Moors Faction Guide: Medieval 2 Total War

[@NimrodElTzane]

Dude that mountain range on Iberian peninsula aren't Alps that's Pyrenees ;P

[@Cba409]

Lmao

[@Mr.Pallanza]

Now that I'm smoothly riding the Mongol Invasion as the Mighty Scots, I am now playing a new Grand Campaign with the Dukes of the Deserts, the Moors. Playing on H/H. Here are some starting tips. 1. For your first 10-15 turns, _Solidify your Position_ First, prop up an army and send them eastward to get to Tunis. Convert Algiers to a Town, and go for Valencia to the east in the Spanish peninsula. Once you have claimed it, convert Granada to a Town to at least keep the florins flowing in. And if you can, go for Timbuktu. Spare a half stack to overtake the bank and make some CHC. Cold.Hard.Cash. 2. _Play defensive._ Portugal or Spain will definitely get to you, but play your best defensive measures in Cordoba. Bide your time to make a healthy mix of missile cavalry and infantry, along with heavy spearmen, and mow while the capital is under coverage, prop up another army and take on Cagliari and Ajaccio at Corsica. Garrisons are kind of weak so try to wait them out. Convert both to Towns. Just make sure you have solid garrisons, as Milan or Sicily may pay a visit. This concludes the first and second step, and if you're feeling frisky, go for Sicily, or Iraklion, or even make a staging area to the Middle East at Rhodes. 3. _Take down Portugal and Spain_ I mean why not? Portugal may be a bit easier to take down, but Spain can be a pain once they start fielding dismounted knights. But you are of the Moors, so make use of the Javelin-Throwing-Armor-Piercing-Fast-Moving-Desert Cavalry. They're cheap to upkeep, and they're invaluable to take down missile units and harass slow moving dismounted knights. There are many bridges in the region too, so you can cheese this with spearmen to funnel the bridge and have your missile cvs/javelinmen/archers make some killing. And yes, you can cripple Spain by ridding their one and only castle at the start: Toledo. 3. After securing the modern equivalent of Portugal and Spain, _The World is your Oyster._ Now that immediate threats are done, you can head north to harrass the French, make the British Isles an Islamic Caliphate, or take down the Papacy and make them homeless. Or, from Iraklion and/or Rhodes, go tackle the Byzantine Empire and help out your Muslim brothers, the Turks and Egypt. When you get to the Late Period, you get access to the amazing Camel Gunners. You can trample modern armies with just one full stack of them shooting everyone roaming Europe. Nevertheless, this a fun faction to play. Thanks for your guides, Lugo! Your guides have convinced me to reinstall this lovely masterpiece. Cheers!

[@Mr.Pallanza]

@teo teo Wow! That's good protips there! And such tactical use of Jihad of getting around is KING. I rarely use Jihad against the Catholics since I am definitely not wanting to step over the line, I used it once or twice against Byzantine but that's all I've done to take Rhodes and Cyprus. But I'll be trying that since I have a buttload of Imams just spreading the word in France, Britain, and Rome. AND DON'T GET ME STARTED ON EGYPT. He's the only other Muslim brother aside from the Turks (Mongols/Timurids too) but he's keeping trade lines aplenty with the Catholics it's hard to keep them in your good side. They're allies with you for 2-5 turns and then suddenly you see their troops hovering near Tripoli. I'm now late game approaching the New World years, and I've sacked Constantinople and having my 2 fullstack Camel Gunners stomp the ground of any Russian or Venetian advances. Cheers, man! Thanks for sharing! Imma try this next time I have a hankering in covering the world Orange with the Moors!

[@akrav1983]

I've been playing the Moors recently, and they have some advatages: They are located in the west so they don't fight the Mongols and Timurids. But they are also Islamic, so they don't take orders from the Pope. As far as their army goes, the Arab cavalry and the disomunted variant are your go to troops. They are the only armored soldiers, until you reach Citadel level and can recruit the Grenadine lancers, and Christian guard. The Camel gunners are also a must, as they hit hard on both morale and armour while staying mobile.

[@esclavodelsistema9783]

Camel gunners are the best cav in the game, the have more range than reiters

[@willlastnameguy8329]

As long as the Mongols/Timurids don't take Jerusalem, anyway. If they do, it could be hard to take it for the win objective. When I played moors they thankfully went north.

