as you might remember from this thread.. your not alone.

http://www.ironworksforum.com/ubb/no...2;t=001015;p=3

I think that the way to overcome this is through shipping trade - which I rarely do because ports offer access to being invaded.. at least until the technology makes this redundant.

Ports mean nothing to invaders, what they do make a difference to is enemy agents.

Enemy troops just jump ashore on the best beach they can find, no need for a port. That would be just a bit too convenient for the defenders. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Enemy agents such as spies, assassins and priests, need a port though since they just travel around with regular merchant vessels, and regular merchant vessels don't like beaching their ships.

Got another question now that I'm at it.
In combat I usually use the following standard approach:
Swordmen against spearmen.
Spearmen against cavalry.
Cavalry against swordmen.
And archers against whoever is within reach.
But what good is halberdiers and other "axemen"? I never really found any use for them, they just get slaughtered.

Try using those Almohads' Militia, they're quite unkillable. Halberdiers are a cross between a swordsman and a spearman, not as good as either of them in their field, but versatile and mostly disciplined. They're great for defensive purposes(a group of halberdiers defending those catapults against enemy castle siege lifters). There's just one modification to your otherwise good strategy: have archers attack the fast and lightly armored, because even elite archers can't take down heavy armored cavalry(it's like killing a king with swordsmen, he will go down eventually, but not soon).

I'm playing as England, my longbowmen will take down anything. :D
But thanks for the halberdier explanation.

Bah! You can fix anything with a good charge! My strategy consist of sending an army of royal knights charging the ennemy and run them down.

I do like to carry some lighter cavalry every once in a while, to destroy the routing ennemy.

The pope just owned me!

He rebeled, and brought along almost 5k soldiers, but most of them were technologically advanced for me, and I'm the most technologically advanced...

So I reloaded, destroyed everything and removed my troops. Let's se how he plan to pay those troops with no income!

My emisaries are on their way to offer those generals a better source of income... :D

I've nearly wiped out the Germans and Italians now (stupid fools attacked me for no reason, probably to defend their German allies). I met their armies in Serbia and ended up killing their Doge Giovanni after a massive battle. I've pretty much gotten them to hole up in Sardinia and Corsica, but their fleet is causing a bit of a problem for me - I haven't enough ships in the Med, most of them are out in the North Atlantic and it's taking a while to get to them. [img]graemlins/awcrap.gif[/img]

Once I finish them off then I'll get rid of the Hungarians and then it's westward, baby. :D

PS I'm finding spies pretty useless, they always get caught before I even get to do anything with them. And my Rank 5 assassin got caught trying to go through Flanders and got executed. Bummer! :(

Hehehe, I've been reading this thread all along, and its really fun reading the tales Memnoch's kingdom [img]smile.gif[/img]

In fact, I'm going to get the game pretty soon. It just sounds so realistic with virtually anything possible!

Questions:

1) Are there different modes of play (eg. Campaign) as well as a freeform country-building?

2) When you go into battle, is it realtime where you control all your units and use tactics and strategy?

Oh and Memnoch, what's your country called? Where is it located? I imagine that its expanded rapidly, so there's probably no definite answer... How about where it started?

Jaradu, I strongly recommend getting into it. This is seriously the most addictive game I've EVER played. [img]graemlins/wow.gif[/img]

In terms of game play, you can play Campaign (which is basically freeform country building) where you can either have Domination (kick everyone else's ass) or Glorious Objectives (achieve objectives similar to those that your faction achieved in history) as your win criteria. The campaign part is all turn based, you move your units around the place like in Civ, but when you go into battle it's all real-time, and the engine is EXCELLENT. :D

I love the feudal nature of the game, handing out titles to your nobility in return for their service, and the fact that you need to make sure you manage your lineage effectively. At one stage I was laughing as I had six princes all in line for the throne, then during my war with the Germans I lost three of them. I'm trying to get my king's wife to pop another one out of the oven as soon as possible but short of praying there's not much else I can do. [img]graemlins/awcrap.gif[/img]

I'm playing as the Danes at the moment - it's been a hundred years since I started, so my expansion hasn't been all that rapid, it took a hundred years to do it all. And I'm not done yet - still most of the Middle East and Northern Africa, as well as Western Europe to conquer.