So, after a LONG slugfest I managed to almost completely destroy the Mongols. I think it took me over 75 turns to recover from the initial onslaught and strike back. Once I broke the back of their offensive power (in the battle where I lost 4 generals ) it got a lot easier though. I just kept mass producing armies, even inferior ones and hit their smaller armies and lone generals with hit and run raids of Turkish horse archers. Basically adopted guerilla warfare, taking out poorly defended cities with small strike forces (the Mongols aren't great at sieging) and picking off family members and small armies.

After that I had Masud, the Horror of the East (my nickname for him ) move up from Egypt and rampage through the Mongol lands. First he took back the mountain cities (yerevan and co), then he hit the cities in the far East like Mosul and Baghdad. Apparently, once you destroy the Mongols a first time they return with a smaller force, even a second and a third time. But those armies aren't half as bad as the first wave.

Funnily enough, a turn or 5 after kicking out the main Mongol force and reclaiming my lands the Timurids arrived. In the same area as the Mongols did. (Baghdad) This time I was smarter: I gave them Baghdad as a gift and signed an alliance with them. I kept up the relationship to 'perfect' by giving them gifts every turn (I had about 240k by then anyway) and that gave me a lot of time to organize my defenses...I surrounded Baghdad in all directions so I knew they'd attack me sooner or later. I just mass produced the awesome Jannissary Heavy Infantry and stocked up a "belt" of cities with good wall defences with them. Surely enough they betrayed me and attacked a few cities on their way to my central zone that I gave up without much fighting, and then they hit the 'Belt'. It's freaking glorious. I slaughter their full stacks with 9-star generals and full of elite cavalry (including phants) with ease. The janissaries on the walls are more than a match for the so-so infantry of the Timurids (mostly missile anyway) and the ones on the ground just hold the gate and breaches in the wall; they make short work of all sorts of cavalry. And the ballista/cannon towers take out hundreds of enemies as it is. At this rate I'll have the first wave of Timurids under my thumb in 20 turns, muhaha.

Some general remarks:

-anyone ever used a monster bombard? do they rock? I built a few but didn't actually use any yet.
-you can recruit elephants and (if gunpowder is invented already) elephant artillery as mercenaries in the Arab region (Mosuml, Baghdad)
-because you can't se your faction heir anymore like you could in RTW: am I the only one to have systematically slaughtered family members earlier in the line to make my favorite generals stronger/give them a bigger bodyguard?


I'll post a pic and the full stats of Masud in a bit....I'm telling you, he's insane. Oh I have a pic of his bodyguard here, when he was still younger 3 gold chevrons ftw!

I use monster bombards with my Moors. They suck, don't waste your time with em. They own regular bombards, but regular bombards suck too. And no...I've never purposefully pruned my family line, you freak.

lol, nice nickname.

lol, his nickname isn't as cool as his actual title in-game: Crown prince Masud, Lord of Terror. I went back and checked yesterday to see if he had any offspring...he had FOUR sons!! But every one of them died in battle before marrying. I guess it's kinda fitting for the bloodiest and hardest general of all, but still.

Update: I destroyed the Mongols, and then started pushing back the Timurids. Now they're destroyed as well. I now rule surpreme over the Middle East and Turkey. Everything behind Alexandria in the South, Constantinople in the West and yerevan in the North is mine now...except for two cities (Caesarea and Aleppo) they're all cities too. I've got about 21 territories, 650k (!) and am making maaaaaaad profits, up to 50k a turn.

After destroying the Mongols and timurids I reorganized and cut down on obsolete armies, converted citadels to cities en masse and sent out family members to the proper cities. Then updated trade infrastructure everywhere. And behold, the most glorious faction the world has ever seen. The Milanese are owning most of the Medditerannean but I will start pwning them in a second; I'll let the pope alive for now tho. I'm just about the only Islamic faction left (the moors are gone, the gyppos as good as destroyed, mongols and timurids destroyed by my hand) so I can call Jihads like there's no tomorrow.

About 50 turns till the end and 23 territories left to conquer...no biggie with this kind of money. Turkey is fun fun fun. Pic attached of Janissary pwnage on the walls

Good stuff. I'm expanding like a whore right now. All my fronts are in wartime and each of my 6 or so armies are currently sieging.

