Help with Sicily

[Padakid]

I need some help with Sicily.

1.What do i do at the start i can't exactly kill the Pope and Papal States so im unsure where to go.
2.Im having trouble with my merchants and keeping my money up.

Any tips Are very much welcome.

[Mig el Pig]

Conquer all the isles in the med. , built ports and open trade with all fractions, uses small but decent armies of norman knights and muslim archers to secure your few borders and sent out priests to eventually get a pope.
once you have a pope, all the isles and a few of the coastal cities you have pretty much a free reign.

[Padakid]

What about my Merchants.

[Mikelus Trento]

I would suggest...

Tunis, Sardinia, and Corsica right off the bat. You can take these three with your original forces.

As soon as you have Corsica and Tunis, use them as you castles and convert Palermo to a city.

Next move on Tripoli so you you can use it as your North African castle (converting Tunis to a city), and move your eyes eastward to the Moors, and the 2 rebel provinces south of them (Timbuktu and Arguin), which are resource rich.

After clearing out western Africa, take Granada castle from the Moors, and that will probably be their last settlement. From there you can build up and slowly expand thru the Iberian peninsula to the Pyranees line.

You will now have 17 provinces. Do not make war with the Papal States.
Consolidate your new found territory.

[Mikelus Trento]

Build 7 merchants as you can and send them south thru the mountain pass that is midway between Marakesh and Algiers. There are 3 great gold/ivory deposits east of the lake along the southern edge, and 4 west of it. I have fairly experienced merchants there that combined are earning me over 3,000 florin per turn.

[Padakid]

What is my Main unit going to be...

[Mikelus Trento]

In the beginning, mailed knights.

Also, build a fort along both eastern and western sides of Italy, at the northern edge of your territory in Italy.

[Padakid]

Ok thanks! im going to give it a try soon.

[mike2R]

I played Sicily in one of my early games (1.0 vanilla) and it must have been the easiest faction to play - the pope protects your land border, you get first dibs on the Mediterranean islands and can then choose your next target at leisure.

Started another game with the 1.1 patch and Lands to Conquer mod (vh/vh) and I'm in trouble. I forget the city names, but I've been forced to keep nearly a full stack garrison on the larger island to the west of Italy to protect against constant naval landings from Milan, Venice, Byzantium and the Moors, and Milan have just landed in force on the smaller of the islands to Italy's west and its fall is certain.

This will leave me with 3 cities, since I've been completely unable to spare the troops to expand anywhere else, and I'm having to contemplate stripping my garrisons for an all out attack on Genoa to cut Milan off from the western Med.

The point of this rambling is that Sicily is not (based on one partial game admittedly) an easy experience any more. I'd probably recommend either an aggressive start, or trying to bribe peace with some of the factions with ports in the western Mediterranean. Oh and don't neglect your navy!

[Parzival]

My first move was to send my starting princess to Rome to secure an alliance with the Papal States, along with military access and trade rights. Send your prince and general to Tunisia, once taken, leave your general with a few troops and send your prince on to Corsica and then Ajjacio (sp?). Sail your King to secure Durrazo, ship him back to southern Italy and then march him north through Rome and take Firenze while it's still in rebel hands. You'll also want to take Tripoli fairly early before Venice get there - Just send the general you left in Tunisia, either by land or sea, the latter being the quicker.

Milan, Venice, or the HRE will be coveting Firenze so sail your Prince (who should've taken Ajjacio) to Firenze to meet up with his old man and prepare defensive northern army for the imminent attack/s. Keep your prince and a small fleet handy in case of enemy naval assaults on Ajjacio and Corsica.

If the HRE attack, quickly take Bologna, then sue for peace and secure an alliance with them, either through marriage or diplomacy and keep relations good. Just sit back and let Venice and Milan come to you. Once they get excomunicated take Genoa, Milan, Venice, and Ragusa. Use your favour with teh Pope to call a crusade on one of these provinces and send both your King and Prince on Crusade for the bonuses. If Gregory denies your request for a crusade just ply him with a couple thousand florins and your crusade will have full Papal backing

Hold on to that alliance with the Papal States and you cannae go wrong lad.

[Padakid]

Well so far its all going well apart from getting attacked from the sea any ideas ?

[Sammyboi]

Well so far its all going well apart from getting attacked from the sea any ideas ?

There's really nothing you can do about that except have enough ships of your own around to chase away enemy ships. I struggled with Sicily until I had taken every single coastal region in South Europe, then my enemies just didn't have anywhere to launch their ships from and calmed down.

[Fallen.Soldier]

carefull with milan and HRE. in my game i had the islands and some parts of n.africa.
thing is i had my "main army" at north africa and i only had garrisons in the italian coast.
milan DoWd me and soon after HRE DoWd me too. backstabbing pricks...oh and pope didnt do jack, i was his friend but he just stood there =(

[Padakid]

Ye Milan are getting on my nerves at the minute im currently Taking South africa up to Jerusalem.

[Sammyboi]

I finally finished off Milan yesterday. I kicked them out of Italy and the South Coast pretty fast in my game, then left them to their landlocked future. Sadly they beat down France and England and took their coastal towns, and were thusly able to boost their economy and remain a pain. I was on and off war with them for decades before I finally invested heavily in 4 stacks and ran them out of town. Final stand was in Metz and it was a huge one. I actually lost twice through running out of time, and needed a third crack at the assault to finish them off. Even after the patch I find Milan too powerful...

[Real]

I only played as Sicily once, just to try to conquer the Papacy and I had the same results.
I am now going to try and play as you guys say, thanks for the tip!

Next move on Tripoli so you you can use it as your North African castle (converting Tunis to a city), and move your eyes eastward to the Moors, and the 2 rebel provinces south of them (Timbuktu and Arguin), which are resource rich.

I played as Portugal and conquered Cordoba, Granada, Morocco, and all regions until Tunis. After, I tried Timbuktu, but insuccessfully, for I couldn't reach it! I had no access to it, dunno why! I just couldn't walk to South anymore, like ships can't go to much to West before the New World is unlockable. Can anyone help me on this?

[Fallen.Soldier]

there is a "desert highway" you can go to which leads to timbuktu
just keep going south with your army. youll eventually get it

[Padakid]

Where abouts on the map are they.

[Romanos]

Sent to the Battle Planning.

[Bachias]

I haven't really played much longer than 70-ish turns in my Sicilian campaign, but I found taking the Italian peninsula before anything else to work well.

Venice and Milan declared war on me almost right off the bat, so I sent over Prince Simon to Durazzo, from where he advanced westward, taking Venice's settlements until they only had Venice itself left in Italy. Meanwhile I had another general who's name I can't remember right now take a ship up to Florence to grab it before anyone else, and after I felt I had a decent garrison there I moved him to take Ajaccio and Cagliari.

Not too long ago I finally kicked the Venetians out of Europe when I took Venice, and the Milanese were defeated time and again in a series of battles that cost them Genoa and Milan. Most recently I finally took Bologna from those sausage eating, beer swilling germans, who had countless crossbow militias and town militias defending the city. But alas, quality triumphs yet again over quantity, and they were thoroughly slaughtered by my Norman Knights and Pavise Crossbowmen.

With all of Italy under my iron fist (except Rome), I had some sweet income which is currently financing my valiant crusaders at Antioch.

Damn, writing this is making me want to play.