Medieval 2 Battle Report & Strat Thread (Super pic hvy)

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

They haven't declared war on you? Where are they, exactly? Have they actually gone past those fortified positions?

The mere presence of an enemy Army- let alone a Mongol Horde, in your lands is a provocation. I'd consider you to be at war, whether declared or not.

They haven't. They went pass Monsul without doing A THING. Now, they are heading pass ... forgot the city between Alepo and Monsul. I tempted to roll back to an earlier save game and to attack them from the city anyway.

[Vympel]

They haven't. They went pass Monsul without doing A THING. Now, they are heading pass ... forgot the city between Alepo and Monsul. I tempted to roll back to an earlier save game and to attack them from the city anyway.

Edessa?

Attack them where you're strong. Spam your cities with militia- the Mongol cavalry advantage is nullified in seiges, where lowly spear troops can kick their ass, as long as you've got enough of them. Their infantry isn't crash hot, either.

Of course, I've never fought the Mongols (I soon will) but I can't imagine I'm wrong.

[D.Turtle]

Oh yeah, it's cool- I believe the way it works is that as long as you're in a region that traditionally "has" that unit as a mercenary available, you can retrain. I quite like using Alan Light Cavalry if I don't want to use my Vardariotai in risky maneuvers (like attacking the archers ahead of an enemy mercenary army- there's always the chance the spearmen behind them could run up and skewer them).

As far as I could see it works the same was as retraining your standard troops goes: If you have a unit available for trainging, you can instead use that to retrain your units (so if you have 2 merc riders available for hiring, you can either hire them, or use those to retrain your 2 merc riders).

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

They haven't. They went pass Monsul without doing A THING. Now, they are heading pass ... forgot the city between Alepo and Monsul. I tempted to roll back to an earlier save game and to attack them from the city anyway.

Edessa?

Attack them where you're strong. Spam your cities with militia- the Mongol cavalry advantage is nullified in seiges, where lowly spear troops can kick their ass, as long as you've got enough of them. Their infantry isn't crash hot, either.

Of course, I've never fought the Mongols (I soon will) but I can't imagine I'm wrong.

This is downright peculiar. THey really avoid the cities where i have fully stocked spearmen, archers and what not. But i want to choke these buggers with literally a sea of spears! Grumble.

[Vympel]

This is downright peculiar. THey really avoid the cities where i have fully stocked spearmen, archers and what not. But i want to choke these buggers with literally a sea of spears! Grumble.

I wonder if they're on their way to some objective outside your borders, crusade/ jihad style .... weird.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

This is downright peculiar. THey really avoid the cities where i have fully stocked spearmen, archers and what not. But i want to choke these buggers with literally a sea of spears! Grumble.

I wonder if they're on their way to some objective outside your borders, crusade/ jihad style .... weird.

They might be looking for cities where they are easy prey. THis is going to be a huge drain on my economy. Time to raise troops through out Asia Minor and all of coast on the Levant.

[Darth Wong]

You have to attack them. If you let them wander around your territory unimpeded, they'll find an easy target and attack it. And you can't have stalwart garrisons in every single settlement you own.

Hell, you might even try sending out a lone sacrificial unit to die in battle against them. At least the war would be on and they might attack the nearest city rather than wandering around until they see a juicy target.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

You have to attack them. If you let them wander around your territory unimpeded, they'll find an easy target and attack it. And you can't have stalwart garrisons in every single settlement you own.

Hell, you might even try sending out a lone sacrificial unit to die in battle against them. At least the war would be on and they might attack the nearest city rather than wandering around until they see a juicy target.

Well, I did attack them any way and wasted a few troops. Then they attempted to provoke my garrison out by attacking a unit just outside the city walls (I decided to try out the battle anyhow. The result was a crushing defeat for me since they executed the prisoners but i slaughtered 1/2 the army, in which case i rolled back. Monsul is practically defenseless if I allowed that battle to go through. I have been contemplating halving the garrison and tempt them to siege Monsul anyway.

Prior to attack they.. er... were even heading south? I started beefing up defences at Damascus and Jerusalem.

This is ridiculous...

[Vympel]

All I can say is thank you gods of randomization for having the Mongols appear at Sarkel. Tbilisi is my closest city (actually Citadel) and the Mongols can only come through two canyons. Both of which I can defend if I see them coming with the army I'm trying to scratch together in Mosul.

But for some reason, I think they're heading to attack the Rus, and then on to Europe.

