I'm playing my first campaign in MTW, and I'm playing as the English. Unfortunately I set the difficulty level to Normal (it seemed the, er, normal thing to do), and it's looking like the game will be over before any significant dates pass.
I wrote the dates down from one of the stickies herem and the first interesting date was the invention of the compass, in 1170. Well I've got Dockyards in several ports, and it's just turned 1170, so I'm ready to build a shipbuilders guild - or so I thought. I can't, and reading on line it seems I have to wait for 1260, when gunpowder will be discovered. Is that correct? It seems a bit strange (and very annoying that the game leads you to believe otherwise.
So planning my port provinces and building all the dockyards was a waste of time, as this game isn't going to last until 1260. In fact, I don't suppose it'll get far past 1205, which is a shame, as I'm stuck with the original units.
Thanks