Playing as an Italian faction

[For Victory]

I have been wanting to play as an Italian faction like Venice or Milan. I am using either Stainless Steel or the Grand Campaign mods. Which Italian faction is more suited to a skill-challenged player? For whichever one, how should the first few turns go? Thank you very much.

[Viking Prince]

I am working on a short campaign guide for the three Italian factions at this very moment. I certainly wished I was ready to post.


To be honest the Italian factions are no more difficult than any other faction in the game. Each faction plays a bit different due to the unit mix and the geogaphy.


The factions are similar but differant. Milan is a pure two city urban wonder with the best early crossbows. Venice is a cross between empire and urban city at the start. Sicily is the cross of the Normans with a castle and Norman Knights with the Urban spears and crossbows. Sicily lacks the Carroccio Standard which is kind of a fun unit.


If you were to just look at the short campaigns, you can complete each in about 75 turns. I think my first one was Sicily because they seemed best able to expand without plowing into interfaction combat in the middle of Italy at the beginning. I discovered that this was not true with any of the factions though.


I hope to post my guide in about a week. Get started and you can correct my errors! Good luck and keep us informed!

[For Victory]

Hi Viking Prince, thank you for your helpful reply. I look forward to your guides. I doubt that I will have anything to add but I will endeavor to try. Yesterday I played as Venice. Here's a few things I noticed. There seemed to be merchant trade resources everywhere, so I tried to pump out Merchants in the beginning to capitalize on this. Apparently there is a merchant cap per city, so I was unable to really cover all the trade resources. Eventually merchants from other factions moved in and started using them.

Next, having a far flung city like Iraklion was a pain. The pope asked me to send a priest there as a sign of good faith, and since there was no governor there I had to make one in Venice and send it to Iraklion by boat. That took too long and I failed the mission, which made the Pope like me less. Also, there seemed to be a bit of religious upheaval. I had my first heretic sprout up south of the capital. Thankfully a brand new priest that I recruited was able to rebuke him, which surprised me as he only had a 33% chance of success.

So, simply put, in the beginning I concentrated my efforts towards economy and forsook training a new army. Which reminds me, Iraklion, having no rulership kept creating Spear Militia over and over again which I found annoying. Short of sending a governor there by boat, I have no idea how to stop that process. I suppose that if Iraklion was invaded the extra manpower would be helpful but that never came to pass. As the turns wore on, foreign Princesses came out of the woodwork making offers to my young men, as did trade offers. So before too long I had about 30,000 florins in the coffers, which I know is a paltry sum in comparison to late-game amounts but that is the most financial amount I have ever had, as I usually run my kingdom into the red ink with poor spending practices.

Thankfully I never had to deal with enemy incursions in that short play session. I am going to re-start the campaign later as I wasn't satisfied with my abilities, once I do so I will post updates, hopefully of a more combat-oriented nature. Thanks again Viking Prince, I look forward to any observations you might have.

[Viking Prince]

When beginning a campaign you can check the box at the bottom of the page to manage all settlements. Then you can build the buildings and in his case revruit the priest. Also you can uncheck the recruit box on the settlement and direct the recuitment from there. Only if you wish to do nothing with no governor are you limited to that way of playing the game. It is up to you thouh. That is the great thing about this game.

[For Victory]

Hmm, I didn't realize that I had that option checked. I was also wondering something that can relate to any faction. What do you do when you are just starting out, are relatively poor, with a small army and the council of nobles gives you a mission to take a rebel city? Thanks again.

[Muagan_ra]

You quickly raise forces and attack the rebels. Mercenaries are useful for this. Almost all rebel cities that your nobles are scripted to direct you towards are weak enough to be dealt with by the forces you have.

[Viking Prince]

There is no settlement that cannot be taken by starving the enemy to sally out to an open field battle. Mercenaries are not needed and neither is sacking the settlement. This is always up to you and your style of play at the moment though.

[Muagan_ra]

There is no settlement that cannot be taken by starving the enemy to sally out to an open field battle. Mercenaries are not needed and neither is sacking the settlement. This is always up to you and your style of play at the moment though.

That depends on the settlement. The "rebels" in the Holy Land, and certain places like Valencia and Bruges need some decent troops to fight against - and at the start of the game, mercenaries can help.

[Viking Prince]

Valancia can be taken with a good general, a couple of jinetes and some militia spears. Add patience for success. El Cid is not so impressive when starved out of his stronghold. The others are not on the Council of Nobles list until later when drill square castle units are available unless you are already blitzing and burning all of Europe. As far as the Holy Land is concerned -- how makes such requests so early?

Edit: I posted a very incomplete guide to the Italian Peninsula to help get you going:

Italian Peninsula Guide

If it helps you out -- great. Keep us informed!

[For Victory]

Thank you! I'll start reading it now.

[Commander5xl]

yea my AAR as Egypt have ought battles, I got totally massacred at Damascus with a full stack of Jihad men (i actually took the city but lost 600 men to 200) although 3/4 of my men where Ghazis :|