Update until 1070AD, i haven't played further so suggestions on how to continue are welcome.
325 AD
Nagoya captured, 1 cat lost.
Lose it again on purpose 350 AD as i don't want to lose the injured units there, recapture 375 AD. City's mine now. I'm taking time out to heal troops, part of my stack ventures south to pickup a barb city there. I also found the wheat/fish city in the south, it's a great spot and it'll pay for itself rapidly,growing and working cottages.
375 AD Paper, get a map and see my neighbours are not impressive.
450 AD Machinery partly traded for Paper
520 AD I capture Etruscan the barb city in the south
Toku keeps suiciding stacks,he's teched HBR and 80% of his offensive units are HA's now. Most of his stacks don't reach my cities as the 20+ xp phants make mincemeat out of this.
620 AD Engineering
700 AD
After getting paper and some map reading i thought i was winning out right as Snowlywhite suggested, Peri and especially Ham are very small. There's no way they'll keep up later.I'll be strongest on my continent for sure and what can the other continent possibly have to offer? Well...
Meet Boudica the fury from hell, we know what she looks like here's an overview of her land:
She doubles no2 (currently Peri) in score. I can't see upon first meeting if she's planning on someone as we don't have any mutual acquaintances. Shortly after i find she's wheoohrn. Must be some of us since the ais on her own continent have vassalized peacefully to her (smart move, i'm actually happy they did this).
What to think of this? I radically alter my ideas about who my friends are in this game. Can be only one and she has to be pleased. I get her to cautious with some welcome gifts. Boudica's not the best techer in the world, her behavior'll be similar to Julius's behavior in Gliese's first deity game. She's so big that there'll come a time when she techs pretty fast. At least once i get her to pleased she won't attack me.
780 AD Peri techs lib, probaby his last significant action this game.
800 AD i'm finally before the gates of Tokyo. Slowly but surely my stack's been growing and it's significant now. Tokyo falls easily.
Have to heal again, then move on to Kyoto.
Maintenance's rising fast. I can see why Slaze's worried about that. I'ts reflected in the tech screen
Helped by some gold i tech edu 900 AD, i hold off on trading for the moment since i can't get anything good out of it now.
War still hasn't gotten me anything tangible apart from GG's. Nagoya's mediocre at the best of times and it's under cultural pressure. Tokyo'll be good once i've freed the northern gems, it only costs maintenance now.
Just before i'm arriving at Kyoto Toku techs longbows. Well it's almost 1000 AD so i can't complain about this. Battle here is grim and takes 3 rounds.
In the end Toku's reinforcements arrive to late to save this city so i take it.
I have lost all my trebs and half of my cats, especially losing the trebs hurts, maybe i should have sacked all the cats so i could have kept the trebs.
There are some compelling reasons to end the war now
Making peace now redeclaring later'll earn me a negative diplo modifier with Ham/Peri, I thought this would be important as i wanted to keep Ham/Peri friendly. Situation is altered however as i'll switch out of hindu in the future.
I really need infra and some techs or i'll fall out of the tech trade circle, since i'm on offense now i suffer ww in addition.
Toku's offering Osaka for peace, now that seems to be a very good city, it will also relieve the cultural pressure on east Kyoto. Toku's out of the game now, ill come for him later.
Subsequently i get a bit lucky in tech trading, go for gunpowder, turns out no one has it when i'm finished 1050 AD, this enables me to trade myself back into the circle.
1050 AD: Trade gunpowder for guilds + some gold
1060 AD: guilds + gunpowder for pp
gunpowder for optics and gold
1070 AD: guilds and edu for astro, made this trade with Boudica.
gunpowder for banking + gold
Essentially i got guilds-banking-pp-optics and astro in 3 turns. Also some 700 gold. I could have had much more but then i would have had to trade with ham and he's Boudica's worst enemy.
Especially astro helps immediately. I get 420 bpt without much loss now, since i have some 800 spare gold now i can get chemistry in 4 turns i'm sure to have a monopoly for a few turns on that too since no one had gunpowder. Haven't got much gpp and GA's so there's some good things in store.
Boudica has declared on Peri this turn, that's a relief, he probably gave her nothing on first meeting.I'm thinking of joining this war to release some of the cultural pressure on my cities and earning positive modifiers with Boudica.I'll move my stack south this turn to check out the situation over there.I may have to watch out for a Toku backstab though.
I'll probably have to face Boudica in the future in a direct fight or a space race. I may have to bribe Boudica to peace with Peri in the near future as i don't want her to take out Peri completely. She has 37% of land and 44% of pop atm. Well these numbers include 1/2 of her vassals of course so it's not that bad.
In my previous post i mentioned saying something about the gains/losses of this war.
On the positive side
I've got 4 cities and Toku's severely weakened, i've got some 30 units that can be upgraded later too some with lots of xp. Tokyo and Osaka are already good, Kyoto'll be ok too. I also have a good base now to take the rest of his land.
I've got 4 GG's one a medic III, 3 will make academies after MS, a tech i'll certainly not overlook this time. With all the cities i have i can spit out units like no tomorrow. Unfortunately Boudica'll do the same, the game might crash before we actually meet.
Negative side,
I would certainly have gotten lib and i would have had oxford now for some 10-15 turns. Research would probably have been 700 bpt already with the good land so steel and rifles would at least be very near. On the other hand i still would have had to build most of the army.
Since it looks like i'll reach steel in short time anyway and research'll be fine after oxford and some banks i think the positives outweigh the negatives, could have been different if i hadn't been able to trade myself back in.
Apart from Boudica position's obviously very good, i'm building libraries now in the southern cities, i already have forges, i'll whip uni's next then settle the stone and build oxford.
Overview, in spoilers since this post is already very screenshot heavy:
Land and relations
cities