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Thread: [TW Guide] M2TW-KD: Strategy and military tips (SS)

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    Default [TW Guide] M2TW-KD: Strategy and military tips (SS)



    Author: ♔Sir Walter♔
    Original thread: Sir Walter's fantastic invaluable strategic and military tips

    Stainless Steel Tips
    Roll up, roll up, roll up for the wonderful, amazing and soon-to-be-sticky pearls of wisdom brought from the far reaches of the Total War Centre and the legendary world where steel never stains by an intrepid explorer and experienced King, Grand Duke, Caliph, Sultan and ruler of all possible descriptions, Sir Walter, advisor extraordinaire!





    Okay, now for the serious bit. I have some advice on how to play the game that should be of use to some people on the forums, and I will list it below. For more general guides and some other excellent threads, see Caesar Clivus' list of Stainless Steel Strategy Guides and Mega Tortas' Stainless Steel Standards.

    It is divided (roughly) into advice about running your empire, fighting as your empire on battle-fields, fighting as your empire in sieges and dealing with other empires, and subsequently into individual tips (and some general information) regarding:

    I.i Cash in general
    I.ii Merchants
    I.iii Guilds
    I.iv Watchtowers
    I.v Spies and Assassins
    I.vi Beating a Crusade (more important than it might at first seem...)
    II.i Odds
    II.ii Rebels
    II.iii Eliminating enemy missiles
    II.iv Playing to your strengths
    II.v What to expect from the enemy
    II.vi Scouts
    III.i Avoiding a Crusade (once again, this is actually quite useful to know)
    III.ii Alliances
    III.iii Authority
    III.iv Backing the "Wrong" Horse
    III.v Vassals

    Section I: Management of your Dominoes Dominions

    I.i - Cash in general. Never end a turn losing more money that you have spent on construction and recruitment combined! If you are going to, then disband some troops you don't think you'll need (preferably mercenaries and/or ships).

    In fact, just try not to use mercenaries unless you really have to. The only exception to this is when you're on Crusade/Jihad and don't have to pay their extortionate upkeep costs, and there are some quality ones available, but make sure not to rely on fanatics to obey orders anyway.

    Otherwise, you are guaranteed to lose money over time (preferably, save building the expensive stuff until a turn when you've sacked something or received a lucrative gift).

    I.ii - Merchants. Merchants might look a bit rubbish but they're really good if you use them well, and here's how to. Start by choosing a large-ish settlement in which to base your merchants. Somewhere with a port and a lot of borders is best as you will recruit all your merchants from here for a very long time (if not for ever). Then, build as many trading upgrades as possible (that is, Ports then the Merchant's Wharf line, and the Market line too). Recruit lots of merchants (it's easier if you've got Grain Exchanges and Markets elsewhere) and send them off to get some resources.

    For your benefit, I will now list all the best places to get valuable resources: Gold - Morocco, Raska/Modern Serbia, Khwarezm/Where the Mongols appear (in the far East of the campaign map) and southern India (I think). Silver - near Hamburg, Gotland (it's in the Baltic, region capital is Visby) and other places. Marble - Greece, Emilia-Romagna and western Turkey. Glass - Francia, Veneto and Galilee. Spices - Egypt and Galilee, and some places further east. Salt - Brittany, Northumbria, Bavaria and Italy. Amber - Scandinavia and the Baltic. There are many other commodities but those are the most valuable. The value of a commodity increases by its distance from you, and having a monopoly on a resource greatly increases its value.

    There are many other threads focusing on merchants, both on TWC and on the internet in general, so I'll not be too extensive here as I have a lot to cover.

    I.iii - Guilds. A guild is a building built in a settlement on request from the guild, not by your own volition. You can have but one guild per settlement, so it's worth being choosy. There's not really much point in having more than one of any guild except merchant's guild, so don't bother.

    Each of your settlements scores points with each guild for doing things related to that guild (e.g. for a Merchant's Guild, building a Market or recruiting a Merchant would score you points). After turn 25 you start to lose 1 point per turn per guild per settlement, or so I've heard. This can be negated by concentrating your resources into scoring points for only one guild in each settlement (i.e. recruit all spies in one settlement, all assassins in one settlement, and so on.)

    The two pieces of advice I have are these:

    Never ever ever knock down a guild because then all your settlements lose LOADS of guild points with that guild!

