Had an interesting attempt finished at t.230. Made a bad call of inviting Nebuchadnezzar in my game. The guy usually goes tall, so i figured: hey, whatever, dealing with three cities is simpler than dealing with 9. Never mind the walls.
How wrong was I. The man immediately went super wide, securing the science lead and harassing Theo from time to time. By the time i got to his side of the world (t.170) his cities were 80+ in defence and riddled with mountains. So, there i stood shooting with ranged crossbows and later artilleries for 50 turns just to get two of his cities.
Meanwhile, he threw god knows how many units at me from all angles and the spam never stopped. If not for naturally rough terrain, i would throw in the towel. He killed 4 of my super promoted gatlings, which were fortified behind a river, inside a citadel by sending in infinite hordes of lancers and rifles. When Nebby got to g.w. bombers i settled for peace. There was one last easy cap to take (Theo) and it was blocked by Babylonian lands. 10 turns i waited, bribing him to kill everyone in the world and immediately denouncing his victims in the hope he warms up towards me. Which he did, selling his open borders for mere 60 gpt, eventually.
Apart from this minor setback i liked the overall strat, will surely try again: getting below t.200 appears to be doable. It is somewhat tricky to "fight all the way" with warmongering hate, but the trick here (imo) is decent homeland defence and diverting attention by bribing at the right time.
Pyramids, then 3 more cities, full liberty, full commerce. GE for NC. Basic techs --> Construction --> Currency --> Philosophy --> Machinery --> Civil Service, etc. Meet closest neighbour, DoW and never stop fighting.
While the general Hall of Fame is an ongoing competition, we like to run time-definite competitions between updates that we call Gauntlets. Standard Hall of Fame rules (*) still apply, but any games meeting the settings will be counted towards the Gauntlet.
