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BTW, I discovered what happens when you annihilate all of the other Catholic factions and then you wipe out the Papal States. The Pope just roams around as an independent unit, and still has the status of statehood. The funny thing is that you can just kill him, and then there will immediately be a papal election ... which you are guaranteed to win because there are no other candidates. So you can take Rome, kill the Pope, and then elect the next Pope who will immediately reconcile you even though you still hold Rome and he's stuck wandering around in the wilderness

Pu-239 wrote: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 .

It'd be cool if you could hold them prisoner until the HRE could afford to pay. Maybe put him on lay-buy?

And another thing- why the fuck can't you set your own faction heir? I swear, the choices the AI makes when determining the succession are downright bizarre. You do not make your brother whoose only a year or two younger than you your Heir Apparent. That's absurd.

One of the fun parts of RTW was being able to set your faction heir- I'd always feel like an Emperor doing that, and it's right that you should be able to do it. I had all sorts of rules and pet things to do in RTW, like adopted sons not getting priority over true blood, and so forth.

Ha! Aztec siege AI is really not good. One unit of cannons racked up 569 kills. Together, my 3 units of cannons racked up more than 1500 kills. There really wasn't much left of his army for my other troops to finish off.

Lands to conquer mod is pretty good, but the AI is too aggressive- when it is on defense, it comes to me rather than staying put and forcing me to come to it in a defensive position. Also annoying bugs playing as the French (eg, when siege tower closes in, "tower is destroyed" is announced, when it really isn't, but this might be on vanilla French too). Also papal states have their own cardinal which doesn't really make sense.

And heh, it happened again:

Vympel wrote:And another thing- why the fuck can't you set your own faction heir? I swear, the choices the AI makes when determining the succession are downright bizarre. You do not make your brother whoose only a year or two younger than you your Heir Apparent. That's absurd.

One of the fun parts of RTW was being able to set your faction heir- I'd always feel like an Emperor doing that, and it's right that you should be able to do it. I had all sorts of rules and pet things to do in RTW, like adopted sons not getting priority over true blood, and so forth.

Hah! Tell me about it. Atleast your situation is somewhat plausible, in my game as the English, when my king died, his heir set one of his adopted sons as the heir apparent.

An adopted son?!?!?! I'm no expert on how the crown is supposed to succeed in medievial hiearchies, but one would think it would go to the brother(s) or pure blood son(s) first (though I can't recall if my particular king has a pure blood son yet).

It's no surprise that the brothers of my current king, all of whom I've groomed into powerful generals, seem to have the unappreciated trait.

And, on a related note, is it possible to stage a rebellion in this version of Medieval? I remember people said it was doable in the original, if you had a really weak bloodline, but I'm curious if that same functionality is in now. Although, I suppose you could assassinate your reigning king and his heirs.

I think your generals have a higher chance of rebelling if your Emperor has weak Authority Trait.

Now, making adopted sons heirs in Rome made some sense, since in Roman culture adoption was a pretty big deal in terms of how legitimately you were viewed as part of the family. It makes no sense in Medieval.

Darth Wong wrote:BTW, I discovered what happens when you annihilate all of the other Catholic factions and then you wipe out the Papal States. The Pope just roams around as an independent unit, and still has the status of statehood. The funny thing is that you can just kill him, and then there will immediately be a papal election ... which you are guaranteed to win because there are no other candidates. So you can take Rome, kill the Pope, and then elect the next Pope who will immediately reconcile you even though you still hold Rome and he's stuck wandering around in the wilderness

Happens when Catholic Factions are still around

If the other Catholic factions refuse to cede one of their regions to the Papal States, that is. I believe that's how it works. The Pope wandering around happened in my Byzantine game too, and there were still several Catholic factions left (the Holy Roman Empire, Hungary, Poland, Spain etc).

BTW, the Portuguese unit selection is among the best in the game IMO. Quick rundown:

In the cities, they get spear militia, sword militia, pike militia, crossbow militia, jinete cavalry, hand gunners, arquebusiers, and musketeers. In New World cities, they get mounted and unmounted Conquistadors.

In the castles, they get the usual mix of peasants and knights, with pavise crossbowmen. At higher levels, they get crossbow cavalry and professional pikemen.

BTW, both cities and castles can make culverins and basilisks, and basilisks kick ass.

Of course, I miss the English longbowmen; they're still among the best units in the game.

Funny thing happened in my current game- I was attacking Palermo, and I had two units of Bombards with me. I broke down the walls and the Sicilians had a unit of Dismounted Norman Knights waiting in the gap for me. Destroying all the towers that could hurt my units when we went for the walls, I brough a Bombard up, extreme close range, and fired into the exposed units. Awesome stuff

How effective are Jinetes? Better/ worse than bow-equipped Missile Cavalry? I'm thinking of playing Spain next, maybe.

