Righteo I might as well put my report up too. Will see if I took enough screenies after.
Firstly, this was the premise I set out to achieve with the game.
For a very risky (and out of my depth) scenario, I decided to split the early warriors into a set of 2 & 3 to take Madrid & Constantinople. I wanted a major challenge given the maintenance penalty by having 2 cities so far apart.
In the early game I managed to churn up a decent amount of gold from huts to allow me to research The Wheel & Pottery at 100% before having to turn the slider down to 20-30%. I lived off grass hill & grassland cottages to cover the costs of expanding to the best cities (of which there were some superb ones by Constantinople - 1 with lots of floodplains & a gold mine, another super production city with copper, stone & mines and another city with a hugely valuable gold mine.
As the cottages matured & I managed to pick my tech trading targets to get enough tech to keep up (boosted by many Great Scientist bulbs) I built up a decent (but not hugely dominant) army to take out some of Joao's most valuable cities including Stonehenge capital for nice Charismatic bonus.
This surgical strike took much more out of Joao than I originally thought, and he never really recovered enough so I eventually managed to take him down and vassalise him.
Disappointingly (but handily), Willem never grew beyond 3 cities and was no real threat to win or have a decent military strength. He vassalised to Joao after my first war but broke free once I started pounding Joao again and switched allegiance to me.
Asoka was the only player with any semblance of a chance to beat me, but with all the super land and an economy now in full gear, I took an unassailable lead.
My population was now over the Domination limit, so I tried to push for a Diplo victory to get it over with before a leisurely space race win, but was frustrated by margins of 13, 11, 9 and 7 votes until I couldn't be bothered any more & just finished it with a space race victory.
Result - Space Race Victory in 1971 AD
![[Image: civ4screenshot0006k.jpg]](http://img571.imageshack.us/img571/6965/civ4screenshot0006k.jpg)
Firstly, this was the premise I set out to achieve with the game.
For a very risky (and out of my depth) scenario, I decided to split the early warriors into a set of 2 & 3 to take Madrid & Constantinople. I wanted a major challenge given the maintenance penalty by having 2 cities so far apart.
In the early game I managed to churn up a decent amount of gold from huts to allow me to research The Wheel & Pottery at 100% before having to turn the slider down to 20-30%. I lived off grass hill & grassland cottages to cover the costs of expanding to the best cities (of which there were some superb ones by Constantinople - 1 with lots of floodplains & a gold mine, another super production city with copper, stone & mines and another city with a hugely valuable gold mine.
As the cottages matured & I managed to pick my tech trading targets to get enough tech to keep up (boosted by many Great Scientist bulbs) I built up a decent (but not hugely dominant) army to take out some of Joao's most valuable cities including Stonehenge capital for nice Charismatic bonus.
This surgical strike took much more out of Joao than I originally thought, and he never really recovered enough so I eventually managed to take him down and vassalise him.
Disappointingly (but handily), Willem never grew beyond 3 cities and was no real threat to win or have a decent military strength. He vassalised to Joao after my first war but broke free once I started pounding Joao again and switched allegiance to me.
Asoka was the only player with any semblance of a chance to beat me, but with all the super land and an economy now in full gear, I took an unassailable lead.
My population was now over the Domination limit, so I tried to push for a Diplo victory to get it over with before a leisurely space race win, but was frustrated by margins of 13, 11, 9 and 7 votes until I couldn't be bothered any more & just finished it with a space race victory.
Result - Space Race Victory in 1971 AD
"You want to take my city of Troll%ng? Go ahead and try."
