Psillycyber's PsillyRevolution modded Civ4 adventure

[Psillycyber]

For the past 10 years I've been tweaking a personal mod of Civ4 based originally off RevolutionDCM as a base.  I'm calling this mod "PsillyRevolution."  I don't have the mod posted anywhere yet, but if there's interest, I could open a Moddb page for it and post it there.  

The changes even from RevolutionDCM are too numerous to mention (I never kept a changelog).  Most of the changes are minor, centered around balance.  Where I do have major changes (to units, traits, civics, tech paths, etc.), those changes are motivated by a combination of balance, "realism"/flavor, and giving the player what I perceive to be more interesting choices/playstyles, especially early on in the ancient/classical era.  

Anyways, I feel like posting a walkthrough of a sample game with this mod.  I'll make sure to highlight the important changes as I go along.  

Settings:
*Emperor difficulty (keep in mind that, in reality, it's probably a bit easier than normal emperor because the AI has a tenuous grasp of the RevolutionDCM mechanics at best.  I've actually beaten this mod on Deity before, which is probably analogous to Immortal in unmodded Civ4, but it was a nail-biter, so I'm going for a more relaxed game just to show off the features).  
*Tectonics, 60% water
*Standard size
*Normal speed
*Raging Barbarians
*Revolutions ON
*Barbarian World (the map starts with ~7 barbarian cities already founded)
*Barbarian Civ (barbarian cities can spawn new civs after a random length of time)
*Random leader

...And our random leader is...



Hirohito of Japan (one of the RevDCM addons).  Expansive/Imperialistic.  Both traits in my mod are a little different than in base Civ4:

*Expansive does not give a health bonus, but instead gives 1 extra food for every 4+ food tile, kind of like how financial gives 1 extra commerce for every 2+ commerce tile.  For most of the game (until biology), this will only apply to food bonus tiles. Expansive also gives +50% hammer bonuses to worker and settler production, but no production bonuses to any buildings. 
*Imperialistic gives +50% great general emergence (I think the same as in the base game?), plus free Drill 1 on all archery, siege, gunpowder, trench, and armor units, as well as double production on courthouses and palace relocation.  

OK, so this is a leader that will want to REX and get to Code of Laws for courthouses.  Of course, you gotta be careful about REXing with Revolutions on.  1st-ring expansion away from your capital is not a problem.  2nd-ring expansion can be a problem if you have financial troubles, foreign religions, or other problems in your empire.  Early 3rd-ring expansion (12+ tiles from your capital) can work in exceptional circumstances, but probably ought to wait until the Renaissance Era or until you have a fairly stable situation and can easily deal with an occasional revolt.  Note that imperialist-boosted courthouses will not only reduce maintenance costs, but they will also help quell revolutionary instability in my more distant cities.  (By the way, if you are wondering what Organized adds bonus production to in this mod, it is lighthouses, aqueducts, harbors, customs houses, and airports). 

Imperialistic helps a little bit too if I need to do some early warring.  

And here's the starting position, after moving my warrior: 



OK, I already know that I'm not going to settle in place.  I'm going to settle close to that barbarian city and snipe it with some early archers before it can spawn another full-fledged civ.  (When that happens in RevolutionDCM, the spawned civ usually gets a free golden age, a free great general, and some free era-appropriate units, and I'd not like to deal with that).  

I went hunting --> agriculture while building a worker and exploring with my warrior.  I'm actually gonna rely on camps from hunting mainly in the beginning, but I'll eventually want to improve that corn too.  



Huh?   Camps, you say?  Yes.  In my mod, camps can be built on any forest or jungle tile.  By default, they only give +1 commerce, so they are not stellar later in the game, and get outclassed by lumbermills or just clearing the land for towns.  But our starting labor civic is...



Communalism.  Long-term, it's not a civic we want to stay in.  The larger and greater in number our cities become, the more crippling the increased city maintenance costs become.  The production, commerce, and worker speed penalties are also a drag.  But this labor civic supercharges camps and pastures.  Pastures can actually be built on any cleared land with at least 1 base food, and ordinarily they'd just give +1 food, but with communalism it's another +1 food, and with expansive I'd get another +1 food on any grassland pasture tiles (because they'd have 4 food), so potentially 5 food total on any grassland tile if I want.  However, I don't think I'll need that much food.  I'd rather have the slight food bonus, and big riverside commerce bonus, from building and working camps on the riverside forests and jungles.  Those tiles with be 3/1/2 while I'm in communalism.

