The main plan for the game was an active war and domination. To do this, I had to capture 4 out of 6 opponents. In the number these 4 necessarily included Cyrus - he was the largest in area, besides, he put from 4 to 6 cities on "my" territory - it was impossible to forgive him for that). Alexander was the furthest, Hannibal with 5 cities did not occupy very much territory, so I decided not to touch them. In addition, Alexander, unlike Boudica, was ready to change technologies. So the "victims" were identified: Hammurabi, Pakal, Cyrus and Boudica. Exactly in that order. Because Hammurabi was the closest and looked like an easier victim than Cyrus, and most importantly, Pakal was striving very quickly into space, it was necessary to have time to kill him before the rifles. Besides , fighting with Cyrus and Boudica can be hit in the rear by Hammurabi at any time.
In 200 ad, I was ready to attack Babylon in 2 groups - silver and corn-wine city at the same time. However, at that moment, Boudica attacked me from the territory of Cyrus. A little more than 20 units (half of gallics, also axes, spears and archers) from the north of the marble city. I decided that elephants, cats and wc are not the best defenders, so I left the city, then attacked myself, killed the entire groupe and returned the city. At the same time, I lost 6 cats and it took me time to restore them, and to increase my entire army. Because in 375 ad, when I attacked Hammurabi, the situation changed a lot. During this time, bowmans turned into Longbows, and into cities have walls. So I built more cats, and I also got maces. Hammurabi did not have Machinery and CoL, but his power was bigger, and it was necessary not to be exposed to his cats, swords and longbows. I killed one of his stack, but when the 2nd stack turned from swords-axes into maces in my sight, I decided that I didn't need a long war with him. Besides, he had a statue of Zeus.
So I captured Babylon without bombing and made peace. Now I had a common border with Pakal, besides Babylon agreed to open borders, simplifying my task. Pakal had castles in all cities with pikes, longbows, muskets and Chichen Itza, but the last power. From the very beginning I sold him horses for gems and silk and he built a whole 1 knight. For the war with him, I made 15 trebuchets and started making knights. Each city had to be bombed 3 times, but in general the capture was going on easy though slow.
After capturing 3 cities, I approached Mutal. By this point I had the 2nd power in the game (1kk) after Cyrus (1.3 kk), Alexander was the 3rd (0.9 kk), the others are much weaker. Cyrus posed some threat, but I had more than 30 knights who could quickly return and I would defend myself in case of anything. His shock army was in 3sugar-gold city all the time and I could see him.
Pakal had 20 units in Mutal, and while I was bombing the city, some of them began to turn into grenadiers. It's good that it's not in rifles. After capturing the Mutal, I decided to speed up the process and not wait until many grenadiers appeared in the remaining 2 cities and jumped into the rear with some knights. Maybe I was wrong. In the end, the problem was solved, but I lost about 15 knights and my power dropped to 800k. At the same time, or rather a little earlier, Cyrus launched the GA (he had a MoM) and in a short period from my technical level went sharply forward. Moreover, he did not teach anything superfluous - only gunpowder, a printing press, replaceable parts and rifting. Immediately, all the units suitable for this turned into riffles, the power became 1.6 kk and that's when I got scared)
I urgently needed to capture 4 of the 5 cities of Babylon, because they put a lot of cultural pressure on my new cities and potentially disrupted communication between egypt and maya land. But if Persia had attacked me at that moment, 20-30 knights wouldn't have been able to do anything. I decided that 50 knights was a bad option, stopped building troops, finished education, stopped science and started building Oxford. In general, for about 15-20 turns, while I was fighting Babylon and learning rifting, I was in great danger. By the way, Pakal had 2/3 of all wonders, 10 in Mutal alone, including ToA. In addition - Colossus, the Great Lighthouse, Mahabodhi, King Miao. Holy cities of judaism, christianity and taoism. And Great Prophets began to be born in Mutal every 5 turns. The first one launch my GA,by the end of which I had to learn rifting and nationalism and solve the security problem.
But a couple of turns before the study of rifting, nationalism appeared in Babylon and he demonstrated his willingness to give it up for peace. Therefore, after rifting, I learned chemistry, again with only knights captured last city of Babylon I needed, and took nationalism by making peace. Babylon has 1 doomed city left. The fact is that 2 turns before, Boudicca and Alexander simultaneously declared war on him and came from 2 sides. I was wondering who will get this city ) Alexander won.
I again had a power of 1kk - Cyrus - 2.1kk. I accepted nationalism + theocracy and began to build an army for the last war. After chemistry, I learned steel, military traditions, stopped science, upgraded trebuchets and knights. And already having equal power with Cyrus, attacked him. Unexpectedly, in response, Alexander declared war on me. For some reason I thought that he would rather attack Cyrus and thought how not to let him capture my future cities). In the end, it turned out very well. 30 cannons riddled the entire stack Cyrus, after which I easily captured the city, and on the next turn I killed Alexander's stack, which was substituted for mine on the plain. I left 10-15 riffles to guard 2 front-line cities from Alexander and went methodically to capture Cyrus cities. Alexander didn't want to talk for a long time. When he finally agreed, I already had a new mini-stack with which I wanted to capture the former city of Hammurabi. That's why I didn't talk to him anymore. I approached the city, bombed it, and before starting to capture it, i decided to see what he was ready to give for peace (before that he was ready to give liberalism). And accidentally made peace without any conditions....
I left 1 city to Cyrus, took 4 techs (liberalism, economics, constitutions, DR.) By the way, just before the war, I took the "rice" city from Cyrus (to the west of me) through the Apostolic Palace, and by the time of the next resolution, I had more than enough votes for a religious victory. But I wanted domination victory and more points and was going to ignore it. But the turn before vote, I accepted free religion and my votes were still not enough )
The last one was Boudica, she also had rifles, her shock stack was in the capital and in addition to rifles there were 20 cats and 10 elephants in it. She had no horses, but before the eyes of my astonished Great Spy, these elephants turned into 10 cavalry. cats are not cannons, but I still didn't want to be exposed to their blow. I had to act carefully. As a result, I managed to attack first, although his stack was in the city and the cats were not flanked. Despite the very unsuccessful random, a 2-fold advantage in quantity it played its part. The cats survived, but besides them there were less than 10 severely wounded units, while I have about 40-50, including those who only came up with full health. in response, 20 cats still attacked me, but only 1 cavalry could support them. So I'm not upset. Then the whole of Celtia was captured in less than 10 turns. While there was no order in the cities, I managed to return and captured the last city of Cyrus from Hannibal's territory in one move. As soon as order came to the cities, I take domination won.
