Orthodox get hosed...

[tallstark]

Like most of you, I have long ago figured out that playing a catholic faction is quite easy. Every Crusade nets you 30-40 units with experience, and 4-10 turns of no upkeep on 3-5 stacks of military, plus double movement to have your armies right where you want them at the end of the Crusade, usually at the door step of your next victim. All this, and you get attribute bonuses for doing it. Give the Pope a province and some cash once in awhile and you are pretty much an idiot if you can't work it.

Conversely Orthodox have no jihad/crusade, both larger factions have no religious affinity with you, there are no easy attribute winners etc...

I know by design some factions are harder than others and I agree with that strategy; it makes the game more playable in the long run, as you always have new factions to try and new strategies to develop. I just wish there was more flavor so to speak in the Orthodox world, it seems like its pretty lazy game design. Flame away if you think I am wrong or I am missing something...

[Joel92]

it has to be a bit realistic. you can't make things that didn't happen

[tallstark]

Ummm, yeah. LOL, like ships that moved twice as fast when on a crusade, or armies that quit needing upkeep etc...

Just busting your chops, but the whole game realism versus playability debate got settled a long time ago in favor of the game. If an Orthodox general was called on to defend his faith why wouldn't he get the same bonuses? Muslim armies invaded the Byzantine Empire repeatedly, so if a jihad army came calling with mass religious fervor, couldn't the Orthodox whip up their own "God is on our side" action?

[Old Geezer]

Yeah, to be more realistic CA really should have made it much easier for the Russians and Byzantines. The Byz should get half priced assassins and spies who never fail and the Russians should have double marching points during the winter in Russia and their opponents should lose half an army every turn spent outside a city or castle during winter.

[tallstark]

LOL, good point! Or Byz should get automatic merchant guild and Russians get the snow bonuses that go to the Danes usually...

[ttech]

I think the Orthodox have advantages that far outway the disadvantages. I'm playing my first Byzantine campaign now and it's great. Without the Pope over my shoulder telling me when to stop attacking, I can make my own plans for expansion without worry of interference. It's great! In a couple of turns I'll run the Pope out of Rome and the Orthodox faith will rule supreme from Europe to Baghdad. Believe me, the Orthodox don't need any more help. In fact, I'll find it hard to go back to a Catholic faction after this one.

[eggthief]

I think the Orthodox have advantages that far outway the disadvantages. I'm playing my first Byzantine campaign now and it's great. Without the Pope over my shoulder telling me when to stop attacking, I can make my own plans for expansion without worry of interference. It's great! In a couple of turns I'll run the Pope out of Rome and the Orthodox faith will rule supreme from Europe to Baghdad. Believe me, the Orthodox don't need any more help. In fact, I'll find it hard to go back to a Catholic faction after this one.

Here's what u gotta do, start a new byz campaign on vh/vh then come back here (without tears!) and tell us how it went.

OT: yeah I agree, CA is already infamous for turning history into fantasy so I can't see why they would do that to catholic factions (movement etc) and not to orthodox factions.

[loquar]

The Byzzies have their advantages as has been said such as lack of papal intervention and for me a wonderful starting position. But I do find the lack of crusade/jihad or something similar leaves tham lacking some flavour. Shame they couldnt have found something to spice them up a bit but we cant have everything

Have played them on vh/vh btw and theyre a nice hard faction to play as such but still doable. Probably not something someone would want to do while they were just learning the game and on their first couple of campaigns tho

[Mythlacar]

If anything its acually a bit easier on the Byzantines/Russians than it was in real life.

Crusaders had a bad habit of burning their way through Byzantine Territory to get to the holy land. Also, everyone and their mother wanted to be the one who acually stuck the final nail in the Byzantine coffin. Not to mention Constantinople being a VERY rich city, that tends to attract enemies.

Lack of crusades does make the Byzantines a bit bland in terms of religion, but to be honest thats more of a realism choice. If they truely favored gameplay over realism, the orthodox would be able to call an orthodox crusade eh?

If the Byzantines are too bland for you, I suggest either downloading a mod, or playing farther into the campaign, if your quitting early you really miss out on the Mongol/Timurids and the lack of gunpowder, all of which makes things interesting quick. The byzantines dominate early, but not in the late game haha.

As far as the catholics go, the pope is acually more of a pain in the arse, unless your playing on a very low difficulty. Crusades are usually called out into the middle east (Never seen the pope call a crusade on an Excommed faction, at least untill he was my puppet.) As far as the crusades themselves go, eh. The upkeep is free, but if you don't make a beeline, or if your general happens to die on the way, you've just lost your army. They do run faster, but thats acually quite realistic, nothing like god himself to motivate troops eh?

