Middle Ages Scenario

[Gibsie]

Interesting thoughts on the scenario!

I'm currently playing as the Germans, I've taken most of the area that is modern-day Germany, and I've no complaints with the scenario so far... those Berserk units are nasty considering they're available to my neighbours right from the start and swordsmen take some time to get as Germany (Well, if you don't notice the Iron deposit as I failed to notice). It's good/ bad to read that I'll have to actually conquer Jerusalem for the VP's, but at least I haven't just sent one unit with my relic to get it... still, I don't see how I'm gonna conquer the place with just one jundred turns to go... we shall see.

[Fried-Psitalon]

You can either use diplomacy (RoP and march down) or the naval option (galleys down the coast.) Either one works pretty well, except that you may have to get into it with the countries you pass through on occasion.

I prefer the naval route myself - less complications - but obviously requiring a bit more resources.

[Admiral PJ]

I started this scenario as the French, my first conquest attempt. I've only researched Horseback riding (germans beat me toit by 4 turns!). I started to make war on the Germans and have built a good road system and made a city towards Consantinople where Milan would be in italy.

I wonder what the possibilities for making alliances would be here.. I may ally with england now i know they have an army, though i think the AI may have trouble moving the army across.

I've been using my kings (2of them) to explore the map, this might be dangerous, but the AI dosen't appear very aggresive early on.


I don't think differing Flavor techs from your own take longer to research. These only affect AI tactics for what to research.
This scenario makes them of some importance as civs start with 1 tech along their start chain.. except for the christian civs i believe.

I looked at the scenario under the civeditor.
England appears to be the only one with an army, Byzantines appear a good civ too.. they have a large capital (constaninpole) and start with some tech advantage.
The vikings have great millitary, good navies.
Interestingly, wonders also are affected by flavors, as well as any other building type.
Only the vikings for instance are likely to build the Norse Sage wonder (+2 seamove, increased leader appearance).

someone should make a hiscore table for everyone who completes this scenario Conquest. Only the first time they compelte it perhaps.

[Dis]

I suggest going for the Italian cities. You can build the galleys there and sail them around the coast. You won't even need a right of passage. You should be able to dodge any zones the byzantines have on the greek isles.

Jeruselim is heavily defended. You'll need at least 4 boat loads of troops to get it. 3 may be able to do it, but that might not be enough if they get reinforcements there in time.

[CrONoS]

This is an easy game for France.

I succeed to destroy German and Burghundy and create 2 Army of 4 Knight + 2 captured relics.

To bring my relics into Jerusalem, I decided to make ROP with all the nation between me and Jerusalem. By giving resource, technology and MAP I suceed to make ROP with everyone between Jerusalem and me. I succeed to bring my crusade near Jerusalem, so I declare war to Abyssid. And succeed(even if I cancelled my ROP agreement) to make many Millitary alliance against abassyd.

Jerusalem was heavily defended and it take me two turn to capture Jerusalem. By bringing my 3 relics into Jerusalem, I succeed to got my 30 000 points required to win the Scenario.

I know! This is a little "exploit" since never a "smart" human player will give me an ROP agreement in his territory, like Abassyd do with me.

See ya!

[Gibsie]

I finidhed the scenario today, 12 hours total, and a lot of fun!

I conquered Burgundy, destroying their entire civilisation when I took Pisa (I think). From there myself, France, England and Norway (!) scrambled to colonise the ruins of Italy, but I got enough coastal cities to make good. Then I loaded up galleys and went on a pilgrimmage across the sea... when I got to Jerusalem I found it was under siege from several different countries so my troops just waited until everyone had killed themselves off. Eventually, right after making peace with the owners of the city, the Byzantines conquered it, but left only three units in the city, so my knights army walked right in, took the VP, and I won, yay!

A really good game, I can see myself replaying it as other nations...

[JamesJKirk]

I played this one as Kievan Rus. It was interesting because you start out with few cities, and no neighbors readily visible. I sent all my Berzerks to Poland, and took it over, but then realized I needed to consolidate my borders, as settlers were flooding east. Even at the end I had Danish and Burgundian cities in the middle of my territory, and east of my territory, they as well as France and Sweden managed to settle. And Bulgaria I think had more cities over there than near their starting location.

