The Armourer's challenge; a Medieval 2 challenge for advanced players

[A Concerned General]

The Armourer’s challenge for Medieval 2: Total War™

Are you an experienced Medieval 2 player who wants to get a challenge out of the game without having to resort to mods? Are you tired of those empty-feeling migration campaigns and want to just stay in the region historically bestowed upon you? Are you tired of unconsciously blitzing through every campaign and not actually getting to the late game, never reaching gunpowder or Mongol invasions?
Then, ladies and gentlemen, I have a challenge just for you. Though the challenge may seem a basic principle, it will completely transform the game. You will be able to make use of your full unit roster, and in fact you’ll be needing your entire unit roster for this challenge.


The rules:

1. The Armourer’s challenge: You cannot recruit units (or use them in combat) unless they will receive their highest armour grade possible upon recruitment.

Why, you ask, “Are those all the rules?” Yes these are actually all the rules, though there are a few exceptions to mention. For the moment, let me walk you through any start of an Armourer’s challenge campaign. In order to explain this challenge logically we’ll put ourselves in the position of the ‘Concerned General’.
‘Having noticed the horrible decline of the male population, the Concerned General wants to keep the casualties due to combat throughout the empire to an absolute minimum. Therefore, he has had the king issue the empire-wide edict that no unit shall enter the battlefield without being protected to the limit.’ -Edict issued in spring 1080 AD
In fact, no unit can even be recruited without being fully armoured, like mentioned above. The units you start out with at the start of the campaign should all be deleted at once, since they make the Concerned General nervous. You won’t therefore be able to obtain any units until peasants can be recruited with padded. Worse still, this is the only unit that can be recruited with padded available. Only upon reaching light mail (the second armour upgrade) will you be able to field anything that resembles a varied army. It will only consist of light cav (Jinetes,Border Horse), peasant archers/crossbowmen, and town militia. You can already notice that this makes for a very challenging early game, the consequences of which can be felt in mid game.

***

You will also have noticed a problem; “what to do with the general’s bodyguards?”
Bodyguards cannot be deleted. Moreover, the generals and family members they protect maintain an essential role in any battle, in the administration, and the very existence of your empire. Since the general’s bodyguard is the exception to the rule, we’ll uphold a simple rule for them:

2. The general’s bodyguard cannot be commanded to attack units and should not be allowed to be engaged in prolonged melee.

So even if the only unit defending your city against an enemy attack is a general’s bodyguard, just autoresolve or something. You won’t be able to use your general’s bodyguard in combat.

***

Now that it’s clear what you cannot do with bodyguard, let’s mention what you can do with them.
The early game is going to see many challenging units like horse archers and archers on skirmish mode that really ruin the game’s fun if you have only peasants and town militia to pursue them. Therefore, we postulate the following rule:

3. If the sole purpose of engagement with units is pursuit – like at the end of a battle, where you rack up the few remaining unrouted units – then the general’s bodyguard can be commanded to attack units.

A good indication of healthy use of the general’s bodyguard in pursuit is when the unit routs at the instant or soon after it is engaged by the bodyguard. This usually happens after the enemy’s general has been killed/captured. Of course, the general’s bodyguard can always be used to run down routed units, so you can keep getting that sweet 85%.

***

Your infantry will be very vulnerable in early game. Therefore, holding back your bodyguard when it could be used to scare off skirmishers or archers, would not be standable.

4. General’s bodyguard can be ran into enemy missile-class units in order to distort their ‘firing missiles’ status.

In most cases, approach alone will get the enemy missile units to back off. However, in cases where the enemy’s skirmish mode is off or if they’re just unresponsive to your bodyguard, running your bodyguard into them (as opposed to charging) is your only option left. In order to stick to the second rule, be sure to disengage your bodyguard as soon as it has made contact.

***

Of course, if the use of your bodyguard is entirely outside of your control, like in autoresolve, rules 2 to 4 are entirely irrelevant. Most battles are just too much in your favour to be compelled to fight manually. You can autoresolve whenever you want, even if there is an unupgraded general’s bodyguard in your army. If you want to make a general’s bodyguard doomstack for autoresolving in the early game, be my guest. Just watch out for enemy armies attacking your (empty) settlements, and having nobody to keep up the morale of defending units.

5. Battles can always be autoresolved, regardless of involving unarmoured general’s bodyguard

Upon upgrading any bodyguard, rules 2 to 4 can be neglected. From the moment they’re upgraded, the bodyguard counts as a regular fully upgraded unit, and you can do anything with them you want.

***
The last and final rule is one that will be told by the Concerned General himself: “If units refuse to receive armour upgrades they can off!” The Concerned General will therefore not tolerate any mercenaries, since they cannot be upgraded. You will still have to start out your game with peasants. Don’t worry, you’ll get to like them!

