We had survived the Chinese attack and retaken the city they took, and then signed peace. I wanted to have another go at Qin, but he took off with cho-ko-nus, castles, and even Chitzen Itza. Up comes Genghis for a chat.
Rejected, and he declares war. Okay.. I guess we move north
I wasn't perfectly ready, but ready enough, and this meant I didn't have to declare on him and suffer penalties with his friends. Instead, he suffered some hits from my friends. A nice change of pace. Pretty sure he already was in a war at this point as well, so he's quite the nutter!
First target is New Sarai, and it went well.
Soon enough some elephants arrive at the front, which makes me feel a bit safer against his Keshiks. But I also have spears in the stack, leftovers from the Chinese war, where he came at me with a big force of chariots. It's a slog of a war, and it felt great to take his capital Karakorum. It has a whopping 4 settled GGs. Genghis has been his usual self, I see
(Also, notice the lucky first attack. Think the CR2 cata had 30% chance against a fresh longbow without fortification bonus)
A turn later, and we finally discover the wonders of Monarchy!
100 years later, Brennus wins Lib and picks Nationalism. I'm feeling just a little off the pace here.
Felt like the war was going well, but then he manages to kill my medic with a lucky strike. Very frustrating. He was in a city.
Then it was Genghis' turn to funk up. Willem has declared war on him, he's fighting Ragnar as well, and we're moving in on his last stronghold near our borders, having taken cities in a more or less counterclockwise fashion. I'm worried about the timing, because there is a real chance Willem will cap him at for example 2 cities left. I bring in a few more attackers, but they lag behind the catas and elephants. Genghis decides to counter them.
He is a little lucky to kill the axe, I think it was a shock+CR axe, and in any case it was a river attack. But notice the longbowman attacking as well. Here I was lucky to survive. But oh-oh.... now the city is 'guarded' by two Keshiks. Against several elephants!
Genghis isn't having much more luck on the other front. Ragnar takes Delft, which Genghis earlier took from Willem. Meanwhile Willem takes Old Sarai, and wipes out the Mongolian empire. Before that happened, I signed peace with him in exchange for Feudalism+CoL+60g (he wouldn't include Monotheism). I desperately needed some techs, so that was great. Could have gotten Delft, but it was culture crushed and size 2.
We're terribly far behind in techs, but getting CoL was great, and I could then snap up Civil Service in 3 turns. Now it was time to sort out this land, which looks excellent. Some of these cities are great.
At some point Qin built the AP, which became Hindu. Once we finally get Mono for OR, I build some missionaries and spread it to all our cities, and erect some temples and monasteries for AP hammers. Qin seems to be in full culture mode already, and I'm struggling on all frontiers. Losing food and tiles suck. With better whips on buildings, many citizens have a bad day, but it's needed as almost no buildings survived capture. Eventually I put the National Epic in Ning-hsia (on the coast with double fish) and the Heroic Epic in Karakorum (with 4 GGs). Unfortunately Willem was a naughty boy and I wasn't even able to blink before he was there with a settler. So now I'm losing 'my' tiles in the north as well.
After the war, there is a big lull, at least for us. I get busy getting the economy sorted, and Buro certainly helps. Brennus stays peaceful too, and techs like a mo-fo, with long golden ages and even more wonders. He's a beast. I send some units to check out their land, and see some huge stacks. Willem is actually the most dangerous, with a big force of knights and maces.
In 1000AD it has dawned on me that diplo is looking quite nice here, if only I can get open borders with Ramesses and infect one of his cities. Qin messed up by going free religion, removing him as the natural AP leader, and we're gaining votes on Brennus. He's still ahead, but we have a few more cities, and his pop is probably getting near max by now.
It took several gifts and cheap sells, because Optics+Philosophy for all his GM gold of 1140
gave me no bonus. Thanks for the cash, tho! Thankfully the first missionary succeeds, and diplo should now be open. However, disaster strikes. Ramesses declares war on Ragnar, and Ragnar bribes in Brennus. There was an AP vote that very turn, and the Ragnar war was broken off before it really started. For an eternity, Brennus has been sitting on probably thousands of gold due to a 17-turn golden age (normal + Taj with overlap), three shrines and just about all the economic wonders in the game. I bet he was running a 100% slider and still gaining cash. Suffice to say, Ramesses 40-man stack of mainly knights, horse archers, maces and catapults are going to have a really bad day...
The turn before, those were knights and maces, and Ramesses may actually have gotten somewhere with some luck. Brennus didn't have a big stack from what I could see.
Brennus asks me to join in, but I didn't want to rock the boat too much, and turn him down. We're still good pals. Instead I decide it's time to launch a golden age. I'm working on Oxford and am trying to catch up in tech. For a moment it looked good, and I even had a brief spell of having access to Cuirs while Willem and Qin did not. I considered whipping everything into the ground and having a go. But didn't. It proved wise, because... well... Brennus.
Then a vote comes up, which surprises me. Figured there would be another vote to stop the war, or nothing at all. I'm trying to bide my time here, not mess up too badly, and hopefully become AP resident in the next cycle. Qin thought otherwise.
With big smilie faces on Brennus and Ragnar (who I have signed a defensive pact with), I'm feeling pretty darn good about this!
Not every day I manage to win on Deity, so I'll take any win I can get -- even AP.
The more longterm plan was to get out more great people to extend the golden age, and see if I could catch up in techs, or at least get to cannons. Upgrading catas is very expensive, but it was an option. Not too far off rifles either, so it may have been possible to do something with that, unless Brennus and Qin were at infantry by that point. Or had won culture. Both were in culture mode I think -- despite the war in Brennus' case. Qin's tech speed seemed to fall off while my cities were losing tiles. If I had been able to deal with Willem and Qin, maybe Brennus would have been doable too.
But tbh, more likely Brennus would have ran away with the game, and the others got to rifling as well, which makes even a cannon war a tough affair, but doable if you have the numbers. This AP win may have been the only realistic option, so I'm very pleased with the win
