Medieval 2: Total War

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I'm playing the game for second time as Byzantine (the first run was as HRE) and I have to say that it is far more difficult than playing as any western European faction because not only the pope doesn't protect me since I'm not a catholic but in addition I have to face the invasion of Mongols, who seem to prefer me as their target and don't even try to attack the Turks and the Egyptians. Anyway, I want to mention a rather funny incident, I was defending Jerusalem from Mongols and during the siege their general was hit and killed by a cow carcass thrown by my trebuchet.

 

On the note of Mongols I'm playing the English and I've been very successful in early crusades (the Pope utterly adores me) and having London as my capitol and merchants around Jerusalem has netted me a nice tresury not to mention I own a citadel next to Jerusalem (that is a huge city), I have a trade agreement with the Byzantites (sp?) too so holding Jerusalem is just so important for me. I've fended off TWO Jihads against the city even.

The problem I'm having is that I've got NO idea how to combat Mongols with English troops. The reason I've been able to hold off the French is just by fielding Billmen, Longbowmen, usually one or two armored units with shields (just to soak up arrow fire) and light cavaly. Billmen pretty much dominate anything that gets near them but are succeptable to ranged weapons and such is my problem. England doesn't appear to have ANY counter to mounted archers. Levy spearmen can do the job but they often lack the resolve of other troops and are quickly routed whereas Billmen are better disciplined and can do the job but simply can't stand up to arrow fire. I'm thinking of trying a pure heavy cavalry army since it appears that knights are the only damn thing that can stand up to Mongols (as their equal )

Oh I wish I had camels.

 

The counter to mounted archers are in my experience foot archers. Your longbowmen should have much longer ranger and greater impact than the mongol horsemen. Get some pikemen to guard your archers and as soon as the mongols try to shower you with arrows you return the favour tenfold. Havent tried this myself in MTW2 but it worked fine in Rome.

 

The main problem with the Mongols is that when they appear, they always outnumber you because all their armies are concentrated, so IMO to face them in an open battlefield is suicide because you'll have to face more than one armies and you will end up surrounded. I think that the best option is to stay behind your walls and let the height advantage of your archers work for you. If you manage to destroy their rams before they break the gates, their cavalry will have a very little impact in the battle, while your infantry will exterminate easily their footsoldiers, who will reach your walls with towers and ladders. Of course if they have siege artillery (trebuchets and rocket launchers) they will finally breach the walls but I think that the English billmen will hold succesfully their lancers in the narrow breaches of the wall, while your longbowmen will protect them from the horse archers.

 

The thing is I 'need' to face them in the open because they're going for the Byzantites, who I'm allied with and who are a major source of my income at present.

I'd love them to just break their skulls against my walls but the bastards don't want to. I have managed to assassinate a few of their leaders at least and I was lucky enough to field one army against two of theirs, my army didn't win but I destroyed one of their armies and reduced the other to only 20% men.

The longbows work well but the problem is that in order to protect them I need to keep my billmen/dismounted English knights close (English can't build pikemen) and they still get hit by arrow fire thats intended for my archers and the mongols often have a few contingents of foot archers also who greatly even the odds in the mongols favor when it comes to a ranged battle.

 

joacqin - I largely agree with what Duffin is saying. Heavy cavalry are still the most powerful units in the game. The only problem with cavalry is that they are useless in the early stages of sieges. You need your foot soldiers to take the castle walls initially, and the cavalry only comes into play after you've broken down the gates or smashed holes in the walls. On an open field battle, the more cavalry the better.

@Abomination - How badly do you need to protect the Byzantines? If you can afford to let the Mongols take a couple of cities from them, then one tactic I have found success with is to lay siege to a city immediately after the Mongols take control of it. Their army is usually weakened from taking the city in the first place, and you can inflict further casaulties simply by maintaining the siege. In my experience, the AI doesn't handle sieges nearly as well as you do - regardless of whether you are the attacking or defending army.

I agree that the ideal solution is to get the Mongols to attack your settlements, and preferably your castles. For some reason the AI never seems to lay siege and wait you out. They spend one round building siege equipment, and then attack the next turn. As soon as a castle gets ballista towers, then it is easy enough to defend the castle with just a few units of archers. Between the towers and the missile units, you can usually destroy the siege equipment before it gets to the walls.

