King of the World #7: Saladin

Take Europe. Take Spain. Take the three Shrines. Hope she adds a fourth. If not, add it yourself.

Take a chinese city or two if you want, but the Iberian peninsula is the prize here. Use the shrines on it to fund upgrades to gunpowder units and shoot Caesar in the face. You now have Spain and Italy. Use them as attack vectors to Germany.

China has to be contained atleast. It is weak now, surely, but look at China: huge empire, wiht lots of land ( surely they had a bumpy start.... uprise or bad barb luck maybe? GK seems to be the usual jerk and then unable to stop QSH ( a human can easily chariot rush QSH , but the AI is not made to think in early rushes ) ..... ). It is a matter of time until they recover, so nabbing atleast until South china is vital to avoid future troubles when you move against Europe.

And Izzy is surely a target.

You may need to consider your economy at some point. Expansion costs money. Some of the AIs are beginning to get a tech lead on you. You've got three very nice floodplain cities (Aswan, Cairo and Basra) so its worth developing them further, maybe even think about some academies.

Take out Alex, and btw have u figured out why JC is so strong? Only 3 cities? After Alex go after JC, youll be swamped by German Culture but o well, you can always take them out later. China is a bit far away, cost will be too high while europe is right on your doorstep

A crazy round, with pitched battles in exotic locales ranging from the steaming jungles of Malaysia to the lush mountains of the Aegean.

I started by taking a couple of hundred gold from Hattie in exchange for peace. She can always be smashed later, and the last thing I need is for her to vassalize to someone, bringing in a war ally against me when my attention is focused on the East.

I also founded a vanity city in East Africa:



I'll admit it. My primary motivation was to connect Nairobi's borders to the rest of the empire. Mogadishu's not a total trainwreck, though. It's got food and some production.

Shortly thereafter, I backstabbed one of my few remaining friends:



Oddly enough, Mansa Musa was something of a pariah in this game, so I couldn't afford to keep defending him in arguments with other world leaders. It was a fake war, though, through which Mansa remained Pleased with me. That made me feel kinda bad. I was his only real friend! But soon enough he capitulated to Russia and everything was back to normal.

I also created my third hero unit:



We've got a Healer Camel Archer, a City Raider Maceman, and now we have a Mobility master. He's great for "collateral damaging" the top defender in a stack. He'll have like 20% to win, but then 70% to withdraw. Very handy to have around!

Here you can see our stack lining up against the city of Xian:



Let me just say, I love the "hedgehog formation" of trebuchets on a hill. It's very OGRE (for those of you old enough to catch the reference). You can also see that the people of Mali have knelt at the feet of the Great Bear.

The Chinese city fell, of course:



Not much of a haul, but it should be a great chokepoint city. In fact, it has already withstood several attacks by armies of Chinese Horse Archers, War Elephants, and Catapults (and, oddly, nothing else).

Before that, though, Balthasar Gerard issued in a Golden Age of assassination and skullduggery:



It's too bad the Dutch aren't on this map.

The Arabian army, meanwhile, swept south along Malaysia, only to find distressingly easy pickings:



I wish I'd left some of those troops up north to help protect against Chinese recriminations.

Apache had quite a few nice little buildings survive intact:



I'll take a free Academy any day of the week.

In 1230, with our forces trudging over hills and through rice paddies toward Nanjing, being harried all the way by the Chinese, the thinkers in the Madrassas of Basra and Cairo ushered in a new age of enlightenment:



I took Printing Press for the immediate economic boost, and revolted to Free Religion, Free Speech and Universal Suffrage. For the moment, at least, Culture on the borderlands is more important than 2 extra experience for new units, and the ability to rush buy with population or gold will come in handy.

In the west, meanwhile, I had been building up my forces in Jerusalem when Qin Shi Huang pulled a fast one on me. He had replaced Caesar as Pope and, as his first act, opted not to haul his own butt out of the fire, but instead to declare a Holy War on Alexander. Needless to say, my forces weren't quite where I wanted them, but a Fire Sale had just been announced on Greek territory, and I wanted to make sure I got my share:



It's called piling on.

In 1255, my forces were finally in place outside of Nanjing:



I burned the city to the ground, Scotland Yard and all. It was beset by both Chinese and Japanese culture, and besides, my army was wounded and weary. It was time to turn my attention to the western land grab:



South of Apache on the Malaysian peninsula, meanwhile, stood the Barbarian city of Minoan. I know, I know. It makes no sense. Just roll with it. Minoan was well-staffed but lightly defended:



And it even came with a Granary!

I made some trades at this point:



And got roped into another phony war with Tokugawa by our Mongol friends. When the Mongols are your friends, you know you're not a nice guy.

Corinth, meanwhile, was next to fall:



Yes, I burned it. That site is useless until I'm ready to relieve Roman pressure by the sword. Or, in this case, probably by the Camel Archer.

Reaching Athens proper, though, required a deal that nobody was really happy with:



I wasn't the only guy at the party, either:



I had six Camel Archers. Alexander had six defenders. I would need a perfect kill ratio. Thankfully, the first Camel Archer to ride in died. Much less disappointing than, say, the last one.

So I lost the race to Athens:



... Or did I? I mean, Isabella's hardly our buddy, anyway, and our six Camel Archers and three Pikemen are more than a match for her two Chariots. The only thing I worry about is her getting Rome or, worse, Russia involved.

So it's at that decision point that I decided to call things off.

Here's a look at the hemisphere:



As you can see, Hyderabad is now Karachi, and Vijayanagara is now Hyderabad. Turns out there are two Hyderabads. Weird, huh?

Our Diplomatic situation:



We're running out of friends, but hey. It's lonely at the top.

