Inherited Turn: I changed almost all our cities over to infrastructure. I left Our capital and FP site cranking one cav per turn each, and one or two building infantry, and Flora making destroyers every other turn.
Carbon may be curious as to what's on the Bab galleon, but I'm not. I pull one of our very few garrison artillery units over to Ockley, bombard the ship from 3hp down to one, then activate that ironclad out on patrol, which can just barely reach the target. Babs go glug-glug-glug all the way to the bottom.
Oh yeah, and I dropped our science rate to zero. In Monarchy, we cannot afford to miss out on the full interest from Wall Street.
1762AD: The Babs have chump change on defense at a former Aztec city northwest of Xochilalco site. A little artillery action to soften them up and the city falls easily.
Our entire massive stack of artillery at Larsa manages to inflict... one hp on one vet infantry. A second fully healthy vet infantry steps to the fore, and King Sirian declares that Larsa shall enjoy two more years of independence, as we're not throwing our cavs against a brick wall!
Our other, slightly larger stack of artillery shoots its guns to slightly better effect. Veteran unit reduced to 1 hp, and the conscript is reduced to 1 hp also. Ack, there's a third unit, another conscript, and we have run out of ammo for this round. I attack! We have two cav and one elite infantry in range, plus one badly wounded cav. Our first cav attacks the unwounded conscript and wins. Our second attacks the 1hp vet rifle, LOSES. I attack with our infantry and he loses 4 straight hps, making me sweat bullets, then finally wins. Still an unfortified conscript unit left with 1 hp, and all we have in attack range is a cav with 1 hp. Well what the Hey, to the bold go the spoils. I charge our wounded cav in there... OH TORTURE, that first round of the animation before it starts taking off health, you can't tell which way it's going to go... WE WIN! City captured. I move a bunch of workers into the area to build railroad across the hills so I can move in some vet infantry and fortify them on this turn.
I mopped up some straggler Bab units in the field.
1764AD: Larsa artillery barrage fails to do anything significant yet again. Well, almost. It took 2hps off one vet inf, 1 off the other, but this is with over half a dozen extra artillery pieces brought in on the north side of the town for extra firepower. I decide it's time anyway, and we lose THREE cavalry in the attack, during which one of the inf promoted to elite before we killed it. Larsa falls to us!
I return us to research, and now that we can run a higher sustainable rate of research (while interest pays some of our bills), Mass production due in just 3 turns. Two turns ago, it was due in 4, so for ONE net turn of zero research, I have garnered about 600 gold and 25gpt from full interest.
1766AD: Our STACK of units is in place at the town above Babylon. Our artillery can bombard along the diagonal from a spot in our own territoty! So I fire off like two dozen guns, enough to take all three rifle defenders down to 1 hp. We blitz, city captured.
After barraging a pair of regular inf down to 1hp each, down in Z-town on the far southwest coast, west of Larsa, our cav blitz on the attack. First inf dies instant, second holds out, kills a cav, promotes to vet. We re-bombard it back down to 1hp, our next cav also dies (that's 8 lost combat rounds in a row, arrgh) and I'm out of artillery, and the defender has promoted all the way to elite!
I charge yet another cav into the fray, he loses 2 hps but kills the elite defender's last two hps and wins. City had no culture, it's autorazed.
I talk to Hammi, who has just six cities left now. He's willing to give up his second, third, and fifth best cities for 20 turns of peace. I take the deal, as time's a wastin. We can mop the floor with the rest of Babylon at our pleasure. Our treaty with Joanie is running out and I do NOT plan to renew it, but before we turn our attention to France, there's something else to do first.
1768AD: Persian cavalry march up to the gates of Tlaxcala. "Did somebody request a delivery of iron? We've brought your iron for you! Here, HAVE A TASTE." Tlaxcala, Tenochtitlan, and Tlateloco blitz-captured. Mondo stack of Persian artillery, along with several cav and inf, move into firing range of the last Aztec city, their capital in the midst of Indian land.
