Hi folks! This is actually my first post here and I'd like to start by thanking everybody for the tons of great advice and information that can be found here! It's been a huge help when learning to play this awesome game.
Now, a brief introduction. I was a fanatic of the original Civ for DOS and played it for thousands of hours (plus CivWin some years later), but for some reason I never picked up any of the other ones until a friend bought me Civ V as a gift on Steam recently. I've been enjoying the heck out of it although there is a LOT to get used to if you're coming off Civ 1!
So I'd like to tell you about my experience over the last two days. It started as a simple race into space as the Babylonians, and then after I had finished that and kept playing, became a massive worldwide war where I eventually had Hiawatha begging for peace like a little girl. Read on....
Part I. The Space Race
I started as Babylon, on an Earth-type map, Large size, on Prince difficulty (my first time with any of the above). I was planning on going for a space race win as I had already tried the other paths to victory and wanted to give this one a shot. I left all the other settings at default.
I'm not going to give a step-by-step for the ENTIRE game, because truthfully it didn't get that interesting until the 1800s. I'll get more specific when it comes to that.
Here's a list of the players. Their starting positions I found out much later after considerable exploration. These are more or less ranked by how they did throughout the game.
1. Babylon (yours truly) -- founded on the west coast of Africa
2. Iroquois -- founded in extreme northeastern Asia
3. Persia -- founded in northeastern South America
4. Songhai -- founded in North America
5. China -- founded in central Europe
6. Germany -- founded somewhere in central Asia
7. Arabia -- founded in southern South America
8. America -- founded in southwestern Asia, in what's Saudi Arabia in our world
9. France -- founded somewhere in central Asia
10. Aztecs -- started in eastern Europe
Since I'd never played an Earth-type map before, I didn't know how realistic it was or where I was. I founded Babylon right where I started, began exploring, and found out that I was on the west coast of Africa. Four city-states were along the northern edge of the continent and one was to the east, but other than that, I was lucky enough to not have to share it with any other major civs! Amazing, considering most of my games so far have started me with another civ right on my damn doorstep and competing for my space. I expanded as fast as I could, starting to the north to keep the city-states from getting any larger, then headed south and consolidated my hold on the rest of the map. Africa seemed to be pretty rich in most luxuries, too -- no Silk or Cotton, no Whales or Pearls, but just about everything else I could want. Multiple copies of them, too!
Meanwhile, the Chinese and Americans both sent scouts to my area and both of them seemed annoyed that I was expanding so fast. I really wanted a peaceful victory -- I figured that this continent would be plenty large enough for what I wanted, and I had no interest in their territory -- but you try telling these guys that. They stayed neutral or guarded for quite some time. The French and Germans I met only when I ventured northwards, and both of them seemed friendly. Poor Montezuma was wiped out before I ever met him and I only found out where he had been much later.
Tech-wise, I went straight for Literacy. I was on tenterhooks while building the Great Library...would I manage to get it done in time? Yes! I then also managed, somehow, to get the Hagia Sophia and the Porcelain Tower. I started to feel pretty good about my chances for a scientific victory. I adopted Rationalism not long after and the beakers started rolling in.
I got some Caravels and started exploring the oceans. In rapid succession I met the other civs. Arabia, Persia, the Songhai and the Iroquois were all friendly as well and I did plenty of trading with them. Research agreements flew back and forth and I made lots of cash selling excess luxuries to them. I kept exploring and when I found that Australia was also unoccupied except for a pair of city-states, I broke my own "no more expansion" rule. Just couldn't resist. I sent a settler over there and pretty soon I had a couple nice cities in Australia as well.
Meanwhile, the Iroquois and Persia were shaping up to be the real powers in the game. I kept seeing "this city conquered" and "that city conquered", but I was concentrating on my science race, and not really paying attention to who was killing whom. When I did finally lift my head and look around in the 1800s, Hiawatha was making his way steadily westward across Asia, conquering as he went. The French, German, Chinese and Americans could have banded together to hold him off, but chose to spend their time infighting instead. France and Germany both lost their capitals but were still in the game for a while.
Askia and Darius seemed to have reached an equitable agreement; the Songhai were all over North America but weren't going anywhere else. Darius had expanded to cover all of Central America and most of South America, but had charitably left Harun his Arabian capital -- and nothing else, from what I could tell. I still hadn't fought any wars with anybody, just keeping them all happy with frequent trades and research agreements. The Chinese and Americans still didn't like me, but at least they weren't declaring war on me.
