Apologies for the belated report, I was being very disorganised and untidy!
The short version - a conquest victory in 1230AD.
Now in a little more detail:
The peaceful early years
Started by considering a move inland to pad space to allow a second city near the start. The scout move showed me the koreans, so decided to settle in place.
My initial tech path was animal husbandry (yummy cows!), fishing, mining, bronze working, then pottery.
Having seen the horses and lack of copper, I decided to head for archery and then horseback riding. My thinking was that the variant rules made chariots really unattractive as they would not upgrade to HA's, also really needed the extra punch to make up for the lack of Copper - a big investment, but one I ended up happy with!
I used the research time to build a couple of home defense archers, then rushed out a stables and 4 HAs via a chop/whip combo.
I explored somewhat, meeting a whole bunch of neighbours - there were lots of them! At this point, Justinian was concerning, he had a holy city and was the strongest of my neighbours. He also had a ready source of Copper.
1880BC, I managed to trade half of alphabet from Isabella. Used this to extract sailing from De Gaulle for writing, but beyond that there were not many early trading opportunites...
Early warmongering!
I DoW'd Justinian in 1800BC. Here's the picture on turn 2 of the war.
![[Image: justinian1800bc.jpg]](http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/6704/justinian1800bc.jpg)
Far too tough to crack. I use a warrior to pillage his copper and the road, then severed the roads in the forest. Left him to stew whilst I built more HAs... just kept building and whipping.
I decided to turn south and attack wanger, who had a trio of archers. He must have been psychic as in 1600BC...
![[Image: koreadow1600.jpg]](http://img576.imageshack.us/img576/6246/koreadow1600.jpg)
Losing an archer on a warrior. Poor fella. I put him out of his misery... Went in with 6 HAs, kill 3 of his archers, losing one of my HAs... Korea is no more!
I turn the army around and with 7HAs head after Justinian. He moves his axe out of the city and I kill it. The attack goes off in 1360BC. I lose 3 HAs, one as expected to his spear, then two at ~70% odds on archers, but I'd built enough.
![[Image: 1360constburns.jpg]](http://img685.imageshack.us/img685/8886/1360constburns.jpg)
Babylons culture immediately envelopes my new copper, which was a pain in the neck. I traded alphabet to De Gaulle for Iron Working, but I lacked Iron as well...
Then I spotted a golden opportunity.
![[Image: stalinopportunism.jpg]](http://img517.imageshack.us/img517/2797/stalinopportunism.jpg)
Stalin had the worlds biggest army at this point... and it was all sat on the border defending a couple of workers. Moved my now quite experienced HA's into position and then 1 turn later insta slamdunked his capital, which only had a couple of archers in it. A really easy kill!
From here, the game was pretty much in the bag.
The Endgame Cleanup - Tidy Tidy Tidy!
I devoured the french (825BC), babylonian (750BC) and spanish (550BC) capitals. All 1-2 turn wars.
Pacal was a problem as he beelined feudalism. To answer him, I delayed a while and went in with Catapults and a sizable stack of Vultures. He fell down in 225AD, there was a delay as boudica attacked me and took me a while to clean up her units and force peace.
After that, India (680AD), Persia (560AD) and the Aztecs (? Bad notes!) all got curb stomped. Sitting Bull had spread down his peninsula to 4 cities...
I've had nightmares with sitting bull in other games, but he just seemed to roll up and die without too much effort in this game. Although it did take a while to bomb his cities, he fell over in 1010AD.
I'd researched optics, circumnavigating in 600AD and discovering the second continent - I ended up running 2 trade missions there, one before Sitting Bull to mass upgrade my Vulture army into maces. Another to fuel a big defecit research to liberalism (used to secure Astronomy in 920AD). I then set several coastal cities to chain building galleons. I wanted to be ready for the invasion of the other continent, but had a use for them first!
In 1050AD, my army had marched back from smushing sitting bull and was in place for an assault on the Celts.
![[Image: celtinvasion.jpg]](http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/2038/celtinvasion.jpg)
Galleon assisted landings and she was dead in 1090AD. It was a bloody fight, but maces, catapults and muskets just plough through her defenses.
