How To Unlock The Rebels?
Right click on Medieval 2 in your steam library and select "browse local files".
This should land you in something like C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Medieval II Total War
Now keep going - data, world, maps, campaign, imperial campaign:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Medieval II Total War\data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign
(The exact location of Medieval 2 may vary on your system, so browse local files to get to the exact spot).
Now open descr_strat.txt in Notepad and cut&paste "slave" (as well as any other faction you want to unlock, though Timurids and Mongols require more extensive editing) from "nonplayable" to "playable".
What Else Should You Edit While You're At It? Custom Battle Availability, Spawns, Bugs.
Note that all these changes only take effect when you start a new game.
brigand_spawn_value (still in descr_strat.txt , right below the factions list) affects how often rebels spawn in territories controlled by the other factions. Higher spawn value = rebels spawn less often (yes, I'm not making a mistake here). Lower spawn value = rebels spawn more often. I generally don't touch this to make things "fair", but you can have fun just bashing randomly spawned armies against the AI without worrying about keeping your settlements.
pirate_spawn_value = the same for rebel fleets. You may want to increase this to 99 or more. Pirates are mostly a useless and annoying waste of time.
faction slave - you can change the king's purse to give you the same 3000 per-turn that every other faction gets. You can also change the rebel AI to default, so that when you play as a different faction the rebels will be more active (sieging your settlements etc).
Leaving descr_strat behind, you could also try adding the rebels as an option during custom battles, updating the AI to be more aggressive against the rebels, and fixing the two-handed\pike bugs.
You will need to unpack the files: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyIfPqoxvj8
Back to the main Medieval 2 folder - grab everything from mfc71.dll to msvcr71d.dll and stick it into Medieval 2 - tools - unpacker. Run the unpacker. If you're not asked to overwrite files, run the other unpacker. Agree to override.
Generic suggestion to save the files before you start goes here, but you can just right click on Medieval 2 - properties - installed files - verify integrity to restore to default settings.
Open medieval2.preference.cfg in the main Medieval 2 directory, go to the very bottom and add:
[io]
file_first = true
Save. Mark the file as read only. You can now edit things without the game reverting them.
Now head to data, descr_sm_factions. Head all the way down to "slave" and change custom_battle_availability to yes. (Change it to no for at least one faction, there's a limit to how many factions can be displayed on the custom battle selection).
Disable Heretics - useless and annoying:
descr_campaign_db.xml
<max_heretics_per_region uint="0"/>
<max_heretics uint="0"/>
Making sure that the AI actually sends powerful armies against you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJx_HzZWIBY
Fixing the two-handed bug:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGgxIlKL9r4
What's Unique About Playing As The Rebels?
The bad:
1. Naturally, everyone are in a permanent state of war with you. As long as your settlements are around, the AI factions would rather throw everything they have at you than to start a war with each other.
2. You have NO recruitable agents. No merchants, spies, assassins, diplomats, nada. Only naturally spawning heretics and the odd witch.
3. Your starting towns are poor and ♥♥♥♥♥♥.
4. By default, you get a far smaller allowance per-turn than any other faction does. If you don't do something, you will instantly go into a state of crushing debt, and will be unable to build anything, recruit anything, retrain your units etc.
5. Your roster is fairly limited, and you could (if you didn't have this guide) waste a lot of money building recruitment buildings that do nothing.
6. In particular, you don't get to build any siege equipment or gunpowder units. Only mercs.
7. You also don't get the ship that will allow you to cross the Atlantic. Either mod the game to make it recruitable as a merc, or settle for the short campaign.
8. Losing a battle will wipe your entire army out. That said, unlike Rome, you can in fact retreat from battle once on the campaign map. Also, draws won't wipe your army out, including the occasional "this will lose you the battle" bug when you withdraw from a sally. That said, a draw like that will result in you losing a lot of soldiers, so waiting the timer out is preferable.
9. On that note, you can't manually withdraw any units from the battlefield (say, if they're out of ammo and you want to preserve them, or to get some reinforcements to come in).
10. You don't get a family tree, you don't get sons who become generals at 18 (though you do get notifications about daughters who go to the convent as they age) and you don't get man of the hour generals after heroic victories. That said, you will start getting offers to adopt generals once you start your conquest.
The good:
1. Your settlements can never riot or rebel, not matter how unhappy the populace gets.
2. Your starting troops may be mostly trash, but you have a LOT of trash.
3. Rebels will randomly spawn in territories not controlled by you. These include units that you can't recruit normally, and also a lot of worthless pirates that you'll want to disband or suicide into the enemy ASAP.
4. If you exterminate the ruling family, every one of the faction's cities will rebel and join you without the need to conquer them. Conversely, if you take over every city a faction has, any surviving units that you could recruit and any family members become rebels.
5. Heretics could... theoretically cause the enemy populace to rebel? They never will in practice. Witches, on the other hand, can be quite handy, particularly near the endgame.
How To Win As The Rebels?
