In the last section, I had finished demolishing Korea and planned an attack on Germany next. But before I could even move my forces into position to go after Bismarck, he landed two horsemen on my island and declared war on me in 860AD! What a break of good luck, because who declares war on whom matters a good deal in keeping down war weariness in a republic. Now that my target had been acquired, it was simply a matter of gathering the ships and forces near Moscow to ferry over to Germany. Fortunately for me, England had recently discovered Astronomy and traded it around, which I was able to pick up for some gold and luxuries. Without the ability to travel over sea squares, I would not have been able to reach the German continent, and the fact that caravels can carry three units instead of just two didn't hurt either.
By 910AD, I had rounded up enough units for the first assault, and so three caravels carried nine keshiks across the sea to Germany, landing there on the next turn. Once again, the opposing civ was caught unprepared and I faced no counter-attacks upon landing. Hamburg was captured in 930AD, and I was unusually lucky in that it contained both a barracks for healing and a harbor to import my luxuries. What a great forward base for my army - as long as it didn't flip, that is. Keshiks continued arriving in a steady stream, and within a few more turns I had almost twenty of them over on mainland Germany. Once I felt that I had enough, I gathered a bunch of them and set out for Berlin. Bismarck had a number of pikes in his capital, but not nearly enough to stop the massive force of keshiks I sent after it:
Berlin was razed to the ground, being deemed too large of a flip risk, and that seemed to deflate the morale of the Germans. In any case, once it was gone their counterattackers mostly came to a close. I got a leader from a defensive victory in 980AD, but the keshik that produced it was reduced to 1hp in the process. Then another unit attacked, killing both the keshik and the leader. :( Only the second time that I have had a leader of mine die, both times when one was produced defensively. Frankfurt was also captured in that same year, the first of many cities to fall in rapid succession. In 1000AD Leipzig was taken as well, and the entire northern part of Germany was under Mongol control. I snapped a picture of my continent at the millenial date to mark the occasion:
I had just recently traded for Banking when this picture was taken, which is why several of my cities are working on the things. Also notice that despite the fact that I was at war, only a few cities were working on military production. This was due to the fact that I already had sufficient forces to cripple Germany and needed only to replace the odd unit that I lost; if Bismarck had been stronger, I would have had to devote more cities to producing keshiks. The march of war rolled on, with Munich - and Germany's only iron supply - falling to my forces in 1020AD. They traded for more iron with England almost immediately, but that must have cost more resources that Germany could ill afford to lose. Konigsberg was captured in 1040AD, and in the fighting outside the city my third leader appeared!
Again, it was an easy choice to decide what to do with Chagati. I traded for Economics and rushed Smith's Trading Company right there in Konigsberg. That wonder is even more powerful in PTW than in regular Civ3, since it also covers the costs of stock exchanges and commercial docks. It added a good 50gpt back to my income, a pleasant thing to make up for the lack of Wall Street now that stock exchanges rather than banks are needed to build it. I would keep rushing wonders with my leaders until there were none available, then I would use any that I got to form an army.
My keshiks continued to roll over the German cities in rapid succession. Every turn after taking a city, almost twenty of them would pour in to quell the resistance and begin starving the city to remove it of German nationals. Thanks to these precautions, I had very few problems with culture flips despite very low overall civwide culture. Nuremberg (1050AD), Heidelburg (1080AD), Bremen (1090AD), Cologne (1100AD), and Stuttgart (1110AD) read like a list of great German cities to fall in battle. I was rapidly approaching the southern end of the continent by this point, anxious to grab all of Germany's cities once and for all. In 1120AD I bought Military Tradition from England (ha ha ha), though the lack of any barracks in the area prevented me from upgrading all my keshiks to cavalry immediately. I would eventually turn all of the non-elite keshiks into cavs at the reduced prices that Leo's offered.
