can't beat the campaign

[razuel]

I got a little while ago ME2TW and have tried completing the campaign on normal difficulty, but failed 4 times now. I'm by no means inexperienced in this type of game, but I can't seem to win (hold 45 regions including jerusalem/whatever fation I'm playing). The furthest I've gotten is 20ish regions.

Different factions keep attacking me and I end up being at war with 3-4 at once making it near impossible. I'm going with the automatic outcome of battles, could that effect it? I'm also not utilizing my priest or assassin at all, is that much of a factor?

Any tips/suggestions/advice are welcome, thanks.

[Iustinianos]

Well, maybe you should start with easy and then work your way up. My advise is: fight the battles yourself. It will give you a lot more wins. You can't trust the automatically resolve button(unless it's like 1000-1 in your favor) Just fight the battles yourself, work out strategies so you'll start winning battles. Priest are quite usefull to increase the amount of catholics/muslims(imam)/orthodox christians in your regions which will make your people happier. About assasins: it really depends on the way you play the game. I for instance rarely use assasins, but if you like them you should use them as much as you can for they can be quite effective. Assasinating an enemy general can really be in your favor...hope it helped.

[skullman86]

Pretty much everything Iustinianos said and I'd like to add allying with the pope should be your #1 priority (pretty much as any faction, catholic or not) and try to keep your alliances well organized, eg. don't ally or trade with the enemies of your allies...etc.If you can get away with very high taxes (still have a green face) then do it!!

A strategy I use in the beginning of some games for keeping enemies at bay is build mostly castles on my front lines so that I can produce my good military units where I feel they will be needed most and I build cities where I am the only faction in the area...basically keep soft targets deeper in the kingdom where you are less likely to fight battles.This allows you to keep smaller garrisons in the central part of your territory while having full stacks where they are needed.

I cant think of any other general advice but if you gave some insight as to which faction you enjoy playing as I'm sure you'd get more tips :original:

[Aedan2812]

As your kingdom rows more people are going to attack you, thats just the way it is. As skullman86 said build castles on the frontier and keep minimal garrisons in your heartlands. For every castle i have however i have at least 3 or 4 cities to suport armies and the decreased income of castles. Don't fill your cities with units just fill up the free upkeep slots and you'll be fine. But make sure there is a castle and a stack of two relatively close to the city incase an enemy attacks it.

When lots of factions begin to attack you, just defend your kingdom for a while and build up armies, eventually (if you are a Catholic Faction and they are a Catholic Faction) the attacking faction will be excommunicated. When this happens send all the stacks you built up into their lands and start taking some settlements. I've done this and with the help of spies or a catapult i've been able to take 3 settlements out per turn and have the faction destroyed in about 5-10 turns with difficulty at vh/vh.

So just make sure you have a good economy before you start invading other countries.

[man]

If you can get away with very high taxes (still have a green face) then do it!!
say as u may but that is only a short term sloutioni tried that as venice and my money in the town just kept going down(along with the public orfder5) and my campsign got OwNeD

if u want to win be HRE and destroy milan ASAP as they are a pain up the backside

[NobleNick]

Razuel and jehanzeb,

Iustinianos' advice is excellent:

Well, maybe you should start with easy and then work your way up. My advise is: fight the battles yourself. It will give you a lot more wins. You can't trust the automatically resolve button ... Just fight the battles yourself, work out strategies so you'll start winning battles. Priest are quite usefull to increase the amount of catholics/muslims(imam)/orthodox christians in your regions which will make your people happier...

Try playing on Easy/Easy, just for one campaign. If you can't win with any faction, start as England, and keep playing as England until you win: If you can't win as England on Easy/Easy, you can't win (yet).

Move the difficulty up slowly after you get a win.

Fight every battle manually. (The AI is absolutely atrocious.) Plan your strategy before placing troops. Pause every battle as often and as long as you need in order to ensure your strategy is executed. When you get the screen which says you have won the battle, continue playing, capturing every last routing enemy soldier which you can. Ransom them for extra cash. If you are losing more than 1 land battle out of 10, something is wrong.

Get street smart by reading the tips, tricks and techniques threads.

Invest in your economic buildings: farms; markets; roads; ports; mines; and Public order-enhancing buildings like churches and Inns. It is possible to prosecute a war while investing the bulk of your money in economy.

Try to keep at least 3 to 4 cities for every castle. Try to not invest in castle-only buildings which are in a castle you intend to convert to a city. Think ahead.

Put in-game battle advice and campaign advice on HIGH, and LISTEN to what they say. Listen especially to the campaign advice given at the very, very start of the campaign. There will come a time when you will know what to do better than the advisors. For now: listen.

To come close to what Strom was saying (but I think he said the opposite of what he meant) --> If (number of turns played) / (number of territories held) is GREATER than 4, then something is probably wrong. In the M2TW campaigns I have so far played, I've averaged about 42 territories conquered in 100 turns = about 2.5 turns / territory. In the early game it is slower. But even in my current Byzantium H/VH (or VH/VH, I forget) game, which I consider challenging, I've conquered 9 new territories, for a total of 12 territories, 37 turns into the campaign = about 3.1 turns / territory.

