Going for an early Conquest
I outlined my game strategy in my
first spoiler, so in this final post I will only mention that what I finally did deviated a bit from the original plan.
In the end, I wound up researching all the way to Chemistry instead of stopping at Banking. This wasn’t because I felt I needed Grenadiers for this map, but because I had not founded enough high-production cities early in the game. By the time I reached about 200ad, I realized that I had plenty of science, but not nearly enough hammers to produce troops as fast as I needed them. Therefore, my wars started late, and I continued to research while eliminating the first couple of AIs.
Grenadiers certainly made for easy going during the wars, but I think I could have gotten an earlier date by not worrying quite so much about gold/science and founding a few more high production cities early in the game. The extra units would have enabled a much faster conquest of the first three AIs. I also got a bit carried away with Wonder building.
Wonders Built After 1AD
Turn 169, 390AD: The Great Library in London
Turn 209, 790AD: The Colossus in London
Turn 181, 510AD: The Hanging Gardens in York
Turn 220, 900AD: The Hagia Sophia in York
Turn 223, 930AD: The Forbidden Palace in Madrid
Great People
I received a total of 9 great people in this game, which were used as follows:
1575bc, scientist in London, used for a London academy in 1550bc.
500bc, prophet in York, not used until 120ad to build the Confucian shrine in York. (was dumb to wait).
40ad, engineer in York, used in 660ad to research most of Engineering.
350ad, prophet in York, used immediately to research Theology.
530ad, merchant in London, used in 710ad to discover Banking.
660ad, engineer in York, used in 680ad to research most of Guilds.
950ad, engineer in York, used immediately to research most of Chemistry.
1015ad, scientist in London, both scientist and following priest used to trigger a GA in 1075ad.
1075ad, priest in York.
Tech Research
Turn 147, 140AD: Literature
Turn 158, 280AD: Construction
Turn 166, 360AD: Theology (prophet)
Turn 167, 370AD: Currency
Turn 174, 440AD: Metal Casting
Turn 186, 560AD: Monarchy
Turn 195, 650AD: Feudalism
Turn 196, 660AD: Machinery
Turn 198, 680AD: Engineering (engineer)
Turn 201, 710AD: Guilds (engineer)
Turn 202, 720AD: Banking (merchant)
Turn 204, 740AD: Horseback Riding
Turn 220, 900AD: Gunpowder
Turn 228, 980AD: Chemistry (engineer)
I also traded Metal Casting, Currency and Construction for a few techs at some point, but unfortunately I forgot to write down the date or what I traded for.
In any case, I turned off research after Chemistry until near the end of the game, when I turned it back on to get Drama, Music and Compass for a few extra points in score.
Revolutions
540ad: police state, theocracy
990ad: mercantilism
The First Aztec War, 440ad—???
The Aztecs declared on me in 440ad, but it didn’t come as a shock, as I saw their stack of 1 axeman and 4 jaguars coming my way about 5 turns before they actually declared and crossed my borders. I quickly built an archer to protect my gold hill, and moved a small stack of axemen, swordsmen and a catapult to dispatch them. I lost the catapult, but he lost everything. That was it for this war. I got him to make peace with me (due to war weariness) at some point during the Spanish War, but forgot to record the date.
The Spanish War, 640ad—830ad (19 turns)
I fought this war with about 3 macemen, 5 swords, 5 axemen and 6 catapults. Most units got City Raider II promotions and the Cats received a mix of City Raider, Barrage and Accuracy. Ideally, I would have been fighting two wars at this time, but with my 6 measly cities—one of which was only good for commerce, and one tied up building wonders—I could only handle the single battlefront. The Spanish capitol was captured in 710ad. Around the end of the war my production problems finally began to abate, as workers finished chopping courthouses and barracks in a few of the Spanish cities.
Mansa Musa managed to research Feudalism around the end of this war, and it wasn’t long before the dreaded longbowmen began appearing in his cities (I could see them because I had converted Mansa, Washington and Saladin’s capitols to my religion). Fortunately, no one else would be getting longbows anytime soon. All other AIs were far behind Mansa, and no one had Alphabet except me.
The American War, 840ad—990ad (15 turns)
I was building up the troops for this war on America’s eastern front while fighting against the Spanish, and my forces at this time consisted mostly of macemen, catapults and a few knights. Also, about half of my troops from the Spanish war began marching toward Washington, taking it in 900ad. The other half of my Spanish forces prepared to invade Arabia.
