CHRONICLES

RBCiv Epic Thirteen

Having paid insurance, I thought I'd get something back out of the Babs when they broke the alliance again. Not this time. They held true, and so I had to do so, too.

Meanwhile, my wonder building continued. I snagged the two I cared most about, starting with this one, my top priority:

You can see that my second priority will finish a few turns later in Delhi. Education tech has just come in and once again, marketplaces are delayed civwide as I focus on maximizing culture. Still no market in Delhi or Bombay or Madras, though I may have had one somewhere. Maybe.

As the French and Babs duked it out, sometimes with significant minisods, neither gaining an upper hand, French units wholly disappeared from my border. Once I had trained enough troops to be confident in my garrisons, I gathered some extra pikes and even some spears and set out to pillage French lands.

Joanie did absolutely nothing to stop me. Nothing at all. That was the beginning of the end for her. As my line pillaged its way across eastern France, working like African fire ants or North American gypsy moths, chewing up everything in their path, Joanie lost access to resources, and had her eastern cities cut off. Her economy tanked with all the roads being destroyed, and not only did starvation set in, but she went bankrupt and had to start selling off her city improvements.

I hadn't expected the latter. That was the true devastation of my attack. Once she could no longer pay maintenance, the effect was as good as if I were bombing her cities: her improvements were disappearing. I could not tell at first, for sure; all I could see was the starvation in her cities. Once-mighty Lyons and Rheims reduced to size 3, both of them. Indus, Chartres and Marseilles also started to tank, and the drain was also causing buildings to be sold in her western cities, too, though again, I would not know nor confirm the extent of this for some time.

I hoped that the devastation done to her border cities would lead some of them to flip, but no such luck. I had only moderate pressure on them, but in previous patches that would have flipped more. Now the AI is much wiser about defending its cities, and as I learned in Epic Nine, programmed to pay particular attention to running high garrisons in pressured cities to keep them from flipping. The lack of flips was not great news, but it only confirmed my initial suspicions. I wonder how a dedicated ICS attack will do. I'm sure some folks will have tried it. It's the more obvious strategy.

However, the extent of the devastation wrought upon France by my pillage campaign has confirmed my game plan in my own mind. Starvation, then propaganda, will be the way of my attack. If that proves unworkable, I can still fall back to ICS settler flood into enemy territory. ICS for this game in particular is par for the course. I am speeding my way to Espionage -- or I was, until I just ruined France. Joanie and Hammurabi were the top researchers, especially Joanie. Despite the wars over here, things had been worse between Japan and Zulus on the other continent, and both were VERY far behind in culture, and likely in improvements, too. Although the wars over there seemed to have come to a halt now that they all realize how far behind they have fallen. Egypt is up and coming, really picking up her culture now, and we'll see about that soon, too.

The Zulus completed Leo's, and the Babs now backed by some universities have researched Music Theory before losing their progress, leading the world into a cascade to Bach's. As the Bab alliance expired, I dropped out of it and made peace with France. I was curious to see how well she would recover, and to what extent at what rate. Babs and France also made peace and the Hammer clearly started pushing universities, as his culture rate improved. And, despite everything I tried, all my border cities around his powerhouse Ninevah remained behind in culture. All this emphasis I put on culture, with my Karachi having NOTHING but temple, library, cathedral, now working on university, and it was still behind. The Babs didn't have a lot of cities, but what they did have had low corruption and a lot of infrastructure.

And yes, I remained in Monarchy. It was sufficient for now. I was not doing any of my own research yet. All that would soon change, though. The AI's learned Astronomy and then Navigation. I bought in. Babs completed Bach in Babylon (another wonder in a capital that I'll never control), and the cascade took out Cop (Zulus) and Magellan (Egypt). With the AI's now dead on all wonder projects, and gunpowder also discovered, it was time to make my move.

It was time to trigger my golden age! I had a prebuild going in Madras... for a Commercial wonder, Smith's trading Company. I already had Sistine to cover Religious trait. I would self-research banking and then economics, having already crippled my strongest research rival, France. I'd research Democracy first thing and use the chance to revolt on discovery to execute a half-turn revolt, losing one round of production but NO COMMERCE. The golden age would be pure gravy for my research effort, first in Monarchy, giving me republic-like income, then swapping right to Democracy without skipping a beat, to rocket on ahead into the industrial age. I would build my rails, my factories, and my Intelligence Agency, and then we'd see what we would see!

