Halp with Byzantium

Note: Before there are any possible giggles at me, this is my first Monarch game on any version of RFC, so take pity on me.

I've got a couple of questions:

1. What Should I Defend/Conquer?

I was building up a SoD to crush the Arabs when they spawn: I did not notice the Barb Persians and Slavs, and thus left most of my cities with just one or two Archers.

What is a recommended route to surviving the Arabs, Slavs and Persians without losing too much territory?

2. Stability: Does It Matter?

This may seem like a very stupid question but it is a legitimate one. At times my Stability was hovering around -95 for a few turns and there really didn't seem to be any penalties.

Please, if I'm missing something about typical RFC mechanics please enlighten me.

I'm not sure about Byzantine and their relation with Stability. I remember someone (dunno if it was HHG or Caliom or maybe someone else) saying that after a specific number of cities, you can't collapse, a flaw on the programing of the mod or something like that.

Well, actually you should not let your stability go under 0. The game is meant to be like this. If you have a negative stability, sects of your empire may want independence (and in my experience, they do it a lot).

So stability do count, and try to make it the highest possible, but anything above 0 is stable.

To survive is another matter. IMO you chose the hardest civ in RFCE (maybe with the exception of the Dutch, but I've never played with them). Byzantines have lots of problems, starting with exactly what you pointed out: Slavs, Persian and Arabs.

Slavs are easily handled with the few swordsmen you have in Greece. If you want have one or two Horse Archers there, but I would put them there only after the Arab spawn. The persians are harder. Some spearmen and a few more troops can handle them easily (focus on the starting spearmen and make some at the Anatolian cities - Sinope, Caesarea, Aleppo).

The most important is the Arabs. I always try to gather a lot of Horse Archers at Antioch before the Arab spawn. This is good because it saves you from some Sassanid Persians and from the Arabs when they spawn. It's possible to conquer damascus as soon as it is built, and destroy the Arabs once and for all (remember that units in the enemy's flipping zone will flip to him, even if he was destroyed, so delete units that remain on the flip zone - you can check the flip zone by hovering the mouse while pressing the SHIFT key in the zone).

With this you passed the 1st (Slavs and Sassanids) and 2nd (Arabs) phases of Byzantine struggles. Then you'll have the 3rd phase: Bulgaria. After the arab spawn keep making Horse Archers and send them to Hadrianopolis. Bulgaria starts with a few Konniks, so 5 Horse Archers may do the trick.

After handling Bulgaria you should be free to complete UHV1, but as previous versions taught me (and I didn't want to check if 1.0 is still like this), you should conquer Tripolis and Rhodes. The arabs respawn if Tripolis (or other cities like Rhodes, Alexandria, Tyro, Damascus, and maybe others) are independent or barbarian. So after conquering all the Arab lands, get Tripolis and Rhodes. Then you are free of Arabs once and for all (if you never let your Stability go under 0).

So after all these events you can focus on UHV1 (if you are playing for UHVs) or the Selyuq invasion that will happen around the mid of the XI century (~1060AD). To handle the Selyuq my best strategy was to mass production of Cataphract. You'll get over 30 Selyuqs in Anatolia and Mid East, so have over 30 Cataphract there and you should be fine.

If you followed these instructions, UHV2 will be a piece of cake. Just make some cities in Anatolia and conquer Mus (barb city that spawn just before the Selyuqs). After all of this the next problem is the Mongolian Horde. Not as hard as the Selyuq, you can counter them with the same Cataphract you gathered against the Selyuqs. The trick now is that they appear around 1250AD and they disappear after 1300AD, but they reappear after the Ottoman Spawn (1359AD), so you can't leave your eastern Anatolian front without troops when the Ottomans try to spawn.

The next big issue is the Ottomans and the later Mongols. A huge stack of Cataphracts in Constantinople can handle the Ottomans without a single lost city as they spawn and make Brusa.

I hope this helps, if you have any more questions please ask. Actually you're playing with my favorite civ in RFCE, so you can count on me for tips and hints.

