Without A Kiss I: Sitting Bull

4000 Settle in place. Worker. Warrior will scout hugging coast. AH to BW.
3950 I pop sailing from the nearby hut . Because I needed help at this level...
3825 There's a peak to the east blocking further expansion. That would really suck because I can't expand...wait no I have sailing already!
3425 I complete a worker and immediately start a 2nd. This...IS...pangaea correct? Then that peak is probably a pass to a large amount of land and AI's over there. Interesting indeed.
3375 Apparently the game is convinced I need this to be a joke game. I pop WRITING from a hut.................!!!!!!
3300 Met HC - we DO have a land bridge to the pangaea then. Thank god...no galley micro.
3200 Ottomans are actually pretty close.
3150 Hi Ragnar...who founded a religion...
3000 2nd worker out...gonna make a couple warriors to fogbust my immediate area etc.
2800 Revolt to slavery. HC has copper. Going mysticism, wheel, pottery.
2025 Uh...HI, monty!
1775 I settle poverty point very late. Why? Well, the lay of the land is really weird. I put it in a very food poor city, that claims both elephants and horses, along with some marble. I then STOP researching monarchy and start researching HBR and archery...
1525 HC demands sailing. Nay.
1300 City #3 settled near wine/fish and HILLS .
1075 I have HBR and archers! Diversion to masonry to work the quarry, then CoL!
875 I meet sury.
650 I settle my final city for some time - Fish/pig south of capitol. I will now be chopping, whipping, and otherwise abusing HA's out .
470 Monty wants HBR. Pass on that one monty.
440 I found confuc. Don't care about that, but courthouses whipped in conquered cities could be very nice.
350 Final AI = Caesar.
305 HBR to monty for IW. I trade it to HC also.
10 I declare on HC with 12 HA's and 4 in reserve

25 DoWing HC caused ottomans and sury to declare on me instantly (sury unstandable, but why ottomans?!). I capture machu Picchu.
40 AD I capture cuzco. This is a legitamite reason I love HA's so much. Where will HC get reinforcements from now? He WONT!
130 HC is destroyed. His land:



And by the way, he has the buddhist shrine already, and that's because he had stonehenge too .

160 Ottoman counter attack units attack one of HC's captured cities (which is now 100% my culture so no WW from it). After the skirmish, I have 15 HA's .
190 Monty declares war on caesar .
235 Whoops! Konya is lightly defended so in go 8 HA's, taking out the 2 axes and an archer with one loss.
265 Then Edirne.
325 Istanbul is garrisoned by...a sword, a spear, and an archer. 9 HA's will do!



I also take 25 gold from sury for peace.
430 I take bursa.
505 I take Ankara.
580 Ragnar declares war on me...because ottomans became his vassal willingly. Hmmm, the nordic people do feel out of place without a powerful, successful warmonger leader. It's a good thing I'm here to own them...I'll start by making them my vassals!
595 Ottomans are off the map.
625 Viking siege of poverty point is broken by what else...massed horse archers...



700 Caesar goes aver monty and sury jumps in against him. I wonder if sury will be more useful over there?!
760 Uppsala has 11 pop, 50% Culture D, a longbow, and axe, and a spear. I have 15 horse archers. I WIN. I lose 3 HA's taking it. 1-1 loss ratio while going against culture defense with more advanced units? Of course.
820 I get feudalism and revolt to vassalage.
835 I'm a little surprised to see ragnar willing to capitulate...I take it.
910 I'm making a whopping 40 BPT. Cool. I will continue to attack - Caesar is next.
920 I complete horse whispering - I get some options: 7 instant HAs (though unpromoted and crappy), sentry on all mounted, or stables +1 food. I take sentry. In wars like this being able to see and maneuver is huge.
970 I declare on Caesar - the lone AI lacking feudalism. HA's vs prats eh . Well, I do have 20 starting off though, and they're getting churned out quickly.



