Part 8: I WANT YOUR TRUFFLES!

Choosing Mandate of Heaven was a good idea, as it bumped our acquisition of policies such that we'll get our next one in only 12 turns. (pic)



This National Wonder gives us more Great People, though we still need to generate them on points by ourself. Wonders are alright, but there's a faster way to generate Great People too. Specialists!




See here, some buildings let us assign a worker to work in a building instead of on the field, gathering resources. They can produce money, gold, production hammers or science, and 3 points towards a Great Person each (more than a Wonder's 1 point per turn). The downside to Specialists is that they only produce what they're assigned to do--they don't give us food and production and gold like someone working on the field would.




It looks like Sweden is constructing the Machu Pichu wonder, you need to be near a mountain for that. It gives you bonus trade route money. All the more reason to take 'em over!




This is the list of people who have raw industrial output. In which case, go us!




Ah, this thing. It can get you a lot of money if you're lucky enough to have it in your territory. If you play as Spain and get this, you make mad bank since they get double resources from Natural Wonders.




Our first donated Swordsman! They're a Classic-era unit, not a Medieval unit. They're inferior to Pikemen, but they upgrade into Longswordsmen in the Medieval times and Longswordsmen have 21 combat strength, fully 50% stronger. And Longswordsmen upgrade into Musketmen! (Pikemen, by comparison, upgrade into an anti-cavalry cavalryman called the Lancer)




Odd that this quote is about the printing press when there actually is another tech called Printing Press. Anyway: Shoulda gotten this one sooner. I can now upgrade my composite bowmen into guys who can shoot down knights.




Barbarian Pikemen, stealing my ivory! Yes, barbs do upgrade over time as well. I need to find out where these guys came from and destroy them.




Cardiff has produced a Fishing Boat! They're like workers of the seas, but they're single-shot and you need to build another one to improve other sea resources like whales or pearls. This one is going to improve that fishing spot with the seagulls circling over it.

That little torch you see near Cardiff is its Lighthouse. Some city buildings that aren't wonders are also visible from the world map. Lighthouses make sea tiles give more food.



Oh, somebody's jealous. Hee hee hee.




For some reason I notice I haven't even built a Circus in Edinburgh yet. Circuses are like Colosseums, they give you happiness, but they do not cost money to maintain (I guess those carnies charge their own ticket prices) and you can only build them in cities with access to elephants or horses. You need animals to have a circus, we don't do Cirque du Soleil.




…I have no idea where this is coming from, Gustav! Well. I have like a dozen pikemen with your name on them.

Time for another Policy! Considering how City-states have been total bros to us this entire game and we want to keep that advantage, I see no reason not to adopt Patronage to keep them our friends as long as possible. Most of the good stuff that has come our way has come from them.




Oh, really now. They're probably only doing this because Sweden is their ally.




Some city-states have donated crossbowmen to us, and it couldn't have come at a better time because I bet Kamehameha is sharpening his swords to invade us.




…where the hell did this come from?! Either everyone hates us for invading the Maya unannounced, or everyone in the world is just sizing us up for invasion. That's fine, since we were inevitably going for a military conquest anyhow…

Researching Physics lets us build Trebuchets and also the Notre Dame wonder, which gives us +10 happiness (!!!) I'm building that sucker ASAP. Too good to pass up.




Huh, I guess they beat the Swedish to it.



That doesn't look good. It looks like they've also got a Great Merchant in there, trying to turn Sidon away from us, Perhaps? Either way, I'm keeping an army around Dublin. It's actually possible to deter attacks by having a visible show of force on the border.


The Longswordsmen are important, but the Armory is even more so. Building that and a Barracks in a city will give the soldiers trained there two level-ups, the amount needed to give them Amphibious promotions, and those are important for attacking river targets like Honolulu. Yes, I am planning ahead.


A few turns later, Caesar enters the Renaissance (just ahead of us!) and that grants us a spy. Whenever the first player gets to the Renaissance, that begins the spying games.


Here's the spy interface. Spies are sort of fire-and-forget, you tell them to go somewhere and they pop up in that city a turn later and start doing their thing. When in your own cities, they kill enemy spies trying to steal your tech--your most developed cities are the juiciest targets. If they kill a spy, they level up.

