I finally got around to submitting, a whole 6 hours before the deadline... Unfortunately RL got a bit busy, and I honestly wasn't dying to play either, so it fell by the wayside until I decided to try to make get one in last week. Finished in 840 so nothing impressive, but a win's a win and it'll chart. Didn't ever get the SGL I wanted, so instead tried a slower buildup with an attack as soon as riders were available, and no wars before that to avoid slowing tech. Should have planned it better, because the sprint to chivalry was more like a jog as unit support choked the economy, and then I didn't have cash to upgrade the 70+ chariots and horsemen quickly. Should have built more markets and aqueducts early, and used disconnect reconnect. That's what poor planning and rules of thumb get you. The landmass was split, with 2 isolated civs that weren't discovered until astronomy. Got lucky in that neither had boats when we got there, but egypt actually expelled my first invasion attempt with swarms of archers. The second effort used a decoy force to draw the archers and was more effective.
That's probably the last conquest game for a while. It's just so frustrating on larger maps, especially on higher levels with the split landforms and wet settlers. Oh, and crashes from whatever bug happens when a civ's last settler is lost on the interturn. That's what ended the deity game. It's kinda fun to play but a bit frantic, and definitely not as fun when you know if you play everything perfect and there's a 20% chance it'll be what you hope. Makes it really hard to give your best effort for every turn. At least its not a 100k game I guess.
