Also finished it, somewhere around 290AD. Before a brief description of the game: the war vs the Germans was such a disaster I decided to quit at that point and reload a pre-war sav
. So the year of finish counts for nothing basically, just wanted to reward KR's efforts by making Wooden Shoes.
The inital idea of the German war was to take Berlin, Frankfurt (with a Harbor) and Nuremburg in the first turn and immed. start building GL. Although each city was attacked with more than double the number of defenders none of the Horse stacks managed to make it thru and a lot of units were lost and a lot of red-lined units in each of the three German cities.
After the reload I decided to send the whole Horsie stack to Berlin, conquer it and try to hold it until peace. Which was successfull. (The attack was not in the same turn as the first one so different RNG).
As in Plux' game the Portugese attacked me as well, the whipped Swordie stack on the isthmus mountains was strong enough to hold position until the peace treaty.
Agree with Plux that the approach to Berlin is the key-part in this game. Building up sufficient troops needs a lot of time. Would have been even more of a challenge if that Oasis had been in enemy terrain and the Mausoleum of Wooden Shoes a mid MA wonder. Still enjoyed it a lot and looking forward for KoD6!