My strategy as the Byzantines is slightly different.

- Start by building either manors/courthouses for stability or spearmen for army. Make sure you get some workers too. No other buildings or wonders (except hippodrome for Constantinople).
- First army should be a stack of spearmen and a few swordsmen waiting next to arab spawn. They are safe from the plague there. When they appear, kill all but the last unit and settler. If you kill all units they get an additional stack of horse archers as the two cities flip.
- Usually I dont retake the flipped cities. Low Byzantine stability will make Arabs respawn later. Better to let them live crippled.
- Second army should also be a stack of spearmen waiting next to the Bulgar spawn. Units should be produced in Constantinople and Greece to get there in time. Wipe them out before they settle to avoid capture stability penalty. You can settle there later if you wish.
- Now get Aristocracy for Guisarmiers and Siege Weapons for castles. There is a slight time limit here as the techs are only affordable close to the seljuk spawn at 1060. Try to chop wood to complete the castles in time for the Seljuk rush. If you have castles and Guisarmiers they will just die.
- Now go for Chivalry. Mass knights to take care of the Mongols spawn and to wipe out the Ottoman starting stacks. Retake any lost cities. You should however been able to keep them all.
- UHV3, boring!

Other points of interest:
- Distribute your starting units as follows, Greek swordsmen in woods west of Athinai, another one in forested hill NW of Tessaloniki, from Constantinople send one archer to Sinope, the rest to form the arrival committe for the Arabs. Try to build up Caesarea with a worker and also Greece.
- Do not found any new cities, your research penalty for having more than 10 cities is already painful.
- If you like you can wipe the Venetian and Hungarian starting stacks as well. Even the German if you are really skillful. But then you have to start at war which isnt likely, so no more of that!
- No revolutions to change civics, stability penalty is too great. At first Golden Age, change them all.
- Changing to Catholic and found Knighs Templars at start isnt viable anymore since it is not enough with Classical Knowledge for the corp.
- I dont use the Cataphracts so much. They are too expensive in the beginning and the techs arrive too late to get an army to face the Seljuks. They are outdated by knights by the time Mongols/Ottomans arrive.

If you follow this strategy the only potential pitfall is random barb raze during the first 200 years.

My Byzantine Strategy works mostly like the others mentioned, although i prefer a bigger empire.

Concerning Military:
- Start by milking the Arab flip zone for workers, don't bother improving it. Doing that usually cripples them quite well. Attacking Arabia on their spawn should finish it.
- Get a wall in Hadrianople or fill it with defenders against Bulgaria. If you beat the first wave you can easily vassalize them. If you want. It is sometimes easier to just kill them.
- Get walls and castles in your eastern cities, so you can take on the Seljuks and Mongols. Guisarmers and Castles take care of the Seljuks, add some cataphracts to minimize pillaging.
- The mongols need knights, higly promoted cataphracts or tagmata. guisarmers don't suffice, even with Pressburg Castle.
- To kill the Ottomans you should refuse the flip and immediatly conquer Bursa.
(- Kill Venice. Just out of spite. And because they will try to use a crusade against you. Or DOW you. I have never played a peaceful game against Venice.)

Empire stuff:
- Get Pressburg Castle. +25% Defense is great. All Orthodox wonders are useful as well, just beware the Round Church as it angers the catholics before the great schism, isolating you earlier.
- Expand into Greece and Anatolia, add two in Egypt to box in the Arabs and conquer Jerusalem if you can afford it stability-wise. Avoiding crusades that way is helpful.
- Don't worry too much about research, you will lag behind sooner or later. Get more cities for extra production and gold, you will need both.
- Change civics in golden ages, so you avoid anarchy. Use Militarism or Imperialism for Stability and try to get Limited monarchy ASAP. Feudal law is my favorite, as well as State religion and apprenticeship.
- Found the Hanseatic League and the Bank of St. George. Hanseatic helps growth tremendously, as the Byzantines have huge penalties. The Bank gives you so much Espionage that you can steal everything you need once you fall behind in tech.

