I don't do the Cuir breakout often, Mansa felt like he was running away, and I was getting mildly anxious.
Then I remembered War Elephants also upgrade to Cuirassiers.
Combined with the early Great Spy and some City Revolt work on Kumbi Saleh, Shanghai and Kumbi Saleh fell quickly.
I was tempted to leave Mansa alive and siphon tech off of him, but my vague idea of diplomacy and Mansa's reputation as a shrewd and unscrupulous tech trader meant that he would probably trade a lot of stuff with Cyrus, meant to be my next target due to simple logistics. But then I figured I'd be much better off keeping tech situation on the down low by eradicating his civilization and leaving whatever techs he had (notably Steel) in the ruins of his cities.
Timbuktu was a snack:
I turned it into a National Epic city and stocked it with all the money buildings. Mansa was a busy little bee, but I was the firework inside his beehive.
And then tragedy struck as Mansa suddenly won.
By revolting to Pacifism while down to two pathetic cities, he became the recipient of the Moral Victory. I started feeling remorse for the genocide I was causing.
For like five seconds. RIP, Mansa. You were my closest friend, founder of our religion, a fantastic target for Spies, and your lands are fertile grounds on which I will build an empire worth of an Immortal ruler. May you find enlightenment.
With Mansa erased, my policy of running a pain train on the brains was about to reach Cyrus. I stocked all of my forces at his border...
...and then the Mongolians declared war and decided they want a piece of all the action.
I gave Cyrus a biiiiiig, innocent smile and quietly scooted my Cavalry out of the border with Pasargadae. Hey, Cyrus, cool empire. I sure hope nothing happens to it in the future. I'm just gonna go... protect the Buddhist society. Yeah. You just... wait right there.
This stack was entirely outdated. Sizable, but still a joke. I wiped it out in the open field and crushed any other reinforcements. Somewhere at that moment in the final demographics, the Soldiers stat for the Mongolians plummeted harder than the chances of Cats becoming a box office hit. With Mansa's Pyramids and our first Golden Age we did this:
- mostly to enable a few trades with Saladin because war weariness was being annoying, and then we swapped to Theocracy and Mercantilism.
Met Sitting Bull.
More like Sitting Duck. Isolated from religion, behind in tech, a complete non-factor other than feeding me gold on outdated tech.
I wiped out China in the counterattack, finally freeing a lot of happiness to reestablish some economy in the former Chinese cities, and Kublai regretted his dumb idea.
Oh, and I got Rifling. Which lopsided the entire situation even more in my favor. Had to double check if I was really playing on Immortal.
I could have capitulated Kublai and gone back at Cyrus, but I figured Kublai doesn't deserve to live, and also that I'm going to have mildly stronger chances at Domination if all the land is Mayan. Plus wiping out Kublai's culture allowed for more drafting. 14 turns after above screenshot was taken, Mongolia stopped existing:
So! Cyrus! Time to "unite" all faithful Buddhists together! Don't you a--
(Saladin declares war!)
...
...............
....................
I haven't checked on him in forever and it turned out he had Rifles and later Infantry. He was also #2 in Soldiers. Which was still 50% of my Soldier count in the Demographics. I know he hated me, but what gives? He had no chance of winning there, ever. He actually sent a stack that landed on my shore and got instantly eradicated by like 20 Cavalries, but I wasn't too keen on Galleons earlier so now began the slow buildup of my navy to bring the ceremonial ball to Saladin.
He had a pretty large buildup of units, but his galleons were wiped out so all he did was wear me down by attrition. He actually snuck a few Galleons out to take Beshbalik but I just took it right back with the bored Cavalry at home waiting for a taxi. So, his offensive army was wiped.
Then I finally landed like 24 combined Cavs and Rifles on the shore of Kufah and conquered it, and that was enough for Saladin to capitulate.
I was going to finally declare that war on Cyrus that I've been planning since before the conquest of Mansa but the game ended with a Domination Victory in 1655 AD.
(mental note to self: Industrious Leaders can make nice targets)
