Napoleonic Charm

[Civ'ed]

Well, he has to believe in karma first... and being napoleon, he probably likes caviar god more.

 

[krc]

As is my wont, I was both merciful and magnanimous in victory. Both Delhi and Mumbai are now prospering as part of my empire. The teeming slums of Delhi have been cleaned out. The cities' local affairs are well managed by benevolent puppets who report to me but need no real oversight. Delhi is building a temple to join its monument, library, granary, and water mill. Mumbai is building its first civic building, a pointy-topped monument. Can you believe that Gandhi never bothered to construct anything for those poor people?

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I have spent many years now focusing on improving my empire. With libraries in all of my cities and a growing population, my research has picked up.

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My alliance with Stockholm has proved invaluable. Not only have my scientists discovered the technologies that allow us to catch fish, but Stockholm also provides me with a source of wine. I am finally able to enjoy my champagne and caviar brunch!

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[krc]

Paris is now a thriving metropolis, and is constructing Chichen Itza, which is destined to be one of the wonders of the world.

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My second city, Orleans, is also growing, and, since all four of my cities have their own libraries, it is now constructing a National College (or, as I prefer to call it, the Ecole Normale Superieure).

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Meanwhile, Lyons is raising a band of settlers and Troyes is recruiting another unit of catapults. The settlers will have a choice of excellent locations to found another city. Since both the Songhai and the Indians have come under my benevolent rule, there is a lot of open territory waiting for me to expand into. The catapults, on the other hand are being raised for defense. My troops stationed along the border with Hiawatha report the increasing movement of Mohawk warriors inside his territory, and have seen at least one unit of catapults moving up. He used to be so friendly; maybe the problem is that I haven't invited him over for champagne and caviar in ages?

 

[krc]

The situation has deteriorated with Hiawatha; he made a point of visiting me in order to denounce me. He gave the usual reason: he thinks I am a warmongering menace to the world. This, in spite of the fact that I have never made a hostile gesture toward him or his peoples! And I haven't fought a war against anyone in hundreds of years! Of course, I know the real reason: he covets my lands. He is simply using the warmongering claim to justify his own thirst for expansionism.

Spoiler :

I don't really want to conquer any of his cities at this time; I am enjoying this peaceful empire-building life. So, I have withdrawn my troops from the border to see if this will calm him down. At the same time, I've made sure that my scientists know that they should move rapidly to discover Steel; the great axe of Guil. au Tignes still stands in the central square to motivate them.

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Of course, I should also point out that his side of the border has lots of forests, and his armies are well known for their ability to launch sneak attacks out of the trees. By withdrawing, I've put some open fields between his forests and my ranged weapons. Tactically, it is interesting to note that the only troops that have followed my withdrawal so far (in this tense period after his denouncement) are scouts. Is he really sending them out to spy on my troop deployments?

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The other defensive step I have taken is to use some of the gold that I accumulated to convince Copenhagen to ally with me. I don't have enough cash to do the same with Bucharest on the other flank, since they are already mad because my withdrawing troops passed through their territory. Well, that and the fact that they have already declared an alliance with the Iroquois.

 

[Tambien]

This is good. Subbed.

 

[krc]

In 450 AD, Hiawatha paid me another visit:

Spoiler :

He has added another item to his litany of complaints about me: he thinks I am "building new cities too aggressively". That's an interesting claim, since I haven't built any new cities since his visit three or four turns ago when he denounced me, without raising this issue. In fact, I have only built four cities (Paris, Orleans, Lyons, and Troyes) in total, while I have captured and puppeted three (Gao, Delhi, and Mumbai). So why did this item get added to the negative marks against my good name?

 

[krc]

Bringing Copenhagen on as an ally turned out to be quite useful.

Spoiler :

Instead of concentrating on an attack against Mumbai, Hiawatha split his forces and sent a major strike force against Copenhagen -- lead as usual by a unit of catapults. I shifted some troops to assist in the defense of Copenhagen, and otherwise remained in my defensive lines, firing arrows and throwing boulders at the Iroquois troops that moved toward Mumbai. Lots of brave braves died without making much progress.

Spoiler :

A key scientific development occurred during this stage of the war: my scientists discovered Steel. With an ample gold supply in hand, I was easily able to upgrade my swordsmen to longswordsmen. The scientists then turned their attention to Physics.