[NobleNick]

...As far as the catholics go, the pope is acually more of a pain in the arse, unless your playing on a very low difficulty...

I tend to agree. As far as the religion contribution to the game, I think:

The Islamic states have it best: No Pope and can crusade (Jihad).
The Orthodox have it next best: No Pope, but can't crusade.
The Catholic states have it worst: Must deal with Pope, and the crusades do not make up for that.

I would have finished my first Catholic campaign AT LEAST 10 turns earlier if it hadn't been for His Infernal Pompousness. I lost at least two full crusading stacks, for various reasons, before I got to the crusade target.

[tallstark]

I tend to agree. As far as the religion contribution to the game, I think:

The Islamic states have it best: No Pope and can crusade (Jihad).
The Orthodox have it next best: No Pope, but can't crusade.
The Catholic states have it worst: Must deal with Pope, and the crusades do not make up for that.

I would have finished my first Catholic campaign AT LEAST 10 turns earlier if it hadn't been for His Infernal Pompousness. I lost at least two full crusading stacks, for various reasons, before I got to the crusade target.

Wow, not to be smart alec but it sounds like you really don't know how to handle the Pope? I play vh/vh and even on SS 5.1 it is really easy to get what you want. If you haven't figured it out, heres how:

Load up a general with 8 militia units, join crusade. Buy cheap spearmen and knights to flesh it out. Repeat 2-3 generals worth.

Go take city, take some merchants along for ride, no faster way to travel. Take 3-4 priests. Now you have merchants sitting on best trading areas in game, and 3-4 cardinals in 20 turns or so...

siege city for awhile. When you are ready to take it, have a few generals at home join up to get free exp. if you want, position them to be at gates of any enemies. Again these are free upkeep, so if you play cards right its almost a cheat...

Take city, destroy all buildings, gift to Pope or someone else. You get 10-15K, perfect relationships with whoever, 15-20 units of militia that are exp'ed up and can go sit for free back home; disband crusade units and do again.

Any catholic faction has it easy if they make alliance with Pope first thing, and keep relationships high.

[Diocletian]

Wow, not to be smart alec but it sounds like you really don't know how to handle the Pope? I play vh/vh and even on SS 5.1 it is really easy to get what you want. If you haven't figured it out, heres how:

Load up a general with 8 militia units, join crusade. Buy cheap spearmen and knights to flesh it out. Repeat 2-3 generals worth.

Go take city, take some merchants along for ride, no faster way to travel. Take 3-4 priests. Now you have merchants sitting on best trading areas in game, and 3-4 cardinals in 20 turns or so...

siege city for awhile. When you are ready to take it, have a few generals at home join up to get free exp. if you want, position them to be at gates of any enemies. Again these are free upkeep, so if you play cards right its almost a cheat...

Take city, destroy all buildings, gift to Pope or someone else. You get 10-15K, perfect relationships with whoever, 15-20 units of militia that are exp'ed up and can go sit for free back home; disband crusade units and do again.

Any catholic faction has it easy if they make alliance with Pope first thing, and keep relationships high.

Nice advice, I'm gonna use that strategy

[NobleNick]

Wow, not to be smart alec but it sounds like you really don't know how to handle the Pope? I play vh/vh and even on SS 5.1 it is really easy to get what you want. If you haven't figured it out, heres how:

Load up a general with 8 militia units, join crusade. Buy cheap spearmen and knights to flesh it out....

Been there, done that... and then my general (faction leader) died of old age, about 8 turns into the crusade, and my entire stack deserted. Investment lost.

...Repeat 2-3 generals worth...

Yep. did that, too. The next general (new faction leader) died of old age, several turns into the Crusade, and his full stack deserted. Another investment lost.

And I tried again. Forget exactly what happened this time, but IIRC, I lost another stack.

Maybe this is just exceedingly bad luck; but, depite the fact that I really want them to, crusades have not panned out well for me.

[King_Sulieman_YHWH]

What I like to do is play an Orthodox faction, ally with the other 2 (in SS 4.x there are 3 orthodox, russians, kievan russ, and byzantines) orthodox.

Help them, look out for them, assist their beseiged cities, give unwanted lands to them occasionally, keep relations great. Try to get marriages in there too between the 3 ..

