I settled across the river next to the Salt. Great spot until 13-14 pop, more pop shouldnt be necessary
Contemplated doing Honor, but free pillage and Pyramids seemed very tempting. So went Liberty and only settled one additional city between Gold and Oasis north. Build was:
Scout-Monument-Scout-Granary-Scout-Warriorx2-Pyramids-Barracks-Units-Heroic Epic-units- ... - eventually caved and built Library.
In my new city I built monument, granary and barracks then units. Eventually I caved here as well and built a Library around t120. Barbs made it impossible to use caravans before I had Swordsmen to clear the camps. Got food from camps pantheon for free from scouting.
I teched Pottery (had a +7 food granary!) - Mining (since I stole a worker) - AH - Archery - BW (found 18 iron!) -> Iron Working (for swordsman) - Sailing -> Metal Casting -> Physics (for Trebuchet) - then Philosophy and stuff like that.
Had 8 workers at t55, so I started a road from Aarhus to Askia/Shaka borders and put my Swords and eventual Catapults on bother Kathmandu-duty to gain xp and pillage/heal. It felt fitting to finance the Berseker upgrade with loot. I got Metal Casting very late I think, I was hoping to get it in the range 60-80 but it was more like t90. Lack of early caravans (and libraries) delayed things quite a bit. When I got Metal Casting I captured Kathmandu to upgrade my units, and had road to the edge of shaka/askia.
Shaka and Askia fell easily, but slowly, with Berskers and Cat/Treb, Berseker stood up to the Impi well, but not every game there´s 18 iron to spam them. Took 3 cities from Shaka, got 100gpt in peace deal, killed Askia and then took Ulundi and Umgungundundundlovu (or whatever its called) quickly. Almost 40 turns to take out these guys made me abandon hope of clearing map with Berseker+Trebuchet.
Similarly when I attacked Aztecs next, very slow progress using worker bait to avoid heavy casualties. Had to wait for cannons, which with my tech rate took a loong time (ca t150). Got Metallurgy 5 turns before I took his cap
, didnt focus. In addition, Shaka declared war again costing me 15 turns to clean up his newly recruited throng of Impis. As usual, he decided to throw away his Deity production advantage having two 4-pop cities and 35 units. Made sure he was removed from the game this time. Finally finished with Montezuma around t175.
Then I picked Russia (Inca had GW and DoF). Also made a second army to take Constantinople. Was kind of a standstill from t175-210, cannons only gave me Adrianople and Rostov + some other crap russian cities. Had to sell an aztec city to Inca (more GW
) to avoid going bankrupt, for 6000 (!) gold. Really awful game except military, so had to sell cities, pillage/heal, sell lux in razing cities, getting people to pay me to DoW etc. Every "cheap" trick I know to stay solvent. During this period I had 2 Bersekers and 6 workers in a razed area next to Ulundi pillage-farming gold. At t212 I got art and mowed through byzantine and Russia by t230. Kinda dumb that I decided to fight Shaka at t100 and Russia at t200, could have picked the other way around
T230 I declared on Inca, merging my two armies. Had to make peace just before getting Cusco due to bombers around t245, they were 1-shooting my artilleries. 10 turns and 4 citadels later I could one shoot Cusco (120 defence city) as revenge
. A little bribe made sure the Incan airforce had moved east to conquer the Swedes, so the other Incan cities fell easily as well. Had 25-30 artilleries at this point, 4-5 elite ones (with logistics/range/volley etc). In the meantime I had built a third regiment that started to pick on Sweden. Rest was really just mowing through Incas last units to get to Sweden, who had no military left after a longtime (staged) war with Inca and Byzantine. And, importantly, make this extended embark attack on Sigtuna for 1 point!
After Liberty, I picked Commerce. Had to concede and put two in Rationalism at some point as well. Stealing art made my culture flourish eventually so I got Protectionism right before the end.
I think if you´re using archers, its perfectly viable to play completely illiterate (like I did in this game), but with siege units I think it would have been a lot smarter to settle 3-4 cities, get NC and then start a war. Would have probably given me Metal Casting max 10-15 turns later. With artillery on t160-180 I would have been done probably 50-70 turns earlier and I would have never seen a Great War Bomber. I did get rifles first though, which was silly (just because of the Unique Unit). Despite the strong start land-wise, I just finished before Inca ran away too far.