THE SECOND MONGOLIAN WAR

So, Khan is back for more. I guess taking one of his cities away from him wasn't good enough to impress him over the long haul.

Two Chariots cross the border at Beshbalik, seeking apparently to pillage our Copper supply.

I send in the Spearmen.

That was some total ownage. I only had the one Spear on hand up there, though. (Still have Axemen and a Sword there, of course.) Send in the swords!

Rejection.

Note that I have an Axeman fortified on the mine. I may not be able to guard the plots right next to his border, but I'll be darned if I care to leave the back line improvements to chance.

In the south he is bringing more Chariots... by sea!

If you don't think navy matters in Civ4, even on Pangaea, you haven't played enough yet. It's that simple.

Note that my Archer is about to give it up for the team. A 25s unit going to capture a 60fs unit (the worker). A bargain even if my Archers don't make it home. (They didn't. A spear came out and smashed them. Oh well)

640AD: The Chariots land. The Chariots die.

No, that was -not- two pictures of the same fight. (Check the "active unit bracket", health status, promotions and experience levels of the units, as shown).

Uh oh. Trouble in the south. (This is almost scary. LOOK at the promotions on that one unit!)

His melee units start with Combat I, so that unit has 10XP. It must all be from fighting barbarians, since Mongols have not yet been at war with anybody but Honorable France.

Of course, the only things good at killing Axemen are Horse units and other Axemen, at least at this level of technology. (Crossbows and Mace will eat their lunch, of course.)

In the hope of distracting them from pillaging my Hamlet, I bring down my Shock-promoted Axeman. They attack with their weaker unit and lose! (Yay!)

Then the elites crash my party and exterminate my survivors. (Not shown. Sorry, was too painful to record.)

I'm lucky to have taken out one of their two. Now I've got a real pickle. How to kill that elite?

I've got five units on hand with which to do it. Here we go!

Ouch. Didn't even take 'em below half.

Archers are surprisingly good vs Axe. (Better than a Spearman is, at least.) So I sent the Archer next. HE DIDN'T EVEN DO ANY DAMAGE!

My luck can't be that bad, can it? So I send my weakest Spearman. He, too, dies, but redlines the rat bastid. I'm down to two spears left! I've GOT TO kill that sucker now or he will promote (possibly to COMMANDO for goodness sake) so it's the kitchen sink for me.

Thank all that is honorable that my second spearman got the job done.

OK, so let's add up the damage. That unit killed FOUR of our units on that turn, including some significantly promoted units.

I need to build more Axemen. Seriously. I'm all Spears, awaiting the Keshik Rush(TM) which hasn't yet come. The AI did some smart things in this war, tactically. (Soren lives to make an AI that will kick my ass up and down the board, so I'm sure he'll be immensely entertained by this report so far!)

Remember what I said about navy? That cuts both ways.

THE BATTLE OF OLD SARAI

My two barbarian-trained Swordsmen snuck around the flank in my only galley. "Say hello to my little friend."

"That's right. Run and jump in the sea! Better to drown yourself than to taste the edge of my steel."

I love the smell of victory in the morning.

You can't see it well in the shot above, so let's get another look.

I have captured a Buddhist city! (You'll see what that means in a moment.)

WTF is that green crap doing on my islands? Arrgh! Xochicalco? Good grief.

Someday, I'll have to remove that infestation. Not today, though. Nope. Not today.

After taking one of his towns, Khan is ready to sign another Cease Fire. Since I took a bath in the south on that turn and am stretched in the north, I think another Cease Fire is a splendid idea. The West returns to peace a mere century after the war was begun.

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