TSG31 Game in Progress

I got the GL and used the free tech for Civil Service, which is the first time I've pulled that slingshot off in a long time.

Policies, all of Liberty then 2 into Piety. The 2nd being the extra happiness from monuments and temples.

I only built 3 cities. The 2nd to the west on top of a gems so it's on the river and next to the mountain. The 3rd city is south of the capital on the river next to the mountain and was mainly for the 6 iron and incense.

I took a GS when I completed liberty and used it to bulb for Knights.

My first war was with Gandhi, but I DoW'd a few turns early than I'd planned to capture his settler that was headed towards the 6 iron. Luckily I already had 2 or 3 Landsknechts and the scout/archer near that settler+warrior.

Before I took Delhi, the Romans Dow'd, but weren't really a threat yet. Once Delhi fell and I was sending troops towards Rome, Augustus offered a decent peace deal which I took. Around that time the Ottomans DoW'd. A few turns later they offered a white peace which I took, because my troops were still working their way towards Rome and I had no idea where their capital was.

I'm now up to turn 110. I have a few turns left on the Porcelain Tower. I've captured Delhi and Rome. Ghandi gave me another city in the peace deal, which I kept for the extra source of gold.

I've met everyone, with Elizabeth being the last and already hostile.

At this point I'm 4th in soldiers, 1st in land and 1st or 2nd in tech.

I've sold all my iron, except the 2 I'm using for swords and all but 1 of each lux.

I have no idea who my next target will be for certain. However, I'm thinking of going France so I can try to find Russia and Greece. I'm leavign the Ottomans for a bit since they're the only folks still friendly with me. Greece is pretending to be friendly. Russia is Neutral. England is Hostile. Everyone else is Guarded.

Build capitol one tile to the west on the hills so my second city could be placed SE near the gems. Opened with building warrior instead of scout due to German ability, then went monument before another warr and a granary. Then went settler before finally going GL. I know that's a long delay for GL...but my tech was...

Mining for the gems close by, then pottery ->writing for GL tech. Proceeded with Philosophy (not sure why, other than habit). Went AH to see if there were horsies nearby and because I had picked my next two city spots and saw lots of horses/sheep/cattle. Then had to decide between trapping or calendar to go either CS or try for HS. Decided trapping because of deer and German UU. Managed to get trapping 2-3 turns before completing GL, which was still not gone by about turn 50-55'ish. Went for IW after that before getting caught up in several techs and researching Education, which I'm a few turns away from. Plan on going for Steel next for longswords.

As for wonders, I've got GL, Oracle, building stonehenge in non-capitol city, and finished NC ~turn 90. Used liberty GE to rush Hagia and got another GE ready for Notre Dame in a few turns with Edu.

Militarily, I had no luck with barbs, so to speak. Despite attacking 6-7 barb camps successfully, I did not convert any barbs. It wasn't until about camp 8 that I finally got a barb to convert, and that's the only one I've had all game. Declared on Ghandi, who had 3 cities, about turn 75-80 and took him out fairly quick with 3 swords and a bunch of the UU. Rome declared on me from behind right before I declared on Ghandi, but he didn't send much so one UU and spearmen handled what he sent.

Got 3 cities + 3 puppets from Ghandi...happiness is my main problem, but not for long as I've got coliseums now and Notre Dame a couple turns away. I'll be gunning for Rome next after my army heals...I managed to only lose 2-3 UU so far the entire game.

No other Civ seems to have any money so I've got extra resources to sell with no one able to give me more than 60-70 gold for them (and not much GPT either). Ottomans were killed off by someone else already, and everyone seems pretty warmongerish. Only Elizabeth doesn't like me for being a warmongerer, despite me not leaving Ghandi with a city. I've got a score of 356, which is only 10 points out of first atm. We'll see how my conquests go from here, as like I said, I rarely play for domination so I'm not very skilled at it yet.

I took IW from the GL, and settled my third city near the 6 iron, SE of Berlin. Unfortunately, this settler got nicked by a barbarian, and it took me a while to hunt him down. Generally, I've been having a few problems with the raging barbs (I've never played with them before) - in particular they keep pillaging the gold SW of Berlin and making me unhappy, and I need to leave a couple of troops to defend on my western flank.

