Medieval Total War

Haha I like trampling archers.It amuses me. I also like to play as Byzantium. Byzantine infantry are good soldiers, plus the don't cost much, and after you retake Constantinople you can really field some awsome troops. I love to get that really east area, then let the Golden Horde take it, then smash them of at the flanks with loads of heavy Cavalry and Heavy infantry. That is a joy to do. The Golden Horde looks really strong, but the always suck.

 

I once deliberately took the contry that the Golden Horde emerge onto, filled it with Swiss Armoured Pikemen & longbowmen, and completely smashed the Golden Horde.
Fun...

 

In my current game of Byzantines, I hold most of the Eastern steppes up to a line running Lithuania - Ryazan - Volga-Bulgaria and have held it for a long, long time. The Easternmost part has been under my control for almost a century now. Every turn is spent in fearful awaiting of the arrival of the Golden Horde... They aren't here yet.

But my game decided to enscript an error into itself and I can't continue my great Byzantine empire into the times of Swiss Pikemen. :angry:

 

I have a game right now. I am poland. I control all of Europe, and I am into algeria in the west, and I am coming down through Turkey in the east. My prime unit is spearmen. Its just too expensive to upgrade. I am having small problems with peasent revolts, but thanks to the info from this forum, the most I have had is 6 instead of around 12 or 15. I still need to take the islands in the Med, but I have a navy so large that it had undisputed control over the whole Med, save the two deep ocean parts. The only factions are me(Polish) Egypt, whom I am at massive war with, Italy, they hold Crete, and the Sicilians, they hold Malta. I am gonna win for the 1st time ever. and with nothing better than spearmen, a few units of Chivilric men at arm/sargents, and royal cavalry from my princes and kings.

 

What's your difficulty rating?

After my last three abortive games I've decided to stop playing any Catholic faction. Whatever I do, at some point another catholic faction will declare war on me, and then I will be excommunicated for it. There's nothing I can do about this; I will appeal for peace every turn, build churches and everything to ensure that I have the support of religious people, and make my King the greatest leader in the world, but in the end all ym alliances will be broken and I will be fighting off crusades declared upon me. I'm sick of it.

And my wonderful, all-dominating Byzantine empire is aborted because the game has decided to encript an error into the savegame. I can play one turn, finish all the battles and when the last battle is fought the program makes a fatal error, gets locked down by Windows, and my progress is lost. I tried this four times to no avail and have lost hope for improvement.

As you may guess I'm a little tired of this game right now. :angry:

 

It happens, but who needs alliances when you are stong? It is continually frustrating that you get excommunicated, not the aggressor, but that probably just means your King is not pious. I have not workeed out how to make the King pious yet.

Crusdaes are usually easy to fight. You typically get a few good units (Order foot soldiers or a crusading order of knights) then a rabble of bits & bobs of units, and masses of peasants. Easily quashable, and often quite fun.

 

I like to play as catholic factions because they can crusade. I use crusades to set up a sort of colonial part. I love to defend when the odds of winning are slim. I never have weak crusades. I stack them with knights, spears, heavy infantry, princes, then march through everyones land to attack the muslims. Being a Christian, I have a natual dislike for muslims, but I would never declare anything like a Jihad on them. Being Muslim is not a reason to hate a person. Hate the sin, love the sinner.

 

Ive only played on rome and made a complete pigs ear of it

 

Rome total War? Great game. Does "making a complete pigs ear of it" mean you did crapy?

 

yeh thats it, i messed up badly, nearly all my cities were in debt and to keep order i needed to keep loads of troops in town, i had 1 town in germany that kept on being beseiged, my navy was doing alright until i met some 1 with twice as many ships as me

 

If that happens take your army outside and allow a revolution, then go back in you get money from the senate and you can kill thousands making your population happy for a while, but camp smaller armies around so no one can tke it from you.

You have to be cruel to be kind. :lol:

 

There is a Rome Total War Thread. I think that nobody has used it yet though.