[@arazeth5562]

I quite like the moors. They have interesting troops and really cool starting position. Like you said Spain and Sicily are good targets and Timbuktu is literaly a gold mine. I know your guides are more oriented towards new players but if your good enough you can actually go for Spain AND Sicily AND Timbuktu at the same time. The jav cav is the perfect troop for this (and the perfect general killer). Also some things you were wondering about the troops: they are in order of the price and the class. And peasant crossbowmen are on par with pavise crossbowmen in terms of missile capabilities. So they're one of the best. I like seeing other peoples opinions on things, so these faction guides do really interest me. Also can you do egypt after the Holy Roman Empire? They're my favorite faction in M2TW. I hope I could help a bit. Keep it up!

[@lugotorix6173]

Arazeth Thanks for your comments! Yes if you are experienced you can go for all three areas simultaneously which will give you a massive boost early on. I can definitely do Egypt after the Holy Roman Empire, video should be out relatively soon! (And yeah I agree the Moors are pretty cool)

[@jackdaone6469]

Agreed. Once you get enough Merchant buildings going, especially in Timbuktu and Arguin, you can just recruit local merchants and have them sitting on resource nodes making thousands of gold per turn, which is more than enough to upkeep several armies.

[@davidsaville5239]

After upgrading your armoury/foundry, your troops get an armer upgrade !!

[@davidsaville5239]

So you can armour up an unarmoured unit!! Like crossbow militia

[@thelaziestguyuveverknown]

22:35 IBERIAN PENÍNSULA! Not Spanish Península. It means different things. XD

[@ThePirateSurfer]

Dude Moors is an awesome faction, in the early game you can skirmish most spanish/portugese emenies with your cav, mid game you have much better mounted cav than most faction and one of the highest damage crossbow units. late game you have mobile gunners that can fire in any angle, that makes them one of the best skirmish factions

[@ThePirateSurfer]

also urban militia is an armored sword unit thay can be trained in cities rather than castles, that's one of the best militia units

[@someorclad9738]

@@ThePirateSurfer Also, as a roleplay perspective, you can avenge the defeat at Tours and crush France, then unleash your unbridled fury upon Europe. A really fun campaign and imo, the most roleplay potential (second goes to Turks, third goes to England).

[@esclavodelsistema9783]

@@someorclad9738 i think the HRE takes the cake for a roleplay campaign. The "turks" aren't really the ottoman empire, and once you conquer France with England, the roleplay just falls apart

[@juanbarbosasiguenza5883]

The moors are my favourite faction, and i think they are op in early game because their militia units are far superior to peasants, also strong free garrison units, and javelin cavalry is prety good hunting early game cavalry. I usually place all my troops in Córdoba and rush lisbon (this usually destroys the faction) then call yihad in Toledo to replish my troops and defend Córdoba, rush the spanish. By this time the general that i send alone from Marrakech must have enough mercenaries (including that ghazis recruited before win the yihad) to take toumbuctou and arguin. By this time you must be strong enough to (after consolidate iberia and create a few armies) rush all of Europe without oposition.

[@juanbarbosasiguenza5883]

@alvi syahri not good idea Ally with any catholic, whem you grown they will unite un crusades against you, and spanish and portuguese even worse, because they need Granada to win the campaign.

[@fabriziopiccolo5646]

@@juanbarbosasiguenza5883 it depends, an alliance with the pope can open awesome scenarios. I'm playing a slow campaign because I want to wait for the camel gunners before the real total war starts and I'm making a lot of money with diplomats and keeping the situation under control to the point where if a christian faction attacks me they will pay for the ceasefire XD And I'm staying dreadful, I don't want a legacy of chivalry to ruin my reign of camel terror. I wonder what one could do with a very reliable reputation, I'm on mixed atm

[@zakback9937]

What I did on VH campaign as moors on the start, Rush Lisbon which destroys the Portuguese faction and then the Spanish which will leave no competitor of the Spanish peninsula other than rebels to take the settlements, reinforce Algiers as Italian faction (mainly due to AI aggression on players perhaps on VH) will attack it before Algiers and then with spare forces send it to Timbuktu whilst taking the western Mediterranean and cutting up France whilst they’re divided, and then you can rush and conquer the whole world. Thankfully the Byzantines are less spongy than in stainless steel for their Bodyguards which I’ve conquered almost the whole of the west as the moors in that as well :))

[@snowisthebestweather]