Fun stuff:
- You can theoretically retake Rome. Collapse the Pope by using an army of spies to pillage him, sabotage his city, change his religion, etc. Once he does, conquer the city right away.
As an aside: Has anyone ever successfully done that?

Thanks, this helps tremendously

Yes, Venice has scripted DoWs on Byzantium, some time right after 1200. They will declare on you on Friendly, while being Orthodox. So it's better just to kill them asap.

Other than that I more or less do what ezzlar does.

Oh, and let the Arabs live till the Seljuk spawn. Then kill them right after they're softened by the Seljuks and right before the First Crusade. If you take Jerusalem after the First Crusade is declared but before the Crusader units arrive, the Crusader units will be lost forever, weakening the Catholics somewhat.

Another thing is that Arabs don't flip Alexandria. Just hold the isthmus of Suez with 2~3 Archery/Pole Arm units and Alexandria will remain one of your top cities (it's the 2nd best city after Constantinople for me).

A few comments to the last strategies:

- If you try to max your empire, forget about science! The penalty kicks in for every city above 10.
- A Venetian crusade around 1200 is good practice for your knights, not really worth taking the stability penalty for razing/keeping the Venetian cities.
- Round church should not anger Catholics, only orthodox. Since Bulgarians are killed at spawn you only neglect good relations with Kievans but with a nice tech gift and some money you can sign open borders and let the relation decay.
- Never sign a peace agreement with arabs as they will settle the Egypt area. Do as IOnlySignIn does and keep a few units on that Suez canal hill to kill of settlers.
- Jerusalem is a good city but think about science before you decide to retake it. I would improve the iron near Jerusalem at start to crank out a few extra spearmen. Otherwise I leave the area unimproved.

I liked your strategies, nice to see different ones from my own. I have been evolving it since my first play with Byzantium, my aim always the biggest empire in Europe, so now I'll explain exactly what my strategy is (the previous one was just some tips):

Starting:
Building
Best thing to do is: Workers. Constantinople, Thessalonika, Antioch and Alexandria have a worker, so none of them should make one. The rest should make one worker. With this mass worker starting it'll make you the top techer of the game until France gets Chivalry (which in my strategy you should avoid entirely). After the workers are done, improve your tiles: Get the resources, Farm where possible (your best improvement for all the game), Mine the hills and Cottage everything else (Grassland Cottages are the best).
Constantinople, Thessalonika and Alexandria must make a Work Boat. There is fish in all cities, so you must grab them (Alexandria will increase borders before the boat is done). Antioch I normally make a Spearman to help against the Sassanids (if poor Antioch can make it fast enough).
Unit Tactics
There is 1 swordsman in Athens, Thessalonika and Hadrianopolis. They are enough to handle the Slavs. Constantinople has 2 Spearmen and 1 Swordsman, and Nicaea has 1 swordsman. Send Nicae's Swordsman and one spearman from Constantinople to Caesarea, the other Swordsman and Spearman from Constantinople send to Sinope. The swordsman from Antioch should defend Aleppo and the one from Jerusalem can be placed firstly on Antioch (to replace the one from Aleppo, in the case he dies), then after making more troops (as I guess Sassanids can spawn up to near Tarsus and Iconium, even if you didn't lose any city) you can see where it fits better. From now on you're well defended from both threats. Sassanids strike is swift, Slavs take longer to disappear.
Teching and Evolving
Go for Stirrups. No manorialism. Manorialism will be good after you can make lots of Horse Archers, as with lots of Horse Archers no improvements will be destroyed and no workers will be taken, so you'll tech like a god. Then get Manorialism (Cottages!). Then you should tech to get the possibility of changing your civics to the medieval basis: Feudal Monarchy, Feudal Law, Manorialism, State Religion (already from beggining) and Militarism (the only good expansion civic in my warmongering strategy).

