This is your Spoiler thread for end-of-game discussions on your games.

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Your summary should include the milestones in the development of your economy, civics, wars and diplomatic relationships, and the final result.

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Previous Spoiler is here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4620230&postcount=7

We first made contact with the other continent in 695 AD when Bismarck's culture touched Kyoto's and met the rest rapidly after that. We were up Civil Service on all the AI's and up Philosophy (which we lightbulbed with a Great Scientist) from all but one. Using those 2 techs, we were able to trade for 12 techs, including machinery, compass, and optics. Our new Samurai longed to avenge the death of Tokugowa's brother, but before that could happen we had to research Astronomy. In the meantime, we had a little business to take care of. The first item was getting the circumnavigation bonus, which we got in 1154 AD. The second was finishing off the closest of the assassins, Isabella.

The anti-Spanish Inquisition
We had decided to wait on Spain until close to the time we had Astro so her cities wouldn't be bogging down our research. She wasn't going anywhere. We declared on her in 1154 and our Samurai began to march north into her lands. Our Samurai cut through Spain like a hot knife through butter, capturing 4 cities. The crown jewel was Madrid, which had the Pyramids, the Parthenon, an Academy, and Chitchen Itza. Unfortunately, just as suspected, those cities were weighing down our research on Astro. Also, we had accidentally captured one incredibly crappy city from Isabella. We could knock Isabella out for good at any point, so we chose to make peace and gift the crappy city back to her. Ten turns later, the Samurai came knocking again and Isabella paid for her treachery in 1292 AD.


Japanese forces proudly march through Spain.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/50839/SSS2-0.jpg

Final Preparations
During our war with Isabella, our economy had really taken a nose-dive and by the time of the cease-fire, we were over 50 turns from Astronomy. We swapped to Organized Religion and spent 15 turns building courthouses, markets, granaries, forges, and barracks where they were needed. We also started the Forbidden Palace in Kyoto and later the Globe Theater in Madrid. All of this building activity was spurred on by a hefty dose of whipping and forest chopping. The results were stunning and we finished Astronomy in 1298 AD. Along the way, we had also picked up Paper, Engineering, and Guilds. It was now time to set our sights on the AI continent and avenge our brother.


The AI continent sleeps peacefully, blissfully unaware of the maelstrom that awaits them.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/50839/SSS2-1.jpg

The invasion begins!
After Astronomy finished, we changed Civics to Police State and Theocracy and began pumping out galleons, samurai, and catapults. We decided to attack Hetshepsut first because she was near the top technologically. Also, she was the founder of Hinduism and had the Shrine in Memphis which would bring in a great deal of gold from all the Hindu cities on the map. We decided to get a little help getting the ball rolling, so we bribed Bismarck (with Astro) into declaring on Hatshepsut just before we attacked. Six galleons of Japanese troops landed next to Memphis in 1382 AD. Our forces easily captured Memphis and Thebes. At this point we had taken the heart of the Egyptian empire and the rest was ours for the taking. Our Samurai longed to sate their bloodlust, but we had what we wanted: a foothold on the new continent, a holy city that was bringing in 71gpt, and one AI that would never be a threat to us again. Hatshepsut could wait. Mao and Kublai Khan were the tech leaders at this point and the greatest danger to reach either cavalry or grenadiers, so we chose to leave the southern half of Egypt until later. We made peace in 1418 and our forces marched onwards.

In 1436, we declared war on China and landed forces next to Beijing. We quickly took the city as well as two other Chinese cities and razed the rest. We had some debate about whether or not to keep Shanghai. It had furs, but was a pretty poor city overall. We ultimately decided to keep it, which was fortunate. It had the Sistine Chapel, which answered the question of how to expand the borders of captured cities without wasting turns building theaters. Mao had one city left on the western island which we weren't in position to take any time soon, so we made peace in 1514 AD, leaving Mao in exile. During this time, we decided to keep researching through Chemistry. We took a bit of a strange route, researching Education (with the help of a GS), Liberalism, and PP as a free tech. We were able to trade those techs for banking, economics, and gunpowder, then researched Chemistry by hand. We finished Chem. in 1529 AD and shut off research for good.


