Land of Milk and Sherry
The first move is worker to the moo, of course. This reveals a third moo ENE of the start, and wines on the plains to the north. A great spot then. I can irrigate all the moos and share one of them between two towns to run them both at +5fpt average. To that end, I settle Beijing 1N of the start, and squeeze an axe in before the first settler. The axe climbs the hill for a look around, and sees a fourth moo in the east. A couple of turns later, the axe meets a Korean coming the other way, heading straight towards Beijing. I trade Masonry for Bronze, and hastily interpolate my axe between Wang's unit and my capital. Haha, yes, Wang was only joking with me, his axe wanders off somewhere else.
Beijing completes the settler in 3400bc, and Shanghai is founded in 3250bc between the two eastern-most moos. I complete Pottery the same turn, and start Alphabet; no trading opportunity with my all-knowing neighbour. Both towns build another axe, and then in 2950bc a couple of Korean axes appear on the hill northeast of Shanghai. And there are already a couple more trespassing in my territory. Oh dear.
Winning the War
Well, I am so panicked that I forget to rustle up as much gpt as possible and buy some stuff from Wang.
As expected, he dows, and immediately toasts one of my axes in Shanghai. Beijing's granary build is hastily switched to a spear - just in time to ward off two axes, dash down to Shanghai and successfully defend there too. The Koreans are coming thick and fast, with spears joining the fray; two of them circle round to the north and move in to cut my wines. There's nothing I can do about these guys, but at least they can't take my towns either. After taking the wines down, they just wander off again. We have a kind of stalemate, and eventually Wang gets bored and stops sending units my way. He is ready to talk peace, but his price is high, despite a good kill ratio for me. I even have so many axes hanging around that I pop the hut in the southwest, just to fish for promotions off the barbs. So no deal with Wang.
Losing the Peace
Alphabet completes in 2470bc, and I start Maths, hoping to be able to grab a bit of tech trading action - not that I have been able to spare any axes to go and meet people. The Americans do send an axe over to meet me in 2390bc, but no trading opportunities at this stage, of course. In the same year, I get the wines rehooked, Beijing completes its granary (start settler) and Shanghai completes a settler (start granary). It looks like the expansion is well on track, and I can start plotting my RCP3. But wait, aren't I forgetting something?
Oh yeah, TOTAL WAR!! Within a couple of turns there are barb horses appearing every other turn southeast of Shanghai, Korean archers are swarming in from the northeast, and those spears are back to take the wines offline. Worse still, I have overextended with settlers; by 2030bc I have 4 towns all hastily working on axe production, but I can't defend them all at once. I abandon Canton rather than let it fall to Korea, but when faced with a stack of prehistoric doom at the gates of Shanghai, I finally cave. In 1870bc, I give Wang 9gpt for peace.
Credit Crunch
Okay, my economy is a wreck, but I can try to get back to expansion again, so I keep Maths research up, rather than drop down to a min run. As I refound Canton, I meet a Japanese axe, who immediately threatens to march into the undefended town. But I've learned my lesson: I buy Toku's treasury for as much gpt as I can muster, and his axe wanders off. Happily, he also sells my contact around to his other friends, so in 1650bc I finally get to meet the Spanish, English, French and Mongols, all of whom offer to sell me Burial for chump change. It's nice to know that I'm so far back in tech that at least I can buy them cheaply. But right now, I need the cash more than I need useless techs. Indeed, Maths comes up for sale the next turn. Part-researched, I can afford to buy it from Joan, and sell it on Bella for War Code and Ironwork. I start a minimum run on Currency, and as most of the AI apparently have Mapping I start hard-core map-brokering. In fact, given that I am paying 20gpt to AIs and have just spent most of my Japanese gold buying techs, trading other people's maps every turn is the only thing keeping my treasury in the black.
Some People Never Learn
As I spread out to the northeast, I notice a lot of action going on there. Wang seems to be at war with both Toku and Abe! And they're making strong progress against his northern towns. Well, if there's a dogpile going down, who am I to stand aside? When our 20-turn peace deal comes up for renewal in 1325bc, I decline and start pushing my newly-built swords eastwards. Almost immediately, a Korean stack of death shows up at Hangchow. Where did these guys come from?!? Why aren't they fighting to stop the Japanese and Americans troops taking native Korean towns? So yet again, I'm disbanding my own towns ahead of Wang's war machine.
But he is only using archers and spears, and now that I have iron weapons I manage to stop their advance before they can roll into my core. Eventually I take one Korean town for myself, and autoraze another. My army doesn't look strong enough for an seige of Seoul itself though, and for once Wang is offering good terms.
Light at the End of the Tunnel
So in 825bc, I get Construction, Writing, Burial and Wheel for peace, and I can obtain Mysticism cheaply as Wang has been out of the map-trading loop for a while. I sell Construction on to the Japanese for Philosophy and Polytheism. Most of the AIs are long since in the medieval by now, with just Toku and I lagging, so the final turns of my Currency minimum run are nerve-wracking, but it comes to 39 turns researched and still he hasn't got it. My game is back on track! In
670bc, Currency completes. I use my min-run-accumulated treasury to buy Monarchy from the French (Joan always gives good prices) and trade both techs to Toku for Laws, Riding, Mapping and Literature. I am medieval, and to celebrate I dismiss my old government during the interturn: 6 turns of anarchy. No reroll is possible as I didn't research the government tech myself, but that's a satisfactory duration for this level, and for an empire which by now has 16 towns. The only medieval tech is known is Monotheism, and I start a fast run on Engineering.
QSC Stats
Well, I didn't make a save at QSCbc, or even note my stats, as my mood was still recovering from its lowest point, when it seemed Korea might beat me for a second time. But I did happen to save at
925bc; here is what CAII has to say about it...
1 city and 11 towns with 38 citizens and 100 tiles.
107 shields in the box, 171g in the treasury.
2 granaries, 5 barracks.
1 settler, 8 workers, 3 spears (2 vet, 1 elite), 11 swords (9 vet, 2 elite), 2 catapults.
Bronze, Masonry, Alphabet, Pottery, War Code, Ironwork, Maths, 28 turns into Currency.
7 contacts, no embassies.
