Part 26: 320 AD - 740 AD (Final setup, Romans found)
Last time I wiped out the Aztecs and found and eliminated the Babylonians too but then spent centuries with dozens ofThat’s irretrievable time lost. Another problem is that, unlike in last game, other civs are being instantly restarted in this one. That means I haven’t really accomplished much so far because I need to eliminate many more than 6 other civs.
The biggest issue though is that my massive empire now spans about half of the world’s land mass and (despite my huge and successful project to efficiently connect all of it with Roads) it would take dozens of turns for a unit to get from my capital zone to the new Skraeling front. I can’t efficiently bring my whole civ’s power to bear on any one target at once, so I need to keep different geographic areas working on different things.
Thus cities near Waylon and Vike are working on Caravans to keep building wonders or on Settlers to found more colonies.
Former Babylonian territory is mostly working on Settlers, though I think I want some ships down there too. There’s a lot of room for development and expansion in that zone, despite the land being generally bad.
The big issue this area faces is that it’s now worthless. It’s one big, empty island now that the Babylonians are gone, and it’s not even an island that could be a useful stepping stone to anywhere else since it’s basically surrounded by territory I already control.
What’s more, the cities here are poor and don’t have Roads or Irrigation already. Even if there WAS somewhere useful to go nearby, it would take something like 40 turns of work- after building Settlers- to make this place a profitably productive zone.
I’m reaching the part of the game where new cities won't have much time to become profitable investments. It’s still prooobably worthwhile to make some more and some Roads in the Babylon zone, but just barely.
In the colonies east of the capital zone I probably need more of everything. More Settlers, more military units, more ships, more cities. Right now I mostly need more scouts. If there’s anyone else here, I need to find them immediately. Plus it will be good to know which islands are connected and which might actually be part of a bigger continent and so on.
This zone is now the true core of the empire. It’s got numerous prosperous and productive cities, the Irrigation to support many spare Settlers, and it’s in reach of the Skraelings as well as several exploration zones that may prove important.
A mixed strategy is called for here with cities flexibly changing between making Crusaders and Longships and Settlers.
Up here and in the nearby former Aztec cities the thing to do is make nothing but Crusaders and maybe a Longship or two. I’ve got to finish my last 2 cities here promptly and then start unloading as many troops as I can across the western sea.
One of the last big sections of the empire is this mostly empty northeast area. The land is very good here, so it would have been a very important and productive region if I'd found it earlier. As things stand I need to make a lot of Settlers to make a lot of Roads and Irrigation and more cities before it really becomes profitable. There’s probably enough time left in the game for that to be worthwhile, so I'll get to work.
So that’s the state of my lands, other than a few minor colonies. Here are the soon-to-be-my lands. My whole army is a bunch of glass cannon units like Crusaders at this point. That’s as it should be for waging this kind of war.
Last game I showed off a fair amount of what defensive tactics in Civ 2 can look like. Those are great for keeping your wars to close to 0 casualties and winning slowly with minimum resource investment. But in this game I can invest 100% of my resources if I need to and thus take any number of casualties without caring. All that matters is speed, so all that matters is getting overwhelming numbers of high-attack units in position quickly.
This is not to say one should sacrifice defense entirely and just attack as soon as possible with no coordination. That doesn’t work well and will throw away lots of troops for no progress. Which wastes time. So does losing big stacks of units at once. What I’m doing here is basically the right approach; I’m keeping my units out of stacks and at high distance away from the enemy city (so that 1-move city troops can’t attack me at all). I also rely on ceasefires and peace treaties to cover me until I’m ready to break them and attack.
It’s time to colonize the western islands/continent. Fortunately I have a lot of Settlers here who are done or mostly done with their work. Building more cities is more important than making more Irrigation here.
In other relatively peaceful projects, I’ve got a whole troop of Settlers here with plans made for fanning them out to build Roads and cities efficiently. There’s more to efficiency than just speed though. One other important thing is to have cities built by Settlers who come from places that would benefit a lot from not needing to pay Settler upkeep any longer. Do keep track of that. Keep Settlers from cities that have loads of Food and Production surplus building Irrigation instead.
Exploration must NEVER stop. Certainly not because one currently has a war going on. This intrepid Longship and Horseman duo are the only ones to make it across the wide north ocean thusfar, so I’m going to try to be unusually careful with them.
Alas, this spot east of the capital turned out to be a dry and resource-poor island. It had looked like a dry and resource-poor fringe of a continent where I’d almost certainly find an enemy eventually.
