This round features a lot of nicey-nice tech trading with Europe, an abortive war with the Inca, and a rather major civics change.
To begin, the Egyptian queen presented me with an offer that I could, in fact, refuse:
If she has the capacity for overseas trade, that means that she also has the capacity for overseas invasion. I'm not going to provide her with the means to conquer me, especially given her bellicose attitude.
The following screenshot doesn't mean anything in particular, it's just cute:
Looks like I have my own weird little Erie Canal.
Anyway, back to relevant things. Another Euopean civ came knocking on my door:
He's not quite as advanced as Liz and Louis, thank Quetzalcoatl. Nice to see that Europe does, in fact, have weak links and backwaters.
Even better, a turn or two later a Great General was born "in a distant land." This indicates that Eurasia is, in fact, a continent at war, which is always good for knocking the competition down a peg or two.
I did, in fact, switch back to Caste System (with Organized Religion tacked on) after hacking back the worst of the jungle in my South American foothold. Those gems were worth a small delay.
Once my Caravel reached the Old World, I met Isabella. Poor, poor Izzy:
This is a major problem with this map, in my opinion. It starts Spain one tile from the coast, with no room to expand. As a player, you obviously move before settling, but the computer just does what it's told. As a result, Spain is stuck playing an OCC without ships. As you can see, this handicap hasn't been kind to the poor girl.
Elizabeth beat us to Liberalism in 1060, proving two things: One, we didn't stand a chance at getting it (which we knew, but it's nice to be proven right). And two, she did in fact research Astronomy the old-fashioned way.
We founded another city on the horn of Brazil:
It's gonna be tough keeping that place fed, but it has some solid production and will help us claim the continent.
We finished researching Printing Press and found that it was, in fact, a monopoly tech. First on the list was Liz:
And Mansa Musa:
This did wonders for getting us back in the race. Back up there in score, relative tech parity, the works.
Speaking of "the race," we found someone who clearly left his wheels at home:
Wow. No Code of Laws, Alex? Code of Laws? Apparently he only has one city besides his capitol. Why he didn't go on the warpath in the last, oh, 5000 years and claim more is beyond me.
Hatty calmed down a bit and we traded some lovey-dovey peaceful techs:
Back in the Americas, though, I was anything but peaceful:
Panama fell quickly, but I quickly bogged down in South America. My Catapults and Macemen had no chance against his Garrison 2 Longbows fortified on hills. I pillaged some improvements, bombarded his defenses, and basically made a mean face. Didn't make much progress, though. I probably should have waited for some Trebuchets.
While I was engaging in my elaborate feint, The British colonized Cuba:
They're welcome to it. Do you see any sources of production whatsoever in that city? Yeah, me neither. Looks like another AI money sink. It does mean that South America is in danger, though.
The Mediterranean Caravel dropped its Explorer off in Egypt, and he marched off to discover Persia. Cyrus had a strategically huge offer waiting for me:
Banking means Mercantilism, which, until more people have Astronomy, can do wonders for our economy. And the World Map? Of a Continental superpower? Yes, please.
It just so happened that that World Map helped us backdoor a juicy little benefit:
I also switched us to Mercantilism, making all those free specialists merchants (except for St. Louis, which got another scientist, and the new cities, which ran Artists to pop borders).
In popped Saladin, begging for a handout:
Sorry, pal. Somehow, I just don't see the backwards old Arabs posing a credible naval threat.
Once Huayna would speak to me again, we kissed and made up:
The gold was all he had to give. He wanted to throw in Calendar, too, but I felt sorry for the guy (And I wanted to keep Stonehenge up and running for a while longer). Shucks, how could I stay mad at that innocent little smile? Especially when carrying on the war was an exercise in frustration. He went back to Pleased. *shrug* I got his Panama and a little bit of pocket change. It wasn't a total loss.
Once I let Huayna off the hook, I remembered that we could pop borders with Mercantile artists. Stonehenge was no longer needed. I met up with the immortal, backwards, Temujin, and traded him an obsolete tech for the secret of Calendar:
To end the round, Julius Caesar stopped by to lay down the law:
I complied. I'd gotten pretty much everything I could for Printing Press, anyway. Julius has that paternal stare that just makes you want to apologize and call him "sir." And he has some ridiculously huge stacks hanging out in Italy.
So there we are. Are we a runaway tech leader? No. In fact, Gunpowder is starting to show up on the Eurasian tech lists. But we're in it.I'm thinking that on this map, the Internet would be absurdly powerful. Maybe a Computer beeline is in order?
I dunno. What do you all think? State of the World to follow.
but you need to cut a lot of rain forest with a lot of workers.
Seriously, Spain is a good place for a launch on Eurasia, as well as Japan on the pacific side ( by the way, how updated is your map? korea is unsettled ) if you decide to go Dom ( a gargantuous task , if you ask me ).
