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**jbp26** · March 2, 2008, 10:56

this game was just too difficult for me. highlands map is already quite challenging, and being restricted to conquest/domination makes it even more challenging. picking the ottomans was what tipped this from very hard to not being enjoyable, i cant think of a worse choice for this map and conditions. philosophical was essentially useless since food was so tight. imperialistic is always the worst trait, even more so on highlands when there wasn't much commerce to support new cities.

on my first try at this game i followed an aggressive strategy. i found shaka and built 3 cities, mostly towards him, and then churned out a stack of axemen. i captured two of his cities including his capital, but since you're always attacking defenders who are on hills, my losses were higher than i expected and i had to sue for peace. i was already scrambling for money to pay for the handful of cities i had, and was carefully managing specialists too. i quickly built a second stack, but it took a long time for my troops to make the long trek into shaka's territory. the turn my stack arrived, ghengis khan declared war on me (taking his stack all the way through shaka's territory i might add) and threw all his units against my stack, wiping us both out. at this point i took note of shaka's garrisons, which were totally replenished, and now i was left without an army and a terrible economy. i gave up in frustration.

im not used to losing, so i wanted to give it an unofficial, second try. this time i would just peacefully expand until the later eras and use my tech advantage to conquer everyone. that never happened. i guess i just dont have enough experience with highlands maps but i could never get a really viable economy and never did get that tech lead. tokugawa showed up with a huge stack around 1400AD and i once again quit.

**CharonJr** · March 2, 2008, 11:04

Well, I tried to focus on expanding as peacefully as possible this time (as far as that is even possible with aggressive AIs).

I build a settler after my first worker was out in order to gain some speed and settled him on a plians hills right next to the floodplains in the SE.

Did the Oracle->MC->Pyramids via GE sling again and focused on tech via GPP/wonders. Was fairly unlucky since I only got my 1st GS as the 6-8 Great Person...

Due to having lots of wonders in my capital and my 2nd GPP-town my chances for a GS were around 50%.

IIRC Monti declared war on me somehwere around 900 AD and I was pretty much at war for most of the time after this. Since Monti had to go via Shaka's land, it took some time till I saw anything og him, by then I had macemen and no problems in beating him back.

Vassalised Shaka after he attacked me around 1100 AD and Toku after his attack around 1350 AD (tried to finish as fast as possible on this fairly large map and waste no time be complete elimination).

I am not sure if I attacked the Incas or they attacked me, but my plan was to vassalise them next. Monti was at war with them, too, and when his SOD of about 50 units took the 2nd largest Incan city which I had sieged/attacked with cannons, cavalery and riflemen for about 3 turns I became a bit unhappy.

I declared on Monti and the Incas became his vassal with just their capital left which I was about to take. Monti lost about 40 units form his SOD and aggreed to become my vassal, too

For the war vs. Ghengis (2nd in rank after me) I upgraded to Infantry and used spies to help with the attacks. After taking 3 cities (which I gave back later) I had another vassal.

Boudica was the last power left and my lines of communication were fairly long for the war with her.

After some heavy fighting (her Grenadiers vs. my Infantry/Cavallery mainly) she surrendered when I had taken about half her empire.

All in all it was a fairly hard game due to the aggressive AIs whos attakces delayed getting the 1 era tech superiority I like to have before attacking. The terrain was not very helpful for fast campaigns, too

Overall a very nice challenge, right after Tokus attack while I was still busy with Monti and Shaka I was not sure if I could pull this off, but quality was able to beat quantity again since I got our UU at this time.

Close to 80k points with a conquest win at around 1850 AD IIRC.

CharonJr

**CharonJr** · March 2, 2008, 11:13

Concerning money:

Having cities right on the coast (even without any seafood) was very helpful for getting money, especially after getting the Colossus.

Being able to run at just about 50% tech-rate due to the +3 science form Representation was helping as well.

After I got Caste System I used some Merchants to help with the cashflow and using Bureaucracy was helpful despite my capital being largely farms.

CharonJr

**RobWorham** · March 2, 2008, 12:56

Nice write-ups!!!

