Round 5: 595BC - 170AD
A slow going round reminiscent of the previous Emperor's Challenge.
Killer upkeep had quickly set in, and in the initial turns the only thing that kept our science budget afloat was plunder money. When the treasury dried, research naturally slowed to a crawl...
One turn into the round, Madrid came out of revolt and began to starve. I whipped a Buddhist temple for 2 pop, and the city was still starving at size 4. I whipped an obelisk for another 2 pop, switching the build order so that the temple would be built first. The city was still unhappy and starving at size 2! Blasted heretics. Will you not learn the power of our gods?!
Oh well, I guess it had to begin from size 1 again. A courthouse was started next, which we would chop for.
Anyway, our victorious War Chariots rolled into yet another Spanish city with no casualties:
I was considering whether to keep it. We couldn't really afford more upkeep, but since the city is between Madrid and Barcelona, I thought it would provide continuity to our borders. And it does have gems that we could eventually work (IW was certainly needed soon).
Our 14 xp chariot became level 5 after the Battle of Toledo:
I gave our hero March to help it in its numerous future quests. So now we can build the HE even without getting a warlord unit (more reason to use the GG as a GMI?).
We signed peace with Isabella because WW was starting to take a toll on our cities. She didn't have anymore cities nearby anyway.
In a few turns, we finished researching CS and entered the Medieval era in 400 BC:
Not a particularly quick CS slingshot, I guess. But that's the best we could do with what we got. In fact, Bureaucracy didn't give us much of a financial boost as there is no high commerce tile in Thebes' fat cross until Calendar (and even then there's only one silk).
I balanced Thebes' output between production and commerce, and started on a Confucian temple so that it could grow one size larger. Memphis, meanwhile, took over the role of the priest city:
Soon, slow research drove me to find another city to plunder. We needed to get Masonry done so that Thebes could take advantage of the commerce and hammers the marble quarry yields.
Another chance to steal a worker! And Huamanga was situated in a spot that we would want to claim anyway. Yes, there's a spear guarding it (in addition to the standard archer), but that's what Flanking chariots were for...
The results were still disastrous. We lost three WCs: one Flanking I, one Combat II and one Combat III
One Combat II WC could be promoted to Combat III after that, though. Should've promoted one WC with Shock before this
Well, at least we got the city, and the plunder helped us finish up Masonry. I thought about it and decided to research Monotheism after IW (which we need quickly to improve the jungle cities, especially the gems). Small chance we could get the Great Library now, so Literature was no longer a priority. Monotheism would allow us to lighbulb Theology with a GP.
Meanwhile, Memphis had outgrown its happiness limit, so I whipped the half-built courthouse for 2 pop:
Notice I appointed two priests there. This was to stagnate growth and accelerate GP production. We needed a shrine soon to pull us out of this financial black hole.
And then danger came to our doorstep. Actually, it came by the backdoor. Remember Huayna's wandering stack of archers? They returned, and with a vengeance. It headed straight for Barcelona from our vulnerable south. The city was only defended by a lone warrior. I rushed a Combat I WC from Memphis there, as well as the March WC (which was on the way back to Memphis). The Combat I WC reached Barcelona in time, but the March WC could not:
4 archers vs 1 Combat I WC and 1 warrior. The odds were not in our favour. If only the March chariot had made it in time...
And then Huayna marched his stack past and started pillaging some roads in the jungle
I tried asking him for peace, since I couldn't touch his archers when they were well covered by the terrain. Our friend would only agree if we returned him Huamanga. Of course not! We weren't going to lose 3 valuable WCs for nothing. I let him pillage whatever road he could find in the jungle. The stack headed towards Madrid. I moved the March and Combat I WCs to follow. Outside Madrid, our WCs finally caught up with it while it was in the open (it wanted to pillage the corn). And, with the help of the WC defending Madrid, they destroyed the stack:
I tried talking to Huayna again to see if he had been humbled by his stack's destruction. Indeed he had, for he agreed to sign peace for no payment:
After that, aside from a few barbarians walking around in the jungle, our workers were left undisturbed to build roads and improve the land. I spread Confucianism to a few conquered cities to help them grow. Our economy eventually began to show signs of recovering.
[to be continued in the next post]