European Buildup Guide

This guide applies to the basic startup plan of Spain, England, France and USA

For this random map I had the resources on normal and the mineral on rich. You will start the game with eighteen peasants. Grab all 18 and build the Fort immediately. This should only take a few seconds. Snag a majority of the villies, 14 or so, and have them begin construction of the first Town Dwelling. Put the Town Dwelling close to the fort and if possible try to leave as much open space as possible because you now take the remaining villies and you have them begin work on a Mill. After the first Town Dwelling is complete, begin a second one, next to the first if possible. The mill should be completed in short order. You’ll have to wait a minute or so for the fields to ripen. While you are waiting for that, gather a mob of peasants and build a Storehouse in a nearby forest (assuming there is one) and then build a Blacksmith wherever. That should take care of your wood and stone. Set both Town Dwellings on infinite queue (Ctrl+click the peasant build button). By the time the field ripens, the game clock shouldn’t be beyond three minutes and you should have around thirty villies. Put them all to work in the field. Don’t be suprised if your Town Dwellings stop building peasants. Your food will run under 400 so the queues will automatically stop. As soon as your villagers bring in the first batch of food though, the Town Dwellings will resume building villies.

As the food begins to mount up, put a few extra villies to work in your fields. Usually somewhere between 30-35 per mill is a safe bet. Don’t put any more than that in the fields or you will have idle villies. Start collecting villagers from the Town Dwellings or your rally point and send them to the woods to begin harvesting wood. While all this is going on, keep another open field in mind because you will soon build another mill. Research Food Procurement at the Mill and Field Durability at the Blacksmith. After throwing around 30 peasants into the woods, grab five villies and find a stone deposit. Stone is a very important resource and it is to your advantage to begin mining it as soon as possible. You will also want to get a better idea of the land you inhabit. Throw a dozen villies into the Fort and build 12 pikemen. Disperse them across the map. Post them as sentries around your land so that your borders are revealed and you can see just about everything. Send a couple out to find the enemy and see where he is located.

By about the eight minute mark research Pikemen Creation Speed at the Blacksmith and Field Durability at the Mill. Your food and wood stocks should be growing quite rapidly by now. At the ten minute mark, you should begin construction of the second Mill. Again, try to find a spot where you can get the most field coverage possible. (open ground) You should have enough villies standing around at this point that you can begin selecting random groups of five and begin an intensive mining operation. Start building mines everywhere that you can within your own borders. Special emphasis is to be made for stone and gold, the two most important resources right now. You should also be able to build a third Town Dwelling around the 12-14 minute range. Make sure you have 30-40 villagers at each Mill operation now and continue building mines like crazy. You also want to reinforce the villies working in the woods from time-to-time. Right about now you should begin work on a small home guard.

To begin with, march about 30 villies into the Fort and queue up the equivalent number of pikemen. While they begin arriving, research the next two mill upgrades for Food Procurement & Field Durability and go to the Blacksmith and get another Pikemen Creation Speed upgrade. If you have some spare time you can construct a hunting lodge and if you are so inclined, you can build 2-3 Trappers. Despatch them against some Elk somewhere or something. They’re largely worthless, but they are amusing to watch and can help you kill some time. But about this time things start to go real fast. Throw some more villies into the Fort and queue up more pikemen (your first batch is still not done yet). Research another Pikemen build upgrade at the Blacksmith. You also should have enough resources now to build a Fortress. Round up thirty villies and go build the Fortress. Make sure it is a good position, one where you can guard one of your flanks or your center and yet still be able to build several buildings around the Fortress in the future.

While all that is going on, whew, make sure you get the 17c. upgrade in the Fort so you can build your officers, drummers, and flag-bearers. Without them your army is worthless. Don’t get too excited though, only build 2-3 of each for now. Keep throwing in mobs of villies. You can hit the pikemen infinite queue (ctrl+click on the pikemen build icon) if you want to. Make sure you have sentries posted throughout your land and along the borders. This ensures you can see all that enters your land and gives you advance warning of any enemy movements.

