[continued from the first part in the previous page]
Barcelona was pretty well defended, but it fell with the sacrifice of 3 of our catapults:
We needed to strengthen our army before it could continue, but that was done pretty quickly by building a few trebs and upgrading a CR3 swordsman to a maceman.
And we got our next GP on the same turn. Guess what it was:
Despite the odds! Now we could build the Buddhist shrine
The fighting, meanwhile, gave us our next GG:
He was settled in Hamburg, the likeliest candidate for a Heroic Epic city.
The coveted Buddhist shrine was built on the next turn:
That put an end to our wartime economic woes, allowing us to speed up our research again. By then Buddhism had spread itself pretty well.
On the way to Seville in the east, we razed a new Spanish city for some free xp and gold:
Then, after Consitution was discovered, we wasted no time in switching to Representation:
I contemplated whether I should stop playing here, since we needed to decide on whether to push for Democracy or go for Chemistry. But since we might be able to trade for Gunpowder, I decided to use the GS we had for Printing Press and research that tech first.
A couple of turns later, Seville fell into our hands:
Unfortunately, both our trebuchets perished in the assault. Fortunately, we have 2 more in reserve, ready to be brought up against Cordoba.
On the next turn, as we discovered Printing Press, our next GS was born:
Pacifism and Philosophical
Here's our man for lightbulbing Chemistry.
This is where the round ended. The current tech situation:
While we were slowly researching Consitution and waging war, some the AIs have gotten a lead over us. In fact, Huayna got Constitution before us. At this point, we have Liberalism on everyone, Nationalism on Brennus, Constitution on Washington and Printing Press on Huayna.
The power graph:
I don't know why Louis needs such a strong military, but he's way up there.
GNP:
Bad, as usual. But do we need to care?
The map of our continent:
We are a long way from domination. Conquest has been slow as the AI proves itself to be somewhat competent enough at defending to delay us. We would probably need grenadiers and maybe cannons to take on Washington. The rest may have to wait until Panzers or later.
At least there would probably be no need to invade the other continent:
I hope...
So what next? Do we go for Chemistry and try to increase the pace of our conquests? No one seems to be willing to trade Gunpowder yet, though. Do we continue heading for Democracy and build the SoL? On the war front, it's only a matter of time before Cordoba falls. Should we vassalize Isabella after that, or should we capture more of her cities or even eliminate her?
By the way, I need to start removing some of the saves from previous threads to free up space. I'll be removing those that are less popular.
from Representation and Nationhood combined should easily keep pace with the 
