Just finished this and I am going to bed. I did not know the conventions for this competition as it is so new to me so I probably broke some rules and did not do a timeline or a QSC save. This was the predator download btw.
Located iron on the island south of Asia and founded a city there early on, build the Lighthouse and the Hanging Gardens which gave me some contentment that allowed me to build MI and trebuchet units. The Lighthouse started my golden age which made production of the initial invasion army possible. Placed settlements on the western horse islands though I could not connect them. With about 8 galleys as transport I invaded Japan and discovered that leader generation was not working. Oh well. From there south to China and then Korea. It was a long slog with no horse.
Writing at zero followed by hyper maxed out research. Once I have the invasion underway unit costs were no problem as I ran Monarch the entire game and had many cities. I just minimized growth to maximize scientists. Ran the bottom of the tech tree till I was able to trade for Education then Astronomy and Navigation which gave me the ability to build knights then I jumped back to get Metallurgy and Military Tradition. I was ahead in tech most of the time and did manage to get some gpt deals from Egypt. Otherwise there was no trading. Happiness was boosted by the luxuries I got from Asia. Saltpeter was found in China btw.
In the next age I went Steam Power Electricity and Replaceable Parts. There I stopped all research and switched all the scientists to civil engineers. Carthage had placed a few towns in Asia so they were next to go under the knife despite the fact that they were the strongest of the northern civs. It was just a matter of logistics.
The tech beeline and having a lot of cash made it possible to have both artillery and infantry for the bulk of the action on the northern continent. Eygpt declared on me and I think just as the game ended they had only one town left.
My strategy was fine but execution was lousy as I just haven't played a game of this nature in 6 or 7 years and a rush was never my thing anyway, clearly I could have finished much faster.
Domination in 1320AD. Only 4700 or so points. If I play another like this I should do much better.
