I moved the warrior NW since that seemed like it would reveal the most information it could. I saw a huge swath of floodplains. I decided to move 1N to get more FPs and also more hill in my BFC. I settled there:
That ended up being somewhat unlucky, since I missed out on marble, gold, AND grassland cow in my BFC that way. At least I was able to get a good settler pump out of the deal.
As usual I start Worker>*warrior. Tech was AG>Pottery (get those cottages cooking asap) > BW>Hunting>Archery.
In the mean time I meet my first neighbor
This guy ended up throwing a wrench in my usual tech 'til Renaissance, mounted warfare strat.
Next up I met neighbor #2:
Unfortunately the detour to BW proved to be somewhat risky. I found myself in this position:
The archer was at 2.0 str from killing a hannibal scout. My warrior popped out and survived the onslaught. Phew!
Soon after this screenshot, Hannibal went into WHEOOHRN mode. I thought he was going to attack washington, but later I found out the real reason.
First though, Washington goes absolutely apehorsehocky on REXing:
Yes, you read that right: 6 cities by 1520BC
. What's more, he has a settler in that screenshot about to settle the ivory. When I saw what was happening, I hatched my plan (which made me play a super long round, bc I really wanted to see where it would go). I felt I needed to bust up Washington before he ran away with the lead, so I wanted to settle that Ivory. I had a feeling he would be trying to settle the ivory sooner rather than later, so I had all available workers chop out that settler asap, and road up to the ivory spot. I got there with 0 turns to spare
.
I wasn't sure if I could keep the cows, but the main objective was the ivory. Washington of course sends the deflected settler to grab even more land:
Two other things of note in this screenshot: there was a GG born, which means someone is fighting. I had a feeling by this point that Hannibal was already fighting a war with an as yet unmet AI on this landmass (based on EP, I knew there was at least one more). The other thing you can barely see in the south is my city #2 "worker/settler" pump. I settled it one off the coast because that was the only spot where at size 3 it could work cows/borrowed rice/gold. The capital had more than enough food surplus at this stage from working cottaged FPs to I wanted another city to take the rice.
So I continue teching the construction/HBR path, meanwhile settling some fish cities. And finally I meet the mystery neighbor:
It's monte himself
. No surprises there really. You can see he has a peace treaty with Hannibal, so he apparently was at war with him for 1k years or so, made peace, and then promptly declared on Washington. Guess I got super lucky not meeting him yet
Re: settling 5 cities before elepulting. I know this slows the teching and therefore the DOW time down substantially, but my logic was:
1) My target is washington, who has NINE cities already (600BC). Since he overexpanded, he will be slow to get feudalism.
2) He will also have a huge empire, and because of the war with Monte, probably large garrisons as well. With five cities, all with reasonable food, I can really pump out the many units necessary to attack Washington effectively.
3) For the SW fish city (can be seen on minimap), Washington would soon have settled it if I hadn't, making me have a huge border with him, and give him yet another city.
After HBR came in: I used it to get into the tech trading game. A couple of turns into alpha->trade HBR to monte for alpha set up this tech situation:
This is circa 550BC.
A while later with much whipping and chopping, I feel ready to declare on Washington. My stack is not huge at this point but scouting and logic tells me that most of Washington's mobile army will be in Monte's territory. I make a telephone call:
My main stack cuts directly north toward Washington. As more elephants come in, they make some satellite stacks which take out some cities in my backyard and such.
A few turns into the war, I am pleased to see this:
Does that icon mean he razed the city? At any rate, his army is pretty far away. I would first glimpse what's left of his main stack in 200AD, which is where I stopped.
Successfully took Washington, D.C.:
MoM could be the key to getting my economy stabilized after the warring is over.
As I mentioned, I stopped at 200AD with Washington still at war with Monte, and the first sizeable stack appearing to my West. Here are some world-state screenshots:
The save is attached a couple of posts back. First up--disclaimer: I got pretty caught up in the war and messed up a couple of things. I should have whipped the first two cities to come out of revolt from Washington immediately, but I forgot. They had huge amounts of population and many many angry citizens. Probably courthouses, but maybe just barracks>catapults. That was the main problem but there are a couple of other mistakes.
Now, the big question is, what to do?
Here is my tentative plan:
1) I likely can't withstand Washington's stack if it heads for Atlanta, which I assume it will. So I think what makes the most sense is to get peace+200gold (or maybe a tech if he'll give me one) at the moment.
2) I don't have feudalism, so I can't cap Washington. In the 10 turns of peace, my plan is to tech priesthood, trade for monarchy+hannibal's map with CoL, tech CS (I think I have barely enough gold for that, and I hope that once I get it my cap can pretty much singlehandedly support my empire+army at 0% research) and trade it to Hannibal for feudalism (he is the only one who has it).
3) Once 10 turns is up, I will redeclare on Washington. I hope he doesn't get feudalism in the meantime, but I should pack enough punch to cap him even if he does. At 6 cities, I think he is unlikely to cap to Monte before I can get him (Monte also has no feudalism). I probably won't have time to eliminate him totally, because his cities are all over the place.
4) Notice that Hannibal, although armed with feudalism, has only 5 cities! I hope to declare on him soon after Washington is capped. Goal is to capitulate him, and likely gift all cities back so that I have a strong teching vassal.
5) At that point I will play it by ear, but best case scenario I can then go after Monte. I have 11 cities already, and many of the american ones have large population=whipping fodder. I will likely have the american cities whip catapults, while my original cities (which all have barracks and stables up) continue with the elephants.
Odd note: Djenne has taoism, but it was not anyone on my continent who has philo. Can religion spread accross oceans pre-astro?
What do y'all think of the plan? doable? suicide? What would you do??