Diplomation 1898 AD.
First game back after a while, AI seems to tech slowly for Immortal, and I built the Great Lighthouse in 1000AD!!!!!! Anyhow, on with the report.
War 1 (see my previous post) finished with me taking the core French cities. I took peace for some techs, leaving them with 3 cities, all of them disconnected from each other. They soon peace-vassaled to the Spanish.
The next stage of the game was spent building up my military in response to a massive buildup of military and WHEOOHRN from the Celts. One time they went out of WHEOOHRN but then back into it. My economy slowed due to the cost of maintaining a large military. Eventually the Celts marched towards my territory... and into it, without declaring war. They were on their way to their worst enemy, Sitting Bull. I thought Boudica would declare at pleased but was glad she didn't. My stack followed hers - I'd rather attack Sitting Bull than my best trading partner. She asked me to declare the turn she declared, and I agreed, thus began war 2. My stack got there a bit after hers as she had Engineering and I didn't. She eventually took 1 city, and SB - instead of defending it with his stack attacked me instead! It was a close-run thing and I did briefly lose one city, but I had a pile of CR2/CR3 praets standing outside it so easily took it back. The war ended with the AP forcing peace and also giving SB his city back
I lost the Lib race and decided Steel would be better than going for cuirs as I a) had a lot of well-promoted praetorians so I wanted to use them, which I couldn't in a cuir rush, and b) Steel would be good for trading reasons.
War 3 was against SB again. It started the same way - with the Celts declaring - but this time I was more ready for it, with a motley crew of cannons, Knights and praetorians. I was getting close to MT/rifling anyway so cuirs did join the fight after a bit. The celt's stack wasn't so monsterously big this time so they all died trying to get a city. This led to a peace between them, and to the French asking if they could be my vassal state. Amusingly this all happened on the same turn, so the French declared a peace and a war with SB on the same turn
This war went well, though it was a bit slow to start with. Unlike everyone else, SB didn't really have a tech lead on me, so as my reinforecments poured in success came my way. However I had to defy an AP resolution to keep the war going - that, along with war unhappiness and "we will not fight our brothers in the faith" destroyed my economy, my science slider had to go down to 10% to keep gpt positive. Eventually though, having taken 6 of his 9 cities, he capitulated and my economy was fixed again.
Next up had to be the Celts, after a bit more trading. They were #1 in tech but thankfully hadn't got infantry yet. War 4 began with a zerg rush - cannons, cuirs, cavalry, a small number of riflemen, 10 or so praets and an elephant invading against artillery, Riflemen and SAM infantry. Unfortunately they sent their stack from their city towards mine. I didn't want to withdraw my stack so I threw some late reinforecements and some olde troops at it and just about destroyed their stack by using everything within reach. Crossbowmen were felling SAM infantry and elephants were destroying artillery by the end of the slaughter. Much fun. Anyhow, to cut a long story short, I took most of their cities, their former vassal the French took one and I left with with one, as they still had 5 or 6 techs on me that I wanted. Over the next 20-25 turns I researched things they didn't have and traded with them.
With the whole northern hempisphere under my control, I just wanted to finish the game quickly. I figured I had to attack someone else whatever way I won, so it was time to take on the Aztecs & Japan for war 5, who had been good buddies all through the game. Aztecs had one city (former barb) next to the mountains so I had to attack them first. I took the city, but they took it back a turn or 2 later thanks to Japan turning up with a stack, killing all but 1 troop and then an Aztec cavalry walked up and took it. I retook it, destroyed the Japan stack and a turn or 2 later took peace with the Aztecs, which is good as they had a 30-strong stack just 2 squares away from their former city which would've caused a lot of problems... So then it was on to deal with the Japanese properly. Protective Infantry were a complete pain in the butt. I took one city off them, but the second was a heck of a fight. On turn 1 I bombarded them and attacked with almost everyone in my stack, took heavy losses but didn't quite manage the city. 2nd turn I again didn't have enough strength but finally took it on the 3rd turn. Would've been easier had I had artillery but I still only had cannons. Tons of tanks were now coming as reinforcements for me, so I took a 3rd and 4th city off them without quite so much hassle. I then accepted their capitulation and won diplomatic victory about 5 turns later, in 1898AD.
. I just realized this fact at 1 AD. But the game would not be the same anymore and I gave up 
. I only played unfocused until its ultimate end. Maybe I should try it again (without this mistake) and see what happens 
!!!
Oops, was playing on Monarch
