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Discussions Rules and Guidelines
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Yes.
- Command greatly affects Autoresolve. In manual battles, it makes almost zilch difference. Thus you can win several battles which would otherwise have been blatantly impossible
- Autoresolving in sieges is stupid. You either get wrecked by the garrison of siege weapons (????) or you storm the walls and only 1/4 of them die, but you take the settlement.
- AI gets autoresolve bonuses on higher difficulty.
Manual fighting is soooo much more fun.
Just enjoy the game and play around! Don't be too trusting but also don't be too quick to declare war - while us "pros" like to declare war on everybody and whack the map in 50 turns, you can take your time and enjoy the scenery. :P
Particular tips:
- Use the Free Upkeep slots to keep public order up. They're only there in cities and only city-trained non-cav units will get free upkeep.
- General traits are nearly always non-random. If your general is a terrible taxman, maybe it's because your taxes have been set to Low the whole time?
- Generals have wages as well as their upkeep. Take care whether you want to stuff one in a settlement for a measly +100 income.
- Cavalry is absolutely OP and you should learn how to get max effectiveness out of it. Hit an enemy unit in the front with infantry (easy peasy), get your cavalry around the back (very difficult), charge the enemy in the rear (sometimes easy depending on how buggy your cavalry is) = rout!
- You don't have to kill them all to win. Routing them all is enough. If you've got loads of cavalry then you can wipe them all up as they rout! Except that they're not fighting as they rout, so you get free kills!
- Ransom, Release, or Execute is your choice. I usually go for Execute - as generals with high dread are really powerful (better for getting units to rout => more captives => more executions => more dread!), but that's your choice.
- That said, exterminating a populace is never a good idea unless it's rioted and going to riot again. After all, more population = more taxes!
- The AI is trash and after the 60hr mark you'll have learned how to abuse most of it.
- When you queue a building for (surprise surprise) building, if you open the Settlement Details scroll it'll show you how much money it'll roughly make. This means you can see whether building that Market is a good idea or whether you're just burning cash. Mines and sea trade are particularly good, but trade is.... best to check.
Really, my advice is just have fun and keep playing around! Don't be too afraid to try new things - there is a save button, after all - and if you see a new unit, exit the campaign map and go onto Custom Battles to see how well it performs.
Sad to say most infantry in this game is not really worth since it can take quite a bit to recruit them and in the case of DFK cost 250ish upkeep while Spear Militia cost 125ish so you can get 2 units for 1 DFK.
Thanks for the tips. Speaking from experience so far though, I generally fare worse than auto-resolve, and I don't have to spend half an hour taking a village if I can just click resolve.
- Swords wreck Spears, Spears wreck Cavalry, Cavalry wreck Swordsmen.
- Archers beat everyone given distance, everyone beats most archers in melee (some archers can also serve as decent melee infantry)
- Shields only work from the front and right-side of any unit. Fire into the left-side or back for maximum damage.
- Armor counters arrows.
- Fire arrows fire slower and are more inaccurate then regular arrows. Good at reducing morale and scaring elephants though.
- Javelins don't wreck elephants, they shred them.
- The last-level smith building, the armor factory, is useless for most factions unless it contains one of these 4 recruitable units
-Dismounted Broken Lances
-Broken Lances
-Condottieri
-Famiglia_Ducale
-Be wary of Milan.
-Don't fancy yourself a cavalry commander? Play with infantry instead. I recomend a stone-wall stategy consisting of a General, 5 Spearmen, 5 Swordsmen, 6 Archers or Crossbowmen, and 3 of whatever you want. Of course, this tactic won't work too well against units such as horse archers unless you focus-fire your ranged units on it.
- Most 2h units are bugged in vanilla M2TW, expect mass casulties among your 2h units.
- Pikemen are difficult to use and like to pretend they're swordsmen. Like 2h units, expect mass casulties among them.
- Gunpowder infantry are difficult to use, but when played right, can utterly wreck even the best infantry.
- Build the siege buildings if playing as a catholic. That way you can take several cities before the Pope demands you stop.
- Be wary of Milan.
- Skirmish mode makes your ranged infantry run away. Useful when they're on their own, not so useful when they're safe behind your melee infantry.
- Defense mode makes your men line up into a solid block that will stay like that during combat. Useful when you need to defend a position, but not so much when you need to have as much offensive power as you can muster.
- I find Generals who are placed in settlements that are Large Towns or lower tend to feel unappreciated. Unfortunately, most settlements are Large Towns or lower.
- If you have money and you have a Town or Village, you can quickly turn it into a Large Town by turning the settlement into a castle, upgrading it twice and than turning it back into a Large Town.
