This is another production by the guy who brought you Missle Silos (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=94655), and the Unofficial X-Com Thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=104518). The topic, as many of you have geussed, is the best game about the Middle Ages ever made. To help focus discussion, I was curious first of all about any good battle stories and tactics in general. Anything else works too.

I thought it was a pretty good game.

If you start in the Early Middle Ages as England, conquer France as quickly as you can.

When fighting at Stirling Bridge, use the bridge itself as a chokepoint to counter the English numerical advantage. Stay on your own side, too, or the English archers will wreak some major havoc from the shore.

If you play as Almohads in Early, concentrate on Europe first. You will only have tech superiority with AUM for about 40 turns. Also, it is much easier to eliminate the Spanish at this stage and possibly hit the weakened France or English in Aquitaine.

Unless you're prepared to deal with a majopr uprising in the same territory every 5-10 turns or so, never take out the Papacy unless it's absolutely necessary. (Not sure if it applies to all nations, or only Catholic states...)

I think its the same for all nations... Basically the Papancy always come back so it tends to be best to leave them till last.

i picked it up about a week or so ago.
i finished the tutorial. it looks good but RTW is better

I found that the Russian Steppes are hard to hold as well. What I did at one point was to start with the Almohads on Easy and Early, and go through for a total conquest with each Nation. I got stalled out as Germany. Would like to get back to it, but my escape key doesn't work so I can't save off to check my e-mail and play my PBEM turns.

I play usually as the Italians, Hungarians or Germans. As the Germans i allways go for France first and then Poland and Denmark. Italians i just launch Crusades to Middle-East and African and Byzantium. And as the Hungarians i go for Byzantines even though they can be hard at an early start point.

Spanish should be classified as Easy in Early. They have Jinettes(which area almost as good fighters as mounted sargeants) and can build crusades pretty early. By the High Era I have conquered from Toulouse around the mediterranean to Lesser Armenia. Also, I owned England and everything till former Italian and parts of Germany.

@Gnarfflinger
I usually skip the steppes except as practices for my better generals and troops. It is a great place to earn valour, you'll need it.

Spanish should be classified as Easy in Early.

The difficulty is that they do start with a limited amount of provinces and need to push back the almohad. Basically its not a difficult start if you do things right but it can sometimes be tricky especially if you make the mistake of trying to take Portugal too early.

As Spain you can Bribe the provincess of Portugal, Navarra, and Valencia and you should expecially bribe Valencia because of El Cid been there in the early start. You can boost his moral by giving him one of your daughters. and in return you get a loyal and one of the best generals in the world for a very low price. :smug:

you should expecially bribe Valencia because of El Cid been there in the early start. You can boost his moral by giving him one of your daughters. and in return you get a loyal and one of the best generals in the world for a very low price. :smug:

Well aware of that :) There is the potential to get very unlucky though if the Almohads invade early. But its possible to miss the opportunity anyway and make playing as Spain much more difficult. I would advise avoiding Portugal until you have are beginning to push the Almohads out of Spain since it has a high rebellion risk which means wasting a load of peasants to keep the peace.

I waited on Portugal until 1186 for that reason. Once you push out the Almohads, you can use crusades to get crusader knights for a European campaign. Jinettes are great units for desert warfare. Your right though, if you don't get the Almohads out of Spain, then you have big problems.

The Almohads have to think of the same thing too, tohugh. They also have to handled Egypt, but luckily that is a chokehold territory(Cyrenia I think) and the Egyptians have the Turks(Selujik at this time I think) to deal with. Although as teh Almohads I managed to get the good territories in the ARabian Peninsula and most of WEstern Europe quickly. AUM is awesome.

Am I the only Danish fan here?

Anyway, I usually go for Sweden, build up about 4-6 Viking units, take Norway.

Securing both and taxing on "High" so as to not worry about immediate rebellion, I'll usually hop over to Scotland, take that, and provided it's open, Wales as well.