Thanks gents!!!

**Fleme** · March 2, 2008, 13:55

Finally!

I always like to play according to the traits and specialities of each leader so having Suleiman naturally offers a lot of room to play in a "specialized" way. As we now know, the map was full of warmongers and even before that I decided to build as many wonders as possible. A capital on a plains hill, with an abundance of hills and 2 Pig sources makes for an excellent wonder location and that's what my aim was. I quickly cranked out a settler which found a city southwest by the marble for wonder production and my capital proceeded to build wonders. Great Wall, Stonehenge and the Oracle were the first three I scored. I soon settled 2 additional cities, one on the flood plains and another one southeast from my capital to serve as my border garrison. War was imminent and I knew Shaka and Genghis couldn't hold their horses for much longer.

I got additional wonders; ToA, Pyramids, Great Library and war was declared. My border garrison took all the hits with relative ease, being on a hill and having a broad scope of units to fend off both the Mongolian horse and the Zulu melee. Initial attack gave me a general which was followed by 7 additional generals throughout the game. Yes, I made 8 generals. In addition, with Rep and CS nearly from the getgo and adding Philosophical + Pacifism to that, I had no trouble generating great people other than generals as well.

Seeing how the map was what it was and that every single city was on a hill I decided that it was not worth it for me to try and go to war. I had three religions, abundance of wonders and a strong, experienced border garrison and all my cities could produce 5 experience units without me having to switch civics. So here I was again, going for a cultural win. Since I was well off on the techs I didn't have any problem fending off the assaults which came pretty much all the time from the classical era all the way to the end of the game. I settled the entire northwestern corner of the continent and also took the two islands on the sea, smaller of which became independent France. The AI's refused peace all along and only one of them was friendly with me, Togugawa, who had been affected by my religion and he soon realized what an awesome guy I was and offered himself as my vassal. With that, I was pretty much set and as soon as my three culture cities had the cathedrals I wanted, I just switched to 100% culture and ran artists where-ever I could. Cultural win at 1900 AD.

I can see how everyone thought it was hard. I would think a conquest win wouldn't have been an option for me since I would get tired of taking hillside cities from AI's who build nothing but units and seeing how the terrain works both ways, I just decided to stand my ground.

8 generals from just defending? Well I never.

**draethor** · March 2, 2008, 16:36

So this was a brutally hard game. I've played highlands before, and I knew that commerce was a problem on this map type. So my plan was to found or immediately conquer as many religions as possible and spread them over the map.

They make up for the lack of commerce with an abundance of production. Upon meeting the first couple leaders, I knew this map was going to be a bloodbath.

The game went very similar to everyone above. I was constantly at war with nearly everyone (and at one point, everyone), which seriously inhibited my ability to spread religions around. Even still I managed to maintain a small tech advantage, which allowed me to survive and then push small offensives.

My first kill was Shaka, after noticing he had a double holy city of his own (hinduism and judaism - both with shrines already built for me, generating around 20gpt when I took it).

The only real threat to my civilization came in the form of montezuma. We had been mostly peaceful, but then I noticed him move the stack in the screenshot towards me. He waited there for two turns before reinforcing it with another 10 or so maces/elephants and 7 catapults, making it the largest stack I have ever seen (it was over 50 units). I was pushing a war with genghis khan, so I immediately declared peace so my troops would get the free teleport back to my borders, then stripped every town I could to get troops over there. He was threatening my judaism/hinduism double holy city, which accounted for roughly 15% of my economy - given how far it was from the center of my civilization, I wouldn't be able to take it back and would have to struggle to stop from losing more ground.

I managed to pull together 4 cannons and 12 or 13 janissaries. I knew there wasn't much chance I could win against his stack, but I could certainly hurt it. However, as soon as he invaded for some reason he split his SoD up into 3 seperate stacks of 15-20 units! This made it pretty easy pickings, and I managed to kill most of two of the three stacks before he merged them all again. If he had simply attacked without bombarding first he probably still would've won (because my town defenders were all hurt), but he waited 3 or 4 turns to finish bombarding the defenses, so I simply attacked again. By the time he finally attacked, he only had 8 or 9 units left and they only killed a couple defenders.

