310AD (194):
Preflight check. Ok, so we're at war with the other perennially doomed leader (traitwise at least) Genghis Khan! Who seems to have had a builder streak earlier, but not anymore as he comes after us with a vengeance. Let's take advantage of this opportunity to get some more land without incurring diplomatic hits for declaring war on people!
An HR revolt is ONE turn, for basically no downside (same upkeep and we get military garrison benefits) so go ahead with that now. We are not interested in the 'mids so that will be our government for some time.
Immediately settle the Great General in Kyoto, as it is our heavy production city along with Satsuma. The difference is we actually have food here, and a higher happy cap due to the palace.
Brennus is in WHEOOH, so I'll be keeping an eye on that for suspicious activity, but we only really share one border with him, and that's at Kyoto, so we can quickly raise troops.
Since anarchy messes everything up, I'll hit next turn before doing anything else. Metal Casting is a solid choice for tech. HBR would give us Phants, but we really need to boost our industrial base, and forges will help with that. It's also on the way to machinery, which is core for us to get Samurai running.
325AD (195):
Ok, now I'll look at the cities.
Swap Kyoto's mine over to the riverside one for the extra commerce. Every little bit counts. After consulting the other cities as well, I fire one scientist to work the now free mine. We need to lean on our heavy production capabilities here.
Osaka is working a plains forest instead of the grass copper mine for some reason that baffles me. I fix that little oversight, but I also fire the one scientist here to get SoZ in 4 turns. Will look at this again later.
I fire the scientist at Tokyo, move work onto the pigs, and get us in maximum growth mode while working all cottages. I don't work the cottage on the Bananas though, as we will need to destroy that later. Better to grow other cottages. The market is stalled, but our cottages will grow faster, and that's what is important. Growth is now in 8 turns, thanks to the empty granary from starving the city. Please don't starve cities folks. It is much better to multi whip the cities, because then we don't have the lag time on growth from food disappearing from the granary.
Satsuma has cottages and what we really needed here were farms! There is not enough food around to take advantage of all those mines! Unfortunately this is the war zone, so we can't do anything about it right now.
Kags is stagnant due to not owning much of it's BFC, that will take a while to correct unfortunately.
Ok, that's all for the cities...
Taking a look at the units hanging around Satsuma, and they are all in scattered piles all over the place, which is not what we want so I consolidate them on the hill beside the city.
340AD (196):
A Genghis Galley appears off the coast of Kyoto, so troops on the way to Satsuma pause in case we get some ludicrous enemies unloaded on us.
Kags finishes a Barracks, so I dial for archers as they are cheap, effective city garrison.
355AD (197):
Liz shows up and wants us to declare war on the Aztecs. Honestly, why does the AI make these requests when you are at war? Free Diplo hits? Meh.
The Galley sails past and doesn't bother us any further. Sully will trade HBR, but we have nothing he wants, meh. His economy is good for having like 3 cities...
The wine at Tokyo flips. Was expecting that kind of, so we'll need more culture buildings in this place once we grow out again (repeated tip: DO NOT starve cities!). For now we will make our way to the bananas.
370AD (198):
Christianity spreads in Kags, yay more culture push. Sully stupidly puts Judaism in Osaka, thanks for giving us more culture in our border city with you!
Kyoto finishes with a Cat, and we dial another. Our stack heads off towards Genghis land for a beatdown of Tabriz.
385AD (199):
Great, the statue that makes people at war with us really pissed
. We'll take a quick break from building something war related and start a courthouse. 15 turns. Oh, btw, the gems flipped to us, so I get to working them with the forest citizen. Growth in 4 yay.
400AD (200):
ToA is built in a faraway land, snooze. That wonder sucks, I have no idea what use it is. Oh well, we can make good money on it if we ever decide to do a trade mission.
Tabriz is zeroed, but of course how can we attack it with not enough siege. Waiting until next turn.
Kags is up and limping with the finally plantationed spices, yay.
Kyoto finishes another Catapult, ok. Dial another. Siege is disposable.
Kags finished an archer, so garrison it and dial another one.
415AD (201):
We are officially NOT advanced.
Strangely enough, Liz is just barely above us.
Brennus dropped out of WHEOOH, so no idea what that was about.
We abstain until we can figure out WTH is going on. Oh, that means the the AP was built right? Great. By Pacal.
So we are ready to rock at Tabriz.
First Cat goes in and dies to a Sword, boo. We do some significant damage though, knocking it down to 3.1/6.
Only one other cat that can move this turn, so send it in. 52% odds and we lose to a Keshik. Boo.
That was bad. Ok, CR2 Sword at 54% odds, and we win against the Shock Axe!
Next CR2 Sword vs enemy Sword. 95% odds, lol. We win.
Last CR2 Sword hoses down an enemy Keshik with 97% odds.
Alright, well the last sword is crazily promoted to C3... So not going to use him. Instead, promote an Axe CR1 and send him in. He flawlessly ownerizes a Keshik.
Last up is an enemy sword, so mop him up with the Shock Axe.
We win 86 gold and I put most units in the city. It has a surviving Granary, so we celebrate and dial up a Monument. It ruins floods dot, but at this point, the world is heavily settled and we don't have the luxury to raze random cities (especially as we are flanked by Pacal). We need to take and hold territory.
Genghis is willing to talk and give us HBR along with some cash, but I'm just getting started...
430AD (202):
Pacal wins the AP, and Monty makes peace with Liz, boo.
We finish shoving our troops into Tabriz this turn.
445AD (203):
Our spy gets nailed in Genghis land, so we mourn. Boo. Pacal also lands a Great Artist, so expecting a culture bomb any time now.
