Artillery and Buildings when to start, when to stop

[the great zolo]

for the sake of things I use these settings; Medium/Medium and no time limit on battles.

I'm on about the 40th turn of my very first campaign as the English, The scotts are gone and I own the British Isles plus the four regions just south of the island. My army producing regions just grew enough to pump out (Armoured?) Swordsmen and Dismounted knights along with long bowmen.
I've just pushed 3 stacks up against 3 different French cities and the pope has finally excommunicated me, when the previous pope died along with 3 cardinals, and who gets elected. The Holy Roman Empire who because I wouldn't pay them, now hate me. Oh and they also got the 3 cardinal spots????

My typical stack consists of 1-2 Generals, 6 long bowmen, and the rest Infantry. Every once in a while I'll throw in 2 Heavy calvary, but I haven't been fighting on the map that much, it's 90% Sieges, so I don't have much use for calvary. So I was thinking of including a catapult or three in my stacks to make sieges easier and maybe thin out the opponent before moving in.

Question 1:
Would it be a waste to start paying for Artillery this early in the game when the biggest castle I've encountered was a level 2. If so when would be the more ideal time to start using artillery and stop relying on Rams to open the gates.

Question 2:
I've been doing real well money wise this entire game, I've got all cities except, Caen and Nottingham. With all the money flowing I've been pretty much building every building in the game, starting with Trade building -> Public Order -> Military. My castles of course focused on Military and Trade buildings together. Is it a waste to build every Building or is there any negative effects of this? Should I just spend my money on building a few more Stacks? I've got 3 right now with 20 units a piece, The rest of my towns have just whats free to keep there. Plus 1-2 long bowmen for my outlying regions in case I'm attacked.

Question 3:
Wow I didn't think I was gonna rant on this long, My path for conquest was gonna take me through French territory then into Portugal and Spain to conquer that little area. But the Roman Empire has been rather reluctant to talk and has made 2 attempts to get money out of me for not attacking me, I've refused both times and they have yet to attack. Now when I take the French down, I'll be right up against the HRE. Do you think I should forget my plans and instead push east, or do my best to keep them cool and push west like I originally wanted to do?

thanks in advance.

[Samir]

Q1
make an artillery army (of course add some guards for your arty), led by a loyal general as they move slowly you dont want them to rebel. use it when you plan to bring it on with an enemy where the cities are not that far from each other, or when you know that you are going to conquer. (like HRE or the area around Paris, where the cities are packed and reachable within a turn) this allows you to engage the cities the same turn (which can be quiet handy to do when fighting other catholics) If you are in no hurry then the one turn siege to build ladders wont hurt you too much.

Q2
you do everything right. If you however have too much cash your generals and family members tend to become corrupt over time.

More stacks, well the more troops you have the more wars you will fight. this is good and bad, if you are the strongest faction, the others will more likely come after you, but as you plan to finish the campaign obviously you will fight anyway, so you probably should go ahead and build as many troops as you can and get it on.

what is very costly (and therefore good against corruption) as well as military useful (because you train troops exp and generals traits) and politically wise (as you train cardinals for the papal elections, as well as fight noncatholics which is good for papal as well as global reputation) is to go for some oversea bases that allow you to interfere with the situation in the Levant. Rhodes and Cyprus as military bases, Acre, Antioch and Jerusalem as constant reasons for war. Not nescessarily crusades if you dont like too much chivalry

things to get rid of money fast are building (heavy) cavalry armies and use them to harrass your enemies supply lines, diplomatic endevours (trading territories, but you might end up with profit there...) etc. etc.

Q3
Central Europe and Italy are always heavily contested. If you have enough troops, you can enter the ring there, but you also have to be able to dive through excomms (as you fight only catholics) and multiple factions against you.

[Pyrebound]

As Samir already pretty much answered your questions, i might just say that there is no reason to agree on those 'give money or we will attack' proposals, as i have never been attacked after declining it, nono. I got attacked when i once ACCEPTED it.

[TWManiac]

Hrm,

1) You said yourself you usually stack mostly heavy infantry which are exceptional at taking walls via siege towers and ladders. Not having arty in your stack allows you to move at a faster rate, but sacrifices the time it takes to capture a settlement (because you have to build siege equipment). So it balances itself out in a sense. I agree with Samir, when you decide to take Paris and the surrounding settlements, having some good spies who can open the gates or arty would not be a bad idea. I personally NEVER use medieval artillery. On the battlefield, I'd take pretty much any other unit card over a ballista or a catapult. However, once gunpowder is discovered, having three or four Culverins is excellent as they have long range and a battle where you would otherwise be on the offensive can quickly turn to a defensive battle. Mortars are also great for defense.

2) Your build orders are perfect and so is the way you stack your settlements. The beauty of England is their location which makes the need for a garrison of over 6 units in each settlement unnecessary.

3) You don't want to fight over two factions at once if you don't have to. If you push South, you'll end up at war with the Spanish, Germans, French and possibly even the Portuguese (unless there are circumstances that I am unaware of). Pushing South (unless you aim for Marseille, the most profitable city in the game), gives you no economic gain, i.e. it's a money pit. However if you simultaneously send a stack to take Oslo and a stack to take Arhus, it would do your economy justice and because they are so isolated, the chance of them being attacked or counter-attacked is slim to none. Regarding Germany, it seems they insulted you and if I were you I'd make sure to let them know thats a dire mistake. By taking Arhus and Oslo, you would create a two front war against Germany (North from Arhus and West from Antwerp). Make a note, that is why they lost both World Wars. Economy fuels Military, it sounds like you grasp that pretty well so game on ma:wub:a.

[the great zolo]

Well I did just that, took france in a measly two turns right as the pope ask me to ceasefire. He excommunicated me and the next turn 2 ~3/4stacks of the black empire were sitting at my borders. So I confronted them ofcourse killing two heirs and half of each stack. But unfortunately I decided to update to 1.2 from 1.1 and now my game is corrupt, so a clean instal and I'll restart the campaign on a higher difficulty.

[Xix]

I'm in my first game also (as English) - and I want to finish, but I aslo want to start over on VH/VH settings (playing M/M now).

I've been told that the battle AI in VH/VH settings makes the battles much harder than in M/M settings as the enemy units all act 'smarter'. My understanding of this is correct, yes?


The only time I've been challenged in a battle yet is when I faced two full stacks of french heavy infantry, one attacking from my front and one from the rear. Even then by quickly atacking one force and routing them (killed general fast) I was able garner a heroic victory out of that battle (and my captain was promoted to my newest general) and it was a lot of fun. But... If I were playing a smarter opponent I am sure I would have been in far greater trouble.