I'm also curious about Serpentines- the anti-infantry cannons- are they good to invest in, or should one just stick to culverins then basilisks (if you can get them)?

Vympel wrote:Funny thing happened in my current game- I was attacking Palermo, and I had two units of Bombards with me. I broke down the walls and the Sicilians had a unit of Dismounted Norman Knights waiting in the gap for me. Destroying all the towers that could hurt my units when we went for the walls, I brough a Bombard up, extreme close range, and fired into the exposed units. Awesome stuff

It's actually hilarious if you have the cannons in a flanking position. Sometimes, if the aim is just right, you can see a cannonball plow through two or three units, literally killing 50 or 60 men in one go. I love that.

How effective are Jinetes? Better/ worse than bow-equipped Missile Cavalry? I'm thinking of playing Spain next, maybe.

Since I haven't used bow-equipped missile cavalry yet, I can't compare.

I'm also curious about Serpentines- the anti-infantry cannons- are they good to invest in, or should one just stick to culverins then basilisks (if you can get them)?

I've never used serpentines myself, but I know from bad experience that the serpentines mounted on the backs of Timurid elephant artillery are quite devastating because of their high refire rate. But they suck against walls.

Darth Wong wrote: It's actually hilarious if you have the cannons in a flanking position. Sometimes, if the aim is just right, you can see a cannonball plow through two or three units, literally killing 50 or 60 men in one go. I love that.

I actually took your suggestion and did that when relieving a seige of Zagreb last night- the attackers sat there while I put my Bombards into position and were in full flight before we even ran out of ammo- unfortunately, I couldn't give chase, as the garrison was just Spear and Archer Militia, with no cavalry and no General- but both my Bombards got a ton of experience.

(bloody wish I had bloody culverins and basiliks and shit grumble bullshit crap ...)

Heck, when I attacked Palermo- one of my shitty Bombard balls bounced off the wall and killed two of my own men. That never happens with more powerful guns, IIRC.

Since I haven't used bow-equipped missile cavalry yet, I can't compare.

Oh dude, you're missing out. I know I never shut up about them, but the best reason to play the Byzantines is the Vardariotai you get with the most basic castles, and it only gets better when you complete noble council missions and you get 4x of them at a time. Fast, well-armored (defence of 17!!!) and pretty damn good in a melee. Every army of mine has four of them as standard. You can wheel them around any enemy army, shoot them full of arrows, and then use them to charge the rear when you send the infantry at them.

Of course, you don't get pikes, halberds, arquebusiers, musketeers, cannons, culverins, serpentines, or basilisks ...

The Byzantine archer units are also pretty badass (in my custom battle experiments against England, they can fight everything but retinue longbowmen on pretty much equal terms). Heavy infantry is basically described as serviceable, and the heavy cavalry, though old fashioned, is plenty effective.

The naval units are also pretty good- the Byzantines are IIRC the only faction that gets Fire Ships, and you get Lanternas gun-equipped ships when gunpowder is invented, which was a pleasant surprise (you didn't get that in Medieval).

I've never used serpentines myself, but I know from bad experience that the serpentines mounted on the backs of Timurid elephant artillery are quite devastating because of their high refire rate. But they suck against walls.

Probably not worth putting in a typical stack with culverins, then, but basiliks might be sufficiently powerful that you don't need to many of them to smash down all the defences of a settlement that might be a problem.

It's a pity they didn't model the evolution of city defences after the introducion of cannons- lower, thicker walls and such, IIRC?

Another thing- since I've yet to get to the New World (I will on this game, I'll play past victory)- what ships does the game provide for you to get there? Caravels? After the Dockyard, what's the building that replaces it, and so forth?

Vympel wrote:I actually took your suggestion and did that when relieving a seige of Zagreb last night- the attackers sat there while I put my Bombards into position and were in full flight before we even ran out of ammo- unfortunately, I couldn't give chase, as the garrison was just Spear and Archer Militia, with no cavalry and no General- but both my Bombards got a ton of experience.

(bloody wish I had bloody culverins and basiliks and shit grumble bullshit crap ...)

Heck, when I attacked Palermo- one of my shitty Bombard balls bounced off the wall and killed two of my own men. That never happens with more powerful guns, IIRC.

Yeah, Bombards suck compared to the better guns.

Since I haven't used bow-equipped missile cavalry yet, I can't compare.

Oh dude, you're missing out. I know I never shut up about them, but the best reason to play the Byzantines is the Vardariotai you get with the most basic castles, and it only gets better when you complete noble council missions and you get 4x of them at a time. Fast, well-armored (defence of 17!!!) and pretty damn good in a melee. Every army of mine has four of them as standard. You can wheel them around any enemy army, shoot them full of arrows, and then use them to charge the rear when you send the infantry at them.

