*Spoiler2* - Gotm19-Ottomans - Full Map - Mag+Grav

This is the Mid Game spoiler discussion thread for Gotm19-Ottomans

Again take a few moments to read this introduction carefully to make certain you DO NOT run afoul of the new spoiler rules.

This is the second spoiler thread to support discussion of Gotm19-Ottomans. If possible, you should have already summarized your ancient age progress in a short report in the Early Discussion thread for this game.

For many players the game could end in this era.

Every player must pass two tests in order to be able to view or participate this spoiler thread. These two tests define a dividing line where knowledge and events prior to the line may be discussed but knowledge that you may have from later in the game may not be included.

For Gotm19-Ottomans:

• you must have full map visibility of the entire world map plus contact with all 7 rivals (or their remains). AND
• you must have discovered Magnetism and The Theory of Gravity (or already submitted your game) but you may not discuss any feature of the industrial age with respect to technologies, wonders, or resources. (Discussing or hinting about locations of Coal, Oil or Rubber will be cause to have your tongue cut out.)

Information in this thread must be from BEFORE BOTH OF THESE EVENTS.

You may discuss continuations of Sipahi or Dragoon warfare that may include encounters with riflemen defenders of you enemies but essentially this thread is intended to be a discussion of the Middle ages and nothing beyond that point in time.

We are again particularly interested in discussions of any encounters that you may have with other civilizations and how they may have advanced in technology and/or upgraded units into the offensive and defensive units that could be available in the middle ages.

Also help us to understand how and where you decided to place your Palace and/or Forbidden Palace to support the ending moves of your game.

What were your impressions of the behavior of the other Civilizations during this phase of the game? Try to touch on all the surviving civs and what you thought they were doing.

There are several Easter Eggs that should have appeared for you during this phase of the game

Have fun!! That's what this game is all about.

Without being able to open my game and see when all I reached this point I can't get too specific but can speak in generalities.

I made contact with the other civs prior to the era change. I suicided a galley from the East coast of the Roman continent and made contact with the light blue civs. From there techs were traded for the contacts with the others civs and in no time I had the rest along with full maps.

Interestingly, no other civs had gone for literature and I had a monopoly and was able to gain the rest of the techs and make the era change. At the same time my trades took Rome to the Middle ages with me and had to deal with only 1 uprising on the Roman continent.

My free tech was engineering and that was the groundwork for my research path on the lower tier straight through to Military tradition. I was first to Feudalism, Invention, Gunpowder, Chemisty, Metallurgy and Military Tradition. Each tech I researched on my own I was able to trade around for gold, gpt and the other top tier techs easily. I researched MT at around 540AD and held out on trading to the AI for a while and contemplated not researching any more and just building up income and Sipahi to take the Celts, Carthage and eventually Rome.

That idea was quickly squashed when I realized my best city took 5 turns to build 1 unit. I researched Astronomy, Physics, ToG and Magnetism on my own. I was able to trade back to get the entire top tier techs from the AI civs as well as many gpt deals from Spain mostly. I like when the AI is commercial a little extra income from them helped my research machine. An interesting note was the AI's avoidance of the optional techs as well. It started with lit and continued with Music Theory, Ecomonmics and Navigation. All were late to be researched. I had hoped for a huge Slingshot to grab the other techs after the era change but I was able to get them easily by taking the lower path lest travelled. Making the sling unnecessary.

Carthage was able to build SunZu for me . [snip]


On the Military Front

Upon entering the Middle Ages my 20 turn peace deal with the Celts was up and I built up a small army of Azar Infantry and took the pyramids in Entremont and eventually left the Celts with a lone city. Later that city was caputured with my remaining Azar's and it was me and Carthage as I entered the Industrial age. All the while slowly building up a strike force of Sipahi to attack Carthage when the time was right.

The other nations were skimishing on the China/India/Spain boarder throught the Middle ages with no clear victor. Egypt has remained neutral but was not happy with my wars against the Celts.

Lux Deals

It wasn't until Astronomy that I was able to trade my lux away and eventually with a little gold and some lux I was able to get all 8 lux and all my cities were happy. A nice change from GOTM18 where all the lux had to be imported.

My FP site
Sub optimal: After capturing Entremont I thought it a perfect spot for a second core. Helping the Roman Continent Cities. I rushed courthouse and corruption was NG. Decided on another city Near the iron Mountain. Corruption was OK and it took a full 20+ turns to complete.

Cool Units
Didn't build a single Muslim Caravel but saw some really cool Roman Galleans(sp). They wipped out all the fog near my East coast, the 2 attacks made short work of the FOG.

