Sailing, Sailing

I had built a galley earlier, to ferry a scout south of Moscow to check out the lands north of Qin.  Afterwards, he continued along the coast, and found a chain of islands W of Qin.  While sailing among the islands, I met Hatshetput! 

Awesome!    One thing I miss from Civ3 was the excitement of suicide galleys (although I agree they were broken, since the AI didn’t use them, it was always exciting to make contacts with far-away lands), and most of the games I’ve played so far have been land-heavy with little sea contact.  She had Monarchy, but lacked Math and Alphabet.  Checking back with my continental rivals, Sal had Monotheism and HBR, Qin had Calendar, and Izzy had Monotheism also.  But, there weren’t any great trade opportunities yet, I wanted to keep Alpha out of Egypt’s hands as long as I could, lest she trade around with her neighbors.  I was listed as 2^nd most advanced, though! 

 I followed the island chain back north and eventually found Egyptian lands.  While exploring along her coasts, I met Mansa in 1AD.  He was up Code of Laws, (here was my Confucian) but lacked Alpha, Currency, and Construction.  I also met Monty who was backward in tech, and he also refused Open Borders, so I had to turn around and explore along Egypt’s east coast.

War Plans

Meanwhile, back to my war plans.  I discovered Currency in 250BC, followed by the announcement that Qin had completed the Pyramids (How thoughtful of him, to build them for me!). Construction was completed in 50BC, and catapults and Elephants were ordered up around the empire.   I was finally ready to declare in 175AD. 

A couple of axemen and an archer had been following a 2-warrior/settler pair who founded Nanjing E of Yakutsk to grab another Iron, and they quickly took it, but it autorazed.  Meanwhile, my main force attacked at Shanghai.  After using cats to remove the bonus, 2 Elephants and a Sword were enough to dispatch the 3 archers, and I captured the city along with 3 workers.  

Now, on to the Pyramids! 

Look, the Circus is coming to Bejing!

 Again, the cats removed the bonus, then I threw 2 in to weaken the defenders (one retreated), and the Elephants, 2 swords, and one axe were enough to take Bejing.  Had to move fast now, as I remembered the 500AD deadline for bonus points, and I attacked Quangzhou (his last city) in 475AD, cats had only taken his bonus down to 12%, but I had 2 Elephants again up to the challenge, and the mighty Qin was no more!  It was also time to revolt to Representation (I had deliberately planned on giving up the Hereditary Rule points, Representation is more valuable), and Organized Religion.  (I’ll have to throw myself on the mercy of the scoring judges here, I didn’t realize I had picked up that option yet until I went to the F3 screen to grab Rep, I didn’t even record the trade for the tech.  I didn’t have a state religion yet, either, so it shouldn’t have had any effect on the game, one way or the other.  Anyway, I adopted it as soon as I ‘realized’ it was available, hopefully that still counts!) 

500AD

OK, here’s where we stand at the first scoring break.