After this, I invaded the far continent, I had them outteched, an army 4 times the size of any of theirs and the result was about as expected.
The final viking city fell in 1220AD for a 1230AD victory.
![[Image: victory1230bc.jpg]](http://img580.imageshack.us/img580/868/victory1230bc.jpg)
Here was my final army:
![[Image: finalarmy.jpg]](http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/2865/finalarmy.jpg)
On an economic note, built the MoM and most of my GPs were used to trigger golden ages, I used 4 + Taj Mahal by the end of the game. As every city was of capital city quality, this just allowed for a silly research rate. A lot of the late medieval techs were 1-2 turns. Maintenance costs were high, but the cities themselves were so good that they half powered through this. Also captured the great lighthouse from France, which really helped.
Failed to get my 'bonus points' as I messed up when the capital grew and completed a forge on the same turn - which is annoying! However, in the sitting bull war he poisoned one of my cities, so I'd have lost the points that way instead! I did try to keep unhealthiness a non factor and mostly succeded.
This game was really over when Russia fell, but I had a huge amount of fun finishing it! The variant rule on one type of unit was interesting and it did cause some problems - I got stuck with catapults for a very long time and needed to use great merchant missions to afford the upgrades for my army. I had some uncomfortable feelings about sending in large stacks with no spear/pike cover. It also encouraged me to make more use of HAs than I ever have before!
I even learned a fair bit about Mr Hart, who is a fascinating person! Strangely I heard a program about him on BBC Radio 4 whilst playing this game, an odd coincidence.
Thanks very much to the sponsor!
And for a final giggle:
Cruel Iron'y - A tale of not knowing some things as well as you think you do!
I did head towards guilds, 980AD being the arrival date. It was only then that I noticed my lack of Iron for knights - failure of basic observation! Never mind, I thought, I'll build some curassiers, they only need gunpowder, military tradition and some horsies. Tech project duly completed in 1090AD, it was only then I discovered the little gits also need Iron. The game was well in the bag, so I just laughed at myself a bit... soon afterwards:
![[Image: ironpop.jpg]](http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/7175/ironpop.jpg)
By then my existing HAs were on a boat to the second continent, so I had to wait another couple of turns to start building my new unit as I had to upgrade all my HAs first.
Popping iron was exceedingly lucky - curassiers really powered up my endgame, think there should be an option to turn off or limit pops of resources, as I'm sure this wasn't what the sponsor intended!
Shows I really need to observe and think things through a little more, however!
The short version - a conquest victory in 1230AD.
Now in a little more detail:
The peaceful early years
Started by considering a move inland to pad space to allow a second city near the start. The scout move showed me the koreans, so decided to settle in place.
My initial tech path was animal husbandry (yummy cows!), fishing, mining, bronze working, then pottery.
Having seen the horses and lack of copper, I decided to head for archery and then horseback riding. My thinking was that the variant rules made chariots really unattractive as they would not upgrade to HA's, also really needed the extra punch to make up for the lack of Copper - a big investment, but one I ended up happy with!
I used the research time to build a couple of home defense archers, then rushed out a stables and 4 HAs via a chop/whip combo.
I explored somewhat, meeting a whole bunch of neighbours - there were lots of them! At this point, Justinian was concerning, he had a holy city and was the strongest of my neighbours. He also had a ready source of Copper.
1880BC, I managed to trade half of alphabet from Isabella. Used this to extract sailing from De Gaulle for writing, but beyond that there were not many early trading opportunites...
Early warmongering!
I DoW'd Justinian in 1800BC. Here's the picture on turn 2 of the war.
Far too tough to crack. I use a warrior to pillage his copper and the road, then severed the roads in the forest. Left him to stew whilst I built more HAs... just kept building and whipping.
I decided to turn south and attack wanger, who had a trio of archers. He must have been psychic as in 1600BC...
Losing an archer on a warrior. Poor fella. I put him out of his misery... Went in with 6 HAs, kill 3 of his archers, losing one of my HAs... Korea is no more!