    If you're poor, Catholic and lack good cavalry (usually this occurs in Early Era campaigns) then consider crusading until you get an offer in a city for a Knights Templar or Knights Hospitaller Chapter House, and keep recruiting the knights, as they're both really tough and have high morale, and as a bonus, the more you recruit the more likely you are to be offered a better Chapter House, and Knights in a city is a brilliant thing to have!

    I don't really have anything else to say about them in particular so I'll move on, because this thread is more about specific advice than general information and there are many good threads about guilds and guilds only.

    I.iv - Forts and Watchtowers. Always build watchtowers everywhere in your territories! That way, not only can you see enemies coming, but you can also locate and destroy rebel armies (see II.ii - Rebels, below).

    Build forts in easily defensible positions that are well-placed to stop invaders, but remember not to over-garrison them or you'll lose track of all the soldiers you have...

    I.v - Spies and Assassins. Train up your spies and assassins by telling them to, turn after turn, spy on and assassinate the captains of rebel armies, until some young general can turn up and finish the job (see II.ii - Rebels, below).

    Send your spies to check out enemy armies before fighting, so you know how many troops to send (see II.i - Odds, below), and enemy cities, so you can be let in and don't have to waste time and supplies building lots of siege equipment. They can also stir up unrest if there are enough of them in one settlement, and even cause rioting and civil revolt (in which the city becomes rebel/occasionally reverts to its original ownership). Send assassins to kill off troublesome priests, diplomats and princesses, then generals and finally (if they're 9 or 10 "eyes" in skill) even princes and Kings! Apparently assassinating lowers your reputation but you can counter that (see 13 - Alliances, below).

    Also, if you're ever excommunicated, assassinating the Pope is a fast-track to reconciliation as when a new Pope is appointed all excommunicated factions are welcomed back into the flock. However, they do still remain out of favour somewhat - for more on keeping in with the Pope, see III.i - Avoiding a Crusade, below.

    Recruit all Assassins in one settlement and all Spies in another so you can get guilds easier (see I.iii - Guilds, above).

    I.vi - Beating a Crusade/Jihad.If His Holiness the Pope deigns to call a Crusade against you, here's what you can do:

    Assassinate the generals, making the troops desert (because an army led by a captain doesn't count as Crusading ). My personal favourite. For more on how to make this possible, see I.v - Spies and Assassins, above.

    Bribe them (I haven't tried this but it might work...)

    Ambush them. Works especially well when you're Lithuania or a similar poor and light faction who starts in a forested region (Aragon and Scotland, perhaps), and you can't afford the other ones.

    Have a castle nearby (typically Vilnius, Acre or Damietta if I know the Pope at all ) in which to keep retraining a large and effective army with which you repel all Crusading armies. Preferably led by a Night-Fighter so you can get them one at a time

    Most of that stuff (in fact, all of it, as far as I know) works against Jihads too. For more on avoiding having to do any of that at all, see III.i - Avoiding a Crusade, below.

    Section II: Pitched Battles


    II.i - Odds. Never fight a battle that you're tipped to win unless either you can't help it or it's a siege. For the first, it's probably a good idea to have as many troops as possible let over if going on Crusade or something, and for the second, auto-resolving has always resulted in less losses than fighting manually for me, so keep the odds in your favour. If you fight with the odds in your favour, your general will gain no skill, whereas if you fight with them against you, your general is more likely to gain better traits and ancillaries. Oh, and the less troops you have the easier it is to keep control of the entire army and not forget a flank/special mission (see II.iii - Eliminating enemy missiles, below).

    II.ii - Rebels. Personally, I love rebels. Really, I do. Not only are they ideal for training up spies and assassins from 1 to about 5 in skill (so they can do some proper missions like opening gates - see I.v - Spies and Assassins, above), but they're also fantastic for helping your generals, and this is why:

    Send an unproven general (and some cheap troops if a general alone just can't win) that are outnumbered to fight rebel armies, so you can build their Command without annoying any other factions (very good when anticipating a betrayal).

    I had a Lithuanian general called Ramvaldas (whose pictures cannot be uploaded for an unexplained reason) who had three gold chevrons and 8 Command stars purely from fighting rebel armies. There is the added bonus of rebel armies containing disproportionately large numbers of missile troops which bodyguards can turn rapidly into mincemeat. And you don't need tactics, just charge the archers and make the spearmen run around until they're exhausted then charge them too!

