I had taken out France and Spain by about turn 90, and that was a bit sub-optimal in build/military strategy. I got the incredibly useful Tower Shield event, though, which countered that.
A few notes:
1) It will take longer to tech iron working than it will to build 2 work boats, a worker, and barracks. You want to emphasize commerce somewhat, or you will be stuck spamming warriors or building a second worker instead of praets.
2) For some reason, neither France nor Spain settled the second city initially. Once I captured Paris, Izzy did settle Barcelona on the site of Bibracte.
3) Thanks to Alex declaring on Frederick on turn 96 and suiciding a stack on Berlin, I was able to take both it and Hamburg by turn 104. He had 2 other cities and I left Berlin open, so I had to take peace.
4) I might have been better off attacking Greece first, although I doubt I could have done it before he got phalanxes hooked up. Praets aren't great by themselves against axemen, and you can't use chariots to counter them with Greece (that assumes you have conquered France/Spain and have AH).
Anyhow, Cyrus somehow has 11 cities in 1175 BC; and Qin has the Pyramids and the GLH, so I doubt my game will be a walk-over. I suspect you will see some very powerful AIs as well.
A few notes:
1) It will take longer to tech iron working than it will to build 2 work boats, a worker, and barracks. You want to emphasize commerce somewhat, or you will be stuck spamming warriors or building a second worker instead of praets.
2) For some reason, neither France nor Spain settled the second city initially. Once I captured Paris, Izzy did settle Barcelona on the site of Bibracte.
3) Thanks to Alex declaring on Frederick on turn 96 and suiciding a stack on Berlin, I was able to take both it and Hamburg by turn 104. He had 2 other cities and I left Berlin open, so I had to take peace.
4) I might have been better off attacking Greece first, although I doubt I could have done it before he got phalanxes hooked up. Praets aren't great by themselves against axemen, and you can't use chariots to counter them with Greece (that assumes you have conquered France/Spain and have AH).
Anyhow, Cyrus somehow has 11 cities in 1175 BC; and Qin has the Pyramids and the GLH, so I doubt my game will be a walk-over. I suspect you will see some very powerful AIs as well.