Since I just got it working(:(), I haven't gotten much further then that. :)

I have to say England is the best faction in the entire game. As them, i conquered the entire map at the year 1267. Why is this? They have an absolute dominance of unique units than just own everything out there. Heres the list, off the top of my head.
Billmen
Longbowmen
Gallowglasses
Fyrdmen
Highlanders
Hobilars (not that great but still effective light cav)
Saxon Huscarles come from rebellions, as do Sherwood Foresters, which both rock hard
add to this local unique units ( ie Swiss Pikemen/Haleberdiers, Jinetes, Geonese Sailors) and you are unstoppable!

Im sure there are more. If you can eliminate France by the year 1100, you have a secure base from which you can go virtually anywhere. Fortify Flanders ands churn out Barques, and you can get Flanders up to producing 4000 gold a turn by itself. If Flanders is a well defended, Britain acellerates into an army generating machine, capable of churning out an early-age dominant army every three turns, mine consist of usually 3 longbowmen, 3 Feudal Seargants ( or fyrdmen), 4-5 infantry, just pick one, youve got such variety with them, 4 cavalry, often this will be feudal knights, and then a general. This machine can give you multiple thousands of men to just throw at the Germans or the Spanish of whoever pisses you off the most.

I steamrolled staight across Europe to Moscow with greater efficiency than the Third Reich, and destroyed the Mongols in 1231, by outnumbering them 15000 to 8000, though i could have taken them with a battle-hardened two and a half.

The Pope? No problem, Billmen absolutely pwn anything the Papacy can come back with, its usually a lot of cavalry, mixed with some nice foot knights, as im sure youve all seen.

The Muslims? an afterthought. The MTW Islamic world is a force to be reckned with on the battlefield, but they have a LONG windup, if you can get them on their heels before they get multiple Castles/Citadels, they're in the bag.

In conclusion, England is the best one faction there is, that is why I hardly play as them. I enjoy the Turks early age, French early age, and the Russians High Age. ONce as the Russians, my Westward Expansion was halted in central Germany, where my Western border met, of all people, the Almohads, who were throwing Faris around like they knew somebody. Man that was hard.

Spain is pretty easy once you get the better of the Almohads. Imagine--an empire from Navarre to the Sinai with only 3 border defense armies!

I really enjoyed France, too. Hobilars are priceless in the first 30 turns, the farming in your early territories is good, and Flanders is one of the best provinces in the game. Hit the English hard at the beginning, and you'll be in good shape.

I'm playing a game as the Sicilians now, and I've just hit the high era at 1205. My empire is rather small; the Byzantines are huge in the east, and though the west is weak I tend to quail before armies of royal knights. I have all of Italy but the Papal States and Milan, Morroco and Libya, Sardinia and Corsica, Malta, Cordoba, Granada, and Leon. I'll probably work my way through Europe from the southwest until the horde hits the Byzantines. Then I'll start across North Africa and go up through the Holy Land.

You know what else is fun? AS the Italians, the Crimea was a trading outpost/ fortress (it was actually a Citadel at the time) and absolutely owning the Horde with your Italian INfantry at a bridge as they crossed the River Don.

I really hated the Italians. Cavalryless slugfests against the HRE are not my idea of fun. I expanded in a bubble like way through the HRE and into France, but the huge upkeep of garrisoning all those border provices, the lousy royals, excommunication, and terrible cashflow forced me to quit.

I didn't have all that much trouble as the Italians.

I surprisingly had an amazing amount of success with the Almohads, I have (or had rather, I don't play MTW anymore) 12 full armies (as in can't hold even 1 more soldier, complete loyalty in all my captains, and a family member commanding each army, usually with a minimum of 5 stars) in Western France alone. My empire encompassed all of Spain, all of North Africa, and from Antioch (I think, it's been so long since I've played) Eastward.

Same defenses there only 10 full armies though. And each of my border provinces has a full garrison inside the castle, all my provinces have at least 10 agents (mainly assassins, my border territories have more and a bigger variety). I also dominate the Mediterranean, fleets in every ocean square out there. Oh I also control Ireland, Scotland, Scandanavia, and I think various parts of Poland. I've got Europe by the proverbial cojones.

Mmm....Byzantines....

I basically invaded and conquered all of Russia via Georgia. Truks didn't give me too much trouble until later, when I killed them. Egypt was a bit harder, though....and by the time I beat Egypt, Spain had conquered almost all of Africa :(

To all the English fans who say "Keeeel the French!" I say :mischief: to you.