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Meanwhile, back on the home front, Orleans completed the Ecole Normale Superieure and started raising another unit of catapults.

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[krc]

The critical event of the war occured in 660AD. Most of the Iroquois forces had been destroyed in earlier battles. The year opened with French troops having advanced from their earlier defensive lines up to the Iroquois border.

Spoiler :

Without fighting any additional battles, the year ended with French troops crossing into Iroquois territory across the entire front.

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Hiawatha decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and sued for peace.

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I had already accomplished all of my goals in this defensive war. I had lost no territory and no units, while decimating the Iroquois army. I chose to accept his payments of reparations and move ahead with the process of improving and expanding my empire.

 

[krc]

Five hundred years have passed in peace as the French empire prospered under my benevolent rule.

Spoiler :

My income has been robust, and I have used it to steadily increase my influence with the surrounding city-states. I now have five allies. Stockholm continues to supply champagne and caviar. Copenhagen fought loyally by my side during the war with Hiawatha, and is a steady supplier of fur, iron, and horses. Ragusa is also an ally, located on Hiawatha's other flank, and supplying gems that can be fashioned into gifts for Josephine. Warsaw supplies spices, and my newest ally, Genoa, supplies silver. Four of my five allies are maritime, so they provide an abundant supply of food to keep my population growing and focused on production. Warsaw is my only cultured ally; the other two cultured city-states, unfortunately, remain unhappy with me because they chose to fight on the wrong side centuries ago during my war with Hiawatha.

Spoiler :

Although I still haven't met anyone from another continent, the demographic report puts me in the lead in most categories. I still think the polls are wrong, however, since they list my approval as terrible -- in fact, they still claim that my approval is lower than the two civilizations that have been eliminated!

Spoiler :

My research has been proceeding steadily, and I haven't had to use Guil. au Tignes's axe in a long time. I pushed toward gunpowder fairly quickly so I could start raising musketeers, and then filled in the other research topics to complete the medieval era. With the discovery of astronomy, I started raising a fleet of caravels,and am now studying banking.

Spoiler :

During this peaceful era, I settled a fifth French city, Tours. Once again, the location is not ideal. However, since all of the military action is expected to occur on the Iroquois border, I felt that it was necessary to build roads to connect my core cities with the former Indian cities of Delhi and Mumbai. Rather than pay the extensive maintenance for a long and empty road from Gao to Delhi, I settled Tours half way in between.

Spoiler :

Production is also going well. Paris is expected to complete the Porcelain Tower in 4 turns. Troyes and Lyons are both one turn away and Tours is three turns away from completing workshops, which will boost their production levels in the future. Orleans will complete its colosseum in two turns, which will help with the negative happiness levels that have slowed my growth. My three puppet cities are also making their own contributions to imperial glory.

 

[krc]

In 1150 AD, Hiawatha stopped by to denounce me.

Spoiler :

His visit was not unexpected, since I had just denounced him the previous turn.

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Part of the problem was that he had blithely ignored my serious recommendation that he stop settling cities near me, and instead kept trying to claim more and more of the continent for himself. His rapacious greed for more land was simply unacceptable.

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The tension resulting from his repeated infractions had caused both of us to station more and more troops along our common border, and in 1160 I declared war.

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The war swung slowly in my favor, although the battle for Onandaga was a long hard slog. His front line of Mohawk warriors had melted away, but he had managed to raise his own musketmen to defend his territory. The terrain made it difficult to bring my trebuchets to bear on his capitol, and the forests to the rear of the city gave him strong defensive positions that allowed him extra mobility while hindering my approaches.

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Nevertheless, I kept applying steady pressure.

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Finally, in 1230 AD, the Iroquois capitol fell under my control.

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Having lost a couple of musketeers along the way (but gained the "three musketeers" achievement!), I settled for peace with my main war objective in hand: a major Iroquois city bordering the west coast of the continent was now mine.

 

[krc]

There were other reasons to call an early halt to the second war with Hiawatha. For one thing, the continent still contains a large expanse of wilderness, so I have plenty of room to expand. (I hope that the military lesson I have taught Hiawatha will teach him not to settle new cities in my sphere of influence, but I am not terribly optimistic.) Some of the available locations look much enticing than the places I have already settled.

