Epic 8
Page 2

On with the mahem.

Roosevelt shows up in 1930bc. He must be far away... and further, I found a barb city that I was prepared to capture! I didn't have to wait until 1000bc for that, right? Well, again, moot point. I had to chariots and a warrior against this...

BTW, I settled my city in a position to steal the elephants from musa, and was hoping that eventually I could flip his city culturally. That never happened. (did I settle too far away?) My second city also put me in the lead again, and I wanted to stay that way, so I had to focus some more on expansion and soon. After priesthood came in, I picked up the rest of hunting, and then beelined to construction. In 1030bc...

I took this wonder for early gp points and to deny it to other civs, not so much for the extra culture in my cities. Damned Caesar took over my top score spot and Mao came begging for open borders. Get bent Mao, I'm blocking off my space before it's too late! I whipped another settler before finishing the oracle, eyeing up a nice position west of my capital. I wanted to settle where the barbs are, but they beat me to it. :0) That's ok, I'll just take it from them and move my settler south for some more land grab, pushing against Mao's borders. You can see my forces moving towards the barb city already. I have to snag it before Caesar takes it.

Barb City was captured in 595bc. This city would provide gold, marble, fresh water and dyes. Plus, it would prevent Julius from spreading further into my lands. Well, almost. He founded north of here a little later. But it was a sad city spot for him, really. Capture of the barb city also provided another 53 gold. I was up in the 300s for gold at this point, things were looking good. Also out to 4 cities now. Not a huge expansion, but I'm holding my own. I try not to tick off too many civs early in a game where I'm surrounded, because I don't want them uniting to take back land I have poorly defended. I started Kushans on a worker, because I desperately needed another now. Here is a pic of the power chart. I don't usually pay attention to this at all, but this game, it was one of my personal goals to monitor this and see what effect it had on my game.

I'm not killing in military strength, but I'm in the pack. Although I see that Julius has a spike here recently... This probably means Praets... Also, around 235bc, I find out I'm only fourth in the world in wealth now. What happened? That's ok though, at this point, I'm 2 turns from construction. Then we'll boost that power rating AND our gold *snicker* After construction, I wanted to make use of archery, so I switch to monarchy for wines and on to Feudalism. Mansu Musa comes knocking and wanting horses. I laugh at him and send him on his way. My first GP comes in 85ad, good 'ol Mahavira! A great prophet, no surprise. I also complete what would be my last settler at this time and send him east to claim a little more land before Elizabeth and Saladin take it all.

Once borders in Kushan expand, I see that Julius does indeed have praets. Now it's only a matter of time, so I ramp up military some more, adding cats to the mix. In 260ad, china demands construction. I refuse yet another demand from a pushy civ. But right after that, Caesar demands my horses! Can you guess my answer? Well, he didn't like hearning an emphatic "NO". So he declared war in 260ad! He's not beating around the bush. Unfortunately for him, Kushans, the barb city I captured, was in a nice forward position, and cats and elephants were already on the way as I was expecting this. I also had some chariots here for... nothing really, I guess. Praets would destroy my chariots :( In other news, Tokugawa, Saladin, and Roosevelt were all buddhist. Maybe I should convert. Nah... Anyway, cats and elephants are on their way, but I am impatient, and can't resist invading Caesar before his forces enter MY borders. This seems to be an effective way to stop pillaging. If they have to defend, they're not harassing my cities! :) Just look at this HUGE stack I sent, lol.

Pisae up there is not hurting anything, so I wasn't going to bother with it for now. If he send the archer defenders out of that city, I would take it, but I wasn't too worried. One of his praetoreans had attacked my elephant on a hill and lost, so he only had one left in the city, but had archers and an axeman. Might be difficult to take Antium, but I think I can. Caesar sent a Praet and a horse archer around my little attack fleet, so my reinforcements had to stop and defend if necessary. Well, my forces overrun Antium in 530ad. Nice war you started there, Julius.

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