Now, where was I? Oh yes, victorious but broke, still a long way to go to CoL, me having pursued a purely military research for quite some time.
What are vassals for? Mansa, the little bugger, had somehow managed to found Confucianism while I was preoccupied with Julle, so I made an arrogant demand.
Mansa was really in no position to deny me the favour, he had 3 cities, a couple of horse-archers and archers and 1-one galley. Of course he needed my continued “protection”!
Turned out Mansa must have traded CoL to Julle, almost all the captured roman cities had courthouses (lucky me), so I immediately built FP in Rome.
Mansa turned out to be a funny vassal. He started out at -2, I made my arrogant demand, he went to -1, then I never spoke to him again, nor did he contact me, but our relations continued improving throughout the game. By end of game, he had +9 with me!
I did not do as originally planned, bugging him to brake out, I saw no point, seeing he was so puny it would be nothing gained by killing him. I got his resources and one of his cities anyway, just by having my culture close to him – I kept steeling his land, square by square, throughout the game. And the more I gained, the friendlier he became.
Poor little Mansa
, never was much hope for him, he never even got metal. But that was his fault, though. There was unoccupied iron up north on our continent and we had open borders, but he did not go for it. Instead he put an archer and a settler into his one and only galley, paddled halfway up north and – settled on a two-square island with no resources whatsoever, and he didn’t even bring a worker to work the leftover tile! The rest of the game he just sat in his little country feeling protected!
Honestly, you can’t kill somebody that pathetic!
As part of my recovery, I burned a little preacher for a golden age, built some workers (cosy little cottages, goldmines aplenty (took 5 of them from Julle), vineries) and concentrated on the economic teching, some I traded for, but most I bulbed, a couple I researched myself. And I made some money off my human friend. He had founded islam and built the SM and the Versailles, so I really didn’t need DR, but I still traded a tech to him for it. I then sold DR to each and every one of the other civs. (Why, of why, hadn’t Freddie sold it himself?)
Having more than 15 cities by the end of war (some captured, some razed and rebuilt, some newly founded – filling in the gaps between the roman cities, thus preventing Mansa from stealing land), I set up specialists in all the cities that could take them, so I had GS-points aplenty.
Then I realised: I still have no viable port! Not even one coastal city that had the ability to produce ships en masse! (The coastal cities I did have, were some roman ones, down south in the icy tundra. And one in the southeast, the side that made Monty unreachable thanks to the continents being long and narrow, and reaching from pole to pole.) And here I was, teching railroad! And half of my continent was still without inhabitants (apart from some stupid, rather domesticated barbs up north), and the other civs were running out of land, duly noted by the fact that Vicky came over to claim the iron Mansa missed out on. So, forget about killing Monty for the time being, what’s needed are settlers, and more settlers. First I founded viable coastal cities and got them up and running, concentrating on production, to get those destroyers and transports going.
Then I started northwards, approaching Mrs. “High and Mighty Stiff Upper Lip”. She had settled in the midst of a plains forest, on the iron itself, 3 tiles from sheep, and 3 tiles from the coast. She had a maceman and a longbowman, no worker.
(I have to give it to the AI for choosing the worst places to settle. If she had settled on the coast in between the sheep and the iron, she would have had clam, sheep, iron, one grassland hill, 2 grassland tiles and the rest ocean and some of those plains forests.)
Vicky spotted my riflemen, watched them take down the barbs, realised an army of riflemen and settlers/workers were heading her way, had a little think – and came begging: “Please protect me from harm, pretty please; let me be your vassal?” Oh, well, what the heck? Her High and Mighty had to eat humble pie
, give me her one and only stone and some gold, leaving her +15 friendly with me. (I’ll never understand the AI concept of friendly!)
Whilst doing all this, I had been making infantries, cavalry, destroyers and transports, with every intention of paying Monty a visit (he hated my guts; -10) – but:
Oh, holy wonders!
I discovered that nobody had bothered building AP, and since Julle was long dead and gone, I was the only Hindu in the world, so I built it. (I also built Broadway, by the way, as well as starting the Eiffel and the Christo (that one is really worthwhile), as well as the Pentagon and Apollo), by now I had enough cities to be able to produce both wonders and units, as well as taking care of infrastructure.)
The Radio (carefully avoiding Mass Media) beeline I did because of dear Freddie. I was teching (again) military/production, while he was teching health/culture. (He was clearly going for a cultural win, his 3 cities were rapidly gaining – and I had proven he couldn’t go for domination, as his power-graph was steadily, but very slowly, rising, whilst mine was rocketing towards the sky. And my friend had watched me fighting, as he had an explorer following my every move during the war, he always does that, in any game we play.) So, I remembered Sisiutils trick about going straight for the Internet, which would give me all the techs I didn’t research, as well as giving me a space race thing to do while playing with Montys hurt feelings!
Another but:
Having the AP and being the sole Hindu wasn’t much fun!
So I spammed missionaries, both for my newly founded cities, as well as to the other civs. My two vassals were easy, being on my continent, for the others I had to build caravels in various ports, and I sent them off, successfully spreading my faith to all but Monty. The latter I dealt with the Sisiutil way: I gifted him a caravel with a missionary aboard. That brought Monty up to -9 (yep, a tad more friendly), he used the missionary and happily went exploring with his shiny new caravel.
And wouldn’t you know? Diplo win in 1805!
I’m Augustus Caesar now, my friend is Dan Quayle!
I won! I won! I won!
![[party]](/images/smilies/partytime.gif "Party [party]")
(But alas, Monty lived to see the end of the game.)
The next day my friend and I started a new game, but my friend is sulking now. I’m way ahead of him in techs, but he won’t buy anything from me – “I can do my own teching!” – and he won’t trade resources. Every time I comment on something good happening to me, he’s kind of ignoring it, and his voice has a kind of funny undertone of mild bitterness. (In addition, the other civs that are angry at him are angrier at me, but they still go attacking him!)
My friend introduced me to Civ, he taught me how to play it, he bought me Bts, and now I had beaten him in his own game!
The audacity of the pupil!
Oh, yes, I’m gloating!
). If only I could aspire to be as skilled as KMad. She seems to really have the grip on game mechanics at any level and speed.
Evil was just for flavour, and by the way it's hard to tell who's who with twins xPP
KMad has been here for a long while now 
, as hes way better than me (but Im catching up, thanks to ALC and you guys 
).
)
mwaha: the blond, which is an excuse for any and all mistakes), both with verbal diarrhoea. 
