COTM42 - Spoiler #2

COTM 42 Spoiler2: End of the Middle Ages

Reading Requirements:

1. Must be able to research an Industrial Age Technology.
2. Must have contact with all remaining civs and knowledge of most of the map.

Posting restrictions

1. No maps showing Industrial or Modern resources.
2. No discussion of Industrial Age (or later).
3. Absolutely NO discussion of any other active 'X'OTM Contest

Tell us about your contact with the 2nd continent. Were any of the other civs becoming powerhouses? Any problems you had a hard time handling?

here comes my story
conquest class

I delt with the americans early, maasing gold upping worriors
I took and hold washington and 5 other cities
still i was possible to get the techs with some good trades(my second curragh scoutet the other nations)
Lisabon managed to built mausoleom, witch was very important for my cultur rateing

the peacetreaty gave me Feudalism, just in time to attack the iroqs
they had become the most powerful civ

as they didnt had any iron, they defendet with spearman, but the mounted worriors was trouble enough. after conquering 2 cities i had to sign peace cous i was in the republic, and the warwearnesses was dissableing my cities completely at that time. but i had captured 2 major cities, close to Salamanka, one with The Oracle, one next to the horses..that was nice.. i managed to hold thoes two with rushing temples, letting portoguis ppl join the city and placeing all the military next to them. so they didnot run over to iroqus for some time
got some nice tech for peace and rebuilt forces, until finaly, one of thoes 2 cities desposed
that was the starting for the next war and this time i got in the americans
with me.
Inventions was enough for Lincoln to join me and so he supplied me with lonbowman.
Without him i would not have standet a chance.
After a long and bloody war, i had to sign peace again, cous my citizens had been starving alot.
I got Salamanka and another big citiy next to my eastern borders (the western end of the iroqs empire) at the coast.
the treaty gave me astronomy while i was going for mil trad.
I emediately constructed a carack and enterd Golden Age at 1030 AD
That was when everything was turning
while reasearching mil trad in 4 turns, i made alot of gold and maased cannons and musketman.
than i switched to cavalery. By that time i managed to claim rank one in the powergraph with about the same points as Iroqs;
With 15 cannons and a lot of musketman/caval i started War again in 1210 AD
At that time Iroqs had been tech leaders and most powerful civ, they already had Rifleman but my attack was too hard, and one after an other, their cities got conquered..
I got their wonders Sun Zus, Hanging gardens and Sistine


carthage was the second most powerful civ but spain was the tech and cultural leader
hetits dinot got so much space, England was at about same size as spain but not as advanced, i tradet alot of techs with the british and kept up with them by most of the time.
Babylon had a bigger empire but always was alittle bit behind together with carthage, but after my war was finished, cartahge went out of (tech)reache, following (and tradeing) with the spain alone.
So spain was techleader but shared the continent with england and hetits

So in 1400 AD points looked like :

Portulgal: 1447
Carthage: 1310
Babylon: 1298
Iroquois: 1190 (dead)
England: 798
Hetits: 762
spain: 752
America: 615 (left with 2 cities)

Settled in 3950 BC on the forest near wheat. Built warrior, warrior, settler and granary. Went after republic slingshot, and got it in 1325 BC (with the sacrifice of early food, signing many scientists in cities). In 1000 Bc i had:
10 towns
12 workers
2 settlers
and meagre 18 pop
Entered MA around 800 bc.
The approach was as usual - horsemen/knight upgrade. Though first victim America was conquered with horsemen. Knight came into play in late BC's, continent was mine in around 200AD.
I built The Great Lighthouse in 210 BC triggering my golden age. In GA built quite a few knights through horse/knight upgrade route.
Continent was mine around 200AD and first knights were transported to other continent around 300 AD. And then a few ROP rapes (capturing Babylon in 360 AD with ToA, capturing 9 of 18 Hittites cities in around 440 Ad) and we get domination victory in the early 500's.
As usually built no city improvements except few barracks and harbors. Everything was into military, also assigned many taxmen in corrupted towns, they made around 50% to my income in the end

Predator class - headed to space.

When I entered the Middle Ages in 750 BC, I was in a phony war against the Iroquois. The Americans were my allies tied with a peace treaty. On the other continent, in my effort to make the Hittites a superpower, the Hittites and Spanish were taking England’s land.

I immediately gifted Babylon to the Middle Ages with me, and they got Engineering which meant I could count on the AI providing Feudalism, Invention, and Gunpowder, so I started on the top part of the tree after gifting the rest of the AI into the Middle Ages.

I attempted to increase my research ability through expansion, but I don’t think I did a very good job of it because I didn’t expand very quickly, and my research was very slow for too long. I didn’t build any libraries until almost the AD years preferring to build military instead, but I didn’t use cash-rushing enough to conquer as quickly as I should have.

In 590 BC, the Americans broke our alliance/peace treaty by signing peace with the Iroquois. I immediately also signed peace with the Iroquois and signed an alliance with them against the Americans (2 separate transactions this time). Periodically, they tried to get out of the war, but I kept bringing them back in with techs. The war was fought primarily with horsemen, but it went far too slowly with the Iroquois capturing the last American city in 30 BC.