6. No mercenaries

I initially meant to include siege units, since their crew can be used in combat, never having been upgraded. But I will leave it up to the player to determine whether he/she wants to include them in the game.

***

These are all the rules of the Armourer’s challenge. If you come up with any exploits to circumvent them, be sure to use them. I’m confident that these rules are reasonably airtight.


Useful information

In order to understand when you can recruit certain units, I have put a summary below which you can use as a reference for what units you can and cannot yet recruit at a certain level.

Padded: peasants
Light mail: Town mil, Archer mil/peasant archers/peasant crossbowmen, Early light cav
Heavy mail: Spear militia, Mailed knights
Partial plate: (Dismounted) Feudal knights, General's bodyguard
Full plate: Heavy swordsmen, Heavy cav

Early light cavalry = {Border horse, Mounted sergeants, Hobilars, Knechten, Jinetes, etc.}
Heavy Swordsmen = {D. Noble knights, D. English knights, Armoured swordsmen, D. Chivalric knights, etc.}
Heavy Cavalry = {Noble knights, English knights, Chivalric knights, etc.}

Each faction has its own special units. I don’t have the patience to go through all unique units, but here are a few:

Light mail: Billmen, Longbowmen, Yeoman archers, Almughavars
Heavy mail: Sword militia
Partial plate: Heavy billmen, Retinue lonbowmen, Demi lancers

Tips

It would be best for me not to give you any tips, so you can develop your own playstyle. However, I’d find it very unfortunate if you’re scared away from the challenge you’ll encounter in the early game, and therefore never be able to develop an appreciation for this challenge as the game progresses. Therefore, 3 tips to get you on the right track:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

1. Make alliances with your neighbours as soon as possible.
You’ll only need to worry about factions that directly border you. At the end of every tun, there will be an increasingly higher chance that your neighbour will finally attack one of your poorly defended cities. Discourage them by allying with them, preferably through marriage. Although diplomacy in Medieval 2 is not a reliable tool, an alliance might buy you the time you need to bolster you defences, should they decide to backstab you.

2. Focus your first few turns entirely on recruitment.
A game would normally begin with building up your economy, since you would begin with a standing army. However, since you do not possess an army at the start of your campaign, you’ll have to focus on recruiting units as soon as possible. Since (to my experience) no city in the entire map starts with a smith, your first building orders should consist of leather tanners and blacksmiths, in order to get peasants (assuming you have a mustering hall at least) and town militia. Wooden castles and up will allow you to recruit light cavalry. Obtaining cavalry will feel like a relief, I promise. It is also very advisable to get to bowyer and then practice range to get peasant crossbowmen.

3. Have your diplomat/princess extort anyone he/she first makes contact with
Sell map information and trade rights for florins, in order to afford all those smithing buildings and the subsequent recruitment orders. When you open negotiations with a faction without allies or with allies common to you, you can usually get some money out of an alliance as well.

Enjoy the challenge
Tip 4 should be to have fun, but that might not be the case. The Armourer’s challenge compels you to adopt a new playstyle; one that will take time to settle in. The easiest faction I’d recommend for starters is the Holy Roman Empire. You might think that their abundance of neighbours might make them vulnerable, but this is not the main factor in the successful completion of the campaign. To my experience, the AI likes to launch naval invasions; specifically against the faction of the player. Even when playing as England, this will be a problem. The Holy Roman Empire, in contrast, is largely landlocked and is surrounded by a buffer of rebel settlements, though their early game (light mail) unit roster is nothing compared to that of England.
If you have all factions unlocked, some other good suggestions for starting factions are the ones that are isolated by surrounding rebel settlements and have a low chance of suffering a naval invasion. These are: Scotland, Russia, Egypt, and Turkey.
If this post becomes popular I might upload more tips and a complete table of all units in the game. Enjoy the challenge!

Best, berendkiezelsteen

[Gigantus]

Pity you can't add a min_building_level condition to a recruit line in the EDB - that would take care of the restrictions. Needs however a duplication line without the restriction and an event_counter condition for the AI.

Alternatively put the player's recruit lines into the corresponding blacksmith tree levels with an event_counter indicating the player's turn.

[Steward Denethor II]

Cool idea. The only rules I don't like are rules 2-4. I'd replace them with "Unupgraded Generals must stay in friendly territory and can only fight if they are attacked and cannot retreat." Welcome to TWCenter.

For a less strict option, players could say that you can only recruit units if you have the right armour for the unupgraded level. Meaning to get a Spear Militia or Peasant Archers you don't need any armour, but to get Italian Spear Militia and Jinetes you need at least Leather, for Mailed Knights and Armoured Sergeants you need at least Light Mail, for Feudal Knights you need heavy mail. This will be a lot easier though, especially early game.

Maybe ships and siege weapons would require a weapons upgrade to be used?