Alright, I just had a great game tonight and felt like sharing it with all of you
I got LOTS of screenies so i'm sure you'll enjoy (plus the recorded game will be availible at the bottom, but read the story first!).
Setup - My oponant was Microslave, a frequent visitor to these forums and also one of the people i played with most during the beta. I just happened to bump into him tonight when i joined a game room and found him as the host. After rebooting my RoN (something wouldn't let me join until i rebooted) we started playing the game.
Nations
I played as the
Mayans because i really like their 33% less wood for buildings bonus. It helps me get started on my economy faster. Plus i'm a defencive player, so extra building HP and extra power to forts/towers is always my kinda thing
Mircoslave picked random and wound up with the
British, Not a bad civ at all. They have a great commerce bonus so it's much easier to out-econ your enemy as the british. Their light infantry line in the middle-ages is also very nice, very useful time for light infantry.
All settings standerd (including victory conditions)
Map: Great Lakes
Size: small (2/3 player)
Pre-Battle - Econ building at it's finest!
Age I: Ancient - Been there, done that.
Well the map was great lakes and i started on the south with him on the north. We did the baseic startup that i won't bore you with, but here's a shot of my nation at the
2 minute mark.
Note: all screen shots were taken from recorded game, i didn't use a map hack to get full view 
Lets analyze this screen shot for a moment. If you check out Micro's situation you can either look at it as a gift or a curse. I look at it and see an incredibly good defence position. He has a river plus 2 lakes bordering his first city. I'd hate to try to attack that capitol!
On the other hand i'm in a bit of a pickle on my side of the map, i've got a giant lake in my way so i'm going to have to build my empire in 2 directions. Humph! I did have some great resourse spots though (got to love the double mine on 2nd city! I think it really helped me). Diamonds+copper was real nice as well!
Age II: Classical - No Metal and no Knowledge make Micro a dull boy...
So now i hit classical at ~3:30. Then i'm building my 3rd city and still he doesn't go classical. Finaly at ~7 minutes he hits classical. At the moment i couldn't think why it took him so long. I speculate at this point that since british have a +25% commerce cap, he was trying to max that out before he went classical. This might have been his first major mistake. I had a good 3-4 minute jump on him in the knowledge/metal race (though he might have done better than me at gold/food/wood). Here's a screenshot at
the 7:40 mark.
We actually have the exact same techs researched at the library (look at bottom left, you see 4 numbers a/b/c/d - a= military, b= civics, c= commerce, and d = science) and are at the same age, though i'm a bit up in score now. he has taken advantage of the lakes earlier than i have. He has all 4 on his first lake and i've only got 1 so far.
Age III: Midieval - The Cold War...of sorts.
Now I hit midieval ahead of him as well, but not by much. In between this 7 and 12 minute period i built the pyrimads wonder. Why did i do this? Because it increases your food/wealth commerce cap by 50. Why is this important on great lakes? I'm glad you asked! If you use the lakes for their income, you get food+wealth for every fishery, and this can sometimes break the bank (commerce cap) so building the pyrimads allows me to have 5 fisheries plus my regular economy on the land. It really helped boost me i think!
Things grow dark however, as both of us push to the middle of the map. As i get to the center i see a silver deposit! Silver is a great rare resourse because it gives you -25% cost to age advance! This can be very helpful as age advances are one of (if not the most) costly techs in the game. As you can see in this next screenshot, things are shaping up to be quite ugly right around this resourse.
Here at the
12 minute mark we can see that we're both building castles near the center (though he's got a city there to defend, i'm just setting up a military outpost). I like to spread my cities outward and build just a military outpost at the most likely place i will contact the enemy because it means he won't capture any cities if he succeeds, he will simply destroy my military capability (easily replacable, but a loss nonetheless) and not my economy (not so easily replaced!). He's actually a bit ahead of me on this one, as i have 5 posible cities but only 3 on the map. A little after this i remedy my mistake (pyrimads gives you +1 city!) and build 2 more on the east of the map. Also seen in this shot is that he put fisheries on 3 more in the 2nd lake he had, while i only had 5 of my 6.
You can also see that silver resourse i was talking about. Not long after this shot was taken, he built a temple that pushed his borders back past my castle! Lucky for me he never researched attrition, my little guys kept working and finished the castle just as my merchent got there to take over the silver (his merchange obviously suffered from 7 or 8 arrows in the back by my castle, mwhahahaha!).
Age IV: Gunpowder - WTF? A navy, oh HELL NO!
Well by this time (
17 minute mark) i've boosted up my outpost from a shammy little castle into quite the military affair. Complete with 2 towers, 1 lookout post, 2 stables, a barracks (one stables and one barracks offscreen to the southeast), and a seige factory. I'm also begining to build my army (slowly but steadily!). I feel i'm in a pretty good position and i'm starting to shift my economy into military production and less economic expansion. Again you can look and see that me and micro are neck and neck in terms of library techs/ages (he hit gunpowder behind me by 1-2 minutes also).
On the other side of the border, i also have a screenshot of
Microslave's outpost at the 17 minute mark. As you can see he's traded towers for extra production buildings. He's also got a comperable military to mine. This might get ugly soon gentlemen.
Well now, everthing seems to be going...
