Epic Five - The Covenant of the Sea
This game was at Emporer level, tiny map and 3 AIs. The variant rules were that we could not aquire the knowledge of Fishing or Steam Power. We are playing as Montezuma of Azteca, and our capital was already founded.
I wanted to be aggressive in this game. I had stumbled along to peaceful victories in Epics 2 and 3, not getting much enjoyment along the way because I am naturally a warmonger in Civ. I was jealous of the players who took a more aggressive strategy in those games, and they all scored much higher too.
My strategy was to exploit the jaguar. For a tiny map, I believe the jaguar is the best UU. Better than the praetorian even. Simply because you can get them out much quicker due to not having to build the settler, mine and roads which you would need for axemen or swordsmen. You can therefore always attack a civ or two before they get their own axemen.
My research went: Mining -> Bronze Working -> Iron Working. I started with a warrior because a worker would not have completed by the time BW came in. My scout found England (Elizabeth) and India (Gandhi). Later on a greek archer found my scout. The warrior completed at the same time as Teno reached size 2 and headed towards England. I built a worker. My warrior captured a worker from Elizabeth (3070 BC) and died but I was able to escort the captive back to Azteca with the aid of my scout.
My two workers then proceeded to pre-chop all of the 8 grassland forests in the BFC of Teno, leaving 1 turn of chopping to go on all of them. The 2 plains forests were left alone. I built a replacement warrior to garrison my capital and built a barracks. The barracks came in at roughly the same time IW did (2260 BC), and at that time jaguars were set to repeat-build. The first few were sped up by 1 chop each (each chop only taking 1 turn each). The jags after that were produced slower, but I still had the plains forests and a grassland iron mine to help. The first wave of 5 jags trained up on some barb and English archers on the way to England (who I was still at war with) and were promoted to cover and city raider.
My next tech was Wheel, then I got Animal Husbandry, but in hindsight I should have turned research off. I realised this during the next tech (writing) and turned it off then. My workers now built roads towards my enemies.
The first English city (York), defended by 2 archers, fell in 1630 BC to 3 Jags. London was also defended by just 2 archers and fell in 1450 BC. The English were no more! I kept both cities because they had forests to chop.
![[Image: englishdestroyedqq4.th.jpg]](http://img264.imageshack.us/img264/9700/englishdestroyedqq4.th.jpg)
Now for the Indians. War was declared in 1390 BC. Madras was captured in 1330 BC and Delhi in 1120 BC. Defending with 2 or 3 archers is not good enough when you have 4 highly promoted Jags at your doorstep! The new cities whipped their barracks and chopped some new jags. India had iron in its capital but had not seen it yet. Their final city Bombay was razed in 955 BC.
![[Image: 925bcpg0.th.jpg]](http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/618/925bcpg0.th.jpg)
Note the -21 GPT at 0% research. I should not have kept so many cities and was paying my soldiers with plunder money. At this point I had to stop producing jags because the upkeep cost was killing me. Every city was set to build an obelisk or some other non-unit build. Every worked tile was changed to a gold-producing one and most of my workers were deleted. At the time of that screenshot I had 12 jags - let's hope that's enough to finish off Alex. I left my captured cities empty.
I declared on the Greeks in 910 BC. Thankfully Alex had built 3 new cities to plunder. It seemed that every time I was about to lose my gold and my units were to go on strike, I razed a new city which kept me going for another 3-4 turns until I could advance on the next city. Corinth was destroyed in 865 BC and Thermoplae in 850 BC. Sparta said goodbye to the world in 760 BC, which just left Athens. Finally an AI had hooked up their copper. Alex's copper was in the 3rd ring of Athens' culture, so he only had time to build 3 axes and a phlanx. 2 of the axes were distracted chasing my shock jags in the jungle.
![[Image: athensox0.th.jpg]](http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/173/athensox0.th.jpg)
The 8 jags that advanced on Athens were all wounded, but the only defense was 1 axe, 1 phlanx and 1 archer so I captured the final city for a conquest win in 670 BC.
![[Image: victorytw1.jpg]](http://img73.imageshack.us/img73/9229/victorytw1.jpg)
Now that was more fun! The first epic since Epic 1 that I had really enjoyed playing. Jaguars are great. I actually had iron in my capital, so you could say that swordsmen would have been better. But I didn't know about the iron and would probably have built a settler instead of a barracks if I were playing any other civ. And have started with agriculture or something. It was very tense at the end trying to scramble enough gold to keep my units from striking. I did not research Fishing or Steam Power (I couldn't even if I wanted too
)
This game was at Emporer level, tiny map and 3 AIs. The variant rules were that we could not aquire the knowledge of Fishing or Steam Power. We are playing as Montezuma of Azteca, and our capital was already founded.
