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

wautd · Post by **wautd** » 2007-01-19 08:31am

I'm currently doubting to start a campaign with either the Byzantium Empire, Spain or Venice. Venice has the advantage that I still have the savegame from that old round robin game that never continued so don't need to start all over again

Post by **Vympel** » 2007-01-19 08:40am

Blech, Italian city states. Will likely never play them. Too poncy.

Speaking of which, the bloody population of Venice revolted, despite the city being filled to the brim with troops (I had even moved all my army horsemen etc out and replaced them with militia to maximise numbers) but I guess that's what I get for only sacking the place and not exterminating the populace- I couldn't get the Orthodox religion established quick enough either, so it was both a large, unruly populace and a religiously dissatisfied one.

I took the place back the very next turn (I just sent wave after wave of expendable militia from the city itself at them- the place was only defended by Feudal and Mailed Knights and Italian Spear Militia, so it was easy) and exterminated 21,000+ people in the aftermath. That's what they get for defying the Emperor of Constantinople and costing the lives of 500 soldiers of the Empire in taking the place back.

wautd · Post by **wautd** » 2007-01-19 09:31am

Vympel wrote:Blech, Italian city states. Will likely never play them. Too poncy.

Speaking of which, the bloody population of Venice revolted, despite the city being filled to the brim with troops

Having a too large garrison may work counterproductive as well. Try to put some units outside the city and see if things improve

Post by **Vympel** » 2007-01-19 09:34am

Will try it next time- I don't think they were hurting the situation any, the breakup of positive and negative factors towards disorder revealed it was mostly squalor, distance from the capital, religious sentiment, etc.

NRS Guardian · Post by **NRS Guardian** » 2007-01-19 11:04am

I've found that having a garrison larger than what the city will support for free in the biggest factor in squalor. If you only have militia up to whatever the city will support squalor is usually under control as long as the appropriate upgrades to buildings that reduce squalor are built. My cities that have high squalor have large garrisons. For castles this doesn't really apply.

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2007-01-20 06:19am

Annoying- I set the game to allow attacks w/o time limits, and the enemy AI will just sit there, requiring me to sally out and get slaughtered. Lost Acre this way to the Timurids... my middle eastern empire is screwed, as I only have the castle in Gaza.... there's gotta be a way to enable the timer midgame... this wouldn't be a problem if the AI would just give up when it no longer had a means to penetrate the walls....

Fire Fly · Post by **Fire Fly** » 2007-01-20 06:30am

Vympel wrote:Speaking of which, the bloody population of Venice revolted, despite the city being filled to the brim with troops (I had even moved all my army horsemen etc out and replaced them with militia to maximise numbers) but I guess that's what I get for only sacking the place and not exterminating the populace- I couldn't get the Orthodox religion established quick enough either, so it was both a large, unruly populace and a religiously dissatisfied one.

I noticed the same in my Byzantine game. At the moment, I've reestablished the Empire back to the Basil territories with the Balkan, Anatolia, and the various islands under my control (along with Caffa). I purposely antagonized the Sicilians for causus belli and immediately landed an army in Souther Italy to take Naples, immediately pissing off the Pope. Despite sacking the city, taxes at minimum, and having a full stack to garrison the city, the happinesses remains at 70%. The next turn, the Papal State sends out two full stack armies to try to displace me off the Italian peninsula but to no avail.

In other news, I had a Jihad called on Iconium, which gave me an excuse to march the Emperor and his army to take Caesaerea and Adana from the Turks while simultaneously blockading every port from the Near East to Tripoli. The Russians decided to break off our alliance and march on to my Balkan territories but couldn't get past my fortress at Iasi. I've been fighting a proxy war with the Danes and Scots (who have destroyed the French and begun moving on Milanese lands) by giving away huge sums of cash to my ally the Holy Roman Empire and to the somewhat useful Milanese, who are about to capitulate any moment.

And lastly, has anyone else noticed that sometimes, especially later in the game, when you trade maps with other nations, your map doesn't update? I traded maps with Milan and gave them 8000 florins yet my map did not update. Is it game mechanics or a bug?

