Notes on Strategy and Diplomacy

[Dumouriez]

So, I intend for this post to be about my game (England) last night and what I learned from it. Hopefully, it will be helpful to anyone running into similar questions and situations. I hope that those experienced in the game will be able to help me out with the questions that arise!

I started my game as England (Short campaign) in fully patched vanilla MTW2; Medium/Very Hard. The reason I chose those difficulty levels was because I heard that diplomacy is just about unheard of in campaign difficulties above medium, and I chose very hard battles because I am a Rome Total War veteran, and finally stopped playing that game because I thought it was too easy.

Upon starting the game, I sent out diplomats to Denmark, Holy Roman Empire, France, Papal States and later, Spain. I established trade rights, map info and alliances with each of them. I allied with each of these nations in order to have potential help against France when I eventually declared war on them. I allied with France for the short term because I did not want them attacking me while I dealt with Scotland. The Papal States was an alliance made in an effort to have some degree of control over the Pope.

After this diplomatic maneuvering I took York then Caernarvon (the town north of Nottingham and the town west of Nottingham respectively). As this was happening, I established trade rights with the Scots and exchanged map information. This was done to dissuade them from making the first move against me while I took the neutral towns. Afterwards, I cancelled trade rights with the Scots, AND THEN laid siege on Edinburgh. I believe this was integral to maintaining good relations with the other Catholic nations. Although, it could have just been because Scotland had never had the chance to ally with anyone.

*Note* As I secured the British Isles I made every single castle into a town, with the exclusion of Nottingham. This, along with building the proper economic buildings (roads, ports, markets, etc.) helped make sure that I've never had a problem with money in this campaign. I had Caen (your province on France) remain a castle in order to survive any potential French sieging force and to provide castle forces on the continent when I moved there.

Inverness, the northenmost Scottish province is where I ran into my first problems. I took it with major casualties because of one reason. An over-reliance on siege towers. When I played Rome Total War, siege towers were far superior to ladders in establishing a foothold of the walls, and seemed to rarely catch on fire. However, in MTW, they seem to have oil all over them or something. Each of my three siege towers caught on fire before getting a chance to disgorge their troops. So my first question is:

1. What is the best way to siege and take walls/towers? Are siege towers largely ineffective in vanilla MTW2?

Another problem I had at Inverness was, for some reason, the siege tower trying to get to the wall left of the gate decided to make a hard right to navigate around the slope, as if it were some impassable barrier, even though it looked exactly the same as the slope leading up to the wall on the right of the gate. This only seems to happen on the winter map.

2. Has anyone else ran into this problem I just described?

After securing the British Isles and conquering Ireland, I moved all my forces down to Caen and took Bruges with little issue. I don't remember if it was a castle or not, but I will emphasize again that it seems the best way make an economic killing is to have a mininum of castles and as many towns as strategically wise. I kept Nottingham a castle in order to ship units to the continental mainland and provide backup to my half-size stack that I kept in England to deal with rebels and confront any potential naval landings.

At this point, with Caen, Bruge, and the whole of Britain in my control, I wasn't sure what to do next. France's relations with me were good and they were also allied with Spain and the Holy Roman Empire, which I did not anticipate. This created a situation where, if I wanted to attack France, I had to probably break my alliances with everyone else and thus make it exponentially more difficult to take France.

So I waffled, and continued building up my settlements with the vast profits I was creating with my cities and towns. Out of curiosity, I decided to utilize my 'perfect' standing with the Papal States and Pope to call a crusade on Milan, who everyone seemed to hate. This was probably a mistake. I had failed to see that they were allied with the Holy Roman Empire, causing my alliance with them to dissipate when I sent a crusading force to attack the Milanese capital. Long story short, my crusade never made it because of constant problems trying to navigate them around French units/settlements (every time they got near, they would refuse to move for the rest of the turn), and they all deserted. After spending more time trying to figure out how to safely declare war on France, I called a crusade against the HRE after they attacked Denmark. I decided this time to sit on the sidelines and see if anyone could do it. A giant Polish army got close, but failed to take Frankfurt.

Then, all of a sudden, Spain jumped out of their ships and attacked Caernarvon. Despite my outstanding reputation with them they dropped the alliance... and so did Denmark!

3. What guarantee does an alliance give you that your allies will not attack you? Also, why do I never see allied forces assist me with my wars? Do I need to bribe my allies to attack factions I am at war with if I want allied assistance?

While attacking Bourdeaux, I tried to take it with a stack consisting mostly of billmen backed by a couple dismounted knights and longbowmen. The billmen suffered huge casualties.

4. What is the use of Billmen? They have great attack values, but terrible defence/armor. This makes it so it is impossible for them to hold the line and they suffer terrible casualties from inevitable missile fire.

I prepared my extra divisions sitting around Caen to attack the Iberian peninsula, leaving a minimal but solid defence at Caen and Bruges. The MOMENT I put my divisions on my boats (which coincidentally was right next to Bruges), a French stack ran over and laid siege to Bruges (making another alliance with excellent relations inexplicably fall to tatters). They seemed completely oblivious to my force right next to them on the boats. This is an interesting flaw in the AI that I may use again whenever I need someone to declare war on me.

So, at this point in the game, I'm at war with France and Spain, and the alliances I made at the beginning of the game have faded away probably as a result of my meaningless exercise at ordering crusades. The only nation I remained allied with was the Papal States. However, I'm in a strong position with two divisions (my word for full stacks) in the Bourdeaux region, a division in Caen and a division in Bruges. I'm going to seek peace with the Spanish to remove my worry about my flanks, and then attack France on all sides. I will simultaneously utilize my diplomats scattered throughout France and my immense coffers to bribe the heck out of any captain led force that emerges from their cities. I expect quick success, and I've learned quite a few lessons from my first game of MTW2 .

