I played 14 turns to get us to a decade year.
Inherited turn (1406 AD): At the start, I wasnt 100% in love with our finances:
It could have been worse, though. Unit costs werent so awful but our city costs looked bad. Read on to see how it improved quickly.
At some point early in my turn set, I decided not to consolidate our two armies. We would keep them split into a northern force, aimed towards the northwest at England and a southern forces aimed at the southeast to finish off Rome and enter the Viking homeland. Both forces would do some healing and pillaging along the way and thus, not make significant geographic gains. The southern force would be accompanied by smaller stack intent on pillaging Ragnar. Meanwhile, we maintained a large garrison at Antium to deal with a steady stream of pillaging attempts by all the AI Civs.
We had a Great Scientist sleeping in Moscow who could almost complete Guilds for us but I think well be better off waiting until we can train a couple of Chariots, one of whom could become a second super-Medic to be assigned to our southern army.
I stagnated growth in Yaroslavl' by working the lake tile instead of the fishing nets. There were already two angry citizens there, no sense in adding another at this point.
At Athens I switched from working one of the island sugar cane plantations to a cottage, picking up 1 commerce at the loss of 1 turn until growth (5 instead of 4).
IBT: At Hippo we trained an Archer who immediately got killed by the English War Elephant. Hippo was English at that point. Our net income went from -8 to +8 gold per turn. Ragnar's Knights pillaged a Hamlet outside of Antium. We're gonna get him for that. A Barbarian Axeman attacked our Axeman west of Athens at the cost of his own life.
Turn 1 (1412 AD): Moscow trained a Trebuchet, started a Chariot(2).
Two War Elephants and our Destroyer of Cities Maceman eliminated two Viking Knights and English Horse Archer, ending the pillaging threat at Antium for the time being. The remainder of our invading army began healing in former Roman lands.
Our northern force recaptured Hippo by killing the wounded War Elephant there, getting no gold for the small effort. They razed the city this time. That triggered the birth of our next Great General, Hamilcar Barca, in (you guessed it) Athens. I'd like to see that portion of the code that causes generals to be born as far away from the front as possible.
At this point I finally remembered to revolt to Confucianism.
It'll help on many levels. We waited too long to do this. Only Antium wasn't yet Confucian.
Turn 2 (1418 AD): We came out of revolt. The changes I made, along with the loss of Hippo resulted in a gain of 7 gold per turn:
Not too bad when considered along with improved building construction in our cities:
Yaroslavl' was still unhappy and there was no way of stagnating growth except for hiring a Citizen and I didnt want to do that. I could have whipped the forge there for 3 population points but I chose to whip a Coliseum for 2 points instead.
One of the War Elephants at Antium killed a pillager-wanna-be Viking Knight.
IBT: A barbarian Swordsman committed suicide by Maceman at the Horse Pasture southeast of Masihero. A Barbarian archer moved adjacent to our workers at the Gold Mine east of Gold Horse.
Turn 3 (1424 AD): Yaroslavl completed the Coliseum, went back to work on the forge.
A Roman Catapult was killed by a War Elephant at Antium. I took a gamble and moved our garrison archer at
IBT: The gamble paid off and the Barbarian archer died trying to steal our 3 road-building workers.
Turn 4 (1430 AD): Moscow trained a Chariot. He met up with Hamilcar at Jumbo and became a super-Medic. Moscow started another Chariot. Our shortage of fog busters and mobile pillagers is striking.
I whipped the forge at Ruffsville for 2 population points, not wanting to do it for 3 earlier.
Coventry was garrisoned by two Swordsmen who were woefully inadequate for the task:
We razed it.
IBT: Ragnars Caravel disappeared into the fog north of Moscow.
Turn 5 (1436 AD): Novgorod trained a Trebuchet, started a Pikeman. Jumbo trained a Trebuchet, started a Forge(18). Ruffsville constructed a Forge, started a Chariot(5).
