I choosed to make this new and last Medieval II Total War Chronicles available only here on the Dateyourgame.com Blog for simple reason. I have more control over it, it’s easier to participate and it’s far less work for me. So enjoy, this will be a short campaign, but I will try to write interesting and useful stuff.
See you on Dateyourgame!
The next faction for the chronicles will be The Holy Roman Empire.
This will be the last chronicles I will do and will be a "short" campaign. So I hope you guys will enjoy =)
Here is a a poll many people asked. The next Chronicles will be a democratic one the faction that will have the most vote will be the faction I will play when I will come out of my break, tell your friend so that they can come and vote!
Ok, the poll I first posted was from a really bad services. Was very easy to abuse that was absurd, basically you could vote as much as you want for the faction you wanted. So I did some research and found an better way to make a poll, but you will need to come on my new blog http://www.dateyourgame.com/ to vote.
Sorry about that... but it's a lot of learning at once and this way it will be a more legitimate vote.
Small note to those interested since a couple days, I created a new blog, that I plan to make more participative. It concern all all video game instead of being Total War specific like this blog here.
If any of you is interested to participate come take a look at Dateyourgame.com
If you want to post video game related text, videos, etc. subscribe and tell me what you are interested to do. =)
On the long term, this will maybe become a more "normal" website, then it's current blog format.
Small question, how many of you would like to buy DVD with one series of the Chronicles with video at the resolution 512x384 and a far better quality instead of the current 320x240? Meaning it would look far better then the current one videos online.
I ask because some peoples told me a long time ago that they would be interested.
Here is the expected last episode of the Turkish Chronicles of Medieval II Total War. In this episode you can see one battle and some auto battle. The battle you see was a serious challenge, since there were 2 armies attacking me one from the fortress and one outside the walls. My force wasn't really expected to fight that battle. So it ended as a mutual destruction battle. I hope you will enjoy that ending =)
Since I'm now on a well deserve "break" for sometime, and I know many of you wonders how I would have play this faction or that faction, here is a "save" pack. Containing 42 saved games, I did since I started playing Medieval II Total War. Most save contain the Turn numbers, and some have weird name. =)
It contain save from:
Byzantine,
Danish,
England,
French
Moors,
Poland,
Turk,
Sicilien,
So Take a look, and check how I managed my empires.
Download Attila saved Games
(put the saved game in your Medieval II Total War save folder)
Here is an ambush I did with a "support" army as you can see my army is made exclusively of cavalry and artillery, it wasn't in my plan that this army would end up leading the war on the Mongols but here is the first battle it did. The enemies simply could not resist the arrows rain and decided to retreat with my cavalry following and decimating them.
Now I must warn you, the next episode will be the last episode of the Turkish Chronicles. It will show the "end" of my reconquest of the territory taken by Mongols.
After that last episode I will explain what I will do next but be warn, I will take a very long break from making Total War Chronicles as they are because it's a lot of work and I can't sustain it much more without help and looking back on what I did, it is already intimidating as it is and just watching all them in a row would take weeks!
Now I know many people are addicted… so I will propose an alternative tomorrow... So don't panic, take it easy! =)
This battle happens as my armies are getting in position for the "finishing move" against the Mongols. Since my army wasn't that good and I saw the enemies, I pulled back to this river "hoping" to resist the Mongols army near Vilnius.
This battle is a really good illustration of how effective is my strategy to hold river or bridge since it's a kill ration of 36 kill for one lost. I must say I didn't expect to have won that with so few lost.
Here is a very secondary battle in the war against Mongols. Basically it’s my Jihad army, that had captured Vienna earlier, that attack the Mongols jihad army. It's not a really good battle in my opinion. I was really disorganized, I could have play really better but from a campaign point of view, the number of dead in my army wasn't a big deal as long as I won. Right after the victory I disbanded my army, so that they no more cost me anything in upkeep. They were not useful in that region anymore.
(Small reminder here, for those who would have missed my comment a couple days ago. My 3D card is dead, so my future video will probably lag, until I replace my 3D card.)
