Nobles' Club 248: Julius Caesar of the Romans

[Fish Man]

@sylvanllewelyn

Spoiler :

I wasn't whining, quite the opposite, in fact . Just saying why some other people may not like this map.

I personally am having a good time. To the best of my knowledge I'm the only person who posted on this thread who's reached a definitively winning position on deity?

Anyways, t253 update - Giggles has been brought under heel and Monty has been terminated for outliving his usefulness. I have 28 cities, and am closing in on tanks as well as the tech gap. I have artillery which nobody else has (except for Giggles when I traded arty + AL for combustion + electricity). Aachen has something like half a dozen settled GGs, so my plan is to build IW + HE there and then spam ungodly amounts of CR3 tanks. Combined with my now veteran soon-to-be infantry and artillery, rolling over the rest of the map should be no problem.

Spoiler :

Now that's a lotta damage! How about a little more?

Spoiler :

 

[Fish Man]

Finale

Spoiler :

t268 (1790AD) DOMINATION victory. After I started churning out tanks, it was a foregone conclusion. I used my org to quickly whip factories/some coal plants before using a final golden age to switch to rep/caste. As expected, nobody else had CLOSE the production to match my tankspam, nor did anyone have enough land to really run away with research...the only good techer, Wang, was stuck with 8 cities on a desert/plains wasteland. Ironworks Aachen was churning out a 19xp tank every turn, and I didn't even have the Heroic Epic in that city (I built that NW elsewhere; otherwise it would've been overkill).

The turning point was capping Charlie. After taking out the strongest AI in the game, the rest fell like dominoes. The last AI I needed to cap, Lincoln, gave in after a SINGLE turn ...I don't know why, as I barely killed 10 units, so surely that would not have been enough war success? I've seen this a few times before, where an apparently very strong AI will cave after very little fighting - Darius did this all the way back in my playthrough of NC200 and in Lain's Gandhi game, IIRC. Not sure what causes it...in any case, not complaining, and didn't make much of a difference whether he capped in 1 turn or 5, especially since no force on the planet was capable of even slowing down my army at that point.

For fun I played on and DOW'd Wang after I won. He gave in just as quickly when I tore apart a single mini-stack of like 8 marines and 8 cavs...weird.

Anyways, this is a pretty standard demonstration of how you win deity iso...rush people with rifles/cannons, get enough land to reach industrialism (at least 15 cities, from my experience), finish off the rest with a late industrial superarmy.

I did not get to kill over 1000 units...in fact, I don't think anyone else combined had as much army in the modern era, as Giggles/Charlie had in the late Renaissance. Which made it all the more wise, in hindsight, I stopped them when I did. Better to have to face 200 rifles and 100 cavs than 200 mechs and 100 gunships. A key part of deity iso is picking the strongest civ with runaway potential that you have a shot of defeating as your first target. It's better to get the tough parts out of the way first instead of letting someone dangerous grow even stronger.

Slaughter of Stuttgart:

Spoiler :

The final (anticlimatic) showdown begins, and ends just as quickly (Seriously Lincoln? Charlie had a 10x bigger stack 2 eras ago...well, I don't blame you for being intimidated by my massive army):

Spoiler :

And...victory!

Spoiler :

 

[krikav]

Very fun map! Thanks @AcaMetis

Spoiler T38 :

I knew this was a iso map. So start warrior took up fogbusting in the east right away.
Agri -> BW, and with no copper in sight and no clue how large tundra/ice we have I chickened out and went for archery.

Massive amounts of food tells me I want to go CoL, and marble tells me aestethics could be possible...
However, no happy-resources except for wine make monarchy the given choice.
I wonder if there is time for yet another detour though...?

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T106 :

After archery I went TW->Pottery (Pottery done T53) and here I'm going myst.
I think this is the third forest regrowth I have seen this game.
Monument is 1pop whipped in Cumae the turn after 1 hammers is invested.

2pop whipping granary in Rome and later Cumae. Think I 1pop whipped the granary in Antium, or if I 2pop whipped with alot of overflow into a workboat, can't remember.
Antium is working heavily to produce 2 workboats on time for Cumae borderpop.

Borders pop and workboats are ready.

