Irritating fatimids+need some advice regarding strategy(SS beginner)

[SoumyaBanerjee]

I like playing as sicily/venice...but in most of my campaigns as these factions, i often end up getting into trouble with the fatimids. In my sicily early era campaign, they were constantly besieging tripoli, i think i foiled 5 sieges of that town in 15 turns. One would have expected them to blitz the levant and go after the seljuks and romans in anatolia, but they keep on sending stack after stack towards tripoli. And in my venetian campaign(late era), they even besieged RHODES!!! Rhodes is a bit of a backwater settlement which serves as a handy castle for my campaigns in asia minor, but i am now having to keep a full stack there to ward off those bas***ds. What do i do? Conventional logic would dictate carrying out a few retaliatory raids in the nile valley, but i dont possess enough men in any of these campaigns to pull something of that sort of. Qualitatively and quantitatively, my militaries are never a match for the fatimid war machine, and even though i called a crusade upon cairo in my sicilian campaign, it didnt really dissuade the fatimids, they lost cairo but still kept on sending full stacks towards tripoli lol.
Which brings me to another point-how many stacks are you guys usually able to muster in most of your campaigns? Some factions are financially and militarily stronger than others, but my military ranking is always spiraling downwards...im new to SS, and i dont really know what to do in this regard. Protracted wars are an absolute no-no for me, since i will simply not be able to endure wars of attrition. In my venetian campaign, i can barely muster 2-3 full stacks compared to 5-6 for the hungarians and a similar number for the HRE after 25-30 turns. Among my key rivals, only genoa and the romans are weaker militarily. Most of my military campaigns involve picking off vulnerable regions opportunistically and playing a diplomatic game. Is SS really so hard campaign-wise or am i a total noob?
And how do i go about a normal campaign in which i can actually go head-to-head with my rival factions? Though new to SS(and M2TW as a whole) im not a bad general, i like fighting battles and i am not too bad at looking after cities/castles either, its just that i never seem to have enough resources to take other factions head-on(unlike in vanilla), irrespective of the faction..please help.

[luock]

not sure what i can do to help, but one campaign i've played as the HRE they've beaten the mongols and expanded their empire to russia both east and west of the caspian and hungary through greece/anatolia lol

[b257]

All I can say is go at them early, leave them alone too long and they get powerful. During my byzantine campaigns I always went after them hard and fast, its especially helpful to strike during a crusade.

[hrissker]

yea b257 always goes hard and fast, lol but in serious terms, I go after them in the early stages of the campaign if im close, I usually try and keep the crusader states intact which they usually steamroll.

[Strategos Autokrator]

If you're new to SS you should maybe try a different faction. England or France are easy. If you play as France you should conquer England, Ireland and annihilate Scotland. You need a corner on the map to defend properly. Use your generals as cavalry in the start of the game. Get some longbowmen. I usually use 9 longbowmen units and set up a half moon shaped screen with those stakes. I usually place 1 Gallowglasses unit on each flank to protect against cavalry encirclement, In the middle I line up 5 heavy infantry units behind the stakes. Behind the archer i have 3 cavalry + 1 general unit in reserve. I usually mow down their cavalry first. When that's done I move my infantry forward and hit them with a hammer-anvil maneuver.

Against horse archers and light cavalry you don't need stakes. Use spearmen and hit them with hospitaller knights after you've seriously reduced their number of horsearchers by use of your own archers. If you play as Sicily you have muslim archers. They are good enough and expendable. I use hospitaller knights because they have 6 defense skill. If you kill a lot of crap units when they route + participation in crusades, they'll have 1 gold chevron in no time. The armor you get on those knights in comparison to the armor you get on other knights are your key to victory against hose archers. You need a huge city if you want the Full Plate upgrade in 1370. To get a Huge City you should assemble all the titles that give your general Chivalry on one with the 'active builder' or 'urban planner' trait. Iraklion, Syracuse, Valencia, Salamanca, Thorn and Novgorod give you + in Chivalry. Preferably use a general not involved in fighting and 1-3 chivalry on their own, except for crusaders leading a crusade as you get Chivalry and not Dread when you take a settlement. There's also an extravagant trait giving your general -to squalor, but I don't remember what it's called. If you have that, that's fine too. If you build everything that gives you population growth you'll have a Huge City in no time. You have to plan ahead. Get those armor upgrades, Citadels and Huge Cities, preferably in Italy because of improved metallurgy in 1400. In my current campaign as France I have 13 Citadels, 1 in Italy and 5 Huge Cities, 4 of them in Italy. This way I can upgrade the armor of all my soldiers in only a couple of turns. I can upgrade 25 units in one turn as of now. Palermo on the island of Sicily is part of Italy and have Improved Metallurgy too.

