A tough game.

[NuttyPenguins]

Also you have SHAKA! He can be bribed on Toku once you reach alpha.

Then you can backstab toku with horses + cats or something.

I didn't find any copper so I don't know about an axe rush, unless you have iron somewhere, I never teched that far.

I've watched your youtube videos. You are a master at bribing people. And it is so funny how much enjoyment you get out of it. lol

As for copper:

Spoiler :

There is copper, it is on the island north of your capital. Requires sailing to access. So yeah, axe rush is a terrible idea.

 

[lymond]

275BC Report - Immortal

I thought I'd give this one a shot

Spoiler :

Never been a big HA rush dude, but I've been warming up to since watching AZ. Took down Toku in 275BC, which is kinda late, but doesn't seem too bad considering what I was given and not having any trade partners.

Toku falls on sword:

Spoiler :

SIP and teched Mining, BW, AH, Writing, TW. I had a feeling horses would show up on that tile - sometimes you can guess this. I then went Sailing before HBR. My thinking here was to settle the island to pick of copper in case I need support units and to open trade routes without roads first thing. However, I think it just slowed the overall rush date and I never really needed the island. It contributed nothing to the war effort.

Chopped library asap and ran 2 scientists. Intent was to use GS on Alpha which I actually did after teching Maths, but just bulbing Maths would have probably been the ideal "AZ" thing to do. Of course, Shaka/Toke would not trade jack so I had to self-tech Hunting>Archery as well. My tech pace was pretty good though and when I got Alpha I was well ahead of those two.

Here's the setup of my core cities.

Spoiler :

Dow'd Toku and immediately razed a crap city that he just plopped down at the end of the desert, killing a chariot and axe with no losses. 4 HAs moved to the forest just south of Osaka that turn and my scout HA onto the hill. 2 Archers and 1 axe in Osaka. Next turn I lose 1HA, I withraws and 2 kills. Next turn I kill wounded archer.

With backups on the way. I send the scout 2 squares out to spot Satsuma and the copper and move back. Next turn I move 4 HAs to the copper expecting just to pillage it, but there is only an Ax and an Archer. Take city with no loses. I then raze a crap city just east of the incense. Meanwhile 2 HAs take Tokyo - 1 HA dies and 1 kills and archer and the survivor takes city next turn.

Interestingly, Toku sent his one lone Spear to Tokyo. I pulled my HA out of the city to let him take the city (I had another HA coming in). To my surprise his spear just walks on by as if to chase my horse. Never even had to kill the spear as I took Kyoto 2 turns later, which was only defended by 2 Archers.

Overall, Toku was surprisingly undermanned as I guess I caught him still in expansion mode. Plus, his land is not so hot. Still, there should be enough to take out Shaka next with 7 cities.

Kinda fun, but actually pretty easy. Might be a different story though if Toku had a better start himself.

Spoiler :

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

What do you mean Persians have to research 2 techs? Immortals only require The Wheel for tech. It doesn't require anything else other than horse resource.

(EDIT: I see what you mean... Egypt starts with the Wheel already, so it only requires Animal Husbandry to reveal horses.... whereas Persia doesn't start with the Wheel, so it has to research both the Wheel AND the Animal Husbandry. On the plus side, Persia's starting techs are Hunting and Agriculture, which means that you get a slight discount when you research Animal Husbandry, if that means much)

As for leaders, Egyptian leader duo isn't so much better economically than the Persian duo. In fact, I actually prefer the traits for the Persian leaders personally, even if Hatty's traits are still great.

In all honesty the Persians only have 1 good leader, Darius. Cyrus just doesn't cut it, he is no where near as good as Hatty. Financial is just not as good as everyone makes it out to be, but it's still good. In my honest opinion I find Organized to be better. Hell I feel Spiritual and Creative are just as good as Financial. Financial is just to limited and strait forward. Also Hunting is about 1000 times worse of a tech to start with than The Wheel. The 5 base strength of WC and their immunity to first strikes is massively better than the bonus against archery units.

Play some games with Hatty against Protective leaders and rush them, see how it goes. Then do the same with Darius, you'll see the results.

 

[Optical]

I chariot rushed my whole continent on a Huge Fractal with Immortals - on Noble, but I still had 3 extra free capitals, control of 40% of the world's landmass and won that game for a 75k+ score - my highest ever. I consider myself a Noble player, and that and an England Space Race (also on Noble) are what got me there.

EDIT: Really? What awful luck! Toku AND Shaka? That's bad. Seeing them pop up, I'd have regenerated.