I dropped my previous shadow game (with the Khmer in SE Asia) and opted to start a new one with rolo's Khmer-less map. Things seemed to be going just swimmingly. I changed my strat and settled 1 north for an earlier rush, and this went well - Babylon fell just as Hammi was sending out his first settler. Next, I jumped on Sumeria. Gil was tougher, as he had CG2 archers, but I had too many immortals. This is where I made my biggest mistake - I let him live in his second city up in Turkey, figuring I could take him out later. I was hot to go after Rameses, who had founded Judaism. Ram had 3 cities: I kept Thebes (GW), and Heliopolis (on the coast NW of Thebes, the jewish holy city), and burned Memphis (I should have kept it, as Han settled soon after). Judaism was the most widespread religion on the map (everyone except Boudi - who founded Boudiism
- and Rome - also boudiist - and Korea - confucian, which I founded). My early tech path was designed to grab the Oracle, so I went AH, wheel, mining, myst, med, PH, writing. I grabbed the Oracle and started whipping in cheap courthouses. Judaism spread to the capital, so I built a temple so that I could run a priest. This gave me a GP, which I sent towards Heliopolis (which had be revolting due to Greek culture + henge in Athens). As I predicted, Julius DOWed Greece, dropping Athens and eliminating the greeks just as I build the Temple of Solomon (thanks, Julie). All of this resulted in a booming economy: I was making a profit with 6 widely-spaced cities at 100% on the slider. :shocked:
This is where letting Gil live came back to bite me. He founded another city on the copper N of Babylon and now had vultures and spears. He started spreading into Russia, and then DOWed me. By that time I had maces, xbows, cats, and wellis so I held him off easily, took peace, and then declared and took his nearby cities. Unfortunately, Qin had built the jewish AP, and started passing resolutions to stop the war and give back cities. I was not in a religion, since I wanted to keep Julius happy (he was pleased most of the game). I had a great economy going, though I missed lib by 5 turns to Ashoka because I detoured to feud/guilds/banking.
Rome, however, had become a monster. He was gobbling up Gil's cities in Asia like nobody's business, and was teching very well. He had cuirassiers by the time I got to gunpowder, and he had vassaled everyone except me and the chinese. I gave up. This is what I had feared - an unchecked Rome expanding into asia. I had to bump the espionage slider to see his power rating: even though I was at parity (or better) than everyone else, I only had 0.5 of Rome's power. Despite building units like mad, he just pulled further ahead (I was at 0.3 when I quit).
So I started a second game, taking desperate measures: dropping to emperor and planning to try to take out Rome before he could get spears from the German copper. Same start as before, and I quickly rolled over Babylon and Sumeria (taking Gil out completely this time) before DOWing Greece (it was the shortest path to Rome). I burned his city where Constantinople usually is and ignored Athens as I rushed into the teeth of the Roman empire. I immediately headed to the copper NE of Rome, which was hooked up already. Julius had 3 axes and an archer, but immortals don't fear no stinking axes. I pillaged the copper and took the city with just 4 units, winning every battle. Rome, however, had a single spear (along with multiple archers), which took out 1 of my immortals before I could kill it. Julius had a second city in France (grabbing the horses), so I was facing chariots and archers in a Rome that had unpillagable seafood. I sent a constant stream of units to Rome while my workers built a road there, but I couldn't take him out until I hooked up the copper myself and built a couple of spears to fend off the chariots. Eventually Rome fell (around 700BC), and I wiped out his last city in france (poorly placed), which I resettled in the usual Paris location. I then finally took out Athens (bye-bye Peri), took a barb city at Amsterdam, put a city in Spain, another in east Germany, another in eastern Russia, and finally one more in Turkey. So I have 12 cities and my economy is running great, amazingly enough. Despite missing the Oracle (I got caught up in the war and forgot to put some chops into it), the alpha>currency path got me to CoL with no trouble (I founded confucianism in Babylon). I'm the clear tech leader in 430AD, with the most land (Ashoka's starting to settle in Russia, so I'm going to keep expanding, and maybe DOW him soon). I beelined lit after CoL and built the GL in Paris. I've gotten good cash from wonder fails (parth, SoZ). I'm jewish, like everyone except China and Korea, so diplo is good for the most part (Qin DOWed me when I refused a demand for all my cash, but I beat him off with wellies). I now have CS and machinery, so lots of maces and xbows soon, engineering will be next for trebs and pikes, then some real war.
About the map: I just don't think the Romans are stoppable unless taken out as early as possible, which is no mean feat. I didn't think I could do it at immortal, which is why I dropped to emperor. I think that Neal only has a brief window to right the empire (alpha>currency is clearly the way to go, and is very doable) before expanding like mad into Russia in order to limit Rome. I wish him the best of luck. This map is just way too generous to the Romans, and Julius has the perfect traits for leveraging his UU - IMP/ORG. It will be very tough to stop him from taking over the world.
on Normal) is a LOT cheaper than Mathematics-Currency (650
) and gives all of the Super-filled-with-resources Europe to Rome ( because we know the tendency that AI have in this map to play OCC for a big while if starting in a island.... ). Celts starting somewhere between Berlin and Southern France would had give na more balanced game ( and more fun too: preatorians vs gallic warriors in a very hilly area 
)
Whenever they make Civ5, they better fix the AI..
