Welcome to the Skipper series, comprising six games that show the effects of completely skipping one of the first-level techs: Fishing, The Wheel, Agriculture, Hunting, Mysticism and Mining. In order to avoid random chances of getting these techs I'm going to disable huts in all of them. "Internet" is out of the question too, although I'm not sure whether I can even reach it in most of these games! :lol: The original (short) discussion was inspired by the one in Mad Scientist's RPC summary (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=255397&page=29#563) and can be found in the Skipping techs (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=314508) thread.

The first game will skip one of the most needed techs, Mining. It might not look like much at first, but it means that production won't come from mines, chopping OR slavery. To make things even out a bit I asked RRRaskolnikov to check the map for nearby horses, so hordes of Keshiks it is, for the leader is the mighty mineless Genghis Khan.

And here is the starting position:

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k259/radu_stancu/Civ4/Mineless%20Khan/Civ4ScreenShot0001.jpg

One additional rule: I will have to pillage all mines before the cities that have them in the fat cross come out of revolt.

I'll attach the save if anyone wants to shadow this. It's a Monarch, Pangaea, Standard size, Epic speed game.

WOW!!!! Even I would not have tried this! You understand you have to basically conquer the world with Kesiks and catapults until Gunpowder. And only then can you get Muskets as the top military units.

So.........

No trebs (Engineering requires Machinery which requires MC which requires BW)
No Knights (You need iron)
No Melee units (You need mining)
No Crossbows (again iron)
No rifling (You need Printing Press, which needs Machinery)

On the positive side you have the Mighty Khan. Do him proud!

g3 muskets are not bad either. I would have gone with unrestricted... probably charismatic with Mongolia...

Signing in anyway.

Edit: I made some thinking - hitting someone with Mids is top priority...

Sounds like fun. Can't wait to see how this goes.

WOW!!!! Even I would not have tried this! You understand you have to basically conquer the world with Kesiks and catapults until Gunpowder. And only then can you get Muskets as the top military units.

So.........

No trebs (Engineering requires Machinery which requires MC which requires BW)
No Knights (You need iron)
No Melee units (You need mining)
No Crossbows (again iron)
No rifling (You need Printing Press, which needs Machinery)

On the positive side you have the Mighty Khan. Do him proud!

you can build cities on resources so you if you have a well placed iron you can settle on it for extra units.

Or use quarries .... masonry does not require mining :p

you can build cities on resources so you if you have a well placed iron you can settle on it for extra units.


I would settle even crap placed city to be honest. But you need technology to get resource:)

Figures that you would get a start that screams BW :lol:

Should be an interesting one, for sure.

Unfortunately without BW and iron working, you won't even see where iron or copper are, except for those mysterious grassland mines in ennemy territory...

I would advise going the standard Mongolia path. AH, HBR, archery, take out as many AI's as possible.

I'm not sure that you'll be as limited offensively as it appears. Can you still trade for iron without IW? If you can, you can use all mounted units throughout all of the eras. For someone like me who uses nothing but mounted units anyway, your not limited too much.

If you can't trade for iron, then I would just beeline RP for lumbermills and rifles after keshiks are obsolete. I would suggest cavalry/spies, since rifles aren't great without at least trebs.

I am afraid lumbermills out of question too. [Stops whining and goes playing]

I would settle even crap placed city to be honest. But you need technology to get resource:)

OH yeah im a complete dolt No mining no BW/IW, I read Mineless Khan as meaning can't build mines, should probably read the OP posts more often :mischief:

I would advise going the standard Mongolia path. AH, HBR, archery, take out as many AI's as possible.

I'm not sure that you'll be as limited offensively as it appears. Can you still trade for iron without IW? If you can, you can use all mounted units throughout all of the eras. For someone like me who uses nothing but mounted units anyway, your not limited too much.

If you can't trade for iron, then I would just beeline RP for lumbermills and rifles after keshiks are obsolete. I would suggest cavalry/spies, since rifles aren't great without at least trebs.

You can trade for iron, but the problem is you still need techs like iron working to build swordsmen, or machinery to build crossbowmen.

One thing is I think you're going to run out of techs pretty fast. If the game's not over by gunpowder, you might not actually have any techs to research.

to 1050 BC or end of War number one... Had one question... Why, oh why we don't choose creative Cubla instead his crazy granddaddy?


