Crossroads Questions And Possible Bug

I was experimenting with the Crossroads of the World scenario the other night. I found it pretty interesting and it did help me understand a bit about Corporations (although they aren't exactly the same as they are in the regular game) and also about how Great Merchants can be useful.

However, what I'm having trouble with is finding the proper balancing between generating money in your own cities and taking over other cities, or otherwise building new cities. I do notice that taking other cities can net you quite a bit of gold, but then there's the issue of what to do on the home front. Markets, Banks and other buildings will also help you generate gold in going for the Commerce victory and I'm still trying to figure out how to balance both, particularly early in the game when you have just two cities to start.

Has anyone found any strategies or balancing acts, so to speak, that worked for them? Is it better to focus on units first so you can rush somebody, then start building your infrastructure?

Also, I tried a game on Chieftan because it seemed as though I was the first to get to Economics, and the tech tree in the scenario indicates you get a free Great Merchant if you are the first to get Econ, but I never did... and even on Chieftan, in which you tech much faster than the AI could ever hope to, I still don't get the free GM. Is that a bug or are you not supposed to get that free GM for being first to Econ in the scenario?

Pretty much I understand the basic corps strategy in Crossroads to require a courthouse and a bank in your corporation capital, and a courthouse in any of your cities that have a corporation. Corps aren't the same as in BTS, and from what I gather, the best strategy is to send your corp execs in the minor civs that you can't easily conquer.

Sacking a major corp's capital center is pretty much the way to stay competitive and win. The payoff is like 10,000 gold. Surprisingly, an amphibious landing accomplishes this easily if your foe is still pre-gunpowder.
The rest of the primary strategy is to beeline the key techs at a minimal treasury loss, and at least 10% in espionage. Once you get like Gunpowder, Economics/Free Market quickly, it's pretty easy to pick up the other techs while lowering the research slider.


Secondary strategy is attacking the minor powers that have the best territory and closest to your major power, usually early in the game, right after getting gunpowder. Though a 5 stack knight rush can usually take down a few walled longbowmen even earlier. Baghdad is a top priority for that, though Cyprus is nice but needs more finesse since it's a bit amphibious.

Tertiary strategy is to spread some corps to all of the minor powers, and build up commerce buildings in your top cities. Corps to the major powers is a waste since they automatically replace each other, and it's too easy for one power to do so. I'm not sure, but I think a spy is needed to erase a corp from a city.

Quarternary strategy is to found and build some good money cities near your capital, though I suspect focusing on building new production cities to churn out units is an even better strategy.

The best civics are to avoid mercantilism and go for free market and maximum open borders early, rely on bureaucracy and organized religion to build up your cities, and your religion as cheap culture. Changing the location of the palace is a good strat for getting maximum use of bureaucracy (only takes about 5 turns to move the palace).

No sure about the GM. Possibly someone on the map starts with Economics

If you're still having a problem with the Great Merchant, create a save game one turn before you research Economics in your next game and post it to the "Bug" forum. That's a very important reward in Crossroads and should be fixed if it's broken.

I've been playing this scenario the last couple of days and after several false starts I was able to win with the Timurids. The AI is pretty nasty as it loves to dogpile you as soon as you get close to winning an economic victory.

A few comments:

I notice that at the start of the scenario the major AI civs seem to making around 200 GPT. I'm assuming it's an AI bonus to keep them in the game. Unfortunately that means they can keep their research sliders up and still make money.

I think if I give this scenario another shot, I would keep my research at 100% and go after the key military techs and play a pure military game. Since you get 10000 gold for every major trade guild HQ you take, you only need to take 3 to win the game. Playing a peaceful game seems way more difficult as you would need to keep the research slider down to make cash and the AI will outtech you and then dogpile you when you are close to winning.

The tech pacing is kind of messed up as it is quite easy to see infantry in the 1600s, kind of messes with the historical feel. Removing the later techs from the tech tree or increasing the research cost for the later techs would help.

The raider units seem pretty useless. They die easily and you don't really get much money for pillaging.

Overall however it's a pretty fun scenario.

I just started this scenario, and I don't know if I'm missing something.. but I am supposed to be able to build new guildmasters, right? In my HQ city there is no option to build them. I haven't played with corporations before so I don't know if I'm doing something wrong or if this is a bug.

Ghandi Khan said:

I just started this scenario, and I don't know if I'm missing something.. but I am supposed to be able to build new guildmasters, right? In my HQ city there is no option to build them. I haven't played with corporations before so I don't know if I'm doing something wrong or if this is a bug.

Click to expand...

You can have only three at a time and I think you start with two guildmasters already. That might be why you can't build any.

Virulent said:

You can have only three at a time and I think you start with two guildmasters already. That might be why you can't build any.

Click to expand...

No that's definitely not it. I already used up the two guildmasters I started the scenario with.

I think maybe it was because I had mercantilism selected. As soon as I switched to free market, I was able to build guildmasters. Mercantilism says something about corporations having no effect, but it doesn't say anything about not being able to build new guildmasters... but I think that must have been it.

yes i can confirm that, i had the same issue over here.


but on top of that, now i cant spread my guild anywhere!

not in my own (free market) neither on enemies (also without mercantilism):
'<cityname> has no access to Silk, Banana, Gems, Clam, Fur'.

but if u check the map, none of these 5 resources exist! i can basicly scrap the whole save, except i want to go mad on major capitals, but thats kinda boring...

if u got the same bug there, its sth with mercantilism, else i got no clue

I don't know about not being able to spread... the first two I used worked fine (though I went back to an autosave when one of my guildmasters was killed by someone I wasn't even at war with, is that right?)... but anyway after I couldn't build any more guildmasters I gave up on winning a financial victory and just started mass-producing janissaries, knights and trebuchets and took over a few enemy capitals to win.