Finding My Religion
Philosophy was discovered in 540, and I converted to
Taoism immediately. Unfortunately,
this had the (unforeseen/overlooked by me
)
side effect of making everyone else not like me!
Other than Egypt, who I had some long-running trades with, the ‘Heathen
Religion’ negatives (plus the –1 for attacking their friend Qin) caused
everyone else to stop trading with me, and close off their borders.
This could be bad. It
also killed my hopes of spreading Taoism to some of my neighbors.
I did work hard to maintain a good trading relationship with Egypt, as my
only remaining friend, resulting in us being the top two in tech for a while.
I was able to send Harkuf, a Great Merchant, on a long, slow boat
to Thebes for a trade mission (I’d never tried that before, I usually use them
for techs or a GA). It took 20
turns, but I got 900g, which let me run deficit research for quite a while.
Speaking of research, I picked up Civil Service in
780, which I needed for the irrigation, and also allowed me to install a
Bureaucracy (which I did). With
this, Moscow was really cranking out beakers now.
Next was Metal Casting in 900AD, I was amazed that I’d forgotten
to research it, and not only that, none of the AI had it yet either!
This was also a time of frenzied missionary activitiy, as I was cranking
(in a couple cases whipping) missionaries out to spread Taoism to as many of my
cities as I could.
1000AD
I have my permanent State Religion, and the Holy City, but
no shrine yet (here’s where having some early religious wonders would have
helped, I couldn’t even attempt to generate a Great Prophet until after I
founded the religion and could build temples, and my first Great Person after
building temples turned out to be an Artist, anyway!).
I also had 8 Cities converted. (But,
since I hadn’t built the shrine yet, I don’t think I can count these points,
right?) So nothing new to score.
Here’s my city listing, see all of the forges under
construction! Mansa has also
softened a bit, and will trade. I
start with Cows and Dye for his Fur and Silk, then I’m able to get Feudalism
for Philo and Construction, and I also pick up Horseback Riding and 70g
from Hattie for Metal Casting. My 3rd
Great Person is another Merchant (thanks to the Lighthouse), and combined him
with the artist to kick off a Golden Age. This would be a good boost to both research and building my
army. After all, 1500AD would be
here before I knew it, and it was time to conquer some more cities.
Spain was the obvious target, directly to my east, and not
too advanced. I mostly used the
same forces I had against China (Swords, Elephants, and Cats), just more of
them. The first city to fall was Toledo
in 1080, a recently founded city that fell easily to a cat (who retreated),
elephant, and a sword. Cordoba
was much more of a challenge, defended by 2 archers, a sword and an axe.
After the Cats took the bonus away, I sent another cat in (who died),
then 2 swords (one of whom also died), 2 elephants (killing the sword and
spear), and finally my spearman had to finish off the wounded archer.
By
1300, it was time for another Circus parade, this one headed to Madrid.
By now, I also had a couple knights along for the fun, but Madrid also
had quite a few defenders.
Fortunately for me, the Civ IV AI still makes the
occasional dumb move, as they take the elephant and axe out for a walk!
I lost a cat killing them off, but Madrid fell much easier.
I was also still pushing ahead with exploration.
I built some caravels after discovering Optics in 1140, and was
finally rewarded with this sight in 1320:
He was backwards, down at least 8 techs.
I traded him Drama for his WM, and quickly met Louis IV and Huayna, who
was even worse off, lacking Monotheism. It
did give me the opportunity to start shuttling missionaries south, but I was
never able to convert any of them.
Meanwhile,
progress marched on, as I discovered Education in 1230, and then Liberalism
in 1340. I took Divine Right
for my free tech, which caused me to found Islam (my second religion).
My luck with GP continued, however.
Yekaterinburg was my best GP site, with plenty of flood plains and the
National Epic, and I had been running 3 priests (temple + Cathedral), but still
ended up with another Artist. 
I also continued expansion at home, founding some
more fishing villages along the coast or on lakes.
I also built Angor Wat in Moscow. The
war with Spain was winding down, as I took Seville in 1400.
However, I realized Izzy had an island city that I couldn’t reach any
time soon, so I made peace. I was also pushing the population growth in some of my core
cities (and some of the better captured ones), to get them to size 15.
It seemed some of the captured cities actually had more fertile land, but
I was able to get 5 of them large enough.
1500 Score Update
