The Build Out
This month's GOTM looked like a good start position. Luxuries, lake, and a good mix of grass and hills visible right away. How wrong this was, it was a small peninsula with the land near by consisting of all hills, mountains and tundra.
I sent my scout out to explore the world and crammed three towns into the small peninsula. I soon discovered the French and the Russians and saw their starting positions were much better than mine.
After the first 3 towns, the closest available good land was just south of the French. I managed to get a town there but this was already getting quite far from my capital. An early war was definitely in the cards this game.
Once iron and horses were revealed it looked promising for that first war. Iron and horses appeared just north of my starting position and the French had neither. The Russians had two sources of iron, one right near Moscow and a second one far east of their capital. I quickly built cities near the resources north of my capital to claim them and began preparations for the first wars.
First Wars
The French were geographically the closest and the weakest of my neighbors and as such, were my first target. No pop-rushing military units slowed preparations a little, but I don't think it would have helped much on this map anyway.
I sent a small stack of horses, archers, and spearmen to Paris to cut all roads while I engaged them down south. Declaring war on the French was my only diplomatic black mark until much later when I decided to milk the game.
The Russians beat me to it and took the southern city so I gathered my forces near Paris. Once the stack was a sufficient size, I razed Paris and razed all other French towns. In hindsight, I probably should have taken them as the French were removed from the game and culture flipping wouldn't have been a problem. However it was 3 AM an I wasn't thinking all that clearly.
Once the French were finished off the Russians conveniently declared war on me. They had a large number of forces wandering through the tundra north of my capital so the first priority was defense. Catapults were now in the picture so I added them to my defensive arsenal. The Russian's attack was quite clumsy and I managed to destroy all their forces with almost no casualties.
I then captured their eastern most city located near a large cache of gems and got a great leader from the battle. I captured one more city near another gems source and built a new city just west of that one on the Russian front lines. In this city, I used the great leader to build a forbidden palace. This placement improved the productivity of all towns in the former French territory and would make towns up to around Moscow quite productive (once they were taken of course).
By this point the Russians had 3 cities east of Moscow and a number of cities west of Moscow.
I then sent a mixed stack of catapults, spearmen, swordsmen and horses to Moscow. This was a large enough force to travel around unmolested, but they would have difficulty taking and holding Moscow. I used this stack to cut all roads to Moscow and cut the roads to the iron. This left the three cities east of Moscow isolated and the rest of their empire somewhat crippled. I then used the stack to ensure the roads werent rebuilt and to pick off any stray Russians.
I built up my forces and captured the 3 cities east of Moscow at my leisure. Once this was done, I razed Moscow and rebuilt on the same tile.
Technology and Trading
My technology strategy throughout the ancient and middle ages was to buy or trade for most technologies, keeping research at 10% throughout. When selecting a research project, I would select a technology I didn't want or one I thought the AI would not research. My reasoning was twofold:
- Any important technology will likely be discovered by one of the AI opponents first and could be bought.
- Any technology discovered is worth more if no one else has it.
Furthermore, I never sold my contacts and bought contacts as soon as available. At one point, I had contact with all opponents except the Egyptians. All others only knew about the opponents on their island. I was able to broker technology between the two groups at premium prices until around the start of the middle ages.
For most of this period, I almost always got a technology for less than 100 gold and often for free or at a profit through brokering.
This strategy also allowed me to focus on military production. No need for libraries, and gold was always plentiful.
About half way through the middle ages (middle middle ages), technologies started becoming more expensive. This may have been due to less contact between players and player attrition. There were several wars, the French were gone, and the Russians were in bad shape and likely not doing much research.
I started building libraries in some cities and increased my research percentage. My form of government was republic so I was able to research technologies in a reasonable amount of time. I still bought technology when available but seldom sold any technology I researched. At that point, I started pulling ahead in technology.
Securing Luxuries
At some point during the first wars, the Greeks declared war on me. I can't remember why but I think the Russians dragged them into it. I never signed peace with the Greeks as they were on another island and their attacks were merely a mild nuisance.
The Greeks shared an island with the Japanese and had two types of luxuries within their boundaries. They were also located just south of my capital so any cities I built there would be moderately productive. To me this seemed like ample reason for a full-scale invasion.
I was still engaged with the Russians, but had grabbed pretty much all the territory I wanted from them. I began construction on some Caravels with a Greek invasion in mind.
As the invasion time drew near, I contacted the Japanese and signed an alliance with them against the Greeks. By this time, I had signed peace with the Russians, built 4 caravels and upgraded them to galleons. I would have sufficient troops for the invasion in about 5 turns.
I invaded with 4 caravels carrying 5 cavalry, 5 riflemen, 5 cannons and a settler. I landed on the first turn and was not attacked. On the second turn I built a town and razed a nearby Greek city. On the third turn I bought the barracks improvement and reinforcements arrived: more cavalry and some obsolete swordsmen. The swordsmen were used to help rush a temple, library and harbor over the next three turns.
In the following turns, I razed 3 more Greek cities including their capital and resettled. The Greeks never mounted a counter attack, likely because of the difficulties the Japanese were causing.
The invasion went much easier than anticipated which got me looking for other Greek targets. Lo and behold, an island with spices due west. I had 5 luxuries at this point and spices would make 6.
I ferried some cavalry and riflemen from the conquered Greek territory to Spice Island. More where ferried from the home island along with settlers. I left adequate forces on the conquered land but they probably wouldn't be needed. The Japanese were going to town with the Greeks and it looked as though they would clear them off the island within a few turns.
The conquest of Spice Island went quickly. During the battle I got my second great leader and used this to create an army. This army was used to destroy the last Greek city on the island which would allow me to build the Heroic Epic, Military Academy and eventually the Pentagon.
Wonders
I didn't bother with any wonders until late in the middle ages. This start position required efficiency and I couldn't afford to have a top production city out of commission for a long period of time. Using leaders wasn't an option as they were scarce in this game; only two by the start of the industrial age.
I thought about trying for The Great Library but decided against it as I was already getting technology as soon as it was discovered. In despotism, the only use for money is trading.
My first wonder was Magellan's Voyage, a late middle ages wonder. The extra sea movement was nice, but I was more interested in triggering a golden age before F15. Magellan's Voyage is an expansionist wonder so I would also need an industrious wonder to trigger the golden age.
From this point on, I completed pretty much every wonder. I had enough high production cities that I could use a couple of them for producing wonders. At one point, I timed two wonders to complete on the same turn to avoid the AI switching after the first was completed and beat me to the second.
When I completed Hover Dam, I triggered a golden age. This was bad news for the Egyptians, my current military target at the time as I was able to produce a veritable flood of cavalry, infantry and artillery.
to be continued...
I'm third bottom in the histograph, at war with Catherine ("gimme this! gimme that!" 
