The next big event in my game was the war between China and Persia that broke out in 10BC. I have no idea what started it; probably some useless colonial squabbling in the far north of the island. The impact on the game was enormous, however. Here is the map from 10AD right as the war began:
I apologize for putting up such a large map, but I wanted to provide a full-scale view of the island to anyone reading this. Persia had started the war by sneak-attacking and capturing Chinan, which is the city that lies between Tokyo and Nagoya on the map. It was size 2 when it was captured and had no culture; I really wished that it had been size 1 so it would have been auto-razed! By the way, you can see that Tokyo is building a courthouse in preparation for a FP build. I badly wanted to get my hands on Chinan and Bactra, since they were so close to its site. But I was in no position to any fighting myself, of course - I had no units better than swords, after all.
Almost immediately after the fighting broke out, masses of AI troops began poring over my borders. There were dozens of them; AI civs love to build up big standing armies which they do not have to pay unit support costs for on Deity (unless the number is REALLY high). Since the brainless AI targeting mechanism decided to send them after colonies in the north, the result was long streams of Chinese soldiers in blue marching up my west coast while Persian ones in green walked through the mountains to the east. Since they were both moving through tough terrain, neither side moved very quickly at all. I was watching multiple battles every single turn, as the AI behind the two civs made boneheaded attack after boneheaded attack (across rivers, onto mountains, etc.) If the computer opponents had any concept of combined arms, the player would never have a chance in this game. But as it is, every single knight or immortal or rider would end its move in a position where it could easily be cut down on the next turn. It was a complete and utter waste of production on both sides, and I absolutely loved it. Go get 'em guys! Waste your shield bonuses and city development time on fighting pointless wars. Just because the AI civs get more bonuses on Deity doesn't mean that they are any smarter, after all.
Here's a random sample of the units in my territory; I have no idea what year exactly its from and it could have been almost any turn from 10BC to 300AD.
I really like this picture; perhaps I will even submit it to that "Screenshot of the Day" thing that CivFanatics is running now. It reminds me of Sirian's classic picture from his To the Bitter End game where dozens of French cavalry are riding by a city defended by a solitary - regular - warrior. OK, it's not that good, but it still makes me smile. Fortunately, those units were not headed after me; there's no way I could have stopped them from killing me instantly if that were the case. So the two strongest civs on my island continued to slug it out and waste all those units to absolutely no avail whatsoever in my territory. Meanwhile, I continued my painstakingly slow city development.
The world didn't sit still while this war went on, though it did occupy my attention for good reasons. In 270AD I found that Mao had made contact with the Iroquois (the Chinese had built the Great Lighthouse; in fact, virtually every wonder was built by one of the civs on my island.) This was a great stroke of luck because the Iroquois were behind in tech but had Monarchy, which I lacked. I traded them some outdated stuff for it and revolted right away - and yes, I didn't get out of despotism until 280AD. Tech was pretty slow and I didn't have much income to work with. My Monarchy lasted all of 8 turns (but was still worth it with 1-turn anarchy) before being replaced by a Republic in 360AD, as my 40-turn min science approach finally ended. I also completed the Forbidden Palace in Tokyo in 470AD after about 25 turns of construction, greatly increasing my income and production across the board. Coincidentally, I also bought contact with the Babylonians and Aztecs on that turn from the Chinese. Azteca was in lousy shape, clearly about to be pushed off their starting continent and onto a small island (which did take place shortly thereafter). Babylon was huge, easily much bigger than any civ on my island, and yet they were badly behind on tech. It appears that they had been fighting the Aztecs virtually the entire game as well. I think that all of the freebie starting units that the AI gets on Deity leads them to start wars that just go on and on and on. It would certainly explain a lot about the game on that level.
Now all this fighting going on in my territory had gotten me thinking quite a bit about this game. Tech was moving very slowly; as slow as a Monarch game it seemed, and on Deity there's just no way to jump into research yourself and jump ahead unless you have a significant amount of territory, which I clearly did not. So my original plan, which was more or less to hunker down and wait for modern armor and then clean out the world, was going to be a somewhat dicey proposition. If we didn't get to armor until 1700 or 1800AD (when was the last time a game of mine lasted THAT long? I honestly can't remember), I might not have enough time to conquer everyone, especially since virtually all cities would be metropolises guarded by mechs - nasty going. Persia and China were beating each other's brains out here, and they were (slowly) wearing each other's forces down. As the initial units were killed off, the civs grew slower and slower to replace them. I was playing the Japanese in this game, a civ with a powerful Middle Ages UU, and therefore a Golden Age to go with it. What's more, Persia's only source of iron AND horses lay just on the other side of my borders in Antioch. Without that, they would be unable to build anything that was any good on offense or defense (with the way the AI uses them, longbows are terrible). On top of all that, I was supplying Persia with no fewer than three luxuries, which would hurt them dearly if cut off. A daring attack that touched off a golden age and simultaneously eviscerated Persian resources could have enormously good results - if it worked, that is. Should I try something so chancey? In the end, it was the spirit of the game that decided it for me. This was a conquest game, so it was time to go and kick some butt! And if it failed, well, at least I would have an entertaining story to tell about it.
I put all my cities not on critical infrastructure onto building samurai. I calculated that I would need about 10-15 to have a good chance of winning a significant victory. There was no chance for a large-scale upgrade here; I needed to trade away almost all of my gold and gpt just to get the techs needed to build samurai. I had a couple of different goals that I would try to achieve based upon how things were faring in battle, but in order to show them I'm going to have to put up another map from 510AD:
Another large image, I know, but it helps to explain what was going on. I had a couple of goals I wanted to achieve, and I would go for different ones depending on how thigs were faring with the dice rolls. The most important of all was to take and raze Antioch, then found another city to control the resources there. Without iron and horses, Persia would be all but helpless. If 10 or so samurai couldn't take that city... well then, I would just be screwed. If things went well, I would see how far I could push things into Persia itself. Pasargadae held the Great Library, so I deliberatly did not acquire Education in the hopes that perhaps I would be able to grab the city and snag the free techs. But in reality, I didn't expect to get that far. I was also going to keep 5 samurai in the Tokyo/Kagoshima area to fend off attacks from the Persia colonies (which would come from longbows and would be sliced to ribbons easily) and attempt to take Bactra, Chinan, Sidon.... If I could get those, the war would be a huge success. But everything could go horribly wrong, or need to be changed at an instant. I would go into a Golden Age though, which would help, and Kyoto should be able to get to 24 shields/turn for samurai every 3 turns. Still, a lot would be in the hands of Lady Luck.
Right before I was ready to attack, disaster struck. China captured the city of Gordium, and Persia made peace with them as a result! I had planned to sign a military alliance with Mao, both to keep him from turning sides and attacking me and because I could get something out of it. This was bad; I was pretty sure I could take Persia, but if someone else jumped in against me, it could start the snowball rolling that would end with everyone against me and my civ most certainly dead. To make matters worse, Persia had apparently discovered Gunpowder recently because now their cities had muskets in them. Not good news at all. But with so many shields in my samurai, I had to go forward with the attack. I traded for Gunpowder with Persia and saw that they only had one source, on their border near Pasargadae. Now I had a doubly good reason for taking that city. My revised goals were to take and raze Antioch, capture Pasargadae, then fight a defensive war in the south while seizing colonies in the north. In any case, in 640AD I asked Xerxes to move his forces or declare war. He declared war (ruining any reputation he may have had, by the way) and the game was afoot. Iacta alea est, well and truly. Xerxes would pay for his arrogance, and all those demands he made, or I would end up dead. What happened next will be continued tomorrow when I finish writing up the story of my game. :)
