The Recipe Plan
I tried to follow the Ergon recipe discussed in the pregame thread. I built barracks and WCs and by 500AD I had taken out the Romans, Indians, and relegated Napoleon to a third rate power.
I turned my attention to the Russians, and then attacked Qin. Most of the earlier cities I kept had little or no infrastructure. Beijing was my crown jewel so far. The Chinese had built four wonders in it! The GL was prob most valuable, but the Hagia Sophia and the Hanging Gardens provided GE GPP points, and _________ and just as a result of these GPPs, Beijing became my GPP farm. {I had not found/built a more suitable GPP farm, and I had concentrated on cottages to try and revive my ailing economy}. Beijing wasnt the best because the Chinese culture impinged on its tiles, and Beijing could only work about half its local area.
Recognizing the Incans as a power, and the Spanish as a neighbor, I decided to keep them happy as long as possible. Izzy asked me to change to Hinduism, which I did. I had captured the Buddhist shrine and had that city spawning Buddhist missionaries, and since I had open borders with Izzy, she soon had enough Buddhist cities to change her religion again, to Buddhism. I remained Hindu since the stronger HC was Hindu.
Foreseeing the American aggressor as the next threat to my world dominion, I sent the veteran armies from the Russian/Chinese wars off through Spanish territory to begin a campaign against the American west coast. Meanwhile, I had been building a new fresh army in my northwest, which I would simultaneously use to attack Roosevelts eastern cities.
After Izzy and I started dating, we had a little argument about going out one night a week with the boys. Despite the fact that I gave in, and let her go each week,
a couple of turns before my army traversing Izzys territory would have been in a position for me to DOW Roosevelt, Izzy cut me off. She closed her borders. Half my existing offensive army was trapped with the icy b*tch on an icy peninsula north of Spain with no exit route. Only one thing to do: DOW Izzy. And while at it, I decided to take her out completely {getting tired of those We Yearn to Join Our Motherland unhappies}. It was a long war, creating WW, but I was never in any real danger.
After this war started, I noticed Roosevelt had pulled away in techs, and was starting to get real military units. Izzy might have done me a service, and saved my bacon. But, either way, the American war machine was coming to life.
After Spain, I determined Roosevelt too advanced to attack, and went and claimed the remainder of Napoleons territory.
MILF
My new Civ IV acronym. Sorry, it has no reference at all to Izzy and her female friends or their morning teas. Instead, its a family-friendly acronym that stands for Mistakes I Learn From. Ive graduated from calling them noob mistakes, and since I now like the term MILF, I guess I have to grow up and quit calling myself QN {Quintessential Noob}. Can anyone think of a term for a Civer that likes MILFs? j/k
MILF #1 - I should have attacked Roosevelt much earlier, as he became a powerhouse tech leader. {I should learn to at least harass the stronger AIs}. India and probably Spain were no real threats to me militarily, and could have waited.
MILF # 2 - I wasted two-and-a-quarter Great People(s). First, I culture bombed Beijing thinking I might free some of its Chinese tiles from the grip of the Red Giant. Doesnt work that way. One wasted GA. Later, I accidentally bulbed a GE big oops- on Railroad, which I immediately got in trade from HC. One wasted GE. Now for the quarter GP wasted. I sent my second GA on a trade mission and couldnt understand why the trade mission icon wasnt showing up when he got to Incan cities. {I call this a one-quarter wasted GP, since as you all know, GAs dont have the ability to perform trade missionsah, er,
uhm
harrumph
that would be great merchants GMs
. and not Great Artists}.
MILF # 3 - Mouse slips, or maybe just trying to move too fast. I had to capture Paris three times in my last war with Napoleon due to the fact that I slipped and moved my entire stack away from Paris instead of just units I thought I had selected. Then I didnt move enough troops back to take {and occupy} it the second time.
TWO VCs in ONE GAME !
