Medieval: Total War

[Anathema]

I took this game out of the closet again and had some fun with it, but today I remembered why I stopped playing it again.

I was playing as French, aquiring victory through glorious achievements. After I had conquered almost half of the map I still was nowhere close to victory, and newly conquered provinces (mostly islamic ones) kept rebelling over and over again, even after I converted them all to catholicism and sent huge garrisons to keep them under control- nothing helps, not even inquisitors. Sending huge armies might work, but then the provinces would cost more money then they would earn me. At the beginning of each turn I'd have to click about 10 messages away saying that there were a loyalist uprising or whatever, wich was really annoying. Eventually I just stopped the campaign and started over as Byzantines.

So how do you best keep provinces from rebelling?

[Scrinlord]

Ok, I have never played Midevil, but I played Shogun quite a bit, and pretty much, you just have to continue putting down the revolts, and keep garrisons there.

[Terror]

turn them to catholics, build buildings, and keep an army there the first couple of turns. The happiness will rise slowly and it does not take that long until they are happy even without you having to force them being happy

[Khan]

Remeber to also keep taxes down.

[Caid Ivik]

Best way is using bishops to convert them, but if you don't want to wait, take a couple of spies to conquered area. Also presence of prince or king makes them especially happy. Or if you have an army with VERY dreadful commander, they would obey as well, if you'll make him a gouverner there.

When you can't store the army for long, build Militia and Spearmen in regions for defence. Don't go out of there until you haven't at least a Town Guard there. If you play as French, it is easy on High, you have Tripoli, region with the best goods. Make some barques and money are coming.

I recommend caution in offensive capmaign. When I've played with Byzantines, I was searching for weak regions, sent there a big army to force enemy retreat without fight, and then defended it. Units like Kataphraktoi or Byz.Infantry are magnificient for defence.

[Anathema]

Well the provinces I talked about were already very lowly taxed and over 90 % catholic. I guess that it becomes more difficult to tame provinces as your empire grows.

Btw, can someone explain how trade by sea works exactly?

[Khan]

Say if you want to trade with flanders to the black sea, you will need a port, trade center, and a ship yard in flanders. Then you have to build a fleet of ships and have one in each sea province from the english channel to the dead sea.

[Caid Ivik]

And maintain peace. I've reached more than 240 000 floriens in less than 60 years with HRE, when I had North Sea, Venice and Tripoli under control. Italians are perfect for such campaigns. I had for them only few outposts like Crimea, Tripoli or Marocco, alongside with all mediterran isles and some provinces around Venice. Then couple of Master Merchants and world's wealth is yours...

[Anathema]

God dammnit, today I was Byzanthium and controlled the whole of north Africa plus Italy. There weren't many revolts till a certain point until suddenly there were 12 (!) different provinces rebelling against me and 3 loyalist uprisings all at once! That was so damn lame.

[Caid Ivik]

Best is to keep a larger, but cheap unit in each province, best with enough dread or acumen. And if you conquer enemy province, put there the most dreadful general you have. But about sudden chaoses, maybe it is because you've started a war. You know, enemy may have much spies, as well as a war itself lowers morale of population. Like we saw in spring this year... ::)

[Anathema]

Well, THAT's IT.

Today I was playing Italy, things were going nicely (I had made over 400,000 cash on sea trade in about half a century) and I had conquered more then 2/3 of the map when suddenly almost every province in my empire had a rebellion of some sort- I wouldn't be surprised if it were every province except my starting province because it took something like 2 minutes to click away all the messages. Here's an attached pic of Europe at the time...

Now if those provinces would keep quite after I put them down again it would have been okay, but I've been through this sort of thing before and I'll just end up putting down revolts constantly in every single province on the map.

You may be right about it getting started because of a war Caid because Egypt had attacked one of my fleets, and then all the revolts occured. But prior to that there were very little revolts at all, plus it doesn't explain why there were also four old factions that I had slain re-emerging on the map. Furthermore I doubt that a single AI (in this case Egypt) would build enough spies to cover the map, and above that I had border fortresses in most of my provinces to rout out spies, plus I had spies of my own in most provinces to keep them loyal- it didn't work.

I've really had it with this game now.[attachment archived by Gobalopper]

[Khan]

I think when you go for the major victory it immediatley springs to Expert in difficulty. :-

[Caid Ivik]

Well, it seems that Egypt does nothing else than training of spies :- Maybe on harder difficulties is that quocient of possibility for unrest caused by war much higher, I can't explain it by other way. Maintain large armies in your regions, with such cash you can do so. Don't forget to press shift before you end turn. It can save your empire...

[Davidu]

Well, I played with the Byzantines. I conquered ALL of continental Europe plus Egypt. Then all these revolts. It was on Easy (the lowest).

Now I play with the Buzantines again, on Expert, meaning I have problems with money, and I have the Byz. lands, the turks, the Egyptians, the Hungarians, and two prov. of the Germans. The funny thing is that the Almoahads are the dominant power in Eu. they control from Tunisia (they lost Cirenacia to me) to Franconia, Italy, north to Flanders. The French and English are always re-emerging in UK, and the CXhristians are always fighting amongst them. The golden hoarde has emerged and took Gerogia away from me. Well, that's all. I haven't managed to earn money from sea trade, yet.

[Caid Ivik]

Having ports is not enough. You need ships in rows and some merchant buildings in sea trading countries too. Conquer Tripoli, build there Master Merchant and you have money for whole life...