One turn later, I’ve brought in enough Crusaders that I can almost certainly take this city if that Elephant moves out of the way.
Well this is going to be worse than useless since I have every tech I want other than the one I'm researching.
Yep.
Better. And I even found some Rivers. Those are always handy for exploring.
Never heard of the Mongols before. They can’t be new since they’re a purple color civ and I haven’t wiped out any purple civs. They must have just been utter failures up till now. That's an important wonder for this game though, so I can't let them get it.
At least it’s not barbarians. This does slow down my progress toward Navigation even more though. I guess I could finally get Bridge Building and that would be something.
Nope. Now Republic is actually almost tempting. Even in games like this where I don’t have the time or resources to Celebrate, don’t need any more Science, and have to field massive armies (which would cause unhappiness) the promise of oodles of gold from Republic is something to consider. Just lowering my 100% Corruption rate in the majority of my cities to something sane would be great, and getting rid of all the Waste would partly make up for needing to pay support costs. Still, it’s not worth the disruption and not worth the unhappiness that would result from having numerous military units in the field and no martial law allowed.
This would be a much better hut outcome, except I got a Legion. Which is the worst unit I can still get from huts.
Whoah, big news! These must be the Egyptians now. They’re in a VERY inconvenient location for me. It will take numerous turns to get here by ship from the closest city, and the closest city has almost no Production. It’s twice as many turns to get here from the capital zone, which is the closest cluster of real cities. I’d better start making Crusaders there quickly.
The Elephant cleared out. Time to strike. Hopefully I can get Abe to declare war.
So much for that.
There’s no sense in damaging my reputation unnecessarily, but at this point it’s worth damaging it to get a war.
Worked out pretty nicely for a guy just making "feeble threats."
Not many improvements left here. Granaries are one I haven’t talked about up till now. They unlock very early (with Pottery, which also unlocks the Hanging Gardens) so conceivably you could start making them basically right at the beginning. They cost a moderate-high number of shields for the early game and 1 gold in upkeep per turn, like most early improvements. What they do is change how the city’s Food box works. Instead of restarting from empty whenever the city grows or shrinks, it now restarts from half.
The most obvious application is that your city therefore grows at 2x normal speed. Since population is power in Civ 2, this is extremely valuable.
There are a few others too. One is that a city which grows but then ends up with negative Food surplus does not starve and shrink immediately, giving you time to stabilize things with some Irrigation.
So that should be extremely valuable, especially for a bigpox player. But Granaries are basically never built in high level play. Why?
Well the specious answer is the Pyramids wonder. The Pyramids unlock just as early (with Masonry) cost the minimal shield cost for any wonder (200) and count as a free Granary in every city and never expire (unlike most other early wonders). Having size 1 cities start off with Pyramid-Granaries immediately is particularly sweet. The Pyramids wonder is many times better than Granaries and it’s definitely always a superior option. It used to be cited as an amazing wonder everyone should get (and it still is for a new player on low difficulties), but it’s unneeded for a good player and often outright destructive in the high difficulties.
The first reason is that even doubled city growth speed is still nothing compared to the amazing power of well-managed Celebration. Now granted, doubled growth speed can help size 1 or 2 cities turn into Celebratable size 3 cities faster, but that’s an unimportant enough use that the wonder sinks to low priority for anyone who knows what they’re doing and is playing a Republic (which you always should unless going for a speed-conquest win).
More importantly, especially on Deity, is that cities beyond size 2 or so are unmanageably unhappy until you build other wonders. And cities that grow more quickly than you’re able to create new anti-unhappiness measures can become mired in semi-permanent civil disorder. You’ll have to crank out extra military units for martial law or make people into Entertainers to restore your cities to temporary functionality (before they grow again), which undercuts the gains of having bigger cities anyway. So the Pyramids can actually create a headache for you by making your cities outgrow your ability to maintain order. Furthermore, priority one for wonder building has to be a happiness-managing wonder like the Hanging Gardens. And Michaelangelo’s Chapel and J.S. Bach’s Cathedral had better be built speedily too. If you have time for some luxury wonders after that, the Pyramids do become a solid option, but something like the Great Library (or even the Great Wall so no enemy gets it) is still often better. And the AI loves to build Pyramids, so there’s a solid chance that one will already have done so (the Sioux last time, the Romans this time) before you have the time to make luxury wonders.
