some complains& questions

[tungri_centurio]

hi all im relatively new in this mod and have noticed some things
1 why can venice take on other christians whitout beeing excommunicated??
2 iff a christain faction attacks me i can do notting whitout beeing excommunicated??
3 all my merchants are noobs even with guild in town??
4 gets the AI lots of money? i can maintain max 3 armys with 14 regions,AI has double amount of armys and way les regions??
and all of their regions are way more developed than my regions.
i play with sicily h/h early era( dunno what AI and others i used.

[Chromium]

Hi! Welcome to SS!

1 why can venice take on other christians whitout beeing excommunicated??

Aggressive factions like Venice, Genoa & England get excommunicated all the time. However they usually lose their Faction leaders pretty quickly & get accepted back.

2 iff a christain faction attacks me i can do notting whitout beeing excommunicated??

The most basic trick is never to be the aggressor in a war. Try to maintain a reputation of at least trustworthy. The AI is reluctant to attack if the player has a good reputation & is moderately strong. The system isn't perfect but is far better than Vanilla Med2. In case hostilities do break out, take only one settlement of theirs & try to sue for peace. Never try to zerg rush the AI; the battles become stale & the latter game doesn't remain interesting. Also, try to ally with the Pope as soon as possible. Giving him stuff also works- but with BGR, you probably don't have much free resources anyway...Check out Vampirebane's art of Diplomacy here- http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?490649-Vampiresbane-s-Art-of-Diplomacy-Guide

all my merchants are noobs even with guild in town??

Merchants are pretty useless. I usually ignore them unless I'm playing ERE or some Mediterranean faction.

4 gets the AI lots of money? i can maintain max 3 armys with 14 regions,AI has double amount of armys and way les regions??and all of their regions are way more developed than my regions.

The AI gets bonuses to compensate for the fact that it's as dumb as...an AI. I'd recommend that you take things slow. Restart the game, unselect BGR this time- BGRIV & BGRV are rough even for expert players. Select a safe faction like England or Scotland; Sicily gets routinely invaded by Moors, Venice & the Romans.

[Byg]

4 gets the AI lots of money? i can maintain max 3 armys with 14 regions,AI has double amount of armys and way les regions??
and all of their regions are way more developed than my regions.

The AI gets bonuses to compensate for the fact that it's as dumb as...an AI. I'd recommend that you take things slow. Restart the game, unselect BGR this time- BGRIV & BGRV are rough even for expert players. Select a safe faction like England or Scotland; Sicily gets routinely invaded by Moors, Venice & the Romans.

Non of tungri centurio's questions suggest he is using bgr.
Just for clarification, as his question is about AI money, bgr mods do not add any more money to the AI beyond that which the standard game gives. Version V even removes stainless steel's AI bonus money.

[tungri_centurio]

no i dont use bgr, only savage AI and permenent watchtowers.but its realy venice that seems to be overpowered.and gets not excommunicated in my campaign, they destroyed hungary,genoa and HRE without ever going below 3 papal crosses.
porto attacked me after i destroyed the moors and they get excommunicated for attacking me and my long time ally leon
now venice is attacking me and they not even lose a single cross,even with papal state as my ally and perfect relations with them.
is that normal??still a nice campaign though

[Hidden Sage]

no i dont use bgr, only savage AI and permenent watchtowers.but its realy venice that seems to be overpowered.and gets not excommunicated in my campaign, they destroyed hungary,genoa and HRE without ever going below 3 papal crosses.
porto attacked me after i destroyed the moors and they get excommunicated for attacking me and my long time ally leon
now venice is attacking me and they not even lose a single cross,even with papal state as my ally and perfect relations with them.
is that normal??still a nice campaign though

I've never seen Venice have that sort of run except when I was playing as Venice, and I take a lot of steps to ensure that the Pope stays on my good side for eternity (as do most players, I'd imagine). As for the AI getting that result: Genoa is weak enough starting out that Venice could feasibly wipe their family tree before the Pope even had time to notice and get upset. The HRE is almost perpetually excommunicated (in my experience) for fighting other catholics, so the Church won't object to anyone beating them around a bit. I'd also wager good money that a lot of the work against Hungary was actually done by the ERE (though I withhold from calling this a solid hypothesis until seeing screencaps/maps from your campaign, or at least a solid written report of who is holding what regions).

Besides that: I have long suspected a trend when discussing papal relations. When two Catholic factions are at war, the Church tends to object more strongly to factions whom it already has poor relations with. When a well-loved group attacks a group with low papal support, the Pope will "bandwagon" and blame them for the conflict. It's sort of a multiplier effect, wherein previous slights (anything that put your cross total below ten) get dredged up in mudslinging contests and count as extra reason to disapprove of the current conflict. Venice, being close enough to Rome to have actual trade with it, will have a slightly easier time keeping a high base relationship, which could buy them a bit of leeway in the diplomacy system, if this pet theory is at all accurate.

Unfortunately, I play 90% of my campaigns as Venice, Genoa (wherein Venice gets extinguished early in my quest to dominate Italy), or as the ERE and Fatimids (both of whom are non-catholic and can't see/don't care what the pope thinks). Plus a few very small runs as HURB-specific factions like Georgia and Serbia that BGR and the vanilla game don't have.

