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Background.
I started a second deity game with the Aztecs after "Deity for beginners," and found myself on a small continent with the Iroquois. This didn't bode well, as my tech rate would be even worse than usual, and early expansion severely limited (wasting the UU). I kept playing, though, and wound up with an experience that taught me a couple of meta-rules about deity/domination games - rules in keeping with my sense that a good emperor warmonger can win consistently at this level. It also inadvertently offered a scenario which is open-ended enough for some of you to play and perhaps enjoy.
Aztec history.
I encountered the Iroquois to the south, and moved quickly to seal off their northward expansion. This limited the Iroquois to a game-high three cities. Given that I wasn't close to mapmaking, and had very little territory to conquer, I decided to save my GA for later. I took the first Iroquois city with archers, and received one level of techs in exchange for peace. Twenty turns later, my new horsemen took the second Iroquois city, which included the Colossus. By this point, I had made contact with most of the other civs, and was way behind in tech. I threatened the Iroquois with war to periodically extort more tech, and took Salamanca when they refused to pony up. At this point I had just discovered iron, and converted my horsemen to knights. The Iroquois had musketmen and cavalry... but only one of each. The continent was mine.
Unfortunately, in this case manifest destiny meant that I was checked at nine cities. By now I had galleys, but the rest of the world had riflemen. I had no choice but to move into the intermediate phase of my deity strategy: shift into democracy, hunker down, and buy tech for gold and luxuries (we have a monopoly on spices). Over the centuries, I learned that my small size also meant that I had no coal, oil or aluminum - these all had to be obtained via trade. I progressed normally, and decided to take advantage of my continent's "island defense" edge by first building a small but effective defense force, before I started to amass tanks for an eventual war of expansion. (With overland borders, I would tilt toward foregoing a strong defense in favor of building offensive units, and taking the fight to the enemy.) I fought off a helter-skelter Japanese invasion, but usually just paid tribute.
The rest of the world.
The other six civs were divided evenly on two much larger continents. (There were also a smattering of islands.) India, China and Japan were stacked up on one, and developed evenly and peacefully. Over on the other continent, the Russians were matched with the Germans and English. Things weren't so peaceful over there, and the Cossacks eventually took over the entire land mass.
This established Russia as the world's superpower, and their aggressive attitude led to the other continent declaring war on them in 1285. This is what I had been waiting for, as the other civs needed to be bled for a while before I could even consider an overseas invasion against a much bigger civ. The Russians quickly lost their island holdings, but it took 300 years for the allies to gain a permanent foothold of a couple of cities on Russian soil. By now Japan was a monarchy, and the others communist regimes. Russia had displayed incredible strength, but the tide was turning. They made peace with Japan, after losing one city to them, and soon after ended the war with China in 1635, having lost four cities - one on each corner of their empire. This left Russia in a mostly maritime war with India, able to start licking her wounds... and just before I had felt ready to join the fray.
Aztec state of the union: 1650AD.
The Aztecs' nine cities are fully improved, except for anti-pollution facilities and institutes of higher learning. Typical of the civ's relative quaintness is the coal plant found in every city. This has left the Aztecs fourth in mfg. goods and GNP, and last of five (by a lot) in size and population. Aztec culture is negligible compared to the rest of the world: there is a handbuilt FP, and the Wall St wonder. Research is complete through satellites. On the other hand, the 6185-gold treasury is the envy of the entire planet. And every worked tile is either mined or irrigated, as well as railroaded.
The military is very lean, but in promising shape. The first line of defense is a destroyer navy and a fleet of prop bombers and jet fighters... enough to sink most incoming transports, and scare off bomber sorties. Every city has one vet MI, and there are almost ten artillery. Three ICBMs ought to make the AI think twice about a first strike. However, the Aztec nation's future is in the hands of its vet MA: the count is at 32, with the only hitch being that a trade for oil needs to be negotiated yet again. (Deals for aluminum and coal are in place.)
The Aztecs have no spies in place yet, but it's a safe bet to assume that the other civs have... more. A lot more. Of everything.
The challenge.
The situation is very similar to "Babylon and on," although not as balanced (or planned) as Vel's. Can this game be won by domination in the next 400 years? I think it can, and have already made some headway.
While my starting situation doesn't come close to Aeson's Arctic start, it highlights a similar point: that almost no spawn is too poor, as long as you can avoid being overrun. It's great to expand as much as possible in the early game, but the key to winning via domination requires nothing more than hanging in there. Prudent diplomacy is even more essential than efficient defense.
The reason you don't need to do much else is the built-in handicap in a domination game in deity: the AI plateaus in tech very early in the game, and there is plenty of time for you to buy your way to real-world military tech parity. This game serves to prove this point. I couldn't have played more conservatively, and yet have a realistic shot of winning. All I had to do is wait, buy, and build... then seize an opportunity.
