Age of Discovery discussion

[Dis]

Any comments on this one? Didn't see a thread on it on the search- of course that search feature sometimes misses things.

Just go done with that one today as well. Whew! I played 4 scenarios this weekend. I'm determined to finish them all.

This is a very good scenario. But I think I played at too low of a difficulty. The other European civs didn't give me any challenge. My only worry was the Incas hitting cultural victory. Granted I played as the easiest civ- the Spanish. Next time I'll either play as France or the Dutch, though it's tempting to play as the Incas or Aztecs.

I built a few quick cities on N. America, but I pretty much just built conquistadores and rampaged through every single native american civ. And then I filled in cities near tobacco, sugar, gold, silver, gems etc. It was a bit tedious near the end ferrying treasures back in forth. Treasure every 3 turns . I had trouble finding enough land units to pick these up. I was rushing conquistadores, musketmen, pikemen whatever I could get, just to have units to pick up all these treasures.

But this scenario does have some pretty good replayability. Many other civs I want to try. Overall it is one of the better scenarios.

[mimi]

It was the first game I played in Conquests. I played monarch as the Mayas and won in about 1hour 40 mins IIRC. I thought it was a bit too easy since all I had to do was sit there and pick off the odd European. They never landed en mass and never even attacked a city of mine (met them all in the jungle). Got a handful of treasure from the Europeans but don't think it does anything for the Mayans in the scenario. But I have to say they defended their treasures better than their towns!

[Arrian]

I crushed this one on Monarch as the English. In retrospect, I realized that the gpt bug gave me a huge boost, since I grabbed a tech lead and started selling tech for gpt to the rest of Europe. I never fired a shot, except against privateers.

-Arrian

[CerberusIV]

Played regent as the English. Razed the Mayan and Aztec capitals with muskets and med inf. The Incas didn't even get close to a cultural win. Plenty of conflict between the French, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese in europe but not elsewhere. Mainly I just stayed out of trouble, colonised the Caribbean islands, turned out treasure and shipped it home.

I normally disband regular units and replace them with vets once I have enough barracks built but in this scenario it is worth hanging on to those initial pikemen just to carry treasure later. My main complaint is that explorers can't carry treasure (at least not when I tried), otherwise inland mines and fur camps would be more worthwhile setting up. I went for coastal settlements which is much quicker and was still turning out more treasure than I could ship back to London.

The Elizabethan Sea Dog is very fast for scouting the sea routes near europe for enemy fleets lying in wait for your treasure convoy. I did trigger my GA with one and it even enslaved a French Man-o-War to give me another Sea Dog (which attacked immediately but got sunk).

A fun scenario because of the different ways you can play it.

[Arrian]

Oh, as for my colonies:

Cuba was my best. Get that, and you're rockin'
I also colonized the rest of the carribean. I had 1 city on the NE coast of S.A., for gems, and 2 cities down near the Inca on the west coast, for silver (1 coastal, 1 inland, which also gave me wines).

My first colonies, however, were in N.A., just north of the Iroquois. I set up a fur settlement, and eventually built my colonial capitol up there. I ended up with 5 or 6 cities in that area.

I also snuck in a city in Virginia for the tobacco.

If I had it to do over again, I'd probaby build the Virginian settlement first, or the Cuban one (those would be 1-2, for sure). Colonize the Carribean/southeast US coastline, build colonial capitol down there.

-Arrian

[Wernazuma III]

Originally posted by Arrian
I crushed this one on Monarch as the English. In retrospect, I realized that the gpt bug gave me a huge boost, since I grabbed a tech lead and started selling tech for gpt to the rest of Europe. I never fired a shot, except against privateers.

How exactly is there a gpt bug? From the start? How does it occur? I haven't especially noticed it in my first game. For all civs?

[RobC]

This is still my favorite conquest. Would be great for MP, too!

[Fried-Psitalon]

The problem with this scenario for MP is that you have to use "gentlemen's rules" at least with the European civs, or play teams, or in some way tweak things a bit - you can't just have a FFA. Otherwise Spain greases Portugal in the first 20 turns, and there's so much European warfare treasure probably never gets home.

