I settled 1SE figuring that working the gold ASAP is the smart move. Not the greatest city long-term but I thought a faster start was more important, as gold+elephants already has me thinking construction beeline. Turns out I was right to accelerate things short-term. Opening was Ag->AH->wheel->HBR->archery->BW->writing->aesthetics. AH reveals numerous horses.
Second city settled to grab horses/stone (possible mids?) in first ring while being able to share pigs with the capital. This city will also have gold to work whenever it gets a border pop. This is the first city because it can get horses, immediately work the pastured pigs, has lots of forests, instant production, can work riverside cottages with the capital as well.
Third city settled to grab corn+horses to the south-east, with marble in its second ring. This city has the ideal capacity to put some hammers into HAs, whip, regrow fast, whip again (should be able to produce 3 HAs in 10 turns like this without going over the happy cap or working unimproved tiles). Behold the glorious 3 city empire:
This actually is about as good as a setup for HA rush will get IMO.
I have seen nothing but archers from Shaka so far, he has settled copper north of me but it should not be connected to the rest of his empire. By about 1200BC I have a growing stack of HAs waiting on my border with him. Then an impi appears. No longer viable considering he must have 2 sources of copper and the impis extra movement means they'll just slaughter my HAs.
I change targets, it'll have to be Hammurabi. His city closest to me has improved iron as indicated by a 5h plains mine. This means I can cut his access the first turn of the war and, if that was his only metal, easily remove him from the game. The turn I'm ready to declare, he even moves all his archers out of the city to accompany a settler, leaving a lone swordsman. I waste no time:
1000BC attack date, pretty decent considering I settled 2 more cities, all of which got barracks and two of which also have stables.
His capital falls next:
Food poor, but the plains cow and farmed grassland will allow it to work both golds. With 4 gold tiles at my disposal, the recovery should be painless. It's a quick romp through his territory. I think that the plains iron 1w of the first city I took was his only metal, I faced just a handful of swords and axes, not a single spear.
First GG born the same turn I capture Hammy's third city, an excellent production site. As you can see I have IW. Justinian got to alpha first and offered me IW and what was left of writing (2 turns) for HBR. I accepted in a hurry. You can't trade HBR for alpha while alpha is a monopoly tech unless you have over half of it self-teched anyway. The trade offer means Justinian is researching HBR himself anyway, as he tends to do. It gets writing in faster at a time when the tech rate is in a bit of trouble, and it reveals already improved iron in my first captured city.
Somewhere in here I also razed a fourth Babylonian city as soon as it was settled. Only a single archer, zero fortification bonus obviously, junk location, didn't want to leave it and have to possible lose an HA or two later on just to raze it.
At this point Hammy has 1 city which I can capture at my leisure. With writing in I open borders with everyone and immediately start sizing up this situation at the Khmer border:
Copper I can pillage on the first turn? Me at 1.4x his power rating? Small stack already conveniently in place to the south? Say no more, I'm going for it at 750BC:
In the end I face only one spear and a few swords/axes, I believe that copper was also his only source of metal.
So there you have it. At 550BC I've nearly finished off a second target, both of whom had one source of metal that I could deny on the first turn of each respective war. Shaka shares some border with me but there was no early DoW (or even plotting) from him, and we now share a religion (as well as zealot Justinian, who is score leader). Shaka is second to me in cities.
I have enough city capture gold and income (working both gold tiles in Babylon) to get me aesthetics in 4 more turns. I have marble and stone, and Justinian and Stalin are both plotting war (and it won't be against me). The strategy is obvious: trade aesthetics for alpha asap, get Shaka to pleased and/or bribe him on someone. Probably use a (late) first GScientist to bulb math as there is no particularly strong bureau capital spot, and tech rate will be low for a while. Build 'mids either for failgold or rep scientists. Build GLib, numerous other marble wonders for failgold. Go straight for construction. Kill Shaka. Win map.
In fact if I do it right this might be my fastest victory yet.
