Conquests 01: Spoiler 2 (End of middle ages)

This is the second spoiler for Conquests 01: Hittites


Well, there are heaps of write-ups in the first spoiler. We've had quite a few submitted games already, so its about time we got the second spoiler underway!

To qualify for this spoiler, you must be at least researching an industrial-age tech. By this stage, you should also have been able to make contact with all other civilizations, and you should have aquired a pretty-decent world map.

As always, screenshots are fine. But please refrain from posting any that show the locations of industrial-age or modern-age resources.

Thanks!

Hittites entered middle ages in mid 300ADs as the biggest and the most powerful civilization. They had libraries, marketplaces and aqueducts in almost every city.

Hittites owned two AA wonders – GL and GW. Arabs had ToA. Sumerians had Pyramids and Hanging Gardens. The rest of AA wonders were across the ocean.

Mursilis wanted to learn about the world on the other side of the ocean so he started building a fleet of galleys to send them to the trip that will become suicidal for many of his ships but hopefully some of them will reach the end of the earth.

Ancient ages were peaceful and world hasn’t experienced any single war yet. But that was about to change. Arabs had horses and Hittites just had to have them too.

Soon after researching feudalism Hittites started building medieval infantry units and strategically locate them at two different positions. Mursilis wanted to implement his favorite war tactic – double strike. One army of his will attack from up north and second will be going from south. Primary goal of war is to take over the iron and horse resources; second goal is to completely destroy Arabs.

Map before Arabian War



It was year 630 AD when war started. Hittites didn’t have a big army yet so they signed a MA with Babylon and right of passage with Sumeria. Hittites didn’t want Sumeria to take part of this war, Sumeria was big and Hittites didn’t want them to have anymore cities.

Two Arab cities felt next turn. Few turns later Hittites captured almost all Arab cities except couple northern cities in tundra. Finally, they had horses and it was the best time to trigger golden ages. UU was built, it won quick victory and Hittites entered golden ages. Best time ever. We were ahead of everybody else and now Golden Ages will help to make this lead unstoppable.
Arabs were finally destroyed, we’ve got our 1st MGL, Army of Med. Infantry was built, it had its first victory and heroic epic build was in a progress…

And just in time chivalry was invented. Hittites were hurrying between producing Knights and those early MA wonderful wonders. Mursilis wanted to have them all.

Meanwhile in around mid 800AD the fleet of galleys took northern route to cross the ocean. Mursilis lost 4 galleys out of 5 but I reached a northern island. Yes we found new world, we found a new civilization – Portuguese. With one galley left Mursilis decided to do one more ocean jump and it was successful, galley managed to cross ocean from the northern island to the big continent and we found Chinese, and few turns later Koreans and yet later Zulu.

By the end 800sAD it was all over for Arabs.

After the first successful war Mursilis was really blood thirsty. He must decide upon who he will strike next. Sumerians are bigger and wealthy kingdom, but they don’t have iron and they are going to be an easy prey. On the other hand we can choose Babylon – small and backward kingdom. Mursilis didn’t have enough knights yet to have a war against a big country as Sumeria so Babylon was chosen. Hittites strike was fast and deadly. Babylon was losing city after the city and next MGL was produced and a Knight Army was created.

Map before Babylonian War:



War against Babylon started in Year 1030AD. Mursilis didn’t want Sumeria to take part of the war on any side so just in case he decided to keep RoP once again.

Babylon has one source of iron and it was dangerously close to Sumerian border, Mursilis was afraid that when he takes over Babylon capital his zone of cultural influence will shrink and that Iron source will go to Sumerians. He must not let that happen. Hittites built a settler and sent it to build a city to secure the iron. Mursilis had to wait few more turns before storming last Babylon city – their capital.
On the same turn when settler builds new city Babylon falls and there are only to nations left on the continent. I hade another MGL and my 3rd army and 2nd knight Army was built. It was a time to build a Pentagon.