1. Money. Money. MONEY.
If you're serious about never allowing the AI to take a settlement (I assure you, you can do this) or even if you just don't want to rely on randomly spawning rebels and an endless back and forth of trading cities, you want to start making money and recruiting units ASAP. This means disbanding useless units, focusing on economic buildings and taking the fight to the AI.
2. Disbanding useless units - There are a lot of rebel settlements that shouldn't ever see an enemy near them, as you should use better armies to annihilate any threat well before the AI ever gets around to attacking them. They're also filled with trash units that will take forever to get to an enemy army (costing you a fortune in upkeep costs), and will only get wrecked in any sort of real fight.
This means first and foremost the settlements in America. Miccosukee, Caribbean, Fortaleza. Sadly, they will never be able to get on a boat and go conquer the Aztecs. On the positive side - the Aztecs also won't go conquer them. So scroll all the way to the left, go to each settlement, army screen, ctrl+a, ctrl+d.
Ditto Timbuktu and Arguin. Ditto Bulgar, Sarkel, Caffa (You can save the Turkomans from Sarkel). Basically, anything that can't get to an enemy city within 4-5 turns.
Rhodes, Ajaccio and maybe even Caligari (you could leave the Muslim archers in Caligari and rescue them with one of the spawning pirate fleets, which will also be used to keep them safe by annihilating Sicilian fleets)
On that note – every new turn you want to right click the army \ fleet button to find and use randomly spawning rebels armies and fleets. The fleets in particular result in a lot of sneaky unnecessary upkeep that you need to suicide into the enemy \ disband right away. Unlike Rome, you can do so at sea, you don't need to bring them to a port.
3. You have 5000 on the first turn. That's the most money you will see for a while (well, you can get out of debt by turn 4, but getting to turn 4 will take a long time). Invest it in economic infrastructure - mines in Timbuktu, ports in the Holy Land (as that area is controlled by the rebels as you start). You could build walls in York, Zagreb, Bucharest - but I assure you, you can defend these places without a wall, using the power of the town square and flanking. Ports, dirt roads, build these everywhere asap whenever you have money.
4. Scroll through your settlements and set the taxes to Very High in every town. Sorry populace, anarchy is not free, and we need every denarius.
5. Theoretically, you could destroy churches and places of entertainment in cities you capture, but the profit is minuscule and we're not planning on giving them back regardless. Also, heretics are pretty annoying in the late game, taking up a lot of time just strolling around the campaign map at the end of every turn.
6. Move the capital to Bren (later Nuremburg?) to minimize income loss from corruption. Reminder that the "center" of your empire is a lot further West than you realize due to the American rebel villages.
7. If you do well (defend your cities, capture enemy settlements), you will get random gifts from the council of rebel nobles.
8. Defend your cities from the initial attack waves, then combine your forces and take the fight to the enemy.
9. Sack cities whenever you capture them, at least until your economy recovers. Needs must. Money now is more important than growth in a few turns.
More Specifically, Your First Moves As Your Start The Campaign:
Here are the settlements most likely to be attacked within the first five turns:
Bordeaux. Dijon, Zaragoza, Thorn
Hamburg, Rennes, Inverness, York, Krakow
Prague, Magdeburg, Moscow, Bruges, Jerusalem
Zagreb, Sofia, Smyrna, Helsinki
Trebizond, Edessa, Dongola, Antwerp, Stettin, Dublin, Breaslau
Next 5 turns (at which point you should be disrupting the enemy plans already):
Durazzo, Tunis, Jedda
Metz, Iasi
Bern, Valencia
Ryazan, Stockholm, Tbilisi
Bucharest
Kiev, Florence
So - send your troops, particularly cavalry, to the places that are about to be attacked. Make sure to repel each attacking army and annihilate it to the best of your ability, particularly taking out family members. In some spots this is easy - Bern to Dijon, or Tripoli to Tunis (the issue is getting there in time. You can still help as reinforcements once the siege starts). In others, like Rennes to Bordeaux, your reinforcements will be caught by the enemy army along the way, so take care. In Inverness, you may want to invest in a troop of Border Horse, just for the purpose of chasing down retreating foes.
Obviously, I'm assuming this is not your first campaign, but many experienced players neglect setting their most powerful unit (or whomever they want) as the army captain - move the captain unit forward on its own, then merge the rest of the army into it. Stop routs when the enemy general charges down your spear militia captain.
Whenever possible, sally out to destroy or thin out the enemy. The AI can be particularly passive during sally battles, often allowing you to kite it or just standing there under fire, allowing you to dispatch armies that would destroy you in a straight up assault. Getting the enemy general to chase your cav while getting shot by archers and towers is the most basic cheesy tactic.
Remember that you heal some troops after a victory but not after a draw, so pushing a bit harder rather than withdrawing is often the right move.
If you can't defeat the enemy by sallying out, holding the walls still gives you a huge advantage when they attack. Put your archers on the walls, shooting into the enemy's unshielded right side (left from your perspective), away from any ladders that would get them into melee stop them from firing, and focus fire the enemy general. If you have cav, briefly charging the ram and ladders then withdrawing will hurt you, but also give your archers and towers precious time to do some work.
