Home - Epic Nine - Page 3

The Game Breaker

The minimum science on Monarchy keeps crawling along, and in 310 BC, I get it and revolt. That's two fairly expensive techs I got at minimum science - getting something for nothing in a big way. But that's not the game-breaker; the Great Library will be.

I make peace with China so that I can trade them Monarchy. I get Currency, their 16 gold, and world map. Also, I bought a couple more Egyptian workers, increasing the count to 3 native workers and 13 slaves.

I've got to slam research to 100% on Literature to get the Great Library with the Leader. I think Persia did get Lit while I was researching; I didn't have anything to trade them, but did get the research cost lowered to 2nd-civ.

Persepolis finished the Pyramids somewhere in there, which is quite fine with me; it's already slated as my first major target once Samurai arrive.

Hey, what is that worker doing?
He's building a road for me! Heh, thanks There were several other Persian workers also doing the same thing; apparently attempting to connect their city at the dyes to their core.


workers.jpg 599x192


I built up a bit more infrastructure: temples in every city and a few granaries. Here's where the sane tech pace of 1.29 as compared to patch 1.21 really makes a difference. Under 1.21, I'd be already desperately building Samurai, but now I can take the time to do this. I also started the Heroic Epic in Kyoto; there's a lot of war ahead and we want to keep the Leader faucet flowing at full tilt.

I realized now that Persia still controlled all the dyes to the west of me, and that I have only one luxury. Well, I still had several swordsmen, and had built a number of horsemen for Samurai upgrading. Also, there's about eight Persian workers in my territory that would look good in Japanese maroon. And Persia still lacks for Iron and his precious Immortals. So, in 170 BC (which was after well over 20 turns of the previous peace treaty), I demand they leave, and as I expected they declared war.

This was a very short war; we made peace only seven turns later. All I wanted to do was capture a few workers and kick out Bactra, which I did handily. Bactra was autorazed, so I had to produce a settler to replace it. Whoops - Egypt had a settler in the area, and beat me by one turn to the spot I wanted - but then moved on (!) and I got the dyes.

Interestingly, there was a stack of four Persian workers northwest of Osaka when I declared war, though I couldn't reach it on the first turn of war - and then I couldn't find them! Persia must have disbanded them to avoid getting captured - I didn't know the AIs did that.

During that war, two very good things happened.

First was Literature finishing, and me getting the Great Library with the saved Leader. That's the game breaker. Now I can build horsemen, run all cash, and wait for Chivalry. Republic and Construction came out of it, getting me into the Middle Ages.

The second very good thing was Egypt finishing the Great Wall! Persepolis had started it several turns before Egypt did, and I was resigned to some very long and bloody Samurai conquesting. But Egypt did me a great favor there. Persepolis cascades to Sun Tzu's, which will also be great for me to conquer. Persia was in Republic; it's possible war weariness slowed Persepolis enough for Egypt to grab it.

In 30 BC, we made peace again, with Persia ceding a useless city way up in the northwest and a very unexpected 14 gold per turn.


Index | Next
title image
Realms Beyond Civilization Epics: One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Seven | Ten
Other Reports: Solo Deity
Articles | Links