[continued from previous post]
Sorry for the delay, guys. I had to divert my attention to dinner
Anyway, if you notice, we were researching Scientific Method the slow way instead of lightbulbing it. We could lightbulb Physics with our GS after that, and I figured it was better to see after getting Scientific Method whether Stalin had won the Physics race before we burn the GS.
Back to the war situation. This time, Brennus fought back as well, sending a stack of a few knights, maces and trebuchets at Verlamion. This was where having grenadiers really helped. Two of them ensured the trebuchets' attacks were repelled and the stack destroyed. They also dispatched the occassional unit that came to pillage after that. On the main theatre, grenadiers upgraded from our own maces destroyed the few Celtic musketmen that threatened our new possessions.
The Celtic capital soon joined these:
And then I watched one of the most desperate AI actions ever. I put a knight and a pike (all the troops with moves left that I could muster) in the city to join the maceman that captured it as temporary defense. Good thing I did that. As soon as he lost his capital, Brennus threw whatever troops were within reach at it, which IIRC amounted to 2 pikes and 2 longbowmen. Our mace killed a pikeman, our own pike killed the other, while our knight killed a longbow before dying to the other. I was starting to get worried that we might lose our valuable CR3 maceman in the city. The wave hadn't quite ended, but fortunately the few other Celtic units couldn't reach the city in time and were destroyed on the following turn.
By the way, after getting Scientific Method, it turned out that Stalin had indeed won the Physics race
So much for trading the Great Library for the free GS. I thought he might go for Communism first, knowing that he likes State Property. Well, for now his tech lead was getting bigger. We only had Liberalism on him.
Since there's no point rushing to Physics now, I decided to research Replacable Parts next. It would put us another step closer to Rifling and would allow us to increase our low hammer yields by building lumber and watermills. I also wanted to see if we could trade that tech (instead of the more expensive Scientific Method) to Gandhi for Economics (which we needed for Free Market, an apt civic to run given our focus on trade).
Anyway, Brennus still refused to talk, so we marched on another city of his:
And got another GG soon after:
I think the two of them could head to Bibracte soon, our proposed HE city.
Meanwhile, tech-wise, we had discovered Replacable parts. Now I wasn't sure what to research next. I opened the trade screen to see if we could trade for Economics first. It turned out that Gandhi just got Replacable Parts too, so once again we only had Scientific Method to trade to him for Economics. And, worse, he didn't even have gold to make up for it. So, I decided we would research Economics ourselves next. It would only take 4 turns anyway.
Brennus still wasn't ready to talk. War weariness was beginning to weigh heavily on our cities. I had to whip quite a few times by now and raise the culture slider. Our research was only kept afloat by plunder money, which, admittedly, was quite a tidy sum. Well, I hoped Brennus would talk in a few turns. In the meantime, I turned part of our stack east to capture an Arabian ice burg:
I decided to keep the city, since there's a high chance some AI would plant a city there just for the whale if I razed it.
By now, Saladin had renounced his vassal status. He was willing to talk, so I signed peace with him to reduce WW in our empire. Brennus, though, was still a stubborn little mule
What's up with him? Do we have to destroy him completely before there can be peace? It's not like he could do more than send a few units to die anyway. Could it have something to do with the fact that we broke the peace treaty with him by declaring war on his vassal? Argghhh!!!
Anyway, we just discovered Economics, so I decided to stop playing here. We can make another civics switch now:
It would take 2 turns of anarchy to switch both civics, though. I was thinking of switching only to Free Market first. Bureaucracy still has its uses anyway. What do you think?
And we could now make a better trade with Gandhi:
The thing is Corporation would obsolete the Great Lighthouse and give only 1 extra trade route per city in return. Good for our non-coastal cities, but bad for the coastal ones and, most importantly, our capital. What do you think of the deal?
Speaking of our capital, here's a look at its trade routes now:
Following a series of resource trades, Stalin had agreed to open borders, and now we're close to the situation before the ToA was made obsolete.
And here's a look at the tech situation:
We only have Scientific Method on Gandhi. The rest are well behind, with Mehmed coming after us.
This is the power graph:
We upgraded some maces and built several grenadiers, so our power rating did rise. Stalin, however, has made much bigger progress in this respect. I don't believe he has infantry yet (strangely, he didn't even have MT and therefore didn't build his UU), so he must be stocking up on those rifles. The good news is we are no longer his worst enemy. The bad news is now Mehmed is his worst enemy and vice versa, so we got -4 for trading with worst enemy from both sides. Shaka also didn't like our trading with Mehmed.
Our continent to date:
Yes, yes, we need to spam more Christian missionaries for the sake of our unevangelical shrine
There has just been so many buildings and units to build so far.
And the other continent:
This map is up to date. I just paid Gandhi 10 gold for it. As you can see, Mehmed lost half his empire and got pillaged back to the stone age. Was it a mistake to instigate the war? Maybe. But UncleJJ's save showed me that the war and its result might be inevitable.
The good news is now that Shaka controls a significant amount of territory, if we do decide to go for domination, conquering his lands may be enough. In that situation, we could switch to State Property to keep Stalin happy and maybe bribe him to focus his attention on Gandhi. We might just be able to get domination without having to fight him.
For now, though, should we go on and conquer the rest of Celtia? I reckon we only need to build a few more trebs to do so. Or do we sit it out and wait for Brennus to be more reasonable? WW is really a pain now. And what techs should we go for next? Tell me your thoughts.
PS: I haven't settled our two GGs, in case you're wondering. They are still on the way. You can still object to settling them in Bibracte, if you wish.
... but here is the savegame for 1665 so you can look at the situation in detail. All the other continent was running Mercantilism and so I had to change from Theocracy to Free Religion to get Mehmet and Ghandi to use Free Market. That increased total beakers and gold income by about 100 per turn, but also weakens the drafted riflemen who only get 1 exp and the Trebuchets who only get 3 exp and hence CR1.
) and they were all running Mercantilism. To be honest I was playing the game quickly and not paying particular attention to the trade situation as I wanted to get to the action with a bundle of riflemen 
I am sure the research and trading could have been done a lot better than in my version.
Our friend could use some help. But we couldn't just give him Chemistry. We had to trade it to Gandhi first, so that we could at least get something out of it. Hence, I made a deal:
You did better militarily than I managed by 1665 but that was largely due to you declaring war on Saladin, and hence brought Brennus back into the conflict. My army sat around while I researched 
That is the problem. You have to draft in a perfectly happy city, which reduces the number of working population you have while adding more unhappiness than whip rushing and only compounding the effects of mounting WW (which isn't static, by the way). Hence, you can only draft much before the war begins, which means several extra riflemen and an already lower population level across the empire.
So the two games aren't very easy for me to compare on a fair basis. The solution to that would be for me or you to go back and replay properly from 1540 with the Rifling strategy and your attack strategy (using maces and trebuchets). I'm not sure if it's worth our while but let's at least acknowledge that is what is required for a proper comparison 
