Predator - Barbs fixed
Early on I saw this map as a perfect Temple of Artemis domination map. ToA seems overpowered in Conquests when you have a UU that appears before Education and can be ridden for a Dom victory. Having expanded borders on every captured town leads to 66% land very quickly.
Berserkers is the strongest UU before Education so they fit this perfectly. Plus having a 80% water map with a single continent other then the starting location, shaped like a big horseshoe to maximize coastal towns, well, how could I try anything else? However, this forced me into a suicide chain of galleys for troop movement, since I could not get to Navigation for safe passage across the wide, wide ocean. (never less then 12 tiles).
Once I committed to suicide galleys chains, then I was also forced into building the Great Lighthouse. It would allow sea movement and further reduce the risk of losing galleys in the ocean. The distance across the Ocean, even with the GL, forced me into 2 suicide galleys every turn at a minimum.
The Temple of Zeus was another obvious AA build, since it would give me improved mobile units without having to get Chivalry. The added bonus was that it would trigger my GA. The plan was to build GL first to make sure I got it, then build ToZ timed to start around entering MA, so I would get a big research boost to Invention and Bezerkers.
Since my primary goal was capturing the town with the Temple of Artemitis on the main continent, I waited until it was built before I decided on the direction of approach for the attack. It seemed lucky that it was the Babs who built it, although it they did build it inland which forced some Berserkers out of their boats. Attacking the round end of the horseshoe seemed like the right approach, although in retrospect, better access to the inner sea would have speed up my conquest.
I completed the ToZ around 100bc and started my GA. In what might be the most boring use of GA shields ever, I used the 30/turn from Trondheim to mostly build Galleys, one per turn.
Invention was discovered in 320AD. I pushed Trondheim up to size 10, 24 shields per turn and squeezed out a Berserker every 3 turns. The normal build in the large cities was Berserkers and the normal build in all the small costal cities was Galleys for the rest of the game. Research was shut off and all production went to unit support and the odd rushing of units or improvements.
I had launched a small pre-invasion before I discovered Invention and moved some AC and Archers across the pond next to the Zulu. They were weak, plus they were between the northern and southern Bab settlements. I founded a town in 190AD on the coast and declared war on the Zulu around 250AD a few turns before I discovered Invention and got my first Beserker upgrades.
After the Zulu fell, I divided my forces and sent some north to take out the 3 Bab towns to the north and some South to take out their capital and capture the ToA.
After the Babs fell, the southern forces attacked the Dutch and their 4 defense Swiss mercs. They had built both the Pyramids and Sun Tzu's in a coastal town, so I swarmed it with Berserkers and it fell. However, the inland Dutch towns, especially on hills proved to be too difficult. I decided to make peace and bypass them.
The Northern force was surprise attacked by the Celts, so I allied the Americans against them, and then proceeded to start taking out the Celts. This force was lucky and created two GL which I formed into armies. Due to my low number of units, one army had 2 AC and the other army had 2 Berserkers. This force proceeded clockwise through the Celts. I left the weak Americans alone until the final turn when I doubled back a few berserkers and put myself over 66% of the land.
The Southern force jumped over the Dutch and attacked the Hittites. At this point, I was chaining Berserkers from Bergen on my east coast across to the main continent, down south past the Babs lands, the Dutch lands and onto the Hittites. I was actually moving Berserkers and AC 3/4ths of the way around the map and could have chained them all the way back to my west coast with 2 more suicide galleys on that side. I never really made the switch over to a western suicide direction of travel until the last few turns because I had the Galleys deployed every 5 tiles and it took an extra 4 or so new galleys to move over to the west coast and start going that way.
For many, many of the turns during the conquest, I could not move troops because I had lost a galley in my suicide chain. Each time this happened I moved more galleys out to take their place and waited until next turn. I attempted to improve my through put with two sets of 2 galleys, but the losses also increased, so I was limited to moving only 2 units from my homelands the other continent for nearly the entire war.
Near the end, my cash bonus from captured cities eliminated the costs of unit support, so I could rush some Knights and a few Berserkers on the main continent. Having barracks in every city helped. From 320AD to 700AD I never had more the 20 Berserkers and 5 AC and 2 armies in the field.
Domination achieved in 710AD.
Here is the conquest progression
NPStan