I'm currently playing as the Egypitians, and I am taking a great amount of joy in establishing a general with a high dread rating. A lot of the cities I've taken so far have been largely non-Muslim, so the populace has been problematic. So now my general just butchers the populace after taking a city to get them in line. They are usually well behaved after that. My general currently has a dread rating of eight skulls. It's to the point where all I have to do is charge my general's heavy cavalry unit into an enemy to rout them - they flee in terror.

Another tactic that I have found success with is to convert most of your castles to cities. After exterminating the populace, you don't need a castle for the higher public order, and generally speaking a city is far more profitable than a castle. Castles should only remain in strategically import locations, or in situations when the castle has been around for so long that you'd lose too much in converting it to a city. I'd say you would want at least two cities (maybe even three after you've started to develop) for every one castle.

The only downside to this strategy is that your castles need to be training troops nearly continuously. Your cities are not building structures that allow for troop training or upgrading, unless those structures also happen to serve a purpose of improving public happiness and/or public order. So nearly all of your troops need to come from the castles, or at least be sent to the castles for upgrades.

 

Screw cavalry, I like infantry. These fragile wimpy "knights" are weaker even than the equites in Rome.

I have built myself an army with 50% tercios and 50% arquebuisiers (and a unit or two of musketeers) with three basilisk as artillery, all upgraded to the wazoo. The treacherous Milanese will be the first to taste my pikes and bullets. The army moves at a snails pace but there wont be anything that can withstand it and it isnt nearly as expensive as those darn knights not to mention that I can easily churn out masses of units of this kind. I doubt I will ever actually get to fight a serious battle with this army though, the AI isnt known for tossing together big well balanced armies.

I need to conquer myself almost 30 regions in hte next 60 turns or so but it shouldnt be too much of a trouble. The plague took its toll but it is over again and my economy is once again blooming and I can churn out dreadful amounts of troops. Without suffering financial problems.

 

Oops sorry joacqin, I just realised I referred to you as Ragusa in my previous post, I'll blame it on similar avatars.

 

My super army is bloodied. The Milanese actually managed to field a full stack at me that gave me 1 to 1 odds. They had mostly dismounted knights and crossbowmen.

My arqebuisiers tore them to shred. Took medium casualties. An army like this is extremely strong if it can stand still and await the enemy charge. I got overconfident in a following battle and started moving around and attacking with both my tercios and gunners and the results were less than impressive. Keep the lads standing still and they are impregnable. I also bought myself a few units of mercenary longbowmen and man, those are imba. If the English can actually build these in any numbers they must be the most easily handled faction by far. One unit of mercenary longbowmen broke three units of dismounted knights before they even got close.

I see it as an honor to be refered to as Ragusa.

 

Well, they are one of the most popular factions to play. The biggest advantage the English have is that they have access to this powerful unit very early in the game. That having been said, they suffer the same drawback that all missile units have - they aren't very good in castle battles. No matter what you do or who you play, it is still the infantry that have to take the lead in storming castle walls, and it is still infantry that must form the backbone of every army.

In my current game, I just completed a jihad, and I got some pretty significant bonuses for my generals. In the early part of the campaign Egypt has no heavy cavalry units, although they have tons of missile cavalry and light cavalry. So if you want heavy cavalry, you basically only get it through general units. My army I sent to the jihad had three general units in it, and upon completing the jihad all of them got +1 to command and +3 to their chivalry rating.

Which brings up an interesting possibility: Is there a limit to the number of times someone can call a jihad? If not, this seems like a highly exploitable way of producing a bunch of really good generals. Call a jihad against any non-Muslim city you plan on attacking anyway, take the city, then a few turns later call another jihad when you're ready to go after another city. Lather, rinse, repeat. If every time you successfully complete a jihad, you get the same +1 command, +3 chivalry as bonuses (not to mention a healthy boost of gold) you should easily be able to roll through the game. I can see how this technique would not work as well if you were a Christian nation as you have to go through the Pope to get a Crusade OKed, but the Muslim nations don't have that problem.

Speaking of crusades, I may have a rather large problem on my hands. The Pope has called for a crusade against Jerusalem, which happens to be a city I control. I'm loading up Jerusalem with a bunch of archers and as many heavy infantry as I can get my hands on (cavalry aren't so good for city defense). The problem is I am unsure as to the technique the AI uses on crusades. The way I see it, there are two possibilities. They can either arrive by boat and drop off the army just outside of Jerusalem, or alternatively, they could attempt to march through my territory to reach Jerusalem. Either way, if a bunch of Catholic nations answer the Pope's call, I'm in for some trouble.

