Guidelines for new and inexperienced players (but not only)

[Vlad Dracul]

I decided to open this topic hoping that it will help new (or inexperienced) players, because I remember how hard this game can be when you’re trying it for the very first time and have no experience with other games from the Total War series.
A while ago I posted my impressions about that here, but now, after finishing all the campaigns (short and long) on very hard/very hard, I think I found some ways to have less trouble with the game and I want to share my discoveries with you.
I’ll try to be as short as possible, don’t want this post to be a tl;dr wall of text, but I have the strange impression it will end up quite massive because there are so many things to say, so your patience will be tested here.

I gotta mention this important link which leads you to various guides, some of them well-written ones that can also help a lot and go in more details than me in this current one.
It’s a lot to read, but it’ll worth your while.

If you want to master the game, you must understand it first.
When you’re starting your first campaign, your main goal should be rather to observe than to win.
Pay attention not only to game mechanics but also to AI behavior (which is overcheating anyway. Well, except that, notice its moves and its preferences).

From my point of view, there are certain guidelines that I recommend someone to follow in every single game on Vanilla:

FRIEND OR FOE
Don’t ask any advice during the campaign on the strategical map.
That female advisor knows nothing.
She’ll tell you to build the wrong buildings and recruit the wrong units all the time.
Just forget about her.
On the other hand, the military advisor can inform you about some interesting things during the battles. Pay attention to what he says but proceed as you think it’s best for you.

Sometimes I really ask myself if the Council of Nobles isn’t infested with enemy spies, so troublemaking are some missions they give me. Treat it with extreme caution, a bad mission failed doesn’t mean a loss, on the contrary.

USEFUL AND USELESS BUILDINGS
I made a topic with that name some while ago, I do recommend you to read it because it’s very important to know what to build and especially what not to build during the campaign.
And in what order, what you should build first and what can wait for later.

Also, if you want a certain Guild in a certain settlement, create all the specific agents only in that town (for example, you want the Theologians Guild in Milan? Recruit a priest/imam every single turn from that place) until the Guild offers its services. Plus constantly upgrade that particular building-chain, as it'll create more skilled agents (for example, from a Cathedral you can create bishops, which are better than priests. Same with their muslim counterparts).

Oh, and a crucial lesson I learned from the all-time greatest TBS game (Heroes of Might and Magic III): always be building. Every single turn.
Make sure you have the necessary funds to do it.

MANIPULATE THE DIPLOMACY
The diplomacy is crucial in this game, without a high reputation this game can quickly become a tragedy for the human player.
To understand more about diplomacy, I advice you to read Vampirebane’s Art of Diplomacy Guide.
Unfortunately, the diplomacy is the weakest link of M2TW and a source of infinite frustrations for everybody, due to the fact that sometimes has nothing to do with any common sense or human-logic at all, so you better manipulate it in your advantage (see how here).

Although I didn’t believe it in the past (and even argued about it on this forum), now I think it’s very important to ally as many factions as you can (at least 5). Ofc, avoid antagonistic alliances (like Venice and the Byzantines or England and France) and be prepared for some allies to declare war to each other (mostly only to sink your rep, they’ll cease fire quickly after).
I try to aim for 8 alliances in my short campaigns and at least 5 on my long campaigns but inevitably lose a couple along the way (especially in short campaigns).

The factions that are good allies according to my game-experience are the following: the Papal States (truth bein' told, this alliance is rather a necessity than a good alliance. You simply need to be allied with the Papal States, even if you’re a muslim faction. Especially if you’re a muslim faction, actually), Hungary (even if you’re Poland on long campaign, there can be peace and harmony between your factions), Denmark (even if you’re HRE - long campaign, ofc. In the short campaign you must eliminate them), Spain/Portugal (there is a possibility for them to attack each other and you'll be forced to choose which alliance to keep. If you're lucky they might not, everything will run smooth - especially on short campaigns - and you won't be losing reputation for being forced to break an alliance) and the Turks.

Potential good allies could also be Venice (although they could start some trouble with Hungary or - later on - Papal States) and Russia (although a conflict with Denmark might occur).

The grey zone is formed by England, Scotland, France and Poland.
You could ally with one (or more) of them, short or medium term depending by the situation, under certain circumstances.

For example, it's hard to believe that you can be long-term ally with Hungary, Poland, Russia and Denmark at the same time and none of them to ever attack another.
However, there can be situations (like in one of my experiments with HRE long campaign on vh/vh) in which after some fighting (Denmark with Poland, HRE with Poland, Denmark with Russia) things will settle down for a period of time (Poland bein’ vassal of HRE and Russia to Denmark, so HRE re-allied with all 4 of them). Longer or shorter, it remains to be seen.

Ofc, it all depends by what faction you’re playing with and the victory conditions.

I also think it’s important to know what factions you better avoid allying with. Imo those are Egypt (NEVER ally with Egypt. Ever. They always make the mistake of conquering Jerusalem and Antioch and the Pope wants to Crusade the living Jesus out of them! So Egypt will fight most of your allies all the time), Milan, Sicily, Moors, the Byzantines, HRE, the Mongols (actually, you can ally with the Mongols if you have Immaculate reputation, but they’ll betray you – if you’re in their path. The good news is you can “cash-milk” them, so you can use their treacherous behavior to fill your coffers), the Timurids (same as Mongols). Regarding Aztecs, if you're playin' long enough for them to appear, just do what the spanish did in real history. No offense, it's just business.

Another thing that’s worth to be mentioned here, you get better deals by negotiating with captains than with generals/family members or towns/castles.

PINCH THEIR CHUNK
In the beginning of the game when you start makin’ the usual diplomatic agreements (map info exchange, trade etc.) try to also ask very small sums of money (like 10 or 15 or even 20 florins), especially from factions that you know you won’t ally with them.

For example, if the Map Information exchange is regarded balanced, try to also ask 10 florins from them for that deal.

You might think it’s insignificant, well, theoretically it is but practically it could help quite a lot in the early stages of the game when finances are so tight.
There’s nothing more frustrating than missing just 3 florins when you want to start building something crucial right away (and that happened to me more than you’d think).

PUT THE SEAT BELT ON
Save the game a lot during the campaign; at the beginning of each turn, after reading all the messages (but before agreeing on marriage proposals or deciding to accept the Guild offers or picking between those allies that went to war only to ruin your reputation), save.
Have 4 or 5 saves for the current campaign and if it’s necessary, use all of them in one turn;

Before you move anything on the map, think. And after you took a good decision, save.

When in doubt, save as version 2 (or 3 or 4 or 5); always need a solid go-back point and that should be save no. 1, the one from the beginning of the current turn, which should be left untouched until next turn;
Before using important spies and assassins in missions, save; after they succeed, save; before an important battle - save; after a major success - save; before tryin' a merchant-acquisition, save; after... yeah, you guessed it right.
It’s not Total War, it’s Total Save Game.

Last save of the turn should be after you’ve done everything except retraining; there is a bug in the game that takes your money but doesn’t retrain your troops if you save after retraining, so always do it before.
Save -> retrain -> end turn.

LOVE AND MARRIAGE GO TOGETHER LIKE A HORSE AND CARRIAGE
Don’t rush to marry your princess, especially the one you got in the beginning of the game; it’s better to use her in diplomacy and even to forge an alliance through marriage. Those kind of alliances tend to be a little more stable than the regular ones.
Same with your heir, better save him for an exotic foreign princess.

IF YOU WANT BLOOD, YOU GOT IT
It’s a good idea to let allies room to expand, don’t be too greedy in your land grabbing, otherwise you risk bein’ attacked by those you considered your best friends.
Be aware that there are certain “trap-provinces” you better stay away from, except the situations you really want to go to war with the factions that want those lands as well (just some examples – Ajaccio, Cagliari, Tunis, Antwerp, Bruges, Dijon, Durazzo and Kiev. Or, if you’re muslim, Jerusalem and Antioch).

A faction can attack you regardless of your common religion, high reputation, alliance or relations-level, if you possess a territory that they want. And AI factions’ victory conditions are different than the ones set in the campaigns for the human player, they are oriented towards conquering certain provinces and hating certain factions. So, no matter what you do, if you get in their way you’ll be hated.

DON’T STEP ON THE BUG
A famous bug that makes occupying a settlement hurt your reputation more than if you sacked it.
This guy here provided a solution to that, and I also gotta add what Vampiresbane says here, in Chapter 10 Actual Point Values for Reputation and Relations under the Reputation spoiler ”you don't need to unpack M2TW to make this file work-just place it in the folder specified”.

But honestly speakin', occupyin' is counterproductive, you're much better with sackin' anyway.

KEEP THE FAITH
If you’re catholic, make sure the Pope is your friend, otherwise you’ll be in big trouble.
Create lots of priests and send them in territories with different faith than yours (but not on your allies’ lands, it can be considered a hostile act) so that they’ll raise piety faster and become cardinals; denouncing heretics and witches also can raise piety. Once a priest reaches 5 piety, it becomes eligible for the College of Cardinals. It's crucial to have as many guys in there as possible.
On a papal election, try to anticipate who has the best chances to win and vote for that particular preferati, but keep in mind that your goal is to put the pointy hat on one of your cardinals; if it gets to one of your allies it’s just as good (actually most of the times it's even better, if you have Perfect relations with that long-term ally).
Build churches, if the Pope demands that from you.
Join the Crusades when His Holiness calls them (but it's much better if you are the one that requests them, according to your strategic interests) and try to conquer the targets if they're at hand, this will give you great benefits; but God forbid to use the Crusade as an excuse to conquer Constantinople, it’ll end up extremely bad for you.
You can also manipulate the Pope (if your relations-level is high enough) by persuading him to call a Crusade against your excommunicated catholic enemy.

In case that you have a low-piety general and see an Inquisitor lurking around in that area, attach a priest to that general. The priest will be the one burned and the general will escape... for the time being.

If you’re muslim, you should also try to raise the piety of your imams; an imam with at least 4 piety can request a Jihad. Jihads (just like Crusades) can be used to add more movement to your armies, but make sure you move those armies to Jihad/Crusade target every turn, or else your men will start deserting.

If you’re orthodox, just keep the faith, there’s nothing else you can do.

Joking aside, Crusades and Jihads can be powerful tools that you should use as weapons, always in your advantage and against your enemies.

REBELS WITHOUT A CLUE
The rebels can be a curse but also a blessing. They negatively affect your province income and cause unrest, but on the other hand they also are great practice-targets to level up your spies, assassins and Dread generals. Plus, as well an income source almost every turn by selling your allies attacks against rebels. Use them wisely and if you can, try to push them just a little bit over the border, but not too far away from your towns producing spying/killing agents.
And if you can push them to a mountain pass, bridge or other narrow strategic point, they will „guard” that area for you. Well, that until they decide to move to another place so you better keep an eye on them. I also noticed that they seem very attracted by watchtowers, blocking the revealed area those towers provide.
You can spot the rebels location by that grey devastation area that they create around them over time.
Be careful though not to let your own men become rebels; if your faction leader has low authority (0 to 3 or 4) don’t send armies without a general in the open; Hell, don’t even send low loyalty (0-3) generals out of the settlements, there is a chance they’ll become deserters.

EQUILIBRIUM
In the beginning of the game don’t conquer too much too fast (if you’re a new player you probably need more time to learn how to blitz, anyway); other factions don’t see that with good eyes and you’ll be considered an aggressor-nation; even laying siege will have the same effect, just like you already took the settlement you’re sieging; as for starting a war with another nation, if it's no emergency it's better to wait until you have a positive reputation and some good allies;
Be very careful to keep the balance between your income and your army upkeep; don’t create more army than your economy can support, otherwise you’ll go into debt; Militia units, besides havin' decent fighting-skills, also have free upkeep as long as they’re garrisoned in towns that can produce them; keep that in mind and act accordingly; Mercenaries on the other hand are good soldiers with high upkeep so they should always be fighting - their place is on the front line, all the time;
Cities produce more income than castles; in order to have a balanced economy, you need to aim for a (at least) 3 to 1 towns/castles-ratio; once you have a certain number of provinces (like 10+), transform the unnecessary castles into towns.

