*Spoiler2* Gotm23-Arabs - End of Middle Ages or Submit

This is the Mid Game (or perhaps end game) spoiler discussion thread for the Gotm23-Arabs

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 the Gotm23-Arabss. 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 Gotm23-Arabs:

• you must have the full world map and contact with all 9 rivals or their remains AND
• you must have reached the End of the Medieval Age and 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. (If you discuss or hint about locations of Coal, Oil or Rubber you will be thrown into a tidal pool in chains until the cold north sea comes in and drowns you.)

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

Do not mention industrial age or modern age wonders except as future goals.

You may discuss continuations of Ansar/Cataphract (and Cavalry) 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 particulary interested in how effective you were in prebuiding horsemen to upgrade into Ansars/Cataphracts and how you may have used these units to gain an advantage.

If you are playing v1.29 what do you think of the beautiful Cataphract unit?

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.

Have fun!! Meet new players, make new friends, and share ideas. Again that's what this game is all about.

Well going into the Mddle Ages I was a bit concerned because I was the last there. Yet I had a Great leader and was able to build Sun Tzu's which I think was the best thing that could of happened to my game as I was able to then go straight for chivalry and prebuild 15 or so veteran horseman for the upgrade to Ansar Warrior.

Once I had upgraded all of my horsemen I attacked the carthigans and nearly wiped them off the face of the earth. I left them crippled with only 2 cities remaining and when I sued for peace I got all their techs, all their money their world map and about 20 gold a turn.

I then turned my attention to the persians (i think it was them) and left them with only one city, then on to the ottomans because they were beginning to encroach on my territory.

After crippling the ottomans I moved in on the egyptians and destroyed their civilization.


I basically started attacking to the west then to the north and finally to the east and then south (a counter clockwise attack). I managed to get 2 leaders from my ansar warriors which I used to make armies.

Once I had upgraded to cavalry I was on a serious roll. However I got bogged down when france declared war on me and I had to stop my expansion and start up a bit of defence.

I was stagered at how many great leaders I managed to get. in the middle ages I think I had 4 G.L's which I was very happy about.

My plan going into the next era was to get nationalism and then railroads. and then build theory of evolution first with a pre build that I had teed up for some time.

Open 1.27

I started the game pretty badly in the Ancient Ages, finishing it with only 6 cities about 450bc. My early wars were pretty unsuccessful, in part because I priorised structures (especially temples), and also had the horses stolen by Ottoman e Egyptian cities which were a few turns faster than me in founding cities.

So, I decided that Middle Ages should be total conquest. Went straight to Chivalry to get the Ansars and show some work. The Romans almost destroyed the Ottomans, leaving them with only 1 small city. I joined the war since it was a unique opportunity to get those horses.

Quick war, horses in hand, straight to Chivalry. When I was able to make Ansars, I had about 12 cities (I don't remember, I don't have the time and patience to prepare timelines ). Finished some improvements around and start the massive building of Ansars.

Situation of the world, circa 500bc.

- Arabs (me): small-medium empire with low perspectives
- Carthage: mostly dominated by Egypt. 3 cities remaining
- Ottomans: one surviving city, dominated by Romans
- Rome: threatning everybody, and the 2nd largest territory due to expansion and conquest of the Otto land.
- India: territory similar to me. Avoided real wars (only declared one to me, but didn't attack me at all), pretty quiet, but when it got elephants, captured one of the 3 Carthagian cites.
- Persia: empire 1.5 times bigger than mine, but they have a major drawback. Probably they didnt link their iron (they had one source in their territory) and didnt build the powerful Immortals until Theology-Chivalry.
- France: smaller than me, but going very well in technology
- Spain: 3 or 4 cities too, due to wars against France and Egypt. Weak.
- Egypt: Largest empire due to some wars and mainly expansion

I had about 15 Ansars ready when I chose Persia to hit. Reasons:

- Immortals wouldn't be a major worry anymore (it was clear that they didn't have many of them)
- They were using Ancient Age units, many spearmen included. A few pikemen around, interestingly they were having 1 pikeman "covering" 2 or 3 spearmen in each city;
- They were unlikely to have the money to pay Rome or Egypt for deadly alliances that could finish my game
- For own experience, Persia is a civ that should not reach the Industrial Era.

The conquest of Persia was not fast and smooth. Yet, it took 3 centuries. I had some republic war weariness problems, but nothing serious. I stopped when I got all their continental territory (they had 2 cities in the isle). As tribute for peace, I got one of their cities there, leaving them with only one.

After that, made more Ansars and wanted to kill France and Spain, even though France proved to be a great ally since the beginning of the game. At this point (I didn't start this war immediatly after Persia), I had power, territory, reputation and money enough to pay ROP and Alliance with the superpower Egypt.

Together (Rome joined us later), we destroyed France and Persia. The French even captured my "Persian" city in the island. During this war, Persepolis flipped back to Persia. I redeclared war to them and assure that the Romans would help me with that, since they hold the other 2 cities in the isle and could wipe the Persians out forever.

In the end of Middle Ages, I had the second biggest territory, losing to Egypt by a small difference. I was full of Ansars, but I didn't have Leonardo's to make an easy upgrade to Cavalry, so I would have to wait a little more for further wars.

