You can hire crusading mercenaries for cheap, which I find pretty useful for manufacturing a good army in one turn, nothing like buying a ton of crusading knights and sergeants for something around 200 florins each. Just start a crusade with the minimum number of units, I think it's 8, then add away.

Plus, after you start the crusade you don't pay unit upkeep for the armies in the crusading army (until the crusade ends), also pretty great.

Really? So the "upkeep price" in the unit description is only for then the crusade is finished? I didn't know that. Is that for specific "crusade" units (eg Crusading Sergeants, Crusading Knights, etc) or for any merc you hire while on your way to the crusade?

Considering that the Pope is "my" Pope (ie he's from my faction and I rigged the election by managing to place 5 of my priests in the CoC) he's always happy. :D

You don't pay upkeep for any units in the crusade, although I think it takes a turn for that to take effect on units added after the start. I could be wrong on that - but I'm currently playing as the danes and just last night I added two units of archers to a crusade after it started. The archers didn't have the little cross symbol until the next turn - I assume that meant they were officially crusaders at that point (and I no longer paid their upkeep).

You don't pay upkeep for any units in the crusade, although I think it takes a turn for that to take effect on units added after the start. I could be wrong on that - but I'm currently playing as the danes and just last night I added two units of archers to a crusade after it started. The archers didn't have the little cross symbol until the next turn - I assume that meant they were officially crusaders at that point (and I no longer paid their upkeep). [/QB]</font>[/QUOTE]You were right mate - the upkeep price in the description is only there BEFORE you hire them for a crusade. Once you hire them it goes to zero. I just checked it when I called a crusade on Jerusalem.

I may have caught the Muslims off guard as I called the crusade when I was just about to land my army on the shores of Jerusalem - there was NOBODY defending Acre or Jerusalem (Acre had Sultan Whatsisname and Jerusalem had Saladin and a couple of archer militia units). I already had a near-full stack army and when I landed I called the crusade and hired some Turkopoles, Crusading Knights and Crusading Sergeants to fill out my army. Needless to say I took Acre and Jerusalem very easily (as I had about 4 trebuchets and 4 catapults with me).

Unfortunately the speed of my victory took me by surprise as I now have two other full stack crusade armies on the way who were originally free, but now are costing me HEAPS of money...

OK, I conquered the world as the Danes (or conquered 45 territories, anyway) and I played on for a while as I wanted to experience the a ) Mongols and b ) go to the New World. I did encounter the famed sons of Genghis Khan but they were pretty meek in my game (I'm playing H/M). They have about 10 full stacks, each led by an 8-10 star general with about 8-10 dread, but all they do is move from Edessa to Mosul to back up the mountains and back down again. [img]graemlins/wow.gif[/img] They're at war with the Turks but they're not attacking them (fog of war and lack of spies in the eastern Turk provinces prevent me from knowing if they've already sacked Turk cities).

I'm currently in control of the Holy Lands, from Antioch to Baghdad down to Jedda and then Alexandria and Cairo and all lands in between (it's my Norse Kingdom of Jerusalem). I thought that when the Mongols bypassed Edessa that they were on their way to Aleppo and Antioch so I shat myself and churned out some knights - but these Mongols are just ambling around! Why?

Also, the New World hasn't appeared yet. I'm currently in the late 1200s. I'm getting a bit bored since I pretty much own all of Europe (east and west) and now the Holy Lands I mentioned above. Spain foolishly decided to go to war with me and got excommunicated, and I've since gotten the (my) Pope to call a crusade on Cordoba (the furthest Spanish city I could call a crusade on and legitimately sack cities on the way without the risk of desertion). Then I raised about 6 full Crusader stacks and have taken pretty much all the Spanish lands aside from Cordoba (which will fall next turn). Once I do this I will have an empire stretching from the Iberian peninsula to the eastern Eurasian steppes, as well as the Holy Lands and the Italian peninsula (the Papal States aside). I want to go to the New World! When does it show up and what do I need to have built?

I didn't even know that the New World was in-game. After the Mongols you'll get another wave of invaders from the east... Timurids... and I'm a LONG time past that and still have not seen the new world pop up. I wonder if I need to send a ship since Spain was wiped out long ago.

Personally, I liked Medieval Total War 1 better. They removed the titles, which was a big part of what I liked, and I liked the way territories worked better in MTW1. The RTS type movement just lengthen the game for nothing, it doesn't really add anything interesting to the game.

It's pretty much MTW1 with updated graphics and very little changes. The changes they did make I'm not a big fan of. I say they should have kept everything exactly like MTW1, but updated the battle graphics.

I have Rome and this game, and I haven't technically played either. What I have played is a hell of a lot of is Rome: Total Realism, and I'm a fan. I probably should see what the base game is all about, but I really got MTW2 for the inevitable mods. I see my friend play it frequently though, and I have to say I'm severely disappointed at the lack of castles. A medieval game without castles?? They're there, but they do very little, and it's just not the same if you're not on the castle walls defending it rather than the town walls outside of the castle.

I was happy to see that they figured out what Master of Orion 1 figured out in the realm of strategy games long ago: that being able to build more of 1 unit per turn if you've got the production makes more of the game's units valid options.

OK, I found out the following: I think you need to a ) get the "the world is round" message as well as b ) build the buildings that will allow you to train carracks. I think it's about 1400, assuming my info is correct.

[ 02-07-2007, 02:15 AM: Message edited by: Memnoch ]