Mursilis was quite disappointed when Sumerian managed to build Sistine Chapel just few turns before he could, but they have done it in city that bordered former Babylonian capital and that currently garrisoned his armies, so He wasn’t worried too much about future owner of this nice wonder.
Mursilis also missed another medieval age wonder of the world – Copernicus observatory. Sumerian built this one as well. That’s it Mursilis said, it’s time. He used his favorite double strike tactic again.

He divided his knights in two tactical groups. Group “South” would attack legendary city of Sumer – place of Sistine Chapel and Group “North” would cut into the middle of Sumerian kingdom dividing it in half.

Map on the 1st turn of Sumerian War:



The Sumerian War started in year of 1280 AD, 3 Sumerian cities felt the very same turn. Without iron Sumerian didn’t have a chance to withstand knight armies attacks. Mursilis had 3 more MGLs during the war, another army was created and pentagon and military academy were rushed.


By year 1390AD it was all over for Sumerians and Hittites discovered most of MA technologies including Military Traditions. Mursilis still wanted to get democracy and Free Artistry. He was way ahead of those folks behind the ocean so He wasn’t worried much about the race. He liked Shakespeare Theater so it took him in some weird reasons another 100 years to finish MA time. It was year 1490 when Free Artistry was invented and Mursilis finally decided it’s time to order it’s scientists to research steam power and get some use of coal.

Sumerians in 1485 AD


He was looking forward for the new era and future conquest of the next enemy – Portugal, although backward but still second most powerful country of the world. Needless to say Mursilis had all MA wonders and many of AA ones and all future wonders will also belong to him. groucho

THE END!

4000b.c. to 300 a.d.

After the expansion/warmongering phase I decided to build up a little infrastructure first before I expanded any further. In order to boost my research and treasury I built marketplaces in all my core cities along with many, many, many...did I say many...workers. Mobilization began by triggering my GA with my UU. Before long I sent large stacks towards Sumer.

The reason I chose sumer was they had built 3 wonders to include the Pyramids, Temple of Artemus, and Hanging Gardens. Their culture was more than triple mine and if I didn't act soon I may have a problem on my hands. So the war began. The invasion would be a single long front that expanded across their northern territory. I had 3 main invasion forces with workers building roads over mountains and jungle that got in my way. I also sent a naval force to the southern tip and created a 2nd front. During the invasion I researched to chivalry and upgraded where I could.

Let me take a second here to gripe a tad about the RNG. I was losing 6 to 7 3 man chariots per Enkidu. Also once I was capable of invading with Knights my sorrows didn't end there. I lost a 10 Knight stack to 1 Enkidu during one phase of the invasion. Incidences like this caused the war to drag out much longer than it needed to. End of Gripe.

Because I had planned on capturing the Temple of Artemis I did not build any temples and this caused several culture flips. Finally at 600 a.d. I finished off the remnants of the Sumerian civilization.



Babylon was next. My military was so large by then it was only a few short turns and the continent was mine.



During my invasion of my neighbors I had been planning a naval assault on th next continent. I built several galleys to be upgraded. Then researched to calvary then Astronomy (I missed out on the Great Lighthouse by a few turns). I built Leonardo's Workshop and then upgraded my 50 or so Knights to calvary and loaded them on the slow boat to China . I planned on hitting China from both sides but Korea became irritated with such a large force in their waters. After forcing me to declare war I invaded their shores. The battles went very well with only a few RNG mishaps. Soon these two had also fell to the mighty hand of the Hittites.

I mounted a second large invasion force but they weren't needed. The original invasion force (along with 4 armies) was enough to take the entire coninent. By 1300 a.d. I had taken the entire continent and began prep work for the milking phase. I ended the middle ages around 1450 a.d. and nearly have my land entirely prepped.

Very Impressive,
but why do you mention Germany? don't remember having a germany in the game

dmanakho said:

Very Impressive,
but why do you mention Germany? don't remember having a germany in the game

Click to expand...

lol I meant Korea my mistake I was going off of memory only but I opened the save and I'll make a couple of corrections to my original post.

