Note that I didn't take any screenshots as I played this time.
I didn't like the placement of the two northern Cities so I decided to do something about them.
After Civil Service came in, it was Police State for a good long time. Those 2 northern Cities got whipped dry, pumping out a ton of mixed Military Units each--Jags, Spearmen, Axes, and Cats--while other Cities pitched-in here and there. Since the capital had a settled Great General, it built me a ton of Catapults.
As the two northern Cities had been whipped nearly dry, I used my still-in-Organized-Religion whipping to pump out a couple of Culture-producing buildings--Monastaries and Theatres--which I queued-up to complete in successive turns in each City. Then, I gifted those Cities back to Julius. He got to keep them until his Culture had retaken root in those Cities--mostly from the buildings that I had whipped for him and which he got to keep due to the Cities having been gifted.
Meanwhile, my armies took him down to 1 Archer in terms of an army, letting him keep that pitiful Citiy to the south of Rome. Why not let him keep it? It allows his Culture to control several Peaks, which could mean 1 additional good City elsewhere without accidentally triggering Domination due to excessive Land Area, while at the same time, being easy enough to claim at any time in the future in case we DO want that extra Land Area.
Unfortunately, he was Frederick's Vassal, so most of my army had been posted on Frederick's borders. I waited to see if Frederick would throw a stack at me, and after his "stack" of 2 Catapults had been easily dispatched, I moved my troops in.
Two armies went at Frederick, while the one for Julius looped around the eastern Coast, bypassing Frederick's Resourceless City on the River to the north-west of a Barb City (again, he can keep that City for all eternity, as far as I am concerned), then scooping up the 2 Barb Cities, only to continue down the Coast and grab 2 more of Frederick's Coastal Cities.
The other 2 armies plodded forward, being reinforced by new troops as they marched on, although I'd switched back to Representation at this point and built most troops out of our Heroic-Epic-infused Rome. Police State was unnecessary there as I could pump out a Military Unit each turn without that Civic, while I still wanted to spend SOME part of the turnset running Specialists.
I eventually razed Julius' two northern Cities once their Culture had claimed clear dominance of the area and resettled them to grab the 2 Fish Resources that we'd missed. I like Fish that much.
Bremen, in the west, also became gutted, and I whipped it for a Catapult, a Jaguar, and 2 Archers, before abandoning it. Unlike the northern Cities, this one had no real Food Resource to regrow off of, so its value as a whipping City was limitied to a one-time usage of the population instead of continuously whipping the regrown citizens as I'd down in the 2 northern Cities of Julius'. Frederick was kind enough to recapture this low-Food City with a Chariot, while I was able to use the 2 Archers to guard a City captured to the SW of there so that the bulk of my far western army could push on to Berlin.
Berlin was a tough fight, but our army killed off 5 Cats and Trebs defensively over the course of 2 or 3 turns, all the while mostly-rehealing thanks to there being a large stack of units (thus distributing the damage) and a nice Jaguar healer there. I threw 5 or 6 Cats away on Berlin, but didn't lose any other units, taking down what looks like the last major source of resistance.
Our western-Coast-sweeping army's Catapults joined up with our middle army, as I'd run low on Catapults in the middle army (I was down to 1 Catapult there), and now we have 3 Catapults in position to siege a relatively-lightly defended Hamburg (the City where Hinduism was founded).
All told, we own 20 Cities and 22 Workers and really it's probably time to disband several Workers, as many have just begun "filling-in" Roads over top of existing improvements. I decided that I would keep the Workers around, though, so that you could decide between "retooling" the improvements that I built, getting Frederick's newly-captured lands improved/retooled ASAP, or disbanding a good portion of the Workers outright.
Julius threw off Frederick's yoke and we made Peace with him for something like 30 Gold. Maybe I should have stayed at war with him, so that I'd have someone to bribe overseas AIs into war against down the road, but whatever. We can do that with Frederick, if we want, although there is the very real fear that doing so would just lead to a Capitulation. A hated-due-to-Religion, isolated, backward AI on a different continent isn't very likely to Peace Vassalize themselves anyway, so there isn't much of a threat in keeping Julius around.
Representation + National Epic in Fant City = I ran a ton of Specalists, foregoing City growth.
I got Metal Casting, Machinery, and Optics from Frederick, for I believe, Civil Service, Philosophy + Compass, and Paper + self-Research into Optics.
After I got Optics, I went for a Liberalism beeline. Except, that when I met overseas AIs, Liberalism was in serious danger.
So, out came our Great Artist. BAM! Our Commerce levels skyrocketed and Liberalism came in just a few short turns after Education. One of the overseas AIs won't offer a tech to use but will give us 290 Gold for Liberalism, so it was a tight race, but we still had a couple of turns of leeway there. Most Cities that look like they can produce a Great Person ran Specialists until their Foodboxes were almost empty during this Golden Age period, although I stuck it out in Organized Religion since we had the Religion wide-spread and since Pacifism would have been pretty expensive at the time.
