Scramble for Africa strategy?

I tired the scenario for the Achievements.
Praise the Victories(Win the Scramble for Africa playing as the Boers on Deity.)
Ottoman Carpentry(Win the Scramble for Africa playing as the Ottomans on Deity.)

First I tried the Boers. Europeans mass DoWed me, but didn't sent much troops so I defended easily. But overwhelmed by Zulu's swarming Impi. (well, next time I'll get free GG policy and use citadel)

Then I tried the Ottomans. Europeans mass DoWed this time too. Couldn't defend Tunis from Italy's OP ironclad UU, but later I was able to wipe out Italy and conquered other European's Mediterranean cities with my fleet. But my VP is still too low. With only 30 turns left, Ethiopia is leading with 5000 VP and earns 150 VP per turn, while I'm at 2000 VP and earning about 40 VP per turn. (250GPT here)

Scenario description says I get VP from gold, but it seems like I don't get VP from unit kill golds. And GPT didn't gave me much VP. (I tried buying 90GPT from Egypt, it was only 5VP difference per turn.)
Trading partner is problem too - I don't have reliable partner except Egypt, and they get more gold than me from ITR than me! I'll give them more VP than me(I presume) so I can't trade with them.

If you have beaten this scenario, could you give me some advice? Thanks!

On which difficulty are you playing on?

Pythakoreas said:

On which difficulty are you playing on?

Click to expand...

These achievements require Deity difficulty.

EDIT: Updated OP.

Deity lel hanikka ggmoyang iji








...... just kidding.

lol.
조선의 궁궐에 당도한것을 환영하오 낯선이여.

p. s. Please ignore these conversation, thanks!

우리는 무력으로라도 너의 탄압받은 백성들을 자유롭게 하고, 깨우치게 해주리라!

(war declared!)

See above. Ignore this conversation....

I've only tried it once, as Belgians, figuring their command of rivers would be essential. Wrong. The French somehow managed to find all the wonders in the first 20-30 turns and were consequently massively and terminally ahead of everyone else. I quit in disgust and will try it again some other time...it could have something to do with the random map that was generated and pure dumb luck for the AI, but it ticked me off anyway. That and the fact that I was basically stuck in the jungle and running out of rivers to follow...I blame the scenario less than I do my own limited patience that day.

I tried the scenario as Portugal. I first built an Archeologist than a Rifleman in all my African Cities. I used workers to build railroads connecting as many cities as I could. The Capital became my trade Route master. It connected to all the civs that made the it possible for me to get a massive GPT. Thats all I ever built in the capital. Send all the Archeologists to explore and collect artifacts. Have the Riflemen guard their spawning city and kill nearby barbarians. I started settling cities on the eastern Coast. Went all the way to Ethiopian border. Got the long railroad bonus. Settled Madagascar. I then turned West and was able to buy/settle enough territory to connect my Eastern and Western cities by rail. Ended the game vastly higher in score than anyone.

I enjoyed the scenario, but haven't gotten the two achievements for Deity level games you are asking about. I intend to go back and get these after I accomplish the standard game achievements.

Have any of you playing it been able to declare war on city states without breaking the scenario?

I've played this scenario quite a bit as the Europeans on Deity, and from what I gather you need to squish Ethiopia almost every time if you want to win. With the Ottomans, I also managed to beat Italy, and send my massive fleet to cleanse the Mediterranean of Europeans. Took out Lisbon and made peace with France, but by that time Ethiopia was just too far ahead for me to do anything about. I think it is possible to win though if you can get an army to Ethiopia in time. You'll probably need a lot of luck to do that.

As for the Boers, I think it really depends on the map. Sometimes you get a nice defensive mountain range protecting you. The other thing is to stay peaceful with the Zulus. The longer he's distracting the Europeans the longer you have to prepare. I haven't won as them yet either, but my last strategy was to keep one city for military, one city for culture. Hmm maybe next time I'll keep both cities for military.

One last thing I haven't seen mentioned is internal trade routes! If you get those up quickly it's basically a cheap ironworks in each city.

Ikas, you have almost same experience for the Ottomans! Thanks for the tip, next time I'll go for Ethiopia after Italy.

