Medieval 2: Total War

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The war goes on. It's a very strange game for me playing as Egypt. I am discovering that the biggest disadvantage of playing a Muslim faction is dealing with repeated Crusade attempts. I signed an alliance with the Papal states in an effort to avoid Crusades being called against me, but that hasn't worked at all. The first Crusade was called prior to my signing an alliance with the Papal States. However, the alliance (which is still currently in place) was signed during the first Crusade and has lasted through the other two. Now the Pope has called yet another Crusade, the fourth of this game. All four have been against settlements that I have held. The only thing different about this one is it is against Antioch, whereas the first three were against Jerusalem. Although, to be fair, I own the vast majority of Muslim settlements. The only other Muslim factions are the Moors (who for some reason hardly ever get Crusades called against them), the Turks, who never controlled more than about 5 settlements, and the Mongols, who only control two settlements at the moment.

I haven't had too hard of a time defending against the first three. In each of those cases I had 12-15 units of Malmuk Archers that are capable of pretty much taking care of any Crusading army that isn't heavy on missile/artillery units. In the first three Crusades nearly every Crusading army consisted of a significant percentage of "religious fanatic" units, which are pretty sucky, and only a few units of either peasant archers or crossbowmen. The strategy was always the same: Use the Malmuk Archers until they run out of ammunition, then run like hell. In most cases, I was able to take out anywhere from 50%-70% of the enemy force. While I rarely was able to kill the general, the surviving army was usually weakened enough that my garrison could handle their assault.

However, this strategy completely fails if the Crusading army has a lot of missile units and especially fails if they bring cannons and the like with them. This Crusade I'm a little worried, as we're now around the year 1320 (plague imminent), and chances are I'm going to be facing significantly tougher Crusading armies than I've faced in the past. Of course, maybe the computer AI is stupid, and will still make armies mostly out of religious fanatics, Crusader Knights, and Crusader Spearmen. If they do that, I'm fine - again not much in the way of missile units, and frankly Crusader Knights and Spearmen are relatively crappy units. The Knights are heavy cavalry, but I think they are only the equivalent of "Mailed Knights" in abilities, so the worst type of heavy cavalry. And I think the Spearmen stats are identical to regular spearmen. The fanatics are really pathetic - not much more then peasants - so I'll certainly be able to handle things if I am once again facing early game units.

One thing I haven't had much success with is assassinating the enemy generals. Not only is it common for either the faction leader or faction heir to be leading the Crusading army (which would greatly decrease my chances to begin with), it appears that generals in Crusading armies get an automatic boost to their security. I have noticed that even my skill level 10 assassins have realtively low chances of success against Crusading army generals. Obviously, if the faction leader is in charge of the army, you're probably looking at a chance of no better than about 20%-30% even if a very skilled level 10 assassin. But in my experience I typically have the minimum base (5%) for even faction heirs with a level 10 assassin.

The strangest thing in the game is which factions have been eliminated up to this point. Not surprisingly both the Turks and Byzantines are on the ropes due to their frequent contact with me. The Byzantines hold only Sophia and Durrazo, while the Turks are left with Tblisi and the one directly south of it (begins with a Y). The Scots were beaten by the English (although I have had a game or two where the Scots actually take over the British Isles). So nothing unusal about it so far.

What is strange is both the HRE and France were eliminated in the early 1200s. The year is currently 1320, and both of the factions have been gone for quite some time already. Both of them were gone long before 1300 and they may have both been gone before 1250. Spain is huge, and it is they that hold most of the formerly French settlements. The HRE was eliminated by a combination of forces. The Danes and the Polish took most of their northern settlements, but in a very usunusal turn of events, all of the southern settlements are currently held by the Sicilians! Milan is also almost done - their lone settlement is Paris.

While it isn't strange to see Spain as a world power, it is very unusual to have two of the big five out of the game so early. Playing Egypt, I really don't know how this happened (the only reason I know this at all is through trading maps and sending diplomats out to re-establish trade rights after a failed Crusade), but it had to be an unusual turn of events. Sicily doesn't hold any provinces in Africa, nor does it control any provinces east of the Adriatic. Their expansion is straight through central Europe. How they could take on the HRE that early in the game and win is beyond me.

EDIT: WOOOHOOO! This is the 500th post on this topic!