Total War Discussion

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I started playing Rome: Total War on the week-end. I got bundled in when I bought Medieval II and I figured it would run o.k. on my laptop so I brought it over to China to play after work. So far I have really enjoyed it - it is very similar to Medieval II so there wasn't much of a learning curve required.

 

I just finished my fourth campaign in Rome Total War and I decided to move on to the Barbarian Invasion expansion. I started a game as the Huns and quickly decided that I really didn't like starting with such a massive unbeatable horde so I immediately switched over to the Goths but they start with next to nothing and almost instantly huge Romans armies started attacking me. I think I will just shelf the expansion and move back to playing Medieval II.

 

I am playing the Medieval II Total Wars Kingdoms expansion. I did the Britain Campaign as the English and then the Americas campaign as the Apache. I met the objectives as the Apache easily enough. As soon as I learnt how to use gunpowder I was able to crank out hordes of Thunder Braves and Mounted Thunder Braves and they just clean up the opposition. After hitting the long campaign target for settlements I decided to try to play on and take over everything and found out that the Mayans with around 20 settlements are actually tough enough to make me work for it. I am currently using my boomsticks to mow down horde after horde of primitive screwheads but there seems to be no end to them.

While I am playing that out I also started another game as the Spanish to see how that works and it is kind of interesting. Having to use large numbers of native mercanary cannon fodder supported by a small number of elite high tech units is definitely different than my usual strategies.

I doubt that I will play an Aztec or Mayan game though - using hordes of grunts to take on small groups of high tech opponents just isn't my cup of tea.

 

I've been playing Medieval II: Total War again as well, this time playing with the Ruskies. The description says they have poor early infantry, and they're not kidding either. Starting off, you can only build archer militia, with spear militia only available after you build the next upgrade. And since you start with only a single city, you don't get the option to build any units build from a castle either.

Despite starting only with that one city, their starting position is actually pretty good. Provided you expand quickly, you have 11 regions to make your own (including your starting settlement) before you need to think about turning towards other factions. It was only around turn 70 that I was first attacked.

Even so, those rebel settlements start out very small, villages and towns or their equivalent castle, and I was spending a lot of time waiting for them to grow from one size to the next. This did make me note that it's perhaps easiest to turn the villages and towns into castles first, then upgrade those motte & bailey's and wooden castles into plain castles, then turn them back into a large town. This way you get more building options more quickly, because up to the plain castles there's no population size requirement, whereas this is the case for cities.

So, being stuck with very poor infantry units, every settlement I took was generally conquered by waiting out the siege, have them sally forth and then crush them with my cavalry.

The description of Russia didn't only say that Russia had poor early infantry, but it also said that they had excellent cavalry. After my first skirmishes with the Poles and Hungarians I was inclined to disagree, though. They may have excellent late period cavalry, but none of my early and mid period cavalry could stand toe to toe with either the Polish Nobles or the Hungarian Nobles. Admittedly, these are excellent units, but I was under the impression that I had units at least as good.

Unfortunately, those kick ass units only become available from Citadel level settlements, leaving me stuck with those relatively poor units for at least half the game.

Adding insult to injury, Russia not only has poor early infantry, they have poor late infantry as well. Admittedly, the Dismounted Dvor is pretty good at melee for a missile unit, but it's rather dissappointing that the pure melee infantry is no better than the dismounted Dvor, leaving me with rather feeble and fragile infantry. The Berdiche Axemen that can be trained from cities have excellent attack ratings, but appear to have armor made of cardboard.

I guess I will have my late period armies made up entirely from Tsar Guards and Dvor (the mounted variant), as the Tsar Guards have superior stats than any melee infantry I can produce anyway.

On the other hand, not being a catholic faction really makes my day. Without the pope holding me back, I'm cutting a swath through Europe from east to west.

 

That's what I'm enjoying with Byzantium too. The only concern is that their troops are expensive, and could flatline an economy if you don't watch the aggression. Mind you, I have, within 75 turns, crushed the Hungarians, gained over 20 regions, and have Venice (will eventually send a couple forces for Milan and Genoa, and eventually move on one of my objective regions--Rome). I'm also looking at the possibility that an invasion of Jerusalem (the other objective region) may have to come by sea. Between the HRE and Venice, that chould help me get to the 45 regions easy enough...