Anyway, THIS Granary is an unusual case. See, I’m at a point in the game where I HAVE all the unhappiness-managing wonders, so I don’t mind my cities growing a lot. And I didn’t need to take the time to build it. And I can’t build the Pyramids to do its job better since the Romans have them already. Furthermore, this city is about to grow right this turn. That means if I sell this Granary next turn I pay 1 more gold but the city will grow again in half as many turns. That’s a better deal. I may even splurge a little and let the city grow again before selling them since I have no other cities in this area and need this one to turn productive pretty fast.
The coast looks clear.
Hrm. I need to find these pests (and the other hidden civs) and this wonder is actually the best way to do so, so I certainly can't let them have it. I do want to build Magellan’s Expedition first though, so I’ll just plan to Caravan-build that the instant it unlocks and then build Marco Polo’s Embassy the turn after that.
Speaking of stuff going on near the capital, settlement of the habitable portion of this island continues. I should also make some Roads here.
Darn, this place is an island too. I really have no land route to the Egyptian realm up there.
After that absurd barbarian-induced disaster at the last minute, my plans to settle this C-shaped island were set back dozens of turns. Now I finally resume what I started.
The Roads are already in place, so these cities can get more Settlers out to build more cities in short order. There are exceptions, but it’s generally most important to build Roads between your cities, and Irrigation second. As mentioned before, one reason for this is that having Roads in place already often makes it quicker and easier to Irrigate.
Having scouts in big, unexplored areas find other scouts is almost never a bad thing.
I keep dropping troops in 1s and 2s into the Skraeling lands. It’s not fast, but it’s the best (i.e. only) option I have for getting there at the moment. They really are a LONG way from any of my production centers and there’s only 1 Longship-safe sea route to them here.
As you can see, the Granary was quite helpful. I decided to keep it around until this place hits size 4.
Well I don’t want peace, but I’d be willing to accept it for some money.
I keep telling you guys, it’s pronounced “Skraelings”. Get it right.
This looks like it'll be a productive summit…
Don’t forget this little benefit. It can be very nice when you actually don’t want war.
Darn, no money.
Well this place looks like a totally useless island. Not a single good city spot on it even. Maybe one decent one.
When it rains it pours. The English are replacements for Greeks. And apparently they’re somehow the most advanced civilization in the world other than me. I mean they’re a Republic and they have CRUSADERS too? This is going to be troublesome.
But they don’t have this at least.
Yeah, I don’t want to lose my Crusader to hers.
No it hasn’t. There’s no possible way for you to have contact with them. Also that happened just 1 turn ago.
Good thinking. If once you have paid him the Dane-geld, you never get rid of the Dane!
On the Skraeling front I have my injured Crusader go into Do U Even Skrael to start healing, while the others fan out to find the next city.
One of the big group of Settlers that headed into the northeast region is finally ready to make a city.
After finding the English west of here, I’ve decided to redirect some Settlers who’d been heading north. They’ll come here, cross the sea, and make cities from which I can attack the English more efficiently.
At last I’ve got my roads through former Babylon.
I’m hoping to make a line of 3 pointing at an Egyptian city that I’ll rename to “You’re Out”, as suggested. It remains to be seen whether the Egyptian city formation will cooperate.
The edge of former Babylon has been found, I’m now sure this continent is empty. Some good city sites over here, but it would take ages to bring in the Settlers.
More interestingly, I can see land there just across the water and I’ve got a TON of military units here. Foreseeing that I would run into a dead end soon, I began directing some Longships this way. I’ll be able to transfer these guys to somewhere more useful shortly.
I don’t want this pest wandering around what will soon be my territory; it’s important he die now.
Ships are now arriving on those shores with Settlers, the first of many.
Former Boston here is turning out to be startlingly isolated and the Skraelings are making no attempt to recover it.
Well that’s a pretty useless location for them since I really don’t want a city on this island. Still, at least I have a Longship nearby. Maybe they’ll find somewhere more useful.
Yep, not much else to see here. I’ll bring that Longship back around, grab the hut, and leave.
This is a really big, really empty piece of land here. It’s almost certain I’ll stumble across some other civ sooner or later in such a big place.
And I’m done Irrigating this area. I’ve suddenly got 3 Settlers and nowhere in particular to send them. I guess I’ll walk them west and have them make colony cities somewhere.
Contact at last.
The unicorns say “Great Pharaoh” means “King”.
Really? You want Philosophy? Not Republic or Trade like the smart civs demand? Sure you wouldn’t rather have Monotheism; the only important thing Philosophy unlocks? Tech demands are definitely not random, but they’re decidedly stupid.