For the Boers, the land between and Zulu was big plains.(unfortunately) Next time I'll try rerolling
But how do I keep peace with Zulu? They hates me from the start.

Zinlana said:

The gold started to build up when I ran out of things to buy and the European civs all offered me their gpt in exchange for peace mid game.

Click to expand...

Maybe getting GPT from peace deal is point? dunno.

P. S. Checked his save, T2 golden age? 3 cities settled in T5?

I've beaten the scenario as the Boer on Deity, though I had to reload quite a few times midgame to save my ass.

IMO the Boer is heavily luck dependent. If the Europeans AND the Zulus declare war on you at the beginning, there's nothing you can do(unless you have some crazy defensive terrain). I survived because although England and Portugal declared war on me, Germany and the Zulus were busy fighting each other for a few dozen turns, before turning on me. But don't be mistaken, even just 2 AIs are a handful.

My capital location, which I had to spend a turn to move my settler to, was surrounded by some hills, but my second city was in a terrible location. However, I managed to defend it by dropping a citadel with my first Great General.

For the first 45 turns or so, I had to keep pumping out units. In my capital, I built Iron Works, Heroic Epic, and Armory, and then started producing Foreign Veterans and Cannons. The second city was producing cannons from turn 2. IMO gatling guns aren't that useful to the Boers; they'll just get destroyed by enemy cannons. Foreign Veterans, on the other hand, can fortify in citadels or forts and take a quite a bit of beating. At the beginning, you have no choice but to neglect culture and produce units if you want to survive. Don't worry though, you'll be able to catch up.

I then built the guilds. Arts in the capital and the other two in the second city(I only built 1 in the capital because I didn't want to sacrifice production). In addition to the guilds, I built the culture buildings and some misc buildings, since the enemy invasion loosened up a bit.

After that, it was smooth sailing. The real challenge lies in the first 50 turns. I tried to capture some enemy cities, but it's just impossible. The AIs will gang up and swarm you with seemingly infinite number of units, so always be on the defensive. I was capturing and backing out of it with a cav, but in the end, I just gave up and burned it down.

Near the end, I was leading by about 2000 in score, so it probably means I could've delayed the culture buildings a bit more.

As for the policies, I went down the left line first(survival!) and then the right one. With the free GP, I chose an artist and turned him into a Great Work.

To summarize and add some notes,
1. Concentrate on buildings units to survive, you can afford to delay the culture buildings.
2. Spend the first 4-5 Great General on Citadels and build forts.
3. Forget about exploring and try to keep every unit alive. You need well promoted units to survive. Well promoted foreign vets to tank, and well promoted cannons to kill the dirty invaders. Even if you explore, they'll just declare war on you anyway, and the extra happiness from natural wonders you find aren't necessary.

Some screenshots. Note that the score is before I popped the artist for Golden Age and 3 writers. The burned city was to the north.




EDIT: 한국분?

EDIT2: I don't know if it's just me, but I can't see the screenshots.

gunnergoz i had the same experience as belgium that river bonus only really gets cool in the end of the game when you want to move your army from freshly conquered south africa all the way up to ethiopia and egypt and the river just happens to run that way. The french almost always nab at least two 300 point wonders though so get used to that. You have to colonize very wide to try and get that railroad bonus (or else france almost always will)

Thanks ImAPaladin.

answer to the EDIT: 네.

During my attempt to take Egypt as Britain for the Rhodes Collosus Achievement, I found Egypt is EXTREMELY OP. A Dervish Cav unit with just 1 unit left in it was getting major victories against promoted fully health riflemen, it was just utterly impossible.

The strategy while playing as Ethiopia (even on Deity) is simply to turtle up culture peacefully.

Playing as the Zulus at the Deity difficulty is very difficult to do (even MadDjinn struggled with it).

God of Kings said:

The strategy while playing as Ethiopia (even on Deity) is simply to turtle up culture peacefully.

Playing as the Zulus at the Deity difficulty is very difficult to do (even MadDjinn struggled with it).

Click to expand...

I struggled with that strategy on Prince difficulty, getting attacked by Egypt and Ottomans simultaneously, barely passing over Portugal's score at turn 90-ish and won.

If it's this hard on Prince, does it work on Deity?

Remember that what's hard for you isn't necessarily hard for others.