If the enemy make it into the city, take advantage of towers and the fact that archers actually do better shooting from the walls into the city. Some spots are custom made for taking on superior forces.
In some places (Florence, Zaragoza, Valencia) you just want to stay on defense, as trying to push into Italy or Spain will get you wrecked. In other places (the whole England situation, Palestine) you want to combine forces and take the fight to the enemy. That said, you want to:
A) Use depleted or expendable units as scouts. Nothing worse that having your decently sized army walk into an ambush or just a fight it can't handle.
B) Leave at least something behind in any city that still in danger of being attacked, to make sure the enemy won't just walk up and take it. For example, Caernarvon has excellent Welsh Longbowmen, who are the key to dealing with enemy cav, but leaving it undefended may have the English pull a sneaky change of targets on you.
C) Have a way to deal with enemy generals \ cav in general. Your armies are full of rubbish at this point, and you generally should be fighting in places where you can control where and how the enemy comes at you - sieges, sallies, bridges. In the open field, a single charge by a general unit (or two or three at once!) can outright rout your entire army. If you have to fight enemy cav in the field, try to do so in a place where you can camp a hill and set up some stakes (Longbowmen and Lithuanian Archers have those) to kill them as they charge forward. That said, you don't get to plant stakes if the enemy sallies forth or uses a spy to open your gates, so keep that in mind.
In the Middle East, you'll probably have access to ranged cav. Placing a couple of cav units near the enemy while the rest of the infantry positions itself as far as it can, will often lead to the enemy army ignoring the ranged cav and slowly walking towards the infantry. Use this chance to shoot the enemy general in the back.
D) Like I said, right click the army tab every turn to see who spawned and where. You want to suicide your pirate fleets into the enemy to keep them from landing in undefended locations, and use your random rebel spawns to snipe undefended cities.
E) Here's a suggested order of operations - it may change according to your lucky spawns and AI behavior.
I captured England from top to bottom, starting by repulsing the attacks on Inverness and York, sending the troops from Dublin and Caernarvon to help. Scotland is too annoyingly small to capture Edinburgh without destroying the Scottish army, but you can sorta rope-a-dope the English to take Nottingham, then capture London while they're sieging.
In the middle east, I lead a three-pronged assault - Gaza and then Egypt on the one hand, Mosul, Yerevan and then Turkey on the other.
You could theoretically snipe Novgorod as Russian armies go after Helinski and Moscow, but in practice, the AI notices you and pulls back to defend, also trying to destroy your armies piecemeal before they combine.
The cities in southern Greece are undefended, perfect for sniping with random rebel spawns. Your troops in Hungary etc are probably under too much pressure to get there.
Actually managed to snipe Denmark - the big army was headed for Stockholm, when the troops from Helsinki got a ride to Arhus from a random pirate fleet.
Took over France (you have enough troops from the start, even if things are a bit chaotic between attack and defense in all directions), squeezed HRE between France and Russia, then headed down to Italy and west into Spain. Also expanded from the Middle East, dealing with Byzantium and the Moors (just as they started to assault Timbuktu).
F) At some point - whether turn 4 if you're abusing the AI and being as aggressive as I was, or much later, you will start earning money and will be able to recruit troops.
How Does Rebel Recruitment Work?
Like the game says when you start the campaign - Rebels field forces based upon their locale. There are a number of cultures in the game - Scotland, England, Spain, Moors, France, HRE, Denmark, Italy, Sicily, Poland, Hungary, Russia, Byzantium, Turks, Egypt, Aztecs - each of which has a different rebel forces roster.
Some are better, some are worse, but unlike Rome's rebel campaign, you don't get any culture which outright does not allow you to recruit anything.
Culture is also transferable \ infectuous. Each unit belongs to a certain culture - but that's not an immutable characteristic.
In other words. Let's say that a unit of Jinetes spawns in Lisbon. I send them all the way to Baghdad and they conquer the city. As the city was taken over by a [Spanish] culture unit, it is now Spanish. You'll note that all the available buildings are buildings the Spanish can build, and that the unit recruitment tab has glitched out - but come next turn (or after you save and reload) you'll be able to recruit Spanish units here.
Furthermore - if a unit of Arab cavalry spawned nearby, and entered the now Spanish city of Baghdad, or merged into the Jinetes, they will also become Spanish, and any settlement they take over, even if they are now a separate army, will acquire the Spanish culture.
On the other hand, if the Jinetes merged into the Arab Cavalry, the Jinetes would become Egyptian and would carry that culture forward.
So in practice, this means that you can have an English culture city side by side with a Polish castle, both producing the units you need. You can have a Bimaristan in an HRE city or build an Aqueduct in Egypt. That said, different cultures don't utilize buildings that don't belong to their culture that well - Egyptians won't be able to recruit Jinetes or Desert Cavalry from a Plaza del Toro.
Also, you can only replenish units in a town of the same culture (though you can retrain them anywhere). And the game is particular about that - it won't let you replenish your English peasant archers in a Danish settlement, or take your European Spear Militia and replenish it in an Egyptian town.
