Sir Walter's fantastic invaluable strategic and military tips - guaranteed to keep your steel totally free of stains! (You saw it here first!)

[Sir Walter]

Roll up, roll up, roll up for the wonderful, amazing and soon-to-be-sticky pearls of wisdom brought from the far reaches of the Total War Centre and the legendary world where steel never stains by an intrepid explorer and experienced King, Grand Duke, Caliph, Sultan and ruler of all possible descriptions, Sir Walter, advisor extraordinnaire!





Okay, now for the serious bit. I have some advice on how to play the game that should be of use to some people on the forums, and I will list it below. For more general guides and some other excellent threads, see Caesar Clivus' list of Stainless Steel Strategy Guides and Mega Tortas' Stainless Steel Standards.

It is divided (roughly) into advice about running your empire, fighting as your empire on battle-fields, fighting as your empire in sieges and dealing with other empires, and subsequently into individual tips (and some general information) regarding:

I.i Cash in general
I.ii Merchants
I.iii Guilds
I.iv Watchtowers
I.v Spies and Assassins
I.vi Beating a Crusade (more important than it might at first seem...)
II.i Odds
II.ii Rebels
II.iii Eliminating enemy missiles
II.iv Playing to your strengths
II.v What to expect from the enemy
II.vi Scouts
III.i Avoiding a Crusade (once again, this is actually quite useful to know)
III.ii Alliances
III.iii Authority
III.iv Backing the "Wrong" Horse
III.v Vassals
IV.i - The Essentials - How Sieges are Won (Or Lost)
IV.ii - Spearmen (Defence Point)
IV.iii - Ballistae and Cannons (Defence Point)
IV.iv - Trebuchets, Catapults and Mangonels (Defence Point)
IV.v - Beating the Circumnavigational AI (Defence Point)
IV.vi - Siege Machines in general (Offence Point)
IV.vii - Spearmen (Offence Point)
IV.viii - Heavy Infantry (Offence Point)
IV.ix - Cavalry (Offence Point)
IV.x - Central Plazas (Offence Point)

Section I: Management of your Dominoes Dominions

I.i - Cash in general. Never end a turn losing more money that you have spent on construction and recruitment combined! If you are going to, then disband some troops you don't think you'll need (preferably mercenaries and/or ships).

In fact, just try not to use mercenaries unless you really have to. The only exception to this is when you're on Crusade/Jihad and don't have to pay their extortionate upkeep costs, and there are some quality ones available, but make sure not to rely on fanatics to obey orders anyway.

Otherwise, you are guaranteed to lose money over time (preferably, save building the expensive stuff until a turn when you've sacked something or received a lucrative gift).

I.ii - Merchants. Merchants might look a bit rubbish but they're really good if you use them well, and here's how to. Start by choosing a large-ish settlement in which to base your merchants. Somewhere with a port and a lot of borders is best as you will recruit all your merchants from here for a very long time (if not for ever). Then, build as many trading upgrades as possible (that is, Ports then the Merchant's Wharf line, and the Market line too). Recruit lots of merchants (it's easier if you've got Grain Exchanges and Markets elsewhere) and send them off to get some resources.

For your benefit, I will now list all the best places to get valuable resources: Gold - Morocco, Raska/Modern Serbia, Khorezm/Where the Mongols appear (in the far East of the campaign map) and southern India (I think). Silver - near Hamburg, Gotland (it's in the Baltic, region capital is Visby) and other places. Marble - Greece, Emilia-Romagna and western Turkey. Glass - Francia, Veneto and Galilee. Spices - Egypt and Galilee, and some places further east. Salt - Brittany, Northumbria, Bavaria and Italy. Amber - Scandinavia and the Baltic. There are many other commodities but those are the most valuable. The value of a commodity increases by its distance from you, and having a monopoly on a resource greatly increases its value.

There are many other threads focusing on merchants, both on TWC and on the internet in general, so I'll not be too extensive here as I have a lot to cover.

I.iii - Guilds. A guild is a building built in a settlement on request from the guild, not by your own volition. You can have but one guild per settlement, so it's worth being choosy. There's not really much point in having more than one of any guild except merchant's guild, so don't bother.

Each of your settlements scores points with each guild for doing things related to that guild (e.g. for a Merchant's Guild, building a Market or recruiting a Merchant would score you points). After turn 25 you start to lose 1 point per turn per guild per settlement, or so I've heard. This can be negated by concentrating your resources into scoring points for only one guild in each settlement (i.e. recruit all spies in one settlement, all assassins in one settlement, and so on.)

The two pieces of advice I have are these:

Never ever ever knock down a guild because then all your settlements lose LOADS of guild points with that guild!

If you're poor, Catholic and lack good cavalry (usually this occurs in Early Era campaigns) then consider crusading until you get an offer in a city for a Knights Templar or Knights Hospitaller Chapter House, and keep recruiting the knights, as they're both really tough and have high morale, and as a bonus, the more you recruit the more likely you are to be offered a better Chapter House, and Knights in a city is a brilliant thing to have!

I don't really have anything else to say about them in particular so I'll move on, because this thread is more about specific advice than general information and there are many good threads about guilds and guilds only.

I.iv - Forts and Watchtowers. Always build watchtowers everywhere in your territories! That way, not only can you see enemies coming, but you can also locate and destroy rebel armies (see II.ii - Rebels, below).

Build forts in easily defensible positions that are well-placed to stop invaders, but remember not to over-garrison them or you'll lose track of all the soldiers you have...

I.v - Spies and Assassins. Train up your spies and assassins by telling them to, turn after turn, spy on and assassinate the captains of rebel armies, until some young general can turn up and finish the job (see II.ii - Rebels, below).

