New Player - First Game Log

[ArcturusRising]

Hello all. I am a new player to Medieval 2 and the Total War series (been playing for about 1 week now). I made my first posts in a couple of other threads, but I don't want to hijack them, so I have started a new one here to continue the discussion and also update my game progress. I figured that reporting my game experience as a new player might be entertaining for some to read and also educational for me, when others choose to comment on it.

My first nation after the Tutorial was Venice and I choose to break away from the Catholic church and declare war on them. After conquering Milan, Florence, Genoa, Bologna, and a couple of bandit towns across the water, I managed to sack Rome last night. Here is a continuation of the posts I started in the other thread here: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...=252928&page=3

Hello all. Thank you very much to replying to my post and answering my question. As I mentioned in my first post, I am a new player (been playing less than 1 week now) and so I am playing on the default difficulty, which is quite challenging. I haven't changed any game options, I just loaded the game, played the Tutorial and then started my first Campaign. Although I am managing to keep my empire intact, I am expanding so slowly that I am not sure I will meet the victory requirements by the time the game ends; 45 territories is a lot! According to FAQs I read, the Mongols should be invading soon and I'm looking forward to that new challenge.

The Holy Roman Empire and Byzantium are attacking me relentlessly, but I am holding out. Iraklia just built a shipwright and I will begin pumping out War Ships soon. Up until now it has been a stalemate with naval control against Byzantium; I win more battles that I lose and I managed to blockade two of their ports, but they seem to build ships more frequently so I tend to lose my experienced ships due to repeat battles. I'm starting to learn from that though and I've updated my strategy and began pulling my fleets back into port to repair after one or two battles.

I sacked Rome last night, intentionally targerted the Abbey, Market, and Council Chambers with my catapults and ballistas, but only managed to do about 10% damage before I ran out of ammo. It was fun to see Rome burning though. Afterwards I conquered it I massacred the people (11,000 dead), but they had a new papal election, although I don't know where the current pope is. Should I get some notice if I destroy the last city of a nation? I don't think the Papal States have any other cities. As a final gesture of my liberation from Catholic church, I went to every city in my empire and destroyed their churches.

Sicily just declared war on me, but they are not a significant military threat and I'm ignoring them for now. Milan (the nation) has one city left in France and I have a mission to assassinate their leader, but he doesn't appear to be home. I've been gaining experience by assassinating easy people. HRE continues to send armies south to attack me, but never in significant enough force. My assassins get great experience killing their "Captains."

I appeared to have received a female general (based upon the face and the name), but the game still refers to him as a guy. Unfortunately, he/she died at the young age of 23 in the final battle against Rome.

My next goals are to finish off the last city of [the nation of] Milan and then turn my focus on Byzantium.

[Muagan_ra]

Sounds like you're having fun - anyone who sticks it to the Pope is a friend of mine.

Anywho, to answer your question, the Papal States can not be destroyed. If Rome and all their other territories are conquered, they are normally "given" a territory from a particularly pious Catholic faction.

[whitesoxfan]

Also, you're stuck with Catholicism as your official religion. Non-catholics will cause unhappiness in your cities. Assassinate heretics quickly, because they'll cause permanent damage by converting people to heretics.

[Barry]

You are playing a risky game there son, bu a fun one. I once had an AAR of Poland hell bent on bringing the church down and I can vouch for how fun it is. Good luck on defeating the mongols!

[ArcturusRising]

Thanks for the replies and the information! I'm having fun, but it is definitely challenging and I'm learning some things the hard way. I have noticed that public disorder is becoming an issue. To solve it, I have to maintain a high military presence in my cities and I've started building more buildings that increase happiness.

How many troops do you normally garrison in your cities to keep them happy?

I only played for a couple of hours last night. I'm slowly building up my War Ships, picking my fights, and keeping them near a port for repairs, for the time being. Earlier in the game I had several admirals how had made it to a silver chevron, but I was too aggressive and lost them. I'm trying to be more prudent now and build up strong experienced fleets. I did the same thing with a 3 bronze chevron sergeant cavalry who only had 1 survivor left. I marched him back to Ragnor Castle to retrain him and save a veteran unit.

I'm still being attacked by HRE and Byzantium on two different fronts and although they haven't come in force, it is certainly draining resources to fight them off and also requires me to constantly keep my cities well garrisoned. I still don't have enough generals to manage all of my cities as they keep dying in combat due to me being too aggressive with their unit. Sometimes there will still be lots of bodyguards left and my leader will be the one to die.

