CHRONICLES

RBCiv Epic Thirty

My aggressive city, Nara, proved unable to pass the offending Korean city, Inch'on. The Koreans finished their temple two turns sooner, then their library considerably much sooner. The good news? My six main cities were all winning their various cultural conflicts. Even Osaka was beating out its two neighbors on tiles in the third ring.

I delayed my FP to build library in Osaka, for the culture. My economy suffered for building libraries everywhere ahead of courthouses and markets, but I ate the slowdown. Money I could make up for later. Culture I could not. Korea had never moved a stack to reinforce Inch'on against flips, so I held out hope. The more culture I could amass, the better my odds.

Somebody (Korea) sold contact with me to the Zulus in 70BC. The Zulu were apparently too poor to buy contact with anybody else, and Korea seemed to be the first civ to find the other continent. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good! I traded for contact with Babylon, then parleyed that into money, maps and tech, selling around.

Here you see my world map in 70BC. Note that half my units are workers! And ooh, with such a fierce army, I could probably scare an entire nation of mice. Probably.

The next thing I know, I'm too far behind all the AI's to get any more two-for-one deals. I would try, but it would be a long time before I worked my way far enough up out of the cellar to pull it off.

The middle ages were going to be a long haul. I did not know that yet. When I bought Republic, I thought I would be able to keep up after the government swap.

I had to save enough money to survive one turn of anarchy. Don't you love Religious on Deity?

Here is the Japanese Republic in all her ancient glory.

I ended up trading away all three of my gems, because I could trade a gem for someone else's lux PLUS money. Hey, can't be that with a stick, right?

Kago, being closest to my capital, turned into a stronger city than expected, while Tokyo and especially Nagoya had floundered. When the FP came online, I got a good enough boost out of it to consider it worthwhile, but still not enough to catch me up to broker range.

I sat around without need for iron. Korea had sneak-attacked the Mongols. Problem there being, the march was so long, by the time his horses, warriors and archers got down there, they got slaughtered by Mongolian knights, pikes and midievals. Oops. And there went Korea's strength. That would have been the perfect time for me to pounce militarily on Korea, but I had gone the other route and so I held my peace.

Besides, I was in one of those moods. I intended to play this one out honorably, if possible. Sure, why not? :)

I became so cash-strapped trying to catch up to broker range before the AI's got even further ahead, I started pinching pennies. Here was a chance for me to earn a cool 160g over 20 turns for a phony war. Sure, why not? :) Not honorable, you say? Who's playing honorably anyway? *glances around, searches the room* Nope, I don't see any such person. You must have misunderstood something, or perhaps you heard a wild rumor. Anyway...

By 500AD, the Zulu were on their way out. I had nothing to do with that, I swear! India was paying me to stay out of the fighting. However, I did keep an eye on the Zulu, and my treaty with India expired just before Shaka's nation did. I had kept my reputation intact, and even technically managed to live within the RBCiv honorable rules by "coming to the aid of a neighbor" and not fighting offensively nor breaking any trade agreements.

As such, I managed to buy a tech and their remaining cash off the Zulus for a hefty gpt payment. Then I scrounded up enough gpt the next turn to buy a second tech! Then the Zulus kindly walked out on my need to continue these payments.

With my gpt back in hand, I was finally able to make my first two-for-one tech trade in a couple thousand years. I nabbed banking and traded that @last for chemistry @last. Babylon was lagging in tech and we would continue to help one another out over the next half-millenium.

Oh, and note that Mongolia has already nibbled off a third of India, verifying my speculation about their impending monsterhood. When Korea had attacked, they signed India to their cause. Then China joined the fray... on the wrong side! This left Korea battling China to another stalemate in the north, while poor India got to face down Temu's hordes all by themselves. The only good thing India accomplished was to raze the Chinese village in the desert. Grand. While the Mongols are eating up their civ, they are off attacking a useless Chinese outpost. You gotta love the AI when it redefines the meaning of stupidity.

When the dust settled, there was enough left of India to hold out hope, but the hope was losing weight, if you know what I mean. Here's my Japan near the end of the middle ages.

That settler being trained out of Nagoya? Yep, you guessed it. I am going to poach that useless jungle site the Chinese left behind, if nobody else gets there first.

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