Round 10: 1740 AD to 1814 AD (37 turns)
I started the round by accepting De Gaulle's capitulation, which the overwhelming majority of you advocated.
It made sense; get this war over with and get on with the next one with my biggest opponent.
As I examined the map, I began to wonder if I might not find an opportunity to repeat the tactic I'd used on De Gaulle. That is, if Peter had a large stack in one city that bordered one of my vassals, I could launch the attack there and do a serious amount of damage to his military and, as a result, to his power rating as well. Sure enough, an opportunity presented itself:
Bwa-ha-ha...
So all I had to do was move my stack over there. I even built several roads in American territory to facilitate this. Once my units were right outside of L.A., it was time:
One of the benefits of having vassals is not just that they give you resources and sometimes techs and add to your power rating. You also get to boss them around. Not only can you direct their research, you can also tell them where to fight if you're at war.
In De Gaulle's case, I wanted him to stay out of Russia's south and thereby out of my way. I wanted that territory for myself. So I told him to attack a city (Yaroslavl', you can see it on the left) that was well away from my target area (compare to the mini-map). I instructed Wang Kon to attack Babylon. I tried sending George over there, but he didn't go. I had better luck, as you'll see, having him attack Russia's western coastline. This leads me to believe that the attack instructions are most successful if they're relatively in line with the AI's preferences--which is, of course, to attack the closest target.
L.A. was so packed with units that it took two turns of fighting to capture it.
Shortly after this, I gave it back to Washington. It's not much of a city, after all. You might wonder, in fact, why I didn't raze it. First off, with two peaks on one side and the coast on the other, it's a good strategic choke point. Second, I was doing almost all of my fighting out of my vassals' territory. That meant I didn't incur the additional maintenance costs that I would have if they'd spent more time in enemy territory. However, I had to be in my
own territory in order to perform any upgrades. So capturing and holding a city for a couple of turns let me do that.
I killed well over three dozen of Peter's units and lost a handful of my own (low-XP Cannon, mostly), so war weariness mounted quickly. So I made a single civics change, to Nationhood.
I was building the Globe Theatre in Cuzco at this point to provide a good drafting point. The former Incan capital had two corn tiles and lots of riverside grassland, so I figured it would recover population lost to drafting relatively quickly.
I kept capturing Russian cities:
Meanwhile, Hammurabi attempted to use the AP to stop the war, but failed.
Wow, look at the mad-on De Gaulle and George have for Peter!
In this screen you can see an example of my "vassal coaxing" at work:
I was able to persuade Washington to attack Circassian, leaving me able to take interior cities like Harappan and Houston. After this, I was able to get him to attack and capture Krasnoyarsk, which you can just see at the very top right. (Notice that Houston was in Russian hands for so long that I don't even get an option to give it back to the Americans.) I couldn't get George to help his fellow vassal Wang Kon by attacking the Babylonians, but I was able to direct him against nearby cities. Interesting, and good to remember in the future.
Another turn, another Russian city falls.
That was enough for Peter, especially with his old enemy George rolling up his seaboard as well.
There seems to be something of a snowball effect with vassals--I think their power is indeed added to yours by the AI, and that's why they've been so quick to capitulate in this game. So Peter joined my growing list of vassals, and only Hammurabi remained out of Zulu control.
At this point, I checked the victory screen to see how far I had to go:
So I had nearly double the population required for domination but not quite enough land. Interesting how the Conquest section says I have 5 rivals left--I though vassalizing them counted too, in which case this screen should say I only have 1 rival left at this point.
My power rating was now huge compared to everyone else's, and if all my vassals were added to it then it must have been extremely intimidating. However, Hammurabi refused to buckle. It took a few turns, but I moved my stack into his territory and captured one of his cities:
Well, that was all it took! Amazing. De Gaulle and Hammurabi both capitulate after losing only one city, Wang Kon after losing two... only Washington and Peter proved at all defiant, and not for long.
On the next turn...
Interesting that it's a domination win rather than conquest. Whatever, it's still a win, a satisfying one, and an authentically Zulu win at that.
Next up, the post mortem. The saved game file from the winning turn is below.
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With your perfomances here and in the Ragnar game, it really looks like you should move up a level. Of course the map types suited both leaders, but the Lincoln game should be a good Immortal test since his excellent traits might help compensate for the added difficulty, if it really turns out to be a problem.
, so you need to have some fun doing it... I guess it wouldn't be very challenging to steamroll Prince AI's for the next 30 ALC's once you've beaten emperor. 