Later on, as you're preparing the Eastern part of the map for the invasion, you may want to set up production of units from certain cultures on the spot, rather than having to lug them all the way from Europe. You may also want to keep units from specific cultures around in case you want to change a settlement's culture on the fly - move everyone in the settlement out, move the unit in, culture changed.
Just make sure that these are iconic \ recognizable units that are isolated and easily located. As you keep mixing units from different cultures in your armies, it's hard to keep track of what culture the whole army belongs to.
Anyway, what does each culture's roster look like?
First of all - everyone except North Europe (Scotland, England), East Europe (Hungary, Poland, Russia) and Byzantium get to recruit War Galleys when they build a Shipwright. Nothing before, nothing after, and you'll be using the randomly spawned pirate fleets most of the time anyway.
Second of all - check out these specifics below. I didn't bother copy pasting all the stats, but you can find them in one spot here[www.twcenter.net] .
Spain And Portugal:
Towns that have this culture - Zaragoza (the one the rebels start with), Lisbon, Leon.
(Wooden Wall): Town Militia
(Town Guard): Spear Militia
(City Watch): Crossbow Militia
(Plaza Del Toro): Jinetes
Further updates to the barracks building merely increase the number of recruitable units, they don't allow you to recruit new units.
Castles: Valencia, Pamplona, Toledo
(Wooden Castle): Jinetes and Mailed Knights, every level of castle upgrade increases number of units
(Fortress): Feudal Knights
(Citadel): Chivalric Knights
Upgrading the stables merely increases the number of recruitable knight units
(Mustering Hall): Peasants
(Garrison Quarters): Javelinmen
(Bowyer): Peasant Archers
(Practice Range): Peasant Crossbowmen
(Archery Range): Pavise Crossbowmen
Note that Valencia can recruit Jinetes and Mailed Knights right away, without the need to build anything.
Moors:
Towns: Timbuktu, Arguin, Cordoba, Marrakesh
(Wooden Wall) Town Militia
(Town Guard): Spear Militia
Note - not Town Watch, which only gives you another recruitment slot for Town Militia. Spear Militia is often recruited from the second tier barracks.
Once again, better walls equals more town militia recruitment slots.
Various barracks = more Spear Militia
(Racing Track ): Arab Cavalry
(Sultan’s Racing Track): Granadine Jinetes
Castles: Cordoba, Granada, Algiers
(Motte and Bailey): Desert Cavalry
(Wooden Castle): Arab Cavalry
(Fortress): Granadine Jinetes
Stables just increase the number of units
(Caravan Stop) Tuareg Camel Spearmen
(Mustering Hall): Peasants
(Drill square): Nubian Spearmen
Note that there's an "empty" upgrade level between hall and square that doesn't give you a new unit.
(Bowyer) Sudanese Javelinmen
(Practice Range): Desert Archers
(Archery Range): Peasant Crossbowmen
Note that Moorish peasant crossbowmen are far better than those of other factions. 12 missile attack.
Scotland:
Town: Edinburgh
(Wooden Wall): Town Militia
(Town Watch): Spear Militia
(City Watch): Scots Pike Militia
Castle: Inverness
(Motte and Bailey): Border Horse
(Wooden Castle): Mailed Knights
(Fortress): Feudal Knights
(Mustering Hall): Highland Rabble
(Garrison Quarters): Highlanders
(Bowyer) Peasant Archers
(Practice Range) Highland Archers
England:
Towns: Dublin, York, London
(Wooden Wall): Town Militia
(Town Guard): Spear Militia
(City Watch): Archer Militia
Castles: Caernarvon, Nottingham
(Motte and Bailey): Hobilars
(Wooden Castle): Mailed Knights
(Baron’s Stables): Feudal Knights
Note that this is the third stables building, the first 2 are "empty".
(Earl’s Stables): English Knights
(Mustering Hall): Peasants
(Garrison Quarters): Levy Spearmen
(Barracks): Armoured Swordsmen
Another empty upgrade between Garrison and barracks
(Bowyer): Peasant Archers
(Practice Range): Longbowmen
France:
Towns: Bruges, Antwerp, Dijon, Rennes, Paris, Marseille, Rheims
(Wooden Wall): Town Militia
(Town Guard) Spear Militia
(City Watch) Crossbow Militia
Castles: Metz, Bordeaux, Angers, Caen, Toulouse
(Wooden Castle): Mailed Knights
(Fortress): Feudal Knights
(Earl’s Stables): Chivalric Knights
Once again, a lot of empty stable buildings.
