It all started in Moscow, in the middle the mighty Russian desert plains. For many years it seemed as though the Russians were alone in the World, except for a small group of barbarians who lived in the shadow on the loan mountain in the middle of the plains. To the west there was a small patch of good land, exploring north there was the city state of Quebec City who seemed glad to meet me as barbarians were mauling their young city. To the east there was a city stage on a small peninsula and further was a great wall of barbarian encampments in some fertile land surrounded by resources. I had lost 2 scouts and a warrior trying to scout the region, but the barbarians were too power. My empire founded two cities in quick succession, one in the fertile western bay area and another on the shore near the city state. Things were going well for my young isolated empire.
As the years past it seemed clear that we were alone on this land, despite having never seen the eastern shore. During this time my capital became a wonder building machine and built most of the wonders of that era. In order to confirm my expectations I sent a party of our finest men to do battle with the great wall of barbarians. After clearing the first encampment I found another with a settler in it. I met a German scout and discussed possible trade with their leader, he was friendly but had little to offer me. Of course I captured the encampment and took the settler (as a worker) and went on my merry way. I found a further 3 encampments, 2 of which had German settlers in them. It seems as though the Germans had even more trouble than me with the barbarian wall which seemingly kept us apart. Things settled down and I had two cities within spitting distance of their capital. I had yet to settle any of the northern regions and my empire basically stretched across the south coast. At this time I met Genghis Khan. After some tea we decided to be best of friends and all of a sudden the world was a big lovefest.
After some time I realised that my army was far too weak to be in the same region as Genghis and the Germans and as such began making an army the likes of which... I'd made many times before. With my army building up nicely I thought about the tactics of the continent I was on (still not knowing the location of Genghis). It seemed that I had all the Iron on the continent and Bismark seemed suspiciously friendly... He began building up an army on my boarder. Despite both of us being friendly and trading merrily it seemed that all this was some kind of cunning plan, or at least that's how he said it to me.
What was his cunning plan you ask? Well, from what I can gather it was to march a few battalions of anti cavalry units to their deaths before being left with a smattering of archers and catapults (they apparently did have iron). With greater ease than I had dealt with the barbarian wall many years earlier Germany was no more and on the way to victory I found they had some 5 cities. They were not boxed in after all, and in fact had enough land for another 3 cities. The question of why they declared war against me was now in full focus as there was more than enough land to go around. In any case, I was glad to find that I now had a continent to myself.
I decided it was time to fill out my continent. I first expanded north, then into the great tundra east of Quebec City and finally it was time to fill out the land that Bismark left me. During this time Genghis and I had become the best of friends. We did what all good friends did, trade luxury items, sign research agreements and of course sign open boarders agreements. As I was placing my last city down on my continent I saw that Genghis was trying to get a settler down on land. I beat him to it, but it was a close call. My continent was now filled out with 20 cities and I had unpuppeted Bismark's former empire. Genghis, who as it turns out had a continent to himself south of me (or at least he did once he helped himself to two city states) had apparently decided that the location I built that city should have been his. Sure it was on the other side of the continent to him and was on my continent, but it was enough to piss him off. I at this time met Babylon, Egypt, France and of course, the Inca. I knew the Inca for about 3 turns before they lost their capital and last city, again cementing in my mind that the Inca are completely useless! During these 3 turns they hated me for being a warmonger of course, but hey... I guess that's the sort of attitude that got his empire destroyed on this game too. Strangely enough nobody else thought of me as a warmonger, which was a nice change.
Things calmed down and the World was again in a big lovefest. Everybody loved everybody. Except Genghis, my former best friend, who now hated me because I was "expanding too aggressively"... But something had to happen to keep the game interesting. I stumbled across a small continent populated by 3 city states with enough land for 2-3 cities, one of which would get Mt Fuji. I decided however that my empire's happiness was already going to be hard to keep up and let Genghis get it. I had decided that my empire's new direction was to build culture building so I could get some good social policies to try and get the empire's happiness up. I bought up Sydney, who were on the continent that Genghis had settled and I decided to pay up Quebec City to the north. The lovefest was getting a bit sickening too, so I stopped really paying attention for a while.