I finnally played an Early game with the English and damn they own.

Taking on the Welsh Longbowmen with mostly Peasents/Militia early on is a pain in the ass though.

My conquest, in this order:


Wales
Sweden -bribed-
Norway -bribed again-
Denmark itself
Saxony
Scotland


I eliminated the Danish right off the bat, and had strong ties to the Spanish, Germans, Polish, and French. Yes, the French. Not once did they invade/reject a proposal.

Admittedly though.. I betrayed the Holy Romans a bit when I kept going after Danish Saxony and conquered most of their provinces:lol: .

It's usually a good move to bribe the welsh longbowmen. You don't have to fight them, and they can be a real boon early, as long as you keep them well protected.

The best bribe trick ever has to be playing as the Turks and trapping the Egyptian king, multiple times. Do it right and you can do it at least twice and then have a huge advantage b/c you never stop building or building troops as the Turks. Take out both Byzantium and Egypt by 1100 if you do it right.

yep ive done that one before Scwick, it makes for a very easy early age, no? those games ive usually got an empire from Granada around N Africa and up to about Poland or so, you can just shell out the armies once you get the Crusader states' economies up to speed

lol. Probably one of the dirtiest, depending on perspective, tricks is Jihad spamming right at the start of each new king. You can do it more often, but I find it more interesting if its a new king initiative. Multiple Jihads can be launched simultaneously, only with the caveat that the territory was yours for a minimum of one turn.

Here is the trick for those who are not familiar:
If possible through some wierd naval gambit, strike at a territory that is as far and indirect as possible from your terriotries. For the Turks that would be some territory in north-west europe or england if possible. Also northern russia and scandinavia work for that direction. If you have decent zeal provinces, which you should be able to set up, then each Jihad when declared will contain plenty of troops for field battles. Concentrate all other building on fort busters and occupation armies. Take the one territory, lose it, then declare as many jihads as possible and start marching them through europe, africa, and eurasia. Have the fortress busters and peasant occupation troops follow in the wake of hiding and destruction that will ensue. You will have to fight lots of large battles and will los some piety and resepct because of jihads faltering. However the disruption caused by such spamming is very fun to observe. Even if empires are not destroyed, most of them will experience significant economic losses and civil wars. If you prepared the occupation army correctly, then you can afford massive gains in territory that can be developed in about 10-20 years for easy garrison. The best part about such strategy, proving you don't have some kind of piety crisis, is that you can do it in a few stages a few decades apart. While cheap, its fun to watch your zealous legions inspire fear into the heart of Christendom. Also, make sure you hav e a sizeable bankroll to afford the first ten turns of the onslaught.

haha! i LOVE that idea! Ive spammed Jihads at provinces near me that i lose, but I tend to only use it only on the defencive... this idea is just sadistic, but hey thats the fun part about this game!
Now one time as the Byzantines, I had an extremely large army that wound up a war in Hungary, I'd say about 7-8000 modern men (this was late early era), i mean like Pronoiai Allagion, Byzantine Inf, and a host of hired mercs. I didnt have the moneys to keep them, so i had some 'fun,' I blitzed all the way across Europe, from Hungary, down through N Italy, and up to SCotland, causing civil wars, killing kings, pilliaging and whatnot, it was fun, cause i got to Scotland with half my men, but then they got homesick, and wanted to go home! so they did...

Jihads, if planned properly, is one of the best offensive weapons. Simply take an army somewhere, especially across controlled oceans, to where the enemy will flee for one turn or you can force them to run. Then withdraw if possible and then hit them with tons of jihads. It will give you the troops for a few turns of serious grinding and a bunch of cheap units for garrison duty afterward. Very useful against Italy, Spain, and England if you are lucky enough to control their sea landings.

whoa within the civ fanatics site there is a forum for total war? and in that forum is a thread on *medieval total war*? lol

just letting you guys know the "official" forum is here, but its a pretty crappy and pretty inactive ez-board (but it is the one affiliated with total war soooo...):

http://p223.ezboard.com/fshoguntotalwarfrm5

anyway i have beaten the game as english, almos and working on turks now. i stopped playing halfway through. i always play early, and after a certain point the game gets too easy as the computer really has no chance of defeating me. i am at this point now. sure the golden hordes gonna come but i'll whomp on em good.