Here is quick pic:

When I changed ages around 330ad it was due to the luck of building the Great Lighthouse. My galley was able to go E with no problem and meet India. I was low on gold and techs, so I used communication trading for a nice surge. Wound seeing everybody at once, and going from like 4 techs short of completing the ancient age to like 4 techs into the next and loads of gold. I built several libraries, but it was still more efficient to focus on gold and buy new techs and then sell them to everybody else.

My military sucked after my horrible start so I just put settlers in the isolated available spots and built libraries to expand the boundaries. I got lots of luxuries, but resources were a struggle. I even had to buy iron I think. More on my resource probs in the next spoiler.

Can't believe spoiler2 is already open! I'm really happy to see it. Thanks Cracker. I finished my game in a record 11 hours, so I'm anxious to see the next spoiler, too. More details later....

I made the switch from Middle Ages to Industrial Era in 1030 AD. I invaded the Celts in 1010 AD up until that point I had not been at war or even threatened. Maybe all those spearmen helped keep those AIs from even thinking it.

Right before the war with the Celts, I had:

-10 cities(same 10 as in 310BC)
-1 settler(ready in case I auto raised a city)
-5 workers
-1 slave(bought)
-2 spearmen
-13 pikemen
-9 musketmen
-5 Azap Infantry
-21 Sipahi

I also had Barracks, Cathedrals and Libraries in most of my cities.

Those Sipahi are great. A UU that moves 3 is very helpful. They also caused a well-timed Golden age. I managed to destroy the Celts in about 3 turns. Everyone else seemed to be at war with Cartage So I figured I'd join in. China managed to grab a few cities before I could which was annoying. I later went to war to with China secure the landmass or "Greater Turkey" . That war is pushing the scope of this thread so I'll leave full discussion of it to the next thread.

Here are my Maps:


No great leaders in ether the war with the Celts or Carthage. I had lots of elite Sipahi though.

At this point 1180AD 24 cities. I thought I was doing pertty darn good, on my way to a domination victory, or so I thought...

ps: is it ok to upload my mini-maps to uploads4 or am I not supposed to do that?

After changing to the middle ages i was in a fairly good position, i had eradicated the celts, but claimed a lot of underdeveloped land due to the Celts concentrating on the Great Library and not on anything else. I used the Great Library as my research aid and made a bee line for military tradition. After getting chivalry i started building an amry of knights who i would upgrade and wage war with the neocarthage. After education ruined my GL run on techs, i had research chem,metal,and finally MT to get my siphai. I lost a lot of ground on the tech race during this period due to heavy development needed on the former Celt lands and because rome and india became so strong, Rome had settled its entire continent and the adjacent island, and India had slain the chinese and owned half of the super continent to the North East. I made it to MT 1 turn after India had arrived thereby shrinking my tech value, i upgraded my units and stormed the carthaginians and took all of their cities. Culture flips became a large problem even with 4 siphai on a size 6 city, it flipped and i lost all my units several times. However i finally destroyed them and headed into the industrial age owning my continent but behind 4-6 techs of the romans and the indians. I needed a palace switch and some worker development badly.

v1.29beta

The previous report is here.

The Middle Ages started with the the Ottomans acquiring republic in 290bc and revolting while at war with the Keltoi. In 250bc, we capture Entremont and The Pyramids. Republic established in 210bc. The same year, our suicide galley meets the Spanish and we trade:
Spain gives contact with Egypt and India, wm, 148g for monotheism
Egypt lacks currency and construction; India lacks republic and monotheism
contact w China, wm, 4g from Egypt for currency; China gives wm for 1g (lacks monotheism)
we are number 4 in the world; assessment of the map reveals, that we are top dog, especially with The Pyramids and (for now) 9 cities with fresh water; Rome is very strong in units and surprisingly also in culture; India is weak, but owns Colossus and Great Wall; Great Library still contended among the AIs. We start 6 markets and 3 libraries; research theology 50% at -3gpt; our treasury is 1869g; we run 10% lux.

In 110ad, Roman legionaries destroy the last Keltoi capital taking the rep hit. We send a settler and found a new city. In 310ad Rome sneak attacks us and 10 legionaries capture Sinop, our colony on the (for now) Roman continent. In 390ad we pay a little bit for peace to avoid having our city on the east-of-Rome island also captured.

600ad we declare war on neoC; 620ad our manually built Forbidden Palace in Entremont is finished. The first balkan dragoon wins in 650ad and starts our Golden Age. 750ad our first Great leader builds a terrific dragoon army. neoC is wiped from our continent by 830ad.