TO TAX OR NOT TO TAX
That is the question. And the answer is – it depends by the situation but on the long term is better to keep your taxes at low in the beginning of your campaign.
The lower the tax-level is, the faster your population grows. More people = more money. And the towns grow too which brings more money also by allowing you to construct sooner those useful economical buildings.
So, what you lose on short term by lowering the taxes, you gain on long term. And gain even more.
After your towns get to 24.000 people, enough to reach the Huge City level, you can set them to high or very high, depending on the public order.

But there are certain situations when you desperately need cash and you need it right then and there. In those occasions you can temporary raise the tax level, just be careful not to provoke riots in towns.
And remember to bring them down again, once your emergency passed.

THERE’S MORE THAN ONE WAY TO SKIN A CAT
You can win a short campaign by eliminating certain factions and controlling a specified number of provinces.
First thing that comes to one’s mind when it comes to eliminate a faction is to take by force all their settlements; well, there are also other ways around that.
Some factions have the tendency to sell some provinces in exchange of a kinda limited amount of florins; better take advantage of this situation and buy as much land from them as you can; in several turns (like 5 or so) you can gain back the money you paid from those provinces’ income only. It’s a very good deal.
You should also seriously consider eliminating a faction by assassinating all their family members; or kill all of them on the battlefield.

KNIGHTS AND MERCHANTS
Merchants are pretty important in this game, they’re definitely worth having and using.
(More details, useful and interesting info about merchants here and here)
Explore the map to see where are the resources they can gain more money from and park them there until they level up.
After they gain enough finances (like 5-7), take a couple of them and go merchant-hunting! Try to acquire every low lvl AI-merchant (doesn’t matter if ally or not, you won’t get punish for this) in sight. You can make serious money that way.
Money you can use for the upkeep of your knights. With a serious army of knights, a determined man with military skills can achieve great deeds, methinks.
But be careful not to leave your low lvl mercs undefended, the AI will often try to take you out of business as well.
Important note: the AI will try to acquire your merchants only when they are on a resource. To avoid that, move them off and when the danger had pass put them back on. Be careful thought, the AI may return.

DON’T FEAR THE REAPER
Don’t be afraid to go the Dread path, I personally rather have an enemy who fears me (and will be likely to rout in the battle) than having a moral boost for my army (which is given anyway by a high-star general).
Ofc, that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to execute prisoners and exterminate settlements, overwhelming the enemy on the battlefield (by simply bringing a larger army than his) does the trick just fine.
You don’t have to seek that path, just go along it when you have the chance.
I also noticed that if you assassinate a lot, your Faction Leader will have not only more dread but also more authority, which is always a good thing.

STRIKE DOWN THE SHEPHERD, AND THE SHEEP WILL BE SCATTERED
If you want to get rid of an enemy once and for all, don’t try to kill every single army that enemy has; it’s better to concentrate on his towns/castles.
Besides, the overcheating AI pulls armies out of thin air most of the time, but if you conquer all its settlements there’s nothing it can do.
Also, in battles try to kill the enemy general (or captain) first; it'll be much easier to make the rest of them rout afterwards.

SAY HELLO TO MY LIL’ FRIENDS
You probably noticed that unfortunately in this game allies are almost useless, didn’t you?
Well, the key word is almost.
While they don’t help you with anything (plus they sometimes betray you for no reason and without warning – one of many examples you can find here, last part of the post, the story between France and Milan) you can still persuade them to give you a nice amount of florins. Ofc, in exchange of attacking rebels (most profitable deals) or other factions.
Gotta add that you can sell those attacks only to factions with whom you have at least Amiable relations, and doesn’t matter if they’re your allies or just neutrals.
Actually, in M2TW allies are not real allies, they’re truly just neutral factions good for nothing except cash-milking (plus raising your reputation) and that's exactly what you should use them for, remorseless.
I SPY (and occasionally assassinate, but hey, who are you to judge, „One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”, right? )
Spies have their importance to the game, it’s always a good idea to see every single thing that’s movin’ within your kingdom, in all your neighbors' provinces and even beyond. Information is power, spotting in time an enemy army that approaches your borders can be a life-savior.
You need to be like Sauron, to see everything.
So, build some watchtowers and don’t neglect to place spies in strategical spots, revealing the map as much as possible.

Plus, you can assign some of them to counterintelligence, in order to protect your border-cities from enemy spies that cause unrest. If population happiness suddenly drops for no reason, there's only one logical explanation: a foreign spy is infiltrated there. So, send your own spy inside that city and wait for the secret agent to expose himself. He will, sooner or later.

Don’t forget about assassins either (that if you don’t insist on role-playing a chivalry ruler), it’s always useful to have a few max-skilled ones at hand. You never know who crosses your path at midnight in a dark alley.

During the game you can encounter a very annoying situation, you want a certain town but you can’t take it, either because it belongs to one of your allies or to a neutral faction that you simply don’t want to go to war with.
What can you do, what can you do...?!
Ofc, try to buy it, but if that fails there’s only one option left: „liberate” it from their current „oppressors”, so you can bring „democracy” there a little later.
Infiltrate shítloads of spies in that town/city. The more the merrier. Bring a horde of assassins along (plus a couple of priests) and sabotage every pop-happiness building from there. You can also try to kill generals/family members that are present, if the odds are favorable.
If you’re lucky that settlement will rebel, so keep an army nearby to start sieging it asap.
(Note that it’s not very effective for castles, they don’t rebel much)

If you’re not lucky, you’ll lose some assassins and that faction will even become upset with you and declare war, but there’s always the „erase and rewind” option. Simply reload the game and give it another try. If you don't succeed, do something different, save, reload and then try again.

AND WE ASK THE STRANGER NOT TO KILL US IN OUR BEDS TONIGHT FOR NO DAMN REASON AT ALL
If a faction declares war to you out of the blue (starts sieging or just blockades a port) and you think that a war would be unnecessary, don’t retaliate (especially if the attacking force is small, it’ll only decrease your relations with that faction, making negotiations harder); instead send a diplomat and see if they are willing to cease fire (that’s why it’s so important to have diplomats all over the map, so they can reach in a single turn every faction).
I noticed that most of the time the AI factions are just attention-whores and your Ceasefire offer is regarded more than generous; you can use that in your advantage to ask them to attack a faction or rebels (if you need to increase your reputation) or just ask some money (cash or regular tribute) or even land.

An obvious, common sense thing is never to attack an ally (no matter what stupid missions the Council of Nobles is giving you).
Let them have this "honor" of betraying (they love to do it anyway) and take a 2-3 levels reputation-hit.
If you want to get rid of an alliance (assuming that you simply need to conquer the lands your ally has and he refuses to sell them to you), it's best to put a diplomat to negotiate the end of it. Offer that faction a tribute (you'll automatically stop payin' it anyway when the war starts) plus attacks vs. rebels and one of their enemies and if they don't agree just make the declaration that you want to break the alliance, your reputation will suffer less (decreases just one level if you unilaterally break it).

DIRTY DEEDS DONE DIRT CHEAP
And some dirty tricks you can use: reloading the game when something goes wrong (assassination fails, merchant acquisition fails, spying fails etc.), the Crusade/Jihad experience trick and the running trick.

As you know, after a successful Jihad/Crusade all the units that participate to it gain one chevron of experience, no matter if they actually contributed to that achievement or not. How can you take advantage of that and give most of your armies that bonus? Well, by planning things ahead. You need to take in consideration that after a successful (or failed) Crusade/Jihad it takes 10 turns 'till you can start another, so you have plenty of time to prepare. The basic strategy is that you'd want to conquer your target in just one turn. So, start producin' spies asap and keep sending them to infiltrate the settlement you want to acquire. Also, move your generals that you like to get more chivalrous near the armies you want to upgrade, so when the moment is right to be able to "load" them. The army that will give the decisive blow should take a position from where it could reach the target in one turn. Once you have enough spies infiltrated, declare the Jihad/Crusade and in the next turn join it with all the generals and armies you want, and then immediately take the settlement.
And now you'll be the happy owner of a more experienced army with more chivalrous generals.

The running trick works when you have battle-time limit on, the enemy attacks and you’re hugely outnumbered (meaning, „No way in Hell I’m gonna win this, not 1 vs. 40!”).
All you have to do is run your general (but also your entire small army if your units are fast enough) away from your enemy forces (run from one corner to the other on the battlemap, clockwise or counterclockwise), so he won’t get killed until the time expires. The battle will be considered a win for you (small victory) and the enemy army will retreat.

Ofc, this doesn’t mean I encourage you to avoid fights all the time. You definitely need to learn how to crush your opponent square and fair on the battlefield. But there are certain moments when the overcheating AI simply needs to taste its own medicine.



Well, that’s about it (more about military with another occasion perhaps, if you liked this), one final advice though: keep in mind that actually it’s not Total War, because...

[Steve2295]

Nice guide

[Nivea for Men]

Really good guide

[Vlad Dracul]

I forgot to say something important, to sum it up in one important conclusion, (almost) NEVER attack anyone if you don't have a material profit out of it.
Read this for more details, I suspect you'll get my point.

P.S.: Correct link doesn't seem to work, I'm referring to #14 post from that topic.

[Matthewcthf]

I forgot to say something important, to sum it up in one important conclusion, (almost) NEVER attack anyone if you don't have a material profit out of it.
Read this for more details, I suspect you'll get my point.

Very good guide. Well thought out and you put a lot of time and effort into making this. Good Job.

[Vlad Dracul]

Thanks for the appreciation, I tried to sum everything up without exaggerating with writing too much, but there are always more things to say, details to point out and discoveries to make.
I'd like to ad that spies and diplomats should be created all game long, never stop making them.
Merchants also, make as many as you can, although there's a limit related to the number of the market-chain of buildings (that starts with Grain Exchange, ofc) you have in your kingdom.

[Vlad Dracul]

Taking it a step forward after you gain a lil’ experience with this game, one of your interests might be related to the Pope, more precisely if and how can you use His Holiness in your advantage. Or at least get him out of your way as much as possible (you can’t destroy The Papal States as a faction, so forget about it and learn how to coexist with it instead).

If doing that while playing with a catholic nation is relatively easily to achieve, I will refer further on to something quite different.

Except the games with those 2 orthodox nations, the Pope can be a nuisance if you don’t control him, so you simply must do that even if you’re a muslim faction, especially in the long campaigns played on VH/VH. I know that sounds weird, ‘cause bein’ a muslim means in theory that you can do anything BUT that, only that things in this game (like in life, in general) are more complicated than we think.

In order to “control” (basically, to make sure he doesn’t call a crusade on any of your lands) the Pope when you’re playing with Egypt, the Turks and the Moors you’ll need a combination of diplomats, spies, assassins, rebels and enemies. Plus a decent army, ofc.

But above all, you need the knowledge to use all of those.

First, you have to be aware that the main targets for a crusade are Jerusalem and Antioch. Stay away from those until you’ll have perfect relationships with the Papal States.

To achieve that relations-level, the easiest way is to take the first step and send a diplomat to Rome asap, to make some offers that the guy wearin’ the pointy hat can’t refuse.

Start with the basics, Trade Agreement, exchange map info, offer an alliance but also ask for some small things in return. Like attacking rebels, for example. If you have to pay a tribute to convince him, so be it, will be worth it in the long run (convincing other factions to attack someone will help raise your reputation. The higher your reputation, the better diplomatic deals you can get). And keep asking and offering things every single turn, when it’s possible.

That’s why you need rebels of your own, on your lands or near your expedition armies. Packs of rebels, rebel settlements, pirates on the sea, doesn’t matter. You need to be able to attack rebels at least once every turn. Selling those attacks to the Papacy not only will get you hundreds of florins (or thousands later in the game if the Papal States become kinda wealthy) but it’ll also raise the relations level between your factions. While you're gettin’ paid for it.

So don’t be hasty in killing those rebels, they can be put to better use. Much, much better use. Just push them around the map every time you have the chance.

Furthermore, if you have an enemy (preferably, not a catholic one, but any kind of enemy will do) is jackpot, because you’re gettin’ more florins, higher relations and your diplomats (yup, you start with one but in time you’ll have to send another 2 or 3 there so you can sell those attacks more than once in the same turn) will gain more scrolls if they can make at least two consecutive successful deals.