From there on the game was pretty much won. I founded Islam and so had 5 temples spread out over 3 cities, so research/money was never a problem. I maintained a tech lead and got a domination in 1924 for about 45k points.

Attached Files

**Fleme** · March 2, 2008, 20:46

It was restricted to conquest/domination?

Haha, oops. That one totally slipped past me.

**RobWorham** · March 3, 2008, 04:16

More great write-ups!!!!

Thanks for all the effort you guys put into these after game discussions!!!!

Fleme, unlucky on the slight oversight!!!

**JungleIII** · March 3, 2008, 22:10

When I heard that Fleme thought this was a great game, and I had such a crappy game... I wondered how he pulled it off. I was looking forward to the write ups because I had such difficulty.

Keeping up with the pace of assualts required to overcome even a couple neighbors let alone conquer them all was too much of a challenge for me... and a few others.

Congratulations to the three who took this challenge on and WON!!!!

Originally posted by Fleme
It was restricted to conquest/domination?

Haha, oops. That one totally slipped past me.

**pmonsieurs** · March 7, 2008, 19:46

In the begin of the game, I rapidly expand to three cities in 2200 BC (at that time, only the Mongolians had a second city). I then go for the oracle slingshot to Code of Law, founding confucianism.
In 775 I found a fourth city near the copper in the west near the floodplains. These four cities will eventually become my specialized cities: the capital for producing wonders (national epic, ironworks), the second city the financial city with Wallstreet (holy city of confucianism and islam later), my third city the military city with Heroic Epic and West Point, and the fourth the research city with lots of cottages, Oxford and Maoi Statues.
In 375BC, I complete the Kong Miao and hope that some of the AIs will convert to confucianism for the diplomatic bonus. However, confucionism never spreads that much by itself...
In 225 BC, Montezuma declares war on Boudica, and begins to eliminate here, which will happen in 760 AD. Meanwhile, I complete the hanging gardens to add some engineering points, and add a population to my six cities at the time.
The peaceful buildup is over when Shaka declares war on me in 325 AD. Add that time, I had just started building some units with copper and iron hooked up, and I am able to defeat his small stacks of about 5 units eventually. Shaka then accepts peace, and I get Calendar from it as well.
The next great person born is a great engineer, which I use to construct to apostolic palace. I am the only one with confucionism, so I win the vote by default.
On a map where war will be important, it is a very good thing if you can control the votes of the apolstic palace. If you don't, most of the wars you fight tend to be interupted with a vote, which becomes a very serious problem. Also, the +2 production bonus is great of course.
In 740AD, Ghenghis Khan declares war on me. However, the next turn, I get an apostolic palace vote and immediately end the war! I continue to build up units in peace for a few turns.
In 960AD, Huayna Capac and Tokugawa declare war on me. The next turn, I get another vote with the apostilic palace, which results in peace with Huayna. Tokugawa has no cities with confucionism, so that war continues.
Tokugawa is not really a problem, and I eventually make peace with him. Meanwhile, Ghengis declares war on Montezuma, so that decreases the threat somewhat from the east. When Ghengis asks me to declare on Montezuma, I agree in order to get some diplomacy benifits, and Montezuma is too far away to be an immediate problem.
Because I am already focusing on confucianism with the apostolic palace, I decide to also go for university of Sankore and the Spiral Minaret. I also use another great engineer to complete the great library in my science city. Hagia Sofia is build to encrease the pool of great engineer points. Notre Dame is build with another engineer in a border town to increase cultural pressure.
In 1290AD, I am ready to declare my own war on Shaka. Peace is made with Montezuma, and I start capturing a total of four border cities of Shaka. Tokugawa also declares war on me again, but I can keep him off with a small part of the units a produce every turn, and am able to capture a Japanese city.
Montezuma and Ghengis make peace in the meanwhile, and Montezuma declares war on Huayna. Because Huayna spent a lot of time building wonders, his military is no match for Montezuma, and soon capitulates.