In the Middle Ages, we go for Great Wonders:
- Entremont and The Pyramids were captured from the Keltoi in 250bc
- Sogut builds Leonardo's(400ad), Copernicus'(560ad), and Newton's(810ad, this one with our 2nd Great Leader) making it a nice science city
- Antalya builds Chapel(560ad)
- Utica and Sun Tzu's were captured from neoC in 750ad
(Great Library built 170bc in Madrid, HGardens 30ad in Beijing, Bach's 700ad in Thebes, Smith's 700ad in Xinjian.)

We research theology, education (rendering Spain's GLIb useless), astronomy, navigation, metallurgy, military tradition, theory of gravity, and magnetism and got the other techs easily and cheap in trades.

In 820ad with magnetism we enter Industrial Times. We are world leader in every aspect, own our continent and Sun Tzu's gives us the capability to really rock the Romans in the near future.

Well, well, well...the second spoiler thread comes early this month. Good thing too because I finished my game on May 1st and I was afraid I'd forget what happened.

Here is my last post on the Ancient Age.

I could just shoot myself for not building a galley. As you can see by my timeline I went straight for Map Making after Iron Working because I wanted to make contact. But I don't know what happened, I forgot all about building a galley. I finally built a galley in 30BC and I contacted the world in 10AD. Gee that was just too easy. I traded for literature and gifted all the AI's up to tech parity with myself. I had Feudalism (free tech) and Monotheism at this point. I also traded around contacts to everyone as well.

The other continent wasn't fully settled yet. It appeared Spain had bit into a bunch of India's cities as well. Egypt was fairly large too. I found out Rome had a monopoly on ivory, as if their start wasn't good enough already. So it looked like Rome, Spain, and Egypt would be my fellow researchers. Here is a minimap of the world at 30AD:


I immediately started building libraries in all my cities. My war with the Celts was still going but I had started autorazing their cities and replacing them with my own. In 70AD I finally finished them off. I was not able to jump my palace until 270AD. I had to irrigate all around it just so I could get it up to 12. I had already bled off lots of workers from my FP core as well.

Due to not getting my new core up in time and not having libraries the first few techs of the Middle Ages took me forever. Monotheism took me 11 turns. Theology took me 9 turns. Luckily I had the Pyramids and I got my new core up and going quickly. Education took me 6 turns. Astronomy took me 5 turns. And from there on all remaining Middle Age techs took 4 turns each.

I progressed down the top half of the tree, gifting techs as I went. Rome managed to research Engineering, Invention and Gunpowder for me. I then researched Chemistry at 4 and gifted it to all the AI's again. Meanwhile I went after Physics, ToG, and Magnetism hoping the AI's would get Metallurgy for me. Sure enough as I was finishing ToG, Rome learned Metallurgy. This was better than I expected, Rome had gotten me 4 Middle Age techs for free.

Meanwhile I had prebuilds going for both Copernicus and Newton's. They were both nearly complete when I entered the Industrial Age in 550AD. I was building one of them in my Colossus city, Izmit, and the other in my FP city, Uskudar.

Here is a picture of my Empire in 550AD:


Iznik was my permanent worker factory to both clear out the jungle-ridden mess that used to belong to the Celts, and to join cities that needed it.

edit: Oh I completely forgot to mention the Roman war. In 210 BC there was a Roman warrior next to undefended Entremont. I should have realized their intent and told them to leave but I didn't. They captured Entremont along with the Pyramids. I took it back the next turn, thank god they hadn't razed it. They also dropped off a Legionary in my FP core. I attacked him with a swordsman and lost. This turned out to be a good thing because it triggered their GA. I made peace with them in 10AD and their GA is probably what helped them get me those 4 Middle Age techs.

2 cents from my little game:

Entered middle ages at 110 BC. This is the same turn contact was established with the rest of the world, and I was able to trade them Monarchy for the rest of the ancient techs. I recieved Feudalism as my advance...which fell right in line with my conquest plans. Celts were down to a single city at this point.

I then geared up to attack Carthage...with both Azap infantry from upgraded swords and Knights. Carthage had the Great Library..and I hatched the plan. After getting Mono and Chiv, I ceased all researched and pumped all my gold into improvements/savings. Once I had 20 Knights and 15 Azap..the attack on Carthage cities began. One by one, they fell...and I saved Carthage for last. During this time, Rome was itching to go to war with me..and I kept paying him tribute. The other civs seemed to be happy in republic researching a storm.