It would be pathetically easy for the European powers to ally long enough to shatter the American players as well.

Now a variant that does work pretty well:

3 players vs. 3 players, restricted to picking no more than 2 European powers per side - meaning, each team must have 1 American power as well.

Alternatively, you can simply ban war within European borders, but that alters the naval dynamic a bit amongst other problems.

[Gobi Bear]

Three more interesting ways to try it in MP:

1. How about 4 two-player teams with Netherlands and Portugal (the two weakest powers on the ground in Europe) on the same side?

Portugal - Netherlands
England - Aztecs
Spain - Maya
French - Inca

First country of these 8 to win yields a victory for that team.

2. Or you could use your suggestion to ban land warfare in Europe but say that anything is valid on the seas ... even within European cultural boundaries.

3. Historical Catholics versus Historical Protestants (with France in the middle):

Team 1 (Catholics): Spain, Portugal
Team 2 (Protestants): Netherlands, England
Team 3: France (plus some native civs???)

Avoids the takedown of Portugal or Netherlands because they each have a nearby ally.

[Fried-Psitalon]

Hey, nifty idea Gobi!

::Scribbles a note for a Ladder Tourney::

So uh, when you gonna join you-know-who and come play some ladder with us? ;D

[Saint Marcus]

I'm in, if I can play Holland

[Gobi Bear]

Originally posted by Fried-Psitalon
Hey, nifty idea Gobi!

::Scribbles a note for a Ladder Tourney::

So uh, when you gonna join you-know-who and come play some ladder with us? ;D

As soon as the first Age of Discovery tournament is announced!

[Fried-Psitalon]

Okay Gobi, you got it. Check the ladder page next week, probably Tuesday night....

[ZargonX]

I like the idea of No Warfare in Europe. I'm in an AoD PBEM right now, and by turn 5, Portugal had been wiped out by Spain in Europe Leaving the high seas and the new world open to war seems like a much more entertaining way to play this scenario.

[CerberusIV]

Originally posted by Arrian
Cuba was my best. Get that, and you're rockin'
-Arrian

Absolutely. Two cities, one at each end of the island. Both can build spice factories and in my game the western city also had tobacco and sugar plantations. I couldn't get the treasure out fast enough.

[Fried-Psitalon]

Place the eastern city right, and you can also get gold from it, as well as two gold cities from the east island. I have a screenshot around somewhere of a close-to-ideal Carrib-ploitation.

[RobC]

Originally posted by Fried-Psitalon
Okay Gobi, you got it. Check the ladder page next week, probably Tuesday night....

Count me in, too!

[Dis]

I didn't mention my settler sites. All of the European civs got their first cities up quick. Including me.

I settled on what I call Charleston, SC. I also settled in Florida (though the colonists can't settle on forest and such so I was in NW florida). I eventually filled in most of the United States area after I took out all the native americans. I took the Iroquious and renamed their cities to Buffalo and Washington.

My first resource I collected was tobacco. I never did get any furs. Eventually after mining I got gold from the Aztec cities and silver from the Inca cities. And I think one Mayan city had gems near it. I had trouble keeping up with all the treasure coming in. I did not settle on any islands.

[Dis]

as for wiping out portugal, I thought about it. I hated having a huge chunk of my peninsula taken up by those annoying asswipes. And their cultural borders get in the way of my spanish ships as well.

But Spain doesn't start out with much, and I dind't want to waste resources when I had to wipe out the native american civs and make sure England and France don't overtake me.

[planetfall]

Originally posted by Dissident
as for wiping out portugal, I thought about it. I hated having a huge chunk of my peninsula taken up by those annoying asswipes. And their cultural borders get in the way of my spanish ships as well.

But Spain doesn't start out with much, and I dind't want to waste resources when I had to wipe out the native american civs and make sure England and France don't overtake me.