Now you should survive and develop greatly. If you aim on getting UHV1, after the Workboat focus on Culture. Hippodrome and the Belfry are great, later you can make Marco Polo's Embassy or the Round Church (or both) and maybe the Shrine of Uppsala. This UHV is easy, as Constantinople is free to only build culture related buildings. I would focus Wonder production in Constantinople first, so you can make a Golden Age soon (the best use of GPs in RFCE). If you lack a culture building at any time, make Horse Archers. They are your best friends (3-movers on the Byzantine Empire is the only thing you need until your UU).

The Arab Revolt:
Building
Your workers are working the tiles to make your country strong, so you have to protect them: Spam Horse Archers all along the places that can make them quickly (20- turns), including Greece. 3-movers reach your Greece-Anatolian extremes in 4 or 5 turns. Sinope should make a Work Boat and the places that can't make Horse Archers in 20- turns, you should build a Manor House (for the needed stability against the Arabs). Constantinople is now focusing on Culture buildings (my strategy always aims at the UHVs, if you don't: Horse Archers!). Alexandria should get both its water resources, so 2 workboats before making troops.
Unit Tactics
This part is easy. All Anatolia should send the HAs near Syria province border (you can use them against Sassanids first, so you can scatter them through this eastern anatolian region). Press SHIFT while hovering the mouse in Syria to see the Arab flip zone. You should have at least 10+ HAs in any of those roaded tiles just above the flip zone, under Aleppo, east of Antioch, so they can reach Damascus site in 1 turn (Actually I put them one tile east of Antioch or in Aleppo itself, depends on the plague, as from there they can't attack you in 1 turn, but you can) . They only need to be there the turn before the Arab spawn, so you must remember this (you can check their spawn date on the Civilopedia). If you lose any Greek swordsman, use some surplus HAs produced in Greece to compensate (you can make a lot more HAs in this time then it's needed). Send your archers from Jerusalem and Tyre to Alexandria, and any HAs built there too for countermeasures if this strategy fails (and to get Tripolis later). You have to leave Tyre and Jerusalem empty so no troops flip.
Teching and Evolving
Keep doing what you were doing: Improvements and tech to liberate the civics you'll need. You should at least change to Militarism ASAP, to get less instability penalty for capturing cities. Manor Houses and Courthouses on your strong developed country will be built quickly and will let you live without being dismembered. Changing civics in the beggining is a great strategy for all civs in RFCE, as you wont lose anything for bad stability when you've just been born. Then focus on getting Cataphracts your awesome UU.

To crush the arabs is easy, wait for the spawn, then keep waiting for the flip. In my experience the Arab spawn never gets Tyre before the flipping, and with your overwhelming forces near Antioch I doubt they'll even move that way. Deny the flip. Damascus will have 1-2 Archers. Attack it, capture it, delete your remaining units in the flip zone. Done! You destroyed the arabs, all their huge stack that appeared near Jerusalem and the other from the spawn disappears, as you got their only city. You need lots of HAs exactly to make the arabs go for Tyre instead of Antioch or Aleppo. The plague obviously struck you before that, but it surely wasn't enough to break you.

For the bulgarians I've never developed a good countermeasure against them because they always seem to be randomized by the game. They have few Konniks in the beggining (5-), so just counter them. No flip from Bulgaria. The best thing I can imagine is let it live, make some cities and in the appropriate time strike and get them. They love to wage war against you, but they are eager to become a vassal too. Do as it pleases you (conquer or vassalize), but not in the spawn, wait for a better and more stable moment (you'll probably be struggling to avoid being with negative stability after the conquest of Damascus and the need to conquer Tripolis - but don't worry too much with this negative stability by now, worry with the arab respawn as they ALWAYS flip damascus in the respawn), and of course now that you have no strong enemies and a huge stack of HAs, focus on developing your cities and more importantly your Stability.

