Nobles Club III - Kulai Khan

TOKUGAWA!!! YAARGHHHH... I hate that bastard. Also, I think I saw the word "Wang", which would mean another Protective bastard. All we need is Sitting Bull to really help me in my domination attempt.

IT IS NOT ACCEPTABLE TO NOT HAVE KESHIKS IN THIS GAME! As you can see, I scouted around and found everyone. I plan on making 3 cities here, and DoWing England. We are going for the oracle, taking horseback riding (actually, I screwed up and made the oracle before CoL could be taken, so it was HBR lol), and then teching CoL. We are then going to quickly get our hands on currency and especially feudalism, to try to vassalize everyone ASAP. Let's see how this goes!

Oh, one more comical thing. Unlike of all you, MY wang kong had a 2900 BC barbarian uprising! GG Wang, you be dead .

We've begun our race against time (keshik obsolecence). We DoW'd England because she'd just hooked up iron. The next turn, Freddy decided he wanted to be on her side. Guessssss what? I still pillaged England's iron. To add insult to her injury, I noted the city next to the iron having exactly 1 archer defending it vs my combat 1 chariot, and no culture D. Nottingham is ours! A couple turns later, England takes peace and doesn't want it back! HAHAHAHA.

So Freddy get eaten instead. That's ok. We don't like his face anyway or something. We also during this phase saw ragnar declare on vicky. We'll leave them be. Between justinian and toku, I'd rather cripple the idiot tard. Onward...

I think I might have overexpanded perhaps...just a little here? Look at that slider! Ho man! WE ARE PITCHING A LOSS AT 0% of 40 GPT OH !@#$ OH !!#$. We have a cushion of some 500ish gold though, and we'll be getting a little more from that Justinian city over there. (yes, we cut through toku like a hot knife through butter, because he did not have feudalism, but then took peace to cripple justinian right before and as he was getting long bows). After I take that one, I'm taking peace. Vicky will go next. That is, if we can find a way to pay the bills...

Note that while this is considered a terrible thing to do (overexpand), in this context I seem to have really, really damaged the world techwise. There are still several civs without feudalism, and I'm actually on par techwise. My solution to this problem was, of course, to build wealth in EVERY SINGLE CITY I HAD, which gave me about 9 gpt at 0% . From there, any city without a courthouse gets one, then a market, while cities that have those things keep building wealth.

Better, IMO. That's slightly more than -40 GPT @ 0%. I decided to turn the slider off, overwhelming the world with mass #'s instead with knights. Honestly, I hate knights. They are the single worst mounted unit in the game for me. I rely heavily on withdrawals to have my troops survive. Knights? They just die. However, they might be more useful than keshiks. Maybe not. In future games, I'm seriously considering beelining military tradition, even if that takes considerably longer. Curies at least withdraw, and they're stronger too. Note, I had a LOT more knights than this in a few turns. I really, really wish one of the cities I took had the mids, because, well, I'd have gone US and that would have been really ugly. The world is still terrible in tech...wonder why! Toku doesn't have longbows yet! He IS, however, Ragnar's vassal. In this particular instance I've planned to attack Ragnar, because I don't want him stabbing me. In retrospect, that was probably a bad idea and unnecessary as it was a terrible, terrible fight for taking 2 cities and suing for peace. I took toku for myself (all of this happened really fast in after this turnset...really fast!)

What the hell is fly honey, and why is a jar of it leading mongolia? Wait no, it's leading Psi Rockin' ! We have a domination here. I took the easy way out, hitting justinian again with MASSED knights. He capped after 2 cities, and I finally had the land needed (i had the pop needed since like...1010 ad ). Who likes the final gold? I wanted to prove a point to all the people who say Khans have a bad economy . Khans can have a great economy in some situations!



Just in case anybody had a doubt how I played this game...

Basically, the challenge when doing this is not the AI civs, but keeping economy alive. I used every trick in the book other than razing. I burned golden ages to get courthouses up without strike. I ran merchants. I built wealth. I captured cities quickly for money, and at one point even pillaged freddy's land so as not to lose keshiks to strike (i was running -2 gpt at 0%). Ultimately, once cities have their commerce and a courthouse, they are less burdensome. Also, late in the game I built the FP near justinian's original capitol. That, my friends, was worth nearly 100gpt alone .