I got the Apollo Program built around, I think, the 1900s (still astounded...the Babylonians really DO have a science edge). I promptly bulbed all the needed techs for spaceship parts, because by this time Hiawatha was steamrolling closer and closer to my northern borders. China was losing cities steadily, France was wiped out completely, Germany was a shadow of its former self and kept losing more and more cities. By the 1920s or so Hiawatha was knocking on America's door. Washington offered me open borders and I moved a few troops up there to see what he was up against. I freaked out when I saw Hiawatha hammering the crap out of Washington and his poor spearmen with fighters, artillery and mech infantry (lots and lots of those). And here I was with a single bowman in each city plus a cavalry or two I got from ancient ruins! CRAP!!!
I got my spaceship factories built in my four highest production cities and started churning out the spaceship parts. At the same time I started frantically building up troops that could cope with Hiawatha if he turned his evil eye southward. He basically had only one way into my country -- across the American civ in Saudi Arabia and onto the northeastern edge of my continent. I rush bought all the defensive structures in my city there and had all of the rest of my cities building defensive units, which all got promptly sent up to my northeastern border city. The three city-states at the northern edge were all allies of mine, so Hiawatha couldn't come through them.
Hiawatha wiped out the Americans in short order (Washington being stupid to the last -- two turns before his last city fell, he was complaining to me about how close I was to his borders. I told him, "Dude, I'm not the one you have to be worrying about!") I could see Hiawatha looking southward, gazing across the water at my rich continent. I was really panicking now -- I still had the Stasis Chamber and two boosters left to complete, about six or seven turns left. Surely, I thought, even if he does move in, he can't possibly make it all the way through my entire civ to wipe out my capital before the other parts are built. But Hiawatha could also see the troop buildup on my borders and he apparently decided not to start anything when he still had the Chinese to conquer. He moved off westward into Europe and took some more Chinese cities, while I threw everything I had towards getting those spaceship parts done, hoping that he wouldn't change his mind and head south....and in 1940something the last part arrived, and off into space I went! Hooray! I'd won!
After I got my breath back (those last few years had been VERY interesting), I saved the game, then decided to keep playing the next day and see if I could beat Hiawatha at his own game. I'd already "won", so I wouldn't really care if I lost, right?
Part II. The World War
The next day, I decided to start with Darius. He and I had been good friends for a long time and it seemed he was also going for a domination victory. The periodic surveys showed his army was much greater than mine, second only to Hiawatha's. We could both take on Hiawatha together. I asked him, "Shall we declare war on Hiawatha?" and he said "Hm. Intriguing. I accept, but I need 10 turns." So I prepared by building up some jet fighters and AA for defense, plus bombers and some mech infantry, plus a nuclear missile or two (I hadn't yet discovered lasers or stealth yet so I started working towards those).
In 10 turns we declared war. Hiawatha, oddly, didn't say a word to me when we did, just started fighting -- in fact, two turns in, he dropped an atomic bomb on one of my northern cities (and I still don't know how, because he had no troops anywhere near there and couldn't possibly have seen it). He tried to buy up some of the city-states on my northern border so he could assault me more easily, but I kept buying them right back. I moved into Saudi Arabia and began hammering the former American cities so I could get some breathing room. I lost tons of troops because Hiawatha's vastly outnumbered mine, but I had the edge on tech, plus heavily promoted new units with all the military academies my cities had, and pretty soon he was being beaten back. I kept wondering when I would see assistance from Darius, but as I began making my way northward slowly but steadily, it eventually became clear that he wasn't going to do a damned thing. Maybe he was harassing Hiawatha way over in eastern Asia or something, but I do know that I never saw any of his troops in the area where I was fighting, and I never saw a single Iroquois city fall except for the ones I took myself.
I kept moving north and then west. Steadily I built up more and more advanced troops. I found that stealth bombers worked very well because Hiawatha had built very little anti-air defense. He would occasionally send regular fighters after me but my AA guns and jet fighters set to Intercept would take care of that fairly quickly. As I moved into Europe, taking Iroquois cities, China denounced me and then declared war (even though I'd had nothing to do with the fall of any of her cities). Annoyed, I decided to wipe her out as well, and so I put my push eastward on hold until I had dealt with China in Europe. I built up lots of defensive troops around one of the bigger cities I'd taken to the east and then shifted my focus to Europe. That was a mistake.
