Tsardoms Total War - Ask all questions here

[Hrobatos]

I would suggest keep Constantnople well garrisoned and otherwise focus on Greece proper. Avoid field armies, fight only sieges. Ottoman cavalary is your main obstacle. In siege you can put archers under a wall which will be attacked by enemy and when they go up to a wall and engage your infantry your archers have direct line of fire.
Use swords against their infantry and spears against Ottoman cavalary. If you have archers with stakes, use stakes to block of streets and gates. if you defend gates let them enter a bit and have archers on both sides but a bit further away both left and right so they can shoot directly at enemy sides. Sometimes enemy will send melee troopts toward them so keep some melee infantry behind archers. also you can send them on walls, cavalary cant attack them there but infantry will.

Other than that focus on Greece, fight their stacks with your stacks in sieges, and try sieging their cities with small garrisons. Use spies a lot, and wait for them to attack in the north to expand, otherwise dug in. Keep cities bordering them directly well garrisoned. Cheap infantry will rout quickly under Sipahi charge so dont count on them holding the line.

[Marble Emperor]

Playing as the Romans is incredibly difficult, as it should be. I recommend using the forts outside of Constantinople as mosquito catchers. The AI will attack forts repeatedly, leaving Constantinople alone. (Allowing you to maintain income from Constantinople. You can hold the forts with stake armed units and some infantry and cavalry. (Using your cavalry to keep the ottomans off of their siege equipment). I managed to destroy 15 ottoman stacks with just that method.

While you are doing this, you must consolidate your position in Morea, and take the fight to the Ottomans in Greece. That’s the only way I’ve found to beat them.

[Cro-Gamer]

Sounds like a real challenge, Ill give it a try next!

[OFFCIALLY SWAG]

i dont think the roman campaign is that difficult but tbf i did hand over constantinople in exchange for a hefty price and peace. focused on unifying lower greece by taking out florence and venice and then developed the region militarily. the ottomans do have a ton of stacks so it isnt easy but i think the albanian campaign is even harder

[Kranos]

@Hrobatos and @Marble Emperor

thanks! I managed to survive for lots of turns doing all these but eventually I had to use Force diplomacy with Epirus since as my allies they were pretty much left alone for the entire game and have like 3 full stacks which at a certain turn they will each start to siege one of my settlements conquered in Greece. I think not releasing ottoman prisoners after tens of on the verge battles has affected my relations with them but do you really can afford releasing prisoners especially in significant numbers which will just come back fully replenished and attack you in a couple of turns again even stronger?

Also, about converting castles into cities. I'm not sure I can understand very well the building browser to see what building will be lost in conversion. Can you guys help me a bit! Is there a significant economic boost of having more cities than castles? Asking because in Greece I want turning a couple of castles into cities because seem redundant for military purposes.

About gunners and musketeers. How good or maybe necessary are they? Are they better for the cost than similar priced archers or crosbowmen?

Discord server. Do you guys have one? Ofc a forum is a way more organised but its also quite slow. I was originally against mods fully moving to Discord because TWC net has given so much to the community but now I feel very hard to get back in being active here like in the old days.

[PavleSubich]

guners and musketeres destroy most outdated infantrys in one shoot!

if u combine them with pikemans8good ones) u pasivly defensivley destroy anything!
arquebusiers have an attack of 33 and musketiers 46 LOL!!

they are only inferior to high quality heavy infantry and heavy cav if u dont suport them with pikes

[Marble Emperor]

https://discord.gg/6JvjPF6jge This is the discord link.

[Jurand of Cracow]

Also, about converting castles into cities. I'm not sure I can understand very well the building browser to see what building will be lost in conversion. Can you guys help me a bit! Is there a significant economic boost of having more cities than castles? Asking because in Greece I want turning a couple of castles into cities because seem redundant for military purposes.

