CHRONICLES

RBCiv Epic Nine

After Persia got finished capturing or wiping out every last trace of Egyptians in the north, they decided they had too much on their hands in the south and needed time to bring their vast army south to the homeland. So... they made peace.

Persia's dominance and warmaking was taking its toll on the continent. China got marginalized. Now Egypt had lost all its investments in the north, and I poached half of the land. Persia itself was weakened: very poor infrastructure, all its investments into knights, very low culture, few wonders. They had the forces to obliterate me at any point, but stayed busy fighting everyone else but me. Now they had made peace with Egypt, but war raged on with the Germans and Iro's.

There was a down side to all this destruction, though: the Chinese were too weak to keep up in tech. I was having to buy in @3rd to @5th. China was always broke and behind me, and likewise the Iro's, who had a small, icy continent and were so far behind, they might never catch up.

Now I want you to note the purple dot in the above screenshot. After deciding that I could now fight a cultural border conflict with Persia and hold the city on my side, I was eyeing that hill as another potential half-city right there in my core. It was on the river, would redeem four wasted hill tiles, would poach no less than SIX grassland tiles from Persian control (one still a jungle), and was also not qualified as Cultural Push since it was not within two tiles of any of my existing cities. It was a legitimate border spot I had been too afraid to try to claim earlier. Now it was looking very tempting, though. It would be stronger than Nara, and Nara was doing OK.

I still hesitated, though. If the site did flip on me, it would be a real pain and even a danger, exposing my capital to a close border with a rival. So I held off for the moment.

In 760AD, I sold Incense, 39gpt, and 311 cash to Germany for Physics @5th. Despite Physics being widely known, nobody yet knew Magnetism or Gravity, so I thought I'd take a shot at prebuilding for Newton's university. Worst case, I'd turn that into Wall Street. So I started a Palace placeholder in Edo.

In 780AD, the Babs finally got hold of Navigation, opening trade lines to me. I sold them dyes, 28gpt, and 218g for Metallurgy. I traded Chemistry @6th to China for Navigation @6th. (Iroquois still hadn't learned Education yet!)

In 700AD, Egypt had completed Bach's only to have Germany cascade to Smith's, having got Economics that very turn. Argh! Yet Germany completed Smiths in 770AD and then Magellan's in 790AD. Thus, in 800AD, the cascade was broken! All civs ran out of wonders to switch to, and I had a several turn placeholder under way. Then in 810AD, with just ONE turn of separation, Egypt began Newton's! Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. :)

820AD, 48gpt and 528g to Egypt for ToG. Swap Edo to Newton's, start Palace Placeholder in Tokyo. 830AD: 206g and 69gpt to Germany for Magnetism, start Nationalism with lone scientist. 850AD: Physics @6th to China for Printing Press @Last. Somewhere in there, I started Kyoto on Wall Street. Then this:

Not counting the Great Library from LOTR SG1 (back when the science rate was slower), this is the only pre-industrial wonder I have ever self-built on Deity. You can also see that Wall Street is due soon, and that my bankroll is approaching the magic 1k figure to maximize the interest income. (The expansion pack is going to HURT my game a bit, with Wall Street access delayed until later in the game. Ouchie. A very early Wall Street is a staple of my game plans across almost all situations.)

My stolen half-city south of Osaka turned out to be built on a saltpeter, giving me a second source. There was also one in the hills northwest of Kyoto. I traded Saltpeter to Egypt on and off, but now somehow Persia had lost their supply temporarily and I stepped in to assist them. Saltpeter and 95gpt to Persia for Steam in 940AD.

I did not have any coal connected! Arrgh! I looked around to find some, and there it was, in immediate range of the start point. Anybody who settled in 4000BC will already have it in range and online when they get to steam. Heh.

Well, that tore it. I now HAD to settle the purple dot, to secure that coal resource. Also planning to park some troops on there and build a fortification, to prevent pillaging in case of war with X-man. (Also note, I could not build a new city ON the coal, as that would have been a cultural push).

It took me a couple of turns to get workers over there, and to train a settler and send him down there. So one of my most urgent sites, the fertile land on top of my capital, was not settled until almost 1000AD. And yet if I hadn't moved north to the hill, there wouldn't have been room for the city there in the first place. This is one factor I'm really looking forward to comparing notes on, come report day.

In the screenshot below, note that my half-city on the inland sea has taken cultural control of its region, even over the city to the west, which Persia controlled for thousands of years without ever expanding its borders until just recently.

Also check the minimap and note that the Persian fishing village in the far northeast, east of my Sapporo, is currently dark blue. Germans snuck some ships around and captured it, and X-man ended up slowly marching his entire army north across my lands, via Deity RoP (TM). Cleo was actually catching him with his pants down here. Of course, that wouldn't save her, but it did cause Persia a large amount of grief, as they wasted a lot of turns with huge SoDs marching here or there, always tied up and only rarely arriving somewhere to do anything. He had all those units, but the AI's single-mindedness, sending everything it has to spare at a single target, no matter how much overkill it may be, that more than anything was Persia's undoing this game. Their holdings were too scattered. If the AI had the smarts to DEMAND a Right of Passage when one would be in their best interests, this would not have happened.

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