 

i own all of north africa and spain and and am arching into france but crsades keep appearing where i am really weak

 

I am playing as the Byzantines, on Glorious Achivement mode. Its fun. You get points for conquests, and for holding your homelands. I own most of Turkey, all the big Med. islands except Malta, All of Italy, and the southern half of the Balkan Penninsula. Its fun. The people are much less agressive, but I have still had some major fights. I had taken over The Papal States as the Sicilians attacked Rome. That got the pope mad at me. Then he retook Rome, declared me an enemy of Christiandom, and the Italians desided to crusade at Constantinople. I bagged Rome and Sicily, then raised an army to attack Venice. The Italian went toward Constantinople, but were stoped cold by 700 Spears, and 700 Byzantine Infantry. They Still had the back door open, so I charged in with about 1700 spears. I took Venice and Tuscany, then had to stop because the Pope attacked Rome. I had about 800 men there, but he had more, so I diverted 400 or so to help. Then the Italians counter attacked, but I held them. My armies got depleted down to about 150 in Tuscany and Venice. I couldn't move up reserves from Rome or Naples because they were needed to stop the Pope, who showed up about every 3rd turn with more, and better troops. I was finaly able to break the Italians when I brought in my kings army of about 700, and the remains of the army I used to destroy the crusade. I sent them in, numbering about 1500, 500 byzantine Infantry, 300 kataphracts, and 700 Spears. That was my largest crisis. The Italians and Pope could have broken me, but they stupidly made way on the oceans for my tiny fleet of 4 galleys to transport in the reserve armies from the Balkans.

 

Yeah, the Pope is very annoying, and will pop up fairly regularly until the end of the game.
My tactic is to leave him Rome, then ignore him (although do leave the countries next to Rome well-defended).

 

In my latest Byzantine game on conquest mode, I also overran the Papacy in one turn just to be rid of him; it worked for about three turns after which he returned with a vast army of Knights. Since the Byzantines have nothing in between spearmen and Swiss pikemen to counter heavy cavalry and I don't trust spearmen, I just let him have the country (after destroying all the buildings there); now he's all quiet and peaceful, though it's a pity that the Byzantine empire can't lastingly reconquer its own homeland of Rome.

Funny thing is the Pope didn't dare declare me an enemy of Catholicism because I'm too powerful! Even on weakly defended borders no one dares to attack me; I control all of Turkey, North Africa up to the Spanish coast where I have the Almohads buttoned up, the entire Med up to the Provence, and then northward everything except Norway (which I will soon have) and Finland (which is a tactical choice to prevent the people of Novgorod from reappearing en masse). And I have all the time in the world to prepare for the Golden Horde to appear! *pours in more Varangian Guards*

 

I just leave a huge standing army in Rome and a reserve in Naples to defend Rome. It serves 2 purposes. I can always trash the Papal Army, and I have a large reserve that can be called on to use in the front. I just remake the Papal Gaurd.

By the way, I find that about 1000 spearmen and 300 Byzantine infantry can turn even 32 units of heavy cavalry. I have done it many many times with small losses. Use the spears, it works well.

 

Spears are good.

I'm currently having fun promoting revolts in my enemy's territories...

 

Yes. The only problem the Byzantines have is the lack of anything between spearmen and Swiss pikemen, whereas the step between these two (Chivalric Sergeants) are the backbone of my army when playing Catholic. It's really a great gap to fill, since Byzantine infantry, while being incredibly disciplined and able to take a beating and fight on, is really unable to effectively fight knights or other heavy cavalry.

The battle I had against the Golden Horde (with all their heavy cavalry) when they appeared was more or less carried by two units of Varangian Guards and a mercenary force of 80 Halberdiers. My cavalry took care of the archers and siege machines while the axemen grinded the cavalry down. The units of Byzantine infantry I had fighting with me mostly just lost men trying to hold the line while the axemen moved around the flanks.

How do you do that?

 

Ah, when fighing the Golden Horde the easiest method I have found is:

1) place your defending troops right at the edge of the map. This way they are outside the range of the artillery.

2) No cavalry. Only have heavy infantry (I prefer Swiss Armoured Pikemen if possible, but Varangians, Chivalric Sergeants, Halbardiers, Billmen, etc are fine) and archers. Preferably 8 infantry and 8 archers, with a load more archers in reserve.

Battle will run along these lines:

1) Golden Horde artillery is useless, but will remain on the field, limiting the number of effective troop units they can field at once.

2) your infantry will hold & defeat their cavalry, while your archers either deplete the few infantry & archers they have, or assist in kiling the cavalry. When your archers run out of arrows, bring on reinforcements. As you are right at the edge of the battlefield, they will not take long to arrive.

3) Do not chase any routing or retreating enemies. This will only seperate your forces and bring them in range of the artillery. If they re-group & come back to fight - let them. More of them will die. It does mean the battle lasts longer, but you can change the game speed...

4) If their archers present a problem, simply use the 'sandwich' technique. get the two end infantry units on your line, advance them to either side of the enemy bowmen (or slightly behind if possible) then catch the pesky critters between the two units. Very satisfying. Do be careful to wait until there is no unoccupied cavalry aound before trying this... and don't advance too far either.