Crazy, crazy game. In terms of being both a challenge and unusual things happening. Certainly worth playing a 2nd time. Thumbs up for the creators.
Played as Poseidon/Olympians. I won't ''spam'' the 0Ad and 1000Ad thread. Most interesting things happened after 1000AD.
Up to 0AD.
The late worker is unpleasant, but gives great freedom to unlock multiple techs. The fish, horse and lake is workable enough to start developing. After the.jungle misery is gone ±1500BC Poseidon has a very nice land and expands to 7 cities. Zeus meanwhile holding of the barbs is the proper distribution of tasks. He loses settlers/workers until I secure his south and has a couple of cities too at 0AD.
Up to 1000AD.
Colossus and GLib built. Unfortunately my unit to gather 10XP against barbs dies, losing a 98% battle, so no HE before the 1st war. I develop an army of Cats/WE/HA/Swords. Sarpeidon presses my borders and is a bigger threat than Alex, so he is my first target. Right before 1000AD I reach Civil Service (as if I'm playing Cronos again)
Up 10 1500AD Cleaning the continent
And this is where things start to get tensed.
I DoW Sarpeidon and he appears a massive unit spammer. He has mostly hill cities. Cats are eaten like candy. It's a slow process with war weariness rising quickly. The first 4 cities each yield a GG. Then things finally go somewhat easier. Though heavily needing peace myself (±1400AD), I leave him a tundra city and his port southeast (it would drown in Nile culture).
While I move my army to Alex' territory he raises a red fist. Despite his pathetic army he DoWs and invades Zeus. This clears the way for me to roll him up rather easy, which is done by ±1550AD.
I leave the Nile People in peace. I want to turn my attantion to Cyclopes now.
Somewhat earlier, around ±1350AD the Cyclopes find us. I just had a golden age that I used to reach Edu with help of some bulbs + put up Oxford and was about to finish Engi. So there was actually tech parity between us with a lot of tech trade potential, and also with Hera. I pick up Printing Press with a bulb and make sure I have a comfortable headstart on Liberalism. By the time I trade away Edu. I've gotten Music/Drama/Philo/Feud/Guilds/Banking/Compass/Optics.
I'm in tip top shape now and switch to secure Eco too. Though so are Cyclopes. I have vision on their tech rate. After finishing Astro they appear capable to do Lib in 2 turns!! So I finish it 1T earlier 1500AD, taking Nat. Then same thing with Eco. They need 2T and I get it 1T earlier, pffffew. Of course they move to Nat next and finish it, while I'm half way Taj. But I got that one too.
Up to 1700AD Tech race against the Cyclopes
All this time I need to prepair a solid invasion force, cause my next targets are the Cyclopes. I don't see them growing their forces, so that looks promising.
I no longer trade techs for a while. The pace would be too fast. With help of Taj I head for Communism and Physics first. SP and airships both useful and I want to deny Cyclopes the GP, and I have some GS left to bulb this path. Then get Steel/Rifling/MilTrad and upgrade my 70unit army of knights/trebs /janissary. The cyclopes blast forwards faster than I do, but are very much focused on peaceful techs like Corp/Demo/Steam. I loose vision on their teching because they smack a casual 200EP at me.
So is this a peaceful time? Not entirely. An age of barb privateers in the middle of my navy built up is somewhat disturbing.
In my Cronos game I thought 150gpt tradegold was alot. Well Zeus can do a lot better than that:
Up to 1820AD. The first Cyclopes war
The turn I want to DoW (1705) and invade Arges in his northeast (it's the shortest crossover) he appears to have Destroyers. This also means Machine Guns and Cannons, but no Rifling/MilTrad.
My first wave is dropped of next to 2 cities. Frigates bombard them. The second wave secures 90% of the army is on the other side now. 2 Destroyers can only sink 2 frigates and flee in one of the cities I am taking. Arges rushes his army right in front of my cavalry landing, so loses his current reserves immediately.
I still fear a massive empowering act. But that does not happen. I rush forward , anticipating any city could be the last without facing infantry (yes they have Assembly Line). Conquering more than 20 core cities takes a while. I get them all with high Pop, cause they do not switch to slavery. They keep terrorizing me with their emancipation.
Machine Guns without Rifle support appear actually not that scary. Cavalry has decent odds. And cannons do the rest. Brontes is totally inactive on land. Only thing I have to swallow is losing seafood to roaming destroyers.
A big worry is the happiness situation. War weariness of 7 and rising within 5T + emancipation unhappiness means I need to raise the culture slider high. One thing I learn that Theaters are incredibly powerful in such situation (after struggling 10-15T first without of course). Still the whole war I pretty much crawl to just Artillery. I was glad to see Cyclopes suffered likewise.
With 3 cities of Arges to go separating me from Brontes I take a ceasefire in order to demand an unreachable island. And this gives me the space to move my navy from Arges east side, pick up assembled forces from the home land and sail those to land on Brontes' westside in the second war. Stil they amazingly do not have rifling.
Up to 1900AD interbellum - bellum - interbellum
Between the wars I jump forward in tech, also through trade. Hera is of good use for that. The Cyclopes get nothing. I run a golden age both times and adopt emancipation
The second war runs 1840-1874. I was thinking I could take out Arges fast and reduce much of the war weariness that was instantly back. The very last city however Brontes awoke and kept reinforcing his teammate. What started as a minor diversion eventually absorbed my entire (eastern) army. And now they have infantry/tanks/marines. My artillery and airships have to save me from losing many units.
When I finally do eliminate Arges 1854 war weariness does not drop (of course it doesn't). I move on to take cities from Brontes until I decide this will go much faster if I modernize my troops. I should have a clear better tech rate now. And I have another golden age that would be wasted when running a high culture slider.
Final decades
The third and last war against Brontes is fast. I just kick him out of his home continent. He can keep his cities on the Titan continent. I'm close to domination now. I have some turns left that I use to attack the Titans. This is just a logistic exercise. They have longbows at best and are elimininated before I reach victory.
Victory map, see map lower right corner