The Selyuq Preparation:
Building
For the Selyuq you'll need strong cities with both a Stable and a Barracks. You must develop them all these years and get these two buildings only after you can make Cataphracts. You should start building Cataphracts in your fast producing cities (Cataphracts in 15-) around 900 AD. If you can gather at least 20 Cataphracts up to 1060 AD and put them all inside your eastern cities you should be fine. Settlers must be built in this mean time to colonize Anatolia and your stable territory in and near Greece. For Greece Thessalonika is the best for this, and in Anatolia is Smyrna (or Constantinople after you're sure you'll win UHV1, or if you're not going for UHVs). Nicaea and Athens can cover this role too if needed (worse then Smyrna and Thessalonika, but complementary). Jerusalem can back-up Constantinople in wonder production.
Unit Tactics
Before the Selyuqs put your units near the Slav border in Greece and the Anatolian eastern front. Hire ALL mercs available, their maintenance cost is a small flea for your huge economical power. Later the slavs will disappear so you can focus on Anatolia. Around 900 AD when you start making Cataphracts send them to your Eastern Anatolian front like this: Major garrisons: Caesarea and Jerusalem, Medium garrisons: Damascus and the pig-iron city that you'll build west of Caesarea, Minor garrisons: Sinope, Aleppo, Antioch, Tarsus and Tyre. Depending on the size of your Cataphract force (SPAM them like hell, on Monarch difficulty you can handle the economy easily with tons of units) you'll choose how many will be on each city, but the major garrisons should have most of the units, and always 4+ (for the selyuqs spawn in stacks of 3-4 units in the same tile). I normally flood Caesarea and Jerusalem, and put 3-4 in the medium sized and 1-2 in the minor ones.
Teching and Evolving
Obviously you'll make a Golden Age ASAP to change civics, and you'll focus on getting Castles and Cataphracts, so tech to them. Castles are for Stability only (you wont need them for defense, only Cataphracts). Change to the medieval basis I said earlier, it's the best for huge Byzantine Empire. Then you're free to see what's better for you.
Diplomacy and Expansion
Now you can finally think about this. Without losing Jerusalem there will be no Crusades (only defensive ones), so no threats against your Orthodox Empire. With the free mass of HAs you'll have after Arabia and Bulgaria, use them to mess Hungary and Venetia. They'll be made pawns for you easily. You can expand to Hungary and Venetia and to the North Africa. You should befriend Kievan Rus' and if possible you may save them from the mongols later on, but that's a long time from now.

So when the selyuqs spawn, don't stop making Cataphracts, whoever knows what may happen? The odds are always around 70-80% of winning with your Combat II Cataphracts, so many will die and should be replaced. After they stop spawning (AD 1100+) you'll have a massive force of Cataphracts to redirect to wherever you wish, and all powers in europe will fear you. Understand that this is in 1100, France struggles against Burgundy, Germany struggles against Poland and Denmark, Spain struggles against Cordoba, England has just been born and Portugal has not even spawned yet. With this strategy you'll hardly lose a SINGLE improvement, so no drawbacks on your empire.

Now that's exactly why I think Guisarmiers are useless against the Selyuq and Castles hardly matter: Cataphracts. Early counter against the selyuqs, your UU, higher chances of retreat (25% instead of 20%), 2 first strikes to increase chances of ending the battle with more health (so healing faster), and the advantage of striking the selyuq, not wait to be attacked (and losing your improvements).