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2007-01-20 06:46am

Wong's advice for bribing the pope seems to work very well. I seem to have no allies other than the pope, so I'm now busy cleaning out Iberia before turning my attention eastward (My ally Portugal backstabbed me after I defended them from France, so they got their last two settlements steamrollered pretty quickly). Dealing w/ the Timurids is a bitch however, and on top of that, Cairo revolted.

I'm spending way too many turns sending back troops and retraining them them, rather than just bringing up reinforcements and adding them to the unit- anybody else compulsively do this?

EDIT: Heh, I managed to beat the timurids in the field by having my archers (which were 50% of my army) on a small hill w/ stakes down backed by catapults. Just rained fire arrows and flaming catapult ammo on the elephants, which caused them to run amok and wipe out a third of the enemy army. Archers, merc cavalry archers, and merc elephants took care of the rest. after the ensuing chaos. Prior to battle assassinated the general. Oh, and there was a crossed swords symbol on map afterwards saying "site of famous battle" listing loser and winner, kind ofneat.

Anyone else find cannons suck in the field? Most useful artillery seems to be ballistas and catapults (and deployment of catapults is easier, since they can fire from behind units (and walls)

Post by **Vympel** » 2007-01-20 10:39am

Fire Fly wrote:
And lastly, has anyone else noticed that sometimes, especially later in the game, when you trade maps with other nations, your map doesn't update? I traded maps with Milan and gave them 8000 florins yet my map did not update. Is it game mechanics or a bug?

Perhaps because you knew more than them and their territory hadn't changed since the last map update?

Arrow · Post by **Arrow** » 2007-01-20 12:26pm

Pu-239 wrote:Anyone else find cannons suck in the field? Most useful artillery seems to be ballistas and catapults (and deployment of catapults is easier, since they can fire from behind units (and walls)

No. With cannons, you have to feel out the terrain during deployment, and make sure your cannons have good lines of fire. If I'm on the defensive, I'll place some longbow men in front of the cannons and have them place stakes to protect against cav and slow down infantry. And I'll have some of my best infantry directly behind the cannons, in case the enemy makes it into melee. If I'm on the attack, I'll center my formation around my cannon units, and move to were they can get the best shots on the enemy. Either way, I can get cannons to inflict massive causalities. And don't bother with flaming shot - normal shot will rip apart the enemy's ranks much more effectively.

Fire Fly · Post by **Fire Fly** » 2007-01-20 01:58pm

Vympel wrote:
Fire Fly wrote:
And lastly, has anyone else noticed that sometimes, especially later in the game, when you trade maps with other nations, your map doesn't update? I traded maps with Milan and gave them 8000 florins yet my map did not update. Is it game mechanics or a bug?
Perhaps because you knew more than them and their territory hadn't changed since the last map update?

Well, the thing was, I know Scotland was attacking everyone in France relentlessly and had essentially cut Milan in half, leaving them a few possessions in south western France/Spain and a few German cities but when I traded map, their territories stayed unchanged at all. As far as I know, this is the second time now. It may be a defect with the mod I'm using, tough; Deus Lo Vult mod.

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2007-01-20 03:32pm

Arrow wrote:
Pu-239 wrote:Anyone else find cannons suck in the field? Most useful artillery seems to be ballistas and catapults (and deployment of catapults is easier, since they can fire from behind units (and walls)
No. With cannons, you have to feel out the terrain during deployment, and make sure your cannons have good lines of fire. If I'm on the defensive, I'll place some longbow men in front of the cannons and have them place stakes to protect against cav and slow down infantry. And I'll have some of my best infantry directly behind the cannons, in case the enemy makes it into melee. If I'm on the attack, I'll center my formation around my cannon units, and move to were they can get the best shots on the enemy. Either way, I can get cannons to inflict massive causalities. And don't bother with flaming shot - normal shot will rip apart the enemy's ranks much more effectively.

That might be it- I've always used flaming shot for artillery. Does the same rule apply to catapults? Thing w/ cannon is that you have to stop firing them once the enemy closes into your lines, otherwise your units in front of them would get shredded, while catapults can simply fire over your melee units. Yes, you can put cannon on higher ground, but that's not always available.

