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Well I appreciate your commitment, too! Unfortunately you have to pay about A $50 to post my latest history book to the USA, slightly less than the book price.

@@christopherwebber3804 😳

Yes, they do well against most cavalry - until the cavalry charge them!

Well I had to keep it short, I can do another about the nuances if there's somewhere I can look them up...

​@@christopherwebber3804 Most of them concerned with chasing mechanics pathing and targeting, blocking squares to alter charge paths, indirect fallback blocks, threat map (game engine threat accessment) blocks before charging, sticking in lights to delay (prevent evade). E.g. if opponent faces diagonally you can block his fallback by projecting two yellow ZoCs from a single unit directly behind him. Another way is engaging opponent from the flanking square without starting at eligeable position for flanking bonus. Works like a charm every single time. Altho fallback gonna happen on their turn when they change their facing unless you physically block fallback square or engage them with another unit under 90+ degree angle.

@@ComradeReptiloid ooh, that all sounds very interesting, I would love to do a video showing all those moves but I'm only a "C" or "B" division player and I'm not sure about those. Yeah, I get the chasing mechanics wrong all the time, and find it really difficult to predict where a router or an evader will go (and sometimes it will just stay there anyway). Every time I try to block a fall back or evade, the enemy unit seems to find a way around it. I do appreciate how important it is to block a fallback, as that often results in disruption instead, as well as keeping your opponent engaged and liable to flanking.

Probably I had some expensive item queued up that I couldn't afford. When I got the extra money, I could afford it, and the money was spent immediately and automatically. Something that I have difficulty resisting is queuing up the expenditure far beyond what I am able to pay. That causes problems as the AI will pay for those things closest to your capital first, so things further away never get built.

They don't attack Just wait outside the wall What to do?

Alexander Fol wrote the forward for my book. I met him on my first visit to Bulgaria.

I'm still working on the Ebook, like the physical book there's a lot to learn the first time you do it. You can buy it from any bookshop in the Blue Mountains or from me directly starting December 2023. $55 (or $35 for emergency service volunteers if bought directly from me). Delivery free in the blue mountains. I can't say exactly when it will be available but I'm expecting delivery of the books in December.

I'm sorry, I not sure what you mean, please explain

I agree but I've never played against them, my game is usually over before they appear ( I might have to re-install the game to allow the late mediaeval units)

Fighting the Timurids with their elephant cannons is a whole new level of challenge ​@@christopherwebber3804

You can unlock the other factions by editing a text file in the game folder. at least it worked in the vanilla version

Yes, but there are a lot, so that's a lot of save scumming. You often receive a mission to assassinate a Mongol general when they appear and I usually try to get one or two, but it's not as much fun as fighting them and using assassins does bad things to your king's reputation. you are never quite sure when or where the Mongols are going to appear, so having the assassins ready to hit them is not so easy - and you have to pay them all that time. Then again, you need experienced assassins if you want more than a 5% chance of success (and yet more save scumming).

Ah yeah... my current trouble that made me check the videos about Mongol... they joined the Jihadi to retake Cairo right after they appeared... which made them ultra hard mode ...

So far, I haven't been attacked by Mongols near a convenient river that was across the path of their advance to Antioch, so this choice hasn't been available to me (unless I retreat all the way to the river Jordan and let the Mongols get at least two cities and a castle, becoming a permanent faction).

@@christopherwebber3804, I just then defeated a full strength Mongol army that had seige equipment using the Turks in Tbilisi. ( City did have cannon towers upgraded ) 4 trebuchets, seige tower, rams and some artillery things i've never seen the Mongols use before. Tactic is: Have numerous Turk Archer Units atleast 5/6 groups, have ground units Spearmen, Janisarries, Sipahi, Mercs anything useful because once they breach your gate or wall you send everything at them timing there rush into the city or castle creating a Bottleneck ( Like 300 spartans movie ) . . . Now the thing I cannot believe I didn't know before! Your archers and javelins can use there secondary weapon whenever you want ( swords ) Just click the Bow Icon thats along with all those other Icons once and they turn into ground Units. ( These Archers were all I had left I overwhelmed them and stole the Win - Heroic Victory - I defeated a full strength Mongol army with nothing just 3 units of town spearmen, 5 groups of Turk archers, 2 afghan javelin men, 2 alan light cavalry and General cavalry Unit that i always leave out of the fight. . Thats it! Now imagine if I had Azabs, Heavy cavalry Sipahi, Janisarries and other stronger units. . I guess the main thing is is not to fight them out in the open, either attack there strongholds or let them attack you.

