How to win as Milan: 1. Buy Bologna from the HRE - they have plenty of settlements at the outset and are happy to trade it. 2. Invade and capture Venice as soon as the AI marches its army east to attack rebels 3. Rush into Florence before anyone else takes it from the rebels. 4. Build these cities into a financial powerhouse while laughing at any faction that tries to come against your early game militia. 5. Spam priests and send them into Moorish lands to make the pope love you and take control of the college of cardinals later 6. Trade with the pope to give him a tribute of 100 per turn to keep him sweet. 7. Brutally invade any faction that gets itself excommunicated by attacking you after the pope is your best friend. This is my favourite faction, they have on paper one of the hardest starting positions but if you do the above you end up with a ridiculously strong power base.
@@lorisuprifranz Exactly, that's what i was going to say too. Take advantage of the fact that the pope is right next to you. I just started as milan, took florence first and then bologna and just after my 1st city i took from other Christians the pope excommunicated me... so i said fuck that and gathered a big army early on to fuck him up and take Rome. Now everytime i get excommunicated again i just assassinate the pope and it should be way easier after the first time. And i definitely agree with taking advantage of the militia but i don't really get the passive playstyle. I thought playing this game well/efficiently means always expanding and taking advantage of sacking gold
Do you convert castles to cities as them? I usually designate that first island castle and a couple others then convert them to cities once they're no longer frontier territory. Militia garrisons are just so reliable
@@421less1 I would personally convert both islands to cities, they just take too long to make into decent sized castles. I would also only keep 1 of the 3 HRE castles to the north as a castle, for troop replacement purposes. If I go into Iberia, only Valencia and Pamplona would stay as castles (not necessarily even Pamplona since Toulouse is just over the border. Honestly, once you can churn out militia crossbows there is barely any need for castle troops outside of having some sort of cavalry force available.
I started a very hard Milanese campaign, and I am trying to be the peaceful guy, but Venice, Sicily, Spain, the Byzantine Empire, and France declared war on me for no reason. The Pope is mad at me as well, and it didn't help that I declared war on the Moors. Lol my campaign is in a pickle now. Edit: I've now been excommunicated, and a massive Papal army even laid a siege on me, and I was forced to become a vassal state to France.
Never expand to western mediterranean. Try yo deal with venice early on. The problem is, expanding on west makes other christian AI target you. Conquer venice and slowly abandon the Genoa and Milan cities. It seems to be the only way although you may need to edit descr files to balance the AI behaviour
@@hannibalburgers477 are you kidding me? I ally with the Hungarians or Poles, The Danes, and the Papacy. I then go into take France and Germany for myself with little opposition after taking Venice proper. Once they lose Venice and Ragusa the Venetians are toast. Especially if Zagreb was taken by Hungary first as it's the richest city in that general area. Hungary and Poland never betray you. You can even ally with both. They and Denmark will help destroy the HRE early on.
My favourite faction hands down. Strategically complex, open to a lot of developments (and trouble!), heraldically fascinating... how can you not love Mediolanum? Standard of Milan! :-D
Famiglia Ducale is the best cavalry unit for Milan in some ways. You can get a horse breeders guild by building the population in one of the Italian cities as quickly as possible while also upgrading the barracks and Mayor's Palace buildings. When the cavalry units become available keep recruiting and disbanding one horse unit each turn in that city. Do the same with dismounted feudal knights in one Fortress or Citadel after it becomes available. Between the horse breeder guild upgrade and swordsmith guild upgrade you'll get great experience bonus for Famiglia Ducale. Then advance the armor upgrade building in your Horse Breeder Guild's city all the way to the Armor Factory as Famiglia Ducale can get advanced plate armor. Then send recruited Famiglia Ducale with full armor and experience to your castle with the Swordsmith Guild. You'll end up with probably the strongest heavy cav in the game as it's unlikely the AI will go through a process to produce cav as strong. Hospitaller Knights can be nearly as good with a Horse Breeder Guild bonus and Sworsmith bonus.
22:40 i have to say, i ALWAYS give Ajaccio and Cagliari to the papal states, because they are 2 highly contested CASTLE regions that belong to an auto-excommunication faction, also their fleets will always defend me from sicilian, spanish, portuguese, moorish, french, venetian (sometimes english and egyptian!) fleets because plot twist i am actually the pope when i conquer antioch or alexandria with a chivalrous family member on the 10th turn and start spamming priests and merchants. Liked and subbed, rediscovering this gem of a game after a long time and enjoying podcasts instead of that annoying music haha
great video, but i would suggest taking venice or holy roman empire. taking out a faction early puts you at a hug advantage over everyone else. but i am a very aggressive player.
11:25 Hand Gunners are absolute trash. They are not an upgrade of the arquebusiers. They have short range, slow rate of fire, and require a direct line of sight. Their melee stats do not justify their cost.
@@emperorofthegreatunknown4394 ideally you'd be flanking with them. one shot into the enemy's back, then pull out the swords to reinforce your main spear line
@@godemperorofmankind3.091 This is one of the units that are cool, but absolutely useless a crap because of their poor range. I wonder if Lugotorix even used some of these units, he just judge them only on paper.
Worst thing for me when playing Milan was the pope just constantly kept sending inquisitors through my land, and I kept loosing family members because for some reason none of them spawned with much piety...
yeah, get as many churches and priests as early as possible, not only does this increase your chances of getting a Pope on your side but the public order and piety they give is a Godsend (pun intended), Inquisitors wont bother much after this, in my experience at least
The best way to play milan fraction: gather your troops send them to palermo, capture sizilian while they conquer tunis. Capture napoli afterwards. 2 free very big regions in 10 rounds and no need to worry about sizilian anymore.