Here's how things like after founding my city and exploring for a few turns:



I have some nice backlines, a goody hut I can take my time getting with a scout (I chose to not pop it with my warrior), and I can already see where my backline cities will eventually go.  One to claim the westernmost fish, one to claim the crab and sheep in the first ring on the east coast, one to the NE to claim the sheep, and maaaybe one more city on the far north peninsula by the river to slow-grow and just work cottages (unless the map wants to throw in some seafood up there in the fog, in which case that would be even better). 

Techwise, I'm probably gonna go archery, then wheel, then mysticism for border pops (because by then I'll probably be expanding to new cities and/or conquering that barb city), then animal husbandry, then...I'm not sure.  



Mining and bronze working would be nice at some point to see if I have gold/silver/gems and copper, respectively, although I'm not in a huge rush to swap into slavery because I have quite a bit of REXing to do, and communalism is actually perfectly fine for that with the food bonuses and being able to build ALL units (not just workers and settlers) with surplus food.  But if I ever want to start building libraries or other infrastructure, I'm gonna have to swap into slavery eventually.  I'll want to start chopping my trees anyways too.  You can get a bit of production into infrastructure under communalism using high surplus food into units, and then using overflow production into buildings, but it's not ideal.  

There doesn't seem to be any happiness resources in my neck of the woods, except for spices, which will be a while before we can get online with calendar, so an early-ish religion is a possible play.  Hinduism is already taken, but notice that Buddhism comes a bit later and is roughly contemporary with Judaism in this mod, albeit on a different tech path.  Code of Laws and Confucianism is not too far beyond that either.  And we know we'll want Code of Laws for cheap courthouses.

The nice thing about the early religious path in my mod is that Bureaucracy comes at Priesthood.  Don't get your hopes up:  it's +50% hammers and +50% GOLD in the capital, not commerce (kinda like Godking in FFH2), and +50% city maintenance (which becomes fairly crippling beyond 6 or 7 cities).  But it is a nice way to run a little ancient-era Palace economy while you have a small empire, and is a nice consolation prize even if you miss out on the early religions.

[Psillycyber]

A few turns later we meet Ragnar's scout on our southern border.  So we are not alone on this continent, it seems...



After growing to size 5 and finishing the barracks just a couple of turns later, I start on another worker to help with the upcoming roading.  



This was actually a slight misplay, which I realized right as I was taking this screenshot.  I could have started on the new worker as soon as my city hit size 5, and then finished the barracks afterwards, and it would have given me a couple more worker turns.  Oh well, no biggie.  This is why I lurk on Realmsbeyond rather than play competitive Civ4 multiplayer with the big boys.  If y'all are Magnus Carlsen-level Civ4 players, then I'm Carlos Magnussen.

Look who shows up next.  Oh boy...great.  Just what I needed.  Although in theory madman Adolf and Hirohito should be able to get along...?  (Also, I apologize to any lurkers from Germany.  If it's a problem, I can edit out this screenshot).  



With the 2nd worker finished, the archers begin rolling out of the barracks.  I can 2-turn them, and sometimes 1-turn them with overflow.  



I will be aiming for about 7 or 8 of them.  There were 3 warriors in Goth (the barbarian city) last I checked, but somehow the barbarian city has started to produce culture because it has popped borders, and I lost visibility on the city.  It will probably have 4 or 5 warriors by the time I am ready to attack.  That also means it will have cultural defenses, although I can build a battering ram (unlocked with The Wheel) to take care of that.  It won't be useful for much else (it doesn't do collateral damage on attack; it can only damage the top defender 20% before retreating, if it survives even that).  