If you play as Sicily I would conquer the North-West cost of Africa and invade Spain to get a secure base to operate from. After this I would invade England and take control of whatever is there. Then I would invade France. I would even consider a expeditionary force to take the rebel castles in Ireland and Wales within 10 turns. That way you can start producing longbowmen. Ally yourself with England and let them fight against Scotland until you are strong enough to crush them. Do the same with Protugal and Aragorn or whatever fits you at the moment. Another good strategy is the use of buffer states. I you give the the North Eastern part of Africa to Genoa they'll keep the Fatimides in check. Hold on to those islands and develop them if you can. Palermo, Iraklion and Rhodes are important later in the game. Hospitaller knights and Improved Metallurgy is important.

The Spanish javelin men are also effective tools in your shed. Recruit them and disband them all in one castle. You'll have 30 + in a few turns. The same can be done with knights too or any unit for that matter. That's why you want more than two islands. Recruit knights from Rhodes and Sardinia and disband them in Palermo. Recruit infantry from Palermo and Rhodes and disband them in Sardinia. Recruit archers from Bari and Sardinia and disband them in Palermo. You'll figure it out. If you are able to hold on to Sardinia, Palermo, Syracuse, Iraklion and Rhodes you'll be fine. If you take Nicosia you'll be able to recruit Mourtatoi and disband them on Rhodes. Like a walk in the park!

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

SS can be a shock until you get used to it, like everything else in life. Two to three full stacks is about right in mid-campaign, with maybe half-stack garrisons in a couple of exposed settlements. The AI is only interested in the human player, so even if the Fatimids lost a settlement to a Crusade, they would still concentrate on the human player, as long as there is a common border.

If you cannot send reinforcements to your settlement (e.g. Tripoli) and you prefer total war over total diplomacy, build a fort or two in front of Tripoli and hopefully the Fatimids will be attacking your forts, which you can reinforce from Tripoli and elsewhere with fresh troops. If diplomacy is ok, use the offer of a settlement as a bargaining tool for a ceasefire, or sell it to someone who will be in the way of the Fatimids.

[+Marius+]

Go to your data folder and edit all horse archers(yes, even the all Godly Mongols) to a realistic maximum range of 70-90(110-20 in few elite cases) with a range attack of 2-3...maybe 4 in a few cases of elite horse archers and :

All campaign problems solved.

[Elro]

Number is not so important with fatimids (at least in early game) if you have cavalry.
You should probably go to the first crusade called on them, even with no attempt to win it (you could also ask for one), and use other Christian faction as distraction to aim for Damietta / Gaza and after Alexandria. Once done turtle a bit and send a reinforcement army to keep expending toward Egypt.
Doing this will make you hurt them early, get nice income and will allow you to get lots of priests to Cardinal overthere.
Unfortunately it also means putting aside your goal towards Italy / Europe for a certain amount of time since you'll be busy finishing them (they always keep coming at you even with 1 city left).
But I find it pretty efficient in the long run.
I've done so in several campaigns, some of them as French (I get an alliance with hre and England), and that really payes off. Especially because the pope won't ask me to stop attacking / expending as it used to be when I was used to get stuck in European wars.

[Navajo Joe]

I had a similar situation whilst playing as CS in late Era, with the Mongols. I realised that they would push hard on my eastern front, I had very good relations with the Pope, called 2 Crusades against them. On each occasion about 15 Crusader armies passed my Fortress at Ray, none ever returned, but when I did attack the Mongols, they had been decimated and my armies swept them aside. So keep good relations with the Pope and call Crusades against the Fatties, then mop them up.