Part 12: Kamehameha's surfing in heaven now

Time to upgrade our arsenal.



Just for fun I demonstrate the effectiveness of the Keshik against Raiatea, Kamehameha's new interim capital. Not too much damage, but it'd probably be more significant during the medieval era.

My cities are finishing up building a Constabulary in them. Having cops around makes enemy spies take longer to achieve their mission, whether or not it's successful. A small percentage of spies will still get through my net no matter what, so it's important to make their lives as difficult as possible.

My economic income is starting to spike. This is good.



Ah, yes, Tonga, the city that is named after an archipelago nation. It's about to go boom now too. Two cannon shots and one Tercio and it's mine.



This city is officially being condemned by the health and safety board. Not enough Asskicking in it.



Oooh, the sneaky sneaky bastard is trying to sneak out a settler. This is why I didn't want to do any peaceful resolution with Kamehameha. The last thing I want is for him to start spreading again and complaining to everyone about how I beat him fair and square in both wars that he started.

I think I'll just swoop in and take that settler off his hands.

Doing so reveals something I've been dreading.



Rome's got muskets now. SHIT. Time to upgrade quickly.



At our current rate of research it'll take 13 turns to get Riflemen, six more to get gatling guns and coal factories. After that I'll try to get Scientific Theory to max out our science for this era. The rest will follow.



Ahh, that explains why there are Roman muskets and Roman trebuchets around this city. They got into a disagreement somewhere. I'd better hope I can take the city first, otherwise I'll just have to fight Rome for it.



This'll improve our gold output by a ton too. It makes trading posts and other gold-generating tile improvements give more gold. It also makes Dutch Polders put out more production and look like beautiful tulip gardens.

On a lark, I make a proposition to Carthage. Hey, Dido!



Actually I'm mopping up the competition, thanks for asking. I was thinking, though, you hate Rome, right? Let's attack them together, what do you say?

She doesn't go for it…but I can bribe her.



Ssssshoot, that's a lot of luxuries. I think I can swing it, though. This'll divert Rome's attention from the north, giving me precious time to prepare assaulting them and upgrading my military.

I hammer the final city some more, aaand….Kamehameha's done.



…why do I suddenly feel sad about this?

In any event, I'm tempted to keep the last city, because of its strategic proximity to Rome. Being within friendly territory would let my troops upgrade for gold once the relevant technology gets researched. And unlike other cities, this does indeed give me access to a unique luxury, silver in this case.

…yeah, I'm keeping it. As a puppet.



Trading for pearls made a lot of my cities happy. Thanks, Dido! Hope Rome doesn't kick your ass too quickly.



Aside from two cities of it I'm keeping, Polynesia is gone.



Hey, some of them started it first! Sorry!



Rome is pulling its troops back to the south. Good. This will give me time. It looks like they don't have many musketeers yet, just a couple prototypes. It's still mostly pikemen and trebuchets for them.



Ah, screw those two. They all know what's coming, they just can't do anything about it but complain.



All right! Privateers are a "melee" ship type that engages in close range. They can conquer coastal cities and rob gold from them, and if they defeat enemy ships there's a good chance of that ship coming back as a unit under our control. A few of these bad boys with some long-range Frigate support and we should be able to fry Carthage's navy no problem. I'll move Sir Francis Drake here over to the west side of the bay to get a better look at her navy…



Now I can upgrade any remaining pikemen--do I have any?--into Lancers. Anti-horseman horsemen are pretty cool for the renaissance. This also unlocks the Kremlin World Wonder, which boosts city defenses in all my cities should I build it. Probably not a bad idea.



Huh, we're not bottoming out on the list any more. I wonder what China's doing different, they used to have 50 happiness.



…good gravy, Carthage has a lot of Quinqueremes. I have no idea why they needed to build so many but this will be problematic. Even though I have the superior technology, against this many numbers I'd still feel it if I fought her.



Medina just got captured by Carthage. Good and bad. The more these two Hellenic nations chew each other up the better, but I don't want either side to get too strong. Just four more turns before rifle dudes…



Good god, woman, how many oar boats did you need?!

Time for an Autocracy upgrade!



