THE 900 YEARS WAR
Gee, I wonder where all those chariots are going? Luckily I spotted this invasion force the turn before it landed. I was able to whip the two axemen in Heliopolis and Thebes, and the following turn I’d get two immediate spearmen from the production carryover. I also went down to zero science for a turn to get enough money to upgrade a warrior in Heliopolis to a spearman in the year the invasion landed. This would be more than enough to deal with the four chariots. Sure enough, Alex declares war in 110 AD, landing his force before Heliopolis, where shiny new axemen and spearmen are waiting. The next turn, when he’s able to actually attack, there will be more. 140 AD – And here’s the aftermath.
In just a few turns, I magically acquired 5 spears and 2 axemen and dispatched Alex’s invasion. Thank you dead Egyptian citizens! Alex did manage to pillage a mine and a single road tile. These were his sole successes in what turned out to be really quite a long and successful war for the Egyptians. 215 AD – After healing up, my 2 axe/4 spear army (never fielded an army of conquest constituted like that before) marched on Knossos and captured it. Here’s a shot of the aftermath.
You can also see Alex’s poor stranded galley. Now that I own canal city, he’s trapped on the other side of the continent with no way of passing – an amusing side benefit of capturing Knossos exactly when I did. 245 AD – in the meantime, my own galley tentatively makes for Greek waters and pillages some clams. After monarchy, and a revolt to hereditary rule, it’s on to iron working so I can clear the jungle around Elephantine, and see if I can find some iron. In 335 AD, my mainly spear army destroyed Mycenae. I had plans for fitting three cities up there which necessitated founding a city one tile SE of Mycenae. So Mycenae is obliterated to satisfy the Egyptian monarch’s sense of tidiness.
In the meantime, Memphis completes the Colossus in 350 AD and on its leisurely way towards circumnavigation my galley gets a look at Athens.
Wow. Size 9! Now that I have hereditary rule, my cities’ll get that big too. 395 AD – my first great person is a prophet in Thebes. He builds the Hindu Shrine, taking me from -4 gpt deficit at 40% science to a whopping -1 gpt!! In retrospect, it might have been better to settle him, since I never had that many cities for shrine income. But still, the shrine gives great prophet points, which are a good thing. It’s like burning one prophet to ensure tons more. At least, that’s what I tell myself. When it comes down to it, I really just can’t resist building at least one shrine. Yes, it’s a compulsion. 440 AD – I finish iron working, and it turns out there is some iron nearby, on a little ice-ridden spit of land just southwest of Thebes. Sigh. I guess I have to settle there. It’s either that, or say goodbye to frigates. 470 AD – my galley achieves circumnavigation. That task complete, he now proceeds to scope out the rest of Alex’s territory.
560 AD – Alex really did his people a disservice with this war. His initial invasion was completely wiped out, one of his cities captured and another destroyed. Not to mention the clams I pillaged! But instead of mounting a punitive expedition, he sends over a settler/archer pair, who will be hacked to bits the moment they land or who will settle and have their city destroyed. This is something that needs to be fixed, I think – don’t settle near the enemy in wartime without an army to back you up! On the bright side, Alex finally completed his first wonder! The Pyramids. He should have used the shields on military units instead. Not that I did any different. I suppose I could have made a play for the pyramids and probably achieved it, especially with my stone resource. But frankly, given my general lack of happiness resources, I preferred hereditary rule. Also, Alex’s favorite civic is hereditary rule, so it’s not like he was going to take full advantage of the pyramids either. Sometimes I’ll build wonders just to deny them to the AI, but I didn’t judge it worthwhile in this case. Sure enough, the following turn Alex adopts hereditary rule. I am comforted by the fact that this may signify that I was able to research monarchy before him, since that’s a tech the AI tends to make a priority, especially those AI whose favorite civic is hereditary rule. AD 635 – meanwhile, the war is still raging on. Ok, it’s not raging at all. At this point, the war is nothing more than a hostile open borders agreement. I don’t envision Alex signing open borders with me after this war, and I don’t want my little galley stranded on the other side of the world, so the only reason I’m keeping the war going is so my galley can explore some more, and then get back home safe. Alex isn’t taking the war very seriously either, since he’s building the pyramids and settlers. But he should be, because there’s more danger in store for him. Here’s how serious this war is. My dedicated military city, Heliopolis, is fulfilling its wartime function by building . ..
. . . the Parthenon?
AD 650 – my galley takes a breather before Corinth, the Jewish holy city, which amazingly is defended by just an axeman and an archer. Not only that, but Alex has already cleared away all the jungle and replaced it with useful improvements. How kind of him. It turns out there really was a further military purpose to this extremely long and uneventful war. It began with a city capture, and it will end with one. I had built a few more galleys and you can see that these now contain sufficient force to capture the city. AD 680 – of course, I took Corinth. But the war isn’t over yet. Oh no. My galley still has some more exploring to do. After finishing Alphabet, I got to see just how backward I was.
Yep, pretty backward, but it could be worse. I quickly decided I needed other things before Literature, namely Currency to help out with my uninspiring financial situation (and to be able to extract gold from the eventual peace). In 695 AD, an army consisting solely of spearmen destroys Mycenae II with zero losses (yes, he snaked another settler by me).
In 695 AD, I finished Stonehenge in Thebes, which was now just awash in Great Prophet points. Why did I build Stonehenge? Why not build Stonehenge? This may be the latest Stonehenge ever.
Thanks to my galleys, I had a nice idea of what Alex’s home continent looks like.
Alex sent another settler towards my home continent, and I decided to kill this one before it ever reached shore. I had three galleys parked before Sparta, and one of these took him out. I expected to lose one galley, but got lucky on the first die roll. I guess I could have had my spearmen waiting for the landing so I could get the free worker, but I just felt like destroying a galley. And, you know what, it felt good. And it set a trend for my navy that would continue throughout the game. Actually, I suppose I could have waited till the settler landed and then destroyed both the settler and the galley.
AD 1010 – at long last, after 900 years, the war is over. By now I had researched currency, so I was able to get a nice chunk of change from Alex for the peace. The tally: I destroyed Mycenae twice, circumnavigated the globe, captured two very nice cities, sunk a galley with a settler and archer in it, and scoped out almost all of Alex’s territory. In return, I lost a couple axemen in city assaults, and had a mine and a road pillaged. Altogether a very favorable war. To celebrate the victory, I founded Pi-Ramesses the same year, near the ruins of Mycenae I and II.
In retrospect, I should have founded on the old Mycenae location to take advantage of the deer, because I never did end up founding a city in the tundra. I had every intention of doing so at this time, though. AD 1040 – my second great person arrives. Predictably, thanks to the Colossus and the Great Lighthouse, it’s a merchant from Memphis. He lightbulbs Civil Service, taking Egypt into the beaurocratic age.
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