Your Fortress should be complete by now. Should be in the 18-20 minute range. Have the villies who just built it build your fourth Town Dwelling, right next to the Fortress. After they finish it, put all the villies in the Fortress, set the Town Dwelling to infinite queue, and set the rally point in the Fortress. At this point I set the Fortress queue at infinite Fusilier build. Fusiliers are the backbone of any British army in American Conquest. Keep your eyes peeled as to when you can research the cavalry upgrade at the Fortress. Back home you should set one of your Town Dwellings around the Fort to rally inside the Fort, that way you don’t have to keep throwing in mobs. Depending on the situation you may or may not want to form a company yet. To be safe I usually form a company of pikemen once I get 72. Just select the officer and create a formation (you need a drummer + a flag-bearer). Form them up in the center of your base or march them to a flank next to the Fortress. Once you get your first formation assembled, you can begin researching pike upgrades at the Fort (also grab another Pikemen creation upgrade at the Blacksmith). Another piece of advice is to take some pikemen and set them as guards for all your mines. Put at least one pikemen and have them despatched to guard your mines (select a pikeman, hit “G” and click on a mine). You can also begin upgrading your mines to hold +5 villies. Start with your stone and gold mines.

By twenty minutes you should be able to build yourself a Town Center. This is a very important upgrade building for the late game. At this point most of the upgrades you will make are up to you. I usually do a lot of economic research at this point, for the fields and woods. You can build a second Storehouse with villies from the Town Center construction project and put some more peasants to work harvesting trees. Also dependent upon how long of a game you want or how many villies you have, you can also build a third Mill if you feel so inclined. A third Mill is most useful if you plan on having a very strong cavalry arm because cavalry is very expensive food-wise. You may also want to suspend peasant building except for the Fortress & Fort queues. You are probably approaching your population limit.

Make sure to form your fusiliers into a company of 72 when you get the chance. They make a good reserve in case you are attacked and your pikemen are defeated. After creating 2-3 companies of pikemen, I would recommend ceasing the construction of further units. Begin concentrating on your bayonet infantry. Get the fusilier construction speed upgrade at the Blacksmith as soon as possible. At this point you can also begin building a blockhouse or two to defend weak points. Make sure you shove some units in the blockhouses. You should also be able to build another Town Dwelling soon. Put it next to the Fortress again. Keep upgrading mines, while ensuring they are adequately protected. At the Town Center make sure you research the Town Dwelling II upgrade. Once you do that, you can build several more Town Dwellings. (Again, put at least one more next to the Fortress.) It should also boost your population limit significantly after building several of those new dwellings. If you are facing a tough European opponent or in for a long game, keep your eyes peeled for upgrades and the construction of a second Fortress. Keep upgrading your infantry, build a small cavalry reserve of 20-50 horses, maybe put them in some squads inside your base. They are very useful in case an enemy soldier or two slips through all your defenses and is threatening to seize your villies.

Once you have some decent fusilier companies organized, the computer is beaten. It is a little more challenging to seize the enemy village, since there are no cannons in the second demo, but after sending in an entire battalion of four or five hundred fusiliers, you can storm just about everything. Bear in mind that this guide is designed to give you a rough idea of what to do for those not so familiar with the game. The only difference between the European nations really is that Spain has Reieter cavalry. My parting advice to all you young generals out there is to keep in mind my personal motto: improvise & adapt, always. Human plays are much trickier than the computer, so you have to be on your toes at all times. Intelligence is a huge part of the war, so it is imperative for you to keep scouts, whether they be pikemen or cavalry, spread all over the map keeping an eye on the enemy. Always guard your advance outposts, mines, and other buildings. If you get attacked early and often, you may want to switch to musketeer and pikemen rather than going heavily fusilier. Also, once you’re past the half hour mark and well into the game, go heavily into gold mining as well as keeping your coal well stocked. Stone becomes far less important later on and is replaced by coal which you need for your infantry, artillery, etc.

My parting advice is to fight and die with honor. Any general who fights with dishonor or in an unworthy manner is guilty of betrayal to himself and to his cause. Die with honor, form a square around the colors and fall beside your men as a hero. With that, I bid you all the best of luck and hope to meet you on the field of honor some day.

Cherub Marechal

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