At the point where the last page ended, I had just upgraded nine veteran warriors to swordsmen and declared war on Russia. The great gamble of the early game was thus underway; if this didn't succeed, I would be royally screwed. But the odds of failure were very low, so I was quite confident that things would go my way in this war that Catherine undoubtedly was not expecting or prepared for. I sent two swords after the Russian warrior/settler pair moving to the south and the other seven west towards Russia. Taking Sevastopol, my first target, simply a matter of moving my swords next to the city - at which time I found it was defended by a regular warrior. Yeah, seven veteran swords against a regular warrior; gee, I wonder who came out ahead in that one?
This image has been lost.
The picture tells the story better than I ever could. The only disappointment was that the city was auto-razed; it would have been nice to capture it. A lot of Russia's cities were size one and would be razed upon capture, but they could always be replaced by my own cities. The two swords in the north, a regular and a vet, were heading for another Russian city up on the northern penninsula of my island. Those two represented the first actual sword built and a regular warrior upgraded a couple of turns after the main group. Down in the south, the two swords I had sent after the Russian warrior/settler pair were not fast enough to catch them before a city was founded. No matter; Sverdolovsk was auto-razed upon capture the very turn it was founded in 670BC. And then a barb horse killed one of the two swords down there. *sigh* Would you believe that the barbs killed more of my units than the Russians did? That was actually true in this war.
Tblisi was also autorazed in 630BC, defended only by one regular warrior. Come on Cathy, you're a scientific civ starting with Bronze Working - where are the spears? The fact that these cities were buried in jungle had prevented them from building adequate defenders, a fact that I would using to full advantage. On the next turn in 610BC, I captured my greatest prize yet, the city of St. Petersburg which had been Russia's second city and controlled almost all of the gems on the continent. Unfortunately, it too was auto-razed upon capture, since Cathy had whipped it down to size one to get one spear defender.
I could have continued fighting and advanced into the heart of Russia itself. But Catherine was already to give me huge peace concessions for capturing half of her total cities (even if many of them were hopelessly buried in jungle) so I decided it would be prudent to stop here and get what I could. Then, I could return 20 turns later and take a few more cities, grabbing more techs for peace. I was extremely far behind in technology at this point, so it made good sense to get knowledge for peace. I signed a crippling peace with Russia in 610BC, Cathy agreeing to give up Alphabet, Mysticism, Masonry, her World Map, 105g, and the cities of Smolensk and Odessa. Russia was reduced to three cities, and its power as a nation fatally broken. Notice that Catherine already could give me her world map so she had the tech of Map Making - at a time when I lacked Alphabet and Masonry! Here is what the world looked like after signing peace in 610BC:
One of the nice things about the PTW expansion is the ruins that form whenever you raze a city. As a result, the locations of the Russian cities that I captured and were autorazed can be seen very nicely in the above picture. My new cities of Smolensk and Odessa also gave me complete control of all land east of the mountains that ran across the continent just to the west of the chokepoint, as well as a gateway to Moscow on their other side. My goal for peace should be pretty obvious: fill in all of the open territory with my own cities to ensure that Russia would never regain any kind of power. I've also indicated a foreign border to the south across the sea with a large red arrow. I fortified a sword on the southernmost part of my continent hoping to make contact as soon as possible, but without Map Making I could not go there and find the other civ myself. From the blue border, it appeared to be Germany down there, and I wasn't sure I wanted contact with the aggressive Bismarck this early in the game either.
The next few turns were pretty uneventful. Long-delayed infrastructure projects were completed in some of my core cities while Karakorum produced a number of settlers to repopulate the jungles. In 530BC I got a message saying that the Vikings had completed the Oracle - Ragnar was a busy little boy whereever he was. A century later in 430BC, almost half of the Russian cities had been rebuilt, several times by founding a city on the exact spot where the razed one had once sat. Unfortunately, in 390BC Russia founded Yakutsk on the spot of the old St. Petersburg when my attempts to block their settler failed as a result of a misclicked move. No big deal; I could always capture it back in the next conflict.
