Monarch Student IX - Mansa Musa.

[Tempesta13]

emperor/normal part 3 to 1240 AD

Spoiler :

Went from thinking i had no chance, to thinking i had a chance, to having absolutely no chance. Finished off Sury and was friendly with zara, pleased with wang so completely safe to have no units. Was at 11% land to zaras 17%. I had to tech code of laws, currency and monarchy myself since i couldn't trade for them since i was behind. This was hard to do when i was getting like 11 beakers a turn and had to switch tiles to avoid strike. Took until after 1100 AD to get above 100 beakers/turn and i was 5 or 6 techs behind. Met another AI which i was also way behind and figured i'd give up. Figured the only way i could possibly win this was to build the UN, but that would be unlikely to happen.

I probably could have won this even without having those 3 important techs if i paid more attention - i wasn't running scientists even though i had lots of food - they would have gotten me through those techs and i might have had a chance. Never even got a single great person this game. Not sure what i was doing. Oh well.

 

[djvandrake]

Monarch / Epic to 950 B.C.

As the title implies...Huh?

Spoiler :

Did someone nerf the starting techs? I'm supposed to be rollin with the wheel already and instead I have fishing?



Anyone else notice this?

Anywho, I settled in place because I was concerned this cap would be production poor, and wanted to maximize the hills. I pop a scout from the hut and then bump in to....



and then....



and finally



Tech path started as:

Agriculture
Bronze Working
The Wheel

Then I discover no copper in sight



so I divert research to:

Hunting
Archery
Animal Husbandry
The Wheel
Pottery
Mysticism
Masanory
Writing (in work)

Because I'm stuck on the end of a peninsula with no room at all, and since Zara and Sury are already cramping my style. I build a mess of skirmishers and go looking for trouble.....



Luckily Zara didn't have copper either, and all I faced were archers.



Mind you there were three archers in the capital, and I lost the first three skirmishers in a row. I had built a barracks in my capital so I was able to give them all combat 1. All in all not a bad rush unit if your opponent doesn't have axes.

In the immortal words of Bruce Campbell (AKA Ash) "Bye Bye"



My first Skirmisher rush is in the books.

I then settle a coastal city to get those ponies and the coastal commerce.



And as of 950 B.C. here's the state of the empire.









No one on our little rock has managed to found a religion, so that'll be a priority if the opportunity presents itself. Someone in a distant land built the Oracle arleady so my favorite slingshot to CoL for Confucianism is off the table. The good news is during the war and after a barbarian fight I manage to get a unit to level 4 to unlock HE later.



I had every intention on playing a peacful tech monger game this time out, but that wasn't meant to be with this map. Since I'm a crappy early rusher I must say I'm fairly pleased with my progress so far. Yeah? Not bad eh?

 

[nanomage]

@djvandrake

Spoiler :

uff yeah this seems to be my fault.
i should have corrected it too when replacing carthage with mali, but i did not.
so, we have carthage's starting techs. apologies!
well, at least very few people seem to notice it

 

[TheMeInTeam]

They're good starting techs generally, so nobody is going to complain even if they're not Mali's. Even more dubious than the starting techs is the terrain around the capitol...and of course your late game "surprise".

 

[nanomage]

Spoiler :

I understand the surprise was wuite brutal, but the point is it's actually not mine.
Huge continent for 1 AI was what RNG rolled, without my interference. All i actually did was changing this AI from Mao to Viki. Sorry if this offended you, i really wanted to make the map the tougher the better

 

[Phil725]

Regarding the map:

Spoiler :

I thought it was a nice change personally. How many games do you play where you rush 1 or 2 guys, finish off your continent easily, and then the game is won in the BC's? I'm not sure how a war would go if you had your whole continent against Vicky, but it would be tough. I didn't try a space victory, but that and culture (and AP I guess,) are probably the only victories you can get here. The only people that I would think would have a problem with it are the ones who go domination every game. I like getting curve balls every once in a while.

I was also thinking what AI on that continent would make for the hardest game, and I'm not sure. I was thinking Mehmed, but he doesn't declare at pleased. I think Vicky was a solid choice, she definitely wasn't too peaceful in my game.

 

[djvandrake]

Question about strategy. I would appreciate opinions / advice / discussion.

Spoiler :

So I pull off the early rush, and am now very much outside my comfort zone. I haven’t totally crashed the economy with 4 cities at 1000 b.c. and this is goodness, but I struggle horribly after a rush at times. The situation on our little land mass with no civ having founded a religion presents problems and opportunities. Problems in that the happiness and hammers that come with a state religion are not there. Opportunities in that if I found a religion it’ll spread like wildfire here and will bring in big time gold down the line with a shrine.