Since my "new" sieging army was in position, it was important to keep any potential fight out of the open field. The Mongols have an army that came on the right, to make sure this army (all of unit had 3 silver level of experience) would not attack my sieging army in the back I sent my army from the episode 32 to hold the bridge.
As you can see it worked well and all enemies were kill, and it secured the siege of Kiev.
I think what is interesting in this battle is the fact that the enemies had rocket launchers and the psychological aspect of that. It seems to kill a lot of your men, but in that case, it worth holding the position under fire.
Here is the reason why I lost back Kiev in the first place. At the episode 28 I knew the Mongol's King was in the City of Caffa. I didn't troops to defend Kiev after the episode 28 and sent my victorious army directly to Caffa. This way I was sure to kill the king of the Mongols. The battle of the episode 32 was a siege to make sure the strong Mongol Army in Kiev would not come to save the Mongols King.
This battle was, as you can see by the result, hard fight since the King was 9 star of Command, and 1 gold level of experience. I had to be careful when entering and I was lucky to actually to be able to surround them.
Here was the death of the last powerful Mongol general.
This episode shows the last Mongols "gold" level of experience army lifting a siege on Kiev. I knew that my sieging army would not last long against them, so my goal was to weaken them as much as possible as I did in previous episode. I think the interesting thing you can see in the episode is how easy my infantry run away in front of the enemies. I took me 1 turn to recover from that battle, and 2 turn to get the same army and a very stronger army back to sieging Kiev.
Today episode is a short one; there is an assassination, 2 auto battle siege, and 1 small battle against isolated Mongols troops.
To give you some idea of what is happening in the rest of the campaign, the war against Milan after many battles is changing for a guerrilla war toward a conquest war where Milan fort and city fall very quickly in front of my troops. The Danish are getting weaker after sieging my forts in the north many times without success. The Christian weaken the front as they send troop to crusade against Portuguese. Taking this opportunity, I raise 3 Jihads army that charge toward those Christian empty frontier. The interesting impacts of that I that since Mongols are Muslim, the sent a Jihad. Meaning, they have a other isolated army that my Jihads will enjoy destroying once the target is conquer.
Today, I can only give you a small tour of the campaign overall so that you guys know vaguely what kind of empire I have. And two battle assassination. (That’s also the action I had lately on that front). The Mongols are now very weak and it's just a question of time before they are destroy.
The Year is 1312 the turn showed are 115 to 117.
If you have questioned feel free to ask. =)
(the video has wrong title, so don't panic...)
This is the counter Attack of the Mongols on Kiev. It was a hard battle since the enemies were 2 level of gold in experience. As you can see in the very long video, they fought to the last. The strategy I used was the same very effective one as before but this I had, cannon, I very much dislike cannons since they are not as effective in urban warfare as the catapult are.
Anyway Enjoy!
Today I found an interesting thing,
Conquer the City Under Siege! 1 vs 1 Tournament
Basically winner of Medieval II Total War Tournement Can win 700$ or 300$ in buying stuff at best buy.
It's a competition for All US and Canadian resident.
Of course since organizer were scare of me. They excluded Québec (where I live), so I can't make it in the tournament. (not that I really care, but nice of them to think about me (hehe)).
So, if you guys are interested you might give it a try and show that I the strategy I gave you by my videos worth something on the battlefield! =)
here is the link
Finaly! the episode 28...
In this episode you can finally see cannon. Basically what happened was that the enemies used a 2 unit to allow his the garrison to come out of Kiev and fight on the open. But I guess because of the cannon, the AI bugged there... So I just had too empty all my bullet on the enemies and once that was done wait until I was sure there was no time left for the enemies to make my forces panic to then engage them with my archer cavalry.
So in fact all the enemies died in that battle and I took Kiev without a siege...
To give you the global idea of the Mongols front, they have 2 city and one fort left (I gave them back Nuremberg, (just for fun)).
Hmm didn't posted a medieval II Total War video in 2 days!
No panic, stay calm!
Seem google video is having a hard time, and I had a hardtime to record the episode 28... I failed to record two battle... before the famous battle of the episode 28 finaly worked... Now that I got the video... it's the video hosting that doesn't work... great... so lets hope all that will be fix so that you guys can have your daily dose of Medieval II Total War...
