Tech. And more tech. Since we can't conquer until we get to Advanced Flight, which requires everything that the Modern Age does, we need lots of tech. Therefore, fill or conquer my island if possible, and do everything possible to speed the tech race.

Early Years

The settler went W to found after the worker saw that the water was not fresh. Pottery begun, Tiny map prices are so cheap! First scout went SE, unfortunately. This delayed my discovery of the Greeks, meaning that I may have lost city sites I could otherwise have gotten. I was rather surprised to find anyone on my home landmass when I did meet them though. I decided to put in my granary after the first settler, which may have slowed me a little, but it just feels wrong to build it before the first. Also, pottery came late so I would have had to switch, and I forgot.

The settler went 4 squares due NW, to fit with my vague dotmap. I wonder how my eventual sites compare to others? I went for more overlap, so as to fit more cities in, and gain all of the coast, rather then try to spread them out too much. It seemed to work OK for me. The scouts saw that Athens' start site was much better than my own, with a wheat and fresh water, the closest to me in fact. It is blocked by hills though, so I won't be getting any irrigation before Electricity. Greece founded Sparta, their second or third city, right on the incense, so I don't think I could have got that no matter what I did.

In getting to the VERY surprising land neck in the North, I discovered a hoplite was already blocking it. Those dastards! He did move eventually, and I confirmed that we were all 4 on the same landmass. That really surprised me, Sirian said that it was exactly what he wanted though. I wonder if it might be possible for anyone to conquer before they get off the mainland? I doubt it, with effectively pikes in the neighbour's hands from the word go, and the nearest iron also almost surely in their hands.

Tenoch pumped settlers for a while after its granary, but had so many shields that it was still able to fit a few other builds in: temple, barracks etc. I settled up as fast as I could, and I got everything this side of Sparta, plus the horse peninsula which I founded in position to grab one of the dyes across the water. I lost the iron by a few turns though, unfortunately. It was only 1175 BC when I finished settling though, with my last fishing villages squeezed to the SE. I was therefore able to devote much more production to military, and a few wonders given that, incredibly, not a single wonder had been started at that date!

First Wars

In 1050 BC, India got a city off the main landmass. That finally clinches it, the game's going to the Modern Age. I truly salute anyone who manages to conquer, hoplites and all, before this sort of date. I began The Pyramids in Tenochtitlan, although I fully expected either Athens or Delhi to get it first as they grow beyond size 6, with their fresh water. England are mostly out of the running though, they have the worst start position I have seen by a long shot, stuck in the middle of a desert with only a fish to even grow to size 3, and then big jungles to their South. Ouch!

I kept buying tech from the AIs for a while, as they kept discovering anything I tried to work on anyway. We entered the Middle Ages in 410 BC then, which seems bit slow for Emperor. It that because of the tiny map? We revolted to Republic in 350, and on the same turn realized I could trade through harbours. I traded a couple gems for stuff. Again, on that same turn, Greece and India went to war.

Just a couple of turns later, Greece 'surprise' attacked me as well. I suppose it was a surprise in a way though, because even though I saw them coming I didn't expect them to attack whilst in another war with India. I had enough spears to hold off the first attack, and then sparked my Golden Age on the next turn when I won with a Jaguar warrior. Unfortunately, the horses were not yet connected, and the war would make it rather harder to do so. I therefore had to build a few archers until I could connect them.

I built the Pyramids a few turns into the GA, and Tenochtitlan on 20 shields per turn was able to get a spear a turn out. I fended off intrusions into the jungle repeatedly, and gradually began to amass horses. I could see that India was not getting any further than I was, largely due, I suspect, to fortified hoplites on the mountain land bridge.

My first real attack was against Sparta in 170 AD, with 3 horses and 5 jaguars, Unfortunately, all they did was kill one regular hoplite, and take the other down to 1hp. Just one more unit would probably have done it... A few turns later I signed peace after another abortive attack. I was of course rather disappointed in the result of the war, as Sparta's control of the world incense supply could have made a lot of difference to the game.

My peace treaty had an unfortunate side effect though: Since Greece no longer had to keep troops on my front, they were free to concentrate on the Indians, and gradually they began to push them back. They took their first city in 350 AD, which was Madras, that had the harbor through which India were selling me wines. Ouch, multiple disorders due to not noticing, and later another effect was felt: the AIs stopped accepting my gpt and luxuries for tech! I believe from the effects that the stigma from the broken trade deal fell on me, but how could that be right? Oh well, life goes on.

Around that time, I saw that the majority of the islands had yet to be filled. Surprise, I thought the AIs were usually rabid about filling all land. In fact there were islands still unclaimed at the end of the game! India continued to collapse fairly quickly due to the lack of horses or iron. Also, they spent a lot of time building wonders, not the best plan when there are enemy troops approaching your capital. In fact they did not get a peace treaty until they were down to just a single city on the major landmass, which meant Greece were significantly the largest civ at the time. Tech was around Astronomy and Engineering at this time, in 500 AD.

