Get rich quick as the English!

**ScrapTower** · November 28, 2006, 01:21 PM

(This is on m/vh)

TURN ONE:
1) Send merchant on one ship to gold in Timbuktu.
2) Send Emissary to France – Get 1900 florins for trade rights and an alliance.
3) Set all settlements to build land clearance.
4) Send King to take Wales and Prince to take York
5) Send southern army in Cain on ship to help King.

OTHER TURNS
1) Build all settlements up to communal farming first, then build ports and roads.
2) Don’t build any more units. You should be able to take all of the British Isles by turn 12 with the units you have, a few mercs, and the 4 mailed knights you will probably get for taking York.
3) After taking the Isles, build a stack and put in Cain to protect your lands.
4) Send whats left of your northern army and your generals on a crusade to the Holy Lands.
5) Preferably take Acre to use as a staging point for multiple raids and priest production.
6) Periodically sack Jerusalem and surrounding Egyptian settlements for a massive cash injection. Let them revolt, repeat.
7) Send priests from acre to surrounding settlements. Start converting them so you can keep them later.
8) Let Egypt pay you for a ceicefire, but continue sacking their settlements.
9) Send a merchant from Acre to the silk in the East.

If you do all this stuff you should have 100,000 florins around turn 40.

Comments and suggestions welcome…

EDIT:
I should add that taking the Isles by turn 12 will make you rich fast but you have to move your units smartly. ie to siege Wales as fast as possible, send your king alone with his troops tagging behind. He is the only one on a horse so he can seige Wales in two turns if not slowed by his troops. Hire some mercs when he gets there so they wont sally before his troops arrive. You will also need a ship waiting to take him and the prince to Irelend after that...

**Germanicus75** · November 28, 2006, 01:33 PM

Comment: smart plan :-)

**the_mango55** · November 28, 2006, 01:38 PM

ONE SHIP getting from England to Timbuktu?

In my experience that would be gang raped by pirtate ships for 2 turns and sunk.

Otherwise good ideas.

**ScrapTower** · November 28, 2006, 01:45 PM

I've played this opening many many times so there is no question that it works consistantly. It normally takes a few turns for pirates to show up, and by then you will be rounding spain. Just drop your merchant on the shore north of Timbuktu and walk him down. I disband the ship after he is safely ashore... by then pirates would nail him on the journey home anyways.