House Rules

[SPARTAN VI]

What are your house rules?

Keep the bloodline pure, never adopt?
Only crusade/jihad with your King or Prince?
Exterminate/release prisoners?
Spread your faith?
Imperialism centric?
Turtle (passive) centric?

I play by ear mostly. Groom the youngest generals regardless of their family bloodline in hopes of making uber generals. Only coincidence if they happen to be faction heirs, although I'm usually not so lucky.

Recently came up with the idea of posting small companies to guard all access points to my empire; blocks agents from getting in, namely merchants who seem to always beat down my merchants. Also can make for interesting bridge battles if the AI chooses to engage. Game could use more bridge battles, always great fun especially with artillery!

Lastly, I like to sabotage my stronger allies. Drop spies in their settlements to cause unrest, then an army of assassins to destroy all their civic buildings. Leads to revolt, rinse and repeat until empire is divided. Cheap way of fighting them without open war, and keeps them wasting money on repairing buildings, then eventually sending an army spending manpower and money to recap the settlements.

[Wheelchair]

Most my games just involve conquering everything, by any means.

I find turtle to be very fun as an Island nation... such as England.

[ragupasta]

Im a big lover of Spys and assassins. I usually have as many as I can support. I finally managed to destroy Milan the other day without laying a sword nor arrow on them. The Danes was beating them down, and I (England) kept killing their generals.

Note: Always keep a small contingent of rebels in yout lands to train up your assassins subterfuge/assassins skills. Works a charm.

[Sorkenlol]

At the moment I couldn't care less about faith or bloodline, I just conquer as much as I can, as long as the general/prince is viable for battle he's welcomed into the family.

[jsktrogdor]

I like turtling better than rapid expansion, my empire gets sloppy when I expand to fast and the OCD kicks in and I delete the save. I try to keep rep high as possible so I always occupy settlements....HOWEVER!!!!! if my ally backstabs me when i least expect it and gets me excommunicated....france.....i will thrash and burn and rape and pillage till the word "france" is stricken from all historical records.

[Sparkshot]

I like turtling better than rapid expansion, my empire gets sloppy when I expand to fast and the OCD kicks in and I delete the save. I try to keep rep high as possible so I always occupy settlements....HOWEVER!!!!! if my ally backstabs me when i least expect it and gets me excommunicated....france.....i will thrash and burn and rape and pillage till the word "france" is stricken from all historical records.

Same with me, having too large of an empire creates anxiety, making the game no longer enjoyable. I like having a manageable empire at my leisure. For the most part, my generals are assigned to governor posts in order to prune them for good traits and keep the people happy. I feel uncomfortable leaving my provinces unattended, though I know many can take province after province with the same general without hesitation. CA should have allowed clergymen to be appointed to governor positions considering that they were among the most educated in Europe and were know to do so from time to time.

I'm more of an administrator/capitalist/trader than a conqueror, so obviously I dislike war because it interferes with commerce. I use the isolation method and keep to myself. For precaution sack and to control the Papacy, I ally with Papal States and only attack those who attack me via a crusade. When the timing is right, then I expand.

CA should have also included more island provinces so I would be less anxious about defenses and republics like Venice, Genoa, and Pisa could duke it out over the control of trade the maritime way.

[Samir]

some of my house rules:

+ family rules
try to keep a blood line.

+ diplomacy rules
few alliances. marriage alliances are the only way of alliance, anything else is just a temporary ceasefire

depending on the nation I completly obey or completly ignore the pope (Englands, Hungary or HREs kings had a troubled relationship with the pope, while spanish folks rarely had that problem)

if someone kills a family member either by assassination or in battle, take revenge, on the whole family including wifes, kids, friends, people who owe them money, happen to live in the same province or are allied with them.

+ army rules
medieval armies did not consist 100% of elite knights. to reflect this (and to make the battles harder) I limit myself to a maximum of 6 knight units dismounted or mounted. Full stacks are filled up with peasants and other low quality troops.

no crossbows versus christians if playing a papal friendly faction

+ agents
spies and assassins depending on the faction. islamic and italian factions may use them more than others.

+ region rules
I take my factions home land. I occupy those provinces and develop them. These are MY people. the basis of my empire. they get treated good in general (if they dont question my rule too much at least). Diplomats & priests are to be trained in my homeland

anything else is just prey. kill them, hang them, squeeze them. very high taxes, hardly any development of the provinces, extinguishing revolts like camp fires. dont take any of them prisoners.

+ crusade / jihad
depending on the papal relation I either obey the pope or use crusades for my own purposes. I use crusades as a political rather than military tool, often not even joining them but pushing other factions into a war that costs them money, troops and alliances.

jihads are a whole different story, if any of my muslim generals join it, they fullfill their pledge. no "negotiation" if this or that was the target of the jihad...

[dearmad]

House rules are not the same as play style, methinks.

My house rules are:
The battle is over once that option menu appears. I never pursue the enemy. Since the AI doesn't pursue when the battle is over and I've lost.

I never place more than one spy in an enemy settlement.

When a general dies in combat- no matter how unfair I think it is. I play through.

[Gigantus]

1. Don't start a war.
2. Don't provoke a war. (Assassins and Spies allowed, but not stupidly)
3. Accept cease fires.
4. One alliance max, never to be broken by me.
5. Keep the pope happy (as long as it is not against the other rules.) Not applicable for non-catholic factions
6. Don't exterminate. Convert first.