As I see it I’m at a fork in the tech path and I’m debating two possible courses of action. Please give me your thoughts on where you would focus and why.

Path 1: Religion.

Does Code of Laws require Priesthood as well? If not then I can finish writing and go straight for Code of Laws to shoot for Confucianism.

Where I stand now, the only “enlightened” tech I have is Mysticism. So I could start up that tree and go Polytheism => Monotheism or Priesthood => Code of Laws or Theology to grab a religion for the long term cash, happy, and diplo. I’ll spread the religion to Wang and get him on my side, then we can thump on Sury when he gets too annoying. Wang is a good tech trading partner too.

The risk I see on this path is I’ll be weak militarily and production wise.

Path 2: Production.

Because of Mansa’s unique building it’ll be very advantageous to get to Metal Casting ASAP. I have Bronze Working and Pottery so I could shoot for Metal Casting => Iron Working => Sailing and build mints and then the Colossus for a big boost in coin when I settle a few more coastal spots I have my eye on. Then I can turn out stronger units to defend and skull thump Sury too when he gets too annoying. (and he WILL, he always does).

The huge advantage here is getting Mints up and running for the boost to the economy and hopefully finding some Iron around these parts for stronger units.

The big risk I see is veering away from the path to Monarchy. I’m at the happy cap already in 2 cities. I could trade Wang for Monarchy (for metal casting or Iron Working) but that’s only if he initiates the trade because I don’t have Alphabet yet. That also assumes he’ll research it in a timely manner. I’m building the Pyramids in my capital for Representation, but I feel like it’s maybe a 40% chance of getting them even with all the chopping I can do. So if I miss the mids and still get a big pile of gold for the effort that’s fine, BUT I see lots of unhappiness risk in the future along this path.

My typical play style would take me down path 1, and that's what I'm leaning towards now, BUT, this is not a typical game and I'm wanting to get outside my usual box to learn too. So? Whaddya think?

 

[Ai Shizuka]

1952 defeat:

Spoiler :

1st bs: Sury offers his vassalization to Wang 3 turns after signing peace with me. I've beaten him down to 4 junk cities and he capitulates to Wang.

So economic recovery and tech to cavalry to kick Wang. When I'm ready he has rifles everywhere. Meanwhile I've met Vicky, what a joke.
Ram and Saladin are small and backward, so I should've gone for them at some point, but I've decided to tech to tanks and conquer my continent. At some point Wang goes on a killing spree, capitulates Salad and destroys Ram (he had 2 cities).

Sign def pact with Wang and tech to space. I win the Internet and have a huge lead on everyone in the space race.
But Vicky is going for culture, so i start amassing EP on her to keep her third city in constant revolt.

Everything's going well. I launch my ship, Vicky's furious and stuck at 4 turns from culture win, but I don't care. I still have my def pact with Wang, so she would end at war vs me, Wang, Sury and Salad.

2nd fatal huge bs: 12 turns left for my ship and Wang gets a CULTURE WIN. I've checked 2 turns earlier and there was no sign of Wang in the victory screen. Vicky was there all the time with her culture cities. So probably Wang's last city surpassed VIcky's third (in constant revolt) in the last two turn and I didn't realize.

Really really irritating. All the boring MM to ship my spies over there for nothing. Like if space wins aren't boring enough without this added trouble.

About the map:

Spoiler :

I like unexpected stuff like Vicky in this game, but imo this was too much.

Ok, a big rival makes things harder in the later stages, but there should be some kind of balance. She had THIRTY cities at first contact. Salad had six, Ram had TWO. I didn't even know about an english city called THE MUMBLES

If Vicky goes violent on this map, she can vassalize Salad and Ram in less than 10 turns and then it's all over. UN win via vassals.

She probably should have some trouble to defend all the small islands, so at some point I considered a modern war (MA, mech inf, all the modern jazz). Then realized the nuke ban never passed.

I still thinks it was a very interesting game and definitely something I've never experienced before. But probably the next time I'll face something like this, I'll just retire.

 

[Lansky]

1700-something
Defeat by boredom

Spoiler :

Take out Zara and Sury. Tentative peace with Wang, but I'm planning on destroying him shortly with rifles. I then meet Vicky who has vasalized Saladin. I never do meet the last civilization. I guess someone ate him. Looking over the other spoilers apparently Vicky had the large center continent to herself. At this point I start thinking about ways I can win and decide this game sucks.

