Here's how my game went. I've finished but haven't officially submitted it yet.
When I saw that the April game was Warlord level, I almost decided to skip it. Milking a game for score is no fun for me, not so much because I inherently hate micromanagement as because I hate micromanaging for something as artificial as a score number. And for someone who routinely stomps Monarch level, wheres the challenge in Warlord?
And then I found a possible challenge. It occurred to me that there is one thing that might possibly in some ways be harder on Warlord than it is on Monarch: winning an early (circa 1800 AD or earlier, at least pre-1.17f) space race victory. Yes, Id do better in early expansion and in any wars I fought on Warlord. But on the other hand, I couldnt count on getting anywhere near as much tech from the AIs, and probably not as much gold either. So at least there was a possibility that I might find something interesting in the game, trying to win the space race as early as possible.
As I started sending warriors out to explore, I discovered that the starting position was truly excellent. Originally, I had planned to keep Delhi at size three and above so Id always get full advantage from all three wheat tiles in its radius. But when I spotted all those cattle, building settlers about as quickly as possible (and a few workers to make the new cities worth more) became the order of the day. By the time I was finished expanding, I had everything on my side of the chokepoint and two cities on the other side: one a little north of the elephants (ivory) and one amidst the three gold mountains a little farther west. (The elephants were in an unclaimed area in between my city and a Babylonian city. Babylon actually got the first claim, but some judicious construction and rush buying shifted the cultural border permanently in my favor not long after.)
The rivers proved their worth. Usually, even on 1.16f, I would go at least two or three advances with science at 10% before it seemed worthwhile to start investing gold in science. But this time around, if I recall correctly, I started investing heavily in research after just one, and I switched to Republic in 550 BC.
Once I finished expanding as far as I could without placing cities behind AI lines where they would be vulnerable, I decided to go for about the closest thing to a peaceful builder game as I ever do. (More about that later.) My lack of iron was a significant part of the reason; what does a peaceful builder need with iron? I also decided to make getting as many wonders as possible a priority; the only one I missed was the Pyramids. Those decisions were potential distractions from my early space race goal, but I hoped I could pull it off.
I did have one minor skirmish with the Persians (190 BC to 10 AD) when they declared war and made a couple half-hearted attempts to get units into my territory, but it wasnt any big deal. I killed about four units that tried to invade, but I didnt try sending my own forces into the teeth of Persias so-called immortals.
With the Great Lighthouse, I sent a galley probing for a safe way from my continent to other waters, and I eventually found one. I met the northern AIs first before they and the southern ones had met, and I learned about some in-between land free for the taking with dyes, furs, and iron. Settlers and transportation for them became a priority for a while, and I ended up with four towns in that area founded from 550-840 AD. The last had plans for its position hastily altered as I noticed a saltpeter deposit in the desert near the original planned location.
As the end of the first millennium AD approached (and not too long before the end of the Medieval Age), my cities started complaining that there was nothing left for them to build. So I did what any good, almost-peaceful builder would do: I started cranking out war elephants. Then when I discovered Steam Power, my first Industrial Age advance (as always), I found myself without a good supply of coal. (Actually, I had one in some jungles on the big continent, but I didnt notice right away since it wasnt connected.) Again I did what any good ALMOST-peaceful builder would do. I researched military tradition, upgraded my war elephants and all but one older horse unit to cavalry, and stormed Persia for its coal supply with a total of 34 cavalry brigades. Not surprisingly, Persia fell quite rapidly, and then I decided to gobble up Babylon too while I was at it. (Neither one of them even knew what a gun was until I started shooting at them!)
The Persian and Babylonian annexations (I hesitate to dignify them with the term wars) also had a second cause. I was starting to hit the limit of what my original core could afford in research, and techs were about to get a lot more expensive. I had already built my forbidden palace on the very edge of my territory, on the theory that I would probably annex Persia and Babylon eventually. So once those territories were annexed, I could start work on adding those cities to my wealth and science base. (One perennial problem with my "builder" type operations is the need to obtain new territory to build up.)