980 I capture Cumae.
990 Ravenna also falls.
1030 He hits me with a massive stack out of nowhere . The lone HA I have left in that city abandons it and I retreat to Cumae.
1040 Spy starts a golden age.
1050 He then proceeds...to give me 240 gold for peace. OK.
1060 I use serfdom just to save some money - I'm not whipping anymore and i was in a GA...
1130 I um...get a barb spear uprising. Right.
1250 ALL CITIES BUILD WEALTH to tech to guilds.
1270 Guilds to monty to declare on caesar...
1275 Monty drags sury in . My sentry HA's can see AC's large stack move over towards them.
1320 I declare on AC...48 HAs 5 knights.
1325 Ravenna falls, probably for good this time!
1330 RNG is REALLY FUNNY. I lose 5 straight flank II HA's. Then.......I DONT lose the next 5. K. Anyway I take rome.
1335 I take Neapolis.
1360 I camped out till he would talk. He then capitulated .
1375 I declare on monty, eviscerating his largest stack instantly. 20 HA's 13 knights here .



No, i take it back. I mis-clicked because the game promo system is gay. Instead I move my stack into the forest halfway through and lose a knight to a pike. No big deal at this point however.
1380 I capture arpinum and give it back to rome so i'll heal faster.
1410 All I did was take that city. But, my power rating let monty capitulate . HE HAS A BIG TECH LEAD ON ME .
1415 Yeah, that's enough land and pop...



Some End-Game stats and such:



"The Full Monty"









Hmm...5th on my score chart. Not what I thought I'd do going in, but hey!

Picking up where we left off, in (mostly) exploration mode:

2675 BC: Made contact with Augustus's scout to the north of Sulley's empire.
2550 BC: Discovered that Sulley had already expanded to a second city, indicating that my fears of being bottled in were justified.
2475 BC: Chopped Settler from capital, began a Dog Soldier in anticipation of a nearby war.
2425 BC: Great Wall completed. Revealed Rome's empire to the East and slightly North of Sulley.
2250 BC: Founded Pottery Point. See screen and event below for analysis.
2150 BC: IW research finishes revealing Iron in Poverty Point's BFC.



With rice and iron in the BFC and bananas in the fat cross, there are some decent resources here. Combined with the riverside grasslands (mostly covered by jungle, atm) this looks like a very good commerce city. Though the Iron was purely luck, I'll definitely take it . As far as location goes, it was really the only viable city spot on the map at the time. Furthermore, it begins to box in HC, which will probably play to my benefit in the future.

2025 BC: Encountered by first Barb Warrior. Time to start being cautious about those pillaging jerks.
1750 BC: At this point, I committed to the decision to go to war with Sulley. Pumped all of my espionage into his empire so I could hope to view his strength indicator.
1600 BC: Judaism is founded in a distant land.
1525 BC: Monty finishes researching Alphabet, and I trade away fishing/sailing/iron working for it. It was a steep price to pay, but I think it will pay off. There's enough land between Monty and I that I shouldn't have to worry about being attacked (yet). Plus, since the AI gets a small research bonus, I think it's a good idea to quickly make up the difference via diplomacy. Soon after getting Alphabet, I pick up several back-techs from other civs without giving up IW to anyone else (though I imagine they're well on their way, or getting it from Monty...)

Making the Jump Tip: Since the AI has a research advantage, leverage tech-trading as much as possible. It's been mentioned in many other guides, but it really can't be repeated often enough: Trade techs with AIs (almost) whenever possible. If you've traded a tech to one civ, it may be worth shipping it out to the others for whatever pittance you can get. 20 gold for you is better than 20 gold (or more!) to a rival civ.

1475 BC: Great Lighthouse completed by the AI.
1350 BC: Made the DoW against Sulley and moved in on Istanbul.



As you can see, I'm attacking with purely DS at this point. Fortunately, Istanbul has only 2 Archers, so I'm within the 3:1 ratio I prefer when going Axe v. Archer.