Spoiler :

Also, in 1220 AD, my coastal city of Troyes completed building a fleet of caravels. I wanted to send them exploring, to discover new worlds and civilizations, to boldly go where no man... wait, that's the wrong cultural reference.

Spoiler :

The Persians were the first civilization that I met from a distant continent. Those poor people had apparently never heard of silver before, even though I had been mining it near Paris for more than 5000 years. They were happy to trade me all of their cash on hand and open borders in return for some of my excess silver.
My ancient conquests of Askia and Gandhi have apparently had no effect on relations with the civilization across the water. Their attitude was neutral when we first met, and they were very open to the idea of a fair trade.

 

[krc]

Under my rule, a long period of peace and prosperity has again occurred. My caravels have roamed the world's oceans, meeting new civilizations and revealing new luxuries to bring back to my contented people.

Spoiler :

I have now met everyone in the world worth meeting, and have a pretty good idea of the general geography of the globe. The four powers of the other continent are fairly well balanced, which means that none of them can challenge my prominence. I owe it all to champagne and caviar brunches (and the early complete conquest of two neighboring civilizations). Perhaps I should take stock of those distant civilizations to determine who I should invite to my next dinner party, and who has valuable artifacts worth bringing back to the museums I plan to build some day.

 

[krc]

Lord Ramkhanhaeng of Siam is a very friendly fellow.

Spoiler :

I wouldn't mind if he discovered shirts, however. The fashion industry established long ago by the Tailleur family continues to flourish. Siam might become a prominent market for exports, if I can only persuade them to wear shirts.

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While waiting for the fashion market to develop, we are trading spices to the Siamese in return for silk. Maybe we'll have better luck exporting silk shirts than wool?

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The Siamese occupy the southwestern portion of the second continent. They have built a great wall around their three core cities, presumably to prevent the Florentines and the fishes from invading.

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The Siamese were active builders of wonders in the early period, and have recently taken up that role again with the construction of something that they call Notre Dame.

 

[krc]

Wu Zetian of China is also quite friendly.

Spoiler :

I sense another market for fashions made with the silk that we recently acquired.

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The Chinese empire occupies the southeastern portion of their continent. It seems somewhat smaller and perhaps less well developed than their neighbors.

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Although they have no new luxury resources to trade, they made a generous offer of cash in return for access to dyes.

 

[krc]

Darius of Persia has become much more friendly over the years.

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I don't have a feel yet for where he stands in the fashion landscape. Could go either way.

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The Persian empire occupies the northwestern part of their continent. While small, it appears prosperous.

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The Persians were also eager to receive spices from us in trade. We again happily accepted their cash payments and added them to our swelling bank accounts.

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Darius apparently has some sort of megalomania complex. He has been aggressively building world wonders. I'll have to keep an eye on him....

 

[krc]

Harun al-Rashid of Arabia used to be friendly, but has recently become guarded in his view toward me.

Spoiler :

He apparently thinks that world domination is a mere game and is worried that I am trying to win that game in the same way that he is. This tells me that he probably wants to get a diplomatic victory, since he already has four city-state allies. However, the epithet "Enlightened" that he keeps trying to get everyone to use suggests that he might also be trying to convince people that a science victory is a sensible direction to pursue.

Spoiler :

The only thing I really know about the Arabian empire is that it dominates the northeastern part of their continent.

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I also know that Harun al-Rashid has been a terrific trading partner in the past. When they were more kindly disposed toward me, they agreed to a straight-up deal exchanging two of their luxuries for two of mine. Importing these luxuries has played an important role in keeping my people happy.

 

[krc]

As I noted above, my cash flow has been robust throughout this period of prosperity. I have more than 5000 gold in the bank, and am bringing in 174 gold per turn even without a golden age. I have been regularly investing coins in improving relations with city-states, and have acquired four more allies.

Spoiler :

Interestingly, all four of my new allies are supplying me with whales. I think I've cornered the world whale market.
With nine allies among the city-states, a healthy cash flow, a score almost twice that of any competitor, and only one other civilization on my own continent, a diplomatic victory seems almost assured. But that seems too easy. What other options do I have, and which of them are worth seriously pursuing?

