Heh, conquest victory in 2027, monarch, random leaders - Salidan (me) vs Montezuma, on the abovementioned duel-size always war inland sea.
I played with a single city and was *determined* to get to feudalism. I got my first longbowman roughly the same turn that the real waves of war elephants etc. started arriving. That was as close to being wiped out as I got, and it was very close. Then for centuries it was waves of Aztecs throwing themselves on my arrows. Until things started to turn around I was behind just shy of 3:1 on score. Monty never threw more than about 10-12 units at me in one turn, and there were often 2-4 turn lulls where I could recover. It was rare to see more than one unit below 50%.
Monty's major problem was that he never grew any combat tech beyond feudalism and instead spent all his resources depleting the continent of elephants. If I'd been playing a leader who did some research and a little building I'd probably have lost a time victory or due to cavalry/infantry. If he'd saved up his elephants for a while and hit me with 20 of them, that might have done it too, although I'd have built more longbows if it became strangely silent.
Mecca was founded on a hill tile by the sea. I eventually built a five wonders and the Kashni Vishwanath there, which were the only wonders/holy buildings built. What kept my economy afloat was about a half dozen great prophets that I converted to specialists. What else was I going to do with them? With banks and so forth and very little to support, it goes a long way! When I started my offensive I had over 2000 in the treasury to upgrade longbows and muskets. I was behind on score about 2:1 but by then I was pretty sure I would win at least a time victory.
I placed the city in a spot where it would survive at size 7-10 without any improved tiles. I improved them to start but didn't bother trying to fix anything after the horse archers showed up and pillaged the tiles.
I had no access to resources of any kind throughout the game and figured I wouldn't. I might have been able to hold a mine next to a city but not a road, so whatever.
I eventually built 3 more cities, none with more than 2 tiles of improvements, and all of those hidden behind guarded forests and hills.
When the tech of Monty's units failed to improve and I saw that I was behind by less and less, first nearly 3:1, then every so slowly 2.5:1, and then headed toward 2:1, and I was getting some useful research done, I figured things were looking up. By the time I got gunpowder the effective attacks had stopped. Rifling was on the way and I thought that when I got it I could, at least, start pillaging the daylights out of Monty's territory.
Monty's units started vanishing and then abruptly stopped coming. I think he flat ran out of money. By the time I got my riflemen there were no enemy units around. The first of his cities I got to was garrisoned only by a couple of longbowmen. So I started cranking out catapults and riflemen and the rout was on. With NO IMPROVED TILES and nothing fancier than a forge, Mecca was putting out a rifleman every 3-4 turns and a catapult in 2. 3 other cities added up to about the same. The stacks 'o death made their way into enemy territory and started looting towns and then razing cities. Eventually I was negative by 62 a turn (still at 100% research - I don't know if I ever got below 100% and certainly not 90%) but the pillaged towns and captured cities more than made up for it.
I took the first city in 2000 and Monty was gone in 2026.
I lost a total of 14 units including two workers. (Until the end I didn't really have more to spare.) Meanwhile I killed 17 longbows, 28 chariots, 79 horse archers, 67 war elephants, and 66 catapults, and a few odds and ends. I built 21 rifles and 27 cats, but I'd upgraded a dozen or two longbows and muskets to rifles.
One longbow made it to 50xp and 6 promotions, and another to 122xp and 10 promotions. The latter one probably killed 1/2 the units that attacked Mecca.
Anyway, that's that. On to something more uplifting, less of a grim struggle followed by a war of annihilation. Cheers.