Yeah, I need peace to set up here. Their shore is crawling with troops and I don’t have many yet.
They refuse of course. No one is even remotely intimidated by the guy who exterminated three civilizations already.
Road-building should always be a team sport and carefully organized.
A lot of Settlers are passing through here, but I don’t have a lot of ships ready yet, so I have them stop and do some development first.
Waylon is working on a dummy project (Copernicus’s Observatory) to store up hundreds of shields in advance for Magellan’s Expedition when it unlocks. The last thing I would want is to actually finish the Observatory, so I stack up Caravan after Caravan just outside the city to run in as soon as I can switch to the real project. I now have exactly enough built that I should be able to make both Magellan’s Expedition and Marco Polo’s embassy with no wasted turns and no wasted Caravans once the former unlocks.
So all cities that had made Caravans now switch to Crusaders.
At long last I found some Skraelings again.
The first of many cities to be built along this English-haunted coast is founded.
Ah ha! My scouts found Irrigation. Someone lives here.
I’ve now got more and more ships running a circuit from the capital zone to Egypt. Soon I’ll have the forces I need.
Despite Temples, martial law, Hanging Gardens, Michaelangelo’s Chapel, J.S. Bach’s Cathedral, and this city just not being all that big, I’m starting to have unhappiness problems. This is due to the absolutely enormous number of cities I own. Just another reason not to build that many more.
YES! Man, this took an enormous number of turns.
And Magellan’s Expedition is finally available. That +2 boost to all ships’ movement will be amazing for both scouting and efficient warfare.
Well these are all worthless. Too bad Bridge Building isn’t available.
Anyway, I don’t care if I never learn another tech; I’ve got what I need. Time to set Science down and Taxes up. The only reason I don’t drop Science to 0 outright and bring up Luxuries to stave off more unhappiness is that nearly 100% Corruption in most of my far flung cities means I can’t scrape together 2 or more Luxuries in most of them anyway, so it’s useless to try.
Ah, so these are the cut-rate replacement Babylonians I’ve found here.
I need a few turns to bring in the other nearby Crusader…
Huh, he actually did it. That’s why it’s worth continuing to try.
Time for a wonder!
The rest stand by till next turn. My Crusaders are just beginning to arrive, and a boat will soon be ready for them with its new super-speed.
More cities near the (still hidden) English.
Excellent.
Rapid transport from the Babylonian continent over to this mysterious island goes as planned.
There’s quite a fleet on the way over to deal with the English when I do find them. Turns out that just refusing to pay the Dane-geld isn’t enough to get rid of me.
Time for a bit of action here at last. That city I took was remarkably isolated. It’s possible it originated from a goody-hut one of their far-flung scouts found.
As usual, I work on roads from both ends. That’s always the most efficient way to get big ones done. Unless you can also have other Settlers get started in the middle.
Huh. I guess that wasn’t that unlikely since I never did found a city on this island. That’s too many people for this one old Longship to carry, so I may actually leave the Horseman behind for a bit.
Hopefully I’ll find some good city spots around here. At this point a good city spot isn’t just one that will produce a large-sized city with good Production though, it also needs to have some tactical value.
Ah ha! Found a city at last.
I’ve got a lot of great troops here but so far there hasn’t been any sign of an enemy.
Well maybe it’s Bridge Building.
Nope, worthless.
Wait for it…
Denied!
I REALLY got spread out trying to find these guys. And then suddenly here’s their capital.
In this one turn I wipe out loads of their troops and set up to take their capital and maybe Chicago.
This is a great spot for producing a rapidly-growing city, but more importantly it controls a good location and is close enough to the Skraelings to be useful against them.
All these cities will be great if the war against the English (or Zulu to a lesser extent) turns out to be a hard fight. And useless otherwise.
And another.
Meh, it’s a bit of bad luck but no trouble since the ship was empty anyway. I had pretty good luck earlier when the probability of sinking was higher.
Oh. Suddenly I found their capital and now my scout is vulnerable. I better get peace.
At long last I’ve graduated to the infidel level!
MWAHAHAHAHA. Uh, I mean… yeah, alright, sounds good.
So… are you going to do anything at all to defend yourselves against my inevitable treachery? No? Didn’t think so.
I’m never going to not do this. They refuse again of course.
This is the kind of place it’s tactically great to found a city. This place will be sucky forever, but it’s a fantastic forward base. In here I can stack up troops in perfect safety to rush out and crush the Egyptians. This is another reason why Forts are basically useless and the Great Wall is an awesome luxury wonder. Once you have the Great Wall, you can build a city in 1 turn that gives a 3x defensive bonus. A Fort still takes multiple turns to make and gives a mere 2x bonus.
