A decisive victory needed!!!

**Paladin94610** · June 28, 2010, 03:22 AM

I played Venice on M/M. The first time I bankrupted. The second time I lost Venice and all chances of expansion too. The third time I become squashed by HRE and Milan. When I played the fourth time, within 5 turns I besieged Milan and took Genoa in exchange for a VERY UNTRUSTWORTHY rep, as Milan being my ally and I betrayed them. Now Milan have only Metz and Dijon and not Milan itself. I have Rhodes, Iraklion, Florence, Venice, Milan, Rugusa, Genoa and finally Ajaccio. But now HRE is sending waves after waves and I am not getting a decisive victory. Because my game is only patched 1.1 the chasing routers is not as effective as it might be in patched 1.3 that I have played with Kingdoms. Even I got 5:3 odds, I cannot get a decisive vic. I can rout the enemies fairly easily but can't chase them down. So many escape. The problem with the Venetian cav is they rarely charge after taking the very first charge. I pressed Alt to charge but they just stay with swords and got slaughtered. I want to patch 1.2. But when I do, the game crashes instantly I clicked the M2 TW icon. Saying that there is some error and cannot run. Hope to help me to fix it.

**Rakoua** · June 28, 2010, 08:19 AM

You should buy Bologna from the HRE on turn one, anihilate Milan immedietly after taking Zagreb with an army of militia from Venice, and then take the Mediterranean islands and the rest of Italy other then Rome. That should have you set for a succesful Venice campaign. From then you can send stacks into Iberia, Africa, central Europe...

**Muagan_ra** · June 28, 2010, 12:43 PM

You can normally get Bologna from the Holy Roman Empire in exchange for an alliance, and a few florins per turn. Take the garrison of Venice to conquer Florence, use your Councillors field army to march into Zagreb, and move onto Rhodes from Crete.

That will give you a good set up to build on. You should start building a field army in Ragusa as soon as possible, and tech up quickly there, because you *will* have to fight Byzantium early on.

Venice is a good faction to play, with a powerful army, but you need to make the right start, and being strong in Northern Italy is an essential part of that.

**Stolet** · June 28, 2010, 07:31 PM

For a good cavalry charge you need order amongst your cavalrymen. They have to be in formation to do a charge with lances. So, if they have little space, make them into a tighter formation, if they have a wide area available for charging and the enemy if stretched wide, put them into a wide formation. Just remember they won't charge when they're not in the formation you assigned them with. This is not a problem only with Venice, but with every cavalry unit.

Also why is it hard to chase down routing units if you have cavalry? I mean, HRE shouldn't have a lot of cavalry early on. Sure, their cavalry will escape, but every single infantry man should be captured or killed, with two cavalry units you can pretty much chase them all down.

**Paladin94610** · June 29, 2010, 07:14 AM

Quoting : Also why is it hard to chase down routing units if you have cavalry? I mean, HRE shouldn't have a lot of cavalry early on. Sure, their cavalry will escape, but every single infantry man should be captured or killed, with two cavalry units you can pretty much chase them all down.

Oh, my game is not perfectly patched with vanilla. coz when I install patch 1.2, the game crashes. But after patch 1.3 is installed I can play kingdoms still not M2 TW. In Kingdoms with patch 1.3 the chasers perform great. They go in tight groups straight towards the routing enemies. But with patch 1.1 in vanilla, the chasers just walk aside the enemies after killing some. And when routers are very recently routing and are very close to the chasers, the chasers don't move and chase. You have to manually make a move to order a chase. Very special micromanage is needed for a chase.

A new update: When HRE got excommunicated, I called a crusade to Innsbuck, and Poland, Hungary and Milan join it. I didn't join. Instead my Ragusan Army took back Zegreb then march to Vienna and took it too. I raise the garrison very high with 8 Italian Spear Militia, 4 Pavise Xbow Miliia, 2 Cavalry militia and 2 broken lances. Then I return for Ragusa to retain a full strength. Then I took Nuremburg and Bern and recently this evening the city of Innsbuck too with not much problem. Milan have only Dijon, HRE the city of Frankfurt and the Byzantine has only the island of Cyprus, which I am invading with my Rhodian Army. Everything is fine after HRE been once excom. Anyway my cavalry problem still exists and anyway thx for the responds.