Here is the Aztec nation as you would find it:
I started a second deity game with the Aztecs after "Deity for beginners," and found myself on a small continent with the Iroquois. This didn't bode well, as my tech rate would be even worse than usual, and early expansion severely limited (wasting the UU). I kept playing, though, and wound up with an experience that taught me a couple of meta-rules about deity/domination games - rules in keeping with my sense that a good emperor warmonger can win consistently at this level. It also inadvertently offered a scenario which is open-ended enough for some of you to play and perhaps enjoy.
Aztec history.
I encountered the Iroquois to the south, and moved quickly to seal off their northward expansion. This limited the Iroquois to a game-high three cities. Given that I wasn't close to mapmaking, and had very little territory to conquer, I decided to save my GA for later. I took the first Iroquois city with archers, and received one level of techs in exchange for peace. Twenty turns later, my new horsemen took the second Iroquois city, which included the Colossus. By this point, I had made contact with most of the other civs, and was way behind in tech. I threatened the Iroquois with war to periodically extort more tech, and took Salamanca when they refused to pony up. At this point I had just discovered iron, and converted my horsemen to knights. The Iroquois had musketmen and cavalry... but only one of each. The continent was mine.
Unfortunately, in this case manifest destiny meant that I was checked at nine cities. By now I had galleys, but the rest of the world had riflemen. I had no choice but to move into the intermediate phase of my deity strategy: shift into democracy, hunker down, and buy tech for gold and luxuries (we have a monopoly on spices). Over the centuries, I learned that my small size also meant that I had no coal, oil or aluminum - these all had to be obtained via trade. I progressed normally, and decided to take advantage of my continent's "island defense" edge by first building a small but effective defense force, before I started to amass tanks for an eventual war of expansion. (With overland borders, I would tilt toward foregoing a strong defense in favor of building offensive units, and taking the fight to the enemy.) I fought off a helter-skelter Japanese invasion, but usually just paid tribute.
The rest of the world.
The other six civs were divided evenly on two much larger continents. (There were also a smattering of islands.) India, China and Japan were stacked up on one, and developed evenly and peacefully. Over on the other continent, the Russians were matched with the Germans and English. Things weren't so peaceful over there, and the Cossacks eventually took over the entire land mass.
This established Russia as the world's superpower, and their aggressive attitude led to the other continent declaring war on them in 1285. This is what I had been waiting for, as the other civs needed to be bled for a while before I could even consider an overseas invasion against a much bigger civ. The Russians quickly lost their island holdings, but it took 300 years for the allies to gain a permanent foothold of a couple of cities on Russian soil. By now Japan was a monarchy, and the others communist regimes. Russia had displayed incredible strength, but the tide was turning. They made peace with Japan, after losing one city to them, and soon after ended the war with China in 1635, having lost four cities - one on each corner of their empire. This left Russia in a mostly maritime war with India, able to start licking her wounds... and just before I had felt ready to join the fray.
Aztec state of the union: 1650AD.
The Aztecs' nine cities are fully improved, except for anti-pollution facilities and institutes of higher learning. Typical of the civ's relative quaintness is the coal plant found in every city. This has left the Aztecs fourth in mfg. goods and GNP, and last of five (by a lot) in size and population. Aztec culture is negligible compared to the rest of the world: there is a handbuilt FP, and the Wall St wonder. Research is complete through satellites. On the other hand, the 6185-gold treasury is the envy of the entire planet. And every worked tile is either mined or irrigated, as well as railroaded.
The military is very lean, but in promising shape. The first line of defense is a destroyer navy and a fleet of prop bombers and jet fighters... enough to sink most incoming transports, and scare off bomber sorties. Every city has one vet MI, and there are almost ten artillery. Three ICBMs ought to make the AI think twice about a first strike. However, the Aztec nation's future is in the hands of its vet MA: the count is at 32, with the only hitch being that a trade for oil needs to be negotiated yet again. (Deals for aluminum and coal are in place.)
The Aztecs have no spies in place yet, but it's a safe bet to assume that the other civs have... more. A lot more. Of everything.
The challenge.
The situation is very similar to "Babylon and on," although not as balanced (or planned) as Vel's. Can this game be won by domination in the next 400 years? I think it can, and have already made some headway.
While my starting situation doesn't come close to Aeson's Arctic start, it highlights a similar point: that almost no spawn is too poor, as long as you can avoid being overrun. It's great to expand as much as possible in the early game, but the key to winning via domination requires nothing more than hanging in there. Prudent diplomacy is even more essential than efficient defense.
The reason you don't need to do much else is the built-in handicap in a domination game in deity: the AI plateaus in tech very early in the game, and there is plenty of time for you to buy your way to real-world military tech parity. This game serves to prove this point. I couldn't have played more conservatively, and yet have a realistic shot of winning. All I had to do is wait, buy, and build... then seize an opportunity.
Here is the Aztec nation as you would find it:
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