I do have one question. One of my diplomats arrived in Hungary, and exchanged trade rights with the Hungarians. On the trade sheet, it listed my nation as "untrustworthy". As I haven't broken any treaties, or attacked anyone other than rebels up to this point, I find this strange. What determines how trustworthy you are?

 

I find missile troops to be quite usefull in sieges. If you have the correct siege equipment and take down their towers and make several holes in their walls the AI tends to move infantry units to fill the gaps in the walls. If they have missile troops they will either be on a wall (in which case just bring the wall down from underneath them), or in the central plaza. This means your missile troops can park themselves right infront of the gaps in the city wall and just fire away at the infantry units that have been sent to protect the gaps. You can severely soften up the garrison this way before you send your infantry in.

I've noticed the AI tend to walk over land to crusades. Even the English and Spanish etc. On the reputation point I suffer the same, no matter what I do I always end up with a negative reputation for some reason. Have you moved armies into someone else's territory even if only for a turn? Or maybe you initiated trade rights or an alliance with one of your allies enemies? Those are the obscure things that will ruin your reputation. Maybe there's something in the official strategy guide.

 

Aha! I've done both. When the jihad was called, I necessarily had to take the jihad army through Turkish territory to get there. The jihad was called on Baghdad, so seeing as how it's landlocked, it's not like I could have got there anyway other than through Turkish territory, seeing as how the settlement directly west of Baghdad was controlled by the Turks.

Also, I make a point of establishing trade rights with as many people as possible, regardless of whether or not they are allied or at war with other nations that I have trade rights with. If those things damage your reputation, then chances are I will take the negative reputation for the additional income.

 

I have discovered the new world! The savages agreed to bow to my supremacy in return of some trinkets and baubles (in reality I paid 30000 florins for that little village but what dont you do for some new entertainment at court?).

My finances are now sick, I spent 200k gold just to buy two pope seats and I still had another 200k to spare. I can field as many full stack armies as I want and could probably quite easily take over the entire world within the time limit if I could bother with all the micromanagement. This is the reward for all that penny pinching and disregard for my military in hte beginning. Get that trade going and before long you have enough florins to drown your enemies in gold if you so wish.

I am still disapointed with cavalry, not so much with their efficiency. After I followed Vikings advice they started stomping through all non-spear/pike infantry easily but they still take heavy losses. Just finished one fight where I had tercios and musketeers holding the center peppering holes into the enemy and six units of Knights of Santiago running around tacking out crossbow militias and units wandering too close alone to my musketeers. My knights ripped through the ragged enemy lines (bullet fire is a killer on morale) but they had still lost about 50% of their men when the battle was over and all they basically did was to break already softened up militias and some axemen.

 

Huh? You can buy your priests into the college or cardinals? How do you do that?

 

I guess he means bribed other countries to vote for his cardinal. Not sure though.

 

Barmy Army is so smart!

 

It may seem like an obvious point, but do your cavalry have access to the best armor available? Granted, a cannonball fired from a grand bombard is going to ruin your day no matter what type of armor you have on, but full plate armor greatly reduces casaulties you'll take when fighting melee troops.

As I am noticing. The HRE just showed up on the boarders of my empire (in eastern Turkey). My spies show that is a huge, full-stack army with over 1,000 troops. Fortunately, it seems to be ignoring all of my other settlements and going straight for Jerusalem.

The timing of this crusade is not good. For starters, while my settlement is capable of staving off an attack from this army (I too have a full-stack army defending my city, complete with mostly archers and heavy infantry and two general units), there is no guarantee that the HRE is the only crusading army coming. They might just be the first ones to arrive (which kind of makes sense, as they are closer than a lot of the other Catholic powerhouses.) I can handle one full stack army, but if multiple 1,000+ unit army start showing up in quick succession, I will no doubt have a problem on my hands.

The second problem is the Mongol invasion is due to start at any time. The eastern borders of my kingdom are not adequately defended to deal with this threat. I have already resigned myself to losing a couple of cities to the Mongols, but now is certainly not the time that I need to be dealing with a crusading armies as well!