I also found the German relic just sitting there, near Magyar territory about due north or so from Constantinople. I used this opportunity to beat down the Germans a little bit, and to get more sea access on the North Sea, so I could send Berzerks around to Jerusalem, since money was still too tight for embassies for ROPs.
For the whole beginning part tech was slow-coming and money was very tight. Somehow I managed to usually be ahead until about the third age, when Burgundy, France and Byzantium caught up.
I generally stopped expanding, seeking only to fill in culture holes to stop all those western settlers. But before long the Byzantines sneak attacked me. It was right after the war with Germany so I took awhile to reinforce. It was a precarious situation because I only really had a couple cities that were south of Kiev, of which they took one. So all my best cities were threatened. Still, I managed to rush and move enough units to take out their horsemen before they could take the cities, and then to retake the one city they took.
By then I had set out on the Byzantine path to get the Cataphracts, and decided to prepare a land and sea invasion to take Jerusalem. I got ROPs with all the necessary people and managed to take Jerusalem pretty easily. It just took awhile to get there. My forces were attacked by Assassins quite a bit. I kept my Berzerk holding the relic safely in a longship until I made peace with the Sassanids, which I did after taking Alexandria and Gaza as well.
While this was all happening, I was thinking of what to do with my huge army and I soon decided to fight the Franks after my war in the Holy Land. For some reason I didn't like the French, and they didn't like me. In fact, they snuck attack me before I was even ready to fight them. I took all their cities near my borders. Though I did temporarily lose a German city to them. Soon the immediate threat to my territory was gone, and the plagues began. I still needed more forces to take much of the main French territory, and it was hard to do with the plagues.
While this was all happening, I got a few Longships full of Berzerks, Cataphracts and captured Sassanid Catapults and launched a diversionary invasion in the south of France. For a while there I thought I'd even be able to hold the 2 cities I took and move up to pincer attack Paris, but the French Inquisators and Longbowmen had different ideas, and I lost those cities. But it did help divert French forces, because at this time I attacked in the north through Burgundy and Germany, who I had ROPs with. After some intense fighting I took a few more cities and then won a VP victory the turn after I took Paris.

You're right that they AI doesn't know how to use the relics, which is a shame. Also Russia is supposed to be in the Byzantine flavor, according to the civlopedia, but that wasn't the case. It's best to either use that wonder that gives 2 techs to get into another flavor, or research them early on when all techs cost a lot anyway, and the 40 turn wait isn't as prohibitive.

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

There's a 3rd way for Germany and Burgundy to reach Jerusalem: Kill everyone on the way


This means, you have to take only 3 Hungarian cities (they have only 2 Kings), then 2 Bulgarian cities; make peace, sign a RoP with Byzantium, and march enough units to Athens and Ankyra to immediatedly wipe them out once you've taken Constantinople...of course, this is as much a RoP rape as it could be, but historically quite acccurate. Then you simply have to capture a few Abbasid cities to reach Jerusalem (since you don't have to expect to get a RoP from them ).

This stratgy is especially useful since Byzantium and Abbasids are the 2 strongest AI Civ; I was forced to do that in my first game, since Theodora would have won instead within a few turns (she eliminated the Turks before).

Another thing: To compete in science, you simply have to get Arab learning as one of the first techs.
Like Fried, I think the best way to do so is building the HRE; of course, this requires to start a Palace prebuild in Orleans/ Chartres/ Cologne/ Würzburg within the very 1st turns.

[Brundlefly]

Hmm, this thread seems to be popular in recent days... I guess everyone was playing the scenarios beginning with ancient ones going forward. So everyone is just starting to get round to Middle Ages about now, then.

[Gibsie]

Well it was just chance for me and it was only released a coupla Fridays ago over here too

[Master Marcus]

Originally posted by bfg9000
Hmm, this thread seems to be popular in recent days... I guess everyone was playing the scenarios beginning with ancient ones going forward. So everyone is just starting to get round to Middle Ages about now, then.

Exactly my plan, though I did play Mesoamerica and finished it just before Middle Ages - can't help it. Now I've just started Age of Discovery. I liked Middle Ages, very challenging for my gameplay style playing as the Germans, so next time - I intend to offer me the luxury to play an easier way for early expansion and berserking at large - with Kievan Rus perhaps.

[asleepathewheel]

Here is some weirdness in this scenario. Angers just flipped to me and inside is the shroud of turin, but it still shows up as french. Also the french established an embassy simultaneously. (a coincidence?) I hope that it doesn't crash anything...