Currently I'm in the middle of Industrial, and the game is going awesome! For good and for bad. Tell ya next spoiler.

I'm enjoying this GOTM. Great map. -

Spoiler2 - "Return of the Pet Civ?"

We'd entered the Middle ages in 10BC. By 30AD we'd switched to Monarchy, and Bede published his list:



Hmm… Ottomans in 2nd; maybe I didn't hurt them as much as I'd thought.

In 280, we get a new city. Heck, I wasn't even trying for a culture flip. I guess all those cheap temples are paying off!




Enough goofing around. We need more space and it's time to try domesticating Rome. I can't see us taking their heartland, but I think there's still a chance for Caesar to be a good dog. This is no puppy - this time we're going to be training an attack dog. "Caesar!" "Here, boy!"



No response. First we're going to have to establish rank. "Listen Caesar. Saliddin - alpha dog. Caesar - beta boy." He's not convinced. To fix that, we launch our attack on his "mainland" cities - the ones he's settled between us and Persia. Strike now while the Iron is cold - he hasn't hooked up any of his sources. Yet….

Our attack goes smoothly. Lack of Iron and distance to their core mean counterattacks are bearable. Egypt has Chivalry and we buy it for gold and gold-per-turn, start training and upgrading to Cataphracts (Ansar). Our Cataphract wins at Caesaragusta and we enter our Golden Age in 530AD.

We finish taking the nearby Roman cities. Time for a shift - Rome now has Iron. Legionaries and a Roman Golden Age can't be far behind. I doubt our forces can make significant gains in their heartland, though Rome would be an ideal FP site. Where can we reasonably expand to next? Ottoman territory! We contact Ottomans and arrange an alliance against Rome. They're still furious of course, and want 24gpt. A bargain!. They go at it with Rome, meaning we'll see few Roman units. Hopefully Ottomans will be weakened, but not destroyed, just in time for us to turn the tables and capture their remains. The goal is eastward expansion and peace with Rome by the time we share borders. Having had their GA, and trained against Ottomans, our (by then) faithful attack dog will be in position to take advantage of the generous ROP we'll offer, and go do some serious damage to our future targets. That's the plan, anyway.

Sun Tzu of ROME completes his work in 580 AD. OK. I hope Caesar is as afraid of us as we are of him….!

600AD - Persia declares war on France.

700AD We complete Forbidden Palace in Baghdad. It's close by, but at least we'll boost the cities on our eastern mountain chain.

780AD Carthage declares war on Egypt. Not good. Egypt is emerging as a real power, and has taken a big lead on Culture. I think this is just going to feed them.

We turn the tables on Ottomans, as planned, and declare peace with Rome. Thanks Julius, good job! We get a major territory boost and leave a small bit of Ottoman territory as a buffer with Rome. I'm not comfortable with sharing that border just yet.

This was the end of heavy war efforts for Arabs for some time, as we'd let our Pet Civ(s) do that work for us. The Cataphract's 3 movement points came in quite handy. The low defense meant they had to be used carefully, but I imagine we'll see some impressive results and rapid territory expansion from those who managed to amass a large force of them. For those playing PTW, here's a picture of our beautiful Cataphract unit:



France takes out most of Persia, so we join in in time to force some tech concessions with minor effort. We're starting to make some progress from our spindly start.



890AD - Rome redeclares war on Ottomans. This produced some good news for Arabs, as the large garrison stationed at Davidiople (apparently for flip suppression), leaves to go fight and the city flips to us! Love those bloodless coups!



Rome takes out Ottomans, getting the spoils. Fortunately there wasn't much left and the territory they gain is a thin band. Egypt takes its toll on Carthage. They falter and everyone joins in at the end.
1210 - Getting really worried about Egypt. Looking for a way to get something going between them and Rome, but we're a bit strapped right now and can't buy any treats for Caesar. Fortunately, our Pet Civ takes the initiative and declares war on Egypt without even being asked! For being such a good boy, I give him an ROP treat. "Mmmmmmhh! Scooby Snack"! Military tradition is out and we watch in AWE as an ENDLESS stream of Roman Cavalry parade across our land -- more new ones each turn than we have in our entire army! It's really mind-boggling. Here's the minimap at the beginning of this war.



Caesar gets his little buddy Shaka to join in the dogfight. You two pups have fun!



Egypt's no pushover but Rome's strength -- combined with the advantage of ROP through Arab land -- is irresistable. Egyptian cities begin falling. Caesar is a good boy and razes quite a few for us - dispelling cultural borders and providing open land for our settlers. Quick temples will help secure the new territory. In the well-established cities we push infrastructure as Rome does our fighting for us. Libraries and Universities are built and we enter the Industrial age in 1330AD - ready to research the new techs. We'll need juicy tidbits to keep Caesar motivated and fighting off the other Civs for us.

Rome's efforts weren't strictly razing - they did capture a number of cities along the way. That's fine with us. They're cast out in a string of pearls - no serious tactical benefit to Rome. If the time comes to ask Caesar to give them to his master and the ROP goes away, they'll be indefensible.