The Mongol Horde:
Building
You have just survived unscathed from the Selyuq horde at 1100 AD. Now you can keep building everything, as you already have enough army for anything. Byzantine is so fertile that I normally prefer to leave the unhealth buildings for only the cities that need them (like the trio Aleppo, Antioch and Tarsus). With more population comes less unit maintenance cost, something a warmonger loves. Build everything you want, and seriously you should build everything (keep in mind the unhealthiness, something that feeds the plague). Focus first on the buildings that give you science/commerce/gold for further development.
Unit Tactics
You have a huge army willing to swallow someone else. As you'll see some cities wont have buildings to make at some times (likely the ones that produce most), so those cities can keep making Cataphracts. New Cataphracts (hopefully with 6XP - 2ups) should be sent to the same cities you've sent them for the Selyuq, excluding Jerusalem and Tyre (no mongols in the Arab flip zone). You can make minor garrisons in the same cities you've done before and Iconium should be treated as a Medium garrison from now on (mongols spawn further in your anatolian territory). You'll probably fill the gaps in Anatolia (and conquer Mus) so use them as Minor Garrisons as well. The veterans from the war against the Selyuq may be used in your conquests westward.
Teching and Evolving
You'll become a monster of teching from now on, so you can expand a lot. Be careful not to overexpand, but probably the Stability will halt your expansion before you start teching slowly. Techs should be focused on what you need most at the moments. Tech partners should be hard, so don't rely on them. You may avoid Chivalry as a monster size Cataphract army can wipe anyone. If possible make any corporation (Hanseatic League is awesome to develop your Island cities and the Tarsus-Antioch trio - poor Aleppo isn't a coastal city).
Diplomacy and Expansion
I love this time in the game. Normally I've avoided Hungary to the best of my abilities and started subjugating Venice. North Africa is mine (except west of Algiers, as Cordoba is normally kept alive by me to prevent Spain from becoming a consolidated strong state). Now I normally look to conquer the whole Italy. Venice is easy with those HAs, now with Cataphracts what's left of it (if there is anything) will succumb, and Genoa will pray to be left alive. Nobody can hold Florentia from you, and then indy Neapolis and Sicily are a piece of cake. I normally get Corse and Sardinia too. If possible I keep going westward: Nobody can stop you!

The mongols appear around 1250 AD, so use the same tactics as before: attack them when they spawn, leave none alive and no improvements will be destroyed and of course 0 cities will be lost. I like to save the Kievan Rus I really don't know why. Sometimes I keep playing after winning the UHVs, and then Kievan Rus is really good to make Muscovy small. If you intend on playing to the end without winning by UHV this is a great strategy: you have more then enough man power to do it. For UHV winning you can forget about the Kievan Rus. To complete UHV2 you just have to fill the gaps in Anatolia (conquer Mus and make a city in the provinces you have none). So after 1300 AD you have to prepare yourself for the Ottomans.

There is no need to explain detailed info for this achievement: You're already the master of Europe. Just keep using the same tactics as before: Make buildings where you can, make cataphracts where there is nothing to build (later you'll make Knights, as it's impossible to avoid Chivalry forever) and you should only mind where to put your troops

You should keep ~15 Knights/Cataphracts in Eastern Anatolia for the later mongols (from Ottoman Spawn on) and I would put all the rest of the veterans from the mongols in Constantinople. I normally have like 30 Knights/Cataphracts there when they spawn, but that's just to counter a possible failure in my swift conquest. Wait for the spawn, then wait for the flip. Deny it and strike Brusa. Take it and delete the surviving troops in Ottoman Flip Zone. You should have some 3 movers around the flip zone to take the ottomans 3-movers as they can take an empty city before the flip (or keep a small amount of defenders and after the denied flip delete them - instead, if possible, you should remove them from the flip zone in the same turn). With the Ottomans destroyed and your empire growing like a monster, it's easy to win UHV3: keep the sliders at 0% to get a huge amount of gold per turn (not hard to get 1000gold/turn) The Pope has something around 5000-6000 gold, so it's really easy.

That's my strategy with the Byzantines. I think next time I play with them I'll try to spam cities in my Solid and OK regions to get more stability and use those unhealth buildings to compensate the production. I hope it enhances even more my game.

Just to picture it, that's my RFCE 1.0 first Byzantine Empire attempt in 1452AD just after winning by UHVs:


You can see I'm Unstable in this (something I try to avoid always), but as it was the last turn, I wanted to capture 2 more cities in Andalusia. I have another Byzantine victory after this one, but it's not official, as I changed the game mechanics to allow a war against the Pope (simulating a capturable Rome as was discussed for RFCE 2.0). Actually it wasn't so different from a normal game (No crusades as Jerusalem was always mine, 20 gold per turn in Rome wasn't a bonus at all, and the Pope does nothing anyway).