Egypt and China are crippled and our Samurai prepare to roll onwards towards the next foe.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/50839/SSS2-2.jpg

Picking Up Momentum
With Mao out of the way, our forces continued westward towards Kublai Khan, probably the greatest threat left. In the meantime, our main continent was building Samurai which would be promoted to City Raider 2 and upgraded to grenadiers and our newly captured cities were spamming out catapults and galleons. Reinforcements would take a galleon to Memphis, cross over to Thebes by land, and then take another Galleon to Shanghai to join the fight. Since 80% of the AI cities were coastal, we built a lot of galleons during this game, 37 by the end.

We started the assault against Kublai Khan in 1526 AD using 2 stacks, one moving along the outer seacoast by galleon and another moving along the inner sea by galleon. We quickly seized Beshbalik, which gave us the Great Lighthouse and a big boost to our economy. KK gave us a few decent counterattacks, but we were able to sustain our momentum and move through his empire quickly. All along the way, our armies were growing larger and picking up more and more grenadiers to really pack a punch. We destroyed the last Mongolian city in 1562 AD. We also took the opportunity to pay Mao's island city a visit and destroyed the Chinese in 1562 AD. Three assassins down, four four to go.

Kublai Khan and Mao are destroyed. Our forces gather for an attack on Mansa Musa, while in the east galleons of Japanese stand ready to deliver the death blow to Egypt.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/50839/SSS2-3.jpg

The juggernaut rolls on!
At this point in the game, we were unstoppable. We had twice the military might of any AI on the Globe. With plenty of troops in the west, we opened a second front in the east. All of our cities entered a final spasm of furious population whipping to produce those last troops and galleons needed to conquer the world. We redeclared on Hetshepsut in 1568 AD and declared war with Huayna Capac on the same turn. We had at least 4 stacks moving towards each other along the outer coast and the inland sea. We quickly cut through both civs, finishing Egypt in 1586 AD. Our eastern forces continued the fight, declaring on Bismarck in 1592 AD.


Two great armies of Samurai and grenadiers stand ready to close the jaws on Germany and Mali.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/50839/SSS2-4.jpg

Revenge is ours!
In the west, we declared on Mansa while some our our troops were making an overland trek to HC's inland cities. Our two great armies slowly closed the pincers, finishing the Inca in 1601 AD. We finished both Bismarck and Mansa Musa on the same turn in 1619 AD. Berlin was the last city to fall and our victorious samurai and grenadiers savored the sweet, sweet taste of victory. Our brother has been avenged!


The jaws snap shut, crushing the final AIs in the middle.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/50839/SSS2-5.jpg

The great general Ishimoto surveys the newly conquered lands just before the Japanese forces head off for retirement on a tropical island.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/50839/SSS2-6.jpg

Final Thoughts
We acheived conquest in 1622 AD. Overall, we were quite pleased with this result, though it does look like we'll miss a laurel by 1 or 2 spots. We enjoyed the game and found it quite challenging at times. Thanks to AlanH and Gyathaar for putting this together. We look forward to seeing you all again come SGOTM03.

Thanks,

Team Short Straw
ungy
Danthor
Lmtoops
Mushroomshirt
RobertTheBruce
Grogs
llib_rm

Team: Murky Water's; Murky, Big Pig, cas, nfora, johnpaulcain and Mîtiu Ioan

This was one of those starts where what you do the first few turns can lead to glorious victory or disasterous defeat. In hindsight, had we explored NE first instead of SW, we probably would have finished much sooner. At times, we thought the game was surely lost. For much of the game, we were behind in techs. We would eventually come back to win in 1994 using modern era units to blitz through the AI's terrorities.

http://img300.imageshack.us/img300/3884/civ4screenshot0002dg6.jpg

Our initial exploration went SW, then SE, then NE then back to where almost everyone else settled Osaka.

The delay meant that we were more vulnerable to raging barbs so we decided on a more defensive position.

http://img300.imageshack.us/img300/6011/civ4screenshot0001mx3.jpg

We somehow managed to fight off the barbarians and established a stronger position.

We declared war on spain in 515 AD.

http://img300.imageshack.us/img300/2812/civ4screenshot0026rk7.jpg

The war was concluded in 1238 AD with the destruction of the Spanish Empire.

Throughout the rest of the game, we had to fight to hang on to what we had. Our primary mission was to gain some sort of advantage over the AIs on the super continent surrounding our Island cities.

It wasn't until we completed The Internet that the tide finally turned to our favor. Even then, it took dogged determination to prevent the AIs from launching their space ships. We did finally win by conquest in 1994.