Milan Trade Empire for the noobs
I'm not an expert, for sure, but i really can tell Milan is probably the best faction to start with.
First i'll start by saying i hate the micro management required to deal with merchants, so i'm sure some tactics with them could greatly enhance the effectivness of Milan.
Lets start with a brief overview of the faction.
- The land :
Milan starts with 2 cities : Milan, a continental city, and Genoa, a coastal city.
Both are fairly big from start, and a situated in the north-western part of Italy.
To the south, there is Florence, a rebel coastal town.
To the south west, in the sea, two rebel castles in the islands of Corsica (Ajaccio) and Sardigna (Cagliari).
West, covered by the river Rhone and the southern part of the alps is the french kingdom and the town of Marseille.
North West is the rebel castle of Bern in the Alps.
North there is Insbruk a Castle owned by the HRE.
Right to the east on the eastern coast of italy is the city of Venise.
South east is Bologna, a town held by the HRE.
South of Florence is the "Holy" city of Rome.
The main objective in terms of expansion will be to take Florence asap, and then both Islands, tranforming the castles into towns as these will bring in some nice cash. I dont recommend to take Bern, as it will be a death trap and i dont recommend expanding north. Unless vital or creating a landbridge to your lands, i recommand to take only coastal provinces, or provinces with settlements less than a turn's move from one of your's.
- Politics :
During the first hundred turns, Milan will have to deal with some not so friendly neighbours.
France if treated properly should be a friendly neighbour : do not take Bern nor Dijon, even if the council advises you to do so, thus France will never have and grudges against you.
Trade agreements will be welcomed for a nice profit on both part : you dont want to have a weak france as they should always be your western neighbour.
Try to always keep the best relations with France and you could come up with a peacefull realtion for hundreds of years. Unless they need help fighting England or Spain, i dont recomand an alliance, as this would piss off the HRE.
The HRE will be the balancing element in your campaign : if you're a war for too long (because trust me you will be at war with the HRE whatever you do).
If you fight the HRE you'll face two disastrous consequences : you'll be weakened when you'll fight your true enemy (Venise) and more importantly, they'll be too weak to face the Danes, and these will go down to italy, and you really dont want those viking hordes coming down on you : they NEVER stop attacking and i'm talking 3 or 4 stacks a turn at this point !
Trade agreement is a must for the same reasons as france.
Keep relations as high as possible, you could win the game without having to face them once.
No Alliance with them too as you dont want that to piss off france.
The Papal States MUST be your ally. ALL the time. Always. If you dont mess up with the pope orders it should be easy to keep relations at max with them.
The only missions i dont do are those that would make me attack a neighbour (unless its venice or sicily, as i'll seize their lands soon or later, or a muslim faction because it's easy to be at peace with them) and DONT go on crusades.
Why no crusading ? (i know this is kind of out of topic but its important to say).
First you'll be at war with Egypt or Turkey. You dont want them to start blockading your ports all the time do you ? (i've done this once, i had 50K reserves, netting a 10K profit a turn after paying the buildings, went banckrupt in a few turns). Egypt and Turkey has enought ennemies. Besides you dont want them to be wiped by the byzantines ?
My ennemy's ennemy is not my friend ! if the byzantines destroy the Turks you'll have to face a very strong Empire in the east.
The Byzantines, even if not your neighbour (yet), should have your quick attention.
First a trade agreement will benefit both of you : you need them strong to fight Venice. An alliance could be a welcome addition, because sooner or later you'll be sharing a boarder and you'll still be fighting Venise. Keep relations as high as possible.
Sicily ... well no offense to napolitans and sicilians but in the game they are nothing more than a small needle in your feet. I usually ignore them, sometimes giving them a trade agreement, but i dont feel like keeping relations high.
Dont get me wrong sicily CAN be powefull, but if you blockade napoli and palermo you'll win the war just by choking their economy.
At the point when open war will be declared with them, beware : their troops will OWN yours, so bring twice as much as they have. Heavy infantry, heavy cavalry, pavise crossbowmen, heavy spearmen and catapults are their armies : no peasants or crappy town militia footmen/archers/crossbows ...
Deal with them once they'll be excomuniated, it shouldnt be a problem. They WILL be excomuniated because once they'll launch a sneak attack on Bologna and you'll repell them once, send in an army next to napoli and wait until they attack you.
At last, but not least : Venise !
They are your neighbours, and after more than 200 turns (100 years since i played with 1 turn = 6 monthes) i wiped their last province in Ragusa after taking all of greece from them.
A trading agreement at first is not a good option, as you can manage to have enought cash since you should be able to build a better economy than them, and you'll be at war at around turn 30 or so ...
They are usually allied to hungary, france and the hre, so if Hungary is doing good like in my game, try and befriend hungary once you spot them.
dont try to keep good relations with them : they WILL attack.
Other powers are not really an issue, at least in the first 100 turns. I usually try to get trade agreements with other powers, and keep relations neutral at minimum.
Egypt should be kept neutral at all cost, but i guess that something could be done with the Turcs but havent try anything yet.
- Economy and construction.
Building your economy should be easy with Milan.
First, make ALL your settlements to cities, as you'll get actually better units with towns in the end. Always build roads asap, a port, and farms to boost your income and pop growth.
Try to get the third level barracks to build Genoese militia crossbowmen and italian militia spearmen. These two units will be the only ones you'll produce for a loooong time. Keep a garnison to the max free limit of each time so that they dont drop your economy and help you keep the tax rates high.
