Unfortunately I didnât have time to write a complete report, so here is a brief summary:
I was expecting the game to play similarly to early parts of Epic 4, so I worked out a strategy for early Archers, followed by an axe-rush against a nearby opponent. However, the isolated start with Gandhi as nearest opponent caused drastic change in plans.
I settled in place and started Warrior and Archery research, while scout went in circles around the capital to avoid meeting AIs too early.
When I saw how isolated the start was, I decided to train a Worker right after first Warrior and research Agriculture->Animal Husbandry after Archery.
Meeting an Indian Warrior in 3580 caused me to interrupt the Worker for an Archer, but that warrior was just scouting and refused to attack my units until I hit him with an Archer myself much later.
After scouting as far west as India, my scout turned south and then went home, to avoid early contact. Tech trading is disabled in this game, but I still wanted to delay inevitable friendship among AIs (and waves of warriors and Axemen) as long as possible. So contact with some AIs didn't happen until 7th century BC. Despite the variant rules, my scout found a hut near Gandhi and got 43$ from it.
Meanwhile, after discovering Animal Husbandry and finding no horses nearby, research went into Bronze Working. This revealed copper in perfect location, so I then researched The Wheel -> Pottery (cottages). Then I researched Mysticism (Obelisks), Writing (Libraries), and Iron Working (to reveal final military resource).
Meanwhile I trained second Archer and a Settler, founding Hamburg in 2140BC to claim Copper. During this time I built a couple more Workers and built Barracks, starting to train axemen. However, I built Stonehenge right after discovering Mysticism and never obsoleted it, getting free culture for the rest of the game. The Calendar resources were tempting, but I found other sources of happiness and kept WW under control by eliminating 1 opponent at a time.
After Iron Working, I executed Oracle CS slingshot, researching Meditation -> Priesthood -> CoL. After this I researched Metal Casting -> Machinery, so in addition to early Beurocracy I was able to start training Macemen in 80AD.
Meanwhile, I used my axemen to start an offensive and capture Bombay (west of floodplains west of Berlin) in 670BC.
I then found Munich in 370BC in the same place as Kylearan, between the small lake and sea to the south-west of my capital, securing a large area and getting several resources. I was going to eventually backfill suboptimal lands on my peninsula with a couple more cities, but never got around to it, so most of my peninsula remained unsettled for the rest of the game.
After capturing Satsuma (west of Munich, near the gold and iron in the desert) in 80AD with the help of my first Maceman, our civilization entered a thousand years of stagnation. Macemen were so expensive that only Berlin could train them in reasonable time, so I didnât have enough units in the field to prevent countless chariots from pillaging the land bare around Bombay, Satsuma, and even Munich. I also lost a lot of Workers during that period. However, I held on to all of my cities, despite attacks from 10+ unit combined stacks. And I was able to stop any pillagers from reaching cottages around Hamburg and Berlin, which provided the main engine for my economy, allowing me to continue to out-research the AIs.
![[Image: ourempire710adun5.th.jpg]](http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/8973/ourempire710adun5.th.jpg)
This picture illustrates the situation near the end of the Dark Ages, when I was able to start rebuilding improvements around Munich (the city in the south). The highlighted stack is besieging Madras in the north and will be joined by a mace/cat pair.
Eventually I was able to build up enough Maces and spears to leave the cities, slowly reclaim my lands from pillagers, and send an attack stack into Gandhiâs territory, capturing Madras in 725 and losing it to Alexâs landing shortly afterwards, because the stack moved on to Delhi, which I captured in 905AD, destroying Indian civilization.
There were several landings near Berlin, first of which forced me to whip a mace in the city, but after my capture of Delhi all enemy Galleys headed there, relieving the pressure from my back lines. These landings were mostly uncoordinated, so a few units were enough to deal with them, preventing pillaging of Gandhiâs villages.
I had constructed a Jewish Shrine in Bombay and a Hindu one in Delhi, which provided additional help to my economy. Judaism became my state religion early on and combined with Theocracy to give me 6xp units, while Berlin retained Beurocracy bonus until the end of the game. That bonus, along with Heroic Epic, allowed Berlin to train my best units every 2 or 3 turns.
After Gandhi, I eliminated Toku in 1298 with Maces and Cats and went after Alex, because Saladin already had longbows.
My technological plan was to beeline to Cavalry, first because it was the easiest Renaissance unit to get, and second because Berlin was the only city capable of quickly producing units. Munich and Satsuma were also able to contribute a couple Cats and Maces, but Hamburg was building missionaries all the time, with help from Bombay, and all newer cities never managed to build anything but infrastructure.
Alexâs last mainland city was razed in 1418 using first Knights who reached the front line with support of commando mace. I got several very experienced Maces during the centuries they sat huddled in my cities under constant attacks, so 2 commando maces were able to accompany my Knights and later Cavalry. Alex wasnât eliminated due to a city on a northern island, but that didnât matter because the game was practically over. My research into Gunpowder finished in 1466 with Berlin completing Taj Mahal next turn. During the golden age, Berlin was able to train a Cav every 1.5 turns, which, along with upgraded knights, turned an already easy war into complete slaughter. I had captured most of America by then and turned my armies north towards Spain and Russia, the only 2 empires still defending with ancient era units.
I controlled 20 cities in 1502, and won domination victory in 1556, next turn after eliminating Russia and turning culture slider up to 50% to get some border pops.
Domination in 1556 is far from fastest, but I think itâs still a respectable date. So even playing like a builder, with most cities building infrastructure for most of the game could give a good result in this variant.
