Advice needed with Teutonic campaign (H/H)

[j4ni]

Hi folks, this is my first post on the forum. I am not entirely new to the game, I have successfully played a couple of short and long campaigns with M2TW vanilla on M/M. (HRE, Spain, Byzantine and Ireland with M2TW:KD)

Now I am playing the teutonic campaign as the Teutonic order on H/H and as I am struggling I need some advice:
-Battles do not seem to be that much harder than on normal. In fact I maintain a pretty good kill/loss ratio. The only problem was at the beginning where I had to get used to the much bigger enemy army sizes and to accommodate to the fighting stile of the barbaric hordes (very horse archer heavy)

-Strategic map seems to be much more difficult as I have a stretched out empire with long boarder and everyone allied against me besides the Poles and the Danes (I a manged to talk the Danes out of war). I am at war against Lithuania Novgorod and now the Mongol hordes.
Currently I am conquering Lithuania I newer started any aggression against other forces.

I tried to donate small amounts of money (100 florins) every turn or every other turn but the relationship to Novgorod and the Mongols does not get better in fact the Mongols just attacked me meaning that I would have to wage a 3 Front war instead a two front war which I think is just above my strength. And it is also unrealistic:

Why would the Mongols attack me who has little money and short common border with them instead of Lithuania or Novgorod or Poland who have more money and longer common boarder.

Now what to do?
I have already looked but did not find any cheat code which would normalize my relationship with the Mongols. Other cheats (like giving me free units) I would consider like irrelistic and game breaker..
I am also strongly against cheating but I desperately want to not open a new front.

Would be glad for suggestions?
J.

[Willowran]

Well when i get into multi-front wars, i tend to defend against all of them but one. The enemy factions will fixate on a single settlement, so so long as you hold on to it (defensive seige) you'll be ok there, allowing you to push forwards on a single front.

I'd suggest you focus all your killing offensive strength on lithuania (as you are). If lithuania falls, you will have connected your long, thin empire and turned it into a giant blob. Giants blobs are good.

You kill/death ratio's are good? When facing a much larger enemy, i rely on various defensive tactics. :Geurilla warfare. Best done with generals and ranged units. You fight against larger armies and kill as muc has you can with as few losses as you can, then retreat. Do this repeatedly, and any large army gets wittled down to a manageable size. :Repetetive sally: when in a def seige, sally out each turn. Same thing. Kill as much as you can with as few losses as you can. REtreat behind your walls. Exit battle (once everyone is behind your walls, you can exit the battle and it will be a "draw", without any further casaulties to either side). This will also whittle down larger forces.

Get the island in the center of the map. If has enormous strategic importance, and will eventually house the hellenistic league, which will provide an enormous economic boost to your people. If you've allready beaten the bvanilla game, i don't think i need to tell you how important economy is.

Diplomacy in M2TW is off. Especially on H/H and up. One of the things they change for the difficulty is the level of aggressiveness for each faction. Multi-front wars are inebidable.

Any of this help?

[napoleonic]

You kill/death ratio's are good? When facing a much larger enemy, i rely on various defensive tactics. :Geurilla warfare. Best done with generals and ranged units. You fight against larger armies and kill as muc has you can with as few losses as you can, then retreat. Do this repeatedly, and any large army gets wittled down to a manageable size. :Repetetive sally: when in a def seige, sally out each turn. Same thing. Kill as much as you can with as few losses as you can. REtreat behind your walls. Exit battle (once everyone is behind your walls, you can exit the battle and it will be a "draw", without any further casaulties to either side). This will also whittle down larger forces.

da did I just read? I didn't know that before amazing, there's still something new in this game even after 6 years from release

[SturmChurro]

da did I just read? I didn't know that before amazing, there's still something new in this game even after 6 years from release

I would never do that.

I like to either try to win once or go out in style.

[SturmChurro]

As the above posted just establish a nice defensive front.

Horse archers won't do that great trying to besiege you. When you face them on the field just bring a ton of archers and put them on your front lines. sure your main infantry force will get peppered, but your archers/crossbows will ultimately do more damage to the horse archers. If the enemy has some infantry just pull your ranged units right behind your infantry and continue firing. Maybe try to make a "noob box" with ranged units on the front lines. I do not encourage trying to chase down horse archers with cavalry either.