Economically and in terms of military influence in the Mediterranean you're correct, but politically there were times when Milan was more important, and Milan maintained its own sovereignty more than Genoa.
Florence too. Florence was considered a major power in Italy at the time. It's a shame they just got made into a tiny little rebel settlement. Even "Florins" are named after Florence.
@@RocketHarry865 I agree. I think if they make a remaster they'll probably just include the original factions, but with the faction limits being removed it would be ripe for modders to add in.
I appreciate Italian Spear Militia, Genoese Crossbowmen Militia, and (Italian) Cavalry Militia, with tier 3 armour. The idea of lanced militia cavalry is the cerry on top. They may not be the best fighters, but their gear is solid and look oh so good. 😎
Italian here, good pronunciation on Famiglia Ducale which translates as Ducal Family. Even though I'm watching years later I really do enjoy your content. Hope you're doing well.
I think Milan is the strongest faction, it is defo my favourite. It is tough start, but you get away with just spamming cities - insane finances and get such broken "militia" army.
in terms of overall rosters, i think France is the best, with Moors having the single most powerful unit besides elephants. Venice seems to be a little bit of a "better Milan" to me. better missiles, more infantry variety, decent light cav etc. though i prefer Milan's colors and start position. its definitely true if you're going city-only that Milan is strongest.
@@godemperorofmankind3.091 Milan is stronger due to the fact they need no castles and can make swaths of money from an empire of cities. The Familiga Ducale and Dismounted Broken Lancers being recruitable from the cities means Milan has absolutely no need of using Castles. So they will be a total economic powerhouse while being all cities. Venice and Sicily cannot muster the same level of strength from the cities.
Milan is one of my most favourite factions as it is the nearest thing to Genoa, in its absence... I usually start the campaign by abandoning Milan and selling it either to HRE or Papacy, thus retaining only Genoa, and from there I entirely focus on overseas expansion... Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, Tunis, Crete, Rhodes, Cyprus and Outremer, later in the game Crimea and Constantinople and the path for trade domination is marked...
im guessing Famiglia Ducale means Dukes Family? aristocrat knights, mentions duke in description, possibly relatives or "adopted" in military unit or something .. seems logical
My advice, make milan your armor hub, build black smiths there, make genoa your soldier recruiting hub, take florence make it into a wooden castle. Take venice, berg, ajjacio, palermo, naples, buy bologna, plan on taking Rome eventually, get ship yard protect west coast of italy with at least 4 2nd level warships, geonise crossbow militias are awesome, 100 upkeep, mix in armor upgrade italian militia with heavy cav in small numbers, unstoppable
It's also worth noting with Venice is you can take Milan out in four turns, but Milan cannot do the same to Venice. So Milanese strats need to bear in mind that Venice has powerful late game troops and shouldn't be left alone after taking Venice.
Yeah, I've forgotten Venice's far flung provinces while consolidating Italy and had a doom stack arrive outside Venice or Genoa more times than I care to admit lol
I convert all castles to cities, and only build level 3 city barracks. The rest of campaign is constructing art gallery, banks, guilds to groom family member. It is more satisfying to have Duke and Count with full stats and dozen retinues instead of knights.
always felt that these guys are too easy im campaign cause the crossbows. once you have got them you become almost unbeatable. Also it says they lack cav but with the templars you dont really need to worry about it. hungary was always a lot of fun
That's really weird. Usually for me it's not a proper campaign without Milan being excommunicated once and never, or rarely, being forgiven by the Pope. I've never seen them attack the Papal States though. That'd be an entertaining series of events to watch unfold.
i think the best Ally would be The Papal States, HRE always tries to get you anyway, which is a good thing since that gives you an excuse to take Bologna from them
Currently at war with Milan. I hate them I hate them I hate them. But during our very frequent clashes. I’ve gained 1 city to their none. Only took being seized 8 times. Backing out of sieges 3 times. 11 battles in the open field and bridge battles. For the most part I’ve won more than I lost but it’s hard to beat them without taking substantial casualties because of those crossbowman
Do you play any third age? If u do you should do this for the DAC mod. Although Galu have some vids like this on the factions of the mod its allways neat with somone else opinions :)
Eh, defence stats for archers etc are actually informing you, how many missiles they can take. And that's important. Most of them are not supposed to fight in mele
in terms of overall rosters, i think France is the best, with Moors having the single most powerful unit besides elephants. Venice seems to be a little bit of a "better Milan" to me. better missiles, more infantry variety, decent light cav etc. though i prefer Milan's colors and start position. its definitely true if you're going city-only that Milan is strongest.
@@godemperorofmankind3.091 I thought Danmark is the best. It's just their start location is awful. Come to think of it, almost every faction is some sort of disappointing side maybe except France and England.
@@hannibalburgers477 Denmark is awesome, diverse and good infantry selection even from early game. We can take Hamburg or focus on Sweden and Norway first to expand the territory. Stockholm is quite a profitable city.
You always mention that you don't want to repeat yourself with the siege equipment yet you repeat yourself with peasant(s) (archers), feudal knights, and the knights Templar and Hospitalars, which are available to every catholic faction except for Spain, Portugal and the holy Roman empire, whome get the knights of Santiago and teutonic knights respectively. Also the banner "siege" unit is available to all Italian factions. Sicily and Venice have their own version. The papel states have a cross that has a similar effect
Does anyone know why Italian unique swordsmen (except Norman Knights) have slightly worse attack than Feudal Knights? Like, why would we want to upgrade high tier barracks just to get something that is worse even at the slightest? 🤔