Imperialistic is really nice, put 9 hammers into a settler and get very easy hammer overflow. Here I'm setting up the library in capital in short notice.
A monument is chopped in city4 and Antium builds it's workboat.
Antium and Cumae does 3pop whips for their libraries

After the library whip, I hink Cumae slow-builded a fourth worker to cool down from the whip anger.
Here I'm all but decided to go Poly->priest->monarchy->Aestethics->litterature before the optics beeline.
I'm not sure if this is best play, it does delay optics quite abit. But getting overflow from whipping pretorians will be really nice and I figure I can build an army that way while racking up a fortune in failgold for national/heroic epic. I have an archer at 8/10 xp and a barb city, so getting either a pretorian with city raider up to 10, or letting that archer get some final blow should be all but guaranteed.

Here comes my academy-guy. I'm thinking that it could have been better either to delay AH and go for writing first (to get him some turns sooner), or perhaps delay monarchy to get more of the research done through the academy. But I went AH first for the beaker discount, and I went for monarchy right away to get the wine and happines asap.

Economy prior to monarchy.

T97 I pop a silver mine, but I worldbuilder it away because the extra +1/+2 happines and the commerce would make for a non-comparative game.
One thing that I do when I have an academy in the capital is to let the capital use all commerce tiles while researching at 100%.
All turns when I'm at 0% though, the commerce tiles are handed over to other cities, and the academy city instead runs scientists.

T102 Litterature is in and I start GLib.

Last forest did not finish GLib (4 hammers short, not even working unimproved plains instead of corn helps me. )
I did get it though, phew!

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T132 :

Woo hoo!
Oh, just to state the obvious, I would have liked to have GLib in Cumae instead of in the capital (because I want national epic in Cumae). But Capial had the chance to build GLib while Cumae probably didn't.
Also, the academy helps the two free scientists too.

Some pennies from Statue of Zeus, but now Parthenon is finished.
The drill here is to build things like barracks to 19/50, and settlers to 9/100 and Pretorians to 14/45 etc etc, everything that is useful now or later on. Then the overflow goes into Parthenon (and later the national wonders)

Ravenna was first to whip a Pretorian (which sprinted on roads toward the barb city), I was intending to put overflow into Parthenon but that was built. Couldn't put into National epic either because no library.
This is the issue with going for this route. It requires alot of pre-investment in libraries/barracks.

Rain of gold! This is enough to run 100% to optics. Trying to bump up commerce to get there quicker, but from here on I pay less attention to maintinence costs.

T129 Bismark finds me.
Setting up Neapolis to finish a caravel in one turn after optics with overflow+chop.
If I was making a optics beeline I would have had a trireme done and standing at the clam ready to be upgraded there for 50g @optics too.
But circumnavigation is already lost and I have already been found so there is less rush for that.
I might even have to delay settling cities @optics so I can self-tech math/alfabet/calendar first.

I reach optics and someone reaches liberalism... This is shaping up to a really tough game.
This explorer is also a overflow-whip from Antium, where I really don't want to invest in either a forge nor a harbor as other cities will take all it's food.

This is how Bismark is doing, he wasn't the lib-guy. He doesn't have many wonders either (just henge and GLH).

I'm ready to settle more cities! Really have to get Astro first though.

Overview of empire at optics.
I need to get CS to get research up to speed, have to avoid paper like the plague to be able to bulb chemistry and go through feud/guilds/gunpowder.
Then I want to hit someone with cannons, pretorians and some other rabble I can muster.
Want to place heroic in Neapolis and build things for cheap there.

 

[krikav]

Played abit more, but will likely put this one on hold now to join the newly published NC game with Vicky (NC268)

Spoiler T140 :

I get the barb city at 98.8% odds or so.
Self-teched math and delayed settling abit (was afraid I would have to finish nat-epic for the failgold and self-tech alfa+calendar too.)

But I met Gilga early and traded for calendar.
The turn after that I also meet Charly so I trade optics for currency+alfabet with those two guys and I'm set for astro-bulb.
Try to minimize beaker overflow by calculating how many beakers I get from the GSci (1500+3*pop)

Pre-bulb:

After bulb:

(And after cashing in on some recource trades I get another 31 gpt). Total +115 beakers+gold in gain, in addition to alot of +health and +happines! )

Bismark is a worthless trading partner, reaching WFYABTA after like... 3 techs, also he is very stingy with what he trades.
So I give him astro for feud to secure diplo points with him, and I was hoping to finish construction and then open up trades for CS, engineering guilds and CoL next turn.