I wanted to be aggressive in this game. I had stumbled along to peaceful victories in Epics 2 and 3, not getting much enjoyment along the way because I am naturally a warmonger in Civ. I was jealous of the players who took a more aggressive strategy in those games, and they all scored much higher too.
My strategy was to exploit the jaguar. For a tiny map, I believe the jaguar is the best UU. Better than the praetorian even. Simply because you can get them out much quicker due to not having to build the settler, mine and roads which you would need for axemen or swordsmen. You can therefore always attack a civ or two before they get their own axemen.
My research went: Mining -> Bronze Working -> Iron Working. I started with a warrior because a worker would not have completed by the time BW came in. My scout found England (Elizabeth) and India (Gandhi). Later on a greek archer found my scout. The warrior completed at the same time as Teno reached size 2 and headed towards England. I built a worker. My warrior captured a worker from Elizabeth (3070 BC) and died but I was able to escort the captive back to Azteca with the aid of my scout.
My two workers then proceeded to pre-chop all of the 8 grassland forests in the BFC of Teno, leaving 1 turn of chopping to go on all of them. The 2 plains forests were left alone. I built a replacement warrior to garrison my capital and built a barracks. The barracks came in at roughly the same time IW did (2260 BC), and at that time jaguars were set to repeat-build. The first few were sped up by 1 chop each (each chop only taking 1 turn each). The jags after that were produced slower, but I still had the plains forests and a grassland iron mine to help. The first wave of 5 jags trained up on some barb and English archers on the way to England (who I was still at war with) and were promoted to cover and city raider.
My next tech was Wheel, then I got Animal Husbandry, but in hindsight I should have turned research off. I realised this during the next tech (writing) and turned it off then. My workers now built roads towards my enemies.
The first English city (York), defended by 2 archers, fell in 1630 BC to 3 Jags. London was also defended by just 2 archers and fell in 1450 BC. The English were no more! I kept both cities because they had forests to chop.
![[Image: englishdestroyedqq4.th.jpg]](http://img264.imageshack.us/my.php?image=englishdestroyedqq4.jpg)
Now for the Indians. War was declared in 1390 BC. Madras was captured in 1330 BC and Delhi in 1120 BC. Defending with 2 or 3 archers is not good enough when you have 4 highly promoted Jags at your doorstep! The new cities whipped their barracks and chopped some new jags. India had iron in its capital but had not seen it yet. Their final city Bombay was razed in 955 BC.
![[Image: 925bcpg0.th.jpg]](http://img258.imageshack.us/my.php?image=925bcpg0.jpg)
Note the -21 GPT at 0% research. I should not have kept so many cities and was paying my soldiers with plunder money. At this point I had to stop producing jags because the upkeep cost was killing me. Every city was set to build an obelisk or some other non-unit build. Every worked tile was changed to a gold-producing one and most of my workers were deleted. At the time of that screenshot I had 12 jags - let's hope that's enough to finish off Alex. I left my captured cities empty.
I declared on the Greeks in 910 BC. Thankfully Alex had built 3 new cities to plunder. It seemed that every time I was about to lose my gold and my units were to go on strike, I razed a new city which kept me going for another 3-4 turns until I could advance on the next city. Corinth was destroyed in 865 BC and Thermoplae in 850 BC. Sparta said goodbye to the world in 760 BC, which just left Athens. Finally an AI had hooked up their copper. Alex's copper was in the 3rd ring of Athens' culture, so he only had time to build 3 axes and a phlanx. 2 of the axes were distracted chasing my shock jags in the jungle.
![[Image: athensox0.th.jpg]](http://img186.imageshack.us/my.php?image=athensox0.jpg)
The 8 jags that advanced on Athens were all wounded, but the only defense was 1 axe, 1 phlanx and 1 archer so I captured the final city for a conquest win in 670 BC.
Now that was more fun! The first epic since Epic 1 that I had really enjoyed playing. Jaguars are great. I actually had iron in my capital, so you could say that swordsmen would have been better. But I didn't know about the iron and would probably have built a settler instead of a barracks if I were playing any other civ. And have started with agriculture or something. It was very tense at the end trying to scramble enough gold to keep my units from striking. I did not research Fishing or Steam Power (I couldn't even if I wanted too
)
