I always feel a bit shy about posting when I'm interrupting the big dogs discussing their 3-digit victory dates and 5-digit Jason scores.
Mind you, this game was the best chance I've seen yet for us mid-rankers to hit such high scores... well I didn't quite get there, but I eagerly look forward to the results table.
Open class
The Medieval Age (350bc - 1265ad)
1. The Ancient Age... ends in 350bc with 18 towns, 3 native luxuries, horses hooked up and the Ottoman iron controlled but disconnected. Two of the towns are in a colony which has been slowly growing south of Korea. It started as a single town from a hut, and is expanding by building only settlers and regular warriors, at the rate of 1spt.
2. Our neighbours: Russia is already medieval, and got Engineering free. I have already had a war with Russia, and they will be my first target on the road to domination, just because I'm vindictive. France is laughably weak. She rebuilt very few of the workers I bought from her, and her only saving grace is that she has horses and a luxury. The Ottoman is much stronger, and reaches medieval in 130bc, getting Feudalism. Korea has plenty of room and iron, but isn't doing much with it, and hasn't met the other guys. Korea has also fallen behind on tech, and doesn't reach medieval until 70ad, getting Feudalism.
3. The Pyramids. I was building them in my Forbidden City, but they went to the other continent, and I cascaded to Mausollos in 130bc. It isn't an especially useful wonder, but there wasn't anything else interesting left.
4. War! I dow on Russia in 90bc. The French and Ottomans are brought in with me, but contribute nothing to the war effort; they just try to trek settler combos through Russia to the poorly settled tundras. I am fighting this war with horsemen, and capture Moscow 2 turns after it finishes the Great Library. Russia keeps building new towns further and further north during the war, but I finally capture their last settlement in 380ad. I succeed in blocking all foreign settler combos from reaching their destinations.
5. The other continent... is contacted in 340bc by a suicide galley south of Korea. I find Portugal, but will have to wait until 540ad to meet the English, and 580ad for the Byzantines, due to barb galleys and bad luck with subsequent suicide missions.
6. The unique Unit. I research slowly to build up cash for upgrading, and get Chivalry in 380ad. The Ottoman iron is hooked up in 440ad. In the same turn I research Invention and switch a prebuild over to finish Leonardo. Now I can start upgrading my horses to ansars. By 490ad, I feel I have enough ansars available to dow on France. Our golden age starts with an ansar victory the same turn.
7. War again. France puts up little resistance. In 540ad, I take the Lighthouse from them, and in 560ad, I take their last city on the home continent. Unfortunately, it seems that they have established a colony on the other continent using the Lighthouse. I ally the English and Portugese against France, and they finish her off in 630ad. This is important because I don't want contact between the two continents, as I'm about to get dishonourable.
8. Dishonour! Without the French to rat on me, I break a luxury deal with the Ottomans and dow on them in 650ad. In this year, I get my first military leader, who creates an ansar army, and capture Artemis from the Ottomans. In 710ad, I take the Ottoman Oracle, and in 740ad, the fall of the last Ottoman city marks the end of another rival civilization.
9. The luxury hunt. Now I have 5 native luxuries, but it's never enough. In 800ad I squeeze a town between a couple of Portugese settlements to claim spices. This is a source of tension, and the Portugese will eventually ROP rape me over it. But before that, I have my own ROP rape to commit. The victim is Korea in 840ad. I capture 4 towns on the first turn, although I overlooked a stack of ansars that I had hanging around in Korea! Korea is easy, apart from some lucky pikes in Seoul, which finally falls in 980ad, bringing Sun Tzu into my empire.
10. ROP Rape... is comitted by the Portugese in 950ad. They capture my spice settlement, and I bring the English and Byzantines into the war. My own retaliation is held up a little by my lack of ferries, and I take the first Portugese town in 1090ad. I discover Military Tradition in 1190ad, so the final push is done with cavalry instead of ansars. I had hoped that the home continent would be big enough to support a domination win, but in the end I work south through Portugal and have to capture all but four of their towns. If there had been no trouble with Portugal, I would have targetted England instead. They were as feeble as the French, with only half a dozen towns, but probably just enough land to reach 66%. Domination is triggered in 1265ad, scoring 6440 Firaxis points and 9423 Jason points.
I'm pleased with the outcome; it's my highest Jason score ever, and my fastest finish by some 300 years. I could have speeded up the science rate, but I don't know how well that would have interfaced with my treasury growth - I did a lot of horse-to-ansar upgrading, and feel I should have built all my ansars this way, using connect/disconnect on my iron source. The order in which I tackled the AI was also not optimal, but they were all weak enough that this probably makes only a small difference to the final outcome.
All in all, it was a very easy map, but it's nice to be able to just rampage once in a while
I also had 6 of the starship parts built. Russia and Portugal were the only other survivors. I was surprised at the lack of AI resources, I didn't see a single AI tank. Saw plenty of Russian ToWs and Portugese mechs though.
That sounds exactly like my GOTM43. It'll be interesting to compare. Just another thing we seem to have in common of late 
. (Well, to be honest I'm waiting to see DaveMcW:s score before I 
. Dave shows such a fine modesty. And why not? The publishing of the results should perhaps be a happening, not a formality. Not that I mind that Dynamic told us... <self-snip>)
(Not that it matters for either of us with Jason scores nearing 12k!)
I never mind about this date. Very impressive game 
!
. My CRP viewer is a bit capricious because it would show zero for Dave's 70 AD base score a minute ago. Now showing it, I'd say it's more like 250 points. And your score was...?
the score counting is really the one on the turn before (777), but the victory date is definitely 70AD.