And the score! Little lower than I was hoping for in a game like this. Still, I had some setbacks. The Freddy DoW caught me off guard and forced me to waste about 5 turns switching to him. The complete, frustrating, STUPID refusals early by both toku and justinian really pissed me off. This could have been a 1300AD game or sooner if they'd capped, and I was way ahead of them. The game has a mechanic though, where if you lose more units than the AI at war it's much harder to cap them, and apparently I failed this test. Something about slamming keshiks into 60%+ defense? Nahhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

I think this does prove at least that Keshiks are in the same league as prats when it comes to stupid early conquest. Had I razzed a few more cities/played smarter/etc I'd have had less economic struggles and won even earlier...probably not even needing knights! Oh well, lesson learned!

I also learned in this game to bribe the AI out of slavery if at all possible (it loves whipping counter units, or anything it can). I think you can see the promotions, but if not most of them get flank, one gets medic, the rest get combat I/pinch or combat II. One gets sentry, too. Sentry is really good in war on 1 unit. On a hill you can see 3 squares in all directions!

It has been an interesting game, thats for sure. When I last left you, I had 12 Keshys ready to rumble, but who to hit first? Well, Wang was closest, but he had opened borders with me, and generously spread the religion from his Holy City capitol to 2 of my cities already. Nice fellow, I wanted to continue that. My main problem was a source of Copper for melee units to support my Horsey guys!

One of my roaming Warriors happened to be down in Beaver land to the far south, and he noticed that Freddy had a city down there that 1 tile away from Wang. Well, since I had open borders with Wang, I decided to use his land to launch my attacks, so Freddy was going to be my first victim. Around 1000 BC, someone else saves me somewhat, Vicky learns Alphabet, and trades it to me for HBR. This is pretty important, I never realized how much stock the AIs put in HBR, and I was able to instantly backfill a bunch of techs as my army was moving down south to hit Freddy from behind, including Ironworking, which I needed baddly. My tech rate was already pretty poor, my army was expensive, and I had 4 cities now (4th was shore between first two, with Clam, Rice, and Bananas, on the river).

Anyway, I get down to the tile next to Hamburg, and since I didnt have Open Borders with Freddy (I never contacted any AIs, and refused most requests for Open Borders. Why let them scout me out?) so I just attacked with my stack of Combat I, Flanking I (with a few Flanking II, no Combat) Horsey guys.

I gotta say, these things ROCK! Wow. I smoked Hamburg without losing one, had 2 withdraw. I kept the city, it had Copper in the BFC, and moved to Berlin. The movement of these things is a massive advantage. Berlin had 4 defending units, and I took it easily with only 1 loss, which also netted me Stonehenge. Freddys only remaining city was Munich, which was actually the closest to me, and had Iron, so I took it a couple turns later, and kept it. I left the wounded K's in each captured city, and sent the healthy ones back up toward my home, and suddenly I noticed my tech rate, LOL. -5 gold at 0%, 500+ turns for Construction! Uh oh!! I still have 10+ K's though, so as they heal (I promoted one to Medic I as well), I gathered them up quickly. The gold I got from Freddys cities was not going to last long. I traded some more techs, getting Med and Poly from Justinian, and making Vicky tribute Monotheism to me. I wanted the Anarchy, to be honest, so I went to OR, and then switched to Hindu the next turn. I was at 12 gold, and -15 a turn, when my army was finally ready to hit Wang.

I thought I would lose some K's here. He had 2 Pro upgraded archers in the city on the copper, and 2 more in his Cap. But man, I just walked all over him. He didnt build any spears, just axes and archers, so my army of K's, some Flanking II, Combat I, some Combat I, Shock I, Flankning I, and 2 with Medic instead of Shock, walked through Seoul as well, which had 5 units in it. No losses!!

