We suffered some setbacks in this round, but we also made some major strides.
I started out by sending an Impi to scope out Aksum:
The Ethiopian Axeman, frothing at the mouth, shouted threats from the city gates. I immediately gave the Impi the Shock promotion and, keeping calm in the chaos of battle, they managed to come out victorious, butchering the madmen (and, incidentally, Zara's last metal units). Of course, the Archers then swarmed out and slew the weakened Impi, but I'd call that more than a fair trade. Had that Axeman been holed up in the city, he'd have been a pain and a half to dislodge.
By 825 B.C., I finally had a force I felt confident assaulting Aksum with:
As you can see, Zara made the tactical blunders of spending his hammers on a Settler and a Chariot against my force of Spearmen. A couple of Archers and I'd've had to call it off. As it was, my CRII Impi somehow got ridiculously lucky and took out a Guerilla II Archer at 0.7% odds.
Aksum fell and Zara Yaqob was given a warrior's death without a single Zulu casualty:
The plan is to resettle Aksum where it can nab the Fish (I would have done it already, but there were... delays).
In 800 B.C., the people of Nairobi learned the secret ways of the Malinesian holy men:
Our goal of religious cosmopolitanism is in our sights. Now we may not even need to kill Mansa Musa. I mean, we may still
want to, we just won't
need to.
This is not to say that the people of Ulundi are barbaric savages. No, we have vibrant traditions of science and culture:
It was 27 beakers toward Sailing, or +1 per turn in perpetuity for a modest fee. I went with the long term solution. It's about time that random events started working in our favor.
In 700 B.C., with my Aksum forces intact and healed, it was time to make Ramesses fear the Reaper:
I hadn't supplemented the army with Catapults or War Elephants (accursed HBR requirement...), but the Impis alone were enough to take Memphis:
That'll probably end up being one of our Cultural Victory cities.
We even set up a super Impi:
I did this largely so that his Mobility would continue to be useful once he was upgraded. I know, I know. A Medic would have been a better choice. Sadly, I sent him off to the front, leaving the Settler to be butchered by an Egyptian Warrior hiding in the fog of war. Now that was stupid of me. But it was my mistake, so I'm going to live with it.
I figured out who had founded Buddhism, and, guess what? It wasn't Isabella!
Well, now,
that's an interesting twist.
Numerically, my forces had no business making an assault on Thebes:
But, to my fierce Impis, those War Chariots were about as effective as Scouts. So, realistically speaking, Thebes was defended by two Archers. I liked those odds quite a bit better.
As it turned out, my calculations were correct:
That'll be our second Culture city. And those barbarians are now officially no longer our problem.
In 440 B.C., Saladin beat us to one of our long-term projects:
... I'm awfully tempted to send an Impi over there.
Heliopolis, Egypt's final bastion, still stood strong. I had three veteran but exhausted Impis. I figured it was worth a peek. Lo! A Warrior, a War Chariot, and an Archer! And no walls! Why not...
And then there were 31 (remember, India was wiped out millenia ago by unknown forces).
So here's a look at the Zulu empire:
And a representative peek at the Tech Screen:
I'm thinking I can probably get Alphabet for Aesthetics plus Mathematics, and then go on a tech-trading spree to backfill.
So, what do you all think? At this point we share the continent with Mansa and Hannibal. I'm nearly done with Aesthetics on my way to Drama and Music. The religious techs can probably be had through trade. So should we put our neighbors to the spear and claim the continent or start focusing on Cathedrals and Theaters? I'm thinking that Ulundi, Memphis and Thebes will make reasonable cornerstones to a cultural victory, though Timbuktu might be better long-term. I don't like the odds of Impi against Skirmishers, though, so I'd probably want to wait at least until we can field War Elephants for that.
Here's the save (remember to load the mod!):
You need to got to war with Saladin anyway, this city in Madagaskar should be yours.