Next turn Charly does have astro, but he didn't seem to have gained any tech...? He wasn't teching it so perhaps he got it as a tribute or a gift?
I also met Lincoln, but he is already on his way to astro, not even willing to give me CS, so I trade Astro for CoL+cash+map with him.

Monty seem to be making some slight progress. I put a warrior on my horse to be ready to pillage it if Gilga reaches guilds (I gave him it in a trade, not good.)

There are no offshore islands at all on the main continent.
I make a plan to refrain from trading astro to Gilga, and refrain from opening borders with Lincoln and later close borders with Wang, to inhibit Gilga/Lincoln/Wang, and keep them as potential targets. Gilga is of highest priority as he is closest, most behind (except for monty), and if I make progress against Gilga, I can easily follow up on Monty later.
Gilga also have nice hills close by his nice cities that make for nice landing spots.

Next turn though, Gilga has engineering for trade, and noone can say no to engineering.
I'll close borders with him in 7 turns to deprive him of the offshore traderoutes.

Nice trades going on!

I take back everything I said about Bismark being a stingy bastard, he cleared my shores of nasty barb galleys!

My newly settled cities will likely not be productive enough to contribute to a early rush war with Cannons+prets+muskets. But they could contribute nicely to abit later rifling draft.
I need to wait a few more turns to make some last granary/lighthouse whips, and then I'll revolt to CS+caste.
No religious spread at all yet, but I cross my fingers for some buddhism.

 

[Izuul]

Hey Krikav, you should probably not tech Paper.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T164 :

I'm rooting for Monty!

But he just folds.
Next turn, T143 Gilga asks me to join his war and I agree. Then Monty captiulates.

I delayed the switch to CS+Caste a long time, got it T140 I think and only now T144 I swap. (After the whips)
I whipped an observatory in Cumae, I figure I'll run a truckload of scientists and later rep-merchants there so it got to be worth it.
I also did some overflow-whipping, some trebs, some harbor which are nice at 80 hammers. With <5 hammers you get almost a populations worth of overflow.
Then I juggle the queues abit and put most overflow into national/heroic epics.
I ended up getting 462 failgold from heroic and 649 from national epic. Letting me cruise comfortable at 100% to steel. I did also run 0% science while not in CS, thinking that I benefit from this due to the academy.
I also did some 1pop whips of lighthouses/granaries in the tiny tiny cities.

T147 I close borders with Gilgamesh and Wang which I do to deprive them of intercontinental traderoutes and try to slow them down abit. But then I find out I don't have enough traderoutes so I have to open borders with Lincoln.

I really get shafed when it comes to trades... Almost everyone is going guilds/gunpowder.
I don't want to give Gilga anything.

A few turns later at gunpowder, Charly and Bismarck enter a bromance. Here I trade away gunpowder to Lincoln for banking, I have to unlock trades like PP/Replacable parts/education somehow for when I get steel.
T154 Gilgamesh begs me for Guilds but I refuse, he must stay as primitive as possible for me to have some chance.

He finished Scientific method... Hope he goes for physics too!

Now with Monty as his vassal, he has a source of horses, but still it's nice that he doesn't build knights/cuirs yet.
I didn't get any trade at all for chemistry. I cross my fingers and hope for someone of them to trade away MilSci as the grenadiers would do me wonders!

T163 I finish steel, and I finally get buddhism.
I run through meditaiton at 100% getting enough overflow to 1-turn paper next.

Gilgamesh DID go for physics.
Not so sure how to enter the trading game here. I certainly want to get some big stuff from Charly/Wang/Lincoln from steel while I have a chance, but the real prize would be MilSci so I kind of hope Lincoln/Wang goes for.

Noone is plotting, and I see no powderkeg ready to go off either.

