TLR 1.9 Spain Help/Tip?

[aion2006]

Hey just tried out TLR 1.95 beta, now usally I play RTJ 2.2 due to its great combonation but mostly new unit etc implented for you. But I gotta say TLR truly make things pretty epic and great battle A.I. I plan to play out Spain though I need some help/tip as I'm having a very hard time.

I'm playing VH/VH.
It seem I'm already at war with the Moors and strong alliance with Portuguel.
Anybody have some tip on how I should start off my factor? I seem to be very poor and constanly losing money (I'm in debt so I plan to start over). Mostly of the castle I own seem to be a castle built not a town built. Thus I tend to lose alot of $ as I try to built my army to a point where the upkeep does not surpass my expenses.

Should I:
-Convert all of my castle to villege/town built and focus on Road/Port/Trade/Farm except for my capital?
-Put little to 1 unit guarding a city/castle?
-Use Merchant? (I have no idea how to lvl up these guy. The A.I seem to be VERY good at it)
-Never hire Mercinaries (I usally use them as front line meat)
-When conquer a city/castle should I sack the city always?

Any other tip/hint to play Spain in TLR would be nice thanks ^^

[tornnight]

There are some good discussions sprinkled around in the forum.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=84495

Basically, build up your economy first by concentrating on markets and ports.
Also use Militia units for defense as they are free upkeep.

Once your economy is a bit more developed, then you can start getting more aggressive. Hit and Run tactics can work well if the Moors happen to leave one of their settlements lightly guarded. Attack, Sack, Run.

[steelbound]

Small garrisons are a must I think. Also standing armies are very expensive so I try not to build up a stack unless I plan on taking a settlement or two. In my current game I've got around 40 provinces but probably only 4 full stacks of non-garrison duty army. Two in N. Italy, one in Gaza and one in Antioch.

Merchants and farms bring in the most money. Trade income has been lowered so I do not focus on it. Boats are very expensive to upkeep and I've only got a couple. Merc's are still doable but not alot of them.

I haven't played as the Spanish yet but from the factions I've played I normally rush at the beginning to get around 8-10 provinces (normally rebel ones) then I improve my economy to the point I can afford another war. After winning 5-10 provinces I normally stop to improve my economy. And this seesaws over time until I win the game. From what I've noticed owning more provinces does not necessary equal much more money so economy building takes on greater importance.

[Averroës]

Agreed. I usually stop expanding at 6-8 provinces. And make sure I build the first farm upgrade, ports when possible and roads in each before I build my first leather worker or military unit building. After taking a rebel province, like Salamanca, I leave just one unit to garrison it and move on with my army. Then I build a peasant unit in Leon to send south to up the garrison to two units.

Crusades also help a lot. After you take a good starting region, like Salamanca, Madrid, Toledo, Zaragosa and Pamplona. Go on a crusade. If you plan ahead and buy a couple of ships so you have 4 or more, then you can safely send your army on a crusade and get their first by sea from the east coast of Spain. Send only your heir and a young general - remember they're going to be gone for a few years and you don't want them dying of old age on a crusade. Sack the crusade target, retrain your troops, get the city title then destroy the buildings and leave, or sack a second city and repeat then leave. Buy a few good crusade mercenary units before the first city siege, if you can, to bring home.

Meanwhile at home, build up your economy first. Farms, ports, grain exchanges. Send merchants south by ship into Africa for the gold in Fez or east to Italy for the spices, textiles and dyes. Those will pay well.

The Moors should leave you alone at first. And there is no sense getting into a war with them until you've built up your economy. The Portuguese will get into a war with them first if at all; so you should be fine ignoring them.

Small garrisons at first are a must, as Steelbound said. I generally only garrison with 1 archer unit and one peasant.

If you build the first farm upgrade, a port when available, and a grain exchange in each of your first 6-8 settlements and a farm upgrade in your starting castles, then you should have the beginnings of a good economy that will support building leather works and troop buildings in your castles at Toledo and Pamplona. And you can always supplement your income with sack and destroy crusades once in a while.

It also helps a lot to be choosy with who your princesses marry. I only accept marriages and adoptions which give me new generals with good economic traits, such as smart or budding bureaucrat, to use as governors in my important towns. My heirs in the family line are sufficient to build up as military generals. I never use a general with bad economic traits as a governor. You're better off with no governor at all than one with bad taxman or corruption traits. Those generals I use as cannon fodder to hunt down rebel army stacks.

Economy is the driving factor in The Long Road. If you're diligent about always building economic buildings first in all new settlements, then you'll be fine. Slow growth is the key. You have 900 turns! No need to get aggressive early.

[aion2006]

Sound you guys know what your doing. I took all your advise and things working out slowly. Thanks a lot for the help! I maange to get some extra money by moors offer me ceasefire. Then selling my alliance with other factor. ^^ Though one question that really bothers me is alliance itself.

In most mods I tried out they ALL recommend that I do NOT try to be allied with everyone. It tend to cause of the A.I to think differently and not wage war that often. Also I believe DLV also recommend me not to ally with the Papal State Faction for some reason maybe some problem with Papal factor A.I. I sometimes give the Pope some land when they get out of control or when I sack a city and leave then give it to the pope for free.
So the basic Alliance rule was:
-Should only have 5 allied Max
-Never allied with Muslim Factor

does this apply to TLR as well?