And now try this with Hungary.

[Shadow8]

1: take any surrounding area that i can rightfully call mine without disrupting another faction's territory. IE: england owning the british isles besides scotland.

2: make as much money as possible by building a supportive infrastructure in my settlements and territories.

3:no peasants in the army, an army of peasants might as well be called a loyal mob

4:keep the pope on my goodside, as long as his crappy yapping doesn't get me into war with another faction.

5: try and occupy and not sack, what use is a settlement with noone living in it.

6:be open to peace offers if war does break out, and try not to destroy factions off the bat (yes this does affect your rep+ your pope standing if it is a catholic faction)

[SPARTAN VI]

Yeah you're right dearmad, house rules =/= play style, but they somewhat overlap.

In RTW, I'd often send my accomplished and perfected faction leader back to the capital to spend his last days in his homeland to die peacefully then the heir takes over his army. Don't get to do that very often, if at all, in M2TW because the heirs\leaders usually end up being some mediocre family member while I'm off grooming the younger and better generals.

I usually don't use peasants, but one unit is pretty good for a castle garrison just so some ninja army can't sneak in. Basically use peasants to guard bridges, shallows, and other natural bottlenecks to restrict agent movement.

[Kinshejsi]

I implement myself some rules:

- Keep a pure bloodline
- Put cities on automanage and try to govern as many cities as possible by generals
- Only a 4 or more star general may go to war, once generals are 50+ they retire from war and govern a city since I find it not realistic that an old grandpa can still go to war.
- Missions are important and I do them always.
- Keep the pope happy.
- If I'm at war with more than one faction I accept ceasfires.
- I always keep my troops balanced (not only ha armies)
- I only expand my territory to bordering regions and do not attack the enemy on another side. Meaning that when I have a front on north-east France, I do not sail to south-west france and backstab them. (Except for crusades since keeping the pope happy is important)
Edit: - I fight battles only when I'm outnumbered 1/2 ti'll 2/1 with captains, if it's more (like 2/5) I automanage. I do fight every battle with my generals and only automanage the battles I'll surely win.

[stormbringer951]

-Keep the bloodline pure
-Never get excommunicated
-Highly elite troops only go in the king or prince's army
-Accept ceasefires
-Use balanced armies
-When outnumbered by smaller enemy armies, offer battle (if you retreat, they will attack you with one army, rather than with all of them at once - so it's a bit cheating)
-When crusading or jihading, don't get sidetracked and take another city
-Don't hunt down enemy raiding parties with a full stack (use a light force from a local garrison)
-Blitz only in the first 20 turns
-Don't kill off (even completely) incompetent family members

[Arcani 4 Ever]

- Kings fight the battles the are big *risky but i believe in my skill*
-princes are always in the kings army
- good generals are adopted
-bad and crappy family members are sent in a world campaign to gain experience or simply get rid of them in a honorable way *it sucks i cant assassin my own generals*
- bad general same but i let them die alone
- never pay ransoms *why paying so much if you can build a same whole unit at the smae prize?*
-never ask for ransoms and kill them no matter who they are
- and finally dont treat your peopel badly unless they treat you bad and youre baign fair

[SPARTAN VI]

-princes are always in the kings army

Interesting, it makes sense to have the son in his father's army, if heir and leader happen to be father and son. However, I think this would make for a bad rule. Only one general really gains retinue through battles and it's the commanding general (could be wrong, but only the commanding general will gain command points). If the faction leader has the higher command rating, then I think he's going to hog all the retinue. You'll have to wait for him to die or give the heir his own army before he starts gaining retinue and grows as a commander.

[eisenkopf]

For me, my house rules depend on the faction I'm playing, because house rules should add some atmosphere and realism.

In general, I

- fight battles only with armies that are commanded by generals, otherwise it's autoresolve
- conquer rebel provinces first to give the AI factions some time to develop
- do not blitz
- rely on lots of low quality troops for mass (anvil) and very few high quality troops for speed and striking power (hammer)

In my recent Sicilian Lands to Conquer campaign (dubbed "Defender of the Faith"), I

- allied with the Pope only
- did always as he demanded (including Crusades etc.)
- never declared war on a catholic faction, and if they attacked me, tried to get a ceasefire as soon as possible
- no brothels, inn, spies, assassins
- always build up churches first
- only took my three homelands (Naples, Palermo, Tunis)
- then went on to conquer the Outremer (Antioch, Acre, Jerusalem) with the meager resources I had

That is a good fight with lots of fun and challenges.

[Antwerpen]

I can't really say about my rules, but about the prisoners: I do as want at that moment. If I like the faction or going to ceasefire them, I usually release prisoners. If I want to show the Europe that I am not the person to screw with, I just execute any prisoners I have.

[Old Geezer]

My only house rule is not watching that stupid idiot criminal self-styled doctor House on TV while (or at any other time) playing M2TW. I also try not to watch anything else. After all, what else can compete with M2TW for entertainment unless it is a game of 42?

[Arcinatus]

my house rule (i guess you could call it) is dont start expanding rapidly until you have a massive force capable of doing so (this excludes early on in the game where you can basically blitz all the rebel settlements around you.

so basically i dont start really expanding until the high period.