Epic 11, Part IV

If you look carefully at the last screenshot, you can see that Monty had made a landing near Philadelphia - the only real disadvantage of having a coastal city that you're not supposed to have. Well, we all know how the AI is not that great at doing surprise landings, especially not when all it has are galleys - right? And especially not on Prince! Right? RIGHT?!?


Wow. I mean, WOW! The AI had managed, on Prince, with galleys only, to land a catapult, a war elephant, two horse archers and two chariots! Additionally, a crossbowman was advancing on the city as well the old-fashioned way. I doff my chapeau to Monty - you have my respect, dear sir! I had seen the galleys last turn, but had no reinforcements ready anywhere near, so all I could do was to upgrade my archers to longbows (thanks, great merchant!), and hope.

Well, what can I say? The city did not fall. Of course not; this was not betterAI, so not all units attacked. Instead, most units spread out to pillage the city's improvements, and only the catapult and the war elephant attacked. Still, I was deeply impressed how Monty had surprise-landed six units near that city, and from then on I kept a larger garrison there - which in fact had to deal with several more landings, some of them as large as this one.

I needed a couple of turns to get some offensive units to Philadelphia to kill the pillagers, so that city lost most of its improvements. And finally in 1541AD, Monty was willing to talk again, and I made peace. Final result of this war: I had killed 6 war elephants, 4 macemen, 5 horse archers, 2 longbows, 4 crossbows, 6 catapults, 4 chariots and two spearmen. I lost 2 longbows, 4 workers(!) and one war elephant myself.

In fact, I got lucky not losing more units, as most fights were not as much in my favor as I wanted them to be. Additionally, I feared more war declarations (Genghis had just switched to vassalage and theocracy...) but also had not really the time to build much military, as I was still spreading religions and building culture. So although I would have liked to prioritize other techs, like Biology for example, I forced myself to go for Rifling next, to have a military tech advantage for the inevitable next war.

I got lucky with Genghis at least; he attacked poor Hatty instead of me. I gifted her Gunpowder, although I wasn't totally sure whether I was helping her with this or not. It did not made much difference: A few turns later, her empire was no more. That went so fast, I wouldn't have had any chance to intervene, even if I had wanted to! What I found funny was that glitch in diplomacy: Alex demanded that I cancelled all my deals with Hatty.


Sure Alex, I'll do that - she just died that turn anyway, so why not?

In 1553AD, I generated another great prophet (at about 10% odds). Damn. But that's what you get when you dilute your GPP pool...oh, and talking about moves: Somehow, I had mixed up cities and had nearly completed Hermitage in the wrong city! How stupid is that? As I've said, after 1502AD, this became one of my worse games. Well, at least I learned that you get monetary refunds for shields you had invested into a national wonder if you complete it somewhere else later, just like you get for missed great wonders. I didn't know that!


In 1628AD, Alex adopted Vassalage and Theocracy - but only to declare on Saladin. Phew! Genghis declared on Julius in 1643AD, and ate him for lunch: Rome was gone in 1700AD already! I was really impressed by the speed of which some AIs rolled over others.

Oh, and don't think I was an uninvolved bystander in all these wars around the world: In 1649AD, Monty declared war on me. Again. And again, he went after Madrid.


But this time, I was better prepared. Prioritizing Rifling might have cost me culturally, but it sure had given me the military advantage I wanted. Here's what I had in Madrid, waiting to slaughter Monty's stacks:


And good thing I had garrisoned Philadelphia better this time, too. Monty made some more landings, for example this one in 1706AD:


A bit heavy on catapults and a bit light on offensive units, but still - he did better than the AIs in most other games I played. Still, well prepared as I was, I killed that stack, and made peace again. Result of this war: Killed 2 grenadiers, 11 knights, 8 catapults, 6 war elephants, 8 musketmen and 3 crossbows - and, surprisingly, I lost 4(!) riflemen and 2 knights in the war. Especially with the riflemen I had had some bad luck...

All these wars and the units losses prevented me from improving my power rating really, so only a couple of turns later, Genghis decided it was about time for my 6th war in this game. He had cavalry, and lots of them! He sent two big attack stacks in the north against Boston, while five(!) groups of two cavs each started to pillage me back to the stone age in the south. Ouch! Unfortunately I forgot to make screenshots from that war, as I was so focused on surviving...yes, you read right: I feared I might lose core cities and thus the game! On Prince difficulty! It was insane.

I emergency-whipped units, emptied my northern cities and rushed every avaiable unit I had east, and if Alex or Monty had declared on me at that time, it would have been game over for me. Add to this the fact that I had no real tech advantage (it was mainly riflemen vs. cavalry), and you might imagine how I felt. In another move, I had raised the culture slider to 20% in the 16th century already, figuring it couldn't hurt because, hey!, this was Prince only!, so I don't need 100% research, right?

Well, it looked like I was wrong. I managed to defeat the two monster attack stacks eventually, but hadn't enough units to deal with the pillagers in the south at the same time. Never ever had I been pillaged so much like in this game! Yaroslavl, Yekaterinburg, Atlanta, half of New York(!) and the outskirts of Washington itself lost all their improvements before I could kill these damn cavs finally. I had clearly neglected military too much, not being used to aggressive AIs! And after Genghis had devoured both Hatty and Julius, he was the leader in score now, even (slightly) ahead of me.

Still, I had a lot of fun with this war! I hadn't fought such a close war in a long time which at the same time still felt "fair", as in not having to face Immortal or Deity production boni! I think the only time I had as much fun fighting was in my no science game.

I decided to research Assembly Line next, for infantry, so that I would have a military tech advantage again. And again, important techs like Biology got delayed...Oh, and did I say I had fun with this war? Well, this was true until Monty decided to join the fray in 1782AD.


Argh! I was able to negotiate peace with Genghis two turns later, but now most of my units were in the south and in need for some healing. And so Monty's pillage stacks had a free reign in my northern territory, even though he was backwards in tech and unable to attack my cities. He seemed to have been bribed by Genghis to attack me (as the AIs often love to ask for military assistance a turn or two before they make peace themselves!), as only pillaging stacks appeared and he made peace again relatively early. Still, the damage was done: I had lost most of my southern tile improvements to Genghis already, and a lot of my northern improvements now as well. I had also lost a couple of workers, some to the surprise attack, some to , so I had to build a round of workers in all of my cities next.

Oh, and another collateral damage from the wars was that I lost the Statue of Liberty to Peter, but was getting used to that by then.

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