Hm, I don’t like those barbarians lurking nearby but I found some land to scout out. Maybe I’ll make cities here if someone else is nearby.
The Skraelings won’t know what hit them.
Man, they took FOREVER working on this thing without finishing it. Their capital is now mine.
Useless. This place barely even gets any Trade, plus it has nearly 100% Corruption. Plus Trade doesn't matter to me in this game.
It’s too late for this city to really have time to make me a good profit, but it’s just fun to build somewhere that has access to 4 special resources. They don’t appear randomly, despite superficial appearances. The only time you can have 4 in reach is in this specific kind of formation.
It’s different in Freeciv though.
Alright, I’m ready for war.
Worse than useless. This city will never amount to anything, isn’t anywhere useful, and will just cause more unhappiness.
Better.
Huh, the Zulus may be decently big. Oh well, I’ve got them right where I want them.
I haven’t really used my Marco Polo’s Embassy yet. This is mainly out of laziness. Upon getting it, you should generally phone up every single civ in the game and trade Science and demand tribute from all of them. But I have every tech I really want and don’t REALLY need more gold or anything.
I still WANT more gold of course. And I like pestering these guys.
Should have just paid the tribute! I mean, I’d have sneak-attacked this turn in that case anyway, but still it would look a bit less stupid.
So I took their capital and renamed it to Tribute. I did demand it afterall. This Marketplace is trash for me. It costs 1 gold per turn and generates 0 due to my huge Corruption.
Huh. Weird that they had just the one other city so far away from the capital.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjiOtouyBOg
Alright, I shouldn’t wait any longer. I called up all the civs and got rebuffed when I demanded gold, but I made some good progress with the Romans. I know they have to be huge and powerful, but I’ve been searching for them for thousands of years and haven’t found even a trace.
Uh… alright? Where are we going to set those borders when we haven't even met each other?
Now this is an unusual move of course and generally not useful.
This will let them build the Great Library, but at this point I can make any wonder I want in just a handful of turns, so I’m not worried. It's a weirdly basic tech for such a powerful civ to not have though. And they’re still a Despotism? What’s up with that?
Bam, huge friendliness jump.
How about some more?
Whatever!
There we go. It’s all worth it if they do this.
Perfect. Now I finally know their location, exact strength, and possibly the location of other civs they’ve met. This idiot just handed me the map to his peaceful little Shangri-La and told me how to destroy it in exchange for a few techs he won’t live long enough to profit from.
So there are the outskirts of his lands. I might not have found them for dozens of turns since I’d had my Longship bend south.
Wow. He’s actually 100% isolated. He just has his own little star-shaped realm here that has never known real war. And he’s got a huge pile of biggish cities. And dozens of … Warriors. The worst unit in the game. This is a land of many contrasts. He’s been enormously successful all game, but he’s a Despotism. He’s hugely rich and powerful, but his whole army is 80% Warriors somehow. And barbarians are eating him basically unopposed.
Now one very interesting thing. I noticed (and confirmed in the top 5 cities menu) is that Antium, not Rome, is where he built his wonders. And Antium is coastal.
Hm. He’s quite near the Skraeling lands. When I finish crushing them, I should plan to have some ships on hand to transport these guys over and start conquering Rome too. No one else is anywhere nearby.
Saw that coming.
Time to start a war over in England at last.
And in Egypt too.
Wow, that was easy.
Ah ha. Marco Polo’s Embassy tells me that Memphis over there is his ONLY other city.
My scouts continue past Zululand.
Darn.
Closing in…
And here too. The Skraelings actually still have plenty of cities according to the embassy.
Now that I know the Romans are nearby, I need to build more cities so that I can build more Settlers so that I can quickly make Roads across this continent.
Another city falls easily.
And here I made a mistake. I really should have waited to have all my troops in position, but after the chain of easy victories I’d become over-confident and just assumed the English (who I now know to only have this single city) would fall just as easily.
They didn’t.
Now that I know this place is near Rome, I immediately founded 2 cities here and started cranking out troops. This will be my hardest conquest since I’ve got nothing nearby to work with and they’re very rich and strong.
Ugh again. This time I’m ready though; I made sure not to grab the hut until I had 2 guys nearby and did so with 1 move to spare for possible attacking.
Well my luck with huts really got bad this time. Oh well, I had good luck early when it mattered more.