Making the Jump Tip: When attacking enemy archers with nothing but axemen, utilize the 3:1 rule. If you're attacking with unpromoted units, it may be worth going all the way to 4:1 in case you encounter, e.g., a city on a hill or CG II defenders. It might not be necessary every time, but its rate of success makes it worthwhile.

1275 BC: The 3:1 ratio paid off! Istanbul is captured.



1200 BC: Razed Bursa (south of Istanbul)



1175 BC: HC's Missionary gives me Buddhism, to which I convert immediately.
950 BC: After a few turns of healing and movement, Edirne is sacked. (Note: If you read the mini-update, you'll recall that I said I captured Edime. In fact, I had planned on razing it since it's location was suboptimal and I didn't want the maintenance costs. Unfortunately, I wasn't thinking at the time, and just clicked the capture button. This has been changed. I had a save which allowed me to exactly replicate what I had done, with the exception of razing instead of capturing. I'm going to stick with the razing, even though it meant a reload. Hopefully it's not too upsetting to those following this game.)




Making the Jump Tip: Don't hesitate to "fortify until healed" during war. Put your troops into a captured city (or its radius) until fully healed. Even an experienced unit's effectiveness is greatly diminished with even a little damage.

At this point, I thought I'd have Sulley defeated, but it looks like he settled a city just to the east of Istanbul. I decided to sign a peace treaty with Sulley since my troops were pretty much on their last legs, and I don't stand much of a chance to wipe out even one more city (which is likely to have whipped out some archers at this point).



Making the Jump Tip: It's sometimes a good idea to sign a temporary Peace Treaty, even if you're going to break it as soon as the ten turns are up. Use those ten turns to heal your troops and supplement them with new arrivals.

Here's a screen of the former Ottomon Empire:


And Istanbul:


Moving ahead, this is my plan (in roughly chronological order):
- Finish off Sulley
- Settle a city north of Istanbul
- War on HC

Earlier, I discussed my reasons for attacking HC. They included the unlikelihood of taking diplo hits from other civs (since they don't share his religion, I probably won't get the "you attacked my friend" penalty), my desire to own the Buddhist shrine city, and my preference to fight offensive, rather than defensive wars. All of these reasons are still justified, but we can add in the additional reason that I'm likely to have cats available for the war

Mitigating factors:
- Difficulty in wiping out Sulley/Sulley's founding new cities
- Lack of viable city locations
- Spread of Buddhism
- HC's tech-rate/defensive strength.

I finally got up to about the point of your first shadow post. It looks like I'm running about even with you, but with a wholly different strategy. I expanded much further without founding cities close to the capitol, and warred with the Ottomans early. Also, I never hooked up horses, so I've not had any HAs (instead got IW early and have been using DS/sword stacks.

For the benefit of those reading (and myself), would you explain why you choose to play as you did? Here's my current save for comparison's sake.

TMIT has a crazy affinity for Horse Archers. I never understood why.

My reason for going HAs was that we have powerful commerce to support getting HBR and warmonger expansion reasonably early.

Pre-feudalism, HA's are pretty devastating. The AI doesn't make enough spears, and with the 12 (I brought in my other 4 pretty quick too) I DoW'd with it was easily enough to have 2 cities on the 4th turn of war. HC got to whip 1 unit. I don't just like HA's though...I like ALL 2+move units.

The main reason for the choice I made was right there - I knew I had a POWERFUL option available to me on a difficulty where the AI doesn't tech too impressively just yet, so it'd get a lot of mileage. The gold gave me the ability to get code of laws reasonably early (aka prior to taking too many cities) - this was important because I NEVER HAVE TO STOP TAKING CITIES then unless I get backwards (cities with a CH whipped in will usually net out positive by a little even with nothing else), and by the point the player stops being able to use HA's en masse' (I'd say engineering for the AI) you'll probably have a huge power lead on a map like this and can afford to go all out tech for a bit.

This reply is already getting long but I've done a lot of discussion on the benefits of 2 move vs more strength/lowering d etc. Movement isn't EVERYTHING, but the tactical ability this presents, even against the AI, is pretty surprising, and my game here isn't a bad example.

