Your name: Nata
Software Version: PtW 1.27f for Windows
Entry class: Open
Game status: Domination Victory for Greece
Game date: 1200 AD
Firaxis score: 8126
Jason score: 10527
I think this is my first Domination victory on Deity, but I didn't plan it when I started. I was aiming for Diplomacy and tried to do fast research. But then...
Entered MA at 10BC, after discovering the other continent and trading. Had GA going during war with Persia, which helped with building libraries and harbours. Persia was soon off the continent, I churned through Theology fast and finished Education while still in GA, and started on Universities and Copernicus prebuild.
Then Germany attacked. They were reduced to a single pathetic city by Ottos and Persia, and I was keeping them out of charity as a spare Science Civ. But after this I decided - to hell with them, there would still be 6 science Civs left, and so Germany was gone. Then Otto pop-2 city on a desert shore flipped to them after spending millenia under my rule. That was annoying. I took it back, razed it and founded much more useful city on the mountain ridge separating former Persia from former Ottos, so that I could irrigate into Persia lands.
But as I was in war with Ottos and they had two little islands left, I went and destroyed them too. By that time I was done with Education and decided on Banking, still looking at Diplomacy. But then I realized that the other continent wasn't even up to Invention yet, and that Babs were starting to run away. They destroyed Russia. And I was basically 15-20 turns away from Navigation, with huge leftover troops from my wars.
So I decided to try Domination, and spent my time researching Navigation, building Galleys, prebuilding Magellan and eliminating Persia from the last couple of islands. And I also shipped lots of settlers to colonize every little rock in sight.
By the time I got Navigation I decided - OK, I'll do Chivalry now and then stop. My first target was Japan as they were at war with Babs and were still in 2nd-tier techs of AA! I don't know what AIs were doing with research in this game but it was incredibly slow for Deity.
I shipped over a lot of MIs and started a long slow slog through Deity Stacks of Crap Doom. Took me a long time to take Japanese islands and their two surviving cities on the main land.
Babs were at war with with me for a long time, by the way. I used it for war happiness, and also made an alliance with Korea against them, keeping Korea as an option for Diplomacy just in case. My invasion actually started by taking former Russian island from Babylon, then making peace, and declaring on Japan.
While Japan war went on, I got Chivalry and converted lots of Horses into Knights, and Babs finally got Invention, which I traded for Banking (so it was useful as I didn't want to give them Astronomy). And I had Copernicus and Unis built by then, my research was 6-7 turns per techs, and I decided - OK, lets get Cavs.
Babs were looking scary with tons of MIs and Pikemen all over the continent, but the thing which they were missing were Horses. That was a big game changer - if Babs had horses I don't think I would have won against them, not until IA warfare.
So I started war against them with Knights, taking some former Korean cities in the North and establishing foothold, then it was a long slog of shipping Cavs over through extremely long ship-chains. It was a boring job but had to be done as I never got a Great Leader.
With Cavs arriving en masse I was able to take more cities on the North, but then I got scared by an especially large SoD approaching one of my cities and sued for peace.
After that I never got the nerve to start another war with Babs (who kept huge SoDs around), and opted for peaceful expansion instead, as I was very close to Dom limit. So it was building Libs, getting expansion, settling at 2RCP at the expansion borders, building Libs in new cities etc. After couple of iteration I finally got a DOmination victory message! Woo-hoo! My first Deity aggressive victory - but it was only possible because of slow research and lack of horses on the other continent.
Victory screen at 1200AD is ttached.