The assault on Carthage started in 400AD - and ended with the capture of Carthage itself in 730AD....and my planned gamble of not researching paid off. Taking the great Library instantly gave me: Theology, Printing Press, Education, Invention, Gunpowder,
Chemistry, Metallurgy, Mil Tradition, Astronomy, Banking and Navigation! The AI had indeed been busy...11 techs in one turn..and instant Tech Parity...plus I had saved over 2000 gold for an instant upgrade of my Knights. This war also gave me my first GL...which rushed a FP just north of Carthage in Hippo..to make prime use of the best carthage+ex-Celt lands.

I turned around and launched an Invasion of Rome in 830AD with Sipahi. This war lasted until around 1000AD and into the Industrial age - and resulted in the complete termination of Rome.

Taking Rome was interesting. I think he had built dozens and dozens of Legions which he upgraded to MI. When his counter attack came, I must have destroyed no less than 40 MI....and a mere 3 Cavalry and 2 knights. Perhaps his Huge army of MI pike/musket defenders did not give him the cash flow to create an equivalent Cavalry army..which I expected..and which would have been harder to deal with. As it turned out..he was a pushover...the Sipahi plowed through his Musket defended cities like hot knife through butter...even in his 12 point cities....I lost maybe a handful through the entire war.

However, his unique galley (galleass?) was a tremendous surprise, and a tremendous pain-in-the butt! I could be mistaken, but that unit seemed to be able to bomb twice a turn...and he was mauling improvements on my main continent faster than I could replace them.

I did get to build the caravel unit..and the azap infantry...neat. The animation for the azap was a little 'stiff' but was certainly a nice change of pace. These, along with the capital city being called 'Sogut' were the only easter eggs I found...if they even considered as easter eggs..

During both of these wars, the other civs continued to research and never caused a problem with either me nor with each other. They seemed focused on just sitting there researching and trying to compete with who could build more wonders.

Made contact with last continent in 90 BC - well later than I could have, but I wanted marketplaces to boost the power of all my libraries. I also needed more customers for my tech research.

Free Middle Age tech was Monothesim, and Feudalism took maybe 11 turns due to lack of marketplaces. However, by trading communications and tech for money to build marketplaces, this was cut in half.

I made a beeline along the middle tech path, going for things like education (sold to the Keloti to wipe out the Great Library), Banking and Economics. I traded for Prinitng Press, Astronomy, Navigation and Chemistry, but researched just about all the others on my own. Oh yeah, Metellurgy, someone else came up with that idea first.

With banks and universities, my tech lead is pretty secure. I reached Thoery of Gravity 5 turns before anyone else had a sniff of Magnetism - sold it off when I was sure Newton's was in the bag (my first wonder). Pretty sure I traded Magnetism for Democracy around this time - not sorely needed but it will help with corruption.

The culural superpower is Rome in my game, but Egypt has the highest score with a massive population, albeit a backwards tech research. India is second and probably my biggest threat. Spanish ownership of the Collosus is keeping them in the game. A weak China has been buoyed up by building Adam Smith's - I might just make them my number 3 target after Keltoi and NeoCarthage Rome can wait - don't want to bite off more than I can chew. Also, all they have in wonders is the Oracle, not really a prime target.

Keltoi declared war on me (I provoked them big time) but that's all for another post. Entered industrial age about 650AD - good going for me but I'm sure others will be quicker. Now at 100% research and still making money - NEVER done that before.

My ancient age post

Middle age:



Year 290 bc my fourth galley discovered the Indians and I could trade for Construction, contacts, World map, and entered the Middle age by trading for horseback riding (that I had ignored for ages and still wanted to ignore).

The world map didn't change much at all. Spain played OCC, India and Egypt were at constant wars, and China was quite backwards.

As you can see from the maps above, I declared war with Keltoi again, and later neoCarthage. Keltoi was destroyed 10 ad. I had my eyes on the Pyramids in Carthage all the time. It was a shame to attack such a strong civilization, but I had to do it if I didn't want to build granaries in each cities. So I had to prepare and disconnect iron and build alot of horsemen for a time. Year 50 ad, I had a little force of knights (10 or so), so I declared war with neoCarthage and captured The Pyramids 70 ad. I was then fishing for great leaders and elite units, but no great leaders.

330 ad - Peace again because of war weariness. Mass production of horsemen again.
360 ad - Leonardo's Workshop complete in Iznik.
500 ad - By this time I had military tradition. Here was my military.



520 ad - Declared war with neoCarthage again with the intention of getting the whole continent for myself. The southern part could build workers.

530 ad - Golden age!
540 ad - Capture Great Lighthouse.