Prior to landing steel, I set up cities so they where ready to start whipping an army, I probably overdid it on the failgold front, because I have too much cash left and too little units to upgrade.
I get a GPerson in 4 turns, so I'm thinking that I should just stall abit, slow-building and growing cities abit more, then run a GA. I want to swap to Buddhism and I also want to get into vassalage/slavery.
That would also get me 4 more turns to get some self-teching done.
However... that would give me a severely ill-timed golden age, as I must whip now, I don't think I have time to first delay 4 turns and then another 8 turns to get GPersons.
Might let Cumae and that double-fish city run specialists while all others go on a whipping rampage.
I have GLib in Rome, Heroic in Neapolis and National Epic in Cumae (which also have that forum for another +25% GPP).
Arretium will get a dry-dock and I'll whip the escorting frigattes there.

Starting to get a really bad feeling about this, Gilgamesh is kind of big, and he has his unit-spamming vassal by his side too.
But the only alternatives I can think of is Wang or possibly Lincoln. But Wang is in a tight spot with little land loaded with tundra. And he should be doable at a later stage in the game too.

Anyone have ideas? How would you play it from here?

 

[krikav]

In case anyone wants to take a look, and possibly give some strategic advice I attach the save.

@Fippy you are a fan of intercontinental invasions, how would you take it from here?

 

[Fish Man]

In case anyone wants to take a look, and possibly give some strategic advice I attach the save.

@Fippy you are a fan of intercontinental invasions, how would you take it from here?

Spoiler :

You're in a tough spot because there are basically two potential runaways...Giggles and Charlie. I would suggest dealing with Gilgamesh first, as then you kill two birds with one stone (Monty as well), and can then sweep rightwards to finish off the rest of the AIs, unaffected by annoying cultural pressure.

The NUMBER ONE thing that would help is this: get rifling, DRAFT RIFLES. With THREE fish, Cumae can draft a rifle every turn until the end of the game with Globe Theater, and having that steady supply of attacking gunpowder/front-line units may be the difference between win and loss.

Unpopular opinion, IGNORE GRENS. Dead-end expensive tech, dies horribly to cavs, can't even defend that well. Trade for it if you can, sure, but I'd much rather trade for something like PP or RP than them, if given a choice. Rifle-cannon attack on Giggles (or start with maces/praets if you feel daring and are confident he won't get rifles/grens before you). Then, with 20 cities or more, build up for a tank war against Charlie, and then sweep the board to finish off everyone else. Bismarck and Wang are kinda stuck with super garbage land so they're not THAT dangerous, and Lincoln doesn't really do anything usually, especially with just 10 cities. Hopefully, once you sweep over Charlie, resistance will be token at best.

 

[krikav]

@Fish Man

Spoiler :

I did consider globe in that tripple-fish city! However...
Nationalism removes burocracy, which I kind of need to tech anything at all (at least prior to rep).
I also need to get drama, and I need to get theatres up.
And to get globe up in Cumae, I also need to focus on that, and not generate great people there.
Not sure if it's a good plan to put high focus on.
Have a good amount of cities, so I can for sure do some rounds of drafting even w/o globe.

I probably should do a beeline for rifling though.. How would you go about it? Trade for PP+philosophy with someone next turn, then hope to get RP?

I'm worried that if I delay for rifling giggles will have become more or less invunerable, but it's also possible that even if I do rush through with a rifleman-less cannon attack it won't come quick enough and will only be obliterated.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T178 :

T165 I trade away steel for PP+Philosophy+470g with Wang, then the situation looks like this.
I set research to 100% and roll through monotheism for overflow.

T166 I trade steel for replacable parts+70g with Charly (what a bargain he gets!) then I continue to roll through drama.

Then this, worth every coin!
I should probably have put a turn into rifling instead of drama...

Now I trade RP for Nationalism with Wang, I have to add 330g to that deal, the intent was to get constitution for rifling next turn.

T168 I pop a GEng. I briefly consider using him to rush ironworks but decide against it, I need to run that golden age.
I also trade away rifling for constitution with Charly and rifling for education with Wang.

Standard teching civics, but I really need to be in Vassalage, alot of units is starting to rot away in the queues.

This is how I plan to tech, no clue how far I get before I stagnate, but I focus on getting corporations first for the passive economic boost.
I'm going for assembly line for the normal obvious reasons, infantry and factories... But also because of organized half-price factories!

