CHRONICLES

RBCiv Epic Seventeen

With a second Greek city falling to Persia, then Ephesus razed, they soon came to peace.

As you can see in the shot above, I concentrated on building rails near my borders once the military net was in place. This in case I got into any warring, and also to get the dangerous border railing out of the way first. Perhaps that's a remnant from past civ games, where bombardment from the sea killed more settlers than anything, so I'd do the shoreline rails first. (They didn't have "workers" in Civ1/2).

In 940AD, the AI's researched both Industrialization and Electricity. India did not have both, so I pulled another 2fer and started all my factories. The prebuild in Uruk was just right for completing a factory this turn. I hoped that that plus coal plant would allow me to finish Suffrage first, though it would be a close call. Here's my core now on all factory construction, along with Khorsabad over in poached Greek land. Note that even with Shakespeare's eight culture per turn and my FP there, with Cleo running mobilization, Ur has still not caught up with El-Amarna on culture! Amazing. Not even any great wonders there. Cleo must have torn up the culture options during her golden age, churning out libraries, cathedrals and colesseums much earlier than I thought.

When my coal and iron deals expired, I did not renew them. The iron was very costly. I decided to wait and leverage my next tech deal toward the iron. I could afford to wait a bit, as there were some roadbuilding tasks near Zamua, as well as a few bits of irrigation and mining to wrap up. The workers were not idling.

The Persian-Greek cease fire last nine turns before Alex retriggered the MPP by attacking Egyptian territory.

Persia had had almost ten turns of rest, and now also had all their units gathered rather than scattered. The result is that X-man dropped the hammer on Greece with the renewed war. For the first time this game, my nation had a Deity RoP (TM) imposed upon it as Persia's hordes targetted Alex's western fringes.

I bought rubber from Persia at a reasonable rate (mid-20s gpt), upgraded my troops, sold the tech to India for iron and some money, bought another round of coal from Cleo, and resumed railbuilding, now at accelerated production rates.

I needed to finish Suffrage before the AI's learned SciMeth. It was going to be a close call.

You can see in the shot above that X-man already razed one Greek city near Ellipi, the former Eretria. Now his SoDs were marching on the rest of the Greek cities in the area, and he turned out to have enough cavs to run them over. As he razed, my borders leaped to cover the ground.

At long, long last, I have gained control of the cattle region stolen from me by Greece in the late ancient era. Tell Willaya becomes a fringe town on the outer edge of my second ring, while Hindana is a first rate core town. Rushing temple and granary, and with all railed tiles, it shouldn't take too long to get itself going.

Persia kept Halicarnassus for some reason. I presumed it had to have oil or aluminum. If he razed Pergammon, I intended to settle one tile to its north, where my town's borders could reach out to poach the second-ring tiles from Hali. That might get me the oil/aluminum, and it would pressure the city.

When my city finished Suffrage, the AI's had medicine but not scimeth, so there was no cascade. I immediately started Uruk on a new prebuild.

With my rubber supply running out, I decided to look for a rubber resource I might acquire for myself. Lo and behold, I find one up in the far northwest, at my poached lands. There was a rubber tile in range of Antium, which Egypt had captured more than 600 years ago. The city had never expanded its borders, so the rubber was still available. I decided to plant a defensive settlement and pull the rubber into range with cultural expansion. These cities had built all their own defenders without cash help, so all they had were a few conscripts each, a warrior or two, and a bowman or two. They would not hold out vs any sort of concerted attack, but if the peace held even for a while, it would be better than buying more Persian rubber. And if peace held long enough, I might ship some spare vet troops up there by galleon. So I rushed a settler out of Nimrud and executed my plan.

The Greeks lost a couple more cities: Troy fell to Persia, and Egypt razed another city on the north shore. In looking for other resources to poach, I spotted both iron and coal in range of Mycenae, across the strait from India. If that city went down and I could poach, I could grab my own iron and coal sources and stop paying others big moolah.

I also had to start thinking about my end game. I could cruise to a diplomatic win, and I presume that is what most folks are going to try. Or I could go for a space race. That would be a bigger task, only these AI's had beat one another up so much, it might take too long to get all the tech. Then there was Egypt to worry about. What would happen when there was no more Greece for her to pick on? Would she suddenly turn peaceful? Or would she decide to attack again, selecting either me or Xman as a target. If I was going to consider anything other than a quick diplo finish, I was going to have to contend with the danger of an Egyptian domination victory. I had decisions to make, and I had a lot to think about.

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