Then, goto war with whoever the lead orthodox faction is at war with.
This usually ends up with you as Russia or Kievan Rus aiding Byanztines being sieged by Turks.. lol.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Been there, done that... and then my general (faction leader) died of old age, about 8 turns into the crusade, and my entire stack deserted. Investment lost.


Yep. did that, too. The next general (new faction leader) died of old age, several turns into the Crusade, and his full stack deserted. Another investment lost.

And I tried again. Forget exactly what happened this time, but IIRC, I lost another stack.

Maybe this is just exceedingly bad luck; but, depite the fact that I really want them to, crusades have not panned out well for me.

http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=99026

Don't use generals over 40 on a crusade unless you don't want them to come back from the crusade.

Use recently promoted generals aged 20-30. Also, Go direct line-of-flight towards the crusade target, don't walk in a "logical" direction by land. Distance must be traversed to the target quickly.

Why bother?

See the thread above for hints as to why crusading is important. If you can wipe the entire map clean of all enemies in less than 30 turns, then I think it's safe to say that crusading had something to do with it.

And guys... if the Pope is becoming a problem for you, why don't you Take Rome, slay the Pope, and keep slaying Popes until your cardinal is Pope?

Excommunicate the Pope. Don't let him Excommunicate you.

[loquar]

Crusades are usually called out into the middle east (Never seen the pope call a crusade on an Excommed faction, at least untill he was my puppet.)

Recently had the pope declare a crusade on Rome! I was quite surprised as I had FoW on Rome at the time (my papal emissary was at the previously rebel town just north of there) Sicily had taken Rome from him and I dutifully took it back destroyed all the destroyable buildings and gifted it back to him.

Just had to share

[nosjo78]

[quote=Mythlacar;


Crusades are usually called out into the middle east (Never seen the pope call a crusade on an Excommed faction, at least untill he was my puppet.) As far as the crusades themselves go, eh. ?[/quote]

What????? I have seen Toulouse (French) be the target of more crusades than all other cities combined.

[eggthief]

Yes but like tallstark said it also doubles the speed of ships, which how motivated u might be is impossible and pls don't tell me that god was favouring them by adjusting the wind direction.

[Mythlacar]

A good chunk of ships had rows and sails, so unless CA wanted to do a fair bit of tricksy programming that would have caused more bugs than its worth, all ships get the bonus.

I myself wouldn't want to program it so that ships with rows get the bonus, but if one of the ships only has sails it doesn't.

[maksimus]

Like most of you, I have long ago figured out that playing a catholic faction is quite easy. Every Crusade nets you 30-40 units with experience, and 4-10 turns of no upkeep on 3-5 stacks of military, plus double movement to have your armies right where you want them at the end of the Crusade, usually at the door step of your next victim. All this, and you get attribute bonuses for doing it. Give the Pope a province and some cash once in awhile and you are pretty much an idiot if you can't work it.

Conversely Orthodox have no jihad/crusade, both larger factions have no religious affinity with you, there are no easy attribute winners etc...

I know by design some factions are harder than others and I agree with that strategy; it makes the game more playable in the long run, as you always have new factions to try and new strategies to develop. I just wish there was more flavor so to speak in the Orthodox world, it seems like its pretty lazy game design. Flame away if you think I am wrong or I am missing something...

I think that CA addressed and looked upon (and you can easily see credits to confirm) for all and too much historic advices and issues from Western historians that manly tend to describe ''Conversely Orthodox'' as ''less important'' in the MTW2 period ... So at the begining you cant even start a game as Orthodox..
And truly.. Orthodox had their Crusades - it's just that ''Crusade'' as an expression is kept exclusive for Catholic armies for no strong reason - while millennium long Orthodox struggle agains Islam/Nomad break into Europe is completely neglected -
And here is the point = even Orthodox organized Crusades in the game time period but they are not described that way in ''some'' History books (in Germany for example - I read some). Orthodox too had battle-knight orders that were the same as Templars for example, and many of those Orthodox knights were descendant of millennium old Roman families that fleed to Constantinopolis after the fall of the Western Empire (yes, all famosu Roman families fled to Constantinopol after the fall of Rome - that is why Byzantines is a wrong name = Byzantines were Romans) ...

But there is one clear difference in the Catholic and Ortodox crusades and their battle orders: While Catholic organized periodical campaigns, Orthodox had their constant struggle against the same enemy (which does not mean those constant fights were not organized as one Wester Crusade at some point)

Clearly the game was not made for everyone.. I suggest ANNO DOMINI - I think it is the best mod for MTW2