We fought the Romans to near extinction, but kept them around for techs via Peace Treaties. Our continent was Religionless. The only saving grace would be to take to the seas and seek out foreign overseas Trade Routes and Resources, which ended up catapulting our economy back to life.
We were surprised to find non-Romans overseas but quickly befriended all but the Americans, who had also unlocked the secrets of Astronomy. The Americans poked their noses into French business and we saw our chance, dropping armies of partially-upgraded-to-Maces, partially-not-upgraded Gallic Warriors and Axes on the shorts of the American empire.
It turns out that we'd accidentally struck at the weak side of their empire, as their capital was later discovered at the opposite end of the island. So much for the hopes of an easy Capitulation by taking on their capital.
The Americans captured a French City, but we were unable to "rescue" the City before the French retook it.
A stalemate ensued at New York, with Guerilla Maces guarding our stack in the Hills and a large enemy stack of Crossbowmen guarding the City. Trebs, Cats, and War Elephants arriving later were not enough to break the stalemate, with defending Longbowmen, Pikes, and Knights making the assault difficult, although we took the opportunity to advance on the American southern states while their main forces were occupied in New York. Eventually, our own Knights arrived on the scene, breaking the stalemate.
Planning for a Conquest, we realised we'd kept too many Cities and let the Americans recapture one before razing everything they owned and eliminating them.
Wasting no time, we declared war on the weakened French, whom we'd bribed into another war with the Egyptians. Cavalry were arriving on the scene and soon made up the bulk of our surviving forces. Leaving the French with some Culturally-oppressed Cities, we Capitulated them, then declared war on the Egyptians.
The Egyptians put up a modest fight but also soon crumbled and Capitulated. There was a minor scuffle where the Egyptians Pillaged a few nets, including our source of Whales, but we rebuilt our Work Boats and Capitulated them so quickly that our Galleons were unable to catch up to the enemy Galleon before it joined our side.
Unfortunately, we were too busy to notice the capture of The Pyramids from the Egyptians and thus our Spiritual Civ continued on without the help of Police State. The small number of Temples that we built and the total lack of using Religion in the game was pathetic. Actually, now that we think about it, we weren't even smart enough to use Free Religion and just stayed in Paganism.
The Chinese, however, were a force to be reckoned with. Fortunately, our allies' Cities bordered the Chinese in many places. The Chinese had also helped out against the Egyptians and their main army was tied healing in ex-Egyptian lands. Our forces descended, hoping to catch the Chinese off guard.
However, the bells tolled and Domination arrived before we could press home stacks of Cavalry and Trebs against wounded Grenadiers and Knights. With Riflemen just showing up on our side of the scene, we'd only managed time to upgrade some of our elite units to Riflemen before the game was finished.
A fun game, although Conquest would have required more time and discipline with razing and likely re-razing Cities than our troops were prepared for.
If I have a regret, it is that the City of Rome got set up as an amazing Great Person Farm, with The National Epic, The Globe Theatre, a ton of Food, and plenty of Specialist slots, but the game ended before it could reach its full potential. The City had so much Food that it felt like a Sid's Sushi City.
It was evil to place several Food Resources in such a way that Augustus settled one of his early Cities directly on top of a Hills-based Copper Resource, making the Resource unpillageable and tough to capture. The fortunate part was that Augustus didn't seem to have access to Horses, so a stack of 15+ Axes, a few Spears, and a few Chariots were enough to take a metal-unit-defended Rome.
Fortunately, the one Wonder that the Romans built was The Great Wall, not so much that we needed it, but it helped in being able to have our Workers ignore the Barbs.
. Plus side astro enabled me to trade alot of techs so not all wasted and lots of resource trades available.
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