Never Take our Freedom Guide (Emperor)

Take over England so they don't take your freedom and cruise into the Renaissance with a huge point lead, finally getting the achievement for winning the scenario on Emperor or above as the Celts.

Introduction

The Great Schism has divided the Christian church into east and west. All attempts to reconcile Byzantium and Rome have failed. Meanwhile, the Islamic armies of the Great Turk threaten Constantinople with capture yada yada yada...

All of this will not affect you anyways, so here is what it should really say for the Celts:

In the late middle ages, Great Britain is divided among two factions: the Celts and the English. With their aggressive behaviour and threatening military, the English may very well be on their path to take over the entire Island. Simultaneously, the Celts will have to fight and establish themselves as a serious European power. Severely threatended from the south and with the goal of becoming a major power, can you lead the Celts to victory? With such bloodshed on the horizon, will you be able to preserve civilization as we know it and lead the world into the glory of the Renaissance?

Or, to put it more bluntly: kick a few English asses before taking over enough Muslim cities to win.

1. Starting out

1.1 Turn 0

Know thy enemy:
England spawns at London and will immediately go for expansion to the real-life locations of Plymouth (land's end), Manchester (west) and somewhere around Kingston (east coast). They will be aggressive towards you and war will come inevitably, so our goal is to best prepare for that.

You spawn at Edinburgh with another settler. This settler should be sent to the real-life location of Newcastle (inside the arch formed by the two rivers). These are your only settlers for a long time.
You need tile improvements quickly so build a worker in Edinburgh.
Now wait, don't click "Next Turn" already! You first have to adopt Social Policies!

1.2 Social Policies

Tradition!

We need culture to finance our further policies so we dip into Tradition and adopt Legalism. In this scenario, founded cities get a Monument automatically, so you will get an Amphitheatre in your first four cities (you won't found more anyways). This is Gods&Kings so they give you 3 Culture each and have a specialist slot for even more culture and spawning great artists, very useful for Golden Ages also.

Honor!

To win this scenario, you basically have to wage a lot of war, so we make it as easy as possible to do that.

Those are all the policies you get from the start. Afterwards, just complete the Honor tree, left side first. If you finish Honor, you can basically do you what you want afterwards. At this point, it really does not matter, although I like Commerce for just a little more gold.

1.3 Research

Why am I mentioning this now? If you shift-click different technologies, you can queue them up so you can just click and forget about them.
This is pretty straightforward. You want to reach exploration ASAP because if you manage to send all five Caravels, you get a combined 1500 VP and all your competitors get 0.
Ideally, start off with Guilds, then go into Machinery for your super strong Welsh Longbowmen (they are crucial for annihilating England later) before taking Civil Service. Now, you CAN get Metal Casting for Workshops and extra production but it will delay your Caravels so it is risky. Afterwards, go for Theology and then Education to finally get those Universities up. After that just complete the research tree until Astronomy. Use your Oxford University to complete Exploration and research Navigation. After that, research whatever you want.

2. Early Game

You have succesfully laid the foundation for success in your first turn. Now, we make sure this success can happen by preparing our international relations and the imminent English ass-kicking.

2.1 Production

Most likely, England will soon declare war on you. If they don't, you'll declare on them. Either way, war is coming soon and you need troops. Simultaneously, you need money and happiness, so we have to juggle priorities here.

Edinburgh is a much stronger city than Dublin, so it should be your unit production hub while you get Dublin up and running. Build a few Pictish Warriors and sneak in a Work Boat (maybe 2) and a Light House. This is to improve Luxuries and get good tile yields. Use your worker to chop trees for faster production, it will be very useful. You won't need more than 5 Pictish Warriors, they are mainly blocker units. If you have them together, start building Composite Bowmen. They will do the actual ass-kicking while the Pictish Warriors just protect them and take cities at 0 hp.