(Mustering Hall): Peasants
(Garrison Quarters): Sergeant Spearmen
(Drill Square): Armored Sergeants
(Bowyer): Peasant Archers
(Practice Range): Peasant Crossbowmen
(Archery Range): Crossbowmen
Denmark:
Towns: Stockholm, Arhus
(Wooden Wall): Town Militia
(Town Guard): Spear Militia
(City Watch): Crossbow Militia
Castles: Oslo, Helsinki
(Wooden Castle): Viking Raiders
(Fortress): Feudal Knights
(Knight’s Stables): Huscarls
(Earl’s Stables): Chivalric Knights
(Bowyer): Peasant Archers
(Archery Range): Crossbowmen
(Mustering Hall): Peasants
(Garrison Barracks): Viking Raiders
(Drill Square): Norse Swordsmen
Holy Roman Empire:
Towns: Prague, Frankfurt, Nuremburg, Vienna
(Wooden Wall): Town Watch
(Town Guard): Spear Militia
(City Watch): Crossbow Militia
(Militia Drill Square): Halberd Militia
Castles: Bern, Stettin, Hamburg, Magdeburg, Innsbruck
(Wooden Castle): Mailed Knights
(Fortress): Feudal Knights
(Citadel): Imperial Knights
(Mustering Hall): Peasants
(Garrison Quarters): Sergeant Spearmen
(Drill Square): Armored Sergeants
(Bowyer): Peasant Archers
(Practice Range): Peasant Crossbowmen
(Archery Range): Pavise Crossbowmen
Italy - Milan, Venice, Papal States, Sicily
Towns: Florence, Milan, Genoa, Venice, Bologna, Rome, Naples
(Wooden Wall) Italian Militia
(Town Guard): Italian Spear Militia
(City Watch): Pavise Crossbow Militia (Florence, Venice, Bologna, Naples and Rome only)
(Drill Square): Halberd Militia (Bologna, Naples and Rome only)
Castles: Ajaccio, Cagliari. Palermo. Cagliari and Palermo are Sicilian, slightly different and superior to the regular Italian roster.
(Wooden Castle): Mailed Knights
(Fortress): Feudal Knights (Norman Knights for Sicily)
(Citadel): Men at Arms (Chivalric Knights for Sicily)
(Mustering Hall): Peasants
(Garrison Quarters): Sergeant Spearmen
(Drill Square): Armored Sergeants
(Bowyer): Peasant Archers
(Practice Range): Peasant Crossbowmen (Muslim Archers for Sicily)
(Archery Range): Pavise Crossbowmen (Sicily only)
Poland:
Towns: Breslau, Zagreb, Riga, Krakow
(Town Guard): Spear Militia
(City Watch): Crossbow Militia (Pavise Crossbow Militia for Zagreb)
(Note that Polish and Russian crossbow militia have far better defense than regular crossbow militia)
(Militia Drill Square): Halberd Militia
Castles: Thorn, Vilnius, Iasi, Halych
(Wooden Castle): Polish Nobles and Strzelcy
(Citadel): Polish Knights
(Mustering Hall): Peasants
(Garrison Quarters): Woodsmen
(Bowyer): Peasant Archers
(Practice Range): Lithuanian Archers
(Archery Range): Lithuanian Cavalry
Note that you can recruit Polish Nobles and Strzelcy in Thorn right away.
Hungary:
Towns – Budapest
(Town Guard): Spear Militia
(City Watch): Pavise Crossbow Militia
(Militia Drill Square): Halberd Militia
Castles – Sofia, Bran
(Motte and Bailey): Magyar Cavalry
(Fortress): Feudal Knights
(Citadel): Chivalric Knights
(Mustering Hall): Peasants
(Garrison Quarters): Slav Levies
(Drill Square): Croat Axemen
(Bowyer): Peasant Archers
(Archery Range): Crossbowmen
Russia:
Towns: Moscow, Kiev, Novgorod
(Wooden Wall:) Archer Militia
(Town Guard): Spear Militia
(City Watch): Crossbow Militia
Reminder that Russian crossbow militia are slightly better in melee and defense.
Castles: Ryazan, Sarkel, Bulgar, Smolensk
(Motte and Bailey): Kazaks
(Wooden Castle) Boyar Sons
(Mustering Hall): Peasants
(Garrison’s Quarters): Woodsmen
(Bowyer): Peasant Archers
So you can get Kazaks everywhere, and can get Kazaks and Boyar Sons from Smolensk without building anything.
Byzantium:
Towns: Bucharest, Durazzo, Thessalonica, Iraklion, Constantinople, Nicaea
(Wooden Wall): Town Militia
(Town Guard): Spear Militia
(City Watch): Archer Militia
Note the Byzantine Archer Militia is slightly better than regular Archer Militia.
