Medieval II Total War Turkish Chronicles 22 More Skirmish

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.

Medieval II Total War Turkish Chronicles 21 Hold and Run Again

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.

Medieval II Total War Turkish Chronicles 20 Hold and Run

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.

Shogun Total War Trailer and mini Guide

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.

Medieval II Total War Turkish Chronicles 19 Hit and Run

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...)

My birthday post 25 years old and an overview of my work since 5 months. Medieval II Total War and the rest!

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

Medieval II Total War Turkish Chronicles 17-18 The Storm

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. =)

Medieval II Total War Turkish Chronicles 16 Skirmish

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 =)

Medieval II Total War Turkish Chronicles 15 Divide to Conquer

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.

Medieval II Total War Turkish Chronicles 14 Mongols Invasion Teaser

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.
;)

Medieval II Total War Turkish Chronicles 13 Turn 45-47

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

Medieval II Total War Turkish Chronicles 12 Turn 44-45

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.

Medieval II Total War Turkish Chronicles 11 Turn 43-44

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.

Medieval II Total War Turkish Chronicles 10 Turn 40-43

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.

Medieval II Total War Turkish Chronicles 09 Turn 36-40

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.

Medieval II Total War Turkish Chronicles 08 Turn 32-36

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...

Medieval II Total War Turkish Chronicles 07 Turn 26-32

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.

Medieval II Total War Tuskish Chronicles 06 Turn 17-26

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.

Medieval II Total War Turkish Chronicles 05 Turn 17

(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.

Medieval II Total War Turkish Chronicles 04 Turn 10-16

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 =)

Medieval II Total War Turkish Chronicles 03 Turn 8-10

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.

Medieval II Total War Turkish Chronicles 02 Turn 5-8

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.

Medieval II Total War Turkish Chronicles 01 Turn 1-5

Here we go for the New Year a new Chronicles! This time I choose the faction base on the big number of people asking for a Turkish Chronicles. Since many fans seem to have had a hard time with them, I hope you will be able to learn some trick from this new Chronicles showing the Turkish way of making war.
So enjoy the ride.



First let’s have a small view of the Turk situation. Turk are surrounded by rebel. That mean they are not at risk of getting siege in the early turn. So they must take the opportunity to expend on those rebels as fast as they can. In this first episode, I rush to conquer rebel territory before the real war against Byzantine and Egypt start. To expend you must first have money and mobility. You can achieve that by building road. They increase commerce and your army mobility. That's what I did.

The Turk also start with a very spread around territory and weak army. So you need to concentrate your strength toward achievable objective and use the early Turk strength instead of waiting for it to grow. The faster you expend, the stronger you will become. If you wait, you will give the advantage to your enemies.

The Turk might seem weak at first but that's because you need use archer cavalry and using hit and run tactic you can win very fast and with very little lose.

Historically the Turk didn't fight for valor and honor the same way as knight did, they fought to win battles first. In clear it means that there is no shame in running away in front of your enemies. That's what made Saladin's army so effective against Crusader. His archer cavalry had light armor and bow; they could attack and withdraw very fast. While heavy crusader cavalry were tired really fast.

Also the fact that Turk were using Female Horse allowed them to have a very good control over them since female horse was more docile. Crusader had male horse; I think you can figure out how controllable male horses were against an army of female horse... The biggest Turk weakness what the early division between them self. I guess Medieval 2 Total War represent that division by the many rebel town and fort around.

So expending is really the priority and by doing so you must compete with your future enemies, the Byzantine and Egypt, even if it means starting a war against them.

This quick expansion leading us to this first battle against Rebel.



One of the really effective ways to take a city early in the game is to wait until the enemies come out to break the siege. This situation allows you to have a serious advantage against the enemies since they can only come out of the city in a very dense column. So you need to surround them with cavalry and use your infantry to block the attacking column into a static formation.

With the Turk the main problem is that they don't have any reliable troop in melee so you need to use your missile troop to weaken the enemies until you become confident that if you charge the enemies they will run away. That's what I did in this battle but took me sometime since the enemy were more and had better troops

Medieval II Total War Polish Chronicles 19 Turn 71 to 72

Here are the last 3 episode of the Polish Chronicles.



At that point in the campaign all my fronts advance more then before. On the West my campaign against Danish is going well. In Italy My force advance toward Venice and will take it.



This battle was basically a charge against the enemies. I had more archers, but the enemies had artillery making them stronger then me. So I charged as fast as possible under the artillery fire and flanked them at the same time, leading to a victory.



This battle is interesting on the tactical level. I first defend, knowing that I will be attacked on the rear. So once the first army is destroy, I rush on the other side and use once again the bridge to my advantage and allowing me to capture Venice at the same time =)

Ok, that's all for the Polish Chronicles people. Now before every one start asking, what next! Well it will be a Turkish Chronicles. But I plan to take a small break first since those chronicles take a lot of time to do. So stay calm no panic!

Medieval II Total War Polish Chronicles 18 Turn 69 to 71

In this episode my eastern frontier is now secure from Russian treat. On the East I advanced against Danish and Holy Roman Empire. On the South my army advance fast on the Byzantine Empire with the fall of Constantinople. On the Italian front I slowly advance against Sicilian.



(hmm still blurred, that will be fix in future episode)
In this first battle The holy Roman Empire engage me with a lot of troop, against a very weak army defending a city. My only advantage is to have 3 unit of catapult. So that Siege is the perfect example how to use catapult as defensive weapon. You deploy a small force at a couple of meter in front of the catapult to keep the enemies from reaching you catapult and then you fire at a close range. Since in this case my troops were weak, and bad quality, well wasn't really important if I lose some by friendly fire. The critical moment of the battle was when the feudal knight engaged my general, but they were taken care of fast.



This third battle is interesting since I discovery that polish archer could put anti cavalry pike in front of them. Those static pike kill all cavalry that charge them and slow down any charge. But I also learned that it kills friendly cavalry...

Anyway... In that battle I use my archer superiority and my cavalry mobility to win the battle. My infantry keeping more or less effectively the enemies busy.