Note that warriors have 3 str in this mod, so they won't be a piece of cake.  Thankfully, archers have a few buffs too.  They only get +30% city defense (slight debuff), but they actually do collateral damage on 3 units up to 20% on the offense, and they have a 20% chance to withdraw when attacking.  I may lose a few archers, but the first several archer attacks should get most of the remaining warriors down to 2.4/3 str, along with badly damaging some of the top defenders even more.  Then I'll probably be able to win most of the rest of the engagements.  Worst-case scenario, I'll have to finish off a warrior or two on the second turn, and hopefully I'll have some lucky archers that aren't too damaged that I can promote and immediately attack with.  

Okay, here we go, 7 archers and the battering ram, which has been taking down the cultural defenses.  I'm willing to roll the dice.  



I attack with my battering ram first.  Why not?  I'm not gonna need it for anything else after this.  Well, it dies, but does bring one warrior down to 2.5 str in the process.  My next two archers do a fair bit of top defender damage and collateral damage and miraculously manage to withdraw.  And the next 5 archers all come out victorious.  I didn't lose a single archer and took the city in 1 turn!

After taking Goth, my archers fan-out and do some scouting.  I did end up going for mining and bronze working, mainly to see if we have any strategic resources nearby since I apparently have some neighbors on this continent.  And lookie what we have here.  Another neighbor on our southern border.  And copper!  



(Hmm, not sure I can secure that copper resource any time soon.  It's a little too close to that neighbor for my liking...the logical place to settle would be 1 SE of the copper to eventually grab the fish, but that is really really close to that neighbor, and I would not be surprised if I get beat to that spot.) 

Meanwhile, my capital's 3rd ring culture expansion reveals another food resource for another nice future city spot (blocked for the moment by a Lion).  



We finally make contact with that neighbor directly to our south.  



Hah, worst enemy of Hitler.  I wonder if they have border tension with each other?  In fact, I wonder if I'm looking at the borders of the Ethiopian capital, and where the Hindu holy city is.  The shape of the borders suggest that it might be.  Hmmm...could be a valuable target for conquest sometime in the near future.  It is just on the edge of what would be sustainable to expand to when considering Revolutions (Revolutionary unrest increases significantly with distance from capital, especially in the early game).  But if it's a holy city, and especially with a shrine soon, then it would be worth it.  But if it is the Ethiopian capital, then he is almost sure to get the copper site before I can.  But maybe my backlines have iron somewhere...?  I should probably tech towards iron working sometime soon.  But first...



You'll notice that Goth has wine nearby.  I can research dynasticism (only requirement is mysticism) and get that happy resource online very quickly.  Dynasticism also opens up Despotism as a civic:



The default starting government civic is actually vassalage, which just gives slight city maintenance discounts, some free unit maintenance, and +1 happy for castles.  Despotism is intriguing.  It's -50% culture in all cities, so popping borders would be a pain.  And I'm not really relying on farms right now, so I wouldn't get much benefit from that.  My land is so lush that I probably won't ever need a lot of farms.  The capital gold bonus would be nice if I had an early religion and shrine in my capital, but it would basically just offset the higher maintenance costs from switching as it is.  The production bonus would be nice, especially if I wanted to, and had the happy resources to, grow vertically, but I plan on REXing, so sticking with vassalage's -20% maintenance discount probably makes more sense.

[Psillycyber]

Finished the research on dynasticism, got the wine hooked up, grew my capital to size 6, and now research towards Iron Working for both an insurance policy (in case Ethiopia beats me to that copper city spot) and for more production from tree chopping (in my mod, it is iron working that increases chops to 30 hammers. Jungle, though, won't be choppable until machinery).  About to finish a settler, which will be finished just in time for the roads down to the copper spot to be finished.  



Iron working finished.  Good news:  we do have iron in our existing borders!  



That's good, although it turns out we will probably get the copper spot anyways (don't know why Ethiopia hasn't settled up in that direction yet).  Iron will still be nice to speed our eventual research towards Metal Casting, and when we build forges, in this mod the forge itself only gives +10%, but it gives another +10% with copper hooked up and another 10% with iron hooked up.  So having both metals will be nice.  

