England

[Gingivitis]

My economy was solid because one of the first things I did was send an army to Algiers with 2 merchants and a priest. First 2 turns I recruited toops and ships from Caen and sent them south. Pirates almost got me at the end but was able to land there with one very leaky boat left. Now for the moment of truth, would there be a big army waiting there for me? The answer was a resounding "no". There was a family member and a light cavalry unit. This was cake as I just sent my archers up the walls and killed everybody without a loss as they walked around on top of the walls untouchable. I now had a Castle to headquarter my Africa conquests.

I sent the merchants down to Timbuktu along with a big enough force to take the town and Arguin while dropping watchtowers along the way while making sure I could keep Algiers with a sizable force. Anytime I could produce another merchant I'd do it in Timbuktu or Arguin until there were no more resources left. Nice that I never saw a foreign merchant there the whole time. An additional benefit was getting a church in Algiers so as to be able to produce priests in a place where they could really jack their stats up converting people.

[Owen Glyndwr]

I always end up getting good economies because the first thing I do is recruit two diplomats, the first I send to the pope, to secure an alliance, as well as securing alliance/trade rights/map info( and I ask formoney if my offer is still generous) on the way to Rome. The other, I do the same thing, send that diplomat around the world, but remember not to get alliances with everyone, usually you want it only with nations like France, Scotland, Portugal, and maybe Denmark, the rest just exchange map info and trade rights. Soon enough, you'll be trading with everyone, and you'll be rolling in money. The merchants, you place on rare recources, but I never use them because the most Ive ever gotten is 40 florins/turn, and they ALWAYS end up getting their assets seized, usualy by Venetians or Milanese.

[OliverWKim]

I'm at around turn 90 in my English campaign and just got gunpowder. Does anyone know when you get to travel to the new world? I really want to see those ubercool Aztec cities.

[Moah]

Aztecs?

Not for a looong time. If you're playing standard turns then I'm told Timurids should pop up around 1380 (turn 150) and new world is, presumably, around 1490 (turn 205) with the game due to finish 1530 (turn 225). Although another poster said the game keeps going even after end date.

I'm playing on after victory until I've tested myself against mongols but I'm not waiting another 50 turns for timurids and then another 50 for aztecs when I won 30 turns ago.....It'll be a re-start for me.

The only way to meet these guys is to deliberately not play expansive and don't wipe out opponents it seems.

Other posters have argued you must impose restrictions on yourself to play badly so there remains a challenge which seems to me counterintuitive. How is a challenge a challenge if you need to choose not to play your best for it to be a challenge? If you lose you just handicapped yourself too much. If you win, then not enough. The only skill is against yourself.

[OliverWKim]

Whoa. I just hit turn 108 and I'm just 5 regions (including Jerusalem) away from victory. I could play an entirely new campaign in that space of time... Thanks for the great response though. I couldn't find anything about it on the web.

[Owen Glyndwr]

yeah I'm turn 110-ish and I have 46 territories. I own Iberian Peninsula, France, Britain, Germany, Italy, and the northern Balkan Peninsula. Haven't taken Jerusalem yet, huge Mongol army guarding it. But I just captured Rhodes? one of those islands in the Mediterranean ownhed by the Byzantines, and near Anatolia. Im using that as a spring board into the Middle East. One question though, once I take Jerusalem, can I continue on like in BI, or do I stop like in the origional Rome?

[OliverWKim]

You can play on. If you wait several hundred more turns like me, you get to see the Aztecs + Timurids (unless you already have). I have 44 regions, and landed a huge army to capture Jerusalem, but it got wiped out by the Golden Horde - it was outnumbered like 5 to 1 even when I switched it on to Night Battle mode.