But rebels and enemies are not only cattles to sell, they are practice targets for your spies and assassins (just as for your generals in order to raise that loyalty a lil’ bit, or the number of stars or the level of dread).

Papacy related, it’s all good and fine with bein’ allies and stuff, but the relations-level can decrease. Wars with catholic factions are inevitable, especially in long campaigns in which you need to hold a lot of territories. A LOT. The Pope won’t be happy at all when you conquer catholic land, and I have the impression that he isn’t thrilled about you jihaddin’ orthodox settlements neither. They are also christians, you know.

But what if, Allah-forbid, a cardinal from one of your catholic enemies is elected Pope...?!

Well, in that case (or even better, in order to prevent that) you need the right people in the right places.

Those people are skilled spies and assassins.

Not only that you’ll need to have a couple spies infiltrated in Rome itself (or wherever the Pope decides to be, if he'll expand more than the starting settlement), but in the later stages of the game you'll also need them all over the map. You need to be able to locate all the cardinals, in order to predict who the next Pope will be. And you’ll definitely want him to be (and pull all the necessary strings to make it happen) someone from your catholic allies. Yes, you'll need 3 or 4 big, powerful (especially regarding their clerics) catholic allies as well.

While fighting your catholic enemies, concentrate not only on their armies and settlements, but also on their cardinals and priests. Especially young priests, with all the future ahead of them, you never know what they might become if let... hmmmm, how should I put it... unripped.

Old high level cardinals are not such a threat, paradoxically, despite the fact that they’re kinda experts in avoiding gettin’ bit by certain snakes, they’re closer and closer with each passing turn to meet their God due to natural causes and if they’ll somehow make it to Vatican, usually a max lvl assassin has 90% chances to put a crossbow arrow straight into their intolerant, bigot, hateful (sometimes even secretly female) hearts.

Obviously, you need such a max skilled assassin near Rome all the time, so the younger he is, the better.

And not only there, if your spies are everywhere, your high skilled assassins must keep them company, they make a great duet.

Keep them busy and make sure your catholic-allies priests have a nice, smooth trip to the College.

And if by any reasons the relations between your faction and the Papacy become “Amiable” or less, it’s better to “install” a new Pope than to try improving things with the current one.

So, even if you’re muslim, you can coexist in peace and harmony with the catholics in general and with their spiritual leader in particular.

Well, at least with some of them.

Just don’t even think about conquerin' Rome (obviously) and you’ll be good.

[King Athelstan]

Nice writing!

[robertlamp]

Great guide. Many of the nuances were unknown to me. Thank you very much. Now I can play the game in a new way. I would like to know more about playing as a Muslim.

[Vlad Dracul]

Great guide. Many of the nuances were unknown to me. Thank you very much. Now I can play the game in a new way. I would like to know more about playing as a Muslim.

Thanks for the appreciation mate, glad that my (long) posts are still helping people after all these years.
That’s why I keep updating them when I discover new things, I’m offering informations that all new players need but didn’t exist on this good forum when I was a beginner myself and searched for answers in the past, more than 8 years ago.

And about playin’ as a muslim faction, well, funny you should say that, I actually took a break from my moorish campaign (long on VH/VH) to experiment some things with the good ol’ HRE and your reply is a quick reminder that I should not leave things unfinished.

I’ll try to give you some suggestions ‘bout the things that work the best according to my experience, combined with my stories about the long campaigns on VH/VH I played with the muslims.
I think I’ll make a 3-posts answer, since I obviously have a lot of things to say on this subject.

A lil’ philosophical rant first, the best approach of those campaigns isn’t “Allahu ahbar!” but rather “Salam aleykum”, bein’ a religious fanatic is definitely NOT the way to win (unless you're totalwarlegend, but that's another story).
(Just like in christians’ case, it’s all good and fine with “Deus vult”, who am I to deny it, but I rather crusade in Europe against my excommunicated enemies than drag my plate-dressed knights through the desert. The sun heats that armour so much that you can fry an egg on it, you know ).
So forget about any muslim brotherhood, only the Turks deserve to be your allies and when you’re playin’ with them, well... the infidels will be the only people you can count on.
And you definitely need to have a high relations-level with the Papal States, as I mentioned in my previous post.

Speakin’ of which, you need to read that part from my original post regarding which factions are good allies and which ones you should avoid like the plague. And the topic about manipulating the diplomacy.

It’s also true that in M2TW allies are actually not real allies, they’re truly just neutral factions good for nothing except cash-milking and raising your reputation, but you need some factions to have that formal diplomatic stance with.

That bein’ said, it’s story-tellin’ time and I’ll start with the...

TURKS

With the Turks the biggest challenge of the game is the possible Mongol invasion and you should start preparing to face that threat even from the very start of the campaign.
It’s better to be prepared for the worst and hope for the best than to be caught off-guard and have to deal with the dire consequences of bein’ unprepared.
And since this game (like life, in general) is full of irony, the best strategy for a strong defense in the east is a successful Blitzkrieg in the west.

You need to get rid of the pesky Byzantines as soon as possible (Jihad on Constantinople, ofc) while conquering and developing the settlements in the east and all that without neglecting the economy in general.

Personally, I raised as much army asap from Caesarea and Iconium, sent my Sultan and his son west, conquered Nicaea and Constantinople in an epic Jihad and was lucky enough to kill all byz family members there – so faction destroyed.

Used the high chivalry characters as governors in the east (combined with low tax level in towns helps the population grow faster and upgrade those settlements), where I conquered Tbilisi and Baghdad.
Here I have to point out something important: there’s no need to go farther than Tbilisi, there’s absolutely no point in that, no strategical reason.
Sarkel is far away in the middle of nowhere, hard to defend and has no strategical value.
And not only that, but if the mongols invade from the south of the Caspian Sea, they might want to exterminate Sarkel on their way to Kiev.
So, leave that worthless settlement alone, Caucasus Mountains should be the line of defense, if necessary.

In the first part of my turkish campaign I held Tbilisi, Yerevan, Mosul and Baghdad in the east.
I knew that if the mongols will come from the south their target is Antioch but they love to burn something on their way, so I didn’t touch Edessa (a potential target) and decided to fortify those 4 settlements mentioned above.
I also decided to leave alone the Holy Land and its surroundings for the time being, until I’ll see from which direction the mighty mongols will invade. Besides, in the Gold Edition of the game (the one on disks, 1.03 it’s called iirc), the main targets of crusades are Jerusalem and Antioch, so better build a strong alliance with the Pope before conquering them.
(On the Steam version, 1.52, most of the crusades are called on Cairo, which is stupid indeed, but anyway)

Depending on the invasion point, I had two choices:

Invasion from the north meant they’ll go for Kiev, leaving me alone and bothering Russia or Poland or Hungary, whoever would be in that area at that time. It also meant green light for me to conquer all Asia (except Gaza and Jedda, no need to push my big presence too deep down egyptians’ throats).

Invasion from south, well, let the circus begin.
As mentioned before, their eventual target is Antioch but before that they feel the need to make a point by exterminating a settlement on their way.

Since I discovered how to manipulate diplomacy and how to properly cash-milk the factions in this game, I’m playin’ with zero losses (meaning zero lost battles and zero lost settlements), so I’m not allowin’ anyone, mongols or no mongols, destroy any of my provinces.
The plan was to upgrade as much as possible their potential targets, build Ballista Towers and pack them with armies (especially archers and good infantry) led by generals who had defense-bonus traits (if available).
Seein’ such redoubtable defenses, the mongols would’ve thought twice before attackin’ me and if they did, I’d had a serious chance to repel them.

After they settled in Antioch, I could’ve managed to form an alliance with them, get some serious florins from them and let ‘em have everything south of Edessa, fight with the egyptians as much as they’d like, conquer the whole Africa for all I care.
Ofc, at a certain point I would’ve been forced to get Jerusalem in order to win the campaign, but I’m sure I could’ve been quite capable to do that, one way or another.

But preparing for the invasion (which is actually a race against time) also meant I needed lots of gold, so I used the western armies to take all former byz provinces asap.
Durazzo included, which is always a source of quarrel with the venetians and the sicilians.

Now it’s the moment to say some things about alliances.
As usual, I started pumpin’ diplomats even from turn 1, and sent them all to the west and north-west.
First target, the hungarians and after that directly to Rome. Denmark is also one of the main targets, although it takes some time to reach ‘em.
Usually, Venice is among my allies but in my turkish, byzantine and egyptian campaigns they’re just in my way, blockin’ my expansion towards west. So, as a logical conclusion, they were the second faction destroyed (or maybe Sicily was and I forgot about it, but anyway, it’s not important, both must die).

One word about Hungary, which (just like Denmark) is always in my good graces (even when I play as Poland):
They’re not rich, but an alliance with them seem always stable, so I conquer around their territories all the time and try not to suffocate them (too much).
A classic hungarian expansion is Sofia-Bucureşti-Iaşi, so I let them have those settlements.
If they want more, they’re free to go north and east to get Kiev, Caffa, Cracow, Halych (the last 2 if I'm not Poland, ofc), Hell, even Sarkel, but I draw the line regarding Vienna, Thessalonica and Constantinople. They can (and will) live quite well without them, having the western border at Budapest and the southern one at Sofia.
I keep the relations-level between us high, so we’re good.

Russia also deserves mentioning, I found out lately that they’re also stable allies (plus they’re kinda rich in the beginning of the game, so...), it’s also true that if you’re unlucky they might start a war with Denmark (in which case I always choose the danes).

From the Iberian peninsula I usually pick one between Portugal and Spain, depending on the situation.
Regarding the British Isles, I used to go for Scotland, if it’s still alive until I’m able to reach them, but lately I don’t bother anymore as I tend to finish the campaigns before having a real lucrative alliance with them.
But in this turkish campaign I’m describing, I actually was allied with the scots in the moment of victory. Also with the french, a thing that I don’t usually do, can’t remember why I did it, was more likely a circumstantial thing.

Some quick words about the enemies: in my long campaigns I tend to eliminate certain factions, and playin’ as muslim makes no exception to my general rule. Milan, Sicily, HRE (my favorite faction to play with, but in all other games I tend to destroy them), the Byzantines (although is more profitable to exile them on Cyprus island and just sell attacks vs. them 3 times a turn. You can blockade the port from Nicosia and then lift only to blockade it again at will, as long as they don’t have ships sitting there), France and most of the times England, Egypt and the Moors are my usual targets.

A side note about imams: I don’t make lots of them, only 4 or 5 (of different ages) seem to be enough in my muslim campaigns. You’ll need them to call Jihads (if they have at least 4 piety), but the targets they are lettin’ you choose from are not so appealing as what the Pope has to offer when you’re playin’ as catholics.
Also must remember that it takes 10 turns from the end of a Jihad until you can start another one (just like in the case of a crusade).

Gettin’ back to my turkish campaign, long story short (I wrote way too much already, gotta wrap it up):

I was lucky (but also a lil’ bit disappointed, tbh) that the mongols didn’t come my way, they invaded north of the Caspian Sea, so I could concentrate on my things (invading Europe after lots of heroic wins vs. the venetians, and on the eastern front beatin’ the livin’ shít out of the egyptians until they accepted to be my vassals) and win the game, as you can see in the screenshots below:

[Vlad Dracul]

The second part of my “playing long campaigns on VH/VH with muslims” – saga refers to

EGYPT

Gonna confess straight ahead that in my egyptian campaign I made a terrible mistake that delayed my progress for 50 turns or so.

How did that happen? Was returning to the game after a long break (more than 1 year) and I stupidly mistook a game mechanic from Knights of Honor (good game, I recommend it. They are working on a sequel called Knights of Honor II: Sovereign, I hope they’ll release it this year) with one from M2TW, more precisely the ability of destroying the Papacy.
In Knights of Honor is possible (even if it can rise from its own ashes later in the campaign), in M2TW is not.

So, foolishly thinkin’ that I can, after conquerin’ Dongola (and transform it to a town, no need for a castle down there) I gathered as much forces as possible and, having forged only one alliance (with the turks), I shipped them to conquer Rome. The idea was to get rid of the Pope and the threat of crusades on my lands (Jerusalem is one of the victory conditions and I wanted to conquer it rather sooner than later, acquire Jedda, put the border at a fortified Acre and get done with that region. My turkish allies could’ve had the rest of Asia, np) once and for all.

