Wessel V1
Emperor
With arguably the best land available Kiev shouldn't be too hard. There are a few things to think about, but not too much trouble.
All the goals are in the 13th century. This means that we cannot focus too much on one goal after another, but for simplicity I'll rewrite the 3 goals into 2 goals.
1. Expand to the required provinces and other areas with food abundance and 2. don't lose a city to the mongols.
If these goals are met, you probably met the actual UHV criterias as well so let's focus on these 2.
The first mission is to find the hotspots. Unfortunately I can't get the strategy layer to work (Alt + S works though, so you can label the tiles), but the key is to combine all resources while trying to overlap as few tiles as possible. Rivers are abundant so I suggest to build the cities on rivers, the health bonus is beneficial too. Don't build Khabarovsk though. It is the best city in the area so I placed a city there but the big problem is that there suddenly is no good spot in Volhynia. 1N of Khabarovsk is good enough, but worse than Khabarovsk. Outside of the UHV territories there are many other great tiles too, but they can be exploited if you want to play past the UHV, i.e. you won't need them.
Now back to 880AD. I did not build Kiev, for the reasons I mentioned above. In stead, I built Mozir 1N of the pigs and Litomir 1E of the Barley. Especially Litomir is a great early city. Send 1 Horse Archer west, one south, and one should protect your workers. Skirmishers can be annoying but luckily Horse Archers are just as quick so you can chase them if necessary. The HA going to the west has the obvious task to meet civs. The one in the south too, but he has other duties down there. For example, visit barbarian cities. A Byzantine barbarian city can be conquered and returned (no stability hit, experience and a happy Justinian), while in the meanwhile you can convert to Orthodoxy. Ragusa is sometimes barbarian, and it's resources are valuable. Don't hesitate, but take it if possible.
Expansion should be straightforward. Early turns are about growth. Too few workers to rapidly build farms (Serfdom and Manorialism are a must by the way)? Too few Lancers or Druzhinas to hunt HAs? Build some. Enough of those? Expand. Expansion should be in the direction where new resources can be found. Health and Happiness are limited, food isn't. When you reach the growth limits of a city, consider the 'avoid population growth' button. Anything that contributes towards growth but is lost to avoid population growth counts towards the 20,000 food produced, and it's going to be much, very much.
Now, on to goal 2. Mongols will arrive. 12 Strength light cavalry. This means that Guisarmiers won't stand a chance on the open field, and you don't want them to pillage anything. Come on, you are a Kievan Rus! Druzhinas will win once in a while, but a double promoted Knight has a chance of 6/7 to win a battle against a Keshik. I prefer to have at least 2 of them in each city, 3 in border towns in the east. Luckily, Druzhinas are very cheap to upgrade, so start with those Druzhinas early. Don't entirely neglect the western borders, some sneaky Mongols will spawn there.
Meanwhile, don't forget the actual goals. Churches and Monasteries are not top level priorities, but remember that you will likely have to trade for stone (Hungary might want to vassalize), so Cathedrals are expensive. However, you should never be in much time trouble, each goal has a margin of about 15 to 20 turns.
General remarks: Germany is way too strong in this version, just like France. Poland always loses by the 13th century. Venice is doing fine, doesn't need much balancing. I like the way Cordoba behaves too.
Civ-specific remarks: Volhynia should be removed from the UHV provinces list IMO, or removed altogether. It isn't even on the reference map. Stability is very easy to deal with. Even without castles I managed to have a stability rating of +20 or more (+30 or more in a golden age). I don't consider this to be a bad thing, in the late game with lots of expansion it will become a problem but for the UHV there is nothing to worry at all. The goals are all of more or less the same difficulty, I'd say sub-medium. The third seems a little easy but since it is not too easy to get stone it's fine, requires some planning.
All the goals are in the 13th century. This means that we cannot focus too much on one goal after another, but for simplicity I'll rewrite the 3 goals into 2 goals.
1. Expand to the required provinces and other areas with food abundance and 2. don't lose a city to the mongols.
If these goals are met, you probably met the actual UHV criterias as well so let's focus on these 2.
The first mission is to find the hotspots. Unfortunately I can't get the strategy layer to work (Alt + S works though, so you can label the tiles), but the key is to combine all resources while trying to overlap as few tiles as possible. Rivers are abundant so I suggest to build the cities on rivers, the health bonus is beneficial too. Don't build Khabarovsk though. It is the best city in the area so I placed a city there but the big problem is that there suddenly is no good spot in Volhynia. 1N of Khabarovsk is good enough, but worse than Khabarovsk. Outside of the UHV territories there are many other great tiles too, but they can be exploited if you want to play past the UHV, i.e. you won't need them.
Now back to 880AD. I did not build Kiev, for the reasons I mentioned above. In stead, I built Mozir 1N of the pigs and Litomir 1E of the Barley. Especially Litomir is a great early city. Send 1 Horse Archer west, one south, and one should protect your workers. Skirmishers can be annoying but luckily Horse Archers are just as quick so you can chase them if necessary. The HA going to the west has the obvious task to meet civs. The one in the south too, but he has other duties down there. For example, visit barbarian cities. A Byzantine barbarian city can be conquered and returned (no stability hit, experience and a happy Justinian), while in the meanwhile you can convert to Orthodoxy. Ragusa is sometimes barbarian, and it's resources are valuable. Don't hesitate, but take it if possible.
Expansion should be straightforward. Early turns are about growth. Too few workers to rapidly build farms (Serfdom and Manorialism are a must by the way)? Too few Lancers or Druzhinas to hunt HAs? Build some. Enough of those? Expand. Expansion should be in the direction where new resources can be found. Health and Happiness are limited, food isn't. When you reach the growth limits of a city, consider the 'avoid population growth' button. Anything that contributes towards growth but is lost to avoid population growth counts towards the 20,000 food produced, and it's going to be much, very much.
Now, on to goal 2. Mongols will arrive. 12 Strength light cavalry. This means that Guisarmiers won't stand a chance on the open field, and you don't want them to pillage anything. Come on, you are a Kievan Rus! Druzhinas will win once in a while, but a double promoted Knight has a chance of 6/7 to win a battle against a Keshik. I prefer to have at least 2 of them in each city, 3 in border towns in the east. Luckily, Druzhinas are very cheap to upgrade, so start with those Druzhinas early. Don't entirely neglect the western borders, some sneaky Mongols will spawn there.
Meanwhile, don't forget the actual goals. Churches and Monasteries are not top level priorities, but remember that you will likely have to trade for stone (Hungary might want to vassalize), so Cathedrals are expensive. However, you should never be in much time trouble, each goal has a margin of about 15 to 20 turns.
General remarks: Germany is way too strong in this version, just like France. Poland always loses by the 13th century. Venice is doing fine, doesn't need much balancing. I like the way Cordoba behaves too.
Civ-specific remarks: Volhynia should be removed from the UHV provinces list IMO, or removed altogether. It isn't even on the reference map. Stability is very easy to deal with. Even without castles I managed to have a stability rating of +20 or more (+30 or more in a golden age). I don't consider this to be a bad thing, in the late game with lots of expansion it will become a problem but for the UHV there is nothing to worry at all. The goals are all of more or less the same difficulty, I'd say sub-medium. The third seems a little easy but since it is not too easy to get stone it's fine, requires some planning.
