Earth 1000 AD, How To Get A Perfect Start

France turned out to be too easy on mid-diffculty level (i.e. Noble).

I did a restart looking for more aggressive approach.
1st, lauch attacking team to southern spain, sicily, and detour the crusade to cario.
2nd, sail all the mobile military to africa to take over the remaining Saladin cities there.
3rd, extends south of egypt, to capture the barb city, and set up a new city here using the only settler given.
4th, regroup the force and take out Mali!
5th, sail back to europe, and build up additional forces to wait for spanish force went out of the town to conquer the barbs. Attack the two spanish cities and razed them using suicidal catapults.

Once this is done, you simply have too many city with a whole africa to expand peacefully. And the HRE is too weak, (no more knights). I don't see any point keep playing... Maybe I should try some other countries like England?
 
England is alright one
 
Im gonna try england
 
France should be very easy because you start out in a position to grab Jersusalem with its 2 shrines and can take Cairo which has the pyramids for government change to representation. I have been playing as Spain and France is the only AI that has been much of an opponent on Noble level.
 
I decided to revisit this puppy and I was looking for a challenge so I gave India a shot.

It wasn't that hard, actually. Have your worker start connecting that Ivory right away, and take all your starting War Elephants move up toward Saladin (yep, leave your cities empty). You won't be able to take any of his cities right away, but you can surround them and prevent reinforcements from showing up. Once the ivory's connected, start pumping out more elephants. It takes about 2.5 elephants for every 1 Longbowman he has in a city.

I made my way all the way to Jerusalem (through Baghdad) with nothing but elephants. The Byzantines captured Jerusalem right before I got there (about 1600 AD), but that made it easy to take away from them. With the 2 holy cities, you can't spend money fast enough to get rid of it.

At that point, my infrastructure sucked and I was a bit behind on tech. So I declared peace, took my Elephants to rampage around Indochina for a bit, and got to the business of rebuilding.

Oh yeah -- as far as tech goes, I just teched straight to liberalism. It takes quite a while (like 45 turns through Education), but it's worth it. For starters, if you're going all out on Saladin, you don't have time to build improvements and such from other techs anyway. Secondly, I was able to take liberalism and trade it around the European countries to help mitigate my tech lag a a fair bit. Thirdly, free Nationalism or Astronomy, your pick. =)
 
trundle said:
I decided to revisit this puppy and I was looking for a challenge so I gave India a shot.

It wasn't that hard, actually. Have your worker start connecting that Ivory right away, and take all your starting War Elephants move up toward Saladin (yep, leave your cities empty). You won't be able to take any of his cities right away, but you can surround them and prevent reinforcements from showing up. Once the ivory's connected, start pumping out more elephants. It takes about 2.5 elephants for every 1 Longbowman he has in a city.

I made my way all the way to Jerusalem (through Baghdad) with nothing but elephants. The Byzantines captured Jerusalem right before I got there (about 1600 AD), but that made it easy to take away from them. With the 2 holy cities, you can't spend money fast enough to get rid of it.

At that point, my infrastructure sucked and I was a bit behind on tech. So I declared peace, took my Elephants to rampage around Indochina for a bit, and got to the business of rebuilding.

Oh yeah -- as far as tech goes, I just teched straight to liberalism. It takes quite a while (like 45 turns through Education), but it's worth it. For starters, if you're going all out on Saladin, you don't have time to build improvements and such from other techs anyway. Secondly, I was able to take liberalism and trade it around the European countries to help mitigate my tech lag a a fair bit. Thirdly, free Nationalism or Astronomy, your pick. =)
Click to expand...
in my strategy article i said exactly what you said,sorta:crazyeye: see sig
 
mutax2003 said:
Likewise for the Incan empire.
Click to expand...

Well, I just won with the Incans.

In a nutshell:

Settle on starting spot, send second settler up to the NW. Start building a settler immediately. Tech Wheel, then Sailing, then work to Alphabet. You can play around with optimal placement for that second settler, but there really aren't too many options. =P

Once you've got sailing, have the second city start in on a galley. When the galley's done, get another settler going. Take 2 of your starting workers, both your Quechas, and the settlers as soon as you can over the ocean to get on the north side of the Andes. Send your galley up to make contact with Monty if you haven't run into him accidentally and get Ironworking from him so you can clear the jungles. Continue churning out settlers and a bare minimum military (archers, longbowmen eventually) with your starting cities, as well as the occasional worker. Use that one galley to ferry them up over the 2 ocean squares around the mountains. What you're looking to do is basically flood the Amazon basin as rapidly as possible and then cottage spam it.

Your tech progression is going to suck for a long, long time. But don't waste time building city improvements (libraries, etc) except where absolutely necessary for cultural expansion. You're a thousand years behind Europe in tech, and you're not going to catch up through a normal progression. Just keep expanding until you've got every worthwhile piece of land on the continent in your empire (basically everything except the southern tip). When you run into barbarian cities, I wouldn't even recommend military aggression. Just drop a city as close as possible, and then (this is one of those rare times) pop out a library (or a theater, if you have them yet) and wait for it. Go ahead and expand around them while you wait.