The Mongols have been found at last! And I’ve got loads of troops nearby! Or I DID, but now bunches of them are about to be massacred by like 8 barbarian units that popped up nearby.
Don’t we start off at war? That IS kind of the default state in Civ 2.
Yeah, I made a BIG mistake with the English. Not only did they hold on, they turned out to have several great attackers on hand and wiped out all my nearby troops. I got careless and confused these guys with worthless civs like the Skraelings, Babylonians, Egyptians, and Aztecs. But they’re more like the Greeks they replaced. I’m going to pay for my mistake with something like 10 turns lost before they’re gone.
Mongols up here too? Wow, they seem to own a whole continent.
A really slow, boring war continues over here. These guys put up no real resistance, but it takes forever to find their numerous cities in all this space.
I’m trying to find the Mongols now. It looks like I may have them surrounded in one of the last big unexplored zones.
They may be up here too if they really control as much turf as I think they do.
I’m about ready to strike. But I’ve got an idea that should decide this war at one stroke if the Romans do the ‘smart’ move I think they’re about to.
Another one down. They still have Atlanta somewhere. It IS nice to at least know how much more scouting I need to do.
Wow, the Mongols really do own a HUGE amount of space.
Will I get Bridge Building now?
Nope! Man, this is a remarkably bad tech.
Just terrible hut luck this session.
No real resistance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjiOtouyBOg
Last city!
Oh darn it. There’s a random island in the way that ruins my sea route over to Rome to the north of the Skraeling continent. That’s going to cause delays.
They switched to Republic with a revolution with the timing I expected.
Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design.
Cities in disorder cost ½ as much to incite revolts in, which made this normally unaffordable one possible to seize. I figured they’d try to go Republic (the process of which would cause disorder) after a few turns, so I made 1 Crusader and 1 Diplomat instead of just 2 Crusaders.
Good luck. This was THE important city for them and I got it in the first action of the war.
It had ALL their wonders.
Which means I now control every wonder that exists in the world! The Lighthouse here is actually a nice boost now since I won’t ever learn Magnetism and thus obsolete it in this game and it grants yet another +1 move to all my ships. Thanks, Julius! Couldn’t have done it without you.
Ah, here’s a Mongol city at last.
Even MORE scrolls containing every tech but the one I want. Come to think of it, I hadn’t planned on building Adam Smith’s Trading Company but it MIGHT actually be worthwhile. Probably not. I don’t really have any buildings other than a few Temples and it’s not really worth taking the time to build just to pay for those.
That should wrap it up over here.
Yep!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjiOtouyBOg
I took Nishapur easily and destroyed Tabriz and found one of their other cities. Now I could use a ceasefire to move in on the rest safely.
I’ve wiped out 6 civs now, but on the face of it I’ve made no progress. However, replacement civs start off pitifully weak. If I wreck the big ones fast, I can wreck the little replacements soon thereafter and then THEIR replacements after that. Only 3 possible civs exist per color, so I should win then.
The only real obstacle is not knowing the locations of these guys. As I start running over the English, Romans, and Mongols properly, I’ll use Marco Polo’s Embassy and see if I can trick any other guys into giving me their addresses.
This is a good time to end things. It will be time for the war to end all wars next time.
On the English front I’m finally ready to try to conquer the pests properly and have begun chipping them down.
I own only one city in Roman territory, but it’s a great one. And I’ve just begun to land troops on the other side (in one of their stupidly built Forts of course). And I’ve got loads of others ready to cross over, plus those colonies still churning out Crusaders and Diplomats when my Longship gets back to them. This could go very well very quickly if he really is relying on mostly just Warriors.
The Mongols are my greatest military threat so far in terms of numbers, but they fight completely incompetently, so I’ve killed dozens of their troops and taken no casualties. I just found their capital and that a lot of what should have been their territory was completely empty.
On the home front, all the Roads are done at last. Every bit of this enormous landmass is now easily traversable.
Over here too of course.
I basically have all the irrigation I need in 90% of my home continent too. Development is mostly over except for some tactical cities that are basically just forts and maybe a few Roads. At this point there shouldn’t be enough time left in the game for any new cities to turn a real profit even if their site was excellent.
So here’s the traditional unreadable zoomed out map! As you can see, I really did a LOT of exploring this time. There’s basically just 3 big dark patches left, 2 of them are largely arctic and antarctic continents, at least 1 is mostly Ocean, and 2 are oddly close to my main continent. I need to scout those out quickly and also get the uncontacted civs to give me their maps at the start of next session.