I could probably win pretty easily by making Wang capitulate and then launching a ship. To be frank though I don't want to. Rather start a new game.

 

[michmbk]

Emperor epic to 900 AD - 1 turn from lib.

Spoiler :

Settle in place, start on worker. No flood plains, but lots of trees. Figure BW to chop trees before cottaging up Timbuktu. Yay tech from hut:



Meet Sury – he’s close. Theft:




What’s the chance we would be friends anyway. Follow worker with warrior and chopped settler.

Geez – Zara is obscenely close too – Two creative civs right here. And no copper – great. Rush necessary - question is skirmishers, pray for horses or pray for iron? I choose skirmishers – I’ve never done an archer rush. Skirmisher smash???





It is a skirmisher smash!! Night night Zara!



12 skirmishers was enough to take down 7 archers in 2 cities – pretty impressive. Helped that two got the cover promo. Peace with Sury – I’ll deal with him later. 4 cities thanks to the rush, some decent land to work with, and several barb busting skirmishers. Aksum is about to be a cottaged up city – ending up making it my capital at civil service, which may have been a mistake. Now I just need to explore and find a decent production city, as I’ve got two great cottage cities.

A lot of exploring and settling land. Especially the many islands – I decided to lock down all the nearby islands I could. So here I am after all that settling 1 turn from liberalism.



Tech is fine in terms of my island:



Only issue is I’m short on hammers right now – only one decent production site. Probably need to get heroic epic up and running and take out Sury’s land while getting astro ready to meet everyone else. Wondering whether to go nationalism with lib as usual, or maybe tech compass/optics and go astro to try to get some trade route abuse going. Sury seems like such easy pickings that I probably ought to get some knights together to finish him.

 

[Tempesta13]

Post game thoughts

Spoiler :

I'm glad i gave up on this early (1200 AD) - i had met vicky but didn't even realize she had 1/2 the map to herself. Since in my game i don't think i could have caught up in time to launch the spaceship i was thinking the only way to win would be UN since i could have had wang/zara's votes. That was assuming i could have built it myself, since i wasn't going to be #1 in population - even with the whole world voting for me except vicky it's not enough though so that VC would be out, so no way to win.

Ai Shizuka - that really sucks how your game ended. Very unlucky to have vicky so close to a culture win that you couldnt see wang about to win. Especially being so close to space.

I think this map would have been plenty hard enough without vicky being huge - the start next to 2 creative ai's without copper, and no gold or gems is bad enough. If i had of played on monarch instead of emperor i bet it still would have been really hard for me. Hopefully the next map isn't quite as bad as this one, but not as easy as some of the other MS games - we need a happy medium for this series.

If i replayed this i probably could get a good enough start to win, since i could easily correct my mistakes from my game. I'm just not quite good enough on emperor yet to know the best opening to take on the first try if it's a really tough start. The slightly harder maintenance costs on emperor make a big difference also. Pretty much every game i lose is because i get 1 or 2 too many cities before i have the right techs to support it. I have a very tough time trying to balance expansion/rushing/economy early on a map like this one - need to do something fast to get some land, and can't really block off anything - but no great commerce tiles to help do this and tech through to important techs in time. Can't always count on having either a copper or gold tile available for my 2nd city though so it was a good challenge. At least i didn't have to worry about that late game surprise at all - didn't effect my game one bit!

At least i'm going to win the noble's club game easily on emperor! Helps me get my confidence back after doing horrible in this game

 

[michmbk]

I finally met everybody so I checked out all the spoilers.

Spoiler :

Vicky isn't teching all that well in my game. All those island cities I settled made me figure I should go lib-astro for trade route abuse. I met everybody by 1160 AD and none of them are anywhere near astro. Vicky's well behind in tech, but i assume she takes off late game with all that land. Only issue for me I think will be production - hoping state property will take care of that issue. Mansa is a tech beast with spiritual and financial.

 

[michmbk]

emperor epic 900 AD to end - 1800 something dom win

Spoiler :

Decided for lib-astro to try to get trade route abuse.



Meet this lady in 1110 – tech looks ok.



Looks like she might be isolated – need to check out just how big her landmass is – she could be scary late game if isolated. Open borders with her to start trying for some trade routes. Also have merchants running, hoping for some power merchants to come. Meet Sally a few turns later – tech:



Mansa is a tech beast. Pop this guy – off for a trade mission!