Send your spies to check out enemy armies before fighting, so you know how many troops to send (see II.i - Odds, below), and enemy cities, so you can be let in and don't have to waste time and supplies building lots of siege equipment. They can also stir up unrest if there are enough of them in one settlement, and even cause rioting and civil revolt (in which the city becomes rebel/occasionally reverts to its original ownership), though this last one is quite hard as of 6.4. Send assassins to kill off troublesome priests, diplomats and princesses, then generals and finally (if they're 9 or 10 "eyes" in skill) even princes and Kings! Apparently assassinating lowers your reputation but you can counter that (see III.iii - Alliances, below).

Also, if you're ever excommunicated, assassinating the Pope is a fast-track to reconciliation as when a new Pope is appointed all excommunicated factions are welcomed back into the flock. However, they do still remain out of favour somewhat - for more on keeping in with the Pope, see III.i - Avoiding a Crusade, below.

Recruit all Assassins in one settlement and all Spies in another so you can get guilds easier (see I.iii - Guilds, above).

I.vi - Beating a Crusade/Jihad. If His Holiness the Pope deigns to call a Crusade against you, here's what you can do:

Assassinate the generals, making the troops desert (because an army led by a captain doesn't count as Crusading ). My personal favourite. For more on how to make this possible, see I.v - Spies and Assassins, above.

Bribe them (I haven't tried this but it might work...)

Ambush them. Works especially well when you're Lithuania or a similar poor and light faction who starts in a forested region (Aragon and Scotland, perhaps), and you can't afford the other ones.

Have a castle nearby (typically Vilnius, Acre or Damietta if I know the Pope at all ) in which to keep retraining a large and effective army with which you repel all Crusading armies. Preferably led by a Night-Fighter so you can get them one at a time

Most of that stuff (in fact, all of it, as far as I know) works against Jihads too. For more on avoiding having to do any of that at all, see III.i - Avoiding a Crusade, below.

Section II: Pitched Battles

II.i - Odds. Never fight a battle that you're tipped to win unless either you can't help it or it's a siege. For the first, it's probably a good idea to have as many troops as possible let over if going on Crusade or something, and for the second, auto-resolving has always resulted in less losses than fighting manually for me, so keep the odds in your favour. If you fight with the odds in your favour, your general will gain no skill, whereas if you fight with them against you, your general is more likely to gain better traits and ancillaries. Oh, and the less troops you have the easier it is to keep control of the entire army and not forget a flank/special mission (see II.iii - Eliminating enemy missiles, below).

II.ii - Rebels. Personally, I love rebels. Really, I do. Not only are they ideal for training up spies and assassins from 1 to about 5 in skill (so they can do some proper missions like opening gates - see I.v - Spies and Assassins, above), but they're also fantastic for helping your generals, and this is why:

Send an unproven general (and some cheap troops if a general alone just can't win) that are outnumbered to fight rebel armies, so you can build their Command without annoying any other factions (very good when anticipating a betrayal).

I had a Lithuanian general called Ramvaldas (whose pictures cannot be uploaded for an unexplained reason) who had three gold chevrons and 8 Command stars purely from fighting rebel armies. There is the added bonus of rebel armies containing disproportionately large numbers of missile troops which bodyguards can turn rapidly into mincemeat. And you don't need tactics, just charge the archers and make the spearmen run around until they're exhausted then charge them too!

II.iii - Eliminating enemy missiles. Send (preferably fast and light) cavalry around enemy flanks to destroy their missile troops while your infantry distract theirs, but beware stakes and hiding spearmen!

II.iv - Playing to your strengths. A bit of a no-brainer this one... play to your strengths. This means sticking with your faction's advantages, which are usually either all-round (HRE, Byzantines, Russians, Moors, Hispanics and Fatimids), cavalry (Khwarezmians, Poles, Lithuanians, Hungarians, Cumans, Turks, Sicilians and French), infantry (Venice, Genoa, Denmark, Norway and Scotland) or missile (English, probably some others that I've forgotten ). Spend more money developing those troops and alter your military strategies to improve your capabilities (e.g.: English, train lots of archers, be defensive and plant your stakes on a hill that you can defend from enemy attack).

II.v - What to expect from the enemy. Know thine enemy. When fighting a cavalry-heavy faction, have lots of spearmen and archers to negate their advantage. When fighting a missile-heavy faction, use some siege engines to out-shoot their Longbowmen (or what-have-you). When fighting an infantry-heavy faction, have extra cavalry to outflank them. And when fighting an all-round faction... play to your strengths.

One important thing to note is mercenaries - many AI factions recruit mercenaries a lot to make up for a lack of forward planning that leads to less advanced buildings. Fortunately most common mercenaries like Mercenary Crossbowmen, Mercenary Spearmen and Macemen have weak morale, but some (like Viking Mercenaries, English Huscarls and Galloglaich) can be formidable. In general the mercenaries roughly correspond to the region in which they are recruited's native faction, and as such don't really affect gameplay, especially in the early era before anyone's been swallowed up.

II.vi - Scouts. Have you ever seen a unit described as scouts in TW and thought "Well who needs them?" Well, this is why they're useful, and how to use them:

When trying to set an ambush, use scouts to make sure nobody else has occupied that woodland first - there's nothing as annoying as having your javelin-men, knights, horse archers and light infantry jumped on by others, and using scouting units to stake it out so to speak allows you to escape the ambush with ease, or even win the battle! (I've won a single enemy ambush, but it was 3 units of Spearmen and some Peasant Crossbows ambushing a single General's Bodyguard)

Or you can go one better - if you've seen an enemy army moving into position or spotted it with a spy, move your army into a position where it's separated from the enemy army by one tile. Then move your scouts forward onto the tile. The enemy'll ambush the scouts, then enter the battle, withdraw them, and the enemy will triumphantly advance onto the scout's tile, letting your main force ambush them. I inadvertently discovered that while fighting the Danes as Norway in the forests of Scandinavia - I ambushed a large army of theirs and killed 98%!