As we enter the Industrial age, Ghandi joins the pack and starts nipping at Cleopatra's heels.



Xerxes is still around (somewhere?? - can't even see him on the minimap). He declares war on Egypt also, hoping for some goodies before the Egyptian empire is dust.

I'm pleased with the progress I've made with this method. Perhaps I could have acquired more territory by actively prosecuting against Egypt, but I still feel exposed from being in the middle of all the other Civs. Zulu are the only ones I don't share a border with. Caesar is behaving and I'll do my best to keep him busy fighting other Civs -- hopefully at the expense of his infrastructure. But the possibility of him breaking his leash and turning against me gives me pause. The luxury of building through this period gives me a chance to employ adequate defense and perhaps gain a tech lead.

I have just finished with Persia and continue my building of horsemen. I decide to attack on my nearest ennemy looking to secure some Dyes luxs.

WWIII vs Carthage (250 AD – 540 AD)
Before, Carthage deals WM + 114 GP vs Monarchy to plunder all gold and avoid them to upgrade / gather ennemies
Egypt Joins the fight for WM + 309 GP
My first attack was to deprieve Carthage from (I hope they only Iron source). I lose lost of my horseman against the Spartan Hoplite. It is not very effective but I hope to have some help from Egypt and to secure Dyes around Carthage…

In 330 AD , I have archers from Spain marauding close to my empty towns … I enlist them in my fight against Carthage with WM & 26 GP. But they declare war on us the next turn … evil Spain breaking an alliance and destroying a small town of me. This is not nice
I enlist Zulu for the fight vs Spain & Carthage with WM + 22 GP with Engineering + France join in war against Spain with WM & 167 GP.
Spain declares peace to Carthage.
370 AD : I trade Spice to Egypt for WM & 110 GP & 1 GPT
380 AD : Egypt joins my war (again) vs Carthage for 13 GPT & 16 GP. I change my speed of research to get faster Chivalry – 6.4.0). It is about time !
490 AD : Rome deals Wines + WM + 23 GP vs Silks + Spices
580 AD : Spain is only 2 cities. I make peace !

WWIV vs Zulus (660 AD – 790 AD)
Zulus have a small territory (10 cities). They are weak so it is time to finish them. I have 18 Knights ready for onslaught. I bring in France : Furs & 5 GP & WM vs theology & Dyes & Spices
690 AD : Re-deal with Rome for some Wines vs Spices & Dyes & Silks !!!. More a more luxs are needed.
700 AD 1st Elite Knight win goes to Leader. Will build an FP in Leptis Magna … no so good but large enough to make a second core… except, I will need to clean lot of jungle !
750 AD France make peace with Zulus . I lose my furs with France, I make two successful deals : I offer Spices for WM + 4 GPT + 42 GP Then I make a deal for Furs vs Dyes + WM + 10 GPT + 72 GP
810 AD : Sixtine Chapel is constructed by Romans. I am due to complete it in two turns so I have to switch to MA !
With my golden age, I manage to research at 4-5 turns so I get fast to MT

WWV vs Egypt (840 AD – 960 AD)
I want to concentrate my few defense units to few towns. So I really need to wipe out Egypt... After upgrade to Cavs, I conquered Egypt fast. I waited 5 turns to conquer the last city in the south in order to get an extra leader (pervious one was for Smith). It did not work but in the meantime, I re-allocated my forces for war against India (I balanced it vs Rome) but I had a good deal for Wines vs Astronomy (36 GPT) with the Romans and I could get Extra Ivory (missing the eight luxs) from India. They do not seem to have MT at this moment… I may gather all forces against them to avoid back–stabbing …
Peace deal with Egypt make me win the two towns on the island north where is located Egyptian Palace.

WWVI vs India (990 AD – 1100 AD)
I bring in France for Gems vs 12 GPT & 4 GP and Rome for Dyes vs 3 GPT & 8 GP. I am launching the attack with 13 Cavs and an army out of my 27 cavs …
I enter Industrial Ages at 1100 AD at the same time the Indians are history. I need now to turn back to Rome with the help of France…

WWVII vs Rome (1150 AD - )
I ask for 9 GP (all they treasury) then ask them to remove forces from our territory twice and the second time they declare war. France joins the war for Gems vs 15 GPT & 10 GP. Then I deal Music Theory & Navigation & 54 GPT & 278 GP vs Theory of Gravity

With Rome in sight to fell and Wines nearly secure. It is 1220 AD and it is Domination Victory !

Open

This post really belongs in spoiler 1, but there is a specific question relating to the age change I would like to ask that belongs in this spoiler. Please bear with me.

The early game for me was quite straightforward.
I settled on the spot build a couple of scouts, a granary and then a settler. I built quite a few warriors which were later upgraded to swords. From the huts I got a couple of techs and a settler which was so far from the core you wouldn't belive it, so the advantage gained was reduced.

When I got Iron working I split my upgraded warriors and sent them against Carthage and the Ottomans. I reduced both Civs to one city, though the Ottomans settled another the turn after peace.

The Romans made some demand that I rejected and declared around 1000BC, but I killed their stack of archers and warriors and they threw their hands in the air.

And that just about accounts for the AA which I left around 700BC.