C3C Open

I entered Middle Ages in 70BC, 1 turn into a Golden Age and at war with Arabia. The plan was to go for Conquest or Domination. After Chivalry, research the upper path first to Navigation since my Curraghs had been all around the island and reported no easy path to the rest of the world.

This was my first Conquest game other than the built-in WWII scenario. I didn't read the Tech Pace thread or any of the Conquest differences posts and so missed a few key items, most notably the 4-turn chop which changes the entire start strategy.

Research. Upon entering MA I gifted Babs into MA, also. They got Monotheism so I researched Feudalism-12 turns. In a Golden Age this seemed strangely long. Then Chivalry, then beeline (well, straight, anyway) to Navigation. And then to MT at which time I cut research to zero. The AI contributed Gunpowder and gold for tech on occasion but was otherwise no help.

I was continually surprised at the time required to research and had a big AHA! when I got back to the forum. I researched Literature and started Libraries at the end of the Golden Age, but they didn't get me anywhere near a 4-turn pace.

Wars. Arabia first, then Sumeria and back north through the Babs to get the army closer to the invasion point in the northeast. I landed on the other island in 860AD with 9 Knights of a total of 38 at the time. Knight counts rose fairly linearly up to 1100AD at which point I had 58 Knights and researched MT. Conquest Victory was achieved in 1255AD.

Flips. Yes.

AI Defense. I commented on this in the previous spoiler. The AI defensive units were amazingly strong. More than a bad RNG run, this lasted game long. At one point I wrote in my notes:

"Ya know...I'm getting pretty [edited] tired of losing Elite Knights to redlined Spears."

I lost DOZENS of Knights and quite a few Cavalry to Spears. And the pikes seemed stronger than usual as well. I began to wonder if C3C had drastically changed the battle algoritm.

Luck. Had a couple of really lucky occurences you might get a kick out of.

I sent the first Galley I built east from the town that built it...it survived one turn at sea and just happened to be on the right path to the other island. It sank next turn, but now I knew where to try again.

Just as I was poised to take Nineveh from the Babs, it built Knights Templar. I took it the same turn. I had a good laugh at my good fortune there.

Replay. I replayed the entire game to try out some of the things I missed the first time around. The biggest thing was the 4-turn chop. I settled quickly on the river and developed probably twice as fast making granaries from forests. And the Republic Slingshot didn't occur to me. I guess I was so smitten with the free tech I didn't think about making it even better! As well I needed to develop/warmonger under Republic, which has been something of a problem for me. And I hadn't taken advantage of the armies, which I rarely used previously. Playing this way shaved 43 turns off the Conquest Victory...too bad I didn't do it when it "counted". I suppose I couldn't expect to be an expert the first game played.

It's interesting to note that in the replay the AI Spears and Pikes behaved defensively the way I would expect. Lost only a few Knights and 1 or 2 Cav to spears. Curious...is there a random addition to the defense which only gets turned on in a small percentage of games?

CGOTM1, open

AA post

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=1902921&postcount=75

Entered MA 300AD, still fighting Sumeria. I did have a lot of 3 men chariot and had already kicked off our GA. Domination victory was my plan.

First a few items that happened on the other continent before the MA.

70BC Second suicide galley gets through and we meet Korea. They are missing only Code of Laws, and they have lots of gold 187. No trade yet though.

10BC meet Portugal, get 321 Gold for Republic, might as well help these guys along in tech, they wont research much themselves.

300AD now in the MA we can get Feud in 8 turns. Will wait to get that before we get any others in the MA so that we are in a good position to trade for the free tech that Babylon/Korea/Sumeria get

360AD Gift Babylon in MA, they pick up Mono, we research Feud and we swap.
Korea get Feud too. Declare peace with Sumeria just to gift them into MA to see what they get but they also get Fued. Its worth it, we are 10 turns from Chivalry. And I think overall it will help us, we'll break our rep when we redeclare war as soon as we get Chivalry, but it doesn't matter now.

