OPEN, Going for Ancient Age Conquest
The ancient age conquest sounds like a fun variant I have never done before. On regent level it should be not too difficult (There were succession games with the theme of conquering a large world with Roman legions only on monarch and emperor. The only difference, they were allowed to research further, so logistics was easier with railroads)
Initial planning:
Research:
I only want to research fast to iron working and horseriding, everything else optional. Trading only for necessary techs like warrior code and bronze working, nothing else. I want the AI to be as slow as possible. The young world with probably many mountains will help that they stay apart for a long time and cannot trafe with each other.
Warfare:
Since I wont research much, I will save lots of money. I will use it to mass upgrade warriors (hopefully iron is available) and then (after changing government to monarchy to speed up the production of horsemen (depending of course that horses are available.
Actual game:
I started at the spot, my scout explored north. My first built was a chasqui scout who traveled west. After that I built a granary to start a 4-turn settler or 2-turn worker factory. All other cities started barracks and after finishing barracks they built warriors. Whenever one of these cities grew to size five, they built a worker.
After having researched the wheel and iron working there were good and bad news: The good news is that we have iron, the bad news that there are no horses in our region. The next source is under the Greek capitol Athens.
So that is obviously our first target.
At 1000 BC I had 12 own cities, 14 workers and 20 something freshly upgraded swordsmen. The attack of Greece has just started and the first city, Sparta, is conquered.
In 750 BC the first war against Greece is over, I made peace for two cities and left Greece with just two cities.
My victorious army of swordsmen is now slowly marching towards Rome, accompanied by several workers to build a road.
At the same time a new army of about 20 swordsmen and 10 workers is on its way towards the Aztec country to open a second frontier.
In 750 BC I had about 45 swordsmen and produced the first 5 horsemen. From now on I mainly produced horsemen. One exception: I started to produce galleys to send towards Japan and on all galleys I put two swordsmen.
The war went as planned: Army one destroyed Rome, their reinforcement first destroyed Greece and then helped with Rome (I did not see a single legion). Army number two destroyed the Aztecs and India, then they both came together against the Celts.
After having finished the Celts, I had to build the long road through the marshland to reach Japan.
The Japanese spearmen fell easily. Just at the end of the war, Carthago and Japan made it into the middle ages.
I brought my troops as quickly is possible across the sea to Carthago. Thei Numidian mercenaries took heavy toll on my horsemen, but finally in 350 AD I got my first GL (actually two in one turn). The horsemen armies were excellent. 5 more turns and the world was conquered in 410 AD.
Lessons learned:
Statue of Zeus: I was under the impression that only a city with ivory in its city limits can build it. Thats wrong, as long as you have ivory somewhere, it can be built. I found that out too late, otherwise I could have got some ancient cavalries. These would have been great especially against the numidian mercenaries.
I switched too late to monarchy. An earlier switch would have speed-up my production of horsemen.
Overall I am quite happy with my result, but I am sure my finishing time will not be the fastest. My prediction is that the earliest conquest is before 250 AD.
Great map, fun game
Ronald