Fourth city was south of Berlin, on the coast, between the iron and incense, so my cities are forming an arc enclosing the whole area to the south-west, which I can back fill if needed. I've allied Florence to cover the north-western approach, and for the silk and culture, and because I had some spare gold. Unfortunately, the culture timing is probably going to break down (as usual), because I'll need to take my seventh policy before I can tech astronomy. I made 3 RAs, which I was hoping would power me through education, but unfortunately 2 of them have been broken.

Suleiman, Napolean and Gandhi have all declared on me. Fortunately, the iron came online just in time. Napolean attacked with about half a dozen units at Berlin, and as soon as I'd beaten them off, Gandhi attacked at Munich. Fortunately, he didn't think to pillage the iron. It's now turn 87, and I think looking pretty good. I plan to counter-attack at Delhi as soon as I've dealt with that barbarian camp and regrouped my forces.

Screen shot attached. I tried inserting it as an inline image, but it was ridiculously large.

First Capital down - ROME!
I hate fighting Rome, and wanted to take him before he got rich. Sully joined the attack and then made peace with Rome twice before I managed to capture it with 5 archers uber upgraded and a couple swords. all warriors killed in this assault.

Dublin helped quite a bit, but he does choke off that forest with his units. I end up building a road through the forest, which comes in handy when Dublin reqs a road.
White Peace with Rome. Rome has no wonders.

Next Target - DELHI!
Now I have several landsknechts swordmen, the elite archers, and a catapult. I moved them all down near Munich and then... Ottomans attack after a dec of Friendship! well I can't hold Rome, but I think I might keep all the Indian cities. I sell Rome to India. I figure sooner or later Otto will take it from him. Even if Rome recaptures it, he is crippled by all the time without it and the pop hits. I make a "I pay a bit too much for peace" deal with Otto.
Now during the attack on Delhi, Liz declares on me. I kill a longbow and she offers white peace. Then she offers RA (Nein!) This happened 3 times.

Delhi has HGardens, Pyramids, Hijameki Castle
I don't end up taking the rest of India after all.

Next Target - PARIS!
Ally Singapore for the path, have already open borders with Boney and scouted his land with a knight. He had 3 cities, with his 2nd under a vicious Russian attack. Unfortunately it falls before I get to Paris, so I am a dirty warmonger now. Oh well.
Paris has no wonders.

Next Target - CONSTANTINOPLE! It's close, I can feel it, but can't see it. Muskets are making their way to the front.

As planned, I destroyed the barbarian camp and captured Delhi. I made peace with Gandhi, and took Vijayanagara from him, which pushed me to 12 unhappiness, so I sold it to Elizabeth for a trifling amount of gold (for some reason none of the AIs ever seem to have any gold in this game).

I found the French, but their terrain looked too strong defensively for me to attack safely: a hilly choke-point with a river *and* the Great Wall. I think I'll need to wait until I at least have panzers. So I made peace with Napolean. I couldn't find the Ottomans, and they offered a favourable peace, so I took that too, and continued settling westward with ICS spacing.

Then things got a bit crazy. While exploring to the south-west, I noticed English units moving the other way, so I moved the main body of my army west, expecting a declaration. In fact, Elizabeth and Caesar jointly declared, but Caesar flailed uselessly at my allies Dublin and Florence, while Elizabeth attacked with a force consisting of workers and 1 archer with 3 hp.

The strongest attack actually came from Helsinki, who beseiged Delhi. The skeleton force there was gradually seeing them off, when Gandhi also declared and advanced on Delhi with a massive herd of elephants. Delhi fell after a few turns of valiant defence, while I spammed Landsknechts (since that's what they're for), teched chivalry and upgraded my horsemen. The elephants sadly got massacred at the battle of Munich. The eastern army (now consisting of knights, landsknechts, a catapult and a GG) recaptured Delhi and took Mumbai. Gandhi refused peace for a few turns, despite only having one city and one unit, but eventually settled, and the eastern army then moved on to recapture Vijayanagara, which was somewhat costly, as it had 28 strength. In retrospect, I should have let Gandhi keep it in the first peace. Any way, with the addition of Vijayanagara, my empire stretched from coast to coast.

