The Height of Level 9 - Songhai, Asia map, mod Marathon, mod difficulty

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011. The first survey shows that my hammer per city count is actually not the lowest - even I completely rely on my Palace for production output. That means those who rank lower than Persia has already begun founding new cities (as new cities have horrible production at first, dragging down the average). Good for them.

 

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012. Policy time! After the blunder last game, I have... not learned the lesson and still went for Liberty. It is hard to change habits.
Actually I wanted to still use Long Swordsman rush. Immortal rush would be good for just the 1st neighbor Civ. But I want to take down at least 2 Civs to start, since the AIs are relatively weak at first, but very powerful after mid-game. I already have 3 warriors anyway, so I may as well go for Steel yet again.

 

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013. China asks Persia to be friend so they can secretly pass us nuclear bomb making tips (at least the US thinks so)! 50 turns on Marathon is nothing, so I happily agreed. Plus Wu Zetian does not turn on her friend like Ramky. I am also sure that I won't be able to start any rush in 50 turns, so the first friendship deal has no way to backfire.

 

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014. Finally I found the home of another Civ - Greece is corner to the very northeast of the map. What a tragic starting location - just endless Hills and no fresh water. For once Alexander won't grow to be the superpower in Classic Era. Or will he?

 

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015. The first Great General is born! I... don't know who this Francisco Pizarro, so I looked it up on wiki. Spanish conquistador... not a very nice person. I should sacrifice him for some Golden Age later.

 

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016. Sold the first Sugar to Greece. Now since AIs lost their population advantage, none of them are nearly rich enough to pay full price. Alexander was already the one with the most cash - at 428 gold. Luckily, I still collected enough gold from City States visit and Open Borders to buy Library to start the construction of the National College.

Actually, AI's lack of gold (due to their diminished population) completely changed the way the game is played. I have grown so used to getting loads of cash from AIs through trades and *cough* pre-war deals. Essentially, a human player grows as fast as AI's income. When AI's cash is reduced, the human player becomes significantly weakened! This is a very interesting modding idea that will be explored later in the story.

 

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017. More Scout exploration reveals Mongolia to the north of China, and Arabia to the northwest (present-day Syria). It turned out that Wu Zetian and Harun are Darius' two closest neighbor - standing at 30+ tiles away! I am glad that this is Martahon.

I also noticed something strange - it is already Turn 111, and Arabia has no worker working on the resources. Maybe he is buzy building some world wonder. There is no world wonder construction bonus for Deity, so I keep it that way for the 9th-level. However, since now the AIs no longer have miracle-grow population, they will build the world wonders as fast as human players - and we all know that only works for low-difficulty.

 

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018. Bronze Working complete! Bought the first Immortal unit.

 

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019. One side effect of cash-poor AI is that I get to collect gold per turn deals from them and become the Civ with highest income! Alexander is again on an army production frenzy. Maybe he will do something to China or Mongolia. That will be exciting to watch!

The AIs are a lot more peaceful compared to last game. As they start with no extra soldiers, cities, and warriors, they have to focus on growth first.

 

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020. Harun asks to be friend! Yeah, why not. I am not ready to take him down anyway. So should I take Arabia first or China first? I was leaning towards China for its riches, but getting in the middle of the map early on is rarely a good idea. Plus China has very similar resources as Persia (picture 007), but Arabia has 3 new resources (picture 017). The pressure on happiness will be a lot lower if I challenge Arabia first.

 

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021. Genghis Khan surprises everyone to be the first AI to enter Medieval. This is equivalent to Standard turn 42. Since it is quite normal to see AI enter Medieval on Deity at turn 40+, so far the level-9 AI's technology is only on-par with Deity.

I sold the first Incense to Mongolia and bought two more tiles to enable to harvest of the 3rd Sugar. Then I will send the workers out to chop some woods to accelerate National College.

As there are lots of empty spaces between Civs, barbarians are fierce! Fortunately I have a Immortal unit and a Great General.

 

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022. Got the next policy! Free worker to chop some more wood!

 

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023. Some time later I have sold all of my 5 resources. Since now the AIs do not receive any happiness bonus, one can see that the buyers of Persian product are generally happiner than those who don't buy Persian products. Persian sugar canes and incense has received very positive reviews in the international commodity reviews.

 

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024. I took a City State mission to bust a barbarian camp in Sahara desert. But just when I was close to victory, something terrible happened - nearby barbarians swarmed in like flies on cow dung! It seems that most of them are wounded by combats in the past.

I decided to take a risk and take the camp (and alliance first), or it might actually produce new units and I am really toasted. The full-health spearman should be taken care of last... The Persian boys ended up surviving this one (as most Barbarians are not very aggressive - they just stick around like flies around cow's butt). They had to remove the flies one by one in order to come home all in red HP bar.

 

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025. I was looking at Culture and realize that I need some external help to get to Meritocracy quickly enough for Metal Casting. So here 500 gold goes to Vienna, which may provide me with 2 lux resources (if the fierce barbarians haven't pillaged it down).

 

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026. Iron Working is completed and I actually get lucky this time! I have 6 units of Iron at home and another 6 units closeby. But I only need 3 units for now (3 warriors). If I settled on the original birth spot I would have no Iron at all - they both deposits would be 4 tiles away from me. That's so mean. Now I can save the 1010 Settler cash and instead pay for the land tiles leading to Iron.

 

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027. National College completed. I like to try to time things right - here I am 30 turns away from Metal Casting, and also 30 turns away from Meritocracy. So I can get Steel and Longswordsman as soon as possible. Of course, due to natural population growth I will end up get Metal Casting a little sooner.

 

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028. The nice thing about reading a story is that time flies during boring times. Here is 30 turns later. Meritocracy for Steel!

 

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029. And I was surprised to see the Great Library unclaimed. So here comes a dream setup:
Meritocracy for free Great Enginner, which rushed the Great Library, which gives a free tech, which popped Steel! Nice chain reaction!
Note: As discussed, the AIs lost their population advantage, their wonder construction rate in early game is actually lowered from Deity.
I actually like it this way - the player should still have the freedom to grab some early wonder and still faces tough challenges later.

 

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030. Here goes the Persian army, on their glorious conquest of Arabia! The Longswordsman left home on Turn 194. Let's see how many turns it takes for them to get there. I was getting impatient and sent out my Immortals with Great General some turns ago already (to see the routes better). I am carrying 2 Workers with the army - I will explain the reasons soon.