**Muagan_ra** · June 29, 2010, 08:40 AM

With regards cavalry, I'd advise building markets and merchants in Venice a.s.a.p: this will allow you to build Cavalry Militia quickly. They may not be Knights, but when used for flanking charges, they can do as good as any other low-tier Heavy Cavalry, and they are particularly fast moving - ideal for hunting down routing enemy generals!

You should make sure your cavalry are in position and properly formed up before they charge - and that they have a decent distance to charge. Don't expect an effective charge against a unit a few yards away. Once they make their charge, and the enemy don't immediately rout and are only reduced to "shaken" status - withdraw them, and form them up properly again, and repeat.

**Paladin94610** · June 30, 2010, 04:00 AM

Originally Posted by Muagan_ra

With regards cavalry, I'd advise building markets and merchants in Venice a.s.a.p: this will allow you to build Cavalry Militia quickly. They may not be Knights, but when used for flanking charges, they can do as good as any other low-tier Heavy Cavalry, and they are particularly fast moving - ideal for hunting down routing enemy generals!

You should make sure your cavalry are in position and properly formed up before they charge - and that they have a decent distance to charge. Don't expect an effective charge against a unit a few yards away. Once they make their charge, and the enemy don't immediately rout and are only reduced to "shaken" status - withdraw them, and form them up properly again, and repeat.

You are confusing Italian Cavalry Militia with Merchant Cavalry Militia which is just a waste of money.

And replying to Stolet : Moving through the routers and clicking to attack works quite well ands I have already discovered that months ago but it needs micromanaging and you can't do that for many units at the same time.

**Stolet** · June 30, 2010, 01:19 PM

Originally Posted by Iberia Auxilia

You are confusing Italian Cavalry Militia with Merchant Cavalry Militia which is just a waste of money.

And replying to Stolet : Moving through the routers and clicking to attack works quite well ands I have already discovered that months ago but it needs micromanaging and you can't do that for many units at the same time.

You can use the pause button in campaign battles. It may make your battles a little longer, but you'll catch more enemies. I play SS 6.2 and have the same cavalry problem, so I'm not really sure it was fixed in any mods or patches ;(

**Muagan_ra** · June 30, 2010, 03:09 PM

Originally Posted by Iberia Auxilia

You are confusing Italian Cavalry Militia with Merchant Cavalry Militia which is just a waste of money.

And replying to Stolet : Moving through the routers and clicking to attack works quite well ands I have already discovered that months ago but it needs micromanaging and you can't do that for many units at the same time.

No, I'm not - the Merchants Guild gives Venice their Cavalry Militia without the Milita Barracks requirement.

**Paladin94610** · July 01, 2010, 01:39 AM

Quoting: No, I'm not - the Merchants Guild gives Venice their Cavalry Militia without the Milita Barracks requirement.

Really, I never know. Thanks for the info, man. +rep!!

**Stolet** · June 29, 2010, 10:06 AM

Oh that is the chasing routers problem. Well think everybody has it. Try this: move your cavalry through the routers. Once they are in the center of the routing unit, click attack, and your cav will pretty much kill the majority of the enemy in a few seconds. The bug itself is really annoying though, seeing your cavalry just escort the enemy from the battlefield. So yea, you have to move them around the enemy and click attack now and then if you want to avoid passive cavalry behaviour.

**Rakoua** · June 30, 2010, 04:37 AM

You could use tons of crossbows to kill as many of them as possible. Arrows kill routers just like they kill anyone else. This won't solve the problem but should cause higher casualties for the enemy and Venice has the crossbow militia which rock, so use them.

**Muagan_ra** · July 01, 2010, 06:20 AM

The Merchants guild, unless I'm mistaken, gives many factions their lower tier cavalry - some have better advantages from this than others. The Turks, for instance, get Sipahi!

I don't know why some factions just get the standard Merchant Cavalry - maybe all of their standard cavalry are too strong, and they don't have an eqivilent unit of regular cavalry? Which would beg the question as to why exactly the Turks get one of the best cavalry units in the game.