 

Been playing the Teutonic campaign of M2: TW - Kingdoms. I'm playing as the Teutonic Order, which have really good starting conditions, having strong early units and a quite large standing army. They also start out at war with the Lithuania faction, which is actually a blessing in disguise, as you'll need to expand early and fast or the maintenance cost of your army will run your economy into the ground. Only when I had conquered all of the Lithuanian settlements - somewhere around turn 20 - did my income become high enough for me to be able to continue building in every settlement.

A lot of the settlements start out very small, though. There's a ton of small areas that start out with a simple village, and having to wait for the population to grow takes a lot of time. Luckily, you can reduce the waiting time by turning a village or town into its equivalent castle, which don't have a population requirement for anything smaller than a fortress. So you can convert your village to a motte & bailey, upgrade that until it's a castle, and then convert that back to a large town, which allows for more building options and corresponding increase in population growth. Quite nifty. Costs a bit more money, though, but that's only a problem in the beginning and the increase in income makes it more than worth it in the long term.

I'm currently at war with basically everyone (only the HRE remains my friend) after Poland attacked me, causing me to suddenly be at war the Novgorod as well. This isn't really a problem, as one currently Polish and one currently Novgorodian settlement are on the list of requirements for winning the game, but they both have mounted archers, which are a real pain in the arse.

The Teutonic Order has some really strong units, both for heavy infantry and heavy cavalry, but they have very limited options for mounted archers, which only becomes available late into the game too. Anything melee they throw at me is seriously outclassed by my units, but while strong, the heavy cavalry is also slow, and just becomes target practice for faster mounted archers that run away as I try to get close. Oh well, that just means that I will have to ignore most of their roaming armies and focus on sieges, where they don't have anywhere to run and easily fall prey to my spearmen.

 

Finished my game of the Teutonic campaign of M2:TW Kingdoms, and am now continuing my game of the Britannia campaign, playing as Ireland.
They've got some powerful units, but are severely lacking in the ranged units department. You start out with the a form of javellin men and Gaelich Archers which are basically slightly upgraded peasant archers, and then... well, nothing, actually. The next ranged unit that isn't siege weaponry is the horseboys - mounted javellin men. Towards the end game they should start getting the usual gunpowder units and mounted musketeers, which should be pretty powerful.

When you compare this to the English or the Welsh, who both have their versions of the longbowmen, the Irish are severly underpowered in the ranged department. They make up for it in close quarters fighting, of which there's actually quite a lot. More so than the other campaigns, which is in part due to the different implementation of forts in this campaign.

Rather than being temporary constructions, these are permanent, can be owned by a faction (and taking it, even when it's empty, is an act of war) and two units stationed have free upkeep. They're really good for controlling bottlenecks, and are so cramped that close quarter combat will decide which side is going to win. It helps if you put some archer units on the walls, though, who, thanks to the small size of the forts, then turn a fort into a shooting gallery. Provided you can keep their units off of the walls, of course.

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I love tampering with history in this game. I had a big laugh when William Wallace, who appeared very close to where I'd landed, bit the dust only 2 or 3 turns after appearing when one of my assassins got to him. For some unfathomable reason, the entire Scottish faction was destroyed a few turns later, even though I'm sure that they still had a number of generals left. Well, I wasn't complaining, as the entire of Scotland lay there for the conquering.

 

I haven't played any games for a couple of weeks now... too busy with work and the holidays. Even my BG2 game in progress has had to go untouched.

What I'm waiting for is the latest iteration of the Third Age:Total War total conversion for Medieval 2 Total War. The modding community has finally made a huge breakthrough in being able to design custom settlements. The next release will include a proper Minas Tirith, Helm's Deep, Orthanc, Moria, and one still unannounced generic settlement. And there have been a TON of other improvements to this mod since I last played it around 2 years ago. Very much looking forward to a return to Middle Earth once the latest version comes out, and will most likely play as my favorite faction, Gondor (though the High Elves are a strong secondary contender). I'm tempted to try the newly modified Eriador/Arnor faction, where you have a chance to restore the the Kingdom of Arnor to full glory, but must start as an underpowered, unorganized generic Eriador faction to do this. But meh, Gondor is a bit more well rounded, and will probably start there.

 

Play time has been limited for me as well, but when I do play, these days it's all about Total War Shogun 2. It's one hell of a good game, and even better since last week's patch + an overhaul mod I'm using called Road to Kyoto.

