A sword came across an Indian city in the jungle guarded by only a single warrior, and promptly dispatched it.
I soon at long last finish Writing at minimum science, and start on Literature at maximum science (70%, with 30% luxury tax.) I had saved up a couple hundred gold to power deficit research now.
Thermopylae is going to be the place to build the Great Library. It's my only large city with any good number of shields besides Athens. Washington has some but suffers second-ring corruption, Sparta is working mostly water tiles, and Athens can't prebuild with the Palace, so Thermopylae it is.
A short time later, Rome becomes mine. The attack involved several elite swords but no Great Leader.
I bypassed Veii, planning to wait until it became the Roman capital and expanded borders so I'd get to keep the city instead of autorazing it.
I decide it's time that Athens flex its muscles as a city, since with the Pyramids in hand any city can produce settlers and workers when needed. I let Athens grow, and starting at size 8, it can swing exactly 15 shields for a swordsman every two turns. Very nice.
Literature comes in 900 BC, and Thermopylae switches to the Great Library, due in 34 turns. I next research Map Making, Mathematics, and Construction. These techs, with our cheap libraries (many were whipped), are coming in at a good clip of 8-10 turns each.
It's also become clear by now how to capture cities: use four swords. Every city I've captured had exactly two spears and sometimes an archer - I never saw a city with three spears. So, I've been sending out my swords basically in packs of four, which is always enough to take such a city. Usually, one dies, and the other three take a few turns to heal and suppress the resistance. During that time, a hoplite to guard the city and a replacement sword arrive from the home cities, and the swordsmen set out again.
One wolf pack of swords went down the western coast, and finally found some English cities. York was autorazed in 800 BC. Another pack saw that Veii's borders as the Roman capital had now expanded, and captured it. That was fortuitous timing, since Rome (civ) had an archer approaching Rome (city), which I had accidentally left undefended, but capturing Veii made Rome respawn which eliminated that archer.
Another short time later, the Elizabethan Swords Company popped my second leader.
I have a few turns to decide what to do with him while he makes his way back home over the miles of mountains. But it's fairly obvious that the Forbidden Palace is the only choice. The best spot to do so is in Pharsalos, which is three rings out from Athens and just about centralized in the north half of the continent.
While the Leader's moving over there, my other pack of swords captures New York. That didn't yet eliminate America, though - they had another city north of it. The American Swords Company keeps moving that way.
Meanwhile, Beijing completes the Colossus at the late date of 730 BC, and F11 shows it at only size 4 still? I guess they got a low-food start...
Meanwhile again:
I finally got enough swords up to London (England had found some iron and was building swords that killed a few of mine) and captured the city. Wow, that's one terrible start - only ONE two-food square within the city radius? And the city isn't even on the coast? Well, I plan to disband the city by building a settler to at least move it to the coast. If Greece had started from here, I shudder to think at how brutal the game would've gotten for us. Probably worse than Epic Twelve...
London was connected by road in 290 BC, at which I claim Three Types of Luxury Connected.
A very short time later, the American Swords Company has reached the next stop on its tour, Boston, and autorazes it. I considered waiting for it to expand borders to keep the city, but I wanted to try for the points for Fastest to Eliminate an AI. The Roman Swords Company had dispersed across the southern tundra area, trying to keep most of it in view to keep the area off-limits for America to respawn in.
I claim AI Eliminated (Not Respawned) in 390 BC. While the American Swords Company reorganizes as the Zulu Fencing Team, the English follow suit very shortly later.
