[QUOTE=appleciders]
The short-lived reign of Sultan Azizudeen ended in Moorish-controlled Sardinia in the year 1384 as the Sultan fell victim to the Plague as it swept through Europe. While the Sultan himself spent the entirety of his reign in this province, he successfully co-ordinated the Moorish capture of both Toledo and Pamplona. While the Spanish heavy infantry greatly outclassed the light Moorish troops, the Sultan’s servant Jalaf caught the foolish Spaniards as they tried to cross a bridge and destroyed them utterly. The defeat of the main Spanish army left the path to Toledo mostly clear, and Jalaf and his army swept through quickly and captured the citadel with little trouble. As the army prepared to move forward to Leon and finish off the Spanish infidels, the Portuguese split their army and sent one branch to besiege Zaragoza and the other to follow the Pope’s crusade to Antioch. With only half the Portuguese army to contend with, Jalaf destroyed the besiegers and quickly took Pamplona. With the Plague sweeping through Europe, however, it was deemed wisest to keep the army out of cities and the Iberian Moorish forces resumed their march to Leon. The army now camps just out of sight of the walls, awaiting the new Sultan’s orders. The outlook is bleak for the Moorish holdings in the East, however- the Mongols have laid siege to Mosul, and while the armies are ready for an epic defense, little hope remains of achieving anything more than a delaying action. Quick diplomacy might convince the Horde that Mosul could be purchased instead of conquered, and so retrieve something from an apparently lost situation.
Azizudeen focused his domestic policies on getting the Sultanate out of the unfortunate debt that holds the Moors back from their righteous conquests. He succeeded for a short time before the Plague destroyed his profits. As the Plague wanes, the Moors may again see profits that can reasonably bolster the armies. Though he did not live to see his work, Azizudeen has ordered the construction of an armory in Toledo that will be able to produce the powerful heavy infantry that the Sultanate lacks.
In an out-of-character note, how in the heck did we wind up with Mosul, Magdeburg, and Trebizond? Save file’s been sent on to Gukumatz.
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That’s my sterling diplomacy at work. You had more scattered places, but those were apparently lost.
I’m going to be out of town all weekend, so I won’t be able to get to it until Monday afternoon. If anyone has time to kill before then they’re welcome to cut in front of me.
[QUOTE=Least Original User Name Ever]
Unless it’s the very beginning, virtually nothing.
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Then… how? They just give on request? Do you trade them a settlement? I can’t even get anyone to accept my ceasefires without massive tribute and gifts?
[QUOTE=appleciders]
Maps for territory? Really? Huh.
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Send your diplomats out in the beginning. Make about 4 or 5 of them and get in contact with everyone. The first one will be alliance-trade rights-map for your map (unless you can get cash from them in addition). The second one will be roughly the same, but you’ll probably squeeze more cash out of them. After that, you should be able to take their weakest lands from them.
If you’re Byzantine or Turk, by the time you reach England, your map is a big enough bargaining chip to get Caen from the British and Magdeburg from the Germans. You should also be able to get Tripoli from the Sicilians/Moors. Heading east, Mosul, Zagreb, various places northeast of Poland, the place north of Athens, Trebizond, Acre, Damascus, and possibly one or two places pretty easily.
Sometimes they don’t like giving up the territory, but you can sense that the deal is close. There’s no shame in throwing a tiny amount of cash at them for 15 turns to sweeten the deal. It might cost you 1500 ot 2000 bucks (over 15 to 20 turns) to get them to change their mind.
I STILL haven’t forced anyone to become a vassal in this game, and it’s not without trying. I did it once to one of the Roman factions in Rome: Total War. That was fun. All three (4 if you count the Senate) become your allies 'til the end and trading partners. That’s a lot of land and influence to get if you happen to force one into being your bitch (it was the blue faction).
Hmm… I’ll give it a try. Intriguing. The whole at-war-with-everyone-all-the-time thing I’ve been doing is entertaining for a while, but I feel like I’m missing a bunch of the game by basically ignoring diplomacy.
[QUOTE=appleciders]
Hmm.. I’ll give it a try. Intriguing. The whole at-war-with-everyone-all-the-time thing I’ve been doing is entertaining for a while, but I feel like I’m missing a bunch of the game by basically ignoring diplomacy.