Meanwhile the western army upgraded to longswords, and (with one catapult and a GG) advanced north to capture Antium.

The French are still impossible for me to attack realistically. They've plonked Marseille next to my capital, so I'll raze that and then try to make peace. Then I'll go for Rome, and maybe London after that.

I'm first in tech, land, production and score, so I really doubt the AI can catch me now.

In addition to being at war with France, England and Rome, Greece has turned hostile. I've DoFed with Catherine, because she's only friendly civ left! I still don't know where she is. I'm getting a diplomatic penalty from Catherine, Alexander and Napolean for "They believe you are building cities too aggressively", which I've never seen before.

The Ottomans denounced me immediately after the last post, bringing me to 3 civs at war and 2 hostile, with Gandhi no longer playing any meaningful part in the game. I really don't understand why my diplomacy has been so bad during this game. I haven't DoWed on anyone, I've only built HS, PT and ND and I didn't settle towards anyone except Gandhi and Caesar. I seem to have been getting penalties for expanding too aggressively, which I don't understand because (a) I've never seen it before and (b) I wouldn't say my expansion was particularly aggressive - I've only founded 6 cities.

Any way, it's been crazy. I captured Marseilles with no difficulty (it was undefended). Meanwhile, Napolean conquered Helsinki and then moved his army towards Vijayanagara. There was quite an epic battle in the triangle between Delhi, Vijayanagara and Helsinki. Eventually I upgraded to cavalry and cannon and liberated Helsinki and took a favourable peace from Napolean.

The western army conquered Arretium, but lost a longsword and settled down to defend. After the peace with the French, the eastern army started transferring to the Roman front, pausing en route to raze a Roman city (I forget which), which had sprung up where Marseilles had been. At some point I took a white peace from the English, because I needed to make peace with Vienna to cover the left flank of the advancing army. We now massively outgunned the Romans, and Ravenna crumpled. I moved my army up to Rome - at strength 50 or so it would be hard to capture with cannons, cavalry and longswords, but we could have zerged it.

Unfortunately, at this point the Ottomans declared on me, and attacked my army beseiging Rome. It looked a lot as if they were intervening to prevent Rome from falling, which is something that a human player might do, but I've never seen it in an AI. Thinking about it though, I think it's more likely that the Ottomans were marching towards my empire, and Rome happened to be in the way, so that's where the two armies met.

At this point I really ought to have retreated from Rome, but I had my heart set on capturing it. I lost a lot of units, including some highly promoted ones. I accepted Caesar's capitulation, which pushed me to -18 unhappiness, but the Ottomans soon captured Neapolis, as I'd anticipated, and after fiddling around rush buying happiness buildings, I got my empire back to being happy.

Oh, and the English have declared again. So far, I can see two pikes and a longsword, so I doubt they're going to do much. They've settled Oxford and Newcastle near my borders, so I'll need to deal with them soon.

In retrospect, I've been teching badly. I did the usual median manipulation of beelining for electricity and leaving the bottom of the tree, but the diplomacy's been so bad that I've had very few RAs any way - there's only one pending, with Alex. I ought to have gone to dynamite faster. Any way, it won't be long now.

I have 17 oil and 16 aluminium, with another 7 oil coming soon. I have 176 gpt (out of GA) and 406 spt, and I'm 1st in land, food, production and tech, so I think it's pretty obvious I'm going to win. I have 4 GSs in hand, with the 5th coming in 11 turns, and scientific revolution in 14 turns, so I could get stealth about then. I'm slightly inclined to delay scientific revolution and take order though.

Jointly declared with Russia vs the Ottoman and got smacked hard.
I can only hope she whacks him. I saved 3 upgraded crossbows, a GG and a cannon from the slaughter by selling Paris to Greece (whose lands I haven't seen yet) and getting 'ported out of there. looks like Otto will conquer Dublin, but I think I can then liberate and try for peace, meanwhile concentrating on tech/economy. This busts my hope of a quick win, but meh its a higher difficulty for me; any win is good if I can get it.

Now refighting India at their insistence-- should be OK there.
I have allied Dublin still (while they last) , Singapore, and now Helsinki.

So probably London next. Russia is going to be a huge pain, and I'll probably get nuked, but for now we are besties.