Hiawatha threw another nuclear bomb at me and this one took out almost all of the defensive troops I'd stationed around that border city. I frantically rush bought defensive structures and troops over there and managed to stave off his counterattack, while still fighting with China in Europe. Meanwhile, Darius made peace with Hiawatha, having never lifted a finger to help me, and went after Arabia and the Songhai. Pretty soon he had destroyed them both completely and owned all of North, Central and South America, and there were only five civs left: me, Persia, China, the Iroquois, and Germany. China was down to only a couple cities, which I took in a few more turns, and then it was a foursome. Germany was not a contender -- they only had tiny island cities and no military to speak of -- and having conquered the Americas, Darius seemed content to sit back and wait. I kept trading excess luxuries with him to build cash while cursing him under my breath for his failure to help me.
Steadily I drove Hiawatha back, also wiping out the city-states that were friendly to him as I went. As I took city after city, he would counterattack, sometimes with fighters, sometimes with GDRs, sometimes with huge numbers of tanks and mech infantry, but nothing he did would stem the tide of my stealth bombers (which were ringing up a steady stream of promotions). Periodically he would ask for peace, but the initial demands were so ridiculous that it was insulting. I did notice that they kept going down as I took more of his cities, though. After fifty years of war, he was down to just offering equal terms: a peace treaty on each side for 10 turns. But he'd started this by playing world conqueror, so I still refused.
After I refused that latest peace offer, he threw two more nuclear bombs at me in rapid succession at two of my newly-taken cities (one of which had most of my stealth bombers based there). I promptly responded with nuclear missiles at two of his largest and most well-defended cities, and that was the last of the nuclear fighting. I kept moving east into his territory, and now the peace offerings from Hiawatha were tipping the other way -- he kept offering me more and more if I would only stop hitting him. Gleefully I refused and kept beating him back. Now I owned all of Europe and parts of western Asia. He still had all of central and eastern Asia and there were quite a few cities out there. I kept hammering him, and the peace offerings grew more extreme. Still I refused.
Part III. The Groveling
I'll never forget this if I live to be a hundred. I took three of his cities on the same turn and Hiawatha came to me, begging for peace yet again. I noticed the scrollbar on his side of the table was pretty long, and just out of curiosity I started looking it over. And my jaw dropped, and then I started laughing until my sides hurt. Here are some screenshots, because I knew nobody would believe me. Click the spoiler tags for a huge surprise.
That's right. He was offering me 7860 gold, his ivory, all his iron (16), all his horses (18), all his coal (7) and his oil (11), open borders, and ALL of the cities he possessed except for his capital. Twenty-two cities in all! Most of them were cities he'd conquered himself. And all he wanted from me in return was a promise that for 10 turns I wouldn't hit him any more.
I accepted, of course, because when somebody grovels and begs that extravagantly, well, I'd have to be a right bastard to refuse. Unfortunately, because no civ had ever offered me a city in a peace offering before, I had no idea that when they were given to me it would be just like I had conquered it by war. I'd have to choose whether to annex, puppet or raze it, and each one would produce unhappiness. I chose to puppet all of them, because I knew most of them would have plenty of improvements and would make my civ pretty happy and productive....but even so, with 22 new cities added all at once, my unhappiness had hit 180-something by the time I'd finished adding them all. I even accidentally hit "Annex" instead of "Puppet" a few times, making things even worse.
For proof, I've also attached a savegame from a turn or two after The Great Capitulation. You'll see a pile of the cities in my empire are all in Resistance, because he just gave them all to me. Hiawatha's remaining troops are scattered all around Asia, some of them in his one remaining city, some of them outside my borders, some of them in his friendly city-states. I don't know why he didn't disband them all -- he must have been losing hundreds in maintenance each turn -- but maybe he thought he could somehow come back.
I managed to battle through the multiple barbarian uprisings in my territory (three of them, I think) while I waited for the cities to come out of Resistance so that I could annex them and then rush buy courthouses (some of them were so big they were in resistance for upwards of 15 turns!). Long after the peace treaty had expired I was still battling unhappiness. It's...interesting.....when you see a group of twelve barbarian helicopter gunships suddenly appear just outside your capital and have to frantically redeploy troops to deal with them. But finally I got enough cities annexed and courthouses purchased that happy days were here again.
From that point on, I haven't really done much with the game. I suppose I could go take out Darius for his treachery in failing to help me against Hiawatha, but that would be kind of an anticlimax now, wouldn't you say?