The cash gave me a cushion, and I decided to give Wang peace for Preisthood. Now, here is the spoiler part. So far, there has been only 3 Wonders built in the whole world! It was almost 1 AD and only Stoney (German, now mine), Great Wall (mine, I was going to need the spypoints for stealing techs, I thought), and Great Lighthouse (Vicky) had been built! So I figured, why not have a go? I started the Oracle in my capitol at 65 BC, and work all the mines I can, and get it 11 turns later, in 40 AD!

Wow, I have never seen the Oracle go that late. I know why, as well. Ragnar was causing his usual trouble with his neighbors, and he was at war quite a while with Justinian and Vicky. War = no AIs to build Wonders. There is also no IND opponents, so future Wonders are well within range. I may even have a go at the Mids.

Vick had founded Confu already, in a border city close to me, but I took CoL from the Oracle anyway, for both Caste and Courthouses. I had tons of forests to chop in Freddy and Wang's cities (a big reason I kept them, actually, I knew I could jam out Courts when I managed to get CoL). Caste would allow me to run Merchants to keep my economy alive while I prepare to kill the rest of em.

At any rate, as this is going on, the 10 turns of peace expires with Wang, and I immediately re-DoW him, planning to try and get him to give me Monarchy for peace next, LOL. I am such a bully! As I was hitting him, though, Vicky and Ragnar made peace, and Vicky DOWed on ME!! I checked the Power ratings, she had nothing, I had 2 Archers in all my cities, at least, and was pretty high on pop in them all, so I whipped out another K in a couple cities, prepping to revolt into Caste, and went on about my business of stomping Wang. In the end, I decided to just put him away in back to back turns, and razed his 2 crappy cities in the Tundra, with the intention of settling them later myself, nice cash and happy resources down there.

So this is where I stand. Its 55 AD. I am in a fake war with Ragnar (to keep Justinian happy, mostly), and my army is headed toward Vicky. I have Courthouses going up in all cities ASAP, as my economy (and tech rate) are really in the toilet. I kept 3 German cities, and 2 Korean cities, and foolishly kept a Barb city I took up north (a mistake actually, they founded it on the gold, and I wanted to raze and re-settle 1S of the gold, for the Iron, Gold, Cows, and some grass for farms post-CS, I just clicked the stupid "keep city" too quick, my mind was occupied on Wang and Vicky).

Here are some screens of my empire. I have to say this is one of the funnest games I have played in a LONG TIME. To be honest, I find Pangaea maps the easiest to play, especially with CRE leaders. The AIs poor warring ability comes into play the strongest on these maps. Once I finish off VIcky, I will probably consolidate and get my economy back on its feet, as the tech level is approaching the point where Cats are going to be needed to weaken cities during war. I finished the Oracle in 40 AD, and just revolted into Caste System now. I know I am running about -20 gold at 0% slider, but should be able to catch up quickly, I have lots of workers chopping out Courthouses everywhere, and enough pop to run a few Merchants if needed)

My Empire, kept WAY to many cities, but Prince is forgiving with such things:



My current cap:



Probably moving my Cap here, and making my current cap my HE city:



Crappy barb city I kept by mistake. Normally, I would re-load and raze it, but I am working VERY HARD on my new "Zero Re-Load Policy" and Nobles Club (I play Prince) + LHC (I play these at Monarch, knowing I am isolated softens my mistakes, makes them less painful) are the perfect games to work on it



German Capitol, free Stonehenge rocks!



Korean Capitol, Hindu Holy City is sweet, hope I pop a Prophet for the Shrine soon, most of my empire is Hindu already:



The relations:



The tech situation, I am not too baddly off, trading HBR netted me more techs than I even thought it would, the AIs seem to love it:



My plan is to take at least 2 cities from Vicky, the Confu Holy city and Londen, where the GLH is. I am also building a Galley to explore those islands to the North and West of my cap, I can see a hut up there, and huts often give techs at this stage. I can shuttle workers, settlers, and Keshik over in a blink. I am hoping to get Monarchy from Vicky when I give her peace, but if I pop a GSpy, I may send him there and steal it. I need the happiness, my cities arent bad, my caps are 8-12 ish, so its not a HUGE priority, but I want growth now, big cities = big money once I get Currency and some key buildings up and tiles improved (especially cottages).