10:12 I'm pretty sure all javelins are effective against armor in Medieval 2 except the Aztec javelin units. You might be thinking of Rome 1, where no javelin units are effective against armor (that I can think of). That said, I still prefer Rome 1's javelin units. It feels like the ones in Medieval 2 don't throw their javelins anywhere near as quickly as they do in Rome 1. 15:10 Not sure where you're getting this. I'd say most cavalry has good morale or better. Even mailed knights do. About the only ones that don't are early light cav and early ranged cav. And Timbuktu is so OP. Once you have a few merchants down there, you can pretty easily afford to expand north and east at the same time. Just found that out as Portugal. edit: timestamps

[@lugotorix6173]

snowisthebestweather Fair enough I am probably thinking more of Rome 1 javelins in regards to armour. Yes, Timbuktu is a great settlement and is vital to get if your the moors in particular as you have great access to it. Can set up your economy excellently

[@Cba409]

Scotlands javelinmen and the mercenary irish javelins dont have "effective against armor" missiles.

[@SMAXZO]

Just had Medieval II installed so this guide is a godsend.

[@lugotorix6173]

Thats awesome! Happy to help

[@Gabryal77]

Moors are my favorite faction. They have really good units overall. Christian Knights both mounted and dismounted are quite good, camel gunners outrange everything and can shoot over your troops in the back line. My fav doomstack is 8 dismounted Christian knights, 2 Taureg Spearmen, 6 camel gunners 2 mounted christian knights, my general and a battery of cannon

[@ttoughtask7296]

the Alps straddle France, Switzerland Austria, Germany & Italy it's the The Pyrenees that separate Spain & France.

[@fabriziopiccolo5646]

Desert cavalry is probably my fav glass cannon unit. They have low range and will melt like snow if they touch anything more than paesant archers but boy they are Fast af and "reactive", not sure if there's data on it but they felt the best in the entire game in these two fields. Couple it with javelins and nothing can ever hope to escape them, not even light cavalry

[@MegaAgamon]

Personally I like going for the Iberian first if you take it since it has mountains where you can build forts you can defend it pretty easily against attackers

[@milkbaologist5610]

I suppose that all javelin units in M2TW have the armor piercing attribute.

[@Jimothyjohns]

Moors are hella fun in Stainless Steel. I’ve already conquered all of Spain, Portugal, Genoa, Sicily, most of France, a lot of the Fatamid territory and some of the HRE

[@ariavergil9631]

It's weird to me that the game description kinda gets it backwards. The Moors really struggle early on, because Spain, Portugal, and Sicily all get troops who are just better than yours, especially considering that Toledo and and Palermo will be fortresses way before Algiers, Granada, or Valencia, giving them knights who are going to be tough to deal with. But then once you survive long enough to get urban militia, both varieties of Christian guard, and your own jinettes and mounted crossbowmen you're basically unstoppable. When gunpowder becomes a thing, camel gunners make you go from unstoppable to comically unstoppable. Literally your only weakness will be navy units because all the Muslim factions have less powerful naval units. I was genuinely surprised just how good these guys are the first time I did a campaign with them, and they're honestly my favorite faction at this point.

[@hernanreipp5259]

They're my favorite muslim faction because that types of challenges. Bad start in the desert, enemies with better units and economies, also hate you for your religion and literally no nearby allies to help/stabb your back. Also the broken, stupid and sexy camel gunners. XD

[@AcidDaBomb]

I'm like the moors, one advantage is you expand eastward and your western flank is fairly safe. I'm just on turn 75 and at war with France, but I'm I just knocked Silicy down a few pegs so I'm going be moving troops back east to fight the French.

[@hernanreipp6983]

Me too. Curiosly in my campaign for some reason Portugal was destroyed after 7 turns, but never trust the pope. I killed at least three of them and they keep coming.

[@thersydahmad]

I keep coming back to the moors. Great starting position n strong units throughout the campaign. Best early strategy for me is; 1. Jihad Tunis turn 1. Army from marrakesh gets a merc galley n make way to leon. Army in cordoba hide in toledo forest. Buy cav in algiers. 2. Army in algiers join jihad. Use merc galley n park at cagliari. Sicily will be making way to algiers. 3. Attack leon, toledo n palermo at the same time. Make the enemy sally forth for easier win. 4. Toledo army to lisbon, leon army to pamplona, palermo to naples. 5. Naples army take tunis and finish jihad. So in 1 jihad cycle u immediately take out 3 factions. Then either expand to france+england or italy.