440AD Chivalry researched, Wow 120 Gold 3 man -> Knight. Not going to have too many of them. I can only upgrade about 5 to Knights, so decide to wait until I have a big enough force before attacking Sumeria again.

550AD Just as we are about to declare war with Sumeria they build Great Wall, its one of those games.

We make our attack north and south, hitting them from both sides. The smaller cities prove easy and we take a few early cities, but the big cities are tough. They have the wall and then.....

Sumeria build Sun Tzu, that's just great. Now they have the Great Wall and Sun Tzu.

650AD Sumeria reduced to 6 main cities, but all above size 6.

At last our first leader and an army is made. I'm shocked by how good they are. That first army takes a big city on its own that would have taken ages with just Knights.

790AD Two armies in play, they are very good, very very good, we capture Ur with Great Wall and Pyramids

850AD Sumeria defeated at last, capture Sun Tzu, now to get the last few Babylon Cities

880AD Babylon gone, 6 turns from Navigation



930AD Navigation is researched.

950AD Decare war with Portugal, get Korea (their neighbour) to join. So they will have at least 5 turns of fighting before we get there.

At this time, I stepped up the gap filling at home. Mainly this was done through settlers and I started rushing them all over to fill gaps. Near the end I even rushed settlers and shipped them over to the other continent to fill gaps there.

970AD 5 Caravels of Knights on the way to Portugal. More to come.

1050AD Two Portugal cities taken, most of their retaliation petered out.
Zulu come with many Impi, sneak attack our city that contains fortified Knights!!!. We accept the reverse WW and only lose one hp.

1170AD Portugal down to one off continent city. Two Knight armies on this continent. We research MT now. Have already built barracks and harbour ready for the upgrade.



We position our Cavalry against Zulu. For once I have not broken an alliance and don't feel the need to ROP rape them.

1270AD Zulu are gone, the Cavlary sliced through them like butter

Attack China, we are close to the dom limit, but need a bit more space

We now have 5 Armies on this continent, 3 Cavalry armies, 2 Knight.

1295AD Victory screen says we have 67% land space

1300AD Domination Victory 3742 Firaxis points 8564 Jason points

Predator

Towards the end of the ancient ages I crossed the ocean in two places, once accross from the NW coast of the starting continent and once in the NE. When choosing where to send my galleys from I always choose to leave from points as far into the ocean as possible to get as close as possible to the destination. Usually this works, and it worked here.



I was able to make a series of trades with the overseas civs to bring all of us into the middle ages at about 110 AD. I also began the production of libraries and marketplaces in all of the cities producing a reasonable amount of gold around my core.

By the time the FP belatedly became available I had surpassed the number of shields required to build it by a country mile:



So instead I switched production to Sun Tzu's which completerd in the year 380 AD, which turned out to be worth the effort. The forbidden palace was built by hand, with the help of the Golden Age in 440 AD. Later, the palace was rebuilt in a more suitable location with the help of a military leader. The rush from the leader didn't completely finish the palace though, it took another 14 turns to finish. I also completed the knights templar wonder which produced a lot of crusaders which came in very handy.



For some reason the above image will only display as a link. Any ideas why?

Moderator Action: I think it didn't like the '&' in the file name. Fixed now.

Military campaigns

In 170 AD I began a short war to regain possession of the iron and gems in the SW and to gain total control of the northern half of the continent. This involved: A) eliminating the Arabs at long last. B) Declaring on Sumeria and stealing just one of their cities and holding it. The gems would be especially valuable to keep the people happy because they would be the fourth luxury, producing two extra happy faces in my cities with marketplaces. C) Declaring on the Babylonians and squeezing their one city off my East coast. This was critical; they had earlier displaced my colony on the horses by building this city and I needed the horses back to build more threeman chariots for the upgrade to knights.

