If you don't mind, it would be much appreciated!
Alright, I've finally gotten around to playing this for five to six turns so far. Some thoughts and observations...
1) The first was the most glaring. Why only two cities and a puppet? Someone earlier on has pointed it out, but with such a tight space, you could have gone warmongering on the Songhai, Arabs and English in the first 100 turns or so with Composite Bowmen to get more cities than your current setup
2) Only 106 beakers per turn at 1700 AD? Even at Epic speed, this is seriously bad juju, and you did not even build any Universities to staff. Bad stuff, especially as you are chugging into Industrial because techs will get
a lot more expensive. Next time after you unlock Education, straight away build them in your production cities or if they are busy/super low on hammers, rushbuy them. Your pop has grown into a powerhouse capable of supporting Uni staff plus production focus to wonderspam, make use of that.
3) Why did you declare war on your friend... and then not conquer him at all, or at least take his capital and leave him to one city? Again, this is a bad move - its bad enough that "declare war on leaders you've made DoFs with" modifier is permanent and ingrained into every other civ from that moment, its a nightmare you left him alive (to take revenge)!
Next time if you want to do that, make sure you take some of your "friend's" cities up to and including his capital.
4) Two scouts that are not doing anything. Send them over to the east, even if there is only city-states (this is East vs West where every major civ is crammed on one side, amirite?)
5) I also noticed that your puppet and your core cities are not linked, and that there is an Incan puppet capital in between. This is the moment where you should flex your military muscles and thrash the Incans good. Their man cities are blocked by hostile Greeks and your former Japanese friends, so they should not have much if at anything at all in that puppet.
Now this is WHAT you can do to ensure the Incans are distracted for good:
You had a ton of potential friends and warmonger attack dogs, all willing to do your dirty work for really cheap prices (66 gold on Epic!). Be more aware of your diplo surroundings - rummage through the diplomacy screens of every individual leaders and the overview to see how you can play The Great Game.
6) Now, with the Incans distracted by a huge margin (Napoleon presumably has his Musketeers by now), we come to warmongering and the Power of One Trebuchet:
There's a lot of jungle in the way, but there are some hills south of Gao. You want the Trebuchet to be really safe, so bring in a ton of forces and put it in a rough place like that jungle tile right above that northern Incan Pikemen:
The Incans happen to have a tiny garrison in Gao, but this should be dealt with your Pikemen, Crossbows and use your horse units to conduct
Zones of Control on them.
Also note the power of a Trebuchet in bringing down Gao's 22 strength (now 19 without garrison) defense:
The scout was there for no reason other than to create what I like to term "Target Paralysis" - giving your opposition too many targets to hit, it will end up hitting the most weakest and obvious one. So in this case, the scout died so your other stuff can continue besieging Gao without much concern
Also see that Knight above pillaged farm? Do that regularly to all your future target cities - it will starve down pop growth in a puppet considerably, especially if all farm and wheat tiles have been burnt, and you will get gold out of it too! Also if this was an AI production city, it will slow down whatever units they may want to produce to throw you out.
Now here is another way of creating Target Paralysis: forcing down the city defenses with one of your melee meatshields. AIs will tend to pick off your most heavily wounded stuff, like this wounded Pikemen, and saving your more precious siege engines or ranged units from immediate extinction. Don't be afraid - a Treb is pretty tough and it would take at least something like a strength 60 city plus ranged garrison to one-shot it in rough terrain like that jungle tile.
With the city defenses whittled down to red, I can now use my crossbowmen to pick it off even further to zero health and take the city with another Pike.
This example only applies when your foes are not rolling with superior units (Gatling guns/cannons) or a big chunk of them (more than 5 units). Always bring more siege engines and ranged units to cover your melees - here's a tip:
it is possible for you to bring down an Industrial city at strength 60. Just bring a lot of them (4-5 would be good, especially if backed by a GG and meatshields), make use of Target Paralysis and ranged units to cover your melees, and you can carve your own empire of glory.
Finally, I noticed that you have a religion and yet its not being properly utilized. There are great stuff like Peace Loving, Interfaith Dialogue and Growth If Not At War, but if its not even majority religion in your own two cities, then don't bother with religion at all. Don't be afraid to go to war with your fellows if they happen to spam a Great Prophet(s) or Missionaries your way, keep your religion safe, build more temples when you can spare the time and make Taffism the dominant one for all time, in all games.
Hope this helped
. You have the biggest military, so just get 2-3 more trebuchets. Greece has some nice luxuries too.
