Long time lurker, first time particpator/poster. I played this Adventure on a MacBook Pro running Windows via bootcamp (works great, btw) which unfortunately meant I couldn't save any screenshots.
Summary: Domination victory in 1910 after 7 kills.
Early expansion was to the east at Orleans, which took advantage of the gold resource there. My scouting warrior was quickly eaten by a lion, leaving me in the dark for a little longer than I would've liked. Judaism is founded in Orleans, which will prove to be useful later on.
Around 1800BC I discover Mansa Musa to the west and decide he will be my first target for conquest. In 1440BC the Pyramids are completed in Paris, which starts working on a Settler to wedge a city in against Mansa. Orleans is churning out high XP axeman (after finishing a barracks). The gold it generates is also key to paying for early expansion. In 925BC I find out that the spot I picked for Lyons is even more fortuitous than I thought, since it will have access to iron after one more cultural expansion.
In 800BC I discover that Saladin is actually right next to me to the west and I begin to reconsider my choice for first enemy. Around this time the war horns sound and my blood pressure goes up 20 points before I realise it's Alexander attacking Isabella. In 675BC my third scouting unit is killed by barbarians, thus furthering my ignorance of the map. Around this time Mansa converts to Judaism, which means Saladin will definitely be my first victim.
In 650BC Paris finishes the Oracle and Christianity is founded in Orleans, which is evidently quite the holy city. With only a tiny chance I luckily get a Great Prophet from Paris shortly thereafter (it was heavily favoured to be an Engineer, due to the Pyramids). I use Moses to build a shrine in Orleans, providing more badly needed revenue.
In 425BC I finally attack Saladin and quickly seize Najran and Baghdad, which lie immediately on my border (and are so culturally dominated that I could station troops immediately adjacent to them). It takes a long time to work my way through all of Saladin's cities, however, and it isn't until 1060AD that I've completely conquered him for my first point of the match. This was disappointingly slow, and I still faced a long consolidation period at this point, since the French empire was now quite sprawling.
Catherine declares war on me almost immediately after the war with Saladin ends. This had the potential to be a huge irritation, but thankfully I get her to accept peace after sinking a couple of galleys and killing two of her scouting units who had been trapped up near my lands. Alexander is next on the chopping block and in 1300AD I am back on my feet and have rebuilt my army enough to invade (much easier to roll overland into Greece than it would've been to run an amphibious attack on Russia).
For whatever reason Greece is pretty weak and my catapults and macemen smash through Alexander's cities much faster than my first war went. By 1505 I've finished him off and claimed my second scalp. Not being able to raze cities is hurting me now because empire sprawl is severely affecting my economy. I'm currently way ahead in the tech race, so I feel like I should take advantage of it and attack another civilization quickly. Isabella and Kublai Khan now abut me in the south. Mansa Musa borders me in the north, but he's been hemmed in by the Romans for a long time and since we share religion and good trade relations we've actually become close allies. He'll serve as an excellent buffer to the north for most of the game.
In 1600 I am preparing to invade Kublai Khan. In retrospect this was a bad idea, since he actually had a lot of cities that would take some time to conquer. I'm saved from that mistake, however, when Catherine and Isabella started carving up the English empire. I realised that I needed to hurry over there if I wanted to capture the last city and claim the point for Elizabeth, so I hustled my assembled troops (both by sea and via open borders with Spain) to England.
I arrived just barely in time. My troops surrounded Nottingham just as London fell to Catherine (Isabella had backed down at this point). I was bombarding Nottingham, which was heavily fortified, as Catherine's army arrived from London. I had to make a decision at one point whether to invade Nottingham when it was still strong and before my last units arrived or to wait one more turn. The problem was that if I waited it was just possible that if Catherine threw everything she had at the city it would fall before I could take it. I decided my chances weren't good enough yet and passed the turn. It worked out beautifully because Catherine softened but didn't take the city and I waltzed in on my turn to claim my 3rd point.
