So out of curiosity I check how evenly an attack would go outside the citadel with my hoplite. Man those elephants are tough! So much for spearmen countering mounted even in open terrain O.O
Luckily, my neighbors are a bit occupied themselves. Especially lucky is that japan starts falling. I really didn't want to fight bushido samurai while I have swordsmen.
So I get another great general, and a catapult. However at this point I realize that Citadels are pretty darned powerful if you're just defending. Even more important is the fact that my enemies are seeming to only come from three directions: The southeast, the south mountain pass, and the western forest. Blocking another one more means I can focus entirely on one front. But which one? The south seems to be the most heavily populated attack, but too I can't put the citadel two hexes away or I will get sieged by siam's city, and the only hex that adequately covers me one hex away from Athens is the silver mine. Then it hits me: put it ON the silver mine. Who cares about a second golden age that will never come? I can't get higher than about 12 population anyways:
Bluh, muskets start arriving. I queue up another CC, as I will definately need more mobility.
Boy am I REALLY glad I built the citadel where I did. The mountain slows the elephants to a crawl, dealing -3 a turn, and the citadel is difficult to attack. Still, I later switch my pikeman with my swordsman so elephants can't attack it at all.
Lancers
Definately not good if they attack the city, but for whatever reason they don't. I push my units back, then hit them while they're sitting ducks. They're so bad at defense on an open field that my swordsmen with discipline cut them to pieces.
Riflemen! Very not good. Thankfully, my units are starting to get really uber. At this point, my Companian cavalry has about 150 experience, and my catapult can do some pretty decent damage in both open and rough terrain thanks to the promotions.
Now that the enemy is starting to surround me, they get confident enough to start attackign Athens, I start building city walls, hopefully not too late. I am wondering why there's been no pillaging, but the A.I. is very badly coordianted with a single civ, let alone 3.
Thankfully the attack fails. My CCs are still very powerful, but soon they will start to fall very far behind. I now make it to longswordsmen, and immediately upgrade my units.
I panic and start heading to rennaisance as fast as I can. I doubt I can make it to the industrial era, but of course I will keep trying once I hit gunpowder.
Meanwhile, that lonswordsmen is COMPLETELY invulnerable in that southern citadel.
Which isn't particularly helpful when the enemy starts spilling out all around you. Luckily, my catapult is getting pretty strong, and makes it to range + 1.
So, will I make it to the rennaissance? Will I make it through to the long long trek to dyanamite? You'll have to wait till tomorrow
@ Krikkitone - as far as which civ, in his particular case I got lucky and chose the best for the situation. Siam's elephants would've crushed the warriors, because I wouldn't have bothered to make spearsmen. However, in the long run, probably china, for an extra great general. While citadels destroy experience, when you get a catapult up to massively experienced they really rake it in for great generals.
Edit: Edit: Nvm, the best civ would definately be a culture civ. I forgot that the most difficult part of this was being unable to get both oligarchy (insane border defense), most of the honor tree, and opening commerce for the gold.
And yes, the medeival era was pretty brutal. Personally I doubt it's possible to win civ5 OCC AWD because of the lack of tech trading leaving you far behind in tech. Maybe a cultural win if you got really lucky.
