Playing with Sicily (where to expand?)

[Stevcho the Serb]

First of all hello to everyone. I'm new to this forum, so I've spent a few days reading articles, and i was pleasantly suprised.I have learned alot about MTW that i didn't know.I play MTW 2 without any mods version 1.2

Strange though, because my favourite faction is Sicily, i haevent find alot about playing with Sicily in this forum. So i have decided to present you my tactic with playing with Sicily.
The tactic is how i call it "semi turtle" and im gonna show you how it works.
First of all: diplomacy. I find an alliance with the pope a must! Besides great relations, it will give your other catholic opponents a bad reputation with the pope, and if they get excommunicated you can easily ask the pope to declare crusades on them, and ruin their country. Pope will happily accept alliance with you at start. With all other factions you should concetrate on trade.
Sicily has great army rooster at beggining, powerfull enough to take out whole of Northern Italy, but i prefer this : after taking two islands citys ( Cagliary and Ajaccio) you should rush to take Florence somewhere around turn 15.
At this time (around turn 20) the HRE and Milan with look at you with hate, and it is highly possible that they will blocade your port and start war with you.
So immediately after taking Florence, you should bring some Muslim Archers and Norman knights from Palermo (after you have upgraded practice range and and your castle, and you should do these two ) and you will be able to take Bologna with ease ( i hope i spelled it good), its full of town militias and peasant archers.
You shoud also have one diplomat outside Rome, ready to negotiate with Papacy.
After taking Bologna both Milan and Venice will look to declare war on you so you should hury to give both Florence and Bologna to the pope in return for military accses and some gold.
Or, you can go and do what i have done and thats take Genova immediately, because Milan will surely later blocade your ports at Ajaccio etc. so you shoud take their only port city to make sure you wont be harassed later.
So if you have took both Bologna and Genova along with Forence you should give it to the pope for military accses and some money asap, that will prevent the war to escalate and prevent Venice from declaring war to you (wich will be a pain in the a** because of their navy blocading your ports) and than retreat your army of italian militias norman knights and muslim archers (who are almost better than longbowmen ) to Naples. (Btw, this is a perfect scenario, i have restarted the game 4-5 times to be like this )
But supposing you have done all this, than your priority should be making peace with HRE and Milan (they should happily accept it) since you no longer border any of them.
And with that your northern borders will be sealed and you wont be attacked from the north.
[all those previous actions should be taken as soon as you can.]

By now the upkeep of the army that conquered northern italy should stress your economy and you should disband any unnecesary units (keep only militias in towns because of free upkeep).
The next step is expanding into africa and i will try to explain:
1.All the actions you have took: to give those 2-3 towns to pope are to have safe norhtern borders so you will be free to expand to africa against moors, egypt etc.
2.I think that taking africa should be priority because from there you will form a strong both financial (wealthy towns, trade) and military base for futher expanding into Iberia or Asia Minor, as you wish.

Since you should have good relations with the pope (vital for this strategy) you can ask him to declare a crusade on Tunis or Algeria and you should immediately join with your armies to reduce upkeep and head off to conquer Africa.
This should't be very hard (since your units are typiccaly better than Moorish), and because you should combine it with the crusades.
Every province you take you should convert to town since you have pretty good town units, and in nearly every town guild a Hospitaliers Knights guild should appear, so you will have heavy calvary combined with italian militia and pavise crossbowmen wich means pwnage!
Also you should treat pope as your best ally and try to "guide" him to conquer the norther european excommunicated factions through asking him to declare a crusade on them, wich he too will join. (esspecialy try to take out Venetians)
So i think thats about it. When you conquer Africa hopefully in under turn 100 you will have plenty of money and armies to go to Middle East or Iberia (although i suggest Iberia because Mongols should be rampaging through Middle East and Asia Minor).
The rest of the game shouldn't be hard for you because you should have enough money and armies to deal with everybody else including your good ally the pope, and pay him back for all the a** kissing and ing inquisitors.
This is my way of playing with Sicily and i know there are other good methods, but i found this best and i have won two times on base of this strategy, and if you like Sicily i think you should try this one.