In 1610AD, just after England was conquered, Catherine declared war on me and attacked Nottingham, my lone city in the region. I stuffed it with troops, but my supply lines were too long and after a couple of turns of her throwing everything but the kitchen sink at it she seized it from me. I got Bismarck to declare war on Catherine to buy me some time and then just started churning out cavalry since I had just researched Military Tradition. Between their fast movement via Spanish roads to the front and their significant superiority to the Russian units the war started to change quickly. I enlisted Isabella's assistance and Russia couldn't stand the pressure from all three of us. I made sure to keep one city alive near my lines so that I'd be sure to get the kill instead of Germany who was pressing on the opposite flank. By 1770AD I had my fourth kill of the game.
In 1802 I declared war on Kublai Khan, who was the last remaining Civ with whom I had poor relations. He had never made it to the coast and thus was also technologically backwards so I thought he'd prove an easy kill. Unfortunately he had massive numbers of medieval troops which he sent forward in a massive war of attrition. He cut down my army severely, but once I had access to tanks and fighters I finished him off pretty fast (5 points). By 1850 he was done and my airforce was quite sizeable, which is always good when invading pre-SAM opponents.
At this point I realised that Domination was coming soon and considered a couple of plans to delay the victory to score more points. Interestingly, the best game reports here seem to rely on just building huge armies to perform massive simultaneous attacks on the final opponents, that is, to avoid the cultural spread part of the victory conditions. I had considered instead avoiding the population part of the condition by using Slavery to whip all cities down to very low population except for a few to keep producing units. I'm not sure how well it would've worked, but I decided I wasn't committed enough to try it.
Instead I set my goal as quickly conquering Mansa Musa and Caesar (both quite small) before their cities popped and gave me the win. Between my tanks and airforce I basically steamrolled through both and had kills six and seven by 1898. At this point I also had several ICBMs which could have been useful to try for quick kills and more points. The remaining four civs were all quite large, so I decided to just finish with seven points and let the few turns pass that popped cities and gave me the Domination Victory in 1910.
A cool variant, and it's too bad I didn't have enough time to try my more greedy strategy for more than the 7 points. I'm quite impressed by the players who did implement a plan to get 9,10 or even 11(!) kills.
Summary: Domination victory in 1910 after 7 kills.
Early expansion was to the east at Orleans, which took advantage of the gold resource there. My scouting warrior was quickly eaten by a lion, leaving me in the dark for a little longer than I would've liked. Judaism is founded in Orleans, which will prove to be useful later on.
Around 1800BC I discover Mansa Musa to the west and decide he will be my first target for conquest. In 1440BC the Pyramids are completed in Paris, which starts working on a Settler to wedge a city in against Mansa. Orleans is churning out high XP axeman (after finishing a barracks). The gold it generates is also key to paying for early expansion. In 925BC I find out that the spot I picked for Lyons is even more fortuitous than I thought, since it will have access to iron after one more cultural expansion.
In 800BC I discover that Saladin is actually right next to me to the west and I begin to reconsider my choice for first enemy. Around this time the war horns sound and my blood pressure goes up 20 points before I realise it's Alexander attacking Isabella. In 675BC my third scouting unit is killed by barbarians, thus furthering my ignorance of the map. Around this time Mansa converts to Judaism, which means Saladin will definitely be my first victim.
In 650BC Paris finishes the Oracle and Christianity is founded in Orleans, which is evidently quite the holy city. With only a tiny chance I luckily get a Great Prophet from Paris shortly thereafter (it was heavily favoured to be an Engineer, due to the Pyramids). I use Moses to build a shrine in Orleans, providing more badly needed revenue.
In 425BC I finally attack Saladin and quickly seize Najran and Baghdad, which lie immediately on my border (and are so culturally dominated that I could station troops immediately adjacent to them). It takes a long time to work my way through all of Saladin's cities, however, and it isn't until 1060AD that I've completely conquered him for my first point of the match. This was disappointingly slow, and I still faced a long consolidation period at this point, since the French empire was now quite sprawling.