PS And here is what happens when a unit is defending a front line city for many centuries and then goes on to protect main offensive stacks:
[img] http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/8131/...aceqc4.jpg[/img]
I was expecting the game to play similarly to early parts of Epic 4, so I worked out a strategy for early Archers, followed by an axe-rush against a nearby opponent. However, the isolated start with Gandhi as nearest opponent caused drastic change in plans.
I settled in place and started Warrior and Archery research, while scout went in circles around the capital to avoid meeting AIs too early.
When I saw how isolated the start was, I decided to train a Worker right after first Warrior and research Agriculture->Animal Husbandry after Archery.
Meeting an Indian Warrior in 3580 caused me to interrupt the Worker for an Archer, but that warrior was just scouting and refused to attack my units until I hit him with an Archer myself much later.
After scouting as far west as India, my scout turned south and then went home, to avoid early contact. Tech trading is disabled in this game, but I still wanted to delay inevitable friendship among AIs (and waves of warriors and Axemen) as long as possible. So contact with some AIs didn't happen until 7th century BC. Despite the variant rules, my scout found a hut near Gandhi and got 43$ from it.
Meanwhile, after discovering Animal Husbandry and finding no horses nearby, research went into Bronze Working. This revealed copper in perfect location, so I then researched The Wheel -> Pottery (cottages). Then I researched Mysticism (Obelisks), Writing (Libraries), and Iron Working (to reveal final military resource).
Meanwhile I trained second Archer and a Settler, founding Hamburg in 2140BC to claim Copper. During this time I built a couple more Workers and built Barracks, starting to train axemen. However, I built Stonehenge right after discovering Mysticism and never obsoleted it, getting free culture for the rest of the game. The Calendar resources were tempting, but I found other sources of happiness and kept WW under control by eliminating 1 opponent at a time.
After Iron Working, I executed Oracle CS slingshot, researching Meditation -> Priesthood -> CoL. After this I researched Metal Casting -> Machinery, so in addition to early Beurocracy I was able to start training Macemen in 80AD.
Meanwhile, I used my axemen to start an offensive and capture Bombay (west of floodplains west of Berlin) in 670BC.
I then found Munich in 370BC in the same place as Kylearan, between the small lake and sea to the south-west of my capital, securing a large area and getting several resources. I was going to eventually backfill suboptimal lands on my peninsula with a couple more cities, but never got around to it, so most of my peninsula remained unsettled for the rest of the game.
After capturing Satsuma (west of Munich, near the gold and iron in the desert) in 80AD with the help of my first Maceman, our civilization entered a thousand years of stagnation. Macemen were so expensive that only Berlin could train them in reasonable time, so I didnât have enough units in the field to prevent countless chariots from pillaging the land bare around Bombay, Satsuma, and even Munich. I also lost a lot of Workers during that period. However, I held on to all of my cities, despite attacks from 10+ unit combined stacks. And I was able to stop any pillagers from reaching cottages around Hamburg and Berlin, which provided the main engine for my economy, allowing me to continue to out-research the AIs.
![[Image: ourempire710adun5.th.jpg]](http://img209.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ourempire710adun5.jpg)
This picture illustrates the situation near the end of the Dark Ages, when I was able to start rebuilding improvements around Munich (the city in the south). The highlighted stack is besieging Madras in the north and will be joined by a mace/cat pair.
Eventually I was able to build up enough Maces and spears to leave the cities, slowly reclaim my lands from pillagers, and send an attack stack into Gandhiâs territory, capturing Madras in 725 and losing it to Alexâs landing shortly afterwards, because the stack moved on to Delhi, which I captured in 905AD, destroying Indian civilization.
There were several landings near Berlin, first of which forced me to whip a mace in the city, but after my capture of Delhi all enemy Galleys headed there, relieving the pressure from my back lines. These landings were mostly uncoordinated, so a few units were enough to deal with them, preventing pillaging of Gandhiâs villages.
I had constructed a Jewish Shrine in Bombay and a Hindu one in Delhi, which provided additional help to my economy. Judaism became my state religion early on and combined with Theocracy to give me 6xp units, while Berlin retained Beurocracy bonus until the end of the game. That bonus, along with Heroic Epic, allowed Berlin to train my best units every 2 or 3 turns.
After Gandhi, I eliminated Toku in 1298 with Maces and Cats and went after Alex, because Saladin already had longbows.
My technological plan was to beeline to Cavalry, first because it was the easiest Renaissance unit to get, and second because Berlin was the only city capable of quickly producing units. Munich and Satsuma were also able to contribute a couple Cats and Maces, but Hamburg was building missionaries all the time, with help from Bombay, and all newer cities never managed to build anything but infrastructure.
Alexâs last mainland city was razed in 1418 using first Knights who reached the front line with support of commando mace. I got several very experienced Maces during the centuries they sat huddled in my cities under constant attacks, so 2 commando maces were able to accompany my Knights and later Cavalry. Alex wasnât eliminated due to a city on a northern island, but that didnât matter because the game was practically over. My research into Gunpowder finished in 1466 with Berlin completing Taj Mahal next turn. During the golden age, Berlin was able to train a Cav every 1.5 turns, which, along with upgraded knights, turned an already easy war into complete slaughter. I had captured most of America by then and turned my armies north towards Spain and Russia, the only 2 empires still defending with ancient era units.
I controlled 20 cities in 1502, and won domination victory in 1556, next turn after eliminating Russia and turning culture slider up to 50% to get some border pops.
Domination in 1556 is far from fastest, but I think itâs still a respectable date. So even playing like a builder, with most cities building infrastructure for most of the game could give a good result in this variant.
PS And here is what happens when a unit is defending a front line city for many centuries and then goes on to protect main offensive stacks:
[img] http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/8131/...aceqc4.jpg[/img]