Castles: Caffa, Smyrna, Rhodes, Trebizond, Ragusa, Corinth, Nicosia
(Motte and Bailey): Skythikon
(Wooden Castle): Byzantine Cavalry
(Fortress): Byzantine Lancers
(Mustering Hall): Peasants
(Garrison Quarters): Byzantine Spearmen
(Bowyer): Peasant Archers
(Practice Range): Trebizond Archers
Turkey:
Towns: Antioch, Edessa, Baghdad, Damascus, Iconium, Yerevan
(Wooden Wall): Town Militia
(Town Guard): Spear Militia
(City Watch): Saracen Militia
(Racing Track): Turkomans
Castles: Caesaria, Mosul, Tbilisi, Adana, Aleppo, Acre,
(Motte and Bailey): Turkomans
(Mustering Hall): Peasants
(Garrison’s Quarters): Turkish Javelinmen
(Bowyer): Peasant Archers
(Practice Range): Turkish Archers
Egypt:
Towns: Jerusalem, Cairo, Alexandria
(Town Guard): Spear Militia
(City Watch): Saracen Militia
(Racing Track): Arab Cavalry
(Sultan’s Racing Track): Mamluk Archers
Castles: Tripoli, Gaza
(Motte and Bailey): Arab cav
(Wooden Castle): Malmuk archers
(Fortress): Malmuks
(Stables): Desert Cav
(Mustering Hall): Peasants
(Drill Square): Nubian Spearmen
(Bowyer): Peasant Archers
(Practice Range): Desert Archers
(Archery Range): Nubian Archers
(Caravan stop): Tuareg Camel Spearmen
Aztecs:
Towns: Miccosukee, Caribbean, Fortaleza
(Stone wall): Jaguar Warriors, Aztec Warriors, Aztec Archers, Aztec Spearmen, Peasants, Aztec Spear Throwers
You can no longer recruit these when you build a Large Stone Wall
Castles:
You get nothing, sir. Good day!
The Hordes From The East - Prepare For The Mongol \ Timurid Invasion
The Mongols should appear somewhere around Baghdad \ Sarkel, or between the two, circa turn 60-70. This means that you should have anywhere from 30 to 10 turns as the sole ruler of the world to prepare for their arrival.
The Mongols arrive in stages. First, two smaller, relatively weak "scouting" armies. Following this initial wave, three larger waves will arrive, each consisting of 3 to 4 full-stack armies, all units fully experienced (silver chevrons).
Mongols have overpowered generals, with full dread and command stats. This means that you can forget about breaking mongol units until the general is dead (and it will take a lot even once he dies, due to all the units being experienced). They have a lot of horse archers, heavy cav, and combo archers \ infantry (light infantry, theoretically, but they'll stand up to anything except getting charged by heavy cav on all sides. And even then...). They'll also have a couple of artillery units along, just to be annoying and snipe your generals.
Finally, their armies blob up and move as one horde. All the generals have the Night Fighter trait, so you can rarely isolate a single army - you always have to fight at least 3-4. This is why my detailed tactics below suggest fighting in a defensive position where you might win against, or at least seriously hurt, 3-4 armies. Not really an option in the field, unless you bring in 5-6 armies worth of allies, and let them be massacred under the AI control.
Timurids show up around turn 130-150, also in waves. Same deal, except they also have decent halberd infantry to resist cav charges. Oh, and elephants. Almost forgot about that minor detail. Elephants with cannons on their backs. Elephants that spread fear just by being there (and also by shooting your troops to pieces).
So... you can't recruit gunpowder units to counter and out-range the horde. You can't use assassins. None of the simple solutions work for the rebels, but we do have access to a very wide roster, and all the resources in the world. Here's what you do:
1. Prepare well in advance. Start developing your easternmost cities well before the invasion comes. Farming, public health buildings, and of course, all the the troop recruiting buildings you can use. You don't want the Mongols to find Baghdad a mere village.
2. You can convert your castles back in Europe into cities, while possibly converting Baghdad etc into castles. You'll need a lot of troops and a lot of money to deal with the hordes. Troop production on the front lines, economic powerhouse back home.
3. Take a look at all your armies. Right click through the army tab again. Send everything worthwhile - experienced generals, cav, archers - to the Middle East. Disband everything else. We don't need troops to maintain public order.
4. If any witches pop up (Agents tab), send them east ASAP. They can't do much about dread, but they can repeatedly hex great generals to the point that their command stats go down to zero. (Just stick them next to the enemy blob, and they will hex randomly. Don't let them near your own generals, they don't discriminate when it comes to cursing).
5. Recruit any mercenary rocket launcher you happen to find as well as (obviously) any elephants. You may to want to stick a useless general under the lake between Baghdad and Sarkel, just to check if any elephants are available every turn.
6. Recruitment in Medieval 2 is slow, so set up several different cities producing troops from several different cultures. Infantry closer to the front lines, cavalry a bit behind. Come up with an army composition and create as many armies as you can. Like I said earlier, you may want to keep a few units clearly marked as representing a certain culture around, just to switch cultures as necessary.
For instance, if an army got mauled but survived, you can start retraining troops on the spot - current army out, culture-spread unit in and out of the city, save and load, injured units from said culture into the city. They get re-trained, then you change the city culture to another one as necessary.
7. You could try setting up Swordsmiths and Horsebreeders guilds[www.twcenter.net] , both for the xp bonus for units recruited in the city and (eventually) for global xp bonuses.
8. Also prepare generals. Take a young general with semi-decent command stats, use them, then stick them in a border city and set the taxes to low \ very high, depending on whether you want Chivalry (to make your troops last longer) or Dread (so there's some chance the enemy routs). Unfortunately, you don't really have other ways of farming Dread \ Chivalry (well, church buildings, I guess).