I kinda wish I had gone for writing first before iron working in hindsight, though.  I need libraries like yesterday.  I've burned through my early-game slush fund, and now I can only run about 50% on the slider on average.  My finances should improve a bit when Goth pops its borders and can work another wine resource, although my finances will also suffer when I place my distant 4th city down by the copper.  So it's probably a wash.  This is what my tech pace is gonna be until I get libraries up.  

I'm building a granary in the capital in anticipation of some whipping.  In fact, I think I need to bite the bullet and revolt to slavery even before the 4th city is founded.  I need better finances, less city maintenance.  I have about 8 workers now, and I probably don't want to settle any more cities after the copper site for the time being until I get libraries and specialists running in all of my cities, so the added food from communalism isn't really essential at the moment.  



I may need to burn an early scientist for a golden age—mainly in order to reduce revolutionary unrest (slavery will ease unrest by improving my finances, but also worsen my unrest from its intrinsic penalties).  Also, the production and great-people-points boost from a golden age would be nice too.  

But the main thing is, Goth is already starting to get antsy.  It's revolt-o-meter is still in the "safe" category, but it is headed soon into the "warning" category...and maybe in 10 or 15 turns into the "danger" category where revolts can happen at any moment.  I think the unrest will improve slightly once I get the city to start producing some culture, but I'm not sure it will be enough.  And my copper city is likely to have even worse unrest due to distance.  I just hope the Ethiopian borders won't expand into it for a while.  I thiiiiiiiiink I should have at least 50 turns or so before the next ring comes, and that should be enough to get the culture in the copper city up to speed and/or organize an assault on that offending Ethiopian capital if I need to.  Odds are, the Ethiopians might not even have access to a strategic metal, if I'm lucky.

[Psillycyber]

Settled "Copperville" (a most decidedly un-Japanese name for a city, I know), which surprisingly LOWERED my expenses...I think mainly because I was paying fairly sizable unit supply costs for all of the workers and archers outside of my borders down there.  That, plus revolting to slavery, puts me still at a comfortable 70% break-even on the slider.  So, I'm gonna build another settler.



Writing in.  For most of my cities, I timed the previous builds to end just in time for writing to start on libraries with some decent overflow.  I also whipped a granary in Goth with some decent overflow that I'll put into a library before I go back to slow-building a settler (to use the food surplus and keep the pop below the happy cap until whip unhappiness wears off).  



The next question is, what should I tech towards after writing?  I'm thinking Priesthood looks juicy.  It's a path towards Code of Laws, and I can probably still grab the Oracle with the help of some chops.  I'm tempted to try to build the Oracle in Copperville with the help of only 2 chops, but if I want to play it safe I'll just build it in the capital where I can get 5 or 6 chops to help out.  I'll also need to grab masonry too, which I can do in 2 turns.  



My idea of Oracling CoL becomes a little more complicated with Copperville getting a Hinduism spread from Ethiopia.  Confucianism won't pop up in Copperville for sure, and since I'll have two religions on my empire, I'll have to decide eventually whether I want to switch to my own self-founded religion or switch to Hinduism to keep Copperville happy.  Either way, I'm going to have more revolutionary unrest in the cities that end up with the non-state religion that I don't end up choosing.  



Ethiopia also, by the way, just built the Kashi Viswanath, so I'll need to take that capital city at some point, or else the cultural pressure on Copperville will be unbearable.  It'll be a nice prize too.  

2-pop whipping out the 120h library in the capital with the help of 1 forest chop.  Next turn I'll go back to 100% research on the slider to get to priesthood ASAP. 



We met the Dutch.  They'll have dye and probably some nice land eventually.  Right now, though, they are a small empire, only 2 cities.  



I really need to start scouting, but my units are stretched a little thin fogbusting, and 3 archers are guarding Copperville.  Probably overkill, though.  Maybe I can spare one to scout Ethiopia at least...



Okay, nothing too crazy in their capital.  They do have copper, though, so they won't be a cakewalk to take over eventually. 

My fifth city is founded, Osaka.  It will get to help grow several cottages for my capital in addition to working that nice iron mine tile.  



This is Ethiopia's main force.  Nothing too scary.  Have they been fighting with barbs?  