560 ad - I have the continent for myself, but I still hadn't gotten any great leaders, so I declared war with the high cultured Romans. I think this was their first war so they probably entered the golden age.

570 ad - The wars finally had payed off and my first great leader, Orhan appeared as Veroconium was captured. He immediately built an army to protect Veroconium and so that I could build Heroic epic to increase my chances of getting a leader.

610 ad - Coopernicus's Observatory complete in Iznik. Second great leader Murad appear! I used it to rush Smith's Trading Company.

660 ad - Viroconium flip to the Romans despite my big investments in that city and my 9 military units. The picture below shows a unit I have never seen before. Galleass.



670 ad - Liberate Viroconium with my army and make peace.
690 ad - Enter Industrial age. It is late date for a space race I assume, but the world war slowed everyone down except for me that researched almost every tech by 4-6 turns.

Another game where I had a horrible start. Stopped counting how many times I got cities sacked by the northern barbarian hords, think it was 5-6 in the QSC alone.

I had taken out the Keltoi early, not that many turns after the 1000 bc mark. Which was sort of a misstake, the neocarths was quicker with settlers to their grounds then I was and the Keltoi had failed to build a wonder before I took them. What a misstake.

Basically a 2000 year suck fest followed from 1000bc to 1000ad. Barbarians, running out of iron and such. At about 1000 AD I managed to crawl out of the gutter and come up to tech parity with the others, started to conquere the Neo Carts with some help from the Romans. Durring one of the earlier scirmish wars with the neo carts I managed to get my only great leader, which I used to rush the FB in the former Keltoi capital.

Once I got Monarchy I had my 7 turn revolution. I never bothered to change again after that. Not feeling like wasting another 7 turns for democracy.

Having played around with the graphics test game before I had envisioned a conquest game but I had to leave those ideas behind quite early after my first conquest since taking them Spartan hoplites with swordmen is no fun at all. Knights is a bit better. With the dragoons it was alot easier but when I was there, the others had already moved on to Nationalism. But that is the next thread.

v1.21f

Culture Flip Question:

I am using PTW 1.21 and this time around there are definitely culture flips.

However, I noticed something after flips:

First, most cultures were well ahead of my culture. I was in awe of Carthage, for example.

Well, I took Carthage and the Pyramids...evacuated my army, and left the city almost entirely in resistance as I did not have enough firepower to prevent a flip.(10 pop, 9 in resistance IIRC). It flipped a couple of turns later and I retook it immediately. At that point, it had 8 pop, all in resistance. I left the city empty while conquering around Carthage and IT NEVER FLIPPED BACK (IIRC 10+ turns). I accidentally dropped about four knights in the city and it flipped the next turn ). This makes me wonder if when some folks dropped out of resistance that's why the city then flipped immediately (costin me four knights)

My question is this. If a city is entirely in resistance, can it flip? If not, is this a bug or a feature? I can't find anything on it in the site (though the culture flip formula helps immensely ).

Cracker, I'm not sure if this is related to the PTW GOTM only or a general question. I posted it here because I thought (like last month's flip issue) it might have something specific to do with the GOTM AND because it contains GOTM spoilers