Samurai clashing with Katanas, backed by hordes of Yari Ashigaru and archers. Ninjas subverting their masters' enemies. Geisha pulling knives from their hair and assasinating unsuspecting victims. Beautiful Japanese landscapes. Glorious naval battles, where fire arrows can ignite enemy ships. Become Shogun and attempt to unite the country under a single banner!

Good stuff!

 

I recently got back into Medieval II: Total War (another game that's probably about 5 years old). Playing the Danes - not really sure why I went with them - perhaps because I usually go with factions that specialize in cavalry (like France) or bowman (like England). I think I also wanted to focus my conquests in central and eastern Europe more than western Europe. I also considered the Scots as well, but I figured while the strategy in battle would be different from England, the conquests goals would be identical.

 

The unit I remember the most from the Danes is the Norse War Cleric - the Danish version of heavy cavalry. Whenever I would send my cavalry to deal with them, they would get a severe beating. These Norse War Clerics have great staying power and while they may appear to be somewhat lacking in the offensive department at first sight, they have the 'good against armor' trait, which is basically the M2:TW variant of Armor Piercing ammo. They even could manage to stand up to the Russian Tsars Guard quite well, which is impressive, considering they are one of the strongest cavalry units in the game.

So yeah, possibly you chose poorly if you wanted to try your hand at a faction with strong infantry You could try Venice, their heavy infantry is one of the few units with both great attack rating and defense rating. If I recall correctly, though, you already played Venice once, right?

Also, am I the only one that occasionally leaves the M2:TW launcher open because I love the music that plays with it?

 

Well, I'm still in the very early game - the Mongols haven't even showed up yet. So I do not have any Norse War Clerics. I do have a fortress, so I should in theory be able to make them, but I don't think I've focused on the stables upgrades that allow construction fo that unit. It's strange that you say they are great unit, as on the listing of strengths and weaknesses, for the Danes the weakness is poor late game cavalry. I don't know - heavy cavalry is not something that is essential to me, because I figure the General units are pretty good regardless of what nation you are playing. Plus the Danes infantry fight with axes, and axes are cool.

I basically have claimed the entire northern tier of Europe from Burges all the way to Vilnius, along with the few Scandavaian regions. The HRE decalred war on me, and I won all those battles, but then Poland stabbed me in the back and briefly took Stettin - which also got them excommunicated (I'm on extremely good terms with the Pope). I took back Stettin and Thorn, and just got a crusade called against Krakow. Suck it Poland!

EDIT: As for Venice, I've played them, but I've never finished a game with them. They are the only member of the Big 5 I haven't done the whole game with. They just don't do much for me. Too many fronts to defend, as you invariably end up fighting the Milanese, HRE, Byzantines, and often the Hungarians as well.

All told, I would say the strongest faction is the HRE. You always have an eastern and western front, but their unit mix is excellent with no real weak spots. As far as ease of play is concerned, England is the best for nation building. You can usually quickly conquer the British Isles - longbowman are extremely overpowered at the time you acquire them - and have no castles at all there. If you make taking the castle immediately south of Caen a priority (Angiers I think?) you can get a quick fortress, and the Angiers-Toulouse combo can serve as your only two castles for a long time. (Which is also why the French are very good in that regard as well.)

The Scots I've also tried, and while their spear units impressed me - probably the best in the game - overall I wasn't thrilled.

 

Yeah, it says that for for instance the English and the Sicilians as well, but I never noticed them having poor cavalry either. Admittedly, their mid-tier cavalry is not that good, but their chivalrous knights are pretty much identical to those of for instance France. Cavalry doesn't really need to be very good anyway - I mostly use it for the shock value to get an enemy army to rout.

The only time I've really noticed those descriptions being right is when they said that Russia had poor infantry. They weren't kidding either with that - very small and poor selection early period, then their mid-tier is ok for it's time, but it's all you'll ever get too. They use axes, though, so they're pretty cool (and get the AP ammo... ehr, trait). A bit frail, though.

Venice is in a tough position, yes, but I found their starting position to still be better than that of the HRE. They're surrounded on all side and are very spread out too and don't have the great militia that Venice gets. In the beginning you don't need anything else than militia, late game you can start mixing in heavy infantry and Venice Archers who're just great. Never really tried the HRE, though - something to do, but their unit selection never really stood out to me as a reason to play them.

