Thoughts, on picking up the save:
1) Freddy has Mechs, since we can see one at Bonn, the city he founded in ex-France. Given that Mansa's built the Ship part at Robotics, so must he. This ain't going to be easy. Neither of them have built the Space Elevator yet, but both of them (at least) have the capacity to do so. If Freddy gets it this could... get... hairy. To be honest it's probably ideal for Mansa to do so, assuming he doesn't have Fusion yet.
2) The main stack is still in ex-China, and there aren't enough Transports nearby to take it over to Mali immediately. Yep, I'm going to be a few turns before declaring war, yet.
3) There are 7 Artillery and a Tank scattered around France, together with a *very* thin defensive force. I decide to leave them there for when we need to kill Bonn.
4) The Giant Stack Of Troops has not moved, and is next to a stack of transports that has not moved, but the turn claims to be over! What's going on? I load as much as possible up and get moving. Lots of it is healing, sure, but there are going to be two trips anyway, and if healing is the priority it should really have been in the city next door. I get 12 units onto the transports immediately, and divert two of the ones that have been waiting around at home over there to pick up the remaining 8.
5) I decide that if it's going to be 5-6 turns before I can declare anyway, I might as well send the new fleet of mostly marines round to the back of Mansa's territory, to catch him in a pincer movement and avoid having to travel through quite so much of his culture to get at anything useful. They head round the left side of Mansa's continent, to join up with another Destroyer there.
6) Mansa has only one city on another continent, which is on the far side of Freddy's lands from our home. I will divert a transport of stuff over there to kill it once I can afford to, since even though it's on the wrong side it may well prove useful in invading Freddy later, and I don't want to leave Mansa alive after this war if I can help it.
7) Nobody is unhappy, and we have loads of cities, producing a good mix of units. Excellent. Overall I think we could do with a bit more fleet, I'll get a couple more ships built as things finish up. Otherwise we're building the last few other things before it's Modern Armour all the way out, I suspect, since we'll never get Mech Infantry.
8) Tech-wise, we're looking good for Computers. I'd like to get at least one unit of Future Tech before the game ends just for the principle of the thing, since that was our first tech choice and we should really get there at some point.
On the other hand, I may turn off research for a couple of turns of upgrades of Tanks before we press on with Genetics, once Computers comes in in 6.
9) I sign Open Borders with Hatty so that I can use her poaching city on Mansaland as a staging post.
Rrrright then!
Turn 1 (1996): Nothing finishes. At all. I move some ships around and, well, that's it really.
Turn 2 (1997): Mansa cancels our Crab/Musical/Wine for Wheat/Gold/Spice deal. Fair enough, really, since we're going to attack him anyway. Hatty immediately offers us Wheat for a spare Incense, which I take. No cities become either unhappy or unhealthy as a result, so I don't bother scouting for any new deals just yet.
A Tank and a Navy Seal finish. Once again, some stuff moves.
I drop the science rate to 60%. Computers still in 4, but we'll have a thousand or so gold on hand for the first upgrades once it does come in, and I'll attack the turn after that. I should be in position by then. The only real reason not to attack right now is that there isn't enough defense in the outpost cities on Mansa's continent, though, and that may not be a good enough reason.
Turn 3 (1998): Only one build finishes, and that's a random Temple in ex-France. What's with this? We have 30+ cities, and only four of them have built anything!
I change my mind about waiting for Composites, I think I can take a couple of cities in the next four turns, that would be wasted otherwise. We may well be against the clock here, after all.
...
Doing, thankfully, a last-minute check, I discover a problem. Freddy has a Defensive Pact with Mansa. Neither of them will consider cancelling it. This... could be a problem. We aren't ready for war with both of them. No way, no how. We have no fleet in Freddy's area, and we *die* if an invasion hits our mainland. I'm going to have to scramble a few ships that way ASAP, and build more too. If I have any chance to, I'm going to get a few Sam Infantry in, too, since we're definitely going to get bombed at some point, probably the least convenient time possible.
On the plus side, I get to wait for Modern Armour.
Turn 4 (1999): All the builds ever finish. Figures.
Freddy switches to Suffrage/Emancipation/OR, causing an unhappiness in New York. There's nothing we can trade for, though.
Turn 5 (2000): (still no more spaceship built by AIs. 50 turns left to hold out).
