In my quest to get my first deity win, I came across snarzberry's chivalry rush strategy. I chose Mongolia, and went for it.
The start was not strong for production. Almost no forests and only a few hills. 1 Mining lux (silver), 1 calendar lux (sugar). Turned out there were 4 horses in my capitol, which helped a lot. I also found 4 horses north of me and settled my second city there, also claiming another sugar. Just farther north was a cultured city state with incense and 4 horses. Nice.
I was in the middle part of the map on the north side. To my west was Monty. Fun. To my south west was Askia. Fun. To my south was Alexander. More fun. East was China, with India east of her. South east was Arabia with Sulieman east of him. Sounded like I was going to have some early wars.
Poor scouting caused me some problems here. Not many people wanted my luxes, and those who did were constantly broke. I acquired money as fast as I could, but I was still late on the city state alliance, so chivalry hit about turn 93. Prior to all this, the game went almost as expected, given my neighbors.
First, and most fortunate, Askia decided Monty and Alex made a better punching bag than me. On the other hand, I was at war with the Aztecs, Greece and China up until Chivalry. China was getting wailed on by Arabia around this time, so she made peace with me. Alex got busy with Askia and Arabia, but still felt he didn't need to give me peace. Fortunately he didn't cram his units down my throat.
The demographics at this time were a row of 8's. I was going towards education to get universities up as soon as possible after hitting chivalry.
Anyway, the keshiks were online, China was placated, Alex was busy and Monty was still crazy as always. He had pike men, but they weren't much of a match for the keshik dance. I cruise through Monty and take his capitol , leaving him one small city jammed in a corner to avoid the warmonger penalty so early. I end up later annexing his capitol because it was a decent production spot, which I was in need of. TP the puppets. Science isn't going well at this point. My capitol doesn't have many resources so it was growing based on riverside farms, mostly grassland. I was still 8th for science, but I would shortly pass Monty. He spend the rest of his time in the game dancing around his fire while berating me, before Askia eventually squashed him with rifles.
While I was fighting Monty, China was cramming down a bunch of wonders, including the PT, which I figured I'd need to get my science going. The money was going better now, so I was signing many RA's. Alex had decided I didn't need killing and became my friend, so I had RA's all around with a love fest. China's list of wonders did include the great wall, but I figured Keshiks could deal with it. I was right, and I set up a nice flanking position on Beijing and whittled it down until I claimed many wonders, including ND and PT. I annexed this city after some time due to high potential for production and science. I took 3 other of her cities, made peace (strangely no one would give me anything for peace in this game, even if they had no units left). One turn after I did that, Askia took her last city and China was gone from the game. No one seemed too upset with me for declaring on China, and they were all still friends.
At this point I was about 10% behind the average tech, and Arabia was about 15% ahead (and earning almost 1000g per turn). He was skewing the average a bit, but I was stil behind militarily. No one like Suli, so I made him my next target. I got some cannons to support my keshiks this time. They would be going up against some infantry, but mostly rifles and cannons. Suli decided to help me out and declared war on me as I was just about ready to go. Cannons and rifles are nice and all, but keshiks with +1 range, logistics and indirect fire can really fight a long time past their prime. I respond to Suli's aggression by taking 3 of his cities and then suing for peace.
At this point, Arabia had wiped Alex off the map. He was running away with the game. He entered modern era before all but one of us had entered industrial. He was sitting on 70,000g and looked to be going for a science victory. Fortunately, I had been planning. I had taken liberty, and then peity for early happiness. I followed this up with autocracy for the -33% purchasing price of units. Gold was good at this point, but I sold the 3 cities I took from Suli to bring my total up to ~17,000g. I was sitting on 7 great scientists and Oxford. I got in range of stealth bombers while maintaining peace, and chain bulbed it. At this point, Arabia had 1 part of his space ship done.
Incidentally, along the way I noticed Brandenburg Gate was still sitting there rather late. I grabbed it and this would turn out to be extremely helpful given the size of Askia's and Arabia's armies. I had no aluminum of course, so I bought off a few city states from Arabia in my back that had some and luxes I needed. I also bought some of Gandhi's. I bought 12 stealth bombers out the gate with 2 attack promotions and air healing. I upgraded my keshiks with march to Modern Armor, and I declared war on Arabia. The first 2-3 turns of the war were farming up his troops with bombers. 3 turns later, I had 3 of his cities, including his capitol, with a nice collection of modern wonders to boot. I blew up a few of his thrusters that I saw and proceeded to do more damage than I needed to. I took out all his major cities and sold many extra resources to Gandhi.
At this point, thanks to betraying my friend, Askia decided I was the bane of the world. I declared first and there was a lot of fighting to go on. My soldiers were at 420,000, mainly my 18 stealth bombers at this point. His was 520,000, mostly infantry, artillery, AA guns and some tanks. 14 of my stealth bombers had logistics now, and the rest were close. I lost one city to Askia, but cruised through his troops in short order. Not much later, his capitol was mine. I went over to India, bombed his 5 troops, and took his capital shortly after.
Turn 272, my first deity win was done. This post was longer than I intended. Also, I think I changed my verb tense in the middle of that. Sorry.
tl;dr
Stealth bombers are too good. Arabia had run away with this game in epic fashion, but they made him look like a toy. It wasn't even a challenge to take him all the way down to only having a few puppet cities left. I'll take the win, though.
