Vlad - I forgot to mention... Germans have been building HG since 775 (started w/ GL, then switched to HG).
<FONT size="4">Fast Succession game 1000bc - 500bc - The Reign of TimTheEnchanter</FONT s>
Shadowdale sent his settler unit to the Great Kremlin In The Sky at the end of 1000 bc. Having ruled the Russians wisely for a thousand years, and having taught the evil Chinese a lesson in humility, his greatness will be the stuff of legends for centuries to come. His last act was to choose Tim the Enchanter to lead the Russians after his glorious reign. However Shadowdale was not content to merely place Tim in charge of the nation. He felt it was destiny that Tim be granted supreme executive power by the gods themselves.
But shadowdale passed away before this new government could be established, and the citizens cowered in fear as Anarchy crippled Russia. Tax collectors could gather no gold from the revolting (in more ways than one!) peasants. The Russian wise men stopped researching the Mystic secrets of the universe as shadowdale had instructed them. Instead they studied their own foolish notions. Tim granted an audience to one Russian wise man who talked of such gibberish as "New Clear Few Shun" (this man was quickly put into an insane asylum) and one learned man had the audacity to ask Tim "How it's, sir?" and confused everyone with his talk of "Mechanized Infant Trees". He babbled about developing great and mighty weapons, but he produced no swords or arrows, so Tim ordered that he be immediately executed for his insolence. Tim prayed for the Anarchy to end soon.
To improve his ability to rule, Tim ordered the leaders from each region to report to him every 25 years instead of every 50. All cities were ordered to produce settling units to claim huge tracts of land for the Russians. Even in Anarchy, some of the cities agreed to work overtime to further Tim's goals of expansion. Settlers were prepared in many Russian cities.
After 75 years of turmoil, the local leaders finally acknowledged that Tim was the Divine Leader of the nation and he was proclaimed Czar of all Russia. Wishing to honor Tim's greatness, many citizens began to be much more productive in their daily tasks. The tax collectors resumed their duties and the wisemen were returned to study for the betterment of the state instead of that Mechanized Infant Tree rubbish.
Goals upon ascending to the throne were as follows: (1) add at least 10 new cities. (2) Control or eliminate the Chinese menace (3) Discover Trade and Mapmaking (4) Improve terrain -particularly roads for trade. (5)Begin wonder building process. (6) Explore boundaries of our continent. Tim is a firm believer that Gold is meant to be spent, especially early in the game when expansion can greatly benefit the nation for generations. Gold was spent frequently to rush projects for expansion or defense, but a cash reserve of about 200 gold was kept around to respond to emergency situations.
Tim is perhaps best known for overseeing an enormous expansion of our nation. We nearly doubled the number of cities during Tim's reign.
Notes on new cities. It just so happened a lot of these were built on defensive terrain (hills, forest, river). Hope that doesn't slow growth down too much.
KUIBYSHEV(950 bc): Specials in the north.
MAGNITOGORSK(925 bc): Specials along N. Coast. On hill...seals off territory from potential incursion later.
URLSK (850 bc) - on River with fish special in NE. Possible hidden special on river nearby.
KAZAN (859 bc) - this is essentially a defensive position against chinese with city square on a hill, not necessarily a great city site. Possible special next to Canton (as yet unexplored). This city should provide good outpost should the Chinese get antsy with some weaponry. Also could serve as staging for expansion on peninsula west of Canton.
VOLOGDA (800 bc)- This site has several river squares and 4 specials including Gold, Fish, Furs and Glacier Oil. Not sure if we can fully utilize this territory for some time, but once we do, Trade production here could be very good. May never fully utilize glacier oil site - could supply sheilds to another potential city to the East instead.
MURMANSK(750bc) fills in unoccupied territory in the middle of our land.
VITEBSK (725)- Meant to surround Canton - turns out Chinese beat me to it, founding Nanking 2 squares away. Currently stockpiling chariots.
BATUM (700) First of two defensive cities against Spanish in North.
TIFLIS (650) - Has at least 2 specials, may have another offshore to East.