I turn the army around and with 7HAs head after Justinian. He moves his axe out of the city and I kill it. The attack goes off in 1360BC. I lose 3 HAs, one as expected to his spear, then two at ~70% odds on archers, but I'd built enough.
Babylons culture immediately envelopes my new copper, which was a pain in the neck. I traded alphabet to De Gaulle for Iron Working, but I lacked Iron as well...
Then I spotted a golden opportunity.
Stalin had the worlds biggest army at this point... and it was all sat on the border defending a couple of workers. Moved my now quite experienced HA's into position and then 1 turn later insta slamdunked his capital, which only had a couple of archers in it. A really easy kill!
From here, the game was pretty much in the bag.
The Endgame Cleanup - Tidy Tidy Tidy!
I devoured the french (825BC), babylonian (750BC) and spanish (550BC) capitals. All 1-2 turn wars.
Pacal was a problem as he beelined feudalism. To answer him, I delayed a while and went in with Catapults and a sizable stack of Vultures. He fell down in 225AD, there was a delay as boudica attacked me and took me a while to clean up her units and force peace.
After that, India (680AD), Persia (560AD) and the Aztecs (? Bad notes!) all got curb stomped. Sitting Bull had spread down his peninsula to 4 cities...
I've had nightmares with sitting bull in other games, but he just seemed to roll up and die without too much effort in this game. Although it did take a while to bomb his cities, he fell over in 1010AD.
I'd researched optics, circumnavigating in 600AD and discovering the second continent - I ended up running 2 trade missions there, one before Sitting Bull to mass upgrade my Vulture army into maces. Another to fuel a big defecit research to liberalism (used to secure Astronomy in 920AD). I then set several coastal cities to chain building galleons. I wanted to be ready for the invasion of the other continent, but had a use for them first!
In 1050AD, my army had marched back from smushing sitting bull and was in place for an assault on the Celts.
Galleon assisted landings and she was dead in 1090AD. It was a bloody fight, but maces, catapults and muskets just plough through her defenses.
After this, I invaded the far continent, I had them outteched, an army 4 times the size of any of theirs and the result was about as expected.
The final viking city fell in 1220AD for a 1230AD victory.
Here was my final army:
On an economic note, built the MoM and most of my GPs were used to trigger golden ages, I used 4 + Taj Mahal by the end of the game. As every city was of capital city quality, this just allowed for a silly research rate. A lot of the late medieval techs were 1-2 turns. Maintenance costs were high, but the cities themselves were so good that they half powered through this. Also captured the great lighthouse from France, which really helped.
Failed to get my 'bonus points' as I messed up when the capital grew and completed a forge on the same turn - which is annoying! However, in the sitting bull war he poisoned one of my cities, so I'd have lost the points that way instead! I did try to keep unhealthiness a non factor and mostly succeded.
This game was really over when Russia fell, but I had a huge amount of fun finishing it! The variant rule on one type of unit was interesting and it did cause some problems - I got stuck with catapults for a very long time and needed to use great merchant missions to afford the upgrades for my army. I had some uncomfortable feelings about sending in large stacks with no spear/pike cover. It also encouraged me to make more use of HAs than I ever have before!
I even learned a fair bit about Mr Hart, who is a fascinating person! Strangely I heard a program about him on BBC Radio 4 whilst playing this game, an odd coincidence.
Thanks very much to the sponsor!
And for a final giggle:
Cruel Iron'y - A tale of not knowing some things as well as you think you do!
I did head towards guilds, 980AD being the arrival date. It was only then that I noticed my lack of Iron for knights - failure of basic observation! Never mind, I thought, I'll build some curassiers, they only need gunpowder, military tradition and some horsies. Tech project duly completed in 1090AD, it was only then I discovered the little gits also need Iron. The game was well in the bag, so I just laughed at myself a bit... soon afterwards:
By then my existing HAs were on a boat to the second continent, so I had to wait another couple of turns to start building my new unit as I had to upgrade all my HAs first.
Popping iron was exceedingly lucky - curassiers really powered up my endgame, think there should be an option to turn off or limit pops of resources, as I'm sure this wasn't what the sponsor intended!
Shows I really need to observe and think things through a little more, however!