Edit: Religions in your game are pretty different from what I recall (monty was jewish and I believe I'd met more AIs too by chance).

I judged HC to be the most viable 1st target. He already had the shrine and was heathen save for 1 AI. Problem is, well, I misjudged and got backstabbed by two civs simultaneously in 25 AD, one of them being the ottomans, another being one you've not met yet...which messed up my logistics a bit.

When you prepped for war, it seems you had the intention of taking out a civ then growing. My intent was much more ambitious/dangerous - I wanted to roll over several civs like a wave and thus prepared a force that (with reinforcements being produced) could do it.

The cities I settled were to hook up horses and to give me that production. Also, since Istanbul is a bit of a ways off, I wanted some more economic/hammers power before rushing that distance.

I doubt you'll be able to conquer at the rate in my game, but you're in decent shape so far from what I can see in your save. Your research is low though...it will be helped by currency but get some scientists going for a GS to put an academy in a strong beaker city soon too. If I were you I'd also trade for monarchy INSTANTLY and use it for HR - you can do so. You captured some resources so consider selling some for GPT also once you can.

Dunno if I even need spoiler tags for this, but I can definitely see where the two move units can become powerful. I need to play a game as Carthage, because I was woefully unaware that Numidian Calvary get +50% vs Melee units, meaning they can even take down spearmen with ease. But, back on topic, lol.

- Finished off the Ottomans
- Got DoW'ed by Monty; fought off his stack and then got a PT thanks to an AP vote (thanks Augustus )
- Preparations to go on the offensive against HC are well underway. The power indicator suggests this should be a quick war
- Monarchy was traded for and Calendar researched. Hooked up wine resources in a city to the south of capitol and calendar resources all over the empire. Tech rate is currently up to 50% and 60% will be attained soon.

Next steps:
- Whip out some courthouses
- Take on HC
- Hope to not get backstabbed by Monty
- Prepare for war against the Vikings. More for resources and empire boundaries than conquering at this point
- Hope to not get backstabbed by Monty
- DoW Ragnar
- Hope to not get backstabbed by Monty.

3950 - Sailing from Hut. I don't see any way to capitalize, unless I build the GLH early. But with Sitting Bull, I feel like rushing to Feud and Longbowing my opponents.
3750 - Mining
3400 - Met Inca
3275 - Viking
3250 - Ottoman
3200 - Bronze. Revolt to Slavery. Dog Soldiers do NOT require metals, so chop a settler and plant it close to Ottoman lands.
3025 - Mine the Gold, commerce nearly doubles to 17 from 9. woo
3000 - Hunting. Prereq for Archery.
2975 - See my first Barbarian animal.
2825 - The Wheel
2700 - Myst
2550 - Arch
2450 - Ottoman tries to block off my continent. I wardec with one Dog Soldier
2425 - Raze Edirne. Stupid city. It was laying across the chokepoint. Settle Poverty Point. Nice city name.
2350 - Animal Husbandry. I haven't played Prince in a while, but I seem to be teching along fast. maybe its the goldmine.
2250 - ffff He has archers. Three of them
2025 - Peace with Ottoman. Focus on HC, I don't like the guy. Also, he might be using Quechas.
1925 - Iron Working. God, yes, Iron at Poverty. Swords ahoy, I say! 6 of them for Ottoman, and his city will fall.
1850 - Scouting party into Incan lands. War were declared. ffff one axeman, two archers.
1775 - Pottery
1725 - Pillage HC's copper, fortify a dog soldier on it. WHAT NOW?! woohoo 9 gold from the mine. Funny, he only has one city. Weird.
to 1575 - continue mindless pillaging of HC lands, just to keep him whipping archers and whatnot in his capital. Focus is still on getting Swordsmen. Iron a turn away from being hooked up
1500 - Writing.
1475 - HC grows some balls and kills the pillaging dog soldier with 3 archers
1325 - Oh god, Native American swordsmen look so stupid.
1300 - war were decalred on ottoman again
1150 - Ottoman only has one archer in capital. ZOMG. TAKE IT.
1075 - Still only one archer? what the hell? See image.

