Conquest of the New World (not Deluxe)

I've just started playing the scenarios (been playing BNW for about a year, and Vanilla for a few months before that) and I'm confused about Conquest of the New World. I'm not sure what you are supposed to do as the native NW civs. Do you still try to find a passage to China? What about treasures? Or do you just fight off the European invaders?

I couldn't find any old threads on this topic; sorry if there already is one here and I missed it.

BTW, the airships in the Smoky Skies scenario are very cool.

You do gets points for getting passage to China as the Native Civs, but unless this is a very low difficulty level, you probably won't be first in the world to visit China, and so you'll get fewer points.

Actually, the easiest way to get points as the natives is to found a city near one of the two natural wonders that produces treasure. (You don't have nearly as far to go). You can also DOW the other tribes and raze their cities to get some as well.

I'm halfway along the scenario, playing as the Inca. It's been peaceful so far; I'm settled in the northern continent, and there are no natural wonders here. It was a little tense when I settled next to the Iroquois, but I promised not to settle any more cities near them and that seems to have satisfied them. Also I built my cities in a line along a ridge of hills and cut-off access to the western 2/3 of the continent unless they go around me. Spain was a little peaved about that, but we are friends now (just waiting for Isabella to backstab me)

The Northwest Passage is closed, and the there's no central passage (so I guess the route is to the south.) Do you get treasures for razing European settlements, or just the natives' cities? What about razing city states? England is kind of weak, so I think we're about to dogpile them and if I'm careful I can capture the city instead of letting France or Spain or Hiawatha grab it.

There's a CS on the west coast; if nobody has made it to China yet when I research Astronomy, I may capture and annex that CS, and buy a caravel and sail west. (I assume it has to be a caravel and not an embarked scout to get the bonus points.)

I'm almost finished building Machu Picchu (sp?), and I assume that's worth a fair number of points. That should pull me ahead, and I better buy a castle in that city as soon as it finishes (I'm almost finished researching Chivalry right now)

I have a couple of scouts not doing anything except sentry duty. I might ought to embark them and send them to the southern continent.

Pretty sure I'm going to lose this one; there's only about 10 or 11 turns left. I was in the lead (built 2 wonders) but then England in one turn doubled the size of its military and backstabbed/DoW'd me, and they discovered China to pull into the lead. My cities are strong and I can hold them off, but they have lots of Tericos and other advanced units against my muskets, cannons, and crossbows. I kill one or two of their units, they kill one of mine, and we both rush-buy replacements. So I can't go attack one of the CS's at this point. to get treasures or to get a western coastal city for a shortcut to China. (or maybe both if I raze the city and then stop at 1 pop)

Nobody has any treasures yet.

I have a caravel out, but it hasn't found the southern passage thru the antarctic yet. I wasted time researching Navigation when I should have been researching Chemistry (American caravels don't seem to suffer from scurvy)

How many points do you get for researching whatever this scenario calls Future Tech? That is still possible if grab it using Oxford.

I'll win this next time. Build tons of slingers while I can (for their retreat-from-melee) so I can upgrade them to crossbows later. Kill the European invaders early. Take out at least one CS. And maybe settle one city on the west coast so I can easily reach China if nobody else does.

I finished the game last night and I actually won (barely) when time ran out. I did find the route to China with my first caravel, plus I settled a new city on the SW coast and bought a caravel, and China was a short trip from there. I would have had the 2nd and 3rd ship to China, but Spain got there one turn ahead of me. Still, I got the Orient Express achievement and 50 points, and that's 150 points that England didn't get.

I razed 3 of Hiawatha's cities and didn't get any treasure from it. Do treasures only come from capitals and/or CS's?

Given more time, Montezuma had a sure win. He had Cerro de Potosi (and maybe El Dorado too, I don't know) all by himself on the southern continent, and all the action was going on in the north. (I was way up in northern "Canada", which I thought was an odd place for the Inca to spawn)

I'm tempted to "just one more turn" and go conquer Europe.