CHRONICLES

RBCiv Epic One

Not even ten turns after my GA ended, the Babs came for me.

I had about two turns to shift forces from my eastern front and back lines up into position. This helped, especially in regard to the knights. Hammi sent almost nothing but longbows, which made life easy on the counterattack. Once I was ready, I started the war on my own timing, not his.

This war was a total nonstarter for them. My troops ate their invading longbows for lunch. I promoted several knights to elite and fished and fished for a leader but it never happened.

A half dozen turns into the war, the Babs broke into the Industrial Age, and being scientific, pulled Nationalism for free and had rifles running around. I got my hands on military tradition, as well, and upgraded all my knights to cav. I did not have many, about half a dozen. I also bought my way to Democracy and the new era, and I had a difficult decision to make. Should I stick with the war now, churn some more cavalry out instead of infrastructure, and try to take some Bab cities? I knew I could do it, they had exhaused their spare offensive units and were down to what they could make each turn. If I could pull some leaders I could pull out the last of the midieval wonders.

Or... the Babs would take ~550 gold off the price for Nationalism, plus I would have time to revolt to Democracy before steam came in. Did I want to go for domination/conquest or for diplo/space? I opted for the latter and made peace. I still pulled in Bach's and also Newton's, but of course gave up any hope of Smith or Shakespeare or Magellan. I revolted, and yeah sure, go for the peaceful win.

Six turns of anarchy, then a goodly boost to my income from lower corruption, this being a bigger deal on a small map. I had barely more than a dozen workers, and only two slaves (captured one American settler in that first war). Industrious civs roar along quickly, though, and after buying industrialization, I opened my own research for the first time since the game start. Electricity, then Replaceable Parts. I had a military rail net completed by then, and with quadruple speed workers, laying down a rail on open terrain in one turn, rails crossed the whole nation quickly.

Factories were prebuilt to the extent I could (uni placeholders mainly) and went online quickly, so by now I had my two strongest cities with those and coal plants, one working on wonders, the other cranking troops to fill the ranks. I upgraded everything to infantry/artillery immediately and I had the game won. It was, from here, a matter of execution.

I pulled in ToE at my third city, then Hoover there next, and Suffrage in Paris. I was minding my own business on the way to a peaceful endgame when Ghandi had a brain anneurism.

India had a settlement on the island just off the southeast coast of England. This settlement had oil in range. I decided to go capture this town, knowing it would pull their MPP partner England into the war but let them come get some for supporting this evil rat. I'd take em both on!

I still had in mind to go for a peaceful victory, though. Until Babylon decided that a two-front war vs France was in their interests. Silly AI. You chose unwisely.

Yeah? Oh yeah? You and what army?

Oh.

:)

Well, before I end up at odds with everybody, time to sign the last two civs to MPP's and pull them into the war on my side. That would keep India busy and maybe some of England too, and put everybody's colonies into play. I could tell from this SOD that Babylon was going to be a real job.

As you can see in that picture, I've captured Uruk, plus the four colonies on that island off the west of France. This Stack of Doom is the largest SoD I have ever faced. Over 100 units! On one tile. Thank goodness they were mostly longbows. I pulled all -- ALL -- of my artillery to this city, about 40 units, and blasted down the infantry and rifles and took them out with tanks, cavs, whatever I had left. I peeled off as many longbows as I could including using almost a dozen infantry on the attack. I fortified many more infantry in the city. Along the way...

I used him to make an army, then pulled another. Drought in the early wars, but now the leaders would come. I was at war and the Epic would be finished in two turns, and there would be many leaders. The next came on the same turn.

You can see that I adjusted the tech to shave a turn off Computers. I saved leader2 and used him to rush SETI next turn.

Then I clicked next turn and weathered the storm. Got a LOT of promotions and only lost three units to the entire SoD. Longbows indeed, even in huge numbers they can't overcome a few dozen stronger units.

I captured two more English cities, then my advances stalled on both fronts. I had lots of units, but there are never enough when you are trying to play honorably, to capture and hold cities instead of burning them down. I had massive garrisons in the high-culture captured cities, and large garrisons in the other cities I had captured. I had to pause and consolidate my gains, peel off the population without starvation, which meant training workers. This added to the difficulty. I COULD push on and just take all I could, and retake flippers as often as it took, reducing their population every time the cities changed hands, but I was nearing the capital of both empires and that was a problem. Near the capital is the most dangerous area, very high pressure.

On the Babylonian front, there were more than half a dozen tiles not in use just east of Babylon. I decided to settle in there with my own city and use that as a secure base and also lighten pressure on Ninevah after taking it. Note: Cultural Push is only an exploit as an undeclared act of war. With war already declared, I was free to settle anywhere I pleased, including RIGHT ON their lands. I ended up picking a neutral tile to get access to fresh water. Peeling off the workers was helped with a bit of lumberjacking: plant a forest then chop it down, enough shields to churn a worker instantly. Otherwise it would have simply taken FOREVER, but there are limited tiles available for such use, as you can only use each once per game, so I still had to train some the hard way, or buy them off. When my first round of cities were pacified well enough to press on, I pressed on.

The Babs had brought a second, smaller SoD, with about sixty units, then a third with a couple dozen, and then they were spent. England had lots of Infantry, while Babs had no rubber, so in an odd sort of way the English front was much more heated. I lost several tanks over there and had to fight off many infantry. With suffrage and full police stations, weariness was slow to set on, for this much brutal action, but it did eventually come, and it grew steadily worse. At first I was kinda OK, then I had to run 10% lux, and I knew it was going to get worse and worse but I vowed that I would stick to democracy until such time as 30% lux and assorted entertainters would no longer keep the peace. Just a little farther on the Bab front, I could take their spice and gems, and have control of all eight luxury types. That would be good for another 10-15% luxury tax equivalent.

I got a third leader and used him to make an army I never used, and I did not get a shot of him. Heh. My fourth went for the UN, and I had to have him sit around and wait a few turns for the tech to come in.

My fifth and sixth went for factories and both arrived on the same turn. You can see in the next shot that I had taken several more cities on both fronts, including access to gems where I could plant a colony on this turn. I was already at 30% lux! The gems let me back off down to 20% again. Whew, that was getting tight. I did NOT want to collapse my government until I had modern armor. I wanted to end this game quickly, not drag it on and on. Yet I had not taken either capital yet, and all my newest gains were high risk, running low garrison and if they flip they flip, retake them. At least having taken them once, all cultural buildings in them have been destroyed, so even if they do flip back I'm better off than having not taken them, and I figured I'd take a bunch at a time and they wouldn't all flip, so I'd make some headway one way or another.

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