Post your Middle Ages map

[Jason Fliegel]

I haven't seen one of these threads in a while, so let's start one:

Here's my first attempt at this conquest. I was playing as England on Regent level. I started by conquering the Celts. Then I decided that if I was going to take my relic back to Jerusalem, I would need a Mediteranean port. The French lost the coin toss, so I pulled the old reverse-Norman invasion and sent my troops ashore. I got Burgundy, Germany, Denmark, and Castille to pile on, and it wasn't long before I had conquered my Mediterranean port, a second relic, and -- as an added bonus -- the Holy Roman Empire, which the Franks had built in Orleans. With the Franks safely out of the way, it was time to start preparing for a crusade ... except ... those wily Germans, in their zeal to help carve up France, had brought a relic-carrying spearman over to the west coast of France. The temptation was too great, and I was soon at war with Germany -- this time, with the help of Poland and my trusty allies, the Burgundians. This time, Burgundy did a lot better, territory-wise -- they took most of the German cities -- but I got the relic, which was all I cared about. I spent a few turns building a navy, then set sail for Jerusalem.

After my motley collection of knights, crusaders, and catapults set off in their galleys, I decided to build an embassy with the Abassids to see what I'd be facing. Yikes! Jerusalem was teeming with units. Had I bitten off more than I could chew? Well, too late to worry about that. The crusade was underway! With three relics, I could win the game in a single stroke -- I didn't need to hold Jerusalem, just take it. As I approached the Abassid shore, I got a message from them: would I be interested in trading? They had two technologies I needed -- should I? Why not -- two techs and a world map in exchange for a bunch of gold per turn, followed by a prompt declaration of war. I'm sure it screwed up my reputation, but who needs a reputation when your game is only going to last 1 more turn. I finished my turn by putting my troops ashore, and then the Abassids did their worst by ... moving all but 4 or 5 defenders out of Jerusalem!?! Huh? I guess the AI figured the best way to fight invaders from the other end of the world was to send them over land across Europe to try to hit me at home. Oh well -- I felt bad about exploiting the AI's weakness, but I didn't feel bad enough not to sack Jerusalem and move my 3 relics in, winning the game in a single stroke!

[Ladath]

Oh... great job! But I have a question: what happens if you raze Jerusalem?

[Theoden]

The victory point location will remain IIRC. And the objective is to get the relic to a victory point location so I guess you can still do it.

[dgfred]

I played as Danes and took 3 Relics to Jerusalem with a Beserk army . After I deposited the relics, I razed Jerusalem and left
for home and some . As I moved out I saw
the AI moving a settler to the same spot, I guess to rebuild asap. It
seems any Viking civ can take Englands relic, kill a king and kill an army
within 3-5 turns of the games start . Doc's delirious
Danes SG game shows what a powerhouse they can be . In my
game after England got it, I took France's also, then Burgundy attacked ME
and brought their Relic along for easy capture . Great fun.

[narmox]

heh, knights? pfff try doing the crusades with only swordsmen! in my game as england I destroyed the celts then built like 20-30 curraghs, and sent them with the galleys all filled with swordsmen and my sword army with the relic (I thought only one relic was enough to win, miscalculation here). My economy was in shambles to support such a large army so I stopped science, finally made it to jerusalem, captured it, brought the relic.

and I still hadn't won. doh!

So I retreated from Jerusalem, letting the abbasids taking it back, and I sent my fleet to Italy where I searched for Burgundy's relic - forgot it was in Venice, so I got most of Italy, then went back to Jerusalem to reconquer it - I didn't bother with france as I was losing more and more swordsmen in Italy, so with 26000 points I decided to just harrass the abassids and coast to a victory for the 30-50 remaining turns.

[jack merchant]

Just finished a game as Germans on Demigod, and it was a bloodbath ! Though I did pick up the Burgundian relic, I never even got round to carrying out a a crusade. After the buildup phase grabbing the Holy Roman Empire with a prebuild (where I had to provoke a war with Burgundy to get enough money for the tech) I ended up in voluntary wars with:

Burgundy (2x)
Poland
Magyars
Byzantines (as below)

However, after I rejected tribute demands from the Abbasids and Byzantines, both declared war and kept on buying alliances vs me as I wouldn't pay the extortionate amount of money they wanted for peace. This landed me at various times in 'hot' wars with:

Denmark
Sweden
Norway
France
Russia
Poland
Burgundy
Cordova

and phoney ones vs

England
Celts
Turks

First to HRE mean first to knights thoough, so I was never in any real danger though the numbers of AI troops were occasionally terrifying (Cordova declared while they had about 60 swords and spears travelling through my lands towards the Turks). This is the final minimap (note the advance towards Byzantines - Adrianople had just fallen. The army consists of 62 knights, 8 Armies and 20 pikes with assorted other junk as MPs. I couldn't afford research at all, but did manage to buy my way to tech parity on the last turn; 6 techs were still left to be researched ).

[Amenhotep7]

I more or less rebuil the Roman Empire once. Lemme find it.