After the previous siege, The Mongols are now very weak on the Eastern front. So I took my defending troop, and sent them to attack the remaining army of the Mongols on the East. So by this battle I now have the clear path to take back what I gave the Mongols. The only remaining Mongols after that will be huge army around Kiev, and some Army on the East that try to conquer the south, but they will be well welcome.
This is an other siege defense, not much to add about the tactic, except that i lost a lot of soldier because of friendly fire but not really a problem, i will cost me less upkeep.
After this victory, the Mongols lost all strong army of on the far east. So I will lead my armies to take back the 2 fort on the East
This episode is a victory against the Mongols, by wasting the Mongols against my forts, the Mongols now opened the way for so that I take back the east without any important resistance since the rest of them were more concentrated around Kiev instead of the far East.
For those who were a little doubtful because of my many defeats, note that from this point in the campaign, it's more then likely there won't be too many defeat anymore until I attack the region of Kiev. This region will probably be the last stand of the Mongols. (In a couple of videos (I guess)).
(hmm seem the video for some weird reason have some bug...)
At that point in the campaign the advantage switch side, the Mongols now weaken are producing normal units, and without all the original experience of early Mongols army, Mongols are no better then any faction, So I engage then like I would for any other enemies. So even without over whelming force, or elite troops, I can take back all that was lost. Of course there are still many Mongols armies to weaken, but now I can conquer back the East.
This siege is the result of my previous organize retreat. The enemy Mongols reach my city weaken, and get kill to the last. Simple but effective strategy. As you all saw, see, and will see. =)
This episode show one assassination battle and one battle.
I think this battle show the impact of my previous battle and my global strategy. I think it's a good illustration of how much the Mongols are able to make my troops run away easily. But It also show that now the Mongols are getting weaker since I'm able to fight them for a long time. So even if I lost once more, this battle will lead to the next battle and the multiple defeat will switch into multiple victory on all front. On the German front against the cities I gave mongols I have 3 army sieging them. So I will conquer all the lost ground back. But it will take many battle I guess...
There is still some very strong army around, but most of the original elite Mongols are dead.
Here is a battle that followed the previous one in the same turn. So this is my retreating army, once again under attack. That time I lost most of my army, but it cost half of the enemy army to do that, so it's a fair share. The impact of this defeat was that the enemy leaded his army toward my territory to siege a city.
This episode give you a small idea of the empire, my army on the east retreat from the previous battle, the war goes on in Italy against Milan and Sicilian, but nothing really important happen there.
So this battle happens as I try to flank the Mongols from the north. They stop me before I can siege the city.
The battle is missing probably 10 min of waiting for the Mongols to do anything. That's the main reason why my catapults are in front of my infantry instead of the back of my infantry. But that small detail didn't really do much difference since my goal war to weaken the Mongols and then pull back. That Time I lost many soldier, but this battle and my retreat actually helped me attract the enemies on the North. As my army will retreat it will be attacked by an other army. Inflicting more dead to the enemies (next day) and encouraging them to attack one of my cities and get exterminated as usual.
Here is a trailer that was made for Shogun, I think it show many aspect and principle that are the core strategy concept behind the creation of this series of game. There is also many strategic advice. So I think it's a good thing for every one to watch this to learn or refresh some strategy principle.
Back the the regular programming ;)
This is the first battle of a series of battles that have the objective to weaken the enemy armies over time by inflicting casualties that the Mongols won't be able to compensate as fast as I will. Also the fact that the casualties the Mongols have are 3 levels of silver troops makes the lost even more important.
During the battle I use my missile units until I'm out of ammo. As soon as all my ammo is gone and my troops don’t have the moral to continue the fight, I start my retreat and make sure to leave some expendable infantry to cover my general and cavalry escape. So, this defeat is a long term victory that will serve me well.
(Apologies for the small radio music part...)
Today is my birthday, so I decided to make a special post where I will show some of the work I did in the past 5 months. I will be hard to choose them since I have now over 377 videos...