At the end of this war I was finally able to turn off science, which quickly enabled me to upgrade many troops, as well as continue to build macemen, promote them with City Raider II, and upgrade them to Grenadiers. I continued that procedure until the last 20 or so turns of the game, and at most times my military consisted of roughly half knights and half grenadiers, although there were always a few catapults around as well.
The Arabian War, 960ad—1080ad (20 turns)
Although I had a few Grenadiers in this war, it ended up being my toughest conflict due to my poor troop deployment. I was diverting too many of my units to the Mali and Aztec borders in preparation for my impending invasions, and as a result my push into Arabia stalled. War Weariness hit me in about 4 cities, but it disappeared near the end of the war, as Arabian ivory and incense were distributed in the empire.
Two turns before the end of this war, all Saladin’s archers turned into longbowmen. It couldn’t help him at that point, but I still wonder how he managed it. He was broke and didn’t even have Monarchy just a few turns before.
The Second Aztec War, 1030ad—1100ad (14 turns)
I wasn’t looking forward to my invasion of the Aztecs even though they were light years behind in tech, because I knew they had at least two stacks of 15 or more attack units (highly promoted jags and axemen) roaming in their lands. If they all hit my meager stack of Grenadiers at once, I would probably lose.
But fortune shined on me in 990ad, when Monty decided to declare on Cyrus! I happened to have a knight in Cyrus’ territory at the time, and I was able to watch the Aztec stacks advance. After the Aztecs razed two of Cyrus’ cities, they began to march on his capitol. That was awfully far from home for them, so I declared and razed a city. His troops did an immediate about-face, but by the time they reached home, my knights had pillaged every home and virgin in the Aztec empire.
My GA kicked off a few turns before the end of this war, which gave me a tremendous production boost.
The Persian War, 1095ad—1125ad (6 turns)
There really wasn’t much too report on this war, as my unit numbers had risen astronomically during my GA—a mistake I used to make in Civ3 as I recall. This was the first conflict in which I faced a significant number of longbows, but I really had many more troops than I needed in order to dispatch them, as can be seen in the following screen:
The numbers went up a lot more before the end of the game too, with the final number of knights around 75. I just couldn’t think of anything worthwhile to build in the cities late in the game—although switching to settlers might have been a good idea for a bit of extra score.
You can also see from the screen above that my military losses were very low: too low, as a matter of fact. I think those numbers indicate that I was not nearly as aggressive as I should have been in my wars. But I'm still in the steep part of the learning curve.
The Malinese War, 1100ad—1145ad (9 turns)
This war was just like the Persian war: uneventful. The only snafu came near the end, when I incorrectly moved one of my stacks, and I had to wait an additional turn to take Mansa’s last city.
So my final conquest date was 1150 ad, and my score was around 130,000.
Post Analysis
During all my wars, I tended to take cities rather than raze them. I only razed 14 all game, and most of those were tiny, barbarian cities that autorazed. I suppose razing cities might have given me conquest a bit sooner, but I’m not entirely sure. It takes a long time to heal a unit when it is not in a city (even with medic), and the additional cities certainly serve to swell troop numbers in a hurry thanks to forest chops. So razing might not have yielded an earlier victory at all, but rather a later one.
Surprisingly, my economy was never in danger, as can be seen from my Financial Advisor Screen after victory:
Those numbers are with my cities emphasizing food and production, not commerce, so I could actually get much more gold by hiring merchants if I needed too. Near the end of the game, in fact, I had a surplus of around 2000 gold, so I turned on research to get a few extra techs for score. The revenues from capturing cities always overcame any expenses and allowed for as many unit upgrades as I wanted. Running Mercantilism helped a bit with revenues too, as every city got one or more merchants as soon as its borders were expanded by artists. I was actually very surprised that the economy remained stable throughout the game. Before I played this strategy I fully expected to teeter on the brink of bankruptcy by the end.
This financial stability, along with the knowledge that I reached 52.69% of the map without expanding borders to the second tier or trying to reach the domination limit, makes me think this game strategy could have achieved an even earlier domination victory. Maybe I will try that for GoTM3. I much prefer domination/conquest victories when playing epic-speed games.
Thanks to the staff for another wonderful game!
Edit: converted "leaders" into "people."
in my civ3 experience, AI never hesitates to demand stuff from you but quickly forgets what you've given them. 
