Forward Steps

That means the Hoplite Wall by Athens is liable to see some serious action RSN, and of course it's been ignored for eons since everyone was dying at Pompeii... Ruh-roh.

Just as suddenly, the chance came at Atlanta, too. It's a terrible waste of swords, but I haven't got much else to spend, and I want the hole plugged...

And lo, 1120 comes with the end of my 40 turn 1 scientist run on Chivalry. One takes that to mean that the AI isn't running science, AT ALL, since if they were, the GL would pick it up. A quick check on the intelligence front (after checking to see that offering peace to see what people have is in fact legal) shows that the advanced AIs have Monotheism, and that poor England is still lacking the good stuff like Currency and Polytheism. NOBODY has Chivalry. I repeat. NOBODY ON THE CONTINENT HAS CHIVALRY AT ALL. As long as my oft-pillaged horses last, I'm in possession of all kinds of military dominance. Expensive military dominance, but not too bad. A knight army would rule all. Unfortunately, the leader well seems to have dried up completely, despite elite victory after elite victory on the field of battle. A break to read the LOTR2 game brings sighs of longing: That kind of leader support along with that kind of infrastructure is a pipe dream, here. It's a harsh, harsh world.

About this time, too, Atlanta suddenly becomes a backwater. Delphi is back under heavy attack, and it's suddenly all about horseman raids on my rear lines. Evidently plugging the gap at Atlanta has tripped some sort of AI switch.

A quick check of F11 here notes that Athens is the best city in the world and that I'm way behind in absolutely everything. It also makes me realize I COMPLETELY forgot about the F11 stuff for the epic scoring. Whoops.

It's around here, too, that the warfare gets a little... odd. Lots of horses and spears behind the strongpoints, but they aren't DOING anything, just running around getting gunned down by catapults. It's frustrating, however, since Corinth has been cut off since way back in the BCs sometime, and I can't DO anything about it, because the AI lands a couple spears there every two or three turns.

After five or six rounds of sword combat that wore the defenders down to 1 hp horses as defenders more than once, Washington fell to my forces again in 1240 AD. Unlike previous attempts, this time there were defenders handy.

Also in this turn the Hoplite Wall in the east gets a bit stronger...

1250 AD saw some intense fighting in Calcutta, now down to one 2 hp hoplite and holding on... It also saw the GL acquisition of Engineering, the first tech I'd gotten in quite a while. By 1255 the focus of the other side's 10+ 1hp horses shifted off of Calcutta, now invincible with 3 hoplites, and on to Washington, fortified with my entire army practically. The swordsmen existed for another push forward, but they needed more hoplite support troops and a clear area to attack to.

And lo, 1260 saw my, what, sixth leader or so in the defense of Washington. Hector was sent back to Thermopylae, where he formed my second army of the game, empty for a time, but soon to be filled by...knights. Yes, the idea of an invincible 2 move attack force appealed to me a great deal. :)

Rather suddenly in 1295 AD, Abe lost his horses to my giant SOD ripping through his territory. With hope, that would mean the end of the horrendously annoying American horse attacks, which was about all that was hitting me anymore, though it would appear that the Zulus, who had been rather marginal for about ever, were back in strength. OTOH, nobody had seen the English in forever, and the Romans weren't really doing a whole lot.

As a side note when I pillaged Abe's horse supply, the fortress there didn't go with it. Not that I was arguing or anything. I could really use that fort. The knight army went into action here as well, dropping the better part of the Zulu mini-SOD in the picture at the loss of ~2 hp. Obvious lesson: Get more knights.

Corinth's problem this entire game is about summed up by this:

Those spears are actually a minor version of what had been going on forever. Ships would land spears up near the city, near invincible because of the hills, and proceed to pillage me to death. The only way to get a road through anywhere, like the one there, was to guard every inch with hoplites. Vastly annoying.

Around 1315, the Greek Expeditionary Force hit upon the next target: The American capitol at New York. And this is what my lands as a whole looked like at the time: