Medieval Total War

The centre of my empire, Spain itself, mostly produces units with +3 armour upgrade and a weapons upgrade, but I barely notice the difference.

 

Hey Roel! I cant help it if youre not loved! The reason you get so many revolts to start with is that your king has a negative loyalty impact. Had you started liberating the prisoners earlier, that would not have happened. Trust me! By the way, 24 revolts???!!!!! The maximum revolts I ever had were 4. :-?

 

Maybe your king is evil?
Check out his vices & virtues. It might be worth assassinating him.
Important Hint: make sure you have an hier before taking this step!!!

 

Desertwolf and I determined that the problem was probably in the fact that though my King is a great builder and steward, he isn't in the centre of my empire but rather fighting wars at the fringes. I should move him back to a position of authority and then we will see what happens.

 

Ill keep my paws crossed

 

does anyone know where to get a lot of iron and stuff

 

Sweden? I don't know for sure, but this is historically a region rich in iron and copper.

By the way, I have been playing with the Byzantines a bit lately (difficulty level normal) and I'm beginning to develop some deep respect for Byzantine Infantry. In one recent battle I won, in the end it turned out that one unit of my Byzantine Infantry, of 133 men, had singlehandedly slain 570 Egyptians!

It's also a relief to finally be able to use horse archers myself, instead of having to fight them. They are so annoying when the enemy has them, and I love to be that enemy!

 

rbagen:
Sweden, Genoa, and many of the Spanish territories have Iron deposits.
There are more about, but I cannot remember them off the top of my head...

Roel:
A unit of 133? IIRC, Byzantine infantry comes in 100s. No unit comes in more than 100.
I never had much faith in Byzantine infantry. They are Ok vs other infantry, but cannot hold off horsemen. I always tried to get Varangians ASAP.

 

I got MTW, BUT i also got Rome: Total war :lol:

 

Ooohhh...
What's it like?
I'm so jealous... :x

 

Its very cool, so cool i can't explain it

Detail is very high, many many options for your troops, its just amazing.

For example, when you have elefants and order them to attack than they just run trough the group of enemy's they are flying trough the air and things like that :lol:

 

Byzantine infantry comes in units of 133 if you build them yourself. The units you start the game with as Byzantine player are indeed made up of 100 men, but so are the spearmen, who definitely come in units of 133!

Possibly to save processor trouble you have "unit size" on a lower level than me.

And they certainly can hold off horsemen and generally anything else, both when used offensive and defensive. The only thing that makes them inferior to European heavy infantry is the fact that they will be butchered when used as a stand-alone unit, unlike for example Feudal Sergeants who will stand their ground almost indefinitely.

Varangians are tough, but also very very expensive. I have two units of them now, but I will build more as soon as I get more money. The most annoying thing about them is that their construction time is two years.

 

Probably - mine always come in 100s. :cry:

I've always found that a unit of heavy cavalry will either rout them or leave them so depleted in numbers they are useless after.

That is annoying, same as the Naptha throwers. :angry:

 

Yes, they deplete easily. But then I simply replenish them, since they aren't very expensive and all you need to build them is a swordsmith. Of course, I lose a lot of men in my battles, but they generally kill a lot more than they lose. And of course, I have this tall tale to prove it. 570 men killed by one unit, I haven't seen that anywhere except with halberdiers vs peasants.

 

I got sick of 4 hour turns because of battles. They were leaving me no time for homework, so I have stupid battle tactics that don't work good when out numbered. I pretty much just charge, doubleing up on elite units. I don't like archers, they are a pain in the neck, plus I can feild more line troopd if i have not archers and my tactics requir more line troops. I do auto-fight battles if I think I should win easy.

I love to crush peasents with small numbers of men. My favorite was when i had 2000 peasents revolting. they had only peasents, nothing better. I had 100 royal nights and 500 spearmen. i set in the knights. The knights killed or captured all 2000 without a loss. i never even used my spears.

My favorite units are

Infantry
1. Chivilric Sargents
2. Chivilric Men-at-arms
3. Spearmen.

I mostly use spearmen because the are cheap and they work well enough. i use the other 2 when i can get them, but they are expensive and I always have money shortages. I rarely pass above 30,000 bucks.

 

My favourite defensive tactics:

Basic idea is - let them attack you.

Positioning -

1) Choose a nice steep hill

2) Line up a load of heavy infantry (spearmen, Chivalric Sargents, whatever) - about 6 units is fine, but use more if your enemy is strong

3) Behind them put as many units of archers as you can.

4) have some heavy & light cavalry waiting on the wings.

Basic order of battle -

1) Enemy comes forward to attack

2) your archers shoot lots of arrows - depleting units and sapping morale

3) They attack uphill, and your blocking units hold them easily.

4) your heavy cavalry (and any other spare units) swing round and attack the enemy rear. If the enemy has unengaged units of heavy infantry - DON'T do this. If the enemy has archers about, use your light cavalry to sweep them off the field.

5) The enemy breaks & runs, and your light cavalry (and any heavy cavalry that is not knackered) persues them and kills loads.

If the enemy has reinforcements, simply re-group and repeat!

If you feel up for it (and have ideal terrain) you can hide units in wooded areas so they can come out and attack the enemy in the rear while they are trying to break your line. This is risky (as if they discover your unit early, it dies), but effective.

 

Oh, yeah, I love those kinda battles!

 

I basically follow Ricky's tactic for defence, but I really, really don't like Spearmen. I use them only when I can get nothing more advanced, because they will break under almost anything of a strain. Unless of course they are fighting you; then they are somehow unbreakable. :roll: I had this one fight where my unit of Spearmen actually lost all of its men to one enemy unit of Royal Knights, killing only 5 of them or so in the process. You can guess what happens when I try to do that to him!

The annoying thing revolting armies will always do is stretch themselves out beyond your line and envelop it. You can't do very much against that because he'll keep his spearmen on the flanks repelling your cavalry charges. The only option is to charge through the middle and at his general.

Chivalric sergeants are the best line units I have ever found, though Halberdiers are the guys you need when outnumbered by an enemy who is on foot. Like I mentioned earlier, I've seen battles in which a Halberdier unit killed about 400 men on its own, without support, but I generally prefer to hold a line with Chivalric sergeants.

On the Chivalric men-at-arms, they definitely kill a lot of enemies in any battle (good), but they always manage to lose a lot of their own men in the process (bad). If they weren't so expensive that'd be fine, but unfortunately they are...

Adding to defensive tactics; if you are an eastern country, try using the fast and flexible horse archers to deplete the enemy as he moves towards you. The horse archers will have to take the place of the line archers, but they're worth it since they can almost perpetually stay out of reach of the enemy's flank protectors and they make fine light cavalry after running out of arrows. I love using these in large numbers to deplete a largely infantry-manned enemy.

In my Byzantine battles, my line unit is Byzantine infantry - they will defend and attack succesfully against almost anything, and they are cheap enough to be wasted. My archers are horse archers, and a lot of them if possible. Shock troops are generally Varangian guards, but I rarely need them next to my Byzantine infantry. For heavy cavalry I use either the unstoppable Kataphraktoi (Cataphracts) who should never get stuck in with anything, or the phenomenal Pronoiai Allagion, who are the Byzantine equivalent to Feudal Knights but outfight them in an equal encounter. The only thing I lack is efficient light cavalry.

 

Byzantine Cavalry (after they have used up their arrows) are good.
Or just build inns and use mercenaries!

 

Yup, but Byzantine cavalry aren't worth having. Their advantage over horse archers is that they are better at close defence and are a more useful unit when out of arrows. However, this makes them lose the advantage of being fast, which is the only thing that saves horse archers from slaughter, and they are hugely expensive. In short, I hate them. However, if you can keep one around for long enough to have spent all its arrows, they are probably better light cavalry than they are Horse archers! :lol:

My armies are currently supplied with all the Alan mercenaries I can get (very, very few) plus some steppe cavalry built on my lands in the north. They are weak, but serve well as pursuit troops. And they can still trample archers, which is why I have them!