Starting out?

[Evil Beejeebers]

I downloaded this mod recently and I think it looks really good, but I am not really sure who to start out as, I have played England, France semi seriously and I have a game as the mamalukes at the minute, I don't think I will win but I am doing not bad. I am top of score and power. but I am nervous to research education as losing all the houses of wisdom seems like a bad idea. I have a few questions about some of the concepts.

when I play as England, I start at war with France, I cant make peace with them ever. yes I know they are traditional enemies. but it is annoying that I cant get open boarders with them so I can meet the other players. when playing england is it better to wipe out those pesky Scots early or to try and make dear old England productive first?

and as the Arabs, am I always going to lag behind the crusaders in tech?

also barbarians are crazy they seem to appear out of thin air?

btw this seems like a really good mod, all the content on it seems useful and there is no flutter which I find a lot of other mods suffer from.

 

[Saturninus]

1. There isn't really a wrong approach to that, except possibly sending your entire army to France before your do anything to them. Assuming you don't neglect your military, you're always going to be able to over power them, but a heads up: you aren't going to have the forces to completely conquer them after the flip. I'd recommend declaring war on them on contact, using whatever troops you have to seize Edinburgh, and holding it until they are willing to talk peace. That will completely and totally cripple them, so finish them at your leisure.

2. Unless your copy is bugged or damaged in someway, they should, but you're going to have to force their hand. If you land in Normandy and drive all the way to Paris and can hold it, they'll usually come to terms (and frequently collapse shortly after. But just like with every civ, they'll "refuse to talk" for some time after the war breaks out. Most civs will be open to negotiations after you take a few cities, really wreck their army, or take their capital. They'll still hold on for a few turns. Three major exceptions though:

A. Spawn wars. If a civ trys to spawn in your territory and you refuse to flip, you're going have a fight. They usually won't talk until they've seized everything that should've flipped and then some, or after you've almost completely destroyed them several times. Oh, and some of your units are going to defect.

B. Repeated wars. These are rare, but if you've repeatedly declared war on another civ, betrayed alliances, had a different religion, and basically do everything in your power to screw them over, you're gonna be in a fight to the death. But this shouldn't happen on the first English/French conflict

C. Vassals. You cant make peace with a vassal, only their master, and the vassals losses have no effect on whether the master will talk.

4. That depends on your skill. Just like RFC, their are several hidden modifiers giving the Arab civs tech bonuses rarely on, but switching to the major western powers later. That's why the civs at the top of the board are usually the ones at the top in real life. If you focus on research though, you CAN stay out in front of the Europeans. It's just a little hairy on the higher levels.

5. Yes. Barbs can appear in any space not visable to the player or in someone's cultural sphere. They are historically based though. I'm assuming you're talking about those damned vikings making life in northern france so miserable? They go away eventually. If you're talking about the barbary corsairs, you're gonna have to deal with them the same way Europeans did: lots of frigates.

If you have anymore questions, don't hesitate to ask.

 

[Spirictum]

First of all welcome to RFC Europe Evil Beejeebers, my most time consuming activity for more then a year, and I hope you don't let it consume you as it did to me, but that comes with a lot of fun though.

About the barbs, normally they don't spawn inside borders, but that's for common barbs like generic spearmen, axemen, horse archers, but specific barbs (like Selyuq Turks, Welsh Longbowmen, Scottish Highlanders, Viking Berserkers, Mongol Keshiks) can spawn outside or inside your borders. The tip is: They are historical, so they are related to specific regions. With a lil bit of history in mind you can assume Vikings come near the french coast, Selyuq appear in Eastern Anatolia and Mid East, Mongols appear inside or near the territories of civs such as the Byzantine, Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland, Kievan Rus, Arabs, Ottomans and Lithuania. Maybe all the details are not exactly accurate, but expect that and you will be fine.

About England: It depends on your objective. To win a game as England you can use Diplomacy to stop France from developing, as you will rarely see a full scale invasion from any nation in this game, and France has problems in all its borders (Burgundians, Germans, Spanish, Genoans). Eventually you will overcome all those mainland countries because you will rarely see a fight in your homeland (except for Scottish and Irish rebels and barbs). Or you can crush them. English Unique Historical Victory quest 1 is the conquest of most French territory. So if you want to win Historically (exclusive in RFC) you will have to take France by force. I would like to get you more tactics, but I never won a game with England, so I leave it to the others here.

About Arabia: Actually is pretty easy to be more advanced then the catholic nations until Education, but the problem is: A lot earlier then you and even the Catholic Nations can research Chivalry to make Knights, the Crusades come with a bunch of Knights. At least the first two are that way. Tips for Arabia (that one I played a lot):
- Barb Horse Archers keep appearing in the southeastern edge of the map until you research the techs to make the Ghazi (Arab Unique Unit), then the barbs turn to Ghazis and keep appearing forever (I've never seen the end of it, for I won the game before it always)
- Selyuq Turk barbs will appear randomly inside you territory in stacks of 3 to 4 around 1070AD, but not much, and after that you will only face specific barbs like them when some mongols slip from Anatolia to Antiochia (your northern border with the Byzantine/Ottoman)
- Get ALL North Africa soon! The sooner the better, no Barbs inland at all, and up to Tanjah (initially a Cordoban city) all the provinces are Solid or OK, so good stability for getting them.
- And my best strategy tip for Arabs: Get a strong army of Ghazis early and lauch them at europe, start conquering cities and give them to other nations there. Every city you conquer gets islam and a temple, so you may convert Europe to islam (and it helps to achieve UHV3 - islam to 35% of the world).