Help for a newcomer?

[Samittaja]

Hello everyone!

Indeed the old Total Wars are not dead! Vice versa, they are still getting new players. Perhaps the raging river has dried to driplets, but at least I am a standing and breathing proof that somebody is still bying these games.

I have now played all of the Total Wars from Shogun 1 to Shogun 2, starting with a retail Shogun 1, continuing in a less systematic pattern and a month ago the Medieval 1 became the newest addition to my collection. My most favourites in the series are: shared 1st place with Medieval 2 and Shogun 2, shared 2nd place between Rome 1 and Shogun 1, 3rd place belongs to the Napoleon and 4th is Empire. Notice that my placing is based on how much I enjoy each game, not how challenging or high-quality I feel they are, though they have their part in the rating.

Medieval 1 needs my verdict. I'm absolutely loving it... sort of. As I'm still trying to learn to play it, I can see it is very different from the other games of the series. And to my disappointment, I have witnessed some things I find annoying and now need your help with, as the manual doesn't answer everything (and learning from HoI 3, even manuals can sometimes be questioned) and I don't think I can find any earlier answers to my questions.

I have developed an arrogance in Total war games, I don't anymore play Total Wars in anything else but the highest difficulty (the faction difficulty I find free game). So 'Expert' it is! Early Campaign! But having learned from the disastrous attempt to learn leading Sicilians to glory, I swallowed my pride and try again with someone easier, namely the Almohads (or Moors in Medieval 2). Still in Expert, that is. This time I am more successful, the Spain is crushed in under 10 turns, the whole of Iberia is conquered in a timely fashion, one thing leads to another and now I control all of France, British Isles sans Scotland, Northern Italy , Middle Eastern sans some areas I've lost to the Mongols or re-emerging Turks, Northern Africa, the majority of the formerly German territory, and Iberia. Yet another of my Caliphs is a coward. The year is 1252 as I spea.... write.

However, some things are not clear to me after all this:

- At the early game I had situations where the peasant rebellions occured despite the region loyalty showing more than 100%. Since the loyalty became less than 100% after endturn, I deduced the rebellion occured because of the rebellion is calculated after the endturn. Since I can not see into the future, I find the annoyance level is over 9000. However, this hasn't occured after, I don't know, 20 turns? Is the situation I described normal?

- So far the only place where I can get spies is in Tyrolia. That's also the only place where I could build a brothel, and I did. Even though I have some other provinces with same buildings (or more advanced). Not a single one building I have even mentions they being a requirement before getting a brothel. Why the hell I can build brothels only in one place, even though not one of the already existing buildings act as pre-requisites, and why the hell I can't do the same in other provinces that have the same buildings . Is the Steam version of the game bugged or something?

- It has been more than 150 years, but Portugal is still not calmed down. Right now I have more than 700 bodies of garbage in the province, very low tax rate, tier II town watch, border fort and a mosque (according to some easier internet finds these buildings increases population loyalty), a spy and a alim (or the lower-tier Imam). Yet the population loyalty is 107%. Le fuq ? The current governor doesn't have a trait that would reduce population happiness , but he has 0 dread. I doubt even that can be the reason, as some other governors have 0 dread without problems of whole another level. How come some regions retain their disloyalty to such ridiculous levels and more importantly, is there something that can be done? Can this be predicted for future use?

- Remember how I previously wrote of the re-emerging Turks? So, they begun their re-emerging in three provinces simultaneously: Rum, Edessa and Tripoli. Rum and Edessa I had abandoned to be as buffers against the Mongol Zerg rush, no problem. That was a mistake, as the re-emerging Egyptians have been even more of a problem than the Mongols, made worse by them being allied and thus the Egyptians being able to focus me. Made even worse that they were unable to control their own territory and the Turks re-emerged with another huge armies of elite heavy cavalry I can't deal in any other way but throwing armies made of garbage to their deaths and hope they get some kills in the process. But that's not the real question here. Why the hell the Turks are re-emerging in the Tripoli as well!? A) They don't start with that region B) They might conquer it in some point but as I arrived there the Egyptians had already pushed the Turks away, reducing the Turkish territory to mere Lesser Armenia and Anatolia C) It's been over 100 years I conquered that province. From the Egyptians. Why the Hell can the Turkish re-emerge somewhere they might not have ever hold!? Even the Egyptians didn't emerge there! It's so annoying when huge armies made of elite appear in ones rear, but at least it's justifiable if it is a core area to the emergant. When those armies appear where they might have never been in the first place, it's getting close to the BS-levels. The population loyalty was exactly 100% in Tripoli at the moment, which is lesser than the re-emergent limit, I get it, but I can't get my head over this.

- What generates profit on the ports? I seeked information on trade, I now get it. The profit the merchants make are shown in the building info. i wondered what was the point in having the profit -section in port info then. Until I saw my port in Venice generate some profit as well. It was like 14 per turn, so nothing major. But it's still more than the 0/turn every other port is making. The main thing it did was filling my head with questions. So if the ports do really generate money, what causes it then? Why so little and only in Venice? Has it something to do with the huge profits the Merchant building in Venice was doing (+1000/turn)?


