Turn 148 win. Had two armies, 80% CBs, couple swords, scouts, couple of chariots, couple of triremes at the very end for austria.
Initial plan : Going Kamikaze! just swarms of archers everywhere, die if you must, others will follow.
What it ended up being : After taking 2 civs with archers, had to get CBs for shoshone's painful placement. He expanded, had unique unit x4, was surrounded by hills, had no terrain upgrades so impossible to heal while attacking and melee took too much heat. (22 strength capital too, i think he had the defense pantheon.)
One single city into conquest. 5 points Tradition + a point into liberty for culture +1 point into exploration I think.
archery AH Mining, after that it doesn't even matter really. Only wonders were Terracotta and great wall. Prioritized techs that give happiness and annexed a couple of cities to make or buy those buildings, so i never went into negative happiness.
scout, scout, then archer ad nauseam! Then some variety in units to get some bang from Terracotta.
Ruins : AH then nothing useful but barb camps and reveals. Spear or archer could have have been handy.
Settled in such a way that salt and marble would be in inner circle, since i didn't plan on getting a monument until the free one from tradition kicks in. Good surprise, there were more salts north and river.
Conquest of capitals turns : 50(shaka) 70(maya) 95(siam) 117(shoshone capital was a pain and i lost units without being able to take it, had to stop and reinforce and get CBs) 130(celts) 144(morocco) 148(austria).
I had two armies. First army : Shaka, one city from shoshone (not capital, just a place to upgrade to CBs), maya, shoshone, celts. Second army : Siam, morocco, austria.
Shoshone alone made me waste 20-30 turns or more. Not finding the celts (thinking they were somewhere east of morocco) early also made me waste a while, since i didn't optimise my war path and had to cross half the world to go kill them. With map knowledge i feel i could win this in 120 turns or less.
Mistakes :
- My scouts found 3 civs on my continent. I should have went CBs early, instead of diverting to sea techs. That would have let me clean my continent faster and not get stuck on shoshone for a bit. Instead i waited about 15 turns for CB tech to finish.
- Tried to get tribute from CS, didn't work even if i had about 7 units on its borders. Wasted about 10 turns for nothing. (And even if i had gotten those 70 gold, it's not worth the waste of time.)
- Tons of salt was useless as the AI was continually bankrupt. Should have settled on coast to get scouting triremes. (I went inland looking for a hill since early plan was archers and not naval, + i was taking shaka's capital first which was coastal, + I didn't know how many coastal cities there would be or else i would have gotten a navy for sure.)
It was fun. I don't usually finish domination before turn 200, so I am getting better at this, thanks for the game.