The long grind:

I was in a boring part of the game: buying techs, researching the odd one myself, rushing improvements and constantly renewing trade deals. Greece were clearly the superpower, discovering almost everything first. I was rather surprised to see that they got irrigation to Sparta, between two hills. I didn't think that was possible, did it come in in 1.21? If they had only bothered to irrigate out to the edge of Sparta's territory then I could have irrigated on my land, but in fact they did not until I almost had Electricity anyway. Almost as if they did it on purpose.
I had a look round due to this, and finally saw that there was not a single river on the map! That means no Hoover Dam, no Hydro Plants. I would have to use polluting Coal Power instead, yechhh.

This state of affairs continued for a while, punctuated by things like the discovery that the lone saltpeter on the main land was under English control (of course). I managed to build the Sistine Chapel, but nothing else for a long time. Continuing yet further, the next major event was the entering of the Industrial Age in 1100 AD, this following my 1080 AD launch in Epic 4 by just 3-4 days. The tech rate felt soooooo slow, and indeed is sooo slow. How could this possibly get anywhere in the competition?

I soon discovered the coal, and was pleased to see that I actually had one this time. Amazingly, Greece did not, but my fledgeling hopes for their doom were dashed just 2 turns later when the English saltpeter moved into Greece. Figures. It was rather expensive to buy the iron for my railroad network, too. The factories and hospitals were of course built without hitches, and were generally followed by coal plants. This has to be about the only time anyone has ever used the Great Wall as a placeholder for a factory though! Amazingly, the AIs were still building cities on the islands.

I built my FP rather stupidly late in 1345 in Texcoco, a couple cities to the North of Tenochtitlan, as for a long time I intended to build it in Sparta. That's probably another game-breaker there, I guess. Next event was another resource, the rubber that of course I once again did not have. Now that one's a real problem, since rubber is actually necessary to build the paratroopers and helicopters that are so vital to this game.

I built ToE in 1440, taking Atomic Theory and Electronics as expensive techs, and started research on Radio. I decided that the AIs could research the top of the tree, and I could sell them the techs I just got to cover the price.

I was jubilant at getting Oil, and managed to buy Rubber off Liz at last for Electronics. Finally these cities with all the coal plants had something to do: turn out as many troops as I could, to get the wars rolling on the homelands at last. I built a stack of 10-15 artillery, some more infantry, and even a few tanks just before I attacked, the nest time my incense deal ran out, although it probably wasn't worth waiting, the reputations are almost irrelevant now.

The Great Wars

War declared against Greece in 1565, the first of many. Sparta fell in the same turn to the stack, gaining me Magellan and the world's incense. Unfortunately, all the Greek troops taking out England immediately turned straight around, and a few turns later I had about 20 infantry on my hands. Also, there were 8 defending infantry in Athens! Those all took a while to kill, but when they fell to the artillery, Greece's back was broken and I was able to push through without serious difficulties.

As the opposing SODs were fighting, I discovered Advanced Flight. As many cities as could be spared were switched to Paratroopers, to begin to take the fight to the islands. First to fall was the island directly to the East of me, from top to bottom. I took it with just paratroopers and a couple of chopper-brought infantry. I got a couple of GLs, one on the mainland that became the Intelligence Agency and one on the west island that rushed the island's airport. An iron source moved from Greece to near my coal, so I built the ironworks.

After that I took the sole Greek city on the South island to serve as a staging point, and gradually put spare troops there. This whilst the main force was still moving up across the land-bridge. By 1735 I had dealt with all of the Greek cities in the mainland, so I declared war on India, and England declared on me due to their MPP. Unfortunately, I saw something that I really didn't like: They both had Computers. Uh-oh. In my favour, India lacked rubber for so long that they never got past rifles. However, England had both oil and rubber on the South island, for at least 2 turns before I bombed them. That was enough for them to get a few mech inf though, which are not easy to kill with paratroopers at all.

So that slowed me down a bit. But that's all it did. Because I upgraded all my inf to mech inf and swarmed the mainland under in just a few turns. For the rest I fell into a routine for the islands: The paratroopers went in first to take a city, then I rushed an airport as soon as the resistance was crushed and lifted in mech inf to finish the job. The paratroopers returned, to move on.
I managed to reach the little Greek island way out in the ocean from Athens' airport, just. So that was that, really. The last city to fall was Dover, because England had somehow managed to get hold of a few new mech inf. The conquest was in 1800 AD, so when I ended the turn I won.

That counts, I believe, as victory in 1802 AD. The final score was only 2522, due largely to the map size. It failed even to get onto my high scores. This variant was rather effective at getting me to use the underused units, but the tech to Advanced Flight phase was rather boring. Overall good fun and a clean but probably very late victory.

See you in the next Epic, JJ