If you put them in an enemy city, they automatically start stealing technology (but this takes many, many turns, especially if they're just a Recruit) and give you notifications like "Kamehameha is building up an army to attack someone, maybe you!" or what Wonders they're building.

Since we are ahead of most people tech wise I'm putting our spy on defense.




Now that that's out of the way, we need to research gunpowder. NOW.




First of all, I'm going to denounce you.




Maybe so, but this time at least nobody can say I didn't warn you when I declared war.

Next turn, I formally declare war. Gustavus chuckles…




Our happiness is taking a dip because our population is increasing again. No matter. We will soon have a building that will vastly increase it, and I'm not just talking about Notre Dame. In this screenshot you can also see that I've got a Great Prophet (generated because of my excess of faith points) and he's busily introducing Asskicking to the Romans.



Time for a new social upgrade. I'm going with Philanthropy because it directly leads to this one:



Getting science from our City-State allies, not bad! It won't be enough to completely do the game's job for us, but it will be enough to make a difference and help us pull ahead.

I lost the screenshot for it, but my soldiers and Sweden's tear each other up a bunch. I've got the advantage, but he's clearly been building up his army from the days when I beat Pacal. Perhaps I should not have waited for Trebuchets after all.



…look, Kamehameha, not everyone wants a grossly inefficient empire with tons of ugly little cities everywhere like you do, okay? And I went Liberty, sorry, geez!



Awesome, we are back in business. If we want to get the most out of Mandate of Heaven we need to max out our happiness, plus our upcoming conquests will no doubt reduce it a ton.

Dublin has built its armory and we're now manually pumping out soldiers for the first time in over a hundred turns.


Well, damn. I guess pretty much everyone hates you eventually in this game when you invade ONCE. Then again, maybe they're just jealous that I built a bunch of wonders they were all going for. They can get mad at you for that, too.




Okay that was just ONE pikeman outside of Cariff, man! Jeez…




Awww, yeah. It's on. Musketmen are only marginally stronger than long swordsmen, (24 points to 21) but they require no iron to build. If we had been struggling without iron before, we would not now be. Iron isn't obsolete yet, though, it can be used to build powerful frigates.




Hitting the Renaissance makes missionaries cost more, 300 points per instead of 200, but it also increases the benefits certain city-states give us. Cultural states will give us more culture, for example.




Yeah I don't care that I'll be passing up a lot of other good stuff, I'm going straight for the CANNONS.



Sigunda's taking a beating from our crossbow and trebuchet attack, but they're shooting down our melee units too. We need to bring over more! My musket men hit the highway.




He knows he's going to lose this war. Too bad.




This is the other thing you can do with spies: send 'em to city-states to get more influence over them. This is why I'm total-killing my enemies, so they can't do this shit.




Awwright. Artists do two things: you expend them to create a golden age, or you can make a culture-boosting tile improvement. I think I'm doing the latter because it'll pay off more in the long run.




Alright! Sigtuna captured. Now, we're not going to raze it because it's got a wonder in it (Alhambra) so, for now it's ours. Not even a very big Unhappiness penalty for puppeting it, only 6.



Right now, Edinburgh is working on finishing the Oxford Univerity National Wonder, which you can only build if you have a regular university in every city you control. It gives you +3 science and a free technology when you complete it.


My strategy:



In 6 turns, Chemistry will be complete. Chemistry, in addition to giving you cannons, gives you extra production from mines and manufactories and quarries. That will open up Fertilizer. Oxford will complete shortly after, and I'll get Fertilizer, jumping me straight into the Industrial era (and increasing the price of missionaries, sadly), unlocking the final three Social Policy groups. Fertilizer gives you lots of extra farm production, by the way. My civilization in general will suddenly be producing and growing much, much more than anyone else.



Ah, yes, the downside of denouncements, friends will gang up on you. This is what they mean by "Sully your reputation" by denouncing someone who has friends. This is the "Declaration of friendship" notification between Dido and Sweden.




…oh, really.



Oh, really.


I think it's time for you assholes to understand the full power of the boom stick. Nobody beats the Celts when it comes to a full-frontal assault!



One short peace treaty later, Sweden gives us Helsinki and its truffles. Time to take our cannons and blow that Great Wall to smithereens.

State of the world: