173 -
* adjust, Enter. Willem founds stupid desert incense city. Our spy in Hsung-Nu (where our attack troops are) is caught. Willem apparently hits that merchant bomb but is left with only 570
. He drops to Cautious, so we don't have the option to beg anyway. He starts Constitution (4).
* De Gaulle drops to disliking us enough that he won't trade techs.
* We get a great enginer in Tlatelolco (western city). Nothing to build, Sankore is long gone. He'll bulb 1262/1950 of Gunpowder. Gunpowder is maybe a little inconvenient, because DeGaulle will trade it to Willem when it becomes a non-monopoly.
174 -
* Trade Guilds+100 to Hammurabi for Theology. Start Gunpowder intending to trade it to Hammurabi for Paper + Literature.
* Declare on Pericles, hoping for a later trade to DeGaulle of Education for something.
* Switch to Slavery. Stay in OR to finish some buildings (and stay in Rep).
175 -
About to strike, so beg 100 from Hammurabi and get it. Hold off the declaration in order to prepare another couple defenders for our south.
176 -
* Declare. Finish the Forbidden Palace, but remote upkeep is very costly.
* Rather than harassing our southern flank, Willem's stack dissapears. It's either running into Babylonia or swinging around to defend.
177 -
* Barely manage to keep out of striking with some pillaging. But we're in trouble, it will take multiple turns to knock down the castle in Hsang-Nu with our cats.
* However, we get a great Merchant in Babylon. He can dash to the Babylonian capital for 700 or bulb Banking. I bulb Banking. I'd rather lose a few units to a strike. Also, De Gaulle and Hammurabi don't have Banking. Finally, Banks will help.
178 -
* Willem starts Democracy (7).
* Still no sign of main Dutch stack.
* Secondary stack of 5 cats is headed to the city we're sieging.
* A Japanese stack is spotted Near Middleberg (14 units, cats and HAs, a couple advanced ones).
179 -
* Hammurabi has finished Paper but won't trade it for Banking. But I finish Gunpowder with the Engineer, so we can trade next turn. For now there's not much Hammurabi can research. Education and PP are the best. I hope we can bulb those, but due to extensive
we have mixed GPPs all over the place, so who knows. I set him on PP.
* We are at -54 and STRIKE, but not so fast! We also capture Hsung-Nu for 221. It's unremarkable except for a settled Great Artist, nice.
180 -
* A bank in Babylon (our new capital) brings our finances close to even, nice. I also have Banks in the other capitals and am working on the shrine city.
* Since we still don't have Paper, our Scientist can now bulb toward Chemistry instead of Education. Hmm. Education is less useful except for Liberalism and the Kremlin, but the variant says we must build the Kremlin ASAP, so I save him for Education. I trade Banking and Gunpowder to Hammurabi for Paper, Literature, Drama and map. Then switch research over to Education.
* Sell De Gaulle 1 of 2 Coppers for 4 GPT (he already has Iron).
* At some point the option for an AP resolution came up to stop the war. I skipped it, of course. De Gaulle is now in the AP due to capturing the Greek city on the mainland. Pericles (on islands) and Toku are not members. Pericles is now Hindu.
* The Japanese stack is moving toward Borsippa.
* The Dutch stack reappears near Borsippa. Apparently it was moving through the jungle, but to attack our stack rather than Borsippa. That seems like an odd choice. I would think it could have moved faster swinging around on the roads.
* The secondary cat stack was neutralized earlier.
181 -
* Willem finishes Spiral Minaret in Utrecht. (Sankore is in his capital).
* De Gaulle has Chemistry but still doesn't like us enough to trade. I sell him Drama+Literature for 320, hoping for a Fair and Forthright (he would have bought Drama alone for 310) but not getting it.
* The Japanese stack fizzled against the Castle and defenders in Borsippa. A few of our units helped.
183 -
* Bulbed Education and adjusted the slider so that we'll get it next turn.
* Got the wedding event with Babylon and took +1 relations for 19
. We're basically in the black, but I thought 78
for +3 was extravagant under the circumstances.
* I got our stack to the woods south of Haarlem just in time to defend against Willem's stack. I was concerned that he would turn his CR trebs and such on the city we just captured, but instead he attacked us in the woods, and we did very well. We were bruised mightily but took no losses, and he lost 18 units.
* But Willem still has a big stack in Haarlem, with good counter units.
We have the choice between a bold attack or to heal under fire from his Knights and Barrage II cats. That's ten turns for me, so I think I'll hand it over here.
* Barcelona has specialists force-hired to produce the next great person.
* I started the National Epic in our original capital. It's in the rear and unlike Madrid it has no settled GG. I held off on the HE. I suggest putting it in Babylon, which has good production and is on the front lines. (Grocer -> Altar -> Barracks -> HE). Be sure to be careful about whipping Babylon. I didn't properly notice until the end how little food it has.
* We're still in Rep / Bureau / Slavery / Decentralization / OR. We definitely should switch to Mercantilism (sorry, I missed it) and probably Theocracy. Not sure about other switches. Going back to full military would not be unreasonable, since it will be a while before we or Willem get any really decisive techs.
* De Gaulle has not traded Gunpowder to Willem yet. I bet he'll do it soon, though.
* I built some units this turnset, but not a ton. Defenders for the south, and some reinforcement trebs and stuff. I wanted to finish AP buildings, then Banks/Grocers/Markets to keep us out of strike. I got kind of caught up in Representation and getting the next tech. I also wasn't sure how soon we could get units to the front lines and when/how they would be effective.
* At the end of the turnset I started building Musketmen with our new Gunpowder tech. During the turnset I had to give a lot of front-line Macemen field promotions rather than CR, though, because our stacks were vulnerable to counterattack. So conceivably we might still want to build more Macemen in order to give them CR.