When unsure what's up ahead and lacking in spies, send some scouts into the enemy territory. They can even stop people entering your territory by occupying a bridge if the people don't want to declare war.

Here's a list of scouting unit types and some examples:

• Light Cavalry (Alforrats, Mounted Sergeants, Arab Cavalry)
• Missile Cavalry (Pechenegs, Turkomans, Jinetes)
• Light Infantry/Skirmishers (Almughavars, Kurdish Javelin-men) - These aren't good if you're against cavalry-based armies, they'll get chased down and die.
• Spare Generals - Especially good for building forts and watchtowers to keep an eye on the enemy. Not that you'll have such a thing as a spare general if you play Byg IV...

All scouts are best served with upgraded armour (you won't need more than a blacksmith or armourer, they hardly need a coat of plates.)

Section III: Politics

III.i - Avoiding a Crusade. You've been waiting for this one, I can tell

When playing as the Fatimids, Lithuania or any Muslim/Pagan faction in control of a popular Crusade target (there's a list somewhere, but for the purposes of this article, it's Vilnius, Riga, Cairo, the Holy Land, Palermo and some stuff in southern Spain) or simply a Catholic faction, send a diplomat to Rome early and get Trade rights, an Alliance and a bit of tribute.

When you're Catholic, make sure to be at least 6 crosses on the Popometer (in the "The Pope" tab when you press O for all those noobs out there ). When you're not, make sure you're at least "Reasonable" in your relationships with the Pope or he might call a Crusade against you (if you're the Fatimids in turns 1 to 50 and you have Cairo, he will call one against you. Don't ask me why, he just will, he always does. But it makes the game more challenging ).

And if it gets worse than that, send a diplomat over pronto and give him some more money. If he calls a Crusade against you, then see I.vi - Beating a Crusade, above.

Oh, and if you're Orthodox you can tell the Pope to stick his holy hat up the pontifical posterior if you like, as he can't call a Crusade against you, ever.

(Unfortunately, there is no way of avoiding a Jihad except removing all Imams with 5+ piety )

III.ii - Alliances. Get as many alliances as possible, especially if you're one of the factions that might be Crusaded against (see III.i - Avoiding a Crusade, above). (I don't know if allying with the Pope prevents Crusades.)

That way, not only do you get a good reputation, you can't be Crusaded against so easily without being betrayed (who cares, it's their loss of reputation) and you can have an excuse for attacking people (e.g. you're France, you get an alliance with England - mainly just because Lazy Louis needs a wife and Adela's hot, young and intelligent - and Scotland, side with Scotland in the inevitable war and attack England without losing too much of your hard-won reputation).

Oh, and you can get trade agreements while you're at it. If you slow down a bit you can wait for the Council of Nobles to tell you to talk to each faction and get some units/money for your pains

III.iii - Authority. As far as I know, having a high-Authority King helps you in some way. (I haven't a clue how though ).

High authority improved your reputation, especially if its a high authority and high chivalry king. Leading in battle, it improves your men's morale. In battle, it can almost work like a second chivalry bar, giving more morale boosts in the same way that high chivalry does. Keeps the people happy, your cities loyal, and your generals loyal.

There you go.

Anyway, the best way to making him high in Authority is to make him win lots of battles and capture lots of cities (for the Famous Victor trait) and make him King of an entire country (like France or Britain), because then he gets an ancillary of a crown which gives him lots of Authority.

I don't know if you can get it for a country you don't start off in or whether you have to go to the historical capital to get it, both of which I have some vague inclination towards mentioning, but you might and I don't know, so somebody find out and tell me.

III.iv - Backing the "Wrong" Horse. When wondering who to ally with for the reputation bonus out of two factions that are already at war, pick the one that is more likely to lose, especially if they're nearby (e.g. Venice and Genoa if you're Sicily or Leon-Castille and the Moors if you're Portugal). That way, when your ally is about to be wiped out, you can offer help, annihilate most of the enemy, let them kill your ally and then annex both factions' territory

My personal favourite underdogs to ally with are Genoa against Venice, Portugal or Aragon against the Moors or Leon-Castille, the Byzantines against the Seljuks, the Crusader States against the Fatimids, Scotland (or Ireland in 6.1) against England and the Holy Roman Empire against France. However, bear in mind that sometimes the underdog wins, and that other factions may also be moving in on the two combatants' territory. Also, there is an occasional disaster when the AI actually accepts vassalage, making the two factions united against you, if you choose to go for one...

III.v - Vassals. The idea of having a vassal state is of course infinitely more attractive than being one. However, the opposite is all too likely in the game. This is because the AI has no idea of how to plan in advance. If a human is in a difficult situation, they may well sacrifice immediate independence for long-term strength by using the peace to build up their forces and make money, before they're ready to throw down the gauntlet declare independence from their erstwhile masters. The AI only ever accepts vassalage if it has no castles and it is significantly weaker than its adversary. You can make the AI your vassal, but it's difficult. On the other hand, temporarily becoming a vassal can give you a valuable breathing space.

