tips on medieval total war?

[ManBearPig]

i am having trouble with my allied factions attacking me, and the papacy not doing anything. its getting really lame. im england btw.

thanks

 

[Zenoth]

I highly recommend you to try asking your questions at the forums over at http://www.twcenter.net/ for that.

But I'll do my best to help you (I'm am avid fan of the game, but I rarely if ever play the vanilla game, I always end up with a modification). When you play as a Christian faction, you will have to make certain that you contend with the Pope. You have to do most if not all of the missions that are given to you, that's the first step. You also need to build Churches and train Priests. Also as soon as you see Heretics and Witches you have to send a Priest and execute them. Leave your Priests on the world map, one for each region under your control (don't leave them doing nothing in the settlements), so that they constantly convert the population, giving a hard time for Heretic and Witches newcomers.

If you do all efforts possible, the Pope will always have lots of respect and appreciation for your faction. However, your popularity with the Pope can decrease. Some times you only need to forget about or avoid doing multiple missions in a row, and eventually you'll end up losing 40% or 50% of your popularity. The less popular your are with the Pope and the less other Christian nations will like you, EVEN if they themselves aren't very popular with the Pope. Which is the main point of your questioning. Your "allies" aren't allies per se. Remember that it is a war game, and that in no Total War games it is possible to win without doing war, there is no "economic" or "diplomatic" or "artistic" victories in Total War games, so war against your allies is inevitable.

However the best way to keep your allies, as allies, for the longest possible period until they are at war against you will be, I believe, to keep trading goods with them, to NEVER leave any size armies in THEIR territories for more than a complete Turn, or your relations with them will decrease UNLESS you agreed with them for Military Access through diplomacy, which is extremely hard to get (at least I myself have never been able to get such agreements with any factions since I play this game not even in mods). At the beginning of the game only attack Rebel factions, and never provoke a war with a Christian faction UNLESS you were at war against them in the first place when you started up the game (for example, as England I think you're automatically at war against France and Scotland). And if the Pope asks you to cease hostilities towards a faction that you might be entering war with, then do it, or else it might result in Excommunication, and that means a Crusade against you, and that means losing the less pious of your settlement or castle.

Hope it helps, but I know I'm forgetting some details.

 

[Bateluer]

It also helps to target nations that the Pope has excommunicated, or to target muslim nations. Since your England though, thats harder. When I play as Spain, Sicily, Portugal, or one of the eastern factions, I go after the islamic nations first to build up my power base. Just be aware of expanding into the east because of the Mongol invasion. Its brutal if you're playing as the Turks or the Russians.

 

[postmortemIA]

Game isn't easy, but some factions are easier than others. Spain and England primarily - because they don't have landline boarders on every side. It is much worse ti be attacked from every side (Milan, HRE, Venice).

Good advice form Zenoth, with one correction : When you play as Catholic, not Christian because there are two Orthodox Christian factions and they are not under's Pope influence.

The religion is obstacle, not to help you out. All Catholic factions have requirement to destroy at least one other Catholic faction, so you will end up in conflict with Pope sooner or later.

 

[CrackRabbit]

The easiest strategy I have found is early on in the game make alliances with everyone. I mean EVERYONE. Then quickly build up your trade buildings and merchants, and take over the close by rebel territories. Next build your armies up, and keep building them and wait to be attacked and then crush the attacking faction.
I largely ignored the pope, only when a crusade was called or when I was about to be excommunicated I would listen.
Also the best strategy for the Mongol invasion is to let them come to you. Castle up your strongest units on your borders with trebuchets or mortars, fire at them over the walls and repel them when they try to breach or use ladders.

 

[bullbert]

Great game. Ditto what Zenoth wrote about checking out the dedicated Total War gamer web pages. Get into the habit of searching google (or whatever is your poison) for the hard core gamer sites of any new game you play. For example, I (finally) just learned about X game series via X3 Reunion on a gogamer 48 hour special. [Stupid non-discript game names caused me to miss this game series for 8 years]. I could have gotten a patch anywhere, but I would have totally missed the discussion on how the very latest patch not only removed the Starforce** virus from the original version, but also added new content (FREE!, no $20 add-on pack required, thank you), and found discussions on tons of user generated add-on game content. **I also re-learned about the Starforce driver removal tool from their installation forum discusstion. Damn Starforce and all its kin to hell!

It has been quite a while since I have played Medieval Total War, though. I hope you got the bundle with Viking Invasion Expansion Pack. The Expansion Pack improves the user interface greatly even for the mainline Medieval game. Something that I am sure is discussed in the twcenter.net forums somewhere.

