Many Leaders Game 3 - Prince Domination

Well when we left the game last time I had cultivated Shaka as a friend by sharing Confucianism with him.

What I was aiming to do was:-

1. Use him as an attack dog as he is only to be feared if he attacks you as opposed to Say Mansa Musa who is to be feared if he techs away peacefully.
2. Use Pacal’s Financial trait and UB to show how he can tech devastatingly fast.
3. From this to use tech advantage to crush the AI towards domination rather than just hammers which the classic Axe rush uses.

Now this doesn’t mean total peace as Isabella has to go.

So in Broad terms

Hammers

By avoiding spending lots of hammers to build a dominating military I can spend them instead on Wonders with the Capital growing for Great Library and the copper based town going for the Pyramids, this will probably not complete but cash is good.

Meanwhile the deer, clam, horse tundra site on the SW coast will be my Great Scientist farm running 4 geeks under Caste system. Gold city is stagnant at size 3 and will gradually churn out axes / catapults to take down Isabella.

So highlights

To keep Shaka onside you don’t need to be stronger than him but you need not to be overly weak. Here is the initial power graph which with Isabella weaker than both of us ensures his aggression will be directed against her.

300 Bc Our axes get a little bit of training from Barbs. The extra promotion one attack give us ensures they have good odds attacking Isabella’s Archers



Whilst this is occurring we are spreading Confucianism diligently via Org religion Missionaries

175Bc We attack (with Shaka) Isabella rapidly rolling her over



Unfortunately Shaka beats me to one of her cities which is irritating



50BC Great Library comes in

75AD Oracle pops a prophet who builds the Confucian shrine.

175 AD Civil service in and we go Caste System + Bureaucracy and really pump GS points out of our GP farm

520 AD much too my surprise the Pyramids are built by us!! Now with representation our research sky rockets

600 AD use a GS for Philosophy and go pacifism to accelerate the GS’s for liberalism push. With my small military this doesn’t cost much

Eot report

The world as we know it, but our knowledge will increase soon as Caravels are about to be launched..



Now a small military that will grow now to take down Shaka whose usefulness has ended



The economy isn’t bad



I will lag other players in domination %’s but should leapfrog them very quickly

And if anybody has more techs researched than me I will be miffed



Techs learned this Set

Sailing, Monotheism, Calendar, Civil Service, Metal casting, Machinery, Iron Working, Drama, Meditation, Philosophy, Compass, Optics, paper

Ralph Jackson said:

To keep Shaka onside you don’t need to be stronger than him but you need not to be overly weak.

Click to expand...

I never heard that before, but i can see I'll learn plenty from this game, thanks.

ever since i lost my settler, i've been playing a shadow game of this, not for official consideration, but more to see just how much i lost by that one witless act

So, here's a map of America after about 100 turns.

I settled New York (the copper city) first as that was the intended destination for the eaten settler. Boston was next for the gold, w/Philadelphia last.

The pic was taken after my first war w/Shaka. You can see i have his capital, as well as having razed 2 of his cities. One near the wheat/elephants, and one SW of his capital that i can't remember what it was near.

It wasn't long after that when I re-declared, with my tech rate rapidly taking a dive. I was at 0% research, but i soon caught back up using my scientists to take the edge off (i'm trying to run an SE, and got about 3 GSs so far *i think*~ 1 settled in Wash, 1 academy built in Ulundi, and a Golden Age triggered during the end of the war to keep up finances).

Kept Nobamba:


Built Atlanta:

razed the Kwa city you can see under the overlay in the top-right corner.

and razed Anasazi:


we reached 1 million people:


and Izzy had to go, too, so Madrid was the first target:


and we were a victim of raging barb hordes:

and I almost lost madrid the turn after i took it.

and so, needing an army to finish of the b----, i 'sued' for peace ~


i redeclared in 760, and rapidly took her western, horse city:

the same year i got a GG and settled him @ Wash

however, b/c I was preoccupied with HER lands, and not watching my own, and she took Boston, the gold/wheat city. A lone axe v. a chariot ~ not good! however, i took Barcelona, too, and played a few more turns to take Boston back and finish her off.

Shadow America in 920:

Basic plan was kill Shaka, build Glight, rex.
Killed Shaka 25bc, lots of manouvre and still lost four axes. Razed one city (subsequently rebuilt) and kept the other.
Got Great Lighthouse in capital in 100ad (6 chops, whipped 2 pop).
Rexed fairly peacefully. I was surprised that Isabella didn't really expand, on the other hand she hasn't built a shrine either.
Techwise it was masonry, HBR, archery, med, Ph,CoL, currently researching MC. Been running research 20-30% all round.

It is interesting that there haven't been more quests about. Good to see you're still hanging in there.

Firstly, hats off to TriviAl and Ralph_Jackson for really strong games. Ralph's has been different to everyone elses as well.

However, pawelo is the lead dominatrix (still 4 games to submit).

Everyone seems well on track (except pholk, who is headed the way of the Yankees and Phillies )