Upon entering the Middle Ages in 775 BC, I made peace with all the scientific tribes and gifted them up – 2 got Engineering and 1 Monotheism, so I set research full speed to Feudalism because I was sure the AI would be too slow. I bought Engineering with a government tech, but I could not afford Monotheism comfortably, so I decided to wait to trade for Monotheism until I learned Feudalism. Unfortunately, just before I learned Feudalism, the tribe with Monotheism declared on me and were not willing to talk when I wanted Monotheism, so I researched that and Chivalry myself before turning off research for the rest of the game.
I started phony wars with the Mongols and Hittites and signed alliances against both tied to peace treaties while I worked on my real first target the Zulus. Of course, once my partners broke our deals, I signed peace with the Mongols and Hittites tied to alliances against everybody else eventually having people so thrilled with being at war with everyone, I didn’t have to spend money on them at all.
The Zulu could have been finished several turns earlier than they were, but I signed an alliance against the Zulu with the Iroquois, so I had to wait until the incompetent Hiawatha eventually managed to send more than 1 mounted warrior on the attack in the same turn. The Zulu were eliminated in 430 BC.
I discovered Chivalry in 370 BC. At that point I had about 25 horses near the Iroquois. I rushed a barracks in the former Zulu territory and gradually the horses upgraded as I could afford to, and those ansars sliced through Iroquois land. My core built ansar warriors to go north against the Ottomans. My Golden Age was started in 310 BC.
Once all my original horses had been upgraded, I used a partial disconnect/reconnect strategy for my new military units – I had several towns capable of 24 spt which built ansars directly; towns that were at 10 or 15 spt built horses for upgrade. By the time my Golden Age ended in 90 AD, I had eliminated the Ottomans in 30 BC, the Iroquois in 10 AD and the Mongols in 70 AD.
At the end of my Golden Age, I figured I had enough units and anything new probably wouldn’t reach the front anyway, so I made some effort to bump up my score. My core started building markets for extra happiness, and I started rushing temples in my isolated conquests to add to my territory score. It was just a matter of getting the ansars to the final tribes as quickly as possible. I went over land the entire way – I had a couple galleys out, but they were primarily to make sure there were no islands for the AI to escape to.
The final tribes were destroyed in 170 (Sumerians), 280 (Russians), and 310 (Hittites) for a conquest victory in 320 AD. I’m glad I didn’t decide to go for domination hoping to capture the Temple of Artemis. At the game’s end, only 2 wonders (Pyramids and Oracle) had been completed.
) finish with their Ansar Warriors, but maybe you've held that tale for this thread! Or perhaps you wish to tell of a later victory type? Last call for spoiler entries!
(and by Andronicus too...)
The luck evened out I suppose.
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