Three Most Annoying Things in Your SS Experience!!!

[ARVN81airborne]

The purpose of this thread is to share your most annoying things during SS game plays that drive you crazy. Probably we all have experienced this madness before, so let's whine up, shall we? RELEASE THE KRAKEN!!!

Ok ok...my top 3 annoying things are:
1) Crossbowmen/Gunners are quite useless inside Castle/City. In my first SS game playing as Venice, those crossbowmen drove me nuts, I thought they were shooting something the whole time until I zoomed in and got stumbled...Well that's how I ended my first "successful" 3 turn Venice campaign. Yay!!!

2) You just can't please the Pope. The moral story here is, You try-you fail-lesson learned-Never Try...Just send in 10 stacks of your army to Rome to teach him some manners.

3) Defeated enemy troops cramming to the siege tower...Ok, I killed their general, the troops routed, and all the sudden, they stopped running and started heading to the siege towers/ ladders. It turned into a freaking long line of chaotic mess outside my city. The battle should have ended right there with my general or cavalry whooping their ass. Instead, I had to spend more time moving my infantry to fight them outside and on the wall. Usually, this happens when the enemy has 2 full stacks trying to jump my city.

There are more, but I want to hear from you guys first. Dont be shy!!!

[InsaneHanz]

When the enemy has three stacks of men with only one castle that should only bring in around 500 florians, yet they still recruit more men every turn.

[ediko]

When the enemy has three stacks of men with only one castle that should only bring in around 500 florians, yet they still recruit more men every turn.

THIS!
The AI seems to have an endless supply of troops and they always outnumber me....

[JorisofHolland]

THIS!
The AI seems to have an endless supply of troops and they always outnumber me....

It may seems so, because the AI has an endless suply of money, and thus, troops.

[Point Blank]

It may seems so, because the AI has an endless suply of money, and thus, troops.

Not on RC/RR - the AI only gets a fixed per-settlement cash bonus depending on settement size, so economic warfare such as blockades are still effective.

[ediko]

Not on RC/RR - the AI only gets a fixed per-settlement cash bonus depending on settement size, so economic warfare such as blockades are still effective.

Wait.... I thought RC/RR makes it harder, no? From what I have read by now it seem to just make it easier and more realistic??
I want to try it but I already have huge problems with SS AI storming me from every direction I don't protect with full stacks.

[ARVN81airborne]

When the enemy has three stacks of men with only one castle that should only bring in around 500 florians, yet they still recruit more men every turn.

hahaha, I know. it makes no sense. When the enemy faction is down to 1 settlement, there are 3-5 stacks around protecting it. I want to fight them head-on, but my laptop just can't handle the pressure.

[meese]

1) Crossbowmen/Gunners are quite useless inside Castle/City. In my first SS game playing as Venice, those crossbowmen drove me nuts, I thought they were shooting something the whole time until I zoomed in and got stumbled...Well that's how I ended my first "successful" 3 turn Venice campaign. Yay!!!

Just about this, if you put them on the walls and the wall is long enough, you can shoot enemies in the back when they come up on the wall. If you put even spear militias on the other side of the enemy, you can pretty much kill everything that comes up.

Otherwise, the most annoying thing would have to be...hrm, enemy javelins :/

[Concrete]

I have no problems with the Stainless Steel Mod personally, but there are three annoying things it shares with the vanilla game.

1) The Italian factions. - Nothing more need be said.

2) The Pope. - Although an Italian faction, he gets a special spot all by himself for the amount I hate him.

3) Only a slightly annoying thing, but I hate it when you set up a force ready to mount a brilliant defencive force, and the AI doesn't even try to defeat it.

[Abyrvalg]

1) Crossbowmen/Gunners are quite useless inside Castle/City. In my first SS game playing as Venice, those crossbowmen drove me nuts, I thought they were shooting something the whole time until I zoomed in and got stumbled...Well that's how I ended my first "successful" 3 turn Venice campaign. Yay!

There is good thread about crossbow tactics with some nice tips and tricks and for siege too: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=288136

On topic: The Endless Jihad.
I put end to it finally, but it was quite embarassing. Playing as Khwarezm I called Jihad on Constantinople to weaken Byzantine and to distract Turkey and Egypt from my borders. They joined.
But then Crusader States (with help of few crusades) took opportunity too and expanded quickly. I was trying to avoid Crusade to be called against me so I avoided direct confrontation with catholics. I was in need to Egypt and Turkey to attack Crusaders, and Jihad was perfect tool to orchestrate such attack. I checked one of my Imams. There was still Jihad in progress. Constantinople was not taken. I waited. At least for 20 turns. There was still Jihad in progress. I toggle_fowed.
There was an Egypt Jihad army trapped by two Byzantine armies on very end of peninsula near Constantinople, neither side attacking for last few turns.
Attacking Constantinople by myself was not an option, since mongol invasion was coming in next few turns and greeks had those nasty flamethrowers and Scholarii with their insane for this era armor rating and capital was fully garrisoned.
Kill Egyptian leader, wait, then Jihad those Crusaders out of Middle-East by other muslim factions!

