Nooby Tips?

[Eleoste]

Er, hey guys, been playing Stainless Steel (Which i found myself hooked too), but i have been sucking with Templar Knights. I get attacked by 3 stacks of Fatimad Caliphs by 13/14 turn and if lucky, 19/20. I generally go for a small rebel city, expand it and then militarize it, but im so slow at it and i usually have only 1 stack by 21. I am ok on the field during battles, but managing conquests, cities/castles, military, etc is just so freaking hard for me. So anyone have tips for a newby??

[django333]

The Knights Templar is one of the harder factions to play with. I'd advise you to play as an easier faction until you get the hang of SS. And read this forum a lot. These guys know a lot about the game.

[Eleoste]

Besides France, what factions do you suggest or recommend xD.

[Mega Tortas de Bodemloze]

For getting your feet wet, England or Sicily.

England: They start with a very secure position. Rush to take York, Rennes{Brittany}, and Wales, then you got plenty of time to build up.

Sicily: Norman Knights {way cool} and good starting position. Go ally with the Pope and take Florence right way then make North Africa your playground...

[Eleoste]

I've heard scary things 'bout England like tons of sea invaders from nearby areas and that ireland can be a real pain.

[G-Megas-Doux]

I found the Byzantines fun and easy to start with. Quite easy as well.

[Eleoste]

Don't the Byzantiums get hit by Islam Guys and later Mongols?

[Caesar Clivus]

Don't the Byzantiums get hit by Islam Guys and later Mongols?

Not to mention Hungary, Venice and Sicily

[Halbard]

France is very easy. And if you want time to relax, choose ireland. no one will bother you for at least 100 turns, from my experience. Scotland and England are always too busy with each other.

Im playing England now and im enjoying it alot. conquered whole northern France including Paris, and all of Great Britain until York. Now im kinda running a few turns to help Portugal in a war against Spain, so signed a peace treaty with France and kept the scots at bay with a couple of armies of longbowmen... god i love longbowmen...

[Lavoie-Qc]

France very easy? lol only if you play at easy difficulty. if you dont do the right things, you can get attacked by all sides soon enough.
England is by far the easiest faction. Ireland and Scotland too but really nices to play compared to these tards englishmens. you want challenge? try Byzantium at VH/VH

[G-Megas-Doux]

Don't the Byzantiums get hit by Islam Guys and later Mongols?

By the time the Mongels come you should be comfortable. I guess it is different for each player. I am allied with HRH, Hungry and Kingdom of Jeruselem.

I secured the rebel settlement arround the area, then egypt went to war with me. I have taken all the costal regions of egypt and then when the Turks tried to take the KoJ so I went to war with them and took back anatolia. Hungary was at war with Venice and had great relations with me the entire time. I even had a chance to take crete and get a ceasfire from venice. Once I get peace from Egypt I am going to target Sicily. (I also forgot to say that the Pope is allied with me so I should not have to wory about crusades due to me giving money to keep the faction relations at good)

I am still playing this campaign though. Maybee I was just lucky. Rule of Thumb the further north west you start the easier it is.

[Eleoste]

Lol, thanks for the advices I'll try playing Sicily and see how that goes. If i do horrible, England, if i do good, Byzantium. xD

[Mega Tortas de Bodemloze]

Lol, thanks for the advices I'll try playing Sicily and see how that goes. If i do horrible, England, if i do good, Byzantium. xD

Don't forget the difficulty setting. If your playing 6.2 you want to keep it medium/medium or less til your comfortable. If you have questions about specific stuff just comeback and ask....

[G-Megas-Doux]

good luck, sicily will be fun if you run into trouble persist anyway it will be the best way to learn to play the game and in the end more fun then dropping the level.

[arcanek]

Why does no one mention Denmark or Norway? They have really good starting location with few enemies. Just kill the other faction, then choose between alliance with HRE and killing them. Baltic Sea is a huge source of income too.

[G-Megas-Doux]

Why does no one mention Denmark or Norway? They have really good starting location with few enemies. Just kill the other faction, then choose between alliance with HRE and killing them. Baltic Sea is a huge source of income too.

I might try them next time. I did say the further northwest though. I'm sure Denmark and Norway are north west of Byzantium.

[Zaraki]

Why does no one mention Denmark or Norway? They have really good starting location with few enemies. Just kill the other faction, then choose between alliance with HRE and killing them. Baltic Sea is a huge source of income too.

i recommend Norway over Denmark since they can pump out quality unit faster than Denmark can.. pretty much can finish them off really fast with norse unit(Norway start with a castle, Denmark 3 citys

[RollingWave]

Moors is a easy faction to start with to, you start with a boatload of settlements and endless cash with a pretty limited border (in 6.2 you start with 9(!) settlements and only 4 of them has a chance of being hit . and for 2 of them the other factions still have to go through at least 1 rebel settlements first.

They don't have a heavy cav until late in the tech tree and their good sword infantry are either high era units or late in the tech tree, but still, if your any good with light cav tactics you should easily dominate with them.

