A New Era Begins
As the elections rolled on to a close after an incredibly long and arduous campaigning season, Great General Redwings1340 the third was elected to the position of president. He was elected in a particularly tough political climate. Oil shortages threatened to make our military obsolete, coal shortages were preventing our established factories from pretending they needed coal to function, hurting the worldwide economy, and Assyria's land forces were making it difficult for the Carthaginian navy to hold any cities for long.
The Greatest Navy the world has ever seen!
Oil shortages plagued the end of the CaesarKyros era, but Redwings1340 III vowed to fix that as his number one priority. Buying oil or strategic resources from the rest of civilized society was out of the question, since civilized society sucks and has made us and Portugal their enemies, but smaller nations were much more willing to trade the oil our modern day society needs to function. With a bit of a bribe to Quebec City, the general turned president took a quick break from the siege of Assur to upgrade his fleet to an untouchable fleet of destruction.
The war strategy implemented by CaesarKyros was successful at absolutely demolishing the capital city of Assyria and turning it in to a pile of wreckage, but Redwings1340 III knew that to take this city, something had to be done to dimishish the superior Assyrian land forces. In this effort, he changed the focus of the war from taking Assyria's capital to bombarding Assyria's troops, and in that respect, he was successful. His fleet of battleships would go and constantly bombard Assyrian infantry camps that could do nothing in return. Eventually the great Ashurbanipal would admit defeat and give up the great city of Nimrud in exchange for peace.
The next war
Throughout Carthaginian history, there has been one civilization that has always seemed to have a smug and superior attitude about them. They always seemed to have the best technology and the best society. With his new battleships, Redwings1340 III made it his goal to see that the great civilization of Songhai comes crashing down to the ground, and made raising Songhai to the ground his next goal.
Redwings1340 would head to Songhai with his battleships and make a beeline for refrigeration technology, afterwards giving additional funding to a city state to create offshore oil wells to power an army of more battleships. Soon, war was declared against what most people in the world considered to be the greatest military power in existence.
Minor Nations
While the naval front in the war against Songhai went immediately well, complications our great leader did not consider arose from some smaller nations who were allied with the greater nation. Mbanza-Kango and Budapest both attacked our sparsely defended hillsides, taking advantage of our mobilization towards Songhai. To counter this, Redwings1340 III decided to pull back most of his land troops to keep an eye on Mbanza-Kango (and to destroy any aggressive troops, though never attacking the city itself), and pulled back a single battleship to defend our newest city of Nimrud from the Budapest military. While pillagings still occur in these regions from time to time, these countermeasures have stopped these city states from becoming too threatening.
The Real War
While city states caused a bit of chaos behind the front lines, the war with Songhai went magnificently. First up on the attack was the city of Jenne. Songhai threw together an impressive ground force to defend the city, which was blasted to bits by the cannons from Carthaginian battleships. With resistance negated, battleships that didn't have ground targets to attack moved focus to the city itself, and soon Carthage overtook and burned the city of Jenne to the ground.
Upon hearing about the fall of Jenne, a Songhai diplomat came with a message of conditional surrender to the people of Carthage, offering 44 gpt (100% of their gpt) for a temporary peace. While this was a tempting offer, Redwings1340 III had bigger goals in mind. He moved his fleet to attack the capital of Songhai itself, and prepared to take the city.
Internal Development
While wars were certainly the most interesting event of Redwings1340 III reign, it was not the only event. Imported steel from Assyria made it possible to complete the Eiffel Tower, which convinced our population that our conquests were all right, and made our cities popular tourist destinations. Also, the Neuschwanstein was constructed in Carthage, which provided Carthaginians everywhere with a healthy appreciation for castles in our empire. With these wonders, Carthage remained an inspiring place to the world and to its citizens. Also, I'm not sure where to put this piece of information, but Japan conquered Sydney. That's probably worth noting.
A look towards the future
With naval dominance assured, Carthaginian engineers and scientists started looking towards the next place they could assert their dominance, and new frontiers opened up for them. An experimental submarine was constructed in the north, and is soon going to reach Songhai to defeat any potential surprises there. The true weapon of the future, though, is said to be the airplane. Two experimental great war bombers have been constructed so far, and have been used to great effect at suppressing raids from Mbanza-Kongo, but research designs are being conducted for ways to dramatically improve the efficiency for these bombers. While no carriers have currently been constructed, Carthage is excited to announce the capacity to carry these dragons of death across the water, which should be extremely useful at destroying any threatening forces that are out of range of our battleships, and may help our military stay strong, even after other civilizations figure out how to counter our battleships.
And then, he was gone...
Redwings1340 III was widely regarded as a successful leader who adjusted well to the various challenges thrown at him. After a long time at the helm of the nation though, he vanished to go to a magical land called "Key West, Florida". He would be gone from his usual spot in the world for a week, though he would probably be able to come back to Carthage during this time if necessary. After he vanished, new elections were held to determine his successor.
Other Notes and general thoughts
So, we're in a pretty good place right now. We're also going in a direction I don't usually venture in in my games, so I'm really excited about this! Our two biggest tech competitors, Assyria and Songhai, are going to take a really long time recovering from the beatings they are going/went through. Songhai lost one of their biggest cities, and we should be able to take their capital pretty easily. Be careful, because I think I did see a submarine in their capital (It hasn't attacked though), but luckily our submarine is arriving in Songhai right now, and should be able to take care of their submarine before any serious damage occurs. Assyria, meanwhile, lost their second biggest city, and their capital is a pile of ashes after getting conquered and reconquered. Both civs should completely stagnate scientifically when we are done with them, giving us lots of time to do whatever we want to.
Personally, I would be very ok with that 'whatever we want to' being take over the entire world. Nothing can stop us right now. Our navy is easily the most dominant navy in the world, and we aren't exactly vulnerable by land either. Our land army may not be invading entire countries by itself anytime soon, but in this map, we don't need it to. It is powerful enough to clog up pathways until our navy/air force can get there to destroy any attackers, and we don't need it to be any stronger than that to dominate everyone.
I would recommend going with the tactic of killing off troops before you kill off cities if possible. We have an overwhelming force that can do this incredibly easily, and this tactic has the side benefit of ensuring that our conquered cities won't get retaken. This tactic also gives our ships a ton of experience, and it's not like time is a huge factor here. We're not going for a fastest victory or anything, but we've done enough damage that if anyone looks dangerous, all we need to do is move our fleet to attack them and bam, we're in charge of the world again.
Also, I've been taking either +damage vs land units 1/2/3 or +damage vs naval units 1/2/3 as my upgrades of choice for my battleships. The main reason is that logistics (+1 attack per turn) is unlocked after +damage for either one level 3, and since we're planning on conquering quite a bit with this navy, having two attacks per turn is more useful than any other potential upgrade. Battleships already have 3 range, which puts them outside of city attacks, so basically doubling their attack power is nice. Also, since I've run in to almost zero naval resistance, I've been using +damage vs land units as my upgrade of choice for new battleships.
I think our biggest threat is running out of oil (we do not want this strategic resource penalty), so we should always make sure we have enough money to buy back our oil supplying city states if possible. I've been saving a lot more money than I normally do, although our economy is good enough to buy stuff if we need to.
Honestly, this is a fun game. I haven't had a navy this powerful in quite some time, if ever. Well done getting us to this point. It's been an interesting mix of science and military might, and we're getting to see the dominating effects turning on the military might at the right time can have in a game. I really enjoyed playing these past 20 turns. Take it away either Putchuco or Gurra!