Rome added a city on the IBT:
The two mini-stacks north of the city are actually a portion of the northern force that had razed Coventry. They were healing and preparing to rejoin the rest of the northern units. Arretium was assigned to the southern army, approaching from the east.
An English Axeman/Settler pair was killed/captured by our northern force.
IBT: Ratz, one of our northern Swordsman was killed by a counterattacking English Maceman. Ragnar adopted Mercantilism.
Turn 6 (1442 AD): Moscow trained a Chariot, started a Maceman(6). Masihero trained a Trebuchet, started a Pikeman(4).
Two Trebuchets did the heavy lifting at Arretium, Destroyer of Cities mopped up.
Both Axeman at Athens were fully healed and fog-busting was no longer required in the gap between Athens and Yaroslavl so the medic Chariot moved onto the jungle hills to bust fog there.
IBT: A Viking Caravel appeared east of Yaroslavl; I wasnt certain if it was the same one that disappeared earlier. Regardless, I suspected that we were destined to lose our fishing nets soon.
Turn 7 (1448 AD): Gold Horse constructed a Granary, started a Forge(20).
Shaka was frantically trying to re-spawn:
I removed the MUST KILL sign its understood. The team I dispatched from Antium to address the expansion killed a Viking Crossbowman/Catapult pair that stood in the way. They evidently were headed towards Jumbo.
Turn 8 (1454 AD): We caught a glimpse of Neapolis, situated near a choke-point:
Turn 9 (1460 AD): Novgorod trained a Pikeman, started a Maceman. Ruffsville trained a Chariot, started a Pikeman(9).
A Trebuchet razed Babango, netting us 5 gold; thats better than the 2 we got from Coventry. Just south of there, 2 Zulu Longbowmen died trying to protect their Settler.
Turn 10 (1466 AD): Masihero trained a Pikeman, started Pikeman. I originally selected a Chariot, thinking it would upgrade to Knight in ~2 turns when Guilds was done. But then I noted that we didnt know Horseback Riding yet.
IBT: A Barbarian Swordsman died while attacking an Axeman on the Gold Mine at Gold Horse.
Turn 11 (1472 AD): Healing and pillaging.
Turn 12 (1478 AD): We discovered Guilds and I went with Horseback Riding next what the heck? Its only 3 turns. Our Great Engineer would now provide 1722/2574 beakers needed for Gunpowder or roughly 8 out of 13 turns.
Moscow trained a Maceman, started a Grocer(10).
Turn 13 (1484 AD): Athens constructed a Forge, started a Library(5).
IBT: We lost our Medic Chariot to an Axeman attacking in the jungle. We still have two spare Axeman protecting our southeastern cities but I think its time to begin strengthening our defense in that sector.
Turn 14 (1490 AD): We discovered Horseback Riding. I selected Priesthood(1) for temples to ease unhappiness but pholkhero can change it to something else because no beakers have been committed to it yet.
Novgorod trained a Maceman, started a Knight(6).
We killed a Barbarian Archer at Antium.
As my last official act of this turn set, we lost a Trebuchet accomplishing this:
I think itd be a good move to whip the Grocer at Moscow for 2 population before pressing Enter next turn. Pholkhero can look for other whipping opportunities in our other cities.
Weve been building some infrastructure along with units for the past several turn sets. As a result, our army feels stretched a little thin. Perhaps now would be a good time to consider joining our northern and southern forces for a while, at least until we get some Knights and more Macemen to the front.
We have 3 forces. The Interdiction team has been defending Antium while intercepting settler expeditions and pillagers.
The northern force has yet to take York and is likely to suffer some losses taking it away from the 2 Longbowmen and Crossbowman holding that hilltop city. The southern force has some healing to do but the pillaging team is still intact.
We could join the two forces at Haithabu to take it away from Ragnar. Alternatively, we could bypass cities for the time being with the northern force pillaging to the north while the southern team pillages to the west.
Here's The Save:
Queen_Mother_AD-1490.CivWarlordsSave Have fun!
