newbie questions

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I've been playing a few hours and really struggling with the German manual. Hopefully, someone can help me with what I assume are pretty basic issues:

1) Why the different colors for land? The Marshes and Wales are orange, Connaught is green, Munster is darker gray. What are the gameplay implications of this?

2)The 'fantasy' game seems like a good place to start learning. However, it seems to go on quite a while with little to do. At what tech level can you explore land beyond your next door neighbor? explore by sea?

3) Even early on, it seems like tech levels cost extremely different amounts -- I get 3 naval military levels by the time I get 1 land military level, even though I putting more resources into land. Is this just a given, or am I overlooking some variable?

Thanks in advance for the help.

 

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I'll try to answer these...
1 The brown/orange land is mountainous, while the green is forest, the grey/white is plains I beleive...but the dark grey I don't know...If you've selected a province it turns darker grey, could it be that ?

2 Explore land with usual troops you ned level 21 landtech I think, about the same level for exploring the sea with normal ships... With Explorers for sea and conquistadors for land you can do it from the start.

3 Yes they cost different amounts..as to why I don't know...

Cobos

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If you are not part of the solution you are part of the precipitate.

 

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Thanks!

Do mountains and forest affect defense values? movement rates? attrition rates?


Also, I do not understand the trade/monopoly rules. I see that there are 20 'slots' for merchants. However, is it just pure luck which merchant wins out and which one gets pushed out? Also, when one country achieves a monopoly, what happens? It seems like sometimes all other countries' merchants disappear, and sometimes they do not. Is still worthwhile to send your merchants to a COT where another country has a monopoly?

Also, in what manner do explorers and conquistadors show up? Is this a random event for both England and for Poland, just vastly more common for England? Or is there some action that must be taken by the player?



[This message has been edited by Beorn (edited 17-12-2000).]

 

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There are 20 slots.

If you can't establish a monopol, you will get max. 5 of those slots. If you can establish a monopol (trade level 3 or 4, not sure right now), you get all slots nobody else has.
The chance to win or lose against another merchant depends on your and the other persons trade level.

And regarding conquistadors etc.: There is no way to influence this due to gameplay.

[This message has been edited by Iyanga (edited 17-12-2000).]

 

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Just to answer the conquistador/explorer question...
You get them both in two disctinct ways.
You have historical e and c and then you have the random ones...

And in the case of Poland vs. England England has quite a few historical explorers and some historical conquistadors while I beleive Poland has nearly none (I might be wrong here). Regardless go look in the db/leaders/ directory the file extension designates country code... There you can see when the historical leaders come and their stats.

The random ones are just that...they are one of the possible random events... just hope for luck and wait

Cobos

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If you are not part of the solution you are part of the precipitate.