I said to conquer Rome, which I did with no problems (there was only a small garrison defending it), but no sign of Pope inside the city and – shock and horror! – faction NOT destroyed!
I checked the surroundings with my spies, they didn’t have any other settlements.
Next move, conquer Napoli, ofc. Also with only little problems, but because I was at war with the Papal States, all Hell broke lose.

First, the whole christendom hated me and I couldn’t get a single alliance with any of my usual friends, no matter what I did. I remember how I desperately begged the poles (as a last resort after everybody else rejected me), offering them the whole little I had and how they ruthlessly refused. I never forgave them for that.
And not only alliances, but I couldn’t get any diplomatic deals at all, I couldn’t sell attacks vs. rebels and vs. my enemies to anyone, so my treasury suffered greatly. Couldn’t convince them to attack anyone, so my reputation dropped after a while from Reliable to Mixed – an absolute nightmare!

But wait, there’s more!

Shortly after, Milan declared war. Venice (which I very much wanted to be one of my allies) allied with them and joined the party. The Holy Roman Empire became more and more angry, throwin’ hostile looks from Bologna at me. I didn’t dare to take Florence, and Milan took advantage of it, conquering the town for themselves.
The sicilians didn’t leave me alone at all, fortunately in one brief moment between milanese and venetians attacks I was able to call a Jihad on Palermo and conquered it with a huge effort. Also killing all their family members, so they were destroyed.
At least that, because things in general were going from bad to worse.

How long could I resist with only 1 ally (and even the turks started to dislike me) and 4 enemies? Havin’ only a small amount of florins in my coffers? And with a Mixed reputation...?!

Tried an alliance with the Moors, offering them heaven and earth, but they looked at it full of despise. Even worse, they started to send disembarking armies at Palermo, just like the spanish.

But wait, there’s more!!

Iirc, even the damn byz started to disembark in Naples and, to transform everything in the worst case scenario, a Crusade was called on Rome!
And not only that, but after 50 turns (yup, shock and horror, was hiding for 25 years, never thought it could be possible) of (probably) shíttin’ in the woods near Rome, the Pope decided to come out and made his appearance with a full flag army and tried to take his Holy Seat back.
I hoped for a second that that’s the real reason why the Papal States weren’t destroyed as faction, so I broke the siege and killed the old focker, but... in vain.

And now I had a new problem, wanted to negotiate a peace with the Papacy, but couldn’t find anyone to talk to.

I heroically resisted against a couple of crusadin’ armies siegin’ Rome (Portugal joined the crusade and Poland shortly after, so even more enemies on me), and here I gotta mention this frustratin’ thing – the AI factions that have a crusade against them can sign a Ceasefire with the crusadin’ nations, but the human player doesn’t have this option in the diplomacy panel.

It was obvious that I couldn’t resist too long under those circumstances, 1 vs. 6 or 7, they will keep sending armies over and over again until I’d finally lose my first battle in this game and Rome with it and despite my glorious resistance the end result would be only one.

So, with a heavy heart, I took the decision to do something I never do since I learned how to properly play the game (meaning how to reach Immaculate reputation in an easier way and properly cash-milk the factions), since I’m playin’ with zero losses: to throw the towel and give up Rome.
Luckily I found a Papal States’ diplomat near Bern and... bowed before the inevitable.
Signed a Ceasefire in exchange of Rome and so I put an end to the crusade.

It was the only time in my last 25 campaigns when I lost something.

But I preferred to lose a settlement and keep my battle-victory score intact at 100%.

And that was the turning point of the campaign, things started to improve shortly after.

I can’t remember if the new Pope was actually extremely happy to get his home city back (so our relationship-level rose to Reasonable or even Amiable) or I had to bribe him a lil’, but eventually I ended up with an alliance with the Papal States.

Constantly beatin’ the livin’ shít out of the venetians meant that at a certain point I was able to ask for their Ragusa in exchange for peace, and that represented a significant step forward in the campaign. That castle was the starting base from which I expanded my 3^rd part of the empire (first bein’ my starting position, second the italian conquests and now this 3^rd from the eastern shore of Adriatica into Balkans).

(Gotta also mention that in this crazy campaign at one point Venice declared war to the Papal States because they were my allies, and conquered Rome. Just imagine the circus that followed, with the venetians in the place I was some turns in the past, hated by the whole christianity and I, a muslim nation, due to my alliance with the Pope, becoming the defender and champion of the most sacred catholic symbol of power! )

Played defensive against my catholic non-excommed enemies, signed peace with the distant factions that joined that crusade against me, started to be able to sign alliances with my usual friends Hungary and Denmark plus adding Spain to that list (after I defeated some of their armies near Palermo, therefore gaining their respect), raised my reputation and finances and begun to invade the annoying byzantines (therefore not bothering the Papacy and pleasing my allies the Turks and Hungary who hated ‘em as well, but also pleasing the venetians from whom I kept gettin’ very profitable Ceasefire offers), I was back on the good track.
And the rest is history, eliminatin’ Milan, Venice, HRE, France, England, Scotland was just a matter of technique.

Took a looong time ‘till I finished the campaign due to that bad decision from the start, but what matters is the end result and that was what you see below:







Now, if I’d play it again I’d obviously make different choices.

I’d still decide to get only Jerusalem, Jedda and Acre from Asia, I’d still choose to migrate instead of draggin’ my armies through the african desert forever, but I’d pick a different invasion point in Europe.
The first (and always perfect) victim is the Byzantine Empire, avoiding to antagonize the catholics until I’d have my usual network of alliances and high relations-level with the Pope.
Plus, the byz are hated by my regular friends (turks, hungarians, venetians) and, if they take Durazzo, they become hated by sicilians as well.
Corinth, Thessalonica and obviously Constantinople should be the first targets and after that... well, it depends.

It depends mainly by the venetians, what they want, how they feel about me, if they’ll settle with Zagreb, Ragusa, Durazzo and Rhodes (plus Venice and Iraklion, ofc and maybe Tripoli if they’ll take it), that’s the best I can offer them.

If the alliance with them will hold, then I’ll invade Italy from Naples. Take Palermo, buy Bologna from HRE, conquer Milano and Genoa, see what’s the situation of Florence (in the Steam version of the game the Pope really wants to be da pimp, da playa, so he always takes Florence), don’t touch Corsica and Sardinia (as da pimp, da playa will want them later), see who holds Bern (if it’s Milan, take it and eliminate them) and Dijon, try to buy also Innsbruck from HRE and then ruthlessly conquer Vienna, keep an eye on France and take Marseille with the first chance I get etc. etc.

If Venice doesn’t seem to cooperate, takin’ Durazzo will be the first step in provoke them and the sicilians to attack, while I’ll play the role of poor victim during which time I’m massing armies and navies in eastern Mediterranean and Adriatic seas.

As you suspect, the first one that’ll attack me will die, but I’ll keep a close eye on the other, not gonna allow any unpleasant surprises to take place.

Always need to be prepared, remember that.


Gotta point out the importance of provoking a war without being considered the aggressor: you must learn this technique, sometimes it’s crucial.

Instead of directly attacking a faction (especially when you have common allies you want to keep), is much better to set up a scene and let them be the ones who start the hostilities.
A common ally tends to stick with the “victim” and breaks the alliance with the aggressor nation.
So, you need to know which are the “trap provinces” and who wants them. Conquering those settlements (and givin’ the impression they are poor defended – keep a small garrison inside but have a large army hiddin’ in the woods nearby, if it’s possible) represents an invitation to war that AI factions will often accept.

Just a couple of examples, take Durazzo and Venice, Sicily and the Byz Empire will start thinkin’ ‘bout attackin’ you. Conquering Dijon pisses France, Milan and HRE off, just like takin' Bern.
Antwerp is wanted by the danes, the english, the germans and even the scots.

Also keep in mind that sometimes the AI doesn’t directly attack the province it wants, but another settlement instead. That’s still war, nevertheless.

A final thing: I recommend not to boost the reputation of your potential enemies by constantly selling them attacks vs. anyone. You can do it once, though, if you really need that thousand florins so bad in order to start building something crucial right away, sure, sell ‘em an attack vs. rebels, but that’s it. They’ll become Reliable and, in time, if they’ll be involved in a lot of wars and have no allies, they can drop to Mixed.
But if they’re Immaculate, well... first, they tend to be more sane and less aggressive, so there goes the chance to provoke ‘em to start a war. Not sayin’ they’ll suddenly become inoffensive kittens, but... you get the point.
And second, other factions are not very eager to gang up against Immaculate nations, so... can’t really form a big coalition vs. that particular enemy.

[Vlad Dracul]

The third (and final) “playing with muslims” part is an AAR-like long post regarding the

MOORS

As you can see below, my moorish campaign started quite slow, for a various number of reasons.

Spoiler for : 

Playin’ with the Moors is quite tricky and challenging mainly due to the starting position but also weak early units (the strenghts/weaknesses from faction description are false, the best moorish units are in the late period of the campaign). But I love the idea of them existing in this game, CA did a good job creating this faction (even as military weak as it is, in the early stages) and checking my list of campaigns I played so far, I discovered that the Moors were actually the second faction I ever played with in this game (a medium/medium short campaign I won in 58 turns), after the first 4 campaigns with my beloved HRE.

On the farthest south-western corner of the map and having 4 provinces from the start (bein’ in top 5 factions from this point of view), those represent a double-edge sword.

More provinces = more targets and bein’ so far away actually means that you’re at distance only from potential allies, not from your enemies, which are very close.
Anywhere in the neighborhood the Moors want to expand means provokin’ and facin’ only catholic enemies. About the Iberian Peninsula there’s no point to bring arguments, it’s more than crystal clear, while takin’ Tunis (so you can actually put a sea in between the potential invaders and not let them conquer that province first and therefore heavily breathing in your neck) means war with the sicilians.

The greatest danger is, obviously, upsettin’ the Pope early on so much that he’ll declare a Crusade on Cordoba, which will put you in a defensive position for many, many turns.

So, I took the decision that before startin’ any (offensive) wars to ally with the Papal States (but not only).
Which meant sending like 3-4 diplomats by sea (since they were going that way, I thought it’ll worth the delay and wait for all of them to be embarked and once they reached the Italian Peninsula they could negotiate with 4 factions there), which took a small eternity.

I gotta mention here that at the start of the campaign I wasn’t aware of the fact that all the portuguese family members are near Lisbon and that killing them meant Faction Destroyed. I probably knew that but forgot it, since it's been 2 and a half years since my previous moorish campaign.
I suspect I could’ve get away with jihaddin’ Lisboa (actually, hoppin’ to kill them in the open field and after that conquering a rebel city and not one belonging to a catholic faction) without the Pope hatin’ me so much that he won’t accept an alliance, and gettin’ rid of the portuguese early in the game (just like I got rid of the byz by 5^th turn in my turkish campaign). And after that, turtle ‘till my main alliances were made.
But an active turtle, with conquering Timbuktu and Arguin.

Anyway, I took Tunis with a Jihad and after that... takin’ advantage of the fact that I couldn’t build a strong fleet yet, they invaded me from all parts like a bunch of returned soldiers from a long campaign would invade the local brothel.

The spanish-portuguese alliance (of course, don’t expect them not to ally against you), Sicily (also predictable) but what was not so predictable were the milanese debarking and startin’ to siege Algiers (turned into a town, gotta refer to my settlement strategy further) and a lil’ later the byzantines (!) also on Tunis.
Things went so far that I decided it’s quicker and more useful to have a diplomat near each Algiers and Tunis than to wait forever until they would reach Neaples and Constantinople by land, slowly walkin’ across the whole european continent.
Needed to Ceasefire with Milan, Sicily and the Byzantine Empire right after they started sieging, didn’t want those wars before takin’ Spain and Portugal out of the game.
And luckily I got my peace (and some tribute) every single time I asked for it, they weren’t really serious about fighting but rather just attention-whorin’.

But the danger was real, so my african armies were stuck in those settlements.
Which meant no conquering Timbuktu, where I did send all my merchants, though.
Not havin’ the option to jihad Timbuktu really hurts, I must say. And I find it weird that you can jihad Baghdad, but not Timbuktu or Arguin (really, CA, really?!).

