Share your Tricks, Strategies and Ideas

[tehhaxxor23]

A really simple but very effective tip:

Send diplomats out and ally with as many factions as you can as early in the game as you can.

Whatever your strategy it saves you loads of hassle in the early stages when you're more vulnerable.

if you're using the ultimate ai mod (or stainless steel for that matter), I can only recommend that, too. it keeps buggers of your back because with the mod, diplomacy actually counts in this game. it's a good mod and enhances strategic gameplay.

one of my little tricks is about getting a vasall. I've done it like 8 times now (in rtw, too) and it still works.

you corner an enemy faction to have just _one_ city left. then, you send your diplomat to that city, and ask for their vasallage. they'll most likely decline. now, you send a huge army in front of their town, and if they have a unit or diplomat around, you can even lay siege to their last hometown - but don't attack. then, you negotiate again - either to the city or if you're laying siege run up to the enemy unit or diplomat or whatever and ask them again. with this tactic, they've ALWAYS accepted for me so far. they "barely accept" but yea they accept. you automatically take siege off the city if you were doing so.

that way I've gotten selucid in rtw, england + scotland + egypt in m2tw and so on. it pays. you get all their money

[republic_bohemia]

Check this awesome Tips and hints for Medieval II Total war


Link:http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=87740

[Resdulac]

Well trained spies are cheaper, quicker and much more effective to open city gates than rams or catapults. They can be rapidly trained by looking successively at princesses, merchands, diplomats, captains, generals and cities. 3 or 4 top spies are able to open any city gate after avoiding lower leveled local counter-spies. Then all those siege equipments are no more usefull. You can even gain money by destroying their factories in conquered cities.

Spies are much more outstanding when they are used in cooperation with assassins. Those can be trained that same way (killing princesses, merchants...). Spies and Assassins can follow a rebel or foreign army to spy upon and kill for each turn.

With a squad of those, you can wipe out a whole reigning family. When the last member disappears, their entire kingdom turns to rebel. Then your goal is only to conquer those newly rebeling cities before the other nations, what means planing to stand armies and spies near each of them.

Just for fun, i managed to run a whole campaign up to complete conquest of the whole Europa west of Hungary and Poland without never being at open war with nobody except rebels. Maintaining minimal armies only to reinforce borders and strike out rebels is not realy costly, thus i could rapidly build a strong economy, while my gang of around 15 full-stared assassins and as many spies scattered mess, death and corruption into one neighbouring country after another. All that with the blessing of the Pope and "peaceful" and "wise" traits because i never went to war.

The limit of this stategy is that, when being a catholic king, it seems not feasible to get rid of muslim factions without open wars, and most Mongols generals resuscitate after being assassinated.

[bz_siege_01]

My observations - sorry if I'm repeating advice given already. I have finished on very hard twice. I always have my 45 countries before turn 200 and I just wait until about then to take Jerusalem. I usually own the world by turn 240 or so. I do not do any kind of exploits or cheats or mods - I like the challenge.

General Info:

1. In the early stages, you can get away with constructing buildings that yield profits (i.e. docklands, markets, etc...) In the later stages, it seems morale is much harder to control and you will be constantly building things that improve morale.

2. Your gameplay style may vary. I don't like to get bogged down with the politics. I expand constantly at every affordable opportunity and I don't care who gets mad. Yes, you get attacked. Yes, you may lose a couple cities. Yes, you get excommunicated and even an occasional crusade called against you. I have found that by expanding you gain money and power and soon your enemies will fall. Furthermore, when you are the only cathoic faction left, it's pretty hard for the Pope to NOT be from your faction. I've even killed a few to force new elections. I've seen it go for almost a dozen turns with no standing pope.

3. Make your life easier and start with a country that is not near where the Mongols and Timurids appear. Preferably something that backs up to a map boundary, such as Spain/Portugal or England. It's much easier to take the surrounding area then expand eastward. When you have enemies on every side (Roman Empire) it's hard to make advances in several directions at once.

4. Supply chains. Find an area that has about 3 castles pretty close together. Each time you get a new family member, send them there. Doesn't matter how long it takes; they pop up every few turns so I keep a steady stream of lone generals traveling across the map. Constantly build units at those castles. By the time a general arrives, join all the soldiers to him and send him out to conquer. By the time the next one arrives, you will have more troops ready. I keep this going for a long time. I have had as many full stack units in a region (using mercs to fill in when needed) as the Timurids and Mongols. Don't build a lot of cannon though. When your army passes a city that you just conquered, take that artillery and move on. I have had hand-me-down artillery going eastward for upwards of 10 battles or more. Plus your armies move faster without cannons, so it's best to keep swiping them from recently-conqured cities and continuing on with new armies. And when you manage to retrain the troops you just used to conquer the cities, you can start taking them out of the cities, regarrison with cheaper units, and send them towards the other units doing the fighting... they can replenish your stacks in the field.

