Round 4: to 900 AD
Yeah, a lot of turns this round. It took a while to get the war machine lurching along; CKNs are 60 hammers each, compared to 35 for Axemen, you see.
Based on some of the advice I recieved here, I did change a few things from the get-go. I switched back to researching Writing, adjusted Guangzhou's tile assignments, and started building a Settler in Beijing. But I continued building the CKNs, mainly because they were going to take a while.
My Scout made his way into Incan territory:
Turns out Julius and Huayana both have stone and have therefore gone crazy building walls. I'm gonna need Catapults before too long.
Unfortunately, Huayna did indeed beat me to that spot by the horses, the jerk:
All the more reason to kill him. I wound up using the Settler one tile east of where the second barb city used to be. Not a great location--very few resources--but several river/grassland tiles beneath the jungles for cottages, and a few grassland hills and forests for production. Not a bad, average, multi-purpose city site, and the only place I could expand to without going to war.
I also quickly built a fog-busting Archer in Thracian and sent him north to the desert hill. I doubt I'll be building a city up there anytime soon, if ever, and the way the barbs have been setting up shop, I figured a fog-buster was a good idea. I'm done conquering barb cities. I don't have the time for the distraction.
Along the way, I built another Wonder:
Which made sense now that I had three coastal cities and am planning on conquering several more before Astronomy.
I researched Alphabet after Writing, then went tech-trading. VoR, you were bang-on regarding the desireability of Metal Casting. Check out this trade:
Wow, one-stop shopping! I researched Monotheism quickly after that. I decided to go after Theology since (a) I was planning a war soon, (b) Confucianism got founded somewhere else, and (c) I wanted to run Organized Religion for a while to spread Buddhism before switching to Theocracy. The way the CKNs were taking their sweet time getting built, I had some turns available for all that.
So a few turns later, I woke up my Great Prophet, and...
I did not convert, however. Ceasar was now a Buddhist as well, and I needed relations with him to stay stable while I went after Huayna. I did NOT need the -4 "heathen religion" demerit, on top of "our close borders cause tensions".
Before I got Sailing from that poor sap Huayna, I built a plucky little workboat to explore the land mass to my northeast. It's a smaller continent than the one I'm on, with only one civ on it, and a very convenient one at that:
Of course Mansa loves to tech trade, but check out the score table: he's languishing at the bottom. You wanna build Crossbowmen on your lonely little island, dude? Go crazy.
And notice I did NOT give him Alphabet. In fact, the last time I checked, I was still the only civ with it. All tech trades have to go through me!
I finally got enough of a stack together to venture forth: 4 CKNs with Drill I, a CRII Axe, and a Combat I Spear in search of a Medic I promotion. I sent them off to that annoying city by the horses:
I gotta say, they did an admirable job. That city was on a hill and contained two Archers and three Axemen. It certainly helped that it had 0% cultural defense. I lost the first CKN--the "forlorn hope", as it were--but all the others survived thanks to the collateral damage he did. They all picked up their 2nd drill promotions, the Axe made it to CRIII, and even the Spearman took out the last Archer and got his Medic I! I captured a couple more workers too. Sweet!
And I wasn't done. Once they were done healing and a City Garrison I CKN showed up to make the city safe, the stack went south:
I have kept both cities, mainly because they have access to a number of nearby resources, and the maintenance costs are not onerous as of yet. The stack is pausing in Yayoi to take in the sights, such as they are. All of Qin's other cities have walls, so I'm waiting for my stack of 4 Accuracy-promoted Catapults to show up before continuing.
Meanwhile, I researched CoL, scored another GP, and burned him for help with Civil Service. So thanks to the Machinery slingshot, I now have access to Macemen. So much for sweating about those Praetorians and Longbows (haven't seen the latter yet). Once I have my Cats and a couple of War Elephants, it's Macemen, Macemen, Macemen and a few more CKNs as needed.
I suspect, after reading through the posts, that I didn't follow the most efficient path to where I am. Still, I'm pretty happy and confident. I feel certain that with the Cats on the way and Macemen to follow, I'll be able to take the rest of my continent. Huayna has built Buddhism's shrine, and I will enjoy relieving him of it. I'm building the Great Library in Beijing and, with a couple of chops, feel pretty confident that I'll get it.
Finally, I have more than one Level 4 unit, so I'll be building Heroic Epic soon. I'm torn between putting it in Thracian or Shanghai. Both are good production cities, Shanghai having an edge. But remember in the Mao thread I said that your best production city doesn't really need HE to quickly pump out military units, and you usually need to divert its production from units to Wonders. So I'm leaning towards Thracian for HE and, later, West Point. Shanghai will eventually get Ironworks, unless one of the captured cities is stellar for production.
Here's the big map:
And another shot, closer in, of Incan and Roman territory to my south:
There is another Incan city due south of Yayoi and west of Machu Pichou. That's probably my next target. I'll decide whether to keep it or raze it when I get there.
I am on top in terms of power now, and I intend to stay that way:
Once I have CRII Macemen, I expect that puppy to jump up even higher.
As for the Incan campaign, the first two cities were relatively easy: lightly defended, no walls, no cultural defenses. You can see that the remaining cities are Huayna's core ones, and will therefore be much better defended. Hence the wait for the Cats. I may pull up to one and realize I have to wait for Macemen too, in which case I may busy myself with pillaging.
My overall plan is to keep the stack together instead of splitting it up, given how Huayna's cities are laid out. I'll go south to the desert city first, then east to MP, then fight my way southeast to those two ridiculously-close cities down there before swinging back west to finish HC off. Then the stack will likely keep going into Roman territory, especially since the capital is so conveniently close to the last Incan city. By then I should have a stack towering with heavily-promoted Macemen, Pikemen, and CKNs.
I am currently researching Monarchy and plan to switch to Hereditary Rule when happiness in my cities starts to become an issue. Then it's on to Feudalism for Vassalage's extra XPs and free units as well as Longbowmen. I prefer building the CKNs for Drill promotions and attack rather than city defense, and Feudalism gives me access to an excellent city defender.
As always, I appreciate your thoughts. Here is the saved game file:
I really like these kind of threads where other people can track your progress and offer advice. Kind of like a succession game, except only one player is allowed to take turns.
