Round 3: 1050 BC to 290 BC
As the round opened, the war against Charlemagne continued. I also followed some advice received here regarding foreign relations:
I also opened borders with Pacal, all of which resulted in a couple of additional GPT, which is very handy at this point in the game.
I changed my research:
Like I said, I prefer to tech trade for Monarchy, one of the AI's favourite techs.
On the next turn, the Oracle completed, and I chose my free tech:
Yep, Code of Laws for the Courthouses to save on city maintenance and boost my espionage points. Founding Confucianism isn't half bad either:
I still had not, at this point, chosen a state religion. As you'll see, both decisions (CoL from the Oracle, remaining uncommitted SR-wise) turned out to be quite fortuitous.
With that done, I continued whipping and chopping Axemen in order to take out Prague.
I put the overflow that time into a Hindu Temple, as you can see, so I could accelerate the arrival of my first Great Prophet. In Barcelona, I put the overflow from one whip into a Granary, to help with future whipping.
While all this was going on, another civ showed up:
Yeesh,
another protective civ, and with an early UU, too. Fortunately, as you'll see, Sitting Bull is quite far away and not really a concern. I've had him as an opponent in a couple of games now and I've found that he's relatively easy to get along with and techs very slowly. By the middle of the game he's usually quite weak. So, not really a problem unless he's next door the way Charlemagne was this time.
The Hindu Temple was in place shortly after that, and helping to accelerate the Great Prophet:
Meanwhile, I kept building Axemen and plugging away at Alphabet. Finally, in turn 150, 350 BC, I had it. Unfortunately only Elizabeth was willing to trade techs:
I used to be very reluctant to trade away Alphabet, but it's such an expensive tech that by the time it's done it's usually the only one I have to offer. And all things considered I thought this was a pretty good deal. Turns out I do have a source of Iron, just barely, exactly 3 tiles south of Barcelona. Good thing that wound up being a holy city and that I remained without a state religion long enough for its borders to pop twice; the iron is now within my borders. It can also be worked by the city Jet was advocating, 3W of Madrid's rice, which would be 1E of the iron.
Seeing that Pacal was as yet unwilling to trade techs made me realize I'd better do some work on the diplomatic side. So even though Sitting Bull had gone Hindu and Liz hadn't converted to anything yet, I became a Buddhist:
Since Isabella is Spiritual, it would be easy enough to change to another faith later if the need arises. For now, though, attempting to spread Buddhism to Liz seems like a good idea to keep the peace.
I finally felt ready to go after Prague. This time I had a stack of 14 Axemen. By the time I was in a position to attack, the city's garrison had grown to 4 promoted protective units:
Yes, my research was in the tank thanks to all those units being outside my cultural borders. But we've seen what happens next countless times in the ALCs. Remember the Hatty game? As several of my units die, my economy gradually recovers. Ironic, no?
So 5 Axes had to die before the odds started turning in my favour. Even then the odds weren't great:
However, fortune continued to favour the bold. As before, once the odds went above 50%, my units started winning their fights.
I kept Prague. As I mentioned in the dotmap post, it's in the best position to work those tiles in that area. And now I have a source of horses, too! I just have to get my Workers over there to pasture that tile, then I'm off to the races. Good thing, too--the first barb Axeman showed up and killed one of Aachen's protectors. I was able to kill him right back, but obviously Chariots would be better.
Charlemagne had a couple of Workers and a Settler wandering around the northern woods. I was hoping to get lucky in that regard too--I only had 3 Workers at this point, 2 of them captured from Charlie. Whaddya know, on the next turn his hapless Settler wandered too close to my Spearman:
Charlie had one city left, Vienna, just west of Aachen. It's a very unfortunately-situated city.
First off, it's on a hill. Darn. Second, it's 1N of the spot I dotmapped. So while it picks up an extra floodplain, it fails to claim the 2nd gold tile and has 2 peaks and a desert in its fat cross. Lastly and worst of all, it has a source of iron.
Well, I don't even want to try to work out how many Axemen it's going to cost me to claim that city. I have my own iron source now, so I figure I could come back at Charlie in a few turns with a few Swordsmen. Besides, Charlie had some techs he was willing to part with to ensure his survival:
I figured that was worth it. I'll suffer a diplomatic hit with Pacal, at the very least, when I declare war on Charlie again, but I think the shared religion will eventually more than make up for that. And I got two free techs for my trouble, which no one else was willing to trade to me.
And that's pretty much where the round ended. I haven't founded any more cities, though I did manage to capture one. A state of the world post will follow to establish some of the decision points.
)?
/
but very appealing for their 'block' value against rival expansion.
), cheesy wins shouldn't be in ALCs.
. IMO, at least. keep in mind that i'm the weird one who love to go for OCC diplomatic victory, where you kinda sorta have to get other people to vote for you *giggle*.
, though--Judaism has already been founded and Charlemagne has Monotheism. I doubt he'll trade it to me, but he may trade it to someone friendlier. Liz has Alphabet, remember; that can be an advantage, albeit a risky one, of trading away that tech. 
