Part 28: Stop killing my friends you assholes!

So where were we?



Ugggghhhh. We have seriously been caught with our pants down. We have a tech lead over Kamehameha but no troops to speak of.



My spy uncovers that Kamehameha is also plotting against Gandhi. Sharing this with Gandhi makes him like us more and Polynesia less. Good. But as you can see, there's no way I can protect Salty Coast from this level of onslaught.





Kamehameha has also put this stupid little city north of Silk Wedge. I must take the time to erase that city from existence soon as I'm able. For the moment I am queueing up nothing--NOTHING--but military units.



Shit. As you can see, Kamehameha has Salty Coast, for now. It will be a little tricky to re-take because Kamehameha also has the Great Wall again. Grr.



At least having to fight off my city-state friends has pissed off Ramses enough he wants to make peace, for now. In my favor, even! I'll take it, even if he betrays me ten turns from now. If he does, I'm just going to conquer Alexandria and puppet it.



One turn later I've managed to retake Salt Coast but the price has been high--it's lost almost all of its population. Also, I lost the free monument that came with Tradition when I built it, so I need to re-build that and all the other culture buildings in there.



Wow. You may be numerically superior to me, friend, but you're tactically and technologically inferior and I'm going to spend the next thirty turns wiping your presence off the face of my continent!

Troops, DESTROY RAROTONGA!



Now I have Rarotonga, that little city to the east of the Salt Coast! Ordinarily I'd raze it, but I'm making it a puppet instead because I am completely surrounded by assholes snatching up every single iota of unclaimed land around me and I want my land to be MY LAND. MINE.

Hey, Elizabeth!



Y'know Kamehameha is plotting against you too? Just thought I'd throw that out there.



Where the hell is she getting so many production points from? She only has one city!

New Policy!



I'm going against conventional wisdom and getting the next policy in Patronage instead of Rationalism. There's a powerful research bonus in there and I really, really, really want to max out Patronage as soon as I can because that'll make everyone else lose influence with city-states faster. I probably shouldn't have put those two points into Rationalism in a panic, I'd be much further along in Patronage by now otherwise.



What, he's plotting against everyone? Well. This might get Egypt off our backs. Or maybe not.



Over here we can see that our bribe for Napoleon to fight Kamehameha was well-spent, he attacked one of Kamehameha's cities and conquered it. A little one, but still.



"Please give me back my little city in the snow! I didn't mean it when I said I'd destroy your lands and salt the earth!"

Uh-uh, pal. Sorry. You're going to have to beg a whole lot better than that.



BOOM! Tuvalu is a puppet now.



BOOM! Tuamotu also a puppet.



I love this technology.



Without us even really needing to do anything, our religion has completely overwhelmed Polynesia. We are making quite a lot of money this way. We'd be making even more if we had both gold-generating founder beliefs. Papal Primacy has been paying for itself, though.





Someone's feeling cocky. I guess it's because he's got a numerically huge army back home, but I'm sure my forces could beat his in a straight fight.

I try something very risky to get Monaco back in our good graces…



YES! Good! Now if Egypt is a dick to us we don't have to worry about Monaco being a problem and attacking us. This also gives us more much-needed culture points.



Hoo. Things should get good soon.



They're taking potshots at our cities with some coastal ships--galleys and caravels, nothing that can actually take our cities as they are. I've sunk several of their ships already. I'm trying to slowly build up better ships to fight them off with, but it'll take a while because Salty Coast is crippled.



This will come in handy, I hope…



Dude, I am so close to upgrading my military into a force you cannot hope to contain. Do NOT tell me you can bend me over like this!

New policy time!



Let's see how much our science jumps up after this!



Oooh, damn, that's nothing to sneeze at, nothing at all!



CRAP. Polynesia conquered Budapest. Put that on our list of things to do once we're better able to: re-conquer Budapest and liberate it.



Good, the next tier of weaponry is finally at our disposal.



We also have a lot of aluminum for mining, here. Once we get it, we'll be able to get Hydro Plants on all our river cities, which will increase production tremendously.

Well, that about wraps it up. We're still at war with Polynesia, mostly a stalemate since we have only one half-decent coastal city to produce a navy.

Potential strategy: Throw everything we've got at Elizabeth, eliminating her threat and giving us one kickass coastal city. London is quite a prize.

State of the world:





City-state alliance meters:





France conquered La Venta. Grrr. I suspect they're on to our strategy to utilize city-states, or else they're just that hungry for real estate.

Total votes needed to win diplomatic victory 10. Projected votes for us: 8. We're doing good.