Loss Condition: Retirement in 1950 AD due to lack of time to complete the game. I was close to a Domination Victory, but since I retired, I can't claim that I would have won it.
I was planning on moving my initial Settler one square West, in order to save the Plains square for the extra Hammer. When I loaded up the game, however, a blue circle indicated that a spot to the NW of the starting spot, on a Grassland Forest, would be better. I complied.
Overall, it was a decision that worked in my favour, as I avoided settling on the Copper. The Copper was a complete gift--but it was a really nice one--thank you, Ainwood. I lost a forest and a turn of production, but gained two additional hammers (one from the Plains square and one from a Grassland Forest which I chose not to chop).
Research order:
Fishing -> Mining -> Bronze Working -> Sailing -> Mysticism -> Polytheism -> Priesthood -> Pottery -> Iron Working
Build order:
Warrior (completed him) -> Work Boat (a turn or two after getting Fishing) -> Work Boat -> Worker -> Work Boat -> Lighthouse -> Settler -> The Oracle
In 1800 BC, Paris began building The Oracle. My second city had been placed in a way that I couldn't possibly get the Marble in time--first, I'd need a cultural border expansion and second, I didn't even have Masonry. In the same turn, one of the AI built Stonehenge--it was China, I was to later discover.
In 1720 BC, Judaism was founded--I guess it was a good thing that I hadn't rushed to found a religion, as I wouldn't have won without sacrificing some early worker/work boat techs. Also, in this year, I logged a comment in my autolog about how "that Ivory looks really nice", so my exploring boat must have found it.
I thought that I was well set up for a Metal Casting slingshot. Hmmm, I guess I didn't do a good enough job of prioritizing The Oracle. I missed building it by 2 turns. I used one forest chop and had time for a second forest chop, but I thought that I had the Wonder in the bag, so I instead built a road with my Worker. The second forest chop would have given me just enough production to get The Oracle, but I could handle the loss of the Wonder, fair and square.
The cash was alright, but it still took me about 28 turn to research Metal Casting.
At least it turned out to be Asoka that built The Oracle--I was the first Civ that he met and was his first major trading partner (although that trading was short-lived, due to his fast teching), so he didn't really spread around whatever tech he learned.
At that point, I decided that with Sailing in my hands and Axemen available, it was time to start settling. I gave up on other Wonder-building until I had a Tech monopoly on Metal Casting. Once I had that tech, Paris pumped out a Forge and then The Colossus, which was to be one of my few Wonders.
I believe that the only other World Wonder that I built was The Sistine Chapel, mostly because no one else seemed to want to build it.
Interestingly, The Great Lighthouse went quickly, before I could even consider building it. If I'd passed up on The Oracle, I'm sure that I would have had it. Regardless, at least it went to Julius, where it was mostly useless. He only had 2 cities for the longest time and he couldn't trade with anyone until he had learned Astronomy, so he likely only got 1 extra trade route in each of his 2 cities.
With the focus on Settlers and Galleys, it wasn't hard to settle the islands to the SE of our starting island.
Note that due to my initial Settler's move NW and my placement of my second city with the Marble outside of my city's initial 1-tile radius, there wasn't really room for a third city on my starting island.
I'm going by memory here, but I believe that I founded my third city near a sea resource, to help with Health issues.
I believe that my fourth city was founded next to the Ivory. I really needed some happiness in my cities at this point, so it was a great prize. However, I spent about 5 turns messing around with my Settler and Axeman defender, moving them back and forth. I found a blue circle to the North of the Ivory, but after moving there, I decided that I didn't like the suggested location. I found another blue circle on a Plains Hills square at the southern tip of the island and moved my Settler there, but I also discovered Huaynas cultural boundary there. Fearing a cultural flip, as my focus really wasn't on cultural buildings, I settled one square to the NE of the Ivory.
I kind of "missed out" on the Fish that was within Huayna's borders, but I felt that it would be better to guarantee keeping the city, rather than have to worry about losing it to culture.
Soon after discovering Iron Working, I realised that the "somewhat lame" island with several Grassland squares, a Grassland Hill, and a Fish, would turn out to be "somewhat great" with the addition of an Iron resource. I settled in that location next.