Section IV: Siege Battles

IV.i - The Essentials - How Sieges are Won (Or Lost). This is more complicated than you might think. Well. It's more complicated than is immediately obvious; in a siege assault, the attacking team's objective to win is to capture the central plaza. This means that if the battle reaches a point where the attacker's path to that square is totally blocked, then it's over, i.e. if there is a wall in the way, and you have no siege engines (temporary or otherwise) left to destroy or scale them, you lose (or win, if you're defending). Also, your army will by default break off the siege. If you are sallying, then you have two options to end the battle - win it conventionally by killing and routing all enemies, or bring back all your troops to within the walls, if they're intact. This second result will result in a draw but if you have missile troops and they don't, you can usually whittle them down with a sally a turn, or at least hold them off till a relief force arrives.

IV.ii - Spearmen (Defence Point). Always have spearmen in your castles/cities. They own in siege-defence. Seriously. Stick them on a wall, in front of a gate, in a breach, in a narrow street, on the central square, any bottle-neck or easily defensible position that the enemy need to get through will do. One of the smarter ideas is to put them at the bottom of a tower the enemy are climbing through and schiltroming on guard mode; they'll be speared as they come down one helpless man at a time. Even Spear Militia have saved Toledo for me from the Aragonese once (I was playing as Leon & Castille).

Mind you, Toledo is one of those castles that has what I call a "death side" with about 70% of the walls totally impervious to attack due to moats and sheer slopes, but there you go (more on that later...). The AI didn't bring enough soldiers or have enough time to fully utilise an easier side anyway, as it may have noticed the elite 8-star silver-chevroned very-well-armoured Moor-slaying army headed its way within a turn, after going off to Extremadura and killing a (second, for that army, and this is on about turn 20) Caliph. Like I was saying about half an hour ago, my spearmen basically stood on the walls for several hours of play, with one unit in schiltrom just inside the gate until my javelin-men ran out of ammo. Then I charged out, and killed all their infantry, making them lose.

IV.iii - Ballistae and Cannons (Defence Point). Now don't get me wrong, ballistae and cannons are good. They cause a lot of damage to tightly-packed units, regardless of ammo, and if you have managed to sneak one out they can set fire to the odd siege-tower or ram. But, to be honest, they do in my experience tend to be useless until either a) You've killed most of the enemy and they've run away to the edge of the map, or b) The enemy are through the walls. This is because they can't shoot through a wall or a gate, no matter how open/broken it is, as they shoot flat, not up like a trebuchet, catapult or mangonel...

IV.iv - Trebuchets, Catapults and Mangonels (Defence Point). ...which brings me on neatly to how amazing those are. They shoot up, down, over... set just about everything on fire... but! Wait. Never shoot a mangonel over loads of your troops. A barrel will explode and shower your soldiers in flaming oil, and that's not good. But, when on target a barrel can kill fifteen Chivalric Knights in one shot (I was too happy to remember to take a screen-shot ). So shoot the mangonel at the back of their army and it'll hit something on the way. Trebuchets and catapults are better suited to blowing up siege equipment, especially rams and towers.

IV.v - Beating the Circumnavigational AI (Defence Point). Sometimes, the AI seems to realise it's up against a place like Toledo and walks around to the other side. This is because the AI is stupid and always starts its army in the default place, not where it wants to attack you. This is also great, because your troops can get there first and shoot at them while they're going. And if it's an important settlement with a good garrison, you can take your heavy cavalry, if you have any, march them through the gate the AI was facing, then out-flank the slow enemy units, smashing them in the back while your missile units shoot at them and your infantry charge straight out through the gate where their missile troops will invariably be

IV.vi - Siege Machines in general (Offence Point). Unlike defenders, attackers can lump all siege machines together because they don't need to shoot over walls they need to shoot at them... except one. The ballista. Never bring ballistae to a siege if they're the only equipment slowing your army down - unless there are only wooden walls. Ballistae can only damage wooden walls, so don't bring them to stone walls as they're unlikely to hit anything on them either. However, in field battles their range is good enough to annoy enemies who only have archers - and those big bolts don't stop for any sort of armour...

Every single other siege machine in the books is fantastic. They can knock down walls, destroy towers, blow apart gates and even win a siege single-handedly. But remember! If you run out of ammo on your siege machines and you have no surviving engines like rams while your path to the central square is still obstructed, you lose! So don't blow up everything in sight. Not only will you probably be rebuilding it later, it's best to save the ammo for stuff you need to destroy to win the battle.

IV.vii - Spearmen (Offence Point). Spearmen are great for attacking too. Not sog great, but still pretty useful. They can go into an unoccupied area of wall/road that the AI will want to use later and block it, acting as a big spiky tourniquet to hem the enemy soldiers in where your heavy infantry (or whatever you use to break enemy formations) can annihilate them completely.

IV.viii - Heavy Infantry (Offence Point). Like I was saying, heavy infantry. They're great. Guys like Foot Knights, Canons of the Holy Sepulchre, Berdiche Axemen or anything similar can just get onto the walls and smash whatever's defending with pretty low losses unless the AI is wise (fat chance... ) and sticks some proper good spearmen up against them. In that case, get some other heavy infantry on the walls nearby and hit them in the back

IV.ix - Cavalry (Offence Point). Cavalry (preferably light and/or missile cavalry) are actually quite useful to besiegers. Well, more useful than you might think. If you can get a breach or broken gate and eliminate the towers, cavalry can get in and disperse enemy archers, catch them before they get to the square and then get back outside the walls before being caught. They can also catch all the enemy fleeing out of the tower bases.

IV.x - Central Plazas (Offence Point). Central plazas are hell for me. Eurgh! They're so annoying, the enemy can't run... but hey, I know how to deal with them. They're so easy to use as the defender you don't need to be told (in a sentence, just stand there and don't have vulnerable flanks) but as an attacker they're more challenging. In my experience, the best way is to kill everything else, then simply shoot at them until they all die. If some are left, charge with your best ones. If lots are left, advance with spearmen, stand the spearmen in schiltrom next to the square and wait. They'll turn to face the formation, or even better attack it. Then outflank them with cavalry and charge them in the back, killing them all in one charge.

