Well I managed to break the horse rule in this one: it was an attack on Shanghai, played after I'd got in from a jam session. I'd had a few beers, but no 
. Yet I contrived to attack and take the city and only realise afterwards that I must have had 7 or 8 horse to 9 non-horse. I'd set up a second force at Beijing similarly, but, realising my error, I sent a cat away from the stack (to its inevitable death).
Otherwise, it was an enjoyable challenge for me (never played AW before) and a Domination win in 1855. Took Toku first, then reduced Peter to two cities on opposite sides of the world. Made a mistake in going after Huang next: he needed curbing, but I thought Cyrus's core was on a separate island, but this was wrong, so I ended up meeting more resistance than planned. Attacking Gandhi, who twice made me run a scramble defence in old Russia, would have been the better option.
The only downside was the loss of meaningful interaction with the AI. This meant the game played like (an unusual) first person shooter. I missed the whole trading, begging and bribing game quite a lot.
. Yet I contrived to attack and take the city and only realise afterwards that I must have had 7 or 8 horse to 9 non-horse. I'd set up a second force at Beijing similarly, but, realising my error, I sent a cat away from the stack (to its inevitable death).Otherwise, it was an enjoyable challenge for me (never played AW before) and a Domination win in 1855. Took Toku first, then reduced Peter to two cities on opposite sides of the world. Made a mistake in going after Huang next: he needed curbing, but I thought Cyrus's core was on a separate island, but this was wrong, so I ended up meeting more resistance than planned. Attacking Gandhi, who twice made me run a scramble defence in old Russia, would have been the better option.
The only downside was the loss of meaningful interaction with the AI. This meant the game played like (an unusual) first person shooter. I missed the whole trading, begging and bribing game quite a lot.
I actually quite enjoy focusing exclusively on my own empire, not having to check for tech trades or plan my research path based on future trading opportunities. In fact, that's why I play most of my private games with no tech trading; I like to make long term plans, and beelining for techs is much more fun when you can't just trade for all the off-path techs.