- Turn settlements on the border into castles, turn them back into cities once the border moves. Make sure to keep a few castles in order to have a reliable area to recruit and retrain your armies.
- Cities make more money, but castles can recruit better troops.
- Train religious agents in every city. When one dies, train another to replace him; when one becomes a heretic, murder them and train another to replace him; when one becomes a cardinal and then the pope, train another to replace them.
- Crusades and Jihads means free upkeep for any army that goes on them, at least until the Crusade/Jihad target is taken.
- Upon capturing a heretical or heathen settlement, build the lowest level religious building to start the conversion of the heretics/heathens in the settlement and to train a religious agent. The earlier you start, the lower the unrest will be later.
- Be wary of Milan.
- There's a guide out there on the war hawk and peace dove factions of M2TW. Read it, and ally those you want to ally. Or just screw it all and murder everyone until you're the last one standing.
- Excommunicated? Worry not, just murder the pope. The next guy will unexcommunicate you! Of course, if you can't reliably murder the pope, send your faction leader to his brave death agianst your enemies or some rebels.
- Factions will be more likely to accept a cease fire if they don't own any territories next to you.
- Plan your alliances carefully. Some allies are more trustworthy than others, and neighbor allies may declare war on one another, causing you to suffer a drop in reputation.
- Be wary of Milan.
- Dread generals are good on the offensive and can rout entire armies into submission once they reach close to full dread. Chivalric generals are good on the defensive and can turn a small village into the most populated city in a single lifetime.
- Farms are good for income and population growth, but it's better to build the other buildings first before you build farms.
- Want a guild? Get a settlement to Fortress or City level first.
- Italian Militia units are incredibly powerful, compared to other militia and even castle units.
- Trebuchets are the best siege offensive engines before the arrival of gunpowder.
- Be wary of Milan.
- Beware the Native Americans of Mesoamerica, for there are many of them, and few of yours.
- Using console commands is like signing a deal with the devil. Do it and you might possibly lose your "soul" in exchange for power beyond any you've had before.
- If your siege engines have run out of ammo, but your enemies have run away from their siege engines, you can commandeer their siege engines for your war efforts. However, the crew can only commandeer siege engines that are the same kind. In other words, catapult crew cannot commandeer trebuchets, and orcish catapult crews cannot commandeer elvish catapults.
- Easy battle AI fight like babies, and plan like idiots; Easy campaign AI act like immature man-childs.
- Very Hard battle AI fight like gods, and still plan like idiots; Very Hard campaign AI act like more mature man-childs, but with the power of being very rich.
- Be w͏ary òf̀ ̢Mi̡l̛a̧n
- In the case that the Pope sends inqusitors to your lands, recruit assassins and flee the land. This wouldn't have happened if churchs were built and religious agents recruited to fight heresy.
- Low taxes and building churchs leads to chivalry. Fighting battles that have even odds or odds that are against you and winning will also give you chivalry. Paying ransoms, releasing prisoners, and only occupying towns also leads to chivalry. In other words, don't act like a Richard, but like an honorable man.
-̨ ͠B̛e͘҉ ́wa͜͝ŕy ̷́o̴̧f̵̴ ́͜M͜ì͡ĺ͢͞a͡n
- Very high taxes leads to dread. Fighting battles lopsided towards you leads to dread. Not paying ransoms, executing prisoners, and exterminating towns leads to dread. In other words, don't be a Richard, be a very pragmatic Richard.
- You can actually rename settlements by clicking their name while in the settlement tab.
-̵ ̛͝Be͘ ͘͞w̶àŕ̶y̷͜͠ ̸of̡͜͠ ͏҉͘M̨̀̕i͜͟l̵͏a̷̛n̡
- Crusade or Jihad against you? Garrision your best troops in that settlement and wait for the incoming storm. Or better yet, assassinate their general and watch as the army crumbles away without a central leadership to rally around.
- The easiest faction to play as is probably England due to their longbowmen, decent infantry, and isolated location from the rest of Europe.
- Of course, you should love and respect Milan, for they are clearly the most trustworthy faction in all of M2TW.