...next...next...next...next...next...next...
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Some time later Genghis decided enough was enough and he was coming for Sydney. Why Sydney..? Not the foggiest, maybe he thought it was like fighting me. In any case during the great 'nextathon' my Empire took a very significant lead in the wonder and technological stakes and and as I no longer had any enemies on my own continent I decided my best choice was just to arm Sydney to the teeth with the latest technology. At this time Genghis had 3 cities on the continent and Sydney had decided it was time for Permanent war and so I knew I had to give them a nice defence force. They got 3 infantry, 3 riflemen and 3 artillery. Of course Sydney didn't know I just thought they should defend themselves and decided it was time for Genghis to die! I didn't realise that his army on the island was nothing more than a couple of knights and a few longswordmen and sure enough Sydney conquered and razed all 3 of his cities. Suddenly Genghis decided that I was his friend again...
I got back to my next pressing and was expecting the continuation of the lovefest, but apparently Babylon had other ideas. It went something like: Persia declares war on Egypt, France on Babylon, Mongolia on Babylon and Egypt (the same turn). I at this time realised that I only had a social tree left with 110 turns to go. I let everyone do their thing for a while, deciding that my empire had retired from war and now focussing on seeing if I could get an 20 city empire a cultural victory. I bought a city state who were the allies of France not knowing that Babylon still wanted to take them. This was greatly annoying but it didn't really matter.
Time past, Babylon took all of Egypt and was making his way through France. Florence (the city state I bought off who was the ally of France) was losing the war, though only against a city state now. I decided now having GDRs at my disposal to give him some. 8 to be precise... He merrily took that city state and I saw my first ever stable 2 city City State. It did look funny though to see a city state with an army of GDRs. I was closing in on a Culture Victory... and a diplomatic victory actually, and I watched as France were being torn to shreds by a now rampant Babylon. I started building the Utopia project, with now 9 turns to victory, it was also 9 turns to the UN vote. Time passed and my empire won a cultural victory.
It's interesting that in this patch its actually possible to win a cultural victory with large empires. It was also fun with the Florentine GDRs.
Has anyone else tried to win culturally with a large empire?
Also, anyone have any ideas why Germany thought backstabbing me was more important than actually building out their empire?
As the years past it seemed clear that we were alone on this land, despite having never seen the eastern shore. During this time my capital became a wonder building machine and built most of the wonders of that era. In order to confirm my expectations I sent a party of our finest men to do battle with the great wall of barbarians. After clearing the first encampment I found another with a settler in it. I met a German scout and discussed possible trade with their leader, he was friendly but had little to offer me. Of course I captured the encampment and took the settler (as a worker) and went on my merry way. I found a further 3 encampments, 2 of which had German settlers in them. It seems as though the Germans had even more trouble than me with the barbarian wall which seemingly kept us apart. Things settled down and I had two cities within spitting distance of their capital. I had yet to settle any of the northern regions and my empire basically stretched across the south coast. At this time I met Genghis Khan. After some tea we decided to be best of friends and all of a sudden the world was a big lovefest.
After some time I realised that my army was far too weak to be in the same region as Genghis and the Germans and as such began making an army the likes of which... I'd made many times before. With my army building up nicely I thought about the tactics of the continent I was on (still not knowing the location of Genghis). It seemed that I had all the Iron on the continent and Bismark seemed suspiciously friendly... He began building up an army on my boarder. Despite both of us being friendly and trading merrily it seemed that all this was some kind of cunning plan, or at least that's how he said it to me.
What was his cunning plan you ask? Well, from what I can gather it was to march a few battalions of anti cavalry units to their deaths before being left with a smattering of archers and catapults (they apparently did have iron). With greater ease than I had dealt with the barbarian wall many years earlier Germany was no more and on the way to victory I found they had some 5 cities. They were not boxed in after all, and in fact had enough land for another 3 cities. The question of why they declared war against me was now in full focus as there was more than enough land to go around. In any case, I was glad to find that I now had a continent to myself.
