I settled in place and teched mining as fisrt choice on way to BW and the UU. My warrior barely gets started exploring when he runs in to Joe's scout. So I KNOW he is nearby and sure enough:
Not as much fun as when it is Shaka or Monty or Cathy or Rags but it will do
. One of nice things about marathon speed is SOOO many of the more annoying AI's start with a scout so if they start too close to you a LOT of times you can make em go bye bye before they even get a city garrison
With Stalin gone I run into JC, Toku, Hattie, and Vicky and Cy.
After BW pops --copper int he BFC
. Not wanting to be selfish (and also NOT wanting to have to deal with prats):
I share the news with JC. I Keep Rome and wanted to keep his second city which ended up being a holy city but unfortuantely it never got over pop 1 so it was auto razed. Anyways after JC is gone I noticed Vicky was pretty much right smack next to him and only had 1 city so:
I figured "might as well". And I dont think I can really be blamed for this since SHE's the one garrisoning her city with warriors when I have Vultures so
Anyws at this point it seems pretty obvious that a lil Vulture romp might be the way to go so I build some reinforcements and then:
It was hatties turn. She only had one city and hadnt gotten any war chariots and was even nice enough to build a hindu shrine for me.
The good news at this point is its early and 4 AI's alrdy taken care of. The bad news is my economy and tech is tanking BIG time. But I had workers building cottages in my capitol, others rooading to connect Rome and London and once that was done sialing enable river conections eventually got Thebes hooked up without needing to road all the way to it. That plus the shrine and hindu auto spreading let me stay afloat long enough to:
To rebuild once again and this time go say "Hi" to toku. Unfortunately for Toku my economy couldnt handle more far flung cities, not even a capitol so the japanese were just wiped off the map. I dont see how this could be considered my fault either since he had PLENTY of time at this point to found a religon or build a shiny or SOMETHING worth keeping but he didnt so oh wells.
Now its just me and Cy. Cy is all the way on other side of map from toku so it takes awhile for my guys to trudge all the way back. Plus he had enough time that he is starting to crowd London a bit. So that is picked as staging area. Economy not winning any prizes but the cottages spammed around Uruk let me get writting down and the Libraries chopped to run scientists to alphabet as well as open borders with cyrus and then most cities build reasrch on way to currency. So I am managing to stay in the black.
Also Rome chopped out "mids as well so once a cpl of libraires got built that and higher happy cap from rep helped a bunch to. Not to mention chopping GW in my capitol. In fact that was a bigtime dealio since if it wasnt for that all that empty space would have had barbs SWARMING on my cities. But since it WAS built. I could focus on other things.
Now while most cities building research to get to currency London is chopping out units. (I KNOW I prolly could have gotten to preisthood quicker which would have given me ziggys.--well I know that NOW I kinda forgot bout UB until I was halfway to currency --told u I was rusty
-- beside I am still not sure if they would have had a bigger impact than going alpha/currency or not. at that point in game)
Anways it takes my guys a few turns to gett o london but its enough time to build some xtra Vultures as well a spears to keep the immortals off their backs but eventually:
It's time to march on cyrus.
I had used open borders to send chariot to scout out his land. Once his land was scouted chariot stood standb to take out his iron as soon as I DoW'ed. Yeah he had IW and I didnt so it was kind of a fair fight
After taking the city closest to me and keeping just cuz it was in a nice location and had gems in case I needed. I move on to his cap and raze it. Then raze his horse city so no more immortals and before ya know it:
Last city falls. But it wasnt ALL easy peasy. My best Vulture who survived campaighs from JC through Toku and most of Cy:
Doesnt get to see retiremnt thanks to losing at 90 flipping percent battle :/
But his sacrifice wasnt in vain since one turn later:
Victory for the purple civ
Well I guess anyone who wonders why some people consider Marathon a tad easier has their question answered with this game. The slower speed along with copper in BFC left a VERY big window for Vultures to run amuck. And while I think there are some things a bit more challenging on marasthon than quicker speeds offensive war is definitely not one of em if situation works out nicely for you and this was definitely one of those. Not that I am complaining. Its fun to get a nice UU and go on a tear
Anyways thanks for the game and good luck to everyone else