Promotions are something I am not strong at. I do see how your idea would have made my army much stonger. I am now actually giving most of them Flanking II as they promote, I just love not losing the unit that softens em up. My next GG is going on one of my medic K's I think, and will keep him a Keshik for a long time, probably right up until Cavalry, despite the free Knight promo. The movement thing really makes my army mega-fast, I was shocked and how quickly Fred and Wang fell, then didnt even have time to try and get a Spear up for defense.

Funny that, Seoul is founded in a different place for me. Still a nice holy city, though.

So me being the addict I am, I played out the Korean War with the intention of reloading/not-saving should I make some ill advised moves. I'm happy to say that I made none that I know of, and that Wang is no longer among us. I think he made a huge tactical error settling his second city away from the bronze. He had no strategic resources and only warriors to defend his cities. He all but forfeited his lands allowing my warriors to pillage. I normally don't pillage cities that I know I am going to keep, as it's just creating more work for my guys, but this had a purpose. I didn't really feel that I was ready for this war, even though I started it. The extra worker I captured to start the war helped greatly, but I was still 4 turns or so away from producing axes. So I pillaged and held the high ground, hoping Wang would be stupid enough for a counter attack.

He built a few more warriors, and then, as soon as my first axemen were approaching Seoul, he actually launched three of them in different directions from P'yongyang (wtf ai?) and I think one of his warriors left with a settler from Seoul (boggle). Or he ran off seeing my axes. Anyway, I took Seoul in two turns with just one axeman and some warriors covering him in case of a counter attack, and P'yongyang fell in a single swift stroke of the ax. I of course kept Seoul but P'yongyang, the accursed town whose existence started this war, burned.

So Wang is dead and the double holy city of Seoul is mine. Workers are now chopping the Oracle in Karakorum which I will likely use to take HBR? Not sure. HBR still is expensive to take, but there are more expensive techs out there, metal casing for one, math, alpha. I may follow Bleys and take HBR knowing that not only does it open Keshiks for me but the AI values it highly, making it good to backfill for fishing/sailing, hopefully, so that Kara can work her water tiles.

Any advice is welcome though, I'll finish the round tonight and post screenshots later.

Okay here we go!

tech order,

AGGR > MINING > ARCHERY(I hate building warriors) > B/WORKING > A/HUS > WRITING > POTTERY

build order in the capital

WORKER > WARRIOR > ARCHER > ARCHER > SETTLER > WORKER > SETTLER > BARRACKS


Started exploring got my first hut, a map , however this one kind of interesting as it showed me some of the land to the north of the capital.



Any way more exploring, I love it when the AI scout heal them selves even when theres a hut right next to them! got another map from that hut.



Met a few of the AI's Wang, Fredrick, Vickie, Toku. When I found toku and it looks like he didn't explore his own land too much , another hut.. Gold this time.



I have to say my scout has done remarkably well, he's defended against several animals and has just beat a warrior barb!



I might have to give him a name (any suggestions?) I wonder if he will last long enough to be upgraded to an explorer, oh yeah this is a pangea, don't really need explorers.

Met some more rivals Ragnar and Justinian (I think thats it now).

Anyway, After Bronze working was in I decided to settle for the copper, this also decided my forst victim, Wang! As I would be able to launch an attack on his capital. However once Animal husbandry was in I noticed horses to our east and...



Thats right wang has settled toward the horses. The white BFC marks where I wanted to put a city.

Wang must be destroyed...

So here is my plan, Copper is nearly hooked up, I'm going to switch to slavery and build/chop/whip an axe army to attack Wang. I have a settler waiting in my 2nd city to settle my horse city once I take out wangs 2nd city.

Here's a reminder,



Now the question is, do go for wang's capital first, or do I go for his second city? I want to take them both out, but keep the capital.

Cheers

Bye!

Just read your 2000BC report, I like that your writing your report with a little roleplay story line in there! I had the same problem with wang, he settle towards the horse, I settled toward the copper.

Yo Bleys! Letting the side down man! Where are the screenhots? I read your report up to the point where I am. Geeez! we all wanna kill wang!

You wanna kill wang too! this is great!