This was all achieved quickly and easily, and triggered my golden age. Babylon and Sumeria were quite happy to give me peace again. In fact, they were so happy they made generous tributes of gold to the fledgeling Hitite war machine. A period of peace followed to fully exploit the golden age. Three man chariots were produced in abundance and the secrets of chivalry were discovered and traded to the overseas civs for gold, then all domestic gold production was allocated to taxes for a big upgrade session. Around twenty chariots were upgraded to knights which formed the assault through the open grasslands of the western coast. The remaining swordsmen, military infantry and archers would cross the mountains and move down through the jungles because unlike the knights, there is no movement advantage for grassland over jungle for infantry.



The Sumerians were surprisingly weak in terms of military forces. Although some of those Enkidu spearmen put up a bit of resistance, the main problem to deal with was that of cultural flips. This problem could have been solved by using the RoP backstab on their bigger cities, but I didn't think to do this at the time. I just had to leave a strong garrison in captured cities to convince them that resistance is/was futile and then build temples asap.

I captured the Temple of Artemis one turn (woot!) after it completed in Bab-tira, which provided a much needed culture boost and filled in the land gaps nicely. The Sumerians bit the dust and were soon followed into the past by the Babylonians, who never really got going due to the low production of their opening areas. I gained complete control of the continent in approximately 800 AD. At this time I had captured 21 slaves who provided 2/3 of my workforce.

As far as the other overseas civs knew, I was a polite peaceloving fellow who lived on an island by myself somewhere over the uncrossable oceans. Fools...

End Game

I headed straight for military tradition and magnetism to allow the invasion of the other continent. Military tradition was first, which allowed all cities in the northern half of the continent to switch to cavalry. This also allowed me to retain the benefits of the Temple of Artemis for as long as possible. The lower half of the continent worked on improvements like aqueducts, temples and marketplaces to expand their borders further and expand their production of gold.

The cities on the west coast rushed harbours and started producing caravels which sailed down to the key port city of Bab-Tira which I made the continental rally point (love this feature!). As soon as I discovered magnetism, I put science at 0% and tax at 100%. This allowed me to rush the production of cavalry (5-8 produced per turn) and to upgrade the galleons. Once again it was time for war.

The war to end all wars

Large numbers of cavalry unloaded next to Lisbon on the tip of Portugal and promptly captured it next turn. After fending off a few counter-attacks from ten or eleven ancient cavalry units, there was little resistance. After the resistance was crushed, I rushed a harbour which allowed the importation of luxuries to keep the ex-Portugese happy. The Zulu then declared war on us, follwed a few turns later by Korea. This was no problem though because China swore an alliance with me against the Zulu and the Koreans for a little gold and some tech.

From here the road to victory was short. The most advanced units I had to face were pikemen, and the Zulu impi were just fodder for the creation of elites and leaders. Culture flips weren't a problem this time because the Temple of Artemis had pushed me into the cultural lead alsmost singlehandedly. I also rushed temples and libraries in conquered cities as soon as possible so that borders would expand. I also produced settlers to fill in the larger gaps. China remained my ally throughout and probably absorbed the initial offensive of the Korean units.

After the elimination of the portugese, the near-elimination of the Koreans and the humbling of the Zulu I reached the domination limit in 1290 AD with a firaxis score of 4109 and a Jason score of 9011.



I think my game will definitely not be the fastest to achieve domination. The original continent could have been controlled earlier by using RoP to gut the Sumerians at the very start of the war. Moving to a different start location may also have helped the early expansion a lot and given a headstart for the early wars.

I look forward to reading the spoilers of players aiming for a diplomatic, space or cultural victories- I chose domination because the slow tech pace means that the other victory conditions require far more patience than I have .

Thanks for the great game Ainwood and all the other staff who helped out!

Why did you choose to attack China and Zulu but not Korea Smackster?

Predator.
Around 250 AD in the ancient age our first! suicide galley met the Zulus overseas. We had a strange tech development in the AA so had to trade for the wheel (while researching construction full steam and already having currency). We are in monarchy and I'm now finally aware that I have to do fast research to get anywhere quickly.
Another fact of the AA was that I was beet to the Lighthouse by 1 turn by the Koreans.