It was rather fortunate timing on my part. Qin had a Settler and an Archer in a Galley next to the island, but I got to the spot first.
Around this point, I had 3 Galleys. I didn't have a big enough military force to really make use of the boats, so I sent one out towards Qin and another out towards Huayna.
I was running out of settling room, so I figured that I could scout out their lands and then declare war on them simultaneously.
In hindsight, that idea, I believe, would have been silly. My forces would have been split up at the opposite ends of my empire. Fortunately, the decision was taken out of my hands, as I received a diplomatic envoy from Huayna, saying that war was declared. My only choice was to agree by saying: "So be it."
I had just dumped off 2 Axemen on the other side of China's closest city, the one to the NE of the Iron island with all of that Ice and a Copper resource. Back on the boat they went, making the trek to the other end of my empire.
Four Archers landed on my Ivory. Uh oh. Fortunately, one fearsome Axeman held out against 3 assaulting Archers, while the 4th one pillaged my Ivory.
The war was tough. Huayna launched another invasion on the same Ivory square, with Chariots and Archers. Fortunately, I had an Archer along with the Axemen there, so I held onto my city, losing the Archer.
Okay, so Huayna did not want to see War Elephants, huh? Well, I figured out a way to trade for Construction, so I eventually was able to make some War Elephants, but it was slow going.
We traded several Galleys. It really felt like a game of Battleship--you keep losing all of your boats but you proceed headlong anyway, racing to see if you can kill your opponent's boats before they kill yours.
I realised quickly that sea war was much different from land war--it's very hard for you to fight with Galleys. Either you group your Galleys and the AI ignores you and runs for pillaging your sea resources, you attack and likely lose one or two Galleys for every one of his boats due to a Coastal defensive bonus, or else you spread out your Galleys and block the AI, only to lose several boats when he decides to attack you.
I kind of used a mix of all three methods, but there was no way that I could have kept up the sea war on two fronts at once, at least not that early in the game. So that war declaration from Huayna was actually a blessing in disguise.
In Warlords, the whole mix is thrown off, with the ability to build Trireme warships, but in Vanilla Civ IV, sea wars are a much greater challenge.
I tried dropping off some Axemen and a couple of Swordsmen in the Forests by Huayna's capital, but I knew I didn't have enough forces. A War Elephant, a few Catapults, and more Swordsmen joined my band of merry men. Robin-Hood-style, the men would pop out, pillage a couple of resources, and then run back into Sherwood Forest. A couple of brave fighters were sacrificed, but the survivors gained some nice promotions.
Most of the initial casualties were from me defending. Waves of Chariots would attack my units, some winning, some losing, and others retreating with their horsetails between their legs. I didn't have the firepower to attack back, so I stood there and took it, winning more battles than I lost. A hard-won Medic promotion helped out a lot.
Eventually, I had a bigger force amassed there, but every turn I was still waging war at sea. Every time that I got the upper hand at sea, my Galleys would be wounded, while fresh ones of Huayna's would come sailing in. Wounded Galleys either have to run away or else they die quickly.
Horse Archers came, again keeping my land forces constantly wounded.
I persevered and eventually built up a big enough land force to attack. I kept his capital. The site actually turned out to be one of the best production sites on the map--The Heroic Epic would later be built there, as well as Iron Works.
After this battle, I'd been stalled long enough that Huayna had Longbowmen in his other cities. He also had expanded to obtain Iron and was producing Iron-based units.
I'd won enough sea wars that I could now funnel in a steady flow of troops, so it was just a matter of slugging it out.
Huayna even briefly obtained Knights, but they were no match for my War Elephants, which had been promoted through bloody fights with Chariots and Horsemen.
Interestingly, it was Saladin that settled two cities on the island to the East of Huayna. Unfortunately, Saladin was happy to provide Huayna with Horses almost until the bitter end, when I finally captured all of Huayna's tradable resources.
War with Saladin occurred before I finished killing Huayna. That war went well, but it was painfully slow. I would take a city, spend several turns healing my units, spend a lot of time trying to deal with loading the right units onto boats (while not loading on the units I wanted to defend the newly captured city), and then move on to the next city.
Reinforcements came, but they were slow in being built--the two cities on my starting continent produced most of the units, but there wasn't much production to be had, especially since it took several centuries for me to get the Marble and the Grassland Hills within my second city's cultural borders. Thus, I kept having to wait to heal my existing units, not daring to risk losing a big portion of my army.
Meanwhile, I fell behind in tech, but I kept just a few techs behind the leaders with some tech trades.
Most of my trades were pretty lop-sided; the AI that offered a tech usually required a tech of equal value plus another tech of a lower value. If I only had techs of lower value, they'd ask for 3 techs plus Gold. I picked my trades carefully. I missed out on some trades, as several times I decided not to trade away a tech and give a Civ an advantage, only to find out that they'd obtained it the next turn from someone else. However, I didn't really feel cheated--I'd made the call and they went elsewhere.
Huayna lived on, isolated on an island to the West of his capital that no one could reach anymore, thanks to the shrinking of cultural borders when I captured his cities.
I made peace and was able to later get Frederick to be my war buddy against Huayna, for a price.
Saladin also got away in a similar manner, founding a city that I couldn't reach. Near the end of the game, he'd built 3 cities on that reasonably large island to the West of his capital. I think that I got the best of the bargain, as I got three free city sites at a point in the game where I could afford their upkeep.
At this point, I'm wondering where the Barbs are. The only ones I saw all game were:
- two Barbarian Galleys that surrounded isolated islands. I found them with my exploring caravels
- one Barb city. It was on an island that Saladin shared. Strangely, it had 2 to 3 Warriors and 2 Workers, both times that I saw it early in the game. Saladin never went for it. Instead, he waited for his neighbouring city to capture it by culture. But why only Barbarian Warriors? No Archers? Weirder was that Saladin didn't even attack it. It made no sense to me.
Regardless, I captured both of those cities from Saladin, so in the grand scheme of things, it didn't bother me.
Since I had focused on military production, I was now all but forced to continue the war efforts. I simply had to decide who to attack next.
Asoka had 4 or so cities. Julius had 2. Qin had 6. Frederick had about 7.
The trouble was that Asoka and Qin hated each other. Qin would pay me 1 or 2 gold per turn for my resources, but he had no useful resources. Asoka had some nice resources to trade, such as Silk. Qin kept asking me to cancel deals with Asoka and I kept refusing.
Frederick had a massive military force and was the only Civ that was Friendly with me.
Julius was rather far away and he seemed to be lagging in tech, so I didn't really consider him to be a threat.
So who should I attack next?
I still had Galleys, but with some techs from Saladin for peace, I was able to trade a newly-researched tech and one of Saladin's techs for Astronomy. Asoka had been the first to get it, so I was concerned that he'd have an assault force ready to drop on my shores.
Qin had declared on Frederick earlier, but Frederick really liked his Confucian buddy, Qin.
I chose to go after Qin. Qin had built Versailles, so I figured that capturing his cities wouldn't be such a drain on my economy.
In retrospect, I should have attacked Asoka. Why trade for the resources when you can capture them?
Further, Asoka didn't make any real military, although I was ever cautious about some magical hidden assault force waiting in Galleys just out of my sight range (as far as I can tell, it didnt exist). On the other hand, I discovered that Qin had a lot of military units and he kept upgrading his units the closer that I got to him.
This upgrading of military units proved to be a real painful part of the war with Qin. I had Macemen, but he had Horsemen, Macemen, Musketmen, Catapults, and Longbowmen defenders. So I focused on getting Gunpowder. I built two Musketeer defenders and tried to get them to the war front. By the time I had my forces assembled outside of his cities, he had Grenadiers.
So back I went with my forces, getting Chemistry and upgrading my Maces to Grenadiers.
Qin had no Iron, so I wasn't afraid of Knights. It would figure, though, that after I'd landed on his shores, he upgraded his Horsemen into Cavalry.
So I researched towards Cannons. I'd captured two of his three cities on his main continent, but his main military force was still alive in Guangzhou, so I had my entire army camped out and hiding in the cities that I'd captured. I didn't dare leave Beijing, for fear of a counter-attack, but I couldn't upgrade my units, as his culture kept my resources from getting in to the city.