Requests for more tips to be added are most welcome

NB. I will add more tips to all areas of the thread so if you're looking for new ideas don't just look to the bottom

[Goofy]

Old camel, this is interesting!
But I suggest to expand your thread, as it now covers only small amount of tips and hints - add more, and people will like come and read this.
Additionally I suggest to edit it so that it's a bit more easy to read. Use colours, bold text and different fonts + empty lines.

I believe this is worth of +rep. I want to support everyone who does this kind of threads, especially young/new members who don't have experience about this kind of work.

[Mega Tortas de Bodemloze]

Bravo!!!, I'm sure your insight shall help many maintain Stainless in their Steel. +Rep Link added to Stainless Steel Standards.
{not stickied but kinda like stickied Jr...}

[Sir Walter]

If people like this, a +rep would be nice

[NewUser]

Talk about merchants and how they can make or break an empire. I find it extremely useful to have merchant guilds in major cities. Spam merchants and use them to invade Jerusalem, Egypt, and northern Italy. That way your merchant will most likely die while trying to take over resources so you free up space in cities to train more.

[Sir Walter]

Talk about merchants and how they can make or break an empire. I find it extremely useful to have merchant guilds in major cities. Spam merchants and use them to invade Jerusalem, Egypt, and northern Italy. That way your merchant will most likely die while trying to take over resources so you free up space in cities to train more.

Will do

[Ichon]

8 - Playing to your strengths. A bit of a no-brainer this one... play to your strengths. This means sticking with your faction's advantages, which are usually either all-round (HRE, Byzantines, Russians, Moors, Hispanics and Fatimids), cavalry (Khwarezmians, Poles, Lithuanians, Hungarians, Cumans, Turks, Sicilians and French), infantry (Venice, Genoa, Denmark, Norway and Scotland) or missile (English, probably some others that I've forgotten ). Spend more money developing those troops and alter your military strategies to improve your capabilities (e.g.: English, be defensive and plant stakes on a hill).

9 - What to expect from the enemy. Know thine enemy. When fighting a cavalry-heavy faction, have lots of spearmen and archers to negate their advantage. When fighting a missile-heavy faction, use some siege engines to out-shoot their Longbowmen (or what-have-you). When fighting an infantry-heavy faction, have extra cavalry to outflank them. And when fighting an all-round faction... play to your strengths.

Pretty useful for any MTW2 player but even more for SS. Only thing I would add is the strengths of a faction can be flexible and mercenaries are around for a reason...

Putting Turks and Sicilians into cavalry strength faction is not exactly wrong but a bit limiting them more than necessary. Also any faction that can get merchant cavalry is not an infantry strong faction. Cheap heavy cavalry even with low-medium melee is very useful. Not to mention a few bars of experience and the melee is not so low any longer.

Know thy enemy also- don't forget mercenaries here either as it seems nearly every enemy army I fight has 3-4 mercenary units in it. Unfortunately it always seems like some sort of Knights or Longbowmen...

Spies are useful like you said to open city gates but they also act to protect your generals from enemy spies/assassins and even more interesting is put 2-3 spies into an enemy city and within 5-10 turns there is likely going to be a rebellion there so you can capture that city without declaring war on that faction. I've eliminated small factions this way never declaring war on them at all.... it is easier to use a combo of spies and assassins but the assassins lowers rep as well killing all family members opens all that factions former cities to whatever factions wants to take them whereas if you get one city at a time to rebel you get them all.

[Sir Walter]

Pretty useful for any MTW2 player but even more for SS. Only thing I would add is the strengths of a faction can be flexible and mercenaries are around for a reason...

Putting Turks and Sicilians into cavalry strength faction is not exactly wrong but a bit limiting them more than necessary. Also any faction that can get merchant cavalry is not an infantry strong faction. Cheap heavy cavalry even with low-medium melee is very useful. Not to mention a few bars of experience and the melee is not so low any longer.

I tried to generalise so people got the basic idea instead of being meticulous and over-explaining. When I play as Sicily the knights are my main strength.

Know thy enemy also- don't forget mercenaries here either as it seems nearly every enemy army I fight has 3-4 mercenary units in it. Unfortunately it always seems like some sort of Knights or Longbowmen...

Most mercenaries run quickly due to poor morale so I tend to break them early with charges and fire arrows/siege weapons.

Spies are useful like you said to open city gates but they also act to protect your generals from enemy spies/assassins and even more interesting is put 2-3 spies into an enemy city and within 5-10 turns there is likely going to be a rebellion there so you can capture that city without declaring war on that faction. I've eliminated small factions this way never declaring war on them at all.... it is easier to use a combo of spies and assassins but the assassins lowers rep as well killing all family members opens all that factions former cities to whatever factions wants to take them whereas if you get one city at a time to rebel you get them all.

I don't use spies to protect my generals but they never seem to die anyway Perhaps it's a VH thing that makes them more vulnerable (I play on Hard difficulty). The Alliances tip more than covers any bad repuation

[NewUser]

Also, I heard that if you knock down a guild building all your settlements lose points with every guild (not sure if this is true), need to verify. If this is so, then you must NEVER knock down any guild whatsoever.

[Sir Walter]

Also, I heard that if you knock down a guild building all your settlements lose points with every guild (not sure if this is true), need to verify. If this is so, then you must NEVER knock down any guild whatsoever.

It is and I forgot to post earlier, thanks for reminding me

Edit: I had posted it. Thanks anyway

[Mega Tortas de Bodemloze]

Well, I regularly dismantle guilds in cities I take and have seen no discernible negative effects. { Play SS6.2 M/M} After a while the sought after guild usually comes along.

I'm not that much on the spy guilds and usually replace them with merchant guilds for the income. Also I usually get rid of horse husbandry guilds {the name escapes me ATM}, in cities as their somewhat useless there.

[sbroadbent]

3 - Guilds. A guild is a building built in a settlement on request from the guild, not by your own volition. You can have but one guild per settlement, so it's worth being choosy. There's not really much point in having more than one of any guild except merchant's guild, so don't bother.

Depending on your faction, some of the crusader guilds may be quite useful to have more than a few, especially if their units fill a desperate hole (it takes 3rd level stables as the Templars to produce the Templar Knights, which took a long time to build up, whereas a first level hospitaller guild is cheap and easy to acquire. Several Hospitaller Guilds early on as the Templars can mean the recruitment of lots of powerful heavy cavalry early on, as well as the ability to retrain them in more places, made all the better if the guild is located in a city. Who doesn't want to train heavy cavalry from a city It also adds an additional free upkeep slot as well.

Probably another benefit to the Hospitaller guilds is that with the ability to recruit plenty of Hospitaller Knights, there was less of a priority to spend money on expensive stable upgrades in my castles, allowing me to spend more on economic buildings in my various cities.

As the Templars I had Hospitaller Guilds in Anitoch (HQ), Damascus, Gaza and Diyarbakir. Later on I captured Damietta from the Pope and gained an additional Hospitaller Guild. I'm sure my struggle in the holy land would have been a lot more difficult without these. It was amazing to see 14 squads of 9-experience Hospitaller Knights crush a mongol army to pieces.

Send your spies to check out enemy armies before fighting, so you know how many troops to send (see 7 - Odds, below), and enemy cities, so you can be let in and don't have to waste time and supplies building lots of siege equipment. They can also stir up unrest if there are enough of them in one settlement, and even cause rioting and civil revolt (in which the city becomes rebel/occasionally reverts to its original ownership).

I have heard that only the highest subterfuge spy contributes to the unrest, and from my experience with 6.2, you are unlikely to cause a revolt with spies alone. Even with assassins taking out every happiness building wasn't enough to keep riots going long enough. I did cause one city to revolt, but I did utilize an army of priests to also generate religious unrest. Multiple spies do increase the chances of opening the gates though, so the more the merrier.

6.2 adds more public order bonuses for the AI to keep them from losing settlements to revolts. Unfortunately this has made it rather difficult to utilize spies.

Also, if you're ever excommunicated, assassinating the Pope is a fast-track to reconciliation as when a new Pope is appointed all excommunicated factions are welcomed back into the flock. However, they do still remain out of favour somewhat - for more on keeping in with the Pope, see 12 - Avoiding a Crusade, below.

So long as the faction is not at war with the Papal States, they will be reconciled. If you're at war with the Pope, it doesn't matter how many times the Pope gets assassinated or your faction leader dies, you are still excomm'd.

7 - Odds. Never fight a battle that you're tipped to win unless either you can't help it or it's a siege. For the first, it's probably a good idea to have as many troops as possible let over if going on Crusade or something, and for the second, auto-resolving has always resulted in less losses than fighting manually for me, so keep the odds in your favour.[/B].

Depending on the composition of your army and theirs, and your ability to micromanage your units, fighting the battle yourself can also result in far less losses than the auto-calc. The only time I tend to autocalc is if the odds are so much in my favor that it's unlikely anything bad will happen.

12 - Avoiding a Crusade. You've been waiting for this one, I can tell

When you're Catholic, make sure to be at least 6 crosses on the Popometer (in the "The Pope" tab when you press O for all those noobs out there ). When you're not, make sure you're at least "Reasonable" in your relationships with the Pope or he might call a Crusade against you (if you're the Fatimids in turns 1 to 50 and you have Cairo, he will call one against you. Don't ask me why, he just will, he always does. But it makes the game more challenging ).

If you're not excomm'd, the Pope still can't call a crusade against you, even if you have 0 crosses, though having a low rating with the Pope makes it all the more likely you will get excomm'd if you go to war with fellow catholics.

If you are excomm'd, it's entirely possible to get a crusade called on you, even if you have 9 Papal crosses. In fact, the game doesn't check your excommunication status to see if you're allowed to call a crusade, so long as you have a high enough Papal rating (yes, the Pope refused to reconcile me even though I had 9 crosses )

Oh, and if you're Orthodox you can tell the Pope to stick his holy hat up the pontifical posterior if you like, as he can't call a Crusade against you, ever.

But you still have to worry about Jihads. Just ask Skantarios

13 - Alliances. Get as many alliances as possible, especially if you're one of the factions that might be Crusaded against (see 12 - Avoiding a Crusade, above).[/QUOTE]

In 6.2 you want to pick and choose your allies carefully. Allying with both Scotland and England or France and England is a sure way of being forced to choose between allies, and taking a rep penalty in the process. You can more or less safely ally with both the Scots and Irish (and even the French), but if you ever ally with the English, forget about an alliance with the other three. Perhaps you could include some recommended natural alliances that seem to work.

Generally, in 6.2 you can maintain good alliances with any number of factions if you share a common enemy with them, until or if that common enemy is eliminated or some global diplomatic priorities change.

Generally, you want to be allied to those who don't share a common border with another one of your allies (or yourself), since most factions go to war with someone with a common border (or if the faction is intent on taking a particular region (like Sicily and Tunis, Cagliari, and the Moors and Palmero).

