One more thing about using spies to spread Plague - dont overdo it, it will come back to you with enemys spies. And you cna be sure as hell they have more of them than you do ;-)
One more thing about using spies to spread Plague - dont overdo it, it will come back to you with enemys spies. And you cna be sure as hell they have more of them than you do ;-)
oh, i don't know the trick with the spy work on battlefield eitheir, somehow are u guys sure about it ?
hehe, pretty dirty huh, i do it too but only with jihad, i never had enough cross to order the damn pop a crusader,but once i got around 500 unit go on a jihad ( it was for baghda , i think) in preparing for the timurid invasion, i just needed some experience bonus
by the way, just my experience, don't go blindly on crusaders & jihads, if it get cancelled, your force will melt away
and don't garisson any crusader troops too long , they'll disband too
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1. If you want your advancing ram to have a better chance not to burst into flames, advance with some peasants or other worthless troops first. The Archers and towers will then use a lot of ressources shooting at the peasants, and you can in the meantime roll up the ram to the gates.
2. Also, if you are besieging a settlement, and arent interested in the enemy to get replacements, place a lot of Spies, Priest, Diplomats or whatever you got, to stand in the way from their closest settlement of theirs, to the one you are besieging. Most times the enemy will then just run into your passive courtiers and stop up a good bit away so you can besiege the enemy in good order. (Its that "the path is blocked" thing, that works just as well against the enemy!) Quite handy sometimes...
3. Only attack with one spearthrowingunit at a time. If you attack with more than one, some of the units tend to run/ride over to the enemy trying to fight them with their secondary weapon and in that way you are killing your own men when you throw spears at them, with the other units.
I am just surprised no one has talked about this yet ...
In my initial games the priests would not gain much experience ... ever ... cuz they just hung out in my provinces and thats it.
Now, I send them away to provinces where religions are different or heretical mine or enemies ... and my priests quickly gain experience and currently I have 8 that are Cardinals and my dude is the pope too.
I always carry the popes favour, so i can attack ANYONE i chose. If things get a little heavy, I just invoke a crusade or something or 'pray' for the popes death.
Also, since i discovered this and being held high in the popes favour, my provinces seem happier too.
someone has already said how to do a perfect charge on the enemy
clickng on the enemy behind the supposedly target will make the charging calvary lower their lances and thus, a deadly charge
awesome tip in regards to the spy in the army. is there the same correlation with a spy in a sieged city allowing you to prepare for the battle before hand? and for merchants...im pretty sure having your capital being a city instead of a castle i believe increases the amount you earn from them
I discovered this the other day that may be useful to crusading armies...
Your general can build a fort and dump all his army into it. He can then go alone and hire extra mercenaries, and if there's enough money, build another fort and place all these new troops inside it. Now, far from home your crusading general now has two or more armies for backup. And the good thing about this is, the armies in the forts you have just built do not desert!
Some times if I think some of my troops will desert I build a fort and dump the whole lot inside it, leaving the general outside. No more deserting troops!
How do you get the spy revealing enemy deployment thingo to work? I attached spies to all my armies but I never ever ever had it work once.
The key to the game is economy.
The problem can be surmised like this:
10 You need money to raise armies.
20. You need armies in order to expand and conquer more provinces and get more money.
30 Goto 10.
1. Your aim should be to control as much trade as possible.
2.When you wage war, be careful of the diplomatic implications in regards to trade. If you attack another faction who is allied with several other smaller factions you may find yourself losing money every turn, you will not be able to wage war for very long if this is the case.
3. Build Economic buildings as one of your highest priorities. Start of with the obvious grain exchanges, but don't forget about farming. You gain a lot of money from farming.
4. Tax. Tax those those poor S.O.B's as much as they'll take it without reducing the population growth.
5.If you control the sea, you control the game. So aim to control as much of it as you can.
6. Destroy any brigands you see, do not let them linger because they halt trade.
6. Select which settlements will be ideal for castles, and have the majority as cities. Cities generate more cash, Castles do not]. Castles will however be your primary source of high quality military units. It is not a good idea to have huge castles in the centre of your empire, as getting those military units to the frontlines will be an expeditous pain.
