This walkthrough is intended for people who have played and understand the basic
mechanics of the game. It will be explained from the world conquest game with
the difficulty setting at 3 and 1 player controlling England point of view. The
general strategies from this walkthrough can easily be applied to the other
kingdoms.
This walkthrough is not intended to be used as an instruction manual or
reference guide. I will focus almost exclusively on strategy. This guide
should help people who know how to play the game but still haven’t
‘won’/conquered the world or have a difficult time doing so.
Format:
The walkthrough will focus mainly on strategies to 3 aspects of the game. The
strategies are Building, Conquering and Holding. I wrote this walkthrough from
the perspective of starting a game from the first season of the first year.
Strategies:
-----Building
In the first few turns manage the aspects of the game that will make it easy to
steamroll your opponents.
If someone only learns one thing from reading this walkthrough I hope it will be
this labor allocation strategy based on producing ONLY food.
Why produce only food?
It takes the guessing game out of ‘economy’. In playing this game with my
friend (who only likes to play with Japan) I’ve learned producing high priced
items like silk slows down world conquest plans. In trying to trade items for
high prices, my friend waits for the economy to turn up and prices to spike.
Waiting and guessing these cycles slow down the pace of conquest. And waiting
for the economy to cool down so you can buy more troops/labor really really
slows down the pace. This is why I set the labor almost exclusively to
producing food.
90% of the time merchants are willing to buy food. If you buy troops the same
season you sold the food you will almost always yield the same number of troops.
My guess is 12 food = 1 troop no matter where the economy that season.
This is the benefit of producing food verses artisan items. The food producing
labor will yield a consistent, dependable number of troops. By holding items
and gold, waiting for a better deal on troops/labor, you miss out on food
production the additional labor could have produced.
In practice if you start the game with 180 troops/laborers for example the labor
should be allocated like this the first spring of the game:
When the fall season comes sell the extra food not needed to support the
population with over the winter season. With the gold from the sale of food buy
troops/labor from the merchants and allocate them to producing food. By the
fall of the second year enough food should have been produced and sold to have
gathered around 400 troops/laborers. Now that there is enough troops to start a
proper campaign I’ll move on to the Conquering (‘war’ command) aspect of the
game.
----- Conquering
Before selecting the war command the troop units should be reallocated. The
default unit allocations are usually not optimal.
The way the game mechanics work, it’s better to fight with one 100 troop unit
than four 25 troop units. Even in this scenario:
One 100 troop unit .vs five 25 troop units
The one 100 troop unit will win. Even though the five unit side have a 25 troop
(25%) advantage they will lose in the above scenario.
With this in mind set the troop allocation to 10% for Unit 0, and 90% for Unit
1. Set both units as cavalry. Later on in the game body and battle attributes
will be built up pretty high from winning so many wars. Allocate all the troops
to Unit 0 when you can’t seem to lose duels if you tried. From level 3 and up
the computer opponent never duels if you will win. If they should ask me to
duel and I refuse, the duel will take place anyway (and I’ll lose).
Attack country 7 (today I’m guessing this is mostly France) and leave 100
troops/laborers in England to defend against attack. What I did during game
play was ally with country 8. No one can attack England after country 7 is
conquered (with this less than 100 troops can be left in England because there
would be no need to defend for 5 years after signing the treaty). Your landing
party in country 7 should be 30 troops in Unit 0 and 270 troops in Unit 1.
Leave Unit 0 in a safe place and pass every turn. Attack the castle with Unit
1. If the AI was smarter it would go after unit 0 from the beginning of the
battle. But the AI is content to sit in the castle and turtle. A few turns
after attacking their Unit 0 with your Unit 1, their Unit 0 might leave the
castle. Unless their other Units hinder the ability to attack Unit 0, keep
attacking Unit 0 until you win or they leave the castle.
If and when Unit 0 leaves the castle, there are basically two things needed to
finish the job. First, keep your Unit 0 from their Unit 0 (because Richard will
lose to Phillip in a duel at this point in the game). Secondly, hunt down their
Unit 0. The easiest way to do this is to split Unit 1. Keeping the one big
unit will beat five smaller units example in mind, split Unit 1. They may have
other Units that may still be around when running down their Unit 0. It should
only take a few turns to finish them off with 2 Units to hunt down their Unit 0.
After the battle there are some choices to make.
What do you want to do with the leader from country 7? In battle you can check
out their leader’s attributes. Phillip is a good leader. I usually add him to
the prince roster.
