Playing as the Iroquois against England, Portugal, France, and America. I found it interesting that both AutomatedTeller and Tone chose the Germans – my top priorities in choosing rivals were no early unique units but also to make sure all the free demigod units were warriors instead of archers or spears. However, England did get a Golden Age by building the Colossus, so AutomatedTeller’s theory of choosing tribes that needed 2 wonders to start a GA was a good idea also. Other settings were no barbarians, 80% pangaea, normal, temperate, and 5 billion years old.
The start:
The jungles to my south contained dyes (for what they are worth in this type of game). Research was Writing at the maximum, but I needn’t have bothered – it took me 42 turns to complete, and I eventually decided against researching much further. I reached Writing as a monopoly, but I traded it around as soon as I got it for goodies like Warrior Code and The Wheel and also Bronze and Iron Working in case I wanted to disconnect someone’s iron. I could have been the first to Philosophy, but I stopped with 1 turn to go hoping an AI would complete Code of Laws or Polytheism for me, but the English reached Philosophy and chose Polytheism as their free tech. I finish Philosophy but then I did no more research the rest of the game except for a late game half-hearted attempt at Engineering once I
all the required Ancient Age techs from my rivals. I played the entire game in Despotism.
In 1525, I built embassies everywhere and told the AI to fight amongst themselves while I built my military. Here was the known world at that point:
From what I could tell, the Americans would probably be my last target since they were close, and there wasn’t anyone on the other side of them. England would likely be my first target, so I declared on France. I renegotiated peace with England tied to an alliance with France figuring that by the time they got around to breaking our deal, I would be ready for war. France had the Statue of Zeus, and Portugal looked ideal for long-term war happiness, so I also renegotiated peace with Portugal tied to an alliance with France. America didn’t even know France, and I don’t think they ever met.
I had 2 cities (Salamanca and Niagara Falls) capable of 10 spt, 2 others at about 5-6 spt, and 2 worker factories (Oil Springs
2 curraghs to look for AI escape paths before building workers and later
a couple galleys).
In 1450, a lone English warrior entered my territory returning home from America. I told Liz to declare or get out without really thinking about it, and the "polite" Liz surprised me by declaring despite the fact that we had 17 turns left on our alliance/peace treaty, and I was paying her 34 gpt.
The chariots were upgraded to Mounted Warriors as quickly as I could afford to, and the carnage began. The Golden Age of the Iroquois started in 1375. During the Golden Age, 2 cities operated at 15 spt, and 2 others were at 10 spt. By the time the Golden Age ended, I had enough improvements and had added enough workers that my cities could essentially stay at those levels for the rest of the game.
England was eliminated in 975 BC.
At 1000 BC, I had:
11 cities
48 citizens
17 native workers
8 slaves
32 mounted warriors
2 curraghs
My military was already the world’s strongest, so it became a race to kill the others. France was ripped apart by RoP abuse in 710 BC. I kept Paris long enough to get 1 Ancient Cavalry, but after that I abandoned the towns with the highest flip risk.
Portugal had been beaten pretty badly by France, and both Portugal and France were eliminated in 630 BC.
Meanwhile, I had been moving my recent Mounted Warrior builds into America for a second RoP abuse. I started with the Great Wall city and razed/captured a total of 5 cities in 590 BC.
As you may be able to see, America had escaped off the pangaea so I thought I needed boats. They actually had several off-continent islands, but fortunately they were willing to give me all 3 of them in exchange for a promise of peace guaranteed to last about 3 minutes. I immediately abandoned all of them instead of dealing with potential flips.
Conquest victory was achieved in 390 BC. Despite all that fighting, I didn’t get a single Great Leader
.
My games are really old so I'm curious to see what I can do now. I just neeed to find some civ time. My last game was the one I wrote about in the Able thread.
I tried invading, but Arabia didn't like me very much and I didn't land with swords or anything and MW get ripped up pretty good in a stack by themselves by archers and warriors...
