Domination Victory, T117, Score 1120, 15 h
A great game that required early careful building followed by a rushed expansion.
Plan
Build up a couple encampments with Ordu while waiting to complete the research for Horseback Ridding. Then spam horsemen and take neighbors. Early on, focus on exploration to find out where the capitals are, and try to prepare city states to take down far away enemies. Second priority, go for Foreign Trade and Currency to improve visibility for combat bonuses. Also, after Horseback Ridding, go for Printing for more Diplomatic visibility.
Early game
First surprise as I moved the warrior west and found Zhangye Danxia. This is a perfect wonder for Genghis Khan army and trade routes game. After some thoughts, I settled on place and decided to settle the Natural Wonder with the second city. Found a second scout in a village, two scouts really help to explore this kind of all land maps and I benefited from it I think. Chandragupta and Gilgamesh were at war. I stumbled with pillaged cities, and declared on Gilgamesh to steal a couple of builders. By T52 I got my first Great General, Ordu and Government plaza.
My first army was made of warriors and archers that I was forced to produce to defend from rampaging barbarians in the area. It also had a Battering ram for Delhi had walls already.
Began the war with Chandragupta on T61 and got Delhi in a single turn. Declared on Gilgamesh on T65. On T68 took Chandragupta's third city, I will leave him alive with one city, while I will defeat Gilgamesh in T77 after taking all of his land. By that time I already had a few horsemen.
Turned the army to the North-east after Kublai Khan, reaching him in T82. In parallel, my new horsemen were sent to the west after Saladin, beginning the war in T88 after tricking him to war together to Menelik, so he was fighting two sides while I was protected from Menelik by Saladin himself. By T90 the war with Kublai Khan was basically completed, but I was confused the leader was still there, so I started to look east with a couple horsemen, a crossbowman and a settler, and north-east with a horsemen. These will be relevant later on.
As the World entered the Medieval Era, I already had Printing (for combat bonuses), Stirrups (for Knights) and even Shipbuilding to cross certain choke-points through lakes.
In T95 I find Kublai's last city, Almaliq, hidden in the east, and take it with a couple of horsemen that will swiftly be upgraded to coursers.
Finally in T97 I found the last civilization I was so francticaly looking for: Cleopatra. My search of Kublai's Khan cities found me with three light cavalry and a settler in the area.
In that same T97, Saladin was defeated and I started the war with Tomyris. Part of the army were the warriors I had been using in the east, now upgraded to man-at-arms, while some others were new horses that had joined through land and others that crossed the lake with recent Shipbuilding. Found a nice spot for a city with a lot of niter and put there a settler I had captured earlier from Chandragupta or Gilgamesh.
By T100 things were looking good. First of Tomyris cities was falling, while Chandragupta, Gilgamesh, Kublai Khan and Saladin were already done. I had not found yet Cleopatra's capital, but was hopeful I could find it in the large unexplored spot to the Northeast.
Cities
37 cities, funded 7, but only the initial 3 were important to me, the others I funded to access Niter and to get a boost for Sailing (and galley's era score).
On my core, I prioritized encampments and built the government plaza in the capital. For conquered cities I focused in Commercial Hubs and Entertainment complexes, to help the efforts of war, although I ended with a sizable amount of campuses I repaired.
Diplomacy and war
Tomyris had some walls, but fortunately my Battering ram was in this group, so no problem conquering his land. This army will end the game following her track of cities to the North.
From T100 to the end, it was a chrono to reach Mansa Musa's lands with meaningful units. He was my trade partner for most of the game, and the only civilization I befriended for some time. Early on I noticed he would be the last one to fall, and started to send a catapult and some of the last mounted units built in conquered cities towards that direction. Also, I identified a few city states that would be interesting for launching attacks on his lands and made missions and focused envoys on them.
Meanwhile, Cleopatra fell with astonishing ease, my three light cavalry took all her cities, starting with the capital: moved them to the edge and took Ra-Kedet in the first turn of war, then mopped the rest with ease. On the west, Menelik required a bit more effort, but I had all types of units in the area and did not take that much to fell either, with Addis Ababa taken in T110.
I realized trying to open my way through Menelik's lands would only delay my efforts, and so signed peace when he still had two cities and was dangerously loyalty pressuring Addis Ababa (but I had Victor with the Garrison commander promotion!). Moved my light cavalry, now promoted to Cavalry through the lakes.
By the end of T117, many armies were in or in the outskirts of Mansa's territory, a couple early horsemen, Kumasi's leavied swordsmen, Johannesburg and Hong Kong leavied units, the catapult I sent, now a trebuchet, but it was the first two horsemen along with a couple of cavalries reaching from Menelik's territory who did the trick. Thanks to the trade post and Printing bonuses, they were able to take down Niani's walls with the only help of my first Keshig.
Technology and Civics
Despite not building a single campus I did great in Science for this game. It came mostly from the large quantities of raiding the rival campuses. Also, having many Commercial Hubs for the trade routes bonuses to combat (and the gold), I took Free Inquiry, which brought some extra science and better boosts.
Technology went according to plan, and about Civics, I focused on getting better governments with more cards. Obviously took Oligarchy for the war bonuses.
Religion
Totally ignored. I find on quick victory conditions religion tends to be lost time as I need to focus on building the pertinent districts, encampments in this case.
The Pantheon though was very useful, I took God of Craftsmen, there were a lot of horses and iron around, and this gave me a great boost to produce units.
Wonders
I built the Forbidden City, this is a good one and I figured out I could better focus the deer and forest chops in the capital on this rather than units that would not reach the front line in a meaningful time. Also built the Temple of Artemis in Delhi, to keep up with Amenities.
For Natural Wonders, the Zhangye Danxia was invaluable! Great Generals and Great Merchants came early and kept going for the whole game. A total blessing!
Leader and Civ bonuses
The Ordu extra movement works great in maps with so much land like this one, I think it was totally worth it! And it gives a lot of extras, like more experience and some needed housing as you are not building other infrastructure.
The visibility bonuses to combat also worked great, as well as the mounted extra attack. The horde really felt unstoppable.
The only so so bonus was the Keshig, it came late, and aside from helping damage Niani's walls, they had no time to do anything relevant.
Clans and Corporations
Hired a couple swordsmen from a nearby clan. Wanted to hire a galley too, but feared it will end in a lake as I had no coastal cities, so I did not. I could have done though anyway as the naval units I made were irrelevant in the end for Tomyris did not build any coastal city.
Corporations was not relevant aside from a few extra merchant points from the few Industries I built.
Barbarians
Forced me to build a small army of warriors and slingers/archers for they went wild in the beginning, but other than that no other issues. (Well, I got raided in my second city at the end, but was not relevant at that point.)
Final state
Very interesting domination game with the horde going at full over the world, thanks a lot for the game!!!
