The Holy Land challenge

[Dave Scarface]

Calling out to all islamic generals, I challenge you to remove the crusaders from the Holy Land! Yes this is a Jihad against the infidels

The challenge is to play a campaign as Egypt or the Turks on VH/VH and defeat both the Kingdom of Jerusalem and Antioch. They are heavily fortified with permanent garrisons at Jerusalem, Acre, Antioch and Krak de Chevaliers.

Also they have very strong units and the backing of the pope. Attacks against christendom will almost certainly result in Crusades against you. Can you take on the christian armies and win? I suspect you cannot, and lay down this challenge to all of you.

good luck
Dave

[vietanh797]

nice idea
i am trying begin with Egypt
Turk is not my farvourite
just begin future wait us

[RJA]

I'm playing Egypt on H/H. It's not easy, Jerusalem has good soldiers. Although their cavalry have much better stats then my ghulams, I still manage to win though. It's a nice campaign so far. Just a little bit annoying that changing turns takes so long. But aside to that, It's the best mod I played so far. Not too many changes compared to the vannila game, but more units, factions and more territories. That is exactly what I was looking for. Great job.

RJA

[Dave Scarface]

Thanks RJA,

I am working on another update atm that will add all of the remaining Kingdoms units to my mod. Btw when you say you managed to win do you mean just defeating Jerusalem? or did you beat Antioch as well? And do you have any suggestions on how I could improve the Egypt campaign?

About the slower turns.. a lot of that is due to the garrison scripts. But I think youll agree that those are worth keeping in for gameplay

Dave

[RJA]

Well I didn't mean winning in killing another faction. I just meant that in battles they can hold their ground against the better cavalry of the christians. I'm not that far in my campaign yet. Egypt seems a very good faction to play with. They have very good units I think. The ghulams and other new units filled up the gap they had in vanilla. I am very happy about those desert archers too. Cheap but very effective when protected against melee. So I say, great job here.

RJA

[Twfan55]

Egypt wiped out Jeruslaem in the first 50 turns in my Byzantium Campaign

[Siculus]

The AI Egyptians finally took Jerusalem after a twenty-year Jihad on turn 66--Winter 1212. They just kept coming (with some help from the Moors and the Turks).

Siculus

[Edward the Bear]

Am trying to play as Egypt on vh/vh, it is very hard isn't it. Not as easy as I thought.

[Edward the Bear]

Calling out to all islamic generals, I challenge you to remove the crusaders from the Holy Land! Yes this is a Jihad against the infidels

The challenge is to play a campaign as Egypt or the Turks on VH/VH and defeat both the Kingdom of Jerusalem and Antioch. They are heavily fortified with permanent garrisons at Jerusalem, Acre, Antioch and Krak de Chevaliers.

Also they have very strong units and the backing of the pope. Attacks against christendom will almost certainly result in Crusades against you. Can you take on the christian armies and win? I suspect you cannot, and lay down this challenge to all of you.

good luck
Dave

While I win the few field battles against Jerusalem, I can't quite keep the pressure on against both kingdoms at the same time. Since the two (Jerusalem and Antioch) are allied against me. Though I technically lost most of the battles, my field army is composed of horse archers exclusively. I inflict massive losses on the crusader armies, then retreat when I'm out of ammo. I used to have a general with them, but he began accumulating bad traits (Cowardice, etc. etc.) so I just use a captain led force. After 2 or 3 battles, the Crusader army is decimated and then I lead a charge in to wipe them out.

[Dave Scarface]

Great to hear that you are finding this campaign to be a challenge. Btw the Kingdom of Jerusalem have Knights Templar available to them from the start, so beware. Also you can expect both Jerusalem and Acre to put up very tough defenses thanks to their large garrisons. Anyway have fun and I look forward to hearing more reports.


Dave

[Edward the Bear]

If only Egypt can build horse archers instead of having to recruit Turcopoles in the beginning campaigns might be more fair. Research shows many of Salah al Din's troops were indeed cavalry archers not infantry.

Siege is very hard, have to try to starve out Jerusalem because of number of soldiers in each settlement.

[King Yngvar]

Doing a round on VH/VH as the Turks I defeated Antioch within the first 10 turns, then moved on to Jerusalem, beating them within the next 10 turns. Of course there were launched crusades against me, but AI crusaders only go for one city, they don't sack on the way. I left the city undefended, the crusaders took it, most of them went home and I took it back.

[vietanh797]

unbelieveable men
are there any cheat you use?
I think they may be cheat like: kill all enemy,win the battle or st like that lolzzz

[Dave Scarface]

Well played King Yngvar, I think I have made the grand campaign harder yet some people complete it just as quick. Did you not find the garrison spawns at Antioch, Krak de Chevaliers, Jerusalem and Acre to be a problem? What kind of armies did you build? all horse archers? what was your tactic? And will you try to take out Byzantium next? I am still yet to here of anyone sacking Constantinople.

thanks
Dave

[King Yngvar]

Well played King Yngvar, I think I have made the grand campaign harder yet some people complete it just as quick. Did you not find the garrison spawns at Antioch, Krak de Chevaliers, Jerusalem and Acre to be a problem? What kind of armies did you build? all horse archers? what was your tactic? And will you try to take out Byzantium next? I am still yet to here of anyone sacking Constantinople.

