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**playshogi** · May 3, 2009, 13:26

A small map with 2 extra AI means fast expansion is a must. I noticed the only copper source was just north of Napoleon, so I hurried to settle York on that spot. After scouting Napoleon and seeing he didn't have copper, I declared war in an attempt to neutralize its expansion, while trying to cutoff Brennus and Joao as well. The map was interesting in that Joao was cutoff on his own peninsula with only 1 narrow isthmus leading to the rest of the continent. Another connection was blocked by a mountain. My next two cities effectively blocked both AI, but I was still too slow in settling the rest of the continent. I did build the Oracle in York, founding Confucianism there and perhaps unwisely waited until I could pop a Great Prophet first, so my early research was slowed by not using scientists. Meanwhile, the war with the Napoleon dragged on. He was able to escape by galley to found another city on an offshore island that had 4 spices and he traded one to Brennus for copper. Actually this worked to my benefit, as this emboldened Napoleon to go on the attack and I slaughtered the bulk of his army in the field. But before I could capture Paris or Orleans, Joao had built the Apostolic Palace (Christianity) and proposed to stop the war. I had to defy this resolution, so I could finish off my attack. After capturing Paris and refounding New Orleans, this drove Napoleon off the continent and I had to wait for the resolution to come up again so I could agree to peace.

Just as this was taking place, I noticed a huge stack of Joao's heading for my blocking city of Kushans. I was at 'pleased' with Joao, but you know how that goes. I hurried to build my (inadequate) defense of Kushans, but luckily for me, that stack was heading for a barb city in my rear area. I let it go, and shortly thereafter relations improved to 'friendly' with Joao because of shared religion (Christianity) and favorite civic (Hereditary Rule). This meant I could focus on my next target, the Hindu Brennus. Joao remained the ultimate threat, however, because of its incredible tech pace and wonder building. Except for the Oracle and Great Library which I built, Joao built every other wonder until the very end of the game, (not counting shrines and corporations). Joao was so advanced that I didn't see how I could catch up. First, I thought that I could agree to a permanent alliance to win the game. I was careful to not get any negatives and when Genghis declared war on Joao, I was very happy to join this crusade to accrue shared war time. For a long time, Permanent Alliance was redded out with the message, "we do not have shared war or defensive pact for a long enough time", but then, without any negatives, it switched to "we're doing fine on our own".

By this time, Brennus, Monty (and his vassal Ragnar) had joined the war against Joao and me, which suited my purpose, except while I was attacking with redcoats, Joao had tanks and infantry. I had to hurry to capture 3 of Brennus' cities, including the Hindu shrine and accept Brennus' capitulation, before he capitulated to Joao. This was my first negative with Joao ('we are worried about vassals of your empire'). Then a bad random event added another negative ('past events prove your bad nature'), then somewhere I got a negative for trading with the enemy (probably the trade I had with Monty when war broke out). So, permanent alliance was not going to happen. By this time, I had control of the AP religion and proposed a resolution to stop the war (between Joao and Genghis). This would leave me free to capture and/or vassalize Genghis. My next plan was to win the AP vote, by conquering and converting the other AI and win that way before Joao's tech lead could win by space race or culture. But my hopes were dashed when Genghis defied the resolution. Furthermore, I was on the verge of capturing my 2nd Mongolian city when Genghis capitulated to Joao and the absurdly high maintenance of the city I had captured forced me to give it back. If I had captured 2 cities, I could have made a friendly vassal on that continent.

So that left war with Monty/Ragnar. I captured 5 cities of Monty before he capitulated to me and I made a crucial mistake of failing to check if Ragnar would also capitulate to me on that turn, because next turn Ragnar capitulated to Joao. I had to give 1 city back to Monty because otherwise Ragnar's culture overwhelmed it. In this manner, I could then demand the only wheat resource this city had from Monty as well as to improve relations with Monty. I kept Monty's capital with it's Buddhist shrine and the other 3 cities though. I was still hopeful of winning the AP vote, so I spread Christianity everywhere among Brennus and Monty and converted them both. I then worked toward getting a Great Merchant for Sid Sushi to further boost population, but I never got closer than 80 votes too few.

