Upon entering the game I quickly realized what sparse resources really meant, friggin sparse. Being the Romans I wanted to gun for a Dom VC, and with so much open terrain I decided to go for my 3 points liberty (to free settler), all honor build. I knew if I started settling into my opponents they wouldn't appreciate it, and look for war. I snagged 2 workers from city states surrounding me, and weirdly enough I was offered a DOF from Ghandi then America. Excellent, forward settling time. With a bit of blocking with scouts, archer, warrior. I managed to get some advantageous war positions, with the few luxuries that were near by. Noticing that founding my own religion was not going to be an option in this game, as everyone had pantheons. I elected to go for +1 happiness from rivers to allow myself some more growth, before getting up coliseums;
Gold and happiness were the factors trying to hold back my Roman conquest. Happiness I solved with trades and my faithful CS friend Zanzibar. Got my NC up by 85, give or take. Morocco and the Incans decided I would be a trust worth ally, and asked for DoF's. Which I gladly took as I was so stricken for cash. They gladly bought my salt and oranges, and I bought a library in my 5th city, and walls for 4th annd 5th. Scrimped enough cash to get my archers to composites around 70.
Gold was a constant issue and just to stay above water, I was working merchant slots in 4/5 of my cities, as soon as they were built and I could run them. I knew if I wanted a clean assault on New York, I would need my composites to be upgrade ready and in position the moment I researched machinery. Then as expected, Washington started to position himself. Well before my dreams of xbows, but this was an opportunity to clear out his fustercluck of units. I could tell he was confused which target to take, and re aligned himself after I bought walls in my 5th city. He attacked and was picked apart, at no point was I ever worried. He kept dancing his units back and forth between Ravenna and Antium. Education turn 115, then right to finish my path to machinery, I had spawned my GM a few turns prior and had him positioned and ready to sacrifice him to Kiev.
New York wasn't hard to take with 2 citadels to slow him down. Plus xbows, a few sacrificed horsemen and pikemen. When I took New York I hit -10 unhapiness. With no gold and no CS prospects I decided to look for a buyer. Pachuti was wildly interested and offered me all of his GPT and luxuries, but wouldnt accept my DoF. His units had been dancing around in the Bermuda triangle that was between my cap, 2nd and Antium. I gladly sold it, and on the same turn he liberated the American people. So I took it again, and sold it again for 8 GPT and the luxuries I chose not to take the first time. Pachuti again liberated it. At this point it was all ready at 1 pop and posed no happiness issues. I took it back and proceeded with my conquest. [Theory: Pachuti wanted to attack me, but was scared of my might and couldnt find a proper city target to converge on. So he didnt want a potential enemy to have a city on his borders. He couldnt handle the happiness so he liberated it back.] Washington fell with ease. He was on the way to getting strong, I was glad to take him down before minutemen. My teetering friendship with the icans brought me into a good financial position and happiness as well. I knew this wouldn't last and that my conquest should be focused on the week Ghandi, and then Pachuti. To unlock the rest of the world.
Ghandi fell with ease, Pachuti joined me in the blood bath making it easy for my 5 range + dbl attack xbows to widdle the city down, and a knight to take it. He begged for peace, and I allowed it and waited the clock to time out on my borrowed economy.
I wasn't completely worried. I opted to research cannons first, to help with the hill ridden assault on Pachuti. Economics wasn't far off. I was working scientist slots now, saving up for my boost into artillery. But first to Industrialization so that I can upgrade my now amazingly upgraded xbow 5 some. After banks I knew I would be soon I would be pumping out cannons and minutemen in all of my cities, and that would spell the end of the Incans. With properly placed citadels and war roads littered throughout the hillside, it was an ugly push and I lost a few minutemen to sacrifice in order to cap the entrenched positions.
After killing Pachuti my tech was on its way to artillery. I bulbed one scientist and used the Oxford to get me there, onto rifling to have a super strong front line of calvary and riflemen. From there it was only a matter of beating up the remaining civs. I split my forces to round up Amsterdam and Addis Abba, to make for a quicker victory. I would be behind in tech before long, as I was focused on war and not science.