Tech path - Agri/AH, Pottery [to speed up process]/ HBR/Archery
Later on - Masonry/Meditation/Priesthood

I found some horses, so dropped few cities. Actually did settlers at size two so no imperialistic bonus.

http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/mineless/city2.jpg

http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/mineless/city3.jpg

Well, I choosed to go into pottery as i believe HBR needs speed up. Libraries were simply to expensive so no scientists... I probably could have found city near pigs as they remained unworked most of time...

Since our glorious leader despises mine, we had to search for way to get some production going.
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/mineless/city2inaction.jpg

Soon i had gers and first Keshik looking for entrance into Roman land
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/mineless/firstKeshik.jpg

Well, my cities were making Keshik per 6 turns at best... Once i had about five...
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/mineless/iron.jpg
And that salad lover started braging about praets. Mine was soon razed and Cumae captured...
Hate to say but i reloaded as i somehow managed to burn it... Well, call me "cheater" if you like.

Well, i went towards rome hoping to see fortified praetorian and...
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/mineless/phew.jpg
No praets, no spears:p. [well, okay that iron mine was functional for two turns at best.]

Heroic act of getting second city was good enough to get GG which i attached to Keshik to create supermedic.

Few turns later [one wave of reinforce and bit of healing] later I took final Roman city...
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/mineless/longstride.jpg

So far not bad. Got rid of Rome, captured GW [lots of spy points potentialy. sweet.]

Also it looks like smallish world as i am approaching ten percent know...

Well, the question is who is next... I was thinking of leaving away Korean, so i'd probably want to hit Justinian... Unluckily i have no idea about his metal situation...

Zara picked Alpha recently, while i can drop Oracle at cost of 1.5 Keshik. I could get CoL - while i hardly imagine how i will build curthauses, but caste would let me get GPP without these expensive libraries... Also it would serve as trade fodder.

Probably should have burned Antium but i am not reloading again... Given amount of troops Asoka usually builds, i could hope to kill Justinian [somehow] and when strike on India... This could leave me to enough land for fional push with drafted muskets
[i do imagine - lib for nationalism [probably bulb on paper, philo, education and lib itself] while self researching gunpowder manually]

Nice, will be following this tread. Have fun.

It would be funny if the forest/jungle grew on to your horse tile :O

You can trade for iron, but the problem is you still need techs like iron working to build swordsmen, or machinery to build crossbowmen.


Let me think. Knights... no requires mining to get to guilds... Cavalry no goes through replacables...

Curraisiers! Yes, if i can trade for iron. These are good but very expensive. I'd rather draft muskets and use cats and spies with them...

Well, G3 musket looks good on paper but i do not imagine getting lots of these...

I do imagine vassals could provide some resources. In particular i imagine happiness being a problem... No gold/gems/silver no chance to chop jungle over calendar resources...

Yeah I forgot that rifling/RP is out of the question for a number of reasons, at least there won't be any unhealthiness in the capital. That's reassuring that you can trade for iron though, if my game isn't over by keshiks I'll probably skip muskets and just go through lib to MT.

Anyway, played to 10AD

Settled in place, tech path was AH, HBR, archery. I settled Beshbalik to the right, claiming horses. I met all the neighbors, and decided on JC for a first target. I'm not sure who the best person is to go after first, I don't think it makes much of a difference.

My rush got slowed down by some untimely events (pasture destroyed, road washed away, barracks monsooned away,) but I was ready to declare on JC in 1350BC.

http://i646.photobucket.com/albums/uu184/Phil725/JCWar0000.jpg

Antium was guarded by 2 archers with no culture defense and no hill, so I took it with no losses and moved onto Rome. Rome was guarded by a prat and an archer. Silly JC, keshiks aren't afraid of prats. I lost one keshik taking his capital. From there I moved up to take Cumae once my units had healed. And finally moved down to take his last city:

http://i646.photobucket.com/albums/uu184/Phil725/JCDead0000-1.jpg

There was a mine in one of JC's cities, but to stay honest to the challenge, I worked other tiles until I got a chance to pillage it.

