Instead of attacking Madras, I headed for Bombay first. The reason I did this was that the city had access to rice, clams, and silk, and only a few jungle tiles were left. Madras hadn't been developed very extensively in my game. It only had a couple cottages and the dyes didn't have a plantation yet. Without calendar I wasn't going to be able to make much use of them, and I didn't plan on getting that tech for quite some time. I figured I would only be able to afford to keep two cities, so Bombay was one of my choices. The other was Delhi, since it is the buddhist holy city.
Bombay was captured within a few turns. I set all of my cities to producing catapults and I was able to get 6 of them there in time for the attack, with 3 more trailing behind. I think I lost one or two catapults and one chariots in that fight. Madras fell a couple turns after my units had healed. I assaulted the city with 7 or 8 chariots and 10 to 12 catapults.
At this point india had apparently just gotten feudalism because they'd had one longbowman guarding the city. This meant that Delhi was going to be a hard nut to crack. It turned out that it was, but it was worth it since they'd just completed the buddhist shrine. I had exactly enough units to take it. I lost quite a few catapults and 3 chariots in that attack, but my best promoted units managed to survive. After I took Delhi, I made peace. India was willing to give up literature and 130g. Two good cities, a tech, and enough gold to cover my negative income wasn't a bad deal.
Things went better in my empire than I thought they would. I discovered a new source of copper shortly after I got iron working. Figures! I built my iron city between the iron and the marble. That's not a bad spot at all. Despite quickly chopping all the forests in the area, the city didn't develop as quickly as I would have liked. I should have built a granary before the courthouse so I could whip it more quickly.
Speaking of courthouses, I got code of laws researched fairly quickly and started on metal casting. I put all of my cities to work building courthouses as soon as they finished their previous projects, which were mostly catapults. I was able to whip all of those within 15 turns, and they got done just in time to start working on forges. The forges only took about 5 turns to build, so I didn't whip any of those. When those were finished, I started working on swordsmen. I built about 8 of those before the need for more catapults became apparent.
After making peace with india, I let my units rest just long enough to heal up before sending them to my border with persia. They had a city whose culture was weak enough that I would be able to park my units right outside their walls and still be in my territory. Unfortunately, persia had longbowmen also by this time and with their cities on hills I would need more catapults to take them. Fortunately, the center of their power lies within easy reach. Their two most powerful cities lie just beyond the one on our border. I figure I can raze two of those and keep their capital before making peace. If the military situation looks good, I could even raze a third. The zulu are starting to expand again, though, so I might not want to mess with persia for too long. I want to crush the zulu again while they're still weakened.
In the attached save I am ready to declare war on persia. I've just started researching engineering and I have 19 turns to go on that. 19 turns should be enough time to wrap up the war with persia. While I'm raising an army of trebuchets and crossbowmen I should be able to eliminate the zulu from the game. I am certain that they will not get feudalism any time soon. After I research engineering, I'm going to go for compass and optics. I have two options after that. I can research feudalism, guilds, gunpowder, chemistry, and astronomy for quick overseas invasion, or I can go for the more time consuming civil service, divine right, nationalism, music, military tradition, and astronomy path. That'll give me time to build up my economy a bit. I'm hoping that somewhere along the line I'll be able to beat currency out of someone so I can get markets running. Maybe I can get horseback riding from a defeated civ also?
Now that I've actually written down those tech paths my idea doesn't seem as foolproof as it used to. No matter which path I take, I could potentially miss several useful techs like currency, banking, education, and printing press. Maybe I should forget about rushing to military techs and go for the traditional liberalism gambit. I've had bad luck with that, though. I'm sure our friends on the other continent will be researching very quickly. I'll have to cross that bridge when I come to it.
Oh, I thought of something else I could do. I hire a priest in my stonehenge city to quickly get a great priest and build the christian holy shrine. Two shrines should make this game a lot easier. Christianity was founded in the city with three gold hills in my game, so I will have mucho commerce there.
. I just declared on asoka and stole 2 workers and destroyed a newly found city close to us, where asoka even had a great artist ready to culture bomb me! Just in time