Bismark drops down behind Lincoln in the scoreboard and then forgets that I'm too advanced, so I hurry up and get this while I get something.
Lost quite alot of beakers by obsoleting GLib and the buddhist monastery though. (About 30-40 beakers lost).
I note that I have a source of oil, and Lincoln doesn't. Everyone else has at least one source though, many have two, so someone will likely trade it to Lincoln.

Last turn of the GA. I have racked up quite abit of GP points in some places for later. Poor capital have gotten stuck on duty to build missionaries constantly.

T176 Wang finishes Kremlin, thats nice as he might be a secundary target.
You can see my initial strikeforce too, one more galleon with 2cannons and a pret is lagging behind abit.

I opened up borders just a turn ago to get a sneak peak before jumping in.
This is what I'm up against, and he has alot of more units scattered around too...

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T186 :

But I declare and land on that hill next to Gilgas capital... Then I pay the king his golden price.

All 3 rifles I have is promoted to guerilla2 and I press end turn and brace for impact, Gilgas SOD is standing in Kish

But nothing terrible happends! And no massive stack of doom is standing 1 tile away from me either! If it would have, I would just have had to jump inside the boats and run again.

So my guess is that his SOD went north to meet Charly, likely SE of Ur this turn.

Yepp, the next turn he is up there. He and Charly will trade units here for quite some time now. My scout is hiding in Nuremberg and climbs that hill every turn to keep an eye on the progress.

And down south, I luck out with the first cannon at 35% odds, and the rest just bombard away. I leave one injured unit in the city to wait for him to reinforce.
It seems Monty broke free fast too, I think Charly took a city of him.

Gilga and Monty did fight alot.

Gilgas northern front is starting to look pretty thin now...

I load up two boats with units that will jump in and snipe Niburu if it's injured enough. (But Charly does take it.)

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T195 :

I continue to chip of cities along the coast.

Have only lost one cannon so far. Lost a archer+warrior against barbs earlier and I lost a caravel when I took a shot and attacked one of gilgas boats at 30% odds when my frigate would only get 1xp at 90% chance.

I continued to watch here, waiting for Charly to finish healing and start to move further down.

But the turn Monty becomes Charlys vassal, I don't dare to wait any longer.

T191 I close borders with Wang+Lincoln again. I realize that I get decent traderoutes with myself now that I have some offshore cities.
I also slow down alot with whipping, and start to build up economy again.

The crowd seems to have enjoyed the boost I gave them with the steel-trade bonansa. I start to wonder what Gilga is teching...
The next turn, he adopts universial suffrage, aaah, he went democracy!
Are you SURE you have your priorities straight Gilga..?

He didn't want to give me Physics, and he didn't want to give me democracy either. He did want to give me that crappy Monty-city of his, but that I didn't want.
He is a good vassal, he hates me but Bismark is friendly with him and Charly will be friendly with him soon again too when they get open borders+peacetime going.
That Charly has Monty as a Vassal though, should increase the chances of some tensions later on.
Now I'll try to reach assembly line and some other goodies and see what can be done, but I suspect I have to focus my attention on Wang and/or Lincoln.
Charly and Bismark is blazing away... Perhaps It's them I should close borders with..?

 

[Fish Man]

Spoiler T195 :

I continue to chip of cities along the coast.
View attachment 582487
Have only lost one cannon so far. Lost a archer+warrior against barbs earlier and I lost a caravel when I took a shot and attacked one of gilgas boats at 30% odds when my frigate would only get 1xp at 90% chance.
View attachment 582488
I continued to watch here, waiting for Charly to finish healing and start to move further down.
View attachment 582491

But the turn Monty becomes Charlys vassal, I don't dare to wait any longer.
View attachment 582490

T191 I close borders with Wang+Lincoln again. I realize that I get decent traderoutes with myself now that I have some offshore cities.
I also slow down alot with whipping, and start to build up economy again.

