I played a game today with the intent of going down the longswordsmen to rifles path and report here what it was like post patch, but unfortunately it didn't work out that way
Settings were deity-continents-standard everything-Denmark. I was looking forward to using the ski infantry to good effect. It was a pretty cool game anyway, so I thought I'd share.
There are differences due to the fact that it's a continents game. I really prefer them over pangaea as I feel they are more interesting. At the start of the game you don't know if you're on an island by yourself, or with 1,2,3 or 4 AI neighbors. You have to adjust on the fly to account for this and it brings in the need to get Astronomy and naval units/techs that you don't need as a priority in pangaea.
But it does open up the possibility of a more secure group of RA partners i.e. the ones you meet post-astronomy who live on overseas continents. Your relationship with them is typically much more stable. The catch is you usually don't meet them until post turn-100 and you have to invest resources beyond a scout to do so. So there are positives and negatives.
It turned out the distribution was a straight 4 - 4 split on two large continents, I shared mine with Hiawatha, Gandhi and the Incas. They are good neighbors to have, a real bunch of sweethearts. I got a great start and beserker rushed Hiawatha nice and early. I didn't expect to be able to roll through all 3 civs without upgrading to ski infantry on deity post-patch but that's exactly what happened and is why I thought this game would be relevant to this discussion. My berserker based army was good enough to wipe out 3 AI civs even though I was up against kremlin buffed strength 45 cities when I got to Gandhi. Trebs and beserkers got the job done, I lost 2 or 3 beserker units IIRC and ended up with an army of a GG, 6 beserkers, 3 trebs and a crossbowman.
In the opening I bribed Hiawatha to attack the Inca and signed 3 RA's with my neighbors for Civil Service, Metal Casting and Steel. This is my preferred set up and it freed up the Meritocracy GP for a manufactory on a sheep tile. I had to settle a second city to pick up iron, sometimes when this happens I use the GP to build the Oracle and take the free settler policy but in this game due to mad production I had hammers to spare for a hard-built settler.
This game very nicely demonstrates the 'leave them with an insignificant corner so they can contribute RA's' principle, that I was saying is still strong on continents, nicely. I left Gandhi and the Inca with one city each and got 4 RAs in total from them during the rest of the game. I puppeted their empires but annexed one of the Inca coastal cities so I could rush buy a caravel at astronomy and then met the other continent only to find out that Augustus had run away with the game over there and had taken out two civs (they still existed but were reduced to minnows) already.
I then went on a REX rampage to claim the rest of my continent. I think I probably built something like 12 - 14 settlers in a row in my capital at this stage. At turn 200 my stats were insane. 705
/ 250
/ 250
and when I won the game at turn 238 I was at 1200
The thing is that Caesar was almost double my score when we first met and was double my strength in military. We ended up with an equal amount of cities, his 22 to my 21. But with his free reign on happiness he had 5 times my population. Despite this we were neck and neck for the science lead all game.
He finished the Manhattan Project on turn 207 and my scout was in his continent to see the nukes fly against his only remaining neighbor of any strength, Harun-Al Rashid, only 5 turns later. At least 3 were used in quick order and Arabia glowed in the dark.
Needless to say I didn't fancy taking on a monster deity with 40 000
in the bank and a liking for nukes so I felt that diplomatic was my best option (as cheap as some think that is). I could bunker down to defend my continent and win by science in all likelihood but it just takes longer and is less efficient. Diplomatic win on turn 238. It was a pretty awesome game.
I'm going to replay this game from about where I won from and try see how good Denmark's UA is during the late game at penetrating inland for a one-turn capital steal from a surprise naval invasion once Augustus has taken out Arabia's capital.
Here's some shots from the game. There is a good shot of the early rush attack with beserkers against Hiawatha and later the final siege vs Gandhi in Delhi. Notice the single city each left for Inca and India in my continent, boxed in so they cannot expand. Notice also the crazy increase in science between turns 129 and 201.
On a side note, any suggestions about how I should go about stealing Rome from Augustus in a one turn surprise naval invasion, after he has taken out Mecca? That would be the icing on the cake for this game but I wanted to lock up a win before experimenting.
...I swear their unique promotion is more fun to toy with than Khan's/keshiks or chu's.
but that was a diplomatic/strategic error on my side and not an actual failure of this rush setup.