Turn 1:
Karakorum founded on the spot, scout moves to the SE.



Tech set to ag -> mining -> BW -> AH -> Archery -> HBR
build is worker -> warrior x2 -> settler (at pop 4)

I popped a hut for 32 gold, and met 2 VERY close victims, Freddy and Wang Kon. I'll move on Freddy first, the Wang when I have cats/jumbos. Met Vicky in 3400 BC.
Ragnar shows up in 2960, followed shortly after by Tokugawa in 2880.
Popped my only other hut for a warrior.

I drew the herbal medicine event and took 2 unhappy faces for 20 turns and the +2 . The population didn't decrease



2520 BC:
Our scout ends his turn right next to a bear... poor guy..



IBT:
Scout whacks the bear! Gets woodsman I.

Horses popped to our east, in the jungle. The city won't be so productive early, but it'll be a nice commerce site later.
The bare-map screen shows the planned location, settler is en route now, along with the worker. capital has another worker queued.



Archery comes in and HBR is started, worker finishes in the capital, start settler. In 2000 BC I revolt to slavery so we can crack the whip a little bit later on.

1920BC:

The settler in the capital is whipped for 2 pop, it builds a 1 turn archer for the new city and then starts a barracks (2 turns, with a chop), followed by archer -> worker.
Both new cities built barracks first.

1440 BC:
Freddy places this city..



That was most unwise of him. He has just cemented his fate as our first victim
HBR is due in 11 turns.

10 turns later, we meet the last AI leader, Justinian. HBR due in 1 turn. All three cities will be producing Gers -> military.

I stopped at turn 80 (875 BC), with Beshbalik and Karakorum finished with Gers (Beshbalik whipped away 2 pop, due to unhappiness) and Turfan close to it. Here's a look at the map and a a closer glance at my cities:









Don't know why I mined all those hills already, but I had the road to horses finished and had nothing better to do

The tech rate is abysmal, but I expect that to change, pottery will be in soon and cottages will help. Continued tonight, this game has me excited!

Good call, I rushed the first round a bit didn't think of that! Cheers

I wouldn't be too embarresed by the HBR, looks like I'll be hitting it later than you! That city of freddies, how annoying!

Your city placements are exactly similar to mine at 2000BC. P'yongyang, Seoul and my Beshbalik all in the same location. More spoilers ahead in the next block. I had to at least open with a bit of a roleplay, I mean it's Kublai Khan! If I'm going to play the villain, I'm going to BE the villain.

I took Seoul first. I did this because I thought P'yongyang was no threat. I parked a warrior on the forested hill to cut its production (I think, planting a unit on a tile prevents the enemy from working it, yes?) Seoul had two mines and a farm going and I carefully picked my away around the city to pillage them all with warriors. I also wasn't quite ready for my war with Korea so I was stalling for time to get axes online.

Your experience may differ, but Wang had no archers, spending all his time in the religion tree (he even had Monothesim, Seoul is the Jewish holy city as well), so my axes obliterated his warriors. I created exactly two axemen to take out both Seoul and P'yongyang, one for the each o' them. Easiest axe-rush evar.

Since Wang is placing his cities in the same location as he was for me, and he has at least founded Hinduism, this advice may also apply to you if you can catch him with his pants down. Good job at getting that settler ready though, I'm afraid that I need to move quick to claim the same city you've staked out by the horses.

So far I went Agr/mining/BW/RCH/Writing/HBR (in progress)

My scout did some very good job. I first popped a second scout, so the map revealed itself quite fast. My first scout got a hut promoting him to WoodsM II, and later on even Hill promotion (whatever its called). I met the civs: Fred, Wang, Vicky, Toku, Justinian and Ragnar. A popped map showed me Ragnar's land, nice. Justinian is Buddhist, and noone is Hindu yet! I'm not sure it's founded, maybe Justinian got both???


I went worker/warriorx3/ Settler/ archer/ barracks/settler/library in the capital. My first city was founded on the spices, near the copper, which I got online now, and connected to the capital too.

The second settler is on his way to the horses. Not sure where I'll settle him exactly.