I got this quest.  Nice!  I definitely think I can do this in 100 turns.  That just gives me one more reason to take on Ethiopia eventually.  



Finally, this city can 3-pop whip a library, run two scientist specialists, and be semi-useful.  



And finally, an overview of the southern half of our empire.  Like I said before, part of me really wants to build the Oracle in Copperville, but I think that would be tempting fate.  That city will cap out at 15hpt max, and there's only 1 chop left to help the oracle along, so we'd be looking at about 15 turns until The Oracle finished.  Whereas I can probably get The Oracle finished in the capital in 7 or 8 turns with the help of 5 or 6 chops.  On the other hand, if I went for the later Oracle in Copperville, I could try to manually research CoL and slingshot Feudalism with the Oracle.  That would be bomb.  Taking over Ethiopia would be a cakewalk with longbows.  Decisions, decisions...

[Psillycyber]

OK, masonry researched.  And I've made a decision.  I will build The Oracle in Copperville after all. 



This city actually has much better base production than my capital (or will, once it grows to size 4 and works the fish + 3 mines).  And it will get the help of 1 full chop, plus 2 partial chops of those 2 forests to the east outside of my borders, which will each give 13 hammers and shave about a turn off the Oracle each.  

Taken together, this means I can probably get The Oracle finished in Copperville at most 1 or 2 turns later than I would in the capital with the aid of many more forest chops (which I can save for something else later).  This way, the capital can also in the meantime continue running 2 scientists to get a great person for a golden age just in time for a civics switch when I self-research CoL and Oracle-slingshot Feudalism.  



I'm venturing my guerrilla-II archer that was formerly guarding the mountain pass against barbs a bit farther out in order to fogbust and make sure my worker tree choppers will be safe.  I'm not worried about the Dutch messing with them.  



Here's what the production pace finally looks like after getting Copperville grown to size 4 to work all the mines.  Expect a couple of turns to be taken off this build from the remaining forest chops, plus if I can start a golden age in 10 turns. 

Some hints of where Hitler is:  apparently to the east or northeast?  



Also, Hitler is using my mod's resourceless starting tier of spearman, available at hunting (javelin peltasts).  Does Hitler not have metals?  The Vikings appear to be ESE.  Dutch are SE.  

I just had to screenshot this:  Hitler converts to Judaism.  Oooof!  



I whipped out another settler in Kyoto (NE food-rich city), and my Great Scholar is ready to launch a golden age.  I'll get another Great Scholar soon enough (thanks to the golden age) and probably build an academy in the capital with him/her.  



It's looking increasingly likely that I'll get the Oracle for the Feudalism slingshot.  Looking ahead, I'll probably go for metal casting next for some high-powered forges (+10%h base, +10%h from copper, +10%h from iron), and maybe even snag the Colossus in Copperville.  



With the golden age, the turns left on the Oracle get shaved down from 3 to 2.  



Satsuma is founded in the north, just in time to benefit from most of the golden age and from the sheep resource that I just improved.  This will be the last city I found in the north for a while, but eventually I'll put one more filler city 3N of that at the tip of the peninsula.  But long before that, there are 1 or 2 more important city spots to the east to claim, and I might also want to grab the Ethiopian capital sometime soon too.  



We did it!  I suspected we would.  The most likely adversary who would have been also gunning for The Oracle was Ethiopia since they were the only other ones to go down the religious line early (judging from Hitler only recently founding Judaism), and it did not seem like Ethiopia had very good production cities or trees to chop to accidentally beat me to the Oracle.  



With Feudalism in, I'm gonna immediately revolt from "tribalism" (barbarism) to chivalry.  I'll have to pay more unit support costs, but I'll get free happy for each military unit in cities.  Extremely powerful for this early in the game.  (In the unmodded game, players are used to opening this up at monarchy, but I've pushed it back to Feudalism in this mod precisely because it is so powerful).



I'll also temporarily switch to serfdom from slavery...I should be able to switch back before the end of the golden age...right?  If not, it's not the end of the world.  Serfdom is what we will want to be in eventually.  I'm actually kinda undecided if I'll need more time in slavery to whip out infrastructure and/or warbows (longbows) to take on the Ethiopians.  Without the whip, I really only have 1 good production city at the moment.  But serfdom will generate more commerce and less revolutionary instability.  Hmmm...



