Conquering Europe, a lofty goal in any game, not so much in real life. I try to keep my imperialistic tendencies limited to video games and this map is one of the best to make me feel like a real Roman Emperor.
Initially, you have very limited space. Building a farm will be difficult. Build fisheries. You'll want a supply of food because you're racing for gold in this map.
In this map, speed is the key. Build barracks and expand northwards as fast as possible. You want to hit the mountain range and push through it before your opponent does. There's a small mountain pass that fits a single barracks. This pass controls the gold supply in this mountain. If you don't have it, you might as well start over. Your enemy is going to have a well trained army, you won't have a coin. I've been there, it's not fun.
This is where the trouble really starts though. You now have mountains full of gold and other ores and no room to place farms. You'll find large forests to the east and west, stay south of the alps and build lots of woodcutters. I personally try to keep my iron smelters, armory and mint in northern Italy while building farms to the east and west.
This is a theme you'll find throughout the World Campaign. A lot of forests and stone will hinder your progress while being showered with gold and iron locations. Often, a metalworks can help by building a lot of axes.
To win this campaign, you just have to destroy all enemy headquarters. Easier said than done. Another problem you'll run into is vast swabs of land. Once you destroyed an enemy, burning some of conquered military buildings to free up soldiers can and will help, otherwise you'll find yourself without reinforcements on other fronts.
I've currently beaten Europe, Africa and South Asia. Europe was the most difficult map in my experience but also the most satisfying. If you like to conquer the world, I also recommend Rome: Total War and the Hearts of Iron series. Feel free to recommend me other games in the comments.
I've played through the Roman campaign a few times over the years, but never tried the world campaign until yesterday. I didn't know what to expect, and didn't rush towards the gold to the North. I actually found Gold a bit to the east first, in the red territory. Got there just when they were starting their gold mines, so I immediately waged war and took control of the precious metal. The amount of gold was pathetic, though... less than 20 coins worth. but soon after exhausting those mines I found the rich reserves to the north - but by then the yellow player was already mining there for a bit. I had a fortress full of maxed up soldiers thanks to the gold I found earlier, and I sent those soldiers to secure the newly found patch. The yellow player had his own elite soldiers, but I had a few more and it proved enough.
ReplyDeleteAfter that, it was simply a matter of mining every bit of gold and making sure I had enough coal left (stopped making swords and shields just at the nick of time), upgrading my soldiers efficiently and waiting patiently. I ended up with about a 100 elite soldiers and another 30 or so rookies. The other nations had few good soldiers, if any, and little of those to boot. Needless to say, I kicked their asses.
I wasn't sure what the winning conditions were, and for a while I was fearful it would be total annihilation, but I figured I'll just start with destroying all headquarters and see what happens. Thankfully, it proved enough.
All in all, it was an enjoyable map. Took me 11:30 hours in game time (and something like 9 hours of real time, I think). On hindsight, my huge elite army was a giant overkill, but how could I have known :) I'm a bit disappointed that you think Europe is the toughest map in the world campaign - there are definitely harder maps in the Roman campaign, and I hoped the next continent I take on will give me more of a challenge. At an rate, I'll try out Africa next weekend :D
How do you get to the gold in Europe I get beat every time then the yellows, purples and blacks just attack me
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