Yeah I got fascinated by this game a long time ago. Weapons are very expensive so players are basically unarmed early in the game. They could try boarding actions and invasions, but would still probably run out of money. Depends if players are corporations or prospectors. Once the money starts pouring in, its a different story. Players can decide not to attack one another, it depends how aggressive they are, but if a player decides to invest in weapons they can quickly wreck the other players' operations. I added some pirate rules to spice it up and allow combat against a non player character.

@@christopherwebber3804 sounds cool. do the pirate rules fit well with solitaire play? it's how i will most likely play on the table. Some have mentioned the roleplaying aspect of the game -- e.g., using the game as support for a Traveller campaign. have you approached the game that way? Also, how do you play the game most often these days? solo? ftf? opposed on vassal?

@@gregorycampagna8138 I've only played it solo, by Vassal its a lot easier. You can download the extra rules from Boardgame Geek (I might have put them on the Vassal page as well). Yes I tested the pirate rules playing solitaire, they really messed up my peaceful empires that suddenly had to spend all their money on weapons and only just avoided being wiped out. I have also created a lot of extra weapons and improvements and cards for the personalities of the leaders (using characters from The Expanse). Yes I love the role-playing aspect, it was set in the Traveller universe, but have not used it as part of a Traveller game.

@@christopherwebber3804 awesome - it’s great to know someone has devoted so much extra attention to the game, and from a solitaire perspective too. Looking forward to checking out the expansion rules. Thanks again. Subscribed.

@@gregorycampagna8138 I still have to properly test the expansion and finish updating the accompanying spreadsheet to include the extra resources If you aren't playing online that's no problem though. I increased the number of resources but I think the prospecting dice rolls are too complex and could be better (suggestions welcome). I added robotic probes to speed up the early game. The late game is still a problem for solo players as there's a lot to manage but otherwise not much challenge. In the expansion, you have the option to manage fuel, food, and oxygen as well as some types of ammunition. In real life, mining water would be of critical importance as you could turn it into fuel and oxygen as well as use it to grow food and keep people alive. There's also the possibility that carbonaceous asteroids could be mined like shale for petroleum products. Not sure if all that is just too much to manage but I added extra refineries to allow it. If not playing online you would need to print and shuffle the character cards. You would also need to print a few extra counters for the robotic probes, a few extra space ships, and the robotic workers.

Basically, attrition. You should be able to beast them in sieges (and anywhere you can force them to fight instead of peppering you with arrows, bridges, forts, etc.) while building up troops elsewhere. Once they’ve smashed themselves into a few castles, you can push them back and reclaim any lost lands.

Enemy campaign AI is terrible, if you're about to lose a settlement destroy all military buildings including blacksmiths, they'll be slow to replace these buildings if at all, so eventually you'll be facing trash troops. On map build forts in passes and fords, in battle use artillery, have any units with stakes and mounted cross bows are quite effective, those will be outranged but they'll distract the enemy and can be used to pick off enemy heavy Cav.

Read up on Mongol history, you will know approximately what year they are about to arrive. No excuse for being surprised once you know they arrive in several waves and also where they are likely to arrive. If you didn't prepare, you might be OK if you have gone for chivalrous generals and built some capacity for troop building in the region. They usually take several turns to reach Antioch and advance slowly.

Thanks, I've only skimmed the surface of what Vassal can do

If you right-click it will finish the animation/movement immediately, so you don't have to wait for the movement to finish if you don't want to. You have to play through a lot of scenarios before you get 30 or so units and maybe that can be a bit of a slog but usually there's some nasty enemy concentration or unit that keeps up the suspense, or a surprise awaiting you somewhere, so not such a slog after all.