In 1140AD another great leader showed up in the fighting outside of Hannover, to be used for an army of elite* keshiks:
I won a battle with that army in 1150AD, opening up the possibility for the Heroic Epic (begun right away in Karakorum). Led by my glorious army, the city of Bonn was captured and all of sudden Germany was gone from their starting continent. It had taken a little bit more than twenty turns, but Otto was reduced like Wang Kon to a series of weak and isolated island colonies. Since three of his cities were in nearby reach, I did not make peace but instead began ferrying over half of my forces to the island, with the other half heading north to prepare for the Iroquois campaign. Here's a shot of what Germany looked like after the Mongol hordes were done with it:
I've put a small arrow on the minimap indicating where the German island with three cities was located, where I was headed next with my units. I was up to running 10% luxuries due to the war weariness with Germany, but I also now controlled four native luxuries and was trading for another with France. There was no threat of my republic collapsing from war weariness. The struggle with Germany was all but done, with merely the finishing touches needed to be placed upon the sorry remnants of a once-mighty civ. It would just be a couple of turns now until I would pick my next fight, this time with cavalry against the backwards Iroquois. But it seems as though Hiawatha had his own fight to pick with me:
In 1170AD they landed a "force" consisting of a warrior and a longbow outside of Smolensk, which was one of the few cities that lacked a barracks and thus had not upgraded its defender to a musket. I couldn't believe that my foes were lining up for me to kill them quite this easily! I asked them to leave my territory and of course got a war declaration in return. Well Hiawatha, you can't say that you haven't been warned. I used cavs that were in the area preparing to head for Salamanca anyway to kill the motley attack force. It makes you wonder what kind of reasoning was going through the heads of the AI civs as they made the decision to attack me...
"I cannot believe that you ordered such a thing, Chief!" exclaimed Cornplanter upon hearing the big news. "War with Mongolia! Why?"
Hiawatha leaned back in his plush chair and sipped contentedly at his glass of wine. It was from some of the best vineyards in the Confederacy, the ones owned and operated by the government in the rolling hills to the southeast of Niagra Falls. "Do you really want to know why I ordered the strike, Cornplanter?" he responded in a smug voice. Cornplanter was a fine general, but completely lacking when it came to the subtleties of politics.
The great chief of the Iroquois rose and walked over to stand before the roaring fireplace, his back to the other man. They were in his hunting lodge up in the countryside several miles north of Oil Springs; one of the chief's favorite activities was hunting big game, and there was none larger than what could be found here. Up here, only a short distance from the polar ice in the north, large herds of elephants somehow found a way to survive the brutal environment. Well, it might be a stretch to refer to them as simply 'elephants', as their shaggy coats and long hair would not be recognizable to someone familiar with tropical versions of the beasts. His scientists called the things 'mastodons', but to Hiawatha an elephant was an elephant, no matter how hairy his coat. They were the source of the fabled Iroquois ivory, a fact that only a few priviledged individuals were aware of, even within his own nation. Hunting the huge things was great sport for the chief, although others failed to see what was 'sporting' about bringing down the animals with muskets. The tusks of one particularly large beast hung above the mantle of the fireplace that he now gazed into.
Cornplanter had not responded to his question, knowing his chief well enough to understand that it had been posed rhetorically. They had been friends long before either of them had wielded the reins of power. Hiawatha knew that the man was waiting patiently for an answer, so there was no reason to leave him hanging any longer. "Conducting diplomacy is just like hunting these elephants, Cornplanter," he said. "If you want to dominate the others, you start by taking down the biggest and meanest one there is first. Once you do that, the rest is easy." He took another sip from the goblet in his hand; this truly was an excellent vintage.
"Are you insane?" asked his finest general, clearly in a state of shock. "Have you looked at the intelligence reports that we have on their military? They're going to crush us! Just neutralizing their production base in Mongolia alone would be difficult, but now they can draw on all of the resources of Korea and Germany as well. We don't have a chance!"
Cornplanter's nerves looked to be frazzled by their discussion. He would have to build the man's spirit back up again. "I'm not concerned with the number of forces that the Mongols have under their banners. They are nothing more than barbarians and pose no threat to the Iroquois Confederacy whatsoever. If they try landing here, we will simply sweep them into the sea. I have full confidence in your abilities, General," Hiawatha finished. He nodded to himseld inwardly; that should set the man straight. He was so good at politics!
