Conquest of the New World – England Strategy (Deity)
Following an already glorious history throughout the middle ages (see ), England’s impressive story continues throughout the Tudor period. It includes the Elizabethan period and is considered a period of English expansionism and optimism. The reign of Elizabeth I. marks a Golden Age in English history and a national hero, Sir Francis Drake, also lived in this period.
Tea and Crumpets for Everyone
Unlocked 5 Jan 2017 @ 2:53am
Win the New World Scenario as England.
German and French names of this Steam Achievement:
DE: Tee und Törtchen für alle
FR: Du thé et des biscuits pour tout le monde
Part 1: Dominate Europe
Chapter 1: Initial Build Order and Research
I had played one game in the Conquest of the New World Scenario before and it became clear very early: The AI is dominant as always. So I attempted what I always try: Defeat the main AI players as early as possible.
Now in Conquest of the New World, European Nations can not declare war on each other until the discovery of Piracy. This means in order to serve Tea and Crumpets for everyone, you need two things:
- Direct your Research straight to Piracy
- Meanwhile build a military strong enough to capture those European capitals
The initial build order shows exactly that focus on Production improvements and right after only units. Keep
| Plymouth | Roanoke Island |
|---|---|
| 1. Ironworks | — |
| 2. Cargo Ship 1 (7) | — |
| 3. Cargo Ship 2 (10) | — |
| 4. Cargo Ship 3 (12) | — |
| 5. Forge (15) | Worker |
| 6. Navigation School (20) | Amphitheater |
| 7. Seaport | — |
| 8. Cargo Ship (27) | — |
| 9. Conquistador 1 (31) | — |
| 10. Conquistador 2 | — |
| 11. Trebuchet 1 | — |
| 12. Trebuchet 2 (38) | — |
| 13. – 15. 3x Galleas (Upgrade to Frigates in turn 45) | — |
| 16. Frigate 4 | — |
| 17. Trebuchet 3 (turn 49) | — |
| 18. – 20. 3x Privateers (turn 54) | — |
This build order pretty much guarantees to by turn 54 have an army of:
- 4 Frigates
- 3 Privateers
- 3 Trebuchets
- 2 Conquistadors
- (and I had a Lancer, not sure where from 😉 )
This little army over the course of the game became a military of 111 units (running on 110 supply, so causing a small production penalty). Amongst them were 22 highly promoted Ships of the Line and 21 Sea Beggars.
Research
All research is directed at reaching Piracy as soon as possible. More details on Research will be provided with future Conquest of the New World Strategy Guides.
The English Unique Ability – Sun Never Sets
+2 Movement for all naval units. +50% duration of Golden Ages
Very nice traits for our cause: The additional movement points also apply to embarked units! This helps a lot shipping units to the New World and makes your fleet much more mobile pursuing or escaping enemy naval vessels.
Social Policies
Here’s an overview of the social policies available to Europeans in the Conquest of the New World scenario. Below I listed the tree I used for England.
- Maritime Infrastructure (Level 1) — Immediately boost your production!
- Merchant Confederacy (Level 1) — Get more Gold from trade routes.
- Total War (Level 2) — Boost production of Military units! This is when the arms race starts.
- City Sack (Turn 47, Level 1) — Just in time before the first war 🙂
- Merchant Navy (Turn 58, Level 2)
- Overseas Empire (Turn 70, Level 3)
- Naval Tradition (Turn 84, Level 1)
- Meritocracy (Turn 102, Level 2)
- Ransom (Level 1)
- Barter System (Level 2)
Chapter 2: Conquest
With the army listed above it was surprisingly easy to bring tea and crumpets for everyone and conquer Europe. Right in turn 54 I declared war on The Netherlands. I picked the Netherlands first, because they were very much cut off from their colonies via the English Channel, allowing me to easily pillage their cargo ships. Not having any significant military presence in Europe, defending their capital, Amsterdam fell in one turn!!!
In turn 60, after healing all units and bringing them in position, I declared war on Portugal. They had some more units especially ships, so bringing them down took 3 turns. Lisbon was captured in turn 63. Portugal still had a fleet urgently heading home. This has been a solid provision of XP for my growing fleet. Eventually we made peace in turn 67.
Bringing the (now even bigger) fleet in position at Seville and having the ground troops attack from land, Spain was a tougher nut to crack. Apparently the AI notices some warmongering going on and had armed a lot. Fights on the Iberian peninsula were pretty much even, but my fleet captured Seville in turn 74 and we made peace one turn later.
France’s geography is in it’s favor. First: Not that many ships can attack at once. Second: The mainland is almost unreachable from the sea. So without properly surrounding it it took five turns from the declaration of war (turn 78) to capturing Paris (turn 83).
So in 30 turns the European nations lost their home base. This bereft them of the option of intercontinental trade routes, heavily cutting their Gold per turn income.
Another vital part of the early game is to get a second city to the Americas. In my case this was Roanoke Island, built with a captured or purchased settler. The main point: It needs to be founded on the west coast, so your Great Admirals and other naval units can conquer the Pacific Ocean.
