Let me preface by saying that of all the great mods, this one captivates my interest the most. I too played as England and focused on founding Catholocism. (I find that I now always focus on founding a religion at the start of a game)
I also found that what I had been doing wrong in vanilla unmodified games is playing the game on "Normal" speed. If you get into a war, then ka-blam all your enemies race to the next epoch in peacetime and you are left with macemen and a huge amount of land, while your new enemies show up with battleships and tanks.
Play on "Epic" speed. it slows down time a little more realistic. So that is how I played this mod too. It did seem better, but at times I thought I science was sped up and unit creation was slower. I dunno, that part may be my imagination/perception.
Secondly, what I love and hate about Civilization IV is that as my empire grows, I get bogged down. Soon, it seems I must have 30+ units to even launch an offensive. Gone are the days when you could take two catapults and a couple knights and go sack a city. You need a full fledged uber army. You also can't 'stack' em. You need to be really carefully about this. its a double edged sword.
Medieval Combat works a bit like this;
The archer is great against axemen, the axeman is great against swordsman, the swordsman is bad ass against cities and archers. The pikeman kicks the knights ass, the knight kicks everyone elses ass.
You need a little of everything, because your opponent is going to throw them all against you, but what happens at some point is Catapult shows up with collatarel damage. Basically, you can go hit the uberstack of six units with a single catapult or two and completely halt an advance.
Here is what I did;
As England, I had several false starts. Settle most of England and quickly push up into the borders of Scotland. Remove Robert the Bruce is my first plan.
I also founded Catholicism, which will be a HUGE advantage later. Catholocism spreads like rapid fire and as soon as I can build the Church of the Nativity I can get information about other nations, effectively making me Pope.
Anyway, the one downside to this mod, and I am not sure why this is, but even though Robert the Bruce has two cities, he seems to have an erection for producing troops. I can't seem to build at the same rate, but this guy is making ginormous gains in troops, that don't seem related at all to just using slavery.
I show up with six axeman and horse archers, wipe out his horses and iron source, and he has a about 2 spearman and archers. in the time it takes me to wipe them out he has increased to 8. He is limited to archers now.
Great. I am bringing up extra troops, but with my six cities I can't barely match his two cities. Slavery doesn't work so good at completing units. Sometimes you can, some times you can't.
I am assuming that is what the AI does though.
After several false starts, I realize that I need to go back to the moment I started the offensive, except not attack. Just surround his city and wait for a little while. Once I have 16 units to his 12, I attack.
I take his city, but at huge cost to myself.
Once I crack his capital, the other city falls like butter. The AI tends to have an ubercity it houses its huge army in.
If I bring in a swordsman with bonuses, I get wiped out by an archer. it seems the combat is skewed some how. I can't figure it out, but if I had an archer and he had a swordsman he would slaughter me.
I wipe out the bruce except for a tiny island in northern scotland. Doing an invasion from sea does not seem fun. Especialy since he has two "Archers", which means that will cost me at least four swordsman.
I then mop up the barbarians on the island. For some reason they don't seem so tough. The Bruce has 'aggressive' so he gets a slight bonus to units, but I wouldn't think so much.
I grab a small peice of land on the mainland that I rename "Normandy" which I am guessing was close to there. It is owned by the Dutch. I get the dutch to declare peace afterwards. my goal was to use it as a staging area by ferrying across my invasion fleet.
It won't be until 1000 AD that I decide to take out France, my closest rival. This is where life gets interesting.
I bribe France into attacking his neighbors Barbarrosa. Barbarrosa proceeds to counter and sack Paris. This is when I attack!
The first city I was prepared for, it takes me about 8 units, to sack a city of 4 units. I had 4 catapults, 2 welsh longbow, 2 knights.
He had 2 spearman, 2 archers.
I am left with the 2 knights and 1 welsh longbowman, but the french even though they should be worried about Paris counter attack my position.
I become locked into the hundred years war spiral. The problem being attrition. It just doesn't seem 1 for 1. I have to have bigger/badder troops and then maybe its 1 for 1, but it seems with a single archer he can send me packing.
I play on noble setting.
