Session VI: 580 AD - 1270 AD
Early on in the session, we ran into a new AI team, Shaka/Justinian - both of whom were Buddhist. A Great Scientist was born to Huayna, coincidentally on the same turn that he researched Philosophy and founded the second-to-last religion, Confucianism. Judaism was founded a little later, possibly by the team that we still haven't discovered. (As will become clear if you read on, we've now met all but one AI team.) Persepolis generated a Great Prophet in 685 AD, and he was put to work as another super-specialist. (By the way, since there are currently so many Great People being born in faraway lands, from this point on in the write-up I'll only mention the significant ones.)
The main discussion at the start of our session was, of course, whether or not to go back to war with Sury. Sisiutil and I finally agreed that it was probably in our best interests to go back to war and capture some of those nice cities of Sury's, but we were wary of the Apostolic Palace trying to interfere in our war. We therefore decided to declare war on the turn that the next vote came around, to give us the longest possible period of war before we were forced into peace. (Luckily, since this is an Epic game, there's a 50% longer wait between when resolutions can be proposed compared to Normal speed, which gives us more time to war without interference.)
The next vote came around in 715 AD (sign Open Borders with all members, which succeeded), and so we declared war. We'd managed to do a bit of spying just before we declared, and noticed that Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom, two major cities, were both defended pathetically - by only two obsolete units! (Seriously, what is the matter with Sury and home city defence?!) Anyway, since we knew we wouldn't encounter much resistance, Sisiutil split up his stack and went for the two cities simultaneously.
Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom were both easily captured in 775 AD. Sisiutil's maintenance was starting to get sky-high (I believe he was operating on a deficit at 20% research!), so he gifted me both of these cities - I was more than willing to take them, and with Fin/Org Darius they barely made a dent in my research rate.
On the wonder front, the Sistine Chapel was completed by the only AI team that we have not yet met (read on!) a turn later.
Sury managed to get a Great General in 805 AD, which he conveniently parked as a Great Military Instructor in his Copper-hill city, ready for us to take advantage of when we got around to conquering that city. In 835 AD, Sis razed an incredibly poorly-placed city of Sury's - north of Angkor Thom, located on the Horses, with no seafood at all. (Sury must have been
really desperate for those Horses or something.
) Then in 850 AD, our first combined army (yes, combined - I contributed 1 Maceman!
) captured Vimayapura, a small city up north and right on Sis's borders. This city became mine (again to ease Sis's maintenance issues).
I had been pursuing Notre Dame in Persepolis, so it was annoying to learn that Germany beat me to it in 870 AD. Luckily I got a decent amount of gold in return for my efforts, though.
Sis got his second Great General the next turn, and later used him to create a super-healing Pikeman (with Woodsman III and - so far - Medic I). Meanwhile, his troops were approaching Sury's Copper-hill city. I'd slightly miscalculated when the next AP resolution would come up (due to the change in year intervals at 850 AD), so it was a surprise for us when the vote came up to stop the war in 900 AD - just as Sis arrived at the Copper-hill city. We both voted No, but knew that there was a high chance of being forced into peace the next turn. So as not to lose any ground, Sis threw everything he had that turn at the Copper-hill city (which was, incidentally, far more heavily defended than any previous city). With a bit of luck, he just managed to capture it - only 1 unit had movement points to spare in the end!
We sued for peace after the capture of that city, since Sury was threatening the small city of Vimayapura (which we had under-defended) with a Crossbowman - and since we expected to be forced into peace the next turn anyway. Ironically, when the results of the "peace" vote came around next turn, it turned out that it had failed! We weren't too bothered though, since the peace had saved Vimayapura from recapture.
About this time we had just learned Paper, so we traded around with all our trading partners and discovered the location of Germany, Celtia, Russia, Zulu, Byzantine, Viking and Spain, as well as updating our maps of the other nations. We learned that Mansa Musa must be on his own island, since we didn't see him anywhere on our maps. We managed to make a decent amount of money out of trading around those world maps - being the first to research Paper is quite nice.
I received another Great Scientist in 940 AD, so I put him to use by founding another Academy in Tarsus. During the same turn, the Hindu shrine was built (by the Arabs, as we later discovered). Shortly afterwards, a Great General was born in one of Justinian's cities - so we knew that he and Shaka were at war with someone on their continent. Not surprising really, for them.
In 970 AD, Bismarck/Boudica re-declared war on Mansa Musa/Elizabeth. As a result, the next AP vote for once didn't affect us - "stop the war against Bismarck/Boudica". We voted No, since we were quite happy for the AI's to war amongst themselves, and the resolution failed. Funnily enough though, Bismarck and Boudica both voted Yes, despite the fact that they'd started the war only 8 turns ago - and Mansa Musa voted No, despite the fact that his teammate was being seriously whipped on the mainland continent.