On entry to the MA I didn't have either Monarchy or Republic.
Rome was the only Civ with Republic, but lacked currency to get to the MA. This may sound stupid but I just can't get my head around it. I sold them currency, so on the next turn I should have been able to trade my middle age techs to them (for republic). They couldn't have them already as they didn't have currency. No-one had feudalism except me anyway so Rome couldn't possibly trade for them on the inter turn. Any road up, the diplomacy screen didn't show either monotheism or Feudalism as available to trade. Why? It's really bugging me, though it's probably a stupid question and going to get the answer it deserves.

The barb uprising was a pain. I spent a lot of my 1000+ gold on upgrades and stuff, built walls around one city and hoped for the best. In the end no cities got pillaged, but I did lose a worker. The uprising was a pain because it interrupted troop and settler movement. Also the zulu took the opportunity to declare on me.

My thinking at the time was to take out the Persians and Egyptians next, but this declaration meant that I was pretty much forced to expand North and West.

I can't see how I can get a decent conquest finish date now since the Indians are miles away and roading is difficult with all the barbs wandering around.

If anyone can help me with my mental block regarding the era change I would be very grateful.

Edit: In case I haven't made it perfectly clear. I have played well past the requirements for this thread.

I had a prebuild for Sun Tzu's and Leos, I managed to snag Sun Tzu's but the egyptians got Leos, they where so my number one target now! The failed Leos became the worlds most expensive marketplace (don't really recall).

OK now I had a good number of horsemen and not enough cash, thanks alot Cleo! She was in a really bad position with no iron. So she was my first conquest. She had three wonders in her capital (one of the leos). I had a little mass upgrade on her grave. Then I rode over and conquered persia who had not hooked up their iron supply for some odd reason.

I then turned my eyes of the Ottoman empire. Rome was still uppity and demanded cash and gifts, that could not stand no more so after the fall of the Ottomans I had to drive Ceasar into the sea, he had Cavalry, I had not. I got cavalry durring my conquest of Rome. At the end of the roman war the French declared war on me out of the blue, I gave some cash to spain and carthage to deal with France, something they where unable to do but atleast they managed to hold her at bay.

I took a few french cities that where squeezed in among the Indian towns, while I was there I took India too, sending Gandi in excile out to the Island where India had one little town left, never bothered with that, france had three cities on the island.

The Zulu got uppity and joined forces with France, so they became the next target. They where a real pain to take since most of their cities where on hill and they had musketmen a plenty. But large stacks of Cavalry won the day again.

OK Three civs on the continent to go, non of them very large and yet I was not in domination.

So ended the middle age. France in the Tech lead, followed by carthage (they got both copernicus and newtons in the same town).

I missed all the Middle Age wonders, the earlier ones by about 20 or fewer turns. The Great Library kept me going on techs up to Education, but then I fell behind.

WWI initially started between the Persians and the Egyptians. I made embassies in Persia and Carthage (all I could afford at that time) in order to stay afloat of world events. I started building my Ansar Warriors and loading them in the cities nearest to the Ottomans, as I intended them to be my first victim. Suddenly, Persia comes to me and asks for help with Egypt. I get him to throw in a lot of gold per turn for the deal, and accept. I move my Ansar Warriors against the three Egyptian cities that Cleopatra managed to found at my border, and take them with relatively little difficulty (Egypt had Musketmen at this time, but the cities were on the desert, so I didn't lose very many against them). Persia became one of my best friends in the game, something I found strange since when I usually play Xerxes is a real crab. I stopped fighting Egypt because the rest of their cities were too far away at this time. I made peace with them, something I should have waited to do because I forgot that I was in a military arrangement with Persia and thus Persia got a little mad at me (polite instead of gracious). Carthage suddenly joins in the fray against Egypt, and all but wipes them out, increasing their own holdings substantially. Persia was also fighting the Ottomans, and I saw this as my chance to capitalize on my original plan, and offered my help to Persia for a few techs, and they happily obliged. I first swept over the Ottoman city on my side of the bay, securing a source of saltpeter (I was buying saltpeter from the Carthaginians originally). I then continued and took 6 or 7 more Ottoman cities, including the capital Sogut, before the Persians permanently wiped them out.

The rest of the Middle Ages was a peaceful time except near the end, when India declares war on me for no reason. They keep throwing elephants and medieval infantry at one of the Ottoman cities I captured, but I easily defended against their weak attacks until they accepted peace. I worked on infrastructure for the rest of the period, building up the captured Ottoman cities, switching to Democracy, building my economy, and trading for the techs I don't have yet. By the end of the middle ages, I was about 3-4 techs behind the leaders France and Carthage. I was just barely the largest Civ, with Carthage a close second.

I heard a news report about France declaring war on Spain, who was about the same size as them, ignored it since it wasn't in my area of world affairs, and then a few turns later I heard Spain was destroyed. Yikes. Best to be friends with these French people.

More to come in Spoiler 3, when I tell the story of the oddest world war I have ever encountered in Civilization, which I am still in the middle of, trudging my way through the turns. This one isn't going to be a winner...

