Predator, Going for Domination
My Ancient Age post is
Here
Middle Ages, 290bc720ad
Strategic Plans
We were on a tiny starting island and horses were not to be found. Therefore my plan at the beginning of the Middle Ages was to research to Navigation as soon as possible, but in the meantime to assemble a fleet of 14 suicide galleys to take a force of around 15 Medieval Infantry to Persia. Assuming a few galleys survived the mission, this force would be followed by a few workers (that now had nothing to do) and a few settlers to facilitate a palace jump.
My major reasons for the suicide mission were to set up a second core and to obtain horses. The second core would help to accelerate research initially, and afterward it would be invaluable for producing the military I would need to reach domination.
The Suicide Fleet and the Persian War, 710 bc290 ad
While my fleet was being completed, the rest of my cities (particularly those on the tiny islands) were building libraries and harbors if they didnt already have them. The only exceptions were my colossus city, which also built a marketplace, and my forbidden palace city, which began the Great Library as a prebuild for Leonardos Workshop.
210 bc was a nice turn: the Persians completed the Pyramids in their capitol and lost their iron city to the Romans. That meant that when I finally got there they would have very few immortals. They would definitely have no more than their two Predator pikemen, because they had no trading partners from whom to acquire Feudalism.
I lost two more galleys to barbs, so it took me longer to assemble my suicide fleet than I expected. The crossing did not begin until 110bc. I had fairly good luck, with only two of my eight ships sinking, but the following turn I lost five out of six: law of averages I suppose. I took my first Persian city (and horses) in 10 ad. Over the next 100 years I captured a few more cities and shipped over three more settlers, three workers and two more Med. Inf. More galleys sank in this crossing, leaving me with about four, but I was building replacements. In 150 ad I finally reached the walls of Persepolis (and the Pyramids) with 8 Med Inf (2 elite) and 3 settlers to facilitate a palace jump. I didnt need the settlers however, because fortune shined and I got a Great Leader during the assault. Since my last 4 games were leaderless until the end, this was a very, very happy moment! The leader not only allowed me to keep my old palace city, but he enabled me to use my settlers to build three more cities at RCP 5 from the new palace. Unfortunately, Carthage plopped down a city just to the west of Persepolis, so that hampered my expansion toward their lands for a little while (it culture flipped to me a few hundred years later).
In 290 ad I eliminated the Persians. Initially, most cities built a worker or two if they were big enough. After that they built a library, a barracks, then lots of horsemen and an occasional settler. The additional force of workers was very, very important, as I wanted to improve as many tiles as possible in the second core before my GA began.
The Golden Age of Greece and the Egyptian War, 310 ad570 ad
I still had about 10 Med. Inf left from the war with Persia, along with a few shiny new horsemen. Also, I now had Astronomy, so it was safe to transport troops from the Persian continent to the Zulu continent. It seemed like an ideal time to take a few more cities, preferably from a weak opponent. Egypt was definitely the weakest AI, as they only had a handful of spread-out cities and were still three techs away from the Middle Ages. They also had two easily obtainable luxuries which I really needed. I declared war on Egypt in 310 ad to slow them down even more while I assembled my troops for transport.
In 430 ad I completed a harbor on the Persian continent which, along with navigation, enabled the cities on the home island to start building horsemen. I also had almost completed a chain of caravels from the home island to the Egyptian continent.
The first Egyptian city fell in 470 ad, and it had dyes. I rushed a harbor 2 turns later to connect them. On the next turn (500 ad), I decided to trade a tech to Carthage and Rome for a total of three more luxuries. I then took an Egyptian city that had Incense. So we went from one luxury to six in a single turn: yummy! And just to add to the fun, the Egyptians attacked one of my hoplites, which kicked off my GA. In 570 ad I gave Egypt peace for one city, which left them with only one.
Tough Choices
I had a difficult time deciding when to trigger my GA in this game. It might have been better to have it at the beginning of the conflict with Persia. That would have sped up science and got me to military tradition sooner. On the other hand, by triggering it late, it allowed me to have a GA with a nicely productive second core. That allowed me to expand my military very quickly and also raise the cash I needed for upgrades. I am not sure if the late GA was the best decision or not, but it seemed to work out pretty well.
