COTM41 - First Spoiler

[pol1]

Settled SW, scout S-SE so i didn't see cows then.
Capital and first City : settlers (without granary), rest first worker, maybe two of them then some other things.
by 1125BC i had 11 settlements (with capital), two more added in 900BC. Controled my peninsula, had wines, incense, spices, iron.
Tried to research writing, but gave up and went for 0% and pointed stick.
First war with Aztecs 775BC, left them with one city and extorted : HBR, PHIL, MAPMAKING, CUR, CONSTR, POLY. researched CoL and REP by myself (10turns altogether) during my GA initiated by lost chasqui in 550BC....

210BC - 210AD war with Mayans - captured Pyramids and Mausoleum in Chichen Itza.
210AD - first leader, had three during the game, made three horsemen armies.

Then i turned to FR and ENG leaving Spain for few centuries in peace.
460AD - 570AD war with France - captured SoZ in Lyons, Colossus in Rheims - one or two cities deposed [well, no surprise! till that time i've only built FP and few temples to expand borders, that were sold after 5 turns].
Acquired another two luxes (6 total).

460AD - 520AD war with England - quick war using horsemen, captured Great Wall in London.

610AD - 760AD war with Spain - they had ToA, HG and Oracle, so I had some culture problems. 3 or 4 cities had deposed - I've lost one army and about 10-15 horses cause of that... so later I've razed almost all of them.
ToA in Madrid : i left my troops outside and retake city after every of probably 3 deposings. I've waited for border expansion, I took Zaragoza and finished by conquest victory.

Entry class : Open
Game status : Conquest for Inca
Victory date : 760AD
Score: 6699
Jason score: 10087
Time played: 10:22:47

cities : 83, pop : 439, territory 990 (49%)

 

[Chamnix]

Predator, going for domination.

I never made it to the Middle Ages – 2 of my rivals did eventually, but it didn’t help them .

My scout moved to the mountain first and didn’t see the cows, so the settler went SW. Builds from the capital were warrior, warrior, settler, granary, then workers eventually operating as a 2-turn worker factory.

My second city was founded 2 NE of the capital (1 NE of the start) to be on fresh water and access the cows. This city built a granary then settlers eventually becoming a 4-turn settler factory. I expanded generally eastward toward the competition first, then gradually backfilled the west.

Machu Picchu was further NE so Tiwanaku could reach the second cow without building culture and because I wanted to build curraghs. Fortunately, I only built one before I got suspicious and discovered more were unnecessary.

Research went straight for the Republic slingshot completed in 1350 BC and revolted immediately for 4 turns of anarchy. I traded for most other Ancient Age techs except I never bothered getting Construction or Currency (or Monarchy or Literature).

In 1725 BC, the Mayans demanded Writing and declared when I refused. So naturally I built an embassy with the Aztecs and gave away Writing for a military alliance vs. the Mayans.

In 1425 BC, I declared on the English and got the Aztecs to fight them as well for Code of Laws. Just to keep the battle somewhat even, I brought Spain in against the Mayans tied together with a peace treaty. Spain fought hard and signed peace only 1 turn before our alliance expired finally giving me some war happiness.

In 1100 BC, the Aztecs signed peace with both the Mayans and the English. I figured I would be ready for war soon, I bribed them to break their peace treaties with both by guaranteeing peace with me for 20 turns and giving them Republic hoping that they would break our alliances and declare on me in about 8-10 turns.

QSC stats:

11 cities
41 citizens
16 native workers
1 slave
7 warriors
1 curragh



In 875 BC, I connected iron, upgraded 10 warriors to swords, and already became strong to the Aztecs. Unfortunately, I chose to keep my reputation intact and waited for them to declare, but they never did.

In 610 BC, our peace/alliance expired, and the slaughter commenced.

In 590 BC, I used a Chasqui Scout to kill an Aztec archer and start my Golden Age.

