Immortal NA Cyrus.

[Izuul]

Qin maybe?

 

[Rusten]

Or Gilgamesh/Sumeria.

He's not played often and should be good enough. I don't really care who though to be honest.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

I hear you : "maybe Qin" "or Gilgamesh".

I've got two nice maps :
1 Stalin and 1 Suleiman

Handpicked crew in both cases (stronger crew in the Suleiman's map), Pangaea with Low Sea and Natural shoreline.
Strong starts with large and food heavy maps.

Feel attracted ?

 

[dutchfire]

I feel Stalin has the better starting techs, Suleiman has better UU and UB and better traits for AW.
Compared to Native American, needing copper for axemen will delay choking a lot.

 

[Rusten]

I prefer Suleiman of those two. The Ottoman empire starts with a warrior which can be helpful and has the more relevant UU/UB.
I'd love to make some janissaries AoE style. Pleasant memories.

 

[MegaLurker]

Finally getting around to continuing this game. This is my second play-through, with plenty of re-loads when I carelessly moved units (particularly workers...why oh why couldn't they have made units stop moving if the destination tile is threatened....) or forgot to whip.

Just a quick teaser, not hugely interesting now that the map has been won:

Spoiler :

Economy is in rough shape, but I'm in a dominant position cities-wise. Bulbed ALpha with my first GScientist. I used the GSpy to infiltrate Babylon and have a spy camping that can steal IW, Construction, and the poly->monarchy line. I had planned to go straight to elepults after finishing off the Arabians but I've had to detour for Currency, which I'll barely get to before money runs out. The AI did end up pillaging most of my capital's cottages So I'm just getting around to cottaging the back-lines now.

Not sure if I should bother with elepults at this point, or wait for trebs or even cuirs. China appears to be the biggest threat.

 

[Rusten]

Just a quick teaser, not hugely interesting now that the map has been won:

Still interesting to me at least! I'd like to see some other wins/games.

Spoiler :

Do you have CoL already? Or prepared to steal it? If not you're realy going to feel it once all those cities come out of revolt. I remember that I did, and I hadn't killed off Peter at that point.

 

[MegaLurker]

No CoL, hopefully I can steal it. I will barely make it to Currency before I lose units to strike, I will be building wealth for a little bit to avoid that. I think I've been too greedy and kept too many Arabian cities. But they have a bunch of cottages already laid down, so there's always that.

Unit maintenance and distance upkeep are killer, with all the capture cities being progressively further from the capital. Then again, I've got 13 cities with room for >3 more. Once the economy is sorted I should be able to grind through the remaining AIs with siege with that production advantage. Not to mention the possibility of running Police State.

CoL would get me to trebs no problem building wealth to stay afloat, with rep scientists possible in so many cities. Could probably run 20 at a time at this point.

 

[MegaLurker]

Meh, ended up having to research it myself. Here's my game to 760AD:

Spoiler :

So I'd choked both the Holy Roman Empire and Arabia, then HA'ed both of them out of existence. I got greedy with cities and had to crawl to Currency to avoid losing units to strike.

I ended up using 3 Great Generals as Super Archers, one as a mobility Super Medic (on a chariot), and the next four all settled in the capital. Turns like this weren't uncommon"

Spoiler :

So with the special promotion for double combat XP that's easily 12+ XP every few turns. Leading fairly quickly to this:

Spoiler :

I infiltrated Babylon with my GSpy, bulbed Alpha with my first GScientist, finally got through Currency and then CoL myself by building research/wealth and some help from Rep scientists thanks to the 'Mids

From Babylon I've stolen Construction, Poly->Mono->Monarchy and at long last:

Spoiler :

Now I am safe for a while, with the free upgrade to LBs for my three SuperDefenders. Genghis is being very nice and teching straight from Feudalism to Civil Service, another big one I won't have to do myself. That and IW will probably be the last techs I steal, hopefully with enough Espionage Points left over to incite revolts in a few cities.

Here's what the capital looks like:

Spoiler :

Having had half it's cottages pillaged down to nothing Shoulda expanded west like BiC did, oh well. Our second best city is the former HRE capital:

Spoiler :

A potential spot for the Heroic Epic if I ever make it to Literature. Even though the capital has 4 settled GGs already, Aachen can get better production and I won't want to whip it either.

Here are the game stats so far, sorted by units/buildings/improvements built:

Spoiler :

Sorted by kills:

Spoiler :

237 kills vs 31 losses for military units, 16 workers captured vs 1 worker lost. Acceptable ratios I think

 

[Pangaea]

Very minor point, but how come your Horse Archers are named Horseman?

 

[MegaLurker]

Very minor point, but how come your Horse Archers are named Horseman?

I guess that's something the BAT mod does? It seems to have different unit models for different civs as well, which is a bit confusing. I think I'll change over to BUG mod for the Suleiman AW game, as long as I can figure out how to make it auto-cancel chops with 1 turn left.

 

[MegaLurker]

@BiC

With land improvement more or less done and not much forest left to chop are you not considering deleting some workers? Or would that not save you money if you're running Hereditary Rule? I've deleted about half my workers to save unit maintenance, was finding that most of them were just wandering around building roads at this point in the game.

Nice cottaging around the capital

 

[MegaLurker]

I don't know what to do after Engineering so I must stop short of 1000AD:

Spoiler :

Super Defenders, upgraded to Longbows the turn I stole Feudalism, amass XP:

Now mostly surviving with no damage. The most kills in a turn so far is 16: 4x cats, 6x swords, 2x cho ko nus, 2x axes, 1 spear and 1 LB These will move into newly capture cities and probably be able to defend them alone until knights. I have actually
deleted a couple archers to save money at this point, as well as about half my stolen workers.

The economy has just about recovered from that 1500-year-long HA rush:

Decent positive income at 0% slider, at least. Rep scientists powered me through MC and machinery in a handful of turns. Thanks in large part to:

5 courthouses, 2 markets, and a lot of cottages now maturing in the back lines. Also not the gradual War Elephant buildup. Them and all these highly promoted HAs left around will be our first stack as soon as Trebs are together. Macemen will be second wave.

Genghis of Babylon has been very generous with his tech choices:

He then goes MC->Machinery (both of which I have already self-teched)->Engineering

So Engineering will be my last steal with those original Infiltration points. Meaning that Great Spy got me all of:

Polytheism
Monotheism
Monarchy
Construction
Iron Working
Feudalism
Engineering

I think I can finally afford to pop out a few settlers like BiC suggested. Especially being Imperialistic. It's a very small investment and there are good spots left that won't cost me too much now that I can chop courthouses.

But now I don't know what to set my own research to. Aesthetics->Lit just to build the Heroic Epic in the capital? I can produce CRIII Trebs there so it's tempting, no? Should I just go for Guilds? Cuirs when Trebs stop working? Huayna of China is teching fast it looks like, I may face rifles eventually.