On wonders, I manage to get Leo's and Great Lib, the rest of Wonders was just bonus ... and for fun ... All in Capital ...
Great Lib 250 BC
Hanging Gardens 90 BC
Leo's 460 AD
Heroic Epic 640 AD
Military Academy 820 AD
Smith 960 AD
Newton's 1080 AD
+ Copernicus 860 AD in Diriyah

Ansars moves is great but they suffer on defense and I could not wait to upgrade to cavs.

I manage a reasonable number of leaders.
2 Armies (1 Sword / 1 Cavs) & 1 FP and 3 Wonders (if I have good memory)

I had at least 4 towns flipping back to me even if I did not try a culture war against them. The most I could see in any game i played.

As the MAs began, I went straight to Chivalry. I built a few pikemen, but mostly horsemen for upgrades. After I got Chivalry I upgraded my horde to Ansars. Expensive though, 60 gp each.

After the upgrades were complete I went after my target, Persia. I went after them for several reasons. The Great Library was in Persepolis. They didn't have iron. They controlled a rare patch of jungle that might contain coal.

Persia fell swiftly. I became the territory leader, a position I never lost. After I captured the GL I caught up in tech (I had started to fall behind several civs in tech because I was in Monarchy). I turned my tech research off and used the huge GA flow of cash to rush build temples in occupied Persia. I got one Great Leader in this war, which I used to build an army so I could build the Heroic Epic.

After Persia fell, I looked around for my next target. India looked weak, and the ivory was tempting. I attacked and captured several Indian cities, including Delhi. I was REALLY disappointed that ivory turned out not to be a luxury.

My offensive started to run out of steam. Too many of my Ansars were still garrisoning Persian cities. So I made peace. Well, at least I captured their horses...

I next took a breather by replacing Ansars with pikemen as garrisons, plus I built more. I looked around for another target and decided on Rome. They were STILL fighting the Zulus which stunted their growth. The Pyramids and Leo's were in Rome.

I gathered my Ansars, made a ROP with the Ottomans and attacked. As Rome had musketmen it was rough going with Ansars. I was further hurt when the Zulus made peace with Rome after over 2,000 years. In all that time that captured two Roman cities. It is amazing they captured any at all.

At the very end of MAs Rome fell. I upgraded my few remaining Ansars to cavalry and began to scan the map for my next target...

PTW 1.27f Open

Quick update to the End of the MA's.

India, Rome, Persia, Egypt dead.

Zulus and Ottomans reduced to a few cities (The Ottomans are on the Island that most people in these spoilers have proved their non-eligability by NOT showing in there maps)



but....


Oops I appear to have annoyed the French.

Melifluous

Originally posted by Melifluous
(The Ottomans are on the Island that most people in these spoilers have proved their non-eligability by NOT showing in there maps)

Click to expand...

Personnaly , this island was populated very late in the game, thus was not discovered in Spoiler 1. However, I had the full available map ...

Open PTW 1.21

What was that age ppl rumored about? Well. my people never reached it. No future, a lot of past and a lot of fun, is all they remember!

I entered the Middle age about 750bc, I think and solemnly waited out the Ottoman alliance aginst Rome, and then attacked Ottomans with a full force of 18 swordsmen. Easy as it gets I built horsemen like a madman and supplied the attacking force with them. When most of Ottoman empire's crumbles was in my hands, I declared war at that grinning peasant Caesar and went straight for his heart. I took Rome without discussion, but had to hold onto a leader for some time, because Roman archers was swarming the place.

Around 100bc Rome was gone and I used my leader to build FP. Silly really, If I had built an army instead I'm sure I could've finished this off quicker.

I killed Otto's some turns later, then sent all my troops up north and whacked Persia.

Upgrading horsemen, for the attack on Persia and golden age.

And so on.

Domination by 560ad

Strange Domination tho, winning when last 2 civs have only 2 cities left? I thought domination was 66% of land area and pop?

Did I misunderstand domination rules?

I raised the bar for my game and can only wait for Qitai to try to beat me by a millenia again

Open

Ancient Age Post

Joined the middle ages through a trade in 750BC. This was a peaceful time for the Arabs just concentrating on expansion, warrior building, land improvements and wonder building. I had decided that both Pyramids and Hanging Gardens would help me very much in this game so had a build going for both. in 350BC the Romans built Pyramids, this left me with a Great Wall (not good) and HG. I got GW and then saw a massive cascade that went through all the ancient wonders, but not HG, phew. In 310BC HG was built in Mecca so I did ok I think, at least I didn't completely waste the sheild in the GW, even if I wasn't really going to need it.

In 330BC the iron gets hooked up 15 warriors are upgraded and launched against Otto, we actually fancy taking those Pyramids from Rome at this stage. By 30AD declared peace with Otto (got some techs / gold etc) leaving them with a couple of weak cities. Due to the distance, low size of the cities I took and our large culture decided that flips were unlikely and didn't need to irradicate them. Usually I go on to wipe someone out to stop the flips and sometimes that can take forever.



