Continuing on from
this post, my empire around 700 AD still consists of four cities clustered around the capital to the NW, NE, SW and S. Caesar, at my behest, has been taking a stab at Ghandi who occupies about two thirds of the land south of the jungle belt. His praetorians only manage to take one city though.
I discover machinery in 590, optics in the late 600s and soon have two caravels underway, one to the east, one to the west. In 860, I meet Peter and trade for feudalism and music. A turn later, approaching from the east, I make contact with Louis and Genghis and trade the latter for construction. Meeting up with Frederick one turn later, I have found and out-teched all opponents.
This means that Ghandi and JC, having served their purpose as early trading partners, are now ripe for conquest. Racing through the middle ages, I am first to liberalism, use paper to trade for missing advances and maps (fake circumnavigation in 920), take nationalism for free and, in the 1300s, set my sights on gunpowder and cavalry. I also found a sixth city in the NW, rush universities, theatres and courthouses (to allow for national wonders, especually a forbidden palace in the newly conquered territories), and complete Heroic Epic, the Hanging Gardens (1100) and Notre Dame (1172).
Meanwhile, a few gifts of tech stir up more wars, both at home and abroad: In 875, I have Khan declare on France. Tiflis changes hands twice before peace in 1124, the same year I set Julius upon Ghandi for the second time. He takes Hyderabad but seems to have difficulties with the Indian war elephants. In 1238, I get Peter to declare on Fred (who takes Yaroslavl) and Khan again on Louis (who loses Chartres). To round things out, I get JC in a third (inconsequential) war with Ghandi in 1298. In spite of all this warmongering, all AIs are pleased with me as I am still abstaining from religion and generously spreading tech.
Although I was feeling quite smug about the course of the game until then, I find two faults in my strategy looking back. One, I could have founded more cities during this period instead of perfecting my existing ones. There was enough unclaimed land and my treasury could have supported them easily, giving me cheap population growth. More importantly, I went a bit overboard with inciting wars. The strategy worked well enough at first, but eventually AIs asked for assistance and relationships declined all around. Also, I was probably supplying as much tech to stoke the fire as I was preventing them from researching and trading amongst themselves; a zero sum-game for me. Lastly, this strategy only worked in my favour as long as all opponents on the other continent were in a rough balance of power. As we shall see, this soon ceased to be the case.
At the time though, I was all eager anticipation as an army of some ten cavalry supported by catapults, pikemen and grenadiers (plus the odd upgraded elite maceman) set off south, to take on Ghandis longbows in 1412. Depleted from the wars with Julius, he commanded less than half a dozen war elephants and knights as his strongest units. The main body of my army pushed down along the western side of the lake, taking four cities in rapid succession while reinforcements which started pouring out once I started a golden age burning a great engineer on the Taj Mahal in 1436 - built up for a delayed thrust along the east, taking two more cities. When we agree on peace in 1550, Ghandi has lost the northern half of his empire while mine has doubled in size (6 to 12 cities), winning control over the precious ivory and spices around the central lake.
On other continent, I carelessly set Peter on Louis in 1388, hoping to isolate the trade-happy, financial Russians. Unfortunately, Frederick converts to Frances Hinduisme and in 1436, joins the fighting, taking six russian cities in the same time that I conquer half of India. Watching the replay later, it was painfully obvious that my rise to power was paralleled by a fierce contender who would soon cause me considerable grief, but at the time I didnt notice as I was too busy with my own wars.
Of which there were more to come: I declare on Rome in 1577, which is just as backwards as India and cannot even muster mounted units for a counter-offensive. The newly conquered indian territories make an ideal staging area and soon my veteran cavalry swamps the roman peninsula. Because of Ghandis rapid early expansion, about a third of Julius cities are spread out along the eastern coast of my heartland - impossible to resupply, and ideal to get my reinforcements from the heartland some practice on their way south..In 1646 we make peace; I have taken eight cities from Rome, which is now relegated to the tundra in the far south.
Meanwhile, I finally notice Germany is rolling Russia, but can neither stop the fighting nor come to Russias aid because of war weariness and lack of transports. I watch as Moscow falls in 1613, and in 1631 Peter is out of the game. Frederick controls the southern half of his continent, with the exception of a small french enclave in the southeast. He is on par with me on tech, and best friends with his religious- and war-buddy Louis. In the mid game, I had good hopes for a diplomatic win, but with Peter dead, my only likely ally is Ghengis Khan. I decide to quickly conquer the rest of my continent and focus on naval technology looks like the navy will be important once the industrial age rolls around.
After resting the troops, I move to finish off India in 1685. The main attack sweeps in from the formerly roman lands in the east; Dheli falls in 1700, three other cities follow soon. On the western front, pikemen hold down the last remaining Indian kinghts while my newly built frigates bombard the cities along the coast. In the 1720s, I advance on all fronts and in 1742, Ghandi is out. In total, I take a further nine cities from India. Which leaves Julius, whose last three cities fall in the 1748- 1754 war - RIP. For the first time in the game, I am now the leader in score.
Conclusion: The four campaigns against India and Rome between AD 1412 and 1754 take my empire from six to 25 cities, at a loss of seven cavalry, a dozen catapults and two macemen. Pretty chuffed about that. I am ahead of Frederick in score, tied for tech, but slightly behind on GNP and production. I am hoping for a diplomatic victory maybe I can win back Genghis, or turn around Louis? If not, it looks like I will have to win them over by force.
Goodbye second city where the other stack landed. Goodbye two fully developed towns on one of my culture cities (pillaged).
: +10
in the west istmus, and founded some other city.
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