14 - Authority. As far as I know, having a high-Authority King helps you in some way. (I haven't a clue how though ).

Authority may influence the loyalties of Generals (who'd want to follow the leadership of someone who can't exert authority over a mouse ), and may provide a bonus to public order, though I'm sure those familiar with the mod files have a bit more insight into it


One last suggestion would be to use the "Jump" and "Anchor" tags to put links where you have for instance: see 7 - Odds, below. For instance: [jump=7] with the corresponding end tag around what you want your link to be and then [anchor=7] and the corresponding end tag to create the spot where the page will jump down to.

For instance, I've created this jump link to take you to the top of this message. That way you can not only tell someone where to find the information, but take them to it with a single click.

[Sir Walter]

Well, I regularly dismantle guilds in cities I take and have seen no discernible negative effects. { Play SS6.2 M/M} After a while the sought after guild usually comes along.

I'm not that much on the spy guilds and usually replace them with merchant guilds for the income. Also I usually get rid of horse husbandry guilds {the name escapes me ATM}, in cities as their somewhat useless there.

It's not all the guilds for that city that lose points, it's that guild for all cities.

Depending on your faction, some of the crusader guilds may be quite useful to have more than a few, especially if their units fill a desperate hole (it takes 3rd level stables as the Templars to produce the Templar Knights, which took a long time to build up, whereas a first level hospitaller guild is cheap and easy to acquire. Several Hospitaller Guilds early on as the Templars can mean the recruitment of lots of powerful heavy cavalry early on, as well as the ability to retrain them in more places, made all the better if the guild is located in a city. Who doesn't want to train heavy cavalry from a city It also adds an additional free upkeep slot as well.

Probably another benefit to the Hospitaller guilds is that with the ability to recruit plenty of Hospitaller Knights, there was less of a priority to spend money on expensive stable upgrades in my castles, allowing me to spend more on economic buildings in my various cities.

As the Templars I had Hospitaller Guilds in Anitoch (HQ), Damascus, Gaza and Diyarbakir. Later on I captured Damietta from the Pope and gained an additional Hospitaller Guild. I'm sure my struggle in the holy land would have been a lot more difficult without these. It was amazing to see 14 squads of 9-experience Hospitaller Knights crush a mongol army to pieces.




I have heard that only the highest subterfuge spy contributes to the unrest, and from my experience with 6.2, you are unlikely to cause a revolt with spies alone. Even with assassins taking out every happiness building wasn't enough to keep riots going long enough. I did cause one city to revolt, but I did utilize an army of priests to also generate religious unrest. Multiple spies do increase the chances of opening the gates though, so the more the merrier.

6.2 adds more public order bonuses for the AI to keep them from losing settlements to revolts. Unfortunately this has made it rather difficult to utilize spies.



So long as the faction is not at war with the Papal States, they will be reconciled. If you're at war with the Pope, it doesn't matter how many times the Pope gets assassinated or your faction leader dies, you are still excomm'd.



Depending on the composition of your army and theirs, and your ability to micromanage your units, fighting the battle yourself can also result in far less losses than the auto-calc. The only time I tend to autocalc is if the odds are so much in my favor that it's unlikely anything bad will happen.



If you're not excomm'd, the Pope still can't call a crusade against you, even if you have 0 crosses, though having a low rating with the Pope makes it all the more likely you will get excomm'd if you go to war with fellow catholics.

If you are excomm'd, it's entirely possible to get a crusade called on you, even if you have 9 Papal crosses. In fact, the game doesn't check your excommunication status to see if you're allowed to call a crusade, so long as you have a high enough Papal rating (yes, the Pope refused to reconcile me even though I had 9 crosses )



But you still have to worry about Jihads. Just ask Skantarios

In 6.2 you want to pick and choose your allies carefully. Allying with both Scotland and England or France and England is a sure way of being forced to choose between allies, and taking a rep penalty in the process. You can more or less safely ally with both the Scots and Irish (and even the French), but if you ever ally with the English, forget about an alliance with the other three. Perhaps you could include some recommended natural alliances that seem to work.

Generally, in 6.2 you can maintain good alliances with any number of factions if you share a common enemy with them, until or if that common enemy is eliminated or some global diplomatic priorities change.

Generally, you want to be allied to those who don't share a common border with another one of your allies (or yourself), since most factions go to war with someone with a common border (or if the faction is intent on taking a particular region (like Sicily and Tunis, Cagliari, and the Moors and Palmero).



Authority may influence the loyalties of Generals (who'd want to follow the leadership of someone who can't exert authority over a mouse ), and may provide a bonus to public order, though I'm sure those familiar with the mod files have a bit more insight into it


One last suggestion would be to use the "Jump" and "Anchor" tags to put links where you have for instance: see 7 - Odds, below. For instance: [jump=7] with the corresponding end tag around what you want your link to be and then [anchor=7] and the corresponding end tag to create the spot where the page will jump down to.

For instance, I've created this jump link to take you to the top of this message. That way you can not only tell someone where to find the information, but take them to it with a single click.

Okay, I'll do that. I had no idea dropping an ally even for a conflict lost you rep...

[sbroadbent]

Okay, I'll do that. I had no idea dropping an ally even for a conflict lost you rep...

Although some values are slightly different for SS, most of this page does apply.

http://www.twcenter.net/wiki/Reputation-M2TW

In Vanilla M2TW having an alliance with another faction will normalize rep to 1.0 (divisor of 400), so you'd get +0.0025 points towards rep (where reaching 1.0 or higher bumps up your rep).

Whereas if you are forced to choose between allies, you lose -0.1 points towards rep. This means you have to be allied with a faction for at least 40 turns (or each ally for 20 turns because you're getting rep for each) to compensate for the lost rep.