[Vympel]

One thing that's really pissing me off in my game is Generals acquiring the "extravagant" trait. Why the hell is it so prolific? I've actually moved my extravagant generals out of my cities and either put them at the head of an army or simply have them putting watchtowers throughout the realm so I always know what's going on.

The worst thing is if you have an extravagant general whose actually worth a damn, when you take a city, you've got to move him out unless you want to pay ridiculously more money to build something.

Shits me. Why can't all my generals be Total Cheapskates?

[Arrow]

In my current Russian game, the Mongols have appeared many turns ago near Sarkel, which is still a rebel province. They sieged my castle at Ryzman for a turn, and then left. They've been wondering around Sarkel ever since, and it looked like they were going to attack Kiev for a while. Either way, both Ryzman and Kiev are ready to slaughter them. And once my war with Denmark, Hungary and the HRE is done, the Mongols are going to get my full attention, and not just a couple of spies following them.

[Vympel]

In my current Russian game, the Mongols have appeared many turns ago near Sarkel, which is still a rebel province. They sieged my castle at Ryzman for a turn, and then left. They've been wondering around Sarkel ever since, and it looked like they were going to attack Kiev for a while. Either way, both Ryzman and Kiev are ready to slaughter them. And once my war with Denmark, Hungary and the HRE is done, the Mongols are going to get my full attention, and not just a couple of spies following them.

I've toyed with the idea of playing the Rus in my next game (either them or the Holy Roman Empire) but I'm reluctant to play a faction with such weak infantry in the early game. Should be fun, though- Rus Missile Cavalry are second only to the mighty Vardariotai (while the best Rus Missile Cavalry has slightly better stats, they're not a fast unit, which makes Vardariotai better).

[Arrow]

I've toyed with the idea of playing the Rus in my next game (either them or the Holy Roman Empire) but I'm reluctant to play a faction with such weak infantry in the early game. Should be fun, though- Rus Missile Cavalry are second only to the mighty Vardariotai (while the best Rus Missile Cavalry has slightly better stats, they're not a fast unit, which makes Vardariotai better).

The weak early infantry wasn't to big a problem for me. I used militia units to gobble up a lot of rebel towns and forts, and by the time Poland started stirring shit, I had Dismounted Dvors, Spearman and the Viking-like unit (the name has slipped my mind). And Russian cav does kick ass.

The biggest problem with playing as Russia is getting your economy going. You start with one province with very little infrastructure, and all the rebel provinces have no infrastructure. That's caused problems for me several times now, and depending on my the next few turns of my three-front war go, I might abandon this game and try another faction (or play as England again, now that billmen are useful).

[Master of Cards]

I've toyed with the idea of playing the Rus in my next game (either them or the Holy Roman Empire) but I'm reluctant to play a faction with such weak infantry in the early game. Should be fun, though- Rus Missile Cavalry are second only to the mighty Vardariotai (while the best Rus Missile Cavalry has slightly better stats, they're not a fast unit, which makes Vardariotai better).

The weak early infantry wasn't to big a problem for me. I used militia units to gobble up a lot of rebel towns and forts, and by the time Poland started stirring shit, I had Dismounted Dvors, Spearman and the Viking-like unit (the name has slipped my mind). And Russian cav does kick ass.

The biggest problem with playing as Russia is getting your economy going. You start with one province with very little infrastructure, and all the rebel provinces have no infrastructure. That's caused problems for me several times now, and depending on my the next few turns of my three-front war go, I might abandon this game and try another faction (or play as England again, now that billmen are useful).

Viking Raiders?

[Diomedes]

So far I've played through the graand campaign with Spain and Russia. Got a Hungary game part way through, and recently started with England.

I enjoyed spain, and I found that with Muslim lands nearby it was easy to gain a lot of Cardinals and dominate the Papacy that way.

As Russia, I found the economy to be a struggle. Also, I used the toggle_fow cheat, because Russian provinces are so damn big, I'd never have found the cities I should, realistically, know the location of. I managed to withstand the full might of the Mongols and Timurids - assassins were great for removing some of their 9 star generals, and I love Russian musketeers! Highest damage musketeers in the game, excellent range, they were quite proficient at sniping enemy generals during sieges, and panicking elephants before the walls were even breached. I focused on expansion northwest with Russia, taking all the Baltic provinces then the british isles relatively early on.

I'm finding England to be brilliant economically. Of all the sides I've played so far, never has it been so easy to accumulate wealth so early on in the game.