Part 2: Conquest of the New World
Chapter 3: Capture the European Colonies
In turn 83 (ironically in 1575 AD), after the last city in Europe was captured, the scoreboard said:
England: 1575 VP
Sadly the Happiness rating said -15 🙁 after capturing La Rochelle. But Happiness can be managed through buildings, trade and Social Policies.
The next task was to completely destroy all competitors for winning this scenario, namely the Europeans.
- Isabella of Spain abdicated as the first Imperial power
- Catherine of Portugal was defeated in turn 119
- William of The Netherlands was destroyed turn 124
- Napoleon of France submitted in turn 135
Chapter 4: Scoring VP from the Native Americans
-
Invasion of North America 081 DOW on Iroquois
- …
- 107 Nombre de Dios (Isabella) captured
Spain defeated - 109 DOW on Portugal
- 112 Pohokwi (Catherine) captured
- 113 Tlacopan (Monty) captured
- 116 Tlacopan liberated
- 117 Tlacopan (Monty) captured
- 118 Porto Seguro (Catherine) captured
- 119 Sao Vicente (Catherine) captured
Portugal defeated -
Portugals rich coastal cities 119 DOW on Netherlands
- 120 Tula (Monty) captured
- 121 Tula liberated
- 122 New Amsterdam (William) captured
- 123 Tula (Monty) captured
- 124 Pavonia (William) captured
- 124 Akwesasme (William) captured
The Netherlands defeated - 125 Tlatelolco (Monty) captured
- 126 Tlatelolco liberated
- 126 Tlatelolco (Monty) captured
-
North America Post-Invasion 126 DOW on France
- 126 France Antarctique (Francis) captured
- 127 Fort Caroline (Francis) captured
- 131 Port Royal (Francis) captured
- 134 Tadoussac (Francis) captured
- 135 Quebec (Francis) captured
France defeated - 136 Tlatelolco (Monty) captured
- 138 Tenochtitlan (Monty) captured
- 138 Tlacopan (Monty) captured
- 140 Atzcapotzalco (Monty) captured
-
Invade the Aztecs 140 DOW by Incas (Pachacuti)
- 141 Xochicalco (Monty) captured
- 141 Peace with Monty of the Aztecs (90GPT for me + Spices 🙂 )
- 144 Ica (Pachacuti) captured
- 146 Machu (Pachacuti) captured
- 146 Ollantaylambo (Pachacuti) captured
- 146 DOW by Mayans (Pacal)
- 147 El Mirador (Pacal) captured
- 147 Arequipa (Pachacuti) captured
- 148 Huamanga (Pachacuti) captured
-
Waging land war vs the Incas 148 Cuzco (Pachacuti) captured
- 148 Corihuayrachina (Pachacuti) captured
- 149 Vilcabanba (Pachacuti) captured
Tea and Crumpets for Everyone (Deity) – Conclusion
The conclusion for Conquest of the New World is quite a positive one: 14h5min playing time were well invested. It’s been good fun, challenging at the start and super dominant and the end. Unfortunately with the AI being so overpowered on this level of difficulty (Deity), I think conquering Europe is the only way to win.
It would have been much nicer to compete in an equal race for the Americas, but as human player it’s impossible to outproduce the AI and settle faster or even just stay on eye level.
Anyways: A successful scenario playthrough with 6936 VP in the end and even 20 treasures left speaks volumes. This one being the first attempt, I’ll validate this approach with the other European nations (even with the Netherlands although there’s no Steam Achievement 😉 ).
You are right, Sir! 🙂
about Conquistadores
But then I thought: The ones I built had been used to conquer Europe starting only in turns 50+. So I still don’t know how I founded those cities earlier in the game…
How did you get a settler? You can not capture it, it turns into worker. To buy it, you need 600 gold. I only collected that much in turn 20. Too late, I think …
not 600, but 650.
Whew, if only I knew… It’s been 4 years since the blog post, probably 5 years since playing. I remember using Gold for unit upgrades to conquer the Europeans. Can one buy settlers with Faith?
no, you cannot buy settlers with Faith.
I must have bought it then. Because the build order I usually note down and then just type it into the blog post. If there’s no settler, I didn’t build it. No faith purchase – then it was captured or purchased. If capturing doesn’t work (anymore?) then it must have been Gold-purchased. England should acquire Gold faster, from meeting all City States first.
And after I wrote this, I remember: Can’t Conquistadores found cities in this scenario?
Is it possible to get achievements with Delux version?
Yes, that works. If I remember correctly, I didn’t even play the “basic” version once 🙂
Did you seriously raze every American city apart from Roanoke? If not, could you leave a marking (captured vs. razed) for each one on your list?
Hehe, yes, I indeed razed them all. In some locations I rebuilt cities where I found luxury resources I didn’t have yet. But basically after my conquest, America was… Let’s say “less populated”. This is what generated all those treasures for Victory Points.
(Now I feel a bit bad about this…)