Oh, I remember from RTW and BI how effective horse archers could be. It's just that I find the micromanagement of them to be somewhat tedious, although their effectiveness is indisputable.

Of course, you don't get pikes, halberds, arquebusiers, musketeers, cannons, culverins, serpentines, or basilisks ...

The Byzantine archer units are also pretty badass (in my custom battle experiments against England, they can fight everything but retinue longbowmen on pretty much equal terms). Heavy infantry is basically described as serviceable, and the heavy cavalry, though old fashioned, is plenty effective.

The naval units are also pretty good- the Byzantines are IIRC the only faction that gets Fire Ships, and you get Lanternas gun-equipped ships when gunpowder is invented, which was a pleasant surprise (you didn't get that in Medieval).

It's too bad you don't actually see these naval battles. I've fought battles with Grande Carracks against war galleys; that would be fun to actually watch.

I've never used serpentines myself, but I know from bad experience that the serpentines mounted on the backs of Timurid elephant artillery are quite devastating because of their high refire rate. But they suck against walls.

Probably not worth putting in a typical stack with culverins, then, but basiliks might be sufficiently powerful that you don't need to many of them to smash down all the defences of a settlement that might be a problem.

Basilisks rule. They are powerful enough to take out a citadel wall in a few shots, and they're more accurate than Bombards to boot. Best of all, they have really long range; you can blow a hole through the second wall of a citadel from so far away that you're outside the range of archers on the first wall.

It's a pity they didn't model the evolution of city defences after the introducion of cannons- lower, thicker walls and such, IIRC?

Let's face it though, those kinds of walls don't look too cool.

Darth Wong wrote: Oh, I remember from RTW and BI how effective horse archers could be. It's just that I find the micromanagement of them to be somewhat tedious, although their effectiveness is indisputable.

Yeah, it is a bit of a pain ordering 4 of them around at a time- but they also certainly make it easy to kill enemy Missile Cavalry- they can outshoot anyone (including, IIRC, Mongol Horse Archers, I think they do slightly more damage) and they can chase down and go hand to hand.

Playing as England, you can of course rely on Longbowmen to shoot them off their horses, but crossbowmen and such just seem to suck (I've personally never used them, but I've never been hurt too badly by them). I'd be inclined to hire Turkoman and Turkopole mercenaries in the Middle East when fighting Egypt and the Turks as anyone other than England and Byzantium (and the Rus and Hungary, of course).

It's too bad you don't actually see these naval battles. I've fought battles with Grande Carracks against war galleys; that would be fun to actually watch.

That really should be the next step. It's time they do a naval component- in the sorts of time periods they cover, it couldn't be that different.

Basilisks rule. They are powerful enough to take out a citadel wall in a few shots, and they're more accurate than Bombards to boot. Best of all, they have really long range; you can blow a hole through the second wall of a citadel from so far away that you're outside the range of archers on the first wall.

Why the hell doesn't England get Basilisks, anyway?

Let's face it though, those kinds of walls don't look too cool.

True- but it feels like such a huge waste of money when gunpowder arrives to have all these cities defended by mighty walls (though within the game, they do serve to channel the enemy into chokepoints when your typically superior soldiers can win out).

Anybody have other mod recommendations? I'm finding the Lands to Conquer AI really stupid (AI is too aggressive- yes, it tries to flank w/ cavalry, balanced armies and all that, but my last large battle I was outnumbered 600 to 1000, and won because he sallied out as I attacked, and I had 4 ballistas all aimed at the chokepoint, and chewed up the routing army w/ light cavalry. Almost ran out of ammunition (LTC increases the hitpoints of the walls and gates), but I managed to rush troops in through both inner and outer walls as they retreated, and killed them all just as the timer was about to run out. Had the AI not been as aggressive, this would not have been possible).

I've found that, like every other TW game so far, both the early and late game are boring. In the early game, you lack the resources to build armies that are fun to conquer with, while my late game as England has become an obnoxious heretic-hunt through my huge territory. Three things are highly annoying--1) Papal inquisitors almost never kill heretics, instead they target your priests to prevent them from fighting heresy 2) the success rate for heresy trials is absurdly low and 3) I've found that a single heretic will out-convert three or four priests.

Eh, I like having heretics to raise my priest's piety. And if worse comes to worse, send a cardinal to wipe them out or assassinate them. Also, having a cathedral to produce bishops helps too.

As an Orthodox or Muslim faction, heretics are a minor annoyance- I deal with them in newly conquered provinces where it's important for civil order that I make sure there's as little civil unrest as possible.

