73 turns
1 civ wipe: Ibn Battuta
The map and more importantly the distripution of civ's ended up being a lot different from what I got in my test game which shook up my strategy quite a bit but it might have even improved the setup I go into Exploration with, for a faster overall victory. While there are still 11 civs to conquer I still think that once you reach the modern age it shouldn't be too much of an issue to win before the ai does as waring everyone will slow them down aswell.
Plan: The things I wanted to achieve this age, apart from wiping as many AI's as possible, were to build Gate of all Nations, get a second commander after the free one and build Terracota Army for a free 3rd one (and a 4th at the start of Explo) and level them as much as possible. After that my goal was to gather as many Attribute points as possible which meaned I mainly had my eye on Oracle, Maussolleum of Theodoric and Colossus for easy high impact ones.
In order to wipe as many civs as possible, the plan was to research Disciplin first, rach 15prod with my cap as that is enough to 1 turn slingers/warriors in order to spam units until I unlock Gate so that I can attack and kill my first neighboor very early, which worked exactly like that in my test game (killed my neighboor in the mid 30s).
The actual game: What I didn't anticipate, was that the start is actually quite isolated and spaming unit's that early would only help killing IP's but actually wiping a civ would need a later more involved effort. The civics path was still basicly the same as planned.
Civics: Discipline (for the first Commander and the Survey Policy)
-> Discipline 2 (for Gate)
-> Mysticism (for +2 gold per settlement policy)
-> Tactics (for Terraccota + got the
first Aksum civic for free form a culture IP suz)
-> Public Life (for Oracle)
-> second Aksum civic (for high culture yield tradition + a gold Attribute from "finishing" the Aksum tree)
-> Orginized Millitary (for Maussolleum)
-> ...
For my early build order I went: 2 scouts -> put 1 turn of prod into a warrior -> Brickyard -> produce a settler and buy a settler. -> warriors and slinger until I unlocked Gate -> Gate of all Nations
Since all the civs were so far away it actually took a while until I first met anyone and could start milking them for gold by trying to get deals rejected. For the first few meets I even gave the unfriendly greeting to start reducing the relationship so they are more likely to reject my Diplo Actions. I first settled 2 settlements close to the cap, the first to the south that became my second city and the second to the north which stayed a town in order to grow and build a big pile of Hwalti's for ageless culture. The 4th settlement came later, once I cleared the scientific IP to the north, in order to become a productive city with a grasslands tile, to build terracota.
I suzed 3 IP's, first the culture one to the south(free civic), since I had nothing better to do early with my Influence, then the millitaristic one to the north west (+50% Commander xp), and a Diplomatic one on an island to the north ( 20% Influence towards initiating endeavors), again just because I had the Influence and to hopefully get usefull friendly IP's at the start of Explo.
I am not sure when I started the war agains Ibn Battuta, probably around the 40s, however I first only had my first Commander with a few slinger on his border to farm xp and slowly send my other 2 Commanders and then an unending wave of units his way until I finally took his last settlement in the late 60s. Burning down every Settlement except the capitol which ended up rebelling ones but which I recaptured on the same turn by just leaving a few Units healing around it. On the turn after killing Ibn I declared on Benjamin, burning down 2 more settlements and taking and keeping his cap on the second to last turn of the age. My 4th Settlement also finished another Commander which could retain extra unit's and would be positioned to swim east together with the extra free one that Terracota would spawn, to hopefully find distant land targets in explo. My first 3 Commanders ended the Age at Level 18 / 11 / 9 all having the second logistics promotion to get faster reinforcements and retain more unit's for Explo. On the last turn I settled to settlements on small islands, whose settlers were just waiting there for most of the age, in order to unlock Hawai.
For Attributes I ended the Age with: 1 Culture ; 2 Economic ; 1 Expansionist ; 1 Millitaristic ; 1 Scientific
I wasn't able to build Colossus as Tubman got that early but I got the second Economic Attribute from finishing the Aksum tree as I want to reach the +15% gold for all purchases ; The Expansionist I got from building Hanging Gardens ; The Millitaristic from building Theodoric and lastly I used the Wildcard from Oracle for a scientific one as I was thinking that my science would be really bad in Explo but that researching fleet commanders, the abillity for civilian units to enter deep ocean and eventually ship building would be really important to get as fast as possible, and I was quite confident that I could get Maussolleum for the really important +1 War support Attribute. Of course removing the hapiness penalty from captured settlements would be nice too but I think in explo it might be possible to mostly skip the crisis by wiping multiple civs back to back.
Some info I forgot and I don't know where to squeeze: Goverment was the 20% culture the entire game ; Pantheon was 25% Influence towards starting endeavors when an altar is in the cap ; Since I didn't write it explicitly, I tried to have a bad relationship with every AI and send them Endeavors continioulsy, hoping they would reject them in order to get 100 gold as Machiavelli, basicly for free as rejected endeavors also refund the Influence cost. Open borders are the most important ones since they are cheap and sendable even when you are at Hostile relationship.
In the mid game I also build 2 high adjacency libraries as science was still somewhat important to unlock tier 2 Melee/ rangeds and siege units, however most of my prod went into Units and wonders and I used almost all my gold to continously buy units for the war as there just weren't that many good uses for it.
Overall it was quite fun, as I really like war games and getting Commanders this high level is something I haven't done until this game. I am honestly looking forward towards Explo and even modern as this challenge seems like a good opportunity to play around more with squadron commanders and air units, if the game doesn't just end before reaching flight.
