The last game I just finished up I had a set up that was both golden and craptacular at the same time.
Playing Large map with 7 AIs, continents. I start out, exploring, yadda yadda, notice i have a ton of extremely nice land, cows and wheats, rivers, only silks and ivory are anywhere near me and a huge marsh/jungle seperates my starting position. Anyways, i explore the entire continent, theres only -one- other civ on the whole continent.
The continent was over 50% of the land mass... there were a few islands and then there was another continent, so it was about 45% of the land mass. All the 6 other civs were on this other continent. So great, right, because theres a crapload of space to expand. which I did. Before anyone had landed on the shores i already had 50+ cities.. but the problem was this:
I don't build wonders in the beginning usually because of the GL crutch and i like to expand faster.. (something i more or less recently started doing).. so the Indians (the guys on my continent) built the great lighthouse. They went out, and met the other civs right away. Since the other civs were all on a continent together they traded... very quickly.
I lost over 20 galleys trying to get to the other continent, as there was no safe route.. pretty annoying heh. So by the time I got to the IA, i was already down 4 noticable techs to everyone... I had no saltpeter, no horses. I ended up building a whole heck of a lot of MI and long bow man and what not, until finally i was able to procure some saltpeter. By the time I was attacking my neighbours to the north I had Cavs.. but only through obscure routes to cities on the other side of the continent.
So when I started fighting India... it wasn't pretty. Ever seen an army of MI and longbowman with some cavs and trebuchets in it fighting artillery and infantry? not to mention stupid war elephants. It was like throwing water at a brick wall to erode the bricks.
I, through sheer masses of troops, was able to burn down five or six of their cities and they gave me a boat load of money and MPP and RoP for peace. So I turned my tech all the way off and had to steal my way back to par level of tech research
Went on to become the most powerful Civ, wiped out two others and had a third down to 10 small cities in the Modern Era before I won through diplo. First diplo victory.
Anyways my new lesson learned: a lot of expansion room isn't necessarily a good thing, although it worked out in the end.
By the way... the other civs i fought, i razed all their cities except for ones on resources, which i used as airbases. I ended the game with 90+ cities.. and 650 culture per turn
Playing Large map with 7 AIs, continents. I start out, exploring, yadda yadda, notice i have a ton of extremely nice land, cows and wheats, rivers, only silks and ivory are anywhere near me and a huge marsh/jungle seperates my starting position. Anyways, i explore the entire continent, theres only -one- other civ on the whole continent.
The continent was over 50% of the land mass... there were a few islands and then there was another continent, so it was about 45% of the land mass. All the 6 other civs were on this other continent. So great, right, because theres a crapload of space to expand. which I did. Before anyone had landed on the shores i already had 50+ cities.. but the problem was this:
I don't build wonders in the beginning usually because of the GL crutch and i like to expand faster.. (something i more or less recently started doing).. so the Indians (the guys on my continent) built the great lighthouse. They went out, and met the other civs right away. Since the other civs were all on a continent together they traded... very quickly.
I lost over 20 galleys trying to get to the other continent, as there was no safe route.. pretty annoying heh. So by the time I got to the IA, i was already down 4 noticable techs to everyone... I had no saltpeter, no horses. I ended up building a whole heck of a lot of MI and long bow man and what not, until finally i was able to procure some saltpeter. By the time I was attacking my neighbours to the north I had Cavs.. but only through obscure routes to cities on the other side of the continent.
So when I started fighting India... it wasn't pretty. Ever seen an army of MI and longbowman with some cavs and trebuchets in it fighting artillery and infantry? not to mention stupid war elephants. It was like throwing water at a brick wall to erode the bricks.
I, through sheer masses of troops, was able to burn down five or six of their cities and they gave me a boat load of money and MPP and RoP for peace. So I turned my tech all the way off and had to steal my way back to par level of tech research
Went on to become the most powerful Civ, wiped out two others and had a third down to 10 small cities in the Modern Era before I won through diplo. First diplo victory.
Anyways my new lesson learned: a lot of expansion room isn't necessarily a good thing, although it worked out in the end.
By the way... the other civs i fought, i razed all their cities except for ones on resources, which i used as airbases. I ended the game with 90+ cities.. and 650 culture per turn
Surpirsed you won by diplomatic though.....how did you butter up the AI enough to get the votes? Getting the AI on my side is usually my big weakness.