The Golden Age just wore off (literally on the last turn), but we have Gold saved up from the Golden Age and from City captures to be able to probably pump out one more tech--Nationalism, maybe? I don't see us having a chance at winning the Econommics Race, as multiple AIs are already running Mercantilism (i.e. they know Banking).
Oh yeah, I used Liberalism on Astronomy. I got a nice 21 Gold per Turn trade for one Resource, not to mention some Happiness and Healthiness Resources.
I left the game at a point where there are several tech trades available--Liberalism, Astronomy, or Education--for things like Feudalism, Engineering, Divine Right (no one wants to trade it to use yet), and even Printing Press (the latter from just 1 AI). I think that at least 1 AI knows Gunpowder, too.
The international Diplomacy situation is... interesting... what with a war going on. So, I only Opened Borders with AIs that weren't Worst Enemies of anyone. Having just recently learned Astronomy, we haven't missed out on too much Foreign Overseas Trade Routes as a result, while leaving the choice up to you if you want to Open Borders with everyone for more Trade Routes or if you'd rather handle the diplomatic situation a little bit more delicately by picking your allies and enemies. The same with the tech trades--no one seemed to be researching particularly fast and trading techs away, so I left the tech trading with overseas AIs as an "exercise" for players of the next round.
We have met every overseas AI, so you can see clearly who is whose Worst Enemy before making a trade by using the BUG Mod, by repeatedly talking to AIs and waiting for them to say something like "We don't trust Civ X, please stop trading with them" as their opening line when you first open the Diplomacy main window with them, or by asking each AI what they think about other AIs and assuming that the AI which they hate the most towards whom they have a Furious or Annoyed Attitude is their Worst Enemy.
There will still be some fun in mopping-up Frederick, while our military stacks are still sufficient in size to keep pressing on. The City of Rome continues to build a Military Unit per turn for us.
Oh yeah, we also Circumnavigated.
I did as I planned and designated some Cities as "Cottage Cities" while others are designated as "Farm Cities." Most Cottage Cities still got a couple of Grassland Farms, to allow for future whipping and for a reasonable pace of growth.
Since we know Astronomy, while no AI does, it could be worth holding a monopoly on that tech. Not only will it mean denying overseas Trade Routes to AIs that do not have the tech, but it also means that we can be the masters of the seas.
Now that we have received several Resources in trade, it might be another great time to switch into Police State and mobilize the empire for war. We don't have the techs for Cuirassiers, Grenadiers, Cannons, Muskets, Knights, or anything of the sort, but we do have near-infinite whipping a-la-Monte style with a good 5+ Food surplus in most Cities. War Elepahants + Macemen + Catapults + Galleons would go a long way in at least one overseas war, while we get a foothold on overseas lands.
Still, we'd probably at least want Engineering, and if possible, Guilds, in trade, so that we'd have some stack defenders (Pikes for enemy Knights--although War Elephants could still work, Knights for Musketmen, Longbowmen for City Garrisons, and Trebuchets to make the City captures go a lot more smoothly. It shouldn't be too hard to get these techs within a couple turns of trading.
Or, once again, we have the option to go the tech race route instead of the Military path and stick it out in Representation--perhaps even switching into Pacifism for a while, now that war has reduced our Military Unit numbers. We'll still lose more money by running Pacifism over Organized Religion (even though we'd be going from a High Upkeep Civic to a No Upkeep Civic), but only barely--we'd save 32 Gold and have to pay 37 Gold, so the extra Great People Points would be worth it IF we were to stick with Representation and then run Specialists in several of Cities for a while.
As for who to attack if we go to war--I don't want to reaveal who the overseas AIs are just yet, but with 2 AIs at war with each other, I'd say that attacking one of them would be the way to go.
Of course, sticking it out until we get access to Cuirassiers, Grenadiers, or Cannons, would also be a fair approach. That said, I'd rather use our current tech (including techs that we can get in trade) plus Monte's awesome whipping ability plus Police State, in order to take on at least one overseas AI. From there, sure, go for a higher tech level before going after the other overseas AIs.
Trading around Education and Liberalism is probably going to be a wise move--we'd probably welcome the chance for some of the AIs to switch into Free Religion. AIs switching into Free Religion could be good as I can tell you that (unsurprisingly) none of the overseas AIs has Hinduism while all 20 of Cities does have that Religion, so we won't be getting any additional Religions spreading to our continent naturally and thus will just face hatred for sticking it out in our Religion. That said, 20 Cities' worth of Organized Religion or Pacifism (or even Theocracy) is just too good to pass up in favour of choosing Free Religion (which wouldn't even give us any extra Happiness due to us only having a single Religion). Even if you go for tech race path (instead of the military path) and trade liberally, I'd still suggest holding onto Astronomy, unless you plan to go to Space and want to drastically speed-up the world's tech pace.
. I was definitely leaning more towards teching as quickly as possible to cannons and muskets and then going to war while getting rifling. I'm impressed you had such success whipping a completely outdated army together and taking it to Frederick. I would have been too afraid to try and wage a war this way on Immortal.