Here is a screenshot of the lands right now. Grey seems like a good choice, pigs and river. But blue would take the gems which might be crucial to sustain early warring.
Green captures a lot of resources, but it would require a long road to connect and I want my Keschiks soon.




As for warring plans, I think I'll go for Fred first. He has jumbos now, so I want to kill him before he has construction (elephants would hurt my keshiks bad). Wang is protective, so I might need some cats, or at least better promoted keshiks.

As for diplomacy, the good thing is that the two targets on my south didn't meet everyone yet, so it's better to take them out early I reckon.
I need to become friendly with one of the aggressives. Toku is closer, but it's hard to become friends with him. Maybe a war with him against Vicky could help later on? Ragnar is also an option, but he's further away. If Ragnar declares on Toku, I'll help him a bit NOTE: I didn't open borders with anyone just yet, I want to be careful with the diplomacy this time.

In general, my biggest fear is Justinian, he's on the other side of the map, and already leading in score, it seems he has a lot of land to grow. But that's for later.

WOW. I am doing well and not well at the same time. It's 350BC and I've taken out Fred and Wang. *people giggle* I settled besh to grab the copper. I have 6-7 cities, but I AM BLEEDING CASH. My troops went on strike, and now I need serious help.

I had the same problem Krick. I also took out Fred and Wang pretty quickly, and due to minimal losses, and keeping their cities, I ended up with a significant deficit. Here is how I have managed to get it turned around.

First off, you need CoL. Courthouses are a must, chop em, whip em, whatever it takes, as well as Caste System ASAP to run some Merchants. I hope you have put up at least a smattering of cottages in your cities. If so, go city by city and swap to commerce tiles. Also, now is the time to delete those old Warriors and Scouts from the early game. I was on the brink of STRIKE since I took out Wang, but now, I have managed to get my slider up to 40%, and built the Mids in Seoul (all those forests are gone, heh), and am getting a reasonable tech rate under Rep, since Merchants also give 3 beakers.

In addition, you can just keep the war going. Head up and declare on Toku. Use the Keshiks to go on a pillaging rampage, and take a city here and there for more cash. Constant warfare is the one sure-fire method to keep a Warmonger Economy alive, heh.

Other than that, your only other course of action is to gift cities or delete a LOT of units. Make sure all your units are in your own cultural borders. Good luck! My next update soon, I was on the very EDGE of disaster myself, LOL.

I would probably settle on the white dot even though there is a little over lap, green dot is good aswell however without fresh water it might be a bit in the jungle for a while.

Your plan to take freddie first seems to be sound.!

Well I attaked wang's 2nd city first, so I could claim the horses, then wussed out and sued for peace. Tried to take his capital later and although successful it wiped out my entire army. then fred declared on me and I'm not doing very well. I guess I'm just not used to such a war heavy game

Atleast you still have an army to go on strike!

First thing I thought when I saw this start was "ewwwwww" hehe. I HATE having cities with parts of their BFC across water ESPECIALLY if they have resources. For SOME reason the game wont let you hook them up unless they conected to city on the other landmass fist so it will be LONG time before those sugars every really do whole empire any good :/. Pluss ALL those hils with only ONE food source and NO irrgationable grasslands means capitol gonna be VERY small for LONG time grrrr.

But I didnt want to waste turns trying to move settler over ALL those %^*&&^*&^ hills and at LEAST most were forrested for chopping --though that DOES pretty much mean NO new reasources gonna be poppoing up later to help out :/--so I settled in place.

I went worker first while teching AH then AG then Mining and BW. my scout got just one SINGLE goodyhut but it gave me mysticism. I noticed wang and freddy very very close by. So I guess they will be first victims.

After BW I teched masonry to go for the marble I noticed nearby AND to try and get GW. NOT to stop barbies this but because I knew if I go all out war on wang and freddy I would fall behind techwise BIGtime and great spy will come in handy. I also managed to chop Oracle in my second city I used to grab the copper near wang. I did it 1) to make sure wangs capitol couldnt take over the copper culture wise and 2) so I could pick HBR for free tech and then start working on getting Keshiks.