I took a few turns to heal up my troops before deciding who to hit next. A quick check of the top 5 cities showed that Stonehenge was in Asoka's capital. Free border pops when we can't whip or chop monuments? Thank you very much.

http://i646.photobucket.com/albums/uu184/Phil725/AsokaWar0000.jpg

Taking Delhi was rough. It was guarded by 2 spears, a sword and an archer at 60% defense. I brought just enough units though, and took out the last defender with my super medic. I put the war on hold there to reinforce my stack before moving on his last 2 cities. I pillaged his metal (not sure what it was, but it was a 6 hammer mine, so it was something,) so he couldn't defend with anything other than archers. A few turns later, Asoka is dead:

http://i646.photobucket.com/albums/uu184/Phil725/AsokaDead0000.jpg

You can see in that picture that I was losing 20 gpt at 100% gold, so I had to rearrange my cities to work more commerce. I got the deficit down to -6, which means I'll easily avoid strike. Soon after that Justinian finally helped me out by researching alphabet:

http://i646.photobucket.com/albums/uu184/Phil725/JustinTrade0000.jpg

That let me build research in my two Mongolian cities to get to CoL and currency in a reasonable amount of time, as well as letting me trade HBR around for everything I skipped. I founded Confucianism ~200BC, unfortunately, I never realized how expensive courthouses are when you can't whip or chop them.

Nothing else of interest for the rest of the round, just more righting of the economy. Here is my land at 10AD:

http://i646.photobucket.com/albums/uu184/Phil725/MinelessK10ADE0000.jpg

http://i646.photobucket.com/albums/uu184/Phil725/MinelessK10ADW0000.jpg

In a normal game I would move my capital to Cumae for bureaucracy, but since I can't chop out the gems and a lot of that riverside grassland, I'll just have to run cottages on the tiles I can. Asoka was nice enough to build wineries on the 3 riverside wine tiles in Vijayanagar. It seems like I don't get the happiness until monarchy, but those are some nice tiles to work to avoid striking.

I guess the plan is to build courthouse, barracks, ger everywhere, and then just spam keshiks until the game ends. Justinian is the next to go, and I think WK after that. Tech pace is pretty slow in this game, so maybe I can win before longbows become a problem. If WK gets them I may just attack anyway, keshiks can handle a few of them here and there.

Boudica is wrecking Zara, already taking 2 cities off of him, so he's done. The wonder pace in this game is abysmally bad. Asoka built SH and the Oracle at reasonable times, besides that, the only other wonder that was built was TGW by Boudica in 300BC. The Pyramids will probably end up going sometime in the modern era. Tech pace isn't great either.

http://i646.photobucket.com/albums/uu184/Phil725/MinelessK10ADTechs0000.jpg

It's always a good sign when your near the tech lead when you purposely destroy your economy, and haven't even recovered it yet.

And statistics so far.

http://i646.photobucket.com/albums/uu184/Phil725/MinelessKStats10AD0000.jpg

14 keshiks to conquer 7 AI cities before 10AD. Its a good thing neither of the Mongolians are org, because that would be the most broken leader in the game.

Carl-

I'd settle in place right now even though it's not the best location for an early capital. If there's a great floodplains/grasslands site with no forests around, cottage that city and get it as your capital ASAP.

just for sake of interest...

How you build palace on unforested grassland/floodplains?

So many forests... :lol:

Checked out the tech tree. The last techs you can research are: Gunpowder, Liberalism, Military Tradition, and Constitution.

.....Ouch. :lol:

Banned techs up until the above: Mining, Metal Casting, Iron Working, Compass, Machinery, Engineering, Optics, Guilds, Banking, Printing Press, Replaceable Parts, Economics.

That also throws out Workshops and Watermills, meaning that Organized Religion, Police State (by Pyramids), Forests, Plains, Hills, Cows, Horses, and Quarries will be your only sources of hammers.
Keshiks and Catapults for the win!!!!!! (though, Cultural is also an option, albeit a tough one).

I would not take elephants out of accounts...

edit: doesn't Economics require banking?

I would not take elephants out of accounts...

edit: doesn't Economics require banking?

Ah, yes. forgot about that one. ;)

All techs banned by Mining (small, blurry pic of tech tree, sorry :()

http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff136/kamikazeshadow/NoMining.jpg

Well I lost my shadow :(

Everything was going as planned, unfortunately, I completely blew the diplomatic situation.

Boudica ended up completely killing Zara, so she had more land than me. Not thinking ahead, I didn't get her to pleased before I declared on Justin. She went WHEOOHRN the turn after I declared, so I gifted her CoL and something else to get her to pleased and begged 10 gold to force peace. That gave me enough time to get a respectable defense force in my western cities. She declared when the 10 turns of peace was up, and sent a huge stack of veteran units that I barely held off.

By this time, I had Justinian down to 3 cities, and was preparing to wipe him out when he surprisingly capped to WK. WK must have just gotten feudalism that turn.

Now Justin has longbows everywhere, WK is sending stacks from the east, and Boudica's second stack is too big for me to stop, and she still refuses to talk even though I completely destroyed her first stack.