There is nothing wrong with your mod, it is simply the Total War AI that seems to have stopped challenging me. Believe me, if this was vanilla Medieval, I would have taken much more within those 20 turns.

Campaign map tactic

1: Rally several full stacks, wait close to Antioch cities until all are ready, hire lots of mercs to make it happen quicker. Very high taxes.

2: Call a Jihad against (don't remember the name, it belonged to Jerusalem). Join the Jihad with all your armies to reduce upkeep.

3: Lay siege to all their cities at once, assault next turn. Auto resolve on the ones that can be won that way, fight the others on battle map. Attacked at turn 9, defeated them at turn 10.

4: Exterminate all cities and move on towards Jerusalem. Keep only garrisons enough to maintain order. Do not need that many due to fear.

5: Do the same to Jerusalem as to Antioch, may need some more armies here and may suffer some minor defeats in battles, due to enemy numbers. However, Jihad lets you keep coming and you will prevail. With Jerusalem I actually got a little help from Egypt who pressured them in the south.


During that process the Byzantines had invaded me in the north and seized to cities from me. I took them back eventually within a few turns and I started invading them. Constantinople was sacked at the same time as Athens, Tessalonica(?) and some other cities I can't remember the name of. I attack several cities at once, it is the key to defeat a faction quickly, crippling them. On their capitols, due to the garrison spawn script I simply use two full stacks. Jihads are perfect for your economy, sacking and exterminating is just as good and in this mod, mercs are very available (for the Turks at least).

After defeating the Byz, move on to invade Italy, sack Rome

[vietanh797]

I don't understand is how your weak army can defeat the heavy garrison(merc army is very weak)and siege battle is the hardest battle
there always have full stack in main city and a castle
I never face less than 2 full stack in capital
and one more thing is pope faction can't be destroy they can revenge(this is very hard to face 4 full stack at once)
only cheating money should help you buy this much army

[King Yngvar]

Don't use any console cheats, I use jihad, the best cheat ever made
For the siege battles, I have 1 rule:

1: Never do assaults on battlemap

2: Never assault without any less than 2x than the garrison

3: If enemy sally forth, do battlemap

If they sally forth, or attack me from behind so I get an open field, their dead. My horse archers are faster than their heavy cavalry, they have very little light cavalry and they usually have just a few archers, they are easy picking for hit and run. That says about it, if you know the hit and run strategies that huns, turks, mongols, etc used you know what I mean. Fighting sustained melee is out of the question..

and one more thing is pope faction can't be destroy they can revenge(this is very hard to face 4 full stack at once)

Just take it to the open field and do it on battlemap, the AI sucks on battlemap. I've been playing the Total War games since Shogun and if there is one thing that I have always wished to change it is the AI, though I understand that the AI must probably be the hardest thing to create, due to the fact that the "AI" is not actually AI

[Dave Scarface]

@King Yngvar,

Interesting tactic but I don't think steam rolling the AI early on is a very fun way of enjoying my mod or any mod for that matter. Of course each to his own, but I always give the AI time at the start. And I like to take my own time anyway to get into wars. For me the point is not just to win but to enjoy the campaign to the full and let it develope. Again I am not criticising the way you play at all, only I do not agree with it. Nevertheless you still win the prize for being the first to conquer the holy land Your tactics are superior to everyone else it would seem, and I would not like to face you in a hotseat campaign

Also before you even posted this I have been thinking about upping the recruitment cost of mercs right across the board. This will make the campaign harder because it hurts humans more. The AI has a very healthy money script so it wont effect them to bad. Thanks for your feedback anyway, it always interests me to hear how people play their campaigns.

best
Dave

[King Yngvar]

@King Yngvar,

Interesting tactic but I don't think steam rolling the AI early on is a very fun way of enjoying my mod or any mod for that matter. Of course each to his own, but I always give the AI time at the start. And I like to take my own time anyway to get into wars. For me the point is not just to win but to enjoy the campaign to the full and let it develope. Again I am not criticising the way you play at all, only I do not agree with it. Nevertheless you still win the prize for being the first to conquer the holy land Your tactics are superior to everyone else it would seem, and I would not like to face you in a hotseat campaign

Yes, I just had to test how quick it would go using the cheapest tactics. The best way to counter this jihad en masse is to get a crusade launched. When I tried this in a hotseat campaign against a friend, as Turks, he was Jerusalem - It did not work

Though I had success when playing Venice, another friend of mine was playing Egypt. Rules for this to be successfull against another player:

1: Have a huge fleet (for he will have one)

2: Have siege equipment in every army

3: Exterminate every city you take and destroy every building, then give the cities to the Pope and move on.

[vietanh797]

your tactic use trick but it is the fastest way to defeat AI any way this is good tactic after all
I know about the Crusader and Jihad but I often do thing slow and not take more than 2 stack in crusader/Jihad(I mean I want thing in med2 become more real no way in real saladin can have his army with out upkeep) and a kingdom in history must have their army in their land much more than number in battlefield