My objectives are to take all of N. Africa with 2 armies, and all of Northern and Eastern Europe with 5 armies, with another 2 or so in pivotal holding positions. I will then assess whether it's feasable to go for Iberia and Britain.

well, I'm still playing along with the Moors. I lost the goal, but I figured I would...the Moors have no real super hard hitting troops. Though I totally pwn the open field with my camel gunners

some piccies

lol @ the merchants and camel gunners...they look kinda dork but I'm sure they hit like a mack truck. The merchant thing will teach ya for hoarding cash!

Cool general too, but mine (Masud) had a soul that was blacker than black...10 dread too, until he pwned a Jihad and got all sorts of chivalric traits. /me cries. he got back up to 8 (or nine?) but never 10 again. meeh.

Ok...beat the game with Turkey, wasn't too hard, I just steamrolled over the Milanese who held most of Greece, Italy and the Northern meditteranean. I actually bought most cities from them (not bribed). in the South I performed a blitz campaign on N. Africa and later Spain.

But that's not really what i was gonna rant about: I've got about 800k and keep making huge profits thanks to my (if I may say so myself) extraordinary commercial infrastructure. Now, that's all great, but like in RTW your entire empire goes SUPER corrupt if you're outrageously wealthy. All of my family members have a stack of traits dealing with corruption. Poor with taxes, deep pockets, expensive tastes, wildly extravagant: you name it. the biggest part of my income disappears in my governor's pockets already, and it's gonna get worse (until they're a 100% corrupt).

Technically I could just send all family members on suicide missions and/or keep them out of the cities to conquer the rest of the world; but that's a lot of work. So I just decided I'd set a few goals and stop the campaign:

- kill a pope (I haven't done so before). Me and a mate agree that there should be a pope-killing trait for Islamic factions. We'll soon find out.

-assemble a MONSTER army including the most badass mercenaries around and my elite troops (Janissary musketeers yay), about 3-4 of them. Monster armies I mean.

-sail to the West with those armies and finally slay the Aztecs. No crappy frontier troops for me, I'm gonna pound their ass with elephant artillery, musketeers, shock cavalry and much much more.

After that I will probably beat all the historic battles, play some MP and move on to NWN 2. Oh and a pic just as a testimony of how freaking rich I am....Antioch alone is making 7500 gold a turn, and I'm pretty sure there was a greedy governor in there at the time.

Nice Paint skills, smacktard.

I'm digging away at my same old Byz campaign in hour long sessions. I play while listening to music which means it's not long before I get bored and move onto something else.

My new mission is to rule the whole world. I just don't have enough generals!

lol...something tells me you'll run into the corruption wall soon enough too Good luck tho!

After a long wait I finally made a portrait and skill summary of Crown Prince Masud, Lord of Terror (that's his full ingame title).

Retinues

Chivalrous knight: +2 chivalry, +1 command
Shieldbearer: -1 morale to all troops on the battlefield, +2 to general’s hitpoints
Veteran warrior: +1 to personal security, +1 when commanding infantry
Notorious berserker: + 1 morale to all troops on the battlefield, +1 command
Mercenary captain: 10% decrease of training cost units, 10% extra gained from looting
Drillmaster: +25% to movement points, 10% decrease of training cost units

Traits

Excellent attacker: +4 command when attacking
Nightfighter: +1 command when fighting at night
Nocturnal: +3 command when fighting at night
Legendary commander: + 5 command
Crude: 20% decreased cost to bribe, -1 authority
Brutally scarred: +2 authority, +8 to general’s hitpoints
Excellent defender: +4 command when defending
Born conqueror: +4 command
Merciless conqueror: + 4 dread
Slow to trust: +1 to personal security
Morbidly mortal: +3 to personal security
Holy warrior: + 3 chivalry, +3 piety, +3 command when fighting catholics
Religiously minded: +2 piety
Enjoys a wager: 5% penalty on all tax income, 10% decreased cost to bribe
Has no fear: +2 morale to all troops on the battlefield, +2 authority
Great cavalry commander: +3 command when commanding cavalry
Great speaker: +1 law
Dutifully religious: +2 piety
Feels honoured: +5 loyalty
Bloodthirsty: +3 dread, -1 command, -3 morale for all troops on the battlefield
Cruel leader: +2 dread
Heir apparent: +1 authority, + 1 command, +2 personal security
Wall taker: + 1 command when assaulting walls

And last, but definitely not least:

Warlord of Terror: even the bravest of knights and kings would admit to fearing to face this infamous monster in battle. + 5 dread, +2 authority

So, basically, the only way to put down this puppy was by trying to bribe him (two negative traits related to bribing), but even that would have been near impossible with his 9 loyalty. He's got too many seurity traits for a realistic assassination mission and is waaaaay to hard a motherfucker to take out in battle. He 'only' has 3 silver chevrons here but he usually had between 1 and 3 golden ones, which is a nightmare coupled to a 50-man bodyguard and 9 dread (enemies' morale breaks like matchsticks).