    II.iii - Eliminating enemy missiles. Send (preferably fast and light) cavalry around enemy flanks to destroy their missile troops while your infantry distract theirs, but beware stakes and hiding spearmen!

    II.iv - Playing to your strengths. A bit of a no-brainer this one... play to your strengths. This means sticking with your faction's advantages, which are usually either all-round (HRE, Byzantines, Russians, Moors, Hispanics and Fatimids), cavalry (Khwarezmians, Poles, Lithuanians, Hungarians, Cumans, Turks, Sicilians and French), infantry (Venice, Genoa, Denmark, Norway and Scotland) or missile (English, probably some others that I've forgotten ). Spend more money developing those troops and alter your military strategies to improve your capabilities (e.g.: English, train lots of archers, be defensive and plant your stakes on a hill that you can defend from enemy attack).

    II.v - What to expect from the enemy. Know thine enemy. When fighting a cavalry-heavy faction, have lots of spearmen and archers to negate their advantage. When fighting a missile-heavy faction, use some siege engines to out-shoot their Longbowmen (or what-have-you). When fighting an infantry-heavy faction, have extra cavalry to outflank them. And when fighting an all-round faction... play to your strengths.

    One important thing to note is mercenaries - many AI factions recruit mercenaries a lot to make up for a lack of forward planning that leads to less advanced buildings. Fortunately most common mercenaries like Mercenary Crossbowmen, Mercenary Spearmen and Macemen have weak morale, but some (like Viking Mercenaries, English Huscarls and Galloglaich) can be formidable. In general the mercenaries roughly correspond to the region in which they are recruited's native faction, and as such don't really affect gameplay, especially in the early era before anyone's been swallowed up.

    II.vi - Scouts. Have you ever seen a unit described as scouts in TW and thought "Well who needs them?" Well, this is why they're useful, and how to use them:

    When trying to set an ambush, use scouts to make sure nobody else has occupied that woodland first - there's nothing as annoying as having your javelin-men, knights, horse archers and light infantry jumped on by others, and using scouting units to stake it out so to speak allows you to escape the ambush with ease, or even win the battle! (I've won a single enemy ambush, but it was 3 units of Spearmen and some Peasant Crossbows ambushing a single General's Bodyguard)

    Or you can go one better - if you've seen an enemy army moving into position or spotted it with a spy, move your army into a position where it's separated from the enemy army by one tile. Then move your scouts forward onto the tile. The enemy will ambush the scouts, then enter the battle, withdraw them, and the enemy will triumphantly advance onto the scout's tile, letting your main force ambush them. I inadvertently discovered that while fighting the Danes as Norway in the forests of Scandinavia - I ambushed a large army of theirs and killed 98%!

    When unsure what's up ahead and lacking in spies, send some scouts into the enemy territory. They can even stop people entering your territory by occupying a bridge if the people don't want to declare war.

    Here's a list of scouting unit types and some examples:

    • Light Cavalry (Alforrats, Mounted Sergeants, Arab Cavalry)
    • Horse Archers (Pechenegs, Turkomans, Jinetes)
    • Light Infantry/Skirmishers (Almughavars, Kurdish Javelin-men) - These aren't good if you're against cavalry-based armies, they'll get chased down and die.
    • Spare Generals - Especially good for building forts and watchtowers to keep an eye on the enemy. Not that you'll have such a thing as a spare general if you play Byg IV...


    All scouts are best served with upgraded armour (you won't need more than a blacksmith or armourer, they hardly need a coat of plates.)

    Section III: Politics

    III.i - Avoiding a Crusade. You've been waiting for this one, I can tell

    When playing as the Fatimids, Lithuania or any Muslim/Pagan faction in control of a popular Crusade target (there's a list somewhere, but for the purposes of this article, it's Vilnius, Riga, Cairo, the Holy Land, Palermo and some stuff in southern Spain) or simply a Catholic faction, send a diplomat to Rome early and get Trade rights, an Alliance and a bit of tribute.

    When you're Catholic, make sure to be at least 6 crosses on the Popometer (in the "The Pope" tab when you press O for all those noobs out there ). When you're not, make sure you're at least "Reasonable" in your relationships with the Pope or he might call a Crusade against you (if you're the Fatimids in turns 1 to 50 and you have Cairo, he will call one against you. Don't ask me why, he just will, he always does. But it makes the game more challenging ).

    And if it gets worse than that, send a diplomat over pronto and give him some more money. If he calls a Crusade against you, then see I.vi - Beating a Crusade, above.