Once again, I must marvel at the power of Milan in my games. I sent a diplomat to Antwerp- which was, get this- Scottish. Or so it had been- when I arrived, it was controlled by Milan. Exchanging maps, I discovered that virtually all of France minus two provinces (France had become a vassal) was controlled by Milan.

They declared war on me after I entered the Florence region to continue my reconquest of Italy (Venice, Naples, Bologna and Palermo already under my control) after they tried to assassinate the general of the army that took Bologna (foolishly, I didn't exterminate the populace there, and it's quite a battle keeping them under control).

Good. I was wondering what cassus belli I was going to have to use to take Gaul back for the Empire.

What do you guys do with your old fleets when you get gun-equipped vessels? With my 100-man Lanternas ships coming out of the shipyards, I have Dromons and Fire Ships lying around that just seem quaint. With one ill-advised attack I sent a four-ship group against a Genoan fleet out of sheer nonchalance for the fleet's fate- it was defeated and I only had two full ship crews left after merging the ships. I figure soften them up for the Lanternas- they weren't silver/gold chevrons, just bronze ...

Vympel wrote:As an Orthodox or Muslim faction, heretics are a minor annoyance- I deal with them in newly conquered provinces where it's important for civil order that I make sure there's as little civil unrest as possible.

I usually play Catholic factions, and I've never found the heretics to be a problem. I don't even find the Pope to be a problem; just keep bribing him and you'll be fine.

Once again, I must marvel at the power of Milan in my games.

They always seem to have a shitload of money, because they can invariably afford huge standing armies. When you push into the heart of Milanese territory, you generally find multiple full-stack armies just standing around. When I took Bologna, they jumped me with two full-stack armies. I won, but it was pretty touch-and-go there (my General had only two men left in his bodyguard unit at the end, and all of my feudal knights routed; my pikemen held the line). It must have something to do with their starting position and trade, but any faction that can afford to have so many full-stack field armies will always be tough.

What do you guys do with your old fleets when you get gun-equipped vessels?

I disband them. They're really not worth the upkeep once they become obsolete.

I love playing as the Moors, because all my Imams are at 5 piety or higher. Sending a fresh Imam into a 100% Catholic region for ten years, will get you a pretty powerful Imam. Plus, you'll create unrest and have a partially sympathetic population ahead of your conquest.

I always send 10-15 Imams into the territory I want to conquer.
Within 2-3 turns you have 50-80% Muslim population.
No need to exterminate the population.

Even more fun is combining that with spies and assassins:
Spies increase unrest, while assassins sabotage the morale boosting buildings.
I've killed factions without any army (coupled with continuous biological war).

Who needs armies, if the enemy can't build more than 2-3 units to protect a city?

Holy shit, Venice is nasty! My poor infantry got torn to shreds by theirs, and only having a ton of heavy cavalry saved the day. I'm going to have to rebuild my Italy stacks before I try to take them on again. It's weird, though, because I've had no problems with Sicily thus far, and I'm about to sack Palermo and move on to Naples.

In all, though, the campaign goes excellently. I've taken most of France from England, but am leaving them two regions as a buffer between Denmark and the HRE. Once I regroup, my faction heir is taking his best army and boarding a ship for England!

So I have three fronts: Northern Europe/England, Northern Italy, and Sicily. I control all of Spain and all of Africa up to Egypt; this includes Timbuktu and Arguin. My merchants there are churning out about 5K per turn; it's awesome.

My plan is to hit Rome from the south after Naples, while my other stack keeps northern Italy occupied. What I've done is given the Pope Ajaccio, so he'll be stuck on that island for the rest of the game. What can I expect when I declare war on the Pope? Instant Crusade?

Alferd Packer wrote:Holy shit, Venice is nasty! My poor infantry got torn to shreds by theirs, and only having a ton of heavy cavalry saved the day. I'm going to have to rebuild my Italy stacks before I try to take them on again. It's weird, though, because I've had no problems with Sicily thus far, and I'm about to sack Palermo and move on to Naples.

In all, though, the campaign goes excellently. I've taken most of France from England, but am leaving them two regions as a buffer between Denmark and the HRE. Once I regroup, my faction heir is taking his best army and boarding a ship for England!

So I have three fronts: Northern Europe/England, Northern Italy, and Sicily. I control all of Spain and all of Africa up to Egypt; this includes Timbuktu and Arguin. My merchants there are churning out about 5K per turn; it's awesome.

My plan is to hit Rome from the south after Naples, while my other stack keeps northern Italy occupied. What I've done is given the Pope Ajaccio, so he'll be stuck on that island for the rest of the game. What can I expect when I declare war on the Pope? Instant Crusade?

Nope I killed all the popes so far and they haven't called one on me yet