Anyway, gettin’ back to settlement-strategy, this is how I see the things regarding the south-west corner of the playable world:

Tunis should be conquered and developed into the castle. The one and only castle from the western half of Africa. And should represent the eastern border of the Moors in that area.
I don’t care about Tripoli, it’s another Sarkel or Bulgar in my opinion, a settlement with no economic or strategic value, I’m conquering it only if I desperately need one more province to win or if I’ll conquer the whole Africa.
Otherwise, I’ll leave it alone, my venetian allies want it later in the game, they can fight to the death with the sicilians for it, for all I care.
Marrakesh, Algiers, Timbuktu, Arguin should be towns.

In the Iberian Peninsula, I keep only Toledo as castle, it’s the most developed one and it’s in the center of the region, so it’ll represent my only fortress there.
I transform Granada, Valencia and Pamplona into towns. They’re by the sea, so trading means big florins there.
The castles that are guarding the entrance in the peninsula are located beyond the Pyrenees mountains, and I’m obviously referring to Bordeaux and Toulouse.

See what I’m doin’ there?
I’m “herding” my enemies to attack where I want them to, where I can build strong defenses, so I won’t be forced to run after them all over the place like a headless chicken.
Remember, you must decide where and when to fight, always.
And be well-prepared for the confrontation.
That’s the secret of success. In war, in this game and in life in general.

Do they want to enter the Iberian Peninsula? I’ll control the waters around it and they’ll need to get through Toulouse and Bordeaux first.
Having Tunis is the equivalent of waving the red cape in front of the sicilian bull.
They’ll be drawn to that point like flies on shít.

Be proactive and not reactive. Force them to play by your rules, and not the other way around.
Turn the table and say like Rorschach “None of you seem to understand. I'm not locked in here with you. You’re locked in here with me!”

It applies to this game but also to real life, mark my words.

Anyway, back from my philosophical rants to my moorish long campaign, after I secured an alliance with the Pope, Portugal died first when I killed all their family members near Lisbon, and Spain followed some turns after.
Didn’t conquer Valencia yet, waiting for the Cid to die of old age (he’s 58). The garrison is untouched, and with my weak moorish army... well, I’d just lose too many soldiers with him alive.
Didn’t take rebel Pamplona either, but I have a fat 2.500 florins mission-reward from the Council if I’ll do it, so... gonna do it soon.

After I repelled them a couple of times, the sicilians weren’t so eager to attack me at Tunis anymore, especially since it literally did cost them to cease fire.
At one point, between Tunis and Cagliari I saw a very small sicilian fleet floating right next to an also very small Papacy one. Felt like screaming out of joy for this great opportunity, problem was I didn’t have any ships around that point.
Took my (formerly) jihaddin’ faction heir out of Tunis, bought the only mercenary ship available, put my diplomats all over Europe to get some florins from my allies in exchange for an attack vs. Sicily and... rushed it in.

And now Sicily is excommunicated and (as long as their faction leader lives and they’ll still be at war with the Papacy) I can do whatever the Hell I want with them (actually, I just want to conquer Palermo and Neaples, settin’ my foot on the Italian Peninsula. An isolated-in-Sardinia Sicily would be perfect, with me controllin’ the west of Mediterranean and blockading their port 3 times per turn. For shekels, ofc, which my allies will gladly pay in exchange for those attacks).

Drawing one of your allies (especially the Papal States) in a war against one of your enemies is a trick I recommend you to do, on land and sea, every time you have the chance.
And if you’re not a victory-maniac like me, you can do it even if you lose that battle, just to start a war between those factions.
It’ll pay up better in the long run than having a clean victory sheet.

In order to invade Italy, first I need to get rid of those pesky byz that you see in the screenshot.
So, since my only high-piety imam is 58, I’m thinkin’ ‘bout puttin’ a Jihad on Constantinople.
My venetian allies are already at war with the byz, I should be as well very soon by destroyin’ that army at Tunis’ gates, so why not bring more people to the party? My turkish allies would sure love the idea and join it and I suspect the egyptians will do it also.
I don’t intend to conquer Constantinople, therefore not gonna take part to it, makin’ some factions to gang up vs. the byz will be enough. But I do intend to repel any byz ship will enter western Mediterranean and furthermore, I will invade the eastern Mediterranean, sink some ships and block some ports there.
For the shekels, ofc and for my allies’ delight.

I just bought Toulouse from France for 500 florins per turn/6 turns. Definitely worth it, as it makes 1.567 per turn. They sold it with no garrison in it (and I can’t create anything for the next at least 2 turns), luckily I had a general nearby so he could go inside and raise the public order from 50% to 75%. Won’t lose it because riots.
Bordeaux is rebel and I want to conquer it before the french, but Marseille... I’m afraid I’ll have to pay the iron price for it and not the gold one.
After conquering Palermo and Napoli I want to buy Bologna from HRE (but before starting the war with France, as they’re vassals to the imperials) and advance to northern Italy where an old foe now pacified is awaiting... Milan.

I also plan to get the british islands, just want to have all the western part of the map in my possession (except, ofc, the territories of the danes) and then push to central Europe ‘till Vienna, Prague and Breslau (and willing to fight HRE and Poland for those).

A lil’ diplomatic problem seems to appear, Hungary is at war with Poland who is allied with Venice. Which Venice took Sofia, a settlement the hungarians want.
I have to mentally prepare for my allies to start a war against each other sooner or later (the AI does that to sabotage the human players reputation) and take countermeasures first in order to remain Immaculate.
Oh, and I’ll pick the magyars to remain my allies, as always.
The venetians tend to get themselves into all kind of trouble (especially with the Pope), so...
But I’ll cash-milk them even if they’re a neutral faction, nevertheless. All I need is our relations at Amiable or higher and they’ll accept the deals.

Quick summary: France, England, Scotland and HRE must die, Sicily isolated in Sardinia or dead, Milan dead or isolated on Corsica and after that... I’ll see how many provinces I’ll still need for victory. Could take the whole Africa plus Gaza and Jerusalem if it’s necessary, although I’d prefer to just buy the Holy City from the egyptians and therefore winning the campaign.

One final word, about Guilds.
The coastal towns (but also Vienna, which is the richest place in all my games) will get the Merchant Guild, as usual. About inland settlements, I made a habit in transforming Dijon (in the west) or Zagreb (in the east) into my assassins-factories, this game will make no exceptions, Dijon will get the Hashashim Guild (which will also provide me the specific elite units, very useful especially for a weak roster like the moorish one).
I suspect that by the time I'll conquer them, Paris, Rheims and Milano will already have Thieves Guilds constructed and I'll keep 2 of them.
About the Theologian Guild, just to secure the Jihad-option I could demolish the Thieves Guild from Paris and go for a Great Jama there, although I don't usually create lots of imams.
I could go for a Horse Breeders Guild in one settlement, as the Moors can produce cavalry (not quality units, but anyway) from towns.
Explorers Guild never did anything significant for me, didn't notice any improvements (although in theory should be pretty important to have extra movement points for your characters, but that never happens), any bonuses, nothing. Never build it, forget about it.

L.E. Actually you know what?
I could join that Jihad if I could create 3 or 4 full flag armies and use it as a pretext and start conquerin' Pamplona, Bordeaux, Marseille, Dijon, Bern, Innsbruck, Milano, Genoa and Bologna. And then just abandon the Jihad.
Can you imagine Pope's face after he'll see that...?!
It'll totally worth it, just like bein' at war with France and HRE (I hope I'll eliminate Milan with that stunt, so they won't thicken the number of my enemies).
The only thing that holds me from doin' this is the fact that I don't have any assassins yet, not a single one (chivalrous Faction Leader, what can I say... but his son will be quite the opposite when he'll get the throne). And I don't wanna risk a Crusade on Cordoba, although I'm quite curious who'd be willing to join it (apart from France and HRE). England? Poland? Scotland is irrelevant, Sicily is excommunicated, Milan will be dead (I hope) or isolated in Corsica, the rest are my allies.
But HRE has 11 territories and most likely a formidable military force, while my poor weak units...
A normal HRE I can face, especially from current positions, but a crusadin' one... and me bein' overstretched with such a large front to defend...

I should keep in mind this idea, as a side project, though. And keep a save from this point of the campaign to develop it in that direction.

L.L.E. Turn 45, the plot thickens.
Nobody joined the Jihad, I'd expected at least the Turks to do it, since the byz own Trebizond and Tbilisi. But despite of my alliance and Perfect relations with the Papal States, the Pope called a crusade against Toulouse.
With this weak moorish army it'll be a challenge to defend it against sustained attacks, although I'm still curious who'll join the Crusade.
Milan is alive and well, and even more, 6 turns ago (when they were no. 1 military power) they started to hammer Toulouse (which borders with their Dijon).
First, they sent 4 units of Italian Spear Militia which were easily defeated by Faraj with his 2 units of Desert Cavalry, 1 unit Desert Archers and 1 unit Arab Cavalry army. However, 'cause the units don't respond quickly to the orders you give and just don't move, I lost 10 men from the Desert Cavalry (wanted to win it with 0 losses).
But next turn they sent a full strong stack led by a 4-star general against my weak defense-force, so I had no choice than to bend the knee and offer them Trade Agreement, Map Information and the magic tribute of 600 florins/15 turns (this always works, you can try with 400/15, but if your enemies refuse, 600 will do the trick) for ceasing fire.
I wonder if they're willing to give up my tribute (still 11 turns left) just to join the Crusade. Their general I mentioned above, after heading to french Marseille, suddenly turned his big army around and seems to be attracted by Toulouse again. Had to take back Faraj (5 stars, 1 chivalry) from the new conquered Bordeaux and put him in charge of the defense of the fortress he already protected once against the milanese.
I'll bring Ayyub (8 star, 2 chivalry plus Promising Defender) from Valencia with some units to strengthen my defense and I'll start pumpin' army from Bordeaux and Toledo as well, hope it'll be enough and their pesky Crusade will eventually fail.

L.L.L.E. Milan was the first to join the Crusade (with that general I already mentioned), followed by France (as I suspected), Hungary (shock and horror! despite the alliance and Very Good relations they jumped in, only to regret it immediately and in the next negotiations round to offer a 1.200 florins/4 turns tribute in exchange of ceasefire plus me attackin’ Sicily) and Poland.

Fortunately, I was ready to defend any kind of siege by now so I had no problems defeating the milanese army and shortly after a french army. That kinda ruined their appetite to attack, so they left me alone for a while. I took advantage of the Pope havin’ a significant number of small fleets near italian shores and I dragged the Papal States to war with Milan and HRE.
Which meant they were excommunicated, which meant bye-bye joining the Crusade against me.

France assembled another crusading army, which had the same fate as the previous one, despite the fact that they had spies infiltrated that opened the gates (again).
They had spies, I had merc spearmen and Granadine Jinetes guarding those gates. Plus Desert Archers and Merc Crossbowmen on the walls. I win.
Then the poles arrived with their faction heir leading a massive cavalry army mixed with some spearmen and archers, but all they did was to just circle around my fortress, not even daring to lay siege.
‘cause Faraj (now Sultan Faraj), the Defender of Toulouse, was too good to lose (yeah, I know).
The other living crusading general, the hungarian one, just dícked around Budapest doin’ nothing (without losing his army, if the human player doesn’t constantly advance towards the target, all his men are deserting, not the case of the overcheating AI).

And because those last two, the Crusade was draggin’ on forever, despite of having no chances of success.
The sole thing that it did was to block a couple of my armies in the area and set me back for 15 turns or so, only delaying my inevitable final victory.





One final thing: after conquering the british isles I just decided to win the game by buyin’ the whole egyptian empire (7 provinces, from Tripoli to Antioch), I was simply bored to death by this campaign, sick and tired of Pope's backstabbing (among all muslims he simply hates the moors the most, this also happened in one of my previous moorish campaigns, no matter the long-term alliance, perfect relations, common enemies etc. he'll just betray you) and since I couldn’t conquer HRE as I initially planned (long story short, they allied with the hungarians and the venetians and I simply didn’t want to spoil my relations with those factions), there was no interesting challenge left for me.
Won enough Heroic Victories in this campaign, destroyed enough factions, made enough successful diplomatic deals, the time came to end it and to move on.

