Wow, what a game!
At 1 AD I left off with Genghis breathing down my neck. Well, he didn't stop there. A turn or two later, he razed one more of my Cities.
I had had no choice but to abandon that City instead of letting 2 of my Chariots die. I'd only been able to whip Chariots for a short while there, having had my Copper pillaged.
To better set the scene, realize that at this point, I only controlled Rome, a City to the NW of Rome, a City to the NE of Rome (which is the City that I abandoned and was summarily razed by Genghis--although at the time I thought that Genghis had simply captured it like he had done with another City a bit further to the north), and a junky City to the south of Rome in order to get my lone Happiness Resource (Fur).
For years, I was down to 3 Cities. 500 AD rolled by and, thankfully, I was still at 3 Cities! However, Genghis was not giving me Peace as an option.
By that point, having built nothing but military units and a couple of partial Settlers, having constantly whipped my Cities down to 1 population point, I was finally able to make some headway against the Mongolians.
Still, it was my stack of 12 units against his 5 units coming at me every 2 turns... only defensive play, Medic promotions, and a willingness to be patient instead of trying to capture Cities paid off.
Eventually, I found a gap in his forces and was able to retake one of my Cities. I tried to retake the one to the NE, only to finally discover that it had been razed (yes, for 500 years I'd been so holed up that I couldn't even scout out the area). One of my Settlers that had been destined to build a junky Tundra City just for chopping out a few more Military Units resettled that City.
It was still slow going from that point and every turn was hair-razing, but from then on, I made consistent gains in the war by again playing very cautiously, sticking to highly-defensible terrain, and stacking my most-forward Cities with a minimum of a Quechua, a Spearman, and 2 Axemen defenders. Only when Cultural borders of newly-captured Cities were at least expanded to a City's initial 9-square radius (i.e. after the revolting in the City died down) would I feel safe enough to push on to attacking the next Mongolian City.
Once I'd managed to recapture 2 Cities that had been Cyrus' then mine then the Barbs' then the Mongolians', with my economy still in the tank, I finally was able to convince Genghis to give me Peace.
There was a lot of unsettled land to the east (probably the area that you settled in your games), while I had most of the Roman heartlands plus a bit of Cyrus' area to work with. I set about rebuilding my economy, but the game really was one of coming from behind.
I think that I finally got my first Great Person around 900 AD, for example.
I really had no shot at building Wonders. I believe that the first Wonder which I managed to build was The Spiral Minaret. Even when I would get a tech like Divine Right that only 1 AI would know, most of the AIs would already have partial research into that tech and would only give me a pitiance for it.
It didn't help that the overseas AIs came to meet us really early on, starting with Monte, then Roosevelt and Asoka, because I just ended up increasing their We Fear You Are Becoming Too Advanced levels on low-level techs like Horseback Riding and Drama.
Monte had eliminated England around 900 AD... out of nowhere, I saw a message about the English Civ being destroyed and wondered at that point if AIs get to find out when the same happens--i.e. if Monte had found out that the Roman Civ had been destroyed early on and had gotten jealous as a result and thus decided to pull off his own elimination tactic.
Of course, with only 3 AIs on the other continent, they became monsterous in size and their tech levels were crazy.
The next stage was to do what I could on my continent. Genghis went after the remnants of Isabella's empire (all 4 Cities of hers). I managed to scoop 3 Cities but he got the Hindu Holy City, complete with a Shrine that I later found out was worth 60 Gold per Turn before modifiers. I'd missed capturing it by 1 turn. Ah well, at least I got most of Isabella's land area.
I continued to amass forces even though all of the AIs were ahead of me in tech. Catapults, Macemen, and Knights were used against Cyrus just after he picked up Replaceable Parts (1 tech away from Rifling). It was then or never, so I went for it. Halfway through the war, he learned Rifling, but I'd also managed to score Chemistry in a trade by giving away my near-monopoly on Astronomy (Asoka had it first) and another expensive tech, giving me the needed advantage of upgrading my City Raider I and II Macemen to Grenadiers. Still, I threw away a huge amount of Military Units just to take Cyrus' remaining Cities, leaving him with an iceball City in the south, with Mongolian Cultural Borders surrounding many of my ex-Cyrus' Cities, and me with no real military to speak of.
Of course, by this point, Monte's aggression against the US had angered the US into attacking Monte back and Roosevelt dragged Asoka into the war. Asoka dragged me into it. At this point, Asoka was at least 10 techs ahead of me and this tech lead would further increase until the end of the game, where that lead was still maintained. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
I hadn't planned for an inter-continental war, but since I had Astronomy, I whipped out Galleons on both coasts and just spammed Knights, Cataults, and whatever other units that I could.
By the way, I was nowhere close to grabbing Liberalism, the Taj Mahal, or any of the regular goodies. Still, I was able to get to Cavalry in time to be able to capture one of Monte's Cities using Knights, Cats, and Maces, upgrade my Knights to Cavalry, and thus actually stand a chance at beating Roosevelt to Monte's Cities.
I lost almost all of my mounted units... for some reason, my Knights defended instead of Roosevelt's Grenadiers when Monte attacked our combined stack, so I lost a good number of Knights that I'd pushed ahead (instead of upgrading) in case I saw an opportunity to steal a City out of Roosevelt's hands.
Fortunately, Roosevelt wasn't making sufficient headway in the war either, so by the time that my upgraded Knights (i.e. Cavalry) made it to the front lines, I was still able to claim all of the Cities.
Even the Mongolians got involved in the war against Monte, sending over an inter-continental invasion.
