Spanish Tips

[Feudal Knight]

Mainly this is to ask how I should get out of the rut I'm in as Spain. Basically its all started alright. I've taken 3 settlements but I'm not enjoying the financial success i was with England and am a bit stuck on making more money. I've got good farming/markets etc and I'm also extorting money from Portugal, France, The Moors and Milan(comes to around 1500 of my 1800 profit a turn). Trouble is I'm spending all the profit I get on buildings to improve the situation but its not helping. So tips please, or give me a faction that has good economic capabilities

[Lubeck]

Well if I were you as Spain I would conquer Portugal first. You have the same army compositions so you only have to out-smart the AI, not exactly a hard task, and it removes one threat from the Iberian peninsula.

Don't bother trying to take that one rebel settlement with El Sid or whatever his name is, too strong of defenses. Let the Moors try and take it and most likely fail, but in the process weaken the defenders. Meanwhile take the rebel settlement next to Pamplona to close off the Iberian from France.

Leon, Lisbon, Pamplona, and the settlement next to Pamplona should all be relativly secure and require just a garrison strong enough to keep the population in line. Gather all the troops you can and take Cordoba and Granada, removing the Moors from Iberia. If you are in good graces with the Pope have him commission a Crusade so your army will be free of upkeep and you will get some good traits and retinue.

With Iberia secure you will have an easily defensible home territory. The Pyrenees offer few ways for France to get through. And just put 4-5 ships on the landbridge at Gibralter and the Moors will not be able to cross back into Iberia.

[Feudal Knight]

Thanks I think I'm going to restart my campaign. Not exactly the tips I wanted but a couple will be useful and I'll ignore El Cid

Edit: Also Portugal always seems to have the bigger army of the two factions so is it really advisable to take them out first?

[kevincompton]

Thanks I think I'm going to restart my campaign. Not exactly the tips I wanted but a couple will be useful and I'll ignore El Cid

Edit: Also Portugal always seems to have the bigger army of the two factions so is it really advisable to take them out first?

Don't ignore El Cid! Use a mission to take the the town and get the 2500 florins they give you. Its not hard, just build enough men and let them sally out, siege them until they do, don't assault.

The key is to take the whole peninsula, your vulnerable until you do this.

[Lubeck]

Don't ignore El Cid! Use a mission to take the the town and get the 2500 florins they give you. Its not hard, just build enough men and let them sally out, siege them until they do, don't assault.

The key is to take the whole peninsula, your vulnerable until you do this.

Well you don't ignore him totally, just let the Moors soften him up first.

[Feudal Knight]

Well I've played around 5 turns last night. I took the rebel settlement near Pamplona first. That was made extremely easy by the Portugese. Then the Moors besieged El Cid. The Moors lost loads of men to around 50 rebels, which didn't really help...

[Gattamelata]

Here are some observations from the Grand Campaign that I nearly finished before a consistently repeatable "undefined exception" prevented me from finishing with 6 turns to go.


1) Jinetes are exceptional units. They are available in every castle, and they can be trained and retrained in cities that have a bullfighting arena (Plaza del Toro if I recall correctly). Their javelins are very good, and they make good light cavalry when the javelins run out. Since they are so abundant in castles, you can overproduce them and run them ragged - your early armies will produce very experienced Jinetes in short order. Gold chevron Jinetes make stunningly effective cavalry despite their low charge value.

2) The Iberian peninsula is castle-heavy, which I suspect explains the early cash problems that Spain has. In retrospect I wish I had converted two of the four castles to cities, because I never used even close to 50% of my castle production capacity.

3) It's tempting to commit a lot of units early on to destroying the Moors. You want to do this eventually, because it gives you a land route to Jerusalem (and a surprisingly fast one when all the african provinces have paved roads), but don't neglect Europe. In order to acquire 45 provinces for a long-form Grand Campaign victory, you'll want to be doing a lot of expansion in Europe.

4) I found it trivially easy to control the Papacy. Early on I had 3+ cardinals, and from the mid-game on I never had fewer than 9, which meant that my preferati always became pope. This had two effects. The first was that any faction that beseiged one of my towns was almost instantly excommunicated. The value of this defensive measure is hard to state, because once they're excommunicated, they typically have to fend off other land-hungry Christian factions. The second was that any time the Pope got particularly old, I could allow myself to be excommunicated with the knowledge that soon I'd be hand-picking his successor and my relationship with the papacy would be perfect.