The scotts look interesting, but their total and complete lack of decent cavalry kept me away so far.

The one faction I keep trying to start a game with, is the Moors. Their location and units appeal to me, as does the fact that they're muslim, so you can keep on calling Jihads on the catholic factions. No pope to appease either. I usually try to expand into the Iberian isle as soon as possible and then end up overstretching and being vulnerable to a counter attack.

 

I did a short game with the Moors, calling Jihads on Spain early on can be a huge advantage, both for your war chest and the generals. Knocking out both Spanish kingdoms and the Portuguese is quite feasible. The Egyptians can do it even better with an early push towards Jerusalem, but expect to get a lot of "guests" from Europe very soon. I don't doubt the Turkish can pull similar stuff in Asia Minor - but the Moors, of all islamic factions, have a starting position unlikely to command too much attention. The special units aren't nearly as good as the crusade ones, but handy enough for cannon fodder.

So if you are able to get yourself set in Spain, you may stand a decent chance holding to it; iirc this didn't cause me any problems when I played. You could probably in try your luck in France, especially if they aren't doing so well on the other fronts; they can also work as an early ally to have on the north end of the Iberian peninsula. Speaking of which, the other option is to go east, which will likely involve having to deal with Sicily - they've always went for a few African provinces in my games. One thing that annoys me about the Moors is that they have several spear units that are virtually identical, despite requiring consequtive upgrades to the barracks. BTW, does anyone know how useful the trade upgrades in their castles are?

My favourite faction are the Byzantines, although they certainly have their problems, both in terms of units and position/available upgrades. Having no crusades hurts, though, and I tend to eventually have my share of Catholic enemies (Venice always tries to get some), which means the Pope gets angry. The diplomacy system doesn't help either - I have 30 provinces, the enemy 2, I offer them gold and 2 provinces back and they still don't accept!

Anyway, I'm currently playing Shogun 2 as the Mori. Things are looking good so far, but I think I may soon have a realm divided event.

 

I have played the Moors, and they are in an excellent starting position. I take the Iberian Peninsula as soon as is practically possible, and the I take Toulouse. Then I'm done on that side of the board. One Toulouse is well-garrisoned, you can hold off all of Europe with that one territory. I still would call a jihad every now again against a French town, but for the most part, I had no great deisre to conquer western Europe, as it didn't lead me any closer to the winning conditions. Sure, I need 45 territories, but having a good chunk of them in modern day France and Germany seemed unnecessary.

When I played, I ended up conquering all of Africa, as well as eliminating the Sicilians. I also got those two small island territiories off the coast of Italy. I won the game with a U-shaped empire. Basically everything along the bottom of the map, along with west up to Toulouse and the east with everything up to the Black Sea.

I think the difference is that the HRE is much better poised for early game expansion. Not only do you start with quite a lot of territories - I think you get 4 - there are 4 or 5 more that you are closer to than anyone else. It's quite easy to get your hands on about 10 territories very early in the game without starting a war with anyone. And they are 10 good territories. Not some backwater place that you have to wait forever just to get to the first available upgrades.

??? You cannot build markets and the like in castles. You can get docks, but that's more for building ships than geneterating trade, as the base trade levels of castles are much lower than cities. Getting the farming upgrades also gives you a not-insignificant boost in tradable goods, although in castles they are typically low-priority upgrades for me.

Anyway, I ditched the Danes and started a Hungarian campaign, just because I never tried them. One thing I failed to realize is that you have excellent expansion possibilities as the Hungarians. Basically everything around the entire Black Sea except south of it, in modern day Turkey is rebel, as is just about everything in modern day Russia. I have the largest empire in the game already, and I haven't taken anything but rebel cities.

Actually, I had a city gifted to me by the Poles. They offered an alliance, and the diplomacy hint tip at the bottom just "very generous", so I countered with an alliance and them giving me Hylach - which they accepted. Since I have both Venince and the HRE on my western border, I didn't really want to have to deal with the Poles as well, so this was a no-brainer. I actually have little desire to expand westward. Most of my wars (as I'm sure I'll eventually get involved in) will be to the east.

