Turn 0: Monarchy due in 4 at max research. We have two pretty decent stacks converging on the capital and one surpassingly wimpy stack cooling its heels outside Mound City. I see our cities have been whipped into the ground, which is good. Why take care of your own cities when you can take someone else's instead, am I right? Note that SITTING BULL HAS ENGINEERING IN 12, which pretty much means the limit of our offensive unless we have disconnected iron by then. I quickly run over which of his cities might be of use: Cahokia, Spiro, Mesa Verde, Chinook. We are unlikely to get all of those in 12 turns but his research will fall as we take cities. Mound City is of quite limited use since it only has sheep, iron and a bunch of plains, but it's on our path so I might go for it. We'll see how things go. Note that, contrary to previous reports, Wang Kong and Boudica are still at war with Hammurabi, which confuses me so much that I go back and check I have the right save. AD 580, right? Do the donkey work of checking leaders and cities for any info. Qin is bribable but we have nothing to do it with now or for the foreseeable future. All is admirable in the cities. Hit enter.
Turn 1: IT, a spearman attacks a full health WE and wins. Oh, well. QIN CONVERTS TO TAOISM.
I note that he has knights. It is indeed a harsh and cruel world. Make note to check him for enough on his hands every turn from now on. What happened to Minoan's rice? Did someone pillage it or something? WE beats spear at 95% and gets us a GG. This must be attached to a jag in due course as per the rules, so I move it to the one currently besieging Mound City. Minoan can whip a WE, cool. Rusten is going to love our happiness levels when he takes over.
Turn 2: Sury cancels his cow + gold for copper deal. Great. The much-whipped Tlatelolco is now unhappy, so I need a substitute. Some cats attack, all retreat, but a HA dies to a WE. I cannot afford the units to mop up properly we are very thin on defense. But I nab one cat and a dog soldier that wondered too close to an SOD. Caco Canyon is really weak, I have to send reinforcements there. Reread Silver's post and realize that I missed the part about trading for MC. Do so. We are all but out of gold and I have had no chance to pillage due to the lack of cottages along the attack route. Trade Sury copper for gold , less than perfect but we need happiness quite badly. 0% science. Renegotiate deal with Zara to get an extra 1 gpt, we're rich! Ahem. I fire one scientist in capital; we can't get monarchy in time for bulb anyway. Hire some others.
Turn 3: Lose a cat to an xbow after another weakened our stack-guarding elephant. A cottage is destroyed by spies. Scream obscenities at the screen as the game crashes. Replay from autosave. For some reason the random seed is not preserved (maybe I did some things in a different order? not sure) and some combats turn out better for us. Note that I moved a stack differently, replay again. Random seed turns out correctly (I.e. worse). A WE dies near Mound City to an x-bow attack, I don't remember that. Well, I'm not replaying again for whatever it was.
Turn 4: SB inexplicably decides to send a whole bunch of units, mostly horse archers, against our elephants near Mound City. Most die but one crossbow takes out an elephant. He gets a GG which he spends on a HA in Mound City. Gotta love the AI. Start bombarding SB capital. Move all units away from Mound City; they are doing nothing but costing us maintenance. I'm not sure why they were there in the first place as they were nothing like enough to take the city. Lightbulb Philosophy.
Turn 5: I think I may have missed a turn somewhere in the confusion over replaying; anyway, bombardment of capital complete and troops ready to move. I am not delighted about the odds but they will only get worse as he is whipping units. Cat goes in, withdraws at 8%. That was good luck (though in fairness I've lost severely against the odds in this turnset). Cat dies at 22%. Cat dies at 41%. Cat withdraws at 65%. Cat dies at 82%. Payback, I guess. WE wins at 97%. WE wins at 97%. WE wins at 99%. WE wins at 99.9%. Axe wins at 95%. Axe wins at 88%. Jag wins at 95%. Axe wins at 99%. Axe wins at 96%. Axe wins at 99%
Finally some good news. Some bad news, too: I notice that one of the things lost in the crash was the espionage change to Boudica. Correct this. Many apologies. Also, how strict were we being in whipping cities down? I think I left Chaco for a turn after it came out of revolt. Make amends by whipping a temple without waiting a turn.
I take a break at this point, partly because those five turns (six?) took over two hours and partly because I want advice on which cities to go for. My thinking is: try to get Mound City and Spiro as primary targets. If he won't capitulate, take and raze Poverty Point, which in this game deserves its name. Snaketown has nothing, Mesa Verde would be culture-squeezed to death and Chinook is too far away. Thoughts?