Oh yeah.
One tile of peninsula was occupied by Egyptian army, other two by Byz armies, and there were no tiles to land my assassin, no way to reach by land, and Egyptian leader was about 35 years old. And I played 2 turns per year submod.
I was not smart enough and I waited another few turns, and my relations with Crusaders were worsening and they hit Turks and Egypt hard again and again.
Then I imagined myself attacked by mongols and Crusaders at same time, my stupid brains started to work and I put my best assassin on board of my fleet and sailed to that peninsula and attempted to kill that Egyptian dude right from the ship and assassination attempt failed and assassin was killed.

Then I send another few assassins, and they killed that guy, and Jihad ended, and mongols arrived, and when time has come I called another Jihad against Crusaders (their armies were already standing on my borders) and my saves became corrupted.
If that was not embarassing and annoying then I don't know what is embarassing and annoying.

[adecoy95]

walls are evil, they have a special power were anything that goes on within 2 or 3 feet of them on the ground level causes pathfinding to completely fail, perhaps the walls are radioactive?

When the enemy has three stacks of men with only one castle that should only bring in around 500 florians, yet they still recruit more men every turn.

isint this a feature of stainless steel? its supposed to make it harder to completely wipe out a faction, or something

[Constantine The Great]

1. I personally loathe the monolith that is the Fatimid Caliphate. Nigh unstoppable.
2. The Xenophobic Italians never accepting Alliances.
3. How damn hard it is to get certain guilds *cough*Templars*cough*.

[Saint_of_Battle]

When a single HRE ship attacks my Kiev port (and other similar cases).

Also the one with crossbows..

[Stolet]

1. I personally loathe the monolith that is the Fatimid Caliphate. Nigh unstoppable.
2. The Xenophobic Italians never accepting Alliances.
3. How damn hard it is to get certain guilds *cough*Templars*cough*.

If you have a St. John's guild (Hospitallers) you can't have the Templar guild. If you decline the St. John's guild, probably the next turn you'll get the Templar guild offer.

As for the Templars, make Seljuks friends and crusade the Fatimid asses, agreed with the last few posts. My Templar campaign was also spiced up by an early Jihad on Jerusalem (which I took) but the Seljuks didn't join, really nice of them to be such a loyal ally. Anyway, Khwarezmians and Fatimids had a real bad time with dismounted Hospitallers during sieges, especially the...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

...Khwarezmians.

[hippacrocafish]

1. The Templars are near impossible to play (Despite how much I like crusader nations), fend off the Seljuks and the Fatimids with only two settlements!? F%$# that!

2. K. Empire have no competition in their little corner of the middle east, they crush the Mongols easily.

3. When the A.I. has armies that are one part infantry and three parts cavalry. That much cavalry should bankrupt them!

I don't know what the rest of you mean by the Pope being hard to deal with, I almost always have my papal favor maxed out (Playing as Venice nonetheless) and I've never found it that hard.

[CamilleBonparte]

1. The Templars are near impossible to play (Despite how much I like crusader nations), fend off the Seljuks and the Fatimids with only two settlements!? F%$# that!

If you ally with the Seljuks and pay tribute to them, as well as take full advantage of crusades to distract and weaken the Fatimids, Templars are actually a pretty manageable campaign.

[cuo]

If you ally with the Seljuks and pay tribute to them, as well as take full advantage of crusades to distract and weaken the Fatimids, Templars are actually a pretty manageable campaign.

...not to say easy.

[hippacrocafish]

If you ally with the Seljuks and pay tribute to them, as well as take full advantage of crusades to distract and weaken the Fatimids, Templars are actually a pretty manageable campaign.

The Turks never accept my alliance offers and I get spammed around turn 12-15 by full stacks of Fatimids and I can only train spearmen and peasant archers while the Fatimids' army is made up of mostly Desert Cavalry!

Even on crusades I can only ever hire religious fanatics and pilgrims, no crusader knights or sergeants.

Maybe if they started with a slightly better military they'd be more enjoyable.

[Ponti]

Playing 6.2 RR/RC

First one:

1 Kwarezmians ,safe place to big economy boost,too many basic provinces at the beginning.


I was solve problem when I give them -40000 florins in the begginning (stopping their economy boost)

2 Too many crusades against the HRE.

3 too fast religion provinces conversion

[Stolet]

Some things remain from Vanilla, like enemy missile cavalry with skirmish always on. This really sucks and makes the AI really easy to beat, especially when it has javelin cavalry, who take like half an hour to throw all their javelins with skirmish on. And, unfortunately for the AI, battles rarely last so long, so AI Jinetes and Desert Cavalry are useless.