Go offensive on the one you already intended on fighting. When they are gone. Choose your next front. Always make sure you have a nice defense before you go on campaign.

Yes. The vanilla AI will go to war with you for almost no reason other than maybe one of your borders touch. Get used to it.

[Aeratus]

Don't worry about the Mongols. Since they have no castles, all they build are hordes of mongol infantry, which can be taken care of pretty easily (i.e., a few units of knights will rout one of their full stacks). Let the mongols take the small towns and have the AI grow them up. Also, the Mongols don't get bonus gold from money scripts that other AI factions do. In short, the Mongols are weak, so just ignore them.

[Christonikos]

General Teutonic Order advice. (At least it worked for me. I play H/H too.)
First destroy Lithuania, then attack Novgorod. And always be careful of Poland. Have a fortress half-garissoned at the Polish Teutonic borders.

[Teutonic Warlord]

Since no one else did, I welcome you to the forums!

Now I am playing the teutonic campaign as the Teutonic order on H/H and as I am struggling I need some advice:
-Battles do not seem to be that much harder than on normal. In fact I maintain a pretty good kill/loss ratio. The only problem was at the beginning where I had to get used to the much bigger enemy army sizes and to accommodate to the fighting stile of the barbaric hordes (very horse archer heavy)

Ah, yes, the good old Teutonic Order. Early on, you can defeat Lithuania with just Order Spearmen, archers, and Knechten. Order Spearmen soak up arrows with their huge defense, stand firm against cavalry charges, and can at least hold enemy infantry while your Knechten flank and charge. Archers (Prussian and, if necessary, peasant) will sit behind your spearmen, showering the enemy horse archers and infantry. Knechten flank infantry pinned down by your spearmen, chase down enemy archers, and capture routers. Later, get rid of your Knechten for Christ Knights.

-Strategic map seems to be much more difficult as I have a stretched out empire with long boarder and everyone allied against me besides the Poles and the Danes (I a manged to talk the Danes out of war). I am at war against Lithuania Novgorod and now the Mongol hordes.
Currently I am conquering Lithuania I newer started any aggression against other forces.

Keep the battle strategy I gave (or your own) for Lithuania and Novgorod. These two factions can be severely weakened if you take their key settlements. Take their largest cities, then their large towns. Once they are reduced to castles, small towns, and villages, you can crush them at an easy pace while focusing elsewhere. By taking their larger settlements, you are cutting their finance and unit production. Taking their smaller settlements just forces you to defend a border that isn't very profitable. For Lithuania, Vilnius and Minsk (the one with the gold) are your first targets. For Novgorod, Novgorod and their other large city (I can't remember its name).

I tried to donate small amounts of money (100 florins) every turn or every other turn but the relationship to Novgorod and the Mongols does not get better in fact the Mongols just attacked me meaning that I would have to wage a 3 Front war instead a two front war which I think is just above my strength. And it is also unrealistic:

Forget about donating money for relations. Your units are expensive and your economy isn't great (especially with so many borders with enemy factions). Save your money. Besides, diplomacy is shot in this game in more than one way. Usually, the factions will divide into two or three groups, until later...

Why would the Mongols attack me who has little money and short common border with them instead of Lithuania or Novgorod or Poland who have more money and longer common boarder.

Consider who they are allied with, and consider the fact that you are fighting two other factions. When one faction is facing multiple enemies and their military strength is disproportionate to those they face, other factions feel a need to get a piece of the pie. Basically, since your attention is elsewhere, the Mongol AI considers you not as able to fight back and so they should be able to get some territory.

Also, the other way the Teutonic Campaign is broken diplomatically: the game is scripted. Once a faction seizes a certain amount of territories (I can't remember the number), all other factions will automatically go to war with the huge faction, to the point that they forsake their alliances and screw over their reputation. Of course, they also will regain their reputation by all allying together.

So, you need to be careful, because once you hit that point, you will have to go it alone. For castle defense, 2-3 Order Spearmen and 2 Prussian Archers/Livonian Auxiliaries should be enough through most or all of the game for border castles. I have destroyed Lithuanian stacks in the early game with 2-3 Order Spearmen and 2 Prussian Archers when defending my castle. In case of ballistae, catapults, trebuchets, or cannons, 1-2 units of Knechten or Christ Knights should be thrown in. Use Burgher Pikemen, not Order Militia, to defend your large towns and up. When defending with Burgher Pikemen, stack each unit behind the other to protect the gate. Basically, when the first unit puts away their pikes for their swords, the second unit's pikes will protect the first unit from cavalry, providing a much better defense than possible by putting all the units in the same small spot protecting the gate.