So one thing many people here don't know is that my background as a gamer is mostly in the First Person Shooter type of game. I always enjoyed Tactical shooter of the Tom Clancy series, until Ubisoft ruined it by bringing it on Xbox and the 360. So here are some good moment of game play I had in Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter at hard difficulty level. (WARNING It's long).
This is me in multiplayer DeathMatch. Was a little hard to record since recording was making me lag a lot.
There is also this good attempt to finish the Arma Armed Assault demo missions Alone that was very fun, since it's a "simulation" game used by some European armies to train soldier. I fail, but that sure was a good try. =)
Now I don't really limit myself to Tactical Shooter, I was also a big fan of Halo Combat Evolved.
Or also enjoyed F.E.A.R. First Encounter Assault Recon, moded it a lot and won a T-Shirt of It because of my maps. But I was better as a player as I am in many game...
Then there is alway the Real Time Strategy type of game, like Company of Heroes that I enjoyed a little
But I must say that Soldier Heroes of World War II was probably the best real time strategy game I played in the last couple years, even if it was a little limited sometime...
Then there is alway Rôle playing games like oblivion that I played a lot, and this video is making fun of it by showing how weak my character is in bow skill and the absurd result it lead to =)
But of course my favorit game of all time is the Total War series, and I played those a lot! (I think you could guess that by yourself.)
This is my "first video" (wasn't really... but who care...)
And here is an other of my really popular Rome Total War video showing one of the most chaotic battle ever.
Here is an other very popular video from Rome Total War where I show the Spartans At work =)
Then there is My first "campaign chronicles". Here is one battle I like with a battle oriented on assassinating many senate generals.
Not to forget the Challenge episode, where I challenged people to win a very very hard battle from that save game. And trust me If you can win It, your a great player =)
I did won it, but hehe don't ask me to show you the video right now! Try it first.
There is also the very enjoyed strategy from the episode 36 with the kind of box formation
And the series of battle of the Hamburger hill episode!
The there are alway Request I did for my fans, like the battle of Cannae.
Some multiplayer... (i'm not a fanatic...)
And then the endless battle on bridge with the german chronicles with the famous V formation
Or some Really glorius defeat
There is also some weird siege where the strategy allow me to kill the enemies until the last one.
Then there alway is the sicilian chronicles good moment like the charge of the Danish Army
Or some independant battle from different campaign like this battle against a Mongols army
And this very very popular video guide i did
This first part shows you some important element of the war against Mongols. As you can see, I have 2 armies infiltrating the Mongols Territory on the East from the North and The South in the goal is not so much to gain victory, against so many enemies but to divide the enemies. My center of the East front is weak for apply the strategy of the best offence is defence, leading to the following battle.
As for the West front, you can see I start consolidating armies to start sieging the 2 city I gave the Mongols earlier. Those Cities are mostly defended by Spear Militia. I won't storm them, just siege them. Encouraging the Mongols Army from the East to come try to help and by doing so dividing them even more.
This battle is probably the best example of how to totally decimate an army stronger then you. Those Mongols had 3 level of silver in experience. In clear they kill a lot. So that’s where the missile superiority reveals itself. I had 3 units of artillery and tons of archer cavalry. By defending this single street I made sure to make the enemy as compact as they could be so that all my arrows and fire stone would have a maximum effect on the enemies. Here goes a first Mongols army. Many more to go ;-)
Napoleon knew how effective cannons could be in the city street, well I think that show you explicitly how. =)
This first real battle was a test I wanted to make before engaging my full forces. Since I had killed nearly all good general. I had to have an idea how easier it would be to win against the remaining armies. It was also a good test of my own force. I had to know how well my troop would do against so many enemies.
As soon as I had a good idea of those informations, I retreated, ready to fight an other day =)
Ok here we go for the Mongols Invasion part of the Turkish Chronicles
But first some context the "war" starts at the turn 79.
Since the turn 45, I control, Russia, Hungarian, Sicily, half of Germany and most of the Polish territory.
Now this part of the campaign will only show stuff related to the Mongols, so, the war against most of Europe will be skip.
Let’s begin by some strategy explanations. Since as we all know Mongols have many 9 stars general, many very experienced units. They are hard to destroy, also they move as a horde around pillaging everything and most of the time leaving city as rebel. So that leaded me to ask myself well how to stop that?