[Dis]

edit: I missaw that. The game may crash after all

The only way they can get that back is conquer the city and have their unit pick it up. That treasure isn't going anywhere.

[asleepathewheel]

Diss-

right, and the only way I can garrison the city is by either expelling the unit or declaring war. I expelled it. Not before building a disappearing spearman. my warriors walked to the gates and sat down.

I guess it has to be this way, the relics remain after the civ has been destroyed I guess, but ....could be better in culture flip situations, change the nationality or something.

[CerberusIV]

I decided to try this one as the Swedish Vikings as I wanted to play with Berserks and Longships. I had tried a couple of starts as other civs but not played more than about 20 turns but did have some prior map knowledge because of this.

The Scandinavian Viking civs are definitely to be played as from the dark side. I played on regent and research by all the civs was painfully slow. My economy was non-existent. I realised very early on that I would not be able to support much military beyond a couple of spears per town as military police and also a lot of workers. The solution - slave labour. I started by attacking the english with every berserk I had. Took and razed Cirencester and seized the Holy Grail. Razed a few more english towns for slaves then they landed a swordsman in Sweden. Made peace, shipped the slaves back to start building roads and eliminated the 2 celtic kings. At this point I realised I could get a VP win with one relic if I trashed enough other civs. Also, taking out the Danes, Norwegians and English would mean I was largely immune to attack as no-one else had anything more than curraghs. Eliminating the Danish kings was fairly straightforward. By this stage I had a 3x berserk army and was able to march up to Repton and eliminate the last English king unit. The Norwegians fell to amphibious attacks and that was 4 civs down. By this point only the Abbasids were even in sight of my VP total.

I settled all of Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland. The developer diary refers to the union of Kalmar and that's what I ended up with.

Research was hopeless. I ended up researching the Viking techs of Seamanship and Smithing at 40 turns at 10% and picked up Horseback Riding over about 20 turns after I had contact with 7 or 8 civs that already had it. Otherwise I managed to extort Castle Building, Code of Laws, Map Making and Early Siegecraft for peace. At this stage I moved several longships loaded with Berserks into the Mediteranean, razing several Castilian and Cordovan coastal towns and extorting techs for peace. I established settlements on Majorca, Malta and Kos as depots and started in on the locals, shipping slave workers back to Scandinavia. This was so successful I was able to add my few native workers to towns and finished the game with a dozen or so slaves sitting waiting to be shipped back home.

I attacked the Fatimids. They woldn't give anything for peace so got eliminated. Then I razed the Burgundian cities in Italy. The Shroud of Turin was long gone and I never did find any of the other relics apart from the Grail. My settlement on Kos flipped to the Byzantines which led to war with them. No techs but a fairly good world map in exchange for peace this time.

Eventually I was ready to take on the Abbasids with 3 3x Berserk armies and 10 more Berserks, mostly elites. I razed Jerusalem and returned the Grail, taking me to just over 29000 VP's for the loss of 8 Berserks (attacking fortified spearmen in Jerusalem - fortunate that I had armies as the combat bonus made quite a difference). Razing a few more coastal Abbasid cities was enough for the 30,000 VP's needed to win.

I also managed to build the Domesday Book. The AI's didn't try and I assume they just didn't build enough town halls to be able to do so. The Germans built the HRE and were the only civ to really get anywhere on tech.

I won on turn 129 out of 204 with 30,315 VP. It was getting quite slow by that point between turns so I was glad to finish. It took just over 8 hours.

There is a bug about the edge of the map. I got a barbarian settlement on a tile on the northern edge that I could not move a unit to attack. I had to start another town and rush a temple and expand the boundary to get rid of it. This was particularly annoying as the camp spawned a barbarian uprising 1 turn before it would have been eliminated!!!!

The Scandinavian Viking civs are definitely to be played from the dark side. You can't afford anything more than 10% research and the only city improvements I knew how to build were barracks, temples, walls and town halls. Apart from that it is all about turning out Longships filled with Berserks and using them. If I had been more aggressive earlier on it would have been possible to get the VP win without any relics.

The frustrating thing about this scenario is the lack of harbours and trade. It totally kills playing the English. The harbour in Hedeby was destroyed as collateral damage when I atacked with a berserk so I was reliant on a Burgundian port for any link with the other civs, and my Danish towns, so that made war with Burgundy and Germany problematic.

All in all very enjoyable and a real change for me as I am usually a research junkie. Welcome to the dark side.