290 AD Contact with all civs (lucky met everybody in or near zulu land)
Trade into middle Ages
Start war on Babylonians to enter golden age (with our first ever build chariot)
340 AD End (pause) war to trade for middle age techs
Could acquire all three starting MA techs from the scientific civs (but had to research republic first to be able to buy the first one to start brokering)
Set research 100% beeline for Military Tradition.
Start war on Korea and dogpile their neighbors on them so they don't do too much sea exploring.
400 AD Break peace treaty with Babs to finish them off
500 AD Golden Age ends; revolt for republic to keep tech pace high (5 turns)
530 AD Finished Babs
540 AD Took last Arabian city
600 AD Sneak attack (with ROP) on Sumerians taking Ur (with temple of Artemis), Sumer and Kisurra in one turn; First great leader goes to Babylon to hurry FP.
650 AD Culture boundaries of newly acquired cities expand (due to ToA); second wave of attacks. Take three more sumerian cities.
Make peace with Koreans and get two island cities (the only war action was to sink one of their galleys)
700 AD make peace with Sumerians because we are stuck in jungle and swamp and have to build some roads first; Sumeria is down to 4 cities.
780 AD Sumeria is gone; Last city taken by a Cavalry.
-1020 AD Not much happening; filling in some holes on the continent and waiting for magnetism to come in, with absolutely zero help of the AI's
1040 AD Portugese war starts taking three cities
1050 AD ToG researched as last required tech; enter industrial age

The situation after the first Babylonian war, when the wars really were about to start


The last turn of the middle ages. Three towns taken, lots of forces on the other continent and more coming in every turn.

Warring:
In contrast to other people I had no problems with the defenses of the AI's. Five or six chariots were enough to take a city (or at least wittle it down so that the upcoming elite swords could finish it off). And the chariot army I got (only late) was awesome (even later on the other continent). I only upgraded two chariots to cavs late in the Sumerian war, because I didn't need more (there was one city surrounded by swamp). Shortly after that I finished Leo's and sat for two hundred years on my continent with a force which could have taken on the rest of the civs (30+ cavs and a chariot army). I even didn't build cavs in the meantime, to not increase unit support cost.

Science:
Good luck with acquiring three free techs from the scientific civs, but then the AI's did not research a single required tech for me. I only could acquire chivalry (which I didn't need at all). I had the science slider to 90-100% most of the MA and sold techs for gpt every time an AI had a few to spare. Even then the AI's where far behind.
In hindsight I shouldn't even have researched into the industrial age, but shut of research after magnetism, but that belongs in the next spoiler.

The limited resources of conquests where no problem. There was everything needed on the starting continent. There was only one saltpeter, but the AI did indicate clearly where it was by settling in the midst of the desert (two times first the Babs, after I (auto)razed the city the Sumerians settled on the same spot).

This is the first game I played with conquests, but I noted that I had less problems with the changed rules as compared to the regent level (and tech bug). I'm just not used to do so much self research (I prefer smaller maps and emperor+ level).

COTM01 Open

I wasn't keeping notes so here's a quick overview.

The war with Arabia went well w/ Sumeria and Babylon as allies. Neither of them were much help, but it kept my rear safe. As i was mopping up the Arabs, i redeployed my troops to the south and east and then took a break to ponder my next move.

After deciding to just declare war on the Sumerians so that there wouldn't be more than a few turns of peace, i did so and allied with Babylon in the hopes that Sumeria might take a few of thier cities. That never happened.

I took my sweet time securing each Sumerian city since they had alot more culture than i did. After 20 or so turns and when Sumeria had only 2 or 3 cities left, i cancelled the alliance with Babylon and declared war on them as well. By the time it was all over, i had 2 armies, 3 knights in one and one empty, planning on putting cavalry in it later.

Being use to huge maps, i didn't really notice the slow tech. It was what i was use to. I was required to sidetrack for optional techs on my own for knights & wonders. I built all the MA wonders except the crusader thingy, which i really didn't care about. The other continent got that.