-̡̨́͜͜ ̶͜B͏e̶̸̕͟ ̢͟͟͡w̸̧̢̕͜a̵͡͝҉͡ŕ͞y̶͘͡ ̵́͜ơ̴͟͠f͡͏̧̛ ̷̷̀̀͜Ḿ͘i̵҉̨҉ļ̸̸͘a̡͟ǹ̵̨͏
in both vanilla and SS i have always found them a push over
Decide what guilds you want before you start playing. If you want to control the Papacy, you're going to want Theologians and Assassins Guilds. If you want heavy infantry armies with a lot of shock power, get a Swordsman Guild. If you like a stack full of cavalry charges, get the Chapter Houses. An *extremely* comprehensive guide on how to Guild: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?77577-A-Guide-for-Guilds
If you want to run a lot of Assassins, understand that you have to invest a lot of time and money before you will have quality assassins that are reliable. You'll want at least 8 subertfuge before you seriously consider using Assassination for diplomacy and it's not easy to get. You'll be pumping out assassins every round and half of them will die. Finally you'll have 5 or 6 and you'll be destroying factions while they still have 5 or 6 cities on the map.
I prefer a low tax game with max economy buildings (port, market, mines) mid level council and barracks, blacksmith, and no farms beyond the 3rd upgrade. That puts your approval in Huge Cities with no manager at about 105%. Once I start breaking 10k per turn, I'll go ahead and upgrade +happiness buildings and raise taxes accordingly.
I only build a few big armories depending on quickly I can get high tier units to the armory and the n to whatever fronts.
If you are playing France, Spain, Portugal, or the Danes (especially the Danes) and possibly Russia/Poland/HRE your first objectives should be York, Caern, and Dublin. Then Scotland and finally Londan. Once you have the isles secure, change everything to cities. You can clean up England on the mainland at your leisure, but having the Isles gives you a unique economic advantage. I've got thousands of hours in this game and beyond what I'm almost certain are a few scripted rushes in the early game by Denmark and the occasional Jinette from Spain I have yet to see anyone make a serious effort to take the Isles. Once you have them, it's a simple matter to dominate the North Sea and blow through Scandinavia.
Figure out how you enjoy playing and compose your armies to suit you. You can make just about anything work. Want to watch fire ammo from catapults wreck a full stack? You can do it with Heavy long spear infantry and fast anti-archer cavalary.
Trebuchets suck.
If you are struggling with defense and need some breathing room:
There is no army composition that can be run by the AI that can succesfully siege a walled settlement that has a garrison of 3 ballista, 3 archer militia, and a couple of militia spearmen. A single sally will absolutely wreck everything the game will throw against you. The sally AI is either seriously bugged or it was never finished. The AI army ignores your army unless a unit enters the aggro circle (which is basically about as big as crossbow max range) or if it has a large cavalary to infantry ratio, (in which case he will immediately charge his heavy cavalry, usually in waves. Straight into your militia spear). Send the ballasta to the wide flank until the long axis of the impact area is aligned with the long axis of his lines and start shooting with fire ammo. He will ignore you. Long range archers will also do very well. If all you have is crossbows or bows, you can kite out 2-3 of his units at a time with a single unit and park the rest in overwatch. It's cheesy, but it's infallible.
Bring occupiers along with your main army. Take the settlement with your professional army (Castle trained) and in the same or next turn pull them out and put in your militia.
Got a merchant you want to keep in business while he works a resource? Give him some escorts or build a fort on it.
There's quite a few retinue members that can be swapped from General to General. If you have a really old guy with a lot of retinue, bring a younger guy to him and see which ones can be moved.
Archer units have skirmish mode on by default. I turn it off and then turn it on when I want them to go.
Head over to the Total War Center Forums and dig around. To give you an idea of the quality of this site, they rank about number 15,000 in total web traffic. That's not too chippy for a fan site of a niche genre of games.
This link is to a subforum titled "Straegy and Tactics." It has posts going back to 2007 in the sticky and is still active. http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?269-Medieval-II-Strategy-amp-Tactics
Here's a list of guides written by TWC memebers. Incredibly useful.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?406671-Collection-of-M2TW-Guides
All your modding needs are there as well, along with comprehensive instructions on how to make stuff work with Steam.
Its better not to. even though you win and lose some men. The siege weapons like catapults and ballista gets the casualties and not the others and 75% is too low, You will suffer more men than in manual battles
Manual battles I lose more generally lol. That's just because I'm so bad.
Ah well, that's where practice comes into it ;) Especially abusing cavalry.
Infantry always dies in manual battles. That's why I don't care about it - just throw four more Spear Militia into this army, cool, let's go. But your cavalry is important - so important that if I'm short of cash I won't bring any infantry along at all (though you need infantry for siege battles)....
Learn how to use cavalry properly and Europe is yours for the taking.
I rarely autoresolve, and I only use AR when I'm being sloppy.
Even if you're terrible at it, practice helps. Indeed, the battles are pretty literally half the game.
Kill the enemy before they kill you.