Preturn check. Caere starts on peltasts, Silk road is a small wonder, we can leader-rush it. Switch a few corrupt cities to chariots and merchant ships, part rush slave market in Cumae, Athenae switched to growth, Pompeii to worker, Volchi to heroic epic to add some culture, Pisae to 10 spt making peltasts in 2 part-rushed, Gravisca to chariots in 2. We have lots of temples in cities with majority of foreigners. Temple has been just rushed in Oleus apparently but city has 2 Minoans and will grow only in 6 turns. Switched to granary, wasting 10 shields. Dont see what tiles we can claim by building temple in Bisenzio, switched to ship. Gla does not grow and is utterly corrupt, hired 2 scientists there and switched to ship. Bologna switch to slave market. Mantua is at perfect 10 spt, why it needs slave market? Switched to peltast. Mycenae is building aqueduct which can be considered a prebuild for courthouse. Switched most of the builds, sorry.
If we are going to ask Gallia out, we need more units over there. We ask them out and they withdraw. We also have deals with most of Mediterranean civs. Well, not with Carthage. And deal with Lydia ends in 3 turns.
[1] Declare war to Carthage. During amphibious assault on Carthage, we got a leader! Carthage is captured and we now have harbor in every coastal city. Captured also Leptis Magna, Russucru, and Malaka. Each city had two defending spearmen with occasional broadswords.
[2] A few units sail to Lydia, we need these riches people are talking about.
[3] Utica captured from Carthage. IBT: Minoans declare war on Kolchis, like they dont have enough trouble. AI is amazing sometimes.
[4] Declare war to Lydia. They have powerful spearmen (defense 5). Yet mighty peltasts prevail and we capture Phokaia from Lydia. Also capture Cartenna from Carthage. Trade Education to Iberia for 850g and some gpt change before they trade it from somebody else. All AIs are essentially broke. IBT: Goth declared war on Macedon, it is a good chance, we might be able to use a few Macedonian cities.
[5] Caralis captured from Hannibal. Leptis Parva then also captured. Miletos captured from Lydia as well but it was a close call.
OK, trying to continue the game. Seems that Carthage has waken up and if advancing with a few unpleasant SODs. They also have three stacks of galleys with at least one unit each, so seems like a time to make peace but Ill wait for the next turn. IBT: Phocaia flips back to Lydia. There was only merchants ship there and a healing veteran peltast, so no big deal. But it might be unpleasant with these flips since Lydia has two very remote cities: one in Persian Gulf and another in Afghanistan with all these opium fields.
[6] Phokaia recaptured. Decided to make Rome more Etrurian by building two settlers in a row so that only 3 Roman citizens remain there.
[7] Panormus captured from Carthage. We capture Sardeis with Riches of Kroisos! The city is one of the top 5 in culture, so little hope of holding it for long. However, a nice addition of 50 gpt to our treasury it is. Surprisingly, Lydian capital jumps to Kolophon, a remote opium city. Code of Laws ready next turn. I feel very tempted to steal Invention from Babylon to get maximum out of the forthcoming deals. The only thing that stops me from doing it is that Im not sure if Hammurabi actually has Invention. In the interturn we lose 3 peltasts to Carthage and Lydians advance with considerable force to Miletus. Code of Laws is ready and research set to Invention in 10. Heroic Epic finished as well.
[8] Smyrna captured from Lydia. Assyria wants CoL + 7K gold for Bridge Building. It is a nice tech though and certainly worth stealing. It costs us 1600g but we can certainly return this by trading around. Indeed, sold to Huns for 2800g. Nobody has enough cash to buy CoL from us though. Many cities switched to courthouses. They are really very expensive (120 shields), so rushing completely is a bit too expensive even for our decent treasury. I also start on Universities in Caere, Roma, Tarquinii and Volci. Spent about 3K gold part-rushing courthouses. We are down to 7.7K gold. Make peace with Lydia since they have no accessible cities around for a Persian Gulf town and 150g. Flip chances have been down to less than 1% after their capital jumped to opium fields. We also have 2 turns left in a deal with Phoenicia. This means they are doomed apparently.
[9] Slaughtered a bunch of Carthaginian units. They have a remote city deep inside Sahara but dont want to give it away for peace.
[10] Everything ready to attack Lydia, all units and ships in place, RoP cancelled this turn, so attack next turn should be OK. Carthage is being very close to extinction, we can try to get that remote desert city with an army. There is little point in moving normal peltasts over there since the road does not go all the way and there is a desert movement penalty. Seems that tech race is slowing down a lot and the only substantial threat to our Caravan victory might be 20K cultural victory in Nineveh which is at 6K culture now.
I would not revolt to any other government for now first, because it will be probably 9 turn Anarchy. Second, there might be considerable need for warfare at least with Babylon and Assyria apparently since they are very strong. They have essentially no coastal cities and high losses are anticipated. We can try to battle with war weariness with many luxuries however. Research is very slow and each tech takes at least 10 turns to discover. Little can be done about it but getting more cities and hiring more scientists.
Notes to next player:
1) Attack on Phoenicia ready.
2) May be try to kill Carthage completely, but making peace also seems OK, flip risk is very low.
3) There is a group of workers near Tarquinii, they were going to improve lands near Russelae.
4) Instead of building temples to gain access to valuable bonus tiles, it is easier to sacrifice a slave in that town in most cases.
5) There might be a few units on goto and there is a settler near Cortona. Dont have a slightest idea what to do with this settler. May be ferry him to Africa?
6) We can prepare to take over Minoans imho.
Disposition of troops in the Phoenician front:
Carthaginian front:
Sweet homeland:
More homeland:
Minimap:
And the heavy save:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TAMSG1-700BC.SAV
Let's try to get a courthouse in Mycenae, as it has teh Colossus, which should be making mucho tourismo now.
Must take over the world!!!! BWAHAHAH!!!