I move about 15 or 20 units into Tenochtitlan, which has three wonders and 8 resistors. I do not intend to let it flip.
1770AD: We research Mass Production. Sadly, so did the AI's and on the same turn. They now have a two tech lead, Espionage and Flight. Aztecs survive with ONE hp left on their last defender, a regular spearman.
1772AD: Aztecs conquered. India founds two colonies in gaps left in Babylon (insignificant spots, really, no sense arguing over them) and moves a worker onto the extra wine tile, to build fortification in preparation for colony.
1774AD: Between turns, our treaty with France came due for renewal. I told that slanky ho to go fly a kite. Persia and France are now at war, and France has an MPP with India! (WHAT IS SIRIAN DOING???
) Joanie rolls into action, sending several ship pairs toward our shores and, as it turns out, moving her STACKS of BOMBERS into range of some of our lands.
I buy Espionage from Ghandi for 204 gold. I then buy an MPP with him for 100 gold. India now has an MPP with both us and France, while the two of us are now officially at war.
I sit back and do not fire a single shot at Joanie's forces.
1776AD: Joanie's bombers pillage our land. Since she fired the first shots, India enters the war on OUR side.
That's 1 for the Thinking Human Being, 0 for the Poor AI.
Joanie sinks one of our ironclads, though.
I sell Ghandi some of our surplus oil for about 50gpt, and also some surplus luxuries for another big bundle of cash. Wow, he's rich! This gets back some of what he squeezed from us a few turns ago to renew our dyes deal.
Our navy attacks! We lose four vessels, they lose only one. DOH!
I scramble workers to rebuild destroyed and damaged roads/rails.
With Flight due for us next turn, I have almost all our core cities on placeholder for airport.
1778AD: We discover flight! More bad news at sea, all that navy I spent my turn building up is gone now. We have one destroyer left and have lost several ironclads. Guess the bad luck has to come home to roost somewhere. I totally botched one attack, as I could have bombarded with artillery from the shore but was too eager, and just didn't believe we'd LOSE destroyer vs ironclad with a 3 to 1 attack advantage. Silly game. Heh. Let this serve as a warning to all: when you have artillery available, USE IT.
1780AD: Airports completed all over Persia. Every city now set to build planes already has an airport. I set those in the 40-50 shield per turn range to build fighters, those over 50 to build bombers, and those UNDER 40 to build bombers in 3 turns. Flora is cranking battleships every three turns now and ought to be left alone. The first one just rolled out of the shipyard.
Intelligence Agency due next turn. Joanie's going HEAVY on the bombers, we need fighters running air superiority to guard both coasts. Tanks are nice and all, but that's when you get there first. We're not going to get there first. We need some air force to fend off her bombers or she's gonna cream us. We're going to have to achieve some naval and air superiority before we can be in position to invade France.
Joanie's got a tech lead. Until her govt collapses, this one is not yet in the bag. I wouldn't worry about the UN, though. Pour all we have into the war, figure we'll get a leader with which we can rush the UN, and failing that, we can go bombard and possibly raze whatever city she starts building it in, if she gets there quickly enough, before we start really giving her the business on her turf.
This is going to be a fun one. Our enemy is no pushover!
- Sirian
Oh well, I can always download an earlier save file... :crazyeyes
. France and India have an MPP going, and I accidentally made an ROP with France (though it's not as if we have much rep to lose anymore if we violate it). 
India has connected up its local rubber source so we can't sell them that anymore. They, for the moment, are still in Democracy, but I haven't seen much evidence that France has been attacking them much. I let our Dyes deal with India expire sice we don't seem to need it anymore. I also used a settler to knock out the Indian wine colony; we could potentially sell them a few lux but I didn't bother so far. 
:jump: :scout: ![[party]](/images/smilies/partytime.gif "Party [party]")
