Five Take On The World, inherited turn 1350AD
Good job on the forests Aggie. It's such a simple defensive measure but it can be very useful.
Looking through the cities I realize I messed up with the summary I did for each city at the end of my last turn...Bursa should be the home of a single scientists since it will grow to size 22 even when fully mined because of its food bonuses. Iznik should therefore shrink a size to 18 and mine an additional tile. I will look to alter this in my turn.
Everything looks great. We're building lots of bombers which is very nice, even if their lethal bombard is horribly overpowerful. I will look to clear out the last 3 Babylonian cities within our reach and then prepare to fight the Iroquois. Ideally we want India and Babylon, the two most powerful civs, to keep attacking each other for the rest of the game. A slight problem with the Iroquois is that we have long-term deals with them, 17 turns until expiry. I guess I'll just have to let the Iroquois do the declaring
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Trade maps with everyone we can. Everyone is furious with us, reminds me of Isabella and the Chamber of Secrets where we had a similar situation because we'd fought everyone so many times.
We don't have a spy with Babylon. I'm not sure when Aggie last tried to plant one, so I'll try now...it succeeds (153g). Of note, Babylon has 28 cavalry, 164 infantry, 11 artillery, 25 frigates, 2 bombers, 18 workers and various miscellaneous units.
IT: Indian cavalry fails in attack on Bergen. Bab units move. Iroquois move units into our land, probably heading north...I hate AI stragglers, so will look to reinstate the blockade there. Iroquois drop settlers + escorts in the cleared areas to our south.
I start a round of airports...if we're gonna build bombers they might as well be veterans.
WTH...this is something new: Iznik's colosseum has been auto-changed to flak!
Is that something new with mobilization in Conquests? I thought peaceful builds would complete? There is not even an option now to build the colosseum...that sucks.
Turn 1, 1355AD: atillery need to spend a turn moving to enter Bergen's borders before they can bombard; all Babylonian cities are out of range of bombers, so move the artillery. Use some slaves to rail north as far as Heraclea, only to find the Iroquois are in Babylonian borders and prevent us attacking. We've already got 70 odd slaves, and we haven't even got into the major wars yet! IIRC Charis had 500 odd by the end of his game, let's see if we can beat that
. At the moment there is virtually nothing for them to do...we might change a few to airfields or radar towers when we go into major wars, for now I might even use them to form blockades, heck, even if a couple are captured it hardly matters!
Move some units onto high ground to act as scouts. Kill a couple of Bab infantry with bombers. Find another excellent use for bombers: bombard a load of tiles in neutral ground to destroy rails and restrict movement. We can use logistics to our advantage by destroying roads and rails except for one line that we control and guard at crucial points. This will restrict AI movement and allows us more control over land that is not ours. The craters left by the bombers also make the land less useful for the AIs to resettle. It's a win-win situation
Here's one example: we control the rail line and therefore restrict AI movement in the area.
Iznik changed to airport. India has mass production at monopoly, so I end our futile min science run and instate an extra taxman.
IT: Babylon guerilla captures one of our slaves which I'd missed. Pharsalos captured by Iroquois. Pollution hits our lands.
Turn 2, 1360AD: redline defenders of Bergen, army razes the city picking up 10g, 2 artillery and 4 slaves. Still can't attack Heraclea due to Iroquois presence. Kill the Babylonian guerilla that destroyed our slave, do lots more strategic bombing.
IT: Iroquois and Russia make peace. Iroquois found a city to pinch some of our rails, I'd already anticipated that and have slaves in position to rail an alternate route....unfortunately the city will also steal our rubber with a border expansion, so the Iroquois have to die sooner rather than later.
Train another round of infantry as we're a bit short to guard the rails we want. Lots more pollution which is nothing more than a nuisance, since we have so many slaves to clear it. I'm glad to hear Firaxis are going to remove this tedium for Civ 4.
Turn 3, 1365AD: having a great time bombarding neutral tiles! Conscript an infantry out of Iznik and mine an extra tile to optimize the city at size 18.
IT: Iroquois are still failing to capture the Bab city up north, yet won't get out of the way to let me do it
Turn 4, 1370AD: I'm bored. We're ready to fight the Iroquois.
