Well, this was my first AW game ever. Since this game I've played a few, however, that didn't really help me in this game. At the time I was fairly bad at warring, especially keeping an economy going while at war. To make things worse, I usually played at Prince level. In short, I was going into this game figuring I'd see how long I could survive. Unfortunately I got a new computer between the time I finished the game, and the report, so no pictures, or even notes. So I'll do the best to give a (somewhat) accurate report of the events.
I founded in place, and went for early Bronze Working. Normally I dislike axe rushes, but I figured I'd need every bit of help I could get. I dropped a few cities, expanding westward (not that I could really go anywhere else), and started preparing a stack or two of axes. I was debating over whether I should attack Toku or Ghandi first, however I decided on Ghandi, since he founded Judaism in a city near one of mine, and it threatened to flip a key resource. (Horses I think). My axes easily plowed through a couple of his cities. I was advancing on his capital, however it had quite a few archers in it, and my economy was tanking, so I decided to let up on warring a bit, and salvage my economy.
This turned out to be a big mistake. I stopped military builds and researches for a while, and right around this time the enemy units really started to come in. I lost several warriors to carelessnes, and all but two of my cities couldn't be improved due to constant pillaging. I tried an assault on Ghandi's capital, as it was a fairly nice location, and had the Pyramids, but it was too heavily defended. My economy stalled, and the units just kept coming. At this point I decided to counterattack Toku, to try and create a buffer, however my stacks got intercepted by enemy stacks (albeit smaller ones), and were bled down little by little. By 500 AD or so, I became noticeably outteched, and things began to get out of my control.
By 800 AD or so I had been pushed back to just my capital, and a fishing village I had founded to the north. The fishing village finally fell, leaving me only with my capital. By this point I was facing cats and elephants, myself only having archers. I was slowly pillaged down, and by 1000 AD or so, my capital was finally taken by Toku.
I've learned a lot since that game, and I now realize that delaying my axe rush to build a couple settlers was a big mistake. I probably should've rushed Toku while he still just had a capitol, and maybe one other city. That would've taken out a warlike enemy right on my border, and given me a lot of breathing room. Also, while I think that while taking Ghandi's jewish holy city was a good move, I should've stopped the conquest at that, and put more pressure on Toku. He probably contributed at least half of the units that attacked me. Letting him live for so long was a huge mistake. I mean, Ghandi wasn't exactly that much of a threat to me. What was he going to do? Steal wonders from me? Overrun me with fast workers?
Anyways, I really enjoyed my first tournament here, and would like to thank Sirian for hosting it. Hopefully next time (Epic Eight) I'll do better.
I founded in place, and went for early Bronze Working. Normally I dislike axe rushes, but I figured I'd need every bit of help I could get. I dropped a few cities, expanding westward (not that I could really go anywhere else), and started preparing a stack or two of axes. I was debating over whether I should attack Toku or Ghandi first, however I decided on Ghandi, since he founded Judaism in a city near one of mine, and it threatened to flip a key resource. (Horses I think). My axes easily plowed through a couple of his cities. I was advancing on his capital, however it had quite a few archers in it, and my economy was tanking, so I decided to let up on warring a bit, and salvage my economy.
This turned out to be a big mistake. I stopped military builds and researches for a while, and right around this time the enemy units really started to come in. I lost several warriors to carelessnes, and all but two of my cities couldn't be improved due to constant pillaging. I tried an assault on Ghandi's capital, as it was a fairly nice location, and had the Pyramids, but it was too heavily defended. My economy stalled, and the units just kept coming. At this point I decided to counterattack Toku, to try and create a buffer, however my stacks got intercepted by enemy stacks (albeit smaller ones), and were bled down little by little. By 500 AD or so, I became noticeably outteched, and things began to get out of my control.
By 800 AD or so I had been pushed back to just my capital, and a fishing village I had founded to the north. The fishing village finally fell, leaving me only with my capital. By this point I was facing cats and elephants, myself only having archers. I was slowly pillaged down, and by 1000 AD or so, my capital was finally taken by Toku.
I've learned a lot since that game, and I now realize that delaying my axe rush to build a couple settlers was a big mistake. I probably should've rushed Toku while he still just had a capitol, and maybe one other city. That would've taken out a warlike enemy right on my border, and given me a lot of breathing room. Also, while I think that while taking Ghandi's jewish holy city was a good move, I should've stopped the conquest at that, and put more pressure on Toku. He probably contributed at least half of the units that attacked me. Letting him live for so long was a huge mistake. I mean, Ghandi wasn't exactly that much of a threat to me. What was he going to do? Steal wonders from me? Overrun me with fast workers?
Anyways, I really enjoyed my first tournament here, and would like to thank Sirian for hosting it. Hopefully next time (Epic Eight) I'll do better.
move. Yet, despite being able to win reliably on monarch, I've (in almost every epic I have played) left cites on "avoid growth" for as many as 20 turns before noticing I can safely let them grow.