Turn 2 (continued) - Send leader homewards, will be a while till he gets to Antium.
IT - Zimbabwae completes the Collosus, the Indians start chasing after our Leader.
Turn 3 - zzz
IT - Persian archer shows up to our south through the jungle...crap... immortals
Turn 4 - Antium: Archer --> Worker (only thing that will complete before the Leader gets their to rush the Pyramids).
Contact persia, they have contact with babs... 3 opponents, I knew we couldn't just have Gandhi. I obviously don't buy contact with Babs but I trade Maths for CB, Pottery and Writing, 22gp and a territory map. Then Declare War. Their lands are to the south of the Great Jungle, they look big and they have iron and good lands. Kill their archer and go elite (3-0). The victory moves the now 5/5 archer next to a 3/3 Persian warrior. We'r on jungle so hopefully we'll win the fight in the interturn. Research goes to mysticism in 6. I decide to change the wheat+game site to 1 NW, its still 3 tiles from Pompeii but now its on the river. Nearly lose a vet archer killing a reg indian warrior (redlined) but we still win (4-0).
IT - no attacks, thats good.
Turn 5 - Rome: Spear --> Horse, Veii: Archer --> Settler.
Found Pisae just out of culture reach of Iron (had to be 3 tiles from Rome), start a temple. found Ravenna up on the river near India --> walls.
Income jumps to +5gpt and mysticism drops a turn for research.
Our mini-stack goes up alongside Delhi...
a look at the mil advisor tells us we are strong to india but only average to Persia.
IT - We get the FP message.
Turn 6 - Realise I misjudged how long it would take to get Trajan to Antium and the worker won't finish. Don't really want to whip a worker so I just switch to Pyramids now (he'll be there next turn). Decide to risk a strike on Delhi (good lord what was I thinking!!
) and the first (3/5 eArcher) wins, then our 4/4 archer wins... then our 2/5 eArcher* loses without scratching and promotes him... then our spear attacks their 4/4 spear and goes 3/4, 2/4, 1/4, 1/4, 1/4, 1/4, 1/4 and... we won... sometimes its better to be lucky than good
we capture Delhi seizing its 2 gp and its 1 pop! (7-1)
We don't even get a resistor! Set to walls, our min stack can be the garrison of Delhi. And it can draw Indians for a while... if we expand in its direction it could be a good FP site (well nearby) and it has the incense... if it gets to risky we just abandon and run. I'm planning to whip it like mad though.
Lose a vet archer killing an indian spear by Pompeii but our spear finishes him off without a scratch and promotes Elite (8-2) (hey the Roman UU should be spearmen the way this is going!
)
IT - zzz
Turn 7 - Rush the Pyramids in Antium. Our elite archer (5/5) in the jungle to the south goes 1/5 in order to kill a reg warrior. No leader (how awesome would it have been to have got a leader just after rushing with the other!). (9-2). Drop research to 60% (+10gpt) and still have myst in 2.
IT - no movement whatsoever... Persia is too far away and India is reeling from the loss of Delhi.
Turn 8 - a nice start
Antium: Pyramids --> Worker, Cumae: Archer --> Archer, Pompeii: Cat --> Cat
Sci drops another 10%, still have myst in 1.
Start prepping a stack to go Indian hunting!
IT - zzz
Turn 9 - Myst comes in, Poly in 13, or Lit in 12... stick with the Monarchy route, if we get the message Persia has started the GLB though we have to go straight for lit and hope to get a GL to rush the GLB.
Poly in 13 at +3gpt. Rome gets 1 of Antium's MP's to prevent a riot. Sooner we hook up spices the better. Start the road on the iron for when the temple of Pisae finishes and our culture encompasses the iron.
IT - A Bab bowman shows up to the south
Turn 10 - Rome: horse --> horse, Antium's culture expands, Ravenna: walls --> worker.
Contact babs, Maths + 8gp gets us Philosophy and TM (all our gold + maths + world map couldnt get us Map Making from them). They are directly south of Persia. And have 8 cities, two of them are away from the rest though. They don't look that tough.
We are now strong to everyone.
Theres the start of a mini-stack in Ravenna (fat fingered 1 spear to move out of the city tho), if we get another leader, I'd say switch to Lit (only 1 turns research invested so far so you can switch now if you want) and save him for the GLB. Otherwise push closer to Monarchy, if we can reach Monarchy before we get our legions... oh glorious day a non-despotic Golden Age!
India seems pretty gassed, thats why I was putting together another mini-stack to continue pressing them. If we can wipe out India early, thats 1 less civ to fight, and research will be cheaper, not to mention opening up a massive amount of land north of the Great Jungles (which seperate us from the Persians and Babylonians).
Good luck merlin!
and the save
Seems to get a pattern.