Hope you all enjoyed this tale. I just had to share, because nothing like that has ever happened to me in any game I've ever played in my thirty-plus years of gaming.
cheers,
Phil
Now, a brief introduction. I was a fanatic of the original Civ for DOS and played it for thousands of hours (plus CivWin some years later), but for some reason I never picked up any of the other ones until a friend bought me Civ V as a gift on Steam recently. I've been enjoying the heck out of it although there is a LOT to get used to if you're coming off Civ 1!
So I'd like to tell you about my experience over the last two days. It started as a simple race into space as the Babylonians, and then after I had finished that and kept playing, became a massive worldwide war where I eventually had Hiawatha begging for peace like a little girl. Read on....
Part I. The Space Race
I started as Babylon, on an Earth-type map, Large size, on Prince difficulty (my first time with any of the above). I was planning on going for a space race win as I had already tried the other paths to victory and wanted to give this one a shot. I left all the other settings at default.
I'm not going to give a step-by-step for the ENTIRE game, because truthfully it didn't get that interesting until the 1800s. I'll get more specific when it comes to that.
Here's a list of the players. Their starting positions I found out much later after considerable exploration. These are more or less ranked by how they did throughout the game.
1. Babylon (yours truly) -- founded on the west coast of Africa
2. Iroquois -- founded in extreme northeastern Asia
3. Persia -- founded in northeastern South America
4. Songhai -- founded in North America
5. China -- founded in central Europe
6. Germany -- founded somewhere in central Asia
7. Arabia -- founded in southern South America
8. America -- founded in southwestern Asia, in what's Saudi Arabia in our world
9. France -- founded somewhere in central Asia
10. Aztecs -- started in eastern Europe
Since I'd never played an Earth-type map before, I didn't know how realistic it was or where I was. I founded Babylon right where I started, began exploring, and found out that I was on the west coast of Africa. Four city-states were along the northern edge of the continent and one was to the east, but other than that, I was lucky enough to not have to share it with any other major civs! Amazing, considering most of my games so far have started me with another civ right on my damn doorstep and competing for my space. I expanded as fast as I could, starting to the north to keep the city-states from getting any larger, then headed south and consolidated my hold on the rest of the map. Africa seemed to be pretty rich in most luxuries, too -- no Silk or Cotton, no Whales or Pearls, but just about everything else I could want. Multiple copies of them, too!
Meanwhile, the Chinese and Americans both sent scouts to my area and both of them seemed annoyed that I was expanding so fast. I really wanted a peaceful victory -- I figured that this continent would be plenty large enough for what I wanted, and I had no interest in their territory -- but you try telling these guys that. They stayed neutral or guarded for quite some time. The French and Germans I met only when I ventured northwards, and both of them seemed friendly. Poor Montezuma was wiped out before I ever met him and I only found out where he had been much later.
Tech-wise, I went straight for Literacy. I was on tenterhooks while building the Great Library...would I manage to get it done in time? Yes! I then also managed, somehow, to get the Hagia Sophia and the Porcelain Tower. I started to feel pretty good about my chances for a scientific victory. I adopted Rationalism not long after and the beakers started rolling in.
I got some Caravels and started exploring the oceans. In rapid succession I met the other civs. Arabia, Persia, the Songhai and the Iroquois were all friendly as well and I did plenty of trading with them. Research agreements flew back and forth and I made lots of cash selling excess luxuries to them. I kept exploring and when I found that Australia was also unoccupied except for a pair of city-states, I broke my own "no more expansion" rule. Just couldn't resist. I sent a settler over there and pretty soon I had a couple nice cities in Australia as well.
Meanwhile, the Iroquois and Persia were shaping up to be the real powers in the game. I kept seeing "this city conquered" and "that city conquered", but I was concentrating on my science race, and not really paying attention to who was killing whom. When I did finally lift my head and look around in the 1800s, Hiawatha was making his way steadily westward across Asia, conquering as he went. The French, German, Chinese and Americans could have banded together to hold him off, but chose to spend their time infighting instead. France and Germany both lost their capitals but were still in the game for a while.
Askia and Darius seemed to have reached an equitable agreement; the Songhai were all over North America but weren't going anywhere else. Darius had expanded to cover all of Central America and most of South America, but had charitably left Harun his Arabian capital -- and nothing else, from what I could tell. I still hadn't fought any wars with anybody, just keeping them all happy with frequent trades and research agreements. The Chinese and Americans still didn't like me, but at least they weren't declaring war on me.