Diplomacy: Make enough diplomats so that you have at least 2 diplomats at the start of the game, immediately work one of your diplomats down towards Pope-land, getting trade agreemants as you go. Use both diplomats to get as many trade agreements as possible, as early in the game as possible.

Pope-plomacy (for Catholic factions) : Fight only rebels at the start of the game. Always vote for the Pope you think will win, even if he is not your bishop. Give gifts to the Pope once you hit the early mid-game. Gift the Pope about 200 per turn to keep your standing high.

Military: Keep free militia as garrison troops in cities. Make churches and use priests as necessary to keep conversion rates high, so that cities do not need large garrisons. Specialize each castle for cav, swords or archers. You will need all three, but don't try to make each castle capable of building all three.

Do not build any unit unless you know exactly what you want to do with it. THere are three legitimate reasons to build units: 1.) conquer settlement X; 2.) Increase garrison to quell unrest or 3.) protect against an emminent attack (i.e., you can see the enemy stack coming). Use churches and other buildings to minimize the need for reason 2. After the enemy threat is gone (reason 3) immediately convert those troops to reason 1.

England gets reasonable cavalry, excellent archers, and probably the second most cost effective unit in the game: English Armored Swords (EAS). A stack of 10 EAS, backed by 5 Retinue Longbows, 4 knights, and a general, can easily rip through just about any challenge the AI will throw at you (other than Mongols/Timurids, and they are half a map away).

I hope this helps.

[Strom]

To come close to what Strom was saying (but I think he said the opposite of what he meant) --> If (number of turns played) / (number of territories held) is GREATER than 4, then something is probably wrong. In the M2TW campaigns I have so far played, I've averaged about 42 territories conquered in 100 turns = about 2.5 turns / territory. In the early game it is slower. But even in my current Byzantium H/VH (or VH/VH, I forget) game, which I consider challenging, I've conquered 9 new territories, for a total of 12 territories, 37 turns into the campaign = about 3.1 turns / territory.

What I meant to say (but didn't do a good job of) is:
If (turns remaining)/(provinces you need to acquire)<4 then you are in trouble and seriously need to rethink what's going on.

So if you have 22 turns left and need 6 more provinces (i.e. you have 39 provinces) then you are in real danger of running out of time. This is especially true if you have occupied (or need to occupy) areas where there are Mongols and/or Timurids. And you obviously have to allow some extra time if you still need to capture a specific victory condition city like Jerusalem.

I don't claim to be as good as many of the veterans posting on this board but I guess I could fire up a new England campaign on medium/medium and give a run-through of how it starts if you like?

[attilavolciak07]

Just play a short campaign as Egypt or Spain and attack early

[Wheelchair]

I recommend you download the mod Stainless Steel.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=80216

Download that, follow the instructions and such. Personally it is my favorite mod, it balances everything, makes the AI smarter and more responsive to diplomacy, which if a big benefit for me.

What i do early in a campaign is get trade right > alliance > 100Florins/Turn to the other faction, do that for the whole campaign and every 20 turns increase the amount by 100, this should keep that nation from attacking you for a long period of time.

[Ruprecht]

I got a little while ago ME2TW and have tried completing the campaign on normal difficulty, but failed 4 times now. I'm by no means inexperienced in this type of game, but I can't seem to win (hold 45 regions including jerusalem/whatever fation I'm playing). The furthest I've gotten is 20ish regions.

Different factions keep attacking me and I end up being at war with 3-4 at once making it near impossible. I'm going with the automatic outcome of battles, could that effect it? I'm also not utilizing my priest or assassin at all, is that much of a factor?

Any tips/suggestions/advice are welcome, thanks.

Hi and welcome to TWC.


Would i be correct to say your main problem lies in the financial side of things ?, i only say this because no matter how bad you are at winning battles, if you have a good economy you will still power through it.

The most important part of the campaign is right at the beggining. from turn one you need to start claiming new lands, so any rebel settlements around you should be taken swiftly, two reasons for this : you hit them while their army is weak and secondly so you beat other factions to it.

If there is a lack of rebel settlements around you, either due to your map position, or other faction have already claimed them, you must pick an enemy and start taking thier settlements, but choose carefully.

The reason it's so important to claim more land early on, is so you can set up a decent income for your empire. start building mostly all economic building upgrades, making sure you only have minimal castles and more cities to maximise profit.

Don't train massive armies at the start, becuase that will cripple you financially. once your settlements are making sufficient profits, then you can start proper unit production. if you stick by these guidlines you won't run out of money and you can always afford to train new armies.

Goodluck with your next campaign.

[Pontifex Maximus]

I'm going with the automatic outcome of battles, could that effect it?