Hope this helps
One other thing:
Once you have a large self-sustaining empire, being excommunicated is not such a big deal
Last edited by Romanos; January 21, 2007 at 06:30 PM.
Here lies a toppled god —
His fall was not a small one.
We did but build his pedestal,
A narrow and tall one.
If you are moving units by ship, you can easily just unload them by pressing at a coastal settlement. That way you dont have to land next to the settlement, and from there travel to the settlement. This way you unload your troops right to the place you might want them.
Perhaps a little unimportant, but good to know anyway!
I don't remember if the trick of jamming the area before the gates with an abandonned ballista while defending against an assault has been mentionned.
I have just seen another trick, done by the AI this time, pushing a catapult in my pikewall !
Try this out, works like a charm for me:
Forget your useless Schiltrom and use guard mode instead!
It is truly that easy, just use three armored spearmen in the shape of a V to catch cavalry. The "Bottom" one will hold its ground while you shift your "Left" and "Right" to encircle the enemy.
Works best against really annoying enemy Heavies and generals, they can't run, and really can't hide since they are beeing crushed from all sides by them pointy sticks xD
Getting tired of having your cavalry turn around while pursuing an enemy unit. All you have to do is have them charge at a unit in front of all the fleeing troops. Your cavalry will charge full speed to the far unit, killing all other troops that get in their path.
if you have naffatuns, use them a lot in bridge defense battles and when you're besieging enemy is packing your gate/ wall. Just one pot of naphta, boom at least 10 soldiers die. But it is only most effective when the enemy is VERY tightly packed together.
That spy thing is cool, i did not know this.
My triks and tips:
1. If you want to beat enemy buy cavarly. Militia cavarly or mounted sergants or knights. Militia one is cheapest to upkeep and is also heavy cavarly. If you station them in city you save money. Knights upkeep is 250, militia cavarly upkeep is 150. Mounted sergants upkeep is 175 - but they are fast, two mounted sergants will beat any 1 heavy cavary unit.
Hospitalier or other religious knights are the best.
2. Buy full stack of cavarly. If attacking the enemy, charge with full power, flank or do frontal assault. Don't worry about that you are in inferior and battle odd is bad for you. Even the full frontal cavarly charge to enemy spearmens will break through, and the panic will spread quickly. Well the last one is tricy, because your losses wil be high. So i recomend divide your armi in three or two groups, one for flanking. Flank first and then charge in front. Let them fight some seconds and then pull back. Reform Charge again. My losses are ususally 10% against enemy 90%. This is most effective against armyes what have many missile units, heavy infantry and lack spearmen or heavy cavarly.
3. If first frontal charge do not have the desired effect, pull them back reform and charge again. Do that as long as nessesary. I can beat any AI army what have lack of cavarly.
My army usually consist full stack of cavarly or missile infantry and cavarly. No melee infantry. Waste of money..
USE Ultimate AI mod to have really big battles. Increase Kings purse to make AI perform better.
Last edited by kleemann; January 23, 2007 at 03:51 AM.
Trading tip: Load your mercants on your (crapy, cheap upkeep) unit and place that crapy unit on the valuable trade ressource. All will earn money on that single ressourec AND other merchants can't do anything! ha:ha
BUT it has bad side efect, if the unit rebel you will lose your merchants :hmmm:
How-to: edit battle_model.modeldb to add new animations and skins.
To make breach assaults a little easier, use crossbows (or archers) to pave the way.
You may have noted that the AI will move infantry or sometimes cavalry units to new breaches in the walls to await your assault troops there. To avoid the losses a melee will cause, move your assault unit(s) not directly in front of the breach, but place it right or left (preferably both, of course) to it directly at the walls. Then move a crossbow (or other missile) unit in front of the breach and let them pepper the waiting enemy.
If the enemy tries to attack your missile troops by storming through the breach, your infantry units to the right and left will make a wonderful flanking attack.