Despite mainly talking bad of this game, don't get me wrong. I am enjoying this game. This just has some so ridiculously annoying moments that I haven't witnessed in other games of the series. And I think it is faster to ask the veterans of the game than trying to dig through years worth of forum content or trying to find out myself.

[Samittaja]

Here's my thoughts on unit composition. Feel free to comment as I am still trying to improve my skills.

So my recruitment strategy is largely based on the teachings of Shogun 1: My melee loses against equal force, with very little exceptions. Even if they fight adequately, they rout so ridiculously easily forming armies around them is not justified. The difficulty-rating works so badly against the player, even the higher-tier Almohad infantry achieves very little on their own, and then they rout and die to pursuers. I have seen several situations, where units of full numbers rout without having taken damage and enemies are not even nearby. Unluckily, that includes my leaders. Unlike melee, the higher dificulty doesn't protect the enemy from arrows. So the main bulk of my armies consists of archers, with melee infantry's only purpose giving the archers more time to shoot at the enemy. I recruit high-tier infantry only because they have higher morale, giving the archers more time to shoot than that would be with even worse infantry.

Cavalry doesn't matter to me either, as even though they don't rout as easily as infantry, they haven't done much damage to the enemy counterparts either. They're best saved for stopping flanking action, eliminating artillery, harassing archers and chasing down the routers (though sometimes I've seen the enemy routers rally even if my cavalry has been right next to them, and then rout my cavalry after taking like 5 losses, and dishing out much more to my elite cavalry). Even worse, but my generals tend to die in the first charge if both sides' cavalry charge head on each other.

And I wasn't wrong. Even the very same melee infantry units, that I find very difficult to kill if under other factions' control, can achieve nothing under mine, unless the enemy consist of peasants. The best killing numbers tend to get my archers, even the highest-armoured enemies tend to diminish in satisfying numbers under hails of arrow fire. So here's my strategy fo the Almohads: Huge armies of those sweet desert archers backed with a miscellaneous infantry, the exact infantry doesn't matter as they fail regardless (spears just fail less against cavalry and heavy infantry less against other infantry). I've just gone away from urban militia because they almost rout by the mere gaze of the enemy.

Despite constantly losing battles due to very easily ingnited mass routs, the only reason I am conquering is because I just so hugely out-recruit my enemy. And because I can actually keep control of my empire. And because the AI is so, so stupid in bridge battles and offensive sieges.

To put it shortly, both melee infantry and cavalry are greatly suffering from the higher difficulty rating. The only one that retains their efficiency even in higher levels are the archers. That's why I build my armies archer-heavy. The same philosophy I apply to both Shogun 1 and Medieval 1. And it hasn't failed me yet.

[Stazi]

Try those guides below. They'll answer most of your questions.

1. Beginner's Guide

2. Unit Guide

- Happiness of a province is not always displayed correctly. If you want to see true happiness you need to quick save > quick load. Additionally, each province has it's own rebelliousness rating so provinces like Portugal will always cause troubles and should be garrisoned accordingly. 100% is not enough. 120+ is much safer. Vices your governors can get may lower the happiness so it's healthy to check it every few turns (shift key).

- A faction can reemerge from any province it controlled during actual campaign even if it was only 1 turn.

- Trade. You need to create a chain of ships between your province (with trade goods, trader and port) and another faction province with port to get any income (place at least one ship in each sea region to create a chain). That faction has to be friendly or neutral to you and your ship chain can't be disrupted by enemy fleets (V key). btw The same works for invasions.

- No idea about your brothel problem. I haven't played vanilla MTW for a long time.

[Samittaja]

Oi, thanks mate! The guides will certainly be of use. That Pope constantly reappearing would have ruined a day or two.


Shame if some provinces are permanently more troublesome than the others. Well, the garrison in Portugal will probably be cheaper in the long run than border garrison in two others. On top of getting something out of the Portugal instead of nothing. I think keeping Portugal' loyalty just above 100% is safe as unlike in anywhere else, I can be certain Portugal has never been invaded by any other major faction apart from me, not even the Spanish. I invaded Castille on turn 3 ,the previous turns were used to move troops from Morocco and Granada to Cordoba in order to outnumber the Spaniards. The bastards retreated without a fight

That just raises the question, as the Beginner's guide didn't quite give a complete answer. Are there other troublesome provinces of Scotland's and Portugal's class? I will probably find out myself, but this is one of the topics I think just goes smoother if I know in advance.


A faction can reemerge from any province it controlled during actual campaign even if it was only 1 turn? Makes little common sense, but apparently there's nothing I can do but be careful.


I think I wrote my question on trade ambiguously. But I happen to understand how trade and army movement through waterways works (though it required several steps that are poorly explained in the manual and tutorials, so explaining it to the self-declared newbie is justified). My question is: where does that income in the port come from? The trade income appears in the Merchant-building info, so what is supposed to appear in the Port's? I first thought the 'income generated' in the Port's info scroll is something pointless, but then seeing the Port in Venice making 14 money per turn proves this is not the case. It is not explained in anywhere, so I'm confused what's really going on. By the time I noticed it the Merchant in Venice was doing more than 1000 / turn.


