I decided to go for domination this game, if possible, since I'd never gone for it before and at epic all those units are much more useful, apparently.
I didn't get any particular problems with barbarians - indeed they supplied me with my fourth city. There were lots of them about, but I had axemen to their warriors so they were pretty easy to deal with. There was a short period where the barbs had axemen too, but soon after that the nations of the world had decent visibility and the time of barbs was over.
Anyway, here's a timeline of the interesting events from the earliest part of my game.
4000BC: Settled on the spot. Just too good a spot, and I regretted moving last GOTM so here it was. Decided to take someone's advice from the pre-game discussion thread and go for writing early to get libraries [and hopefully to pick up someone else's religion].
Picked Agriculture as first tech to research.
Warrior went W to investigate the second blue circle that the settler had been offered on the first move, then SW (to circle back to the E and explore the better looking lands). Found stone, went to it and found some wine. I decided the wine would be nice because the happiness limit is low.
3760BC: Warror, circling to E, finds gems south of London. This will be city number 2, the amazing science centre.
3520BC: Buddhism founded in a distant land.
3480BC: Discover Agriculture, Wheel next (I like roads for defening against barbs)
3200BC: My first worker is built.
3120BC: Met Isabella
3040BC: Discover The Wheel, Bronze Working next (want to know where copper is, and chop some out-of-city forests for settler)
2800BC: Met Washington
2520BC: Hinduism is founded in a distant land
2360BC: Start my first settler
2320BC: Met Mansa Musa
2280BC: Discover Bronze Working, delay revolution a while to finish the settler build. Pottery next.
2000BC: Settler built, went to build among copper and gems. Revolted. Met Cyrus
1975BC: England has slaves
1925BC: Discover Pottery. Mysticism next for Obelisk (need culture expansion to get the copper and the gems) Met Saladin.
1750BC: Discover Mysticism
1650BC: Met Montezuma
1050BC: Judaism founded in a distant land.
From here on, I stopped taking copious notes. Nottingham was founded to the W of the gems/copper, and the barbarians nicely founded a city right near the wine I wanted. This was captured soon after the discovery of Iron Working.
I found after a while that I was getting behind on expansion, and the AI teams had more cities than me, which prompted me to go on a bit of a settler splurge, and in turn took my science rate down around 50% for a while to cope with the maintenance. Nonetheless, the great scientists produced by London (giving me academies quickly), together with the masses of trade from the gems in York helped me to keep up in tech. I was the first to get Alphabet, and was able to trade myself close to the lead, and then never looked back.
I got Confucianism, and was able to spread it to the Americans and Mali, and seed it in enough Spanish cities that although Isabella wouldn't convert, I had a good early warning system for impending invasions. I later got Islam too, but didn't do much with it.
Spain and the Aztecs had an early war (declared by the Aztecs making them unpopular), as did America and Mali. This meant that most nations kept fairly large armies, which was worrying. I kept my head in until Redcoats, and then conveniently Spain went to war with the Aztecs again (who were the most backward). I sent an army of Redcoats on their way, waiting for Spain's inevitable call for assistence. Sure enough, when they were about halfway there, Isabella asked for a hand. Unfortunately she also asked America for help, so the spoils were split three ways - but I got Tenochtitlan with its Buddhist shrine intact, and Texcoco (the second city). Montezuma was wiped out.
By the time that war was over, I was wondering who to take out with my Redcoats. I eventually plumbed for Mali because they were the second strongest nation, and being also financial were also the most advanced in tech (apart from me). They also had just attacked Arabia and taken a city close to my border with a big mean looking stack including Musketmen. So, being a devious person I first asked the Americans to attack them, thinking that in a turn or two the Americans would then ask me to join in. Eight turns later, Washington still hadn't called for help. Half the mean looking stack had headed towards America, though, so my hordes of Redcoats that had been gathering on the border started the march into Mali anyway.
As it happens, I got to Infantry quite quickly, so the Redcoats only took two or three Mali cities. Towards the end of that war, I miscalculated - I had stopped producing fresh Infantry because I thought I had enough to clear out Mali, and wanted to consolidate and improve a little in my homeland. But I didn't have quite enough to wipe out Mali and defend each city thoroughly in case of backstabbings from Saladin, so Mansa Musa was left with Philadelphia that he had taken from the Americans.
From there I paused and consolidated, building myself an enormous tech lead and deciding to wait a while for the next war - I wanted railroads to make supplying the front line easier, and tanks for quicker movement through enemy territory.
But I'd best not say much more until Spoiler Thread 2
to be continued...
It took me about 1 - 2 hours all the day it was released for me to meet my demise.
) edit I did this in the game too stupid stupid stupid, for some reason I though math gave you catapults....I'm dumb, anyways got hanging garderns out of it in the future and horseback riding (no horses) from the ancient age.
)
but capturing cities, and some well timed lost wonder races