That could greatly affect it. Chances are the auto resovle is giving you way too many casualties per battle, as it always does. Fighting out the battles almost ensures a higher surviving troop count. Try fighting all the battles out, even if it is tedious adn see how well you do.

Good Luck!

[Ruprecht]

That could greatly affect it. Chances are the auto resovle is giving you way too many casualties per battle, as it always does. Fighting out the battles almost ensures a higher surviving troop count. Try fighting all the battles out, even if it is tedious adn see how well you do.

Good Luck!

Totally agree's, i just wanted to mention how effective fighting your own battles is.

In some cases if you have say 1000 men and the enemy has 1100, if you Auto-resolve you could have up to 500 casualties, and the same battle played by you could reduce this to even 30 - 80, it's all about strategy and we human's are generally smarter than our AI counterparts, so take your time and think a bit about your battle and good things will come of it.

[razuel]

Thanks for all of the wonderful advice everyone, that helps a lot. I'll get on it.

[Dane324]

It may be a good idea to play your first campaign as England since they are easily the least challenging of factions to play as. Make sure to work on your economy by building mines, roads, ports etc. and of course upgrading cities and castles. And try to forge some alliances, sometimes they can last for 100 years . Also remember to play to a factions strengths (If your England, it would not be a wise idea to make an army of cavalry, but to balance with mainly your superior missile troops and infantry supplemented with some cavalry and artillery). Also about the Auto-resolve, if you have been losing a lot of battles that you think you can win, it might be a good idea to try and command them your self, because afetr all, we all are smarter then our computers .
Good luck and have fun.

[razuel]

Yeah I started as Venice then tried England. The problem with taking land is that there are Catholics all around me. Scotland to the north, France to the South, Denmark to the east-- who can I attack without being excommunicated? Over half the time I was excommunicated and at war with France, Spain, Portugal.

[Ruprecht]

Yeah I started as Venice then tried England. The problem with taking land is that there are Catholics all around me. Scotland to the north, France to the South, Denmark to the east-- who can I attack without being excommunicated? Over half the time I was excommunicated and at war with France, Spain, Portugal.

When i played England, i started taking all rebel settlements i could, and after that i chose to attack france, becuase it's most likely this will happen anyway.

Here is a screen of my early progress with england.




As you notice i don't waste any time, as i frantically march my troops to any and all possible settlements to take.

By turn 30 it should look something like this.



Once you have a foothold like that, it makes it much easier to progress later on in the game.

When using the English, don't be afraid to use the stakes, as you can see the cavalry are no match for long pointy things.



The best/easiest way to win battles is to make good use of your siege engines, and being sneaky defenetly pays off, try to employ tactics like these.

Here i positioned my main army at the front to distract the enemy from my little covert operation at the back of their city. they get confused and don't know which side to reinforce.




The longbowmen, they are the backbone of the English army. i have won many of battles off the tip of thier arrows and stakes.






Hope that was helpful for you, if not entertaining.

[mukali]

Yeah I started as Venice then tried England. The problem with taking land is that there are Catholics all around me. Scotland to the north, France to the South, Denmark to the east-- who can I attack without being excommunicated? Over half the time I was excommunicated and at war with France, Spain, Portugal.

As a Catholic faction, priests are very important so that you can control the college of cardinals and get your man elected as pope. I imagine you are the single most powerful faction if you have 20-ish regions. During that build up, if you are building churches and upgrading to cathedrals, etc... the priests you train will get better. Gradually you will get more of your cardinals on the college. I never completely controlled the college of cardinals, but often had all but 2 or 3 positions. So one of my cardinals always became pope and then your relations with the Papal States is very high, sometimes perfect.

Earlier in the game, you must not be too aggressive vs other catholoic factions. Let them be the agressor and get ex-communicated. the you can attack them with impunity.

[Iustinianos]

Yeah I started as Venice then tried England. The problem with taking land is that there are Catholics all around me. Scotland to the north, France to the South, Denmark to the east-- who can I attack without being excommunicated? Over half the time I was excommunicated and at war with France, Spain, Portugal.

As England it is quite easy to destroy Scotland. You just need some spies or some catapults. Scotland hardly ever has more then two regions: Edinburgh and Inverness. Just put three-four spies in those cities and then blitz them, you can destroy them in one turn. That way the pope will not be able to excommunicate you . France is much harder to defeat tough. In my latest English campaign I waited until they started attacking me. So they besieged Rennes, I immidiatly started the siege of Rheims and Bordeaux. A turn later I got a warning from the pope to cease hostilities against France, so I did, but they didn't. One turn later they got excommunicated and I launched a crusade against Toulouse . All of Christendom declared war on France. Another personal advice for England: make the HRE as your ally, they proved to be a good ally to me against France. Good to hear that you're doing better

[TiTiTimmy]

Change the time scale in the descr_strat text file from 2.0 to 0.5. Then you will play 900 turns instead of 225.

[Old Geezer]

Being Venice, excommunicated half of the time, and autoresolving battles and you survived with 20 provinces! I think you did magnificently well and are to be congratulated, sir.