While Edinburgh is prepping to fight, Dublin should build a Watermill for food and Production before building a Market and then National Treasury to keep your Economy afloat. Once that is settled, build Barracks and then start producing units as well. If you already have 5 Pictish Warriors, Compbows are always a good idea.

2.2 International Relations

You'll meet a lot of other civs at this point, here is a quick rundown:

• England, your mortal enemy. You'll go to war and annihilate them.
  
• France, make sure to build good relations, you'll need it later. Be careful they don't settle too much near you
  
• Netherlands, friendly at first, will probably declare on you later. Ignore for now, try to keep peaceful.
  
• Sweden, good to keep friendly with, otherwise not overly useful
  
• Almohads, try to be peaceful and friendly as long as possible, you will have to attack them later though.
  
• Ayyubids and Turks: irrelevant for the first 150 turns, might declare on you very late game
  
• Rest: completely irrelevant, maybe useful for trading and research agreements, just watch out for their scores

2.3 War with the English

Your goal here is to capture every English city until turn 75-80 or turn 85-90 if they settled on Ireland the absolute latest (putting your initial Swordsman on Ireland helps to prevent settling).
Ideally, you can pull it off much earlier to a) prepare for the Almohad campaign and b) defend against possible Dutch aggression.

So, at one point or another, the English probably declare war. If it is before you have your army up, try to defend without losses. If you already have your army, you can just declare on them yourself.
They'll send units at you, weakening their forces if you just focus on killing those first. You then should approach their northernmost cities and always focus units before cities.

You'll notice your religion allows you to buy units with faith. That can be useful if you need an instant replacement at one point or another. Also, take the Great General you got for your social policy with you. You will probably generate 1-2 more of those by the way, bring them them to the battlefield, too. Also, once you get Machinery, start promoting your Compbows to Longbows, it makes it much easier.

You can keep all the cities but puppet them for now. After taking the ones in northern England, go for London, their strongest (and soon one of yours) production city. Taking it out should leave you with only one city and land's end. This one is particularly annoying to take. I sacrificed a few Compbows and Pictish Warriors trying to take it. Using Citadels helps a lot. This city is not very strong so you can raze it, however the French will settle a new city there if you do that.

Now hopefully having eradicated the English, the British Isles are all yours, and you should set up one or two more cities in Ireland. One is easier, two will prevent settling from the French (they spread like a virus in this scenario).

Congratulations, you are now almost unstoppable.

3. What now?

You have beaten England and are now basically unstoppable on your own continent. You are in control of a few decent cities and your economy is booming. But you still need to win, so what are our next steps?

3.1 Production

Without the immediate need for any military units, your cities should now build useful infrastructure before going on with unit production. All cities on rivers should have Water Mills and every city should build a Market and Barracks. Afterwards, just build Longbows and Pikemen and a few Catapults.
These units will serve for the next military operation. Also, make sure to upgrade all your promoted Compbows.

3.2 Securing your borders

While you are secluded on an island, that doesn't mean other civs can't harass you. Triemes and embarked units can still reach your cities and pillage boat improvements. To combat that, you should build one or two defensive Triemes.

It can happen that the Dutch attack (like it happened for me). Here, defending is easy since your Longbows can snipe the Dutch units from far away while they still try to cross the channel. Depending on which turn you are in, you can definitely make a detour and conquer one or two dutch cities for a little extra VP (though they have the same religion so not a lot). Aside from that, just make sure no boats get pillaged and no cities are lost (although that will never happen anyways).

3.3 Onwards to Lisbon!

If you haven't already gotten open borders with France, it is now time! Unfortunately, they'll settle the entire west coast of Europe and until you get Compass, your units have to pass through those cost tiles. On the way, they will be blockaded by French Triemes, which can become infuriating. Anyways, this is your only chance to make a move before you get Compass so prepare for some turns of boating.