IIRC, if in the building browser you click on the current settlement panel (eg. it's a city - on the city panel, on the castle - on the other panel), and you can see a building, then you click on the other panel and you cannot see it - then the building will be lost in conversion.
(the other way around it doesn't work, as the non-current-settlement panel shows many buildings that are - currently, but sometimes also permanently - not possible to be built)
/I hope it's correct, but I may err, ofc/
JoC

[Hrobatos]

What I also find is good against Ottomans in open field battles is only infantry army with some 60% melee ans 40% archers. Put your infantry im square and archers in it. Best infantry to the front. Mix of spear and sword , one sword one spear etc. They will attack your square and will attempt to flank you but in square you are covered. If you have better infantry and good missiles you will win.

If enemy cavalary charges your swords send spears on their place and pull swords back.same if your spears are attacked by swords. If you use polearms put them in the back so enemy archers dont decimate them.

Put your square on a hill if you can so archers can shoot directly. Turn off their skirmish mod. Use stakes if your arches have them. Stakes should be infont infantry especialy swords.
Should one side of square start thining send troops from free side to relieve. One unit of cavalary might be usefull to cut fleeing enemy once all of them are fleeing.

[Kranos]

@Marble Emperor

Oh its great you have one at least and you seem to be quite active there. I think you guys want to have a channel of this big total war moding dedicated server on discord.
https://discord.gg/FskkCFp9. They are doing a great service to the community and they seem very well organised. You might want to ask for a channel there because most serious and popular mods have one at least to let more people know about your presence on discord.

@PavleSubich

Good to know. I managed to survive with Romans up until turn 70 now without any gunpowder weapons. I now have those Kakoni gunners available but in the unit description it says their quality its average. Definitely need to know more about reading the units descriptions. Is that Quality and type descriptions really mean something or its better to go with the pure stats numbers? Do they generally fire when they should or they bugged out frequently? Rate of fire is what concerns me most when dealing against ottomans cav archer spam.


@Jurand of Cracow

Will the markets and ports will survive from castle to city conversion?

@Hrobatos

You might be right but besides my style being more aggressively I'm also under impression I'm doing better most of the times and its a safer bet to not only have just enough cav but also something extra. Plus I want to chase and finish the enemy while it routs otherwise lots of them will escape and quite a lot of times you need to annihilate an enemy stack quickly before being attacked by another stack. Do you guys release enemy prisoners most of the times?

To put that into practice without messing things too much (in bigger battles that is) in these old TW games can be very hard to quickly distinguish and keep track what unit type is where because of the lack of the clear indicators and overlays of the unit type and other unit info at a glance.

[AwkwardDuck]

Haven't found anything about the Orthodox Roman Emperor coronation other than the requirements of 1 turn spent in Constantinople, united Empire post civil war of course, and the Patriarch in Constantinople as well. I haven't been able to get John Kantakouzenos coronated after beating the Regency. I've seen some people say you don't even necessarily need the Patriarch in Constantinople, but could he be the problem since he was the Regency's agent before the merger? John (Ioannes) has sat in Constantinople for a few turns now with no event script occurring.

[Wallachian]

Yes, the Patriarch is not required, that requirement was removed. Do you have the highest level of the feudal estates built in Constantinople? Also, make sure John Kantakouzenos doesn't already have 7 ancillaries.

[Hrobatos]

@Marble Emperor

Oh its great you have one at least and you seem to be quite active there. I think you guys want to have a channel of this big total war moding dedicated server on discord.
https://discord.gg/FskkCFp9. They are doing a great service to the community and they seem very well organised. You might want to ask for a channel there because most serious and popular mods have one at least to let more people know about your presence on discord.

@PavleSubich

Good to know. I managed to survive with Romans up until turn 70 now without any gunpowder weapons. I know have those Kakoni gunners available but in the unit description it says their quality its average. Definitely need to know more about reading the units descriptions. Is that Quality and type descriptions really mean something or its betetr to go with the pure stats numbers?Do they generally fire when they should or they bugged out frequently? Rate of fire is what concerns me most when dealing against ottomans cav archer spam.


@Jurand of Cracow

need to check that brb!

@Hrobatos

You might be right but besides my style being more aggressively I'm also under impression I doing better most of the times and its a safer bet to not only have just enough cav but also something extra. Plus I want to chase and finish the enemy while it routs otherwise lots of them will escape and quite a lot of times you need to annihilate an enemy stack quickly before being attacked by another stack. Do you guys release enemy prisoners most of the times?

