The hounds of war are corgis.
Churchill attacked with a bronze age stack. Funny, earlier at civil service I was wondering whether to tech to lib or go engines, and if I go Engines, whom to attack. I thought with Mongolia to the north Lib was too volatile. The only reason I gave it a second thought was Mongolia started plotting during a peace treaty with me, so I thought he was going on Churchill. Little did I know Churchill was going to attack me. He plotted for ten turns or so, made a move toward Mongolia, then wheeled around and declared on me. Because of my (masterful) foresight I was already selectively whipping units. I had a few vultures, five or six cats, some elephants (traded for ivory with Charly so I could start the buildup sooner). Engines came in just as England declared. It was just a matter of holding off the attack until I whipped enough trebs to go for his cities. At least he made target selection easy.
Mongolia was plotting this whole time. Eventually the Khan declared on Charly (lol). And all because I founded Confucianism. That war is still going on.
War with England went smoothly. I put a little strain on my cities because I knew I had to capture London ASAP. There was an interesting tactical battle with a small English stack sieging my city Kish and horse archers coming over the hills while I sent a strike force to Coventry. The mobility from Engineering played a big part because I could move out of Kish and attack Coventry all in one go. There was a cool push/ pull for a few turns, with horse archer harass and both of us reinforcing. Once I moved out of Coventry toward London, Churchill realized he needed to turn back, so I was able to reinforce and really start pushing in earnest. Then once I had London, I could muster archers and elephants on the hill and reinforce whichever of London or Coventry was under threat, or just move onward to reinforce my foreward stack. Workers were MVP. Some military engineers they were, building quick roads to link my army up, or let me pick off horse archers with an elephant and then rejoin the stack.
Right around the siege of London, Churchill started building elephants himself. He never asked me whether I cared, but I didn't. I mixed in a few pikes and that was that. London fell. Juicy pyramids came with it. The rest of his force was gathering in the south, so I decided to take it out. I think he was mustering to flank my southern cities or something; weird he had a few catapults just hanging out there. Here's my force about to take control of the war:
Protective archers and mostly hill cities, what a gristmill. From there it was all killing, healing, reinforcing, and going onward. Luckily I could afford to slog it out because Mongolia was busy. I finished England off in 1170AD. I stopped building units when Churchill had three or four cities left. My economy was tanking from war weariness and I had the new cities to set up. It's a real shame England was protective... I never built up the critical mass of trebs I needed to continue to Mongolia. The only city raider 3 guy I managed to get was my great general, who died at 93% odds near the very end.
I considered continuing toward steel immediately and going for Genghis. But my civ was kind of whipped out. I had never stacked enough anger to preclude working good tiles, but I was at 40 or 50 whip anger in a few places. I didn't think I had the juice for a cannon war, not yet anyway. So I decided to chill, catch up on infra and great people and recover. Perhaps that was the wrong play. Instead of whipping buildings, maybe whip a cannon or two in each new city and end the Khan. Who knows. I just don't think it was that simple, and I could only afford a half-assed war, which is not the situation I wanted to be in against a spammer like Genghis at relative tech parity. Here is the tech picture at 1240AD:
Lib is as good as gone. I don't know where to go exactly. Education, get up Oxford, rally the brains? Straight to steel and off with Mongolia's head? (this makes the most sense because I already finished Chem). Go for astronomy? State property? I don't think I can really rest until Genghis is dead. If i get steel I can probably take him before he gets gunpowder, and the bonus is the payoff is immediate after I tech Steel. The others all take longer and open the possibility of getting stabbed... we all know annoyed Mongols are coming after me the minute he makes peace with Charly, and that war is so stale. The annoying thing about fighting Mongolia is the front against him is very wide and hard to manage. I think it will take two stacks. One offensive one to take out his core, and a smaller, defensive one to mop up the Keshiks that will come out and pillage me to oblivion.
Another big choice was choosing religion. Here's the religious spread near end of war:
While English cities were coming out of revolt I switched over to Rep/ Organized Religion and chose Taoism. Which religion would you all go here? I considered Confucianism but the English cities that needed infrastructure were mostly Taoist, and the brownie points with Mongolia weren't worth much. I didn't think Carthage would care if I went heathen either way and I knew Genghis already hated me. Charly was the only one who would really care. So I went Taoist. There was a good case for Buddhism just for some diplomatic security. But I only had one city that would benefit and the spread would have been so slow. Perhaps the diplo safety would have been worth it though. Capac doesn't like it but I didn't know he existed until a minute ago.
So that's it for the night. Game looks decent. Some volatile stages coming up while I stabilize but I'm massive and, though my economy is lagging a bit, I'm still very relevant in tech. Just need to grow the new lands and switch to caste and I can tech up a storm if I ever need to. For now I sense cannons will do. I'm excited to pick it back up soon (one... more... turn...)