[Vlad Dracul]

Some advice regarding the best defense strategy during a religious war against you.

As muslim, don’t attack any crusading army. Just let them siege your town/castle and they’ll break like water on rocks.
If you attack them (sally-out included), your relations with all catholic factions will drop to levels from Very Poor to Abysmal, you won’t be able to get any diplomatic deals with anyone and I don’t see how your alliances could hold under those circumstances.

On the other hand, if you heavily garrison the Crusade-target (with good infantry and good archers & merc crossbows plus some horse archers and just a few cavalry units) and keep another full-flag army (or even two) just outside the walls (so keep producing army from nearby castles and constantly send them to the hot spot), ready to reinforce the defenders, your chances of repelling them are very high.
Sure, you’ll lose a few men while they’re sieging, but they usually assault after just 2 turns, it’s not like they’ll starve you to death inside.

Put a high-chivalry general (with defense-bonus traits, if available) in charge of that settlement; high chivalry (just like building farms and setting taxes to low on towns) means population growth, which lets you upgrade the town/castle faster.

Try to keep up the relations with the Papal States (and your former catholic allies – if they betray you) by offering them attacks vs. rebels and vs. their enemies in exchange for 100 florins only.

And definitely try to assassinate the crusading generals, if you succeed their armies will vanish in 2 turns (if the overcheating AI doesn’t provide them with another general pulled out of its @ss).

Plus you must be aware that you can block mountain passes, bridges or water crossings tryin’ to delay the siege until your defenses will be ready.

Also, you can get a Ceasefire from those factions that don’t really hate you and joined the Crusade/Jihad only because diplomacy is broken in this game.
And despite the fact that you don’t have the option to offer it in the diplomacy panel.
You can’t ask for it, but they can.
So, offer them a deal that’s regarded Generous or Very Generous (like exchanging Map Info, for example). After this first deal (accepted or refused), their Priorities will change to Peace, so you need to offer another deal, but one that they can refuse. They’ll refuse, but they’ll counteroffer with Ceasefire and something else.
And now you got rid of an unnecessary war that started from stupid (AI) reasons.

As a catholic faction, if you attack a Jihad army the relations with the muslim factions will also drop, but not so much as in the above example. Honestly, that shouldn’t be a problem (except regarding the Turks, which are always good allies that you’d rather keep).
The last time I had a Jihad against me (long hungarian campaign VH/VH, called upon my Constantinople), after I attacked one jihadist army my Perfect relations with the Turks (which didn't join the Jihad) dropped to Amiable, so it wasn’t a problem to build them back in some turns. And after they were back to Perfect, I could attack and destroy another jihadist army without fearing I'll jeopardize that alliance.

The conclusion is that it's easier to defend against a Jihad than against a Crusade, you have more options, more "room to manoeuvre" so to speak.
Keep that in mind and act accordingly.

L.E.: A Crusade/Jihad lasts until the target is conquered, the Pope calls it off ("Crusade failed", I think it's the same for a Jihad) or all the participating generals are dead. And it takes 10 turns from that moment until you can start a new one.

[FootSoldier]

Playin’ with the Moors is quite tricky and challenging mainly due to the starting position but also weak early units (the strenghts/weaknesses from faction description are false, the best moorish units are in the late period of the campaign).

The Moors Opening and Early to Mid Game

So, I thought I would add my thoughts Moors, concentrating on the early game.

I like the Moors. Agreed that the best units are the late ones (Christian Guard, Dismounted Christian Guard, Granadine Xbow Cav, Sudanese Gunners and the highly effective and great fun Camel Gunners). Agreed also that the early castle units from the barracks are a bunch of weak spearmen. I supplement them with a few Mercenary Spearmen at the start. However, I find the early units are very good. Early to mid-game I use a mix of militia and castle troops.

Get used to ferrying units and agents around by ship.

I go for a measured start, not expanding too quickly. Use jihads and take your time to conquer Iberia and North Africa.

Starting settlements

The Moors get a rich start from their mines in Marrakesh, Algiers and Cordoba. Build the mines straight away.

After the mines in Cordoba I build the racetrack, train Arab Cav and throw races. The Horsebreeder's Guild will come quickly. Cordoba grows quickly too and the City Watch gives Crossbow Militia (effective against armour and armour to heavy mail) and with a Large City you get Urban Militia from the Militia Drill Square. These are a good sword unit; not up to DFK's but they chop up Armoured Sergeants and the like.

With Cordoba the first building to make at Large City level is the Sultan's Racetrack. Time training 3 Arab Cav and throwing races with completion of the building. You will get the Master Horsebreeder's Guild and this gives a global +1 to all cavalry. Plus you get Granadine Jinetes, who are stronger than the Spanish and Portuguese Jinetes.

In Granada build the Caravan Stop so you get the Tuareg Camel Spearmen. Expensive (300 a turn) but very good against Mailed Knights. Also build the Practice Range for Desert Archers (only 100 a turn and very effective early). Frankly I don't bother with their spears from the barracks and find Merc Spears and a couple of Spear Militia are enough.

Marrakesh is a money machine. Rich mines. Train merchants and send them to the gold and ivory at Timbuktu, and look for the Merchant's Guild in this city.

Keep Algiers as a castle until you've taken Tunis. Algiers gets mines at castle level so build the castle early. Keep it garrisoned with 5+ to discourage Sicily who will take Tunis. Same build strategy as Granada - the Caravan Stop and Practice Range.

At some point take Timbuktu and Arguin because they are there, and the merchants get more money when you own them.

The Early Army

Basically it's Desert Archers and Desert Cavalry with Arab Cav to chase the routers and charge pinned units. The Merc Spears to protect the Desert Archers. Taureg Camel Spearmen deal with Mailed Knights. Desert Archers are great and the Desert Cavalry are superb at the start. Any newbie should learn how to use javelin cavalry; Desert Cavalry are effective against armour, fast moving, and tough enough to charge archers. Great against the Timurid elephants in the late game if you hang around for them.

Run the Desert Cav/Granadine Cav around behind the main Portugues/Spanish/French army. Target their generals and armoured troops with the javelin cav. I take them off "fire at will" so they don't waste their javelins on spear militia or peasants. They need a bit of micro managing, but skirmish effetively. Often the generals will fruitlessly chase the faster Desert Cav/Granadine Cav taking casualties. From here they can chase routers (don't let them waste javelins on routers either). Once the javelins are gone you can use them to charge weakened units but pull out of prolonged melee.


Take Lisbon with a jihad in opening turns

My typical opening is to launch a jihad against Lisbon in the first few turns. Portugal has a weak militia army there, and though they may hire some mercs of their own they really can't stand up to the jihad. You get lots of cheap Ghazis who are also effective against armour and will beat merc spearmen. Lisbon is also rich with mines. The Portuguese will make peace shortly after Lisbon is taken and pay for it.

Doing this doesn't leave Spain time to react. If you go for it later Spain will invade from Toledo when you move against Lisbon.

Fighting Spain

So, when I take on the Spanish my army looks like: 6 Desert Archers, 6 Desert Cavalry, 3 Merc Spears, 2 Tuareg Camels, a couple of Arab Cav and the general (or two). A second half stack will be left over Ghazis, Crossbow Militia and maybe a Spear Militia or two. This will do the job. I start with a jihad against Toledo or Leon as soon as it comes available after the Lisbon jihad, so turn 15 or so. Again cheap Ghazis make up the numbers and you can usually get 2 stacks to fight them around turn 15 for me. The Spanish will put up a fight but go under quickly enough.

Portugal is next and may be allied to Spain and place armies awkwardly about Toledo. They will fall to the same army composition. They will have militia and jinetes, easy meat. A few Mailed Knights but the Moors have Camels and fast javelin cavalry.

Fighting Sicily

I let Sicily take Tunis and eventually they will attack, usually by port blockade on Algiers. Time to start building the fleet.

Thus I keep Algiers as a castle until Tunis is taken and keep 5+ units there (Peasants can make up the numbers). This discourages a Sicilian attack. Tunis too is a jihad target and usually easy to take. Leave Tripoli alone for the time being; the Egyptians will fight for it in the early game. Hopefully you get Tunis before Sicily takes Tripoli.

From Tunis it's on to Sicily and Cagliari (almost always Sicilian too). Cagliari makes a rich city when converted from castle. By this time you will need to build a fleet of War Galleys. Sicily has lots at the start, but once they lose territories can't replace them.

Sicily tends to build garrisons then move them out. Watch for this re Sicily. Be sure that their Dismounted Norman Knights are no match for your armour piercing Desert Cav/Granadine Cav javelins.

End of the Early game

So at my pace around turn 40 the Moors have: all of Iberia (Spain and Portugal destroyed). North Africa, Sicily and Cagliari. Rich cities and rich merchant trade from Timbuktu. Units with good experience from jihads and fighting.


Next comes the French.

I just bought Toulouse from France for 500 florins per turn/6 turns.

I haven't tried that but will use it next time. I often buy castles (Angers from the French if England and many others - Bologna from the HRE is the opening rounds for an alliance and trade agreement will usually do it for the Italian states in the first few turns). But I rather enjoy fighting the French, and as they gather troops to defend Toulouse they tend to leave Marseilles lightly defended. A timely sea invasion from Algiers/Tunis will take it. (When you move your invasion fleet at end move target Toulouse so the AI thinks your gonna land there. Move the army from Zaragoza just over the French border. The AI will think you're going to hit it with everything you've got from two directions. If you target a Marseilles landing, guess what, the French will immediately start reinforcing it) Taking Marseilles means war with the Milanese but they often have troubles of their own.

By the time I fight the French I have experienced troops with Urban Militia and Granadine Jinetes in the main stack. It's still a battle of javelin cav and good archers vs the slow French armour with Merc Spears and Urban Militia to hold the line. Tuareg Camels to slow down their Knights and Generals.

Target their heavy troops with Desert Archers and have a couple of Militia Xbows too for this (effective against armour), especially when their generals get caught up with the Tuareg Camels. Use the Desert Archers on Spear Militia and the Militia Xbows on Armoured Sergeants if France is advancing. Expect casualties in pitched battles and compensate with numbers.

Diplomacy

On the diplomacy side I agree with Vlad and ally with the Pope. I gift him attacks on rebels and other factions (with a money sweetener when he gets snippy), and pay a small tribute (starting at 50 for 20 turns, increasing bit by bit - then 75, then 100) which seems to keep him happy. He will never pay me for attacking rebels if I'm Muslim - maybe it's my after shave. It's a bonus if Sicily or France get ex-comm'd (if they are at war with the Pope, for example).

Otherwise the allies I look for are Russia, England (have to pay for that one but keeps them out of the early game) and Venice. The only one that might go the full game is Russia. I find allying with the Turks too early leads to a choice between crusading catholic allies and the Turks. Likewise the usual crusade on Cairo will produce a conflict between Egypt and any catholic allies. I too keep diplomats with all my allies, sending out new ones as the originals age.

If you expand too quickly as the Moors you will get Milanese and Byzantine interventions. The AI tries to slow you down. So my strategy is slow and steady, keep the Pope and allies sweet and pick off your enemies one by one. Keep an eye on Naples (usually heavily defended) but gaps may appear - have a spy and an imam there. Sicily will be bankrupt so one of their stacks is liable to go rebel. Sometimes you can grab it straight after taking Sicily - an army can get there and siege it in one move.

Mid game

Around turn 60/70 I expect to have added Toulouse, Bordeaux, Angers, Marseilles and maybe Rennes and maybe Naples. From here the Moors are too strong to be defeated, will have top units coming due from the Citadels and Huge Cities, and will have lots of rich trading cities. They can expand at will although the Milanese can be a tough fight.

With Fortresses the Moors get good units. Finally a decent spear unit (Dismounted Arab Cavalry) long range xbows (Peasant Crossbowmen) and a tough javelin cavalry unit - Granadine Jinetes. Usually I'll have a mix of xbows and Desert Archers up front, 4 Dis Arab Cav (DAC), and keep using the Urban Militia for swords, behind the DAC. Granadine Cav make up the horse archer component, 6 or more. The Moors don't have a unit that can stand up to Dismounted Feudal Knights so these are a key unit to weaken when they advance. Again the use javelin cav and concentrate the xbow fire on them.

