T190 Domination victory, it turned out to be quite a pleasing game. I know I grumbled a little in the openings thread about the game being slow, but mostly I was just annoyed at botching the worker steal. Of course, having more workers would certainly have helped my early game, but just because the timings did not compare to my best science games did not mean it was bad.
I neither prioritized nor got many early game wonders. My marble expand got Mausoleum, but all the other wonders that I am typically interested in (Colossus, Temple of Artemis, Hanging Gardens, Chichen Itza, Oracle), they all went before I could put hammers into it - a blessing in disguise perhaps. I did get Borobudur, though possibly that was a waste of hammers. My religion was tithe, religious community, guruship and Itinerant preachers. No happiness in my religion (all those beliefs were taken), though tithe was nice: 37gpt at the end of the game.
Picking up from the openings thread, my composite bowmen did manage to conquer Indonesia. Bribing Indonesia into warring Denmark and Carthage had paid dividends, because he did not have many defenses. After taking out Indonesia I had my army pickup a Kilimanjaro promotion, and then it was a short wait for crossbows, and then onto Carthage. I kept not only the capital (Statue of Zeus), but also Hippo Regis which had built Machu Picchu, and it had Uluru with One with Nature (Carthage had pagodas - perhaps I could have tried to spread her religion instead of mine, but for most game I did manage to stay mostly afloat in terms of happiness).
While warring Carthage on the Western front, the capital and Bursa set about building a navy. My gold had been good throughout the game, so I built 8 galleas and upgraded those to frigates. First target was Amsterdam, which had most of the wonders I wanted, plus a few bonus ones: Alhambra, Chichen Itza, Colossus, Notre Dame, Petra, Pyramids, and Temple of Artemis. Not bad
. The only downside to the war with the Dutch was that he had declared on
me, together with Japan. When that happens, it takes forever for them to consider peace (I don't know why, in case I join the AI in a war, I'm not allowed to make peace for 10 turns or so, but for the AI it seems to take 30 turns). That meant I had to keep some frigates around a few turns more in order to kill his incoming land units. The wait was worth it though, as he offered me two big cities by the time he was finally ready for peace; of course, I did not take the cities, but 500 gold and 72gpt was a nice windfall.
The wars then continued Polynesia, Japan, England (longbows, but no navy to speak of, and no ships of the line). After taking England, my land army had caught up with the navy, and I went further east to Vienna. Austria was doing quite well, having stolen Leaning Tower from me (I attempted it in Jakarta) and having built Himeji. Fortunately, I had just reached artillery, so it was little contest in the end. The navy then sailed back for Copenhagen, while a final army of cavalry, cannons, and one or two Janissaries sailed south east from the capital to bring war to Songhai. I know in the openings thread I enthused about Janissaries, but I could not really make use of them here. I preferred the mobility of knights and cavalry, and by the time I got to gunpowder they were not that strong anymore anyway. I still think it's a good unit, but I didn't need their qualities this game.