Interest thoughts. I also hated sharing with Portugal. I played this scenario at a lower level to get a feel of the scenario. I will probably replay sometime later at normal levels.

My solution to the Portugal problem was a change in objectives:
-- eliminating Portugal from pennisula was essential
-- wiping out american civs was not important, (I didn't kill one of them)
-- don't invade either France or England.

It seems that treasure income is not enough, but treasure + Goodby Portugal works nicely.

Strategy was super simple:
2 cities producing military for future Portugal attack
rest working on treasures.

It is really nice to have Portugal frigates popping out freely. I forgot when I liberated the pennisula. I think it was about 1/4 to 1/3 thru the scenario.

I had to play this scenario twice because first time did not start from HOF and so even though won, had to replay to get score in HOF. As I recall game ended about 2/3rd thru the scenario. In one play France declared war at the last turn and in the other did not.

Now that I think back I played this game as two different civs, random you know. First was as Spanish and since Portugal had some good power, I was at about the 1/2 point where kicked them out. The second was as Portugal, and did the reverse and kicked Spain out.

This play approach probably won't work at higher levels, but it was a fun way to get use to the scenario.

-- PF

[Fried-Psitalon]

You can actually kick Portugal off the peninsula on Demigod if you do it RIGHT off the bat and get only a little lucky. Wise to get Alliances against Portugal first though to avoid potential problems.

I don't think it would be possible for Portugal to drive Spain off on the higher difficulties - there you have to rely on keeping Spain happy; I usually keep them busy by asking them to war with France - keeps them both off the oceans and not focused on me!

[planetfall]

Makes sense. Portugal with 2 cities is hard to match production of Spain. I added one city to north to help contrain Spain and grap one saltpeter, but still takes long time at lower level. I would expect it to be impossible to eliminate Spain as a sole task at higher levels.

Thanks.

-- PF

[Fried-Psitalon]

And if anyone's interested, tomorrow night on the ladder, we'll be hosting an AoD tourney.

Oh...Gobi.....

[Dis]

Originally posted by planetfall


Interest thoughts. I also hated sharing with Portugal. I played this scenario at a lower level to get a feel of the scenario. I will probably replay sometime later at normal levels.

My solution to the Portugal problem was a change in objectives:
-- eliminating Portugal from pennisula was essential
-- wiping out american civs was not important, (I didn't kill one of them)
-- don't invade either France or England.

It seems that treasure income is not enough, but treasure + Goodby Portugal works nicely.

Strategy was super simple:
2 cities producing military for future Portugal attack
rest working on treasures.

It is really nice to have Portugal frigates popping out freely. I forgot when I liberated the pennisula. I think it was about 1/4 to 1/3 thru the scenario.

I had to play this scenario twice because first time did not start from HOF and so even though won, had to replay to get score in HOF. As I recall game ended about 2/3rd thru the scenario. In one play France declared war at the last turn and in the other did not.

Now that I think back I played this game as two different civs, random you know. First was as Spanish and since Portugal had some good power, I was at about the 1/2 point where kicked them out. The second was as Portugal, and did the reverse and kicked Spain out.

This play approach probably won't work at higher levels, but it was a fun way to get use to the scenario.

-- PF

you didn't have a problem with the native american civs building up culture? I was worried about that. Though I didn't do my math on my calculator. I'm not sure if they were going to get a cultural victory or not. I wasn't taking any chances.

[planetfall]

Not a problem. Yeah they built wonders, but I used them to harrass Spain/Portugal in the Americas. They all were very cheap allies and it kept them off my back while I was just carting in the treasures. The only real problem was generating enough units to carry in the treasures. I didn't want to use units from Europe, so some treasures would wait a few more turns. With 1,000 VP/treasure, it did not take long for the score to climb. Later, just for fun, plan to play rest of European tribes, and then give a native tribe a shot.

-- PF

[Changmai Beagle]

I have quite enjoyed this scenario (so far), but I was wondering if anyone else would like to see it with a larger map? Second question - is it feasible to mod it suchly?