I had also begun some of my own research during this peace interval. Knowing that the AI civs almost always ignore the tech Polytheism, I began research on it at close to max rate and discovered it in 350BC. Russia was willing to trade Writing for it in a straight-up deal, which I needed in order to be able to get the techs past Writing from Cathy in peace concessions. I heard in 290BC that Paris had built the Pyramids, leading immediately to the cascade production of the Lighthouse by the English. Hopefully this meant that I would be seeing other civs sooner rather than later. If you've played this game a lot, you'll know that the turns last 20 "years" between 750BC and 250AD. That meant that 20 turns after 610BC was the year 210BC - and so, once again, I declared war on Russia in 210BC to wring more peace concessions from Cathy. Here was the changed view of the continent at that date:
This picture was taken after I had already declared war and moved my swords into Russian territory; I certainly didn't move into their territory and then declare war. The game treats that as a reputation-staining act. In any case, some nine swords had congregated on the unfortunate city of Yakutsk. However, since the city was size two instead of size one, it did not get auto-razed like its predecessor and instead survived to live on as a Mongol city. I wouldn't have suspected it at the time, but Yakutsk had a great and important future ahead of it... but again, back to the subject at hand. In addition to capturing Yakutsk in 190BC, I also snagged a settler/spear pair that had been trying to get past the chokepoint. Free workers! I always love that.
The next few turns were spent dueling it out with the few Russian swords that Catherine possessed, who immediately came after me over the mountains. If they had been smart, they would have fortified there and presented a formidable obstacle to my advancement towards Moscow. Instead, they foolishly came down onto the grassland and hills next to Yakutsk, where they were killed (with losses) by my own swords. In 150BC though, I set out my stack of swords towards Moscow, which arrived there a few turns later. The battle for the capital went badly, with a number of vet swords losing to regular spears. I managed to capture the city with a single hit point left on my last sword that could attack - whew! That was a close one!
I would have been in a prickly situation if that attack had failed, with most of the swords that had made the assault dead and reinforcements nowhere in sight. I'm just glad that it did work out for me. As a result, I was able to sign a second crippling peace with Cathy; this time, she agreed to give me Map Making, Philosophy, her WM, 50g, and the city of Vladivostock for twenty turns of peace. That sounded good to me, as my offensive forces were almost completely spent at this point and I didn't know if I could even defend Moscow if counterattacked. Once again though, the Mongols stood triumphant with Temujin's foot firmly planted on Catherine's back.
The first thing I did upon signing peace was to switch one of my cities over to producing a galley, so that I could meet the Germans down in the south. Then, to my horror, a barbarian galley killed my ship in 50AD before it could make it down there! Grrr... I hate the barbarians! Rather than give up, I whipped another one in Dalandzadgad, which was right next to the blue border. On the next turn I made contact with that civ to the south, beginning a new age in the history of the Mongols.
Note: The scene below takes place in 610BC, at the time of the first peace treaty with Russia.
"Which would you prefer my lady: the white or the brown?"
Catherine sighed heavily and glanced at her maid, who was holding out two different gowns of the finest wool for her to select. It was a silly question to ask, as either one would be concealed by the heavy fur coat that she would be wearing outdoors in the beastly weather, but then again her maid was a rather silly woman to begin with. She carried out her duties very well though, and for that Catherine was willing to put up with the woman's continuing fascination with the latest styles of dress.
"The brown will do just fine," she replied. White would make her seem like a supplicant at today's meeting, an appearance that Catherine could not afford. Far too much was at stake for that. She absently let her maid fuss over dressing her while letting her thoughts range ahead to the conference that was approaching all too quickly. Catherine's thoughts darkened momentarily. This was not something that she was looking forward to in the least.
Shooing out the other woman as soon as she was finished, Catherine paused to consider her surroundings. The tent in which she was standing was as fine as a portable home could be, with bright-colored carpets covering the dirt floor and an elaborately carved, four-post wooden bed in one corner. That required its own horse-drawn wagon to be carried from place to place each day, but Catherine was not about to sleep on the ground no matter how many blankets were piled on top of it. Three iron-bound chests rested in another corner, carrying her extensive wardrobe and collection of jewels. Each one was heavy enough to require two men to lift, and required their own transporation just as problematic as the bed. She opened one of those now and carefully selected out which stones to wear to create the right impression for today. There was no shortage of fine gems to choose from, mined with great care from the mountains to the west of St. Petersburg. Or what had been St. Petersburg she thought with a surge of momentary rage that was quickly dissipated. She had to be calm today, of all days. In the end, Catherine selected out one strand of diamonds to set in her hair and a simple band of gold offset with rubies for her wrist. It was important to demonstrate that Russia was a wealthy and powerful nation - but not to be too ostentatious in showing it. That could lead to its own problems. Pausing for a moment to soak in as much heat as possible from the warm coals placed in another part of the tent, Catherine wrapped her warmest fur coat around her and ducked out into the chilly morning air.
