DaveV's Epic 17 (Cyrus for domination)

[DaveV]

As usual, I got too involved in the game and forgot to take screen shots of some key moments, but here's my reconstruction.
I decided to play this game for domination, since that victory fits my playstyle the best. As Kylearan said in the announcement thread, "I still think ultra-early aggression is one of the biggest balance problems with CIV, especially with non-aggressive AIs". The winning strategy would almost certainly involve an early rush, so which civ to pick?
I really like Immortals as a rush unit: they can take out either axes or archers, and are terrific against barbs. I love Charismatic and figured I'd be building lots of settlers, so I picked Cyrus, although in retrospect Darius would probably have been a better choice since I was struggling with my economy for much of the game.
Nothing special from the huts:


Pliny dropped by to rub my nose in my lack of power:


I settled in place, built a second city to the north to connect the horses, and cranked out some immortals. I reached Karakorum in 1950 BC and found it defended by two axes and an archer. Time to strike before he built any spearmen. In a supreme stroke of luck, I collected the Great Wall along with a very nice city. The Great Wall would mean I could leave cities undefended for much of the game, and concentrate my forces.
After Karakorum, Beshbalik fell easily, and my immortals headed up to pay a call on Monty. By 1725 BC, I had tripled my number of cities:


(and crashed my econmomy):


I started the Pyramids in Karakorum, expecting a nice refund when an AI built it. Since it was a surprise when I actually built it, I forgot to revolt to Representation for several years:


I had a clear choice on religion: Alex and Mansa were running Hinduism and Hannibal was running Buddhism. I went with Hinduism, which worked out perfectly.
More bad news from a historian in 1475 BC:


Hannibal was first to Alphabet, and was willing to trade techs despite our religious differences:


In 170BC, I got a nice break:


I was first to Code of Laws in 65 BC (terrible city for a shrine, but I didn't plan on spreading it anyway):


Which led to more tech trades:


In AD 10, Alex declared on Julius (who had had too much on his hands for a long time). Here was my empire at that time:


And my economy:


I finally joined Alex against JC in AD 310, picked up a couple cities and agreed to peace.
Hannibal and JC both declared war in AD 670. I was able to persuade Alex to come in on my side (it was amusing to watch Hannibal's SoD turn around at my border and head back to wreak havoc on Alex):


And, finally (note the wasted golden age turns):


Final map:

[tycoonist]

you beat me to it. well played

[Sullla]

Amazing, our games were totally different, yet we finished at EXACTLY the same time, with my civ winning a single turn before yours (1300AD)! Interesting take on the early rush approach to Domination versus the economic buildup first. You can guess which one I'm better at pursuing. I wish there were more screenshots so I could make some deeper comparisons.

I wonder how your game would have worked in non-expansion Civ4, back before the designers ridiculously jacked up the effectiveness of Wealth and Research.

[DaveV]

I still have several saves from this game; are there any particular screenshots you'd like to see?

[Sullla]

Well, for one I was curious about your financials in that last winning screenshot. They're just barely off the screen! More generally, I guess what was going on between 10AD and your victory in 1310AD. Don't kill yourself, by any means, but there was a fairly large gap in there.

[DaveV]

I was building Wealth in all cities at the end; I figured there was no point in building any more units or buildings while I was just waiting for borders to pop (those cities were building culture). Usually, one of the weakest parts of my game is the decision of when I'm done researching, but I think I timed it about right this game (it helped that my war weariness with JC forced me to max out the culture slider ).


Here are some shots from the replay:






Final graphs:

[Deceptus]

Wow, this GNP value is so high, I thought that with such a bloated empire, it will be pits.

A very nice win, I must say.

[DaveV]

The spike at the end of the GNP graph is artificially high due to being in a golden age and building Wealth in about 90% of my cities.

[SpazzMaticus]

Nice win!
I imagine that if you had started a golden age earlier, just after your economy crashed you would have beat my winning date.
What units were you fighting your last war with?

[DaveV]

Trebs/cats, maces, knights.