An early caravel quickly found the Zulu and i traded an early MA tech for contacts. They are abismally behind in tech and Portugal & Korea are at war. I kept contact of Sumeria and Babylon to myself so there would be no rep hit from destroying them, which i did shortly afterward.

Navigation allowed maps and luxury trading. I can only get a total of 7 luxuries. Furs seem in short supply.

I entered the Industrial Age in 1385AD as a democracy having been researching MA techs in 4 turns @ 40% science. I didn't bother with Military tradition and will trade for that when (if) the others ever get that far.

Let's see if the attachment thingy works the way i think it does...

Hi again,

A bit stressed up by the last spoiler list I think "warmongering fool" is a fairly accurate description of my play..

I turned on chariot production all over and wanted the contintent to myself asap. When the knights & decent infantry came from my towns in steady streams the others broke down really quickly. By 1080AD I had knocked the last enemy over on "my" island see attachement.

Next I turned on the economy to half gold/science and built loads of courthouses, markets, banks and a few universities while waiting for the navigation. Did waste a few triremes and one caravel full(!) of knights in the mean time.

Thought I did one clever thing upon entering the new contintent by signing a right of passage treaty with the zulus, gave me access to their roads & harbors for my first invasion - i picked the Koreans in the centre.

Signed alliance with everyone to attack them. Tactic worked fairly well, early had 2-3 towns right in the middle, though the Chinese sneaked in and "stole" one after me doing all the work !@#$$

.. all I wanted now was a leader to hurry a palace .. got one early but fumbled, the zulus backstabbed me and killed the leader =(

The zulus paid dearly for it, in my last picture i've just taken Zimbabwe. Got two(!) more leaders in very short time and could finally build a palace & army.

Would appreciate advice on victory condition to pursue that is closest in civ years.

cheers,
John

jazz_man: I'm curious what effect you noticed on your home continent after moving your palace.

champain said:

Why did you choose to attack China and Zulu but not Korea Smackster?

Click to expand...

They had Muskets. So I allied with them against the others.

Signed a ROP with them of course, and Zulu attacked me. They started it, I finished it.

Ah I see. A very good reason indeed.

To me it seems like we played very similar games, but none of the other civs in my game got past invention and in yours at least one got to gunpowder. I wonder what caused the difference.

I must admit that I really enjoyed this game.

I got a domination victory in 1752 but I think that I could of got it alot earlier. I made several fatal mistakes.

1: I settled in a spot that now I dont think was optimal.
2: I forgot to chop the forrests to rush my granary duh...
3: I didn't realise that if you are the first to Philosophy that you get a free tech. (even stupider)

I managed to take over my island in 1495 (here is the mini map)



I had just researched Military tradition and was 4 turns away from researching Navigation. I managed to time my Golden era perfectly because by the time I began attacking the defenceless Chinese (Who were still defending with spears) I trigered my golden age with a wonder build (Can't remember which one at the moment) which helped against corruption and disorder)

I trigered a Domination victory 250 years later after warring with the Korean, Zulus and the portugese for nearly the whole time (Taking a break for peace to regain my composure and regain kmy strength)

Here is the minimap at the end of the game.



Two that I found interesting is that I did not built one of the UU's the entire game (Three man chariot) I never had the horses connected due to my slow start. An secondly, I only got one leader the entire game even with a plether of elite wins. I don't know what I did to deserve that....

champain said:

Ah I see. A very good reason indeed.

To me it seems like we played very similar games, but none of the other civs in my game got past invention and in yours at least one got to gunpowder. I wonder what caused the difference.

Click to expand...

It will take me a while to figure out when they got it. Now I'm getting concerned that they got it through a trade, a trade with me maybe No even I would not have been that crazy.