5. Need extra cash? Go through all the cities you've conquered and see what building you don't need and destroy them. When you're at gunpowder units technology, why keep the siege and catapult buildings? Also, periodically go through your cities... you may find lingering troops that aren't needed to maintain order and they are just eating up your revenue. Furthermore, sometimes a governor dies and the city may default to a different build policy which starts auto-hiring units you don't need.

Offense:

1. In the early stages, go for the rebel settlements and build them up quickly. Shore up defenses of any border towns because it's only a matter of time before your freindly neighbors roll in with an army.

2. Get any missile unit a soon as humanly possible. Ballista. When you can get catapults, use those. Cannons and upwards. If you are aggressive, you will have this stuff many turns before most of your neighbors and it seriously tips the favor of the battles.

3. One of the best units in the game are England's mortars. They go over walls. They can hit units on the walls. They can hit units in awkward terrain. They have the best chance of driving elephant units haywire.

4. This stack works for 90% of the sieges and open-field battles I have waged: One artillery unit (best you can afford... the longer the range, the better), three missile units (best you can afford - musketeers are devestating) three foot-infantry (strongest you can afford, usually dismounted knights of some flavor) three missile cavalry, ten heavy cavalry. The foot soldiers and missile units protect my cannon and are a second line of defense if I need to pull the cavalry back a bit. If I play England, I'll substitute the missile cavalry for two mortars and one extra heavy cavalry. When you finally start running into mongols and timurids, up the heavy cavalry. The only reliable strategy with them is a wall of charging heavy cavalry. They may flee and eat your troops up with their missile cavalry, but inevitably, you will crush everything they have and cause them to flee. If you have the occasional mongol army that sits in position and waits for you to attack, the basilisk and culverin will inflict heavy losses before your charge. With the Timurids, they may even send the elephants on a rampage, and I've seen those things trample practically 30% of their formation.

5. Musketeers... you can march them up to shooting range and about 50% of the time, the AI won't react right away. I keep cavalry units right behind them. When the AI finally decides to charge, I send in the cavalry. But those Musketeers do a heap of damage in a few volleys.

6. Tip... in the pre-battle deployments, try deploying your units on the sides rather than the front of a castle/city you want to siege. Sometimes the enemy put all their units out front and you have enough time to breach the walls while they are trying to get over to your actual location.

7. Another tip... play defense on a siege. That's right. If you use cannons, hit the walls a few times and the enemy will clear off them (or they'll stay and die, which is better). Then, with the walls clear, all you have to do is send units through the gap and push the enemy back. Then send your archers up to the walls. Just like when you're on defense, your archers are much safer on the walls, and they get a range boost. Then keep your ground troops near the walls so your archers can pelt the crap out of the enemy who march out to engage them. Eventually, they'll retreat, regroup, charge and retreat again before they even make it to your ground troops. I have had 4 units of missile on the walls do more damage than all the rest of the ground troops because the AI must have charged and retreated in 5 waves. When they were a ragged mess, I sent my cav en-masse and finished them off.

Defense:

1. Build the ballista towers and then the cannon towers once you are far beyond your normal borders and are expecting counter attacks. Yes, you may not get it done in time, but it's worth the effort every time. I survived a freaking crusade against my city (I ticked off about everyone on the map) with two full stacks of crusade-enhanced enemies (Venice and Hungary I think). I had three units of Musketeers on the walls, thankfully. But the cannon towers (much better in 1.2, IMHO) fragged their rams and one tower. The main army had to sit there and eat cannon and musket shot while trying to take my walls one unit at a time. The second army was on the opposite side and decided to march around to the side the main army was on, and they ate quite a bit too. By the time my gate went down, their ragged units retreated after about 15 seconds doing melee, one-by-one as they got in the gates. My 800 against about 2600 combined... got a Heroic for that one. As usual, the Pope thinks the flames of hell are too good for me.

2. As mentioned in other posts, if the enemy has one or two artillery units, send a suicide cavalry rush... it works about 75% of the time (Mongols start riding as soon as they see you get near, which ruins the strategy, unfortunately). Then you can work your magic by forcing them to eat arrows on the way up with the ram.