The start was not strong for production. Almost no forests and only a few hills. 1 Mining lux (silver), 1 calendar lux (sugar). Turned out there were 4 horses in my capitol, which helped a lot. I also found 4 horses north of me and settled my second city there, also claiming another sugar. Just farther north was a cultured city state with incense and 4 horses. Nice.
I was in the middle part of the map on the north side. To my west was Monty. Fun. To my south west was Askia. Fun. To my south was Alexander. More fun. East was China, with India east of her. South east was Arabia with Sulieman east of him. Sounded like I was going to have some early wars.
Poor scouting caused me some problems here. Not many people wanted my luxes, and those who did were constantly broke. I acquired money as fast as I could, but I was still late on the city state alliance, so chivalry hit about turn 93. Prior to all this, the game went almost as expected, given my neighbors.
First, and most fortunate, Askia decided Monty and Alex made a better punching bag than me. On the other hand, I was at war with the Aztecs, Greece and China up until Chivalry. China was getting wailed on by Arabia around this time, so she made peace with me. Alex got busy with Askia and Arabia, but still felt he didn't need to give me peace. Fortunately he didn't cram his units down my throat.
The demographics at this time were a row of 8's. I was going towards education to get universities up as soon as possible after hitting chivalry.
Anyway, the keshiks were online, China was placated, Alex was busy and Monty was still crazy as always. He had pike men, but they weren't much of a match for the keshik dance. I cruise through Monty and take his capitol , leaving him one small city jammed in a corner to avoid the warmonger penalty so early. I end up later annexing his capitol because it was a decent production spot, which I was in need of. TP the puppets. Science isn't going well at this point. My capitol doesn't have many resources so it was growing based on riverside farms, mostly grassland. I was still 8th for science, but I would shortly pass Monty. He spend the rest of his time in the game dancing around his fire while berating me, before Askia eventually squashed him with rifles.
While I was fighting Monty, China was cramming down a bunch of wonders, including the PT, which I figured I'd need to get my science going. The money was going better now, so I was signing many RA's. Alex had decided I didn't need killing and became my friend, so I had RA's all around with a love fest. China's list of wonders did include the great wall, but I figured Keshiks could deal with it. I was right, and I set up a nice flanking position on Beijing and whittled it down until I claimed many wonders, including ND and PT. I annexed this city after some time due to high potential for production and science. I took 3 other of her cities, made peace (strangely no one would give me anything for peace in this game, even if they had no units left). One turn after I did that, Askia took her last city and China was gone from the game. No one seemed too upset with me for declaring on China, and they were all still friends.
At this point I was about 10% behind the average tech, and Arabia was about 15% ahead (and earning almost 1000g per turn). He was skewing the average a bit, but I was stil behind militarily. No one like Suli, so I made him my next target. I got some cannons to support my keshiks this time. They would be going up against some infantry, but mostly rifles and cannons. Suli decided to help me out and declared war on me as I was just about ready to go. Cannons and rifles are nice and all, but keshiks with +1 range, logistics and indirect fire can really fight a long time past their prime. I respond to Suli's aggression by taking 3 of his cities and then suing for peace.
At this point, Arabia had wiped Alex off the map. He was running away with the game. He entered modern era before all but one of us had entered industrial. He was sitting on 70,000g and looked to be going for a science victory. Fortunately, I had been planning. I had taken liberty, and then peity for early happiness. I followed this up with autocracy for the -33% purchasing price of units. Gold was good at this point, but I sold the 3 cities I took from Suli to bring my total up to ~17,000g. I was sitting on 7 great scientists and Oxford. I got in range of stealth bombers while maintaining peace, and chain bulbed it. At this point, Arabia had 1 part of his space ship done.
Incidentally, along the way I noticed Brandenburg Gate was still sitting there rather late. I grabbed it and this would turn out to be extremely helpful given the size of Askia's and Arabia's armies. I had no aluminum of course, so I bought off a few city states from Arabia in my back that had some and luxes I needed. I also bought some of Gandhi's. I bought 12 stealth bombers out the gate with 2 attack promotions and air healing. I upgraded my keshiks with march to Modern Armor, and I declared war on Arabia. The first 2-3 turns of the war were farming up his troops with bombers. 3 turns later, I had 3 of his cities, including his capitol, with a nice collection of modern wonders to boot. I blew up a few of his thrusters that I saw and proceeded to do more damage than I needed to. I took out all his major cities and sold many extra resources to Gandhi.
At this point, thanks to betraying my friend, Askia decided I was the bane of the world. I declared first and there was a lot of fighting to go on. My soldiers were at 420,000, mainly my 18 stealth bombers at this point. His was 520,000, mostly infantry, artillery, AA guns and some tanks. 14 of my stealth bombers had logistics now, and the rest were close. I lost one city to Askia, but cruised through his troops in short order. Not much later, his capitol was mine. I went over to India, bombed his 5 troops, and took his capital shortly after.
Turn 272, my first deity win was done. This post was longer than I intended. Also, I think I changed my verb tense in the middle of that. Sorry.
tl;dr
Stealth bombers are too good. Arabia had run away with this game in epic fashion, but they made him look like a toy. It wasn't even a challenge to take him all the way down to only having a few puppet cities left. I'll take the win, though.
