Christ, this has been bloody!
Fortunate with RNG early on, a bear refused to attack my scout, another bear attacked him a few turns after, and lost. Then a panther attacked him (at full health again), and also lost. But then proper barbs came. They plundered the ivory, and later the silver. It was too late to assist against that, but I'm glad I went Archery. Made a slow start even slower, but at least I'm alive at 1AD.
This was close. I basically said "funk you and tried". Kinda got screwed on the first combat anyway.
At this point Brennus has a size 10 capital... yeah...
Aggressive settling in Genghis' face, but I had to try to nail that copper, which meant inner ring. Again, glad I went archery early here, cause there is a barb causing problems right away.
Brennus started plotting around 2000BC. I've got -2 border pressure with Qin, and -1 with Genghis. Anything can happen.
Almost constant world war since Brennus kicked it off against Ramesses shortly after he started plotting. He asked me to join, I had no idea where Ramesses was, so I accepted (in 1200BC). We've been at war since.
Fight for settlements too. Saw Qin was coming over to my rice, so had to whip the capital down to size 2 again, and hope I could beat him.
-2 border pressure with Genghis, and he starts plotting. Not good!!
One turn later he declares. On Willem! Ragnar joins in too. Practically a world war already. Only Qin isn't active. Brennus takes an Egyptian city. Which happens to be the holy city with a shrine, and Oracle. Dang. Genghis takes a city off Willem. Then another.
Totally caught with my pants down. Had gotten out some axes, but they were 1 turn away from assaulting a barb city in the far west. Horrible timing. They turned around and I looked over things. Okay, not too bad. Those southern cities can perhaps hold if I get out a spear each in time. He seem to have some chariots down there. But I didn't see this:
Cold-whipped a spear, but of course the city had zero chance. Got boned by the RNG too, which didn't help, but no way two guys would have held that no matter what.
The so-and-so is coming at me from every direction. Every single city is under threat. He even comes through Genghis' territory with two chariots and an archer and busts my copper! That was our lifeline. Nothing I could do either, though I'm glad there was a spear in the capital that could come to the rescue, which meant the city held, even if the copper was lost.
He brings a lot of guys, but I'm feeling more optimistic about holding the rest of the cities.
We don't lose any more men in that fight, and get a GG. In T97 it's finally possible to trade Alpha. I went Aesthetics, but had really bad luck in that only people I were at war with had Alpha, and Brennus as the only other guy went Aesthetics himself. WTH. But now Willem got to Alpha, so that was okay. Next turn I got IW+Math+Fishing with Genghis for Alpha+Aesthetics. Who knew, we actually have Iron!! Too dangerous to improve, but good to know.
Brennus tosses us Meditation, which was nice of him. We're paying 25 in unit upkeep here, so yeah, the economy isn't grand.
Felt like I had enough spare units to improve the iron and get out some jaguars too. Sadly Qin has gotten catapults now, and they are moving in. But so do I.
Those two encounters were thankfully enough to finally have sensible talks with him. He stopped wanting a city, and we shook hands. He gave me Masonry+20g (originally Priesthood+40g). Perhaps I could have gotten more, but it was the first offer I tried. Anyway, I'm glad we got peace again before he sent a pack of catas our way.
Axes and jaguars then went back for the barb city, and finally took it. Guess Genghis was busy. Everybody are!
A few turns later I get HBR from our friendly Chinese neighbours for Aesthetics+5g. Then full pelt at Construction. The plan was to redeclare on him with catas and hopefully a few elephants. Sadly Qin has other ideas. I suddenly notice he has Machinery... and sure enough, there they are... Cho-Ko-Nus
I'm therefore now quite torn on what to do. I'm worried about my south, east and north-east, as Qin surrounds us. Genghis is busy for the time being, so it made sense to have a go at Qin. But perhaps not with cho-ko-nus. But Genghis has a million cities on hills. Not ideal either.
Naturally we have fallen WAY behind on techs here. Atm I'm trying to get to Compass, which I hope will net us Currency. Had to self-tech Sailing after such a long time, because nobody wanted to share, or I had nothing on them. Tech situation. Brennus is flying with a pile of wonders and two shrines.
Hinduism FINALLY spread to us this very turn. Only took 4000 years, sheesh. Big lovefest otherwise, and ofc I didn't go Jewish with nobody else having that, though it randomly spread to two cities a good while back. Here is an overview map of sorts. Not pretty, but with the barb city and the filler settled this turn (thankfully it can work the banana, which made it worth it I think), we do have 6 cities. The barb city in the west is actually really good. It even has horses. I didn't know that for a long time, because I kept postponing AH (took Pottery before).
I'm glad to be alive after so much action, and getting DOWed on, but it looks bleak to get nice progress. Very late to elepults, and it looks difficult to take on Qin now. But I feel like I have to try something, because we have a pretty big army, and I've gotten out a few catas, with more on the way. Still have forests to chop too.
Early in the war I envisioned submitting a proper loss for the first time, but we're still around, so that's nice I guess