3. Don't have towers upgraded yet, and you get attacked? To make matters worse, they have a LOT of artillery? Then play the long game. The Citadel is perfect for this. Put missile units on the walls. This mans the towers, even if they are lowly arrow towers. Move your units off sections of wall that the enemy is targeting, or they'll take heavy losses. Most often, the enemy won't advance until they have 2 breaches in your walls and they've taken out the threatening towers. Fine. Before they assault, leave some sacrifical units in the gaps to buy you time and retreat everything back to the second tier. In most cases, you can potshot them while they try to get their artillery or rams in place to go for the second inner wall. Now here's the fun part... the thrid tier of the citadel is usually up high. You can park a cannon up there and hit enemies assaulting your second wall because the cannon is high enough to shoot over. Once again, move your units back to the final tier when it looks like your enemy is getting through. By the time they get there, most likely they are in poor condition for melee fighting.

4. Another neat trick... put your cannon right by your gate. When the enemy makes a breach, I mentioned that they tend to go after the towers and such before advancing. Well I steer my artillery into the breach (don't go beyond the wall or the enemy will charge) and I lob shells at their formation. Don't shoot their artillery - let them pound away. If you kill their artillery, they will charge. Instead, carve nice trenches into their strongest units with your artillery and you can inflict 10-20% casualties before they even start their charge.

5. Mortars on defense... awesome. Unless the enemy has something very long-ranged, like a grand bombard or culverin, you can hit their artillery from inside your walls. This will prompt a charge, and an experienced mortar unit can kill the rams and towers on their march. I've been amazed at how accurate their normal shells are. The elephants hate them too!

That's about all I can think of. I've gone through England and Spain in the campaign map (the conquistadors in the new world were awesome - wish I could have gotten some of them back to Europe in time to hit the Mongols!) My last run through this game will probably be with the French.

Hope this helps.

CWB

[SteelKnight]

Greetings,

Anyone know the code to create a Muslim archer for the Sicily Faction? Every single combonation I tried doesn't work. Its a vendetta now! Any help would save my sanity.

[Blackrat]

I'm playing LtoC, but this works in vanilla too.

Deploy for your siege assault and give your Hashashins or Battlefield Assassins some ladders. Deploy the bulk of your force at the front gate. Deploy your Hashashins or Battlefield Assassins on the flanks nearest to one of the side gates. Then order them to drop the ladders (you may need to pull them back just behind the ladders for this to work) and they then make like shrubberies and hide.

The AI deploys to meet the main threat at the front door and doesn't 'see' your sneaky buggers. Send some cannon fodder up to the front gate with siege towers or rams to make sure the AI is really focussed.

Then you grab the Hashashins or Battlefield Assassins, get 'em to pick up the ladders and assault the side gate. Once the ladders are in place and they're climbing, race some cav around to the gate so that when you get the Building Captured Message you can run in the back door with something significant. Party time!

[Saibot]

Greetings,

Anyone know the code to create a Muslim archer for the Sicily Faction? Every single combonation I tried doesn't work. Its a vendetta now! Any help would save my sanity.

I think create_unit *insert-town-or-character-name-here "Sicilian Muslim Archer" 5 9 3 3 should work.

[homefry]

1. Don't merge your depleted units with other units unless you need the space for card slots. This works especially with cavalry. It's better to have 2 30 men units than 1 60 man unit. I had 1 6 man team that I left in the city when I sallied out to have them close the doors behind me.

2. If you have archers and the other force has none, position your men just a touch distance in front of the archers and turn off the archers skirmish ability.

3. If you can, turn off the archers skirmish ability and just control them yourself. When you want them to run away from the enemy, have them go in different directions, so the enemy has to choose 1 force.

4. Always position your general's bodyguard on the left side of your army facing the left. He's always on the left front side, so he'll be protected from archers and attackers. They'll also be in a position to quickly go around the fighting to hit the flank.

5. When the ships in your fleet get to a low number of men, have them take up the transport duty and have 1 big fleet guard the bay/water area.

6. If you click and hold the right mouse button on the campaign map, you can see how many steps it will take your character to reach the destination.

7. If you and the enemy have archers and the AI doesn't attack and you're just trading arrows, immidiately attack with your forces because the AI only does this when they won't win.

[EyebrowsMulligan]

Nothing earth-shattering, just obvious really but I hadn't seen it mentioned earlier in the thread.

When negotiating always check the proposal balance. If it's generous then chances are you can get something in addition from the AI (demand cash and check to see the new proposal balance). A good example of this is asking for alliances early-game. You can typically get around 3000 cash per alliance as a 'sweetener' which is invaluable early on (especially on higher difficulty levels where the AI gets obscene cash boosts itself). I've also managed to obtain provinces I was after in this fashion when the faction I'm negotiating with is bankrupt.