If you're lucky, a few (2-3) Europeans will make contact with you around 1500. After Alphabet, I would strongly recommend teching straight to printing press; you may be able to hit it before they do since they tend to ignore it (I got it before only 1 of the 3 I had met in Europe, but about that time Japan and China also showed up and wanted it). This can go a long way to helping you catch up in tech. From there I went to Democracy for much the same purposes (though the Civic options from Democracy are also immensely useful for getting your cottage economy up to snuff). By this point, the continent should be more or less full and you can go back to a more normalized civ development.

Admittedly, I had to load an autosave a few times. I was running my military razor thin, so 1 misstep is all it takes for the barbarians to screw everything up. But I finished the space race in 1998, albeit with the lowest score ever in my HoF. =P It might be possible to win much earlier (50-75 years) by going for diplomatic, but I didn't go for it because I find diplo pretty dicey. If you've got more experience/familiarity with diplomatic and think you can do it, by all means go for it... you've got a lot of things in your favor (no border anxiety, common enemies, etc.).

I don't see anyway to do conquest/domination; it was about 1900 by the time I caught up in tech, and about 1950 before I had any significant edge. I also don't see how a cultural win is possible, since you've got no access to religion for most of the game, and wonders are out of the question until the modern era.

Even this tactic only worked with a fair bit of luck -- in one of my other attempts, Europe didn't show up until much later, which would have made trading to catch up in tech impossible. As it was, China and Japan showed up at just the right moment. I also got lucky with the barbarians -- they only managed to settle one city in South America, the rest were just them suiciding on my archers/longbowman.

Anyway, best of luck to you all. =)
 
I have a couple of questions:

(1) What difficulty level did you play at?

(2) Could you post a couple of your saved games?
 
Oh I see, think I played monarch last time, and England launched the spaceship around 1850 AD.
 
I just love this scenario and I did play (and won) it with various different CIVs (never used Inca or Mali in this scenarios because I'm not masochist) :)

The last match I decided for the english, some notes:
a. you have a military contingent in holy land
b. vikings will try to invade your main island
c. the traits best match a colonist expansion on the sea

The crusades are burning hot, your troops are near Jerusalem, and that's a great price (two shrines) to get.
I ignored it and conquered Cairo instead.
This gave me and easy win (the town is poorly defended), access to marble, and Piramids.
I made peace with Saladin as soon as possible, with open borders to be able to make some good commerce with Asia.
Cairo can be also a good place as beach-head for more expansion in the region.

Everytime I started the game a galley of vikings landed troops to pillage england mainland directly on their 1st turn. :(
The best tactic I found was to bring units to fill the coastline where the vikings may disembark.
This forced them to attack from their boats (with malus), loose the fight and never try to attack anymore.

As soon as possible I started creating colonies oversea.
Taking Ireland from the barbs is a good move... especially if the vikings soften their defences first and you prey on the spoils.
I also built a town near mali (some good gems).
I went all goody-goody with them, exchange techs and maps, and be at peace with them.

Weird enough Mali took all its UU and sent them north... I was puzzling where thei were sent.
Guess what?
Mali attacked Bizantium!!!!
...and all the powerful Mali armi melted like snow in the sun.

Very nice given I was building an army to do the same.
However at this point I didn't see the necessity anymore because a much softer target was ready for me to take: Mali. :)
Ideally I wanted to take Aten and Constatinopois, but it just had to wait.

I never made war against Europen powers until very late in the game.
Colonial expansion was the key.
 
trundle said:
Well, I just won with the Incans.

In a nutshell:

Settle on starting spot, send second settler up to the NW. Start building a settler immediately. Tech Wheel, then Sailing, then work to Alphabet. You can play around with optimal placement for that second settler, but there really aren't too many options. =P

Once you've got sailing, have the second city start in on a galley. When the galley's done, get another settler going. Take 2 of your starting workers, both your Quechas, and the settlers as soon as you can over the ocean to get on the north side of the Andes. Send your galley up to make contact with Monty if you haven't run into him accidentally and get Ironworking from him so you can clear the jungles. Continue churning out settlers and a bare minimum military (archers, longbowmen eventually) with your starting cities, as well as the occasional worker. Use that one galley to ferry them up over the 2 ocean squares around the mountains. What you're looking to do is basically flood the Amazon basin as rapidly as possible and then cottage spam it.

Your tech progression is going to suck for a long, long time. But don't waste time building city improvements (libraries, etc) except where absolutely necessary for cultural expansion. You're a thousand years behind Europe in tech, and you're not going to catch up through a normal progression. Just keep expanding until you've got every worthwhile piece of land on the continent in your empire (basically everything except the southern tip). When you run into barbarian cities, I wouldn't even recommend military aggression. Just drop a city as close as possible, and then (this is one of those rare times) pop out a library (or a theater, if you have them yet) and wait for it. Go ahead and expand around them while you wait.