I dont' mind that at some point when you are controlling the large empire you get bogged down with 'next', 'next' queues so much as I do what seems to be unbalanced combat.
I also found that what I had been doing wrong in vanilla unmodified games is playing the game on "Normal" speed. If you get into a war, then ka-blam all your enemies race to the next epoch in peacetime and you are left with macemen and a huge amount of land, while your new enemies show up with battleships and tanks.
Play on "Epic" speed. it slows down time a little more realistic. So that is how I played this mod too. It did seem better, but at times I thought I science was sped up and unit creation was slower. I dunno, that part may be my imagination/perception.
Secondly, what I love and hate about Civilization IV is that as my empire grows, I get bogged down. Soon, it seems I must have 30+ units to even launch an offensive. Gone are the days when you could take two catapults and a couple knights and go sack a city. You need a full fledged uber army. You also can't 'stack' em. You need to be really carefully about this. its a double edged sword.
Medieval Combat works a bit like this;
The archer is great against axemen, the axeman is great against swordsman, the swordsman is bad ass against cities and archers. The pikeman kicks the knights ass, the knight kicks everyone elses ass.
You need a little of everything, because your opponent is going to throw them all against you, but what happens at some point is Catapult shows up with collatarel damage. Basically, you can go hit the uberstack of six units with a single catapult or two and completely halt an advance.
Here is what I did;
As England, I had several false starts. Settle most of England and quickly push up into the borders of Scotland. Remove Robert the Bruce is my first plan.
I also founded Catholicism, which will be a HUGE advantage later. Catholocism spreads like rapid fire and as soon as I can build the Church of the Nativity I can get information about other nations, effectively making me Pope.
Anyway, the one downside to this mod, and I am not sure why this is, but even though Robert the Bruce has two cities, he seems to have an erection for producing troops. I can't seem to build at the same rate, but this guy is making ginormous gains in troops, that don't seem related at all to just using slavery.
I show up with six axeman and horse archers, wipe out his horses and iron source, and he has a about 2 spearman and archers. in the time it takes me to wipe them out he has increased to 8. He is limited to archers now.
Great. I am bringing up extra troops, but with my six cities I can't barely match his two cities. Slavery doesn't work so good at completing units. Sometimes you can, some times you can't.
I am assuming that is what the AI does though.
After several false starts, I realize that I need to go back to the moment I started the offensive, except not attack. Just surround his city and wait for a little while. Once I have 16 units to his 12, I attack.
I take his city, but at huge cost to myself.
Once I crack his capital, the other city falls like butter. The AI tends to have an ubercity it houses its huge army in.
If I bring in a swordsman with bonuses, I get wiped out by an archer. it seems the combat is skewed some how. I can't figure it out, but if I had an archer and he had a swordsman he would slaughter me.
I wipe out the bruce except for a tiny island in northern scotland. Doing an invasion from sea does not seem fun. Especialy since he has two "Archers", which means that will cost me at least four swordsman.
I then mop up the barbarians on the island. For some reason they don't seem so tough. The Bruce has 'aggressive' so he gets a slight bonus to units, but I wouldn't think so much.
I grab a small peice of land on the mainland that I rename "Normandy" which I am guessing was close to there. It is owned by the Dutch. I get the dutch to declare peace afterwards. my goal was to use it as a staging area by ferrying across my invasion fleet.
It won't be until 1000 AD that I decide to take out France, my closest rival. This is where life gets interesting.
I bribe France into attacking his neighbors Barbarrosa. Barbarrosa proceeds to counter and sack Paris. This is when I attack!
The first city I was prepared for, it takes me about 8 units, to sack a city of 4 units. I had 4 catapults, 2 welsh longbow, 2 knights.
He had 2 spearman, 2 archers.
I am left with the 2 knights and 1 welsh longbowman, but the french even though they should be worried about Paris counter attack my position.
I become locked into the hundred years war spiral. The problem being attrition. It just doesn't seem 1 for 1. I have to have bigger/badder troops and then maybe its 1 for 1, but it seems with a single archer he can send me packing.
I play on noble setting.
I dont' mind that at some point when you are controlling the large empire you get bogged down with 'next', 'next' queues so much as I do what seems to be unbalanced combat.