The crowd seems to have enjoyed the boost I gave them with the steel-trade bonansa. I start to wonder what Gilga is teching...
The next turn, he adopts universial suffrage, aaah, he went democracy!
Are you SURE you have your priorities straight Gilga..?
View attachment 582492

He didn't want to give me Physics, and he didn't want to give me democracy either. He did want to give me that crappy Monty-city of his, but that I didn't want.
He is a good vassal, he hates me but Bismark is friendly with him and Charly will be friendly with him soon again too when they get open borders+peacetime going.
That Charly has Monty as a Vassal though, should increase the chances of some tensions later on.
Now I'll try to reach assembly line and some other goodies and see what can be done, but I suspect I have to focus my attention on Wang and/or Lincoln.
Charly and Bismark is blazing away... Perhaps It's them I should close borders with..?
View attachment 582495

Spoiler :

It's a huge pity Charlie capped Monty...if you had bribed him off earlier, you could've had 4-5 more good cities and one less vassal to take care of. As it stands, Charlie is in fact in serious danger of running away. It's up to you how you want to do it, but you may not be able to take him until you have tanks or at the very least infantry/artillery. Trade wisely, and good luck.

Bismarck is kinda not a problem in my book, the reasoning being if your army is strong enough to take Charlie, it's strong enough to completely wipe Bismarck (and if it's not, you lose). Then again you could still try for some diplo cheese...

 

[krikav]

Spoiler :

It's a huge pity Charlie capped Monty...if you had bribed him off earlier, you could've had 4-5 more good cities and one less vassal to take care of. As it stands, Charlie is in fact in serious danger of running away. It's up to you how you want to do it, but you may not be able to take him until you have tanks or at the very least infantry/artillery. Trade wisely, and good luck.

Bismarck is kinda not a problem in my book, the reasoning being if your army is strong enough to take Charlie, it's strong enough to completely wipe Bismarck (and if it's not, you lose). Then again you could still try for some diplo cheese...

Spoiler :

I'm not in a position to take on Charly now, in fact I might have to wait until infantry to take on anyone at all... But I am not that terrified about Charly running away completely. He has only 11 cities, not 20.

It would have been nice to get all of Montys cities for sure.. I was paying too much attention to his progress against Giggles and didn't think about Monty at all tbh. But I try to stay happy about it, as it makes the others dislike Charly more.

It's been a while since I tried Battleships/Carriers/Fighters/Troopers/Marines, perhaps I'll steer things in that direction.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T252 :

I continued again with pillaging almost everything I could find in Gilgamesh old land, that wasn't inside culture. Got 830g from that T195, T196 and T197.
Finished some units that where still in the queue before revolting to rep+bur+organised religion in a two-turn revolt.
I kind of like doing this when I have cities that are in revolt after a war, as the timer continues to tick down evern when in anarchy.

Now I mostly just build wealth, some courthouses and some other minor infrastructure.
Also getting forbidden palace in Uruk as the upkeep for some of his cities are up at 60gpt before cold-whipping courthouses there.
Doing some math for how to reach AL asap.
Plan is to build up my empire with assembly line (org factories) and try to catch the AIs somehow.

Monty enters free religion and drop down to annoyed from furious with me, and apparantly Monty trades techs at annoyed!
I got divine right for replacable parts and chemistry with Gilga, with the intent of possibly brokering it away to Bismark to gain a turn or so on AL later.

Here I trade liberalism from Monty, and Physics from Gilga.
The next turn, Bismark has 420 gold, so I just sell Liberalism to him for that.

I reach AL and start to build factories, also whip them in some cities that can't build fast enough. I don't whip everywhere though as I'm also trying to get ready for a golden age.
T213 Monty is willing to trade electricity so I give him steel, rifling and steampower for that. Not fun boosting Monty but I think I benefit more from gaining elecricity. My techrate is not at all good.

Limping my way to artilery and when I get there I get communism from wang.

I might have been able to get radio for all them tree techs? Don't remember if I checked, but I just went for railroad for artilery+communism with bismark.
I'm on my way to fascism/flight/industrialism so I can go into police state and build alot of battleships, carriers, fighters, marines and paratroopers.

T223 I wake up the two GPersons that have been sleeping in the capital since I invaded Gilgamesh and start a golden age.
Techrate improves quite abit!