But Cornplanter was already shaking his head. "It's not a matter of my leadership of the army, Chief, but a question of numbers and technology. I will lead the forces we have to the best of my ability, but we simply can't match up with their firepower. If I go up against Temujin with archers and mounted warriors against his endless streams of cavalry, I'm going to lose. I don't fear for my own life, but your decision could spell ruin for our entire people."
Hiawatha felt a surge of irritation at the man's stubbornness. Why couldn't he see that defeating the Mongols was the best way to turn his small and outdated nation into the world's greatest power? Hiawatha could see it now; his army marching in triumph through the streets of Karakorum with himself at its head in a chariot drawn by a dozen of the finest horses. Wrapped in robes of the finest silk and with the great khan himself walking as a prisoner in his wake, he heard the crowds calling his name over and over again, like waves crashing against the shores. Caught up in his own fantasy, Hiawatha ceased paying attention to his surroundings entirely.
"Chief, snap out of it!" yelled Cornplanter in his best officer's voice. Hiawatha spun around dazedly to regard the general who was half out of his chair, his face etched with lines of worry for his leader. "I am truly sorry Chief," he apologized, "but you've been staring at the fire for almost five minutes now and I was becoming worried." Hiawatha trusted him absolutely; there was no chance that the man would ever betray him. He had had plenty of opportunities to do so in the past, and never capitalized on them in the least.
"Ah, sorry about that Cornplanter, I was merely thinking about how glorious our eventual victory will be." And it would be glorious when they won! Just the thought of the power he would wield upon supplanting Temujin was almost enough to make him giddy.
"Yes, that may be true, but please reconsider the situation." Cornplanter began one final attempt to change his mind. "Think of the forces used in the attack that you authorized - without my knowing - on the Mongolian mainland. Do you really believe that the small detachments we sent there can capture a city, much less hold it for any length of time?"
"No, I don't think we can capture a city there," replied Hiawatha lazily, sitting down once again in his chair and taking another sip of his wine. It was truly wonderful stuff, a pure pleasure to take in.
He noticed that Cornplanter was goggling at him in pure amazement, shocked to his core. The general began speaking very rapidly, the words pouring out one atop the other. "Then why send such an attack at all? Don't you know that any foreigners setting foot on Mongolia is enough to send Temujin into a rage? He won't stop until we're all dead!"
As much as he loved and trusted his old friend, sometimes Cornplanter's lack of political adroitness made him sigh, as the great chief did now. If only he could be more clever like Hiawatha! "I knew that the attack wasn't going to succeed. But that's not what was important anyway; the attack served as a message to Temujin and all of the other civilizations in the world. A message saying that we intend to take this fight to Mongolia, and that we will not see fighting on our own shores!" Temujin would surely have been impressed by the audacity of his attack; he was probably huddling in his palace in fear at this very moment. "It will be your job, General Cornplanter, to make sure that this plan becomes a reality." Hiawatha failed to notice that a green tinge was spreading on the other man's face and he appeared ready to faint.
"What you have asked of me is impossible," stated Cornplanter in an unsteady voice.
"Don't worry General; I have absolute confidence in your abilities," replied his chief. That would take care of things with Cornplanter. And in just a few years he would be riding through the streets of Karakorum in triumph. He could imagine the parade now, had been planning it for months in fact. There would be elephants to start in the forefront, followed by scores of the most beautiful women from across his new empire, then his chariot drawn by a dozen - no, two dozen of the finest horses, and then...
Cornplanter walked away from the meeting that night a pale shadow of his former self, not even noticing the fine furnishings of the room that he had been provided in the hunting lodge. His friend had always been given to delusions of grandeur, but this was too much. As he lay in bed staring at the ceiling, Cornplanter began thinking about how best to arrange for his family to be sent discreetly overseas to London. He couldn't escape his duties, but there was no reason for them to suffer.
Everyone in the Confederacy is going to die, was his last though before falling into a troubled sleep.