9. Remember that until and unless they take a city (which, for the purpose of this challenge run, we can't allow them), they can't replenish any losses, while you can keep spamming new armies. If you have to, just throw HA armies in the open field against them. Unless your army gets instantly routed by a charging elephant (which does happen), the resulting casualties will start to wear them down.
10. If you need to slow the blob down, throw a fort with a sacrificial unit or two in their way. They will often take the time to siege the fort, get into it, and maybe even spend a while hanging around. Forts are a great place to attack Horse Archer armies (particularly if they separate from the main blob) as they can't spread out and flank you if you control the two chokepoints. They're all blobbed up inside the fort, sitting ducks for your ranged units.
Also, forts are an excellent spot for stake cheese.
How To Actually Fight The Mongols \ Timurids
Our chief anti-invasion weapon is stakes. And a defensive position.
Our two weapons are stakes, a defensive position, and some heavy infantry to hold the line.
Amongst our weapons are stakes, a defensive position, heavy infantry, heavy cav, and a decent general to stop everyone from routing instantly.
Basically - we block off all bridges and river crossings the enemy is trying to get through (if none are available, block a mountainous area where you can take the high ground).
Get 3-6 longbowmen and stake the crossing \ area through which the enemy will move, with several layers of stakes (note that the AI tends to go left from our perspective after crossing the bridge, so more stakes there). You can also use some pavise crossbowmen to really dish out the hurt (shelter the longbows behind them, as they're better suited to archer duels). 4-6 tough spears (Italian Spear Militia, Armored Sergeants or Saracen Militia will do) to hold the area behind the stakes. Some heavy infantry - huscarls or armored swordsmen, you don't really have better options, to deal with any enemy infantry that make it through the arrows. And some heavy cav to plug leaks and mop up the survivors. 2 mercenary rocket launchers to really get the panic going once the general dies, or to ensure the elephants run amuck before they hit your troops (make sure they're slightly away from the main action, so that random fleeing enemies touching the rocket launchers won't stop them from firing). If dealing with elephants, replace some of the heavy cav with javelin cav - Polish Nobles are best, but Boyar Sons, Jinetes and Desert Cav can also destroy elephants in a few volleys if they don't rout first.
Right behind the army holding the chokepoint, within reinforcement range, you've got an all-cav army led by another decent general. Mix of horse archers, heavy cav and javelin cav. They can help mop up if you were overwhelmed by the sheer number of bodies thrown at you \ if the elephants charged ahead, removed the stakes (reminder that elephants aren't affected by stakes, but in fact trample them into the ground) and routed your entire army.
If the invaders are reluctant to engage, you can take one step back from the bridge \ river crossing. An army will almost certainly stand on it, and you can now attack to have your bridge battle. If they prefer shelling you with artillery to crossing the bridge, send a single sacrificial unit across, and they should attack after they annihilate it.
Stakes are the key here. In fact, one alternative is to litter the enemy path with forts holding 1-2 units can that plant stakes. Stakes at the gate, retreat to the fort center, enemy cav and general charge in and die, you trade 2 Lithuanian archers (and maybe some spam units just to buy time until all the enemy cav piles into the stakes) for several hundred much more valuable enemy cav.
Basically the same deal in cities, if the enemy manages to get to them. Stakes, spears, heavy infantry on the walls, backup army. You want the hordes to be exhausted from getting into the city, getting towered, arrowed, staked (you actually may want to avoid triggering the towers that would destroy the battering ram, allowing the bad guys to go through the gate you staked), fighting the heavy infantry up on the walls, backed by towers, while some of your strongest troops hold the town center. As the troops holding the walls and gates get wiped out, your reinforcement cav army starts showing up, mopping up routing enemy units, causing enemy cav to leave and re-enter the city when trying to chase them (remember that your own troops can safely cross stakes by walking instead of running).
Theoretically, you can upgrade your cities to cannon towers, sally forth and wipe out the enemy, as the AI will generally just stand there. but that's a level of cheese even I won't stoop to. That said, remember that you can use cav to activate towers during an attack, not just men on the walls. Useful when the walls will be destroyed \ when you intend to fall back. Also for putting a bit of hurt on the armies that start the siege on the other side of the city from the army that has siege equipment.
Best Rebel Troops?
Obviously, for the majority of the campaign you will fight with whatever troops you have available, whether as spawns or local recruits.
But which cultures do you want to colonize the middle east during the endgame? Who are the best troops you have, which are still good enough to use in throw away armies, and which are just chain-rout fodder?
Infantry:
Your choices are really quite minimal, as most rebel infantry are an active detriment that will have your whole army routing the moment they see an elephant.
Italian Spear Militia for the main body of infantry. Saracen Militia are the same, but require a City Watch rather than Town Guard to recruit. Armoured Sergeants are technically slightly better (a point in attack and defense when fully upgraded), but you can't recruit them in cities.
Scots Pike Militia can stop the occasional cav charge, but mostly get shot full of arrows and rout instantly.
Heavy infantry:
Norse Swordsmen (Denmark) first (if you need heavy infantry in a place that doesn't have Barracks), then Armoured Swordsmen (England), who are a straight upgrade.