The Aztecs were gone in 330 BC, but after that my note-taking got sloppy (meaning notes are nonexistent).

Conquest would have been much faster than domination. As it was, I eliminated everyone except for 1 Spanish city (never razing a single city), and I still didn’t reach domination until several turns later. If I hadn’t built so many settlers, I’m sure the conquest could have come even earlier.

I had far more units than I could ever use. I started the conquest with swords and switched to horses after I connected them in 190 BC. At my peak military, I think I had something like 70 swords and 25 horses, but it took them too long to reach the battlefront – I definitely should have built galleys and gone after Spain to the west instead of going overland.

Domination was reached in 360 AD.

 

[scoutsout]

Domination was reached in 360 AD.

Nicely done! I believe that beats me by nearly 2 dozen turns.

 

[Elear]

Interesting, very interesting.

I don't know the deadline for this (could someone please enlighten me?) but I've been rushing to milk this for a Histograph win on Predator. Not sure of the final score yet, since I still have to work on population, but I almost have control of the world at this point. Spain built the Great Wall on me (and annoyingly has a lot of cities) so my zillions of medieval infantry are working on each city.

My strategy so far has been pretty simple. I was very happy with moving NE and founding there. That worked well, and I was able to get a settler factory going. Upon finding the Aztecs to the SE, I aggressively settled toward them. I began to fill in the back field.

I went Alphabet, Writing, 50 turns each. Didn't really pay off much. In the end, I bought Iron Working, hooked up iron, and started swarming swordsmen to my enemies. Aztecs built the Pyramids, so I got that too. I sued the Aztecs for peace, and got all the techs I was behind on. After that, I was essentially the tech leader. I went for Republic, but haven't swapped yet, since I really can't be bothered with some nasty anarchy until I finish with my settler building and conquesting. It's probably a dumb thing to switch so late (compared to those slingshots you guys are writing about!!) but I'm too lazy, oh well.

When the peace treaty was up, I went ahead and destroyed the Aztecs.

Meanwhile, continued to attack and destroy the Maya. Culture flips pains here. It took me a little bit to hunt down this tiny tundra Mayan city, so I was plagued with retaking cities. At the same time, I emassed forces to attack the English. Started to crush them as I finished the Maya.

As I fought the English (and hordes of barbarians), I started preparing troops for the Spanish invasion. Due to my lack of exploring, I didn't realize that I could have just attacked from the old Maya territory, but I built boats for the naval invasion. Anyway, it was a rather interesting war; the English had tons of elites, but the barbarians made it difficult for either of us to do much until we got their camps. As soon as we beat the barbarians, we turned on each other, and I destroyed them quickly.

Then I met the French. I didn't really waste much time, and attacked with what I had. Maybe I did this a couple turns too early, as it took some time to regather all my forces. The result was inevitable, and I beat the French down to a tundra existance.

The barbarians were a real for me. I have not played against restless barbarians in...quite a while. I sort of neglected this factor, and it greatly slowed down my domination of the world. It seems I will reach the dom limit closer to 700 or 800 AD instead of 300 or 400 AD.

I launched my mass attack on the Spanish during the French war. Most of my forces went across the sea, while the rest made slow progress from the west in the Maya tundra, fighting off Spanish counterattacks.

Other factors slowing my domination down...the pikemen for each civ. Can you say annoying? Those took a concentrated effort to get rid of, because they were usually elites from fighting barbarians.

I may have also done it faster had I chosen to amass horsemen instead. I don't really know, but I was pretty content with how it went.

It's unlikely I'll have the highest histograph score in this one, but it's been a good fun game regardless.

Difficulty wise, it has seemed like Monarch despite the Predator disadvantages.

-Elear

 

[PaperBeetle]

I don't know the deadline for this (could someone please enlighten me?)

The best place to check is the submission page, which ha a count-down for each open game. As I post this, there are 3 days and 4 hours left on this COTM.

 

[Elear]

Maybe I should start earlier next time.