Warlord difficulty

[Jaaboo]

You also need to give Louis enough time to build some wonders for you

He does like to build those wonders.

So I finished last night and it was a lot easier having coming back to it. It was ~700 AD, Alexander was indeed down to his last city, and while those that I had taken from him were not doing so great due to cultural pressure, that was about to change.

When I stopped, I was actually building courthouses in most of my cities. Even my capital had a fairly hefty price tag on it but I got it all taken care of. 12 turns later, Alex was dead, having razed his last city that would have certainly folded in face of the culture machine that was France. I tried to re-balance food and wealth in my larger cities, and it paid off well - soon I had the slider up to 50% and turning a profit, but then the real savior appeared - a Great Merchant! Having just read Sisiutil's walk through of Genghis' grandson, the merchant was on his way up to France to make daddy some money. 2000 more gold in the bank, and Tokagawu was next on the list. Osaka fell swiftly, then Kyoto, as my Trebs cut through his defenders like a hot knife through butter. Tokyo fell as I researched Steel. I took a 10 turn peace with the Japanese as I rebuilt my cannons and grenadiers, vassalized him, and then turned my greedy eyes to Ramses.

At this point, I was teching like mad. Something just clicked - I even won the Liberalism race and by the time I had grenadiers, Egypt was waiting like a fresh ripe cherry waiting to be plucked. And I plucked him hard. France stopped becoming an issue, Louis and Brennen started to go at it while I consolidated my hold on Egypt. A few border pops later, and I was the winner, ~1700 AD.

Code of Laws and later on Civil Service helped a lot. My capital was the rock upon which my economy and military production stood - despite my "production" city in the hills (which never had enough food to take off.) Ulondi served well as a second capital with the Forbidden Palace (though if the game was larger, Kyoto would have been a better choice. Once the big war machine got started, it never stopped. The shrine city didn't pull in too much - it was placed in a horrible position, right out in the middle of desert (stupid Alex), and Confucianism never really took off as a major player on the spiritual scene. Wall Street ended up in Ulondi, with the National Epic and Oxford University in my capital.

I never set up a true 'GP farm' though my capital served in that regard. Two GMs were a huge stimulant for my research.

I guess I wasn't too bad after all!