An overview of the empire at the tail-end of the golden age:



A disgustingly strong capital, especially when boosted by a golden age:



Exploring the Dutch lands now.  They are no military threat whatsoever.  They have a nice offshore island that I'll like to take/settle at some point.



I also see that they are already improving jungle resources with plantations.  That means they already have calendar.  Perhaps instead of researching math, I should go for alphabet and trade with them for math and calendar.  Hmmm.....

[Psillycyber]

I think I will switch back to slavery after all.  I will pay 2gpt more in civic maintenance, and I'll lose a handful of commerce, but slavery will give me so much more flexibility and growth potential.  It actually works out about even on hammers at the moment because I have 3 farms and 3 mines that I'm working, and I gain the hpt on the mines but lose the hpt on the farms by switching away from serfdom.  But I think I will be building some more mines for the city that I'll soon settle by the pigs and rice to the east. 



I do end up switching from mathematics to tech to alphabet first.  



Well, I was hoping the Dutch would trade me mathematics instead, but no dice (I'm probably perceived as too strong), so it looks like I'll have to self-research that anyways.  

But, I do swing a trade for sailing with Zara Yaqob, so getting alphabet wasn't totally a waste.  (I traded with Zara because he is actually farther behind in tech than the Dutch.  And it turns out he hadn't even gone on to research priesthood at all, so I had absolutely nothing to worry about with my Oracle build.  It makes me even more thankful I slow-built it in Copperville.



Still, Zara is not feeling too keen towards me due to running different religions, and he has "enough on his hands right now," and there's this random swordsman strolling by...probably just to scout.  And I do have 2 archers in Copperville.  But I upgrade 1 to a warbowman (longbowman) just in case to deter Ethiopia from trying to snipe one of my defenders.  It turned out next turn that Zara was indeed just scouting with that swordsman. 



Tech-wise, I think I want construction and then machinery, although it might be worth detouring to calendar first to get plantations going.  That will not only mean spices for me, but also the ability to build plantations on any flat jungle tile (unique to this mod).  And plantations are extremely strong in this mod:  +2 commerce, and +1 hammer when running slavery.  So, jungle tiles will go from 2/1, or 2/1/1 if they have a camp on them, to 2/2/2 if I put plantations down.  That's actually better than lumbermills (as long as I'm in slavery) and might be a reason to delay chopping SOME of the jungle even when I get machinery.  



We get this awesome quest.  I was planning on building forges in every city anyways, so I will definitely get the free engineer in my capital, yes please!  



I make contact with Louis Napoleon III of France and scout out his two cities.  It appears he is having some barb trouble.  Probably a big area of tundra continent to his SW.  I actually end up getting my scout eaten by another barb chariot coming out of the fog when I try to extract the scout from that city for further exploration.  Oh well...



I've noticed that the Dutch have had a settler sitting in their capital for a few turns.  I'm fairly sure I know exactly where the Dutch AI wants to settle it.  It is right where that warrior is camped and fortified, just to the east of my borders.  Why the AI is hesitant to place this city, I'm not sure.  Maybe because it senses that the city would be incredibly vulnerable to getting sniped by me?  If so, then good thinking, because that's exactly what I'll do if the Dutch do settle that city, as soon as I know the city won't be autorazed.  But if the AI isn't ready to settle that spot, why not pick another?  The spot 4N of Utrecht looks just as lovely if not even more lovely.  



We get this nice little random event.  +1b on my library until the end of the game.  Nice.  



Copperville has finally hit its final form that it is going to have for a long while.  It will have 19hpt base, or 24 hpt after the forge bonus.  I am still not sure if I want to go after the Colossus here, or just start pumping warbows and/or swordsmen.  



I finally get the 2nd great scholar.  This one is going to found an academy in my cottaged capital.  I'm gonna switch on 100% research after this, but I'm just showing here that, even at 50% research, this will be a nice boost to my research.  



It looks like Zara will have stone hooked up soon.  Should I let Zara build me some nice wonders and then just capture them later?  Could be a reason to let Zara live just a bit longer...