Perfect. This will let us simply buy our army at a reduced cost. I'm ordering a new cannon or two now to send south in preparation for an assault on Neapolis. This will also open up Police State, which makes courthouses better and makes enemy spies worse at their job.



Riflemen have a combat strength of 34, fully ten points more than the musketman. Rifles were pretty awesome compared to muskets back in the day, because they tended to actually hit what they were aimed at. Later in the 19th century they developed cased ammunition which meant they could load more than one shot into a rifle at a time.



They look pretty neat, too. I'm gold-upgrading my entire army.



This is what I was talking about. Even with the best spy in Edinburgh and a constabulary, they can still steal stuff. This is why I insisted on fully annihilating my enemies, I don't want to put up with any more of that crap than possible. Worse yet, a spy who successfully steals something levels up and gets better at stealing. I hope they send the same guy back in and I kill him next time.



I'm going for Architecture next just to round out the Renaissance tree and open up Scientific Theory. With Scientific Theory I'll get public schools, a further tech enhancement building. Everything will go much faster after that. Industrialization is a key technology but it can wait for a few turns.



My cannons and riflemen are lining up outside of Ravenna. With Caesar's army distracted by Carthage there ought to only be a token resistance here, and after Ravenna, we'll be in spitting distance of Rome itself. If I play my cards right I can decapitate the Roman Empire in only a couple dozen turns.

Moment of truth. Do I dare cross the deadly Romans?

…wait a minute, we're Boudicca, of course we cross the Romans!



Unfit or not, I'm coming for you!



The Hermitage, a National Wonder that increases our culture in the city that built it by 50%, will be a great boon to getting more Autocracy policies.



The response wasn't as toothless as I had hoped, he's got a lancer, a trebuchet and a cannon to defend it. Still not enough. I'm going to pound his ass into the ground.



No, no, you've got it all wrong, I just wanted some sugar from you!



…on second thought, keep your damn sugar if you're going to charge that much for it.



Earlier in the game, I would have done better to make some cultural tile enhancements, but late-game, you get more bang for your buck from Great Artists by using them to trigger a Golden Age. Since I'm in a war and need the production and gold, I fire him off immediately.



Celtic rifleman, meet Roman Trebuchet. Roman Trebuchet, meet DEATH!

Ravenna's mine.



I'm burning it because it's in a nice choke point but doesn't have any strategic value beyond that. Rome's the real prize.



…hey, that icon's not the Kremlin! Anyway, I'm building the Hermitage next in Edinburgh, for the culture boost. Five turns to next policy.



Shit, that means he'll turn his army on mine. Good thing I'm already tearing him a new one.



Here we see the city-state of Columbo kicking the ass of Neapolis. Good. I hope I can either take over Neapolis or build a city on its ruins, because that orange grove is one of the very, very few sources of the citrus luxury in the whole world. I'm serious. China's the only other country that has it. If Neapolis is conquered by Colombo, they'll burn it down by default.



Huh, weird, we got donated Songhai's unique medieval horseman. I might upgrade him to a rifle cavalryman when the time comes.

Caesar knows he's beat, and he doesn't offer me an insulting peace offering for once.



Oooh. Well. I'm actually going to take this deal, because it'll let my wounded troops heal a bit and I'd like to take Neapolis undamaged. I'll attack him in ten turns once the peace treaty expires. The policy of appeasement, working for us!



"Friendly" my ass. The AI can be deceptive in this game. "Friendly" after all this conflict only means he is planning on stabbing us in the back. Well, two can play at that game.

Puppeting Neapolis increases our unhappiness by a friggin ton, 14 points (Yow!), and it'll be in resistance for 14 turns because of its huge population, but I don't care, it's a great city. I may annex it and build a courthouse later, with Police State in Autocracy it'll wind up actually being happier than a non-conquered city.



Alright! Time to blacken the skies with coal smoke! And build Gatling Guns! and maybe Big Ben!



I've changed my mind. I am prioritizing researching Dynamite. Once we unlock Dynamite, Rome will be truly screwed, as it unlocks artillery that can fire on targets from three tiles away. Muahahahaha.

It's getting late, so here's the current state of the world:





China's got a few new cities on its continent. Rome is putting out more crappy cities to the west. How long do you think they'll last?