Round 7: 990 AD to 1455 AD (67 Turns), Part I
To start off the round, I first chose Nationalism as my free technology from Liberalism.
There wasn't a better alternative and I didn't want to grab a later technology since they weren't that much more expensive than Nationalism. After Liberalism, I teched towards Drama (theatres) then Guilds (on the way to Economics).
Sitting Bull loses a city to Mao. This game doesn't seem to be going well for him.
A few turns later, an AP vote ended the war between the two (but it DIDN'T end the war between Sitting Bull and Gilgamesh). Great, now Mao needs to be bribed again to war.
Speaking of our Chinese neighbor, I made a trade with him to get Engineering. Mao is one of the more backward AI's on the map (but the most powerful).
Once I finished researchign Guilds, it was on to Banking. I was the first to Guids, by the way.
Along the way, Gilgamesh founds Islam.
Banking in, go for Economics and the free Great Merchant. Still, no AI has Guilds at this time.
An interesting AP vote came up.
I voted to give the city back to Sitting Bull. This would just make Mao less powerful (what I want) and Sitting Bull more powerful (what I want). It isn't much, but I'm hoping Sitting Bull can keep Mao and Gilgamesh distracted while I prepare for my war with Mao.
Speaking of war preparations, I switched to Theocracy after I had several cities ready to build units (i.e. 1 turn away). Saladin is now friendly and is willing to sign a defensive pact, which means he somehow teched Nationalism and Military Tradition. I accept a Defensive Pact.
I finished Economics in 1240 AD (IIRC, no AI had Guilds. The tech pace in this game is incredible) to get the free Great Merchant. Does anyone know a fast and efficient way to see how much gold a GM will get from a city without having to go and manually check every city? I tested the GM at Beijing, Mecca, but settled on Mutal (Pacal's capital with the 10 or so wonders in it).
After Economics, I tech to Gunpowder. Meanwhile, Mao declares on Sitting Bull again. Excellent!
A Great Scientist was soon born out of Bibracte (because of the Great Library) and I used him to bulb a healthy portion of Printing Press.
Saladin, however, already had Printing Press by that date, and maybe one more AI (Gilgamesh?). The effect of Printing Press was substantial when it was researched, raising my beaker count per turn from 402 to 446 at 70% research. After Printing Press, I researched Replaceable Parts (I already had Gunpowder) and then to Rifling.
I get a random event and take the free scientist. Other options were to have happiness for a short burst of time and something else.
Now I came to a significant decision point. Darius' three cities were culturally pressing two of my cities and I was preparing to war with him. However, Darius was willing to be my voluntary vassal.
I checked the diplomacy situation and accepted. Saladin was the only AI I really cared about upsetting at this point and Saladin was Friendly towards Darius, which meant that Saladin would still be "Friendly" with me despite having a vassal. As a bonus, I now was able to fully utilize Persepolis and Pasargadae's fat crosses.
This, of course, meant that Mao is the next, immediate target.
To make Mao busy, I bribe him to war with Pacal II. Pacal II was in a Golden Age and his demographics were skyrocketing so he needed some slowing down. The war resulted in Great Generals from both sides, and a couple of cities being captured/recaptured. Nothing particularly major. The good news, though, was that Mao lost his stack of doom, which I FINALLY managed to find with my scouts in Chinese territory.
Pacal II became annoyed at this time, so I thought it was best to use the Great Merchant NOW than risk losing Open Borders. I obtained 2550 gold.
Now, the reason Pacal's demographics skyrocketed was that he completed the Taj Mahal in Mutal (yeah he beat me to it) so he now had the Golden Age. Speaking of which, Pacal completed the Spiral Minaret, Versailles, the University of Sankore, Angkor Wat, and possibly a few others that I forgot.
To somewhat compensate for the lost golden age, I generated a lot of Great Merchant specialists in Persepolis, hoping to burn one for a Golden Age. I got a Great Engineer instead from the Pyramids. I was really tempted to use him for a later wonder but decided that it was best to just have a golden age.
This, of course, skyrocketed my GNP as I have a lot of cottages.
Finally, the most important tech of the round was researched.
Kind of ironic who said that quote above.
No AI had Replaceable Parts, so I was feeling confident with my soon-to-be rifle army.
I researched Chemistry after Rifling.
I got a really nice random event which gave +1 happiness to EVERY city. I wish I get those kind of events more often.
I finished Chemistry soon after and began Optics as it was a prerequisite for Astronomy which everyone else had (even though it's next to useless on a Pangea map).
Once Optics was in, I opted for Steel. No AI had it and I was hoping to use Steel to backfill several techs I had missed along the way, which will be shown in the technology advisor screen in part II of this round.
With all the gold I had in hand, I upgraded 10 mostly City Raider 2 maces to rifles, which cost 2000 gold. I also upgraded 6 Gallic Warriors (all city raiders) to rifles, costing 2010 gold.
And I forgot to mention that during the Golden Age, I switched to Nationhood so that I could draft units. I didn't build the Globe Theatre in the southern fish city (took too long) so I went for the horse city in plains. Yes, it's a horrible GT location but it was a horrible city anyway and it provided me with virtually free rifles every turn or two.
As a result from all this army build up, my stack looked like this.
In Part II, I will talk about my war plan.
[To be continued in next post]
I think I will use him to bulb Printing Press (after picking Nationalism as free tech I will begin to tech towards Economics which gives my GS enough time to appear to bulb Printing Press).
) which you can see on the previous map. The scout can see the garrisons of three cities: Beijing, Shanghai, and Chengdu. They are surprising unimpressive - several longbows in each city, although Beijing does have several catapults. There are some knights roaming around, but rifles have a bonus verses them so they shouldn't be a problem.
?
But back to reality. The discovery of steel meant that I upgraded 8-12 trebuchets/catapults to CANNONS! This meant that attacking Shanghai was ridiculously easy.
Well, me and Sal at least.