I got the Apollo Program built around, I think, the 1900s (still astounded...the Babylonians really DO have a science edge). I promptly bulbed all the needed techs for spaceship parts, because by this time Hiawatha was steamrolling closer and closer to my northern borders. China was losing cities steadily, France was wiped out completely, Germany was a shadow of its former self and kept losing more and more cities. By the 1920s or so Hiawatha was knocking on America's door. Washington offered me open borders and I moved a few troops up there to see what he was up against. I freaked out when I saw Hiawatha hammering the crap out of Washington and his poor spearmen with fighters, artillery and mech infantry (lots and lots of those). And here I was with a single bowman in each city plus a cavalry or two I got from ancient ruins! CRAP!!!
I got my spaceship factories built in my four highest production cities and started churning out the spaceship parts. At the same time I started frantically building up troops that could cope with Hiawatha if he turned his evil eye southward. He basically had only one way into my country -- across the American civ in Saudi Arabia and onto the northeastern edge of my continent. I rush bought all the defensive structures in my city there and had all of the rest of my cities building defensive units, which all got promptly sent up to my northeastern border city. The three city-states at the northern edge were all allies of mine, so Hiawatha couldn't come through them.
Hiawatha wiped out the Americans in short order (Washington being stupid to the last -- two turns before his last city fell, he was complaining to me about how close I was to his borders. I told him, "Dude, I'm not the one you have to be worrying about!") I could see Hiawatha looking southward, gazing across the water at my rich continent. I was really panicking now -- I still had the Stasis Chamber and two boosters left to complete, about six or seven turns left. Surely, I thought, even if he does move in, he can't possibly make it all the way through my entire civ to wipe out my capital before the other parts are built. But Hiawatha could also see the troop buildup on my borders and he apparently decided not to start anything when he still had the Chinese to conquer. He moved off westward into Europe and took some more Chinese cities, while I threw everything I had towards getting those spaceship parts done, hoping that he wouldn't change his mind and head south....and in 1940something the last part arrived, and off into space I went! Hooray! I'd won!
After I got my breath back (those last few years had been VERY interesting), I saved the game, then decided to keep playing the next day and see if I could beat Hiawatha at his own game. I'd already "won", so I wouldn't really care if I lost, right?
Part II. The World War
The next day, I decided to start with Darius. He and I had been good friends for a long time and it seemed he was also going for a domination victory. The periodic surveys showed his army was much greater than mine, second only to Hiawatha's. We could both take on Hiawatha together. I asked him, "Shall we declare war on Hiawatha?" and he said "Hm. Intriguing. I accept, but I need 10 turns." So I prepared by building up some jet fighters and AA for defense, plus bombers and some mech infantry, plus a nuclear missile or two (I hadn't yet discovered lasers or stealth yet so I started working towards those).
In 10 turns we declared war. Hiawatha, oddly, didn't say a word to me when we did, just started fighting -- in fact, two turns in, he dropped an atomic bomb on one of my northern cities (and I still don't know how, because he had no troops anywhere near there and couldn't possibly have seen it). He tried to buy up some of the city-states on my northern border so he could assault me more easily, but I kept buying them right back. I moved into Saudi Arabia and began hammering the former American cities so I could get some breathing room. I lost tons of troops because Hiawatha's vastly outnumbered mine, but I had the edge on tech, plus heavily promoted new units with all the military academies my cities had, and pretty soon he was being beaten back. I kept wondering when I would see assistance from Darius, but as I began making my way northward slowly but steadily, it eventually became clear that he wasn't going to do a damned thing. Maybe he was harassing Hiawatha way over in eastern Asia or something, but I do know that I never saw any of his troops in the area where I was fighting, and I never saw a single Iroquois city fall except for the ones I took myself.
I kept moving north and then west. Steadily I built up more and more advanced troops. I found that stealth bombers worked very well because Hiawatha had built very little anti-air defense. He would occasionally send regular fighters after me but my AA guns and jet fighters set to Intercept would take care of that fairly quickly. As I moved into Europe, taking Iroquois cities, China denounced me and then declared war (even though I'd had nothing to do with the fall of any of her cities). Annoyed, I decided to wipe her out as well, and so I put my push eastward on hold until I had dealt with China in Europe. I built up lots of defensive troops around one of the bigger cities I'd taken to the east and then shifted my focus to Europe. That was a mistake.
