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Medieval II: Total War Kingdoms
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The way I'm finding works best to combat the French's superior infantry/cavalry is to goad them into sieges at Caen and Frennes while you wait to tech up your island cities to match their power. In open warfare, Spear Militia and Billmen can't take Armored Sergeants or Dismounted Feudal Knights, but when holding a wall... They do fine. I've just gotten to the point where my troops are even with the French in power, and my economy is far beyond theirs'.
I made the questionable choice of claiming Scotland's territory while desperately holding onto my mainland settlements. Money was tight, to say the least.
Good points. I'll try those tactics, too. I was actually on the verge of going for Scotland before getting mugged by the French *and* ex-communicated by the Church for responding to the French treachery.
Wait, no it doesn't. The fact that this comes out on the same day as Metroid Prime 3 proves there is no god.
I'm so conflicted.
Along those lines, it's not a bad idea to ignore mainland expansion while trying to conquer the British Isles. The A.I. is better than it used to be at sea invasions if you're using the 1.2 patch (Portugal especially seems to have a fetish for Caen), but if you can claim at least as far as Edinburgh you'll have a pretty secure economic base (London and Edinburgh both start pretty well off and make good money early on, and if you develop it properly York makes some amazing money late game) that's not in much danger of a serious invasion. Meanwhile, France will inevitably get in a war with someone (usually HRE and Milan), weakening and distracting them so that you can storm in and pick off their unprotected territories.
Portugal's fetish for Caen is absurd. It seems every 5 turns they besiege Caen, one of my worst Diplomats walks over and offers a ceasfire which they immediately agree to, and that's the end of it. They've actually wittled some of my units in Caen down to 50% strength without actually attacking.
On a different note, I have a few questions for the experts:
1 - How do you deal with the Pope's insane requests? My game seems to be constantly in a state of crusade which my faction leader has to participate in... but I'm in Britain. Antioch and Jerusalem are so far off and covered in Mongols that I cannot even think about participating. I also can't get above 3 or 4 crosses of reputation with the Vatican. Should I just start ignoring the Pope entirely (since Portugal, Spain, and France are already attacking me constantly anyway, and I have an alliance with the excommunicated Milan)?
2 - How is it possible to capture 45 provinces + Jerusalem in only ~200 turns? I've just passed turn 100 and I have a whopping 10 provinces (and an already overstretched group of governing family members).
3 - If I fail the game's objective, can I continue playing for world domination?
2 - keep trying
3 - yes
also if your playing as Britain and have conquered the British isles, turn every castle there into a city its a great way to build income, and just keep a few ships around to protect it. Then from there only keep castles on the fringes of your border, at most you may need a small standing army to keep out rebels.
try not to keep your generals from staying idle send them out to conquer, and once things start rolling you should be taking a territory every few turns.
I really wish they'd do something cool with the naval combat.
Don't forget the 6 units of genoese crossbowmen with super long range armor piercing crossbow bolts lined up in front of the horde of inexpensive (yet effective) Italian infantry. Dont even have to make the crossbowmen skirmish as they have more attack/defense than most infantry and can take anything short of a heavy cav charge as long as you have a happy Coroccio standard sitting in the back giving all of your men the desire to fight to the last man
Best thing is, you dont even need castles (at least as milan. I usually play them over venice cause genoese crossbowmen are hardcore). You have leet crossbowmen, tough spear infantry, dismounted broken lances (heavy infantry), pikemen, and a full range of cavalry all of which you can spew forth in huge numbers by simply upgrading the city and 2 buildings (town hall and the barracks), leaving all of your other production time to build trade buildings and make more money than god.
As england you can safely get excommunicated while you ravage scotland and france early since the pope is too busy sending crusades to get eaten by the muslim armies. Just wait till he starts a crusade and demands your king or heir go (he does that if you piss him off, generally by beating up on your catholic neighbors). This is when you can safely get excommunicated since you dont have to worry about him sending a crusade at you AND whoever you are attacking will probably waste a good stack with a general and send it off to die in the holy lands
No matter who I play as Milan ends up attacking me and they have hordes of the fuckers. I always manage to beat them but not without losses, usually quite heavy. Not to mention that it never ends. They just keep sending armies of the guys.
So anyway, I start to run out of troops and they take Messana, so I am reduced to sending elephant-only armies and letting them be destroyed, taking with them as many Greek troops as possible. While all of this has been going on, my Iberian forces have been crossing through Gaul, and finally enter northern Italy, much as Hannibal once did. While I was once depressed and nervous about the massive numbers of enemy troops in Sicily and southern Italy, as soon as my troops entered northern Italy, my stress relieved. It turns out that all of Italy below Rome has been completely emptied to face my armies in Sicily. I recruit as many troops as I can in Carthage and keep my navy busy by sending them over. While my Iberian forces, made up of native Iberian and Gallic troops, engage the Greek forces in the north and lose every time, the Greek army begins to lose focus, splitting up it's forces up and down the country. This enables me to force them out of Messana and back into Italy in the south, and to land general-led armies at Rome and all over the eastern coast.
Best of all, the Romans decided to help, and declared war on the Greeks. Eventually, they lost all ground, and all they had left was a few armies in southern Italy. I destroyed one or two of them, but then they inexplicably disappeared... turns out their ships had been ferrying them out of Italy and back into Greece. The Romans took the last Greek-held city, Croton, and Italy was free. Because my armies were much depleted and I could not hold the island without spending a lot of money I didn't have, I gave Italy back to the Romans. They were delighted, sent me tribute and map details whenever I asked for them. Time passed... and nothing was heard of the Greeks. The Egyptians began to fall further back into the eastern territories, away from me, offering no resistance at all when I sacked one of their cities. This was odd. I decided to send a diplomat over to the Seleucids, to have them give me map details. Only, the nearest Seleucid city was held by Greek troops. The next one was under siege by Greek troops. I decided to send him up to Babylon and Seleuceia itself - both were held by Greeks. I looked all over the map and found that only one Seleucid city held out, and that was taken at the next turn. The Greeks had destroyed the immense and powerful Seleucid Empire.
Around about this time, the bastard Romans decided to forget how they'd managed to regain Italy from the dastardly Greeks only twenty turns ago, and declared war. Once again, Sicily was to become a battleground. They blockaded my ports, reducing my income. I had three armies free from the previous war, and I sent them to blockade Sicily off from Roman troops. I now had to deal with them, and the new power of the seemingly invincible Greek Empire marching on Alexandria and her nearby cities in Egypt. I thought that taking Italy from the Greeks had been a massive achievement - it had almost bankrupted and destroyed me. But Italy is nothing compared to what the Greeks have, what they are capable of doing now. Their population, territory size and money are much, much greater than mine. Italy was child's play. The real war is coming.
I'm screwed.
Nothing's forgotten, nothing is ever forgotten
I proceeded to recruit units there and get mercenaries whenever possible. I ended up seizing Egypt's cities in the area, over-running the Turks to the East and was making inroads into the northern Turkish territories when the Mongols came, whom I held out against, and by the time the Timurids arrived and repeatedly fucked me over, I'd conquered most of the world map in my main English campaign from the British Isles. It was a great moment when my two empires joined up.
After my first Crusade experience, I decided to stick it to the Pope when he orders another one. Seriously, he expects me to hold that goddamn city? When the Turks and Egyptians are sending 4000 men each at my doorstep? And the populace keep revolting because of religion? No sir. I had to give it up. Boy, will I be glad when the Mongols come and wipe out the Turks (that does happen in this game right? I mean, it covers the time period).
Oh, and Rohan, awesome game. See, this is why TW is so good. It captures the drama of the time period because it has amazing art direction and atmosphere, not to mention the consistently awesome period music.
I would kill a man for Shogun 2
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
Portugal makes for a great money pit though, because of that. Alternatively, if you wait for them to come to you, then you can very easily get them to give you a province in return for a ceasefire. Can be a pain in the ass to maintain, but it's often useful for a getting a foothold in Iberia or engaging the French on multiple fronts.
1. There are two ways to deal with the Pope: ignore him, or bribe him. A lot of people like to ignore him, as on higher campaign difficulties you're going to be in a state of perpetual war with everyone anyway. On the other hand, it can be a pain in the ass if you ignore him and he declares a Crusade on you at a critical moment, nevermind the advantages of being able to Crusade yourself. Thus, many people opt to buy the Pope's favor. The best option is simply to rush whatever diplomatic character you start with to Rome immediately and offer up a tribute of 100 florins over 100+ turns as a gift. Usually best to start off with trade rights and map exchanges. Usually you'll be able to get an alliance out of him too, which is even better. You'll still have to be careful and listen to his edicts, but if you're not hyper aggressive, and through him a bit of extra cash every now and again when relations are straind he'll be your only reliable friend, and usually you'll be high enough in his favor to dictate Crusade targets (great for weaking excommunicated enemies.)