To get VP, you have to capture cities of opposing religions. The orthodox Russians and Byzantines are ages away so no luck there. The Turks and Ayyubids are just as far and take forever to reach. Finally, Protestantism will not be founded until late in the game. That only leaves one Islamic Civ to attack: The Almohads, situated across northern Africa.

To get a sort of checkpoint to funnel units through and to have a strong production city nearby, we have to take over Lisbon. Also, there is a good chance the Almohads are allied to it, so we will have to take it out anyways. Furthermore, it will have grown fairly large and converted to Islam at this point, so we can expect at least 250 VP for taking it.

One more note: try to ally the Vatican. This will grant you VP and deny VP to your competitors. If a strong enemy Civ like Russia decides to ally it for too long, it may become a close race. Placing your spy and attempting coups is usually a good idea.

4. Conquest, Conquest, Conquest!

With your fleet on the way to Lisbon, you are now about to get loads of VP, however, you'll have to play it smart to ensure a quick takeover of the city and avoid big losses.
Since you have now declared open borders with France, you can move all your embarked units through their territory. This will take some times but you need to really have enough units to take Lisbon quickly or it will cost you much more time in the long run.

4.1 Capturing Lisbon

Gradually move your units into Lisbon's territory. Try to get Catapults and Longbows in ideal firing spots, bring your Great General and move melee units to capture the city. Only attack once you are confident you can quickly take the city, it should at maximum take you three turns or the losses will be too great. Once you can do that attack and conquer the city, annex it as soon as it has full health and buy a courthouse before building any destroyed infrastructure back.

4.2 Onwards to the Almohads

Because the Almohads have a fleet and few spots to safely land troops, you basically require Privateers and Frigates to conquer them. Unless you have the technology by now, you will have to wait a few turns. Generally, your cities can just focus money so your gold bank fills up (important for later). Make sure the iron tile in Edinburgh is improved. London can build land units to send south towards Lisbon, Lisbon itself builds Galeasses.

4.3 Caravels

As soon as Caravels become available, Lisbon, Edinburgh and Newcastle drop everything and each build one. Lisbon and Edinburgh each build a second one. Send them to the west border of the map for a combined 1500 VP you desperately need.

4.4 Almohad Attack

Once you get the necessary tech, buy a Frigate in Lisbon every turn until you run out of either Iron or Money. Simultaneously, build Privateers in Lisbon and London. Once you have as many Frigates as possible and at least 3 Privateers, attack the Almohads.

Your first step should be to destroy their navy. This protects your attacking ships from further damage, enables Privateers to maybe take over one or two enemy ships and ensures safe passage for your land units. You can conquer one Almohad coast city with just naval units. Once you have made that city a puppet, you can ship your land units over and disembark there.

Now you split your forces: take all your boats and one or two longbows to attack and conquer city after city on the coast. If the Almohads take one or two back, even better: less unhappiness once you reconquer. Use the remainder of your land units (I hope you brought a lot) and your Great General to push south and take one or two small Almohad cities before making a move on their capital Marrakech.

All your conquered Almohad cities should produce units while your British cities produce gold to buy even more units. Your goal is to just take as many Almohad cities as you possibly can. The coast cities are particularly easy to take but difficult to hold. The inland cities are harder to conquer but you will not lose them either. A constant stream of units ensures a constant stream of VP.

5. Sealing the deal

You have now conquered tons of cities and built a Celtic empire. Take a look at all scores. If you have a comfortable lead in the last 10-15 turns, you should be good to go. If a civ is close to you in points, there are a few things you could do:

• Attack them if they're a European civ
  
• Pay other civs to attack them
  
• Pour all your money into allying the Vatican
  
• Gather all your units and desperately throw them at cities just to squeeze out a few more VP

This will likely not be necessary, the strategy is almost foolproof, but it's always good to have a backup plan.

I hope you enjoyed this guide and found it helpful for not having your freedom taken!
Alba gu bràth!

[Landoco]

Can you show a picture of where Newcastle is to be? I'm confused by your description.