Foot archers have stronger missile attacks than cavalry archers (there's more men in a unit and more men per square metre). The Mongols don't attack all at once, but piecemeal. They usually co-operate by attacking you. You have to learn how to concentrate your army on part of the enemy army to win M2TW battles, and this is no exception. Although some of the Mongols are attacking your archers, your cavalry is out attacking the Mongol cavalry, and the Mongol cavalry tend to allow themselves to be caught - either they stick around to shoot at you, or charge you. Also, you have to have the right mix of cavalry - no more than 2 bow or javelin armed light cavalry units will be enough to ensure you catch the Mongol lights. Once you have them in combat, you can pile in with your other units (you really need the spearmen to beat the Mongols easily). In my case the Sergeants count as light cavalry although they have decent armour and charge capabilities, so you can use them to catch the enemy light cavalry. By this stage of the game, you should have experienced heavy cavalry that is well armoured and can resist the Mongol barrage long enough to charge home on them - as long as you don't allow the Mongols to concentrate their fire. Allow the Mogols to come to you, if you send out your units in an unco-ordinated attack they will meet the situation you describe and be shot to bits. Hopefully, you can allow the Mongols to attack your shooters on the hill, charge forward with the spearmen, then follow up or charge onto the flanks with your cavalry. By the way, I usuually try to hire two Turcopole units thus giving me an extra two shooting units, and may have more artillery as well.

@@christopherwebber3804 So, you are not playing at very hard? Why didn’t you show how well this works, on your ’How to defeat Mongols’ video? I mean, why make a video how to win a battle, and then not showing it..?

@@pelimies1818 I wouldn't play M2TW battles on any other setting than Very Hardi These battles were played on that setting - you can see that in the way the Mongol horse archers suddenly appear from nowhere. Showing the whole battle t makes the length of the video too long, and people won't watch it. It also takes absolutely forever on my slow connection to upload it, and I don't have space on my hard disk to store it. It would take me between 30 minutes to an hour to fight the battle. If you don't know how to win a M2TW battle, this is the wrong place to start to learn how to do so. This video is for people who normally win their battles but have trouble with the Mongols - that included me - and that has a lot to do with tactics, army composition, and deployment. Get those right and you don't need to watch a video of it being done.

@@christopherwebber3804 as fast as 30 min, to win 4 Mongol armies with your suggested army composition; enemy having 9-10 star generals and VH difficulty..? :D you are pulling my leg - I knew it. Happy Hollidays, Chris!

@@pelimies1818 Not pulling your leg, though I don't usually time it, and usually lose track of time, so I could be wrong, and anyway, could be much longer with a multi-army battle. I would try very hard not to fight four Mongol armies at once and to have at least one of their generals dead before the battle. You can avoid fighting all four armies at once by careful placement of your attacking armies or by the use of terrain. Probably helps when you have been playing these sort of battles on the table as DBMM before the Total War system existed (started as a WRG 6th edition player). And have spent years of real time playing M2TW

I'm not sure what you mean, if it's at 8:53 the pike unit does move two squares forward. You can move the pike unit two squares forward, then click on the elephant unit behind it to see where it can go. If you don't like what you see, as long as you don't move anything, you can then go back and undo the pike move.

Note: after viewing other videos about Fantasy General, I see I am wrong to say that ambushes are useless and difficult. It's actually a matter of having a bait that you show the enemy and a concealed ambush unit next to it, that strikes when they attack the bait. This is terrific, as the ambushing unit gets to attack without the enemy fighting back. You can add a supporting slinger unit or even a second ambusher and it is possible to wipe out enemy units this way without any loss to yourself. You have to put the bait where the enemy can see it, and you have to have the right terrain to hide the ambushers and units that have the ambush ability, so it still isn't always easy to arrange, but you should definitely try to arrange ambushes wherever possible.

No, you can't have an AI player in Vassal, although various parts of the game can be automated.

@@christopherwebber3804 Ok, thanks

Same

Not really Excommunication is sometimes a Better alternative than not it depends on the situation, The best way to get reconciled is usually to let your faction leader die or hold out long enough that the Pope Dies instead, If its so bad the best exit if it becomes too much as in it gets in the way of your objectives you can ask the Pope for Reconciliation but you need to pay a lot of cash, In my Teutonic Campaign I had to give up Prague so I can expand to meet my Objectives as I found while Excommunication is managable, it stops you from completing your Objectives in time as in the Ayybids wining it all. (Teutons IMO suffers the Worst from Excommunication if its not managed properly as in being a Weasle and using the exploits above.)

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