After building a Theatre, I was able to get one single water square of culture, but that's all that I needed. Unfortunately, Catapults were expensive to upgrade, so I spent many more turns raising the funds to be able to upgrade them. Finally, I launched my assault.
I took Guangzhou, but then most of my military was just sitting around, waiting for half of it to heal. It was too cumbersome to select units individually--I did it some of the time during the game, but it was very awkward to do so, so this theme was common throughout my game.
I seem to remember there being a multi-row interface mod for dealing with large stacks of units--perhaps it is a HOF option? If it does exist as an option and had I used it, I would have had a much easier game, as I could have kept my army on the move more effectively. As it was, most of my healthy units were often forced to play nursemaids to their wounded comrades.
Anyway, I captured all of Qin's cities--he was the second Civ to be eliminated, after I'd finished off Huayna's lone-remaining island city.
I then used my Great Prophet to build the Confucianist Holy Shrine in Qin's Southern-most city, on an island shared with Frederick. It figures that after only about 10 turns of income, the city went into revolt. It quickly flipped to German hands.
From here, I'd already lost the tech race. I was able to finish off Julius pretty easily, followed by Saladin. But by this time, my Grenadiers and Galleons were outdated by comparison to the tech level of the two remaining Civs--India and Germany.
It figures that I'd be silly enough to leave alive two civs that actually SHARE a favourite Civic--it's one thing for you to bribe an AI to switch from another AI's favourite, but they certainly won't switch from their own favourite. Still, at least Frederick was Friendly with me and Asoka was Pleased with me. Not a lot of good it did me, though, as they would only trade technologies with each other.
At this point, I had less than 2 hours to submit my game.
I rushed to the Assembly Line tech, hitting the Enter key a lot, only to realise that I also needed Rifling in order to make Infantry. So much for that beeline!
I spent all of my cash reserves on Rifling, followed by upgrading about 12 Grenadiers (most with City Raider promotions) to Infantry.
I launched my war on Asoka, dropping off a huge force by his capital. Interestingly, I was also at war with Frederick. The obvious conclusion is that I failed to look for a Defensive Pact.
Destroyers were attacking my wooden boats, but most of my cities were pumping out more wooden boats as fodder, while I raced (err, science was still slow, so it was more chugging along than it was racing) for Combustion.
I captured the Indian captial, his biggest military presense, with 100 turns left in the game.
I was easily going to take over Asoka's other city on his starting continent. I still had a sizable sea presence and would be able to sneak my massive party of land units over to Frederick's territory, all while having enough fodder boats to keep both Asoka's and Frederick's Destroyers busy.
Frederick's Transports might have been scary, had I played on had and they decided to land in a lightly defended area. Perhaps he would have researched one of the techs for Mechanical Infantry or Panzers, but otherwise, I think that I'd have had the game in the bag. Even then, I could have sued for peace and focused on capturing the island cities that Asoka had spread across the map--they were only loosely defended, most of them with 2 military units.
I was at just over 54% of 64% of the land area required for Domination, with the cities on Indias main continent yet to culturally expand. I was well over the Population threshold.
Regardless, I didn't get to find out what happened next, as I chose to retire and submit rather than to play on and not submit in time.
This game was quite the learning experience--I'd love to see another sea-based map, perhaps two or three XOTMs down the road from now. I've learned a lot about naval conquest and I hope that I've been able to help you learn a thing or two, too.
It should be the fastest in real time, and submission deadline was approaching fast. I already had Chemistry and Steel, I thought it was safe enough to beeline to Mass Media. I reached it in 1790AD. It took forever! Why did it happen? I even I got 13 GPs in Paris (mostly scientists), including the 3 free ones from being first to techs. I used most of them for lightbulbing techs. 2 built academies, 2 popped a Golden Age near the end.
In the end those 6 cities had 57 pop. Combined with the cities I was taking from Asoka, maintenance was hurting my research rate. It was at 50~60% at best.
I declared on Saladin in 1832AD. Captured a size 10 city in 1838AD, same year of the 2nd round of elections.
In fact, I might consider skipping the next deity game because I think it is way out of my league. 
Did one of the bribed Chinese guards betray her? Did she trip a silent alarm? O cold and heartless RNG!!! 
Nice writing 