Im going to do my write up in story mode. I hope it works out well

At the dawn of a new age of prosperity, known as the middle ages to some, the great sultan gnomes looks out at his empire from one of his great capitols mighty mountains. “Sir, we have successfully subdued the celts and have stolen construction from them.” said the foreign advisor. “Good, what other news from that southern front?” came the Sultan’s reply. “The dirty carthragians are filling in all of the spots of the former celtic lands.” “They will pay dearly for this action. Military advisor, what is the status of our grand swordsman armies?” “Sir, we have a weak military compared to them. They have these mercenaries that can defend better then our swordsman attack, and have can attack as well as they defend. Attacking them would be suicide.” “I see your point. What is our status in the new world?” “Sir, we are ranked in the lower half. Building all that military and no infrastructure makes us weak in their eyes.” replied the foreign advisor. “ I have a plan. Order that all swordsman training be stopped and switched to marketplaces and libraries. Turn taxes to 100%. We’re going to have to buy knowledge from the Carthagians to fool them into thinking we are friends. Our military will be weak for a while, so give into all demands.”
With that their meeting ended. As the years went past, the Carthagians became good friends with the Celts. After buying all techs up to invention, It was time for the ottomans to come out of the shadows once and for all. “ Sir. Good news. We hear that the glorious Spaniards have finished off our long time enemy the Celts” “That is good news. After consulting with the great Allah, I have decided that we must begin to research.” “What shall our scientists look into Great Sultan?” “They need to learn how to build large centers of education.” “Your words are law.” After many turns of research, with one turn of education left, the Carthagians finished researching it. “What shall we do with these Carthagians? They have sold their knowledge to every civ on the planet. They are dirty whores!” came an angry response from the science advisor. “We be their friends. All of those coliseums that I have ordered built were really meant to be Universities. Order the construction changed immediately!” The exact same thing happened when banking was about to happen. This time, Sultan Gnomes decided to research something that no one else would. He ordered to learn how to print many newspapers on a strange machine called a printing press. This research was inhibited by the money that he had to pay to stay somewhat close in tech. After. Finishing printing press, democracy was ordered. By this time, almost all of the largest cities had universities, banks, libraries, and marketplaces. Hordes of horsemen were ordered up. When finally democracy was done, the great sultan sold it to all of the nations of the world. His advisors informed him that they lacked only Theory of Gravity before they could advance to the next age of prosperity. By this time, His palace had gone from a small two story shack, to a grand palace as the people celebrated when banks were finished. With 30 horsemen, and 200 gold in his coffers, Gnomes began building his military. Earning an awesome 280 gpt, he quickly upgraded all of his horsemen. By this time, Carthrage was gracious with him and had a RoP and many lux deals. “Order the troops in position!” Called the great sultan. 2 groups of siphais were sent out. One in the east, the other in the west. Theory of Gravity came in as Gnomes great armies were stationed outside Carthage’s cities. Hanniball had no idea of what was about to hit him. To be continued...

I entered the Middle Ages in 610BC, just having switched into a Republic. My free tech was Feudalism.

I held off on conquering the Celts as long as possible, trying to get a Leader out of them, but they didn't seem to be able to produce anything. I was able to get 8 elite victories before leaving them to their last city which was down by Carthage. Most of the war was waiting for the Celts to produce another unit to kill.

Of the Ancient Era required techs, the AI's had contributed: Map Making, Iron Working, Writing, Mysticism, Horseback Riding, and Currency. Along with their starting techs. Not bad. I had been gifting/trading every tech I got to them to minimize duplicate research.

I was sending out Galleys trying to make contact with the other Civs, but had horrible luck with Barbs. I lost my first 3, and so decided to stack 2 and send them out. They both were sunk before making it halfway to the land showing E of Rome. Then I just gave up on Galleys for a while. I had lost 5 overall, and only killed 2 Barbs (didn't even mess with the Fog).

By 250BC the Celts land was mine, and my Azap Infantry and Horses were headed to Carthage to do battle. Rome hadn't done anything of note except build culture so far, they seemed even slower than the Celts and Carthage in the tech race.

I built another Galley in 150BC, noticing that the Celts had gotten a Galley out and cleared away some Fog. I noticed Sea across the Ocean and in 130BC was able to make it to Spanish borders, sinking after making contact. The AI's over there were all just making it to the Middle Ages. I was 2 turns from Education. I was really kicking myself for not having sent a Galley out through the fog earlier, as the tech rate up to that point would have been much faster. I traded/gifted all my techs to the other landmass hoping at least one of them would research up the military side of things while I beelined up the other. Rome did end up contributing Chivalry, Engineering, and Invention by the time I had finished the other side. None of the other AI seemed capable of doing anything.

The war with Carthage was purposely very slow. I was racking up Elite victories on Longbowmen with my Horses, but still no leader. Rome must have gotten Chivalry from the hut on the E Island, because they had it the turn after I gifted them Feudalism. So I upgraded to Knights and kept drawing out the fighting with Carthage.

I reached Economics by 210AD. I forgot the change to Wall Street in PtW, and so had been saving up cash to get to the 1000g level and building more Banks than I should. It was terrible waste of time and money. One of the AI's across the ocean researched Navigation (I was just gifting them everything I researched at this point), but none of them had a Harbor. War weariness was finally overcoming my Luxuries and the ones I was trading with from Rome, and so I had to call off the war with Carthage. I figured to clean up with Sipahi in 20 turns.

I ended up bypassing military tradition, letting one of the AI's pick it up for me eventually. I sent the force of Knights I had been building up to go try for a Leader again in 450AD, the turn before I finished off the Middle Ages. There still wasn't a Harbor on the other continent, which at this point was really hurting my ingame score. I had Marketplaces up and waiting for the extra happiness most everywhere, just those final 2 Luxuries weren't available. If I had it to do over again, I'd have sent a Settler over, built a city, and rushed the Harbor.