During the period up 260AD was peaceful and full of horse training. I just didn't like the look of the Roman strength, they were the only ones equal with us and lots of legionaires made me look elsewhere. At this time I was pushing for Chivalry and trying to get more cash for the upgrade but soon found that I had excess horses, not enough cash for upgrades and nothing to trade from the AI, and my cities just kept pumping the horses. The only thing to do was use them to fight before Chivalry, the impetus came when Zulu offered an alliance against
the very weak Persians on our Northern border. We took the alliance and quickly took all but one Persian city. At the end of the war around 350AD the Zulu's had already broken the alliance and we had just started our GA after upgrade a bunch of horses to Answar. At this time Rome looked very strong and we were strugging for techs so the GA was a much needed boost.

From 450AD to the end of the game the strategy was simple, war, research for Military Tradition, war, some trading with Rome, war and a little more war. Carthage was next and here I first learned how to use the Answer to good effect, saving that extra movement point for retreat really helped against the Carthage UU. During this time we noticed that Rome had no Saltpeter, and looking in their home there was some of it unhooked up in their land, so we offered ours and got 24 GPT for it. Just before the end of the game we were still trading for it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



By 640AD Spain had been conquered and we really started milking for leaders, but none came. I had a 200 turn build for the FP in some far off remote ex Otto land and there is no way that would ever finish before the end of the game. After Spain it was straight onto France, who needs allies they just get in the way. We started the French GA as they now had Musketeers, but the Answar just cleared them out. Now we started getting nasty, peace with France, take cities in peace, back to war next turn, peace again resting.

830AD MT is researched, upgrade, back to war with France to finish them off. After a flip back to them we decide to irradicate France, the Zulus help us with a ROP as we need to get to far off French cities. After finishing France in 900AD we realise that the Zulu ROP does look very convenient to exploit so the Cavalry move into position and take three Zulu cities in one turn.



In 900AD we got the first of six leaders, in fact it was something like 6 leaders in 10 turns at about 5 wins per leader, so don't ask me how that happened. In the end I had three armies running about as I had no wonders to build. 940 AD mapstat says 573 tiles to dom, major temple rushing in affect. 990AD Zulu down to a couple of cities.



1000AD the Romans demand firs. Its not like we can't afford to give them away or anything as nobody is trading with us, for some reason they think that ROP rape of Zulu wasn't very nice. We tell Rome where to go and they declare war. We bring in Otto and India to teach them a lesson, but I soon realise why our Military advisor said we had equal military as they come with stacks of 8 legions and others. As the Cavalry are finishing off Zulu we also find that Egypt declare was on us. This just makes it convenient to take their cities on the way to Rome, even if we did lose a vet Cavalry attack against a Chariot. During this time Rome did take a couple of cities off us, but by 1100AD they were back to Arabic rule. The temple expansions start to really kick in, every spare square had been settled, settlers settled on remote corners of the coast to take a few more squares and eventually it came.

1160AD Dom victory Firaxis 5681



I agree with another post, Mapstat was right all the way but I seemed to have more land than 66%.

Funny things went on in this game. No leaders forever and then 6 in no time. Built Sistine Chapel by hand thinking it was JS Bach and never built a single Cathedral. Researched democracy when I had no intent on using it. I was thinking around 600AD that it would be nice to finish before 1000AD and may have done this if I had got a leader earlier and maybe worked some alliances to weaken the opposition. The Answar was key during the early expansion as the speed they got to the front was amazing and actually utilising the extra movement point for retreat helped keep them alive and kept them moving forward. Sun Tzu's was a must get Wonder and I never got it, Leo's would have been nice but I actually turned it down for Sistine's (thinking it was JS Bach), then again I had the cash for all the upgrades I needed without it. In the end there was never the prospect of attacking Rome as we traded too much from them and I didn't want to lose that.

Originally posted by gozpel

... Strange Domination tho, winning when last 2 civs have only 2 cities left? I thought domination was 66% of land area and pop?

Did I misunderstand domination rules?

Click to expand...

Remember that Domination is based on "Land Area + Coast" for the half of the trigger that relates to how much of the map you control.

On this map there are 511 coast tiles which add to the 2076 land tiles. Effectively this makes it like like you need to control 83% of the land area to trigger domination if you do not have alot of coastal cities. (Don't forget that lakes count as coast as well.

It is not unusual to see players who appear to control nearly all the land mass of the world even whithout triggering domination if they have played in style that does not push their cultural border out over the coastal zone.

The centralized start location on this map, that was far from fertile coastal regions would tend to create lots of game events where nearly the whole map would look filled without triggering.

PTW 1.21f, Open

See my post for spoiler 1

As of the beginning of the Midieval Era, I had eliminated the Ottomans and Romans. My FP had been built in Rome. At the end of the Roman war, I gained another leader which I had saved for Sun T'zu's. Upon completeing research of Feudalism, I traded for Monotheism and started Chivalry. I used the leader to build Sun T'su's.

While waiting for Chivalry, I finished buiding up the second core, and produced non-stop horsemen in my 1st core. With the advent of Chivalry, I turned off research, upgraded maybe 10 or so horsemen to Ansar Warriors and moved into position to attack. I declared war on Carthage and Egypt simultaneously. I enlisted the Zulu's to help with Carthage. With the first attack, I entered my Golden Age.

