I wasn't planning on writing a report since I knew I would have little time to play this game. In fact, at the time of this writing, my game is still not complete (I'm in a hotel far away from home with the worst broadband connection ever -- not what you'd expect from a $340/night hotel charging another $12/day for Internet).
In any case, on with this very brief and picture-less report...
Buddhism founded by Justinian who kindly spreads it to 3 of my 4 cities... enough to get me to convert considering that Happiness is at a real premium this game. He manages to spread to everyone except Lincoln (Hindu) and Victoria (Jewish). Us Buddhists form the uber religious bloc and have great relations for a long time.
I was really surprised that the raging barbs posed little threat to me. I had gone Archery first, but the AI kept attacking my archers in forests. I think that since we were in the upper corner of a map, that gave us a lot less territory to defend since we did not have to worry about attacks from the west or north. Also, I was really surprised not to see Axemen, Chariots, and Swordsmen much, much earlier.
I attack Lincoln since he dared settle a city just before my own Settler could get there. He was the logical first target regardless since he was close, and no one liked him except Victoria who was far away.
I finally made peace with him having 1 city left since I wanted to extort 2 good techs from him that no one else wanted to trade. I figured that I would finish him off in 10 turns... except that he became Pericle's vassal and Pericles was now on my eastern front and #1 score-wise. I really wasn't ready for a war with Pericles so I decided to keep building troops and wait it out.
My military plan for a while had been to get to Cossacks asap. I used all my Great Generals on Horse Units to get free Horse upgrades as well as really kick ass units. There weren't many Pikemen around so this generally worked well early on.
Since finishing off Lincoln was off the table, it was time to go after Justinian next, before starting war with Perciles. Justinian wasn't doing all that great, but he had founded Buddhism so getting the shrine would be sweet for my economy. His territory was also pretty well sealed off making it easier to defend down the road. So I declared war on Justinian right after upgrading all my Cuirassiers to Cossacks.
And then Pericles declared war on me since Justinian was also Pericles' vassal and I had not noticed at all. I tried to fight off Pericles to the north while demolishing Justinian in the south, but Pericles simply had too many forces. The turn I quit I actually had a vote to stop all wars against Buddhists. I forgot to mention that someone else had built the AP (Buddhism), but I actually got elected. I probably could have won an AP Diplo victory if I had Open Borders wit Victoria. My relations with the Buddhists were in the +15 range.
I actually reloaded the game before declaring war to continue playing it from there. I built up troops until Justinian renounced the protection of Pericles and then attacked Justinian and bribed Genghis to join in (he was backwards tech wise so it was easy). Huayna meanwhile was teching like a champ. The war against Justinian went well, although nowhere near as well as the first time since he now had Rifles (as did I). But well enough to take the cities I wanted before War Weariness got out of hand (the fact that someone went Emancipation wasn't helping my case).
I'm currently at the point where I am the only civ with Infantry and ready to get back to war once I build some more jails. I will probably play this game when I get home and let you all know how it ends.
Since a Diplo win is probably no longer an option, I am aiming for Domination.
In any case, on with this very brief and picture-less report...
Buddhism founded by Justinian who kindly spreads it to 3 of my 4 cities... enough to get me to convert considering that Happiness is at a real premium this game. He manages to spread to everyone except Lincoln (Hindu) and Victoria (Jewish). Us Buddhists form the uber religious bloc and have great relations for a long time.
I was really surprised that the raging barbs posed little threat to me. I had gone Archery first, but the AI kept attacking my archers in forests. I think that since we were in the upper corner of a map, that gave us a lot less territory to defend since we did not have to worry about attacks from the west or north. Also, I was really surprised not to see Axemen, Chariots, and Swordsmen much, much earlier.
I attack Lincoln since he dared settle a city just before my own Settler could get there. He was the logical first target regardless since he was close, and no one liked him except Victoria who was far away.
I finally made peace with him having 1 city left since I wanted to extort 2 good techs from him that no one else wanted to trade. I figured that I would finish him off in 10 turns... except that he became Pericle's vassal and Pericles was now on my eastern front and #1 score-wise. I really wasn't ready for a war with Pericles so I decided to keep building troops and wait it out.
My military plan for a while had been to get to Cossacks asap. I used all my Great Generals on Horse Units to get free Horse upgrades as well as really kick ass units. There weren't many Pikemen around so this generally worked well early on.
Since finishing off Lincoln was off the table, it was time to go after Justinian next, before starting war with Perciles. Justinian wasn't doing all that great, but he had founded Buddhism so getting the shrine would be sweet for my economy. His territory was also pretty well sealed off making it easier to defend down the road. So I declared war on Justinian right after upgrading all my Cuirassiers to Cossacks.
And then Pericles declared war on me since Justinian was also Pericles' vassal and I had not noticed at all. I tried to fight off Pericles to the north while demolishing Justinian in the south, but Pericles simply had too many forces. The turn I quit I actually had a vote to stop all wars against Buddhists. I forgot to mention that someone else had built the AP (Buddhism), but I actually got elected. I probably could have won an AP Diplo victory if I had Open Borders wit Victoria. My relations with the Buddhists were in the +15 range.
I actually reloaded the game before declaring war to continue playing it from there. I built up troops until Justinian renounced the protection of Pericles and then attacked Justinian and bribed Genghis to join in (he was backwards tech wise so it was easy). Huayna meanwhile was teching like a champ. The war against Justinian went well, although nowhere near as well as the first time since he now had Rifles (as did I). But well enough to take the cities I wanted before War Weariness got out of hand (the fact that someone went Emancipation wasn't helping my case).
I'm currently at the point where I am the only civ with Infantry and ready to get back to war once I build some more jails. I will probably play this game when I get home and let you all know how it ends.
Since a Diplo win is probably no longer an option, I am aiming for Domination.