Ranged infantry
Longbowmen (England) and Pavise Crossbowmen \ Pavise Crossbow Militia (all over the place, but Italy in particular).
Basically, our ranged units have two jobs - plant stakes and survive under a lot of counter-fire (well, also a bit of fire arrows morale breaking, to the extent that that's possible). Lithuanian archers are the only other archers that can plant stakes, and they don't have the longbow's armor-piercing ability (they're slightly more defensive, but not against arrows). Pavise Crossbows can... well, not thrive, but survive a whole lot of missile fire coming their way better than any other archer unit, shielding the softer longbowmen. They can also sorta fight light infantry up on walls etc.
If you have experienced Muslim, Trebizond, Desert archers, you can bring them along or recruit some to fill stacks when you're short.
Javelinmen might be decent in cities, but cav replaces them in the open field.
Javelin cav:
Quite important for elephants. Polish Nobles first and foremost.
Boyar sons and Jinetes are adequate if not exceptional. Same upkeep as the nobles.
Desert cavalry theoretically does as much damage, but rarely stand up and take down the elephants due to morale issues.
Horse archers:
You might have noticed that my tactics are mostly defensive, and don't require a lot of horse archers. That said, they can be useful on occasion, at least for running down routers, or to use as distractions and flankers. However, cavalry "backup armies" sent to mop up survivors can use a few HA's.
Mamluk archers are the best you can get, and are easy (if expensive) to recruit from Egyptian wooden castles. Byzantine cavalry and Polish Strzelcy (armor piercing) are also decent, particularly if the Poles have a bit of experience and stop routing at the drop of a Mongol arrow.
Lithuanian cav, Turkomans and Kazaks all get slaughtered by a hail of arrows.
Light cav:
Don't use them, they don't get any good matchups here. Border horse if you have a particularly experienced unit, maybe? Byzantine Lancers if you need to fill out stacks?
Heavy cav:
A good heavy cav charge can mess up even fairly experienced heavy horse archers \ lancers, and serve tho break the army after the general dies.
For most of the campaign (and per a lot of advice online) you may have relied on Mailed \ Feudal Knights - "barely worse than the elites, and far more cost effective". Well, yeah, but in this case we only have 20 units under our control, we're facing a LOT of strong enemies, and we get wiped out if we lose. Each unit should be as good as possible.
Huscarls (Denmark) can be recruited from Knight's Stables, have armor piercing axes (and a bad charge).
Chivalric Knights - all over the place, require Earl's Stables.
Norman Knights (Sicily) - basically Chivalric knights with slightly worse charge but also armor piercing weapons. Recruited from a Fortress.
English Knights (England) also slightly worse Chivalric knights with armor piercing. Earl's Stables.
Polish Knights (Poland) - basically Chivalric knights, but recruited from a Citadel rather than stables.
Imperial Knights (HRE): also slightly worse Chivalric knights with armor piercing. Citadel
Malmuks (Egypt) are strictly worse than the alternatives, but they're not terrible for Middle East cav. Fortress.
Tuareg Camel Spearmen (Moors, Egypt) - will get slaughtered by arrow fire, but can sorta fight above their weight against horses. Recruited from a Caravan Stop, which is an economic building.
Artillery:
You don't get any, but like I said - recruit all the Merc Rocket Launchers and elephants you can get your hands on. Two rocket launchers firing at once can drive even a fairly experienced elephant unit to run amuck (particularly if the general died) and be the difference between victory and defeat.
So you now have a lot of different cultures to recruit from in castles. But what about those towns you didn't \ could convert to castles?
The culture of frontline towns:
Sicily
(Town Guard): Italian Spear Militia
(City Watch): Pavise Crossbow Militia
Like I said, these two units will make up the backbone of your armies.
Spain
(Plaza del Toro): Jinetes.
Being able to recruit javelin cav in cities is pretty great - they can put up a final stand on the plaza that will rout elephants and end up destroying the remains of an enemy army.
Maybe consider Egypt
(Sultan’s Racing Track): Mamluk Archers. Best horse archers you're going to get, and being able to recruit them in cities is nice. Then again, the buildings are expensive, and you can recruit the same archers in any Egyptian wooden castle.
The End.
Favorite this if it was helpful. I also have a rebel campaign guide to RTW:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3117732835
Let me know if there are any errors, issues, additions, corrections or suggestions.
GNU Terry Pratchett.
Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3424516745
More Total War: MEDIEVAL II - Definitive Edition guilds
- All Guilds
- Divide and Conquer V5: EUR V1.641 (submod) - All Campaign Settlements
- Medieval II Events (Crusades Campaign)
- A List of Naval Units Across All Factions (All Campaigns)
- Traits and Ancillaries: Kingdoms Expansion
- How to control Catholicism
- Cmo arreglar a los Piqueros de los Tercios Espaoles?
- Total War: MEDIEVAL II () .
- Americas Campaign - Spanish Prestige Explained
- MEDIEVAL II Total War traits & Triggers guide