Following my plans (see spoiler 1), I made a two pronged attack, which worked quite well. Being in a golden age, I was able to produce and/or upgrade several Ansar Warriors per turn. All Ansar's from the first core were sent against Carthage, whereas all Ansars from the Roman core were used to take the long line of Egyptian cities along the coast all the way back to Thebes. After I had upgraded all horsemen, I turned research back on, thinking I would need to get Military Tradition, but it was not neccesary. I turned research back off after Gunpowder, because I wanted money to rush temples in newly captured cities.

I eliminated Carthage before Egypt, so my 1st core units went on to attack the Zulus. About this time I declared war on France, and enlisted the Persian to fight them. Spain had been eliminated by France. About halfway through the Zulu's, I eliminated the Egyptians. My 2nd core units went along with the 1st core units.

At this time I changed the direction of all new units. New 1st core units went directly towards France, and the slower building 2nd core units started amassing outside of Persia. My GA was now over, so my production was waning. I had, however, made fantastic gains while in my GA.

After eliminating the Zulus, all my old units joined with the new units in French territory. France put up the best fight of all. They actually had many pikemen, but thankfully no musketeers. When France was about half subdued, I declared war on Persia and invaded. I forgot to enlist India, but it certainly was not needed. By this time Persia did have immortals, but they were still very small amounts. After taking all of France and half of Persia, I achieved Domination. Year 850AD, a personal best for me on any level.

Thoughts on the game:

1. The AI's made terrible or no use of their UU with the exception of Carthage. Unfortunately for Carthage, the Numidians are no match for Ansars.

2. The Ansar is a fantastic unit. Period. It is the earliest 3 move unit in the game, and we all know that speed kills. And to boot, it is cheaper than a regular knight. Too powerful.

3. The tech pace was much slower in my game than in many other's. Of course, I had alot to do with that. I went min research on everything except Feudalism and Chivalry, and even they were not at max. There were also many early wars amongst the AI, which I think was rare with other people's games.

Originally posted by Melifluous
Zulus and Ottomans reduced to a few cities (The Ottomans are on the Island that most people in these spoilers have proved their non-eligability by NOT showing in there maps)

Click to expand...

I did not even know the island was there until I saw your min-map. And I have completed the game. I think that you are hitting us a bit hard on this one Melifluous, as there is no way we could possibly know there was an island there (this is after all a Panagea map, not Continents). Nor is the island of any importance. I'm betting Cracker will easily let us slide on this one.

Hergrom

no wars until the discovery of chivalry... which was AD i'm sure...

from there I stormed Egypt then zululand (because zululand had joined in on the fight against me... and they were close by)

I had a ROP with Carthage... and they had units all over my territory. I didn't want to have to hunt them down.. nor did I want straggler units to take my inner core cities and burn them to the ground ( my infrastructure wasn't well defended). So carthage remained safe until the very end of the game. I didn't outright kill zululand or egypt... would have taken too long. made peace and turned my attention to rome - the next largest threat. in 5 turns I had moved around 40 ansars from around my territory (mainly in the heart of egypt at thebes) to Romes front lines. First turn of war i take 4 roman cities. 2nd turn of war i take 3 more. Rome is reduced to 3 isolated cities in 4 turns.

I then turn my attention to persia and india. Carthage is still running his units all over my territory. Up until now I did well in maintaining a good reputation. Didn't break ROP's and didn't raze cities. I starved the hell out of the rioters of course though. But I believe that during the initial 20 turns of peace with rome.... 1 of my newly taken cities flipped back to roman... I said "hell no" and retook it the next turn. then completely destroyed Rome.

So Carthage didn't want to continue ROP with me =[ his loss

After reducing Persia and India to mere Legends, I start a war against Carthage which lasts the rest of the game. Because now Carthage has gunpowder, and each of his cities are defended by 3 or 4 of these guys... and on Hills. So we're looking at a defense of around 8 (city size plus hill ). my powerful ansars are now puny....

So i start gathering my forces around his major cities... and building no more answars but a few cannons. (while i'm researching cavalry) The cannons were able to weaken the big defenders... but conquest of carthage went much slower than any other civ. I won via Domination a few turns before researching Cavalry i believe. I was in Monarchy at the time... and with all the cities i had spanning the globe.. I had around 150 troops and i didn't pay a dime ( or arabian equivalant )

This is easily the best i've done on this difficulty or higher... and i'm very proud of my results. I didn't win until 1000+ AD. I'll be very happy to see the results when they're posted and compare myself with the best of the best. Cause I know that i did relatively crappy

Originally posted by cracker


Remember that Domination is based on "Land Area + Coast" for the half of the trigger that relates to how much of the map you control.

Click to expand...

Thanks for clearing that up, not a day without learning something new I always thought coast was "worthless" when it comes to domination...

Oh well, next time I might do better and send some settlers to the coasts

1.29, open:

Where we left off...

