Victory from the jaws of defeat

[asleepathewheel]

dutch homeland at the finish

[IMG]http://apolyton.net/upload/files/asleepathewheel/dutchstart.jpg
[/IMG]


My end home territory




F8 screen, pay attention to the culture gap

[asleepathewheel]

Now I know what you're saying, what's so special about a domination victory?

Well, this game was rough from the start. I had craptacular land, save the ivory. I was surrounded by jungle and swamp, and built 2 cities at a double choke to wall off the scandi's. I got a SGL for writing I think, and got phil first. Chose math rushed Zeus. I had no iron, and the nearest horse was across the shallows to the east, ie. needed mapmaking and two harbors. I eventually built up enough anc. cavs to take down most of the scandi's, forcing them to move off continent and captured iron, then moving north to take out the mayans, who also had relocated partially. (also one an. cav. army helped)

I then moved east and took out tenochticlan, (lucky for me, was a coastal city) home of the great library. Pulled me up to the medieval age (was way way behind at that point) Then through a series of wars I eliminated or crippled the other civs around.

One thing I did in this game, that I hope I never have to do again, was delay metallurgy as the last medieval tech, due to the pathetic production of my cities. that extra unit every 5 turns was invaluable, as only 2 cities could produce knights at a decent rate. I needed bodies more than anything else. Corruption was rough.

The dutch were the problem. They would continuously drop off powerful units. Cavs and crusaders when I had ancient cavs and knights. Luckily I never quite spread myself thin enough to lose much (I think I lost a viking city on my home continent and a persian city once). I did see a ton of privateers, so was very very careful about my galleys (didn't have anything else at the time).

The man o war was awesome. I ended with 56 of them, they saved the game. I blocked off most of the sealanes, allowing me to move units to threatened areas and for attacks. At the end, I was bombarding Dutch cities with 20 at a time, trying to crack the barracks so they wouldnt heal completely each turn. (didn't want my cavs to be demolished after landing)

A good victory for me, not the best I know. And the skill required diminished due to the archipelago map, as the ai can't do as well as the human, the most units I saw dropped off at one tile at one time was 8.

but nonetheless, fun game.

[vmxa1]

Sorry asleepathewheel, you know I am older now and everything is going fast.

I guess I should be happy I remembered any of it.

[Guynemer]

Originally posted by steven8r
Guynemer, are you playing 'unpatched'? It looks like the Sumerians are benefitting from the gpt bug.

Nope. v1.15 beta.

Actually haven't heard of the gpt bug... what's that?

[Arrian]

The original release of the game had it:

When you did a trade for gold per turn, the actual gold you received was doubled.

It didn't cost the payor more, but the payee got 2x the gold they were entitled to.

So imagine an AI civ with a tech lead, selling techs to other AIs for gpt.

-Arrian

[Guynemer]

Cripes. It's a wonder I didn't see an AI like this before, when it could have taken advantage of that.

[Arrian]

FIFTY-SIX Men-o-War?!?! That's a lot of production.

edit: in response to Sleepy.

-Arrian

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Arrian
FIFTY-SIX Men-o-War?!?! That's a lot of production.

edit: in response to Sleepy.

-Arrian

Its the only area that I had an advantage in, everything else they had a counter for, so I had to go with my strenght and try to cut them off before they landed, which after I bulked up, was effected. I split them into 5 or 6 mow teams that did the trick. I had maybe 10 defensive units and 43 cavs. Actually, I miscounted, I only had 53 (men or war) But I did have, after counting, 16 captured Men-O-war!


Oh, one thing I did in that game but forgot to mention, was to use the Egyptians. They were one of the typical backward AI civs, no contact until Navigation. I was going to take them out, but there cities had about 20 units each. Granted, they were just archers, spears and wcs, but I didn't have the manpower to take them on. So I got them to declare war on the dutch, who steamrolled them, but I imagine took quite heavy losses.

[Guynemer]

Clever strategy.