Before starting the turns, I had a look at the current state of our empire. Right now, we seem to lack a clear focus. The goal is to win through Conquest, but there's no real plan on how to reach it. Anyway, since other succession games already focus on the growth and economy, we should keep our focus on military. Lhasa will soon be captured, and either Wu or Washington should be our next goal. Iron seems to be our biggest need for more warfare, so I'll be preparing to settle a city in the tundra soon. The iron resource there has a yield of 6 (12 due to our Civ trait), which should allow for sufficient units to take on the rest of the continent, if need be. After that, it feels best in the spirit of this challenge to advance towards upgraded units (knights and longswordmen) relatively quickly and set out to conquer the rest of our continent.
The only change I make before ending the turn is to switch Istanbul's production to a Workboat. Instead of the Colliseum it's currently working on, the Workboat can provide more happiness by hooking up the Whales near Novgorod without the added maintenance, and happiness continues to be in short supply.
T116 - 25AD
Lhasa's lone Archer moves away from the city and heads north towards Helsinki. A nearby Horseman moves to intercept them next turn. The Catapult near the city-state continues its barrage; we should be able to mop up the remaining defenses with the other units soon enough.
We still haven't adopted a new policy. Perhaps further investment in the Honor tree would be good? The happiness and reduced upgrade costs would be a nice addition.
St Petersburg finishes its Horseman. I decide to start on a Settler to colonize that Tundra location, and leave the Horseman at home to keep our border secure from Washington if needed. There are more than enough units near Lhasa already.
I check for possible resource trades (we do have a few horses to spare *cough*) but no one has anygold to pay for them. Wu and Monty register as hostile. I'm guessing Wu can see the dark clouds approaching, and Monty is just jealous of us.
Bismarck requests open borders in between turns, since our recent agreement expired. Since we've become pretty chummy with him, I renew the agreement. Immediately afterwards, he declares war on Hiawatha. Okay.. Hiawatha is the only one with access to iron in the south, but Bismarck is feeling confident of himself
Monty settles a city right next to Lhasa. I'm beginning to remember how much I disliked the guy in Civ 4.
T117 - 50 AD
Moscow spawns a Great Scientist. I'm not sure if we agreed what to do with him yet so I kept him around, but I would recommend either bulbing Chivalry after we finish Civil Service research, or using him build an Academy at Moscow.
Lhasa's archer tries to run from our Horseman, but is trampled without inflicting damage in return. I decide to hold attacking the city itself for one more turn while the Catalpult chips away at its health. Washington has quite a few units in the area now, something to keep an eye on.
Monty approaches me about forming a pact of secrecy against Washington. Since we more or less agreed to go after Washington, and improving relations with Monty would probably be a good idea, I decide to accept.
T118 - 75 AD
Lhasa is ours!
The Catapult barraged the city once more, and the spearmen mopped up after that. I decided to make a puppet out of the city rather than annex it right away. We get access to its gems resource right away, so our happiness actually increases. Maybe annexing won't be too much of a strain.
Workers start building a road to link up the tundra city. I think I'll place it in between the iron and deer resources.
Wu requests open borders, but as long as she's the potential next target, I decline.
Helsinki and Dublin both get their reputation boost. We get access to Dublin's gold resource, taking our excess happiness to the double digits.
We also get our second policy. I know I argued about further advancing the honor tree, but now that our happiness is good, it might be better to invest it elsewhere.
T119 - 100 AD
I purchase the whale tile off the coast of Novgorod and use the workboat to hook up the whales. Happiness is up to 16 now, so a golden age isn't too far away. I let the units at Lhasa rest and heal. Once they are rested again, we can send them to our next target.
An american settler with a spear escort moves into view east of Lhasa. I'm guessing Washington intends to settle the empty space NE of the former city-state. Good, that'll save us a Settler later on.
At the end of the turn, he settles right next to Monty's latest city instead. They should be at each other's throats before long
Bismarck decides to end our pact of cooperation due to excessive warmongering. I guess he conveniently forgot he declared as many times as us so far.
T120 - 125 AD
Bismarck has a second marble resource hooked up. Since we don't have our own source yet, I trade some horses for it. It looks like the glitch has finally stopped providing us with additional ones, leaving us with a surpluss of 420.
He then complains about our close relations with Dublin. Tough luck.
rT121 - 150 AD
Edirne finishes its Horsman, I let it start on a Krepost. If we can build them in every city, we can start on the Heroic epic. Lhasa comes out of resistance and I annex it, switching its production to a Courthouse. All in all it's a pretty quiet turn.
Our units at Lhasa have healed up now, but until we agree on the next target I'll leave them there.
T122 - 175 AD
St. Petersburg finishes its Settler. Production is set to another horseman and the settler starts moving towards the northeast.
Washington asks for help against Bismarck. Err.. no? How about you take a good hard look at the psychopath next door instead?
Bismarck seems to be doing well though, capturing Hiawatha iron city.
T123 - 200 AD
Civil Service comes in. Since we have the ability to bulb Chivalry, I set research to Metal Casting, on the way to Steel and longswords.
T124 - 225 AD
We now have two cities who want Incense. I check the diplomacy screen to see if Monty can help with it. He can't yet, but it does look like Washington hooked up the Iron resource near Boston. Since our Horse deal ended recently (returning the glitch again) I trade him some more Horses for the iron. We can now continue upgrading our forces.
Bismarck signs peace with Hiawatha, it looks like the chief is down to just his capital now.
Monty requests help against him at the end of the turn. I decline, but it does become evident that Bismarck may end up being our biggest opponent on this continent.
Russia enters a golden age on turn 125. I'll leave it to GoldErgoSum to play around with it.
The save is attached at the bottom of the report as usual.
Kylearan
Aretii
SleepingMoogle -> completed
Gold Ergo Sum -> UP
MuLepton -> on deck
Moderator Action: Spoilered the screenshots for readability. Rik