I immediately declared war on the Iroquois and captured 4 cities on the first turn of war without RoP abuse. One tidbit I picked up (which I should have realized if I ever thought about it) – if you are going to fight the Iroquois, give them Invention first because they prefer longbows to mounted warriors. The war just got easier as time went on.

Meanwhile, on the other continent, my best friends the Hittites declared war on me. It turned out OK since they gave me war happiness and never managed to land a single unit on my continent. Meanwhile I signed alliances with the Hittites’ weaker neighbors (only 1 at a time) so the Hittites could continue to grow in the hope that they would be able to research quickly in the later ages.

My research path was:

-470 - Complete Monotheism – use it to trade for Engineering and Feudalism and gift those 2 around.
-270 – Complete Theology.
-90 – Trade for Invention.
-30 – Complete Education – gift it to my research buddies right away so that they can start Astronomy after finishing Gunpowder.
170 – Complete Banking; trade for Chivalry and Gunpowder.
260 – Complete Chemistry; trade for Astronomy.
320 – Complete Physics.
380 – Complete Magnetism.
420 – Spain learns Metallurgy; I learn Theory of Gravity and trade to enter the Industrial Age.



(That was my closest save to entering the Industrial Age).

@ignas:

I clearly got my strategy wrong, I tried to starve out Washington to get it below 6, didn't feel like attacking the musket as it were. Well, while I was blocking all his tiles, I was repeatedly attacked by archers from surrounding towns, killing off or retreating my horsemen. I think I would have lost less had I attacked outright, and it would have saved me some ten turns too.

I made peace with America near 0 AD and started making Knights to attack the Iroquois. That war went pretty well, though I stopped just shy of taking Salamanca when Hiawatha offered me a very good peace deal with lots of gpt. So I started ferrying my troops over to Babylon instead, and quickly established a foothold. During this time I also beelined for Cavs, since several AI were coming up with pikes. I also traded up to Education and made a quick run for Astronomy, to trigger my GA with a carrack. During the GA I rushed three cavs every two turns on the other continent, and quickly overran the remains of Babylon.

The plan after that was to move in and ROP rape the Hittites and English, but unfortunately the Hittites declared on me before I had the chance. I had to slug my way through his decent army with lots of knights, that cost me a lot of time. When he was finally down to size (boat settler size actually), I went for an ROP rape of England and Iroquois at the same time, finally giving me domination in 760 AD. Score was barely above 10k, which was my goal, so all in all I'm pretty satisfied.

thanks Niklas, your game was also good, you were not scared and played predator !. i think i was playing open this time
i guess musketmen in size 7 city was a real pain against horsemen, though like 5 horses should be enough against a musket.
Knights and The Great Lighthouse was all that was needed in this game (excellent GA timing and safe passage to other continent). I don't even remember GOTM when i was using cavs, i guess on all levels except SID horse/knight upgrade is all you need to win.
Well also ROP rapes made this game much easier: ROP raped Iroquis capturing their city with Great Wall and four others, ROP raped Babylon to get 7 towns in one turn, and also to get 9 in one turn against Hittites. Taxmen also played a big role in my game: they contributed around 50% (around 150 gpt) to my income from early AD's though they slowed the growth and score a bit

Also @ chamnix, AI researched 4 techs in MA for you, thats very good, seems like decent date for space victory

It's a bit of a mixed blessing - the AI had plenty of time to research more techs for me because I was researching fairly slowly for a while , but I'm not unhappy with where my date ended up (I'll get around to writing the final spoiler soon...).

hey!
i'm a little bit late, cause of 30h journey and some traveling lately - but : i'mgoing to make it up. US, IR, CARTH weren't a problem...
Hititties've killed my two armies, fortunately (sorry for typo if there is some) i've built walls, RAX in city near London to hold it [for lux : wines]. later captured other H cities for incense and dyes.

well - score is not good, but i have not so much time to play (anyone being physics student writing thesis?) but i enjoy some good game (emp) :-D.
cheers!!

I was not as lucky (or good) as chamnix using the AI. At least I got two from them - well one and a half...
But my early libs might have done a good job for me. I killed America with horses and invaded Iroquois with knights.
These pathetic AI chose Printing Press over Miltrad
My GA I spared for the early IA.

850 Reached MA. Gifted Babs up, they get Feud, won't sell for Republic & Lit.
620 Monotheism (self)
530 Feudalism (Hittites)
510 Monarchy (Iroquois)
450 Theology (self)
310 Education (self)
250 Engineering (Hittites)
150 Astronomy (self)
30 Banking (self)
10 AD Invention (Iroquois)
90 Gunpowder (self)
270 Physics (self), Chivalry (Babylon)
330 ToG (self)
430 Magnetism (self), Navigation (Babylon).
We reach IA (this time for real), Babs get Steam.

(sorry, missed to take some more notes - even some tech dates are missing...) :blush