Arrow · Post by **Arrow** » 2007-01-20 04:40pm

Pu-239 wrote:That might be it- I've always used flaming shot for artillery. Does the same rule apply to catapults? Thing w/ cannon is that you have to stop firing them once the enemy closes into your lines, otherwise your units in front of them would get shredded, while catapults can simply fire over your melee units. Yes, you can put cannon on higher ground, but that's not always available.

Most units will run from cannons when they get close, and if you've got stakes in front of them, there more than likely not going to get touched. If the enemy does enter melee with your cannon crews, they are capable of holding their own until help arrives; I usually keep some heavy infantry nearby as backup. The cannons longer range is another bonus; if your enemy mostly has catapults and trebs, you can blast him well before he can blast you.

And the flaming shot rule applies to catapults - they are more accurate with normal rounds. However, a normal catapult round kills very few men. A cannon round can easy chew through rows of men from multiple units (especially in city battles). Another thing I can do with cannons is pull them up to a city's gates (that I'm assaulting) and have them fire on defenders in the streets.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2007-01-20 11:16pm

Cannons are particularly effective firing normal shot because their low trajectory means the cannonball just bowls through the enemy ranks. Catapults aren't as effective because they have a high arcing trajectory, so the shot comes down at a high angle and only kills a handful of people. So flaming shot is more useful with catapults than cannons. With cannons, there's no real point at all.

If you fire through a thick enemy army, you can kill more than a dozen men with a single shot. If you have the cannons in a flanking position, you can cause absolutely stunning casualties. I have utterly devastated enemy armies with flanking shot from cannons before, with the cannonballs just rolling down their lines. I've seen a single shot mow through an entire row, taking out a third of the men in three different units.

Post by **Vympel** » 2007-01-20 11:38pm

Playing the English, I really enjoyed mortars in seiges- the AI would have a habit of bunching up and the mortars were perfect for decimating them.

One awesome thing that happened in my Byzantine game was when I attacked Venice- the full garrison came out to meet me on the bridge, and I only had two ballista in my army. The flaming shot was so devastating that one ballista wracked up 220 kills.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2007-01-20 11:49pm

I think the most kills I ever got for a unit of cannons was somewhere over 500. That was against the Aztecs, who foolishly stood there and failed to react when I moved my cannons to their flank and started firing down their lines.

NRS Guardian · Post by **NRS Guardian** » 2007-01-21 02:32am

Pu-239 wrote:Annoying- I set the game to allow attacks w/o time limits, and the enemy AI will just sit there, requiring me to sally out and get slaughtered. Lost Acre this way to the Timurids... my middle eastern empire is screwed, as I only have the castle in Gaza.... there's gotta be a way to enable the timer midgame... this wouldn't be a problem if the AI would just give up when it no longer had a means to penetrate the walls....

In my games if the enemy decides to assault, if I destroy all their siege equipment and artillery the game gives the option of ending the battle.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2007-01-21 05:14am

I keep the battle time limit on, just in case the AI attacks and decides to sit there like an idiot. It may be cheap to win a battle by running out the clock, but if the enemy decides to just sit there like a moron, I don't see why he should be rewarded for that.

Post by **Vympel** » 2007-01-21 07:22am

I gotta say, post patch, Merchants are fucking awesome. Now that the amount of florins they make doesn't reset everytime you load a game, your merchants can build up some real skill (allowing them to avoid getting their assets seized) and earn some serious cash. Most of my merchants are making well over 200 florins per resource, with one lucky bastard in Dongola (newly conquered- Egypt is destroyed) makeing 527 florins a turn from ivory. It's like having a few extra cities for nothing.

Walsh · Post by **Walsh** » 2007-01-21 08:37am

As England, this alliance with the Papal States has worked out nicely. It was fairly expensive to bring up my favour with the pope, and then another 10,000 florins to make him accept a military alliance, but now whenever another Christian faction attacks, they are excommunicated the next turn and are at war with the Papal States, meaning that even if I kill their faction leader or the pope dies, they won't get reconciled.