    Oh, and if you're Orthodox you can tell the Pope to stick his holy hat up the pontifical posterior if you like, as he can't call a Crusade against you, ever.

    (Unfortunately, there is no way of avoiding a Jihad except removing all Imams with 5+ piety )

    III.ii - Alliances. Get as many alliances as possible, especially if you're one of the factions that might be Crusaded against (see III.i - Avoiding a Crusade, above). (I don't know if allying with the Pope prevents Crusades.)

    That way, not only do you get a good reputation, you can't be Crusaded against so easily without being betrayed (who cares, it's their loss of reputation) and you can have an excuse for attacking people (e.g. you're France, you get an alliance with England - mainly just because Lazy Louis needs a wife and Adela's hot, young and intelligent - and Scotland, side with Scotland in the inevitable war and attack England without losing too much of your hard-won reputation).

    Oh, and you can get trade agreements while you're at it. If you slow down a bit you can wait for the Council of Nobles to tell you to talk to each faction and get some units/money for your pains

    III.iii - Authority. As far as I know, having a high-Authority King helps you in some way. (I haven't a clue how though ).





    There you go.

    Anyway, the best way to making him high in Authority is to make him win lots of battles and capture lots of cities (for the Famous Victor trait) and make him King of an entire country (like France or Britain), because then he gets an ancillary of a crown which gives him lots of Authority.

    I don't know if you can get it for a country you don't start off in or whether you have to go to the historical capital to get it, both of which I have some vague inclination towards mentioning, but you might and I don't know, so somebody find out and tell me.

    III.iv - Backing the "Wrong" Horse. When wondering who to ally with for the reputation bonus out of two factions that are already at war, pick the one that is more likely to lose, especially if they're nearby (e.g. Venice and Genoa if you're Sicily or Leon-Castille and the Moors if you're Portugal). That way, when your ally is about to be wiped out, you can offer help, annihilate most of the enemy, let them kill your ally and then annex both factions' territory

    My personal favourite underdogs to ally with are Genoa against Venice, Portugal or Aragon against the Moors or Leon-Castille, the Byzantines against the Seljuks, the Crusader States against the Fatimids, Scotland (or Ireland in 6.1) against England and the Holy Roman Empire against France. However, bear in mind that sometimes the underdog wins, and that other factions may also be moving in on the two combatants' territory. Also, there is an occasional disaster when the AI actually accepts vassalage, making the two factions united against you, if you choose to go for one...

    III.v - Vassals. The idea of having a vassal state is of course infinitely more attractive than being one. However, the opposite is all too likely in the game. This is because the AI has no idea of how to plan in advance. If a human is in a difficult situation, they may well sacrifice immediate independence for long-term strength by using the peace to build up their forces and make money, before they're ready to throw down the gauntlet declare independence from their erstwhile masters. The AI only ever accepts vassalage if it has no castles and it is significantly weaker than its adversary. You can make the AI your vassal, but it's difficult. On the other hand, temporarily becoming a vassal can give you a valuable breathing space.

    Section IV: Siege Battles

    IV.i - Spearmen (Defence Point). Always have spearmen in your castles/cities. They own in siege-defence. Seriously. Stick them on a wall, in front of a gate, in a breach, in a narrow street, on the central square, any bottle-neck or easily defensible position that the enemy need to get through will do. Even Spear Militia have saved Toledo for me from the Aragonese once (I was playing as Leon & Castille).

    Mind you, Toledo is one of those castles that has what I call a "death side" with about 70% of the walls totally impervious to attack due to moats and sheer slopes, but there you go. The AI didn't bring enough soldiers or have enough time to fully utilise an easier side anyway, as it may have noticed the elite 8-star silver-chevroned very-well-armoured Moor-slaying army headed its way within a turn, after going off to Extremadura and killing a (second, for that army, and this is on about turn 20) Caliph. Like I was saying about half an hour ago, my spearmen basically stood on the walls for several hours of play, with one unit in schiltrom just inside the gate until my javelin-men ran out of ammo. Then I charged out, and killed all their infantry, making them lose.

    IV.ii - Ballistae and Cannons (Defence Point). Now don't get me wrong, ballistae and cannons are good. They cause a lot of damage to tightly-packed units, regardless of ammo, and if you have managed to sneak one out they can set fire to the odd siege-tower or ram. But, to be honest, they do in my experience tend to be useless until either a) You've killed most of the enemy and they've ran away to the edge of the map, or b) The enemy are through the walls. This is because they can't shoot through a wall or a gate, no matter how open/broken it is, as they shoot flat, not up like a trebuchet, catapult or mangonel...

