middle ages conquest

[joycem10]

ive been playing this conquest alot since my purchase and have a couple of thoughts and questions.

1. can you buy techs that are outside your cov specific tech tree? i was unable to purchase the roman line techs from anyone, so no aqueducts. really stunted my development as the danes.

2. at what point do you try to make yourexpedition to the holy land, or do you forego that and try for constant war for VPs?

3. does it seem like the abbisids always dominate your games?

4. playing as the non-christian civs, do you feel an attempt to seize a relic is worthwile?

5. what is your strategy when playing the norse civs?

6. finally, my time between turns lags pretty damn bad at the end of the game, common or not?

 

[Captain Murphy]

1. Not sure, I was so far behind in techs I gave up and just imposed my level of backwardness on others.

2. As soon as I could put 4 longships full of troops (I was playing Norway and had captured the Holy Grail).

3. Several countries held the lead or second place, depending on which large nation was at war at the time.

4. I wouldn't have won without turning in the Holy Grail.

5. Take England and the Celts first. I loaded up all my Berserks and attacked England's northern cities first. I made peace, built up for 20 turns, and took England after that. If I wasn't at war with someone, I was preparing for war. Without any good defensive units, I just built Berserks and a few spearmen for cheap defense and attacked, attacked, attacked. A Norse empire is a house of cards - impressive, but easy to break. I found short, aggressive wars where you take several cities quickly worked the best.

6. I didn't notice too much lag.

 

[JustBen]

Originally posted by joycem10
1. can you buy techs that are outside your cov specific tech tree? i was unable to purchase the roman line techs from anyone, so no aqueducts. really stunted my development as the danes.

This SG has the Franks playing around with the Norse techs, I believe. You have to research the first one on your own, but after that they're trade-able.

6. finally, my time between turns lags pretty damn bad at the end of the game, common or not? [/B]

It's a really big map -- slightly larger than a Large map, if my memory serves me. Lesser machines have trouble crunching all that data. I want more RAM, too.

 

[lbhhh]

Originally posted by joycem10

5. what is your strategy when playing the norse civs?

I struck real fast at the other norse civs, the english and the celts with amphibious assaults. Then I gained a small foothold in germany and expanded in Russia while preparing an invasion of Jerusalem. Berserker armies are the key, they can attack from the longship so the AI can't counterattack and since the army has two moves it will retreat if losing and can heal up in the longship and then attack again.

 

[ShiplordAtvar]

Originally posted by joycem10
1. can you buy techs that are outside your cov specific tech tree? i was unable to purchase the roman line techs from anyone, so no aqueducts. really stunted my development as the danes.

You can't purchase the introductory techs, but if you can spend the time to research them for yourselves (nice in and of itself for the VP it provides) then you can purchase the other techs in that line. With that tactic, playing as the Abassids, I was able to get pretty much every tech before the last era.

3. does it seem like the abbisids always dominate your games?

Yes, but that's because I've played that conquest only once and played as the Abassids.

 

[JazzToucan]

1) Every civ can purchase the "main" tech branch, i.e., horsebackriding, castlebuilding, etc. You can't purchase the techs of another culture group, that is, the Byzantines can't purchase Norse techs or Arab techs.

2) I would suggest having at least one army if not two and about ten or so other strong units at the minimum.

3) No, not really. Everyone seems pretty equal... except for the civ I use, of course.

4) It depends. I've found that it isn't so hard to win on VP if you do enough fighting.

5) Haven't played them. Hate the awkward starting positions.

6) Yes, not only is the map large, but you have scores of units from the AI. You're probably already doing this, but if not, make sure you turn off the "animate friend moves" option.

 

[POLM]

Originally posted by joycem10

4. playing as the non-christian civs, do you feel an attempt to seize a relic is worthwile?

[/B]

Yes ofcource, they give you 10.000 VP points

Originally posted by joycem10

5. what is your strategy when playing the norse civs?

[/B]

I was Denmark, I've started a war with England, almost all of their citys is by the ocean, and therefore you can get them easy with the berserks. I also got Norway to help me, but the swedish chikens were to frightend
My "home" citys were building Berserks and a few spearmen.
Then - still at war with England i took a small fleet at two ships and sailed them down to Jerusalem and started fighting to get control over the city. Then I sailded down to Jerusalem with the relic, and I got 10000 VP point. Then you can have peace, or you can choce to build up an army and go into war again, perhaps against an other nation with a relic.

 

[insensatez]

2. at what point do you try to make yourexpedition to the holy land, or do you forego that and try for constant war for VPs?

I've played this conquest twice now and i found myself rushing to Jerusalem in the last 20 turns or so. Last time i played i was able to return both the Shroud of Turin and the Crown of Thorns. A Franks spearman was so friendly to come wandering around on my land carrying the Crown of Thorns. 10000VP is always worth starting a war over

btw first post after 1 year and 1 month of lurking. who can beat that?

 

[joycem10]

ive played a couple of games as norse civs in which i was able to win without the relics. given the lack of good defensive units it doesnt make too much sense to drive far inland on the continent. the english relic being the obvious exceptipon due to the fact that almosyt all english cities are on the coast.

 

[SuperBeaverInc.]

For question number 5, what I did is this:

Built up about a dozen Berserks, captured nothern Germany, and just kept building more and more Berserks. After that, I took out Burgundy, and then Poland. Also captured French relic, so I had 3 of them. By that time, I had 30,000 VP points, so I just returned the relics to Jerusalem, and got a victory.

 

[Auk]

on q1:
As has been said, you can research any of the introductory techs to have access to the different branches of the tech tree. If playing as a Christian nation, the Byzantine branch is definitely worth getting on, for aqueducts, - the norse one is a luxurious extra (for Blacksmiths) and the Arab one is fairly pointless. My strategy was to research Byzantine ingenuity first at a 10% science rate, and then buy the main-line techs with my pots of cash once I'd finished that. There are so many civs that the techs get seriously cheap once everyone has them.

 

[Bloodied66]

I just finished playing the Middle Ages conquest today for the first time. I was Norway, which has the worst starting posistion as far as a capital is concerned. However, I found it extremely easy to take over the British Isles (and capture a relic in the process). Using a GL, i relocated my palace to the middle of England. After that, I conquered France and Spain as soon a possible, built a fleet of beserkers and longboats and sailed right into jerusalem.

For the Norse, I think early attacks are the key, as their UU is available and overpowers everything else until the very end, and even then.

 

[philippe]

i have played as the norwegian first i unified scandinavia by conquest and took over scotland and ireland and attacked north germany and pieces of poland
then i builded up and destroyed the French mainland
and destroyed the arabs in spain then i sailed to rome and took it in and then i went to jeruzalem and took it over with the three relics (yep i brought all three back )
won with a lot of VP