Peluin
Chieftain
Someone has a time better than my 350BC
I haven't found a better option than Cyrus.

I haven't found a better option than Cyrus.
Someone has a time better than my 350BC![]()
I haven't found a better option than Cyrus.
WowYou were being modest! Nice time Jimmy.
I had more luck building a pile (4 or 6) in my capital and then absorbing the nearest guy as soon as possible.
Really though, it came down to hitting them when they were weakest. I picked up writing early and signed open borders with everyone then let the 10-turns-of-required-agreement tick down. I'd maneuver my troops to the quickest border approach (diagonal moves over flat terrain, etc.) and keep a scout in their city or cities, and wait for a settler or worker to leave with escort or whatever.
Prioritizing the deaths of the AIs trimmed a few turns off. The AIs that started with fishing capitals would get out of the gate slowly it seemed, maybe from building a stack of workboats? So sometimes I would save them for a little later. Bismarck basically built the Great Wall every game (I played with set non-protective non-creative opponents), and I usually played no barbarians... so I would leave that hammer-waster to the end of my list as well. Most dramatically, any AIs trapped in the jungle were basically duds and could be saved for last.
After researching bronze working (and sometimes iron working) I'd check up on who had metal. If they get spearmen or swordsman, you're sunk. So kill those first. Pillage their metal ASAP, especially if you are keeping random events on where an iron mine = 3 partisan swordsman, somehow![]()
I had a hard time deciding how to get all the chariots built fast enough. Chopping seemed like a no-brainer, but I had varying success with one worker or two. Sometimes building two took too long and the AIs got multiple cities out before I was ready to attack, but other times one worker just couldn't get it all done. Can I have 1.5 please?
Whipping was a tough call too. I think I decided working a plains-hill-mine was better than whipping in some situations, but that was as much laziness as anything. I didn't want to micromanage alternating periods of production and growth, blech.
Don't keep too many cities. If you hold on to every little burgh, your troops wind up on strike. I usually kept anything that fell into my hands with relatively high population, say 5 or more, since I could whip infrastructure and then have the city contribute to the war effort.
Settle one great general per city so you can have multiple sources of chariots with two starting promotions. In my head, I had this mathematical intuition that flanking 2 is better as an early promotion and strength 2 as the game winds down, but it's hard to get flanking 2 early when you want it, and I swear my 40% withdrawal chariots never withdraw, and my 60% victory chance troops never win...![]()
One alternative I tried was a feudalism slingshot to open up vassalage/capitulation. I'd say in about 75% of games I tried it I pulled it off, it wasn't too bad. Usually some former capital has tons of forest around it to chop the Oracle, and no connection to your horses to build troops anyway... so why not. Have to research Monarchy (which takes awhile...) and Writing (which you definitely need anyway). If you get it early enough, the anarchy can be worth it for the +2 xp civic. Frustratingly, it seemed most of my opponents would rather die than surrender, though a couple times Ghandi just spontaneously decided he would like to serve me. I think it would probably be a better strategy to build warriors and upgrade them than continue research all the way through Monarchy, though. I rarely got any benefit from Feudalism.
I skimmed the log for Jimmy's impressive game and it looks like he was better about attacking more AIs earlier than I did. I'd venture that if you can send a couple Immortals to your foes, they get penned up real good since they have nothing to kill them with in the early game. Then they can't improve their land, so they build and tech slower (especially if you steal their workers...) and are easier to destroy after you build enough troops. So probably my mistake was that part at the very beginning where I admitted I "built up a pile of 4 or 6"![]()
Oh, and when your workers are done they can build roads toward the remaining victims. Every little bit helps! And try to avoid moving across the continent a bunch of times. If you wind up with two fronts, maybe push the veterans one way across the continent while new troops handle the other front, or something.
Too much typing.