So the situation at the start of this round was:
-- Captured the seven core American and Korean cities on the other side of Monty and made them (and Korea's colonies Toku and Zara) my vassals.
-- HC is friendly with Monty and has J. Caesar as a colony. HC is still pleased with me.
-- Gandhi just broke free from his protection from Monty, and is annoyed with me.
-- Monty has dropped from pleased to cautious with me and went into WHEOOHRN around the same time Gandhi broke free. I'm at 0.7 power with him, but I dwarf everybody else.
-- Gave up on being Hindu and went into the Democracy and "Free" Civics. This is why Monty doesn't like me anymore.
-- However, GNP began to skyrocket, and we quickly researched Rifles, Steam Power, Railroad, and were working on Assembly line.
By about 1800, assembly line was done and we started on biology. Ideally, first the extra food would cover for the jump in pollution as I planned to absolutely spam the German cities with Assembly Plants. The double discount on the build time from being both organized and from having coal made them as cheap as a temple if I am calculating this correctly. Ideally, I could then stave off war with Monty long enough to do Medicine next and found Sids to really supercharge the nation, as well as pump up my vassals.
While we researched Biology, seven or eight core cities started on the Assembly Plants right away. It will take them anywhere from 4-8 turns. There are a couple of cottaged river cities that will also be getting Levees. In one, I'd like to slap up the Ironworks, which had been my plan all along, since most of my other production cities were never going to be awesome like a cottaged river city would be. Also, the plan all along was to go for a late domination over Monty once we could get the Panzers on the map.
In 1808, four turns away from Biology, an Aztec SoD showed up on the Eastern border of his territory, and right on the doorstep of my recently acquired holy city of Washington. UH OH.
It's made up of about 60 units, mostly Grens. About 25 of them are upgraded Jaguars, which you can tell by all of the woodsman and city raider promotions.
This was a REALLY good move by the AI and a stupid one by me. I had moved all (
all!) of my cannons back to the German homeland to protect it from any Aztec aggression. Therefore, I have no way to soften up that stack. On the other hand, with all of my cannons and cavalry back home, Monty's gonna start losing cities on his western front as fast as he's taking them in the east.
By 1816, I had lost Washington (defended by 6 CG infantry, which put a dent into his stack but not nearly enough to even slow it down; at least I got 60 great general points out of it) and he was heading for New York. I had turned off research for 5 turns, which provided enough cash to upgrade a bunch of rifles and muskets to Infantry, as well as completing any upgrades of old mounted units to cavalry. Research is back on again, and I will complete biology and then reassess the situation. (More on that later.)
I split up my cannons into three groups. Up North are the drill/barrage cannons. They are in little formations with cavalry and either a machine gun or infantryman, and they are beating on the various grens and knights that venture on to German soil. (Did I mention that I build the SoZ back in the day, for just this sort of emergency. Hopefully all that unhappiness will slow his unit spamming ass down a little bit.)
The city raider cannons are in two groups and are sweeping up from the south and heading for his core cities. We quickly took the two southern border cities, and were happy to destroy about 10 airships in the process. Hopefully he keeps building them, as they're a lot less bothersome than are CG Grens as I move into his territory.
It is unclear how much damage I need to do before he turns that big stack around and brings them to where my cannons are. In the worst case right now, he could take all of my American and Korean cities, and I could stall out before I reach his capital and wherever the Hindu Holy City is.
My Assembly Plants are starting to come on line, and soon the infantry will be pouring out of my cities. I'm probably going to still use one city to spam Mining Executives, as each city with an assembly plant cuts a full turn off an infantry build once Mining Inc. joins the city.
The big question I'm dealing with is what to research next? It seems like the best move would be to go for artillery at this point. I've got a lot of cannons, and the ability to generate a lot of cash quickly. Cannons would do some damage to his stack. Artillery would render it impotent.
Ideally, while I go for artillery, HC or Gandhi will research electricity. I'll probably have to wait for both of them to get it, or at least for HC to build Broadway, but I'm pretty sure I can put together a package that included Biology to them in exchange for it. That will be my path into Industrialism. I'm hoping they'll do it for me, but I will have no choice but to start on it myself if it isn't available through trade.
I've also got combustion ready to be researched, which would allow me to beat on his coastal cities and also give me the path into flight. Fighters and the ability to airlift troops would be nice right now, but I think tanks and marines are going to be more important.
It will take a while, especially since he couldn't wait until I was ready for him, but once the Atec homeland becomes part of Germany, this game will quickly move towards a domination or conquest completion. (Actually, as soon as Monty's under control, I'll probably break off some troops and go smack around Gandhi. I especially want the city he just completed Versailles. That will come in handy, given how few actual improvements the maniac built in his cities.)
.
but hey we find horses and then Iron 
. So we are good.
.... declared war on Pacal for the 2nd time too soon. I really need to fix that part of my game, i get impatient with the military build up and go in too early.
