T141 DV, 971 score
Settled 4 cities total. Capital and two early cities, and about 2 turns before the end of the game I stole a settler from America, and plopped a city near their borders for upgrades.
By the end of it I had 4 Indian cities, 5 Mapuche cities (all of them), 5 Canadian cities, 4 Indonesian cities (all of them), 2 Mongolian cities, 6 Dutch cities (All of them. Strangely even by the medieval era their cities had 17 strength), 5 Polish cities, 2 Scottish cities, 1 Nubian city (capital), 1 Australian city (capital), 1 English city, and 2 American cities, for a grand total of 38 cities. I never capture city states (too much hassle), so none there.
Civics were the usual for Chandragupta. Beelined Military training, with a few stops when I could get a boost, and then went for mercenaries and merchant republic.
Research was also fairly standard, Horseback riding - Bronze working (for a USELESS encampment that couldn’t get me a general before Mongolia picked the classical 3 up, even with projects.) - Catapults - Coursers- Bombards - Cavalry, with a few stops along the way for various things
Didn’t bother with religion.
Army composition was light cavalry, Varus, and catapults. I also built a few knights, but they never made it to combat before the coursers finished the battle. I had 4 main armies, and I’ll name them by the first enemy they defeated. There existed the Mapuche army, the Canadian army, the Polish army, and the Mongolian army.
The Mapuche army was the first one I built, and they campaigned in Mapuche - Indonesia - Netherlands - Nubia - England (took the capital with two coursers while the rest took Meroe) - America. The Canadian army was the second one I built, and campaigned in Canada - Scotland - Australia. The Mongolian army was the third one I built, and was made of stragglers and new recruits, and was mainly composed of catapults and Varus, and needed to be reinforced by an Canadian army courser to survive Mongolia. They campaigned in Mongolia - America. The last one was the Polish army, born because most of my Mapuche cities were producing units too far away from my main campaigns, so I put those units together and destroyed Poland. They never did anything past Poland.
City states were a burden this game, with a lot of my Mapuche army being lost to Hattusa while pushing through the city state to get to America. I liberated Grenada for the little bit of unit production in capital, and built a few Alcazars.
No horses immediately nearby, so I started chopping horsemen out 10 turns after I normally would. The second surprise/setback was the Mapuche destroying my early archer force, and holding me back until I declared a territorial war on Canada. The third surprise was the Netherlands not having any walls, and having cities of 17 strength. This was in the medieval era, and my my coursers tore through them.
The fourth and worst surprise/setback was America. I had an idea of where they were, but I didn’t know how to get there. Through trial and error I realized that America was completely shielded by tough terrain, city states, England, and mountains. A lot of my forces hit mountain walls and thick jungle, and that set me back greatly. I also had no idea where their capital was, and I ended up spending some time going the wrong way. And finally, America was out of the way of all my armies. I tried forcing my Mongolian army through a northern gap in the mountains, but I met rivers and hill jungle everywhere. I ended up finding a passage to the south, straight to Washington. Similarly, my Mapuche army (now in Nubia) had to get to America through Hattusa and Buenos Aires, both at war with me. I took the second to last Capital, Canberra, on T128, but it took me 12 more turns to take Washington (T141 was spent recapturing a Meroe in rebellion). In the end, the thing that ended up delaying me the most was just the huge amount of land to travel.
I enjoyed the game very much, Mapuche (at first), Mongolia, and Scotland were challenging, and I thought I very well could lose a whole army, multiple times.
