Syko Needs Guidance :)

[Syko12345]

Basically im just wanting some questions answered.

Firstly i normally play a campaign with both m/m skill. Sometimes its a challenge but i have a couple of things i think i do wrong.

Firstly i nearly always run out of money in some point in my campaign. My style of gameplay is: to first off build anything i can afford xD, i always ask the adviser person on what to build ( i think thats one thing i do wrong). and then for recruitment i go for the best skilled unit, but i do try to get a mix of good units.

I normally start my campaign put taxes up xD, as far as they can before they get mad. I build a full stack or near enough army and go for normally the closest rebel settlement, recently ive been using my diplomat allot more, ( i just want to know how much i benefit from trade agreements with other fractions etc.).

Something i want to know is how to use economic and financial side of the game better.
For battles i just normally do this xD

If i have horses have them split up (say i have 2 units of cavalry) one goes either side, moving forward, so they will be able to get behind my enemy or into the flank. Before this i normally tell my archers to spread out and fire on the enemy. Then if they charge, i retreat my archers ( or fire on their 2nd or 3rd line), then send in my light infantry to fight theirs, then i send in my heavy infantry , then the cavalry round the back

now maybe this kinda works kuz i only have the difficulty on Med.

so please just give me some hints/tips and explain what im doing wrong, and what i can do better etc. ( writing this out ive already thought of ways i can do better, but im sure you guys will know some more stuff , so please tell me )

Cheers

-Syko

[MurkyWaters]

The money problem - if you're running low on money, it's likely to be either or both of the following:

1) Your cities aren't producing enough income. You need to boost this. Build roads, the trader/market set of buildings, the port and warehouse buildings, and mines if they add a decent amount of income. Look at measures to increase your population as well (that is, farms and public health improvements) - more people means more taxes, and the opportunity to expand your cities & access building upgrades.

I don't think there's anything wrong in asking the adviser, but be prepared to ignore them if you need something more. I normally look to see if a city is growing at a reasonable pace, build a farm (or lower taxes) if it isn't, and go for trade improvements if population growth is good.

2) You're trying to support a military that's too big/expensive for your economy to handle. Are you using militia units to garrison your cities, to take advantage of the free upkeep rule?

You're right that diplomats can help with trade agreements etc - selling your map can make you some money early on as well. I also like merchants, especially if you're near some decent resources.

There are some decent guides to building a strong economy out there - have a look around if you want more detail than this.

[homefry]

You don't need a "full stack or near enough" to grab the first rebel settlement.

Just enough to take it without any real problems. Definitely less than 10 units.

In the beginning, you want to have a minimal army. Enough to defend and take all the rebel settlements.

Don't take the advisor's advice for what buildings to build. If you did, you would crumble like the AI. There are 3 basic building areas: trade (which increases income), army (which allows you to increase stronger units and upgrade armor), and public order increase buildings.

Within trade, some buildings get you side benefits. But all of them increase income to an extent. Farms increase population. Roads allows you to move farther. Focus on these first 2 types because you don't get any side benefits with market-type buildings.

The army buildings aren't too useful. As long as you can recruit archers, infantry, and cavalry units, you're set. In the beginning, you don't need those elite archer units yet. So focus on the income generating buildings.

You don't really need the public order increase buildings in the beginning because you don't get any side benefits as you do with farms and roads.

If you open the settlements details page when you click a settlement, you can see how much extra income that building adds when you click it into the queue. Always use this before you decide what to build.

In the beginning, you always want to aim for your army upkeep to be below the income generated from taxes.

[Captain Spanky]

What faction are you playing as Syko?

As for the early game, make sure you only garrison free upkeep units in your towns and cities, and garrison castles according to the danger they are in. (i.e If they are close to rival factions its worth putting the garrison up slightly.)

I wouldn't build everything in sight early on. Rather, start by building roads, ports, grain exchange/markets and farm upgrades. These all help increase money brought in by a settlement.

As for military, take only what you need on the offensive. There's no point in attacking with a far superior force when less men would do the job and save you money.

Finally, dont listen to the advisor, look at the descriptions for each building and decide what you need in a certain place.