Catherine declares war on me almost immediately after the war with Saladin ends. This had the potential to be a huge irritation, but thankfully I get her to accept peace after sinking a couple of galleys and killing two of her scouting units who had been trapped up near my lands. Alexander is next on the chopping block and in 1300AD I am back on my feet and have rebuilt my army enough to invade (much easier to roll overland into Greece than it would've been to run an amphibious attack on Russia).
For whatever reason Greece is pretty weak and my catapults and macemen smash through Alexander's cities much faster than my first war went. By 1505 I've finished him off and claimed my second scalp. Not being able to raze cities is hurting me now because empire sprawl is severely affecting my economy. I'm currently way ahead in the tech race, so I feel like I should take advantage of it and attack another civilization quickly. Isabella and Kublai Khan now abut me in the south. Mansa Musa borders me in the north, but he's been hemmed in by the Romans for a long time and since we share religion and good trade relations we've actually become close allies. He'll serve as an excellent buffer to the north for most of the game.
In 1600 I am preparing to invade Kublai Khan. In retrospect this was a bad idea, since he actually had a lot of cities that would take some time to conquer. I'm saved from that mistake, however, when Catherine and Isabella started carving up the English empire. I realised that I needed to hurry over there if I wanted to capture the last city and claim the point for Elizabeth, so I hustled my assembled troops (both by sea and via open borders with Spain) to England.
I arrived just barely in time. My troops surrounded Nottingham just as London fell to Catherine (Isabella had backed down at this point). I was bombarding Nottingham, which was heavily fortified, as Catherine's army arrived from London. I had to make a decision at one point whether to invade Nottingham when it was still strong and before my last units arrived or to wait one more turn. The problem was that if I waited it was just possible that if Catherine threw everything she had at the city it would fall before I could take it. I decided my chances weren't good enough yet and passed the turn. It worked out beautifully because Catherine softened but didn't take the city and I waltzed in on my turn to claim my 3rd point.
In 1610AD, just after England was conquered, Catherine declared war on me and attacked Nottingham, my lone city in the region. I stuffed it with troops, but my supply lines were too long and after a couple of turns of her throwing everything but the kitchen sink at it she seized it from me. I got Bismarck to declare war on Catherine to buy me some time and then just started churning out cavalry since I had just researched Military Tradition. Between their fast movement via Spanish roads to the front and their significant superiority to the Russian units the war started to change quickly. I enlisted Isabella's assistance and Russia couldn't stand the pressure from all three of us. I made sure to keep one city alive near my lines so that I'd be sure to get the kill instead of Germany who was pressing on the opposite flank. By 1770AD I had my fourth kill of the game.
In 1802 I declared war on Kublai Khan, who was the last remaining Civ with whom I had poor relations. He had never made it to the coast and thus was also technologically backwards so I thought he'd prove an easy kill. Unfortunately he had massive numbers of medieval troops which he sent forward in a massive war of attrition. He cut down my army severely, but once I had access to tanks and fighters I finished him off pretty fast (5 points). By 1850 he was done and my airforce was quite sizeable, which is always good when invading pre-SAM opponents.
At this point I realised that Domination was coming soon and considered a couple of plans to delay the victory to score more points. Interestingly, the best game reports here seem to rely on just building huge armies to perform massive simultaneous attacks on the final opponents, that is, to avoid the cultural spread part of the victory conditions. I had considered instead avoiding the population part of the condition by using Slavery to whip all cities down to very low population except for a few to keep producing units. I'm not sure how well it would've worked, but I decided I wasn't committed enough to try it.
Instead I set my goal as quickly conquering Mansa Musa and Caesar (both quite small) before their cities popped and gave me the win. Between my tanks and airforce I basically steamrolled through both and had kills six and seven by 1898. At this point I also had several ICBMs which could have been useful to try for quick kills and more points. The remaining four civs were all quite large, so I decided to just finish with seven points and let the few turns pass that popped cities and gave me the Domination Victory in 1910.
A cool variant, and it's too bad I didn't have enough time to try my more greedy strategy for more than the 7 points. I'm quite impressed by the players who did implement a plan to get 9,10 or even 11(!) kills.