Like with Civ I, CivII and Civ III, I started this new Civ experience (you could call it a tradition:) ) as Rome. That attempt at world domination however got crushed early on in the game (Barbarians like in Civ I capture cities, what the f*ck!:goodjob: ).

Therefor I want to show you my second Civ IV game of which I'm very proud, which I did as Japan.
Here are some screenshots from my empire. (Any suggestions as to the lay-out of cities and their surroundings are welcome).

First, the empire:

http://img65.imageshack.us/img65/5161/japaneseempire11ts.jpg

Second, the first 2 cities:

http://img65.imageshack.us/img65/5930/japaneseempire25fr.jpg

Hey, how did this one get in here;) :

http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/47/barbarossa24ur.jpg

Third, the core:

http://img65.imageshack.us/img65/9486/japaneseempire38sx.jpg

And fourth, the frontier:

http://img65.imageshack.us/img65/4429/japaneseempire47vq.jpg

Soon after this I started a war with England. After the first phase where I occupied their source of horses and succesfully fought of their main attack at Satsuma, I had to use wave after wave of war elephants and Samurai (after minimizing defences with catapults) to capture Nottingham to the west of Edo (Note, historically by the way Edo and Tokyo are one and the same city. In the year 1868 the emperor Meiji issued an imperial edict renaming Edo to Tokyo, after which he and the imperial household moved from Kyoto to Tokyo.). This war isn't over yet as I write this but without horses they are no match against my newly developed cavalry, which I can build thanks to the capture of their source of horses:D .

The Edo-Tokyo thing was in Civ III too (and I think Civ II, as well). People have complained about it but Firaxis never did anything about it...

What game are those screenshots from?

Hm...I noticed that you roaded almost every tile. Why did you do that? Unlike Civ 3, roads do not provide commerce bonus, so it's wholly uneccessary.

Paradox Interactive's Hearts of Iron II ... my other favorite games beside Civ

I road every tile in case the enemy comes into me territory. This way i can get to them fast no matter where they are.

Not to mention that if you automate a worker, that is what will happen.

Very annoying that the workers do that.

Like stated previously, I was at war with the English. After having captured Nottingham I built up forces for the assault on London, thus ending it's cultural threat against beautiful Satsuma. The main problem of why I was forced into this war now was on the verge of being solved.

The attack began:

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/6297/japaneseempire57we.jpg

Cavalry came from all sides:

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/6016/japaneseempire69nu.jpg

And of course the loyal Samurai:

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/2589/japaneseempire77hk.jpg

Ah, a lot of veterans are created, look at the shiny army:crazyeye: :

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/9813/japaneseempire82ni.jpg

Captured, the people of london are put to work repairing the ravages of the war and Judaism is brought to the city:

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/1830/japaneseempire91im.jpg

Meanwhile, my empire is doing very well:

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/4745/japaneseempire104uy.jpg

York however was captured in an earlier war in which I was not participating by the Mongolians. (80% are Japanese, the city should be mine!:mad: ):

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/5428/japaneseempire118vt.jpg

The city of Coventry, soon to be my capital of the south:

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/1769/japaneseempire120gq.jpg

Now a Barbarian city is left, and at the same time I assembled my forces around the city I sent a settler to the west of it. Not a moment to early it seemed, cause Aztec aspirations had now reached beyond their own shores and I was only moments ahead of them in claiming this area:

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/5346/japaneseempire136bk.jpg

Since the Aztecs had no reason to be in this part of the world :mischief: , my attention turned to Atzcapotzalco and this nice little island:

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/936/japaneseempire149sk.jpg

Here a picture of the Mongolian empire with which I've lived in peace for the entire game. I decided to leave them alone and go for a points-victory instead:

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/1934/japaneseempire158bg.jpg

Meanwhile I moved my capital from Kyoto to Tokyo. I had build everything I could, so I started to train machine gunners to replace badly obsolete units like spearmen. This not a moment to early. Shortly after this picture and in the same turn I constructed the temple of Salomon (coincidence?) the Mongolian Empire after all those years of peace decided to turn against me. A sustained (:goodjob: ) attack on Osaka was succesfull for them, but not after many of their units had been destroyed by the garrisson of machine gunners there. This enabled me to recapture it immediately with tanks, which I also had started producing because of an abundance of industrial facilities which in many cities had produced all improvements available:

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/412/japaneseempire166rw.jpg

The first 2 turns of the war where only survived by the Japanese because of the reserves of tanks and artillery. They were decimated, but the Mongolian empire suffered far larger casualties. An interesting moment was when I saw a seemingly lone cavalry unit near Osaka and I attacked it. I noticed 7 (!) units suffered collateral damage. Apparently the Mongolians had sent another large force. This I didn't expect. Even though the first attack was organized and sustained (:goodjob: ) I expected single units attacking sporadically along the frontline. I didn't expect a concentrated attack (:goodjob: ). All available artillery in the area was send at once to that threat and the combined effects of collateral damage and the finishing by tanks and some old cavalry did the job.:woohoo:

Now it seems I won't get that Points-victory after all. My objective now the tides have turned is to capture the entire Mongolian part of the continent, but I think I will have achieved a Domination-victory before that.

Here an overview of the world. First the other continent:

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/9229/japaneseempire172ae.jpg

Then my continent. Notice the somewhat diminished Osaka, which is now building a library cause almost all improvements were destroyed:

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/3339/japaneseempire188la.jpg