Exploration update.
After I got a narrative event at the start of the age, where my people claimed having a longstanding tradition against despotism and not being used to having a king, after having spent the entire Antiquity under Ada's despotism, which just threw me off, I waited a day or two until I forgot all about that event and then continued.
Oh, man. I can't remember when I last had so much warfare in a civ game.
But first of all, an honorable mention to Machiavelli, who lived true to his reputation and nicked Spain from Isabella, probably while she was praying for a fortunate transition, so she was left to lead the Shawnee, Xerxes got Mongolia and Harriet went after the money and got Songhai.
I managed to build the bazaars in my cities and refill commander slots with fresh troops, as surprisingly few made it through to Exploration, and then, barely 20+ turns into the new age, the good old barrel organ started its usual melody again: turn after turn DoWs started arriving and within a few turns Ada found herself in a 1v3 position she had before: against Harriet, Niccolo and Isabella.
While just holding the
NENW front against Izzy and Nicco, I first prioritized Wasset - the former capital of Harriet. It had 4 walled tiles, but with a couple of cats I was gnawing at it little by little until my push reached the last tile, where a single commander prevented the city's capture. At which point a new wave of Harriet's reinforcements came and pushed me back a few tiles. I responded with more reinforcements, while she walled a fifth city tile. This could have dragged on for another 10+ turns, but at this point she agreed to a peace deal and gave me Wasset anyway. The fighting was good, but the AI's diplomats could have a clearer picture, for their own good.
Wasset was on a shore of a pretty large lake, which Harriet filled with her cogs, but they were just cruising there menacingly, but did absolutely nothing for her war effort. I put one cog there myself, it was never, not once attacked by her fleet.
The healed army then moved to the
eastwest to help against Isabella, where I was trying to mount a siege against a couple of Izzy's cities, but it was impossible to approach them through the spam of AI's units. The times may have been Medieval, but the warfare was already WWI style: multiple units were falling just to gain another tile in a vegetated and rough terrain. Defeat enemy wave, advance one unit, if it survives, build fortifications, next turn rotate with a healthy unit, hold and try to advance the line on another tile. Goodness me. And this while stealing time to build the necessary buildings at the home front and trying to balance buildings and units output, so that the actual front wouldn't collapse.
After 30+ turns of such exhausting grind I finally approached the settlements themselves, and then Xerxes, my dear ally fighing alongside, makes peace with Izzy and gets one of the settlements I worked so hard for! What a bastard! I was so downcast that I then made peace with Izzy myself, getting another settlement in the peace deal. Then peaced out with Machiavelli, getting some island colony of his.
Finally Ada was at peace and could do some quiet building. Until after some 20 turns Izzy and Nicco wanted a second round. This was rather short and I took another island colony from Izzy, and white peaced Nicco. Then quiet times again, when I finally started to send out missionaries more.
But then Xerxes DoWed Machiavelli. As an ally, I though I'd just give him a hand, it's just one enemy, after all, and my position was much stronger now. Only it appeared, that it was also Isabella. Next turn Harriet joined in, because tradition. And it all restarted.
But this time it was much easier. I got Isabella's capital. However, she actually sent an overseas invasion force of four knights or so that briefly recaptured the island colony I got from her earlier. I was shocked and had to sent my fleet to restore things to the right order. Then Machiavelli tried to do the same! But now I already knew better and paid attention. AI seems indeed much better with the land forces, however their fleets don't seem to do much yet, even when AI acually builds them.
I finally peaced out with all of them, having not lost territory and gained some settlements, but the cost to that was only one single milestone achieved during the entire age - the military one. Nothing else. One relic short to the cultural one, one treasure fleet short to the economic one, and no 40 yield tiles, as I could not manage a single new wonder, and existing ones were not enough for good adjacencies.
Having picked the British for the Modern, who knows, maybe Ada will finally manage to get a grip on her life and will finally dictate things on the world stage, instead of being made to only respond frantically to invasions on all the sides of the realm.
Btw, I completely forgot to mention the overseas guys. They were Cleo of the Abbasids, Lafayette of the Ming and Pachacuti of the Inca. With Pacha there was an interesting event. I met him with a missionary and got a DoW from him immediately, the war declaration screen came up first, and only then the meeting screen with the greeting options - that was a bit confusing, but I was already so numb to all things war, I did not mind that too much