[Taimee Rose]

Don't forget that a single unit of Jinetes can obliterate any general in the game, their javelins are strong enough to kill a general with a few shots.

[Kylan271]

Oh ayyyyyyyy I have that prob with using Canon Towers in castles,they simply don't work! I am using standard game,no updates.

"Combat Wombat"(Dwarf Timorid Elephant),gee Hairynosed with Big teeth(Monty Python's 'vorpal rabbit') and useful in siege tunneling. I'm from Adelaide,but Melb now.

[Kylan271]

I searched the thread (keyword: 'spy'), and found nothing on this, so...

When your turn is over and the game is cycling through the AI nations, sometimes you see your own garrison unit cards for a city flash flash on-screen for a moment in the UI - they vanish again after that particular nation's turn is over.

I think this means that AI nation has a spy in that city, but I'm not entirely sure. Anyone?

Yes it seems that way. Factions cycle through their moves each turn and active spies reveal your units and cities/castles if successful. It is show by this 'flashing up' on the screen. Check to see if any spy is detected on the left hand screen when your turn is ready?

[Taimee Rose]

Yes it seems that way. Factions cycle through their moves each turn and active spies reveal your units and cities/castles if successful. It is show by this 'flashing up' on the screen. Check to see if any spy is detected on the left hand screen when your turn is ready?

You also hear an heartbeat

[homefry]

If you hit home and then delete, you'll zoom in on your general and can see how much damage he's taking.

The general has to be in the first card unit position in the GUI.

[aadgarven]

Great thread, I'm sorry I don't have very much to add, but however I have a lot of questions

1 - Does the forts and watchtowers have mainteinance costs? (apart from the unit inside)
2 - How to better my reputation? Mine is always terrible
3 - Spying people makes them angry with you? or only if they notice?
4 - Does general costs more if they have high command?
5 - Is there any form for a general to learn night fighter?
6 - How do I get rid of ****** inquisitors?
7 - When does the pope consider I am attacking somebody?
7a) breaking a siege is attacking?
7b) mantaining a siege?
7c) unblockading your ports?
7d) expelling enemy units in your lands?
8 - Do I convert more people when near the settlement?
9 - Are there any "prefered" alliances? Such as Scotland and France, Spain and Genua (not in the game)
10 - Do large empires angry all their neighbours?

And the most important thing is: how do I get el Cid when I'm Spanish. I need him, it makes sense and it's cool

Ah, only one help: try to send your bishops (yes bishops) together, as they convert people in a region they all get the traits. So converting one region from 0 to 95 with 10 priests means 10 priests having 2 more experience.

Not a real tip, but, if you make crusades very far from home, convert everything to castles and gift the ones you can't. Unless you are really powerful

[Grand Duke Vytautas]

1 - Does the forts and watchtowers have mainteinance costs? (apart from the unit inside)

No, both don't have upkeep, but they cost to build them (fort-500, watchtower-200 florins) and fort needs to be garrisoned with at least one unit (or agent) to not disappear next turn.

2 - How to better my reputation? Mine is always terrible

Mainly you need to not backstab your allies, avoiding war helps, assassins and spies caught lower your rep (use them carefully), releasing prisoners, faction leader being chivalrous helps too. Just do logically chivalrous things and you should be ok.
For more detailed info, check the M2TW manual or M2TW faq on org or do a quick search here in the forums.

3 - Spying people makes them angry with you? or only if they notice?

From my experience - only if they get caught does it lower your relations with that faction.

4 - Does general costs more if they have high command?

I don't think so, but maybe faction leader and heir upkeep is bigger as they have more bodyguards in unit (can't be sure, just check in game - double click on general when he's outside settlement and then there's a button on the lower left corner 'show bg details' or smth)

5 - Is there any form for a general to learn night fighter?

You get that trait sometimes by coming of age, but mostly you need 5 command stars to get it.

6 - How do I get rid of ****** inquisitors?

Use assassins, be on the good side of the Pope, control religious breakdown, denounce heretic scum.
If you're not using 1.2 patch inquisitors are really overpowered. You can adjust their levels in descr_campaign_db file (use search for that).

7 - When does the pope consider I am attacking somebody?

Good ol' Popey gets angry when you're attacking your 'fellow' catholic factions. Often after a couple turns at war you'll get warning to stop hostilities. Having your cardinal as a Pope and having max Popey-meter helps to prolong the war as then he doesn't care that much and penalties are lower.

7a) breaking a siege is attacking?

