Epic 9 report - DaveV

[DaveV]

Great game! Kudos to Sirian for a very nice setup on this one.

I *just* finished this one on my lunch hour. 20 hours of game play is hard for me to squeeze in, even over 4 weeks.

Final result: Domination in 1827. Report to follow.

[DaveV]

I left the initial production and research unchanged. After a little exploring by my scout, it was obvious that I was alone on my island, with stone. I decided on a plan: found a religion, build the pyramids, go for mercantilism.
Accordingly, I set my research goal to Mysticism, Polytheism (founding Hinduism in Karakorum; I converted immediately), Masonry, Monotheism, and built a settler immediately after my initial worker. I built Beshbalik by the stone, and founded Judaism there. I converted to Organized Religion, and started the Pyramids, completing them in 745BC (and promptly revolting to Representation). Then I spammed out settlers, building my last city in 190BC. The best screenie I have of my early empire is from AD485:

I discovered Feudalism in 965, and revolted to Vasselage. In 1244, I discovered Banking and revolted to Mercantilism. Tokugawa got the Circumnavigation bonus in AD1334. I set my next research goal to Chemistry and Astronomy, to clear out all the floating riff-raff that had accumulated along my coastline.
During all this turtling, I had to fight off a series of invasions, from Japan in 145BC:

Japan again in AD155:

Russia in 1070:

Persia in 1292:

India in 1298:

Japan in 1382:

Persia in 1394:

I built my first frigate in 1550, then sent my fleet out to explore the map and pillage fishing nets.

My minimap went from this in 1550:

To this in 1658:

With control of the seas, it was time to start slowing down the AIs. I sent a pillaging party of a knight and a grenadier over to Japan, and another party of two grenadiers and my lone surviving keshik to Russia. I captured Yakutsk in 1607 as a staging area, then went after the Chinese/Persian mainland. I also went after Ghandi's two island cities, conquering Lahore in 1682 and Calcutta in 1703. The Chinese scared me at Nara in 1724:

But wasted their stack attacking my city:

By 1727, the AIs had gained naval parity, and were hunting down my frigates:

I had planned to go after India next, but needed to keep my galleons close to home to keep them from being sunk by AI frigates. So I went after Russia and its yummy wonders. I discovered Steam Power in 1756, and regained naval superiority. At this point, I was running short on time, so I invaded the completely pillaged Japan to get some more territory towards domination. In 1790, I discovered Railroad, set science to 0%, and revolted to Police State. From there, it was just a slow slog to the win.
I hate galley-vs-galley combat; it's just too random for me, so I really concentrated on naval techs in this game:

One more amusing screenshot: someone else posted a shot of his hall of fame. Mine is a little shorter (epic 6 appears twice because I reloaded the last turn to take screenshots):

[Compromise]

Okay, I have to say that I'm happy to see another person who played a game where all the starting civs lived to see the human player's domination victory!

Judging from your end-map, I'm betting the order in which you attacked the AI is similar to mine. Looking forward to your writeup to see where you were techwise for your conquests.

[DaveV]

Compromise - we did have a lot of similarities, including going after early religion. I waited (too long) until frigates & galleons (and knights, cats and grenadiers) to go overseas, then finished the game with cavalry, cannons, and grenadiers.