Going for a simultaneous CONquest and DOMination (aka "ConDom") victory in the ancient age.
There were several advantages with this map, and only some minor disadvantages. The three food boxes in the middle square of every town is extremely powerful. Even with the tundra in the southern core, the starting position must be considered very generous. Sedentary barbs saves resources: In other games there are often too few military units around to guard workers/settlers and act as military police at the same time, but this time workers and settlers could walk safely, also because we ourselves were expansionist and could not pop any barbs either. This made for a quick start. And pangea is obviously the easiest map type. Although galleys were not irrelevant for the human player in this game, the AI would not put settlers on boats and delay their elimination by sailing away to a remote place.
A minor disadvantage was the great number of hills in the game. Many AI towns were built on hills. At one time I needed 7 swordsmen to defeat 2 spearmen in a hill town, Trondheim. The biggest disadvantage was obviously the long, sinuous stretch of land that the troops had to travel through. As far as I could see galleys weren't much help against that, although I used them to reach the Vikings and some stray Aztecs towns. But let's start at the beginning.
Settled in place, building a chasqui scout first. Started researching Alphabet and working the fish first since Alphabet is an expensive tech. (I didn't trust myself to trade it fast enough.)
Beelining for the Republic sling-shot, I reached it in 1750. I got 5 turns of anarchy. After this research was completely shut off for the rest of the game. Excess cash (not a priority) was used for short rushing horsemen and a few swordsmen who would be used later to invade Scandinavia. My only coastal town slowly started to build a small fleet for the same purpose. But a lot of gold was also saved in order to rush settlers in the late stages of the game. With increasing unit costs, I was not earning very much per turn. Even during the Golden Age I was only making about 70-80 gpt. In 1225 BC Cuzco stopped building settlers. Instead, more corrupt towns with good food production would build enough settlers to fill up the starting area reasonably well.
I wanted to send at least three workers north as soon as possible, knowing that we were on a pangea map. I also wanted to capture the Mayan towns as soon as possible, because the movement of troops towards the distant places of the map must not be hindered. This process was simplified by the fact that Chitchén Itza tried to build The Pyramids and got more than halfway (corresponding to more than 10 spearmen) before I captured it. In 1075 the dyes town was captured, a Golden Age was started and in 950 Chichzén Itza fell. I waited for the last Mayan town to rech size 2 or expand before capturing it, because I always had horsemen moving past along the road who could "stop by" when the time came. The three road-builders were only slowed down for 2 turns while waiting for Chichén Itza to fall, and meanwhile they were joined by three more workers, so that the group could build roads on hills in single turns. Captured workers were used to colonize the wine and the gems.
I had allied Spain against the Mayans, tied to peace, but of course they never made it to Mayan territory. But I figured that Spain would have some troops in Aztec territory when it was time to declare on the Aztecs. When the Mayans were detroyed, war broke out between us and Spain, and then I allied Aztes against Spain just before delaring on the Aztecs. That should have made both those civs squander some units. I was also hoping that because of their war Spain would lose interest in settling the very remote places that my first chasqui scout was exploring at this time, and build military units instead of settlers. I did not eliminate Aztecs until the 300s BC. Their towns were spread out and my focus was to get the biggest horde of horsemen (the ones produced during the Golden Age) to Spain ASAP. A few excess workers could also build roads to (or at least towards) the remote Aztec towns, saving the horsemen's turns.
In 330 Cuzco finished the Temple of Artemis, which of course is a huge help towards a ConDom victory in C3Conquests.
In about 300 BC I got my first leader, who formed a horseman army down by the choke point that separated the Spanish-American area from the Aztec-Scandinavian area. It was comforting to have this army unit, because it was unlikely to lose a battle even against an elite spearman in a hill town. At the end the army's increased movement rate was also useful to reach the most distant American town, which I failed to get from a peace treaty because there were two American towns that I didn't know the names and sizes of, and I couldn't get both!
So there I told you a bit about how I handled America. I might add that even after I had ruined my reputation I could still renew my ROP with America by adding Republic to the deal. And so the Americans were ROP raped just like the Aztecs had been. America was gone in 150 BC.
Spain was the civ that I thought would take the longest to eliminate. After razing Toledo, a resource town that would be hard to claim in a peace treaty, capturing Madrid and one more town, and signing for peace, the Spaniards had two towns left about 8 tiles north of Madrid. I had 13 horsemen left in the Spanish area, who after healing headed north in two separate teams towards these cities. I was lucky to be able to sign a ROP with Spain before entering the area of these two towns, because they had stray military units near the undefended towns of Barcelona and Madrid. The ROP enabled me to redeclare and eliminate Spain during one turn, in 190 BC.
The Vikings, invaded with the use of galleys, had actually declared war on us, so there was no ROP rape there. Unfortunately, the elimination of Scandinavia took too long, three turns longer than that of America. This in turn probably had to do with the fact that I used galleys with swordsmen to capture the last Aztec towns before concentrating on the Vikings. Another reason was that, as I have mentioned, it took 7 swordsmen to defeat the two speamen in Trondheim. The delay in eliminating Scandinavia forced me to raze two towns to avoid going over the domination limit.
It was a fun game and I think I balanced it rather well. I wasn't sure if I had the resources to build ToA rather than 23 more horsemen/swordsmen, I wasn't sure that I had sent enough units past the chokepoint, I wasn't sure that I wouldn't run into a super spearman and stall. And all that made the game exciting.
Pops: warrior (going home to MP duty), CB, Map, Literature
Cuzco Builds: Chasqui scout, worker, settler (to southern furs), granary (2550 BC), settlers..., barracks, horsemen..., ToA, swordsmen...
Technology
Alphabet: 3150 BC
Writing: 2390 BC.
CoL: 1950 BC.
Wheel, IW: Traded 1870 BC.
Philosophy, Republic: 1750. 5 turn anarchy. Research off. I eventually gained all other AA techs in peace deals and pops, except Currency, but had little or no use of them, except Polytheism.
Volcanic Activites
2110 - The core volcano goes active!
1950 - It erupts, but pollutes an unimproved hill.
1675 - Volcano active again.
1575 - Lucky again.
Summary of Dates
1750 - Republic sling-shot.
1000 - QSC: 13 towns (pop 36,) 17 workers, 3 slaves, 1 swordsman, 10 horsemen, 1 granary, 6 barracks. Furs, Incense, silks, iron, horses, all embassies. 545 gold, 76gpt, All AI techs except Polytheism, Monarchy, Currency, Construction.
825 - Maya gone.
390 - Aztecs gone.
330 - Temple of Artemis.
300 (ca) - First leader builds army.
250 - Connected spices. ToA expansion.
210 - Defensive leader on interturn. Builds swordsman army in Viking area.
190 - Spain gone.
150 - America gone.
90 - Scandinavia gone.
70 BC - ConDom victory. -17 tiles to limit.