[Dis]

modding a larger map would require a lot of work. You basically have to start from scratch basically.

Reading the designer diaries shows they had 2 earlier incarnations with larger maps. One had like a world map I believe. They found the ai went were they didn't want them to go. Like settling siberia. Another reason I'm glad you can't pass through tundra in this game. I think they had other problems as well with the AI not focusing on the new world.

[Dis]

Just did this scenario again. I played the aztecs on Monarch level. Even this level is almost too easy. Although any higher level and I might not have been able to build the temple of the moon soon enough and I would have had to do more warfare to get more workers to sacrifice. If I played too high a level I might not get any wonders in my capitol. That would take massive amounts of workers to sacrifice in order to get 4000 points before turn 150. I was cutting it short even with 2 wonders built in my capitol. I think it was around turn 135 to 140. I know the 20 turn counter had already started. I sacrificed about 20 workers I think.

I was worred the Maya or Inca would pass me up. At one point they were gaining on me. But I took over chicken izta- the mayan capitol. And after I built temple of the moon I started pulling away from the Incas. I built that one because that one required the least shields and the quickest build time. That gives a huge jump. Although I didn't check if the other wonder puts out more culure- oh well.

The European ai was more competitive. They were more competant at picking up and delivering treasure. I wish the AI was more competant at delivering the "treasure" in the middle ages scenario. But even at monarch they still only had around 20,000 VP by turn 135. They would have won had I not got 4000 city culture of course. Spain and Portugal are the most dominant it seems. They build better city locations than the English, French, and Amsterdam- who end up too far north often times.

All in all this actually may be my favourite scenario. It is very different from the regular game with 2 distinct playing styles depending on who you play. I know I voted for Fall of Rome though- but I still like that scenario alot as well.

[CerberusIV]

I played this again on monarch, again as the english.

As before France spent most of the game at war with the Dutch and Spanish. The Spanish started well and took Oporto but not Lisbon. The Portuguese were weakened but made a comeback to finish second with about 15,000 VP as the continual Franco-Spanish-Dutch wars exhausted those three.

The Aztecs and Iroqois owned most of North America by the end. I am sure that I saw in the replay the Iroqois credited for returning a treasure to their capital!!!!

The Portuguese got quite a few treasure from the gold and gems in Africa but nothing from the Americas.

I concentrated on the Caribbean islands, which meant I could ignore the native tribes, and staying out of war after my early seizure of Edinburgh. I normally refuse to pay AI demands but when the French have three times more warships, ask for territory map and 20 gold and you have a carrack with 4 treasures on board 2 turns from Bristol it is smarter to pay up and look happy about it.

Relatively easy as I knew what I was doing after my earlier game. I will try this again as a different civ as it still has a lot of fun value.

One interesting point about the English. They can trigger a GA without actually going to war. If you destroy or capture a privateer with a Sea Dog you get your GA. Quite handy if you want to concentrate on shipping treasure and not worry about defending your cities from amphibious attacks.

[Fried-Psitalon]

Originally posted by CerberusIV
I played this again on monarch, again as the english.

I find that whatever difficulty you're comfortable playing at in the "epic" you should add 2 for scenarios - especially this one - to compensate for the AI being slightly awkward at these difficulties. Then bump it up a bit more as you learn the tricks of the scenario - I'm still working on my Sid Native American games.

Originally posted by CerberusIV
The Aztecs and Iroqois owned most of North America by the end. I am sure that I saw in the replay the Iroqois credited for returning a treasure to their capital!!!!

This is quite possible; if the Iroq raided a town that had treasure in it, they WOULD get the treasure unit and be able to return it. I really doubt they researched the techs (which is possible, though unlikely for obvious reasons) but "capture and kidnap" is an effective way to boost your income as an American civ in this one.

(Side note for Multiplayer junkies: If you're playing a team game with one Euro and one American partner, the American civs can be quite the treasure mongers. Give them all the techs needed and watch as they march the treasures in across land!)

(Or if you don't care so much for that, have the American player found cities in the best locations early, and then give them to you. )