I had just smashed Persia into the ground and now easily stood in position to dominate the game. While I was only in the middle of the F11 rankings in many categories at the time, as I pushed infrastructure in my core cities and the captured outside ones I rose dramatically on the list. Babylon remained the largest civ in terms of territory, but I quickly out-stripped them in terms of population, income, productivity... every category that matters. I didn't take any pictures from right after the war ended, so the first one I have to post is from 1010AD. It's a large one, but it helps to show the extent of my holdings after my successful war.
I noted in 880AD that Egypt had entered the Industrial Age. EGYPT was the first civ to do so? Cleo had only nine cities in her core and had been the whipping boy (err, girl) of Persia and China for most of the game. Thebes wasn't even their capital city! But nonetheless they got there first, since most of the other civs had been blowing the brains out of one another during that time span. I was close to the Industrial Age but not quite there; I scrounged up the gpt to reach it 970AD @4th civ prices behind Egypt, China, and Germany. Yes, the Germans were starting to out-research the other civs since they clearly had built their cheap libraries and universities in every one of their cities. The world might have seemed peaceful at this time (and it was for me), but in reality it was not at all. In 1000AD I checked the F11 screen and saw that every civ was at war with at least 2 others except for me. Most of those were fake wars fought across oceans, but the Egyptians razed the Chinese city of Anyang in the northwest and I replaced it with Hakodate. That was in 920AD, so you can see my replacement city in the picture above. Another fishing village is always a good thing to have, and that location was close enough to Tokyo to be more than just a throwaway city.
Meanwhile Bablyon was in the process of kicking the Aztecs off their continent, which they managed around 1000AD. Babylon didn't try to finish them off though, and Monty stayed alive on that small island to the northeast of Bablyon. After this point, Hammurabi finally began to build some city improvements and began to catch up in the tech race. With that size and the scientific trait, he could hardly stay behind in 5th or 6th place. In 1060AD I was able to purchase Steam Power from the Germans and discovered the coal locations all over the world. Plenty in my territory, 1 in Germany, 1 in the Iroquois island, 2 in Bablyonian territory, 1 actually controlled by the Aztecs in their pitiful share of land... and 0 for China and Egypt. That's right, I controlled all 4 sources of coal on my island. What a nice break! That would surely hurt the other civs a great deal if they couldn't get access to coal (and by hurt a great deal, I mean cripple them utterly). To add insult to injury, the Iroquois source of coal later moved into my territory and they bought the excess Babylonian coal. No way that China and Egypt could ever buy some after that. At this point, I also turned research on and began looking into Medicine. I was going to try and keep up with the Deity AIs on tech, which is now viable in a situation like this thanks to the 1.29f patch. It makes the game a bit easier, but also more realistic and more fun, so it gets my thumbs up. Turning on research in the Industrial Age is something that I find myself doing in every Deity game now at some point, as it is just a better strategy than paying the exorbitant prices the other civs want for techs @2nd or @3rd civ prices.
One case in point for this was the tech Industrialization. The Germans absolutely refused to trade it for anything, no matter what I put on the table. I was also racing Berlin to build Suffrage at the same time, so I needed to get the tech at some point in time before my prebuild ran out. I was building the wonder in Kagoshima, which I saw via diplomatic investigation would lose the wonder race by two turns to Berlin. Naturally my workers headed up there and completely railed the city while putting it on a starvation diet, which shaved 4 turns of the completion date and made me certain to get it. Berlin went unrailed as its workers concerned themselves with other cities. Silly AI workers! After waiting for another civ to discover Industrialization and lower the price, I finally just stole it from Bismarck using my embassy. It was a lot less expensive than what he was charging me, and although it was a stupid move to make, I wasn't really in too much danger if I was caught either. I dealt the stolen Industrialization @3rd civ price to someone else for a 5th cost Nationalism. Not too bad. And all my factory prebuilds could finally turn into factories too, which was the goal anyway. I ended up winning the race for Suffrage by two turns as expected, and completed it in Kagoshima in 1265AD. By that time, I already had prebuilds well under way for snagging TOE and Hoover's as well.
Back in 1240AD, something shocking occurred that I had never seen happen to me in a Deity game before:
A city flipped.... to ME! He he, it's been the other way around so often on Deity, I could have jumped for joy. I guess the early temple in Kyoto (completed around 2500BC between settlers) and the whipped temples had made some difference after all in culture. I never lost any city to a culture flip in this whole game, which is practically amazing. I don't think that I ever went through a Deity game where that happened before. Macao was even in a very good location, close to my core cities and with the potential to make a good fishing town. It also removed a potential enemy threat from my side too. All in all, a nice little break.
Around 1230AD, Egypt began acting suspiciously. What do I mean by that? Well, take a look:
They started moving lots of cavs into my territory for no apparent reason. Lots of them, with some longbows behind them. I was sure Egypt was going to attack me, and I was stuck in full infrastructure mode - not a good time to make war. The last thing I wanted was a fight now, as every turn I grew stronger while their position weakened. Since my relations were excellent with Egypt and I really didn't want to fight, I decided not to ask Cleo to leave my territory. I would blockade those cavs with my own cavs and leave them one opening with which to ride through. That way I would see if I was the real target or not. After 4 or 5 turns of this, I was more sure than ever that they were going to attack, but still I refused to ask them to leave. Finally, I saw the flashes of a battle between Egyptian cavalry and a German rifleman in the far north and I understood. Those Egyptian cavs were heading up to their colonies in the northern tundra! And that meant I was not going to be attacked. Whew! Sure enough, when the invading units were killed they turned back the way they had come. Never before have I been so sure I was going to be attacked and the blow never came. It just goes to show you that the AI can still surprise you sometimes even after all these games.
I discovered Medicine in 1265AD and traded it for Communism and Espionage, as well as some gpt on the side. Similarly, in 1285AD I discovered Sanitation and was able to get Electricity and The Corporation from it by spending some gold with it. This brought me into a tie with Germany for the tech lead; the Germans were the tech leader with the Babylonians running third and slowly catching up and the others way behind. Having no coal just crippled Egypt and China unmercifully as none of their cities could grow past size 14 or 15 without bonus food and they couldn't get any shield bonuses either. I had pillaged all but one of my 4 coal sources to prevent them from moving around - no need to make things easier on the AI, after all. Scientific Method was discovered in 1315AD, and my TOE prebuild had it due in 4 turns. Uh yeah, beat that one Bismarck, the only one with the tech besides me. Sure enough, TOE was built in Kyoto in 1335AD, and the Atomic Theory/Electronics combo plus my other prebuild had Hoover's due in 2 turns at Satsuma. It was finished there on schedule in 1345AD. I also send Electronics to Bismarck on that turn for Replaceable Parts, pulling the two of us far, far ahead of the other civs in tech. Egypt had no rubber sources either, and China's only source was on an offshore island. Oh man, this was going to be too easy. With the game easily in hand, I stopped my playing session there. I had control of all of the Industrial Age wonders, the most powerful economy by far, denied my closest rivals critical resources, and was ready to crush everything in my path as soon as I got tanks, which were only a few techs away.
I never could have predicted what happened next.
