The stage had been set by my preparations. I had roughly 12-13 samurai in Osaka ready to strike at Antioch, and another 5-6 in Tokyo for use on defense and colonial expansion in that area. It was exactly the right moment to strike Persia, as they had just finished (2 turns earlier) their war with China and were at a low point in the number of their forces. In fact, there were only some 2 or 3 knights in my territory at the time I declared war! Compare that to the picture on the previous page with dozens of Persian and Chinese units walking through all over the place. I simply could not match those kind of numbers, and given time Persia would build them up again, but for the moment I had a window of opportunity that I meant to seize. Strike hard and fast with decisive numbers at the enemy's weakest point and even small numbers can achieve impressive results. I can't say I felt absolutely confident at the time, but I had a good feeling about things nonetheless.
This is the map of Persia right before I declared war. I'll be referring to these cities, so this way the reader can have a good idea of what's going on.
Antioch was the first city I went after, since it was the Persian iron and horses city and could be reached in one turn. It was size 12, on a hill, and defended by a musket (defense of 9 in that situation). Two samurai died another retreated before he was killed, which I consider to be pretty much expected results. Of course, with my first samurai victory I got the "Out great civilization has entered a Golden Age!" message. Huzzah! I was counting on that; no way in hell this was going to work otherwise. Fortunately, the Persians had badly neglected their city defenses and their next two defenders were only regular pikes. Only one samurai died killing them, since their defensive strength was only 5.25 in the city (and maybe I was a little lucky too). Then the last defender was a longbow, who was apparently resting in the city between turns and was easily dispatched. Antioch was mine! And I celebrated by razing it to the ground, as it had way too much culture to hold on to safely. I refounded a city one tile SE on the iron on the next turn, in order to decrease overlap with Osaka. That would also be a sweet site for a city, very close to my palace and with lots of good tiles to work. My losses were 3 samurai killed, about 6-7 more injured pretty severely, and 3-4 unhurt that defended the injured ones. I would have gladly paid a much higher price to take that location, so this was a fortuitous start indeed for my campaign.
I killed the couple of Persian units that happened to be in my territory with my Tokyo samurai; maybe one died but it was no real loss. Then I braced for the Persian counterattack that surely had to be coming. Out came three knights from the south... who promptly impaled themselves on my fortified samurai on hills. Several immortals ran out as well, but of course their limited movement left them out in the open where they could easily be picked off on my turn. And a longbow or two came out of the Persian northern colonies. That was it. THAT was Persia's offensive forces? Oh man, they were really weak! And they probably lacked the necessary infrastructure in their cities to build more units quickly, not to mention the fact that they had just lost two crucial resources. This was when my thoughts turned from "Let's see what I can get from Persia" to "I'm going to kill you Xerxes."
640AD was the first turn of the war, in which I captured my target city. The next two turns were spent killing random Persian units that wandered into my territory and healing up for the next attack. In 670AD I moved about 10 samurai from my territory onto the saltpeter hill next to Pasargadae, which I could do since I had built a road on that blank grasslands tile that is in the above picture. Pasargadae was only size 6, since apparently X-man had never bothered to build an aqueduct there. Talk about lousy city development! The first defender was a regular musket, who made two samurai retreat before he was killed. The next defender was a regular pike, who put up a similarly small fight. And... that was it. Two defenders, one outdated, were all that the Persians had bothered to put in that city. I most definitely captured that city, not razing it because:
So I now had control of the Great Library, and my earlier decision to avoid getting the tech Education on purpose suddenly became a huge deal. To make matters even better, I had cut off Persia's only saltpeter source as well and also acquired sources of spices to keep my people happy. A very fortunate capture indeed. Naturally the techs started rolling in next turn: Printing Press, Music Theory, Education, Banking, Astronomy, Chemistry, Navigation, Matallurgy, and (shockingly) Military Tradition! SOMEONE out there already has cavs?! TWO someones? Wow - I hadn't thought I was that far behind! And it turned out I wasn't, as apparently Persia and Egypt were light-years ahead of everyone else on tech, with most of the others still lacking Astronomy. Well this was another great stroke of luck. I never expected to get to cavs at this point in time. But why not make use of what you have? I Shift-U'd 15 samurai into cavs in 690AD and then really started taking the fight to Persia.
710AD saw Egypt declare war (oh no!) on China (whew!) I was scared out of my mind for about a half-second when my foreign advisor popped up with the message that the Egyptians had declared war, until I realized it wasn't on me. But it seemed that the other civs saw Persia's weakness and Xerxes wasn't able to recruit any foreign help against me. I also captured Bactra in the north on that turn and razed Tarsus (see the picture) to the ground. It was replaced by another Japanese settler within a turn or two. Sometime around 720 or 730AD, I popped my first leader with a samurai:
I used it to make an army of samurai, with himself in it of course. Naturally they won a battle as soon as possible so I could build the Heroic Epic. 750AD saw Chinan, the city I had lost in a settler race to the Chinese by 1 turn so long ago, fall to my samurai. It was right next to my Forbidden Palace in Tokyo and would make a great city once it was properly developed. 760AD was a turn for celebration, as the hated capital of the Persians was captured and Xerxes forced to flee:
One of my cavs popped a leader outside the city, but I'm not posting a picture of that since I already have this one up. He went to rush the Heroic Epic, which was not a good move; I should have saved him for Smith's. I guess I thought I would get another leader in this war, but I didn't. Oh well - no biggie. Persepolis was a great prize itself, with no fewer than three wonders in it: Hanging Gardens and Copernicus were nice, but it was the PYRAMIDS in there that I was excited about. With those at my command and Persia collapsing like a popped balloon, I was pretty much unstoppable in this war. Arbela (see the Persepolis shot) was razed in 780AD and Tyre captured the same year. Tyre was Persia's city in the extreme northwest founded to control the horses up there. It was never hooked up to their civ and did little that I could see for them. This shows my progress up to 770AD, just after I had captured Persepolis:
Notice too how I had a Persian settler highlighted; although it's rather bad form to found cities with foreign nationals, it is in fact one way to lower the population of a city with foreigners in it. This settler came from Pasargadae, which I wanted at size 1 ASAP. And with all of my core cities producing samurai, I didn't want to switch them over to settlers. Use what the situation dictates, as always. After taking and razing Arbela in 780AD, Persia had only one of their core cities remaining. The AI vultures now started circling, as Egypt, Germany, and Azteca all declared war on Persia. They jump all over any sign of weakness, which is why most newbie players get killed so fast on Deity (refuse an early demand and suddenly the whole world is at war with you). I razed and replaced Susa in 800AD, effectively destroying Persia as a civ. All that remained was to mop up their remaining colonial holdings in the north.
Sidon was captured in 810AD, which was also close enough to my Forbidden Palace to be a very good city in time. After advancing through the mountains, Samaria was captured in 840AD, reducing the Persians to their last city. They were also now at war with every other civ and had no possible way out. Bye X-man. Betwen turns 840 and 850AD, I got this message:
Hey, don't look so glum! This was good news, after all. That was the only Persian city I didn't end up capturing/razing out of all the ones they had. My war lasted exactly 20 turns - not coincidentally exactly the run of my golden age. My position in the game was immeasureably improved as a result of the war, as I became the second largest next to Bablyon and certainly the most powerful. The game was certainly in the bag now: it was time to build up my economic strength and do the rest with tanks and armor in the late industrial age. My gambit certainly paid off bigger than I ever would have expected - which goes to show the results that can come from striking at the right time at the right place, even with relatively small forces.
