Wow, this looks awesome Unconquered Sun!
I guess that those pictures are saying sth about SE vs CE.
Yes and no.
The first part of my game was played as:
GP farm capital
Hybrid economy everywhere else - special tiles, mines, specialists (contributed 1 GS), and cottages.
This was only a temporary setup, until I had the techs needed for a true economy.
I knew some things about the game right at the start (i.e. the starting spot is good enough for Liberalism path bulbing). The most important info I got later was the layout of the lands west, over the straits. Tons of grasslands, many lacking fresh water whatsoever.
My usual strategy would call for teching to a renaissance military advantage and taking over some AI cities. The abundance of land to settle meant I don't need to go to war so early, but it also meant this land has to be developed very quickly to make up for the advantages of conquered deity cities.
Conquered deity cities, say those of Washington, come with towns, academies, buildings, settled great people, etc. On the other hand, newbie cities on the western peninsula come with, well, maintenance costs.
So, there's factor #1: grass, limited water. Cottages or workshops.
And factor #2: need to grow cities, improve tiles, build key buildings and rebound from maintenance to significant gains ultrafast.
Combined, they made me choose workshops. I played the second part of my game as:
GP farm capital
Hammer economy everywhere else. I even bulldozed three towns.
From the Scientific Method in the 600ADs I went for Communism and then for Assembly Line. A grassland workshop under Caste/SP starts at 4.4 hammers and quickly builds the necessary infrastructure: granary, forge, factory, coal plant. At that point each workshop is worth 8.4 of hammers, or wealth, or research.
Had I went for Democracy, cottages would have developed much slower. What's worse, setting up all the buildings needed would have been hard, there's one set for research %, one for gold %, and I still need the factories/coal plants to be able to build an army strong enough to defeat 6 deity AIs.
And they weren't idle deities. Ceaser vassalized GK via direct warfare, accepted a peaceful vassal offer by Wang, and then vassalized Sury via warfare again. I bribed him into that to neuter both warmongers with one shot at a time I couldn't afford a war; it likely backfired on me but I can't know for sure. Finally, the Ceaser alliance marched against Washington with vast armies.
Wash and Mansa were playing a very different game. While Ceaser had mostly irrigated plains and had MFG (read units), Wash/Mansa had mostly cottaged grass. More like "towned" grass in fact. Mansa was well after cultural victory too. Wash was content to be the most advanced AI at the time.
At first I thought Wash tech advantage can hold the line...
...but facing the stacks of death of four AIs, backward as they were, was too much. When Sury's brand new Rifle stack appeared on the horizon, I had to act decisively and gave Infantry tech and 1100 gold to Wash. He was smart enough to instaupgrade and Ceaser was smarter to sue peace. I promptly bribed Ceaser in war v Mansa, which meant his SoDs had to travel all around the world to the frozen wastes of near South Pole to confront Mansa.
Meanwhile, I got an extra benefit from my hammer power. Rathauses being OK even under Communism and Jails being a must for total offensive warfare, investing into Intelligence Agencies got me a lot of EP. I was able to steal techs from Wash/Mansa at nearly 1 EP:1 beaker rate. I was also able to revolt cities for my future conquest.
The said conquest started with Tanks, Marines, and battleships for pillage protection/coastal bombardment. Here the map proved tricky for a third time (#1 being the lack of early commerce resource tiles, #2 being choosing workshops over CE/SE) because I had no oil. Early SciMeth paid off as I settled the oil next to the South Pole.
Washington fell in 9 turns (initial plan was 6 but I got tons of bad luck). Mansa, who was good at holding the entire Ceaser alliance army in the frozen waste, was to be my next target.
Ceaser however surprised me by demanding 1000 gold tribute. By vassalizing Wash few minor cities, I had deteriorated the Roman relations to Cautious. Ceaser being in war however I refused to pay. Next thing I know Ceaser DoWed Wash (and so me as well) while in war v Mansa. Sury killed my oil city in couple of turns.
Whatever. I had the nearby desert oil by then and 1k MFG per turn. My tanks destoyed Ceaser's gren/cannon/rifle SoDs and started capturing cities. I had Flight too, with fighters to soften targets and paratroopers/airports to reinforce key positions. Ceaser was researching Assembly Line but losing two cities with academies+settled GSes gave me the time to capture Rome.
Ten turns of peace, and I finished what I started, softening infantry garrisons with bombers. By the way, Radio meant Cristo, and Cristo meant I went back to
hybrid economy to accommodate the different parts of my growing empire, switching civics often.
One by one Ceaser's vassals rebelled, only to be vassalized again by me. I also took over some forsaken barbarian cities way south. Finally, I sent some settlers to remote locations and got 64% land.
By that moment Mansa was barely halfway to 3x 75k culture, and I was several turns from tactical nuking his coastal cities, moving in, and then tac nuking his inner cities and capturing them with paratroopers brought in transports. He got lucky
a cultural victory in 1818. Mansa tried it too, but he was about 2 turns behind me. That cultural race was very close and exciting. The third who were trying to win were Romans, but they were unable to conquer or vassalize all of us, which was necessary for them to win diplo, dom or conq.
and won't submit/post details until tomorrow.
