Frustrated, I left the great spy where he was .. and proceed to take it out on Joao:
I considered what to do with the Great Spy too and out of ambivalence, rather than frustration, I left him sleeping in Beijing. But I did end up rush-buying the Hindu Mandir in Beijing and assigning a total of four priests there -- perhaps it's not too late to build GreyFox's shrine. The worst that can happen is that we can use the Spy to start a golden age if another wrong GP type pops up.
I notice an earlier frustration for me still hasn't gone away:
During my turnset, I moved more units to our HE city to prevent it from rebelling yet once again.
So next I turned to GreyFox's suggestions:
--we take Lisbon,
-- capitulate Joao (ask for Physics instead of useless DR) -- this should free Shaka
-- then capitulate Shaka and
--then prepare for war with Rosy.
Taking them in order:
"we take Lisbon"
Well, this was a no-brainer. GreyFox had left only one badly wounded defender in the city with a nice stack of slightly wounded Redcoats waiting for me to command on a hill north of the city. Despite Joao's futile movement of some obsolete units into Lisbon during the IBT, the outcome was inevitable:
"capitulate Joao (ask for Physics instead of useless DR) -- this should free Shaka"
Santarém isn't as nice a city as Lagos, the one Joao offered GreyFox last turn but it's not bad. It's on an island in our southern archipelago and will pay it's own keep in a few turns.
I tossed a friendly offer back to him:
As predicted, Shaka freed himself from Joao's vassalage.
"then capitulate Shaka"
This took a tiny bit more effort that the first two suggestions. It was clear the first step was to take uMgungundlovu:
Much of our force in the former Portuguese lands needed healing so I moved them into cities and let them mend. Using the few non-wounded Cannons available to me, along with the first Frigates and Ships-of-the-Line to arrive at the front, the cultural defense of the city was taken down quickly. The city fell in two turns without a loss to our forces:
Shaka offered us a bunch of crap (I forgot to take a picture) but it included this especially crappy city:
I asked for Democracy instead and he took the deal. I tossed another friendliness gift:
then prepare for war with Rosy
About this time, several events occurred.
We had a nice random event:
It's unlikely we'll have time to build either a Drydock or a Coal Plant before this game is over but the Drydocks would surely be more likely.
I say to Herodotus: "Ya
THINK???"
FDR pulled this annoying move:
And how about this for hubris?
He picked the wrong time to mess with me. Assembly Line had just come in. I picked Railroad next, shut down research and upgraded all our Redcoats in our expeditionary force to Infantry including those aboard a convoy that GreyFox had sent across the ocean.
So having implemented all of GreyFox's suggestions, I took it a bit further.
I started with this kind gesture:
His response to me was:
And my response to his response was:
It must suck to be FDR:
I started with a little cleanup in our southern island chain:
Miami on the neighboring island will have to be dealt with by the next player.
I had loaded all available Galleons in the hemisphere and joined them with the nice stack carrying reinforcements that GreyFox had sent and aimed them across the bay at Boston:
The odds for amphibious attacks were pretty low so I took a beachhead instead. I also ordered a sizable stack to make a land-march toward Washington:
Note at the top of the screen, my most significant
of the turnset: once again, I had failed to check Beijing's specialist assignments and somehow some Merchants worked their way in, decreasing the odds of a Great Prophet ::sign::
Next turn, I sent in a few Cannons first (one died), then Infantry and Cavalry. Eugene of Savoy, our super-medic, delivered the coup de gras.
So that's where I left it, having played 10 turns.
Can someone resolve this puzzle for me?
Why is the irrigation chain broken next to Coimbra?
Here's our most likely victory condition:
There are workers and a Galleon in our southern islands improving newly acquired lands. Be careful not to leave the Galleon out of port in case an American Frigate is lurking nearby. There are a bunch more workers sleeping and can build railroads in 12 turns if the game lasts that long.
Have fun!
We might even check in a turn or 2 and see if Joao's willing to capitulate yet.
comes from WW so I suggest going Police State at the end of the GA. That should do imo. A trip into US is okay but unnessecary MM imo.