Circumnav bonus, and another series of islands to consider settling. Knights and cannons appear to be the plan for Sury and perhaps wang too. Heck, maybe even a few longbows…



Sury’s counter stack of horse archers, cats and trebs doesn’t stand much chance. Mow down his capital – could get him to cap here, but he has three more nice cities to the north…need to take those too I think, especially if Vicky starts getting huge and powerful. Besides, I’ve got my HE city pouring out units, so not too much concern even if I lose a few. It is slow going slogging through his cities – ugly. I never understand how they can produce as fast as they do when you’re taking all their cities. Finally:



He’s done. I did get MoM out of it, and conveniently I should be first to physics & communism. Good timing for a golden age. Now need to figure out how to beat up everyone else. So it’s 1495 AD, and no one else has gunpowder yet!



I don’t know why Vicky isn’t teching like mad right now. Anyway, Wang is pleased with me, so he’s no worry for now. I’ve been building galleons exclusively in one city for this reason. Time to see what wonders I get from Thebes. I’m 7 turns from physics, then communism for the golden age spy. Hello Ramesses:



And Thebes:





I knew there would be nice shiny wonders! Just wait until I hit state property with all these cities all over the map. I’ve even got a couple settlers waiting on one of the islands. Ramesses or Saladin managed the stop the war vote right after I took Thebes and the Apostolic Palace, so they bought 10 turns of peace. What BS. Anyway, communism, spy – golden age:



They continue with their religious BS by trying to assign Thebes back to Ramesses during the 10 turns of peace. I defy, because Ramesses is about to be dead. War again, and apparently Wang is buddies with these guys, so he’s now annoyed. Have to watch him for a backstab now. Ramesses done:



Saladin getting beaten down – I figure Vicky is so huge I need every city I can get to beat her down, so no capitulation for Saladin. I know there’s a holy city here too. And there it is:



And Saladin is done:



And move the troops back for Wang:



Big stack. Not good for him at all. One city, and he wanted no more of me:



So, now it’s Vicky time. How will infantry fare against a ridiculous stack of artillery, infantry and cavalry? We’ll see. Industrialism, tech off, universal suffrage power. Here we come – and hello London:



And I’d been waiting to pop my hopefully last great person of the game, for golden age #2. Major production and wealth. And in 1822, in the midst of the golden age, after I’d taken 6-7 of her cities, enough:







I love spiritual – such a great warmonger trait.

 

[Tempesta13]

emperor epic 900 AD to end - 1800 something dom win

Spoiler :

Decided for lib-astro to try to get trade route abuse.



Meet this lady in 1110 – tech looks ok.



Looks like she might be isolated – need to check out just how big her landmass is – she could be scary late game if isolated. Open borders with her to start trying for some trade routes. Also have merchants running, hoping for some power merchants to come. Meet Sally a few turns later – tech:



Mansa is a tech beast. Pop this guy – off for a trade mission!



Circumnav bonus, and another series of islands to consider settling. Knights and cannons appear to be the plan for Sury and perhaps wang too. Heck, maybe even a few longbows…



Sury’s counter stack of horse archers, cats and trebs doesn’t stand much chance. Mow down his capital – could get him to cap here, but he has three more nice cities to the north…need to take those too I think, especially if Vicky starts getting huge and powerful. Besides, I’ve got my HE city pouring out units, so not too much concern even if I lose a few. It is slow going slogging through his cities – ugly. I never understand how they can produce as fast as they do when you’re taking all their cities. Finally:



He’s done. I did get MoM out of it, and conveniently I should be first to physics & communism. Good timing for a golden age. Now need to figure out how to beat up everyone else. So it’s 1495 AD, and no one else has gunpowder yet!



I don’t know why Vicky isn’t teching like mad right now. Anyway, Wang is pleased with me, so he’s no worry for now. I’ve been building galleons exclusively in one city for this reason. Time to see what wonders I get from Thebes. I’m 7 turns from physics, then communism for the golden age spy. Hello Ramesses:



And Thebes:





I knew there would be nice shiny wonders! Just wait until I hit state property with all these cities all over the map. I’ve even got a couple settlers waiting on one of the islands. Ramesses or Saladin managed the stop the war vote right after I took Thebes and the Apostolic Palace, so they bought 10 turns of peace. What BS. Anyway, communism, spy – golden age:



