My game had been completely peaceful so far, although from the post-game replay I discovered this was not the case on other continents. I was considering a war with Russia to take control of my whole island, but I had no plans to start fighting just yet and hoped to wait for the development of Chivalry and War Elephants to do so. However, as usual, the game ended up forcing my hand in ways I didn't expect. Here is the map from 230BC:
I clearly have firm control of my continent at this point, dominating 2/3 of it, and was beginning to expand to the small tundra island to my northeast, which was close to my capital and could be used to generate wealth as fishing towns. I could have packed more cities into the tundra for similar purposes, but I didn't want to turn this into an ICS game and make it less fun. The cities that I had were enough.
Of course, with people like Shaka, Xerxes, and Tokugawa in a game, it's just a matter of time before a war starts. Therefore, I wasn't all that surprised to hear through my embassies in 130BC that Japan and Russia had gone to war. Hey, I was glad that it happened, as it would only weaken them, as the AI is terrible at naval warfare and CANNOT invade effectively. I was less than glad to get this message in 30BC:
No demand, no warning, just a declaration of war followed by an attack on my colonies in the tundra. I was completely blindsided; the Zulus hadn't threatened me at all in the past. It wasn't a big deal, as they could hardly hurt me, but it was irritating. I thought at this time that maybe I could play an honorable game, but things began changing on me very rapidly. Two turns later, I get this message completely out of thin air:
Ummm... what did I do? It seems as though the world was out for my blood, although I had done nothing against them. Almost simultaneously, Persia and China went to war again, and the Zulus started a war with Egypt as well. The world was fragmenting into violence everywhere; it must have been due to the fact that there was no more land to be had. This was crazy; I needed an ally somewhere if I was to fight this war, and who better to recruit than the world's strongest power, the Japanese? I made this deal with Tokugawa to get the Zulus off my back:
This was a stiff price, but I thought it was worth it. Otherwise I could be faced with the prospect of taking on Japan, Russia, and Zululand at once, which I don't think I could have handled very well. My efforts went towards Russia, who had started this thing after all. Their cities outside their core were toast immediately; there was no way that Catherine could get forces there and defend them. With the world going into war and the situation totally changed, I began marshalling my forces to take Russia down.
