Round 9: 1130AD - 1268AD
I didn't play as many turns as I would've liked due to time constraints, but it was a satisfying round nonetheless.
The last round ended as Thebes began building the Sankore University. Thebes was a purely Confucian city. It therefore did not benefit from the OR bonus, and we would take several turns to build a Buddhist missionary and send him there. But since almost all our cities had Confucianism, I thought why not switch our state religion:
And we could immediately enjoy the benefits of OR in Thebes:
We didn't need good relations with HC anyway. We were going to war.
I did a mental note of the troops Huayna had in his Buddhist cities, and when his Confucian cities were revealed, it was apparent that he did not have a respectable stack to counterattack with. How convenient.
One or two scuicide catapults helped to make short work of the few defenders in that tongue-twister of an Inca city. Huayna's only reaction was to move a small stack of two HAs and a chariot along our northern border. It turned out that these units were headed for our capital, and tried to either pillage or attack it. Fortunately I moved the two WCs in Huamanga east once I saw the stack. After the 2nd HA killled our spear (upgraded from the warrior in Thebes with plunder money) that was defending the marble quarry, they were able to quickly destroy the fleeing HA and chariot.
I'm sorry if I'm boring you with details of a minor skirmish. But apart from HC's later act of pillaging our marble quarry with a stack of 1 HA and 2 cats (which we could not simply attack with a spear), there was no further sign of active resistance. The AI is
really good at war
Anyway, the subsequent progress in our campaign was quite predictable:
And,
In between, plunder money helped us get DR sooner:
Thebes had not finished Sankore, though. I sent a worker there to help by chopping. In the rest of our empire, WW had begun to strike. I whipped a little to get rid of it.
After capturing three cities, a capital (whose culture was pressing badly on the Collosus city and therefore needed taking) and the Colossus, we could not gain anymore from this war. There were only two catapults left in the front line (although both have CR II), HC's new capital was tough and we were already paying killer upkeep. So I checked out what Mr Inca was willing to pay for peace:
I tried suggesting that he gave us a tech, gradually going down from Calendar to HBR, but he stubbornly refused. I guess we had to settle with the gold and his world map.
Anyway, at about this time, our first intercontinental contact came:
As you can see, I went straight to business. This wasn't much of a good deal, but we needed it. And waiting would only cause Saladin to get gradually angrier at us for not being a heathen like him, closing the possibility of trade. We could afford to trade Paper away now that we were completing Sankore anyway.
The good news was Curency cut the research time of Calendar from 5 turns to 3 turns immediately, a step towards the full recovery of our economy and our research.
And there was another good news: Dissatisfied as I was by Huayna's refusal to give us a tech, I checked to see if I could take it out on Isabel. She refused to talk about techs, so I decided to ask for all the 160 gold pieces that she could offer.
It worked! Afraid of us, Izzy? I guess she should be. Her days are numbered and she has no friends to turn to now that HC, like his father in history, has seen the light and converted to our faith after being shown the powers of our mighty gods. And the funny thing is it would still not save him from his final judgement.
The good news didn't end there:
*Fanfare* One key wonder down, one more to go. Can we get the Spiral Minaret? I will hold a special tribute to religion if we do.
Thebes is competitive. I'm positive we can achieve our aim. *bites nail*
I stopped after Calendar was researched. We've crushed Huayna, traded with Saladin, extorted Isabella's gold, researched DR and built Sankore. Quite a productive round, I must say. The graphs:
Our GNP is still sad, but it should improve in the near future as more cottages mature and we further improve our lands. As predicted, Huayna's GNP crashed after losing the Colossus.
We are trailing far behind Saladin in terms of power. I'm not surprised. The important thing is we're coming to the fore on our continent. We will certainly dominate our landmass, friends.
And the map of the known world:
I think we own nearly half the continent now. Only a matter of time before the rest of Huayna's and Isabella's lands are ours too. What is worrying me is the large patch of unsettled region in the SE. Spain hasn't done anything about it - hasn't even managed to capture that southern barb city - and now that the other continent has begun to make contact the other AIs might attempt to settle a few cities there, which would really suck. I am not certain if we can do anything about it soon.
Anyway, tech-wise, what should we research now? I'm thinking of beelining for Engineering by going Metal Casting -> Machinery. Any other ideas?
Memphis is only halfway through producing the next GP. I think there's no doubt that he should be used for the Mahabodhi. But after that, what next? Should we continue producing GPs?
And, of course, the big question: What if we -
gasp - don't get the Spiral Minaret?
As always, your thoughts and advice are greatly appreciated.