After I had nice stack I dow on Wang and went for his capitol. Stupid wang has bronze in his BFC so THAT got pillaged asap hehe. I lost 3 Keshisk to suicide on wangs cap city since NONE of them retreated but I still took the city. Meanwhile I guess wang asked freddy for help since he DoW on me right after I took wangs Cap.

But freddy isnt in much better shape than wnag is and YEAH I mean freedy is in not much better shape than wang right NOW with wang losing his cap so that shows how weak freddy is on the graph hehe.

he sent one tiny stack to try and take back wangs old cap and even with NO cultural defense he lost entire stack attacking my stack while it was healing up in wangs cap and I didnt lose anybody.

Wang looks to only have one city MAYbe two left so my next target was one of Freddys that was near my borders. Freddy also has Iron and I dont so I WANT that iron hehe so that will be my biggest priorty ATM. Unfortunately Wang wont cough up any techs for peace so we are still at war while I am looking after freddy.

After taking out the city of Freddys this time with no losses since my Keshiks retreated like they should this time hehe. I decided to take break and thats where I am at this point.

Techwise I just finished Hed Rule and am working to CoL for courthouses which I will spam ASAP as soon as its done to help with costs now that my empire is getting a lil bigger and even more so once I am done with freddy and wang hehe

Upkeep might end up being an issue soon since I have founded like 4 or five cities on my own and am now taking over two lil empires and am building a big military as well. But tt least happiness isnt a big issue. I have jumbos, boost from HR and wangs cap has wines and last city I founded on my own has gems. Plus Hinduism has spread to a few of my cities so they can build temples when needed. so all of that should make happiness a non issue for time being.

As soon a smy great spy pops I will need to pick a civ to send him to. Probably Justinian or Vicky since I doubt Toku will be much help as a tech slave and I am trying to stay on Rag's goodside until i am ready to deal with him. That main reason i havent officially switched to hinduism. Rag hasnt taken on a religion yet and will wait to see where he goes before i decide.

Well I finished off Wang and kicked freedy off the continent. He managed to get at least one city on an island and since I have zero galleys He is alive for now but I DID manage to get Mono from him for peace

And like I thought my economy went downhill grrrrrr. I had to set my slider down to zero for awhile. My great spy finally popped though and got alphabet from a trade with ragnor so I had my cap make s spies while I sent great one to go visit vicky.

Vicky was waaay ahead in teach. I stole Civil Service, Currency, Meditation and Calander. CS and Currency and calendar were VERY exopensive so by end med was all I could afford. I SHOULD have had spy wait but i alsways worry about them getting kicked so I would steal on very first turns hehe.

After I got markets and courthouses spammed to my cities things looked a LIL better but not great. Also I sold HBR around for math and for gold which also helped. I moved my capitol to a better city more centered in my empire and THAT helped lots. So slowly but sureley my ecopnmy is getting a LITTLE better. But Vicky is still like 4 techs ahead plus she built AP.

Luckily though I noticed she was building and I had ONE city with her religion Judiasm. So first I switched to buracacy and OR and then 4 turns later to judaism and had my one jewish start on missionary and then sent him to cap which had better production and had it spam missionaries. I didnt get it all done in time to win election but now every one of my cities have judasim so I can control any votes that come up And SHOULD win the next vote for control of AP.

Also during all this a great prophet popped in city that built oracle so my hindo holy city I took from wang now has shrine and that helping econmy a little too.

But now I am at decison point which is WHEN to attack vicky. She is still ahead in important teachs like I traded CS to justinian for fuedualism and teched MC and machinary and now working to guilds BUT Vicky already has guilds and FAST going on engineering and will have it b4 I get guilds. I AM upgrading my axes and sowrds to maces as fast as I can but its going slow. I lowered the slider for more gold per turn but that means even slower to guilds. But hopefully it will mean big stack of maces and then I will just build cats and plan know is wonce I get a TON of cats and all my macemen upgraded just get a few spies and try to take London (the ap city) and then York (the jewish holy city) and then see if Vicky will give techs for peace and then try to get a lil better economy going with the grocers.