[Vympel]

Ok- wasn't the patch supposed to improve Mongol and Timurid AI? I've had a spy following them around ever since they got here (several turns ago)- it appeared they were heading for one of the Russian cities- then they turned around and seem to be heading back to Sarkel, even though they went past it when they arrived. What the fuck are they doing? They're also all in one big group, rather than spreading out into a few, as you'd expect.

[Darth Wong]

The AI is pretty dodgy. I sent my men on a suicide mission recently; I besieged a Timurid city and all of a sudden, a shitload of Timurids appeared out of nowhere. They must have been hiding in trees or something: two reinforcing armies. So now I'm besieging a city which has two reinforcing armies coming up to bolster its defenses.

At this point, I could either attack the city or flee. I thought "fuck it" and attacked. I took control of the walls and proceeded to hack and slash my way to the city square, and the two reinforcing armies never entered the city. Instead, they stayed outside and their missile units fired endlessly at my archers, who I'd moved onto the enemy walls.

Even when my heavily depleted, exhausted men took control of the city square, they just stayed outside firing arrows at my archers until the time ran out. I won the battle.

[Stravo]

I had a similar experience with bad mongol/Timurid battle AI. I was attacking a superior Mongol army that was poised to take one of my lighly garrisoned cities and took them on with three units of damaged culverns and two demi lancers and some severly depleted swordsmen and two fresh units of Arquebusiers.

They had Two trebuchets, a shitload of those faithful spearmen, 4 stacks of missile cavalry and three stacks of heavy archers. Their general was the faction heir, 6 star general vs. my freshly minted captain who was randomly generated when we annhilated some rebels during a long march to Edessa that saw me lose my general, lots of men (hence depleted swordsmen and weakened cannons) All in all he had a full 12 unit stack I had 8

I was sure this was not going to go well but essentially wanted to gut his army so he couldn't take my city in the next turn, sacrificing my field army.

I open up with a withering barrage from my culverns....and he just sits there. I tentatively march my arquebusiers in range and start firing as well, dueling with his heavy archers.

All he does is trade shots with his trebuchets and archers, infantry mills around and his horses are standing there.

Suddenly he dies in one of my culvern strikes that utterly decimates his bodyguard unit.

Then as if a light switch gets turned on his infantry starts racing towards my culverns. I switch the arqubusiers to start pouring fire into his infantry. They take hellish fire...rush right between my arquebusiers and continue making a beeline for my culverns ignoring my shooters. I decide to swing my demi lancers around and make a bum rush at his trebuchets (which were shooting horribly, at one point they blasted right into the backs of one of his infantry stacks)

I rush by his cavalry, again just shooting at my arquebusiers but not supporting the rushing infantry, decimate the trebuchets and meanwhile my culverns managed to get another salvo off before the infantry hits them and what a sight! Bodies flying around like rag dolls, two units immediately route and I send in my swords to help defend the culverns while my demilancers deal with his horse archers.

In the end I won, bloody and nasty but I actually defeated his army, killed the faction heir all because he just sat there. I noticed the same in some of my Timurid battles, there was this weird hesitancy to engage until I was ripping into them and causing serious casualties.

[NRS Guardian]

I got the Limited Edition about three days after Christmas, and have been playing as the English. I'm playing on M/M and I'm being sort of slow I've taken 30 regions in about 112 turns. I've taken all of Britain, France, Northern Italy, the Low Countries, and parts of the HRE. Also, with the help of a couple of Crusades I'm in the process of carving out the Crusader States, I just need to take Edessa and I'll have the Crusaders States as the were historically, only English.

Milan was doing well until I annihilated them when they were excommunicated. Poland was doing well until Russia and the HRE forced a two front war. The top factions currently in my game besides England are: the Greeks, the HRE, the Russians, the Mongols, the Egyptians, and Portugal.

One tactic I love is sallying against an army with no artillery and sticking Longbowmen on walls and having them shoot at the enemy army until they run out of ammo, then doing it the next turn. You don't take any losses and Longbowmen quickly rack up experience. Also, in my game the attacked the Turks and Egyptians, but haven't taken any territory. I know they still have lots of full stacks, I just don't know what they're doing.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I got the Limited Edition about three days after Christmas, and have been playing as the English. I'm playing on M/M and I'm being sort of slow I've taken 30 regions in about 112 turns. I've taken all of Britain, France, Northern Italy, the Low Countries, and parts of the HRE. Also, with the help of a couple of Crusades I'm in the process of carving out the Crusader States, I just need to take Edessa and I'll have the Crusaders States as the were historically, only English.

