You were right. This one is fun
850 Pre Turn... Look about.
Upgrade muskets to rifles. Sipahi > front. Change a few hopelessly corrupt towns to 10 turn workers.
Think the romans are too much for us - we don't have enough troops to take down their SoD - which is not ideal. Looking around - we have a tech lead over everyone but the arabs - going to declare on them, and get the rest in on a dogpile. We will lose out on 400gpt from them, but gain back more than that from our golden age. We don't owe give them anything so we should be fine. ROP with Rome means we can get at them.
860AD-1
ROP with Rome - straight.
India Alliance vs Arabs + change > Steam power.
Rome Alliance vs Arabs, 42Gpt, 40 gold, 2 workers for Steam power.
Iroqois Alliance for Ivory.
Hold off on Celts - they have deal expiring next turn - will get more cash.
Expeditionary force of Sipahi sets off.
870AD-2
Electricity to Iroqois for Incense, Wines, 37gpt, 210gold.
Electricity to Celts for alliance, 91gpt, 30gold,
Start stacking workers for faster railing.
880AD-3
Expeditionary force finds an arab SOD near the Romans - lose 1, redline 3 before finally killing something. Golden Age!
Railnet nearing completion.
IT Iron works in Iznik.
890AD-4
Expeditionary force job is done - let the others fight it out!
Worker merges start in bigger cities
IT: Lose a couple of Sipahi to Arab Cav.
900AD-5
Istanbul to size 20 - maximising tiles. India has communism now.
910AD-6
Finish Istanbul - start on Isnik
IT: Research Sci Method. Complete Smiths.
920AD-7
TOE Prebuild due in 5 at Iznik so squeeze in some 4 turn industrialisation research...
IT Reup Spices from India. Give them Iron and get Spices, WM, 11Gpt, 80 gold. Let furs from Iroqois slide - can get back when we sell Sci Method soon. Will space the deals out a little...
930AD-8
Expeditionary force is home.
IT: Rome/Celts sign MPP.
940AD-9
Start working Edrine - have used up all the Egyptian slaves for growth, so now will have to do things the hard way
950AD-10
Finishing Edrine - starting on Bursa.
All through I cash rushed, built infra and upgraded our armed forces, built more riflemen, to ensure decent defense in all cities. Nearly completed a military railnet, just a few outlying fishing villages to hook up.
Had a lot of fun with that one... industrial golden age is amazing. Suprised no-one has industrialisation yet - we'll get that next turn and then ToE the turn after. Istanbul was pre-building for Womens sufferage - although Iznik may be quicker - can get the Hoover Dam in one of them.
Was intending to do a mass change over to factories and use the golden age/cash to get them built up.
Hope the war call was OK with you - I thought about it for a long time - the Romans had a huge army and I felt we just wern't quite up to it... yet. If the RNG had been bad we could have lost the second core and some southern cities and had crippling war weariness. Figured that the dogpile on the Arabs would slow them down - also means Rome is doing all the fighting for us. It did cost us a lot of gpt - but we have plenty as it is.
There are a few trading possibilities, we could get 3-400gpt from selling Sci Meth and Electricity... possibly snag communism as well.
Think factories and then mass produced Sipahi/Artillery we can sweep the rest of the continent in a few turns
As a final note, I will be away next week. Back on 8th September, might be able to check in, but not certain yet.
Definitely want to finish this game - we should be able to win it from here.