I can't beat Intro Scenario 3!

[andy80]

I'm playing on Monarch. The first two intros were really easy, this one is damm hard. I tried playing as both the Germans and the Dutch. I build a few settlers to fill in the gaps first, then start working on a military. The computer starts immediatly sending waves of defensive units to cut off my resources and waves of offensive units to capture my city. Most of the time they are in a golden age, but I can't keep up with thier production even when I'm in one as well. Does anyone have any tips for this scenario?

 

[Merepatra]

I would definitely suggest you forget about building settlers first. Since you are locked at war with 2 of the 3 other civs they will immediately attack you and you can't play this as you would a standard game. My general strategy with this mission at the highest levels was to first get a good defense in my front cities, then start building an offense and some settlers.

The AI, not being too bright, will usually throw away units by attacking your well defended cities with small groups of units leaving you time to recover between attacks. Later once they have exhausted their troops you can send a large stack at them and one by one take their cities.

 

[Dell19]

Playing as the Dutch might be a reasonable idea so that you can use their UU early on to defend the chokepoint city. You might be able to get away with building one settler early on but its important to get your defences in order so that when the computer attacks you can kill more than you lose.

 

[ummmm........]

An unconventional approach that worked for me was to beat the AI at its own game. I played as the Dutch and sent waves of Swiss Mercenaries into AI territory to wreak havoc. They foolishly failed to attack my relatively poorly defended cities, instead choosing to deal with the "threat" my 1 attack units posed. It was evil, I know.

 

[Dell19]

I've just been playing as the Dutch. I built two new cities in the east whilst moving the majority of units into the border city. It was then important to get the source of iron as quickly as possible and start churning out medieval infantry and swiss pikeman and also upgrading the spearmen that you start with. Catapults are proving to be very useful as the Germans tend to concentrate on building 1 movement units so I can bombard them before attacking. An important strategic decision was to play the first 30-40 turns defensively and also to move a second stack onto the hill south of the western city so that the enemy can no longer move it's units past the front line.

I've built a couple of wonders and at around turn 40 I finally went on the offensive with plenty of trebuchets and have taken over one new German city and replaced an original city with my own to avoid culture flipping. So my main advice is to build up a huge army and concentrate on defending by using catapults and medieval infantry to take out the troops that they send against you.

 

[andy80]

Thanks for the advice. I was able to beat it by high score. It was one of the most frustrating games I've played. I though I had the game won after taking 3 cities, but the Dutch were able to get to mil. trad. and nationalism in 80 turns! I had their capital defenses down to two redlines swiss mercanary, but couldn't take it. The next turn six cavalry (even though they only had 5 cities) and one veteran rifleman appeared. I decided to fortify my border cities and defend to the end.

 

[Dell19]

Thats odd in my current game it looks like I will be lucky to get knights although I am supporting a very large army that has reduced me to the minimum research level...

 

[Zandrew]

I found this to be one of the most entertaining scenarios and have played it half a dozen times. It's a quick game with plenty of action! I've mostly played the Dutch, emperor level. One thing I've done with them is to build a city ASAP by the dyes in the border area between me and the Germans, then defend it like crazy while my forces gather to counter-attack. At emperor level you need to be pretty aggressive or the time will expire before you can get ahead on points. I got the best results when I headed for the German capital right away after taking one or two border towns. Once their leader dies (and their civ with it) the game's pretty much over.

 

[Dell19]

I got the best results when I headed for the German capital right away after taking one or two border towns. Once their leader dies (and their civ with it) the game's pretty much over.

Thats what I plan to do, just one more city to take before I can march on the capital. I am hopeful that my new medieval infantry army will make city captures alot easier.

The first time I played the scenario I think I lost as Portugal because the game ended one turn before I took the Byzantine capital (lower difficulty level)

 

[chunkymonkey]

I though this was possiby one of the hardest conquests I have played yet. The AI seems to know exactly what it's doing by sending all its defensive units into your mounains blocking off your access routes and iron supplies. I think I played and lost on points 3 times as the Dutch on Monarch before I just decided to beat the level on Regent and then never play it again. I'm not a good loser!

I thick you either have to play as the Dutch or Germans in order to win at higher levels on this scenario. The other two civs are too weak. If you are Dutch, I recommend setting up a huge defence at the chokepoint between the Portugese and Byzantine border then making a beeline for Cavalry and then just try to get to Constantinople. An army or two would help a lot.

Haven't tried with the Germans yet, but I considered that maybe a good strat would be to wait for Teutonic knights then pile them into some transports and go for Amsterdam. Anyone tried this?

 

[Dell19]

The Germans have been destroyed and victory should now be mine especially as I will soon have Knights to play with. I probably have 20+ turns to see how much damage I can do against the Babylonians. It wasn't easy though as one German city did fall quickly but the capital withstood my first assault so I had to wait several more turns for my armies to heal so that I could attack again. I wasn't expecting them to have 8 pikemen in one city...