Round 11: 1352AD - 1454AD
Not a very eventful round, but it's interesting enough
As everyone agreed, we delayed the war against Huayna so that we could build some macemen to fight his. Meanwhile, I sent a couple of WCs to check Gaul out and hopefully capture it:
What the?! Longbows? I thought I just saw an archer wander out a few turns ago. Looks like we can't take the city right now (there are walls in it too). The good news is, due to its defenses, no one is likely to attack it anytime soon. We can take it after the war with HC.
Machinery was researched and the final preparations for the next war were soon begun in Huamanga and Thebes. I didn't switch to Theocracy, though, as most our cities were building improvements for the economy. And we were still building the Versailles, which was eventually nearly complete:
Could it be? Nobody on the other continent bothered to build that as well? They must be fighting quite a lot over there.
And, indeed...
DR has proven to be worth every beaker of it
Unfortunately, the party was soon over. The hard-working Egyptians had to wake up to the reality of the mortal world:
The heathens are more advanced and more powerful than us. Humiliating as it was for the pious people of Egypt, we had to agree so as not to risk war against someone who had more temporal power. Things will have to change in the future.
Mehmed soon came, offering to trade his cows again:
It seems that the Ottomans have been able to acquire/import corn. I agreed to the deal since we needed to increase our cities' health limits (some were already unhealthy). Besides, I agree with voek that we should just trade with Mehmed and build better rapport with him. We could train macemen now so we could probably deal with an Arabian landing party if Saladin gets angry enough for that.
Before Engineering and after Machinery, I decided to sidetrack to get Literature so that Memphis could start on the National Epic. It took 2 turns to research. Memphis is building the Epic when the next prophet is born in it:
I plan to use him for the Mahabodhi for more income so that we can raise the research slider. Should we try to generate a GS next?
This is where this round ends. On the same turn, we finished researching Engineering. I'm thinking of researching Printing Press next to increase our income. Remember how helpful cottages were in helping us catch up in the previous Emperor Challenge?
And, once again, our forces are poised at the border with Huayna:
Two of those macemen were built and one was upgraded from our best swordsman. I think we have enough. I'm planning to march the entire stack to the Inca capital to take it and then send several units down to capture and raze Vitcos, after which we march the stack east to raze the small city. Any other suggestions for a war plan?
The GNP graph:
While ours has shown improvement, we're still below Saladin and far below Mehmed. I wonder why their GNPs are so highly rated.
The power graph:
We're about equal with HC, so we will probably be able to defeat him quite easily in the upcoming war.
And the tech-trading screen:
Since both the DR wonders have been built, I don't think there's any harm selling DR to HC for his gold before we invade. The money will help us get Printing Press sooner (if that is indeed the next tech we are researching).
We're very far behind Mehmed, which is similar to our situation in the previous Emperor Challenge (why does it keep happening?) I hope we can eventually catch up due to our size, the Spiral Minaret and shrine income and Sankore's beakers. Space race may be our only option this time.
Finally, the map of the continent again:
I think Huayna's northern tundra cities can wait. Isabella has kindly settled some cities for us in the south. We can attack her next after this war, or we could conquer Gaul.
I'm quite worried about the tech gap (and no one is willing to trade with us). Otherwise, I think we're doing fine so far. Any thoughts?