Round 5: 190 AD to 990 AD (58 turns), Part 2
Sure enough, Monty threw another stack--smaller this time, though--at his former city. Uh, Monty, that city's on a hill, you might recall, and I have Longbows, you might want to... oh, well, fine. Never mind. Be that way.
And the tech trading frenzy continued!
Yes, I was risking WFYABTA, but so far, my plan was working. And notice how even Shaka's rating of me was rising. As soon as any of them hit Friendly, WFYABTA would cease to be an issue. I was counting on it.
Of course, the whole shared religion thing didn't work with everybody.
The next tech was an important one: very expensive, very valuable. I knew it would earn me several key techs that I'd skipped.
And... this is where I started to get a little weird. Suddenly, the old familiary Liberalism prize was in sight. Could it be? Liberalism, won on my first Immortal game? What a coup that would be! So I began to research the big L. And I held Education close to my chest, for as long as I thought I could. Without Caste System to help out, the SE wasn't exactly firing on all cylinders.
And just to complicate matters further, Gilgamesh, of all people, built the Apostolic Palace.
Darn. I'd really been hoping Zara, who was ahead on several techs, would build that thing and make it Christian and therefore irrelevant. As it is, I'm going to have to contend with this thing all through the war with Montezuma. Ugh.
Hatshepsut won the residency.
Hmmm, interesting... once I spread Buddhism to my cities that don't have it, and capture a couple of Buddhist Aztec cities, I should hold the swing votes. In Civ V, I'd like to see more interaction with the AI on game features like this. Like me making a deal with Gilgamesh: he gets my AP votes in return for me requesting a certain vote be called or never called--like, say, ending the war with Montezuma. That would make the AP more interesting (and even a little more realistic, don't you think?).
Just as I was about to push into his territory and attack Texcoco, Monty came at me with another stack.
Well, at least the AI is trying to make use of siege weapons for a change! Too bad he doesn't have a lot of muscle--and not the right type of muscle, either--to finish the job the Cats are gonna start. And even if Monty managed to capture a city, how was he planning on holding on to it, anyway? This is why I pull my city raiders out of a city rather than letting them defend it. Chances are, if the city falls, they can take it back on the following turn, because the AI neglected to bring along any defensive units.
Okay, Liberalism was going to take too long (though, ever the optimist, I doggedly kept researching it) and the war was going too slowly. Longbows had given me a defensive edge, now I needed several offensive ones. Time to start trading. Fortunately, shifting from the medieval to the renaissance eras thanks to Education made Zara "forget" one tech trade (that is how it works, right?) so WFYABTA cleared up with him.
Which is why I traded with Zara first, before I went to see anyone else.
Yes! So now I'd be able to build Pikes to more handily fend off Monty's beloved mounted units, including those troublesome War Elephants, and those wonderful Trebuchets. They're expensive, though, so for the time being I had to make do with Catapults.
In the new post-3.17 absence of Combat promotions for siege weapons, I began using Drill promotions. One of the two Drill II Cats I used to weaking this stack survived, so I'm becoming a fan of the Drill track for defensive siege weapons.
I got another Great Scientist and used him to lightbulb part of Printing Press.
Should I keep lightbulbing techs or should I shift to academies or settling? What's optimal? The GP are going to start getting more expensive--though I haven't had a chance yet to build the National Epic, so that will help. I'm not sure if I get started on that right away or wait until I get that marble tile in Monty's north. That could take a while.
With Education out of the bag and available for trading, it only made sense to get everything I could for it before anybody else did.
And what the heck, tech brokering isn't turned off, so I kept taking advantage of the WFYABTA-busting Friendly ratings:
And I managed to capture another Aztec city before the end of the round!
Yes, Monty had another stack on its way to his former city, but I figured I'd let the defenders I left behind deal with it.
They did, and I earned another Great General. I sent him to the former barb city, Aryan, though I haven't used him yet.
I'd started building the Heroic Epic in Aryan. It seems like a good choice--the extra food from the wheat and the pigs means I can workshop most of the other tiles. I thought I'd put the Moai Statues here too to get the most I could out of those water tiles. However, I haven't invested too many hammers (and no chops) in the HE yet, so if someone has a better candidate, speak up.
I was also experiencing slave revolts, no less than three, IIRC, in Aryan (not the capital, for some reason). Techs are getting more expensive, so I needed more specialists to help me out. And I was wondering if I could still pull off a Liberalism win. So I did a single civics change, to caste system.
I also sold a cheap tech off for some gold, thinking that I'd try pushing the slider to 100% for a few turns to see if I could snag Liberalism.
Meanwhile, I fended off another Aztec counter-attack, this one at Texcoco. And on that very turn, the AP vote I'd been dreading came up.
It's going to hurt me somewhere, but I defied the resolution. I've got the techs, I'm building the units--I'm committed. Monty is going
down. I am not going to let the AP interfere with that. As I mentioned in a previous post, the unhappiness from defying a successful resolution goes away; the diplomatic penalties for declaring war on someone's buddy usually don't. I need to keep as many civs friendly to keep WFYABTA at bay; right now I've got 4 of them there, which is remarkable. So, I got all huffy and defiant.
Alas, winning Liberalism was not to be. Hatshepsut surprised me by beating me there. Looks like she snagged Gunpowder.
It surprised me because of all the civs potentially competing for Liberalism, she got the least help from me. If you recall, the only Liberalism-path tech I traded to her was Philosophy. I'm pretty sure she went off and researched both Paper and Education on her own. I'm sure about the last one, because I tried trading Education to her a couple of times and she refused, so obviously she was researching it herself.
So... do I finish off Liberalism, or abandon those hard-won flasks and go after something else?
That's the round. The save is below, a state-of-the-world post will follow.