Hiawatha threw another nuclear bomb at me and this one took out almost all of the defensive troops I'd stationed around that border city. I frantically rush bought defensive structures and troops over there and managed to stave off his counterattack, while still fighting with China in Europe. Meanwhile, Darius made peace with Hiawatha, having never lifted a finger to help me, and went after Arabia and the Songhai. Pretty soon he had destroyed them both completely and owned all of North, Central and South America, and there were only five civs left: me, Persia, China, the Iroquois, and Germany. China was down to only a couple cities, which I took in a few more turns, and then it was a foursome. Germany was not a contender -- they only had tiny island cities and no military to speak of -- and having conquered the Americas, Darius seemed content to sit back and wait. I kept trading excess luxuries with him to build cash while cursing him under my breath for his failure to help me.
Steadily I drove Hiawatha back, also wiping out the city-states that were friendly to him as I went. As I took city after city, he would counterattack, sometimes with fighters, sometimes with GDRs, sometimes with huge numbers of tanks and mech infantry, but nothing he did would stem the tide of my stealth bombers (which were ringing up a steady stream of promotions). Periodically he would ask for peace, but the initial demands were so ridiculous that it was insulting. I did notice that they kept going down as I took more of his cities, though. After fifty years of war, he was down to just offering equal terms: a peace treaty on each side for 10 turns. But he'd started this by playing world conqueror, so I still refused.
After I refused that latest peace offer, he threw two more nuclear bombs at me in rapid succession at two of my newly-taken cities (one of which had most of my stealth bombers based there). I promptly responded with nuclear missiles at two of his largest and most well-defended cities, and that was the last of the nuclear fighting. I kept moving east into his territory, and now the peace offerings from Hiawatha were tipping the other way -- he kept offering me more and more if I would only stop hitting him. Gleefully I refused and kept beating him back. Now I owned all of Europe and parts of western Asia. He still had all of central and eastern Asia and there were quite a few cities out there. I kept hammering him, and the peace offerings grew more extreme. Still I refused.
Part III. The Groveling
I'll never forget this if I live to be a hundred. I took three of his cities on the same turn and Hiawatha came to me, begging for peace yet again. I noticed the scrollbar on his side of the table was pretty long, and just out of curiosity I started looking it over. And my jaw dropped, and then I started laughing until my sides hurt. Here are some screenshots, because I knew nobody would believe me. Click the spoiler tags for a huge surprise.
Spoiler :
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That's right. He was offering me 7860 gold, his ivory, all his iron (16), all his horses (18), all his coal (7) and his oil (11), open borders, and ALL of the cities he possessed except for his capital. Twenty-two cities in all! Most of them were cities he'd conquered himself. And all he wanted from me in return was a promise that for 10 turns I wouldn't hit him any more.
I accepted, of course, because when somebody grovels and begs that extravagantly, well, I'd have to be a right bastard to refuse. Unfortunately, because no civ had ever offered me a city in a peace offering before, I had no idea that when they were given to me it would be just like I had conquered it by war. I'd have to choose whether to annex, puppet or raze it, and each one would produce unhappiness. I chose to puppet all of them, because I knew most of them would have plenty of improvements and would make my civ pretty happy and productive....but even so, with 22 new cities added all at once, my unhappiness had hit 180-something by the time I'd finished adding them all. I even accidentally hit "Annex" instead of "Puppet" a few times, making things even worse.
For proof, I've also attached a savegame from a turn or two after The Great Capitulation. You'll see a pile of the cities in my empire are all in Resistance, because he just gave them all to me. Hiawatha's remaining troops are scattered all around Asia, some of them in his one remaining city, some of them outside my borders, some of them in his friendly city-states. I don't know why he didn't disband them all -- he must have been losing hundreds in maintenance each turn -- but maybe he thought he could somehow come back.
I managed to battle through the multiple barbarian uprisings in my territory (three of them, I think) while I waited for the cities to come out of Resistance so that I could annex them and then rush buy courthouses (some of them were so big they were in resistance for upwards of 15 turns!). Long after the peace treaty had expired I was still battling unhappiness. It's...interesting.....when you see a group of twelve barbarian helicopter gunships suddenly appear just outside your capital and have to frantically redeploy troops to deal with them. But finally I got enough cities annexed and courthouses purchased that happy days were here again.
From that point on, I haven't really done much with the game. I suppose I could go take out Darius for his treachery in failing to help me against Hiawatha, but that would be kind of an anticlimax now, wouldn't you say?
Hope you all enjoyed this tale. I just had to share, because nothing like that has ever happened to me in any game I've ever played in my thirty-plus years of gaming.
cheers,
Phil
