Medieval II: Total War strategies?

[HunterSeeker]

I seriously need a bit of help winning this, I play as the Holy Roman Empire. The empire stretches from italy to denmark, covers large parts of france, all of germany and croatia. I also controll Tunis which I aquired as a crusade, and my empire stretches a bit into hungary and poland.

My trouble is that I have 60 or so turns to conquer 25 terratories, even when you are the most powerful military power its difficult if you are not more powerful than all other nations together (which I am not).

 

[Shift]

Well if you have stacks of money now then its definately possible, you need to bulk up a lot of massive armies now and start conquering. If you have no money now then it will be difficult, depending on your income. Having a strong navy and dominating the seas is a very valuable asset, so you can disrupt other players income by blockading ports, and also get your armies around the map quicker. Hire merceneries when you have conquered a place to garrison inside so you can quickly move your army off to another city (making sure to rearm all your units). If you have enough finicial backbone and good enough armies with some good generals, and you strike quick enough so the AI can react in time, it can be done.

NEVER split your armies up, keep them in the same area, that way if you come across to very large armies you can gang up them and crush them easily, taking less causulties, and if you come across a particulary hard city to conquer, then you can just overwhelm the forces they have there.

 

[Deadline]

Been Taking a break from MTWII to play though HL2 again. but this game is pretty damn fun, anyone have any tips on increasing income? I have my taxes auto-managed, is that a bad thing?

 

[Raxxman]

Kinda.

Are you guys after grand strats or combat strats?

for a grand strat, as the HRE, it's really tough, you're pegged in at all sides.

First thing to do is send a diplomat to the pope, start throwing money at him. This will increase your favour to him, allowing you to battle other catholic factions with less threat of excommunication. Concentrate on pushing one front (say north to Denmark) and just holding the others. Try to keep full stacks, get as many watch towers in blind spots as you can afford. Crusade, you're in a fairly good position get a crusade running. If you're in good favour with the pope and you're foes are excommunicated, as him for a crusade against them. Free army, free settlement.

Try to be tactical with your choice of castles. You want as few as possible, but positioned in areas where you can get your better troops retrained. Very high level city troops aren't bad, but on a short campaign you should be finished well before they come to fruition.

 

[Shift]

Been Taking a break from MTWII to play though HL2 again. but this game is pretty damn fun, anyone have any tips on increasing income? I have my taxes auto-managed, is that a bad thing?

First you should buold before anything else is the things that will increase your income, like mines, traders, ports roads etc, always upgrade them first. If you do that right from the start, in the long run you should be fine finacially.

 

[Deadline]

Ah great. Thanks for the tips. Doing Russia ATM, is it possible to convert to Cath from Orthadox?

 

[Raxxman]

nope your religion is hard coded.

Watch out for Mongols. The horde is coming.

You have been warned.

 

[Deadline]

Psh... They stand no chance against Mother Russia.

 

[The Monkey]

I've been wanting to get this game for a long time. Is it better or than compared to Rome?

 

[Shift]

Well Rome is considered better because the step it took from Medevil 1 was amazing, Medevil 2 wasn't the massive step that Rome took so Rome would get the better rating, but it is still a fantastic game none the less, 90%+ on all ratings i think

 

[HunterSeeker]

I think its a better game then Rome, although as Shift said its not a huge leap from it. But I do like the way that technology gradualy becomes better (Even if new inventions came as events in Rome, I dont think they affected anything).

 

[CR0M]

I disagree, Rome was a big step from Medieval 1, this is an equally big step from Rome.

Never really liked Rome as much as the first 2, it was just too... American. But if you liked rtw and you liked medieval 1 you will love this.
Medieval 2 is a very polished, complete package with tons of atmosphere, loads to do, stunning battle landscapes that sometimes put even Oblivion's scenery to shame, and great voice acting that is unique to each individual country. The AI is similar to all the others so it's easy to exploit if you're familiar with it's routines, but on harder difficulties it is practically impossible to beat.
Replayability wins a gold star all on it's own.

There are niggles which have annoyed a few hardcore nerds such as a half yearly turn counter instead of years and micro managing units to charge properly, but this is nothing that will stop the fun for me. Patch 1 fixes a lot of bugs and gameplay issues and is worth installing, the next patch is due in feb/march. Bear in mind it's a system hog though, luckily turning down building detail to medium doubles framerate without any noticable hit to visuals.

Played England and lost, tried again and won, now i'm playing the Moors and slaughtering Spain. Next i think i'll give russia a go and meet genghis and his mates.