More details on this can be found in descr_faction_standing.txt

I have heard though that not choosing the aggressor won't impact rep as much, but haven't found anything in the files to support that. Nor is there anything specifically about using spies/assassins damaging rep, though some have claimed to have seen themselves lose rep after an assassination attempt.

In fact, there is a specific trigger (trigger 0048) That causes a loss of relations with the Papal States (specifically) when you're caught trying to assassinate the Pope, in addition of course to any other penalties for getting caught, like going to war with them

[Sir Walter]

Although some values are slightly different for SS, most of this page does apply.

http://www.twcenter.net/wiki/Reputation-M2TW

In Vanilla M2TW having an alliance with another faction will normalize rep to 1.0 (divisor of 400), so you'd get +0.0025 points towards rep (where reaching 1.0 or higher bumps up your rep).

Whereas if you are forced to choose between allies, you lose -0.1 points towards rep. This means you have to be allied with a faction for at least 40 turns (or each ally for 20 turns because you're getting rep for each) to compensate for the lost rep.

More details on this can be found in descr_faction_standing.txt

I have heard though that not choosing the aggressor won't impact rep as much, but haven't found anything in the files to support that. Nor is there anything specifically about using spies/assassins damaging rep, though some have claimed to have seen themselves lose rep after an assassination attempt.

In fact, there is a specific trigger (trigger 0048) That causes a loss of relations with the Papal States (specifically) when you're caught trying to assassinate the Pope, in addition of course to any other penalties for getting caught, like going to war with them

Oooh. Well that's probably fine anyway because I keep most alliances for ages. Anyway, I don't think I'll post all of that because this is more of a tips thread than a guide to SS, sorry.

[sbroadbent]

Oooh. Well that's probably fine anyway because I keep most alliances for ages. Anyway, I don't think I'll post all of that because this is more of a tips thread than a guide to SS, sorry.

The part about picking and choosing allies though would be an important tip with SS 6.2 as you will more often than not find most of your allies go to war with each other, and it seems (especially on VH), that neighbors are more likely to invade if you don't keep your relations high and your frontiers highly defended, even if allied for many turns. The key to having high relations is of course having a common enemy. In 6.1 you can get away with having a dozen or so alliances, and not have to worry so much about your allies deciding to fight it out, as it simply doesn't seem to happen as often. 6.2 is very much a far more dynamic world diplomatically than 6.1 was.

[Sir Walter]

The links don't work at the moment, I'll anchor them tomorrow...

[Ichon]

I have heard that only the highest subterfuge spy contributes to the unrest, and from my experience with 6.2, you are unlikely to cause a revolt with spies alone. Even with assassins taking out every happiness building wasn't enough to keep riots going long enough. I did cause one city to revolt, but I did utilize an army of priests to also generate religious unrest. Multiple spies do increase the chances of opening the gates though, so the more the merrier.

6.2 adds more public order bonuses for the AI to keep them from losing settlements to revolts. Unfortunately this has made it rather difficult to utilize spies.

It might be correct that only the spy with highest subterfuge creates unrest, but that you can get AI cities to rebel even without religious unrest is correct even in 6.2- I am playing a campaign right now using Genoa and so far gotten 3 Sicilian cities to revolt... of course not Naples- took that in a surprise raid, but now Sicily only has Cagliari left. It took a few turns for sure but I had 3 spies near max subterfuge- maybe 1 was max, the other 2 only 1 away from max and about 5 more supporting spies.

If you also have priests converting another religion it is even easier and I was able to get Fatimid cities to rebel within 3 turns(3 spies and 8 cardinals + 1 priest). I think it might take longer the closer to capitol you get but I was taking all their island regions this way. I'll see if I have an earlier save and try putting only the best spy into the Sicilian city and see if the unrest rises as quickly as it did with 3 spies.

[sbroadbent]

It might be correct that only the spy with highest subterfuge creates unrest, but that you can get AI cities to rebel even without religious unrest is correct even in 6.2- I am playing a campaign right now using Genoa and so far gotten 3 Sicilian cities to revolt... of course not Naples- took that in a surprise raid, but now Sicily only has Cagliari left. It took a few turns for sure but I had 3 spies near max subterfuge- maybe 1 was max, the other 2 only 1 away from max and about 5 more supporting spies.

If you also have priests converting another religion it is even easier and I was able to get Fatimid cities to rebel within 3 turns(3 spies and 8 cardinals + 1 priest). I think it might take longer the closer to capitol you get but I was taking all their island regions this way. I'll see if I have an earlier save and try putting only the best spy into the Sicilian city and see if the unrest rises as quickly as it did with 3 spies.

Would be curious to know how much unrest the spies were generating with all three, compared to just one.

In my templar game I was trying to get Alexandria to rebel. I doubt the Pope had moved the capital to Alexandria, which would explain why I couldn't maintain rioting more than a turn, as the distance to capital penalty from Rome to Alexandria is 35%. Going back to one of my saves, he's made Ancona the Capital at one point, so not only does the Pope have to deal with 35% more distance penalty, but he effectively had no happiness buildings (my assassin took them all out). Only dropping taxes to low managed to save Alexandria.

I did get a Fatimid city to rebel due to religious unrest. 8 priests/cardinals and over 60% Catholic later, they couldn't maintain a large enough garrison to keep the place from open revolt. I can't remember if I even had any spies and/or assassins tipping them into revolt.

What difficulty were you playing at? Not sure if that'd make a difference.

Perhaps multiple spies do infact have a culmulative effect (perhaps each additional one contributes a smaller percentage.

[Sir Walter]

Well, in real life a group of spies would be much more effective at stirring up unrest...