[tornnight]

Nope. Feel free to ally with anyone.

In fact, getting in good with the Pope is quite important when dealing with catholic factions.

[CelphTitled]

spain?? i jus started spain and i think key is to own the moors quick...thats what i did. i conquer all of northern spain early then launch crusade to Fez. conquer all towns on the road to toledo to fez. shudnt have much problem of desertion due to close proximity. portugal hasnt seem to have done nething due to my fairly formidable garrisons on border cities. Nehow, i think best is to kill moors or at least take all their land and make them live in the treacherous deserts of west africa!

[aion2006]

Awesome all your help/tips working out great. I building nothing but econ build. Port/Farm/Trade/Road/ and converting some of my city into town. Raise and low some taxes. Pretty stable though I have little to no defense as I use 2 half stack army to conquer the rest of the rebel peninsula. I usually leave about 1-2 unit to guard the city. Then the noble would give me a mission to add 4 unit and gives me best unit or money.

@CelpTitled lol my exact thought, those infantile deserve to stay on the other end of the earth leaving the peninsula to catholic factor separating both side...for the moment.

Sometimes they leave there heir on a small castle by them self in which I send a bunch of spear militia to raid and sack the city. Destory everything and retreat. I usually capture the heir and ransom him as he gives 7-15k. Even if I meet him again, I think I broken him so badly.

Truly epic beside the fact that I was attack by 5 unit of beber spear men and I can't see them in the battle map. Only there shadow. Weird. Anybody else has this problem?

[Averroës]

See the bug reports thread. It'll be fixed in the next update. The simple solution to the Berber Spearmen is here: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showp...0&postcount=92

[spartan117]

@tornnight

Maybe corruption should be lowered a bit. Example turkey in the latest patch, I have my capital at Jerusalem.

Around Mecca, Jedda, Medina, I am losing like 70% of my income to corruption. When I seen this I was stunned. Maybe you should lower the corruption rate a bit.

[Callawyn]

Build priority is definitely different in TLR than in vanilla or other mods. For economy, Grain Exchange to get your merchant agent limit up, and the first barracks to allow free garrison units are by far the biggest priority. After that, work on population growth: Farms for farming income + pop growth, Town Hall line for pop growth and reduction of corruption, Inns for more happiness. Anything with +Trade is pretty much worthless in the current version of TLR, can take >150 turns to break even on the construction cost of any trade building, even in a city with 0% corruption.

Early in the game, merchants will by your principle means of increasing your income. After a couple hundred turns, with your core cities fully built up, you'll still by getting good income from merchants, but by then by far your biggest source of income will be from taxes and farm harvests. No matter what you do with +trade buildings, you'll not likely ever get above 10% of your total income from trade. So, building ports is very low priority, generally only if you actually want to have a safe place to park your fleet in that area. Even lower priority is religious buildings: there's almost no religious unrest, so there's no need to convert, with the sole exception being unrest from heretics. With 60+ provinces under your control, you'll need 1 cathedral to build your priests and maybe a half dozen lvl 1 churches to up your agent limit, and that's it. If you try to build lvl 1 churches in every province you take, at 5k each with just 3 turns to build, expect your build queue to be stalled for a LONG time.

Once you start getting big, you'll notice some pretty nasty corruption % in provinces far from your capital. Max out +Law buildings in these provinces (Town Hall line, Barracks line, some faction specific buildings and a few guild types). If you don't get the corruption % down in those provinces, they'll be a huge drain on your resources pretty much forever. Basically, they'll never be able to build their own buildings from their own income, because anywhere from 20-75% of that income will be getting eaten up by corruption. Again, be sure to build Grain Exchanges first in ALL of these provinces. Upping your merchant limit is very important, and merchant income is never affected by corruption. So, that province far from home might only be earning you 150 per turn after corruption, but the merchant it allowed you to build will bring another 300-1k. In very high corruption provinces, its often a complete waste to build anything other than Grain Exchange, +Law buildings, and roads to facilitate movement.

One last thing: Take a look at your building browser for the faction you are playing. Many buildings you'll want have pre-requisites not found in vanilla. Dirt Roads, Paved Roads, lvl 2 Markets, lvl 4 Markets are pre-reqs for higher lvl buildings in other building lines, and also for some faction specific buildings. Some of these buildings can improve your population growth, so it can be well worth upgrading your market line just to meet the pre-req for something else.

[spartan117]

Is there anything that lowers corruption though. If there isnt then even by building top tier income producing buildings, there will still be 60-70% income gone because of corruption. If there isnt, then maybe there should be like a town hall or something along those lines that lowers corruption. ( this is my first game with the latest version)

I love have certain prereqs for building certain buildings. This mod is amazing from the cultural names to how the game progresses.

[Callawyn]

Anything that gives +Law will reduce the % corruption in that settlement.

For example, had a settlement that was running about 23% corruption, upgraded town hall and barracks, for +10 more Law above what the previous buildings gave, and henceforth that settlement had about 15% corruption.