Here's an overview of most of my empire at turn 125.  Note to self:  make sure to switch research to calendar first, then come back for construction and machinery.  In fact, I probably should have just gotten calendar already anyways, although I was strongly tempted to save up gold in order to run research at 100% for a while after getting my capital's academy founded.  134 bpt, that's definitely a nice tech rate for 900 BC, no?  



And now, some demos.  Ethiopia is keeping up with my GNP, and my power is middle-of-the-pack, but I'm starting to really pull away in MFG and especially crop yield.  









Going forward, I need to decide if I want to settle an 8th city (perhaps where that Dutch warrior is camping), and whether I want to start gearing up for war against Zara, or whether I want to build The Colossus in Copperville.  Zara has copper and metal casting, so he might very well already be trying to build The Colossus.  Maybe I should just plan on capturing it from him?  I'm also questioning the best way to approach Zara's capital.  I'm tempted to tech to machinery and compass for cogs (3 movement, 3 cargo space) and ferry 2 waves of troops straight to Zara's capital, rather than plod through Zara's culture to get there.  That way, with 2 cogs (6 units), I can deposit some catapults and stack defenders in the first wave on turn 1, and then on turn 3 deposit the second wave of 6 units while the catapults have had a chance to reduce the cultural defenses.  Then, assault on turn 4.  Or, I just don't build 2 cogs, but instead just build 2 more catapults, and march the whole stack overland, bombard for 1 or 2 turns, then assault.  Maybe that is the way to go, especially if I can win the culture battle on one of the tiles south of Copperville to give me 1 less turn to trudge through Zara's culture.  I think those tiles are at 61/38%, so it looks like I'll eventually win those tiles' culture eventually.

[Psillycyber]

As promised, I so make a quick detour for Calendar so that I can get plantations up and running.  Under slavery, those will make for great 2/2/2 tiles (2/2/3 next to rivers).  And I have spices to hook up. 



I make some deals with the Dutch:





Monotheism will be nice to have eventually, although I don't get a huge benefit from switching to Organized Religion right away because my cities are very mixed in terms of religious affiliation, and my state religion is only in about 4 cities, so I don't think it is worth the anarchy at the moment.  

I just want to post this pic to give a sense of the state of the empire, and also to show that others are building wonders, and that the Ethiopians inexplicably donated huge famine relief to me, so now we have an extra +3 relations from that, which is good enough to avoid "annoyed" relations. 



Here I was trying to get my scout away from Addis Ababa, which was besieged by barbarians, and I accidentally stumbled into more barbarians even deeper into Zara's territory.  I was sure that this scout was a goner.  Yet, inexplicably, the barbs decided not to attack my scout...or, the Ethiopians might have cleaned them up first during the interturn.  Either way, my scout survived, and the barbs were nowhere to be seen the next turn....



Copperville finishes a Hindu Temple and starts running a priest.  I want to get a Great Prophet for the Great Profits of the soon-to-be Confucian Shrine ASAP, so I'm gonna tradeoff the production until then. 



Lots of heavy-overflow whips going on in my other cities to get forges up and running.  This is why it was so important to switch back into slavery for a while.  



Ragnar asks for me to declare war on the French.  We don't border the French, and the Ethiopians are also already fighting the French, and I'd also like to keep the Vikings happy with me since they are starting to approach my eastern borders, so sure, why not?  



Declaring war on the French actually brought my relations with the Ethiopians all the way up to Pleased, so I'm not sure what this stack is up to.  I don't think it is intending to attack Copperville, but if it is, I'll have 2 warbows and 1 archer in the city by the interturn.  Those chariots would not do much to such defenders.  Chariots in my mod have 5 str, but have -20% penalties for fighting in cities, hills, and forests, so I'm not too worried.  As it turned out, they were just milling around.  



Notice also that the Dutch finally planted that city (Rotterdam) where their worker was fortified.  I'll be taking that shortly...

But also notice that the Vikings are now nearly on our borders with some decent units.  I will have to keep a few more units on this eastern border from now on....



