I have been doing some practice runs with Cyrus here in preps of this game. Last night the first person I attacked was good ole Mansa and his skirmishers. It was not that bad, and I was able to take out on average 1 skirmisher in a city with two imortals. Mansa never got spearmen and thus it was a fairly easy early war. The next target was Hatty, over Mao or Saladin. She had her war chariots and spearmen. Using a mix of promotions though and it was not bad to break into her cities. I used a fair amount of Flanking 2 Immortals to hit the town first, then I had some with shock to hit the town next and rough up the spearmen even more. I even had a few Immortals with Formation to help with those stupid chariots of hers. Thebes was the hardest to take as it had 60% defense, but by this time I had some swordsmen, axemen, and spearmen caught up to the front line.
All in all it was a great war, with lots of pillaging and razing. And though I had fallen behind in techs (wasn't really paying attention to that side of things) I left her with one city when she offered to settle for peace by giving me every visible tech she had.
I would definitely vote that when having the map checked for isolation that it also be checked to make sure that you have a fair opportunity to get horses. I have never been one for an early war like this, so I really want to see someone with experience get it done.
All in all it was a great war, with lots of pillaging and razing. And though I had fallen behind in techs (wasn't really paying attention to that side of things) I left her with one city when she offered to settle for peace by giving me every visible tech she had.
I would definitely vote that when having the map checked for isolation that it also be checked to make sure that you have a fair opportunity to get horses. I have never been one for an early war like this, so I really want to see someone with experience get it done.