the thing is, i can always just bribe the bad guys once i have a bunch of conquered provinces generating cash (coastal provinces - set up trade, and destroy any factions trying to stop your trading). and if that fails, i can throw a bunch of fodder at them, auto calc, weaken their armies, and then send in my killers. usually during an invasion they go to civil war after losses. its only the early part of the game thats tough. the rest is just an exercise in technique. whether it be assassinating all their good generals, bribing the crap out of them, or throwing tons of units and using the autocalc.

yeah ............. i'm horrible at combat so i only like to command battles when i know i'm gonna win. i love bridge battles. or ones where i'm stationed on a hill. i throw up some arlabests and let em fly. i throw some spears and swords in front to stop them from doing anything silly like attacking me. the only other time i micro is when i have horse archers. i create an army of 8 or 12 of them, set the game speed to slowest, micro them, and use them to take out enemy units. this doesnt work so well when they have a lot of archers, but otherwise, your horse archers can wreak havoc for cheap (they wont win the battle as they have low hp and low morale, but will clear the way for your real armies)

You can win battles with some HA if you have some practice. Even against archers, 14 well managed Turcoman Horse and 2 Gullam cavalry can defeat any army. Just completely destroy the coherence of the enemy line by baiting and sniping from several directions. Soon you will be able to strike their more morale prone units with the Ghullam at little cost. Best part is usually they run themselves silly chasing your much faster horses. Replace a Turcoman with a Camel if you are worried about Knights and your Ghulams.

Of course you can just use 6 HA of any kind with a more conventionl army and use it for the same kind of disruption or rear strike.

Ha, thats actually how the Muslims take out my crusaders, lots and lots of Horse archer style units, and my guys just get in a bad position, and *cue trumpets* in come the Ghulams and Armenian Heavys. Thanks, Schwick, for revealing to me what a moron i really am :l

yeah the problem with turcoman or plain horse archers is that i find they have some of the worst morale ever. whenever they're even getting charged (before even engaging in combat) the rout flag starts popping up.

when i started my campaign as early age turks on normal, i decided to strike against the byzantine. my horse archers got slaughtered versus their trezibond archers (EVEN in hand to hand!!). but i used them to great effect to slaughter their varangian guard, byz infantry, and kataphractois which were just big dumb slow moving targets. i find that they just eventually run out of arrows, and if engaged versus archers, tend to rout. i learned to just avoid the trezibonds and go for the main targets. my goal was to weed out the kataphracts protecting the king so that when the main battle came i could strike a decisive killing blow to the monarch and ruin their morale.

yeah versus horse archers just throw some archers back at them, if they retreat let them. eventually they will run out of arrows and at that point they are done for since they get slaughtered by about pretty much any other unit in hand to hand

there is one russian "horse archer" unit thats actually very good though, i forget what they are called but not only do they shoot arrows, but as i learned to my dismay when i casually sent some guys after them, they have really good meelee and morale as well

there is one russian "horse archer" unit thats actually very good though, i forget what they are called but not only do they shoot arrows, but as i learned to my dismay when i casually sent some guys after them, they have really good meelee and morale as well

I think, maybe, that your refering to the Russian noble/elite unit the Boers(Spelling?)?

I like them, there highly useful if you have good infantry backup.

Boyars?

They're good--basically normal heavy cavalry w/ bows--but if you want a more horse-archer-y unit that has decent morale and can still melee, the Hungarian Szekely is very good.

Szekelys are porbably the only thing worth building as the Hungarians for the first half of the Early Age.

Boyars are the Russian Royal unit, and I have to say that they rock. Heavy Armored cavalry who can duke it out with the best and when needed harass from afar, who can hate them? Now, you know whats not worth your time training is Lithuanian cav. Bribe them, or dont use them at all. Who needs three master'level buildings for light cavs, anyway?

Christians can also recruitTurocpoles if they build an Inn in some of the Holy Lands. Those things are pretty competative with Turcopoles and are the best counter to the mobile tactics of the muslims. They are also quite potent against the rather slow armies back on the mainland.

Only real drawback of Boyars is the fact they are normal speed cavalry and can be tired out/lose in the ranged duel with fast HA.