I decided it was time to fill out my continent. I first expanded north, then into the great tundra east of Quebec City and finally it was time to fill out the land that Bismark left me. During this time Genghis and I had become the best of friends. We did what all good friends did, trade luxury items, sign research agreements and of course sign open boarders agreements. As I was placing my last city down on my continent I saw that Genghis was trying to get a settler down on land. I beat him to it, but it was a close call. My continent was now filled out with 20 cities and I had unpuppeted Bismark's former empire. Genghis, who as it turns out had a continent to himself south of me (or at least he did once he helped himself to two city states) had apparently decided that the location I built that city should have been his. Sure it was on the other side of the continent to him and was on my continent, but it was enough to piss him off. I at this time met Babylon, Egypt, France and of course, the Inca. I knew the Inca for about 3 turns before they lost their capital and last city, again cementing in my mind that the Inca are completely useless! During these 3 turns they hated me for being a warmonger of course, but hey... I guess that's the sort of attitude that got his empire destroyed on this game too. Strangely enough nobody else thought of me as a warmonger, which was a nice change.
Things calmed down and the World was again in a big lovefest. Everybody loved everybody. Except Genghis, my former best friend, who now hated me because I was "expanding too aggressively"... But something had to happen to keep the game interesting. I stumbled across a small continent populated by 3 city states with enough land for 2-3 cities, one of which would get Mt Fuji. I decided however that my empire's happiness was already going to be hard to keep up and let Genghis get it. I had decided that my empire's new direction was to build culture building so I could get some good social policies to try and get the empire's happiness up. I bought up Sydney, who were on the continent that Genghis had settled and I decided to pay up Quebec City to the north. The lovefest was getting a bit sickening too, so I stopped really paying attention for a while.
...next...next...next...next...next...next...
...
...
Some time later Genghis decided enough was enough and he was coming for Sydney. Why Sydney..? Not the foggiest, maybe he thought it was like fighting me. In any case during the great 'nextathon' my Empire took a very significant lead in the wonder and technological stakes and and as I no longer had any enemies on my own continent I decided my best choice was just to arm Sydney to the teeth with the latest technology. At this time Genghis had 3 cities on the continent and Sydney had decided it was time for Permanent war and so I knew I had to give them a nice defence force. They got 3 infantry, 3 riflemen and 3 artillery. Of course Sydney didn't know I just thought they should defend themselves and decided it was time for Genghis to die! I didn't realise that his army on the island was nothing more than a couple of knights and a few longswordmen and sure enough Sydney conquered and razed all 3 of his cities. Suddenly Genghis decided that I was his friend again...
I got back to my next pressing and was expecting the continuation of the lovefest, but apparently Babylon had other ideas. It went something like: Persia declares war on Egypt, France on Babylon, Mongolia on Babylon and Egypt (the same turn). I at this time realised that I only had a social tree left with 110 turns to go. I let everyone do their thing for a while, deciding that my empire had retired from war and now focussing on seeing if I could get an 20 city empire a cultural victory. I bought a city state who were the allies of France not knowing that Babylon still wanted to take them. This was greatly annoying but it didn't really matter.
Time past, Babylon took all of Egypt and was making his way through France. Florence (the city state I bought off who was the ally of France) was losing the war, though only against a city state now. I decided now having GDRs at my disposal to give him some. 8 to be precise... He merrily took that city state and I saw my first ever stable 2 city City State. It did look funny though to see a city state with an army of GDRs. I was closing in on a Culture Victory... and a diplomatic victory actually, and I watched as France were being torn to shreds by a now rampant Babylon. I started building the Utopia project, with now 9 turns to victory, it was also 9 turns to the UN vote. Time passed and my empire won a cultural victory.
It's interesting that in this patch its actually possible to win a cultural victory with large empires. It was also fun with the Florentine GDRs.
Has anyone else tried to win culturally with a large empire?
Also, anyone have any ideas why Germany thought backstabbing me was more important than actually building out their empire?