I was keeping pretty close to a 4 turn tech rate even without a FP at this point. I really should have just gave in and built it by hand, my 'less than prefered' location had the ability to build it in only 4 extra turns if I had switched from the Bank it was building (which I thought was going to let me build Wall Street... ugh).

Of the Middle Age required techs the AI had contributed: Engineering and Feudalism. I should have just given up on them at the end of the Ancient Era, it would have made later conquests much easier if they were 5-10 techs behind. Instead I gave them basically every tech in the Middle Ages for close to free. Only Rome had been able to pay gpt in any of the deals, everyone else was poor and backwards.

Well, my game isn't as excited as you guys. There wasn't much happened since my last report, except that I destroyed Rome and took control of all 8 luxuries.

PS: So far, I find it odd that no one used suicide galley to head for the other island before 1000BC.

When I met the Romans in 1025 BC, they had no contact to other civs, so I concluded, they are alone on an island. Since I saw red borders in the south, I turned my galley to the north and sailed along the shore. After clearing one tile of fog, I saw in the north a new shore and while being on an ocean tile, I saw a Spanish galley and made contact. Spain had contact with all the other civs (India, Egypt and China) and they were backwards. I could not believe; 4 civs for trading and behind in techs, but so be it.

My goal for this game was a cultural 100k victory, so I wanted a slow tech development. Therefore, I decided to not selling any contacts. I wanted to keep my continent plus the Romans as long as possible apart from the other continent. Not only for slow tech progress, but also for some limited trading.
With the normal 3 movement of a galley, it was not possible to reach the save shore in one turn. Since the AI is not using suicide galleys, they would need the lighthouse or pure luck (two galleys meeting during the turn). So I decided to start building the great lighthouse by myself. This has an additional advantage of giving me a golden age at a favourable moment.

On the home front, my 25 warriors were ready to be upgraded for swordsmen and since the Celts were weak, they would have been destroyed in a few turns, but I was seeing another better opportunity: After making contact with all civs, I immediately also built embassies. These revealed, that all civs were building the pyramids in their capital and they would finish: 1st Carthago (on my continent nice), 2nd Celts. So I was thinking if I could get an advantage from this situation and came up with the following. I will switch my research from construction at minimum pace (still 32 turns to go) to literature at medium pace to get it just before Carthago is finishing the pyramids. Then trading it to the Celts, so they most probably would switch to the Great library ready for me to take.

So I postponed my war against the celts and built more cities, get a decent infrastructure with some libraries and temples.

This plan worked out very well. I researched literature by 690 BC and traded it for polytheism with the Celts, Carthago finished the pyramids in 650 BC and Entremont the great library in 630 BC I immediately declared war to the Celts, took the great library in 590 BC and by 530 BC the celtic empire was reduced to 1 jungle city.

Now more and more Roman galleys were seen around our shore and my military adviser told me, that they have a strong army. So I decided, that I invite them to help me destroying the Carthagians. Otherwise I feared that they will declare war on me at a moment I would not like.

The fight against Carthago was also short and easy.It started in 210BC and ended in 290 AD.



Rome took two cities at the shore, the rest including Carthago with the pyramids was mine. This fight produced our first great leader, who was used to build the forbidden palace in Carthago.
In 340 AD we created the Graet Lighthouse and entered our golden age.

So I had my continent and my next long term goal was to take over Rome and parts of the other continent up to the domination limit. I was really curious how effective the Ottoman Sipahi would be, so I researched to get to military tradition as quickly as possible but also having enough money to make the mass upgrade to Sipahies.

I built an army of horsemen in my two unit factory cities and developed the rest of the continent.
The turn after I upgraded all my horsemen to Sipahis, the Romans declared war on me. That was really funny. I took the two Roman cities on my continent in the first turn, in 550 AD my fleet landed on the Roman continent.



Since the Romans were really big in culture, I built my own city, rushed barracks for quick healing and a library to prevent a culture flip.
Sipahi really rock, they took one city after the other with almost no losses. I took the whole Roman island by 750 AD and sent my troops immediately to the other continent. (Interestingly enough, these civs never knew that the Celts, the Carthagians and the Romans even existed).



to be continued in part3

Congratulations Ronald. Magnificent start and excellent strategy, with a little luck to get that GL and so the FP.. I'm well behind on territoy but a slight lead in tech (assume you went Indusctiral age in 750AD).