Milan was doing well until I annihilated them when they were excommunicated. Poland was doing well until Russia and the HRE forced a two front war. The top factions currently in my game besides England are: the Greeks, the HRE, the Russians, the Mongols, the Egyptians, and Portugal.

One tactic I love is sallying against an army with no artillery and sticking Longbowmen on walls and having them shoot at the enemy army until they run out of ammo, then doing it the next turn. You don't take any losses and Longbowmen quickly rack up experience. Also, in my game the attacked the Turks and Egyptians, but haven't taken any territory. I know they still have lots of full stacks, I just don't know what they're doing.

Don't the opposing army stay out of range? I know that in many attempts to give the sieging army hell, they tended to move out of range quickly.

[Vympel]

It depends. The last Egyptian full stack in my current game foolishly attacked Gaza, which I had taken a few turns before moving on to Alexandria (by ship from Gaza- much faster). I suppose they figured that there'd be a meagre garrison, but I had moved up my other army in the area to retrain.

I had four units of Trebizond Archers and one unit of Byzantine Guard Archers waiting for them (I was in the middle of replacing the former with the latter, hence the numbers). They just sat there and got shot, much to my surprise.

I came out at my leisure and finished them off.

EDIT: come to think of it, I think they were in range because Gaza was elevated above the besieging army's position.

[Vympel]

Wow, the maps in M2TW really are so much better than any predecessor- I just killed the Sultan of Egypt and one of his family, together with their small army, in the mountains south of Jerusalem. I sent my whole army out of Gaza to catch them (they were retreating to Jedda in Arabia, having just lost Egypt to me except for the region at the very south of the map along the Nile) and found myself in the awesome position of having hordes of Trebizond Archers, Byzantine Guard Archers and Byzantine Cavalry positioned in the high ground.

I've never seen a bigger arrow slaughter, and at such range!

Observe: you can see the sliver of the Egyptian's meagre force trying to to come to grips (they never stood a chance, they retreated into the mountains at first contact) and the flags of all my units dominating them from the heights.



I was hoping that capturing a family member and the Egyptian Sultan with nothing but a Captain (the General of this Army had taken over the Emperor's army sacking Cairo- Emperor John who at 63 years of age is about to die any turn now) would make him a general, but I guess it was too easy.

[NRS Guardian]

One tactic I love is sallying against an army with no artillery and sticking Longbowmen on walls and having them shoot at the enemy army until they run out of ammo, then doing it the next turn. You don't take any losses and Longbowmen quickly rack up experience. Also, in my game the attacked the Turks and Egyptians, but haven't taken any territory. I know they still have lots of full stacks, I just don't know what they're doing.

Don't the opposing army stay out of range? I know that in many attempts to give the sieging army hell, they tended to move out of range quickly.

Sometimes they do and other times they don't if they have ranged units of their own they tend to stay in range of Longbowmen, but Longbows outrange most other archers so the Longbowmen aren't ever really in danger, especially since the ramparts give protection.

I realized that I somehow missed referring to the faction I was talking about in the last couple of sentences. The Mongols aren't doing much of anything even though they have the largest military, in my game.

[Darth Wong]

Has anyone else tried playing as Portugal? They have pretty good units, but a horrible starting position. They have two settlements, both isolated from each other. But if you can defeat the Spaniards and then work on the Moors, you can win a quick and fairly easy short-campaign victory.

[Vympel]

Has anyone else tried playing as Portugal? They have pretty good units, but a horrible starting position. They have two settlements, both isolated from each other. But if you can defeat the Spaniards and then work on the Moors, you can win a quick and fairly easy short-campaign victory.

It's such a weird country to pick, it never occured to me. England was an obvious starting choice, though I could've picked France, Spain, or the Holy Roman Empire just as easily. Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων was my obvious choice since I'm such a massive Byzantine fanboy, to the extent that I'm playing them for the second time in a row.

I like the big, significant powers. Next I'm going to play either France, Spain, or the HRE. After that, probably the Rus.

Portugal, Scotland and Denmark are the weird kind of choices. Scotland sounds interesting though, I must say- the prospects of huge Scottish armies throwing Europe under their sway is hilarious ...

I've never actually played a short-campaign in either Rome or Medieval 2, funnily enough.