A second difficulty in this game was deciding whether to fight my final wars with knights or with cavalry. At the time I finally got Navigation (430ad), I still had very few horsemen built, so I decided to go ahead and go for cavalry. In most cases I would choose knights for a regent level game, but in this onedue to the late development of the second core and late acquisition of horsesI couldnt work it out logistically. If I could have established my second core and acquired horses about eight turns sooner, then I think shutting off research after chivalry would have resulted in an earlier victory date. But that is just a guess.
Research
My research wasnt quite as fast as I would have liked, but I am not sure how I could have sped it up much moreshort of triggering my GA earlier. It went as follows: Monotheism for free (290bc), Feudalism via trade with Babylon (290bc); Theology, 16 turns (30ad); edu, 11 (250ad); Astron, 7 (320ad); Navigation, 6 (380ad); Engineering via trade with Carthage (310ad); all techs from Invention to Military Tradition could have been learned in 4 turns, but I ended up delaying MT by two turns because I was waiting for Leonardo to finish. Therefore I didnt get it until 600ad. After that I turned off research and, due to my GA and the high-commerce harbor cities of our starting island, was making 475-575gpt. I didnt build many marketplaces this game, and those that I built came late: around 500 ad when I had acquired more than one luxury.
The First Arab War, 470 ad610 ad
I will give a brief mention here of a hollow war I started in 470 with the Arabs. The Romans had many Legionaries in my territory (about 12 I think), and they were making me nervous. Therefore I declared war on the Arabs and gave the Romans and Carthage a tech to join me. Over the next few turns I watched them send vast numbers of military toward the Arabs. There couldnt be many units left defending their cities.
Giving the Arabs peace in 610ad blew my Alliance rep, but that was hardly a concern considering what I planned to do next.
The Age of Cavalry and World Domination
Carthage and Rome learned Gunpowder in 590 ad. I didnt expect to see any Musketmen, however, because I would be taking Carthages saltpeter soon, and Rome didnt have any. I got Military Tradition in 600ad. I immediately upgraded 38 horsemen to cavalry. About 15 of these cavalry were next to the Zulu and the rest were next to Carthage. I positioned my troops outside 6 Carthage cities and 6 Zulu cities, and in 620 ad I performed a dual RoP rape, taking all 12. That left Carthage with two cities and the Zulu with eight, although four of those were on an island. Carthage was eliminated on the next turn.
I was continuing to build lots of horsemen in my cities by connecting/disconnecting saltpeter. Thanks to my GA, I was able to build about 10 horsemen per turn, and I had more than enough money for the upgrades. The Conquest was proceeding very quickly at this point, so I started adding my workers to cities.
I took Egypts last city in 660ad, and the Zulu were confined to their tiny island in 680ad, the same turn in which I RoP raped the Romans for eight more cities. Like Carthage, Caesar was eliminated on the following turn. At this point I had around 54% of the map, and so I rushed about 20 libraries, primarily in coastal cities.
In 700ad I began switching my military factories over to wealth, because it was unlikely that new military units would be able to accomplish anything productive before domination was triggered. I RoP raped Babylon in 710ad, taking nine cities and leaving them with one, and I attacked and took 3 cities from the Arabs. In 720 I got my border expansions from many of the libraries I had rushed earlier and reached domination.
, I move three with 5 MDI and a hoplite through the point and land on the mountain NW of Samaria.
. My biggest problem during this war was to get extra galleys to replace the ones that sank, I lost 15 total on the transfer point.
![[party]](/images/smilies/partytime.gif "Party [party]")
, it will take two turns to move him to Persepolis. It will be very interesting to see the effect of the palace move, since this is not something I normally do.
. If going for domination, conquest or the cow there is really no other way than rapid. agressive expansion. And if one wants a high score, again one needs to expand fast.
![[ptw]](/images/smilies/ptw.gif "PTW Icon [ptw]")