They continue with their religious BS by trying to assign Thebes back to Ramesses during the 10 turns of peace. I defy, because Ramesses is about to be dead. War again, and apparently Wang is buddies with these guys, so he’s now annoyed. Have to watch him for a backstab now. Ramesses done:



Saladin getting beaten down – I figure Vicky is so huge I need every city I can get to beat her down, so no capitulation for Saladin. I know there’s a holy city here too. And there it is:



And Saladin is done:



And move the troops back for Wang:



Big stack. Not good for him at all. One city, and he wanted no more of me:



So, now it’s Vicky time. How will infantry fare against a ridiculous stack of artillery, infantry and cavalry? We’ll see. Industrialism, tech off, universal suffrage power. Here we come – and hello London:



And I’d been waiting to pop my hopefully last great person of the game, for golden age #2. Major production and wealth. And in 1822, in the midst of the golden age, after I’d taken 6-7 of her cities, enough:







I love spiritual – such a great warmonger trait.

Domination? Wasn't that conquest? Anyway, nice game. I figured you wouldn't have too much trouble after your good start. Go for immortal next game...

 

[djvandrake]

I'm done. Played till 400 a.d. and I'm so far behind it's hopeless.

 

[nanomage]

aaargh.
to 1868-UN diplomatic victory. (not much diplomacy though)

Spoiler :

Well, the game was spoilered from the beginning, as i knew who other AI's are, where they are, and also knew the land around the cap. . So it's definitely not a legitimate game. But still, it was extremely interesting.
-3985:I moved the settler to the coast to have cows in BFC:

Some exploring to have about 70 gold from hut and meet ZY, Sur and WK.
I knew i was going to be boxed, so decided to attempt an UU rush (however, that seemed the only decision even without spoilering). Tech path BW-hunting-archery, iirc.
-2500:Having amassed enough Skirmishers, DoW ZY:

-2440:Gondar autorazes, Aksum captured. Exit ZY.

-2330:Sur is a constant headache, and i decide to choke him with 2 remaining skirmishers.

-2260:However, they stumble upon a lightly defended sity, and i can't help but raze it.

-2030:Started building my own cities, too.

-1310:Finally Sur gets a stack of archers, and, to avoid beeing pillaged myself, i take peace.

-1050:Not for long, though, i have iron now!

-980:Yasodharapura captured.

-610:Some cleanup, and Sury dies. I would sigh in relief if i did not know what expects me.

to be continued next post.

 

[michmbk]

Domination? Wasn't that conquest? Anyway, nice game. I figured you wouldn't have too much trouble after your good start. Go for immortal next game...

I think they called it a domination win. But it was pretty late last night, so who knows. I'm still just a bit over 50-50 on emperor, but it does seem like the wins on emperor that do come are blowouts - we'll see. Seems like if we have any of the top tier traits (spiritual, fin, org), I do fine. Maybe if one of those traits is involved, I'll give that a shot.

It did seem like vicky was slower teching in my game than others...maybe she had some barb trouble early on or something.

 

[nanomage]

continuing:

Spoiler :

-540:Having written the scriptures about Khmer conquest, our people found Conficianism.
It will be handy, since 3 early religions are somewhere else.

+270:We meet this charming lady. She already has caravels everywhere and a slight lead in techs.

+390: Victoria has proven that the world is round. Wow.

1095: Popped a GP to shrine Holy Aksum.

1280: Viki spawns Abe. Meet Abe.

1356: I attacked WK with Cuirassiers and spies against his LB. Kind of backstab, it was - we traded peacefully and kissed each other on every ocasion for 5 thousand years.

And i was punished for this - the very next turn Viki DoWs and land a medieval stack of ~10units near one of my cities.Cuirassiers are just in time to dispatch it, though, but the whole war plan is wasted.
After regrouping and building some reinforcements war went well:

Signed a peace treaty with WK (no army, much WW)

1558: Attacked him again to remove the cultural pressure and unite the whole continent. (this time i had cannons too)
1588: founded Suchi.

After capturing all mainland cities, i take capitulation.


