robvollman
Warlord
I've been playing a solo game - Huge Earth, max # of AIs (22, I think), marathon speed. It's 750 AD right now.
I got the Americans, who can buy new city tiles easier and whose units have extra sight. Interestingly, I appeared near Calgary, which is where I live. For my first city I obviously went south, and settled New York right were the Mississippi branched.
To my surprise, I saw a Roman settler wander by Washington and settle 3 tiles to the west of me. These guys are basically from Quebec - that's a little far from home! I had such figured out Archery, so I built an archer, and then declared war on these guys with a warrior, a spearman and an archer. Fortunately, that was enough. Their poor tactics allowed me to pick off four warriors without any losses - although they did destroy some tile improvements, before finally sieging Neapolis, which I took as a puppet rather than raze or annex. Rome quickly signed a peace treaty, giving me a pile of money and an annual payment, so the war was quite profitable!
My next war was with Egypt, who were basically in Mexico. They had expanded to the northwest (Memphis), which was towards the California-based Siamese, and northeast, a right grain city not too far from New York named Heliopolis. The reasons for going to war with Egypt:
1. They were in the lead
2. Siam asked me to
3. They kept insulting me for no reason!
By now I had 2 archers, 2 warriors and 2 spearmen. I took a worker in the surprise attack, but lost a warrior to his chariots. Did you say chariots? Hello spearman! I took out his chariot along with a warrior, and my archers made short work of Heliopolis, which I took as a puppet.
I started marching on Thebes but before I got too far they offered me Memphis and a pile of cash for peace. They fought made peace with the Siamese not long thereafter.
Having slapped my two nearest and most powerful neighbours, I looked at expansion. South of the Great Lakes I settled Philadelphia east of New York and north of the Great Lakes I settled Boston east of Washington, effectively sealing off the Romans. That made them kind of mad - which is weird given that they settled a city right next to my capital very early in the game.
I also settled Atlanta on the coast of Hudson Bay to get some pearls, and eventually Chicago to get the Silver in the Rockies. Needless to say all these cities made my citizens pretty mad so I bought off an Alaskan city-state for their luxuries, grabbed a happiness-related social policy, and started building colosseums.
This whole time Egypt continued to insult me. So when the war payments ended and time was right I brought my 3 spearmen, 1 warrior and 2 archers to see what damage I could do. Surprisingly they had spent this whole time building wonders instead of defenses, so I quickly took Thebes. Oddly they refused to make any kind of peace deal, so I pressed on and took nearby Elephantine and eventually marched all the way to take their final city Alexander, which is near Panama. Egypt's dead, and I had no losses.
End result was 3 new puppets. That's 6 cities plus 6 puppets - all these extra cities made my people unhappy, but they also had lots of luxuries so in the end I think it was a wash. I used my workers to link everything up by road, and that, combined with the war payments, gave me quite a war chest.
Around this time I got my first couple of swordsmen so I figured I might as well take out Rome. This was a little tougher, because they had three tightly-clustered cities and lots of forests and hills that made it hard to position my units properly. But with patience and wise tactics I lured his armies out in the field, slaughtered them, and advanced everybody at once to wear down the cities. 3 new puppets.
That's pretty much where I am today. I'm alone in North American except city states in Florida and Alaska, and the one-city Siamese empire in California. The Indians must be somewhere, because they asked me for a gift of resources (even though asking them for one of theirs in a trade proposal usually results in them asking for everything you have), and they were actually allied with me until I attacked the Egyptians.
I've got 9 puppet cities and 6 cities of mine. I'm building some colosseums, and I've almost gotten rid of the unhappiness. I'm pretty much dead-even in terms of money, but I've still got a huge surplus - haven't really spent any money except on aligning the Alaskan city-state for its luxuries. I've got four social policies, 1 under Loyalty and 3 under Piety.
My next goal is to build markets to get more money, and also to select a couple of cities to build barracks/forges/etc while the rest build workshops. Basically the idea is to strengthen my empire to get ready for the next war, which will be an intercontinental one (I already know the Germans are in South America).