 

[Roman Legion]

I like heavy armor or armored troops...

HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE for me and Spain and Byzantines...

 

[CookieCuttah]

For battle I always try to mix it up even though cavalry is undeniably the best for an open field fight or even charging down streets. Even light cavalry/ horse archers can do severe damage from the flanks/back.
For archers only Britain is really worthwhile for the foot subtype, the stakes make them fair well against knights. All others aren't any good, crossbowmen have to have a clear view and they have small range while most other archers don't do a lot of damage, some good melee archers might be worth it though, like highland archers. Mounted archers are nearly all good due to their speed, they're best at running down because they not only shoot but they also stab all at the same time. Keep your mounted archers away from regular archers unless you plan on charging them.
Infantry is filled with bugs- the shield bug makes spearmen killable by the most pathetic of peasants and many two handers can't even fight cavalry. It's a mess, but you should keep some infantry around, preferably with no shields. Typically if your enemy has cavalry just put peasants infront of your spearmen and when they get charged charge into the engaged cavalry or simply begin to run away with the peasants, that or you can try pikemen but they are slow and pretty bad at fighting beyond stopping a charge.
Artillery, while amusing, is mostly worthless except for the moral effect. Trebuchets never hit anything so just fling cows with them. Catapults are hopeless, put them in front of your spearmen or something and have them block a cavalry charge. Ballistas are pretty good for one shot up close. Ribaults are decent while the monster ribaults along with the rocket launchers are incredibly good albeit it wont be as devastating as you'd think, a charge with cavalry is still way better. Serpentines when leveled can guarantee quite a few kills , Mortars are great in siege maps/bridges/etc, don't be afraid to fire them into a fight, they rarely team kill if the fight isn't going anywhere, also use them against enemy artillery. Other cannons are pretty standard , good against walls, crap against infantry . With these just focus your artillery on the general, ironically it nearly always kills him.
Gun powder soldiers are the best all around excluding cavalry. Hand cannons give off a shot and become great light infantry. Arquebusiers aren't as good at hand to hand but they do real ranged damage and have pretty good range, still worse than longbows. Musketeers are the best, they inflict massive casualties, shoot fast and have the longest range. Mounted gunners are great too, use them like mounted archers but don't worry about foot archers, you'll be blasting them before they even have a chance to fire back. Unfortunately gunpowder units are susceptible to cavalry and still get mowed down, but they often inflict many more casualties. One thing to note is that they have to always have a clear sight of the enemy to shoot.
Also many people get confused with why their cavalry isn't doing much. Here's the trick: You have to have a full line of your riders smash into them all at once. This means that if your formation is off your soldiers wont be effective at crushing the enemy. Basically if you see your formation going off first tell your units to line up some ways away from your enemy (I usually right click and drag, then make them run over) this usually doesn't take long but it is essential to a good charge. Now you have to charge the enemy so that your cavalry doesn't have to make many turns and it has to encompass a good portion of the line (a charge from 30 degrees works as does at 90 if you your enemy doesn't move). Now assuming you have a good position and a perfect line double click the enemy and do nothing else, the cavalry will stop slow and then gain some speed, pull their lances down and crash into the line most likely destroying the unit and routing them. This works with light cavalry too but never do it from the front, you'll take a lot of casualties. Also once you charged don't stick around, pull your units back instantly and reform, being stuck in a fight only attracts spearmen. Also this technique is great to counter enemy cavalry, if you make a uniform charge you will most likely kill a lot of them and certainly stop them, unlike previous strategies you should let your cavalry fight it out unless you have faster cavalry, if you run they'll only pursue you. I recommend throwing spearmen into the fray during the cavalry fight.

As for the campaign map, basically you have to either create a lot of spies/assassins and stick to it (With an evil town producing them) or you have to be chivalrous. Being both doesn't work , found out the hard way. The Pope is easily bribed with 500 florins for every time you attack someone you shouldn't. Basically if you need to win fast expand, sack and convert to cities as much as possible. You need only a few castles and in general even medium units will win against the AI. Keep a few people in towns but not many, the AI generally sucks at sieging and you get 2 turns to recruit 4-6 units. They usually go up the walls so get some counter artillery and strong infantry, a lot of archers helps too.
Also if you're facing instability just lower taxes and go sack someone, you'll roll in cash even though your cities generate no wealth. As for conquest just attack actively and use the best siege equipment available. Infantry is good to storm in, sometimes waiting out a siege is good too or letting your enemy sally forth.

Welp that's all, sorry for the lack of organization.