We found someone else who can be a prince what should we do with him? Add if
you know he is a good leader and if you have room on the roster.
Who should control the country you’ve just conquered? In most cases select
‘victor’.
How will England be governed? Send a prince in this case. In this example
Phillip will be sent to England (country 6). The game always sends the prince
with the highest attributes.
In the next section I’ll go into how to keep what you have. It should also
explain in greater detail some of the things I’ve outlined so far.
-----Holding
‘Demote’ any non-family prince. Marry one of your daughters to the Phillip.
‘Promote’ one of Richard’s sons. I usually do not promote Arthur in case I
loose with Richard in battle. The more family members you have as prince the
easier the game will be in the middle and late phases.
As you conquer countries, spread the family members in a way so they are between
as many non-family member princes as possible. This comes into play when you
leave someone that can betray you (non-family prince) in charge of a country
you’ve left with a decent number of troops. In the next turn send the troops
from the non-family controlled country to a family controlled country.
In practice the movement of troops should look like this.
Country A -----> Country B <----- Country C
Non-family Family Non-family
If A or C should rebel, B will attack or you can ‘move base’ to B and take back
A or C. This is why it’s important to have Phillip as a family member prince.
With the surrounding countries sending troops into Phillip’s country (with your
orders), he will attack and take back the countries that will rebel.
With the other family member prince(s) you have in your roster just spread them
out on the maps to emulate the figure above. Move high attribute family members
to the ‘frontlines’ of your empire. Keep switching the less able family members
to the rear of the empire where they can’t be attacked. They usually just
become place holders or janitors as you move east.
Middle and late phase game play:
After conquering 3 or 4 countries, it’s easy to amass 500 or 600 troops. Go
back to the Building game while moving troops to the family controlled
countries. At this stage of the game keep moving east and attack at least once
every 2 years. Take the laborers from the country you’ve conquered and use them
to replace your fallen troops. This makes rebellion less likely in case you
left a non-family member prince in that country.
By the time you’ve made it to Country 1 (Mongolia) the biggest problem should be
rebellion. As long as the family member princes are within striking distance it
shouldn’t get too much out of control. Concentrate on conquering the east first
then go back to mop up the rebel countries. Most of the time my last battle
takes place after I ‘move base’ near a country that has splintered off.
Misc. hints and faqs:
Why is it so important to have a family member prince in between as many
countries as possible?
They never rebel. If they have enough troops they will go to war with rebel
countries around them.
What do I do with a family member prince if they have low attributes?
Try to never demote them. If anything use them as ‘place holders’.
How should I set up the attributes before game play?
Try to spread out the ‘attributes’ for your leader evenly more or less. As the
game progresses you will have to ‘train self’ to bring up the used attribute
points during the course of the game. The exceptions here are leadership, body
and battle. Leadership points tend to deplete faster than the other attributes
due to the fact they are tied/spent in many of the orders given in the game (you
may chose to front load here and allocate the extra points before game play).
Body and battle attributes are the only attributes that can rise after carrying
an order or command out (after winning battles, body and battle attributes rise.
You can start with these at low levels before game play and end the game with
500 attribute points in body without training).
How much should I concentrate on artisan items?
Not very much. Just sell them for quick cash in case you need extra money to
wage war, or give them away to the get the country’s moral up. I can usually
finish the game with Richard (before he dies of old age) because I keep moving
east.
How much should I concentrate on taxes?
Not very much. Don’t raise taxes or levy the extra tax. It’s usually never
enough to make a big different in any one country. Lower the taxes if any
country’s morale is below 100.
How much should I concentrate on training the troops?
Try to keep it above 100. I’ve noticed training make little difference if the
enemy is out numbered 3 to 1.
Why did you recommend not promoting Arthur in case Richard is lost in battle?
Should Richard die you need a male heir of a certain age to keep the game going
(I think it’s 12). The game is over if there are no available male heirs and
Richard dies. This is why it’s important to keep Arthur in on ‘children’
roster.
How can I get country 8 to ally with me?
They are more likely to sign the treaty have allocating more troops to the
standing army.
Is this walkthrough finished?
Probably not. But it did take me 10 years to write out my strategies so I don’t
how often I will update it.
Thanks:
Gamefaqs for having a great site. Tom Klump for appreciating this game like I
did.
Copyrights:
This work my only be displayed on gamefaqs.com. Please contact me through the
site if you need to post it somewhere else.
