Money talks campaign

[tallstark]

I have an idea on challenging ones self and trying a new approach. I am planning on picking a faction without a lot of neighbors, doing an initial blitz to 10 regions, converting 8 to towns, 2 castles, and cranking economy economy economy. After that, I am going to fight only defensive battles and see how far I can get buying, bribing and manipulating. Either Spain and Iberia, England and all British Isles and a foothold in Europe, or Denmark and all of Scandanavia and some Baltic cities. I will make an exception for Crusades to keep Pope happy.

Has anyone else tried this BTW? My plan would be to get a lot of merchants, big navy to keep my ports legit and try to not piss off Pope. Any other ideas on how you would pull it off?

[Harry Lime]

You should play as Milan. They're a load of bankers & would be perfect for this kind of strategy. Role-play as Niccolò Machiavelli & usuary your way to victory.

[tallstark]

Would you try and get the whole boot of Italy minus Rome then? If I can take Venice and have Milan Venice Genoa be my North perimeter and get down in to Tunis and have Med and Black sea trading going it could be a good base.

I am also wondering if its in the spirit of the idea to send spies and assassins to promote revolt in a city, then go by in from the rebels...

[Captain Spanky]

Yeah Milan would be a goos choice here thanks to the excellent roster of city units, on top of their good militias. I would go for the whole of Italy down to Sicily, as well as the two islands adjacent.

[malcolm mcdowell]

i did try it once, as france. i had an income of about 40000 a turn, and so just started buying up loads of provinces (spain, started in britain, as well as germany and italy). then two of my allies (milan and hre) backstabbed me, and spain (another ally) got killed by the moors who not only started attacking me but were also allied to the pope...
so i just killed EVERYONE.

[tallstark]

If you had the cash couldn't you bribe a lot of the generals sent to attack you as well? I am just starting to imagine how this could work, I will start it this weekend to check it out. The more I think about it, the more I think it will be a totally new look on the game. I almost always ignore agents about turn 50 and just start slashing and burning whoever gets in my way so this will be a whole new nuance...

[Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh]

I think it will require a lot of remembering. Oh damn! I have forgotten to build something in that province! Or, Oh no! I forgot to move my merchants.
That always happens to me when I get a few provinces (like 20).

[tallstark]

Yeah I have a feeling this will be one of those where I think it sounds interesting then I get bored about 4 hours in to it and I will attack someone close and see how far my surge takes me, but hypothetically I am excited about it before hand! Is it true Milan gets a trade bonus on royal family members more often than other factions?

[Sher Khan]

This is quite easy to do as Milan without even blitzing.


In my Milan campaigns, I simply take Marseilles, Ajaccio, Bern, and Florence before starting my turtle.

[tallstark]

Really? Then do you start buying your way and expanding your core or do you straight turtle it until it gets boring, etc??

[sharky4u]

Really? Then do you start buying your way and expanding your core or do you straight turtle it until it gets boring, etc??

What is the process of turtling or to turtle, if i had to guess i would say it meant to protect ones shelf and attack out slowly one step at a time but the over use of the term on this and other threads makes me believe it is maybe something else?

[tallstark]

What is the process of turtling or to turtle, if i had to guess i would say it meant to protect ones shelf and attack out slowly one step at a time but the over use of the term on this and other threads makes me believe it is maybe something else?

Yeah, I define it as when you pick a core group of provinces and play all defense while you get economy optimized and go up tech tree. Then when its time to fight you have latest generation everything with a healthy economy and a good reputation...

[Sokar Rostau]

I've found that if you have a high global reputation and only ever fight defensive wars your enemies will be falling over themselves to give you provinces. My England campaign has been mostly peaceful (well... except for my black-ops teams... ) and has acquired six regions from France's stupidity (Paris and Rheims in the same ceasefire, France is now in Iberia), two German provinces, one from Milan and two from Denmark. All as war reparations. Pretty sure that only Edinburgh, Dublin, Caernarvon, Rennes and Bruges were fought for.

My Venice campaign has acquired Sofia from the Byzantines by force, but negotiated a ceasefire by demanding Corith and Thessalonica and took Constantinople from Egypt, two turns after a successful Jihad, in exchange for an Alliance and 321 Florins/13 turns (first time I've ever had a successful "these are my demands what do you want in exchange).

I have a great laugh everytime something like this happens

[malcolm mcdowell]

how did you get paris off france? i thought you couldnt ask for capitals...

[pwijnands]

It's very easy indeed to buy settlements from other factions with good relations and good reputation. If you throw some map information and "attack faction" in the mix you can buy settlements for close to nothing. I was able to buy Caen from the English for 1600-something florins and map information and trade rights. A side-effect of this was that my relations with the English was perfect afterwards. Caen paid itself back in a few turns.
I always used to give up on those "annex settlement" missions the counsil gives you, not anymore. In fact I think I got a reward of 1000 florins as well (so buying Caen only costed 600 florins).

Malcolm:
The AI sometimes swappes capitals (although not often). Another reason could be that another faction took Paris and France took it back, another settlement would be capital by then.

[Sokar Rostau]

Yeah, pretty sure that Milan had already taken Paris once before. Whoever took it the capital has been Zaragoza for a while now.

[malcolm mcdowell]

oh right

[malcolm mcdowell]

pretty much. just defending, building up, and then killing everyone else with uber stuff