My lousy vassal finally finishes his 30 turn biology and I see an opportunity to get something expensive.
I still have enough time to self-tech fascism before the GA finishes, so I put one turn into rocketry to hopefully get it. (I don't need rocketry, but SAM-dudes are always nice to have).
Bismark is too stingy though, so I just give him bio+divine right for fascism and the last turn of combustion.

I reach my endgame civics. Now I just build units everywhere, after industrialism I just go 0% and spend cash to upgrade galleons to transports, cannons/rifles to infantry/artilery. The frigattes I gift away to Gilgamesh.

I was hoping to get this trade, flight doesn't have any pre-reqs and is unusually expensive to self-tech (like astro).
After this, pretty much nothing exciting happends at all.
I just build very many units.

Gilgamesh apparantly managed to get radio from Monty (whom really hates me and don't want to have anything to do with me. But now I'll add some bombers to the mix too.

Starting to get ready!

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T261 :

An image of the army.

Out of the blue, Wang decides it would be fun to join the winning side. I think he sensed that the time was right.

The opposition. Been flying over his territory with fighters scouting everywhere. He doesn't appear to have any navy at all.
I declare on Charly, and try to bribe bismark to join. But 1767g is apparantly not enough, so I just beg for his map instead so charly won't pay him more.

A spy blasts the bunker, a swarm of fighters strike everything down to size and battleships bombard the defenses down, then marines jump in to finish, the marines get decent odds when promoted combat->pinch as mechanized infantry is a gunpowder unit. 62% chance.

I raze Augsburg. And was planning to do the same to Pisa, but I have to few fighters to the the defenders low enough, instead of sacrificing marines I just wait until next turn.
I just raze the cities as they are too costly to defend, and the objective is simply to cripple Charly.

Here is charlies pieces, I was hoping he would jump into some of Gilgas cities, but this turn it looked like he was going straight for my western coastal city there.

T260 I repeat the spy sabotages bunkers->battleship bombards->fighters smash->marines move in and raze Pisa.
A lot of choppers jump into my territory but some SAM-dudes clean them up.

I get frustrated that Charly doesn't put his entire stack inside the city, but I destroy what he did put there, and camp out on the hill 1S of the city. Promote a bunch of infantry to guerilla and alot of other units go down the drill line to not get crushed if he smashes the stack with his mobile artilery.

Oh please oh please charly! You need to defend that poor city!

He did enter the city, but not before smashing me abit. I didn't get hurt that badly though.

I get bad odds at first, but when you got enough thats no problem.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T273 :

I empty the city, and was hoping he (or Monty) would fill it up again, but that doesn't happen.

Now I'm starting to get so comfident that I keep these two cities after this, I build paratropers on all of Gilgamesh old cities, they move to Niburu and get shipped over to Nuremberg, both cities are loaded up with bombers and the navy/airforce is inside or just outside of Nuremberg to strike Aachen.

I blast Aachen from the air, tanks roll in and paratroopers jump down on that hill.
I get some symbolic help from Wang, who managed to walk a small stack all the way up on that hill before getting it decimated.

Successful attack, but he is strong!

Meanwhile, the army is just rolling over Monty.

Took some more turns, and more reinforcements, but finally he couldn't hold on for longer.
Aachen falls!

Charly decides he have had enough. I accept him into my club, and tell him to go research future techs FOREVER. No fiber optics for you!

Monty doesn't get to join though.

Going well!

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T288 Dom :

With Charly out of the way, I shuffle units for an eternity, then I declare on Lincoln and pay Bismark to attack too.
Bismark and Lincoln nuke each other alot, and Wang gets abit of a beating too, and when the dust settles I jump in and smash Lincoln abit.

Then I turn on Bismark right away. I have thrown great generals at some units, and apparantly they get all the action!
Is there some fun things to do with the great generals toward the endgame? I'm rather clueless!

My rag-tag stack from Montezuma (and later against Lincoln) is marching from the east, reinforcements are taking some cities in the west that Charlys culture is pushing against, and the navy jumps into this harbour. Took Essen with marines last turn, and the paratroopers unloaded and jumped toward Munich. This turn the Troopers take Munich while the marines take Berlin.

Bismark joins the winning team, and gives me Bremen as an entry ticket!

Apparantly, I'm unable to get conquest, always dom.