Asoka tired of the war (thankfully--he had enough land as it was with the top 3rd of his continent and a ton of Culture from Wonders and Religions in order to maintain control of that area) and I think that I twice traded away my Military Tech Advantage to Roosevelt to get him to lay off Monte for 10 turns. Military Tradition and Steel were said techs and then Roosevelt just pulled away with teching and I never did get any techs in trade with him from then on. Still, it was worth it, as Roosevelt never did attack me (even though he was Annoyed with me for most of the rest of the game for having attacked his Friends).
Monte was eventually eliminated, but not before Asoka had started building Space Ship parts.
With no chance of taking on Roosevelt or Asoka, I shipped all but a skeleton crew of troops back to the mainland. Of course, Monte fought well so there were few survivors--I think that I sent home a total of 7 land units, hardly even worth mentioning.
Genghis was still a monster. With about a 1/3rd of our continent to his own, always being a couple of techs ahead of me, being in We Fear You Are Becoming Too Advanced Mode, and his ability to consistently research the same techs that I was researching so that he'd learn them on the same turn as me kept him ahead. However, what was scarier was that he'd stacked most of his Cities with 6+ units, with stacks of about 30+ units in a few of them.
His stacks of Rifles + Grenadiers + Cavalry were too much for my minimalistic army to take on.
Later, he got Cannons while I still was lacking Rifling.
Then he got Artillery.
Then he got Sam Infantry.
Finally, I got Infantry while he was 2 techs short of them.
6 turns of Anarchy later, I was able to draft Infantry.
Of course, by this time, Asoka was 4 Space Ship parts away from winning the game.
I kept drafting each turn, slowly growing my Military Force via drafting as well as via the hard way (self-building units). Still, the clock was ticking.
When Asoka had 3 Space Ship parts left to go, I decided to pull my Workers back from the front lines and to stop shoring-up Cities that were deep within Genghis' Culture, as declaring war would have stranded units that were busy walking towards there.
A few turns passed and I finally declared war. Asoka, though, completed the Engine on his Space Ship, not to mention The Three Gorge's Dam. Would I make it in time? I doubted it.
Still, I pressed on. The first turn of war was to hopefully lure Genghis' stacks into my territory. However, all he sent in were a few pillaging Cavalry. I cleaned those up and then sent in my forces.
His counter-attacks were brutal (he had stacks of Artillery, don't forget) and the only thing that kept me from losing was the sheer volume of units that I had. I remember one stack getting completely decimated, yet due to having had 20+ units there, I still survived the fight with 9 wounded Cannons. Fortunately, with Railroads in much of my territory but in none of Genghis' territory, I was able to counter-attack the stacks of units that had decimated my stacks... many of his units still took two more of my units to kill off, so I essentially traded away 2 units for every one of his. Still, with 2/3rds of a continent pumping out military units and other Cities drafting, I was able to turn the tide of the battle to my favour.
Collateral damage attacks on his Cities from my Cannons won me many border Cities, and although I lost some Cities to counter-attacks, his units that recaptured the Cities would then be sitting ducks for my units on the following turn.
Asoka built the 2nd last Space Ship part. Things were intense. I'd been building Scotland Yard but it wasn't being built quickly enough.
I now had sufficient forces to take on Genghis via land but he still owned the seas, so I had no choice but to slog it slowly through his Cultural Borders.
Would I capture sufficient Cities in time to trip Domination? I'd earlier toyed with the idea of a Conquest victory, but now I was just fighting not to lose the game with only 57% of the needed 60% Land Area for Domination.
I saw a break where 2 of my Frigates and a Galleon stack could load up some units (a wounded Infantry + 2 Cavalry) and attack a City of Genghis' via amphibious assault a turn early. I had 2 other land units outside of that City (a City Raider I Infantry and a Cavalry), but it was defended by 2 Riflemen with 60% Cultural defence. It was a junky City in the Tundra but it had been Culture-bombed by Genghis in order to try and Culturally steal my nearby captured-from-Cyrus Tundra City... which was how I was able to get a minimal land assault force near to the City, but not a large enough one to take the City.
Would my mini-stack be enough? Well, on the following turn, I took two of Genghis' other Cities but I was still lacking sufficient Land Area for Domination. All that I could do was try. 5 units attacked and it wasn't until the 5th one fought that the 2nd of Genghis' Riflemen went down. I checked the F8 screen. 60% Land Area. Exactly. I whooped with joy! "Take that, Asoka!" I screamed. From there, I just sent in troops to Cities that I already owned, to avoid losing a City randomly to a unit that I hadn't seen. I pushed my Cultural Slider to 100% to avoid losing any Land Area to Culture--there was at least one square where I owned it at 50% and Roosevelt own it at 50%. End turn. Woot. I won.
If I had had a chance to change a single decision, it would have been not to have declared war against Genghis early on. I would have had a better trading partner, I wouldn't have lost all of my veteran Quechuas and Axemen, and I might have even had an AI vote me to Diplomatic Victory late in the game when Asoka built The UN and let me be The Secretary General. Genghis voted me into the Secretary General but at +8 Relations overall (+8 after subtracting negative Diplo modifiers), he still wasn't quite happy enough with me to elect me as leader of the world.
I just now went back and ended the turn for the next 8 turns. Asoka still didn't complete his Space Ship (okay, so much for my suspense-filled turn-playing at the end). Two turns later I would have won Diplomation (self-voting Diplo Victory). Regardless of these points, I am quite happy with the result and am glad to have pulled off a victory from such a seemingly hopeless position.
)
). I then started spending all of my free gold on sabotage. I took Asoka's stasis chamber from almost completed to 0 hammers with two spies. I pillaged all farms and hammer tiles around his city. I continued to tech (I got to Future Tech 14 IIRC). I farmed most of my city tiles to grow them as large as possible.
Especially those that actually pulled off a victory!
