After barely grabbing one good site on Chinese land, I had no more hope of further southward expansion. It was more cold weather lands, or nothing at all. At least it seemed so at the time!

I did train an Explorer unit out of Teo after learning Compass. I sent him around through China to Arabia, then northward in to what to my surprise turned out to be unsettled lands in the northeast. I ran in to barbarians repeatedly, but survived even against Barbarian sword and axeman units by sticking to forested hills. (Explorers start wtih both Woodsman I and Guerilla I, and I promoted both to II after gaining some experience!) The unit finally got killed, but I found an unclaimed Corn over there I thought I might be able to reach!

Meanwhile in the west... A barbarian city had popped up to my west. I was going to attack it (and trained a Jaguar and two Axemen toward that end) bur Rome got there well before I could. I thought that the end of that, but no. They RAZED the city instead of capturing it! So I trained a settler instead, and though that took a while, I did get that settler to the site in time to claim it. (Rome must have been at what they viewed to be their economic city limit, at the time.) So I settled Xochicalco near another Deer and Sheep and Iron (it was almost like a slightly better version of Teo! Except 2000 years behind in development.)

I also settled on the tip of that small peninsula just across the Peak from the capital, on the other side of the peak. I needed a port city on that side, to bring back the Furs and open a trade route to any cities I settled farther east. Plus it had two Fish, so even though it was an all-water city, it was not bad as a commerce center. Plenty of food to feed lots of slaves, too! Tlacopan.

England founded Taoism just before 1000AD and of course converted to it. Mali founded Islam just after 1100AD. My plan to use religion to divide the Financial civs from the rest of the world was shaping up nicely so far. Rome and China converted to Christianity, Greece not yet having ANY religion, and a missionary on the way to Mecca to begin the conversion of the Arabs.

Only... Saladin's favorite civic is Theocracy!

I can't convert him! I can't spread my religion inside his borders! Nor can I ask him to convert to Chrsitianity because he doesn't have any cities with it, and under Theocracy, which he will never switch away from, Christianity never will spread to any of his cities. Wow. Not even Izzy is this much of a fanatic. (You can coax her out of Theocracy, then spread your religion to her. Of course, she WILL HAVE founded her own, so you won't get her to convert to yours, but at least you can get the appearance of having the option!)

So the only way to get Saladin in to the bloc would have been to convert everybody else to Judaism! Sorry. I'm not in position to attempt that. Looks like it will be Rome, China, Greece and me in one Christian bloc, England and Mali in their bloc, and Saladin all by himself, surrounded by warmongering personalities. ... Good luck, Sal! You're going to need it, my man.

OK, so change of plans. That missionary heads south to Greece, and I don't need to train another to send down there in a hurry.

I've been ticking off just about everybody via "you have traded with our worst enemies", but that is also countered for just about everybody by a similar amount of benefit from "our trade relations have been fair and forthright." I continue to take every tech trade I can without selling out any monopolies I hold on the cheap.

I'm last in score, but still in sight of the rest of the pack. Doesn't look good, but I'm still in the game, still relevant, and my diplomatic position seems stable. For the moment.

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