If you're lucky, a few (2-3) Europeans will make contact with you around 1500. After Alphabet, I would strongly recommend teching straight to printing press; you may be able to hit it before they do since they tend to ignore it (I got it before only 1 of the 3 I had met in Europe, but about that time Japan and China also showed up and wanted it). This can go a long way to helping you catch up in tech. From there I went to Democracy for much the same purposes (though the Civic options from Democracy are also immensely useful for getting your cottage economy up to snuff). By this point, the continent should be more or less full and you can go back to a more normalized civ development.

Admittedly, I had to load an autosave a few times. I was running my military razor thin, so 1 misstep is all it takes for the barbarians to screw everything up. But I finished the space race in 1998, albeit with the lowest score ever in my HoF. =P It might be possible to win much earlier (50-75 years) by going for diplomatic, but I didn't go for it because I find diplo pretty dicey. If you've got more experience/familiarity with diplomatic and think you can do it, by all means go for it... you've got a lot of things in your favor (no border anxiety, common enemies, etc.).

I don't see anyway to do conquest/domination; it was about 1900 by the time I caught up in tech, and about 1950 before I had any significant edge. I also don't see how a cultural win is possible, since you've got no access to religion for most of the game, and wonders are out of the question until the modern era.

Even this tactic only worked with a fair bit of luck -- in one of my other attempts, Europe didn't show up until much later, which would have made trading to catch up in tech impossible. As it was, China and Japan showed up at just the right moment. I also got lucky with the barbarians -- they only managed to settle one city in South America, the rest were just them suiciding on my archers/longbowman.

Anyway, best of luck to you all. =)
Click to expand...
can i crunch this and put this in my article
 
As I have Just semirecently Finished all of the 1000 AD civs I figured I could add some info On 'How I did it'

England+Spain: New World Rush

France+Germany: Conquer the Arabs

General Euro Tips, Oracle+Great Library Provide a Nice lot of interesting ways forward.. a Rush to Grenadiers iis possible add in capturing the lightly defended Pyramids (for Representation)rather than Jerusalem... Tech Trading with Asia is good if you can do it soon enough.
After Getting either the Arab Core or the Americas its pretty much win how you want...from Space Race is easiest though

Russia: Pure Specialist Economy Space Race (Got a GE for the GLibrary) and got something like seven Great Scientists in Novgorod. Tech Trading is Vital for the Early start


East Asians were all the same, dominate China+Mongolia, then Indochina, then India, then Arabia, make nice to Europeans until you reach them and you can win either Space Race or back door Diplomacy [Japan won Domination with All of 'Super Continent' and itself]

The Arabs I found that making peace with the Europeans is suicide. You need to wipe them out going through Russia (which is easy to take early on, the Byzantines take too long) otherwise they easily beat you in the space Race... East Asia can be Handled. But even the Europeans you are not attacking you need to stay at war with to keep them on war footing (an exception is made for England).

The Indians I went for a Culture Win, went after the Arab Core, and Massive tech trading (like Russia, India needs to become the East-West Tech Trader) then with 5 religions of my own to spread (and Chinese Confucianism) I got Baghdad+Capital with Cottage Culture and Cairo with farmed Artists

The Malinese and the Inca I can't properly say since I played most of my games with Permanent Alliance on and that was always a Major boost to them techwise.

However, as the Aztecs, I had Permanent Alliances off, and made the tech catch up through a pure Internet Rush (I had nothing but Riflemen/Artillery for defense for most of it, but got it and the Apollo Program in a few turns of each other and was able to start building almost every single SS Part Simultaneously , (after Rushing the Space Elevator) I was ahead of the Europeans on the Ecology/Genetics part oif the Space Ship.

Going to try the same with a no PA Inca, with the Malinese I think I will try a no PA Crushing of the Arabs (with whipped War Elephants)
 
war65 said:
If anyone wins with india i want to know a strategy for that lol cause its impossible.... lol
Click to expand...

Well I did not win since I ended up ignoring the game, but I did have a very good lead before forgetting about it. Basically what you have to do is make keeping your most western city from being taken by saladin at any cost. Don't be afraid to move war elephants from the southern region to take out the two camels. After making peace with saladin, immediately start to take south east asia and making improvements around the cities. Rebuild your armies and proceed to take out saladin until you reach Baghdad.
 
Yeah... I was wondering whether it's possible to win with the Incans either. They seemed completely screwed in the middle of nowhere.
 
s.c.dude said:
can i crunch this and put this in my article
Click to expand...

Yeah, absolutely, just give me credit. =)

Sorry it took me so long to reply -- been absent from civ for a bit.

I'm still thinking about attempting a Malinese victory, but my stomach churns whenever I seriously contemplate it. I also got Warlords for Christmas, so that's pulled me away from the Vanilla scenarios for a while.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

F
The perfect army
Replies
6
Views
448
Fins
F
Lazy sweeper
I finally managed to play Ara... how can it be everthing so wrong?
Replies
9
Views
352
Bosque
Bosque
K
OCN vs square control
Replies
9
Views
412
templar_x
T
SultanRedSnake
Conquerors Thread (New World, Expansion, Trade Company, et al)
Replies
12
Views
816
Lilna
L
Lazy sweeper
I finally played ARA, and... it's way worst than I thought...
Replies
2
Views
605
Lazy sweeper
Lazy sweeper
Top Bottom