The answer I found was, well if I were them and I have nothing to defend, I would move as a horde, but when you have things to defend, you need to divide your force so that you don't lose ground. So I choose to star the war by giving the Mongols the fort of Bulgar as the video will show. But giving 1 fort still doesn't force the enemy to spread a lot. So I gave The Mongols the city of Nuremberg. Giving cities, also gave me an alliance with the Mongols. So by giving the city of Nuremberg to them, I was hoping they would star a war against European faction, making their army walk on my territory to reach that front. Of course I wasn't very convinced that this would work, but was worth trying.
In fact it worked but in an unexpected way. Since Nuremberg and an other city I gave them were more developed, well the Mongols made them Capital. So leaving such city without a governor is a bad Idea. So the Mongols sent most of their generals alone (trusting my alliance) toward those city in middle Europe. Seeing all those 9 star general moving alone was a very very very good target of opportunity. But I wasn't the one starting the hostilities. They did by attacking a fort on the East. As soon as they did that, I send my Archer cavalry to kill all those isolated Mongols generals, and killed right at the beginning of the war 7 generals in battles where my only lose were from friendly fire. Leaving probably only 4 or 5 generals far less powerful, the strongest being probably 5 star of command.
So the first video show show you how I killed those general, and the future video will show you the war against the powerful armies of the Mongols.
If you need some enlightenment, feel free to ask in the comment.
Since every one was wondering what will happen against the Mongols. How I will defeat them, I decided to skip ahead in the Turn and go to the point. The War against Mongols. So I had to skip, the end of Hungarian, Venetian, Holy Roman Empire, Polish, Russian, France (not by me), England (not by me). It's a very weird game...
So... Like every one I hate Mongols, because they start very powerful in statistic. But they are far from invincible and as you will see in the future episodes I will use some really unique strategy against them. I never had to fight the Mongols with the Turk before, so I'm a little creative in my way to deal with them, and I'm sure you will "intellectually" enjoy the way I fight them.
Now I got something to ask to all fans of my chronicles. Spread the word of this blog around the net and to your friends. I have a really stable audience, but the bigger is the better. It's great to have your comments questions. So, talk about this blog, and explain why it's that great that you come back read it and watch it every day since 4 months.
By sharing the knowledge of this blog I think it can push Creative Assembly to improve the AI in the future, because of the "Attila Factor". Hehe (in all humility)
;)
So Get ready for the Mongols and some reading, because it will be a little different then the normal campaign chronicles and if I don't explain, people will all be "Hmm what just happen there?", "omg", "wow, how did you do that!?", "How did you think about that!", "Man that's weird","lol, Next!" etc.
;)
Hmm, not much to say at that point. My counter attack against Constantinople is my main concern. All front are secure, Egypt is destroy. My "raiding" army advance against Polish. So confident of the situation I send my army to siege Constantinople against Hungarians. Since my army was mostly Spear militia Hungarian.
The siege of Constantinople is as you can see really laggy, I even had to pause some time to give order. But it was a great battle. The strategy was simple, Use the city wall to prevent any one from flanking my troop and use my number advantage to compensate the enemy good troop. All that under a rain of arrows. So enjoy the chaos
After the last victory against Egypt the front is secure. Hungarian at that point try to counter attack me, but it's no big deal, since my goal is to pillage Europe more then holding it. Since Mongols will come to invade it's time for me to start preparing for them.
On the north front my army advance on neutral ground against with the ultimate goal of invading Russia. I also rush on the polish front so that I can have fort to start invading Russia, but I don't invest much attention on that point since the Position I will gain from Polish fort will be very expose to attack from Russia, Hungarians and The Holy Roman Empire. Leading to this battle.
This battle is really interesting, because I had more troops, but the enemy had far better troops. So I came outside the walls to canalize the attack from the siege equipment. But because I had forgotten about the running order my cavalry had, I had to engage the knight. I won at fist, but over time the enemies’ cavalry proved to be too strong for my very light archer cavalry. All my cavalry broke, but at least it gained some time make the enemies attack with only the battering ram. That wasn't what I wanted... But the enemies leaded the way. So my last hope what to break the enemy by ambushing them inside the walls. So I sent my infantry off the walls, but because a weird bug, they stopped on the way, and came too late. But I deployed my cavalry in all direction ready to charge the enemies and it turned out good. That was a "Heroic" victory.