Oh and if it weren't for the two Jihads he completed he wouldn't have chivalry crap like the chivalrous knight retinue, and a good 10 dread. He had 10 dread for a while. Where's my dread knight retinue when I need it dammit!

Pic attached...greatest general I ever had. A military genius, a psychotic but charismatic dude that didn't even need an army to fight most of the time, because his bodyguard pwned so much. May he rest in peace.

I would not have enjoyed meeting him on the battlefield with my armies, especially under your "AI".

heh, I think my AI is the least of your worries It mostly involves sacrificing tons of men and butchering every living soul.

I might add that Masud is a product of the Mongolian Wars, the crisis years of the empire. I simply HAD to execute all prisoners because I couldn't afford having those bastards' silver chevron armies regroup.

Btw, I had it easier when the timurids landed...huge walls and cannon towers took care of most of the problems for me. Then I had the enemy run into my 1337z0r Janissaries. Here's a short clip of what the carnage looked like before they even breached the walls or gate.

http://clankiller.com/stuff/Rinox/Movie_0022.wmv

Looks like they just stand there.

EDIT: Progress report...

I captured the last Mongol stronghold and exterminated the population, but they're still not defeated. They took to their horses and became nomads again, only they had a puny army.

It's amazing what i'm doing at the moment. I used a bunch of mercs to automatically reduce this last mongol stack to just one mongol bodyguard, which is an uber 10 star general with all the traits and cherries on top. Basically, i've found a little expoit which involves automatically resolving battles against this guy with about 3-4 units (just enough to guarantee a victory) then what ALWAYS happens, is that the captain of that little 3-4 unit army turns in the "Man of the Hour". So far i've managed to generate 4-5 generals this way. There goes my generals shortage problem!

What's also amazing is that there's only 1 mongol unit left in the entire world, but theyre #1 on the financial rankings!!! LOL, where does this guy stash his loot? I give him respect for that!

So this guy is still alive and i'll keep exploting until he dies in an autoresolve battle or of old age.

The black plague has also set foot and reminded me how much of a bitch it is. I've had to hold all of my advances and i'm still waiting for this thing to die down so i can retrain and continue my invasions.

nice pic! Looks like you're coming along nicely...no 'distance from capital' management problems yet? lol @ the man of the hour sploiting...and man of the hour dudes are usually pretty hardcore too. You're way too patient with the last Mongols tho, after fighting them for positively ages (50 turns perhaps?) and losing part of my empire to them I was only interested in personally destroying their faction leader and heir, to make SURE I was rid of them. I never much minded the plague tbh...in fact it was good to kill off some people in cities that would otherwise revolt because of overpopulation.

In my game I set sail with the monster army that will (or is supposed to) kick the Aztecs' ass. 5 freaking fleet, full of musketeers, janissaries, elephants, camels, horse archers, monster bombards, master ribaults, a shitload of agents (imams, spies, anything) and 5-6 generals. They're supposed to be owning the Aztecs like there's no tomorrow...I'll be sure to provide you with pics and or movies.

Oh and I'm assembling the army that will kill the pope. I might play on and conquer the world with my game after all...despite the monster corruption and a HUGE military force up and running (the aztect fleet), I seem to be making profit still. I hit 1.114.000 gold a while ago, so myeah...maybe I'll kill everything after all, I'll just need to manage the corrupt-ass governors a bit.

Im getting no capital distance problems so far.

I dont seem to be making enough cash for bribing, not even rebels. Ah well, i just siege the towns and provoke a premature sally, therefore capturing towns in 1-2 turns instead of 9-10.

The plague has cleared and i've retrained, reassembles and restarted my advances. I might need an extra army or so for europe because thare are so many towns to capture. The Venetians are easily my main rivals.

I don't think i'll bother with the Americas. It's too far and theyre too primitive to even justify it. I conquer backstabbers only.

I've got 2 armies waiting for the Timurids. I dont know exactly when they'll appear but im not taking any chances of being unprepared. Another 3 are whitewashing N Africa, while 6 are sweeping Europe, and 1 is based near the capital to repel any Crusades.