It is only turn 60 so the Mongols should be coming soon, but it might take them a little while to reach my borders. I'm currently allied with Hungary and I'm moving a diplomat towards their capitol so I can talk with them. I'm not really sure how to use the alliance to my advantage. They certainly haven't aided me against my current enemies.

I had two interesting battles last night. In the first battle, my army spawned on top of a mountian overlooking the enemy. I thought this was awesome at first and my archers started shooting at them, but it was too steep for my ballistas to target them. Eventually, I realized that it was impossible for either army to reach each other on foot and I ran out of arrows. I sat there for awhile trying to find a way down, but no luck. I had to abandon the battle after killing 49% of their forces, because I ran out of arrows.

The second battle was amazing and I took some screenshots and will try to upload them later. I sent my general from Venice to engage an HRE captain who was moving south into my lands, with 2 units of Italian Spearmen Militia, 1 3 bronze chevron Italian Spearman Milita, 2 Pavise Crossbowen Militia, and the General's Bodyguards who were silver chevroned. I attacked the Captain and instead of going into battle, his character on the big map just walked backwards. I noticed behind him, previously covered in the fog of war, was an HRE Prince with about 900 soldiers, 3 times the size of my army, and they weren't militiamen either! I was nervous, because I already lose too many generals in combat, and I wasn't sure I could pull a victory out this fight when he surely engaged me on his turn.

As expected, the HRE Prince attacked on his turn with his 900+ army, and I met him on the field of battle. Too my surprise and great fortune, I realized my setup area was on the side of a mountain, on an elevated area that overlooked the battlefield, and was only approachable from 2 sides. I setup both of my archer units in the center where they had a clear field of fire all the way down the mountain slope, my two rookie Italian Spearmen Militia on the flanks in a circle formation (I don't know how to pronounce or spell the word), with my veteran Italian Spearmen Militia in the center, so he could respond to either side and reinforce any breakthroughs by the attacking enemy, and finally my bodyguard cavalry units behind the veterans to also respond to any breakthroughs and attack any targets of opportunity.

The formation I setup and the terrain were amazing. The enemy sent waves of knights and spearmen up the mountain, in addition to some bowmen and ballista units, with most of their corpses piling up at my spearmen's feet or strung out along the mountain from my crossbow bolts. The enemy never broke my formation and I slaughtered all 900+ of their army with me only taking minimal casualties. My general in the fight was the one who likes ladies with beards, so I thought it was pretty cool that a gay guy kicked ass.

I know the Mongols are supposed to be tough, but if I used the same strategy against them when they come, do you think it would work well?

I also got my first Man of the Hour last night. I heard the name mentioned before, but I didn't know what they were talking about. I'm looking forward to playing more tonight.

[Muagan_ra]

For purely garrison duties, use basic militia units. Cities will support a certain number of militia units for free while they are garrisoned (the number depends on the size of the city) - don't use peasants, they're cheap, but only count as half of a garisson.

"Man of the Hour" normally happens when you have an unmarried daughter/niece/granddaughter in your family. Captains who lead your armies successfully (ie, without a family member as general) have a chance of becoming candidates for adoption in those situations. Basically, when you're running low of male relatives, the game can pick them up that way. Be careful, though, as adopting sons can cause some other sons/nephews to lose loyalty - I guess it's the games way of emulating jealous court politics.

The Mongols... sorry to break it to you, but you've got quite a shock coming your way. A set battle against one of their armies is challenging, but doable - problem is that they arrive in a vast hoard, and more keep arriving. I'm writing a guide to facing them, should have it done reasonably soon, say in a weeks time. If you're still fighting them (which you may well be) maybe that will help.

In the mean time, search the forum for the topic of Mongols. You will find ample advice.

[Pink Beard]

It seems you're having quite the game, ArcturusRising!

Yes, like others said, be wary of the mongols.
As Venice I doubt you will confront them but they arrive in the east with about 9 full stacks of horse archers and other units as well as badass generals with almost full dread...

Also, do you happen to have any preferable Venetian unit? Like Italian spear militia?

[Jared Sinn]

pretty ambitious thumbing your nose at the pope right in the beginning of it all. Wait until he decides to call a crusade against you. Gotta try that sometime though, sounds like fun.