If THAT all works out THEN there is a way I might be able to get AP vicorty since freddy is ONLY civ not to have Judiasm. And that is build gallyes and tvassalize him THEN vassalize Toku who been begging to be my vassal for years now but I keep saying o since he is at war with ragnor and dont want to get drawn into THAT mess yet But if I can vassalize Toku that COULD be enough votes to get me AP win. Or at very least put me in good position for domination win later. But first I REALLY need to deal with vicky and her &*&*((&* tech lead hehe.

Ok I couldnt sleep until I had sitch with Vicky all settled so I played a little more gearing up for a war to take london and ypork and try to vassalize for techs afterwards.

She had engineering so I KNEW she would have castles with longbowmen and maces and trebs and cats and pikes which was a lil higher tech than me so my plan was this. Make knights and upgrade what keshiks I have left to knights and also make a few war eles then make some knights and set the slider down so I could upgrade as many as my axes as I could to maces. Now I KNOW cats arent good with castles so I also had a city pumping spies hehe.

Plan was this. Have jumbos do the pike duties to protect stacks form her knights when out in open and then use spies to send city in revolt and then suicide cats to soften defenders enough for Knights and maces and even axes I could upgrade yet to take the cities. So with that in mind while I was busy getting ready I set the ep slider ALL on vicky.

I was HOPING using my quantity over her tech quality would be enough to get me London and York and some techs and maybe a vassal. But THAT plan didnt EXACTLY work out that way.

Here is where plan didnt QUITE work out. I didnt vassalize Vicky and didnt get any techs off of her. I ended up wiping her out instead hehe.

She didnt even build trebs or pikes. she did have longobws and maces BUT turns out even though she was teching ahead of EVERYBODY she was only doing it with FOUR cities. So After I took out london that was IT for her military pretty much. She never even TRIED to counter attack. The closest she came to scaring me was outside one of my coastal cities that had some fishing boats working I saw a caravel of hers passed by. so I figured I was gonna have to live with her pillage my coast till it was over since I dont have optics yet. But she didnt even do that. The caraval just sailed off hehe.

Spies taking down cities worked like charm. Half of em ended up getting caught before tthey even got to cities but I built a few of em so always at least 3 or four made it and of those one would ALWAYS get caught before main stack got close but that still means two were left hehe.

After I suicided half my cats just on london cuz it had about a dozen defenders but after that I was already getting greedy hehe so I only scarificed two or 3 on the other cites so I could make sure I had enough cats to get more than just the two cities I planned on at first. and since those cities didnt get softened up as much I ended up losing 2 knights plus I also lost a ele I had sent off to deal with some knights that were trapped on other side of my borders. But that was it for loses as for gains here is tally:

London which has Stonehenge, GLH, Colossus, Patrhenon, Shede Papaya or whatever that one wonder is and AP

York which has Hanging Gardens, Statue of zeus, PLUS it Holy city of judiasm the AP religion and it has temple of solomon shrine PLUS its also christian holy city and it has shrine for that religion too

Plus the two other cities she had one of which has incense I resource I didnt have and I got a GG too.

I also managed to capture 5 or 6 workers.

Not too mention I also eleminated my most advanced rival and for added little bonus she got the world is proved round prise but now that she dead it means all navies are equal again (well as eaual as navies can be with ragnor on the map and his UB) not that it should mean THAT much on pangea hehe.

Not TOO bad a payoff for 2 knights and an ele hehe

And while I was at war I had my knew capitol build Great Library which NOBODY even started yet hehe. and I also teched banking and got a great merchant pop out of a city I didnt even KNOW was running a merchant specialist hehe. And he bulbed paper which nobody else has yet so now old cap has univ of sank on its to do list.

So with all that plus owning holy cities for 4 religons 3 of which have shrines plus GL and hopefully Univ of Sank and banks able to be built. My economy SHOULD get back on track pluss I THINK I am right back in Lib race now

So outlook is a lil brighter now. I am going from barely even able to afford my empire to not now being twice as big as nearest rival, Justinian, AND being able to afford it and able to get an economy going that SHOULD put me in tech lead soon

I am not EXACTLY sure what next step will be BUT Freddy is STILL all alone on those islands he snuck off too AND I have been building a few galleys to get to him so it would be shame to let em go to waste hehe