Part 13: Alfred Nobel says "Hi!"

Let's skip ahead a bit to where we do the inevitable, shall we? DESTROY ROME!



Oh, yes. Getting ourselves a free Golden Age is always good.



And here, I'm blowing the crap out of Rome with artillery the likes of which he's never seen. Artillery cannons don't need direct line of sight on their targets either, unlike cannons.



Right next to the artillery is a Cossack, Russian cavalry unique units donated to us by a city-state. These guys have the same combat strength as a rifleman, 34, but do extra damage against wounded units. All mounted units are still terrible at attacking cities, though.



And here's a Gatling Gun. Gatlings have the same effective range as rifle guys, one tile, but they count as a ranged unit in that they can attack without taking damage themselves. The zeitgeist for long-range combat now belongs to artillery.



Man, I love it when you impress a city-state by building a wonder. It lets you press an advantage nicely.



Perfect, with this, any units we build at Edinburgh will be much more experienced than normal.



I'm going to spend some of our enormous cash reserves on quickly getting instant public schools in our three main cities. Let's see how much of an impact it has.



Quite a bit of an impact, as it turns out. Good. I'm researching steam power next, we'll get ironclads that can outclass Dido's fleet. She's finally upgraded her Quinqueremes to Caravels, I need to make weakening her my next goal after cracking Rome in half.



Speaking of which…



Hmm, not as big an impact as I'd hoped, but our happiness jumps up to 19 because we just captured The Forbidden City, which decreases unhappiness in non-occupied cities. Perfect!



Dido and China are next. Rome's remaining cities could stand to be burned, but at this stage, it may be too time consuming to pursue that. Sniping their capitals with super-ships might be the most expedient way to do this.



New Autocracy policy! Now our wounded units will be a little meaner in combat.

After a couple more turns of blowing away the stragglers, Caesar comes to me with another city as offering. Arretium. I'm taking it and burning it. Now, for CARTHAGE.

Since I have determined that the bulk of Carthage's military is tied up in its navy, a land assault would work better. I'm going to milk my artillery for all it's worth while they're still relevant.



This also lets our embarked units swim through the ocean faster. Handy! Archaeology next, because it leads to Biology, which gives us oil drilling.



Oh, tsk, tsp, Rome. I'd kill them for that, but I still have to wait 8 more turns before the peace treaty is up.



Haha. Sure. It was just a "rogue operative," totally deniable. I getcha.




Oh, really. Interesting. If I told Rome about this, they'd be very grateful and would also be in a better position to counterattack. Leaving Carthage weak! I may wait for its navy to move so I can attack them better.





She's calling us on our troop and naval movements, just like Pacal did in the past.

…screw it, lady! You're going down!



She attempts to attack my invading army, but the most she can manage is a bunch of caravels sinking one Privateer and wounding some of my advance cavalry. My artillery blows some of her ships out of the water and is moving towards Utique. My city-state allies--which at this point, are practically every city-state in the game--also declare war which means her armies around the continent are fighting where they are instead of coming to defend Carthage.



I have to admit, that quote is pretty accurate. This will make purchasing stuff in our cities even cheaper. I'm buying some ironclads right now.



The "other bonus" is the Louvre, which generates two great artists at once. At this point in the game I'd probably burn them both on a Golden Age, but hey.



My one ironclad is already doing great, having killed several Caravels. Pirate ships, psssht. It's all about IRON CRUISERS now.

New policy time!



This is the policy that completely makes Autocracy the powerhouse that it is. Rare resources are no longer so rare and Great Generals are able to hang out with tanks and the other cool kids.

In 16 turns or less, our next and final policy will be chosen for Autocracy, and it'll crack the game wide open. We just need to make full use of it while we can.

Oh, yeah, Utique's ours. Our happiness is at a premium, now, and we're running out of new luxuries and new sources of happiness so…I'm probably just going to raze it.



Oil is very important, most of the coolest vehicles require it. In particular, battleships and tanks.



My Ironclad has destroyed fully four ships on its own and it's finally tuckered out. Damn those things are tough.



The Hydro Plant is one of the reasons you really want to have your cities near rivers. It pays off in both the short run and the long run.



Ah, I love it. This is the age when things stopped sucking so bad and we got nice stuff like cars, running water in every house, radio, and other things like automatic weapons and soft serve ice cream. This also gives us another spy!



One source of aluminum is discovered right next to Cardiff! Great. And we've already built a manufactory over it to get at it, even better. Aluminum is vital if you want to build a lot of the cooler late-game stuff, and you also need it to build rocket ship parts.



We're going for Replaceable Parts first, because that will give us the next type of soldier unit, the Great War Soldier, who does a whopping 50 damage compared to the rifleman's 34. Immediately after that, though, we must research Radio to get the Eiffel Tower, because that thing will grant us some much-needed happiness points.

My artillery weakens Carthage enough, and my Ironclad goes in for the kill, conquering it. It doesn't have any wonders, but it does have wine.


NUTS! Screw Replaceable Parts, I want that Eiffel Tower NOW.

I may need to annex cities and force them to build happiness improvements. I haven't needed to do that yet, but there's a first time for everything.

State of the world: