1.27
Scientific through and through.
Still going for Domination. My Ancient Age post is
HERE.
Middle Ages
Shortly after entering the MA in 590 bc, I gifted Greece in. They got Monotheism and I gave them Republic and some gold for it. I finished my FP in 470 bc, in a city NW of my palace. This location had been planned long before, and it already had RCP rings at 3 and 6 (the RCP 6 ring included many coastal cities on the west coast of the main continent). I also converted my 4-turn Warrior/Settler factory into a 6-turn Horseman/Settler factory. All other military builds were switched from warriors to Horsemen as well.
As mentioned in my previous post, Carthage was beaten to the Pyramids by 8 turns: the Arabs basically destroyed the Pyramids usefulness to me by building them on that god-awful hill-riddled island to the west in 590 bc.
Loosing the Pyramids was partially my fault. If I had investigated the Arabs, I could have hurried my invasion plans and taken their capitol before they built them. If Carthage had gotten the Pyramids it would have had a nice impact on my Domination date. Ah well, woulda coulda shoulda.
In any case, I declared war on the Arabs in 430 bc and took Mecca two turns later. In 270 I got contact with the other continent (English, French, Vikings) through the Zulu. They didn’t have any techs to trade, but getting their maps was nice. The war with the Arabs was costly: several of their cities were on hills, and I lost a total of 21 MI in the taking of their cities. Bad, bad RNG. This pretty much nullified the usefulness of my ancient age warrior/settler factory, because most of the warriors it produced died quickly. The few that survived died in the first few turns of my war with the Greeks to their hated hilltop-hoplites. I ended the Arab war in 110 bc, getting two cities for peace and leaving them with only one.
The zulu “sneak attacked” in 150 bc, while I was still at war with the Arabs. They were never a threat, as I had horsemen waiting for them. I was actually thrilled they declared on me, because the war happiness was quite useful. I redeclared war on Carthage in 10bc and took two more cities, leaving them with one. I then gave them peace again.
I struggled this game with what to do with my palace. The arab/greek hill island was not very attractive. Although the Zulus had very nice territory, I knew it would be late in the game before I took them over. I decided the best thing I could do was just maximize the non-corrupt cities on my starting landmass, so in 170 AD I jumped my palace to the eastern side of the main continent (using a combination of worker-joins and military buildup in the new palace city). This increased my income by about 20%, and my research time went from 6 turns per discovery to 4 turns. I was not expecting that big a jump, and I wished I had done it sooner! (My research remained at 4 turns per discovery until I researched Magnetism in 420 ad, at which time I turned off research.)
I never researched or traded for chivalry in this game, because I felt I would be better off with Sipahi against all the hilltop hoplites and impis. I got military tradition in 270 ad, and I immediately upgraded 6 horsemen to Sipahi. At 140g apiece, that blew my entire bankroll, and I decided I would wait to upgrade the rest after I finished Leonardo’s workshop, due in a few turns. However, I continued to build horsemen in most of my cities by disconnecting my saltpeter. I would connect/disconnect it many times throughout the game.
Two turns after I upgraded the 6 sipahi I declared war on the Greeks and immediately lost 3 of them. Expensive and discouraging. I also entered my Golden Age though, during which I was doing 4-turn research and making from 200-400gpt. In 340 AD, I finally got a leader. (My one and only in this game: I guess the fates were balancing out the insane leader-luck I had in GOTM 34). I sent him to the home continent to rush Sun Tzu. That would be most helpful in my war against the Zulu. A few turns later I completed Leonardo and upgraded about 22 horsemen to Sipahi. Many more upgrades would follow on every turn for the rest of the game.
In the next few turns, I went to war with everyone in the game except the Vikings, whom I traded education and some gold to for gems and furs. Cities fell fast, averaging around 4 per turn, although on one turn I took 10. I was also using gold and extra Sipahi to rush libraries and settlers at this point. The cheap libraries of the scientific trait came in very handy. At one point I was up to 85 sipahi, but I then used about 40 of them to rush settlers and libraries. In 540 ad, I did the biggest library/settler rush of my game (about 20 libraries and 10 settlers), thinking that I had my timing just perfect to win in 580 ad. I was way off though, because I didn’t take the time earlier to count up the tiles. I should have made my push around 480 ad. I could have won sooner—although it still would have been one turn after Zamint’s 510 domination win (and probably after several others that have yet to post)! Here are two screens from Dianthus’ Mapstat on the turn the game ended:
I went over on tiles by 115, and I would have gone WAY over on the next turn with the impending culture expansions (19 cities, most of them in areas that would have added tiles to the domination count). It was a good learning experience, however, and I think/hope my timing will improve in the next game.
In spite of my compaining above
, domination was reached in 570 ad: a new record for me. Woo hoo! (And I think one turn before Megalou??? groucho ). I'm now looking forward to COTM 5, which, unlike COTM 4, I think I will have the time to play, thankfully.
PS: Unbelievable conquest date Sir Pleb! I wonder when Kuningas finished his conquest…
, so it was Feudalism (4 turns) and Chivalry (4 turns), after that I sold all my libraries and had one lonely scientist researching Engineering.
) and the Greek-Arabia continent, going for a fast domination. 
.......aaargh.... I realize : there won't be enough tiles for domination on the two continents. (about 26 tiles short) : ......damn you ainwood. 
Otherwise I would have been recommending that you capture a few quickly. 
![[ptw]](/images/smilies/ptw.gif "PTW Icon [ptw]")
1.27, Militaristic
PREDATOR ![[civ3mac]](/images/smilies/macciv3.gif "Mac Civ3 Icon [civ3mac]")
Panther 1.29
Massive barb uprising kills one settler and ransacks 2 cities. 
I don't know how you do it.
I have alot to learn in that regard.