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I don’t declare war, unless they happen to be excommunicated and handy. Non-believers that lose their alliance with me either through attacking me, or if I prefer another ally they’ve just declared war on are also fair game. Remember, expand as far as you comfortably can in the beginning. Nobody is strong then.
I wait for someone to break the treaty and then whoop on them. It also makes you look a little better to the Pope.
Last time I played, (I think it was with our Moops campaign, actually) I asked Venice for Zagreb and they gave it to me in diplomacy. They attacked me a dozen turns later and I sent a diplomat to Venice. I asked for a ceasefire, Zagreb, and the city northeast of it. They gave them both to me, and cash (yet shot down my proposal for them to become my bitch). Diplomacy is fun.
Assassins are also rather fun. If you get a good one, he’s a force to be reckoned with.
Merchants are flippin’ useless. I HATE merchants. Also, the game has been tweaked from the first game so you can’t have 6 stacks of troops running around and gangbanging cities or my patented Continuing Crusade ™ technique. I say that if you’re friendly with everyone, you’ve got sea access, and you’ve got trade agreements, you shouldn’t have to worry about cash.
Of course, that’d make the game less balanced, but it just makes no damned sense why you should have footholds all over the Mediterranean, ports, markets, and be scrounging for cash. Hopefully the Total Realism patch addresses this. You could build a mighty large war chest in Medieval 1 with sea access and trade lines.
The Mongols have taken our most Eastern settlements, Mosul early on, and Trebizond towards the end of the recent Sultan’s reign. After moving up the Italian peninsula, it appears that the Papal States have felt threatened - they attacked, causing even our allies the Milanese to turn on us along with pretty much the rest of Europe (although thankfully not all of them have declared war on us yet). We retain Magdeburg and we now hold Gaza as our most Eastern territory, though as there are rumours of a new horde under a great leader, it may not last long…
On the plus side, while the European states may be angry, we are well placed to take them on. The bottleneck of the connection to Spain means our armies can hold the region easily; that has been the focus up until now whilst Portugal are finished off (which shouldn’t take long, considering we have an infamous assassin picking off family members in the region, and several well-built up territories for pumping out troops. The world had been discovered to be round, and advanced naval facilites are being built to take advantage of this and begin exploring to the west. Across the world, our grand towns and citadels make us good money; as the Sultan’s illustrious predecessor thought, after the ravages of the plague, we have become the richest and most advanced peoples in the world.
And, erm, the new Sultan is, while great and impressive as all our leaders are… quite dangerously insane. Luckily we have no shortage of fine young commanders willing to represent the will of the Sultanate out in the field of battle, whilst he himself gallops through the palace, saddled as a camel.
Um, I’m not sure. I never investigate that side of the universe. I think it’s available now, though. The map seems to have grown a little bit. I may make a foray out there only because I’ve never seen it.
As far as the game is progressing, I’ve taken all of the Iberian peninsula, had a few forays into France get thwarted (surprisingly), the Italian peninsula is completely conquered, as is Naples (I think that’s the big island southeast of Italy). That’s the last refuge (I believe) of the Pope. I’ve also got an army marching on Alexandria and Cairo to wrap those two rebel provinces up.
The Milanese are getting their asses kicked (in any provinces not in the Francular region).
Also, that’s possibly the biggest navy I’ve ever seen. I’ve been weilding it like The Big Stick and smashing all and any ships I see.
I think we need something like 20 provinces left. Venice, Genoa, and Milan all want to rebel after I conquer them, so I’ll make a bigger effort to slay the populace next time I take them over. 3 provinces can be had relatively soon. I’m surprised that Magdeburg isn’t getting bombarded. I’m contemplating starting some shit around that region, but everything is quiet and I don’t necessarily need that to worry about as well, even though we do have a massive army there.
A possibility is landing an army around Greece and taking out the Byzantines, but that’s roughly…oh…6 or 7 cities. Taking out the Byzantines and the other short-term goals puts us a smidgen over halfway to the finish line. Of course, at the end of that finish line is Jerusalem, which is held by the Polish, a big landowner and an ally of ours. The Egyptians can also get cleaned up, but that’s going to involve me getting tangled with the Mongols (had one battle with them already, beat them up nicely, too).
The Moops’ lack of late period infantry is pretty apparent. I’m going the “quantity” route as opposed to the “quality” route for the most part.
Just get those dismounted Christian knights- they’re at least as good as anything that the Catholic powers can field, and they’ll eat Mongol troops alive, assuming that they can catch them.