Part 36: Washington, the other Lazarus!

Ah, my beautiful capital continues to flourish. It's just that the rest of the world keeps holding me down!



And Austria keeps gobbling up all the wonders! GAAAH!



Teotihuacan is very shortly going to be annihilated by the Huns. They'll conquer it and burn it, they've been burning everything they can, I think they must have over-expanded actually. When it does burn down, I'm going to put a settler there right in its spot, along the river. That will give me immediate access to the sugar and eventual access to the spice.

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice!

Or so I thought.



Without a shot fired, Teotihuacan is conceded to the Huns in a peace treaty--who accept it and gladly begin burning it anyway. The same turn, I get notified that Attila is up to no good and building up for a sneak attack against another civ.

So y'know what would be great? I'm going to bribe Attila to attack who he's going to attack anyway--just this time, they get warned too, and Attila won't have the time or resources to change his mind. Since he still likes me more or less he'll be easy to bribe into attacking another civ, and that will make his terrifying army pull away from mine and give Maria some grief so she stops hogging all the wonders to herself.



A steal!



Oh, the shoe is on the other foot now, huh? Well, if you had given me New York I might have listened to this request, but…nah. I'd rather annihilate you just to be sure.



A settler!? Trying to save your fading empire, huh? Won't help. Chariot, capture it!



Over here I've bribed Vatican City to be my friend. They are shooting at New York and its soldiers now. Always good to have friends! I'm not quite sure why an Aztec worker is building a mine in Vatican City, though…



I get ready for the next big push and get notified that our Mystery Player has built Machu Pichu. I was kinda hoping to get that myself, since I had a mountain next to my capital, but whatever. It's best for big, spread-out empires with lots of cities. I plan on having no more than I can comfortably support (puppets excluded)



Also Attila has settled another crap city right next to mine. Why does he keep doing this? I'm pretty sure his happiness must be circling the drain right about now.



I bought and sent an Inquisitor over to Tenochtitlan, and using him on that city completely removed the presence of the Aztec religion, and for some reason this also made all the residents suddenly Rastafarian. Not sure how that works…but whatever. I still need to eradicate Monty to keep his filthy non-me-worshipping religion from surfacing!



Listed above: The number of reasons I want to eat Maria Theresa's empire alive.

More specifically:



In order: Research boost, Faster Workers, Food Boost to Capital, Free Great Prophet + some Faith, +4 Happiness + Longer Golden Ages, +10 Happiness, Faster Growth for Empire, Get Gold for Great People, +20% Culture In City and units get a morale boost, and Missionaries Get Spread Three Times.

With extra culture points for each of them.

I CRAVE!



Another settler, Monty? I suspect you are absolutely desperate at this point, aren't you?

Well, guess what. YOUR CURRENT CITIES DO NOT BELONG TO YOU! And here's your eviction notice: a swarm of hurled rocks!



*anguished howl*

How the fuck do you even have an army when you spend all your time making wonders, Maria?!



This is actually a fairly good choice here: I could try to settle where Montezuma's Teotihuacan was, or I can settle slightly closer to home by this other river. Both would give me access to the sugar and spice, both are on a river, but I think…I would rather try settling where the ruins are, there's more hills there too so it'd be able to build stuff faster.



The enemy gates are down! New York is mine!



If I were feeling particularly devious I could hang onto this city myself as a puppet and only restore Washington City to its original owner…but I really don't want more of an unhappiness hit than I can tolerate at this point in the game so I'm just going to give it back to its original owner.

Welcome back to the game, George!



George Washington is back and he loves us! Note that my forces have not been forced out of his borders--we already had a good relationship before he died and now that we have resurrected him he loves us way more than even that.



Gaze upon Harar 2.0, the Revenge! I quickly gold-buy some tiles around it to make absolutely sure I get those spices.



Sorry, Monty, but Washington City has an extra copy of silk that I want to trade George for. For the sake of smooth, luxurious cloth… you must DIE!

Also because it's the right thing to do and all that.



Shut up, George! I earned that spot! The hard way! You know how difficult it is to manipulate the friggin' Huns to kill your enemies but not you at the same time?

…sorry. What I meant to say was, "I won't settle any more cities near you, I promise."





Finally, we can build the last defensive wonder I need: Himeji Castle! That'll make all our forces fight harder in friendly territory. Attila will be screwed if he tries to invade us then.

And of course, muskets! I love muskets.



Another settler, Monty? Again?! Face it, you're toast. Also: The Celts and Siam are fighting each other. I don't even know where the hell the remaining Siamese cities are, I still haven't explored over there yet.

If this game worked off of old Civ rules, he'd have rapidly depopulated himself building all those settlers.

New Policy!



Well, technically we're not a theocracy so much as we are a monarchy whose monarch happens to be worshipped as a god by people outside our nation. Yeah, funny history behind that. But anyway!

More gold for temples. Not a bad thing, really. Temples are a little expensive on their own anyway (2 gold per turn maintenance). I like to imagine this is just us putting out a very large collection box.



Oh my GOD another settler, Monty? I already just captured the other one!

You're toast, pal. Washington City is now restored to its rightful owner, and you have nothing left but a bunch of regrets. Any last words?



You think your boss is bad, guys? Be glad you never worked for Montezuma.

And I didn't kill the settlers! They are very happy to work for me now as farmers. I pay them well and they don't need to worry that I'll drain out their blood to feed the sun!

The combatants are dead as doornails, though.



America has its capital back, baby! I now only have to worry about two other players: Attila, who will probably try to kill me, and Maria Theresa, who won't be happy until she completes a "build every single wonder" run.

Since America is also a foreign nation that loves me, if I spread Rastafarianism throughout it (and it's already getting there) I'll get plenty of happiness from them.



Someone's attacked Sydney, probably Attila. I can't imagine that he's doing too well against Austria, they've got at least one or two big cities I haven't uncovered yet.

I should probably try to get one last settler over to where Harar 1.0 was before it was killed, that river with gold and Mt. Sinai and Cotton is tempting. Especially the cotton. There's a lot of city-state quests to get cotton, you see.

It's also time to start building up and modernizing my army, because you can bet your ass that the Huns will be doing the same in preparation for me.

EDIT:


THANK YOU! Thank Slowbeef too! Awesome! I just hope I can finish this before the Mac patch hits and potentially destroys my save file!