End Game

In the end game the Moors get some of the best heavy cavalry and heavy infantry in the game - Christian Guard (from Huge Walls and from the Caliphs Stables) and Dismounted Christian Guard (castle Armoury). Training DCG will get the swordsmiths for the Moors, though they will probably have one from Toulouse if you didn't take it too quickly. These units come at max armour so there's no need to build the Heavy Armourer or above, except maybe one to upgrade the generals' units. They can take on and beat any heavy cav/heavy infantry in the game. Since you've now got the Horsebreeder's HQ in Cordoba Christian Guard train with +2 experience and with swordsmith upgrade they field at Attack 15/Def 16 right out of the bag.

Sudanese Gunners are a decent firearms unit and with them and bombards you can get the Alchemist Guild, to HQ if you keep training.

The Camel Gunners are just great. Learn to use them carefully to begin with, and then rout every army you face with them.

Anyway, by the time you have 20 territories you can blitz your way across the map if you want to finish in a rush. One thing needed is Jerusalem, probably in the hands of the Mongols at this point. Their units will be scattered. If nothing else, after conquering western/central Europe you can send a naval expedition and take it with overwhelming numbers in one fell swoop. Land a couple of stacks with bombards and it's yours in a turn.

*****************************************************************************

Again for n00bs my advice is don't try to rush the early expansion. Take it slow and one by one the enemies will fall. Use the mobility of the Moorish troops and mix militia with castle troops into the mid game. The Moors have lots of rich cities (convert Algiers and Cagliari, Pamplona, Valencia and Grenada. Bordeaux after Angers and Toulouse are taken). They are well protected after the opening moves and taking Lisbon straight away solidifies this.

After this you can finish as quick as you want. Around 130 to 140 is easy, and go slower if you want to get full enjoyment from their gunpowder units. When you jihad get to the target in the first move or so. After a bit of a siege (2 or 3 turns) make every stack you have into a jihad army and take all the settlements surrounding them. The game allows you to attack any non-Muslim target with a jihad army so you can often mop up 10 - 15 settlements in a few turns.

Personally I find the Moors rich, well placed strategically with effective early units and great late units. I enjoy playing them.

So that's my tuppence worth.


(Edited to break up a wall of text with headings, plus added info)

[Vlad Dracul]

It's a good thing that you went into details regarding the composition of the moorish army, it's something new players need to know and so far I barely touched this vast subject in my writings, I concentrated on the strategical map of Europe (and surroundings) instead.
I must confess that's mostly out of fear, if people think my regular posts are long just imagine how would they look like if I start talkin' 'bout military strategy and the art of manoeuvre...
Except a (hopefully) lil' rant that I might do someday about my personal preferences, I suspect I'll stay away from this chapter, for everybody's sake.

Other than that, I feel the need to point out some things:

Take Lisbon with a jihad in opening turns

My typical opening is to launch a jihad against Lisbon in the first few turns. Portugal has a weak militia army there, and though they may hire some mercs of their own they really can't stand up to the jihad. You get lots of cheap Ghazis who are also effective against armour and will beat merc spearmen. Lisbon is also rich with mines. The Portuguese will make peace shortly after Lisbon is taken and pay for it.

Yeah, but afaik all the portuguese family members are in that region, so you can actually do more than just conquering Lisbon. If I'd play the moorish campaign again, I'd also start with a Jihad on Lisbon but I'll go for the throat, killing the portuguese Leader and Heir (hopefully outside the city) so I'll eliminate their faction. And then conquer the rebel Lisbon, not one belonging to a catholic nation and hope the Pope won't hate me too much for that stunt.

I let Sicily take Tunis and eventually they will attack, usually by port blockade on Algiers. Time to start building the fleet.

Thus I keep Algiers as a castle until Tunis is taken and keep 5+ units there (Peasants can make up the numbers). This discourages a Sicilian attack. Tunis too is a jihad target and usually easy to take. Leave Tripoli alone for the time being; the Egyptians will fight for it in the early game. Hopefully you get Tunis before Sicily takes Tripoli.

Yuppers, if the strategy is to Jihad Lisbon first and (after you get the alliance with the Pope) preferably Toledo, then it's absolutely no problem to abandon Tunis in the hands of the sicilians. But only temporary, when you can start the 3rd Jihad that castle should be the primary target. Once you take it and have a significant fleet in those waters, just sink whatever ships come loaded with armies. They're definitely not just visiting in order to admire the african landscape or the ruins of Carthage.

From Tunis it's on to Sicily and Cagliari (almost always Sicilian too). Cagliari makes a rich city when converted from castle.

Regarding Cagliari, I prefer a different approach; not sayin' that is better or worse, it's just different; and as long as we both have the same end result (winning the game on VH/VH), it's just a matter of preferences which path to follow.
Personally, I leave it alone because I know the Pope and (later) my venetians allies want it, and I rather play it safe; it's also true that I never tested to see what happens if the 3 of us are Immaculate, have Perfect relations and I own the island; this gives me an interesting idea, maybe me conquering Sardinia would prevent the war between the Papal States (which always take it from the sicilians) and the venetians (which always want it later and start sieging it); sharing ideas with you often gives me significant food for thought, FootSoldier.
I also suspect that if I'll take Cagliari, everybody will jump on me (on VH, that is), from Milan to the byzantines and even Egypt, all of them would feel offended and will start invading. I'm afraid even the Pope will rush the usual betrayal because of it. I guess I'll have to try it and see with my own eyes if my suspicions are right or wrong.

(When you move your invasion fleet at end move target Toulouse so the AI thinks your gonna land there. Move the army from Zaragoza just over the French border. The AI will think you're going to hit it with everything you've got from two directions. If you target a Marseilles landing, guess what, the French will immediately start reinforcing it)

You rightfully pointed out (yet another) crooked habit of the overcheating AI - playin' with no fog against the human player. It's very frustrating for me to see that - instead of spendin' florins on creatin' spies, then sending those spies in your territory (and riskin' death when tryin' to infiltrate a settlement, so it'll need to spend even more gold on more spies) - the AI just magically sees every move you make (every breath you take), the size and location of all your armies, plus your movement intentions.

Just want to give one quick relevant example for non-believers, in my very recent sicilian long campaign (VH/VH, ofc), I had Dijon poorly defended while a significant cavalry force was waiting in Bern. Waiting for the french (who had no spies nor other agents in the area) to take the bait and attack Dijon. They didn't for some serious turns, so I naively thought they're actually pacified. Took the cavalry out of Bern and sent it towards Genoa, in order to be embarked and sent to Africa, to attack Egypt; the very next turn, a significant french army started to siege Dijon!

The only thing that saved Dijon was me bein' able to assemble some army from bits and pieces (some cavalry from Staufen that had enough movement points and could attack the enemies, some infantry from Metz that ended in that orange circle next to the french army - therefore bein' capable to join the fight, and Dijon's garrison) and I barely won, but...

On the diplomacy side I agree with Vlad and ally with the Pope. I gift him attacks on rebels and other factions (with a money sweetener when he gets snippy), and pay a small tribute (starting at 50 for 20 turns, increasing bit by bit - then 75, then 100) which seems to keep him happy. He will never pay me for attacking rebels if I'm Muslim - maybe it's my after shave.

I'm actually very intrigued by that and extremely curious why.
Why would the Pope refuse to pay you, except when he's really, really Bankrupt (meaning that he'll refuse to pay even 10 florins, that kind of Bankrupt I'm referring to)?

I mean, ofc you can't expect any cash-milking if your reputation is Mixed (gotta get to at least Trustworthy asap, that's why manipulating the diplomacy in this game is crucial, with a Mixed or even Reliable-Very Reliable rep you're certain victim here) and ofc it's better to ask for an alliance with the Pope before (or at least when you're not in) a war with any non-excommed catholics and ofc during the negotiations for the alliance you have to also ask him to attack the rebels in order for the relations-level to rise (and even to pay a significant tribute if it's necessary, it'll be worth it on the long run) and ofc you need Amiable or up in order to sell attacks, but other than that...

And yes, from all muslims he hates the Moors the most (you can see that in a "regular" campaign, so to speak, meaning a non-moorish one. Often, the Papal States start a war with the Moors), I got betrayed in 2 out of my 4 moorish campaigns (basically, in every game when I was allied with the Pope), but you're sayin' Muslims in general, so...
And yes, I got betrayed, but was still able to re-ally and cash-milk him, when he had the florins.

But what could cause that constant refuse, in your case?

Sometimes some factions simply hate (from unknown reasons) when you're at war with others (for example, when I was at war with the byz in my sicilian campaign France and HRE refused any Ceasefire offers from my part. Once I signed peace with the byzantines, they became more cooperative), but I don't see how could that be the case in all your muslims campaigns?
Is there a common nominator in those campaigns?
Or because you're jihaddin' catholics before signing the alliance with the Papal States? Or an on-going jihad vs. a christian settlement (even orthodox)? And maybe still affects some turns after that successful Jihad...
Because you don't have enough catholic allies (it's stupid, but...)?
Your FL not having enough authority (also should have nothing to do with it, I got a vassal with my King havin' only 5 authority, so...)?
Did you assassinate the Pope, get a more favorable one under the pointy hat, and the situation remained the same?
Maybe it's because you take Cagliari (just kiddin', don't see why you'd take Cagliari early on while playin' with the Turks... or do you?) :-D
Seriously now, ownership of a certain settlement can really sour the real relations (not the hypocrite level that is displayed during the negotiations) with an AI faction, but how could that apply to ALL muslim factions?

This really bugs me, as it's something I didn't encountered so far.
Other than your reputation, relations-level and Pope's finances nothing should impediment receiving gold from him in exchange for attacks. Or from any other factions, allies or neutrals.

I find allying with the Turks too early leads to a choice between crusading catholic allies and the Turks.

"My" turks (as in the turkish allies from all my campaigns) are really nice and don't get themselves in any kind of trouble, not like that. I'm the one that keeps draggin' them in a war vs. the byzantines, but that's ok, everybody hates the fkin' byzantines. And since I'm playin' this Steam version of the game (1.52), the Pope is obsessed with Cairo, an obsession pushed to the limit of perversion, so even if the Turks take Antioch (which they rarely do) they're still safe.

Likewise the usual crusade on Cairo will produce a conflict between Egypt and any catholic allies.

As I stated in the original post from this topic, Egypt is the worse possible ally, never ally with that faction.
That's the general rule.
However, the exception to that rule is represented by what I did in my turkish and moorish campaigns, both posted in this topic.
With the Turks, I accepted the egyptians to be my vassals (and therefore my allies) only in order to win the game. After they bent the knee, I was victorious and the campaign was over right then and there.
With the Moors, well, when I negotiated the acquisition of those 7 provinces that I needed in order to also win the game, I decided to ally with them and exchange Military Access, just because I could. When negotiations ended, so did the game, with my victory. On the other hand, since that on-going crusade on my Toulouse was neverending (the hungarian crusading general near Budapest, the one that had absolutely no intentions to ever attack was only 40, so...), it was safe to even continue playin' for some dozens of turns.
But those are just exceptions and should be done only under special circumstances (as a last resort to win the game). The main rule remains the same, don't ally with Egypt.

Again for n00bs my advice is don't try to rush the early expansion. Take it slow and one by one the enemies will fall.

I definitely agree and recommend that. Inexperienced players should expand slow but steadily, in all their campaigns. And must beware of the great dangers that lay ahead (the Plague and the invaders, mongols and timurids).

Also, they must be aware of the fact that the AI factions tend to expand "in waves", willing to conquer certain provinces after a certain amount of turns; just some quick examples, if Venice doesn't really care about Cagliari in the first 60 turns (or so), after that mark the venetians will start to care; if in the beginning the danes ignore Oslo (even after takin' Stockholm), after a certain number of turns they'll start wanting it;
So, keep that in mind and be prepared.

[Vlad Dracul]

Lemme share a (yet another long) story with you.
If you’ll be brave enough and keep readin’ till the end, you’ll definitely learn some new, interesting things.

A few months ago, I decided to start an experimental long campaign with HRE, as a side project. On VH/VH, ofc.

