Advice on playing the campaign

[Draken2007]

Hey, i need some advice on how to play this because seriously, i have no ideia.

I always start as Portugal(my countrie) and i tried playing with campaign dificulty medium and battle very high. On vanilla would be no problem but with this mod, seriously...they never rout? I pratically didn't won any battle in very hard. My armies were slaughtered. So i decided to try Hard, not much diference. And medium they become too weak.

I would like to play on Very high but how do you win? I mean my guys just rout when the enemy general charges. Any tips and advice if you don't mind.

Sorry for my bad english.

[Irishpsycho]

kill the general and then they rout about the same as in vanilla with a general. I call it battlefield regecide. Try to charge him from the side with some heavy cavalry and you might get lucky and kill him instantly. Hope this helps.

[strife1013]

Stainless Steel is meant to be harder than MTW2 put forth by Sega. It's modded so things are balanced more and more enjoyable. SS has always been what MTW2 was suppose to be. Thank God for King Kong and all these amazing modders. They should be releasing games for Sega. They do all this for free, God bless them!


Oh and for your question. use spearman or pikes or archer stakes against generals, but do know they are pretty powerful overall, even general vs general I get scared!

[MonkeyChief]

I don't find the battles particularly difficult - its the campaign map i usually get slaughtered on!

[Ichon]

Not exactly sure what you are doing in battles but you can't just line up your army in a line like in vanilla and win a battle just due to having better or slightly more units. On Very Hard AI gets good morale bonus so it takes much to make them rout. However your own units shouldn't be routing easier either.

If your units are routing so fast you need to do 2 of these 3 things;

1. Use a better general with higher command.
2. Use better units with higher morale in center and flanks as the first unit to rout can cause a chain reaction so the flanks and your center are usually the weakest places. Put your best units there if you have only a few of them.
3. Don't use your general as heavy cavalry far away from the rest of your army. General has a command radius where units get bonus from his command rating. With low command rating this radius is very small and the general must stay close to his front line. Also the "rally" button your general has only works in command radius. Its best to use it when you see a unit "wavering" and your general is right next to it.

Portugal main enemies are usually Moors and Castile. Moors only have 2 really dangerous units early in the campaign- their generals and the Arab cavalry. Their spear militias are stronger than Portugal has but much easier to defeat if the Arab cavalry and general is dead.

Use your general to break the enemy cavalry charge but then retreat and let your spears move in. So hide your general behind your lines until enemy cavalry commit to a charge then charge those enemy cavalry. Either the enemy cavalry will stop and turn which if their infantry front line is far away finish your own charge into them or stop your own general also and turn behind lines again. If the enemy cavalry don't stop charge let your general hit- usually only a few casualties for a few seconds- charge your closest spear unit to the enemy cavalry fighting your general and wait until you lose 1-2 men with general and then retreat fast back behind your lines. Arab cavalry lose to even weak spears in melee so that takes care of them. If you let them hit your infantry with full charge say goodbye to each infantry unit they charge. Moors generals are more difficult and early weak spears available to Portugal usually can't kill them very well so you have to retreat your general then turn and charge rear of enemy general or use some crossbows or javelin infantry.

Jinetes are Portugal's best unit early. If you get 2-3 of these then Moors lose 1-2 cavalry. Use them on enemy general first, then Arab cavalry 2nd. Don't rely on skirmish mode though... just use pause alot until you get used to the speed of movement then manually control them. Also don't always use "Fire at will" as it wastes ammo.

Castile is different enemy and often more difficult for Portugal early on but with good diplomacy you can usually make sure Castile isn't an enemy until Moors are less of a threat.

[Draken2007]

Never tried with campaign on very high. What changes? Do factions produce things too fast? If it turn into a rush game then i don't like it much. But thx for the advice people on the battle.

[Draken2007]

Wow, you really know allot. Thanks for the help. But i always use the heir as general. Besides the king, he's the best in the begining. Also campaign dificulty on very high changes what exactly?

[ShadowKiller2000]

Wow, you really know allot. Thanks for the help. But i always use the heir as general. Besides the king, he's the best in the begining. Also campaign dificulty on very high changes what exactly?

The AI will be more agressive, and less likely to honor alliances, more money to get favorable terms in diplomacy etc.

They also get more cash bonuses IIRC.

[newt]

Wow, you really know allot. Thanks for the help. But i always use the heir as general. Besides the king, he's the best in the begining. Also campaign dificulty on very high changes what exactly?

see here

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...63#post7962063

[Draken2007]

Very Hard is not for me. Too hard. If not impossible. I started the game, conquered badajoz and Silves, few turns later 5 armies of the moors came and conquered all my towns except one. Definetly not for me. I guess i'm playing in medium. SS is wayy to hard to be played in VH for me.

[RollingWave]

generally, VH gives a higher moral bonus to the enemy and a bit of a moral penalty to you IIRC. so yes units are a lot harder to rout (but far from impossible)

given the AI's usually plain and unimaginative tactics though, giving them some help usually isn't a bad idea

Ichon's advice is sound though, in terms of units, remember to use Jinet, A LOT. aim for their cavalries first.

but yes, SS's difficualty rises dramatically from vanilla, so it takes some getting use to .

