Round 7: to 1921 AD
Zombie69 is right: micro-management is indeed alive and well in Civ IV. Just try fighting a war late in the game. My citizens aren't the only ones suffering from war weariness.
The true warmongers among you will no doubt be rolling your eyes over this, but I took a few turns of peacetime to build my civ up a bit for the next war. I resolved to make fewer sloppy civics changes in this round, but once I finished researching Constitution, I did make one recommended change, to Representation:
I stayed with Slavery; the whip turned out to be very useful.
I built theatres, and some monasteries before Scientific Method made them obsolete. Isabella put so much work into founding all those religions for me, I felt obliged to preserve and spread them. Especially since she built all the gold-generating shrines too. Yes, all of them. Only Buddhism doesn't have a shrine. Genghis may get around to it, maybe not. Speaking of which, I also had Paris build a couple of Galleons and several missionaries, all of which went to Mongol. This would help the holy cities, which were building banks and other commerce multipliers.
I also built units. Cannon mostly, also some Cavalry and some Riflemen. Some Rifles got City Raider promotions, others got more aggressive Combat I and II or Pinch.
As suggested, once I had Democracy, I lowered the research slider to 0% for a few turns to generate $$$ for upgrades. I was actually still doing respectable research (Democracy, then Steam Power, in 11 turns each IIRC) thanks to all the science specialists I was running thanks to Mercantilism, and the extra flasks from Representation to boot. I spent almost every coin; I had so many borders shared with Persia that I was paranoid about where a counter-attack might come from, so I upgraded almost every single unit I had!
Finally, after about 15 turns of peace, in 1834 I felt ready.
Two stacks were on the borders of Persia. The bigger one went east to Bactra:
The smaller one went west, its target the Christian holy city of Aver:
Just seeing my poor, pressured indigo borders expand after each city fell was worth it. I claimed several lucrative, well-developed cottage tiles and some valuable resources in the process. I was able to cancel one or two trade deals with Huayna and Genghis, doing a little harm to them in the process, I should hope.
The smaller stack linked up with some units protecting Osaka and took Samaria, the oceanside desert town to its northwest, and then I no longer had to worry about my left flank. Then most of the units turned around to join their comrades in the heart of Persia. The main stack was heading steadily south, taking one Persian city after another. One problem I encountered as I conquered the central Persian cities was cultural pressure from the Incan empire; more on that later.
Meanwhile, Cyrus counter-attacked. Strangely, he did not attack the lucrative (but admittedly well-fortified) border city of Seville. Instead, he focused his efforts well away from my main force, on the Islamic holy city of Santiago:
Now, Santiago is built on a hill, and I had upgraded all its units to either Grenadiers or Rifles. The sole exception was a Combat I/Medic I Musketeer. That's a lesson I've now learned: do NOT promote the medic unit, or it will get selected to defend and might get killed. The Musketeer survived, the only one to do so--the others died in an unsuccessful attempt to pillage Cyrus' horses. Almost all of Santiago's city defenders also lived to fight another day, some with hard-earned promotions. I can't say the same for all the Cavalry Cyrus kept throwing at them.
Meanwhile, Tours had finished building the Ironworks, my workers were converting its farms to watermills and workshops, and it became a pretty good production powerhouse. After Ironworks, it completed its first wonder:
It's very interesting to have the SoL built while you're still running Mercantilism and get not one but
two free specialists in every city.
Now, the cool thing about taking Cyrus' cities is that almost every one of them contained a Wonder, so as I conquered, my civ was reaping all sorts of benefits. Arbela contains the Hagia Sophia, Versailles, and the Sistine Chapel, while Parsagdae has the Pyramids. There may be others I've forgotten.
Promoted Grenadiers with City Raider III are just AWESOME against Riflemen, by the way.
The strange thing is I now have access to all the government civics, so the Pyramids are not such a prize anymore. Good thing, too...
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
I was doing quite well financially despite the war, so I was able to raise the slider back to a remarkably high level for wartime: 70%. War booty, lots of mature cottages, shrines, and commerce multipliers are lovely things. Besides researching Fascism and building Mt. Rushmore (which did help a LOT with the war weariness and was worth it), I also researched Communism. Time for one more quick civics change to turbo-charge Tours in particular:
The State Property civic also helped reduce maintenance costs in my increasingly large and far-flung empire. Fortunately, several of the conquered cities had courthouses. The ones that didn't had them whipped. I TOLD you I was still getting my money's worth from Slavery. I should also mention that shortly after this I built the Kremlin in Paris and Scotland Yard in Kyoto. Forbidden Palace is in Madrid; I have not moved the capital from Paris just yet.
Seeing as how I'm bent on domination, my next Wonder was obvious:
And yes, I now had Infantry and was churning them out, and upgrading some of my best Rifles and Grenadiers as well.
However, not all went according to plan. Inca's long-established culture in the area took its toll:
Good thing, as I said, that the Pyramids are increasingly irrelevant. I also saw that Gordium would be equally hard to hold on to and gifted it to Huayna. I focused several units in Arbela instead; I didn't want to loose that city's wonders if I could avoid it. It has now become the designated rally point for the future invasion of the Incan empire. That's a LOT of units; no way that place should revolt.
Finally, in the frozen southern wastes, in 1918 AD, Persia's dreams of glory came to a bitterly cold end:
Aside from two separate strips of territory, France now owns the vast majority of the planet's largest continent. I now have 49.56% of the world's population and need 54% (currently) to win; and 54.38% of the land area out of the needed 64%. Conquering just one half or the other of the Incan Empire would probably give me what I need.
Huayna now has Cavalry, Rifles, and Cannon, so I have just finished researching Industrialism. I'll be coming at him with Marines and TANKS. Oh, yes.
But before I get to the final conflict, I have indulged in one more BIG civics change:
I don't think a later change to Police State will be required. As during the Persian conflict, I'll deal with war weariness through use of the culture slider.
Looking back, it was a tough slog and felt like it took a little too long. I think the earlier suggestion to go after Cyrus before Isabella would have been the better path. Heck, Isabella probably could have even waited until after Huayna. Oh well, play and learn--that's what the ALCs are all about.
Now I could go after Huayna next, and with that ugly orange gunk of his pressing against my lovely new cities, it's tempting. I could also go after Genghis, who is a little more backward than Huayna and a safe distance from my core cities. (By the way, Huayna has a little Incan city on the other continent, no doubt founded when a little space opened up after the fall of Egypt. The cheek of it!)
Hmmm... I think Huayna is the better target. Like Cyrus, he could pillage and even threaten some of my cities just because I now have so many to protect, but I think taking him will be the quicker win at this point: my existing cities will quickly claim that territory as Incan cities fall. Plus I don't have to build and invasion fleet and spend several turns getting them to the battlefield. I just want to take a few turns to load up with Tanks and then blow him to kingdom come.
Heh.
Heh heh heh.
Ha HA HA HA HA!!
BWWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Thoughts?
)
instead of 10 for the 