 

[DragonHead]

Really good! keep it coming! (subbed)

 

[krc]

While considering my options, it is probably a good idea to look at the current state of French science.

Spoiler :

We have briefly pushed ahead on the science/culture portion of the research tree, entering the industrial era with the recent discovery of biology. We have allowed our military research to slip a little, in part so we could make maximal use of our unique musketeers. (We saw above just how that worked out; while we were able to capture Onondaga, the musketeers certainly did not give an overwhelming advantage.) It is almost certainly time to learn about rifling, military science, and dynamite to modernize our glorious armies.

Spoiler :

We are slightly ahead of everyone else in culture -- by about one or two social policies. The French unique ability gives two culture points per city up until the discovery of steam power, an event that is likely to occur fairly soon. Even so, the cultural edge is almost entirely attributable to using Free Religion (the final policy on the Piety track) to quickly scoop up two free policies (which we used to start on patronage to help ensure that we are the only ones with the possibility of ever achieving a diplomatic victory.)
With a lock on the diplomatic front, we can consider whether we would like to win by domination, by science, or by culture. We certainly don't have to worry about anyone else taking the domination route. We might be able to achieve domination, but we would have to conduct at least one major naval invasion of the distant continent. From the looks of things, most of the foreign capitols appear to be inland, which means we cannot simply expect to land on the coast around each capitol and take the main cities as the first strike.
A scientific victory is a viable option. We are currently bringing in 238 science points each turn. If we push to build universities in all of our cities and fill out the patronage track to get the extra science growth from city-state allies, we should be able to move steadily toward our scientific goals.
The standard consensus, on the other hand, insists that a cultural victory should be long out of reach. I have already settled nine cities, which makes the culture point costs for new social policies extremely high. Moreover, I have also missed out on building the Sistine Chapel, and so do not have the huge benefit on cultural growth that attends that particular wonder.
But I am Napoleon! I am charming and cultured! I live in Paris, the most cultured city in the world! And I am emperor of France, the most cultured land in the world! Who is to tell me that I cannot win a cultural victory even now?

 

[krc]

In which, the emperor makes a slow progress around his empire, taking a leisurely tour of his cities.

Spoiler :

Ah, Paris! The queen of cities! She is a scientific powerhouse. Not only does she have her own library and university, but she is home to both the Great Library and the Porcelain Tower. She is, by herself, responsible for more than 20% of the French scientific advance every year. In an effort to advance her cultural standing even further, she has recently started on construction of the Louvre.

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Orleans is the only other French city that is currently home to wonders: the National College and the Kremlin are located here. Her main contribution to the empire is again scientific. After completing the temple that is now underway, she should raise a university.

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Lyon is trying to establish herself in the world of commerce, and is only eight turns from completing Big Ben. When that finishes, a bank is the obvious next choice.

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Troyes intends to be the center of French nautical power, being the only major French city on the coast, with a well-developed harbor. She has already contributed the fleet of caravels that have explored the globe, and a unit of frigates that is patrolling the coast of our own continent.

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Tours was founded in a critical location to link together the two halves of the French empire. She has grown steadily with the input from my maritime allies. She is now well established, and can choose a variety of areas in which to specialize.

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Marseilles was founded on a source of cattle, right on the river with ample forests nearby. In time, we hope she will develop into a highly productive city.

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Avignon was founded in the center of the southern coast. She is again located along a river, and should soon expand to provide control over another source of cotton that will be used by the French fashion industry. Her production, however, is quite anemic at present, so it may be some time before before she can contribute much of value to the empire.

Spoiler :

Chartres was founded to claim another key coastal region along the southern coast. At the tie, the main attractions where the nearby cattle and spices. This site turned out to be extremely fortuitous, however. After researching biology, we discovered oil just outside of Chartres, in what is perhaps the only land-based source of oil on the continent.

Spoiler :

Our most recently settled city is Rouen. She is located in the north central part of the continent, and she was only settled after the discovery of the scientific method. Her location was chosen because it provided access to two of the only three sources of coal on the continent. (The third source is located on the land of my long-time ally, Stockholm.) The nearby cows will promote city growth, and the abundant forests will also help this city become a production center.