Osaka and Tokyo grew this turn, so filling out good workable tiles for us.
460AD (204):
Tabriz border pops, and we get a look at Pacal's Great Artist. Ugh. We can also see his tech this turn, he is teching Divine Right. Ok, we really need to take this guy out. So going to Genghis...
Genghis goes to cautious, but still hates us, boo. We're going after Pacal next.
Oh, Monty is in WHEOOH mode AGAIN, so have to be cautious.
475AD (205):
w.t.f???
Ok, at least they are both busy...
Anyways, Genghis no longer hates us, so I open borders with him. I also do this deal with him.
A happy Genghis is JUST what we need to deal with other idiots like Pacal.
Also do this deal with Brennus. He is in WHEOOH as well.
Kyoto's Cat is done, and I dial up a Cat. We don't have a stable yet, so no elephants until we do. And we also need more cats anyways.
An archer finishes in Kags, and we dial another.
Ok, so ready for some hilarirty? With everyone who could threaten us in WHEOOH mode...
The entire stack picks up and moves towards Uxmal.
490AD (206):
Our Mark Twain killing Axeman gets killed by a chariot, oh well. It was worth it! The chariot becomes XP for our spearman.
Our forces are on the iron mine overlooking Uxmal.
505AD (207):
We shell Uxmal down to no defense. We also pillage the iron mine for 18 gold.
The spearman who killed the Pacal Chariot gets to 10XP, so earns formation.
520AD (208):
Kyoto hits size 8. so get on the two newly completed mines there to stagnant.
Kags gets Jewish, courtesy of Sully, who is still desperately spreading his religion despite the war,
. The Plantation there gets nuked, undoubtably by Pacal, which is why we have even more EPs on him now. Idiot.
Uxmal is on a hill, and has one Longbow, and a bunch of other trash defending it. Send in the first CR2 cat at bad odds, and we die. We do knock the Longbow down to 4.2 though.
Next Cat also dies, boo.
Last Cat has 85% odds and gets away flawless. Whoohoo!
All 3 cats collateralled all 5 enemy units, so bigtime hurt for the enemy!
First up will be Mr Wounded swordsman CR2. He takes down an enemy Axeman.
Next is a fresh CR2 sword, and we erase an enemy Axe as well.
Next up is an enemy sword. Ok well, send in a CR1 Axe. WTH, we die with like 87% odds...
Another CR Axe is forced to finish the job.
Next up send in the last CR2 sword to clean out an axe.
Longbow is up next for a flawless beatdown by a stock axe.
Last up is an axe, so use the wounded Shock axe to take it out.
Dial a monument and everyone else holds their ground. The stack is too wounded to cover that axeman. We will take the loss of the city if Pacal sends his nearby units to it.
535AD (209):
As expected, Pacal mops up our Axeman and retakes the city, but he ignores our wounded stack. Alright, we can get them all in the city this turn.
Monty shows up and wants us to DoW on Sully. Uh, we don't have the units for that mate...
Take the victorious axeman who went flawless last turn, and take back Uxmal.
All units are in it this turn.
Kyoto finishes a Cat and dials an axe.
550AD (210):
Promote that axe Medic to heal the stack faster.
Library finishes in Satsuma. Doh! I should have swapped this out, but clearly was paying no attention. Ok, we have extra culture here to buffer this city more. Dial a sword.
Kags finishes an archer and works on an Axe.
Kyoto grew again and only has 1 more on the cap, so slowing growth by taking work off pigs.
565AD (211):
Another border pop occurs at Satsuma, pushing on those annoying cities to the south. We'll deal with the north first.
Kyoto finishes an Axe and I dial a Cat.
580AD (212):
Uxmal is finally pacified, although we really don't care. The stack is almost healed for another push.
Osaka finishes a courthouse, so dial a Cat. I think we grew again here. The good news is that we are about to border pop again, and our culture is already crushing Sully.
595AD (213):
I sent a spearman and an axe to guard our gems south of Satsuma last turn, as Pacal had some troops puttering around. He smartly attacked with a chariot and a spearman >.<. The spear dies and the chariot runs away, so no damage done to us.
610AD (214):
A great general is born somewhere far away or something silly, so big fights happening for sure.
Edirne loses the plains forest to Osaka, so major cultural beatdown for Sully.
I dial up the next tech as Machinery. This is debatable, but we want our Samurai.
Going to pass the game off here. Our war machine is well on it's way, and Pacal is basically doomed. Our target is Pacal's capital (as soon as we get a few garrison units into Uxmal, and perhaps another few Catapults. There is a forested hill (at least it was forested a while ago), that doesn't force us to cross a river to get to his capital. We sieze that, and Pacal is broken. It contains the AP and stonehenge, so major prizes for us.
DO NOT stop building military! We have a production advantage that we must use to beat Pacal. He is currently wasting his time teching Divine Right, so we have an edge at the moment. He has Longbows, but they are no match for us after he has been shelled.
Genghis an Monty will leave us alone while they are beating on Sully (Monty is NUTS! He shared a religion with Sully and still declared, unbelievable...), but we have to watch for that war ending. Brennus is also in WHEOOH mode, but he went in and dropped out before, so we need to be cautious there.
, I was trying to rebuild Tokyo's population). Our "horde" of units was simply built. I did put a chop into a Catapult in Kyoto, but that's about it. Whosit actually had a lot of units scattered around Satsuma; at first glance it didn't look like it because they were all on separate tiles, but there were quite a few there.
The AP vote right off the bat threw me off my game.
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