[newt]

We're talking about campaign difficulty. Here are the bonuses for the ai
This is for morale:

all generals: +1
heirs: +2
leaders : +3

Added to this are these,
easy/medium: +2
hard/very hard: +4

So your basic general is going to have +3 at minimum. Quite a shock for someone who just wants a hard campaign map but normal battles.

[Alavaria]

My favorite tactic is (of course killing general) to get enemy infantry to attack your own, but place your units in a V formation. This lets archers on the left shoot enemies off the right infantry. And ones on the right shoot the enemies off the left side. I use something like multiple Vs, so my line of archers can pretty much always get a good side shot at some arm of the infantry. (Harder for crossbowmen, have to watch terrain). Add some archers for fire arrows (levys work ok, as one kill is enough for morale effect). But be careful if you're using levy/militia to pin, as they might rout instead (!)

I've also had success with infantry in a \\\\\ formation, so each archer clears the infantry unit to their left (or //// and you clear the one on your right). Watch out for horsemen! The AI is smart enough to see the gaps. Fortunately if the gaps are filled by the AI's infantry, horsemen get slowed down, spread out... then get themselves stuck on the infantry as well. Shoot the horsemen first, if they're pinned. Otherwise you have to use reserves to clear your archer line of the horsies. HOWEVER, since your infantry are not facing the front (they're at an angle) sometimes the AI will get clever and charge your infantry in their side. (top of a //). This is pretty good, so feel free to shoot them. Helps that horsemen are larger and taller than infantry...

Even better is the fact that some units (spears) have difficulty chasing a unit that's moving away from them, so you can pull your own men back a bit, with the effect that the enemy slowly inches towards them (provided your own unit hasn't moved TOO far away), all the while you have a unit of archers or crossbowmen firing on them. Best way to eliminate Papal Guard, since a unit of 150 Urban Crossbow militia can wipe them out very quickly with side shots. In particular, if enemy infantry charge they tend to clump up aand mix with your unit slightly (bad for friendly fire) whereas walking your men back 10 steps or so will almost totally separate the units. And give very good clear shots.

Try to get everyone to shoot the general to death, then it's easy to break the army, capture them all. General is priority over shooting other units, since if they rout it's a lot more efficient to capture them with general+horsemen than to have to stab/shoot them to death. Especially with high dread. My favorite is to have a maxed out dread faction leader. Use assassins and spies to really get his dread up, some armies can pretty much rout in their entirety after the general dies. Then execute. Over and over. I think my top general+1 unit of horsemen must have captured at least two stacks worth by now. This lets you advance relatively ok on the campaign map.

If you see small armies, then train your generals on them. (5 unit army or so). You only need to release 50 men to get a point of the "Respects Prisoners" trait. I think doing this 4 times gets you +3 chivalry or something. If you release like 200+ men on your first battle, you can chase them down, attack and release again. This gets you some good chivalry. If you can, use them to capture a settlement or two. Each Occupy gives a point for the "Fair/Noble/Chivalrous in Rule". (And it helps if you don't want to sack.. so your dread general doesn't become noble in rule or something like that). Also try to grab generals that have the loyalty traits (not the feels appreciated - the loyalty traits that give +chiv) High chiv generals help grow settlements, so you can out-tech the AI, and get a lot of cash...

O yeah, for some reason the French loved it when I executed HRE troops. Pope of course hates people who do it, but you can just pay him a pittance and he'll be happy. (I got myself excommunicated because he attacked me, and now he's called a crusade on Rome so I'm at war with almost all catholic nations).

[Draken2007]

Il try and reconquer my towns. Also i have Spain as an allie but they don't do anything! I asked them to attack the mors with me they just said no and i lost everything. Not much advantages on having an allie i guess.

[RollingWave]

the advantage of having an ally in M2TW in general is more about them not attacking you then hoping they could attack the enemies besides, if Spain takes all the Moors land you'll be in big trouble too.

If you REALLY need help. try to get a Crusade called on Cordoba.

[newt]

Which AI are you using?

SavageAI has it so that if someone share borders and they have many more troops, then they want peace. You can't ask a faction to attack someone who is much bigger than them.

GraculAi, I don't know how it works. I never played it.

[Draken2007]

What are the diferences between them?

[newt]

gracul is harder because allies will betray you more. all factions are more aggressive

[Draken2007]

I just tried the new 6.3 version and wow. Portugal just starts with Porto with pratically no army. I tried conquering lisbon. Failed. I got a chrushing deafeat. Spear militia haves 1 of attack!? Okay, it's official VH = impossible.

[Gogolometro]

Not at all. Let moors fight a bit. Make some trades, maps, alliance, princes. Build a relationship. And blitz when Lisbon is almost manageble.
Dont go in siege unberconfident. Be selective and patient. Let AI sally.
Proceed like eggs. Dont rush from start. After that will discover how and when.