With a coal supply secured, I went on to learn more advances, and military production paused at times while I built factories, a few coal plants, and hospitals. But my cities were still bored much of the time, with nothing better to do than to build cavalry (and, a little later, some infantry). And with all those cavalry units and a tech lead of several centuries, it would have been a shame not to do SOMETHING with them, right?
Besides, I was tired of Germany and the Zulus charging exorbitant prices for gems and incense (Germany) and wines (Zululand). Not that I wanted to go after Germany, since I would get my luxuries cut off temporarily. But China happened to be unlucky enough to have the exact same luxuries Germany did, albeit only enough for themselves. And as if that werent enough, they had been foolish enough to try to run a bluff in an attempt at extortion. Better, one of the two Zulu wine centers was deep in Chinese territory. And the Zulus, too, had provided a pretext for war with a failed extortion attempt.
So I landed an initial assault force of 20 cavalry and four infantry on Chinese soil. At first, Chinese riders gave me a bit of a hard time; their ability to match my cavalry in speed was more than a little inconvenient. But when reinforcements started arriving, the only thing that saved China was my peoples getting a bit tired of the war. I left China with five cities and, not long after, shifted targets to the Zulus.
The Zulus did manage to temporarily occupy a recently captured Chinese city near my original big continent settlements, but I took it back quickly and inflicted worse casualties than I took on that front. In the meantime, only the vast distance between the Chinese heartland and the Zulu heartland saved the Zulus from annihilation. (That and the fact that my workers who could have reduced the distance to practically nothing with railroads were on the wrong continent.) Again, war discontent brought the war to an early end.
Around that period, research slowed a bit (six turns a tech instead of four) for Atomic Theory and Electronics, but I wanted the Hoover Dam (which was rushed by my second great leader from the Chinese war). Then I went back for some cheaper advances, and by the time advances started getting expensive again, I could afford them.
By the time my peace treaty with China ended, captured workers had run a rail line from one end of the front lines to the other. Indian cavalry hit Chinas five remaining cities so quickly that what seemed like half Chinas military got caught out in the field where it was useless. They never even got a chance to counterattack!
I thought about another war with the Zulus, but after having been pretty thoroughly squashed, they were being steady (if not wealthy) customers for my luxury goods. They were worth as much to me alive as dead, so they got to live.
Things were peaceful for a while after that, and my cities with nothing better to do had already shifted from military production to wealth. But toward the end of the industrial age, Germany got an attack of insanity and declared war. Worse, their insanity was contagious, and England caught it too.
But the Germans were too stupid to attack in force, and my cities that had had nothing better to do than producing wealth suddenly found a new purpose in life: building a couple battleships and some tanks. Lots and lots of tanks, actually. I fended off the initial attacks with the few cavalry and infantry on hand (most of my forces were on the wrong side of the Zulus), and then gave England a demonstration of what happens when swordsmen, spearmen, and archers (and a few cavalry and knights) think they can go up against armor. My generals thought it was pretty, but I suspect their English counterparts wouldnt agree.
Then one of my strategists got an idea: instead of ferrying tanks to the front lines, why not land them deep behind the lines? England stayed in the fight through the loss of three cities, but when three more fell all at once, including a second and third relatively deep in English territory, they agreed to peace. Germany, already deprived of its ally and one small city and in imminent danger of losing another one, also agreed to peace. And Indias over 50 tank battalions, built purely with left-over production, made a nice deterrent against further attempts at national suicide by foreign powers.
Ironically, once the war was over, India gave England back its captured cities and even gave England the captured German city. The cities were worth little, and trying to manage them was having an adverse impact on corruption in the better-developed original big-continent settlements.
Just before the war ended, the discovery of the Theory of Evolution at the very dawn of the modern age brought about the quick discovery of Fission and Nuclear Power. (Thats one thing I unequivocally like about 1.17f. In earlier versions, I would have been stuck with Communism and Espionage since the AI hadnt gotten to them yet.) The rest of the needed advances clicked into place every four turns like clockwork, and the starship left for Alpha Centauri in 1695 AD.
Nathan