I got the Americans, who can buy new city tiles easier and whose units have extra sight. Interestingly, I appeared near Calgary, which is where I live. For my first city I obviously went south, and settled New York right were the Mississippi branched.
To my surprise, I saw a Roman settler wander by Washington and settle 3 tiles to the west of me. These guys are basically from Quebec - that's a little far from home! I had such figured out Archery, so I built an archer, and then declared war on these guys with a warrior, a spearman and an archer. Fortunately, that was enough. Their poor tactics allowed me to pick off four warriors without any losses - although they did destroy some tile improvements, before finally sieging Neapolis, which I took as a puppet rather than raze or annex. Rome quickly signed a peace treaty, giving me a pile of money and an annual payment, so the war was quite profitable!
My next war was with Egypt, who were basically in Mexico. They had expanded to the northwest (Memphis), which was towards the California-based Siamese, and northeast, a right grain city not too far from New York named Heliopolis. The reasons for going to war with Egypt:
1. They were in the lead
2. Siam asked me to
3. They kept insulting me for no reason!
By now I had 2 archers, 2 warriors and 2 spearmen. I took a worker in the surprise attack, but lost a warrior to his chariots. Did you say chariots? Hello spearman! I took out his chariot along with a warrior, and my archers made short work of Heliopolis, which I took as a puppet.
I started marching on Thebes but before I got too far they offered me Memphis and a pile of cash for peace. They fought made peace with the Siamese not long thereafter.
Having slapped my two nearest and most powerful neighbours, I looked at expansion. South of the Great Lakes I settled Philadelphia east of New York and north of the Great Lakes I settled Boston east of Washington, effectively sealing off the Romans. That made them kind of mad - which is weird given that they settled a city right next to my capital very early in the game.
I also settled Atlanta on the coast of Hudson Bay to get some pearls, and eventually Chicago to get the Silver in the Rockies. Needless to say all these cities made my citizens pretty mad so I bought off an Alaskan city-state for their luxuries, grabbed a happiness-related social policy, and started building colosseums.
This whole time Egypt continued to insult me. So when the war payments ended and time was right I brought my 3 spearmen, 1 warrior and 2 archers to see what damage I could do. Surprisingly they had spent this whole time building wonders instead of defenses, so I quickly took Thebes. Oddly they refused to make any kind of peace deal, so I pressed on and took nearby Elephantine and eventually marched all the way to take their final city Alexander, which is near Panama. Egypt's dead, and I had no losses.
End result was 3 new puppets. That's 6 cities plus 6 puppets - all these extra cities made my people unhappy, but they also had lots of luxuries so in the end I think it was a wash. I used my workers to link everything up by road, and that, combined with the war payments, gave me quite a war chest.
Around this time I got my first couple of swordsmen so I figured I might as well take out Rome. This was a little tougher, because they had three tightly-clustered cities and lots of forests and hills that made it hard to position my units properly. But with patience and wise tactics I lured his armies out in the field, slaughtered them, and advanced everybody at once to wear down the cities. 3 new puppets.
That's pretty much where I am today. I'm alone in North American except city states in Florida and Alaska, and the one-city Siamese empire in California. The Indians must be somewhere, because they asked me for a gift of resources (even though asking them for one of theirs in a trade proposal usually results in them asking for everything you have), and they were actually allied with me until I attacked the Egyptians.
I've got 9 puppet cities and 6 cities of mine. I'm building some colosseums, and I've almost gotten rid of the unhappiness. I'm pretty much dead-even in terms of money, but I've still got a huge surplus - haven't really spent any money except on aligning the Alaskan city-state for its luxuries. I've got four social policies, 1 under Loyalty and 3 under Piety.
My next goal is to build markets to get more money, and also to select a couple of cities to build barracks/forges/etc while the rest build workshops. Basically the idea is to strengthen my empire to get ready for the next war, which will be an intercontinental one (I already know the Germans are in South America).