Apparently the diplomacy is pretty much dead when the leader has high influence, even though it should be the other way around in the tooltip. That might explain why no-one accepts my offers for ceasefire, even the once that I could eliminate any time. Damn the pointless attacks from the Hungary and the Papal States, I could do much with the money my Merchants would grab from you! On the other hand, high leader influence seem to correlate with high noble and province loyalty. So it's either even greater income through trade or a safe home .


I just want to have one last thing clarified. It seems to me the zeal doesn't have much effect on province loyalty. Is this really the case? Is high / low zeal a good or a bad thing?

[Stazi]

That just raises the question, as the Beginner's guide didn't quite give a complete answer. Are there other troublesome provinces of Scotland's and Portugal's class? I will probably find out myself, but this is one of the topics I think just goes smoother if I know in advance.

The rebellious provinces:
Rebellious degree 0-4
4/4 Portugal, Livonia
3/4 Lithuania
2/4 Prussia, Scotland
1/4 Ireland, Khazar, Pomerania, Serbia
0/4 All other

My question is: where does that income in the port come from?

Open economy information panel. Click on a province. You'll see all sources of your trade income (import/export, etc.).

I just want to have one last thing clarified. It seems to me the zeal doesn't have much effect on province loyalty. Is this really the case? Is high / low zeal a good or a bad thing?

Zeal has very little impact on the game. It's mainly connected with crusades/jihads. When a crusade/jihad walks though a province troops stationed there join it. The bigger zeal the more troops will join.

If you really want to know all the details check this thread.

[Axalon]

I would be a small man, if I could not bother myself to express approval for something clearly worthy of
approval, whenever I find or spot it. You handled this topic exemplary, and made two highly reliable and
rock-solid posts - dead on target no less - well done! I mean that in the best possible way....

Have some golden fluff/rep! You earned it, Staz.

- A

[Samittaja]

Thanks Stazi!

Regarding the brothel, I figured out the problem. For some reason the tavern being pre-requisite for a borthel is shown if the tavern is not yet built, but won't be shown for an already existing tavern. My mistake here checking only the Tavern I had already built at this point. And by the time I begun wondering the situation, I hadn't yet realised some buildings require pretty high-level castles. So tavern is required to be built to get a brothel, but what was not mentioned it also requires a castle of higher level than that of the tavern. Based on my experience with Rome 1 and Medieval 2, I didn't expect that Assassins would be easier to get than spies. So no problem here anymore.

And the popuation loyalty fluctuations are real in this one! I just had a turn where all were happy, and this current turn the public order problems became so bad I can keep mainly my frontline provinces, and random not-so-problematic provinces. The worst situation is probably in North Africa, for example Tunisia has 0 % loyalty even after setting taxes on very low. Reloading the save keeps showing the same situation, and endturn shows that the public order problems are genuine. Though I suspect there still may be some hot air, as the rebellions are not really that bad. Apart from the re-emerging French far behind the frontlines.

Did the heavy taxation last turn cause this? I.e. does the level of taxation have a cumulative effect on loyalty? Could something else cause nearly faction wide public order problems, as my Caliph has not died, and has retained his influence?

I'm getting the feel I should start a new game, having become several steps wiser.

[Stazi]

Did the heavy taxation last turn cause this?

Taxes has immediate effect on happiness. They are on the same panel so you can notice it easily.

Have some golden fluff/rep!

Thanks!

[Samittaja]

Taxes has immediate effect on happiness. They are on the same panel so you can notice it easily.

Not exactly the answer I was looking for, but thanks anyways .

[Samittaja]

Hello again!

I started my campaign again. I was, again, bringing peace and prosperity to Europe as the Almohads. With the help of the sword and iron-fisted and cleptomanic rule, of course.

Before doing the re-run, I wanted to have a scale on trade income. So I picked Italy, tried to avoid wars, having enough armies to keep the enemy at bay, and otherwise focused solely on improving trade. Funnily, this is the only Total War I've played so far where declaring war on everyone I meet is detrimental, the trade is so important source of income. One of the mistakes I made in the first run was being too aggressive and thus had trouble financing my wars, even trade was hardly enough to balance the economy.

This time I was doing much better, having learned from my mistakes, even won more battles than I lost. I still spammed desert archers as the backbone of my military, but instead of spamming every infantry possible, I focused on the sweet sweet Almohad Urban Militia. Having now learned what buildings are available and when, I was able to strengthen the infantry with morale-improving religious buildings, and armouries after them. I also managed to establish trade both earlier and ultimately more profiting. So profiting actually I was able to maintain constant construction in every province for the rest of the game.

My first run as the Almohads failed because I presumed the loyalty would be stable after some while, just like in Shogun 1. I was able to keep the public order better in order this time. Having 2 or more full peasant units in every province as garrison definitely helped. Apparently the huge loyalty plummets are caused by A) usually faction leader dying, but not always B) if entering war with a faction that is major at the moment, factions with just 1 province don't seem to cause this. C) Possibly losing a major battle, but I'm not too sure of this yet.


So thanks for the help, I still have things to learn but I've already improved enough. Total Domination of Europe is a sweet fruit.