You can see it here (Domination victory before UHV3):

Can't thank you enough for the detailed guide, it's certainly helping

For UHV3, I actually like to steal the Pope's treasury.
Nothing better to do with all the anyway.

Spirictum: I tried your strategy. I wait for the arab flip. Deny the flip. Attack and conquer Damascus. Arabs wiped. But next turn the units in Damascus start to join the war of liberation, Arabs respawns, and my stability drops from +7 to -14. Did I miss something? After a few turns all units are lost to the Arabs (without a city).

@ezzlar: You forgot to delete them. Any units you have in the flip zone have to be deleted (or leave the zone if possible) before passing the turn. That's the trick.

Flipping is a strange thing, what I could understand of it is that not always your units will flip, but the chances of flipping at least a single unit is great. When the civ which will gain the flipped unit is already dead, it seems the flip always happen. Just delete units, no shame in that.

@krieger: Yeah, I used to love this strategy as well, but when you can make a thousand gold per turn so many turns before the end of UHV3, it's almost useless to waste your time thinking on a espionage mission on the Pope. If it was harder to get the money, to steal the pope would be the easiest way of accomplishing it. UHV3 could be rewritten as: Have more gold then The Pope
There is no way anyone will have more gold then the Pope, not in a single game I've seen that.

Guys, it would be nice to have some similar strategy threads for a couple other civs too
Not only great for new players and for learning new strategies
It also helps further development of the civs/UHVs and RFCE in general

I would love to do lots os Strategy Guides, that's one thing I can do (I would love to mod too, but I have no knowledge on this subject).

But where to put them? In the forum it may become hard to search and develop them.

There was a Rhye's wiki, but I think it's not available anymore, do you have any ideas?

I may be able to make for the Arabs, French, Kievan Rus, Norse and Hungary (Portugal was pure luck, Cordoba and Spain were destroying each other nicely, so I invaded both and took Iberia for myself, and Venetia I need to play again as I don't remember many things I did).

If we could have somewhere to put Strategy Guides it would be awesome. Multiple different Strategy Guides for each civ would be really nice too. As for now my games always aim to complete the UHVs, so there's where I'm useful now. We may have different ones (I loved iOnlySignIn Corporate Russia guide for RFC DoC). I was thinking of starting a game with the Norse and try to win getting all the corporations and launching myself as the sole Colonization Power (an early conquest of Great Britain and Ireland is surely on the shedule, maybe having some ships right outside London when it's built, wait for the flip, deny it, attack from the sea to conquer it and leave the flip zone until the flipping expires).

But where to put them? In the forum it may become hard to search and develop them.

Click to expand...

Why? This forum is perfect for that IMO
New thread should be started for a couple of those civs, and eventually the converstion may lead to actual strategy guides for them

When we have enough strategy guides, I would be happy to include it somewhere in the mod

To start here seems good indeed.
I was thinking that we could try to make something similar to Gamefaqs: a place to put different strategy guides together. If I have my Strategy Guide of the Byzantines and Ezzlar has another, we would both submit our Strategy Guides to the UHV Strategy Guides. And if iOnlySignIn makes another different and interesting game completely different from the mainstream, we would add at another section of the Strategy Guides (these are only examples).

So if we should start here in the Forum, I'll try to submit another ASAP. I'm just finishing my first game with Austria, after it I'll try to make another detailed Strategy Guide as I've done here with Byzantium (I think I'll do with the Arabs).

But I have one question: Should we stick to the version that's out there, or should we do it based on the SVN version? If there is no difference in the gameplay for both, I'll remain with the normal version (it's so annoying to lose the HoF again).

You could just make a thread with links to all the strategy guides and ask a moderator to sticky it.

I want to release RFCE 1.1 in a couple weeks, in early october
Then the next version about 2 months later, in december

There was too much pause after the previous released version, AFAIK only the minority of the players uses SVN version..
Anyway, I don't think there should be too much difference between the strategy guides, it's about your overall strategy after all
Play with whatever version you like the most