Turn 0 - Turn 2. I lost the report for these turns, but I defeat the
invaders as well as a new drop-off from the Zulu. Time to MT is
dropped from 18 to 11 turns. Unfortunately, the Zulu saltpeter is
defended by a Musketman and a Longbow and our AC army is cut
off from the rest of the continent by a number of Musketmen and
Longbowmen.
Turn 3 - Not much.
IBT - Our musketman defends flawlessly against a longbowman
on the Zulu's Horse Island. The Zulu also foolishly withdraw from
their saltpeter tile. Bye bye musketmen.
Turn 4 - More pillaging and infrastructure building.
IBT - The Zulus drop off 2 musketmen and 1 longbow. This
should be their last musketman landing.
Heroic Epic completes.
Turn 5 - Our newly-produced cannon injures a vet musket.
A vet knight takes out 1 Musketman. We lose 1 knight after
redlining a musket, but we take out the redlined musketman and
longbow with 2 more knights.
Saltpeter pillaged.
Turn 6 - Again, not much.
IBT - The Zulu drop off 1 longbow and 1 musket.
Turn 7 - Our artillery goes 2/2 and we kill both offending units.
Still no promotions though, this is unusual
.
IBT - The Zulu drop off 2 Longbows and 2 Musketmen. Once
again, on the tile right next to Ur. This is slowing down the
prebuild, so I'm gonna camp a unit on the square once I clear out
the new batch.
Turn 8 - Artillery goes 1/2. First knight retreats without doing any
damage. As does the second
. The third wins, redlining. The
4th and 5th win. Still no promotions, though.
Turn 9 - Pillaging... MT due in 2.
IBT - The Zulu drop off the Motherload. Damn the proximity of
that island!
In other News, the Mayans are itching for a fight and move their
caravel into our bay.
Turn 10 - The amount of troops isn't that bad, but after 3 straight
landings, it gets hard to deal with. There's no way we'll get rid of
all the troops this turn.
Our artillery goes 2/2. Our Archer army loses 1/2 of its hp but it
defeats the first musket. A knight takes out the 2nd. What
followed is the greatest massacre of all time (at least, in this
game's timeline regarding Zulu invaders). Our knights tore
through their longbows like butter. Too bad they don't have blitz.
With our last possible attack (aside from 1 Vet Enkidu) our
Archer Army shows those Zulus that Technological advancement
isn't the same as military prowess and defeated its more advanced
counterpart flawlessly.
Our AC army finds the Zulus trying to rebuild their roads, but
can't quite reach the perpetrating worker. I lower the research rate
10% and we still get MT next turn.
My successor will get to start an offensive. I've been starting some
irrigation in the fringe cities and chopped a few plains forests to
hurry their courthouses. I assumed that all of the caravels were for
the assault of the main island that will come with Cavalry. They
could be used to sink ships before they land their units, but they
are ill-equipped to do that as they only have 1 attack as opposed to
their 2 defense. Nevertheless,
I left my successor with an
unmoved Caravel that can sink a Mayan Caravel in our bay. It
might be easier to simply fight off the units it lands (the mayans
lack saltpeter and iron), but that area of our empire is not very
well defended.
Though MT is due next turn,
do not get rid of any scientists this
turn. I purposely hired 1 more scientist than needed to get MT
next turn because we will lose a scientist due to a worker being
built in the interturn. I'm know that science is calculated before
production, but I don't want to take the chance and delay MT
another turn. I would also cycle through the cities once MT comes
in so that we can switch some cities to cavs.
Isin will build a
knight on the interturn if it is not manually upgraded to a Cavalry.
I'm sure my successor will be able to MM our cities better than I
have. I've been gradually moving more workers to the fringe, but
the majority are still in our core.
Finally, Akshak has a chance at being semi-productive, unlike
some other fringe cities. It produces 2 shields right now, but with
an aqueduct, harbor and some worker-turns, it can get up to 6+ spt
and 15 uncorrupted commerce (more with a courthouse).
BTW, here's that gem.
(you'll have to wait until I'm done playing though).
[Plus, I think 3 out of 4 cities on that island are built on Hills.]
