What's wrong with this picture?
For everything there is a season.....
The Mongol decided that the swordsman on Two-Tile Island needed a promotion so he tried to extort maps and money...so I suggested he return to the steppes and think about it. He didn't, but declared war instead.
Signed up Egypt as an ally, got a ticket to ride and threw in Magnetism for everything she had in her treasury. Immediately started the armies and a cavalry herd across Egypt to the Mayan towns under Mongol control. Upon arrival immediatley razed a small town and captured Tikal. The Mayans were very happy to see us and there is no resistance. Razing the first town was a tactical error as holding the town would heve ensured access to the Mayan lands, but, hey, you can't think of everything.
There are two armies and some cavlary on the way to Chichen Itza and some foot soldiers on the coast west of it and a third army waiting for the choke to clear. Take the little town on the coast if you can but go ahead and raze as I think it is Mongol and there is a settler in a galleon offshore.
It was fun watching the Egyptian knights and Mogol Keshiks face off in the gap. Keshiks are a nasty unit, 2.2.2 ATAR, so they can come out of nowhere really fast and really hurt.
I think our objectives for the war should be limited to taking and holding the former Maya capitol (Pyramids in Chichen) and then sending the rest of the Mongol land back to the Jurassic. Adding the Mongols to our empire right now wouldn't add much to our capabilities and would drive corruption through the roof. It is already 1/3 of our total income, so every city added would help unit costs (now less than 5%) but would add significantly to the city maintenance burden. Just turn the armies and cavalry loose in the Mongol land and pillage everthing in sight. With the forces we have we should be able to pillage about 30 tiles per turn. Six cavalry and an army in a stack. Pillage with the army, move 1 and pillage again. The cavalry pillage the tiles surrounding the army, then move back into its protective umbrella. Kill Keshiks in the open with Elites hoping for leaders.
In other news we got Newton's in Greenland and the beaker count jumped enough to take two full turns out of the acquisition time to Medicine. I gave up on the math needed to pull off the exacta of ToE and Hoover's same turn. Hoover's wouldn't be of much value till we get factories up anyway. I think the best approach is nail ToE using the pre-build at Riverbend, take AT and Elec, and start Hoover at Riverbend, while researching Industrialization and building factories everywhere with more than 10 net spt. We won't need much in the way of additional military to prosecute the Mongol war other than galleons to provide ferry service.
I would continue selling Cleo technology as we research it hoping she will research something else, but I think the strategy has backfired, as she has no spare gpt. If we acquire a new luxury sell it on to her and hope she gets her people more productive. Given the fact that she is and has been embroiled in warfare as a Democracy her citiaens are really war weary and I'm betting that she is making tracks towards a Fascist putsch, if so, good as she will research Nationalism for us.
Workers have been formed up into gangs of six or twelve, mostly. The milnet is complete to Dacca. I did not build Pittsburg in the far north as its location stinks and we woudn't build the Iron Works up there until after the world is ours.
Keep the workers together in one turn railing stacks and start railing around the core cities, hitting the two shield tiles first, then the hills, then the mountains, keeping the irrigated tiles and the one shield tiles for last. IIRC it takes 18 native workers to rail a mountain in one. Once all the improved terrain is railed send the gangs into the marshes and jungles. I always road those tiles before clearing as it makes it easy to add workers to the job as it proceeds.
There is not much useful left to build in our most productive cities unless you want to build cathedrals as a precursor for factories. So, build a worker and lay some more rails.
The cities need managing as the addition of rails has changed output. We have 85!!! I started on it but didn't finish.
Over to you viper...
. It was a semi-serious response. So, really, what research path should I take?