When I am healing to prepare an offensive on the Zulu capital however, Ghengis declares war on me in 1535AD and immediately attacks my recently captured Zulu city with a stack of 18 units. Most of my wounded stack of 12 units is defeated, and because I have no chance with my wounded units, I decide to retreat the wounded units back to my core cities and make peace with Shaka. I start building catapults so I can damage the Mongolian stack when it comes near my core, but Ghengis is able to capture another two of the cities I captures from the Zulus. To do this, Ghenghis has to split his stack in two and I am able to destroy both stacks and recapture the two cities.
With gunpowder, I am able to build the Ottoman unique unit, which is about as good as a grenadier versus non-gunpowder unit. This gives an edge against the Japanese, whose cities now start to fall.
I am now able to make peace with Ghengis, and join Montezuma in a war against Shaka, and later Ghengis declares war on Montezuma again. I am able to capture the Zulu capital, and then make peace with him. Shaka becomes a vasal of Ghenghis for a short while, but is eventually eliminated by Montezuma and Huayna.
In the war against Japan, I move all the way down to the Japanese capital and capture it, and then accept Tokugawa as a vasal with three cities remaining.
So at this time, the three powers remaining are Montezuma, Ghengis and me, and war is inevitable. Montezuma is however technologically inferior (no steel or astronomy), while I have cannons and riflemen. I build up a stack to face Montezuma in the former Zulu capital, declare war in 1810 and immediately capture one of Monty's zulu cities.
Meanwhile, a second army is attacking the Incan cities. Huayna is technologically advanced, but doesn't have a lot of units, so several of his cities are captured easily.
Montezuma sends three stacks of about 30 units consisting mosty of knights and musketmen, but my cannons and riflemen are easily able to defeat them with minimal losses.
With the great spy from researching communism fist, I start a third golden age, and convert to state property, representation and emancipation to reduce the cost of my expanding empire.
Because Monty controls the statue of Zeus, I am not able to continue this war for long. Therefore, I capture one more city and am then forced to make peace, and research fascism so I can eliminate war weariness with police state and mount rushmore. Meanwhile, I use another engineer to rush Wallstreet.
In 1876, the final war begins. To prevent Ghengis from declaring war on me, I gift him Rifling which he is about to complete in three turns anyway, because I thought this would create a 10-turn peace treaty. However, this is apparently only the case when trading resources, so a couple of turns later, Ghengis declares war on me as well... Ah well.
I notice that Monty is building a huge stack of units near the core of his empire, so I wait until I know where he will send the stack. If he sends it to the northern front, I will not be able to stop it soon, so I begin building cannons and send them to the north. He eventually decides to send it to the Zulu front against my huge stack of 11 infantry, 10 cannons and 7 grenadiers.
He decides not to reduce the defense of my city before attacking, leaving it at almost 20%, and suicides his trebuchets, then sends in about 40 units of cavalry and riflemen. After a battle that lasts about 10 minutes, I lose... a single unlucky infantry, while his entire stack is destroyed!
From then on, Montezuma doesn't play a significant role anymore, and his cities start falling rapidly. Ghengis is not much of a challenge either. A stack of him is able to defeat about five units of mine when defending a city, but loses his much larger stack. His cities take somewhat longer to capture because of the mountain terrain, but eventually I have three separate large armies all fighting simultaneously.
In 1920, Montezuma becomes a vasal of Genghis (which I actually didn't notice while playing... so that is why he refused to become my vasal

)
Finally, in 1927, Montezuma is eliminated and Genghis becomes my vasal, giving me another city in the deal, leading to a conquest victory with almost 64% of the land area conquered.
So, in the end, this was a very tough game because of the huge armies build. On the other hand, those huge armies prevented them from developing new technology, making their army outdated and reasonably easy to defeat...

**draethor** · March 9, 2008, 04:37

Nice writeup pmonsieurs...

I noticed this though:

After a battle that lasts about 10 minutes

You don't play with quick combat on? I use that and stack attack, cuts my time played in half or so :P

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