EDIT: If I have one gripe about the game, it's that city and castle defense are immensely easy. Unless something happens and you get attacked by the Mongols with an overwhelming force, you can usually stave off an attack with 1/2 or even 1/3 the amount of army than the attack has. If you're in a fortress or citadel, where you have multiple fallback positions to defend yourselves, you'd actually have to make an effort to lose.

My normal defense (if I cannot just hold the walls and deal with the threat immediately) is to keep one fast unit by the gate, so that I get the advantage of arrows/ballistas/cannons from my towers as the enemy approaches. Once the gate is about the breached I fall back to the city square, or the next layer of defense if in a fortress. When you're army is concentrated in the city square, since the streets are so narrow, you can hold off a much larger force with just a few units.

 

The jihads are a great help, of course, and they're also reason I wanted to play an islamic faction. I picked the Moors because they're well poised to take over Europe, and won't be bothered by the Mongols and Timurids. Unless you make a point of going east as quickly as possible.

I figured that as long as you manage to oust the Portugese and Spanish, it's going to be easy, but I just need to get past the beginning. Once I have the Iberian peninsula, the game is already practically over. It's just that you have to pretty much destroy two factions first and with all the starting units every factions gets, this is actually not so easy, unless you luck out and manage to catch all the family members with only a small escort.

Possibly, but aren't you stretched incredibly thin after expanding quickly like that? And still surrounded on all sides.

As you may recall, the Moors can build a caravan stop in their castles to increase trade (and build camel spearmen).

The Hungarians (and Poles and Russians) have access to a lot of areas to the east which are all rebel. Especially the Russians are well positioned to take all of them, if they manage to cut off the Poles' and Hungarians' access to the hinterlands.

The Hungarian Nobles are the the bomb early game and should make early expansion quite easy. Why did you ditch the Danes, actually?

Well, a siege is supposed to be much easier for the defending team. And while you may be able to block a street with just a few units, if the enemy has either numerical or technical superiority, you're still going to lose. The only thing that would help in such a situation would be if you could circle round with cavalry or some such and attack their rear in the hope to make them rout.

After all this talking about the Moors made me want to try it again, so I restarted another game with the Moors. So far I called a jihad on Lisbon and managed to kill of both family members, easily destroying the Portugese. So now I've just the Spanish to deal with. They have at least one big army camped outside somewhere and I reckon I should be ok if I manage to wipe it out.

I won't be going the southern route like Aldeth, though. I'm going to happily cut a swatch across Europe and let whatever factions survive in the East deal with the Mongols and Timurids first.

 

Continueing to play M2:TW with the Moors, the Spanish have now bitten the dust as well, following the Portugese. The Iberian peninsula is now officially mine. I took it quite slowly this time, not really aggressively expanding like I usually do. Not that I had much choice for the last three settlements, as one had two more-than-half stack armies guarding it and the other two were rebel settlements, with Valencia being tough as usual and the other having a 3/4 stack of the remnants of the Portugese army that turned rebel as it was destroyed.

Apart from that, I have to say that I've never had a beginning where I was making this much money so easily. My queues have not been stalled even once. Which is unusual given my slow expansion. Part of that may have been the three jihads I've had, but that's still just a one time boost and usually exceedingly short-lived. Another part may have been all the mining you can do there.

Still, I think I need to expand more quickly now, as the cost of the buildings are beginning to rise and income is not increasing as quickly. Now that I have a solid basis to work from, though, it should be relatively easy. I haven't been doing anything towards Northern Africa, which I might as well start doing now.

I'm also looking for a likely target for the next jihad, but the nearest is Paris or Milan. Neither is directly connected to my current empire, but not too far off either, and Milan is prime real estate as Northern Italy is always great for money making.

The Moorish unit mix is not bad, but everything is very lightly armored for the moment. Some are completely redundant too. The Nubian Spearmen have exactly the same stats as the Berber Spearmen, but lack any kind of special abilities (Schiltrom, bonus in woods, etc.) and require an extra upgrade to the barracks. This seems almost like a bug, actually. Neither are particularly good either.

Their Desert Archers are pretty good with long range missiles. They seem generally comparable with for instance the Muslim Archers from Sicily.

Lacking an equivalent for the European Mailed Knights, they have the Tuareg Camel Spearmen instead. They're pretty good, especially against other cavalry, but are sort of fragile. The javellin throwing Desert Cavalry is pretty good, though, with their armor piercing trait.