Meanwhile, I completed the University of Sankore, which provided a very welcome research bonus to Sis and myself. The Russians lost a city to the Zulus, and the Russians generated a Great General. From this we learned two things - that Shaka/Justinian were at war with Russia, and that the Russian leader was Peter (from the Great General announcement). In 1040 AD, one of Justinian's cities was captured by Spain, so we guessed that Isabella must be the teammate of Peter. (Bear in mind that we still hadn't met either of them at this stage.)
We had been teching in a beeline towards Liberalism, and in 1060 AD finally discovered it. We took Nationalism as our free tech and I immediately began construction of the Taj Mahal. (Sis might have built it slightly faster, but in team games only one player gets the Golden Age from the wonder - or from Great People - and I could use the Golden Age better than he could, with all my massive research multipliers.)
In 1110 AD we were beaten to the Spiral Minaret by Bismarck (who by now had quite an impressive capital city, with so many wonders constructed there). This wasn't a problem though, because we didn't have Divine Right and weren't planning on getting it in the near future anyway.
After Liberalism, we quickly teched to Optics so that we could navigate the small section of unknown longitudes to gain the circumnavigation bonus. As soon as we had Optics, I upgraded a Trireme to a Caravel and sent it out only a few tiles to the west of my homeland - picking up the +1 movement bonus. (All of those world map trades had paid off again.) The Caravel continued southwest, and shortly met two more AI teams: Isabella/Peter, and Ragnar/Saladin.
The Germans captured the English city of Nottingham in 1130 AD, which wasn't surprising. (Earlier on we'd discovered the reason for Mansa Musa/Elizabeth's unusually poor tech rate. Mansa was clearly on an island somewhere, and Elizabeth had seriously under-expanded - having only 5 cities packed in on a small peninsula!)
I generated a Great Engineer in Persepolis, which Sis and I decided to save for Mining Inc. in the distant future, just in case another Great Engineer didn't pop up in the meantime (they have low odds in my Great Person farm). Shortly afterwards, I completed the Taj Mahal, and entered my first Golden Age of the game. My already-crazy GNP went even more insane, and my cities became even more productive.
We'd been waiting on the next AP vote before we went back to war with Sury, but I'd forgotten to count the number of resolutions that had passed, so the next vote was (of course) just the "leader of the AP" vote. (So we could have actually gone to war without interference a lot earlier.) Incidentally, despite having great relations with Bismarck/Boudica (we'd even gifted them Nationalism when they demanded it), this didn't change their vote at all - Willem/Huayna still came through as the residents of the AP, with every vote except ours. Ah well.
We re-declared war on Sury after the AP vote, with Sis sending his stack towards the city of Rajavihara and its lovely Gold resources.
By this time we were dealing with Longbowmen as well as larger defence stacks from Sury, but this hardly made a difference since we now had Trebuchets. Sis had no trouble capturing Rajavihara, and so a few turns later we both gained access to Gold - needless to say, our citizens thanked us.
The next target was an isolated flatland city to the northeast. It too fell with few losses on our side, and many losses on Sury's side.
In-between these two battles, I completed Angkor Wat. I hadn't been deliberately aiming for the wonder, and had built it more because I had nothing else to build in my capital at the time, but it was still a nice little boost for us.
Another Great Scientist was born in my lands, so he was put to use building a third Persian Academy (in Ectabana). Shortly afterwards, we were the first team to research Economics, and so I netted the free Great Merchant. We decided it was best to save him for Sid's Sushi, just in case another one didn't turn up before then.
At the same time as our war with Sury, several other events were happening simultaneously around the world. Saladin/Ragnar and Peter/Isabella had been at war for a while, and in 1260 AD, Ragnar lost a city to Isabella. In 1265 AD, Justinian/Shaka declared war on Peter/Isabella - apparently not the least bit concerned about fighting their Buddhist brothers and sisters. During the same turn, on the opposite side of the world, Mansa/Elizabeth managed to secure peace with Bismarck/Boudica.
We also discovered, towards the end of the session, that Saladin and Mansa were on a small continent to the south of us.
We finished our longest session yet in 1270 AD, just as Sis got his third Great General. (This Great General hasn't been used yet.)
I'll leave you with a few more screenshots. Here's the state of the world at the present day (in 2 parts, now!):
My nice little island to the north, which I ended up settling this session:
The Persian city of Tarsus, which is turning out to be a great secondary GP-farm for me:
(Persepolis currently has +98 GP points per turn, for comparison.)
The Roman city of Brundisium (formerly the Khmer capital of Yasodharapura), which (as some of you pointed out) indeed looks like a superb site for Sisiutil's Ironworks:
Watch the Persian GNP rise, rise and rise...
The Power graph:
The Food graph:
The Production graph:
Present top 5 cities:
The full extent of world conflicts:
Finally, a nice picture of the more recently conquered Khmer lands, featuring Sisiutil's new Roman city names:
Until next time,
- Lord Parkin
