The peaceful development of my civ had been interrupted by the decision out of the blue from the Romans to go to war with me. Their initial attack of one warrior at Thermopylae proved to be unsuccessful, and I was not exactly worried about losing any of my cities. The AI is just so bad at naval attacks... five catapults and a couple of warriors could defend my island against anything from the ancient age. I was not overly concerned, I just wanted Rome to get out of war with me so that our relations were not overly affected in the UN vote. After that first warrior though, no more units were forthcoming and a state of phony war existed.
I discovered Literature in 30BC, deciding not to broker it around since I already had almost all of the cash that existed in the world. Then in 10BC I was blindsided by another war declaration that I had not expected, this time from the Aztecs!
I fully expected to lose Sparta, but fortunately I had two swords ready to capture it back on the next turn. Would you believe that the regular warrior successfully defended against that regular Jag and got him to retreat?! Ha ha ha, it was about time I got some luck on the city defense side. Now I was at war with both of my neighbors, and even though they were phoney wars, it was still a condition I wanted to be out of as soon as possible. I think I should post a picture of my overall civ to give a better indication of what was going on, so here is the 30AD view:
First of all, I'll point out that I have finally wised up on the issue of city defense and am now building hoplites non-stop out of Athens. Note also the colonies on the islands to the east; there are some more off screen that can only be glimpsed on the minimap. I've got a TON of money, a legacy of my map and contact brokering skills that left all of the other civs broke, and I'm researching Republic as fast as I can get to it. Perhaps it was all the gold that I had that drew AI attacks? Nah, I'm sure the extremely weak defense was what did the trick. It was a case of my pacifists surrounded by AI psychos on all sides.
Then in 90AD the Iroquois declared war on me too! I was at war with three civs at once! So much for my non-existent diplomatic skills. But this one was a case of an AI civ looking for future resources; my colony in the extreme southwest on the minimap was the target of this attack for that reason. The elite warrior defended successfully against the attacking regular warrior, and that was it for that war. Another phony conflict with no blows exchanged on no sides. I wouldn't have wanted to be in this position on a pangea map though! Within a few turns I had signed peace with both Caesar for some small change, keeping the war with Monty going so I could capture the city he had placed on the island to my west.
By 150AD I had built 4 vet swords, which I was sure would be enough to take the impossible-to-pronounce Tzintzuntzen from the Aztecs. Somehow Monty managed to get a spear there, despite no galleys sailing by and that city being founded only a short time earlier by an archer/settler pair. They must have whipped it out (blah). It didn't matter anyway, as I captured the city anyway and grabbed the city of Azcapotzalco as well in the peace deal. I didn't like the location of Azacap... whatever so I had it work on a settler and moved it a tile to the southwest 30 turns later. By 270AD Hiawatha was willing to talk and I gave him 31g in exchange for peace. Finally the game was back to normal.
I discovered The Republic in 280AD and revolted, again drawing a 7-turn anarchy period. Those long anarchy periods are a nightmare, and a good reason why I generally only go through one government change ever in a non-religious civ from Despotism to a Republic. When I finally came out of the anarchy in 350AD, my treasury surplus quickly disappeared. I rushed harbors all over the place to allow my desert cities to grow and bought Currency to enter the Middle Ages. I drew Monotheism and was able to trade it for some semi-decent cash, which went back into more building rushes. This was to become a recurring theme: putting all my money into rushing improvements in cities with low shields, saving just enough to stay caught up in tech. I made no attempt to speed up the tech process by research some techs myself; all the money saved by buying @last civ prices went into developing my cities. Here's the updated map from 410AD:
By this point in time, I was slowly beginning to make some progress in my desert colonies, as they were together beginning to contribute a few gold per turn. The jungle cities of the east were already much stronger even at a younger age, since they could actually get 2 or 3 shields/turn and build some of their own improvements. I also have several cities that don't appear on this map because they stretched out of the screen; shockingly, I was #2 in land area compared to the other civs. I was definitely not #2 in usable land area of course; most of those tiles were coastal and desert ones of little use.
Then nothing happened again for a considerable time (or at least I have nothing mentioned in my notes). I completed the Forbidden Palace in Sparta in 600AD, which is just about the least ideal spot imaginable but the only practical place to put it without a leader. None of my other cities could get above 4 shields per turn! It was amazing how little production I had to work with. "These are peaceful, uneventful days" was one of my notes from this period, and it was an accurate description of what was going on. Managing workers was about the only thing I needed to do, along with making the occasional trade. One such trade brought in Gunpowder in 680AD, when I found that my terrible land was rich in saltpeter desposits at the least: 3 such sources. Those would prove to be useful in trading for techs. In 730AD I had actually managed to climb into first place in land area. This was an Emperor game, right? What was the AI doing?! (Not building cutural buildings in colonies was the answer.) Here was the map after a whole lot of turns of doing nothing in 800AD:
This image has been lost.
My cities had grown larger and were contributing more income, but otherwise things remained essentially the same as before. Sparta was working on a palace prebuild for... something, I didn't know exactly what, but I intended to get some kind of wonder. Also in 800AD the Zulus built Leo's Workshop and killed the wonder cascade. I decided at this point to go for Copernicus and Newton's in the same city, which would also kick off my golden age. I had a good shot to do it as long as I could build Copernicus and Smith's and kill the cascade before work could start on Newton's. Competition for wonders was the only conflict going on in my world at the time, which was perfect for a diplo game.
Herakleia flipped over to the Zulus in 830AD, which was very surprising since there was only one tile of overlap and my overall culture was about equal to the Zulus. Herakleia would proceed to change hands endlessly between the AI civs over the next few centuries, being held by the Zulus, Aztecs, Romans, and even Iroquois at various stages in their unending wars. It was a good thing my pacifists stayed away from those psychos, snug and secure on our own islands.
In any case, I was able to complete Copernicus as I had hoped in Sparta in 1020AD. A palace prebuild for Newton's was immediately begun as well, with Athens working on Bach's with the hopes that I could land it as well. Alas, this was not to be as the Aztecs finished it in 1090AD, but I was able to switch to Magellan's in Athens and land that immediately, killing the cascade for the second time. From this point on it would be easy to land every remaining wonder, even with only two wonder-capable cities. I normally try to end each page on an exciting event or transition of some kind. But this game was so peaceful and laidback, there were no events of great importance to end this page with, so in the interests of space, I'll just ask you to go on to the next page now...
