Things changed after this war, as the other civs began scrupiously avoiding crossing into my territory. I'd like to think that they somehow "learned" from the lesson of England, but more likely they were just busy building railroads in their territory. Yes, steam power was developed a little after 1000AD, which is amazingly slow to what I'm used to. In any case, here's the map from 1000AD; the minimap shows how completely I dominated the globe at this point.
Turn after turn passed peacefully. I built a military railroad network that connected all my cities, then began improving the tiles around my core cities. I also had a second core to improve around my Forbidden Palace in Nineveh, which needed a lot of work to undue the silly decisions made by the AI workers. Tech continued to crawl by, as Steam Power, Industrialization, and Nationalism were the only techs discovered in the next 20 turns. I wanted the other civs to do something provocative and attack me so I could end this game. It amuses me that at the beginning of this game I wanted peace and got war, while now I wanted war and got peace! Maybe that shows that we are never satisfied with what we have.
One thing that stood out of the monotony was this event in 1180AD:
It was nice to know that a city actually could flip to ME for a change! I wasn't even trying to flip this city, but it was surrounded by my culture. In any case, it was another 10 tiles towards domination, so of course I accepted it.
Now I've been talking a lot about how I was so much stronger than the other civs and how this game was already "won." Experienced Civ players can tell just by looking at a map when a game has been won past the point where the AI can compete, but in case you doubt me I have included a histograph from 1150AD:
My power is larger than the other three civs combined, and my score was more than double that of 2nd place America. The AI was clearly not going to come back and win this game.
Finally in 1265AD, Abe DEMANDED that I give him tribute. I laughed in his face and hoped he would declare war. Unfortunately Abe backed down, but he also began sending a large force of rifles into my territory, a stack of about 10 of them. I have no idea if he was trying to sneak attack me or not, because on the next turn (1270AD) I asked the Americans to leave my territory or declare war. The response:
With Abe threatening me and likely preparing a sneak attack, I didn't feel bad at all about fighting the Americans. They had finally given me the opportunity to finish my game and I was certainly going to take the chance that was provided, even though we were fighting at a time in which offensives are very difficult to mount.
