LK62, the age of Hussars.
1150AD Wow, the AIs are way ahead of us in techs. For some reason I do not think it matters overly much. We will divide and conquer.
I fire up a war with the Portugese since LKendter has been so kind as to position troops in good places for such an adventure.
It may get a bit bloody, since we cannot use artillery to soften the targets. I am not even vertain we may build artillery to defend ourself with, since they have a higher attack than defense and is movement 1.
Lagos defended by two muskets is an easy snack for an army and two Hussars. ( Yes, to my great sorrow, a regular musket defeated a veteran Hussar. )
Oporto has a vet rifleman on top, but our army makes short work of him, and his regular friend. Then Alvarez leads a particularly skillful charge and defeats a veteran musketman company, and as a thank you, he is made commander of his own Hussar Army.
Just to isolate the Portugese, I sign up Ottomans against him for Furs. He even pays 44 gold for that pleasure.
Gandhi joins for Ivory and 3 gpt.
We are strong compared to Portugal, so I suspect they will melt away quickly. Especially considering they have no horses that I can see.
IBT: The Portugese manage to scare up a knight that kills one of our Hussars. Some longbows are severely wounded as they travel around one of our armies.
1160AD: Time to kill POrtugese. Sao Paolo in the Jungle falls. Lose a Hussar in the battle of Braga. Braga was defended by three riflemen and a longbow. ( Took the top rifle with our Army. )
Coimbra falls to our new army. I spot two ships on the inland sea, heading for shores unknown. I will have to station a hussar or two as shore patrol in our core.
Our western army capture Guinamares guarded by three riflemen. In a fluke, a longbow managed to retreat a hussar, leaving that hussar exposed to the same longbow.

I kill off the Longbows with my reserve troops. I also rush two temples.
IBT: No counterattacks. The Portugese turn back with their chips, and land a longbow/medieval pair on a hill with a view over the front.
1170 Evora falls to our might, and Portuhal is reduced to a 2CC. The life expectancy has dropped sharply though for Henry, and he is not expected to last the century.
We capture Lisbon this turn without losses, and only two retreats.
IBT: Now I know where all of POrtugals defenders went. They were loaded on ships, and this turn they are landed on various shores.
1180 Time to find Henrys last hiding place. Ottomans have some 30 Sipahis in our territory. They are wonderfully exposed, but I will have to keep watch on them only.
In a lengthy siege, Sagres falls to a regular Hussar. We are out of Portugese. I will regroup in defensive patterns, although should Ottos sneak attack, we will take a lot of initial losses.
I am debating rushing culture or ships, but in the end decide on culture.
1190 Railing and healing. Start to suppress resistance with our troops.
1200 I will stop here for the night. We are at 52% lanmdmass right now, and I do not think that would be enough. We have some 30 Sipahis, and 10 riflemen of the Ottomans wandering around inside our borders. There is no way we can take them all out before losing a couple of sacrifical cities.
I will build a few boats, so we can ship our troops across the sea to meet up with the elephants. Hopefully I will have rushed four ships and placed them in position for next player to see what he can do about the indian menace.
1210 I think long and hard about it, but I think victory will be sped up by it, so I buy industrialization from Ottomans for two luxes and 80 gpt. Ottomans are not close to victory, so it does not really matter much if we give them some more resources. I will concentrate on culture, and prepare for naval assault upon India.
India is only annoyed at us, so I will not sign deals with them in case they do NOT go to war against us when someone later asks them to leave.
1220 I withdraw most of oru railing crew back into the core, and start building factories in our five largest cities. I have no money to rush factories, as I still need to rush culture before some AI try to squeeze a settler into the gaps inside former Portugal.
1230 Hohumhohum. Railnet is now complete, and two core cities are halfway railed, in preparation for optimization. I will rush galleons next turn, and ask India to leave.
1240 To my surprise, India is willing to leave our territory when we demand he do so. We are of course strong compared to him. Very well, I can then leave the decision up to next player.
1250 I have spread out our Hussars along the Ottoman border. I have also left you with a treasury, which you can decide yourself on how you want to use it.
Spying Nationalism from the Indian, rushing culture, or rushing galleons and grab some more land from the Indians would all be worthwhile.
If you are feeling particularly hostile, prepare for a war against Ottomans. It will likely be against infantry though, so I would not recommend that.
If you go to war against the Indians, be sure to involve the Ottomans. We could do with a lot less Sipahis on our continent. There are quite a lot of them around Antium.
Most of the Sipahis are of course exposed right now, and you could demand Ottos leave, and catch a lot of them. We have movement on all of our Hussars. They have more Sipahis exposed than we have Hussars though.
More glory to the HUssars
Grimjack