My medieval game consisted of a switch to Republic and the building of marketplaces to bring in lots of gold, with which I bought techs from the other civs. I also built a decent sized force of horsemen that I upgraded to Sipahi. After getting Military Tradition and started my warring. First I took out the Celts, then half of the Carthaginians. Then I had twenty turns of peace with Carthage, which I used to build cities to fill in the gaps between my newly captured cities. Also, I switched to Democracy. Then the war was back on . . . for a couple of turns.


EDIT: I did get one great leader at this time. I used him to build Bach's Cathedral, trying to keep the cities out of disorder.

We left off with the Ottomans in a Republic, never having had a war, but controlling most of the top of the continent.

10AD
Contact with the rest of the world! I think the Romans were actually the ones to make contact, so I had to do a bit of trading to get the map and one contact, and then run around the new contacts selling the same stuff to get contact with the next one. (Forgot the details, sorry).

510AD - 580AD Keltoi war
The Romans had had a short war with the Keltoi earlier, and kicked them off the Roman continent, and now have Augustodurum in the Keltoi lands. That war had finished.

In 510AD, the neoCarthaginians had a war going with the Keltoi. Not wanting to miss the opportunity to take the Keltoi lands, I persuaded neoCarthage to pay a me to join an alliance against them!

Between 510AD and 580AD, the Keltoi were conquered by the Ottomans.

The Azap Warriors formed the bulk of the offensive (because before I hooked up the iron, I had several cities that could produce 1 warrior per turn). Some horsemen and knights supported.

700AD - present NeoCarthaginian war[/B]
In 700AD the neoCarthaginians surprised me by declaring war -- surprising because I had a whole bunch of knights in former Keltoi lands just waiting for me to declare war on them.

700AD - 800AD Knight battles[/B]
First I paid heavily (2 lux, 25g per turn) to bring the Romans into the war with me. Then I made sure I was giving a luxury to every single other civ -- giving them away if necessary, to make sure the Carthaginians couldn't get any allies.

The Carthaginians must have traded with someone, because suddenly they had Saltpeter (none in their territory) and Cavalry. I didn't even have Metallurgy, let alone Military Tradition. Fast research time!

730AD(?) Romans lost Augustodurum, their only city on the continent. Blast. At least I can take it now though!

740AD Ottomans capture Augustodurum, Sabratha, Verulamium. Also got first Great Leader. Now, where to build FP. Ideally I'd like it in Carthage.
Immediately lost Augustodurum and Sabratha.

750AD Immediately regained Augustodurum!

760AD Built FP with leader in Lugdunum (former Keltoi strip) because I need the production in Entremont and nearby for forward barracks in order to defeat Carthage.

circa 780AD Finally got Military Tradition (the two techs were a mix of "research most of it in a few turns (short because everyone else has it)" and "buy the last bit off someone". Upgraded a dozen knights to Baltic Cavalry.

810AD Golden Age starts with Baltic Cavalry attack on Camulodunum -- captured Camulodunum
820AD Lost Camulodunum. Regained Camulodunum. Captured Rusicade.
840AD Recaptured Sabratha.
850AD Lost Rusicade. Recaptured Rusicade, captured Cadiz.

Traded with Rome (our Saltpeter deal had expired). Brought enough techs to trade with others to get into the Industrial age!

This war has been odd -- because I've been loathed to leave my cavalry in cities close to Carthage (could culture flip) and haven't brought enough support units, I keep losing cities to stray Carthaginian cavalry and immediately recapturing them. OTOH, this is nice, because it means the Carthaginian cavalry keep being left at the end of turns unsupported in small towns (easy to kill).

My miltary advisor tells me that we are "strong" compared to the Carthaginians, so I think they'll be dead soon.

This is the minimap at 850AD.

I did much better this age, but still no wonders

I beelined to chivalry, still way behind in tech. As soon as I got there I built as many knights as I could. Carthage is the most advanced civ, and built several wonders in this age. They included the Sistine Chapel, Sun Tzu, and Adam Smith. They also had the Pyramids from the ancient age.

I was catching up a little in tech, but not much! After getting chivalry my next priority was getting gunpowder. I was pleased that I had saltpeter, so it was on to military tradition.

While I was researching I met all of the other civs, and got their maps by trading excess luxuries. Carthage, Rome, the Celts and now Spain were all fighting each other.

As soon as I got military tradition I upgraded all of my knights to Sipahi and attacked the Celts. Within a few turns it was over. I completely destroyed them. It was pleasant that one of the Celtic cities I captured was next to Carthage. That could come in handy later... I got a great leader during the war and built an army with it. But I didn't put any units in it yet...

The rest of the age I spent catching up in tech and building infastructure in my newly capture cities.

Also in the middle ages China destroyed Egypt.