SCIENCE:



Wow. Everyone's gone Nationalism but us. I'm hitting up Replacable Parts on my way to Rifling.

As you can see, our army is once again leaning towards "depleted":



So some buildup would be nice. The economy's humming, though, despite our empire stretching from Burma to Turkey to Kenya.

So I guess the question is, do we strike at Spain while Athens is weak? Or do we turtle up, rebuild, and declare on Rome, taking a fortified Athens on our way?

Oh, one other thing. Up in the mountains north of India, there's a minor settlement:



Is that worth taking? I'm almost tempted to, so that I can run a Settler up there. But I'd hate to lose veteran troops in what amounts to a meaningless battle. Maybe I should just turn them around and go terrorize Tokugawa's mainland possessions.

The save:

It's nice to see alternative uses of GG...

OTOH I didn't read any message of other GPs being born...?
edit: just remembered; that GSpy... Still there's room to improve

By the looks of things, you're doing great. I'd advise you to regroup and build more units while teching to rifling, mass-upgrade and capture europe...

Greek "going out of business" liquidation!! By order of the pope, all cities simply MUST GO! Tweny-nine or two fo' fitty!

But seriously, nice turn of events. My vote is turtle for a bit, build up (maybe bring some of the eastern forces back west?), and run Izzy over on the way to Rome. Also; who owns Ankara? I can't quite tell by the map... Might make a difference, I don't know. Maybe run a settler over that way to put some presence near The Land Formerly Known As Greece.

Take Cimmerian. That looks like a good valley to chokepoint/springboard into China with.

EDIT: OH I get it, Ankara = Sparta post conquering. Disregard.

Pretty sure you missed the cows in your BFC in Mogadishu. You really need to kill Isabella and Caesar. Make it happen. Don't screw with the city in Tibet unless you can spare the units. If you take it, just build culture there to claim the land for domination.

re: Ankara- I own Ankara. Used to be Sparta

re: Great People- Oh, thanks for the reminder, mysty- We have a Great Merchant (from Economics) and a natural-born Great Scientist hanging out in Mecca. Should I burn'em on a second Golden Age?

re: Great Generals- Yeah, it's amazingly useful. I'm going to start doing that in all my games. With siege bombardment, you'll often end up taking the whole garrison down to nothing except for that top guy who can still take down a top-notch City Raider or two. Having a "Mobility specialist" to ping him with a few arrows is incredibly handy.

re: The Eastern Forces- I think they're stuck east for the moment. I'm going to want to reopen hostilities in that direction sooner or later, and it'd take them forever to trek across the entire continent twice. May after Railroads... Then again, my Mobility guy can probably make the trip. What do you all think?

If you're going to leave them in the East, you might as well get some killin' out of them, but I think Chinese cultural pressure will keep you away from the heart of Japan on the continent. You'll have to DOW China in order to do anything useful. Kill Hatty while you're in the neighborhood.

Turtle up, build up some diplo points with some leaders. Cathy is annoyed so watch out from the north. Have you checked out Roman lands yet? You do have open borders. Do all your cities have courthouses?

I'm getting a little worried .....

Again, BUG, Sit-rep:

Besides the fact that you're a really popular dude , i point to the Fred column: he's clearly preparing to make a attack to QSH ( and probably vassal him ). BTW Fred has MilTrad ( as you already know by the tech screen and by the cuiraseer that is in the same tile that your free GG.....

So ,in the end, this game will be decided by how Fred is handled ... I suggest to take most of Europe out and then move against him en masse ( that should not be hard , given that you have a lot of extra aka drafting margin )

And you should get to the Americas soon

BTW what are you planning to do with the GP that you'll get in 8 turns?

P.S. If you want to keep good graces with GK, why do you still don't have a OB with the Mongols?

Poor Alex.. those 3 cities he had are great production cities, he could've done wonders early-game. If only the AI was smarter. Ah well..

Don't bother with the Barbarian Himalayan city, two longbows on hills simply aren't going to be cost effective to deal with using medieval tech. That city is worthless until the final land grab. IMO, let the dice fly high, hit Athens and start your conquest of Europe.

The problem with Asia now is that Khan is actually powerful, if you wipe out China and Japan (as is required to make those lands productive) you will need to leave a large defensive force to guard against his insane aggressive nature. Europe is much more defensible than China is, and it's closer to your core. Its verdant lands accompanied by the money you'll get from 'liberating' city vaults will make up for any economic strain you experience fighting them.

Frederick and Catherine are your primary opponents at this point, even though Khan also has a decent force he's still not going to keep up in any tech races, it makes him a good attack dog though, try sicking him on Catherine once you're cleaning up Siberia.

Its worth remembering that while you're first in most demographic categories you're only sixth in military. Once you get to rifling and start building/upgrading units that should improve significantly.

Edit: Another way of looking at the 'primitive' AIs (Mongolia and Japan) is that they can be tech-bribed into war against anyone they don't like very much, whose army isn't obviously stronger than theirs and who has some cities close enough to their territory to be a target.

Would it really work? I mean Mesopotamia is different then others...

If your trebs are an OGRE, then I suppose your mobility camel is a GEV!

When playing Earth18, I replaced Gengis with Kublai, he does a slightly better job at balancing China, and I replaced Tokugawa with a Cre/Cha reskin of him who actually does trade techs.

Rush buy courthouses in Bangkok and Calcutta, then whip the FP in Calcutta. You might want to rush buy more courthouses, but after you have the FP it won't be as crucial.

I can't tell what else you were planning to do with your 3000 , but I think rush buying a total of eight Universities and some Banks (not necessarily all eight, yet) would be a good investment.