 

I got the game yesterday, but Time has been a factor slowing my chance to get a feel for the game.

I'll no doubt have questions as I get used to the game...

 

OK that sucked. I defeated the HRE crusading army. I quickly sent reinforcements to the city to beat off the French crusading army. I simply didn't have enough units left to handle to English crusading army when they showed up. I eventually re-captured Jerusalem, just in time for the Mongols to come through pillaging everything in their path. That got not fun in a hurry.

So I quit the game and took the English to see what all the craze about longbowmen was about. OMG - the longbow is the machine gun of the middle ages. Longbowmen now form the centerpiece of my army, with about 1/3 of my army being longbowmen. On open field battles, if you start on a hill, there's no way you can lose. You just park on top of the hill, and wait for them to come to you. Your longbowmen usually get off two full volleys of arrows before you start receiving returning fire, and since I almost always have more archers than the enemy, it forces them to send in infantry and cavalry into the fray as well.

I'm playing medium difficulty now (both battle and gameplay), and I'm finally getting the hang of it. I still have some issues with the way the computer handles things. For example, in a battle with the Milanese, on the pre-battle screen they showed two enemy forces that attacked my full-stack army with about 1000 troops. The first stack had about 700 troops, and the second stack had a mere 75 troops (one stinkin' unit of town militia). However, there was a third force involved in the battle as well that didn't show up on the pre-battle screen that was a full-stack army with 1100 troops. Bastards. Why the hell would you tell me about the little 75 man town militia "army" and not tell me about the 1100 troop army? If it wasn't for the longbowmen, I would have got my ass whupped. As it turned out I formed a circle with my longbowmen with my infantry and cavalry in the middle, and we just sat there waiting for the enemy to come. Even though we were outnumbered about 2 to 1, the enemy was eventually routed.

Longbowmen have completely changed my tactics. I deliberately created a dreaded general, because now that my longbowmen are softening forces up, when I charge my dreaded general into the fray the enemy routs. The dread general is Henry, Edwards youngest of three sons, who is now the faction heir as well. Rufus (Edward's oldest son and current king) only had one son, who died in combat. For some reason, upon the death of that son the heir became Henry instead of Robert (the middle son). Perhaps it's because Henry is a great general, while Robert is rubbish as leader.

One thing that is funny about Henry is because of all the battle he has fought, he was got the attribute "horribly scarred". In fact, his name is "Henry the Scarred". It gives +8 to his hitpoints. The funny thing is he also has the attribute "hypochondriac" which gives -6 to hitpoints. I'm not sure you can be both a hypochondriac AND horribly scarred. Reagardless Henry is the bomb. Seven stars in command, and eight skulls in dread. Military leader extrodinaire.

 

Withstanding sieges is easy. You just attack them first, then wait it out on the walls. They'll just stand there like dunces, waiting for you to come out of your city/castle. Late game, you can just sit back and enjoy the show as their army is slowly obliterated by your catapult/cannon towers. Sadly, they'll walk away once their losses exceed roughly 50-55% (it varies a bit)

Had some great fun not too long back, as the Portugese harassed one of my cities. My garrison consisted mostly of various forms of militia and some artillery and cannons. To my dismay, almost half of the Portugese army consisted of trebuches and catapults. I didn't have any catapults towers yet, so I had to rely mostly on my artillery and cannons. Curiously, the computer AI seems reluctant to use catapults against your walls, so my first priority was to take out his trebuches.

Pelting the attackers from afar is fun, so I carefully drove a cannon unit outside the gates, to assist the artillery in destroying whatever they were trying to shoot.

Although not being as convenient as artillery, in that they can't shoot over the wall, I just love the cannons for being able to shoot straight lines through the enemy lines. I can watch that for hours, and as a consequence, I love being besieged, especially during the late game.

So I was just enjoying the show, occasionally checking the structural integrity of my walls, when all of a sudden I get the message that the enemy general was slain. Curious, I decided to check out what had transpired, as the general's units had not been a target for any of my units. In fact, they had been so far behind any targets currently under attack, that I had not even considered this possible.

Then I saw it. A clear path of a cannonball, as it had cut through the enemy's lines, leaving a trail of dead bodies. Ironically, the general was the first unit to fall of the general's stack, fallen victim to a stray cannonball.

I love it.

[ January 03, 2007, 00:33: Message edited by: henkie ]