Have a church asap to keep heresy at bay, and helps you get priests thus possible cardinals.
Then go max trade buildings, and if you're having problems with keeping order in town, build those town halls (and you'll want the last upgrade : it builds the "Familia Ducale", your best heavy cavalry.)
Simple ?
Actually, your economy will really depend on your military might. Even with all italy under my control, i can keep 2 operational full stack armies without hindering economical developpement. A third will start slowing things down. A fourth will cripple me.
You NEED armies to defend yourself : you cant rely on your garnisons to hold attackers.
Keep two fleets operational too : one on each coast of italy to keep your ports unblockaded. Dont build too much or you'll be drowned in fleet upkeep.
- Military.
I wont detail the exact caracteristics of the various units at our disposal.
In fact, i realise i already talked a lot about military in the other topics, but after all its a "Total War" game so this HAS to be inportant.
As Milan you'll rely on retaliation warfare : EVERY possible opponent could be stronger than you.
So you'll need defensive armies !
Good we have defensive troops !
First, our all mighty italian militia spearmen. Venise and Sicilia has these too, and they make a good use of these too. Anyway this will form more than half of your armies for quite some time.
Built with the second level baracks in a town, they have one less armor than the armored spearmen. Rely on them for everything. Sure they arent able to win a battle on their own, and allmost all units can beat them in a duel.
First they are a "large" type unit (75 normal 150 in huge). You will outnumber your ennemies most of the times (for a large unit they are among the best).
Second they have a bonus versus cavalry, so they can hold of a charge if the cavalry isnt too powerfull and you still outnumber the ennemy.
So to sum up : they are more powerfull in melee than most "large" type unit, basic spearmen ranged units, can hold their ground to a cavalry charge, and will outnumber stronger units.
Plus they are militia and have free upkeep in a town.
What more can i say ?
Genoese Militia Crossbowmen our second most built units.
These are better than the military pavise crossbowmen of our ennemies.
Built in the third barrack in a town, and so can be free of upkeep.
They will thin down any ennemy, even the most armored one. They can even hold their ground in melee, better than the comon militia/peasant/spearmen.
Dont be afraid to loose some if that means you can kill more ennemies. They will have the highest bodycount on the field.
That's it !
You have your army
Hmm not totaly.
You get 3 more types of good units : Lanze Spezzate, Familia Ducale, Dismounted Lanze Spezzate.
The Dismounted Lanze Spezzate if your best heavy infantry. You get other types in castles, but all are worse than this one, so another reason not to build up castles.
I dont recall what building is need to build them but you should get them once your enemy will start raising big armies with nasty troops.
These are a bit better than dismounted feudal knights, but worse than armored swordsmen for example.
They are costy and end up dying fast. I never use them as a main battle line, but rather a second line to relief the spearmens that absorbed the charge and add a little punch to my army.
Lanze Spezzate, Familia Ducale, these are the heavy cavalry you've been waiting for years.
Both has similar uses on the battle field, the Familia Ducale being a bit better.
I usually use the Familia at home for denfensive uses, or for majorly planned assaults, because its hard to reinforce them as you'll need the last town hall upgrade, so they arent very usefull on a long campaing. Large planed assaults are very rare since as i said its better to make retaliation wars.
These will be the shock power your army needs to break any ennemy on the field.
I wont mention other units since they are in my opinion not worth training.
Mercenaries are the last type of units you'll use during the game. In fact during the early game they compose the majority of my armies, as i usually the cash to buy some and that i dont build a lot of military buildings.
You can quickly raise 10 mercenary units equivalent to 4 armored spearmen, 4 crossbowmen and 2 mailed knights.
Buy them, use them, disband them.
They are expensive to buy, sure but are extremely usufull to repell invaders or attack a keep, but dont keep them longuer than needed as the real cost is in the upkeep.
- Global Battle tactics :
For the first hundred turns, you'll only have spearmens, crossbomens and "medium" cavalry (mailed knights + generals).
For milan, this is more than enought untill your ennemies start sending heavyly armored troops.
Generaly the ideal composition would be 50% Spearmens, 30% crossbow, 20% cavalry.(that would mean 10 Spearmen 6 crossbow and 4 cavalry)
My goal is always to minimise losses of my crossbomen and my cavalry since these will be very hard to reinforce in the early game.
Dont count on pepering your ennemy down with your crossbows : most of the armies you'll face will rely heavyly on missiles (venise, sicily, hungary, byzantines, turks so far had a lot of missile).
Idealy, if everything goes well, a battle should go as follows : you get the first shots with your crossbow, and thin down the ennemy aiming for their main battle line.
After a few shots, you send in your infantry, if possible forming 2 lines to give more depth and having reserves to envelop or reinforce weak points.
Your missile should move on the sides to continue to lower the ennemies numbers, while your cavalry makes the long run and charge in the back (possibly multiple times) and save the day.
This will result in heavy losses in your infantry ranks, but who cares ? they're meant to die in battle anyway.
Cavalry is expensive, but more importantly for milan they are RARE. Even if you have the cash you might not built any.
Crossbowmen are rare too in the early game, but the reason why i always try to keep the alive is when i have a counter attack and i'm forced to get back to my settlement : i'll need them on my walls !
Once cavalry becomes more available, then i use them to feint charge, push the ennemy missiles back, and suicide rush ennemy artillerie.
Hmm i'll post a follow up on actual tactics to win as Milan, buts its really getting late.
Reply With Quote
