As mentioned in the last update, the idea now, after wiping Genghis Khan off the map, was to take on Shaka. However...
Alexander's stack in Beshbalik, and it was too tempting to not try to remove it. Hence
Next turn the inevitable (I suppose), happened:
Was ever so close to taking out Beshbalik
At least his stack is gone, and we took the city the next turn.
Our northern neighbour comes to say hello.
No way I could stave off that with the Cuirs in the far east (needing healing), and it wasn't defended well enough atm. So...:
Thankfully that made Shaka turn back with almost his entire stack right away.
Way up north (I captured 2 barb cities here a handful of turns before Shaka could, in the last update), a barb galley was caught between a rock and a cold place
Montezuma had been in first mode for a while, and I suspected he plotted against me. Soon enough the window of uncertainly was closed.
This was plenty enough to ravage my newly captured Greek cities. Alex wouldn't capitulate despite losing several cities and his main stack, but I had no choice:
To my surprise, a cautious Alex was willing to oblige
Meanwhile, in the NW, the start of a new second Cuirs division grabbed a city from Shaka, while Napoleon was bombarding and throwing units at Nobamba
With Alex's stack wiped out in our war, there was no way he was able to defend his cities from the combined force of Montezuma and Tokugawa. I deliberated and pondered what to do:
1) Declare now and (try to) wipe out their stacks in the open
2) Wait till Montegawa have thrown their force at Thebes and hopefully lost a lot, but captured the city, then DoW and retake the city, wiping out their remaining force in the process
I chose option 2:
Of course there wasn't much left standing in Thebes after a double capture, but it meant the stacks of Tokugawa and Montezuma were virtually wiped out, and on top of it I got a city from an AI I was no longer at war with. The city was taken with the Super Medic and only a half-dead Cuir could accompany him in the city for the interturn. I did have a few units on the hill east of the city, but Monty had some HAs in his stack, so could have gone around them to recapture the city if he played it well. Thankfully for the life of my supermedic, he attacked the hill instead and stopped short of a full assault on the city.
On the Shaka frontier, Napoleon was taking his sweet time to bombard down the walls of Nobamba, a city I hoped to steal from him. I grew tired of waiting, and instead moved the Cuir stack further inland to attack other Zulu cities. uMgungundlovu was the first target:
Here you can also see how utterly swamped in Zulu culture Ulundi is. Napoleon took it in the war I had to call off, and it has since shrunk to size 1. Ouch.
2 turns later, and Napoleon have finally withered away the walls in Nobamba and assaulted the hill city. Thankfully he got just short of taking it, though he had plenty of units left over, all injured from the battle.
Naturally, newly produced/whipped Cuirs took the city in the same turn. Thanks Nappy!
Montezuma had had enough, his stack wiped, so wanted a peace treaty to focus his efforts on Alex (or so I assume).
No cap, but this ensured my eastern border, which was nice considering most Cuirs were wounded. Despite being well-protected, there was also a very annoying riot in Satsuma, taking that city out of the equation for 7 turns. Toku (and Monty) is on the future hit list, especially Tokyo.
Thanks to upgrading some war elephants stuck in the former barb cities, I managed to assemble enough reasonably healthy Cuirs to take out Shaka's two last remaining cities:
Napoleon and I are on very good terms, so I have no intention to attack him. The far east is the issue. Hopefully relations with Alex will improve now, and hopefully he can keep Toku and Monty at bay for the time being (as I can't redeclare on them for 10 turns). Right now I need to get the economy back on its feet, and get out more units. Rifling will be in soon, at which point Cuirs can be upgraded to Cavalry. Doubt I'll be able to do that within 10 turns, but the idea is to move the Cuirs over to the east, upgrade them, then take on Toku and Monty, hopefully before they can reassemble huge stacks again, or get rifles themselves.
The big unknown is Alex. He's still at war with Toku and Monty, and I hope he will hold up well enough not to capitulate. If that war goes on for a while without any making headway, I'll be in a good position to settle scores with Montygawa.
Finally, here is the lay of the land in 1555AD.
This was incredibly tense, and only thanks to bribing Napoleon onto Shaka and peacing out with Alex and bribing him onto Toku was it possible to keep all my cities. Shaka would almost certainly have taken Lakamha, the HE city, which would have been disastrous. I didn't have the units to counter his stack, and although I moved all the defence I had towards it, I think he would have gotten through considering he brought so many trebs.
The same on the eastern front really. Without bribing Alex onto Monty and Toku, I wouldn't have been able to counter their stacks. Most of the cuirs were healing. But the bribe bought me some time to heal up and then later counter.
Diplomacy and bribes seem to be very important in this hellish map.
granary. Turned out allright I think.