Predator
----------------------------------------------------
I didn't note the detail, the following are some of the big things :
----------------------------------------------------------------
470AD Ankuwa built The Great Lighthouse and we enter the golden age

490AD a gallay move to east, and meet Mao sell Monarchy to them for 370 gold

500AD built an embassy in Beijing , it had 5 pop; meet zulu who only have 4 gold,we were 4 techs ahead, built an embassy in Zimbabwe; Zulu and China were at war

550AD transport a settler to another continer and met Korean

690AD meet Potugal

870AD peace with bab

900AD trade chavily from bab

980AD Korean declare war on us

1160AD Democracy

1320AD enter industrial age

I didn't research Chavily because i spent my gold in hurrying up city improvement, so it took a long time to control the continent and lost a lots of Units.

I dont like to war across the ocean, but they declare war on me

here is an unsuccessful landing at the end of middle age

As mentioned in post one I was going for a conquest victory this time, in honour of the first COTM and all that.

At the end of the last post the Arabs had just become a tad violent after I turned down their tech demand. The three man chariots rolled into Baghdad and Mecca etc etc, I took all their cities except one that was destroyed. The Temple of Artemis was captured as I took controll over Mecca.

I changed government to Monarchy around this time, didn't need the fast research nor the warweariness.

I looked at the remaining civs on the island. Sumeria had Iron and a few pikemen, but not much in the way of an offense. Plus they had two wonders (Pyramids and Hanging gardens) and was constructing Sun Tzu's, I let them finish it before starting the war.

I only deemed one wonder this age as an essential and that was Leos for the cheper upgrade from chariot > knight > cavalry. For some reasons I built the Great Wall to, not really sure what I was thinking - It was one of them 2 am decisions. I unhooked the sumerian resources and rolled over them to, had one culture flip but I took back the city the very next turn. I repressed the urge to kill them all for rising up against me.

Durring the Sumerian war I had learned about Knights and was slowly changing exchanging a few chariots to take on the pikemen. Portugal built the Templars.

Well two down one to go so as soon as Sumeria was mine and I had amassed my men on the Babylon border it was time for war. Babylon didn't really have anything. In 1325AD I had pushed the foreign menace into the pages of history.

I had yet to find the way over to Portugal and the others. I had gone the chivalry route and didn't know astronomy yet. Upgrading and such followed. It was Chivalry that would crush my enemies.

My tactic was the same from this point on, make all surviving AI declare war on one and destroy them, pick a new victim and repeat. Portugal was first, Korea followed, the the Zulu. I was now getting close to the domination limit. Couldn't afford to take any more towns, had to start killing them off. I forgot to look at the domination limit for a few turns and all of a sudden I was at 65% of the land mass, panic! Bought settlers like mad trying to disband a few of the smaller towns in portugal, korea and zulu. It worked, down at a safe 61% again. I had amassed a large quantity of Cavalry on the chinese border, no point in holding back.

There was one giant problem thou, there was a one tile island just off the coast, gee guess who had a town there is not China. I would have to fight, peace and demand the town and then restart the war. I destroyed all chinese towns except Shanghai, destroying a few wonders in Bejing (the Sistine chapel among others). Shanghai had built Shakespears. So destroy all and surround Shanghai and Kaifend (one tile island). I surrounded Shanghai, starving the city from 18 down to the minimal site, I guess they also drafted some citizens for defense. I also besieged Kaifend (or was it Kaifeng, I can't read my notes at the moment). Bombarding both towns and defended myself against some attacks from Shanghai and every little suicide galley the chinese had around trying to get into Kaifend (Shanghai was totally land locked). Every turn demanding China turn over Kaifend for peace. Finally in 1836 AD they did agree. I besieged both towns for a few decades at that time. In 1838 AD I killed of the last defender of Shanghai with my chivalry.

As far as research I had started to panic thinking they would never surrender the town and I would have to research up to marines. I was about half way there when they finally caved in.

So in the end, conquest victory in 1838AD. Scoring 3583 firaxis points.

In total I only managed to get (about, unsure of the number)) three leaders from battle, the other armies where payed for in gold instead of blood. My first GL had been during the Sumerian war (or was it the babylonian? Don't think it was Arabic).