While your Flagship is sailing around, build two to three Lumberjacks and start plopping down some Peasant houses.I personally prefer locking down the prime Occidental locations first before locking down the Orient, though - there is more than enough time if you do everything right.

This will effective lock the AI's at the second Civilization Level (Citizen), since they won't be able to establish an Oriental settlement, and therefore produce Spice for their population.

If you don't care about 'locking down' all the prime Occidental locations, you can go ahead and sail the Flagship southward and colonize all the Oriental starter islands (Dates fertility).

This is useful if you plan to have multiple large Occidental settlements in late game. Since the AI's are set to 'explore' the map for a suitable island (even if the map is set to 'Revealed'), you can easily beat them to settling all the prime estates, leaving them with only small, remote, pitiful starting locations.

Sail the Flagship around Occidental waters first, and colonize all the nice 'starter' islands (Cider & Hemp fertilities) - meaning ones that are large and have many raw material nodes.

It is time to settle more islands! You now have two options:

Leave only 10 tons of wood and tools on the island you just colonized - load the rest of them back onto your Flagship.

Do not waste time here - grab one as fast as you can.

At the very beginning of the game, quickly locate & colonize an Occidental island (with fertility for Cider and Hemp) to your liking - preferably one that's sizable and have many fertilities & raw materials.

(*this strategy does not work in the Venice addon as the AI will still built a warehouse on your Island even if you have taken all islands).

If you wish to beat them the 'proper' way, please feel free to skip this section.

This strategy exploits the AI's programmed behavior - which disallows them from settling an island that's already inhabited. The Cheap Strategy: ALL YOUR ISLANDS ARE BELONG TO ME īefore you read the 'proper' guide, there is in fact a very easy way to defeat Hard AI's (you can have 3 Hard AI's in the game and easily beat them or keep them under submission indefinitely - without breaking a sweat). 3 The Fair Strategy: Some additional tips.1 The Cheap Strategy: ALL YOUR ISLANDS ARE BELONG TO ME.

Anno 1404 venice strategy guide