To put that into practice without messing things too much (in bigger battles that is) in this old TW games can be very hard to quickly distinguish and keep track what unit type is where becuase of the lack of the clear indicators and overlays of the unit type and other unit info at a glance.

I always ransom them and I never sack cities

[Kranos]

banging a few heads will also damage your relations with other factions to a similar extent like executing prisoners?

[Wallachian]

Yes it damages it a lot

[PavleSubich]

Good to know. I managed to survive with Romans up until turn 70 now without any gunpowder weapons. I now have those Kakoni gunners available but in the unit description it says their quality its average. Definitely need to know more about reading the units descriptions. Is that Quality and type descriptions really mean something or its better to go with the pure stats numbers? Do they generally fire when they should or they bugged out frequently? Rate of fire is what concerns me most when dealing against ottomans cav archer spam.

I personaly get the feel for units by trying them
By stats the gendarme are the strongest cav but in 1 on 1 turkish and roman cav wins against them

Im trying to play historyc so those early gunners whic are being described as an urban unit with to big and clumsy guns to be used on fields arent a part of my field armys

[AwkwardDuck]

Yes, the Patriarch is not required, that requirement was removed. Do you have the highest level of the feudal estates built in Constantinople? Also, make sure John Kantakouzenos doesn't already have 7 ancillaries.

Ah, I saw mention of the feudal estate requirement but it isn't listed anywhere official. Sadly Constantinople only starts at the first tier, so I'll get that building. I was also conscious of the ancillary limit, he has only 6 so it should be good. Thanks for the reply!

[AwkwardDuck]

Question about the Forced Diplomacy mechanic. Doesn't seem to work for me, no matter the combo I try. Whether I open and close the advisor, then queue up an offer and make it, or queue up my offer, open and close advisor, then make my offer, or leave the advisor open then make my offer. Not too heartbroken since I never planned to abuse it, but the pointless war the Duchy of Athens declared on me as the Romans is a silly cold war for the past 10 turns. They've never tried to fight me at all, so I wanted to just peace it. They even consider a ceasefire "Balanced" but won't accept. Guess I can just cheat money to bribe them, but then that gives them unfair gold to spend and breaks the game a bit. The thread explaining the mechanic says to open the advisor using the question mark in the top right corner of the diplomacy screen, then close it and make your offer. Following that to the letter leads me to believe you should set up your offer, do the advisor, then make your offer, but it doesn't work.

[Wallachian]

Question about the Forced Diplomacy mechanic. Doesn't seem to work for me, no matter the combo I try. Whether I open and close the advisor, then queue up an offer and make it, or queue up my offer, open and close advisor, then make my offer, or leave the advisor open then make my offer. Not too heartbroken since I never planned to abuse it, but the pointless war the Duchy of Athens declared on me as the Romans is a silly cold war for the past 10 turns. They've never tried to fight me at all, so I wanted to just peace it. They even consider a ceasefire "Balanced" but won't accept. Guess I can just cheat money to bribe them, but then that gives them unfair gold to spend and breaks the game a bit. The thread explaining the mechanic says to open the advisor using the question mark in the top right corner of the diplomacy screen, then close it and make your offer. Following that to the letter leads me to believe you should set up your offer, do the advisor, then make your offer, but it doesn't work.

Since you mention Duchy of Athens you must be playing the 1345 campaign. There is no forced diplomacy in the 1345 campaign. The forced diplomacy is on the list of changes/improvements for the 1448 campaign.

The way it works is you click on 'show me how' and then you do your offer.

[AwkwardDuck]

Since you mention Duchy of Athens you must be playing the 1345 campaign. There is no forced diplomacy in the 1345 campaign. The forced diplomacy is on the list of changes/improvements for the 1448 campaign.

The way it works is you click on 'show me how' and then you do your offer.

Thanks again for the quick reply. Doesn't say that on your post in the Guides thread where I read about it. I'll just make do with destroying them for their impudence then.