Next on the list: Germany. I expected that this shouldn't be too hard, and this was right. To be more exact, if I killed the Ottomans on spawn or if they collapse under their weight, a conquest victory might be in reach. This to illustrate what happened.
Let's go back to where it started. Germany is a nice place to begin, except for Augsburg. In my game Augsburg was razed by barbs which gave me the opportunity to found München, where it just catches the cow in Austria. Don't do this, I'll explain why later. Other early cities were Mainz, Bayreuth and (to be edited). This means that you will not settle Franconia, but it should be covered by culture. This is where München has it's major drawback, being that you miss Franconia by one tile. I cheated this tile by WB but I assume you won't complain about that.
To deal with this, settle 1W, saves some problems later on. Some provinces to worry about are Lombardy and Brandenburg. Genoa spawns in Lombardy so they have to be pushed out of Italy. Poland likes to settle a city in Brandenburg so settle there early or prepare for war. In the meanwhile, just build your empire like you'd normally do. Minden is a good spot, Groningen isn't, but 1E of Groningen is acceptable. Same goes for Lübeck, but I changed it's spawn location anyway, which normally should benefit AI Germany and Norse too. Basically, just settle Germany in a well-thought manner, don't forget to settle contestable tiles early, be aggressive in Italy and build an empire. That's all you need to do for goal 1.
Goal 2 is to research a certain tech. Most likely you will be tech leader, so this too shouldn't be hard. Conquer Austria for some stability, or Poland, France, Burgundy, Venice and Hungary for fun. Some of them have rare resources that you won't find in Germany, like Barley, Potatoes, Rice, Sheep, etc. Be patient with stability, though it's unlikely that you'll ever be below stable. Rathauses are outstanding for corporations, so try to grab at least a knight order and a banking family. Knights can be used well into the 17th century, so stronger knights are to good to be left alone. Venice settled Knights Templar and collapsed for some reason, which gave me the opportunity to earn some serious money there. Crusades can be fun too by the way. Again, I didn't vote for myself to lead the crusades to Jerusalem, but I got the opportunity to buy and redirect it, to Buda. Extra units close to home, nice event.
With new acquisitions everywhere, this should be trivial. Lithuania and Moscow vassalized. The Norse collapsed after I conquered Aarhus and Lund and razed Roskilde (worthless spot), and Sweden capitulated after they tried to take Lund. The Netherlands vassalized too, with 2 Galleons and 2 work boats. Privateers did the rest of the job. Spain killed France, built some colonies but collapsed because of overexpansion. Cordoba vassalized to them early on, inherited some cities and were so surprised they collapsed too. This lead to the situation that Portugal was the only Iberian civ left, but since they were weaker than the independent Spanish states, they couldn't hold more than 2 cities. Yet another sign that Spain is overpowered, even in independent form.
This lead to the situation that there were only three (soon 2, England will be gone within a few turns) civs are still in competition: Turkey and me. Byzantium respawned with Durazzo and a Greek island, Genoa managed to stay alive but didn't expand past Corsica and Sardinia, Portugal never grew big. The rest of the world was either independent, German, German vassal or Turkish. Turkey and I have a defensive pact which is funny because there is no civ left (apart from those not grey independents like Genoa) to declare war on us. I might check my chances vs. Turkey, though that would take at least 20 minutes for each turn.
General remarks:
- Musketmen are too cheap. Arbalestiers and Longbowmen upgrade to Musketmen for minimal costs.
- Templar Masters obsolete too soon (Teutonic Masters too I think). They were my major force once I could build them and there is nothing to replace them yet. If knights can still be trained, the Templars should be able to expand.
- Why do the hungarian cities still have the classical looks? I know that it was originally based on Carthage but that was years ago so shouldn't they be changed to Medieval ones like the rest of europe?
- The AI should be thought to build science or wealth in stead of units sometimes. Honestly, I can't blame the Turkish AI and I think they are doing a good job now but their power was simply astonishing. I blame them for exhausting my laptop.
- Spain is overpowered too. Compared to Spain, France and Germany are just regular civs who just happen to have a good position. Spain conquers Cordoba too quickly now. It's the 'Turkey-syndrome', except that Spain is supposed to stop expanding in a military way beyond Spain. Sure, they have more objectives, but France is the only realistic way to get there.
- I admit that I played a part in this, but the endgame was a bit boring. I expanded just below domination limits, and the only enemy I had to watch out for was Turkey.
Civ specific remarks:
- Goal 1 is okay, it requires some thought. Bohemia could be added. 2 and 3 are too easy. Who's going to keep you from 2? Who expects you not to get 3 and much more? No, I think this should be changed. What about: spread Protestantism to a larger population than Catholicism? Or, convert X nations to Protestantism; convert every nation above latitude Y to Protestantism? Slighty unhistorical because of Moscow, but whatever.
- South Brandenburg feels a bit bare.
- Stability is way too easy. I'm starting to believe that there is one stability building too many. I'm now at +24 without a golden age, with 27% territory; new cities don't even have rathauses yet. One building less and I would be around -5 or -10, which is IMHO appropriate for such an empire. So far I encounted in every game that once I got everything up and running, stability stayed around +20 (very solid) and I could expand as far as I liked to, even into unstable areas. After all we are balancing for Monarch and not for Emperor; one less balances the game I think, at least for the human player.
- Krakau is AWESOME. Name it, next turn you have it. Only city that can keep up with Turkey.