A light snow was falling outside, filling the air with a thousand flakes of soft powder. Dark clouds over the mountains to the west promised a blizzard before much longer; hopefully the day's business could be concluded before the storm hit. The camp around Catherine teemed with several thousand men, soldiers crowded around small camp fires in groups of twos and threes preparing their morning meal. They were a sorry sight for the most part, wearing tattered and worn uniforms that had clearly seen better days and wielding mismatched weapons of all sorts. The sight was certainly nothing like those men who had paraded through the streets of Moscow a few months earlier with gleaming arms and polished armor. These men had seen real combat, and it had not treated them well. Most troubling of all was the feeling of despondancy that permeated the camp; morale was extremely low after the string of massive defeats suffered one after the other in rapid succession. There were whispers of desertion beginning to circulate among the men, and Catherine didn't have the faintest idea of what she would do if they became more than mere whispers. She hurried past the campfires without paying the slightest attention to the soldiers fighting in her name. They were just commoners after all, and held no interest for the tsarina.
On the eastern edge of the camp she met up with her small bodyguard for the day's parley. A dozen of the finest Russian warriors - no more than twelve had been the agreement - as well as a number of her advisors from the capital. Although her military advisor was not overly bothered from being out on campaign, the rest of her council looked decidedly out of place here in the countryside. Her science advisor in particular was barely recognizable, his face buried underneath the hood of no fewer than three different warm coats. In all honesty Catherine herself had no desire to be here, but the demands of ruling seldom allowed one to do as one wished. At least one person present had even less desire than her for this trip, a certain one-handed former emissary to Mongolia who seemed to be trying to hide from view as much as possible. She remembered when he had appeared at the frontier town of Sevastopol, feverish and half-dead, with a message of imminent Mongol attack. If only she had paid attention to him then rather than laughing him out of her court! In any case though, they were wasting valuable time. Catherine quietly gave out a series of orders to her guards, and within moments everyone was mounted upon their horses and riding to the east.
Their path took them through slowly rolling grasslands broken occasionally by small stretches of forest. Catherine paid no attention to the beautiful snow-covered trees or the picturesque small frozen lakes that dotted the region. As the sun slowly rose in the eastern sky, she tried to figure out how best to approach the upcoming meeting. Her advisors were of little help, offering their opinions when pressed but yielding little information of any value. They were in a serious pickle, and no one there could see any easy way out of it. But it was a ruler's duty to provide for her people when no one else could, so Catherine rode deep in thought about how to handle her nation's problems. Surely there must be some solution there if only she could see it! But the sun continued to rise, the miles went by one after another, and still the answers eluded her.
It was almost midday when the small band reached the designated meeting place, an unremarkable meadow at the top of a small rise in the land where anyone trying to approach could be seen from miles away. Catherine noted sourly that the group she was there to meet was already present; they must have left before dawn to get there, as their camp was even further away. As their horses crested the rise, Catherine took the opportunity to study the other group that faced them with fixed expressions. One man sat his horse a few paces in front of the others - like all of the other savages he rode barebacked, of course - in dress no different from the others but seeming to possess an air of command all the same. Temujin was wearing an iron breastplate over a shirt of boiled leather tough enough to turn away a blow from a weak hand, along with loose trousers of the same material. Unlike the elaborately jeweled tsarina's crown atop Catherine's head that she had donned just before coming into view of the rise, Temujin wore only a simple helmet of beaten iron. It was the outfit of an ordinary solider, completed by the sword - not a ceremonial one - that hung at his waist. As she got closer, Catherine saw that the other man's face was covered with a mass of scars, some old and some new, and dominated by a nose that had been broken at least once. A fiery red line traced down the right side of his face from brow to chin - but surely those rumors that had placed Temujin in the hottest fighting inside St. Petersburg were false. They couldn't actually be true, could they? As she reined in her horse a few paces away and dismounted with the help of a guard, Temujin lept light down to the ground without assistance and approached her. His mouth opened into a horrible broken-toothed grin as he began to speak.