After killing the polish army I'm able to capture the Polish fort without resistance. From That point I decided to make my north army a kind of raiding army to pillage every thing on the path.
On the East I advance on Neutral, both on Baghdad and Russian neutral part. Near Venetian territory I get ready to engage hostility against them.
The Egyptian front reaches an end with this battle
In this battle I divide my to surround the enemies and attack them in sandwich from both side. Food always inspire good tactic, be careful next time you eat ;)
So after killing a first general I engage my force to kill the second one that won against me one time and as you can see he still put up a good fight and get kill by an arrow. After his death, the rest is just some hunting of infantry that can't do anything against my archer cavalry.
At that point in the campaign the Egypt front is still my priority. The faster I will deal with them, the faster I will be able to redeploy my resource on the north front. So I recruit cavalry units in nearby city to quickly continue the fight.
On the Hungarian front I exploit the lack of defender to capture as quickly as I can city and fort. I totally ignore the fact that Constantinople is under Hungarians control for the moment since I can't do much about it for the moment.
After sending a spy on Poland territory I noticed the weak defence on the polish fort. So I will Start the war as soon as I can taking the weakness as an opportunity to conquer more land fast leading to this battle, I choose to lead personally so that I could capture the fort without a siege.
This battle is very easy since my archer did the entire job against an enemy that could not do anything except losing against so many arrows.
In those turn I reach the number of region necessary to win a "short" campaign. Meaning I could have end the campaign there. But since so many people seem to enjoy this campaign. I will continue it until I get too lazy to continue.
So at that point I keep developing my economy and advance on Egypt territory and Hungarian territory.
All those expansion lead to the battle you will enjoy a lot since I FINALLY! Have a defeat. =)
In that battle I take care of the first enemy army easily, but the second army engaged me fast and it is the enemy king that won the battle for them. He resisted all my cavalry and kills my general. So I retreated what could be save.
In this episode the war against Hungarian starts. But it's not much of a challenge since at the same time I finally destroy Byzantine. As for crusade you can see many of them south of Constantinople. As I said before I will take this opportunity to counter attack Hungarian and fight while those huge crusader are there doing nothing.
As you can see by diplomacies, since my Byzantine enemies were destroying, the other factions are intimidated by me and offer me peace and trade right.
At the same time I start consolidating my empire by reinforcing my force and start to move troop toward north both toward Russia and Hungarians territories.
One of the coming challenges will be to take back Constantinople from Hungarian since they did put a very big garrison in the city. So slowly but surely.
On the Egyptian front, I divide my force to finish them as fast as I can by going south and right into Egypt.
Here is a battle that I didn't really enjoyed, Hungarian trying to lift a siege.
The strategy is really simply, decimated them before charging them. The enemy was too strong to retreat, but was too weak to attack. Leading to This weird battle...
After Chasing a fist Egyptian army out of my territory, I turn my eyes toward the south and send my army toward south totally ignoring on purpose the presence of an Egyptian army sieging a neutral city.
As you can see as the episode go on, I really quickly advance on Egypt territory, mostly because Egypt army are still busy on the neutral city.
On the West the war against Byzantine is going well and easily. I take the fort in Greece and the Balkan are soon to fall under my control.
As you can see, Christian start making crusade against Jerusalem and the armies come toward my empire. Since I don't want to invest into bigger army at that point, I build up fleet to control the 2 way into Turk territory by land. By controlling those positions I block all attempt of crusade and I can actually use the concentration of troop in the crusade to attack the undefended Christian territory. I also deploy small unit on the other side of the passage so that they can't come on my main territory.
In the end Egypt tried to lift a siege leading to this battle
In this battle Egypt force are divided because of the city. This was a good thing for me and allowed me to kill them all divided. The hard part was really to kill the enemy general that resisted a long time even with a lot of cavalry around him.
