Well, I won, but I didn't win the way I wanted
to win .
I wanted a space victory. But I didn't turn the other options off. *sigh* Lemme try to run this down....
I was the Babylonians, large map, warlord level with 8 civs. I started off on a doughnut shaped continent with the french, the persians, the germans, the russians and the zulus. the greeks, romans and egyptians were on a different continent.
Things started off much the same as they do in this game. A massive grab for land. Eventually i had hit my border with france and the persians and the zulus. but there was a large amount of unclaimed land on a thin strip of mountainous coast and a huge area of unclaimed jungle. I instantly began sending settlers that way trying to beat shaka and Joan to the land. Jungle really sucks and i knew corruption would be horrendous at that distance, but I figured that rubber was most likely to appear there (it didn't!) so if I churned out enough workers I might have some decent cities in the future. I only had one source of saltpeter when gunpowder came around, but I managed to snag all of the wonders up to this point except for the pyramids and the Great wall.
Shaka beat me to the salt peter in the unclaimed land, but I settled anyway. I figured I'd just rush build the cultural improvements and have his salt peter city turn over to me.
THE ZULU WAR: Even though we'd had no problems at all, Shaka suddenly attacked me. I had the forsight to build a buttload of knights in case persia attacked....Jerkses...I mean Xerxes had threatened me several times. Now i sent them to battle the zulus. Yeesh. Those impi guys are a pain in the ass. They almost did take a few of my cities that weren't yet connected by roads so the best defenders were longbowmen and those conan guys. Then I had an idea. I contacted every civ and bribed them with gold and luxuries to declare war on the zulus. now with no allies or trade I decided to cut off Shaka's only supply of horses. I broke through his impis and took several cities then the war ground to a halt. Longbowmen are tough as hell! They picked off my knights so i had to garrison them in the taken cities and try to hold on while I tried to churn out reinforcements. The persians began sending a flood of immortals but they moved really slow, even on the roads. Luckily then I got Military tradition. I upgraded all of the knight to cavalry and the tide turned. I lost some guys but i managed to grind the zulus down to two cities. I then contacted Shaka and tried to form a peace. But his response that "he wouldn't be so merciful" convinced me to screw peace and destroy him, rather than let the zulus come back in a hundred years and give me a headache. I crushed the zulus, with some aid from the french. The persians were useless. In the middle of the war they signed a peace treaty with the zulus and turned all of their immortals around and headed home. They hadn't even gotten to the battlefield yet! I bribed Jerkses...I mean Xerxes...again. But still the war was over when he got there! Now I owned all of Zululand. About ten immortals parked themselves in a place where the shrunken zulu borders didn't meet. They even found a few cities nearby. I gave a few of the more useless cities to the french and we signed a Mutual Protection Pact.
THE RESTORATION: Now that I had peace and A LOT of luxuries I began trading them to the other civs and I was raking in cash. I used the money to rush build improvements in my zulu holdings. But the persians were bothersome. back in my homeland they kept a stack of about fifteen to twenty musketmen and immortals at the border. I started rush building cav and riflemen in my persian border cities. I got two leaders out of the zulu war so I sent them to the border with their armies. Every turn for a century it seemed like the persians would all cross the border. I'd complain and Xerxes would say some bull about testing my border security, how it sucked and how i was lucky he didn't attack. Grrrrr. Every damn turn. I tried to guard the border with troops but he would just go around them. It was making me crazy. Finally, after I had a stockpile of riflemen, infantry, cav and artillery I waited for Xerxes to cross the border again. He did. All twenty of his troops. So I crossed onto his side with one of my armies...instantly Xerxes contacted me furiously demanding that i move my troops before I start a war. I told him to move his troops and he declared was. Great. I poured into his border and took about eight cities, including his capital!
Persia had way too many cities for me to hope to take over before war weariness (republic) kicked in, so i signed a peace treaty. I controlled a large chunk of Persia including one of his rubber sources, all of his wine and two of his coal. Finally, I could relax and work on my advancement so I could get into space some time in the future.
NO PEACE IN OUR TIME: No luck. The persians were quiet, but i made sure I had the force to smash them if they got uppity in my border cities. My trade was going well. But I had a MPP with france and they were gracious to me. They also seemed to hate everyone else. France got into a war with just about everyone BUT persia at once. (at least with all the alliances and pacts it ended up that way. Greece began shore bombardments of my cities and the romans joined in. I had several ironclads and frigates and a fierce naval battle went on and on and on. I couldn't launch an offensive...even with police stations and Universal Suffrage I knew that sending troops to them would sink my society. So I just defended myself. Every few turns french cities would turn over to me. A few persian cities did too. Even though I was in a battle I was still able to forge peace agreements with some, conduct trade and make some gold. My inner cities were all maxed out on culture improvements and I had a good tech lead so every wonder that came up was mine.
A PLATE OF HERO COOKIES: I was certain that victory was mine. Rome and Greece couldn't really invade me, and if war weariness happened I'd just switch governemts...as a religous civ the anarchy would be short enough for me to withstand it. Then suddenly...I won. Cultural victory, because I kept assimilating cities! WTF?!!! But I wanted to go into space! I hadn't even completed Hoover Dam yet!
LESSONS LEARNED: I'm turning off the other victory options in my next game. I've also learned that immortals are really tough even after you discover cavalry and infantry. My troops won most of the time, but the immortals but a whooping on me. For a matter of fact I would have lost a lot of cities in my northern border (former zululand) if the French didn't send a ton of musketeers to take persia's cities there.
Also, longbowmen are deadly. I learned to attack them on sight with knight and cavalry. If they take the offensive they're hard to beat. I was shocked that a guy with a bow and arrow could kill a mounted rider with a rifle. And Shaka had a ton of those bastards.
Speaking of shaka, I hate those freakin' impis. They move fast and he destroyed a lot of my improvements before my knights could ride them down.
My best idea in this game though was to use my newly acquired luxuries to make a lot of gold and use the gold to bribe other civs into declaring war on anyone that attacked me. (I did that to the persians too....it was great. Xerxes was getting smacked around by me, then I sold saltpeter and coal to Bismarck who bordered him on the other side for an alliance. Bismarck put a hurting on him so he couldn't defend both borders at once. I bribed everyone else to make sure that Xerxes had no allies...just like Shaka.
I'm just glad I had a great ally like Joan D'Arc throughout the game. In my last attempt at a game France was a dealy enemy and she well, beat me. Badly.