Try to plant a spy on the Iroquois...fails and caught, but the Iroquois don't declare war. Hmm. Plan B. tell the Iroquois to remove forces or declare war. They remove forces. Bugger.
Guess I'll have to wait a turn, since I'm not going to resort to repetitive demands.
IT: I can't believe how incompetent the AI is...as far as I can tell Heraclea is defended by no more than 3 units, yet despite having a couple of dozen troops in the area the Iroquois still can't take it. Build some artillery, ffs...
Turn 5, 1375AD: let's see how much I can annoy the Iroquois without resorting to exploits.
I demand wm + 120g...they refuse. Try to plant a spy again...it succeeds! That's something I didn't know...I'm sure I've read somewhere that if a spy plant fails there is a minimum 3-4 turns before you can succeed...that's patently incorrect, we've succeeded a turn after we'd failed.
Iroquois have 7 cavalry, 62 infantry, 4 artillery and various miscellaneous units. They're weak overall, we should have no trouble turning them over.
Time to put the spy into action. Let's try something nice and harmless. Sabotage production in Grand River, immediately for 34g. Well this is something else I've never seen before...success and failure! But no war
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Try to replant the spy: succeeds. This is quite annoying, I want war. I'll wait another turn, I don't want to blow too much cash in case a tech steal opportunity becomes available.
I actually have to fortify all our bombers this turn as they've got nothing to do! I've even run out of neutral tiles within reach that I want to bombard.
IT: India forms a city stealing more of our rails. Palace expanded.
Turn 6, 1380AD: demand 100g from Iroquois, refused again. Try to sabotage production in Oil Springs immediately for 24g. It succeeds. Try again in Kahnawake for 32g. Succeeds again. Incredible. Why the hell can I never get the desired result from espionage? The gods of perversity must really hate me...
Try something different...expose enemy spy, 125g...it fails, Hiawatha is threatening retaliation but no war
. Replant spy, 105g, succeeds. This is getting expensive. I've tried everything but the Iroquois just aren't declaring war no matter what we do, so I guess I'd better stop wasting cash...if it wasn't so absurd you could almost say the AI was acting intelligently...
But there is one stroke of luck this round: the route to Heraclea is finally clear! Bombard and raze the city, also bombard a load of Babylonian boats in the region. Unfortunately they are out of bomber range so we can't sink them.
IT: Babylonian and Iroquois boats fight. Unit costs are beginning to hurt our economy with all this military that is building up but not being used.
Turn 7, 1385AD: more out of rote than anything I demand 55g from the Iroquois...refused.
Turn 8, 1390AD: demand 233g from the Iroquois, refused. I've run out of ideas.
IT: Babylon and Iroquois make peace! Could that be be the turning point? Now we are no longer allied will the Iroquois declare war over espionage?
Production is sabotaged at Bursa! Someone is giving me a taste of my own medicine!
Turn 9, 1395AD: demand 100g from the Iroquois, refused. Babylon has now got mass production...try a careful steal which succeeds! (Thank goodness, I would have exploded if it had failed!) India already has amphibuous war, which suggests they're still researching pretty quickly. However, India lacks rubber, probably from pillaging. I wonder if that could be significant later.
Okay here goes: try to sabotage production immediately at Kawauka (235g)...fails, Hiawatha is said to be steaming...but no war
. Try to replant spy, succeeds. We're below 1000g so I give up. Incredibly it looks as though we're going to have to wait out the deals or hope for an Iroquois demand.
IT: Iroquois offer mpp for 14gpt
Turn 10, 1400AD: well, I tried my best to engineer a war against Iroquois but failed. I don't know what else I could have tried without using exploits.
We want to make peace with Babylon when the alliance with India expires, as we could sure use commercial docks...our economy is stifling turn by turn because of units costs.
We're one tech away from tanks
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Note: We have lots of infantry guarding rails. Our artillery and slave stacks are fortified outside Edrine. There is a destroyer fortified outside Iznik. Bombers are fortified in Edrine (for the north) and Antalya (for the south). As their range is limited we definiely need a few carriers, so maybe the port cities should build some navy soon? Next player's call.
Except for two tiles of pollution 
Oh, that reminds me...we have a deal with the Iroquois as well!