I hope that didn't drag on too much. It is my first post . If someone who has played the game a lot has the time, please let me know if you've had any experience with the problems I have listed. And hopefully, this has been a bit informative to anyone new to the game. My experience with Rome Total War has definitely helped with MTW2, sans the siege towers . Thanks all!

- Dumouriez


*Edit* I just remembered a few other questions I wanted to ask.

5. Is there an ideal formation for archers? I ask because sometimes they shoot straight at the foe, and sometimes the ones in the back fire almost straight up in the air causing a cool looking, but mostly harmless, indirect rain of fire.

6. How does ambushing work? I don't remember how it works from my days with Rome Total War. If I put my general and his division in the woods and he has the ambush animation, does that mean that any army that comes within striking distance of him on the campaign map is immediately engaged? Am I given a choice in this, or is there a chance I'll accidentally ambush an ally or neutral?

[Silent Assassin]

Welcome and nice first post my friend

[Muagan_ra]

Welcome, I'll answer as best I'm able.

(1) Siege Towers aren't ineffective, they're just really, really easy targets. If the garrison has a few archer units, they and the towers will target your siege towers (and rams) with flaming arrows - always use a great number of them, so at least one or two towers will reach the walls, and at least one ram will get at the gate. When they work, Siege Towers are a very effective way to fight over the walls, since more of your men make the initial assault than with ladders.

That said, ladders tend to work for me. If you're attacking the walls with strong heavy infantry, and the walls are held by archers or weaker units, ladders will do fine - they can't be destroyed, and crucially your men will be able to run with them. You should have a set of ladders behind every siege tower, so your men can run back and use them if the towers catch fire.

Of course, the most expedient (and fun) way to deal with walls and the men defending them is to blow a hole in them with artillery. Once you access gunpowder, artillery is far preferable to siege equiptment.

I just successfully sieged Jerusalem with a Crusader army, not ten minutes ago, and what I did was attack with a main force from the front wall, but I also brought a smaller force with their own ram to a side gate. I was able to get behind them, and trap them in the street so they couldn't retreat back to the city centre (not to mention ambushing a reinforcing army in the process!) Try it.

But the best way to take a settlement is to draw the garrison out, and destroy them on the field - maybe by attacking a smaller force that might be outside, drawing the garrison out as reinforcements. Then you can walk to your prize.

(2) There are some issues with siege pathfinding, but it normally works okay.

(3) Alliances give no garrantee of safety, your "allies" can and will attack you eventually. The upside is that this severely damages their diplomatic reputation, and tends to increase yours. Maintaining good relations and decent frontier garrisons is the best way to avoid being attacked - if a rival sees a rich city undefended, the AI is much more likely to attack. Many wars are also started by rather random naval blockades, so you might want a strong fleet as a deterrent - or even create "rows" of ships across bodies of water (like the English channel in your case) to prevent this.

(4) Some polearmed units (like Billmen) underperform - polearms and pikemen are buggy in this game, but they should still do the job well enough. You're alot better off with dismounted Knights, or Swordsmen, if I can put it that way. They do have armour piercing attacks, though, so will do better against Knights than against (say) Spearmen.

(5) Missile troops (except gunners) will fire volleys if there are friendly units, or intervening obstacles, in their way. It's best to deploy them in long, thin lines, infront of your infantry, or on higher ground.

(6) That's exactly how it works, and no you won't automatically engage neutral or friendly armies.

[Silent Assassin]

If you want to have goos alliances check this THREAD More specificly check the Reputation and diplomacy guides

[Dumouriez]

Thanks for the feedback, guys. I finished my England game pretty quickly, and moved on to a Venice short campaign m/vh, and I'd say at this point in time my only remaining question is:

7. How does one induce allies to attack a faction that you are at war with (or otherwise, come to think of it)?

I've been warring with the Byzantine Empire pretty much from turn 1, and when the Holy Roman Empire declared war on me, I sent diplomats to all my allies (France, Poland, and Denmark) to try and get them to attack it and give my second front a bit of a rest. Each of them, except France, had been at war with the HRE at some point in the game, and I offered each of them a 10,000 single payment, military access, map info, and 2,000 per turn for 5 turns in exchange for them attacking the HRE. My diplomats averaged at about 4 scroll icons each, and I had an army posed to help them out in Venice once they started. My reputation was reliable, and each of them had a very good relations with me. Every one of them refused. A few even said that they didn't trust me to help them out when the war began, despite my reliable reputation (highest rep on the map) and my army ready to go just north of Venice. So... what the heck?

And I have read those diplomacy and strategy guides, and I think I've been following them pretty damn close. My rep is high, and I've been subsidizing each of these allies every so often to keep relations up. Once the war began, I was also ready to cede any lands I conquered to the nearest ally, as I did not want to get overextended in central Europe.

What do I have to do to get allies to actually help me with anything?

[Muagan_ra]

Allies will reinforce you in battle if you have forces adjacent to them or their enemy on the campaign map. There is also a diplomacy option, where you can request or offer to attack a particular faction - I never get much use out of it, but supposedly it makes it more likely that the AI will start a war with that faction. Diplomacy dosn't always work the way it should in this game, keep trying, but don't get your hopes up.

A better way to get your allies to declare war on somone, is to attack an enemy army while your allies forces border yours. If you want to be cunning, that might be a good way to get your Milanese or German neighbours excommunicated, if you ally with the Papal States, and attack them when a Papal army is in the right position. They will automatically come to your aid, and automatically declare war on that faction, and automatically excommunicate them.

I did just such a thing in my current Venetian game (good faction choice, btw.)