[@edddoubled3534]

Do you intend to do a guide for the papal States since you can technically play as them with a small script change?

[@lugotorix6173]

I've never played as them so i think its unlikely until i learn more about them

[@edddoubled3534]

Fair enough, thank you for the reply!

[@jaystrickland4151]

Late game you got to make a rank army. Rank one Christian guard with spears on the flanks. 2nd Rank camel gunners and third rank bows Xbows and general.

[@krk5770]

You always forget to get into account 2 hp in a unit if it has. That is a big overlook

[@421less1]

Best playthrough i ever had was with the moors. Took all of spain and pushed north. Got a crusade called on me first french castle i took. I lost the castle after like 9 battles of holding it, trying to funnel fresh troops in after breaking sieges. I remember one of the last ones i didnt have a single full health unit going in and i won with a general and some spearman left. Eventually my like 15 star general that was holding it died of old age so i just accepted it was costing more than it was worth and pulled the garrisons out. Venice ended up grabbing it which resulted in the european factions going to war over it. HRE, Milan, france and venice just throwing their troops at eachother every few years. Took a few turns, built my economy, made sure my African neighbour's liked me and set out north with three armies instead of one and was able to ambush the crusaders and reinforce the garrisons until they quit and grabbed most of France and wiped out milan. Then just slowly took over europe by defending jihads then counter attacking. Waa one of the most challenging but fun and fulfilling campaigns ever. Re conquering the land taken by the best general ive ever had was so engaging

[@leonrobinson2053]

I like playing as the moors because you can recruit archer cavalry from Africa and weaken any European infantry because Cavalry are op. I also make an alliance with Portugal, they are weak but it stops Spain going to war with you, it invites France to take you on. In my current play through I've captured all the coast of southern and eastern spain and southern france, the trade income is crazy. I've made peace with Milan and have left horse archers hiding ready to ambush. Next step is to take Toledo

[@ajaxtelamonian5134]

I'm really enjoying my Moorish Campaign the Dismounted christian guard are awesome for flanking and chew up the Italian spear militia.

[@hernanreipp3321]

They are literally the most effective melee infantry/cavalry the moors have. Also from the 3 sword infantry they are the most tanks one.

[@jeromydoerksen2603]

Thanks for the video. On my way to Timbuktu now

[@lugotorix6173]

Good luck!

[@PrimeroVorian1]

Thank you!

[@yusefmordred1621]

Do Moorish generals get negative traits from taverns/taverns?

[@sampatchen9861]

Great video man keep it up

[@lugotorix6173]

what isupmydude Thanks man!

[@sampatchen9861]

@@lugotorix6173 no problem man

[@legohero451]

You spelled it wrong! It’s the Moops!

[@Danymok]

? Ok...

[@KrzysztofT00]

@@Danymok someone doesn't get the reference lmao

[@joegattog6695]

You still making videos? Haven’t seen an upload in forever and miss my favorite tw KZbinr

[@handyman8051]

Honestly, that crossbowman is way too good. Cheap militia crossbow that has long range with 12 ma .That ia absurd

[@petarzecevic4844]

Hey, nice video. Can you do Denmark next?

[@lugotorix6173]

Thanks! I've promised to do Spain next, and then the Holy Roman Empire. But after those two i'll do Denmark!

[@petarzecevic4844]

Thanks man!

[@krk5770]

I think, you sometimes forget to look for abilities of a unit and mention it

[@EricTheActor805]

Please do this for Napoleon

[@lugotorix6173]

Ive never played Napoleon but if I do I'll make guides too :)

[@EricTheActor805]

@@lugotorix6173 Please do

[@abdelrhmanemira2480]

Nice work

[@justsammy2023]

Drat, no arquebusiers ;)

[@lugotorix6173]

Yeah, sadly you're right

[@SMAXZO]

Well, technically them Sudanese Gunners are arquebusiers. But lemme guess...they're mercs?

[@olefredrikskjegstad5972]

@@SMAXZO Nope. They're regularly available troops

[@VehicleDigest]

Subs going up with a flash

[@lugotorix6173]

CAF Cheers bro

[@Imwalkinghere24]

hello lugotorix

[@lugotorix6173]

J.S. games Hi man

[@EigenMaster]

This guy really hates the hashashims hahaha

[@mojungle3054]

We