Here let me take a break and explain my thoughts. Any usual game (at least at monarch or emperor level) is most likely finished at this moment. You now have a continent for yourself and the rest is simply choosing your victory condition.
Want to be elected a world leader? - build UN and see half AI's from other continent voting for you.
Want to dominate or conquer the world - tech to tanks while they are fighting each other and steamroll them one by one.
Earth feels boring - tach to space and outproduce everyone with your huge landmass.
Even if some ShakaMontyRaggy bloody maniac managed to vassalize all on the other continent - just wait, and he will fall behind (if not already). Them steamroll him.
That were my reasons to put mosnter Viki on the map.
Here you can't easily grab UN victory (AP was quite an idea though, respect @TMIT)
Viki will most likely have much population and will not let you be elected.
You can't just conquer her - she is strong and advanced.
She can even be a formidable opponent in space race, and she is not get to friendly, so she will constantly try to backstab you (with a huge fleet).
So instead of just selecting VC, here you need to fight hard for your victory. (of cheese the AP )
So, that's kind of my apology. Again, if someone was offended, i'm sorry. I did not mean to offfend - just to make the game more challenging.
the report will be continued next post

 

[michmbk]

continuing:

Spoiler :

-540:Having written the scriptures about Khmer conquest, our people found Conficianism.
It will be handy, since 3 early religions are somewhere else.
View attachment 205380
+270:We meet this charming lady. She already has caravels everywhere and a slight lead in techs.
View attachment 205381
+390: Victoria has proven that the world is round. Wow.
View attachment 205382
1095: Popped a GP to shrine Holy Aksum.
View attachment 205383
1280: Viki spawns Abe. Meet Abe.
View attachment 205384
1356: I attacked WK with Cuirassiers and spies against his LB. Kind of backstab, it was - we traded peacefully and kissed each other on every ocasion for 5 thousand years.
View attachment 205385
And i was punished for this - the very next turn Viki DoWs and land a medieval stack of ~10units near one of my cities.Cuirassiers are just in time to dispatch it, though, but the whole war plan is wasted.
After regrouping and building some reinforcements war went well:
View attachment 205386
Signed a peace treaty with WK (no army, much WW)
View attachment 205387
1558: Attacked him again to remove the cultural pressure and unite the whole continent. (this time i had cannons too)
1588: founded Suchi.
View attachment 205388
After capturing all mainland cities, i take capitulation.
View attachment 205389

Here let me take a break and explain my thoughts. Any usual game (at least at monarch or emperor level) is most likely finished at this moment. You now have a continent for yourself and the rest is simply choosing your victory condition.
Want to be elected a world leader? - build UN and see half AI's from other continent voting for you.
Want to dominate or conquer the world - tech to tanks while they are fighting each other and steamroll them one by one.
Earth feels boring - tach to space and outproduce everyone with your huge landmass.
Even if some ShakaMontyRaggy bloody maniac managed to vassalize all on the other continent - just wait, and he will fall behind (if not already). Them steamroll him.
That were my reasons to put mosnter Viki on the map.
Here you can't easily grab UN victory (AP was quite an idea though, respect @TMIT)
Viki will most likely have much population and will not let you be elected.
You can't just conquer her - she is strong and advanced.
She can even be a formidable opponent in space race, and she is not get to friendly, so she will constantly try to backstab you (with a huge fleet).
So instead of just selecting VC, here you need to fight hard for your victory. (of cheese the AP )
So, that's kind of my apology. Again, if someone was offended, i'm sorry. I did not mean to offfend - just to make the game more challenging.
the report will be continued next post

On the trick:

Spoiler :

Once again, Vicky is teching WAY better in your game than she did in mine. I don't know what happened to her in my game, but she certainly never sent a caravel to me in 270 AD! I didn't meet her until 1100-something, and I don't think she had optics by then. I'm wondering if barbs harassed her and she got a late start on her island. Just seemed like something went wrong for her in my game as opposed to some of the others. I beat her to astro and to all key military techs as well.

One thing I think that made this one easier for me was even though we were boxed by 2 creative civs, my capital was surrounded by trees. All that chopping power made a rush a bit easier. I think this would have been much tougher without all those trees around the capital. Being able to chop out a dozen skirmishers by turn 85 was huge.

 

[Ai Shizuka]

michmbk:

Spoiler :

Good game, probably your best so far.
I don't know about your Vicky. In my game I was totally backward after that long classical war vs Sury, but she was doing a lot better anyway. CS and construction @1100 AD is weird.
Maybe has something to do with the great lighthouse. I don't remember if she had it in my game, but it can be gamebreaking for her, with all those little islands.

You did the right thing with Salad and Ram. They are small and backward and should be destroyed at the first opportunity. I was too focused on my continent, looking for a window to attack Wang and then it was "Ops, Wang got both of them".

Main lesson for me is to stop bothering with classical wars, unless it's elephants+catapults. It's really not worth the effort. 4 extra cities, only to find myself generating 100 bpt at 1000 AD. No thanks.