General keys to the game.

1. set low taxes : this is almost a cheat. low taxes = high population growth = more money and quicker to leveling up settlements it also adds higher chivalry to your generals which helps pop growth even more, this is really the biggest cheat of the game, high chivalry generals in castles means you'd be building high tech tree units while ur foes still struggle with low to mid tech tree units. especially those small settlements, just keep your largest settlements on normal tax and keep everything else on low, build up high chivalry generals and then use them to govern castles (where you can't use low tax). don't set high taxes unless you reach the upper most level (huge cities)

2. build siege equipments early: rush to catapults and trebuchets quickly. because walls are usually what slows down your conquest. this is especially true if you play factions that doesn't have strong early melee infantries. also because catapults are quiet a nasty weapon on the field too if you have multiple units .

3. use the sea(!) unless your playing the Cumans or the other land locked factions in the eastern edge. sea born assault is usually highly critical in your early / mid stages of conquest. for example, as the Kingdom of Jerusalm, send out your ship to see which coastal cities isn't well protected. then send a solid army (bring siege, it's is a must!) and quickly sack it. if you can't hold it and isn't likely to reach it any time soon (say if you sack Alexandria in the early going), then just tear EVERYTHING down, set the taxes to high, then run back to your boat. this way you not going get a good load of money, but utterly devastate one of their towns and they'll likely need to waste more troops to retake it from rebels.

4. form specialized army: of course, this is only possible around mid game, and it depends on factions , but if your a faction with a wide variety of units and already sizeable holdings. then use multiple armies with special designs in minds.

a. seige army: focus mostly on swordsman types and seige artillery, only a few archer / cav to support.

b. field army: focus on cavalry and a balanced infantry lineup. if it's a faction with horse archers then you should really go for all cav army with horse archers + supporting heavy / light cav. generally preferr to not bring artillery so you can move faster. and this is also why a all horse army would be most ideal.

the key is to obviously just try to aim your siege army strait at enemy settlements while your field army seek and destroy any of their units on the field. a all horse army (provided that it has sufficient horse archer types) should be nearly unbeatable on the field unless the odds are more like 1:3 against you or played in some extremely unfavorable terrain. where as your siege army aims to just take settlements with minimal loss (heavy swordsman for fighting on walls and street, heavy pikeman for street fighting if you have them. large array of artillery to neglect their wall advantage.

[G-Megas-Doux]

Moors is a easy faction to start with to, you start with a boatload of settlements and endless cash with a pretty limited border (in 6.2 you start with 9(!) settlements and only 4 of them has a chance of being hit . and for 2 of them the other factions still have to go through at least 1 rebel settlements first.

They don't have a heavy cav until late in the tech tree and their good sword infantry are either high era units or late in the tech tree, but still, if your any good with light cav tactics you should easily dominate with them.

General keys to the game.

1. set low taxes : this is almost a cheat. low taxes = high population growth = more money and quicker to leveling up settlements it also adds higher chivalry to your generals which helps pop growth even more, this is really the biggest cheat of the game, high chivalry generals in castles means you'd be building high tech tree units while ur foes still struggle with low to mid tech tree units. especially those small settlements, just keep your largest settlements on normal tax and keep everything else on low, build up high chivalry generals and then use them to govern castles (where you can't use low tax). don't set high taxes unless you reach the upper most level (huge cities)

2. build siege equipments early: rush to catapults and trebuchets quickly. because walls are usually what slows down your conquest. this is especially true if you play factions that doesn't have strong early melee infantries. also because catapults are quiet a nasty weapon on the field too if you have multiple units .

3. use the sea(!) unless your playing the Cumans or the other land locked factions in the eastern edge. sea born assault is usually highly critical in your early / mid stages of conquest. for example, as the Kingdom of Jerusalm, send out your ship to see which coastal cities isn't well protected. then send a solid army (bring siege, it's is a must!) and quickly sack it. if you can't hold it and isn't likely to reach it any time soon (say if you sack Alexandria in the early going), then just tear EVERYTHING down, set the taxes to high, then run back to your boat. this way you not going get a good load of money, but utterly devastate one of their towns and they'll likely need to waste more troops to retake it from rebels.

There is nothing cheating about what you said it is part of the game through the user interface it is not in the consul. Agree with you about the sea more people should use it and the ai should be able to deal with it better to (on the vanilla). The best way of avoiding a rebelion is to centralise the capital on the campaign map. A sound plan but taxes dont need to be rock bottom to get chivalry just need to be less than highest one that will cause public order difficulties.

[RollingWave]

It's not a cheat per say, but it's effectiveness is pretty close to that. in essence, if you don't use this method then the difficulty of your game tend to increase dramatically. for some of the factions that start out far and remote (say, Lithuania) this is basically a must.

Yes you can gain chivalry without resorting to this, but this is by far the easiest and most effective way to make sure nearly all your generals are high chivarly.