Try playing as one of the two Muslim nations starting from the southeast of the game map, eliminate the other, then sweep through Spain and across Europe. ("Death to the Infidels!") Should be a cake walk compared to playing as England, which is one of the harder starting countries (not the hardest, but still hard).

 

[Caecus Veritas]

you can always "replace" the pope after being excommunicated by having an experienced assassin nearby. the strategy is to build up an attacking force for a particular christian faction and try to crush their strategic cities in one wave. the pope will try to interfere but ignore him until you are finished. if excommunicated, simply replace the pope. when a new pope is elected, and if you have voted for him, relationship with vatican should be back to normal. and if you've been faithfully building churches and churning out priests, there's a good chance that the next pope will be from your faction, making sure that other nations will refrain from attacking you.

 

[TehMac]

How do you have Assassin's garner up experience? They always end up getting slaughtered for me.

 

[kedlav]

Always keep a diplomat in Rome to give the Pope some cash to raise the Pope-o-Meter, as well as follow the outlines in Zenoth's post. Other factions are significantly less likely to attack if the Pope-o-Meter is sky high.

Another thing that helps is to keep strong garrisons. The AI identifies weakly held neighboring territories and will target them, especially so if they're really close (like the Norman coast near France that Britain starts with). A strong garrison deters the AI and means they'll focus on another weaker neighbor.

Allies don't stay benevolent towards you indefinitely. You must constantly court them, so keep a diplomat handy and keep a close eye on their status towards you. If it starts getting low, do something to appease them. Early on, a map ought to be sufficient. Later, it may take upwards of 50000 florins to move the friendliness meter. The AI also won't like it if you attack someone their friendly towards, if you keep a large army in a bordering province, etc.

Despite all this, AI's will attack sometimes. You may be the easiest nut for them to crack, or the AI may flip into idiot mode and come with a four unit stack when you're sporting two full stacks near the border. Most of the time, a quick strike that takes 1-2 regions and the return of 1 of them will buy peace, so if you've strong border province garrisons, don't be above stripping them to make a lightning strike when a previously friendly neighbor gets uppity.

 

[lupi]

For assasains one of the tidbits I read said to only give them sabotogue assignments until their rating was above 4.

 

[murban135]

Originally posted by: kedlav
Always keep a diplomat in Rome to give the Pope some cash to raise the Pope-o-Meter, as well as follow the outlines in Zenoth's post. Other factions are significantly less likely to attack if the Pope-o-Meter is sky high.

Another thing that helps is to keep strong garrisons. The AI identifies weakly held neighboring territories and will target them, especially so if they're really close (like the Norman coast near France that Britain starts with). A strong garrison deters the AI and means they'll focus on another weaker neighbor.

Allies don't stay benevolent towards you indefinitely. You must constantly court them, so keep a diplomat handy and keep a close eye on their status towards you. If it starts getting low, do something to appease them. Early on, a map ought to be sufficient. Later, it may take upwards of 50000 florins to move the friendliness meter. The AI also won't like it if you attack someone their friendly towards, if you keep a large army in a bordering province, etc.

Despite all this, AI's will attack sometimes. You may be the easiest nut for them to crack, or the AI may flip into idiot mode and come with a four unit stack when you're sporting two full stacks near the border. Most of the time, a quick strike that takes 1-2 regions and the return of 1 of them will buy peace, so if you've strong border province garrisons, don't be above stripping them to make a lightning strike when a previously friendly neighbor gets uppity.

Giving a regular tribute to the Pope is great advice to stay on his good side. I played as France and the Holy Roman Empire (HRE) was a real pain in my side. I gave the Pope tribute to raise my standing and then positioned my troops in the HRE lands. Once they attacked, I counter attacked and took a few of there territories before the Pope gave the "knock it off" call. Repeat for a few cycles and they were wiped out. Repeat that pattern for the rest of your enemies.

 

[imported_Imp]

Not much to it. In all my campaigns (3 and half long games), I never gave a crap about the Pope. I didn't even think of making alliances, and just said yes if they asked. Eventually, all allies attack you so you just have to be ready and keep your border towns loaded with garrisons. And always go on the offensive, since it is all about increasing your income. if you don't have money, you can't raise armies or make buildings to get better armies. Generally, just pick one border and dance with the neighbour until you are gaining huge profits. Then once you get past the plague, it's all cruising from there.

Just finished the expansion's Teutonic campaign and my crappy allies decided to attack me when I was already fighting on 2 fronts. Poland turned it into 3 which pissed me off immensely. Eventually, I ended up beating back their armies and executing all prisoners and exterminating most cities that wouldnt benefit me.