BRYANSK(650) Second defensive city in north.
TULA - Fills land NE of Tiflis - nothing special.
KALININ - beginning to fill in lands behind Batum.
YAROSLAVL - Fills in behind Bryansk - Important because it provides East-west canal along with Batum.
Diplomatic Relations - Chinese were only at cease-fire when shadowdale passed. We upgraded this to a Peace Treaty since we really don't have the offensive units to finish them off or the defensive units to withstand an offensive. Chinese won't pay tribute to us - Maybe they don't have any gold or techs? Maybe it's because someone apparently betrayed their trust (Shadowdale???). For a while, I thought Canton looked like a very cute pet, but then we found Nanking and decided they must go. Needed time to ramp up while Northern front occupied our resources. Finally close to having enough offense to take them out. Demanded tribute several times recently to goad them into war to at least eliminate Nanking. Not quite to war, but close. It would be nice to clear out the southern half of the continent for unfettered growth.
Located Spaniards to the north in 850 bc. Again made peace because we didn't have military strength. When I found them, I quickly sent 3 settlers (all that were available nearby) north to stake claims on key lands near Spanish. Will need to defend those cities better than some of our others - but we need to keep them bottled up in the north and claim as much territory as possible while we had peace. They turned on us when I got too close for comfort with my horse. They declared war, but have not taken any of our troops. We have defeated several of their units, but this is only a Defensive war. We have not taken the offensive to any Spanish cities.
Since two top-5 cities had Spanish sounding names, but are listed as German, I assume Germans are on this same land-mass, but even farther north. We may need to ramp up military quickly if the Kaiser shows up. They've already taken out Carthage and if they've captured some Spanish cities they could pose a real threat to some of our northern territory. The Spanish could actually form a handy barrier between the Germans and us for a while,
Trade management- Anarchy (no research, no gold) really hurt for first 3 turns. (Perhaps the great shadowdale could have referred to the works of the great wise man, Oedo...) But we did find 2 techs in huts - both good ones: Trade and Engineering. However, these new techs further slowed our research of Mysticism. Also, getting 3 techs left us with piss-poor choices for new techs again - only Feudalism, Ironworking and Pottery were available. Pottery was tempting for the Gardens and to advance on naval/exploration front, but with Engineering in the fold, I went with Ironworking to get closer to Gunpowder. Did NOT want Feudalism because that takes away Warriors who we may want for cheap martial law in secure southern areas, and are also needed for rushbuilding the first row of shields on stronger units. Next choice was Literacy (passing up Bridge Building, Feudalism, Math, Map making, and Polytheism) which opens up Republic, Philosophy or Invention. Should get choice of Invention, then Gunpowder if we don't get any techs in trade or from huts. I would have liked to see Map Making learned so we can expand overseas but the others are probably more important right now. Decent terrain on our landmass will be filling up rapidly (although we are connected to the south pole - we could take a long cold walk if we need to). I spent lots of the treasury to speed up the expansion, but kept about 200 gold around most of the time for emergency situations. Gold is up from 7 per turn to 22 per turn. Beaker production up from 16 to 45 per turn, but increased techs mean discovery rate only went from 1 every 13 turns to 1 tech every 8 turns.
With discovery of Trade, building caravans for wonders immediately was tempting. However I delayed this for a bit as I wanted to have enough settlers for expansion and terrain improvements before committing to any big projects. One food caravan is fortified in Moscva, others are in production, but no Wonders were started.
Defense - We now have 14 active settlers and 16 in production, 10 warriors (1 in production) 7 phalanx (2 in production), still two horsemen, 5 chariots with 5 more in the pipeline, and 1 caravan with 3 in production. Several cities are ready to produce more settlers - two of those were rushed to control unhappiness.
The civilization is starting to suffer unhappiness due to our expansion - especially in undefended cities. Settler creation can only control it for so long (at least by me). Warriors for martial law may be needed elsewhere. This issue must be addressed by Vlad II
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DEATH awaits you all...with nasty, big, pointy teeth.