Predator - going for diplomatic victory.
As we make it into the Middle Ages, the easy part of the game is gone as well. Now some serious planning is necessary if we want to progress fast.
The plan
First, we have to establish our 2nd core as soon as possible (read: an enemy to conquer). The choosen target is the most troublesome of all: Arabia. Not only we're going to face the strongest civ, but we're also going to lose what could probably have been the best tech partner of the middle ages. Alas, their land is simply too good to be left alone: any other choice would have provided a far worse territory. Moreover, Mecca sports the Pyramids, a real must-have if someone wants to repopulate quickly a conquered land.
We need:
- no less than 6 galleys ready to be deployed in the operazion zone (the 2 boats exploring the sea won't be counted then);
- a minimum of 10 elite units (but the more the better) to be tossed into combat, supported by some veterans, a pair of pukemen and a few berserkers;
- a prebuild for the Forbidden Palace in... Nidaros
The elite status will be achieved by sending veteran units to the Barbarian Elite Training Camps located in the southern frozen landmass. Those two camps have just gone into uprising mode, so they'll provide plenty of foes to train properly our units
In the core, Nidaros will start its prebuild, Sun Tzu. For when the 200 shields mark is reached the galley fleet must be already placed at the shores of eastern Arabia. Two stacks will disembark outside Damascus and Kufah, capture the towns (negating iron to the Arabs) then rejoin and strike at Mecca. From there, if the survivors are enough, the stack will split again and proceed for Baghdad and Yamama.
In this phase it is essential to get at least a leader to jump the palace into Mecca (and at the same time complete the FP in Nidaros). That's why i need the elite units so much.
A second smaller stack, made by berserkers, will follow soon and take over both Anjar and Najran. This way we'll start our golden age (much needed!) and secure one more luxury:
The exploration of the coastlines is also very important. There are still 2 crucial areas of interest. One is the vast uncharted coastline south of Greece, likely to provide good maps to trade and barbarian camps to train units and rake money. The other is the northern sea between Aztecs and Germany:
This area is the only one that could provide a coastal link between the two continents. Should the link be found, we could immediately exploit a third luxury in the southern tundra (first image) by settling on the incense and rushing a harbor.
The outcome
We stopped training at 8 elite units, or else the invasion would have been too delayed. By 10AD, Nidaros has built a temple, a library, a marketplace and is past 200 shields in Sun Tzu. The galleys are in place, ready to disembark their deadly cargo. Four berserks are ready to be embarked at the core, to be employed as planned.
War begins. Damascus, Kufah and Mecca fall as planned. Only elite units were employed in the attack and the leader doesn't wait too much before popping out. The palace in Mecca is rushed, in the same turn that the successful berserker attack on Anjar triggers our golden age.
As the turn ends the palace is completed. We skip through the screen, readjust the cities in the core (now totally corrupted!) and turn Nidaros to Forbidden Palace. The FP is immediately build and we cicle again to the cities to readjust them back. All in the interturn
Meanwhile, the exploration has been successful. The link has been found, the incense hill has been settled on and the harbor was rushed. Too bad the galley exploring south has been sunk by a massive stack of barbarian galleys, but a vast uncharted land has been exposed.
The timing of the action was also very precise. When Nidaros switched to FP it only lost 36 shields.
As reinforcements came, the attack on Arabia went on. Three more leaders were produced. The 1st rushed Sun Tzu in Mecca, the 2nd was used to build the Great Lighthouse in a coastal city and the 3rd was kept to rush Copernicus in Mecca once Astronomy was available.
By 320 AD the whole continental Arabia has been conquered and poor Abu Bakr ends up playing OCC in a far city near Rome.
The rest
With golden age on we could improve our core cities very quickly. Libraries, markets and aqueducts were built everywhere, followed by universities. No more leader came out and Nidaros turned its university into Palace to prebuild Newton's. Research went on smoothly, but we had very poor assistance by the AS and we could trade only 2 more compulsory techs. Those cretins were so fond on going for Printing Press and Music Theory that completely neglected Education and Banking, two usual picks for the AS. Despite that we managed to enter the Industrial Age in 480AD, thanks to many 4-turns researches.
This is a shot of our new core at the dawn of the industrials:
At this point all the non-scientific AS are gifted short of Magnetism. The reason is to have all the optional tech path open to them. If they follow different goals, then perhaps they'll be done with all that useless crap in time to research a pair on industrial techs. Perhaps.
Of course, Greece, Russia and Germany are gifted to tech parity. Here are the picks:
- Greece: Medicine;
- Russia: Steam Power;
- Germany: Steam Power;
Not too good, actually. All of them will waste valuable turns on Nationalism instead of something more useful... unless i research it myself quickly to avoid spending A LOT of gpt to buy the other two techs. Researching Nationalism would cost us 7 turns but will free the AS of an optional tech they'll research for sure. The other choice involves climbing the industrial tech tree with a hampered income for 20 turns and it could be even worse. I still have to decide how to proceed.
Finally, here's the medieval research log:
_610BC: Monotheism (trade, Germany); Feudalism (trade, Greece); Engineering (trade, Russia);
_250BC: Invention (research);
_210BC: Monarchy, Chivalry (trade, Egypt);
__30AD: Gunpowder (research);
__70AD: Theology (trade, Aztecs);
_190AD: Chemistry (research);
_260AD: Education (research);
_300AD: Astronomy (research);
_340AD: Physics (research);
_380AD: Theory of Gravity (research);
_430AD: Magnetism (research); Printing Press, Music Theory (trade, Germany);
_470AD: Banking (research);
_480AD: Metallurgy (trade, Egypt);
Stay tuned for the final part, on the "Final Spoiler" channel