I was probably lucky that Joao stayed in State Property though whole game, which left me free to found Mining Corp. also. My economy was so vast that Mining Corp added 29 hammers to every city and this was without making extra demands from my vassals. As I inched closer to closing the tech gap with Joao, it would steal via espionage any tech I discovered first. Twice on the in between turn so I didn't even have a chance to offer it to Joao in trade. So, from then on, I only researched tech Joao already knew. By this time, Joao had 2 legendary cities, but the 3rd was many turns away. Oddly, this city was the old barb city that was in my rear area. I assembled a huge task for to capture it, if that was necessary. I had surrounded this city with 3 of my own cities, all of which had a couple cathedrals and 1 had hermitage, so that this culture pressure pushed back the border achieving two objectives: 1) my tanks could attack from 2 squares outside the city gates after bombing the defenders with my bomber fleet, and 2) I 'captured' Joao's only source of aluminum. There were only 5 in the world and I had them all.

When Joao, at long last and stupidly, built the UN, this took AP off the table, but in exchange, I easily controlled the UN vote. Diplomatic victory fell short by about 20 votes. I could probably capture 2 of Joao's cities (nearly 40 votes) on the first turn of any hypothetical war and if I timed the diplomatic victory option for the next turn, I would not have to endure the counterattack of waves of gunships, modern armor and mech infantry. However, this would not be a very elegant way to end the game, 1) attacking a friendly AI seems wrong and 2) triggering a war that was probably suicide to claim a 'diplomatic victory' also seemed wrong. With my powerful economy it seemed that I could catch up and win via space race, so that's what I finally aimed for. Oddly, Joao did not research rocketry for a long time, going all the way to robotics first. So, I continued to follow his tech lead until during a golden age, I decided finally to research satellites enabling to build the Space Elevator in 4 turns in my ironworks city. This, combined with my aluminum monopoly and Sid Sushi and Mining Corp in every city was the difference in the game as Joao needed to build one more part before he could even launch. He still had the tech lead at the end though, he was researching future tech 3 while I was working on future tech 2. One mystery I couldn't figure out, Monty's 4 cities had a population collapse: 3 were size 1 and the largest only size 4. I guess, somebody (Ragnar?) had been doing some major water poisoning!

**fed1943** · May 3, 2009, 14:00

I am still playing the game.
Following another path: whipped Ragnar (2 cities) and now at war with João II; already
razed one city and conquered Lisboa and Porto, amazing cities,I guess they were not
random.
Best regards,

**RobWorham** · May 3, 2009, 15:52

Great write up, as ever!!!

and

**Nugog** · May 3, 2009, 18:23

Congrats playshogi!

**#07** · May 3, 2009, 21:59

This was a hard one for me. As playshogi said the closest copper was right on napoleans doorstep and he founded a city there just as my settler moved into range. As luck would also have it my settler (escorted with a warrior) was defeated by a barbarian warrior so from this point on I knew it would be hard.

I was behind in tech and Jiao who was ridiculously advanced declared war and moved his stack to my choke point city. I had to fall back because I needed my paultry military still intact and I sued for peace. Later on france attacked jiao (the three of us bar jiao on shared the same religion and were all on friendly) and reclaimed my choke point city and then surprisingly gifted it back to me.

I had thoughts that I could pull the game back somehow but Jiaos technology gap intimidated me, it was until my best friend Napolean declared war on me that I thought it was time to pack it in. I knew I could have held him off but I could sense that my land was in the middle of a ping pong match between Jaio and Napolean and I couldn't win a war on two fronts.

Alas, I retired.

Just out of interest, was it an invalid save because I retired or did I do something wrong?

**RobWorham** · May 3, 2009, 22:23

Good write up #07.

We do not accept retired saves. Only winning or losing saves.

Quoted from the Rules etc thread

The Final Save

• You may only submit one final save per game, please ensure it is your first attempt at the game, and that it was played without reloads.

• Once you have achieved the set victory conditions (or were defeated by any condition other than conquest), after the end game screens, select “Wait! Just... one... more... turn...” and save the game immediately. This is your final save.

• If you were defeated by a conquest victory please submit the save from the turn before you were completely conquered as your final save. i.e. If the admins load your submitted save and press 'end turn' the game finishes with the admins being defeated by a conquest victory from an AI.

But I now see your question at the bottom of the thread, and see now that Nugogs response may have been a bit ambiguous.

For the record - Retired saves may be submitted, but are not valid. Only winning and losing saves are eligible for points etc.

**Nugog** · May 4, 2009, 00:44

Sorry - I thought #07 was defeated - not retired.

My mistake.

Sorry 'bout that.

**#07** · May 4, 2009, 04:58

Eh, you win some you retire some...

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