Medieval 2: Total War strategies

[Dorkenstein]

I bought M2:TW and the Kingdoms expansion off a website a few weeks ago and just installed the games a few days ago. I remember playing the first Medieval: Total War years ago but I never really delved into it fully. Well, now I am in over my head. Starting with turn 1 I find myself just skipping turns and doing nothing because I don't know what I should be doing at all. The tutorial lady just says "You should solidify your empire etc." but apart from that I am clueless.

First off, what is a simple faction to play that still has some decent power? Second, how do people here play and what do you do to stabilize and improve your cities? I will think of more questions as I go on. Thanks for any help!

 

[wanderer27]

I haven't played M:TW or M2:TW, but if it's anything like R:TW you probably need to double click on your Cities and build some of the various improvements available.
You'll also want to build additional troops for defense/conquering.

Speaking of conquering, you should probably look around for some Cities / Empires that may be good targets for conquest.

I suspect there should be a Sit-rep report or Senate or something that kind of summarizes the turn.
Frequently you'll get quests, targets, or various assignments from these.

 

[ConstipatedVigilante]

I've been playing this a lot lately. Have a few large towns to bring in revenue. You can't support a conquering army if you're eye-deep in debt. In the beginning, you can get by with a pretty standard army - just some spear men, archers, and a general's cavalry unit.

In your towns, put money into trade - roads, markets, ports - until you're not going to earn much more from building more of them (you can see this in the settlement data tab: when more flashing "trade carts" are added to income, you'll make more).

 

[Dorkenstein]

So, focus on improving trade first? What if you get attacked early on? Thanks.

 

[bullbert]

for longer, more in-depth answers, check out the www.gamefaqs.com site for a FAQ/Walkthrough text file that is 180K bytes long. Lots of good info in there.