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A Brave New World |
| Alex then thinks he has enough knights to take on Athens.
Sadly for him, he doesn't. He also doesn't have enough hoplites to keep
Delphi, which falls in 1040. Leery of another flip, all my knights evac
to Athens. Meanwhile, I pay exorbitant rates for Gunpowder and Banking.
Fortunately for the fate of the free world, I've got saltpeter right
next to Kiev.
1120, Corinth falls, and the Greek capitol moves to Sparta while I wait for enough knights to keep pushing. They attack in 1160 and go down HARD. About 1200, another assault on Sparta goes down HARD. He's got billions of guns in there... It's probably about time to wind down the warmongering. Hammurabbit comes demanding 35 gold and my territory map in 1230. I cave. And then, in 1255, the Knight Horde(tm) came to Thermopylae. They saw a whole 2 regular hoplites in defense. They conquered. And yeah, we've seen this before...
Well, at least there's an excuse - I had all of nobody there and 2 resisters. It's fairly quickly recaptured, and Sparta's the only remaining enemy city. And then, suddenly, it's about like this:
And the next turn, it's about like this:
And in return for peace, Alex will give me: Navigation, Economics, Chemistry, Music Theory, Printing Press, his world map, and 9 gold. And now at the end of the war, I have 12 cities. Almost caught up on tech due to Alex. Life isn't QUITE good, but it's better than it used to be. I continue to pay Cleo massive prices for tech, but at least it's coming in. 1315, my saltpeter runs out. <breath intake> Hope Cleo doesn't get ideas. I've got a caravel out now, searching for somebody else in the world. Sure enough...
India is thusly contacted. They'll give me Wines, contact with the Germans, and 2 gold for Dyes. Just to be different, I sub in Incense for the Wines, and go with it. I dial up Bismark, and he'll sell his soul for Metalurgy. Sounds good to me. And thusly, I had his map... Oh. My. God. Holy. Crap.
But they can't be doing THAT good, can they? Or rather they can, given that they'll soon be hooked into the world network of tech trades. Except, as I notice when I go to go sell contacts, they already are. Ow... So I dial up Bismark again and sell him Dyes and Printing Press for Physics. A couple turns later, in return for my soul, he'll give me Magnetism. I go for it. Finally in 1370 I enter the Industrial Age by buying ToG off Cleo.
Being Russian, I immediately begin researching Communism at my best science rate, which is...40 turns. Ow. Pain. Hurt. A clerk in Sparta gets right on it. And my soul to Cleo won't QUITE get me Communism, but my soul and a kidney will get Steam Power, so I get it. Miracle of miracles, I even have coal. Two, no less, although one is totally inacessible at Thermopylae. And then, suddenly, things heated up... |