General Tips: Early on, don't train new units, instead replenishing your current ones when weakened and disband ones you don't need. Your economy is in trouble with your powerful but expensive units. On the bright side, you don't need as many units to fight the Lithuanians because of your powerful troops. Move your capitol to Riga to reduce corruption, giving you back more money. Focus on economy at the start while making careful expansion into Lithuania (or elsewhere). Take Visby and Abo. They will be worth it, and Abo will seldom or never come under attack. NEVER TAKE A VILLAGE. Villages are death traps. If on a border, they are expensive and difficult to defend. Skip both rebel and enemy villages. No one can recruit from them anyway, and the enemy garrison will cost more than the taxes from it. Keep taxes low on your two small towns in the north to help them grow so they can help make you money. Have high taxes in Konigsberg and Riga. Send a few priests in to a region before you take it to help convert the population before and during your siege.

Sorry this is long, but I hope it helps!

[j4ni]

Thanks for all who posted replies!

It is certainly much harder to build up the economy than it was with vanilla HRE or Byzantine on medium. At start I only have boarders no well protected economic center like Frankfurt/Vienna/Constantinople and the like. Also I start the game by being enemy with two or three other factions which does not help trade. On the opposite my enemies seem to be full of cash no matter how many stacks full of relatively week units they maintain.

Now a couple of specific questions:

1, Trading
On the Baltic shore I have a number of good trade resources some of them give 100+/turn even with newbie trader. First I tried to capitalize on that, trained a few traders and tried to collect on premium resources. (to build up experience for the first bunch of traders who would protect the second (unexperienced) mass of traders. The plan went wrong, I got invaded by a huge number of foreign traders who actually forced me out of business. Now the AI makes several hundred per turn on the best resources on my territory.
Now what is the best method?

2, Contrary to vanilla HRE I am constantly short on resources , which means I have to bring out the most from my economy investments, I constantly have to look on the shortest return and or least expensive investment, now the problem is, I dont really know where this lays. Its trivial to build/upgrade road network whenever possible and to build shipyard combined with market wherever possible. But apart from that what is the optimal combination (priorities) between tax rates/upgrading farms/upgrading market/upgrading port when the sole aim is to bring economically the most out of a city. My problem is that I dont really have any feedback in the game whether for example a port upgrade or a market upgrade will yield more in terms of cash and what the return of investment on those are.

3, Trebuchets and Fire throwers (I dont have the right name)
Is there a difference between a newbie siege unit and a 3-4 star siege unit in terms of accuracy? It is really slow to build up experience on them and my main concern is accuracy. I dont know whether more experience will yield more accuracy. Its an important question, as if I have to make a return trip to Marienburg (war indusrty) with trebuchets or fire throwers it costs a lot of time (and thus money with upkeep). I dont want to make a round trip if experienced siege equipment is no better than a newbie.
Besides that does somebody use fire throwers I am not convinced about their effectiveness howerver I must say I had some lucky shots.

Thanks for the answers!
J.

[SturmChurro]

Thanks for all who posted replies!

It is certainly much harder to build up the economy than it was with vanilla HRE or Byzantine on medium. At start I only have boarders no well protected economic center like Frankfurt/Vienna/Constantinople and the like. Also I start the game by being enemy with two or three other factions which does not help trade. On the opposite my enemies seem to be full of cash no matter how many stacks full of relatively week units they maintain.

Now a couple of specific questions:

1, Trading
On the Baltic shore I have a number of good trade resources some of them give 100+/turn even with newbie trader. First I tried to capitalize on that, trained a few traders and tried to collect on premium resources. (to build up experience for the first bunch of traders who would protect the second (unexperienced) mass of traders. The plan went wrong, I got invaded by a huge number of foreign traders who actually forced me out of business. Now the AI makes several hundred per turn on the best resources on my territory.
Now what is the best method?

