England strategy ideas

[blizzrd]

My first game as Monarch, 1740AD:
- In North America I have Vancouver, Toronto, Duluth, and New York
- In India I have Madras
- In Africa, Winburg, Cairo, Alexandria, and Lagos
- In South America, Buenos Aires and Montevideo (though the game called them Hurlingham and River Plate, respectively)
- In Australia, Sydney

I'm trying to stretch the British Empire to its historical limits (maybe further ) but I have a few issues:
- Since Canada is very icy and it is difficult to settle cities I take it my cultural borders will never encompass what we know today as Canada
- It is 1740 and I don't have Hong Kong, Manila, Brunei, Bombay/Calcutta, Kuala Lumpur, et cetera

Now I realise a full empire is one of the biggest challenges in the game, and I also realise I probably played a very bad game. However, can an experienced player tell me if what I am attempting to do is impossible so I don't waste my time?

You might want to colonise New Zealand while you're at it too.

Maps of the British colonial empire can be found here for reference.

Yes, a very large English empire is possible but it is also difficult due to the stability system. But it can be done.

Spoiler :

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Lol. I see you used my English conquest pic. (that was when multiple Olympic Parks were available, but it should still be possible, if not easier since Rhye made large empires less destabilizing) I'm seeing a pattern here...I'm starting out intending to be small but going to domination/conquest all the time, like in my current set of games with HOTK.

 

[dragodon64]

Holy crap, that is mind-blowing! 1500:beakers: with 0% science?! And just managing to conquer that much without collapsing, even the little Siberian and Central Asian cities... just mind-blowing.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

3 words: liberate your cities. (the only way to defeat the large empire stability hit, everything else pales in comparison)

 

[blizzrd]

Lol. I see you used my English conquest pic. (that was when multiple Olympic Parks were available, but it should still be possible, if not easier since Rhye made large empires less destabilizing) I'm seeing a pattern here...I'm starting out intending to be small but going to domination/conquest all the time, like in my current set of games with HOTK.

I would have used Lone Wolf's picture of his English Empire from the Whole Empire Challenge thread but he has unfortunately removed the screenshot.

 

[Lone Wolf]

I didn't remove the screenshot, it got lost in a forum hack.

I think I remember that game, it also featured a Rome that survived and conquered Germany and France.

 

[killerkebab]

Would you recommend playing from 3000BC or 600AD to try and create the empire? I figured starting from 600AD is easier because we don't have to fight India, and taking Egypt - though its a harder fight - gives us huge economic benefits in the 600AD start, but I'm not so sure any more.

 

[evran]

600ad, getting the whole Indian subcontinent is always worth it.

 

[Zagoroth]

I am not sure what killerkebab has done... I however decided to attempt to create the Empire, with a large amount of help from colonies cough: vassals: cough. I started out the game settling London, keeping Inverness, settling Dublin, and then settling Amsterdam and Denmark. I eventually settled another city further east on the European mainland. I sent a couple of longbowmen via galley to capture Alexandria. Alexandria eventually proved to be the key to my African conquests. I got lucky and Cairo was very lightly defended, letting me capture it. From Cairo I captured Aksum and settled another Egypt city. I settled two cities in South Africa, Durbin and Port Elizabeth, and then settled Warwick and Coventry. I vassalized Mali in case they would ever want an African city, they did not, and also to represent Nigeria.

I vassalized the Aztecs and gave them any land I settled, I also gifted them settlers which they actually settled in good places in North America.

In south America I just vassalized the Incans, gifted them a couple of settlers, and let them do their thing.

From South Africa I launched my East India Campaign (so to speak). I vassalized Khmer and gave them Masulipatam. From there they took over the Indian cities apart from Pataliputra which I took over myself. I chose to do this for extra commerce from holy shrines, and because I wanted to see a nice Red block in India... For Australia I gave a couple of cities in Khmer, and gifted them settlers to settle by their own.

I captured a couple of cities in the southern Arabian peninsula to represent a brief period of British rule there.
One thing I did for fun was, since I was way ahead in technology, I decided to gift all my vassals every technology I had which the did not. I modernized the world! My idea was that if I got involved in a war they would be able to defend themselves, and because it just looked cool.

Two things you might notice in my screenshot. One is that France is my vassal. I do not know how I was able to have more than four, but I was. The second is that America appears with a 0 next to its names. This is because at the beginning of the game I was testing out the Varietas Delectat mod for RFC with multiple civilizations, including America. The game registers them as a current civilization if you spawn any units of their nationality.

 

[dragodon64]

The game registers them as current if you are destined, so to say, to be at war with them. When they spawn, it'll be auto-war.

Aside from that, good job! How many cities did you have by the end? And did you actually found 3 cities on each continent for the UHV?

 

[Cosmos1985]

(...) France is my vassal. I do not know how I was able to have more than four, but I was. (...)

- I also had more than four in my latest USA game - anobody know if this has changed recently? I never was able to have more than four before as far as I remember...

 

[Zagoroth]

If I remember correctly I had 17 cities. 3 in the British Isles, four on the European mainland, 8 in Africa, one in India, and one in the Middle East. I did not aim for the UHV, though I definitely should have for the free Golden Age. I accidentally forgot to circumnavigate the world, and Spain beat me to it.

 

[blizzrd]

- I also had more than four in my latest USA game - anobody know if this has changed recently? I never was able to have more than four before as far as I remember...

From the changelog:

v1.982/1.482/1.182
* Vassals cap now 5 instead of 4, but in that case no defensive pacts are allowed°

 

[Zagoroth]

oh... Thanks Blizzrd.