All right, everyone. I say it's time for a rollicking monster round. What do you all say?
Xerxes knew that powerful siege would be key to breaking the stubborn Chinese people. But a gun large enough to be effective against city walls would need to be forged from a metal harder than any yet known. Boudica refused to reveal the secrets of her reclusive island people, but Asoka was willing to talk... for a price:
The Persian people launched immediately into an attempt to discover military applications of Indian Chemistry.
Xerxes' diplomats, meanwhile, bargained with their inscrutable Chinese counterparts over the terms of a cease fire. Ultimately, a small reparations payment, along with the Pacific island city of Ningbo, was deemed appropriate to both sides:
Though it must be said that Qin Shi Huang was... none too pleased with the arrangement, he nevertheless withdrew his forces and turned his attentions to Rome. Various Siberian cities changed hands as the two superpowers fought back and forth.
Across the Persian empire, commoners built Trebuchets (which would end up being used as chassis for future Cannons) while young nobles were trained in horsemanship and armored as Knights. All of this materiel was sent towards Chengdu, except for those distant Russian cities, which instead served to build up Odessa against inevitable Roman treachery.
For the moment, though, Rome was the ally, as were its subsidiary states. Despite their unwillingness to expound upon the secrets of natural science, the Celts were all too willing to share their love of zealotry:
With these secrets in hand, and still in the midst of the Golden Age of Leif Erickson and Mo Tzu, Xerxes initiated sweeping changes to his government:
Let the people think themselves free, but let them only worship as the state permits. And, frankly, the entire world had largely turned on Persia, so closing borders to trade was not quite a sacrifice.
OVerwhelming Chinese forces coursed past Chengdu to crash against the last of India's homeland:
The lonely Longbowman standing guard in Agra would not fare much better.
As this madness went on in the east, Xerxes, impatient at his enforced period of calm, sent his warrior elite to pacify the east African coast, followed by Settlers to fully tame it:
Ulundi was also founded farther south.
In 1230, with the second Persian Golden Age having drawn to a close, enough pieces were in place to reopen hostilities with the dreaded Chinese:
Of course, with our re-entry into the war, we could no longer accept Julius' aid. having China bow to Rome would be a nightmare:
So, we stood alone. A small force of Knights and Cannons squatted outside of Bangalore, mostly to keep the Chinese forces tied up in the Himalayas. Meanwhile, the fresh troops from Chengdu, along with the hardened veterans from Shanghai and Nanjing, converged on Guangzhou.
With the help of powerful Cannons, the city collapsed like a house of cards:
The soldiers, flush with success, regrouped, and set their sights on Beijing!
Caesar, meanwhile, grew restless. Persian envoys were summarily sent back, told that Rome "had enough on our hands right now." And Xerxes doubted that Caesar wanted to pick at the scraps on Qin Shi Huang's rotted carcass.
It was a dirty trick, but but there was only one way to delay the inevitable:
The die had been cast. Xerxes had ten turns to claim as much Chinese territory as possible before hostilities opened into a two-front war.
As the Persian forces in China scrambled, exchanging Maces for Rifles and playing cat-and-mouse with a final, last-ditch Chinese army, cartographers aboard a Caravel made contact with the New World:
Sadly, Asoka had already proven the world's spherical nature, but a peek into the doings of the New World was much appreciated nevertheless. Indeed, placing the Maya in the South American rain forest was tantamount to murder. Sitting Bull sat astride North America like a Colossus, but Pacal barely eked out a living in the jungles, subject to constant Barbarian raids.
Boudica, our future enemy, helped us in our quest for Nationalism:
Replacement Parts was a dangerous prize to give away, but our Knights are dangerously outdated. We need Military Tradition.
Thebes, meanwhile, continued to be difficult as a Great Person Farm:
The chances of a Great Artist were miniscule! Ah, well. He was sacked away in anticipation of another Golden Age.
Back on the front, Beijing fell easily:
And the war with China had become a full-on rout.
The time had also come to claim the Chinese strongholds in the Indian mountains:
China performed the classic AI mistake of sending half the garrison off to become an offensive stack. Well, I guess it's not too much of a mistake. They wouldn't have really done much good behind the Walls, other than maybe by delaying things for a turn or two.
By P'yongyang, our main army was state-of-the-art, with multiple City Raider 3 Riflemen forming the core of a unit bristling with Cannon:
The city held no Wonders, but was, nevertheless, a powerfully productive city site.
Sadly for Qin, he repeated Asoka's mistake, staffing Agra with a lone single-unit garrison. Fortunately for us, our army rolled over it just as easily as China's had.
Have I mentioned that I hate taking the Agra site? Thank the Gods that there was only one Cho-Ko-Nu in there.
Finally, in 1320, the time for talk is over. It's time to decide this game once and for all!
I knew this time would come. I probably could have put it off for a while longer with another cheaty demand, but what I'd already done was exploit enough.
State of the World to follow.
although ive been reading for a long time, especially KOTW threads, great stories =)
always fun to see how an AI handles those situations, my guess is: huge land...completelly powerless because of tech...
: troops in the middle of your land are not fighting your enemies in the borders