[sorry for any text errors]

[fritsje5]

Just an idea for you maybe, this is what I usually do with sicily

In the first turn immediately send your princess to Rome and get papal favour, while you are training an army in Palermo. When your army is ready, request crusade on Tunis, immediately send your army and 2 generals to take Tunis. This will grant you 2 very good generals and when you see the oppurtunity and convert Tunis into a city, you will have a very nice income from Tunis. Of course you may want to consider taking Algiers first but I will leave that to you. The crusade to Tunis can be done in the first 4 turns or so.

[Stevcho the Serb]

Just an idea for you maybe, this is what I usually do with sicily

In the first turn immediately send your princess to Rome and get papal favour, while you are training an army in Palermo. When your army is ready, request crusade on Tunis, immediately send your army and 2 generals to take Tunis. This will grant you 2 very good generals and when you see the oppurtunity and convert Tunis into a city, you will have a very nice income from Tunis. Of course you may want to consider taking Algiers first but I will leave that to you. The crusade to Tunis can be done in the first 4 turns or so.

Yeah, i immediately send princess to Rome, just i dont crusade on Tunis untill I secure my northern borders.
Still a good idea though
Shall try it

[townie33]

I always get and alliance and trade rights with the pope which gives me the opportunity to call a crusade on Tunis, with both generals at Palermo. From Tunis I go take Florence with my prince and keep him there and build up untill i can recruit militia units there. While that is going on i send the other general to Cagliary and Ajacco. From here i turtle for about 10 turns because pretty soon Milan or Venice will be excom so you can call another crusade on one of them. I was lucky enough to call a crusade on Genoa, then take Milan, and then Venice. Never attack the HRE!!! You need that alliance to help contain Milan and Venice. Now you have all of Italy and a foothold in Africa. From there you can expand either into the moors, the Byzantines, or make a crusader state in the holy lands. and two more pieces in info, Durazzo is pointles to take unless you have a general with a full bar of chivalry and remember to control the islands of crete, rhodes, and cyprus, they help in controling the holy land.

[RollingWave]

Definately go for the Moors asap, Alger is their best castle off the bat , if you take it they won't be able to field anything other than spear milita and arab / desert cavs for ages. (plus they'll have troulbe on the Iberians anyway) taking Alger means you could also go for the awsome crazy resources at Timbutku and Arguin.)

Basically, Sciliy is one of the few Europeon factions that can avoid war on Europe, just annex Moors early on and then later push into the holy lands, you should get crazy high papal favors this way, and everyone else who tries to attack you will get excommuicated. then you can take their lands

[Gornard]

ignoring florence early on can work to your advantage, especially if your obvious ally the papel stats takes it, it will prevent you having a border flash point with the battle hungry itialian states, but on the other hand it is a rich city. Taking tunis before the moors is also an excellent option. You may also consider taking valancia off the bat. A weird one, but it's rarely taken by the AI on the first attempt. This gives you a safe castle in iberia to use as a second stagin point against the moors or to open up other areas for conquest.
The two islands are slow to grow i find and constantly raided, but if you don't take them eventually someone else will.

[Tusk]

I just started my Sicily campaign. I have taken the two islands, the small village around where Albania would be, Tunis, Tripoli and Florence. I had alliance with almost every Christian faction.

However I have now been attacked by Milan in Corsica. I sent my arm up and scared them off and now i am seigeing Genoa. I am worried the pope might tell me to stop fighting before i get a chance to get some revenge. How do you stop this? Also i like your idea stevcho of calling crusades on the African settlements.

oh and what are the rules about getting your upkeep paid for in settlements? As in do you automatically get the two most expensive garrisons free or is it linked to settlement/castle size?

[killervomit2]

sicily is in a prime position for trade
NOTICE:THIS IS OBSOLETE IF YOU USE THE add_money cheat!!!!!
turns 1-50:send diplomats/princesses to get trade rights with every faction you can, capture all rebel provinces in central mediterranean, when you capture these focus completely on economic buildings,make palermo and naples your financial centers
turns 50-100:build up economy,if attacked make peace asap
turns 100-end of game:by now you should have an economy large enough to fight/bribe your way to glory