Moors H/H

[Swagga]

I started playing Moors because I was tired of how the AI plays the Pope. Here's my problem.

I've gained total control of the Iberian peninsula. However, Portugal got Dublin before I could eliminate them, and Spain took Bordeaux. England has allied with Spain and Portugal, Spain has allied with Portugal, and their all allied with Milan, and England has allied with France. I haven't allied with any faction, but have good ties with all Muslim/Orthodox factions. Now, here I sit, England just chilling on my north cost above Leon, France bombarding my ports at Valencia and Zaragoza. France has also sent many waves of small attacks against Zaragoza, and I've been able to fend them off with a full stack for at least 20 turns. Spain attacked Pamplona, but with reinforcements from Toledo, I managed to push Spain back into their only region, Bordeaux. Then, hoping to lessen my amount of enemies (I have 5 enemies: England France Spain Portugal Milan) I sent a full stack to Bordeaux. I've been defeated 3 times in a row at Bordeaux, and I've only lost 6 battles altogether. Spain has a full stack with 3 generals in it, and a half stack with 2 generals. Portugal has sent repeated attacks on Leon, and I've been able to hold them off for about 5 turns, but I'm not sure how much longer I can hold with England potentially attacking. During this same time, France is still bombarding my ports.

I can't keep enough stacks to keep all of these factions at bay, the only factions I attacked were Spain and Portugal, the rest allied with them. I'm fine with allowing France to bombard my ports, as they aren't sending land units to anywhere else except Zaragoza. (France is in a heavy war with HRE) So should I be using Toledo as a reinforcement center? It's right in the center of the peninsula, giving it a great location. I have been using Toledo to reinforce Zaragoza and Pamplona, which is almost constantly under siege, and I've been using Lisbon to keep Leon's head above water.

It seemed earlier when I reinforced one region more then another, I lost one, but I got it back. I don't want to have to sail north to Dublin to take out Portugal, but I'd be willing to. I attempted to ally with HRE, but they refused. Probably because I have 5 enemies.

BTW - My forces at Pamplona are nearly decimated.

[Sulfurion Blackfyre]

Take the fight to their lands. Do what a country at Total War is supposed to do put ALL your resources in war and strain your economy to it's limits to steamroll your enemies till they beg for peace. Always works

[Romanichine]

Spain has only one region left, Bordeaux- It's critical that you strike there and eliminate them. One less enemy will greatly alleviate the pressure you're on. But you lost 3 times in Bordeaux already?

The strategy to crack Bordeaux depends a lot on what you can build and Spain's army composition, but a sound strategy for the Moors might be to rely heavily on cavalry archers with a fair line of Infantry to hold a front. If it's a tough fight, assaulting may not be a good solution. Siege their castle until they're forced to sally out. This way you won't need to bring catapults/ballistas/cannons and your good cavalry will be more efficient fighting outside than in the streets.

Once you got Bordeaux, I would consider building boats to gain naval superiority in the Atlantic. Send some lone boats to scouts the lands near Dublin & near London and keep your main force near Leon. If your scouts see any fleet coming your way, sink them before they can land in Iberia.

Concentrate your navy in north of Spain first. You can't protect both naval front and the Atlantic is more important as you got two enemies on the Isles, and you need a good fleet to land a full stack in Dublin and keep control of the Atlantic.

Then your next priority should be to strike at Dublin and eliminate Portugal. I read you don't want to do that, but eliminating a second opponent is very important.

Religion may also play an important factor to help you recover. If you have an Imam capable of calling a crusade on Bordeaux/Dublin or any french city, do it!! It will save you a lot of money and your armies will have double speed. Make 1 full stack, join the crusade, and take every town on the way if you can.

If you can't call a crusade on these towns yet, send all your Imam in the Bordeaux regions and you will get the option sooner or later. Don't send 2-3 Imams if you got 6, send them all. The quicker you convert the region to Islam, the quicker your Imam will be able to call a crusade. Be ready to train more Imams if Bordeaux is 0% Islam as some will usually turn heretics, but that's okay, just burn them with your other imams.

As for how to defend Iberia from France, it's hard to say without the whole picture. If their armies are coming by lands from France, you may want to consider forts/ambushes. Use spies to see which pass they take to enter your lands, and build a fort to hold it, or ambush them in forests.

Defending is important but don't overdo it. Keep a small army that can fend off what they're throwing at you. Being the aggressor is very important here. You can't keep defending 5 vs 1.

Hope it helps. I know these tips are generalized, but again, a lot depend on information that I don't have. Unless you post a savegame, we cannot really see the whole picture.