If you sally out in your lands then no (atleast after patch 1.2)

7b) mantaining a siege?

maintaining siege in enemy lands - yes, it's agression.

7c) unblockading your ports?

Can't be sure about this one, but I think it's similar like defending your lands, so maybe no. But maintaining blockade on enemy port - it's an attack in Popes view.

7d) expelling enemy units in your lands?

Again after patch 1.2, it's not considered as agression in Pope's eyes as you're defending your lands.

8 - Do I convert more people when near the settlement?

Doesn't matter as long as you're in the province area. Though being in settlement converts much less, so yes it's better to have your priests/imams preaching outside.

9 - Are there any "prefered" alliances? Such as Scotland and France, Spain and Genua (not in the game)

Don't know exactly, but yes some factions form alliances and blocks much easier, especially if they are of the same faith.

10 - Do large empires angry all their neighbours?

The bigger you get, the more angry and agressive other factions get against you. This is especially noticed on hard and very hard campaign diff levels.

Correct me if some of my answers are wrong plz.
Cheers

[Taimee Rose]

1-Nope otherwise you'd be bankrupt while playing as Russia
2-Don't declare wars (only one or two), NEVER sack, don't recruit assassins and let prisioners go.
3-Only if the spy gets killed.
4-I guess the bodyguard would increase, thus raising the upkeep costs, but i never actually checked.
5-I think it comes if your general is a war veteran, i used a worthless general as a crusade leader and when he came back he had more command starts than anyone else and alos picked up night fighter and good ambusher skills (along with +8 hit points, armour and christ's spear or whateever that is).
6-Become a good christian, or simply run away from them, there's no real way to kill him (other than extremlly improbable assassin kills.)
7a) breaking a siege is the opposite of attacking.
7b) Yea, that'll be considered an hostile act towards them.
7c) unblocking ports will be considered a good act.
7d) Attacking their units in your lands is fine, because it's a defensive thing to do, just like they can attack your soldiers in their lands.
8 - Consider recruiting a priest army, get around 6 priests and send them to another province, it'll convert more than 10% in one turn.
9 - You mean if there's certain factions that tend to be good allies? Well, with 1.2 patch you can have a strong Portuguese-Spanish alliance, a good France Scottish one, a Russo-Byzantine and an Hungar-Polack alliance,they tend to ally and almost never break them, but don't expect the enemie to hold alliances for long, if you're expanding your territory it'll be a matter of time until they attack you, but if you keep turtled in they'll be your friends.
10 -Yea, it's scripted so that when the player becomes too big the other nations will try to take him down, even those with only a village and three units of peasants.
I don't think you can You can try moving him into the Spanish army instead of the Rebel one trought some modding, but i think Cid's loyalty makes it impossible to recruit (plus, if a three unit crappy army costs around 4000 to bribe, imagine the costs of cid and the rest of the army!

Edit: Argh, you beat me to it!

[Resdulac]

How to get really BIG amounts of money :

Its possible to stack many merchants on the more earning ressources when firstly settling a military unit on it. Merchants welcome " a military escort " and then all of them run the whole ressource. Note that the military unit can take a ressource from a previously installed foreign merchant by pushing him out.

A processed way is to install a fort on the ressource using a general. Then this one leaves while the stacked merchants keep the fort occupied. It needs no defence, as ennemies can not attack it. Note that you cant build a fort on some places or close of another merchant. If you have pushed away a previously installed foreign merchant, you have to wait for his departure.

When the New World is discovered, a quick and easy way to earn HUGE amounts of florins is to send many merchants on the newly discoverd ressources, especially the gold mines. Il is far more earning than the long and costly process of buying lots of soldiers, conducting an exhausting campaign and spending money and time upgrading cities. A single base in the Carribean island is enough. Keep your armies in Europe and entertain peaceful and more profitable commercial connections with natives.

[aadgarven]

Hey guys, thank you very much for your help.

Most of things I was almost sure of, but there are very good tips in that.

So I will not sack (that's not very historical in the reconquista)
I will reduce the amount of assasins I recruit.

And I will try to be more chivalrous. very, very helpful.

Ah, as I usually play with Spain (Castille and Leon) I make intensive use of priests, (more than 15 in the same province and two or three on the way).

[aadgarven]

Hi finally I have one tip to post:

When trying to assasinate, take a closer look, and send your assasin by the back of the army (in the strategy map) that boosts dramatically the probability of success.

The same happens with the spies. And I guess that there's something very similar with the cities, but I don't know where¡s the back of a settlement.

Watch out, because some of the guys turn back when you approach them with your agent (that was how I guessed). Try to approach the other way then.

cheers