I can't remember screwing up diplo that bad before. No one left on the map declares at pleased, and I still end up dogpiled by the entire map? Oh well, it happens.

Regarding the challenge:

Mining is definitely the hardest starting tech to skip, but I don't think it's as big of a deal as it seems. You can easily get a very formidable army with just forested hills. I'm sure someone on here will win a pre-1000AD conquest victory. Just make sure to not get the world to declare on you...

I would say build a large army of keshiks and plan to upgrade to cuirassiers when necessary. If you can't hold/pay for the land you conquer, then I would suggest just razing and moving on. If an AI gets rifling on you that could make conquest/dom very difficult to say the least.

To 440 BC - The fury of Narantsetseg


I had to make report from screenshots mainly...

First i got insult from Ethiopia
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/skipper/Tradeslikethat.jpg
Mongolia will explain them that mining is absolutely stupid... In future.

At moment our gloriuos leader has some other ideas...
First scouting justinian revealed he had metals
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/skipper/justinianaxes.jpg
We explained their mistakes in short and furious way. Kept two cities i believe with remainng ones being burnt down... And we destroyed all these pagan mines... Wait, a second we are pagan too...

Was not very smooth as they apparently learned to counter horses
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/skipper/firstspear.jpg
Officially first spear of campaign:lol:

Meanwhiles capital was undergoing some Marble inovation
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/skipper/Oracle.jpg
We grabbed Code of laws which somehow forced confucianism to appear.
Since Confucius was not propaganding mines Narantsetseg [i was told this is nice Mongolian name] let that be.

Meanwhile western front had big news:
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/skipper/holyelephant.jpg
It will take time till mongols will learn to ride these beasts, but even now =it caused lots of hapiness.

I also went for Monarchy due to happiness, clear mistake, should have gone for Currency, especially since we traded our law code for ethiopian alphabet...

Meanwhile spies were telling our stupid neigbours koreans finally teched ironworking

Sudenly some grassland started looking rather strange
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/skipper/suspiciousgrass.jpg
I do believe two iron spots... Wang never made any metal trops, although pro archers were problem... But nothing few Keshiks could not solve.

And i really mean few [<10] of course run was geeting to extreme - I was scouting future enemies with captured workers, had next to zero defenses and at certain cases even was attacking with w=veterans first to get more odds of survival...

Of course this backfired
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/skipper/backfire.jpg
O our glorious miskeeped city. Took it back next turn, unluckily i did not have an option to raze it... People in Antium were kissing feet of Narantsetseg to save their heads...

Korea was burned to ground, except Seule which i kept
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/skipper/Seoul.jpg

Well, i am loosing money on zero now, but i can switch in few fresh wate lakes, cottages in Roman land are growing, winery under constructio and of course Caste i alraedy revolted in alllows to run merchants:lol:.

Techwisehttp://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/skipper/techs.jpg

440BC and three dead AI's with grandtotal of one spear:lol::lol::lol:

Knowing Asoka's unit probability I am sure i can get him excluded with Keshiks, when i can use indian land and one extra city at extreme south to block remaining Ai's form waste land tracts on East.

When elepult... I think i will go on anyway.

When again i do not know last AI - who is budhism founder. very well might be Monty with trillion of trrops blocked by Zara...


about a challenge
more or less showcase of Keshik power... I'd guess if played optimally it can be pre 1AD conquest. Unluckily i have bad habbit to tech and build wonders...

to 5BC - end of era


Well, i started by gearing towards India... One thing which was bothering was
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/skipper%202/handsofAsoka.jpg
That could mean he was building some more troops over his average quantity...

I also had small problem in SE.
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/skipper%202/slightproblem.jpg
Well, i learned korean lesson and putted preventive forces...

Zara was teching not bad for Monarch level. Even had Philo in 300BC... This meant i simply settled by GS for beakers [and hammer]
All round i was loosing money at zero %, although i only had short period of having less than 100 in bank...
I simply kept to much cities... Should have geared for conquest and raze campaign...
Oh, well, you live and learn.

Dheli's best protection was ... culture
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/skipper%202/Dheliassault.jpg
Not oh so great odds right? Wrong:
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/skipper%202/Afterwithdrawal.jpg
I got my withdrawal tickets and took that city without loses. Kept it as it was holy and had some production potential...

I also kept Bombay.
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/skipper%202/Bombay.jpg
Well, not for stonehenge but for jumbos. Although Narantsetseg was damn happy to own all world wonders built to the moment.

