'Cross & Crescent': a recipe for frustration?

[Elok]

I suppose this could go in the main Civ2 forum, but it's about a(n old) scenario and that place is deserted. Anyway, I downloaded C&C ages ago because of the tremendous eyecandy and was initially impressed. Then I realized I couldn't beat it, or even come close. I chalked that up to my being a rather poor Civ player. Years later, I'm still a pretty poor player, but I can at least beat the game at Prince and C&C flattens me at that level. I'm starting to wonder, hey, maybe it's because the scenario itself is unwinnable?

I mean, you start in a little box of land with a little wiggle room, but not much. Every single city around you is defended by an immobile superunit that can't feasibly be beaten save by repeated siege weapon assaults. Siege weapons are at the end of a long tech tree, and with the various restrictions imposed by the game the absolute earliest you can get the battering ram is (at Prince level, two below the recommended one) about 120 turns in. 120 damned turns of fortifying your cities and sending peasants around trying to irrigate and mine without getting trampled by enemy cavalry. Going straight for the objectives as the readme suggests doesn't work--the Spanish cities are protected by a gauntlet of protected neutrals, the Holy Land by a sea full of hostile ships (add another forty turns for a decent navy), and both by Palace Guards as well.

Has anyone here ever beaten this scenario, and if so, how? Are there similarly immersive but less agonizing crusade scenarios?

[techumseh]

Beebro?

[Elok]

Yeah, it's one of his.

[techumseh]

I know. He's still around, on OT at least. I was hoping he would join in.

[RobRoy]

Has anyone here ever beaten this scenario, and if so, how? Are there similarly immersive but less agonizing crusade scenarios?

Sure it's beatable. It's been awhile, but Bebro's scenario's are among the classics that keep me coming back to Civ2, every now and again. Your instinct that you need to spend 120 turns to get ready is pretty close to the mark, though, IIRC. I usually played as England, and there was lots to do to get your empire in shape, before you could go crusading. But those turns played very quickly, if I'm remembering right. Yes, attacking your neighbors is generally a poor use of resources. I think there were some (precious) special units that you get to help you crusade. If the readme doesn't give you enough insight, glance at the rules.txt and events.txt files, although doing so can be a bit of a spoiler.

In terms of similarly immersive scenarios, there are lots of great ones out there, but most like Cross and Crescent?: try Bebro's Imperium Romanum, it's his best one, IMHO, and some conquering can begin right away; two Byzantine ones are also sort of similar - Fading Lights (more war) and DaRoaE; Kull's Seeds of Greatness (more empire building); and Harlan's Mongols3.

[Elok]

Yeah, I actually did beat the game as England--I just didn't count it because I abused the 180 shield bug heavily to buy an army of trebuchets for negative gold. By that point in the game I was just utterly pissed off by the constant delays and my own inability to expand, so I said whatever and cheated. The 180 shield bug basically turned my army into grey goo, multiplying at an exponential rate as I kept taking cities, each of which produced a heavy siege weapon and something like 1200 gold every turn...it was cheap, and I'm not proud, but it was sort of fun in a cathartic way. Nothing like sending an army of crusaders to surround a city, hammering away all its palace guards at tremendous loss, then having an Independent super-force magically appear to take it from under your nose. Die, you events-generated purple bastards, die!

However, England did make it easier because the sea and the AI's incompetence at naval invasion acted as a sort of wall of super-units of my own, making it "fair." I only had to worry about the occasional Vikings. The funny thing is, the readme suggested England would be the most difficult power to play, while the Franks' wedged-in position was supposedly compensated for by their having "some objective cities right at their doorstep" or something. After playing the game, the advice was sort of surreal, TBH.

But I might give IR a try, if it's more dynamic.

[JPetroski]

I'd rate Imperium Romanum as one of the better scenarios ever made, at least in terms of the "one more turn!" factor. Give it a shot

[gvari7]

Over at the Civ2 multiplayer forums we are looking for someone to play on our Crusades game. I believe The holy Roman Empire is available, perhaps you could get someone to switch with you if you want another faction.
We started the game fairly recently, or actually we did not, we just have not played so much.

Don't worry about being bound by it, we are not all that worried if people take some time to post their turns.

Also open to starting other games.
An Imperium Romanum MP game could be epic!

http://www.civforum.de/showthread.php?t=66243

Jpetroski, I find your join date to be quite interesting.

[McMonkey]

John anticipated Civ2, registered and waited for it to arrive!

gvari7, I just realized your Ingvar! I should really have a look at members public profiles!!!

[Elok]

I don't actually have MGE, just FW and ToT (also, I'm sure I'd be slaughtered). But thanks for the offer, and sorry for assuming this thread was dead!

[gvari7]

I thought MGE was downloadable on Civfanatics!
Also, most of the players around are not very highly aggressive.
(Depends on scenario type being played I guess, most seem to follow this more or less.)
And also, I have never considered myself good, never even given the normal game a shot on the higher difficulties. Yet I do npot get steamrolled, as I expected i would.

Sure, playing MP games takes a bit of time to get into, but I started last January and I have never enjoyed Civilization 2 as much as now.(Impressive considering 14+ years of playing.)

Also, how is Paul Muticas In Nomine Domini? Seems to me it is a very well madce map, a bit long though.
Also remeber being annoyed with the mulsims building the Tower Of London in Baghdad or somesuch, and the Notre Dame in Cordoba....

[Chris 62]

I don't remember it being unwinable, I did some work on the translations for the second version for it.

Its just a matter of preperation, the game was designed to make it hard to unify Europe beacuse that was virtually impossible in the time period, if you want to conquor you have to look elsewhere.

BTW, Bebro doesn't do Civ 2 anymore, but he still makes stuff for other games.