2. Rush, rush, rush. The campaign is not really built around a slow expansion. There are a few reasons for this. For starters, every territory you hold is one that your enemy doesn't. Secondly, the money value of cities isn't really defined all that much by how well developed they are. Aside from the port upgrades, and maybe the first market or two, the money your city develops is based more on your tax base, resources, and trade partners (if I'm remembering correctly cities don't trade with enemy factions, which dramatically reduces the trade income of frontier and certain sea ports.) Also, once you get into turns 50+ looting can be a huge profit machine. A lot of players like to go on a Crusade in the Holy Lands and then abandon the city and just move their army around pillaging any lightly defended settlement while avoiding any major battles. Just replenish your forces occasionally with mercenaries, and by the time they're defeated they should have more than paid for their cost in loot, not to mention severely stunting the growth of any nearby factions. Outside that, opportunism plays a huge role. The A.I. is notorious for leaving key border settlements lightly defended. Unless you're set on playing as an honorable leader, you should take every chance you get to grab lightly defended settlements, even if you're not currently at war with that particular faction.
you may get your wish, this was on their message board
Oh man, oh man, oh man. If it's it IS Shogun 2...I might just have to put Bioshock on hold.
Hehe, thanks guys. I'll let ye know what happens, though that may be quite a while off, yet. You know, if I manage to hold out in the east, and I destroy the Romans for being bastards and then push north, it's going to be a Greek/Carthaginian world, split in two.
And then it'll be on.
Edit - Shogun 2? Oh, yes.
Nothing's forgotten, nothing is ever forgotten
That's a little vague, they could be talking about another period entirely
But I'll latch onto that small sliver of hope and milk it for all it's worth because I want Shogun 2
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
It'd just be more interesting than all Japan.
They'd have to call it something other than Shogun though. Like Oriental: Total War or something to that effect,\.
In any event, it'd be pretty cool, and I'd buy it.
Either that, or an Ancients: Total War (Babylonians, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks etc) or Napoleonic Total War.
I've never actually held Jerusalem before. I sacked it once, but the turks smashed me so i abandoned the city and moved west along north africa to try and link up with my spanish armies. Of course I failed miserably, trying to fight in spain/portugal, north africa and across france and belgium. Oh and the HRE hated me because a crusader army was in there territory when the crusades ended so I had a full stack hostile army up in there house. Bad times.
That'd be fun. Gunpowder armies to storming machinegun nests.
Or just call it Global: Total War...
God damn you, I thought you were talking about a mod to begin with :P
I suppose the first world war would just about work in the Total War mechanic. Although it would be a pretty depressing end game, considering the main problem with WWI re: death toll was the fact that the tools had outpaced the mechanics. Sending wave upon wave of sixteen year old boys onto an open field to get tangled up in razor wire and slaughtered by a handful of machine gun nests? Hardly as graceful as the bar set by Shogun.
I don't really think the Total War series is the one to do it, because they would have to change everything that makes it what it is, but I'd love to see a World War 1 (or even 2) game that uses actual real life strategy, rather than Command and Conquer nonsense. C&C clone are so dull once you get over the lulz of rushing your friends.
I've already mentioned it, but Civilization where you build whole armies instead of units (say the cost and build time depends on the combine quality of all the units), and they fight it out TW style whenever you attack an enemy army.
So call to power with real time combat?
Sorry about that. Should've quoted up the thread tree for ya!
WW1 Total War's biggest difficulty would possibly be the air forces. Otherwise, I'd love it.
Civilization: Total War would be interesting for a while, but there are only so many hours in the day. The average fight lasts around 30 minutes for me, so multiple fronts with multiple stacks of units classed from different periods would take forever.
EDIT: Norgoth -- that show your avatar's from is pretty good.
Oh and: Hotseat mode with up to 17 players. :P
And Disney World is nowhere in sight.
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