At the moment I've gobbled up France, the HRE, Milan, Venice, and Scotland, and recently Spain and Denmark have attacked me meaning I'm free to move in on them.

Strangely enough, just before 1200, the Portuguese faction just dropped off the map and went rebel. I had nothing to do with it and they still had at least two settlement in Iberia and one in eastern France (I was a little slow moving in on the rebel settlements after assassinating the French family). Of course, Spain stepped in and took control of them, and apparently bored with the Moors, decided to attack the insanely stronger English faction

.

Post by **Vympel** » 2007-01-21 08:56am

The AI attacking you is AFAIK a desperate attempt by them to fulfil their own victory conditions- I suppose they figure if they leave you to your own devices long enough then there won't be enough territories to take over to gain them victory and you'll be to strong to challenge- so they attack. However ill-advised.

With the East entirely in the hands of the true Imperium Romanorum, I've been building up armies (three of them) in Ragusa for the big push to take Italy back for the Empire, as Belisarius did, almost 700 years ago. I also brought one in that I had built at Caesarea.

Venice is destroyed, of course, and I took Bologna from the so-called "Holy Roman Empire", those German barbarian imposters. But I don't want to attack Milan just yet. I was going to attack Sicily- starting from Palermo, then Naples, then taking Corsica and Sardinia to wipe them out.

Sicily had been at peace with me for some time- I guess they got tired of getting owned.

Anyway, they come to me at Ragusa and ask for trade rights. I say yes. I then propose an exchange of maps (Sicily had taken over Moorish possesions in North Africa, and then somehow the Papal States had gotten hold of at least the Tripoli region).

They say no, they don't want to give me their maps- they want me to give up mine, and if they don't, they said they'd attack me! This was a transparent set up, as they had landed troops on Iraklion (Crete) and I had let them because I wanted an excuse to start my conquest of Sicily.

Right now Iraklion is under seige by a force I should be able to repel, and and one of my new Ragusa armies with the first Bombards are about to land at Palermo and take it from them.

Meanwhile, my new Emperor, who was at Zagreb when the old Emperor died, attacked a HRE army out of Vienna and destroyed it- also with the new Bombards playing a prominent role. I don't know if I want to take Vienna though- primarily I want to recreate the Roman Empire, united. But HRE is my enemy and my enemies must be crushed.

I figure it's only a matter of time till Milan attacks me- they'll be crushed against the strong garrions at Milan and Bologna. I'll take Rome when Sicily is wiped out. That'll probably be the trigger.

Master of Cards · Post by **Master of Cards** » 2007-01-21 01:01pm

Darth Wong wrote: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.

Yes I was at Rome through beating France, Milan, Spain,Moors and I quit. It was too easy

Ypoknons · Post by **Ypoknons** » 2007-01-21 01:21pm

Vienna, or as it was known in Roman times, Vindobona, was a Roman fort from the early empire. The center of modern Vienna was originally the Thirteenth Legion's base. According to one account, this was where Emperor Marcus Aurelius died. Source

Post by **Vympel** » 2007-01-21 06:28pm

Ypoknons wrote:Vienna, or as it was known in Roman times, Vindobona, was a Roman fort from the early empire. The center of modern Vienna was originally the Thirteenth Legion's base. According to one account, this was where Emperor Marcus Aurelius died. Source

Excellent, so I'm justified in taking it

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2007-01-21 07:05pm

Whoo, captured the holy roman emperor by swarming him w/ 3 light cavalry units, 1 mailed knights, and my general's bodyguard, ransomed him for 10K which got denied since the HRE was too poor

.

Also in another battle, won outnumbered 1125 to 603, losing only 76 men - just stuck all my forces on the top of the mountain on the other side of the map, and by the time they marched to the bottom of the mountain, they were tired after walking through snow... then had to deal w/ a hail of crossbow arrows. 1/3 of the enemy army was busy chasing my light cavalry and general around, leaving the other half to get chewed by the rest of the army. All this of course resulted in a severe morale blow causing a rout as soon as melee started