1979 AD - You know the opposition is in a sorry state when Sumeria is my closest rival for population.
Right now, the Ottomans have the lowest score of any surviving civilization.
Now the Babylonians have the lowest score. Fifteen civilizations survive.
At this point we can either go south and conquer Japan or turn north and attack the Maya. The Maya took Texcoco from me and have yet to take it back, but they're currently pwning the Americans with a much smaller force, so I'm inclined to let a good thing continue. In fact, he's doing so well that he demands tribute from me for peace!!!
Though he is deluded by his success, we make a preliminary decision to target Japan. The American-Mayan conflict is a good opportunity to kick back and watch the action, and Japan still has the Pyramids to take.
Our next attack is against the Byzantine city of Naissus, in central Siberia. Hector is our attacking force.
The garrison was rather weak - not surprising given its isolation from the rest of the Byzantine Empire. It is our new northernmost city.
We also advance against Korea again, this time against the city of Wonsan, at the actual location of Leningrad.
Four armies does the trick, one for each defender. Our spies report a rather drastic drop in the number of Korean bombers after the fall of the city; looks like we took out some of those, too. Even though they're mostly harmless at this stage, it will be nice to not have to deal with them.
1979 IBT -
A little late for MPP's against me, isn't it? Doesn't make much difference to me now, I'll just have to conquer both instead of cutting one a break if I want to conquer elsewhere for awhile.
The alliance extends. Still irrelevant, but at least they're realizing the necessity of alliances, if too late.
Korea makes a good move and attacks the Flak guarding five of my artillery. Fortunately I win.
Now this one doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Korea needs an
alliance with Persia, not a war with them. Then I remember Korea's MPP with the Byzantines. The Byzantines are at war with Persia. Oops. So much for the alliance helping the Koreans! It helps us instead!
Persia seems more concerned with conquering the Babylonians, however. They send about six Marines into the western Sahara to take the Babylonian city of Samarra.
Haha. Gotta love when your enemies unite behind an MPP and it entirely backfires. Rather than giving them a nice advantage, it resulted in me getting all my allies in on all my wars for no cost at all and them facing even more forces than they would have otherwise. How ironic.
Japan, meanwhile, signs an alliance against the Hittites, putting them at war with all of South America. Hope they got an awful lot of gold for that war.
1980 AD -
Yay for robots! Radar artillery will be the field in no time, as we switch our research to four-turn Rocketry at a 600 GPT surplus. Manufacturing plants are well within our budget as well, and before long we'll have record-breaking production.
. Another army gone, and Sun Tzu's with it. Achilles is determined to be the lost army - our only one of all Elites. We're now down to zero barracks on all of Asia, Africa, and Europe. We need this city back pronto.
And thus an Elite Tank attacks the city right away.
Not a difficult battle, but the loss of Achilles still hurts, and we got one Regular Tank instead of a Veteran after the loss of the city last turn. You know what this means?
We bomb Constantinople and our four remaining Tank armies all attack it. It falls relatively easy, and the Byzantine capital relocates to the west coast of the Caspian. The foe that once looked formidable is down to 16 land troops, a Frigate, a Galleon, and a Dromon.
The Korean city of Hyangsan is our next conquest. It is our first city on the Arctic Ocean. Korea is now reduced to a few fairly nonproductive tundra cities, a couple cities on the British Isles, and the cities they captured from the Iroquois.
1980 IBT - Persia captures and destroys the small Babylonian town of Samarra in the western Sahara. Akkad is the next town in the line, and as a metropolis it has a chance at defending itself even if the Babylonians are still using Musketmen. But Persia's using Marines, so Babylon will need at least some help from the RNG.