Great class. I'm just beginning to 'attend' these AU lectures, this one being my first (so does that mean I placed out of all freshman-level courses? hardly
). Unfortunately since this was my first, I avoided reading the spoiler thread until I was well into the game and therefore do not have a phase-by-phase illustration with screenies.
Summary
Arabs :: Monarch :: PTW 1.14
My skill is steadily improving, this being my best game ever (as far as early domination).
The
Iriquois Skirmishes of the 1st and 2nd millenia BC began a multi-millenium Arab expansion. Who instigated them has been lost to history (or lack thereof).
Those being settled on an account of gold, the
Great German War began around the birth of Christ (oh, wait, I'm the Arabs), and took them down to one lone bastion if German culture, Stuttgart on the NW crag of an island. Them being short of iron aided in not only a clean sweep of the German peninsula, but also the production of several GLs.
The
Iriquois Wars followed soon thereafter and also pushed their anti-Arabic civilization far north from the ruins of Salamanca, leaving them two small settlements on the small NE island chain.
The Greeks were always a backward people. Their domination was actually viewed by historians as an 'assimilation' rather than a war. My own continent was granted around 1300 AD.
The game is actually still in progress. A search for world dominance began in the form of a medium-sized army of cavalry, infantry and artillery storming the shores of Samarra on the far southern tip of Babylonia in the middle of the 17th century. We took that city and years later made a push for the capital. The
Ur Fortifications lay in our path, but only for a short while.
It turns out a medium-sized army should have been a large army and that invasion, after reducing the great city of Babylon down to a few stragglers, was thwarted by savage tactics. At one point Babylon was defended by one final cavalry with one final hitpoint. Alas, my cavs, springing forth from Ellipi Hill two squares to the SW ran out of juice. I had no troops left to make the assault. That was the last anyone ever saw of those brave warriors. Next turn, the Artillery Stack of Death made a shameful retreat, one square at a time. One turn away from friendly territory and they too were overwhelmed with Babylonian cavalry. Twenty-five guns in all were captured and quickly disappeared in the fog. There are rumors the primitive Babylonians did not understand the replaceable parts of the guns, and stripped off the barrels, mounting them on wooden wheels and used them as cannons. Imagine! *gasp* They later wrote an epic about the event.
Peace with Hammurabi came shortly thereafter, but not with his ally Tokugawa who continued to blast my mines and wheat fields with his endless fleet of ironclads for nearly forty years. It really drove me to despise this man, almost to the point of re-planning a world-dominating invasion of Japan. But, no, the Arabs are destined to replace the Babylonian culture, so now my cities are churning out tank after tank in preparation for the final assault. History will not repeat itself.
In response to a previous question on this thread, I rushed the FP early in Berlin and flipped my palace one city to the west a little while after. It seems to me that establishment of two centers of 'law' as early as possible is pivotal.
I did not use the scouts as creatively as some. A sweep of the continent yielded me about 3-4 techs and one settler. Interesting that a settler cannot be popped if your civ already has one in production/operation. A tip I'll be sure to employ going forward. Kudos to who discovered that.
Ready to wrap this up and move on to the next class!
)
