How to Win at Middle Ages

[Ennet]

Hmmm when i played as the swedes on monarch the english, french and burgundians had all moved their relics. Had to tear up quite a few cities before i got to them. It's all a matter of RNG i suppose..

[joncnunn]

Ennet, I think a lot has to do with what type of unit the AI choses to use grabbing the relics. I spoted the Burgundy one very early on, but unforunately it was via an exploring King while the AI had it on a Swordsmen. I just trailed this unit until the AI sent it back into their home land.

I'm now playing the Germans on Emperor level, (I technically chose Random, and got them on the second try; I vetoed the Sweeds because I'd just played them.)

The Germans actually start with enough cities to reserach for real instead of 1 beaker for 40 turns. I was into the Crusades era between turns 35 and 40.

[joncnunn]

German Empire in 1116 AD.

[joncnunn]

The wonders. (The Burgurdy beat me to HRE by a few turns, and so the shields went into the BT)

[joncnunn]

I've been stealing techs.

[joncnunn]

And stolen some more; Fedualism just this turn since no one offered in at a resonable price.

[joncnunn]

Some History in that German game.

At one point, the Bryzanties declared war when I called their bluff, but so far they've only ever sent two units my way. This has functioned to give me war happinesses for much of this game.

(Bryzantines think I ought to pay them 10 GPT for a ceasefire to eliminate my war happiness; no thanks. That is actually down from the 25 GPT they would have wanted the first time we talked.)

The Franks though looked like they were about to sneak attack my iron city, and so I demanded they leave so I could have my horsemen from other cities come to the rescue. That worked but a few turns later several medium size stacks of Frank units arrived, mainly swords with a few spears and an archer each. If they'd all been in the same stack, I'd have been a goner, but it was spread out just enough that I was able to kill one stack, have those units rest while the other wave of my horses dealt with stack # 2, by then stack #1 was healed to handle stack #3 (barely), stack #4 was much lighter and once that was dealt with, the Franks surrendered all their gold for peace.

I also took advantage of the Castlians and Cordovains in two seperate occusations sending 3 settler unit pairs thru my territory at the same time. Too much tempation, I napped them all which provided enough slaves to retire my own workers.

[joncnunn]

A few turns after the above screen shots (just enough to upgrade 3 horses to fill the army shell from the Frank war), the first crusade was declared against the Maqyars.

The GA to be kicked off to provide to funds to upgrade more Horses to Knights. In the meanwhile, the Elite Horses would leader farm. During the assult of the first Maqyar town, the 2nd leader was generated, which promptly went into a second army of Knights. The counter attack was quickly beaten off, and then Pest taken after two turns fighting. (AI stacked a lot of spears there.) Fighting around Slovika resulted in the 3rd leader which went into Arab Medicine. Any further Maqyar cities [in and around the Ukraine are the closest] would be far flung, and so the plan now is to sneak attack the Bulgarians in their only city with a king unit [Bryzantines conquered their captial] to open up the route to the remaining Maqyar king, and follow that with a wipeout of the Maqyars. This will then cause the AIs to go settler crazy again; (I've preformed one settler to found a city near that wool) which will make the next crusade easier. (Tenatably against the Poles)

In techs, I'm now well into the Late High Middle Ages. Only the Bryzantines and Turks have techs I'm missing. (Bryzantine's the Heavy Calvary tech and maybe more, the Turks have Theology at monopoly)

My score is now second to the Abus with over 9K.

[Dis]

sorry to bump an old thread. But I recently played this one again. I just like the scenarios (and talking about them).

This time as the Sassinids. Who already start off with Jeruselim. But I quickly found out I can't just do a builder game or I will lose. I needed to conquer to build up VP's. So I conquered the guys who occupied Egypt and N. Africa. They were pretty much a pushover. I conquered N. Africa all the way to the tip near Gibralter. I also spread my muslim faith towards Spain. And conqured the 2 civs there. The germans were annoying me, so I got a ROP and started banging them pretty hard. They were actually kind of tough. I actually made peace, regrouped, and then really did an all out massive assault and overwhelmed them. I hit the VP limit at this time from all the cities I conquered and units I defeated.

I should note that I did a REX at the beginning and built temples and barracks (though later I think I did get the wonder that gives you barracks- I always sell all my barracks when I do this). This is pretty standard for all the scenarios actually. Except for Napolean and WW2 pacific.

[joncnunn]

A few notes:
It's the Abu you played. (Othewise know as Sunni) The Sassinids are in Fall of Rome, not middle ages.

Yes, VP limit is so low, your not going to win being a pure builder.

The Fastimds (other wise known as ****ites) are indeed the easyist civ to wipe out in this conquest.

The Cordovians that start in what's now Southern Spain are fellow Muslims.

Germany, Burgundy, Franks, and the Danes don't have much land adviable to REX into at all in this conquest.

Norway does have open land adviable next to them, but it's much poorer quality than that occuplied by neighboring civs.

[Dis]

yeah with the vikings, I just go straight into conquering. They have such a powerful unit. So sense not using it right off the bat. Just takes a few turns to produce a few of them and ships to carry them.

It seems strange picking up relics when playing as vikings and taking them to jeruselim. my people aren't supposed to be christian, right? Although I suppose in the process of conquering they may have converted.

[joncnunn]

Historically, the Vikings became Christian during this conquest, with the Rus looking to Constanpole and the Danes, Norweigns, and Sweeds looking to Rome.