What the ?!??! At 19 minutes Micro pulls a brillient move and builds up a small navy with which to desimate my fisheries! And how he can strike at my economic heartland! My 2nd city you see in that screenshot is the heart and soul of my empire!! It produces half the food, 75% of the metal, and 35% of the wood!! This is NOT good, time for action. I try to build up a counter force and i do manage to slow his naval advance for a moment. I built some heavy ships which quickly dispached of his bombardment ships (but quickly fell to his own heavy ships). So i built a second dock up near my military outpost and hastily built some fire ships to counter his heavy ships. But blast!!! That crafty Microslave has built a light ship (the counter to fireships) JUST as my first new fireship rolls off the dock! Now i'm in trouble, time for a change in strategy...
Age V: Enlightenment - Charge!!!....er...umm...RETREAT!!!!!
Ok, **** the navy, lets hit him where it hurts and drag his attention away from my economy.
Around 22 minutes I setup my attack. I got my cannon attacking his fort, i got my light infantry behind them to cover, i got my cavalry ready to flank....wait...somethings missing....****! My heavy infantry!! Micro picks up on my mistake and lets loose a cavalry charge and destroys all but one of my cannon (the last one is destroyed by his ship as it packs up). You can see in that screen shot my heavy infantry sitting at the bottom of the screen in that picture, completely useless because i forgot to bring them up. *slams head on desk*
At this point i knew the attack was folly so i sounded the retreat (Read: i pushed shift+, to select all military and clicked somewhere behind my outpost). My light infantry and towers actually wound up killing 4-5 of his light cav, so the engagement wasn't a total loss. Here's a pic of
my cowerdly retreat
Ok, maybe another change of strategy...hmmm. Wise man once say, "Attacking enemy mind with minimal risk, better than attacking his heart with great risk." Ok, so maybe Willium T. Sherman never said it quite like that, but i used his method of warfare (see kids, history is important!). Like sherman's invasion of the defencless confederate heartland (totaly ignoring the southern military) in the USA Civil War, i proceeded to simply swing my army around the mountain and go the other way. By this time i'd also produced some more cannons to make up for my destroyed one (plus some more troops and knights). Here at the
23 minute mark you can see i've turned my whole army around and flanked him to attack his very very weak eastern flank. Not even a tower to defend these poor miners! Not even warning that attack was comming! (town center bell). I plowed through the citizens and took the town with no resistance at all. The minimap doesn't show it very clearly, but there's a large mountain in the center of the map. His military was blocked from using the short way by my outpost, and it would have taken him a long time to get around the other way, so i guess he decided to wait and attack with greater strength later (big mistake!).
At this same time he was slowly destroying my outpost (nothing left there to defend it). His combined naval/land bombardment took it down pretty quickly, as you can see here at the
24 minute mark. My last tower is falling and now my own heartland is invadeable! Or is it? Check out the lower left section of that screenie and you'll see my 10th support regiment building yet another fortress to slow down my enemy! Also i'm producing new recruits to defend the homeland even as i invade the eastern flank (which is now being assimilated).
But that's not enough for me, no sirrie bob! If he's not going to send his army back to defend his homeland, that means it's ripe for the picking!! I take a chance and leave my assimilating city totaly undefended (meaning a single infantry unit with 1 health could walk up and claim it for the british) and rush north. Hmm, still no resistance...by joe i'll take this all the way to the capitol! Here at the
25 minute mark you can see me rushing past one of his economic cities and heading straight for the capitol!
As you can see i make it there intact. I think he assumed i was going to attack his outer city first, as he didn't "bell" his capitol until i'd killed at least half the civilians there. By the time he finally got them garisoned i had the city down to 50% health and my cannon had started opening up. Here at the
26 minute mark you can see me taking down his capitol. Also on the minimap you can see his army marching north in an attempt to save his capitol. Now i know this was a long shot because my army was far away from reinforcements, so if the enemy had more men there's a good chance i'd not win this capitol defence. But as you can see in this screenshot i'm going to industrial before he is, this just might work...
Age VI: Industrial - The Fall of an Empire
I hit industrial just as his units reached my defence. I had nutralized the capitol (and killed all the villagers of course) and was now waiting for the assimilation/captitol victory. He hit me when the timer was at about 2 minutes, with an army maybe 50% larger than mine. But i had 3 cards up my sleave.
[*] 1) I had a general, i don't think he did. This upgraded general gave 6 bonus armor to all my troops. i still had a large number of heavy cavalry and they had a total of 11 armor compared to his which only had 5. I also used this general to create decoys and send those at him so he would be firing at nothing while my units killed him.
[*] 2) I had 5 cannons at the back of my ranks ready to open up on whatever came my way. These really did some great splash dammage and helped me win the day. He did not have any cannon of his own.
[*] 3) About halfway through the battle my musketeers upgraded to Rifle Infantry. And right near the end my fusilars also upgraded to anti-tank rifles (though i never had enough oil to get my heavy cav upgraded).
Though in the end, at the
Last Defence i was able to win because of the above advantages. The capitol victory timer hit 0 and i won at ~28 minutes. This was an amazing game, and i have to complement Micro on his excelent exploitation of my mistakes (charging my artilery and building a navy to subdue my economy). In the end it was my exploition of his major flaw (neglecting to protect his capitol) that won the day. GG micro! I look forward to playing you again
Recorded Game File Here - Just place in your "recorded games" folder to run (not sure if it works with demo, anybody confirm? I know demo recordings don't work with retail...).
Also, i suggest you post this as a sticky for the new people to the forum that want to know how a game or RoN plays out. I spent 2 hours putting this together, hope you guys like it
I only missed some screenshots of your naval battles... It was not a huge confrontation, but it would have been interesting to see them. If the recorded game works with the demo, I'll be studying this for some time... 
Very much enjoyed reading that 
!
