Siam, man of the elephant. One of my favorite civs to play. Of course for the preformentioned elephants. Though they are cursed with short strides due to their cumbersome pant loads of awesomeness. In short, I love these units. They're great.
I entered the world and was immediately glad to be greated by salt and wheat. Every players dream start, or should be. Salts awesome and Op, if you don't think so, then you're wrong. After a few short turns, the holy grail, the mother herself, the stupid OP Fountain of Youth.
/wingamenow
After opening the ever familiar Tradition, I quickly went down the left side of Honor, to get + XP. Promotion tricked out elephants and xbows is comparable to seeing Pamela Anderson's tits in the 90's, before she ed that douche nugget Tommy Lee. And posing for every creepy man with a camera, but having said that. Their awesome. My first few turns also revealed my best friend Atilla and that nasty land grabby native, Pocatello. I decided then and there, that they would have to die. Given the FoY, Salt and not many great positions to expand my own cities. I quickly built a settler, after my monument, worker setup. Pocatello decided that one of his workers looked better in yellow, then his ugly shade of excrament mixed with bile. I went to work on my salt, condeming my workers to years of labour in the salt mines, but that's no matter, they're simply pawns in my game. Well, kinda they actually are. Anywho, Pocatello fell to my volley of freshly upgraded compsite bows, with the gold Maria spent on my salt. Parnter in crime, /highfive. While camping in Moson Kanhi with the battle hardened troops, singing campfire songs and enjoying the now widowed women of the Shoshone people; a welcoming party of Hunnic decent appeared on the borders of Sukhothai. Thinking that this could only be a meeting to discuss this winters dog sledding competition, I sent my convoy of archers to great our friendly tagged partner. Then, also so suddenly it startled me, I was DoWed by my long time friend and neighbour, Atilla.
My composite bows arrive just on time to corner and slaughter most of his army which consisted of rag tag mountain people carrying bows, battering rams and riding horse back. We pushed into his lands and burned a poorly placed city to the ground. Turning north we decimated and puppeted Weldiya, as it was rich in Marble. The Siamese appreciate Marble. They craft it into magnificient statues, monuments and the odd table for preparing vegetables. Atilla begged for his life, but I could not trust this man. As such we extinguished his light, and fell upon Atilla's Court. The battle commander, Ivan the Terrible, of obvious Asian decent. Decided that this land would look great, with plentiful trade posts, to support our great empire. Ivan was right.
While the extermination of Atilla the Hun was under way. Ashy took the Shoshone's last remaining city, just north east of my newly annexed Moson Kanhi. This wouldn't do. Before commiting genocide, I paid Ashy to declare war on Rome. To give me some time and thin out some of their units.
Turn 123
By this time, Ive worked 4/5 in Tradition, and my left side of Honor. I'll look to finish Tradition, because I simply just can't. I scored the Oracle in Sukhothai, and the Petra in 2nd city. Writers guild went up after NC, to help me pus through tradition. Artists guild going up in 2nd city now. These are mostly just for the culture. Science isn't what I would like, as I've rushed to Xbows and Elephants. Also unhappy with my scouting, but my initial scouts were dominated by Pocatello's lethal seek and destroy Pathfinders. No one's hit Renessiance yet, it feels like a slow game for everyone. Im just now upgrading into Xbows, and the Roman's and Assyrian's are flailing their tiny girly wrists at each other in an attempt to settle a dispute over who's taking Ricky to prom. But no matter, I plan to kill them both, and while they fight amongst each other; I'll steal Ricky, and probably have sex with him. I'm so bad. Sun Tzu might have been proud, of my video game battle planning. Well, no not really. He'd probably be confused by video games and the modern world in general. But, ah nevermind.
Turn 165
This is my usual warmonger policy tree, pre renessiance. I'm not sure if it's optimal as I'm not a number cruncher. More trial and error. Like a frustrated baby trying to jam a square block into the circle hole. It works for me, cheap roads, more gold. Obvious + xp for warmongering, level 10 archers are just silly. Sprinkle in a few lucky elephants to wade through the tide of sacrificial Babar's, and you can make beasts; 3 terrain promos, march, double attack, + movement. Tradition because anything else is lacking.
Turn 171
While Ceaser and Ashy argued amongst each other, I picked off their armys and decimated thier cities. I broke apart my army and sent an attachment to the north east, to acquire some ocean front property. Libson looked like a great place for condo's. Lines of condos, hotels, and resorts. Then we'll build a sewer to the ocean, because its only logical? There isn't much to say on their part, they put up little resistance, having decimated themselves in their own war; and Maria didn't seem to build many troops at all, instead building wonders. As I was taking Assur for my own presidential vacation home, I noticed Ethiopa walking through Ashy's lands via open borders. I could only assume they were after this prime location to build their own presidential vacation home. There could only be one.
Turn 175 - 200
Ethiopa discovered the world congress on turn 175 and revealed my final victim, the penninsual bound Songhai. I finished off Ethiopa as quickly as possible and sent my army of doom over the ocean and into his lands via open borders. Found some spaces I could declare war, and took his capital.
Overview
My start was simple, settle the hill for obvious reasons. Get a city out close to my first target to plant a citadel and build some XP, and start my domination. My scouting could have been much better, I'll have to remember to build extra scouts/horsemen/boats to scout better.
There isn't much to say about this game. It was perfect for the rush style warmonger, aside from Songhai's location, ew. I could have finished faster if I'd known about Songhai. I made a bad assumption thinking that someone was dwarfed behind Ethiopa, and I could just walk through to victory. This is my second fastest dom VC on a standard map, so I had a lot of fun.
I'm going through all the games posted here, much later then everyone else. I limit myself to starting location spoilers, to keep the surprise and suspense fun side of it. Thank you very much for this awesome map.
(a great wall would've sufficed)