Here you see the heart of India at the start of my golden age:

Yes, it's true: I finally have a couple of marketplaces built. Amazing, isn't it? :) And more on the way! (Don't faint, you'll adjust to the shocking news, given time). And guess what else that means? My research is fully backed by powerful research infrastructure across my entire core. I'm ready to bust out and leave all these AI's in my dust, permanently. Here's the southland at the start of the golden period:

You can see New Karachi, way way down south. I successfully snagged that spot because it was the only AI-eligible settling spot left by my placement of New Calcutta, and I used a warrior parked on that tile, as I said earlier, to keep the AI's out, and rushed a settler at my leisure. You can see that, although I'm pressuring the remaining three AI sites, I'm not running high pressure. If they flip, they flip. If not, I'll mop them up with my spies eventually. 760AD, though, and only one flip to me all game, as yet.

Everything went as planned. Democracy was discovered quickly, the revolt was ready to rock with minimal civil disorder (lux imports, thanks to navigation, helped with that, though I still had to prepare some entertainers), and then on up, buying physics and metallurgy from the AI's (bless you for researching those paths), nabbing Theory of Gravity with prebuild waiting in Bombay for Newtons, then Magnetism.

Japan and Zulus returned to war. It occurred to me, with all the troubles I had denting the Bab and French cores, that it would be in my interest to have the AI's continually warring on the other continent. 1) Culturally, it would slow them, and even wipe out existing cultural progress with any city captures. 2) I actually WANTED the AI's to wipe one another out, starting around the time I was ready to make a move over there. Captured cities would be easier to nab via propaganda than home-grown cities, and there would be more chances for poaching lands in the gaps or in razed areas.

Since I was not ready to make a move over there yet, and would not be until I had an Intelligence Agency and some survivable units (infantry), I only wanted brush wars for now. That meant inciting Egypt and England to fight. So... I declared war on England, knowing that they lacked much if any means to threaten me, and I pulled Cleo into the war, setting up a cat fight.

As I was researching Steam near the end of my golden age, I got my second flip:

With steam online, I peeled some more workers off the top of my cities and set to work. Go figure, there's coal near Indus. Poor Indus. I will recapture it some day, and I vow to build the Iron Works there when I do, unless the resources shuffle around.

Oh and by the way, when I made peace with France last time, I got that little island from them, the one in the northeast corner of the minimap. That's the main reason I made peace at all. That island was worth fifteen tiles toward the domination limit, and while I had the change to be given it for twenty turns of respite from my pillaging and occupation, I had to take it. The other tiny island near the second continent, in the middle south of the map, had a horse resource on it, so the AI was not going to concede that without the kind of punishment I could not dish out. That would be my first propaganda target, then. When the time comes.

There were three reasons for wanting to be in Democracy: 1) Worker speed. 2) Lower Corruption. 3) Propaganda Modifier.

Yep, that's right. Chances for successful propaganda are affected by Government Type, both yours and that of the target. Democracies are immune to propaganda, for one thing, although I did not fear the AI's propaganda. While communists are the best at stealing tech, plans, or sabotaging production, democracy is the best at propaganda. Folks just naturally want to be free, it seems, and to have more say in their own affairs. Or so the theory seems to go in this game. I suppose if you haven't tinkered around in the Civ III Editor, though, or read about it from someone who has, you wouldn't know that Democracy is more effective at Propaganda. It's not a major boost, only about a 5% better rate than Republic, and 10% to 15% better than Communist, with Monarchy and Despotism sucking the big egg on effectiveness, as well as making easier targets. Yet ten percent could make a difference, as could the stronger economy of democracy, in providing more cash in the first place. The worker speed didn't hurt either. All I had to do was avoid war weariness, and even in continual warfare, that's pretty easy to do if you don't get into battle. Pillaging the land with ground troops seems to carry little, if any, penalty to weariness. Losing units, losing cities, or using bombardment all seem to increase weariness, but then again, I could also make peace. Propaganda will work from peace without provoking war or even necessarily any worsening of relations. I just wouldn't be able to have my units parked around a city in a starvation blockade if I were at peace.

So my plan seemed to be working out. Industrial Age before 1000AD, major tech and production and culture lead on the AI's (especially vs the other continent), and a smooth shift from all cash to maximized self-research, from Monarchy right to Democracy, maximizing the strength and timing of my golden period. Here you can see my worker stacks, only four units needed in democracy, starting on my railnet as my Golden Age expires. Note that Bengal has passed Uruk in culture, and that Pune has passed Lyons but still can't catch powerhouse Ninevah on culture. Even Kolhappur is still behind Ninevah, the Babs and their cheap everything. I am finally catching up on my military needs, and I've founded New Jaipur as a seven tile half city in the gap south of Delhi. Moving the Palace from Delhi to Jaipur no longer seems worthwhile. What I would gain in production, I would lose in proximity of my capital to enemy cities, and I am still intended to make some aggressive settlements on the borders with the next war, once I have the units to spare for massive garrisons.

As I showed in Epic Four, Epic Nine, and now (perhaps) in this game: if the game calls for economic strength as the determining victory factor, there's nothing like a late golden age to put you over the top.

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