Its not every game that you get to try two Victory Conditions in one game. [Actually, this should probably be MILF # 4, since I did not stick to my original plan]. I thoroughly enjoyed the early WC rush Thanks, again to the pregame discussion and especially Ergon
---but at some point when I determined how far behind I was falling, e.g. against Roosevelt, I reverted back to builder mode. I built a library or something
then another.. and then I went to Organized Religion because OR allowed me to build buildings faster and I built everything everywhere. Through trading and the aforementioned cottaging, I had basically caught up tech-wise with HC, but Roosevelt held onto a significant lead. Qin was a persona-non-grata.
So, I thought I : (1) could possibly still win the space race, (2) could still go back to 100% military unit productionespecially now that I had forges and factories in several production cities --- and go after Roosevelt and at least slow him down on my way to a domination win, or (3) try a diplomatic victory (something I had never ever before accomplished). At first I believed that I could head toward domi win while preparing for war with America and still keep HC pleased/friendly and keep the diplo option in my back pocket. But, then I actually paused and thought. {novel idea}. I was probably going to go over the self-voting threshold for diplo if I successfully attacked Roosevelt, and kept any cities. And, that successful part was a big IF <------ Thats a big if
Decision Time
Meanwhile, Roosevelt DOWd me in 1900 AD, with his advanced military units. His Navy Seals against my riflemen, etc.
Interesting here is that I had left gaps here and there by not keeping every city and razing many. HC had filled in the old Spanish territory between Seville (my northeast border city with America) and my home territory. So, while I am usually miffed with this behavior, here it gave rise to a defensive battle plan. I would use my units in Seville to attack sweet isolated targets left by Roosevelt and in general move them back to safety to heal. I only left a few units in Seville to slow America down. Then I regrouped behind the HC border cities and defended.
On the western front, Roosevelt attacked with the main body of his forces in the northwest, but harried me up and down that western border. To defend, I stacked the northwest city full of dilapidated old reserve units and cats, and played hit and run until I researched Assembly Line for Infantry. Then I was able to use cats and cannons to allow me to take out his stack of doom. Although it was touch and go, I was able even at the end, to take out his Mech infantry with an artillery and a tank or sometimes two
or three?!. His main force destroyed, he continued to attack with a few smaller stacks and individual tanks, mech inf, etc.
By now I had decided to try for my first ever Diplo victory. I kept HC happy, and had bribed him to join the war against America. Thus, I never sued Roosevelt for peace, and teched to Mass Media and built the U.N. I worried that someone would beat me to it, because I found it prudent to sidetrack my research scientists through Industrialism (for tanks, etc.) so that if I finally got the U.N., it would still matter !!
All the joint military struggle with HC got him reasonably friendly ( I think he was +18 when he voted for me at the end for the Diplo victory). I won my first ever Diplo victory in 1952 AD. While its no threat to the award board, its my first Diplo and another win on Monarch levelabout the best results I could hope for-- given I had completely abandoned my original goals !
My experience with the War Chariots was that they have an extremely long useful life. After their leadership role in military actions was over, the few survivors became reserves against barbs and portable happies under Hereditary Rule. In fact, one WC destroyed a heavily damaged enemy tank late in the game!
And speaking of MILFs, Oops, I did it again. I wrote another terribly long write-up it seems.
I have enjoyed the write-ups and look forward to reading the rest.
Adama
Don't waste a single coin on research. You'll need all your money to keep your units from strike. The best you can do is pick money from conquered cities. Keep warring.
I'd have said you were in need of Currency or CoL, not Theology.
This delayed my second war to start 195 BC, which is much too late. It was a long while ago since I experienced such bad luck
Domination on Monarch tends to be very tedious, but quick speed made this game very enjoyable. Spoils of war enabled me to run finances between 500-1000 gold, and I managed to research much further than I expected. I was a bit naïve of course to believe that it was possible to skip CoL 
(Great Artist - what are they good for? Absolutely nothing 
). In general, it was enough to attack with twice as many WCs as defenders (one WC died for each defender), and keep a second wave ready to rush into the city once it was captured.
Anyway, thanks for the map 
), so when Tanks were available I levelled every city (actually, I was too much in hurry to do it right, just using stack attacks, which meant that Nappy got to actually raze the last 3 cities. Talk about a waste...
(...but you are too kind...)
