Struggling along
I got the game the day it came out. I preordered the English version from amazon.uk anticipating language problems, (I am in Germany at the moment) and I had an arrival date of the 14th. Thank goodness it arrived early. I loaded it up and it looked fabulous, even my wife commented on it and called the kids to look at the intros. I dutifully went to the tutorial, which played about three minutes before crashing hard!!!! I mean dead black screen, nothing… But not to be deterred, I killed power and started back up, went back into the game and tried the Grand Campaign. Well it crashed about five minutes in this time, same way. So there I was on a Friday evening with a great new game and no way to play. I looked in a couple of shops on Saturday and found nothing that was much better than this machine so now I figure I have to mail order something.
I spent the weekend reading the manual, going to the boards, and pining away. Nothing was salved by Monday so I decided on a new approach. The game worked fine for a short while so I decided to have a quick look at how it worked. I set everything to low and battles to E/E and went in. I moved a couple of units and made a save, then left the game. The save loaded just fine. Wow, I was in business even if it was with lame setting. I had to fight all battles on the campaign map but I would have to live with it. The biggest thing that seemed to bring on the crashes were moving agents and reading the info cards at the start of turns.
I just had to start out as England, so off I went. I went at York and Rennes on turn one, I lay siege to York even though it had no walls, just to take the force down a notch or two before killing them. I built a fleet and moved the other ships together. Sure enough the pirates started showing up, but as long as I had them well out numbered I managed to send them down to Davy Jones.
Progress has been painfully slow using this method. I have managed to do all but one of my missions, an embassy to the Poles, and even had a successful crusade, though I am not sure I like being so far from home with a full stack and a few ships. I took Rhodes on the way, it wasn't even a delay. I landed my army and laid siege on one turn and took it and moved on in the next, so I have a tiny castle there along the way.
The Pope stopped me battering the Scots for seven turns. They didn't seem to have quite the same restrictions though, as they lay siege to Edinburgh two turns before I could attack. Luckily they tried to storm the walls with a much inferior force and were slaughtered which made my attack that much easier. Dublin fell just about the same time as Inverness. I began shifting forces toward France and looking at taking Burgee just when the French attacked. I killed their besieging forces, which worsened relations twice (two stacks), and then beat them back from Burgee which made them worse again…didn't know they had improved. Any way it is about 1148, the pope put another stop to fighting and I am struggling for cash at the moment. It is hard for me to do too much with my agents because of crashing.
I only have a dozen provinces at this point with pretty powerful neighbours. I am sure I can whip the French when the fighting starts up again but beyond that I will just have to see. It is a very slow go though.
All I have seen thus far has been grand with only minor exceptions. I love the game!
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