GOTM 27 - Spoiler II: End of middle ages, full map of nearest other continents.

[SirPleb]

1.27

Ancient Times

Contact with Vikings and Oda

I had these contacts before entering the Middle Ages but did not describe them in the first spoiler.

I contacted Scandinavia in 2390BC, hailing her across the channel. And in 1100BC those darn Vikings, who should have been pillaging and partying instead of working, completed the Pyramids using the technology I'd traded them when we initially met.

In 1500BC I noticed a wounded squid off the northeastern coast:



This was odd because none of my neighbors had Map Making nor Mathematics (i.e. galleys or catapults.) So how had the squid been injured? The only theory I had was that there was another Civ in that direction, and that Civ either knew Map Making or had some extra gifts due to being "seafaring" (a possibility mentioned in the game announcement.)

So my first two galleys went northeast and in 975BC one made contact with the Oda. The Oda junks were interesting because they could end their turns at sea and they had 7 movmement points. Clearly they did have a special knack for seafaring

In 590BC Oda declared war on Scandinavia. They stayed at war for a long time which was convenient for me - it kept them occupied and allowed me to be a trade broker between them.

Ongoing warfare

When I entered the Middle Ages in 270BC I'd eliminated England and had just started attacking Spain. My military consisted of 31 Horsemen at the time.

I was in Republic already but the modified unit maintenance for Republic (to match Conquests) was never a problem. I had enough towns that I never paid even as much as an average of 1g per unit - the free support more than offset the 2g/unit cost for additional units.

In 50BC I finished off Spain, still using Horsemen.

I then entered a peaceful interlude, researching and building up infrastructure.

In 210AD I upgraded most of my 34 Horsemen to Knights and headed for Scandinavia. Declared war and landed in 230AD.

Scandinavia had many pikemen and it took a while to slug through them all. In 390AD I finally got my first great leader (way overdue - I had very bad leader luck this game) and he rushed Forbidden Palace in the ex-Viking lands. And in 440AD I took the last Viking town, taking them out of the game.

In 520AD my Knights began an assault on Oda. And in 640AD they finished the job.

At that point I had 49 Knights. They would not take part in any further battles belonging in this thread. They'd be upgraded to Cavalry before seeing any further action of course

Research

I began by researching Monotheism and then Theology. After that I traded for Feudalism (one can count on the AIs researching this as a priority) and then researched Chivalry, learning it in 210AD.

I researched the top part of the tree next: Education, Astronomy, and Navigation, Banking.

Then I was able to trade for Invention and head for Military Tradition. By this time I was at a four turn research rate (I got there with Banking) and I stayed there for the rest of the Middle Ages. After learning Military Tradition I researched the other required techs and finished the Middle Ages in 770AD.

The other Civs weren't much help with research. I guess wiping them out didn't help in this regard They'd only contributed two techs to my progress through the Middle Ages. But in the early Middle Ages Oda and Scandinavia had been good trade partners, contributing a nice bit of gold to my coffers in exchange for tech.

Wonders

During the Middle Ages I captured The Great Lighthouse from Spain and The Pyramids from the Vikings.

I built Copernicus' in 540AD and that triggered a Golden Age, due to previously captured wonders. The Golden Age sped my attack on Oda and general development. But it wasn't game altering, it was just a nice boost.

I also built Magellan's, Bach's, and Newton's during the Middle Ages. I missed out on Sun Tzu's and Leonardo's - I would've liked to have those wonders but hadn't put a high priority on them.

Next

As I left the Middle Ages in 770AD I controlled all of the starting continent, plus the Viking and Oda lands. What opportunities await America in the rest of the world?

 

[Singularity]

Open

After my last post I had to strengthen my forces before spain got her hands on the dreaded pikemen. She was strong and had built the collossus and the hanging gardens. We met the Oda after a while as one of their junks passed my shores.

I contemplated going fastest route for knights in my game, but instead I decided to build an army of horsemen and aim for Invention and massupgrade my horses to knights. At 300 AD I declared war on the spanish as she just finished The Great Library and was on the brink of further fortifying her cities with pikes. I had however not finished chivalry even. So I had to rely on horsemen and a few medevial infantries in my early conquest of spain. I saw that I would be at a disadvantage as I had prioritized markets/libraries instead of building my army at max rate. So I decided to invite the Scandinavians and my newly discovered Odan neighbours to the party by giving them engineering.

My horses kept their casualties low by attacking on first move turn, so there where alot of retreats in my long sieges of some of the heavier fortified spanish cities. I quickly took the spanish iron close to my borders, but Isabelle had somehow gotten out many Medievial infantires and a few pikemen. It proved to be a long and bloodied war, and I lost a few captured cities to flips.

In 620-40 AD my knights captured the last spanish city, and was left with only three widely spread Odan cities on my starting continent. By then I had built Sun Tzu and Leonardos. I captured the Collossus, The great Library and Hanging Gardens from the spanish. The Odans finished the Great Wall and the Oracle, while the Iroquis got the pyramids at their capitol.

I went to war with the vikings sometime in the tenth century. My heavy investement in the military part of the three had given my Cavalries to combat the viking pikemen. Still I took a few hits, and their berserkers proved to be a fierce enemy to my unprotected Cavalries. A few of them retreated, many died. I lost one of my undefended northeastern towns to a berserker from a scandinavian galley. But he was quickly dispatched by my cavalry.

In 1020, about halfway through the scandinavian campaign, I finished copernicus observatory. I aimed for The sistine chapel, but with one round left on it the Odans finished theirs. Making sure I lost 194 shields changing to Copernicus. I entered my golden age however. And both my economy, campaign and research speeded up after this. My shift to democracy had to be put on hold however, as it would ruin many turns of my golden age.

I finished magnetism in 1190. The vikings where history, and I had done a little seafaring so that I saw the continent of the Odans and a lot of empty sea where my caravels dived under the ocean waves - though a captured viking lighthouse made it a bit easier. I had to do all the researches on my own through the middleage since neither of my neigbours seemed to favour anything but kicking out troops. My vertical drilling through the tech three cost me many rounds, and in retrospective I would have been better off dropping my rush for invention, and gone on an earlier knight attack of both the vikings and the spanish.

The 'Fantasy Island' in the south had all its tiles covered with barbarian troops of various quality. And I knew that the barbaric uprising at the end of the middle age would ensure that it would remain that way until someone got either nukes or marines to take them down...

On the bright side I had 7k plus in my trasuries, and my scientific infrastructure was quite sturdy. I was half an age in advance of the Odans, and he was far too weak to prove any threat. But I knew there had to be hidden lands somewhere out under the darkness of the ocean horizon. My worker count was strengthened with many slaves from my campaigns, but I needed quite many more to be fully prepared for my industrial railroadbuilding.

I'm not sure if I get to finish this game, and I'm still not done with the industrial age... But I'll try to see if this night prove to be sufficient to reach my conquest goal.

Edit: And so it ends. Have a few hours of gametime left. But too little time left to finish it. Better luck in India I guess...