Let us know how it develops!
--
roman

[Thracius]

I'm actually playing Moors on H/H too right now, I had a rough start but It's completely turned around now and my Moors are an unstoppable killing Machine.
I had a big problem with Milan during my game, but there is a simple way to cripple these super powers.
First what you should be doing is utilizing the choke points of the mountains between Spain and France to keep enemy invaders out of your territories, and you shouldn't be worrying about your ports being blockaded, it's not really going to hurt you. But you will need a sizeable navy, once you get this send one or two stacks into Northern Italy, Take Genoa and Milan, and burn them to the ground and let them rebel. That will take care of Milan as it's economy will be crippled.
Then take your stacks and hit Marseilles, and do the same thing, now if you want to break France continue north and hit Dijon and Paris, otherwise buy peace from them, if you can keep France off your back for a while you can focus on Spain and Portugal, England will eventually go to war and their strategy consists of landing a stack North of Leon it shouldn't be to much of a problem. As the Moors your navy is naturally pathetic so don't rely on it to much especially with the Italian Nations lurking in your waters.

Anyway good luck hope this can help you to some degree.

[Stolet]

From my experience, England just lands a lot of units near Leon, but they never attacked me. Just keep a nice garison and they'll get scarred and go away, that's what happened to me on VH/VH with the Moors. And seriously, use A LOT of Desert Cavalry, they can beat any Christian army with ease. If you have the Grenadine Jinetes, even better. Plus you can recruit them in cities when you get the Sultan's racing track. As Moors, you don't want to play a lot of sieges, you want open field battles where your cavalry can easily outrun the enemy with their fast moving trait. Although Spain and Portugal do have Jinetes, the AI seems to rely on infantry, and you want to fight those kinds of armies with Moors. When you play the battles, be sure to circle around the enemy, or at least go to their left and throw your javelins. You should be able to cause a lot of casualties, you may kill up to 50% of a full stack, depending on number of Desert Cavalry/Grenadine Jinetes you have. Then engage with your infantry, but when engaged be sure to flank the enemy with your cavalry as soon as possible, your infantry will mostly get butchered by European infantry (unless you have Dismounted Christian Guard or Hashashim), and you want to minimize casualties since you're at 5 wars. After the battle (hopefully a heroic victory ), retrain your units. Your cavalry will get a lot of experience, and don't waste it. Retrain them so they can keep their high experience, it will come in quite handy in battles. Also, in battles, if the enemy has a lot of archers, be sure to march your cavalry close to them, and I mean really close, archers tend to get really scarred that way, plus you will probably cause them to retreat with their skirmish mode (which the AI never turns off in archers' case). So basically all you have to do is bombard the enemy with your javelins, that will win you battles. Also you should try working on your global reputation. Since you're at wars, your reputation is probably untrustworthy or smthn like that. You can probably start improving your reputation once you've defeated Spain and Portugal. That will also bring you a nice castle or fortress in Bordeaux, which you can use as a base for launching attacks on France. But when you get rid of Spain and Portugal, you can probably ask for ceasefires with the other factions.

[Swagga]

The reason I did lose at Bordeaux was because I can't play in battles b/c of my computer, so I have to rely on the AI simulating them.

-Some good pointers, including the part about being the aggressor.

Thanks, I will take all of these tips in consideration and post again with what has turned out.

[Stolet]

Huh well if you can't play battles (which really sucks) you shouldn't put your battle difficulty to hard, cause in that case you almost automatically lose battles that are 4:3, 5:4 in your favor. You may lose even the 2:1 ones. Also, battle difficulty doesn't vary much from normal to very hard, but the autoresolve really changes drastically. At normal difficulty you'll get results that often resemble the odds given before the battle. But at hard or very hard there is no way you will win a 3:2, 4:3, 5:4, 5:3 battle (ESPECIALLY A SIEGE) unless you play it yourself. Get some computer improvements somehow

[Agent Miles]

I’ve played the Moors on VH/VH and of course all of the Catholic factions are going to attack you. First, this shouldn’t be a problem because you should be incredibly rich. You do have a good merchant on every resource in Timbuktu? When a faction takes a settlement, launch a jihad and have as many of your units join the jihad as possible, even stacks that are not going to go to retake the settlement. You don’t have to pay upkeep for your armies then. (Hint: An all cavalry jihad stack with those merchants can go to Timbuktu in half the time). This gets you a lot of generals with 8+ chivalry too. Since you can’t fight battles yourself, tactics don’t matter and all that counts is numbers. Lay siege to a settlement with several jihad stacks and wait them out then. Of course, you should build a fort at every choke point leading into your peninsula. North Africa should be yours for the taking. Once you secure the SW corner of the map, the rest should be easy.
About Dublin, if you cannot afford an army to defend your realm, then you will not be able to afford a navy either. Take a long cruise with a big army on a small fleet and you will lose both. Also, if you eliminate the last settlement of a faction, then you will incur the wrath of all the other factions. Be patient. Someone will take Dublin for you.