Research down to 50%, Computers still in 1. More stuff moving around, enough that I now have *three* decent forces in the vicinity of Mansa. He'll be going *down* in two turns.
Turn 6 (2001): Freddy completes the Cockpit. Computers comes in, of course, research turned off for at least a few turns.
Upgrading a Tank to an MA costs 200g, so I can only afford to do 5 this turn. We're now at +1401gpt, though, so it won't be long.
Alex cancels a deal with us for a luxury, and all of a sudden I'm looking at 1-2 unhappy faces all across the board, even before declaring war. This is not sounding good... Sounds like I'll just have to target the four happy resources Mansa is holding over our heads (two Modern ones, Spices and Gold. He's got loads of both Gold and Spices, so this shouldn't be too difficult so long as I keep watching, and don't raze cities with Wonders in. I don't actually anticipate doing too much razing, though.
Doing a random scan, I notice something that could be of great value to us:
Do you see any Aluminium there? I don't! Unfortunately, from the lack of option to trade it to him it would appear that Hatty is trading him her spare, but it's still something we might just possibly be able to exploit in the future.
Turn 7 (2002): I cancel deals with Freddy at Alex's asking since Freddy's about to declare war on us anyway.
We've now got even more unhappiness, and I haven't even declared war yet. Regardless, we have No Choice Whatsoever. We *will* get outlaunched if we wait. I'll do my best to keep our actual production centres happy by judicious use of the MPs that are lying around.
The fateful day has come...
FOR GLORY!!! (and for Mansa's resources)
Oh no.
There... may be a little more residual war weariness from Mansa than I thought.
Our cities *will* shrink. The only thing that can possibly be done about it is to kill Mansa. NOW. I'll take the old step of whipping something out of any city that's about to starve down more than a size or two, and then I guess that'll be pretty much the military we get. On the other hand... we've got a good military right now. We can take 'em. I think...
COME GET SOME. WE WILL NOT GO DOWN WITHOUT A FIGHT!
That's one. Two SEALs lost, and one on the ground. The rest remain on the ships, ready for transport to the next city.
Regrettably, due to the need for Tanks to be returned to one of our *own* cities for upgrade rather than remaining in Hatty's, that's the only one I can take on the first turn.
Turn 8 (2003): We get bombed a few times, not terribly relevantly, and we lose the SEAL on-land, but nothing particularly interesting happens in the IT. In fact the only real counter is an Artillery and a Gunship pillaging by Gao, and not only that but I see an unguarded Transport with a settler/3 mechs that I can kill happily.
City Raider III Modern Armour are quite sick, really... (city kept since otherwise Kumbi would control the tile, which would be unhelpful.
Terrible luck means Bonn did not fall. It will soon.
Even *worse* luck means Agades has not fallen. I've aborted that attack with enough units left to get back and be useful somewhere else, though.
I can't believe this. I brought four modern armour to a city with all of two mechs. I lost two fights at 44%, won one at 75%, and then lost the last at 85% for the city. Once that last Mech promotes and heals, I simply won't be able to take that city before Bonn falls and I can bring any spare units from that over here. OK, possibly attacking before bombing off the rest of the cultural defenses was foolhardy, but I should still have won!
Even for my luck, this is ridiculous.
In other news, a Great Engineer is born in Philadelphia, though we have no use for him right now. He's asleep there.
I'm really not happy about the way that turn went. Even for me, that was bad luck, at pretty much the worst possible time.
Turn 9 (2004):
Yeah, that last turn cost us in War Weariness, multiplying and multiplying. Most of our cities have about two people *not* unhappy. I'm therefore taking a fairly serious step. Basically, Every Single City is about to get whipped. Here we go...
Oddly enough, in most cases this gets *more* people out working, rather than just reducing the amount of food eaten. Presumably the amount the War Weariness is dependent on city size is causing this.
Yep. That was more than 20 cities just whipped. All the major ones are still unhappy, though, so all the build selections I make next turn will bear in mind that they're likely to be whipped *again* in a couple of turns.
Also, I can't trust even a NINETY-five percent MA to win now.
I'm getting depressed by this. I'll come back and play the last bits and upload screenshots and things later. Sorry for the delay.
Garath
. I should be able to play and post tonight. I will try and finish Louis and set up Garath for an attack on Mansa.
maybe? Rheims falls. 
