Hammurabi and I had enjoyed an uneasy peace for the last few turns. I was in great relations with all other civs, but the Babylonians remained "furious." The key sticking point between us was control over the incense in the hills between our civs. This was pretty cool, as it simulated what a real life dispute between nations would be like. Anyway, here was the map from 1000BC:
The Babylonians had beaten me to the incense by just a few turns; I settled for founding Chartres right next to Akkad in the hopes of culture flipping it; you can see a temple is under construction. In the east, I had secured a supply of silks by founding Marseilles ahead of the English. I believe they would have had that location if I hadn't stunted their growth early on by purchasing those two workers from them. The dyes in the south I also had more or less locked up at this point. The southern tundra was still spawning barbarians at this time though. The Indian warriors in my territory were there fairly as a result of a ROP agreement which I had signed to get some gold from Gandhi. At this point, I was in full settler mode.
On the very next turn (980BC), Hammurabi demanded tribute from me. I ignored his request, and Hammurabi declared war once again. This Second Babylonian War was not one I was prepared to fight, as I had little military and was more concerned with snapping up territory with settlers at the moment. Things did not get better as a stack of bowmen and swordsmen moved right into my territory on the first Babylonian turn. I was determined to protect my cities from capture though and take Akkad away from the Babylonians, which would secure that supply of incense. Since I was so thin on the front, I had to pull defenders out of my inner cities and leave them unoccupied to defend Chartres and Rheims. This had an unexpected result.
I was caught unaware a few turns into the war when Babylon signed a military alliance with India, causing Gandhi to declare war on me. The Indian warriors in my territory used this to their advantage by capturing an undefended Lyons. I was ROP raped! Well not really, since this was nowhere near what a human can do with a ROP exploit. But it still hurt losing my #3 city, even if I did capture it right back. In the east, an Indian regular warrior killed my fortified regular spearman in Marseilles. That was my silk city!! I was really disgusted at that result. All throughout this war I had lousy combat results. I was able to get Marseilles back too, but I lost some 25 turns of building a temple at 1shield/turn - not nice at all. After kicking them out of my cities, I never saw another Indian unit throughout this war, partly because I spent most of my treasury on a military alliance with the Iroquois versus the Indians. I never saw any battles between them and no cities changed hands, but it must have done some good to get Gandhi off my back.
Back on the Babylonian front I was having lousy luck again. My swordsmen were routinely losing to regular bowmen when attacking them out in the open. It was frustrating, to say the least. My first assault on Akkad with 5 swordsmen failed to kill two regular spearmen (sigh). A few turns later I attacked with another 5-6 swordsmen and succeeded, with losses. This was getting ridiculous; I had achieved my objectives for the war so it was time to sue for peace. I got peace from Hammurabi in 670BC in an even-up peace treaty that gave nothing to either side. Akkad had been autorazed when I captured it, so I founded the city of Amiens to gain control of the incense, which gave me 5 luxuries. I was content with the situation, but the Babylonians remained furious with me, and a constant threat to my security.
Babylon was out of the war, but I remained at war with India. I didn't want to make peace since that would violate my alliance with the Iroquois. I fought no battles with them, and in 350BC the alliance ended. That turn I also came out of anarchy as a republic, the government I would stay in for the remainder of the game. This is the closest screenshot I have, from 510BC showing the new border with Babylon:
By this point, the national borders were more or less fixed. The only frontier that remained outside of offshore islands lay northwest of Babylon. This was not good, since it meant Babylon would continue to get stronger, but I didn't see anything I could do about it. I was surprised to find that I was right next to Babylon on top of the histograph at this point; it was very surprising to me that I was handling Emperor difficulty with no problems. I guess I have been improving more than I realized. Note Rouen above Paris as a "Nara"-esque (ahh, RBD23b :) fishing town designed just to bring in gold.
As the centuries turned over from BC to AD an uneasy peace continued with Babylon, which I don't think either of us expected to last. It was just a matter of time until war would break out again...