"Ah, Cathy, so good to see you! And I see you've brought my old friend Fyodor as well!" he began with a not-so kind wave to the little one-handed Russian. Fyodor, who had looked none so good to begin with, began trembling uncontrollably in fear. Catherine realized that it had been a mistake to bring him, as she had given Temujin control of the conversation from the start. Although it wasn't as if he couldn't have taken control in some other way, given the situation. Trying to rectify her error, Catherine returned her own greetings.
"It is a pleasure to see you once again, great khan. Truly it had been too long since we last spoke." If she could keep this meeting civil, there would be a better chance to emerge with more of her nation intact.
But Temujin would have none of it. "A pleasure? Maybe for me, but not so much for you I think," he answered. He was still grinning as if the whole thing was enormously entertaining. Well, maybe it was for him. "You're the one who called this conference Cathy, so why don't you tell me what you want, hmmm? I think the snow's going to pick up soon, and we wouldn't want your dainty little advisors to get frostbitten, would we?"
This was not going well. Catherine wanted to snap back at him for his lack of civility - he was treating her like one of the women he used to entertain himself! - but she was in no position to do so. Patience, she once again reminded herself. "The current conflict between our nations serves only to waste lives and precious resources that could be better spent elsewhere," she responded. "I come here to ask that we work together to forge a just and lasting peace between our two nations." There, the hardest part was out now, as much as she had not wanted to say it.
"You want peace, do you? Well we'd be more than happy to give you that - in return for certain concessions, of course. You are prepared to offer concessions, aren't you Cathy?" His infernal grin never slipped even the slightest fraction.
"We are prepared to offer concessions," she replied woodenly. The words were like ashes in her mouth.
"Well good then, because here are the demands of the Mongolian people," he said cheerfully. "First of all, we freely acknowledge that the Russians possess a great deal of knowledge that we lack. Therefore you will send a number of your finest wise men to Karakorum to instruct us in your secrets that we lack. Secondly, I'll freely tell you that this war has been rather expensive for us, just as I'm sure it has been for you as well. So we want the full contents of the Russian treasury; gold, gems, whatever you have, it now belongs to us. Finally, in burning so many of your cities to the ground, we've failed to provide adequate housing of all of our people. Therefore you will cede the cities of Smolensk and Odessa to Mongolia as well. Those are our terms, and they are not negotiable. You have five minutes to tell me of your decision." With that he turned and started back towards his attendants.
Catherine was stunned. As each term of his peace treaty was read, she felt an invisible fist pummel her body. How could she possibly agree to such a deal? It meant political suicide for Russia! This was turning into a nightmare. "Wait," she called desperately to the departing Temujin. "There has to be something we can discuss here. I'm prepared to offer gems and gold to you for peace, but what you've asked of me is impossible!"
"Is that so?" the khan turned to face her, his grin gone and his eyes now flashing murderously. "Then I suggest you make it possible in a hurry. The way I see it, you've lost half of your empire already and you're about to lose the other half. That 'army' to the west is ready to fall apart at any minute; if you try to send them into combat again you'll find that the only ones who rally to your banner are those ten fools behind you. You country is soft and weak; agree to my terms or I will break you like an egg. There will be no negotiating. You have four more minutes." And with that, he wheeled about again and rejoined his men.
Catherine's advisors were beside themselves with agitation when she turned to consult with them. No one wanted to speak up in favor of the treaty, knowing that they could be used as a scapegoat if they did so, but no one was willing to advocate continued war either. Worst of all, Fyodor's mood seem to have spread among the group, which had taken on a profoundly pessimistic air. The little man himself flinched every time one of the Mongols looked at him and appeared to be trying to hide in the mane of his horse, from the way he had his face tightly pressed against it. Every time he lifted his head he would spot one of the foreigners and huddle down lower than before; he would fall off the beast if this kept up any longer. Desperately Catherine looked for a way out of this, but only the cruel wind and swirling flurries of snow were there to meet her gaze. Thunder rumbled in the distance; it was clear that storm was approaching rapidly.
When Temujin approached again a few moments later, Catherine had made her decision. She only prayed that her people could forgive her.