As I'm progressing, though, it appears that the Moorish are not overly dependent on their castles. The racing tracks that you can build in cities allows you to recruit pretty decent cavalry by the second tier and if your city gets the Hashashim Guild, you've got access to some pretty damn good heavy infantry.

Not that there is any reason not to keep a few castles around - the caravan stop not only allows you to recruit those Camel Spearmen, but also increases trade, which appears to be a decent enough upgrade to the trade. Hard to quantify, though.

Aside from the not too bad income for a castle, the Moorish militia is not that great, so you'll need your castles to produce units that don't die too easily, especially early game. But when you get to Large Cities, you'll be able to recruit Urban Militia which is quite decent heavy infantry, even more so when you realize that they're militia, and thus upkeep free. Together with Hashashim units, I doubt I'll need much more in the way of infantry later on.

Anyway, so far I'm quite enjoying my game with them and I'm looking forward to see how I'll like their later game units.

 

Playing a bit of Shogun and at first glance it is awesome and much much more enjoyable than Empire. I have some fears that it may lack depth and re-playability. Finished a short campaign and will start working on a long. One thing I have to add is that the Japanese seems to be worthless at building castles and defences. Enemies can just crawl up the wall, easily shoot people inside with bows without any penalty I think I saw that the gates were made of paper.

 

Japanese castle walls actually were built on an angle. This was to make the structures more resistant to earthquakes. And yes, it made the walls a lot easier to climb.

I assume you mean Shogun 2, by the way. Really great game, but you're right that it's replayability is much lower than a lot of other TW titles.

 

You ARE stretched thin after than initial expansion, especially considering you have to do it with mostly the units you get to start, as you won't have the tax base to afford a big military early. So you have to defend your newly acquired settlements almost entirely with town militia or - more preferable, if you have the second level upgrade - spear militia, as they are free upkeep. So after that frenzied first expansion you immediately consolidate your holdings. It's quite easy to get 8-9 settlements starting as the HRE in the first 20 game turns.

The real general in all of my battles is me, and General Aldeth has the trait "good at the walls". The computer AI usually waits a bit before ballistas show up for the seige, and if you're going to try to get in by showing up with a battering ram and some ladders, you're in for a long day. Units on the ladders have a huge penalty as they are considered on "low ground" relative to the defenders on the wall. A unit of spear militia can easily handle whatever is trying to get onto the wall in the early game, and if you're trying to go through the front door, you can expect a 20% casaulty rate before you're even going to get in.

I don't know if it's just me, but I find that the computer AI plays seige battles very predictably, and I only lose if they come with an overwhelming force, which is exceedingly unlikely in the early game. I routinely win battles where I'm the defender, even if the army strength bar is 2:1 against me. My first upgrades in my early settlements are always leather tanner and blacksmith, if available. Upgraded militia units still require no upkeep, and give you a huge early edge. In a typical battle, militia spearman on the wall take out whatever pissant unit the computer sends in with ladders right around the time the gates breach. Everything converges on whatever comes through the gates except the spearmen on the wall, who then go DOWN the ladders, and attack the enemy from behind, which usually results in a rout.

I had not recalled that.

I find that early aggression is the key to having a strong starting economy. Prior to developing cities and building economy-enhancing structures, the formula for calculating income simplifies pretty much to population size. So the more people you have, the more money you make. The cost of units is small comparable to long term upkeep, so you always get as many free units as you can, and upgrade them early. Then after you develop some economy you go for your next round of expansion.

What about Toulouse? That's a must-have when I'm in that part of the world. It's already a fortress, and provided you don't decide to masacre the population when you take it, it represents to first castle that can be upgraded to a citadel in the entire game. It would certainly make any further pushes into Europe easier.

In my game with Hungary, I'm still progressing slowly. I'm around turn 100 now, and I still only have around 15 settlements under my control. The one surpirsing thing is that I've had an alliance with the Venetians since the very begining of the game, and the Venetians have been true to their word, despite us sharing a large common border. Also strangely, the Venetians their island capital into a castle, and used that as a staging area for early expansion into Turkey. I've taken most of the Byzantines over, but the Venetians have three Turkish settlements, which has proven to be an excellent buffer between the Mongols and I. So the Venetian empire is essentially in two parts - half in the Turkey area, and the other half in the more commonly controlled Venetian areas... like um.. Venice.