First, we had established that without writing things down, I am horrible at remembering exactly what happened and when, even with the benefit of the playback. I need to take notes, or have copious numbers of save files. Fortunately, for this phase of the game, I had the latter. Second, to summarize what had happened to date, I had one war with the Ottomans which went well, although not as well as I had hoped. The Romans were doing a number on them, but I had tried to minimize their Golden Age by trading them The Republic during it. I entered the Middle Ages as the score leader:



Rome was #2, they had the Pyramids, and they had some prime real estate. I considered them to be a threat. Further, tactical considerations also made me want to go after them. Again, they had the Pyramids, they had some prime real estate, and in addition their lands were far away from all other enemies, and as such would be protected by distance should I conquer them. I decided to make Rome my next target. When the Persians created the GL in 30BC, I considered taking them on next, especially since they did not have Iron hooked up yet, but I was worried about an attack by Rome. For a few hundred years, I simply built up my army and waited. I built many horsemen and researched to Chivalry to get my UU upgrades. I am often not patient enough and overextend myself, so I was deliberately trying to hold back.

Two things of significance that occurred during the wait was that in 90AD, I founded Sirplebidah at the oasis up near India. A few turns earlier, Rome had settled Syracuse just to the west of there, which seemed odd to me. It was clearly a less fertile area. I suspected that the AI was using its psychic powers again. Also, in 310AD the Spanish city of Pamplona flipped to join the Arabs.

In 430AD I was convinced I had enough force to wipe out the Romans, and I declared war. I had depleted my treasury on the upgrades to the point where I had about a dozen horsemen that I could not upgrade immediately. I negotiated ROP agreements and trade agreements with as many nations as possible to try to avoid anyone joining in the war on the Roman side. I hoped for a quick leader to rush a FP and give me a second productive hub during my Golden Age which the war would trigger. I did bribe India and Persia into the war to keep the Romans north of the former Ottoman area busy.

My initial thrust hit two turns later, and Ravenna and Byzantium fell:



Things did not go according to plan. The leader never came. The Legionares more than held their own against my UU, and it became clear that I was going to fall far short of my goals. My allies broke ranks, Persia first, then India. Both made peace with Rome. I made an attempt or two on the capitol, but suffered severe losses, and I noticed Ravenna was being threatened. I reluctantly made my peace with Rome. I emerged from that war stronger than before, and with Rome weaker than before, so I guess it was a success, but it felt like a defeat. I healed up my units and sent them back west, with an eye on Persia.

In 500AD I had a bit of good fortune for my impending assault on Persia, as Bactra culture flipped my way. That would allow me to strike the heart of Persia almost immediately after declaring war. I positioned my troops:



Pasargadae, Arbela, Sidon, and Tarsus quickly fell, and Persepolis was next. I was camped ready to strike Persepolis in 640AD, when a wonder cascade occurred. India got Bach, but Persepolis took Copernicus and a Roman city built Leonardo's. I was quite pleased- I was going back to Rome after finishing up here and when our treaty expired. During the assault on Persepolis, I finally got a leader, and sent him towards Iznik to make a FP. Things were looking good. In 710AD, the last of the Persian cities fell, although they were not destroyed yet (a settler and escort had buggered off through Egypt before I could get 'em. I made peace, picking up some techs in the process. I noticed that my suspicions about Syracuse were spot on:



My plan was now to refortify a bit and head back to Rome. Caesar decided to throw a monkey into my wrench:



This annoyed me to no end. Simply put, I wasn't ready. My troops were all in the Northeast, many of them injured, their numbers decreased, and odds were if I said no thanks here, I would lose several cities to an initial Roman thrust. Reluctantly, I extended the treaty, which meant that I was going to have to wait 20 turns to go to Rome. Bugger. Time to rebuild my forces, and to try to put some culture pressure on Syracuse. To my delight, in 750 it culture flipped to me!

With Rome temporarily off my plate, I decided to focus on NeoCarthage as my next target. Some of their cities were right near the ring of my hub that I felt I could get some productive cities and not just territory if I took them down. But while doing this, I also was building quite a number of defensive units so that I could protect my eastern cities better, many of which had thin defense at this point. I find the turns where I am just building to be somewhat tedious, so I was not paying attention as much as I should have been, when suddenly I noticed a stream of Egyptian forces heading towards Makkah, which was protected only by two warriors at the moment (sunofagun). Fortunately, the leader of the pack was a chariot, not a stack, and when they declared war Mekkah was left with a single protective warrior. This was in 850AD. I bribed NeoCarthage, India and Zulu to the fight, and made deals with France where I was giving them luxuries for pretty much nothing to make them less likely to be swayed to fight against me. It took me a few turns to wipe out the Egyptian thrust and make a counterstrike- but in the meantime NeoCarthage did me a favor by severing Egypt's eastern land from its western land:



That worked nicely! That should keep Egyptian reinforcements from reaching the land to my south, which was now going to become MY land. I went through the process of taking them all. Things were going much easier than I would have ever thought. I guess someone else notices, because while I wasn't looking:



Rome declared war and quickly destroyed Ravenna! I now would have a two front war. I wanted to finish mopping up Egypt's land in the south, but now I had to take care of the Romans, who somehow had Cavalry. I wonder who traded them the Saltpeter? Oh well, no biggie. I bought some more alliances, and fought on two fronts:



Other than losing Ravenna, I held off the Romans while cleaning up the Egyptian (and Roman) cities to my south:







And on we go to the Industrial Age...