Challenger; Domination 1585 AD.
1-month-long games just aren't long enough of a time period for me for the string of recent Deity attempts that I've made but have been unable to complete by the deadlines. At "Emperor" (really, Immortal--what's a difference of one Difficulty Level amongst friends?), though, I managed to eek this one out in time. Therefore, I would like to make a request to maybe make submission times longer, in general.
If results don't often come out immediately, what does it hurt to wait an extra, say, 2.5 weeks for more submissions to come in? I recall that we had games-of-the-month-and-a-half in the past, and while it doesn't quite roll off of the tongue so well, more chances for submissions overall are good, right?
As for this game, I'd suggest extending the submission time once the server is back up, and try to give us maybe a few days of extended time to submit, as not all of us can check the forums regularly, anymore.
As for the game: I lost my first Warrior to a Barb early on, which was a wake-up call to beeline The Great Wall. Only after I built that Wonder did I feel comfortable expanding to the island. Of course, in my brazen expansion approach on the mainland amongst the Barbs with The Great Wall in hand, I neglected to recall that that Wonder doesn't work across of landmasses, and thus I lost an early City on the island to the Barbs.
The Great Lighthouse paid off a lot, but missing out on The Pyramids to Shaka hurt a lot, as he went into Police State and became a menace for the rest of the game.
Zara fell reasonably easily, although War Chariots weren't enough and I needed War Elephants, Maces, and Cats to finish the job.
Brennus looked like he was going to aid Zara, but instead, he marched through my lands with a large stack and took down one of Mansa's Cities. I took the opportunity to strike and wiped out Brennus' main stack in the captured City, then Liberated the City to Mansa.
While I sent additional troops toward Brennus' Cities, Shaka had been beating down on Mansa, capturing some Cities from Mansa and getting awfully close to taking down Mansa's core Cities.
I thought that I'd let Mansa Peace Vassal to me as a fun way to get into war with Shaka. Yet, I got thwarted in that attempt (probably it was for my own good), since Shaka had just made Peace with Mansa shortly before I pulled out the Peace Vassalling.
There went my Diplomacy, with all of the other AIs hating Mansa, and with our relationships being averaged (plus rounded down) together.
With a second army ready to take on Shaka but not being at war with Shaka, the second army decided to go after a weaker target--Cathy, who had been the tech leader and who was taking a lot of the decent Wonders, like steal The Apostolic Palace out from underneath of me.
That war was tricky, as I decided to defy the Apostolic Palace's first Resolution to end the war with Cathy, just as Monte (the Holy-City owner of the Apostolic Palace's Religion) finally spread the Apostolic Palace's Religion to me (in addition to the single City of Cathy's that I had captured which contained that Religion)... and, Monte spread the Religion into my settled-in-place capital, of all of the places on the map to do so! 5 Unhappiness for being a Villian in my capital--what a sneaky trick!
Later, I agreed to Stop Trading with Mansa (who also did not have The Apostolic Palace's Religion), even though he was my Vassal, just to get the Apostolic Palace's Hammers enabled. It turned out to be a solid play, as, on the following turn, Mansa offered to retrade a Resource with me that I'd been trading with him. Maybe he's forgiving. Maybe the Friendly relationship helped out. More likely, it is a special status of a Vassal that will allow them to always trade with you, even when you shut down the trading relationship. Chock that experience up as one more trick for the Bag of Civ 4 Tricks.
Brennus Peace Vassalled to Cathy while Zara Peace Vassalled to Shaka. I had a Peace Vassal, so it only seemed fair that they would get their own, too.
With Brennus eliminated, Cathy capitulating to me, and Monte being no match for Late-Liberalismed Rifling, it was only a matter of pushing units across of the map before the game ended.
Greed got in the way of ending a few turns earlier, as, instead of Capitulating Monte, I wanted the Apostolic Palace Religion's Shrine with 50+ Gold plus the Spiral Minaret (for no really good reason other than for bragging rights), both of which were in his last City, his capital. With 50% of his Cultural Borders from being a Vassal, I would have easily tripped Domination.
But, noooo, I wanted his City, so, he died, but I was short on Domination Land Area, and then Cathy's capital revolted, bringing me further from Domination. I declared war on Shaka and started sending a ton of troops his way by 3 directions (Galleons being the third direction), but before I made much progress, Monte's Cities to came out of City Revolt to give me the required Domination Land Area.
Thanks for the fun game! Really cool setup with the island, even though it did mean making War Chariots unworkable for an Immortal-Level rush. It was a nice place for a Heroic Epic, although I went with my second-choice location on the island by choosing a City in the north, as the south-western City had been the one that the Barbs had razed and it took me a while to rebuild said City.
The National Epic went in my capital of all places, despite still constantly working the Gold Resource, and this approach worked out nicely, giving me plenty of Great People.
A guy named Jed even found Oil before Scientific Method, although I hardly benefitted from it, as most sources had been settled-on directly, thereby wiping out the bonus +1 Hammer from revealing Oil. I think that there was one source out at sea that gave me +1 Hammer, at least. What was interesting is that the game seems a bit buggy for this Event. I did notice that I had a Scout on an Oil source (the Scout was in a City that was on Oil), but it was another Unit--an Axeman, I think, who was on a south-west-located Oil source in Shaka's lands who was "credited" with the find as per the red-coloured circle which appears for Events. Thus, an Axeman named Jed stumbled upon Oil because a hawk-eyed Scout named Arrow Hawk happened to have mentioned seeing a similar black-coloured goo in a far-away part of the world.
costs were insane until I built the Forbidden Palace on the island.