[Strengelicher]

1 why can venice take on other christians whitout beeing excommunicated??

It can't, Venice is not treated differently from other factions in this respect.

2 iff a christain faction attacks me i can do notting whitout beeing excommunicated??

You can do something if your standing with the Pope is high. In that case, you will only be threatened with a lowering of your standing instead of excommunication. So you should try to always max out your standing with the Pope. The easiest way to do this is to give him money.

3 all my merchants are noobs even with guild in town??

Once the Merchant Guild is in town, merchants recruited in that city will become better. Upgrade the guild to make them better still. Do a search for 'merchant guide' on these forums and find Strengelicher's famous merchant guide. Studying it will make you a master merchant maker.

4 gets the AI lots of money? i can maintain max 3 armys with 14 regions,AI has double amount of armys and way les regions??
and all of their regions are way more developed than my regions.

Yes, the AI gets money bonuses among others. It is meant to make up for the player being supposedly more intelligent than the AI. Which is not always the case.

[tungri_centurio]

now venice is finnaly excommunicated after attacking poland,and im ally with poland to help them out and taking north italy from venice
finaly i can backstab them like they did on me several times.after taking north italy from venice they go from rich to bankrupt in 10 turns

yea im ally with the pope from turn 1and have perfect relations with them also with leon.

about the merchants i found it out yea i needed master merchants guild to have good ones

i dont mind about the AI to get bonussen, noticed that they still build cheap armys with not mutch elite troops

[tungri_centurio]

can i recruit feudal knights and light men at arms with sicily,it seems my most elite troops are sicilo-norman knights/foot knights
how can i recruit gunpowder units ?year is1249
did not found any info +rep for some help

[tungri_centurio]

can anybody help me out with some good tactics and formation options?
are there any guides for it?

[Andytheplatypus]

As far as units that are available to each faction, go to custom battle and select all eras and pick the faction you want. All units will show up plus mercenaries.


Dont think there are any guides but it depends wgat units make up your army before I can tell you how to use them.

[tungri_centurio]

ok this is most of the time my army composition with sicily early era game year is1259
this is my elite force that i can field atm
my first line are spearmen sergants and sicilo-norman food knights line formed like this

spearmen-knight-spearmen-knight-spearmen line of 10 units
2de line are muslin/byzantin archers and crossbowmen 4 units
on the flanks i now use sicilo-norman knights heavy cav on both sides 2 units
in the back 2or3 trebueches and my general

i think its a good formation but i need to maximise my tactics with it because i lose at least half my infantry line in a clear victory
even my spearmen sergants look like noobs when hit by fuedal cav

just started a new game with england late era,army composition is the same only now i can recruit more swordsmen with beter stats
do i need to use more swordsmen or not? foot men at arms,heavy swordsmen or best to use more spearmen? thanks for the help

[Andytheplatypus]

Havent played a campaign in a while so lets see how this goes.

Its important to have a varied army. At least 4 units of missile troops (archers are more versatile but crossbows do more damage)

Generally the AI will come to you unless you outnumber them. If a defensive position here is what I recommend

Missile troops in the front to maximize the damage they do until the enemy gets close. Have them target cavalry and only cavalry first. As you can see its important to kill them fast because of their devastating charge.

If the enemy closes too fast before you get a chance to kill them, move up your infantry in front of your missile troops. Very imortant, do not move your archers back behind your infantry as this takes too long. Spearmen are good at holding the line, especially against cavalry, but dismounted knights do more damage. Generally its important to have more spearmen and cheap units then elites so you can retrain them easily. Keep your dismounted knights on the wings of the infantry line and swing them around the back of their line.

While your infantry is engaged use your missile troops to target the general or any other troops not close to your infantry

If you have any cavalry use them to swing around and hit the back of the their infantry line.

Remember the main goal is the cause the enemy to route so you can capture them easily so you dont loose a lot of men.

[tungri_centurio]

yea most of that tactics i use to,is it best to keep my infantry on defence stans?flanking with cav i always do
only aim at horses with archers than,gonna try it,good tip
do the cav need to be stationed to fully charge or can they hit&run than turn back and repeat(or just like in rome mods hit&run reform than repeat) thanks for quick reply

you dont play ss no more than? other tw games?im waiting for roma surrectum2.6 and rome2(really looking forward to it) you

[Andytheplatypus]

yea most of that tactics i use to,is it best to keep my infantry on defence stans?flanking with cav i always do
only aim at horses with archers than,gonna try it,good tip
do the cav need to be stationed to fully charge or can they hit&run than turn back and repeat(or just like in rome mods hit&run reform than repeat) thanks for quick reply

you dont play ss no more than? other tw games?im waiting for roma surrectum2.6 and rome2(really looking forward to it) you

Defensive stance keeps your units in place and they wont chase after enemy units.

You can repeat Cavalry charges but remember every time you pull them out of melee they will take casualties.

I havent had time to play SS for a while. Working on Titanium in my little amount of free time.

[tungri_centurio]

thanks andytheplatypusfor the tip using archers against the cavalry,that made a real impact on the lose of men in my armys.ill rep you when i can