Now that the Turkish Empire is starting to take form with a less divided territory, I start consolidating my economy, my religion and prepare to continue my war against the Byzantine Empire. Constantinople is rioting and at this point it is clear that I won't hold it against a rebellion, so I evacuate it to continue my war against the Byzantines on the West. On my southern border, Egypt advanced on rebel territory posing a problem to my empire. That will need to be dealt with later.
At 15 min, Egypt starts hostility by walking on my territory and sending an army near a rebel city I am sieging. I decide to lift the siege and fight the enemy army on my territory so that I can counter attack Egypt as fast as possible and take the war to them.
In this battle my first target is to eliminate the enemy’s horse archers so that at least one flank is secure. Then I engage my infantry that easily win against the enemies. The quick death of the enemy general also speeds up the process. It's a rather easy victory.
(Small error in the video title... I'm far from perfect...)
So this is the Turn 17, a very small episode.
After destroying the Byzantine army outside the wall, I take Constantinople without a fight. By pillaging it, it gives me the necessary money to invest in all my cities. But pillaging also means I won't be able to hold the city against a rebellion that you will see in future turn.
This battle is against neutral trying to lift a siege, so I use the same tactic that I used in earlier battle except that this time I actually had good cavalry that could engage in close combat leading to a quick victory with very few lost.
Very early in the game it is important to develop your economy not so much to make money, but to sustain your future army. One mistake you might make is to actually believed that it is important to develop your economy to actually become rich. But it’s not the goal at all. Your economy is a way to sustain your empire, not to make it rich. Conquering territory is what makes your empire rich. The only goal you have when you develop you economy is to maintain a balance between the money you make and the cost of maintaining your empire.
So you need to invest the money you make from your farm, road, port, merchant, etc, into building your armies and the money you make from pillage to developing your building and economy to sustain your empire. And this episode shows in a way show that process.
Small detail here, for some reason a small part of the campaign is missing…
So in that missing part I destroyed Byzantine army near my newly conquered city. Build a boat and landed my troop near Constantinople. I then engaged the enemies outside the city wall leading to this battle.
This is an other night battle where I decimate the enemies from a far and rout the first army really quick.
Then I reform my army and prepare to engage the second army. It is important that no soldier of the second army escape so that I can capture Constantinople in the same turn, undefended.
This second army is better then the fist one and I use my infantry to keep the enemy infantry busy. During that time I can capture the isolated enemy general, leaded to a complete defeat of the enemies. The rest is just a pursuit of the routed army. Simply but effective plan =)
In this episode the war against Byzantine front is my priority. As you can see, Byzantine have troop on my territory, but I choose to totally ignore them. By bringing the fight to them I make sure they will need to be reactive to me instead of proactive. I then attack a 9 star Byzantine general that has a less troop then me, but still can put out a good fight. I choose to make a night Attack because this gives my general a one star boost that will be really useful against the very strong enemy general. So, sorry if you don’t see much action in the dark…
In the battle I flank the enemy with my archer cavalry forcing the enemy to redeploy creating chaos in his rank. This chaos allows me to isolate enemy units, use my infantry against smaller number and decimate the enemies under a rain of arrows. Until the enemies retreat.
This second episode shows you what I was explaining before in the first episode. the expansion of the Byzantine on the West is a menace. So I took this opportunity to engage the Byzantine into a war that had to happen sooner or later. So, the first battles against Byzantine happen when they try to lift a siege. This battle wasn’t expected so soon, but played in my favor.
By engaging me outside the wall it allows me to use my archer cavalry mobility and superiority to decimate the enemies on the flank. At the same moment his cavalry archer where attacking me on my left flank But inflicted me superficial lost and were weaken by my foot archer at the same time.
An other, advantage I had was that by trying to lift a siege, the Byzantines were dividing their forces into two armies. So you could call that divide to conquer. =)
In this second part of the turn 8 Byzantine makes a minor victory again my reinforcement. Soon followed by an attempt to break siege by an other rebel fort.
The Tactic I use is the same as in the first battle of the episode one. I encircle the enemies and engage them on all side. I think what made that battle easier was the very early death of the enemy general. I won with few dead soldiers.
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