[Syko12345]

Which units are free upkeep ?? any examples ( when garrisoned)

i normally play as English

i started a new campaign and seem to be doing ok.... Portugal annoying me though

thnx for comments

-Syko

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Militia units have free upkeep in cities provided that they can be build there. A village has one free upkeep and a huge city has six free upkeep slots. In the beginning build only military buildings in your castles. Playing the English you only need longbow, mailed knights and armored swordmen. Specialize your castles in production. I usually have Caen training armored swords and Angers training archers. Once you have united the British Isles you can convert your castles to cities because cities generate more income. Build ports because sea trade is the most profitable.

[MurkyWaters]

English free upkeep units:
- Town Milita
- Spear Militia
- Archer Militia
- Bill Militia
- Heavy Bill Militia
- Merchant Cavalry Militia

They are the units built by each of the Barracks chain of buildings, in cities only. The exception is Merchant Cavalry Militia - you need a Merchant's Guild to get these. The key is that they have "Militia" somewhere in the unit name. Don't confuse them with similar units built by castles (Levy Spearmen and Billmen, both built in castles, are not militia units).

You must have the appropriate Barracks building for the unit to be kept for free. So, if you move an Archer Militia unit into a city, it will only be kept for free if you have a Militia Drill Square (or better) in that city.

Easy way to tell if a unit is being kept for free - click on the city, and select the Army tab (but not in the pop-up screen, in the main interface). If the "card" has a dark blue background, rather than grey, it's being kept for free.

Finally, the Tourney Field improvement in the highest level Castle (Citadel) keeps a unit for free as well.

[Saibot]

So basically at the start of the game, focus on getting alliances and trade rights. You could also sell map information for a little extra income, you might get attacked more because of this though. Just build all the economic buildings in your cities first and it might be worth it to keep taxes low untill they get upgraded to minor cities and higher. After that you should have a stable enough economy to find out what works and what doesn't by yourself. But never, ever listen to the building advisor , she sucks!

[FuriousSpurius]

In the early game, you can make do with a lot of really junky units. Rebel settlements can be taken with Town Militia if you fight the battles right. When I start out, I usually build up a half-decent army of militia-men and then take settlement by settlement until my army is depleted (for garrisons) and then I stop for a bit and build up a new army.

Money, money, money is the key to success. The first thing I build in my settlements are roads; they increase trade *and* allow you to move faster, so you can't lose. Then I focus on farms and markets to build up my cash. For me, I convert most of my places to cities for the extra income and survive off of the castles I take from my enemies. Why should *I* waste money on upgrading a castle when my enemy will do it for me?

A castle you take has the bonuses of:
1) Being on the front, you just took it afterall
2) Being better upgraded than what you'd be doing anyway since you should be focusing on your cities to rake in more cash

I neglect my castle upgrades since typically sheer numbers will triumph over the better units when I play. Never underestimate the power of a cavalry flank when your milita are holding the line. The Frenchies are prime targets for getting your castles. Typically my homeland is nothing but cities, since I'm always pressing outward so I don't need castles. What I do need is money, and you get WAY more money from cities.

[mbchudno]

I played as Scotts, but it probably same way for England.

so whatever those gents said. convert all castles to cities except 1 or 2. For england, keep Nottingham and Caen as castles, everything else as cities. Nottingham can field cavalry to cover whole islands from bandits and invasions easily and Caen will work as a foothold in Europe. Then move over to Danes, again, everything as city except Hamburg. You can easily get away by having castle spaced out every 2-3 territories. So Caen, Hamburg, Thorn...etc and all cities on the back behind that line.

As for building choices, roads-farms-ports-markets--anything else. If city under 2k pop, set tax rate to low, otherwise, to very high. Free upkeep units are pretty much anything city can build at the moment that has Militia in the unit name. Number of free upkeep units depends on size of the city.

Diplomacy pays. Before attack on your first faction, make sure you milk everyone with map info, trade rights and alliances. You can easily squeeze 1-3k from each faction. Do it before attacking someone else faction though while your diplomacy rating is good.

Move quickly to take all the cities on your islands to prevent Scotts from expanding and then move to Bruges and Antwerp and try to secure Baltic sea as much as possible. Those 2 cities are real money cows once you upgrade them a bit, they quite large, you do need large force of militia to take them though because they well guarded.

Scots will attack eventually with no room to expand so you will have free reign to take them out without diplomatic penalties.

Make bunch of merchants, 1 spy, couple priests and send whole bunch to Timbuktu. With your distance from there, you will be making insane money few thousand per turn from resources from there. Priests will become cardinals very fast converting Islam provinces and spy just will make it easier to explore Africa. 4-5 merchants are good enough for start.