I took piece after Bombay, cause i could get Maths, which was on path to Construction and made Currency cheaper.

I suffered some more problems with Zara
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/skipper%202/gaffeonZara.jpg
Top that with -5 for Declaring on his friends...

Of course i redeclared on Indians. Took last city which i kept
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/skipper%202/blockcomplete.jpg
This one completed sealing off eastern lands and ruining economy... I actually was still in loss at zero after Currency...
I also started doubting if i need that block, as Zara was on five cities and in full hand mode...

On other had i had already 30% land
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/skipper%202/landgrab.jpg

Few more settlements and some border push with artist probably could put me near domination... But i always thought Conquest earns lot of more stylewise.

I actually managed get Zara to pleased with this:
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/skipper%202/foodsend.jpg
Well, i did not like paying but if he was [as i suspected at war with last AI and sealing that one out] i was protecting my homeland very efficiently...

Soon i met our last leader. Well, Narantsetseg said Boudica had neither style nor brains...
Speaking about brains:
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/skipper%202/Boudicatechs.jpg
I can bribe her out of Zara. I also used relation screen to figure why Asoka had full hands. Apparently Zara bribed him into war against Boudica...
She hated me even through getting bonus on military struggle vs Asoka.

Speaking about India:
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/skipper%202/endofAsoka.jpg
Keshiks found him in last tundra city guarded by elit spearman. If that could help him...
Very soon Narantsetseg got fourth head into her collection.

Well, meanwhile Zara managed to get Construction+HBR+phants:
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/skipper%202/phants.jpg

Two sources, pickable from two cities:cry:. That meant end of Keshiks era.

Situation overview -
Zara - 5 cities no metals - horses, cats, elephants, good research with Monarchy already, might tech longbows before my next push. I do have Currency on him, but he won't trade since me and Boudica means he is left with lots of monoply techs...
Boudica - 7 cities backwards, I do believe i saw gallic so metal. Horses, but, no phants, no cats, no HA. can be bribed out of Zara [if she would start gaining too much land over him..]
Narantsetseg - 13 cities, loosing money at zero [well, i can switch one more city to currency to stop this.] about 15 turns till construction - ten till next GP [i will use him on Golden age to get production up]. I do imagine i have 5 production sites - 3 original mongolian cities+Dheli+Rome. That means i can have 10cats +10jumbos in something like 25-30 turns. This should be force for final push.
Currently mighty army consists of 6 warriors [military police] and 8 Keshiks.

Of course there is a question whom to hit first, as remaining one has a chance to expand... Depends on situation... I'd probably go for Zara while building reinforcements... Even if he will have longbows...

I probbaly also will need to cancle all these granaries coming in 30 turns [in cities scrapping ywo hammers] in switch more towards wealth build...
Of course if i will see something not protected by Phants i will use Keshiks...

No Melee units (You need mining)


Not excatly hunting+metals for trade= spearmen... Why you should ever build them is another question

Anyway to 880AD - finish


Well, i started by cancleing granaries and ordering lots of wealth... C'mmon i even managed to get green numbers while having ten percent research.

25AD- mongolian spies detected Zara is teching Feuadalism...

100AD - construction done. Use Great Scientist on Golden Age. Start troop build. start researching Feudalism. Well, i surely could use some capitulations if i want to win in era of phantapult...

265AD - troops are being built and slowly shipped toward Bombay. Boudica has hands full and is annoyed with me, but luckily Zara won't open borders with her so i need to protect small front.
Of course Zara declare on pleased, but he has worst enemy and 90% peace on pleased...

I also do raze barb city - both to prevent Zara getting it and gain some cash. Workers are finishing road works and are being deleted... Well, in end i had zero:lol:
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/skipper%20three/barbcity.jpg

340Ad - i notice party
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/skipper%20three/Boudica.jpg
I guessed she was going to declare, but persuaded myself she was on Zara, so i place my slowly growing forces in some fancy positions, so they could come to defend or go join in rampage on Zara.

Very next turn she send that stack on my stack of Keshiks... Result was something like 6:1 in my favour
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/skipper%20three/soonish.jpg
I finished survivors, picked my elephants+catapults and went on her. Still it was first time AI declared on me in neutral territory...

Zara was continuing insult us with that stupid mining
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/skipper%20three/moreinsults.jpg

Meanwhile i reached first *celtian* city
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/skipper%20three/Yeha.jpg
Speed of phants and cats was killing me after that rampage of Keshiks.

