Questions about the game
New to the game and had a few questions. First playthrough ever. I tried the search function but found no specifics.
I'm playing as England.
What should I do with my priests?
France and Portugal keep declaring war on me. Do I have to capture every city they own to wipe them out, or just their capital?
Any general tips to make this game easier for a new player? Cash flow is my biggest issue, especially after France and Portugal declared war on me. Not sure what happened to my income.
Laetus
Re: Questions about the game
1. As long as the Catholic percentage in your own regions is fairly high, send those priests to a Muslim/Orthodox/Pagan region ahead of an invasion force. If the population is at least partially Catholic before you take over, it helps the public order game. I also usually keep a bishop around my own lands to kill off any heretics/witches that pop up.Originally Posted by MarshallNole
2. You have to either take all their cities, or kill off all their family members, which will turn the rest of their cities into rebel settlements.
3. Especially early game, money is the big issue. My guess is that you built up a couple big armies to fight against France and Portugal, and your economy can't support them. You really need to try to keep your army sizes in check in the early game, as upkeep is your biggest resource drain. Focus on developing your economy (markets, roads, ports, and esp. trade rights) You also need to look at your ratio of castles to cities. Cities bring in much more money than comparably sized Castles, as well as getting free upkeep on a certain number of garrison units. I like to keep a ratio of about 4-5 cities per castle, sometimes more castles in an area where there is likely to be more fighting. As an example, in the British isles, I usually only keep Nottingham as a castle and convert everything else to a city.
As an aside, when I play as England, I will usually offer France trade rights and an alliance on the first turn. It might not be quite as historically accurate, but it lets me get my starting position straightened out before fighting a long war against a Catholic faction. I've had campaigns where I have kept my alliance with France for the entire game, only taking "French" settlements that have rebelled.
Centenarius
Re: Questions about the game
Just an add on to Warrior A's answers:
1.There is an additional benefit to sending your priests, especially in numbers (priest bombing), to non-catholic territory. As the priests hit certain milestones in conversion, they earn piety traits (battler of heresy series), and therefore become more effective. More priests in the same territory get this going faster. Whatismore once your priests enter the highest levels of piety they start to acquire Cardinal status, as becomes available from the death of other cardinals. Very quickly you can have the controling votes for the next Pope. And that, as Martha Stewart says, is a good thing.
3. Here I just like to add that I believe spending money on gifts to allies and neutrals you don't want to war with are a good investment from the start. Spending 100-200 florin no and again to keep neighbours happy is far and away a savings over the cost of wars you aren't prepared for. It also means that you can also keep smaller standing armies when you are in a period of peace, and build yourself a nice nest egg for your next conquest!
Re: Questions about the game
Thank you all so much for the replies. This game is a little overwhelming at first. I will check and see what my town to castle ratio is. I think France needs to be dealt with in my game. I am going to wipe them out I believe. I've been executing every enemy I've captured, and have killed several of their family members so far.
Can't believe it has taken me so long to find this game. I am having so much fun with it.
One thing I haven't focused on is trade rights. If other factions have offered trade rights to me, I've accepted, but I don't think I've sent my diplomat to seek out other countries to establish trade rights. I will work on that tonight.
Re: Questions about the game
One thing you may want to take into consideration before executing prisoners is the effect on your reputation. The M2TW diplomacy system is a mess (as great as the game is) and often times you will find everybody hates you and you have no idea why. You said you're new so you may not have seen the reputation feature in the game. Just open up the diplomacy tab and it will tell you what your global reputation is. If it gets too bad you will find yourself unable to make peace with anybody and constantly attacked. Your global rep can be hard to manage as often times you do things to drop it without even realizing it.
There a couple of things that you can control however. Two major ones are (1) dealing with captured settlements and (2) dealing with prisoners. Simply put, "exterminating" the population will cause your rep to drop with all factions, "sacking" a settlement will also cause a drop in your rep, though a much lesser one. Lastly, "occupying" a settlement will actually cause your reputation to improve. Of course the downside to "occupying" is that you don't get that huge cash infusion that you would receive from "sacking". It's hard to turn down 10,000 florins when your treasury is in the red.
Same goes for prisoners. "Executing" them WITHOUT offering them for ransom will cause your rep to drop. Executing them after the other faction refuses to pay the ransom (I think) will have no effect on your reputation. Conversly, if you refuse to pay for your prisoners when the enemy captures them, your reputation will take a hit. Lastly, releasing prisoners will cause your rep to improve.
What I try to do is keep my rep at "reliable" (just one notch above "mixed"). So one turn I will execute 1,000 soldiers (take the rep hit) and the next time I will balance it out by releasing 20 peasants. So "sack" Paris and get a huge influx of gold but "occupy" some tiny little rebel settlement to make up for it.
Centenarius
Re: Questions about the game
I think this is supposed to work, but doesn't - per Vampiresbane's "Art of diplomacy":
" +0.05 Occupying a settlement*
*Currently bugged unless you patch your game with this file (right click on "file" and save as, file developed by taw); follow the instructions here; fyi you don't need to unpack M2TW to make this file work-just place it in the folder specified. (For my computer, it's the following folder: C:\Program Files (x86)\SEGA\Medieval II Total War\data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign) "
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...iplomacy-Guide
Centenarius
Re: Questions about the game
Well have fun, I've been playing for years and it's still by far my favourite game (Sins of a Solar Empire is a close second, though...).
When you have the time/inclination, I'd recommend you start reading some of the excellent guides that have been written over the years - they can show you that M2TW waters run deep. I print them and read them on the can LOL
Oh, and don't be shy to ask questions (but, you know, try a search first).
Re: Questions about the game
Thanks again for the great info guys. I am getting things turned around in my first campaign finally.
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