Istanbul captured. Woot.
1025 - HBR.
925 - Bursa captured with stack of 5 Swords. Razed, stupid city and I'm not paying maintainence.
900 - Meet Aztec. oh god. I also met Augustus at some point.
800 - Lone Swordsman razes last Ottoman city, Ankara.
775 - Oh, yeah, Inca. Attacks me with a super stack of doom. Two archers and two quechas. I pillaged his copper and fortified a Dog Soldier on it, it's still there. Haha, I can totally pwn his loser army with Swords now.
600 - Alphabet
550 - 5 Swords and two Dog Soldiers to Incan lands. Yarr!
525 - Build my first Archer. Oh yeah, Sitting Bull is Protective, hahahaha. Forgot.
470 - Tiwanaku razed, no losses. Great General born in capital. Woot, attach it to a unit probably.
305 - Get EXTREMELY LUCKY. Swords kill both axes in Cuzco. Lose like 3 to the Archers. Captured. I have Buddhist holy city and Stonehenge now. Which means Totem Poles. +3 experience for archery units. Crossbows, anyone? Inca destroyed. Two civs before the AD years, not bad.
230 - Ragnar is using Horse Archers now. Swords should do well against them.
200 - Trade for Meditation from Augustus. Gonna kill him anyway, so yay free techs.
185 - Currency. Then Priesthood and Code of Laws. Then to Fuedalism.
155 - Declare war on Ragnar. He's Hindu, Monty is Jewish. The last thing I need are more religions. D:
140 - Raze Birka
85 - Trade Alphabet to Monty for Monarchy. Good trade, in my opinion. Monarchy = Fuedalism. YES LONGBOWS.
80 - City Garrison III Archers out of the box is pretty cool. Cities are untakable. For some reason a Swords defended against a Barb axeman and I lost a 15 XP Swordsman. Bummer.
10 AD - Uppsala razed. Bottleneck city.


Post-round thoughts:
Military campaign was all around successful. Fortifying the Dog Soldier on the copper resource was a brilliant move in hindsight. Inca without axemen was easy to beat. He had two when I went back and killed him, because he had hooked the iron up.
Augustus is going to be a pain. I'll wait until I have some good cities and Construction, as well as Longbows and Crossbows. Montezuma is gonna be my buddy buddy, hopefully. Might even switch to Judaism to keep him happy. Whipping troops in my cities, woo.
I have lots of good land to expand into. Probably gonna gear towards a Domination win. Never gonna lower the military pressure, hopefully. Who needs infrastructure?

MAKING THE JUMP TIP:
Don't be afraid to risk units. I won two 23% battles here. Then again, I lost three 64% battles. Combat is an unpredictable thing. Bring more attackers than defenders, and siege engines if you can. I was attacking with only swords and dog soldiers, and I've suffered some pretty hefty losses. However, I now control three capital sites and a nice early production site, as well as the most land on the map. The downside is that now I am spread out, causes more maintenance cost than I would be if I had settled close to my capital. That doesn't matter, though, because military control of the map in an early area is not usually dependent on the economy. Land is power, and now that I have more land, I could focus on my infrastructure and build up my second attack force, which would compose more modern units, like macemen and longbows.
Or, I can go screw this and push on.

Any reason you didn't settle Poverty Point 1S to get Rice in the BFC and avoid extra ocean tiles?

Rice is in the BFC. I don't know what you're talking about. It doesn't have any ocean tiles, either.

I saw ivory, so easy win there. I oracled metal casting so I could two pop whip 60 hammer units with a forge and built some galleys. Got construction, but only ragnar had horseback riding and he wouldn't trade it. Had to tech it myself, bulbed theology, but that's only 7 experience. I'm going to need feudalism, and some great generals.

Is it cheating to not have the level 3 special units before you attack?

Desert, rather. Not ocean. BFC = Before Fat Cross, right?