The round started off with me hoping that Saladin or Gilgamesh would declare war on Pacal II, which would draw his forces away while I declare on him and attack his almost-vacated cities.
Unfortunately, that didn't happen even though Saladin and Gilgamesh were BOTH in "We Have Enough On Our Hands Now" mode, meaning that they are preparing for a war or are in one (the latter didn't apply so it must have been the former). This meant that I had to take the responsibility of declaring war on our fellow Mayan.
But before that...Saladin decided to build the Kremlin while he was supposedly preparing for a war. He must have had a Great Engineer produce the wonder for him, as he had just recently obtained Communism.
Around that time, I had a Great Spy born in Vienne. I saved him for a future Golden Age.
In terms of research, I finished Corporation, and went on researching Biology. I believed - probably correctly - that researching Biology earlier than most other Industrial technologies on this kind of map (because of the plains) is optimal.
Once I had Corporation researched, I decided that I could no longer depend on another AI initiating a war, so as usual, I had to do it myself. I first checked the diplomatic demerits for declaring on Pacal.
No one likes Pacal. Excellent! And Pacal doesn't have Military Science, Military Tradition, nor Replaceable Parts!
Here were my three stacks that I used to make the war as brief as possible.
Stack #1
Stack #2
Stack #3
I didn't combine all my stacks into one because that would have made the war less efficient. The quicker I take cities, the less troops that I will have to face in the long run than if I used one "super" stack.
So unfortunately for Pacal, I declared war on him and took a city on the first turn of the war which was in the middle of my territory. It happened to be Numidian, a barbarian city that had its origins way early in the game and was famous for depleting Darius' troops. You can see that I captured the city with stack #3.
The following turn (I believe), one of my spies managed to spot Pacal's outdated stack-of-doom. The stack of doom pictured is 2 tiles south of my selected spy.
I moved my southern stack onto the forested hill in case the stack was heading towards them.
Meanwhile, I captured a Mayan city. I used 5 cannons to bombard city defenses and one to suicide attack.
Needless to say, the city was mine next turn.
Pacal II proved to have some energy left in him, as he recaptured one of Mao's cities that Mao had conquered from him years ago.
This looks good from an AI's perspective...recaptured a city...lots of units in it...BUT...see that Celtic rifle 1 tile south of Yokib? Well, that's actually a whole stack of them! 9 rifles total! It did take several turns to take the city, but eventually I won it for good.
Even Darius I, my vassal, helped out in this war. His force of grenadiers managed to capture a Mayan city east of the former Persian capital Persepolis, now under my control.
I had captured several cities already, but I knew that my biggest prize lay in the Mayan capital, Mutal, which held a plethora of wonders. It was time.
I had tried to reduce the city defenses using spy revolts, but unfortunately, all of my spies (3) failed in their attempt. Well, that's ONE upside for Pacal in teching Democracy early -- it helps combat espionage. Unfortunately, it doesn't help combat raw troop power, which is what I had here. I combined 2 of my stacks together (by this point I kept splitting and/or recombing stacks to adapt to whatever situation was optimal). with 6 cannons total.
Only one cannon didn't live to see another day. Once my cannons had done their work, my rifles attacked. Here was my level 5 rifle who had 99.3% odds.
And he actually DIED!
All my rifles eventually attacked, and apart from the crazy odd loss with my first rifle, all survived. I had JUST enough units to capture Mutal. Check out the loot!
The wonders not included here were the Temple of Artemis, the University of Sankore, and the Apostolic Palace. This easily wins my prize as the best city ever captured. Anyone care to show off one of their own winnings like this?
After he lost Mutal, Pacal was willing to capitulate, but I didn't want this. I needed land, for Domination.
Also, soon after I had captured Mutal, Gilgamesh declared on Pacal! He took an incredibly long time to do so.... And I just checked and saw that Saladin was no longer in WHEOOHN! Wow....
Another Mayan city captured. Chichen Itza took me 2 turns to capture and I lost a rifle at very high odds again.
Here is a 20xp unit attacking, demonstrating the power of Aggressive + Charismatic in promotions. He won that battle to gain 2 more XP points.
So, Pacal's cities were falling, his army was in shambles...
...but he had a nasty trick up his sleeve....
[To be continued in next post]
I'll finish up the entire game and then post the next and final round. It shouldn't take me that long; as of this moment I have about 50% population and 50% land.
Well, I was so far ahead of these AI's at this point that a few mistakes here and there hardly mattered.
