entire empire distant from you capital) you can do something about #1. Your priests/imams start converting as soon as they get off the boat, so you can conceivably turn a decent percentage of the population to your religion before you take a settlement. Unfortunately, it is still very difficult to keep order up without butchering the populace.

Since I forgot to comment on this in my previous post, I'll do it now. I, too, used to never bother waiting out the enemy in the case of a seige, until Barmy Army informed me of a wonderful little tidbit I had not realized - the garrison size drops by a few percent every turn the seige is maintained. Obviously, the benefit of this is related to two factors: (1) how big the garrison is and (2) how long it can hold out for in the event of a seige. Thus, the best canidates for this strategy are settlements that have large garrisons that can also hold out for several turns.

If you are seiging a town that only has a garrison of 100 troops, it doesn't make much sense to wait 6 or 7 turns to try and take the town. There will still be about 80 troops left, and chances are in the time you're waiting the enemy will send a signifcantly larger army over to try and break the seige. So the benefits are minimal. Another time that seiges aren't particularly effective is if they only have enough food to hold out for a couple of turns. In such cases the garrison at the time of the attack is virtually unchanged compared to what you would have got from storming the walls.

Still, large settlements with lots of troops and food are great. You can reduce the enemy to about 80% of their original size before you even take the field of battle, and since they all come out of that front gate, you can have ballistas and catapults key on that target and watch the body parts fly.

There is one other good time to siege settlements, and that's when the settlement is held by rebels. I have noticed that rebel settlements will often simply surrender instead of fighting you at all when you place them under seige. That is a real boon early in the game when you have a limited number of troops, and you can take a territory without losing a single soldier.

Having said all that, I will agree that there are times when taking the walls is the way to go. In fact, in my current game, when I took the Venetian capital, the only unit inside was the faction leader. So I waited a turn to build a battering ram, and then proceded with the smack down. The only thing waiting in that scenario would have done would be to give the Venetians an opportunity to send reinforcements.

I am a little concerned with my present game. I just leafed through the strategy book to see the advanced Egyptian units, and it seems like they shoot their wad pretty early. There isn't really much to get excited about later on. It appears that the Royal Malmuks can be very good cavalry, but that's about it. They only have one missile gunpowder unit (Sudanese Gunners), and while Naffatun sound pretty cool, I suspect they will be more of a novelty than anything.

 

Wierd, wierd game for me now. I did Blitz teh Scots when they blocked my land access to Dublin, then instead of Fracne double crossing me, it was HRE. So after claiming Antwerp, Stauffen, Franhfurt, Vienna, Innsbruk (and Prague from the Rebels), Denmark broke an alliance to start blocking my ports. I went south to take Bologne to finish off the HRE. Then from Denmark, I got Hamburg, Madgeburg, Stettin, Thorne, Aarhaus and Stockholm. (Oslo is still in rebel hands, and I need my garison ready before leaving Stockholm.

I have taken Rhiems, Dijon and Milan from the Milanese (but lost Bologne(, and have taken Paris from Portugul with an army headed to Angers. I have France (left with Bern and Metz to my Knowledge) completely surrounded, but have bigger fish to fry...

My king is on a crusade towards Constantinople (under threat of excommunication if he didn't lead the crusade personally).

After 105 turns or so, I have 27 settlements, but no Jerusalem. I think I can take the other 18 settlements in Europe while sending some forces towards the Holy land (might get key generals away from annoying inquisitioners that way too)...

I just might pull this off...

 

Well I started another game as Spain, not really trying to expand on this one, I'm basically just playing so I can check out the America's. I took over the entire Peninsula and then Toulouse and Bordeaux, and I'm basically just building them all up while fending off the French. I've already got some professional armies in Cordoba, and I've only played for an hour or so.

 

I've got 35 settlements, about 120 to 130 turns used. Milan, HRe and Denmark have been eliminated, France is down to one settlement, but I have to wait for the Pope to turn his back.

Spain and Portugul are at war with me as well. Oslo is rebel, and I then need to focus on getting deathstacks to Jerusalem. I think I can do this...