City itself was not a problem, problem was Boudica refused open borders all the time and my spy simply did not went into Celtian land in time...

Luckily since Keshiks were iognoring terrain i could use them to move one tile and when catch up stack even in heavily forested area.
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/skipper%20three/Scoutinginwar.jpg
Tricks like that and seeing dirrection Boudica's counterforce wsa coming was enough to locate source of nonsense

http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/skipper%20three/Capitol.jpg
Well, all that bobardment, stack healing was making me sick...
On other hand soon i saw Bibicrate from inside:
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/skipper%20three/capfrominside.jpg
Shrine was nice...

I did more scouting and moved towards new cap
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/skipper%20three/morescouting.jpg
I thought that elephant was pretty much dead, but celts were total chickens... Well, i did not even get that city, just flatened walls, repelled Boudica's suicide attacks [i was actually upgrading archers to longbows on Celtian loot] and she kneeled before Narantsetseg.
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/skipper%20three/caps.jpg
Adis whatever was not even bad city, but i took poly instead. Not that i would need it, but at least that one was not costing in upkeep.
I also gave Boudica her cities back [except Yeha which she was not taking]. Well, i was approching red zone again...
i had two cities ordered to build cats non stop, and two on phants, while Rome was making longbows... Overall i was getting to unit/per turn...
I also teched Calendar since i had non covered spices and sugar [probably could have got that from Boudica, but i had nothing to research anyway].

Soon i found i could have trade for iron
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/skipper%20three/irontrade.jpg
Well, again, why i would need spears?

I used Celtian stack to attack from SW while another fresh went from NE and i ordered Boudica attack in NW arrea... Well, ofcourse i attacked Zara. I had no more targets...

Let say he was very angry with his sister in faith... Like that
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/skipper%20three/Zarasanger.jpg

Well, i also found use for that spy in Aksum
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/skipper%20three/revoltinAksum.jpg

Well, i was not in mood to protect Ethiopian cities. I razed everything i could.

Not that Zara had lots of troops but things like this were annoying
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/skipper%20three/bloodbath.jpg
Using siege was preety stupid so i used Keshiks and Flanking II elephant, meanwhile my warlord HA was getting in 70xp department...

To my surprise Boudica really send some trops were she was told to
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/skipper%20three/Boudicasstack.jpg

Story actually repeated i flatened Gondar walls, Zara suicided few cats and he capped.
I was really close to domination
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/skipper%20three/neardom.jpg
But i like Conquest movie lot of better. Especialy since in chess parts black ones win...

http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo21/soirana/skipper%20three/builds.jpg
Add four curthouses, four archers and something like 8 longbows... Apparently that was really skeleton infra game:lol::lol::lol:
Well, Mongolia not having even single library... And i still got my Ceasar's ranking and
148450 score.

Also i believe that is nearly first pre 1000AD finish for me in which liberalism was not even close to being a factor...

The spearman would be useful for anti-cavalry situations, unless you happen to be using Elephants instead, in which you won't need spearman really.

This game actually seems fairly historically accurate.. the Nomadic Mongols didn't build mines! They relied on the forests for production! :lol: I think I may try this out on an Earth map..

I would say build a large army of keshiks and plan to upgrade to cuirassiers when necessary. If you can't hold/pay for the land you conquer, then I would suggest just razing and moving on. If an AI gets rifling on you that could make conquest/dom very difficult to say the least.

No Iron, no Currasirs.

You can still trade AFter Mining techs right?

Not if you need Mining for em :lol:

You can trade for resources without knowing the tech for them, so if you can trade (or demand from a vassal) iron, then you can build cuirassiers.

Barracks/Ger/14 Keshiks with no mines/chop/whip must have taken a while. Ur lucky u were able to capture all that land.

CAn you steal or trade after Mining tech? If so then a Spy rush might be in order.

I'll play this tomorrow, as I was out of town for work the whole week. Can't wait to see what the shadows hide. :)

And no, you can't steal a tech that you can't research on your own. So you'd have to steal Mining first, which isn't allowed in this game variant.

:bump: it's well past March 29, are you going to give the first update?

I must say, good sir, you have left this to rot, if I may use such horrid language, for quite long enough, sir! If I may ask, when is the first installment of this fine idea going to be? If it is soon, and I quite hope it is (as, I'm sure, many civ enthusiasts are), I applaud you and wish you good luck.

Sorry, everyone, I'm really busy right now, including the weekends, so no civ for at least two more weeks. Didn't expect it when I started the series. :)