2, Contrary to vanilla HRE I am constantly short on resources , which means I have to bring out the most from my economy investments, I constantly have to look on the shortest return and or least expensive investment, now the problem is, I dont really know where this lays. Its trivial to build/upgrade road network whenever possible and to build shipyard combined with market wherever possible. But apart from that what is the optimal combination (priorities) between tax rates/upgrading farms/upgrading market/upgrading port when the sole aim is to bring economically the most out of a city. My problem is that I dont really have any feedback in the game whether for example a port upgrade or a market upgrade will yield more in terms of cash and what the return of investment on those are.

3, Trebuchets and Fire throwers (I dont have the right name)
Is there a difference between a newbie siege unit and a 3-4 star siege unit in terms of accuracy? It is really slow to build up experience on them and my main concern is accuracy. I dont know whether more experience will yield more accuracy. Its an important question, as if I have to make a return trip to Marienburg (war indusrty) with trebuchets or fire throwers it costs a lot of time (and thus money with upkeep). I dont want to make a round trip if experienced siege equipment is no better than a newbie.
Besides that does somebody use fire throwers I am not convinced about their effectiveness howerver I must say I had some lucky shots.

Thanks for the answers!
J.

1. Put a military unit of some sort and knock them off the resource. You could hire assassins and kill them. If you had merchants with high stats you could take their business.

2. I cannot really help you here. Here is a nice guide a found you could check.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=214370

3. When I play I don't notice anything considerable with some experience on artillery. I really don't think it is worth working for experience on your siege units.

You would have to wait 'till somebody replies who actually knows how experience exactly effects it (numbers and so on..).

[Ferdiad]

I've never played the TO, what's their roster like? Is it well suited for facing HA and the cav heavy armies of the east.

[Aeratus]

Here's a listing of their roster: http://totalwar.honga.net/faction_un...rder&encode=en

Overall, I'd consider them to be similar to Denmark in that they're generic western-style faction with knights and heavy infantry. They have a good selection of cheap missile units like crossbow militia to take out horse archer.

The TO's premier cavalry unit is the best in the campaign map, although their premier infantry is outclassed by the Forlorne Hope and the Giltine's Chosen. In any case, the advantage of the TO's roster is that they have good costumes.

[j4ni]

#9 #10 #11
Please do not derail the topic. This is about the Teutonic Order in the Teutonic campaign introduced with the Kingdoms expansion and not about the Teutonic Order in the SS grand campaign which is a whole different animal.

It would be really helpful if somebody could answer the economy related questions.

Thanks in Advance!
J.

[Christonikos]

3. Yes, there is difference. I had my basillisk at Americas campaign with 3 gold chevrons. Every shot was 10-20 less men for the Mayans.

[SturmChurro]

3. Yes, there is difference. I had my basillisk at Americas campaign with 3 gold chevrons. Every shot was 10-20 less men for the Mayans.

How much work did it actually take to get it to 3 gold chevrons though?

[Christonikos]

How much work did it actually take to get it to 3 gold chevrons though?

In every siege killing 50% of the enemy sitting in the plaza.
Can't remember how many sieges that was.
Can't believe how terribly I felt when I lost my cannons + Cortez in a battle later.
At least new cannons came with the reinforcements.

[SturmChurro]

In every siege killing 50% of the enemy sitting in the plaza.
Can't remember how many sieges that was.
Can't believe how terribly I felt when I lost my cannons + Cortez in a battle later.
At least new cannons came with the reinforcements.

Of course you are getting a lot of kills! You're shooting blobs of the enemy. Yeah, I know that feeling in Americas you cannot recruit any cannons early on, if I remember correctly, right?

[The Noble Lord]

Just keep them compact and make sure they always have their sides protected, many time Teutons have biggest weaknesses if attacked from the sides, their posture suffers from unprotected sides or wings on the battlefield!

[Sitalkes]

-Battles do not seem to be that much harder than on normal. In fact I maintain a pretty good kill/loss ratio. The only problem was at the beginning where I had to get used to the much bigger enemy army sizes and to accommodate to the fighting stile of the barbaric hordes (very horse archer heavy)

You should fight your battles on Vey Hard difficulty, and you still won't notice much difference. The main difference is that the enemy take longer to rout and they will try to outflank you. If you play on normal difficulty the enemy will not make a decent effort to outflank you. At the harder difficulty levels you may actually be surprised to find some enemy cavalry that have sneakes around behind your flanks - the game is much more fun!!