[Swagga]

Here's my situation now:

I sent a full stack to Bordeoux, and was beaten once again by a Spanish army with 4 generals, and half the units I had. Now, with my army in two cities, Pamplona is about to be taken (no garrison, was defeated by Spain there), France has taken Zaragoza, and Milan is attacking Valencia. I may have enough to beat Milan, but it will be close. England has left Leon.

I was on my way to having 2 full stacks, but with the constant bombarding of all my ports, I took a heavy cash hit for 10 turns, and I had to disband some units in order to stay above 10,000 florins. So now, my Sultan was killed (had full command and authority), along with 2 other generals garrisoned in Pamplona. So I'll post back later tonight on what new has happened.

[Stolet]

Here's my situation now:

I sent a full stack to Bordeoux, and was beaten once again by a Spanish army with 4 generals, and half the units I had. Now, with my army in two cities, Pamplona is about to be taken (no garrison, was defeated by Spain there), France has taken Zaragoza, and Milan is attacking Valencia. I may have enough to beat Milan, but it will be close. England has left Leon.

I was on my way to having 2 full stacks, but with the constant bombarding of all my ports, I took a heavy cash hit for 10 turns, and I had to disband some units in order to stay above 10,000 florins. So now, my Sultan was killed (had full command and authority), along with 2 other generals garrisoned in Pamplona. So I'll post back later tonight on what new has happened.

Told ya Well the next campaign you play, play it at normal battle difficulty. You can put the campaign difficulty to very hard, but there's no point in very hard battle difficulty if you can't play the battles. Which really sucks for you, I hope you'll be able to play them sometime (in the NEAR future)

[Swagga]

Yeah, once I get my tax refunds I should be able to upgrade my PC

[Stolet]

Timbuktu was my first target in Moors campaign. You shouldn't engage the Portuguese and Spanish early. Think I allied with one of them. I got attacked constantly by Sicily and Milan at Algiers, which sucks, like they don't have targets closer to their lands. One shouldn't attack anyone early with Moors, first get some alliances that could help you in the future, like France, Papal States, Venice, HRE maybe, then go for Spain or Portugal. If you decide to play again Swagga, but I hope you'll manage to climb your way out of your situation Oh yea, and don't take Tunis early on, the Crusades will probably target it and bb good relations with all the Europeans.

[Turtle Hammer]

Timbuktu was my first target in Moors campaign. You shouldn't engage the Portuguese and Spanish early.

I'm not quite sure I agree with this, it's a safe bet, but I'd say leaving Timbuktu a little bit and having a blitz on Spain or Portugal in the opening stages is a sound strategy too. I nearly always pick on Spain after allying with Portugal, declaring a Jihad against Leon in the first turn. By the time your diplomats are near France and ready to make an alliance you can have occupied Toledo en-route to Leon(ths ridding yourself of the diplomatic penalty of a war), and sack that so you can tax it hard while growing Corduba. This boosts the economy more than Timbuktu can in the initial stages. I find the agent limit for merchants limits the use of having anything down there for quite some time. Also, Spain will inevitably attack, and this saves you the trouble of having to roust them out of Ireland or Wales or Western France.

As for the initial situation of the thread Swagga, I think maybe sacrificing what you can't defend and consolidating may be a good idea. This way their armies have to do the protecting and you free up some troops to do the attacking. I've found this is often an effective way to "trap" enemy armies, but it can hit the pocket hard, and being a different religion it's quite likely they will sack or exterminate, but not always. It's a gamble, but it sounds like your situation may warrant it.

[Etwas]

I've played the Moors for about 80 turns now, and I still don't know how to start a jihad. There's probably a button or a option that I've missed. Could somebody please point me in the right direction?
Thanks!

- E -

[Stolet]

Click on an Imam, and in the bottom left corner of his scroll you have an orange button with the crescent drawn. That's the Jihad calling button. If your Imam has less than 5 piety, the button is gray. Therefore, you must have at least a 5 piety Imam to call a Jihad, and he's all you need

[Etwas]

Ah, thanks! That's a great help, now I'll begin kicking ass

[Turtle Hammer]

Jihads are truly awesome, you don't have to go cap in hand to Mr Pope and you usually have a list of targets far nearer to home which means on the eve of victory you can get anything in your faction on the Jihad too to share the experience gained, and you can often get away with a turn of free upkeep before they desert too, although you have to time this with a point when you *know* you can take the targeted settlement.