    IV.iii - Trebuchets, Catapults and Mangonels (Defence Point). ...which brings me on neatly to how amazing those are. They shoot up, down, over... set just about everything on fire... but! Wait. Never shoot a mangonel over loads of your troops. A barrel will explode and shower your soldiers in flaming oil, and that's not good. But, when on target a barrel can kill fifteen Chivalric Knights in one shot (I was too happy to remember to take a screen-shot ). So shoot the mangonel at the back of their army and it'll hit something on the way. Trebuchets and catapults are better suited to blowing up siege equipment, especially rams and towers.

    IV.iv - Beating the Circumnavigational AI (Defence Point). Sometimes, the AI seems to realise it's up against a place like Toledo and walks around to the other side. This is because the AI is stupid and always starts its army in the default place, not where it wants to attack you. This is also great, because your troops can get there first and shoot at them while they're going. And if it's an important settlement with a good garrison, you can take your heavy cavalry, if you have any, march them through the gate the AI was facing, then out-flank the slow enemy units, smashing them in the back while your missile units shoot at them and your infantry charge straight out through the gate where their missile troops will invariably be

    IV.v - Siege Machines in general (Offence Point). Unlike defenders, attackers can lump all siege machines together because they don't need to shoot over walls they need to shoot at them... except one. The ballista. Never bring ballistae to a siege if they're the only equipment slowing your army down, because they're about as useful as a racing pigeon at the Grand National (Brits will get that reference, I don't know if anyone else will. I'd post the England smiley but that'd break up my text for no real reason.) As I was saying before I was side-tracked, ballistae can't actually damage walls. Or gates as far as I know. Or even people on walls, because ballista bolts are stupid and inaccurate and never hit anything that's not directly in front of them anyway. So don't bring them. Bring all the other stuff, which is brilliant.

    Every single other siege machine in the books is fantastic. They can knock down walls, destroy towers, blow apart gates and even win a siege single-handedly. But remember! If you run out of ammo on your siege machines and you have no surviving engines like rams while your path to the central square is still obstructed, you lose! So don't blow up everything in sight. Not only will you probably be rebuilding it later, it's best to save the ammo for stuff you need to destroy to win the battle.

    IV.vi - Spearmen (Offence Point). Spearmen are great for attacking too. Not sog great, but still pretty useful. They can go into an unoccupied area of wall/road that the AI will want to use later and block it, acting as a big spiky tourniquet to hem the enemy soldiers in where your heavy infantry (or whatever you use to break enemy formations) can annihilate them completely.

    IV.vii - Heavy Infantry (Offence Point). Like I was saying, heavy infantry. They're great. Guys like Foot Knights, Canons of the Holy Sepulchre, Berdiche Axemen or anything similar can just get onto the walls and smash whatever's defending with pretty low losses unless the AI is wise (fat chance... ) and sticks some proper good spearmen up against them. In that case, get some other heavy infantry on the walls nearby and hit them in the back

    IV.vii - Cavalry (Offence Point). Cavalry (preferably light and/or missile cavalry) are actually quite useful to besiegers. Well, more useful than you might think. If you can get a breach or broken gate and eliminate the towers, cavalry can get in and disperse enemy archers, catch them before they get to the square and then get back outside the walls before being caught. They can also catch all the enemy fleeing out of the tower bases.

    IV.vii - Central Squares (Offence Point). Central squares are hell for me. Eurgh! They're so annoying, the enemy can't run... but hey, I know how to deal with them. They're so easy to use as the defender you don't need to be told (in a sentence, just stand there and don't have vulnerable flanks) but as an attacker they're more challenging. In my experience, the best way is to kill everything else, then simply shoot at them until they all die. If some are left, charge with your best ones. If lots are left, advance with spearmen, stand the spearmen in schiltrom next to the square and wait. They'll turn to face the formation, or even better attack it. Then outflank them with cavalry and charge them in the back, killing them all in one charge.

    Requests for more tips to be added are most welcome

    NB. I will add more tips to all areas of the thread so if you're looking for new ideas don't just look to the bottom

    Last edited by Saint Nicholas; September 03, 2010 at 07:06 PM.

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