Churchill's Hat
Mortal
Okay, so I started a game as Zara Yaqob. I have to say, I underestimated him a lot at first, and can't believe I hadn't played him yet. This was my second game @ Noble, BTW.
To start off, I got a production rich capital, and then REXed to claim 3 more cities while the AIs still had two. Thanks to his Creative trait and the Stele UB, I was able to grab four gem tiles from Boudica's second city to my fourth city. This gave me a pretty good research rate, and I managed to get a small lead on Gandhi, MM, and Pacal II.
Meanwhile, Gandhi founded Confucianism in Delhi (choose religions game), and started building nothing but missionaries. Of course, this left his capital with one archer and a wall, and three fast workers doing nothing but chopping more missionaries. He even built the Kong Miao for me. So, I attacked him in 400 BC-ish with 8 swordsmen, losing only two and killing both of his archers in Delhi, and Boudica conquered Bombay (Gandhi had just conquered a barb city with his exploring warrior, and he later became Sitting Bull's vassal).
After building up some infrastructure with slavery (really started to see how good it can be in this game), I beelined to Machinery and Construction and started constructing a Xbow/Cat army to take down Boudica. After this, I teched to Music to get the GA. I sent him down to Delhi, where he created a Great Work, culturally conquering Bombay (MM traded me Feudalism, so it got a longbow). Because of the holy city income + market (and 5 libraries), I managed to get CS just before I attacked Boudica. I conquered Vienne, and with the money I gained from that I upgraded 3 CR2 swords to maces, and used that combined force to capture her capital, Bibracte, splitting her in two and eliminating that threat. While I was conquering her, I killed the maintenance costs in my cities by whipping Courthouses.
I then went got engineering and gunpowder and built 15 Oromos and 4 trebs to combine with my previous army to annihilate Pacal. He has two cities left atm, but I have only lost one oromo and am way ahead in the tech race, only Pacal has nationalism on me and he doesn't even have gunpowder.
Zara was, I think, the perfect leader for this kind of game. His creativity and steles allowed me to get 4 gem tiles early one, his organized trait allowed me to beat maintenance costs with courthouses as well as grow 3 size 18-20 cities along the coast (Lalibela, Delhi, and Aksum) with cheap lighthouses. And, most of all, his amazing oromos are obliterating Pacal's army, and once I promote them to rifles (I have a huge treasury and a GM from economics), well, the rest won't stand a chance.
To start off, I got a production rich capital, and then REXed to claim 3 more cities while the AIs still had two. Thanks to his Creative trait and the Stele UB, I was able to grab four gem tiles from Boudica's second city to my fourth city. This gave me a pretty good research rate, and I managed to get a small lead on Gandhi, MM, and Pacal II.
Meanwhile, Gandhi founded Confucianism in Delhi (choose religions game), and started building nothing but missionaries. Of course, this left his capital with one archer and a wall, and three fast workers doing nothing but chopping more missionaries. He even built the Kong Miao for me. So, I attacked him in 400 BC-ish with 8 swordsmen, losing only two and killing both of his archers in Delhi, and Boudica conquered Bombay (Gandhi had just conquered a barb city with his exploring warrior, and he later became Sitting Bull's vassal).
After building up some infrastructure with slavery (really started to see how good it can be in this game), I beelined to Machinery and Construction and started constructing a Xbow/Cat army to take down Boudica. After this, I teched to Music to get the GA. I sent him down to Delhi, where he created a Great Work, culturally conquering Bombay (MM traded me Feudalism, so it got a longbow). Because of the holy city income + market (and 5 libraries), I managed to get CS just before I attacked Boudica. I conquered Vienne, and with the money I gained from that I upgraded 3 CR2 swords to maces, and used that combined force to capture her capital, Bibracte, splitting her in two and eliminating that threat. While I was conquering her, I killed the maintenance costs in my cities by whipping Courthouses.
I then went got engineering and gunpowder and built 15 Oromos and 4 trebs to combine with my previous army to annihilate Pacal. He has two cities left atm, but I have only lost one oromo and am way ahead in the tech race, only Pacal has nationalism on me and he doesn't even have gunpowder.
Zara was, I think, the perfect leader for this kind of game. His creativity and steles allowed me to get 4 gem tiles early one, his organized trait allowed me to beat maintenance costs with courthouses as well as grow 3 size 18-20 cities along the coast (Lalibela, Delhi, and Aksum) with cheap lighthouses. And, most of all, his amazing oromos are obliterating Pacal's army, and once I promote them to rifles (I have a huge treasury and a GM from economics), well, the rest won't stand a chance.
I used to think that Churchill, Toku or Boudicca was best for the Ethiopians, but Zara's definitely better...90% research w/ cheap libraries is scary...