I think the way I made this happen was that I was rabid about stamping out Islam and Heresy in my provinces (I loathe inquisitors). I kept a priest preaching in each province until it hit 99% or 100%, then I'd move them to another ex-Moorish province. From doing this they got a lot of fantastic personal traits that gave them +3 piety, +1 orthodoxy, +2 eligibility and +1 something else that I can't remember. I had cardinals with piety ratings of 14, not counting their entourages (which would've pushed them to 16 or 17). If heretics appeared, I'd immediately start recruiting priests until I buried them with numbers.

5) Send an army to the americas when you have the chance. I was slow to do this and I missed out on some easy expansion.



Good luck. Spain can be hard to start, but it's a lot of fun to play, and I got so much mileage out of the Jinetes that I feel naked without them when playing other factions.

[Lubeck]

Yes, that army will only get larger. The AI is easy to beat and it is advisable to immediately take out one of your two fellow factions on the peninsula. The Portugese are divided. Pamplona falls easily, and then you can concentrate all your forces on Lisbon. With those two regions you only have one border to worry about, the Moorish, rather than two if you were to go after the Moors first. Plus you can ignore the costly navy (4-5 cogs is something like 750ish florins a turn in upkeep) to blockade Gibralter until you have the resources to afford them.

I consider this advise economical because it limits the cost of your army and navy, which keeps your upkeep (the #1 cost) down, as well as provides you with the most easily defended borders. Keeping your borders safe using geography is key to economic success.

[PooFoo]

This is what I do:

Take all your Toledo units except for the town militia and add them to the standing army outside it (the bald general guy). Build a couple of jinettes and 1 mailed knight and add them next turn. Take this army and starve out Valencia (shouldn't take too long).

At the same time take your prince in Leon and his army + mercenaries to take the Z-town up near Toulouse.

This will leave you broke probably but they are all the units you will need for now. The key to the early game is using your general units since they are so powerful, just don't assault any settlements because then you lose your advantadge (cavalry suck in cities).

Set Leon to the highest tax rate possible and make a militia unit or two to garrison it since the original garrison should be taking the Z-place. And make a unit of jinetes in Toledo. Build anything you can afford (make sure to get roads up first).

As soon as one of your armies finish taking a settlement lay siege to Granada or Cordoba depending on which army you are using (if it's the Valencia one go down to Granada, if it's the prince take his army + any family members your daughters have married down to Cordoba).

Once you take all those provinces it's easy. Don't attack the portuguese let them start the war. Meanwhile start disbanding any troops with a lot of upkeep to bring your profits back up. Start building stuff using the followuing priorities:

1. roads
2. ports
3. markets
4. piers

[Snipafist]

I usually work it the other way around. I get a princess to the papal states to improve relations ASAP. While she's on her way, I run a huge combined army (every character + every spare unit) to take Zaragoza. Once the princess has contacted the papal states and given them map information and an alliance to up our relations, I call a crusade on corduba. Every character I have joins the crusading army, we recruit a bunch of crusader knights and crusader sergeants (a godsend, as the spanish lack spearmen), and march straight off to Corduba. Taking it doesn't proove too tough, and now I've got a bunch of high-chivalry characters. Once Corduba is settled down, take Granada and then go for peace with the Moors. Disperse your generals to the cities that need a high growth rate the most. Grab Valencia from El Cid (bribe him if you've got the money). Then build up some catapaults and two armies with said catapaults and take both Portguese cities in the same turn, so as to avoid papal retaliation. At this point, you should have the whole Iberian sub-continent under your control. Leave Valencia and Granada as castles, and convert Pampalona and Toledo into cities. Watch the florins pour in. Where you go from here is up to you. I'd recommend building up and then sending your next generation of characters off on another mass-crusade to take the remaining Moorish settlements when the option is opened up to you. Having so many high-chivalry characters in the early game really helps for building up your settlements, and hence your economy, quickly.

[Halie Satanus]

Moved to battle planning.