The goal wasn’t to achieve victory conditions, but rather to re-create the historical Holy Roman Empire of German Nation at the peak of its territorial expansion and to act not only like the Gendarme of Europe (hint: tsar Nikolai the first of Russia), but the Gendarme of the known World itself and ofc to experiment all kind of things that could cross my mind while playin’.

So, the initial goal was to create this empire:


without bothering the Pope.
(And yes, I know that in real history HRE didn’t take Dijon – although they sure as Hell tried to do it – but the Kingdom of Burgundy was part of the Empire, so…)

I didn’t really want to destroy Milan, but rather to isolate it in Corsica. Unfortunately, by some accident, I managed to kill their FL (which tried to take Genoa back, iirc) who was also their last family member alive, so… †RIP Milan†

Anyway, did some experiments regarding how to make high-chivalry generals (using the crusades, completing certain building and settin’ taxes to low), I shaped the known medieval world as I wanted (in favor of my allies), I showed some real tough love to the poor Moors (conquering all their settlements, one by one, with crusades, building them up properly and then gifting ‘em back), finally getting’ money from a vassal (Poland, with only 4 provinces. Dunno how tf they were so rich, but I got paid each turn, so… first time when I really found a real use for havin’ a vassal) etc., enjoyin’ myself and havin’ fun.

That until the Pope (my ally, as usual), to my dismay, decided it’s absolutely necessary to ally with Egypt.
I intended to do with the egyptians the same thing I did with the moors (since I couldn’t conquer again the moorish settlements I gifted back, the rep penalty for doing that is quite significant), so you can simply imagine my shock and horror…

In that case… I remembered this map


and the fact that havin’ 20 provinces is actually more fun than havin’ 19. Round numbers are ftw, plus I could have a perfect ratio of 3 cities/1 castle.

(As a side note, gotta say that the Papal States owned Valencia)

So, this whole situation gave me an idea which led to an experiment which led to a conclusion.

I started by selling an attack vs. neutral Egypt to all my allies (remember, if you’re gonna attack, always profit from that), sunk an egyptian fleet in eastern Mediteranean and so getting’ rid of the alliance with the Pope without any rep penalty or financial loss. Quickly asked for a ceasefire from the muslims, didn’t want a real war with them yet.
My max lvl assassins were, as usual, near Rome, and immediately sent the guy with the pointy hat to explain to God himself the decisions he took against christians and in favor of infidels.
The garrison of Florence was (fortunately) quite consistent and they successfully sieged Rome in the same turn, takin’ advantage of my spies opening the gates.

Didn’t care about bein’ (only temporary) excommunicated, a crusade ended a few turns before so I wasn’t in any kind of danger for the time being.

The very next turn, at Papal Elections, one of my 7 guys that dominated the College of Cardinals won and accepted me back into the catholic church and as ally.
The relations with the new Pope were Perfect, he minded his business in his new capital located on spanish soil and I finally had my historical HRE completed.

The conclusion is that you (as a catholic faction) can relocate the Pope without ruinin’ your campaign, as long as you know what you’re doin’ and if you can co-ordinate your attacks well enough (everything needs to happen in the same turn).
If he has only Rome, you can conquer another settlement before all this madness starts, gift it to him and bring a diplomat (and a couple of high skilled assassins) to that location.
For example, in my campaign if the Pope didn’t have Valencia, I could’ve conquered rebel Ajaccio and gifted it to him.

Now, this idea of relocating the Pope isn’t necessary for new players, but after one has some experience with the game, he’s free to try it himself.
Ofc, save the campaign before that and don’t overwrite it.
Keep it secret. Keep it safe.

But be careful, there is another catch: if you gift him another settlement after this stunt, the relations will drop to Abysmal. Seems like the Pope suddenly remembers that you took Rome and if you give him anything else, you’ll be absolutely hated.
Ofc, if you’re rich enough you can gift some tens of thousands florins to get back to Perfect, or if you have assassins near the new Pope location, well… next turn you’ll be in Perfect relations again (if you dominate the College of Cardinals, that is).

[sullivanclan1]

hre was strong in its hay day but france loves to go to with them for no reason and england is just a . Denmark, poland, and hungary keep sending their diplomats and nothing happens several dozen turns they decide to attack for no reason. If your going to send a diplomat to me then actually do something... I mean really!! For me I like to add import new units from other mods (with permission first) then modify the game and add in new settlements to make the game even better.

[Vlad Dracul]

Denmark, poland, and hungary keep sending their diplomats and nothing happens several dozen turns they decide to attack for no reason. If your going to send a diplomat to me then actually do something...

If you mentioned that, you know what I actually observed? (and I'm sure others that paid attention to details did as well)
When an AI faction sends a diplomat that just bows before one of your settlements (or agents) without engaging in any negotiations, that's actually a warning. It means they plan to attack you sooner or later, so you better take some countermeasures. In this game, it's crucial to be prepared.

If you want war (but don't want to start it, it's bad to be seen as an aggressor), just hide a substantial army (I suggest heavy cavalry, to be able to cover as much ground as possible, so you can defend a larger area) in the woods near your future enemy's potential targets and let them initiate the attacks. Let them be hated by the Pope (if we're talkin' 'bout catholic factions, ofc). You have the right to defend your territory once they start the war and you should do that fiercely. Kill every single enemy that crosses your borders, you won't get any penalty for that (even if you have that Ceasefire mission from the Pope) as long as you attack on your land.

If you don't want war, well... it's a lil' complicated. But I gotta mention that when playin' with HRE is better to ally with Denmark (if it's a long campaign, in a short campaign you need to eliminate them so conquer Hamburg very early and then attack 'em) and Hungary. They are reliable allies and won't betray you, so you can concentrate on the predictable wars (with Milan, France, Poland etc.). Btw, also ally with Venice early on and obviously with the Pope.
You must plan things waaaay ahead, even from the first turn, even from the first moves you make on the map. Need to have a clear vision about what you want and the knowledge to make it happen. And that's the best way to avoid unwanted wars. Cut the root of evil even from the start, destroy the seed itself.

But anyway...

Well, since I'm here, can't refrain myself from writing many words again and I want to address another matter that is suggested in your reply.

Need to be aware of the fact that sometimes you get hated by default, if you are playin’ with certain factions.

As Milan (long campaign, VH/VH), I got unprovoked hostile actions against me from 5 factions in the very beginning of the game.

In the first 6 turns I got invaded by Sicily (I got one of their armies on my head by turn 2, f0cking incredible, dunno how could they travel so far so fast, typical AI cheating, it was an infantry army, 3 or 4 units with no general leading them! They came very close to my poorly defended Genoa with the clear intention of sieging it, fortunately for me they went rebel the very next turn. But that was just sheer luck, you can’t make a reliable strategy based on a throw of a dice. Not to mention that by turn 2 I wasn’t capable of doing anything, nothing at all that someone would hate me for, my only diplomat was on his way to Rome, didn’t build any significant army, didn’t start sieging anything, I did nothing at all to deserve any kind of hostile act against me), the Moors (who sailed a long way to get to Genoa), Venice (they cocky sent an army to threaten Milano), France and HRE (both of them resumed their hostile actions to send spies to my capital).

These kind of things are quite disturbing, you virtually can’t breathe in peace even from the start, you press end turn and that’s it, everybody hates your peaceful existence on the damn map.

Ofc, because I know how to manipulate diplomacy I managed to stay safe for a while, but it’s bothering to be in such situation.

The key is to always be prepared. This game is a TBS, so you must think of it in terms of a chess-game. Don't move anything random, just because. No, every move MUST have a clear purpose. I know that it destroys the poetry and is kinda disappointing for young people, but... that's the reality of the situation.

Because that's what any turn-based strategy basically is, a game of chess.
And chess is one of the most fascinating games invented by human mind...

[sullivanclan1]

Playing as Milan, you need to keep contingency plans in place when papal states decide to attack you for no reason. Papal States never goes to war unless its the crusade, Venice attacks milan in the first 15 turns, Hre stays your ally for awhile then their like "its time for war... so it begins." France is just an ass to milan, even if you don't attack they just decide to attack bc of the spies and diplomats. Sicily on the other hand just does not like you. They attack regardless of the many peace you can have with them, they will just attack you whenever its convient for them. I usually don't initiate anything until they attack me first, then I can play the victum card.

[Vlad Dracul]

Although the point I was tryin' to make using Milan as example was that in this game you get hated even from the start for absolutely no reason, lemme address a couple of things here:

Playing as Milan, you need to keep contingency plans in place when papal states decide to attack you for no reason. Papal States never goes to war unless its the crusade

Mmmm, no. Just no.
Not according to my gaming experience, iirc.
It's true that my last milanese campaign was almost 2 years ago, when I wasn't using the Steam 1.52 version of the game yet, so things might be different now (as the Pope tends to take Florence almost all the time in this new version), but I don't recall havin' any problems with the Papal States.
If you play intelligent, the Pope doesn't start a war against the human player, not unless you're playin' with the Moors, that's the only faction he keeps betrayin' and attackin' (even without a crusade).

But as Milan, it should be very easy to stay in good relations with His Holiness, especially due to the central location of the faction which allows you to use (and manipulate) diplomacy a lot in order to achieve immaculate reputation in no time, even on VH.

Venice attacks milan in the first 15 turns, Hre stays your ally for awhile then their like "its time for war... so it begins." France is just an ass to milan, even if you don't attack they just decide to attack bc of the spies and diplomats. Sicily on the other hand just does not like you. They attack regardless of the many peace you can have with them, they will just attack you whenever its convient for them. I usually don't initiate anything until they attack me first, then I can play the victum card.

Yes, this is true.
Although, as I stated in my very first post of this topic, HRE is not a good ally, so unless you have something serious to gain from them (as in Bologna, Staufen, Innsbruck or a lot of florins) you shouldn't make the alliance in the first place.

But yeah, gotta insist on confirming that playin' the victim is a good strategy in this game.

Since I mentioned Milan's location, lemme march on this idea a lil' further and state that Sicily (quite paradoxically) has one of the best starting positions on the map, if not even the best. By turn 2 you have an alliance with the Papacy, a successful Crusade on Tunis by turn 5, Bologna bought from HRE soon after, can be Trustworthy (as reputation level) before turn 15 and Immaculate before turn 20, you’re on a roll. You have a starting fleet with which you can repel the enemies that can attack from the sea and in the beginning of the game that's exactly where they're comin' from. And you have those Dismounted Norman Knights that are absolutely great and can be accessed kinda early on, right after upgrading Palermo.
Plus, in the area are 3 non-catholic factions (Moors, Egypt, the byz) you can fight day and night without drawing Pope’s wrath upon you.
It's true that the lack of finances hurts very bad, but... hey, what are the crusades vs. the moors invented for, right?
Not to mention the obvious cash-milkin' of your allies (and even some rich neutrals). Allow me to say it again, in this game allies are useful only for increasing your reputation and cash-milkin'. They don't know how to spend smart anyway, so the gold coins are better off in your coffers.

And since I decided to write here once again, gotta share with you another story, about loyalty and the exception to the rule of not adopting low-loyalty generals:

In my danish campaign (long, vh/vh) I adopted a (literally) disloyal general.
I really needed more fighting generals and he was young, had 2 stars at commanding, 2 at dread and some good traits (Marks of War, Dauntless and Night Fighter).
Plus my Faction Leader was also young and had 6 Authority (and I knew I was gonna get him to 10 kinda soon, my assassins were in good positions to kill a lot), so I thought it won’t be such a high risk.

However, I proceeded with caution, separately moved that general and the attacking army he led until they reached the targets, I knew the army won’t turn rebel but I didn’t trust him 100%.
It took a looong time till he got some loyalty (I remember he got to 4 stars, 3 dread and 4 piety, but his loyalty was still 2 and then increased only to 3 after another 4 or 5 battles), but when he finally got the Feels Respected trait and reached 5 loyalty I knew I could really count on him from that point on.

You can also adopt young generals with good stats but low loyalty if you have an unmarried princess, after the marriage he'll get +3 loyalty and that should be enough. It's also true that your Faction Leader must have 5-6 authority, otherwise you risk that your new adopted general to become desertor before the wedding. And just imagine what psychological impact that thing would have on your princess ("Omg omg, he preferred to desert rather than to marry me, omg omg, endless drama!")


So, you can experiment, but be very careful and must know what you're doin'.