Construction and machinery are in.  Crossbows in my mod don't come until Engineering, but machinery is still very nice for the terrain improvement options.  I can finally clear jungle, which I'll start to do on the hills where I can't put plantations.  I may keep the flat jungle plantations around for a little longer even though each one also brings +0.5 unhealth.  



Zara wants this deal.  I guess I'm fine with that.  I don't really like speeding the Ethiopians towards better tech when I'm gonna have to fight them for their Hindu capital eventually, but this will help me keep research at 100% for longer.  



I'm gonna start building Ronins in Copperville.  These are the Japanese unique unit replacement for swordsmen.  Swordsmen in this mod can be built with copper or iron, but iron builds then with a 20% production bonus.  

Japan also gets Samurais later at Civil Service, although those (and other macemen) require iron in my mod.  



We meet Egypt (via workboat...no idea where from...), and they are fairly advanced in tech, although not that big.  And they won't trade anything right now.  They have meditation, which would be nice for monasteries and spreading Confucianism around. 



Well, it's time to snipe that city from the Dutch.  Sorry Willem.  You think you can settle on someone's borders at 500 BC with 2 warriors and not face the consequences?  I feel like this is why the AI Dutch don't tend to do well in AI survivor...



I get the city with no losses and also steal 3 workers.  



And I don't think I'm done.  I think I can also take Utrecht farther south fairly easily, and then extort Willem for all of his tech for peace (aesthetics and horseback riding).  

Also, nobody seems to be in a hurry to build this, so I'm gonna build it in a city that can actually get good use out of it.  (Note that the Colossus in my mod only gives commerce bonuses for that one city, in addition to hefty trade route bonuses.  It's not as OP as in the vanilla game).  

[Psillycyber]

The Vikings are having issues.  They have a very strung out empire with cities far to the west of their capital, and they also have some religious diversity issues.  With this revolution of the English breaking out in their empire, we probably won't have to worry about the Vikings messing with us anytime soon.  

Also, Germany is starting to settle close to us too, just NE of Kagoshima across that bay.  



I'm including this screenshot to show that I actually got a bad event for once in this game.  



The Confucian shrine is built.  +7gpt for now, more later.  Also, Copperville can go back to max production now.  



It turns out the Dutch actually settled another city in between Rotterdam and Utrecht.  I'll raze this one for now so that it isn't smothered by Utrecht's culture in the meantime, and I'll just re-found it as soon as I capture Utrecht.  

Also, I'll bet that the Ethiopians are trading horses to the Dutch because I don't see where the Dutch could be getting horses in their territory, and Ethiopia has 2 of them.  Oh well, cavalry make for horrible defenders...although warbows don't do great against horsemen or even chariots, and I lose a couple of units, but wipe all of theirs and the city. 



Civil Service is big.  Samurai and pikes opened up.  Samurai are more expensive than macemen in my mod (80h vs. 72h) and don't have city attack bonuses, but do have 1-2 first strikes and 9 str instead of 8.  Also, I can irrigate some of my corn tiles.  (Levees will have to wait for steam power). 



I build my 7th forge for the master blacksmith quest and take the free engineer in my capital.  I think my capital will end up being my national epic/national park city that will pump out great people.  



Wow, Cleopatra!  This is surprising that she is #1 in power.  (I don't have demos on her yet).  



I get this little event.  I could just receive a lump sum of 10 gold, but I don't mind paying 10 gold for 2 cpt to get 60% culture defenses up sooner in this city in time for galleons.  Either way, it's not a big deal.  



I finish the Colossus and start on a market.  (Also built a market in my Confucian shrine city).  The market income is inflated because I'm running 100% gold at the moment, but it will still be 5 gpt on average and more once the city grows onto the Colossus-boosted ocean tiles.  



I get my first Great General.  I'm gonna attack him to a unit for a super-medic.  



I arrive at Utrecht with my stack, which now has many more Ronins in it.  I was worried that the Dutch might have gotten longbows in the meantime, but nope!  Still defending with archers and horsemen.  



We take Utrecht.  It does come with a granary and 4 pop, so it is worth keeping.  It also, thankfully, falls just outside of the Dutch capital's culture.  



By the way, the Vikings have actually been losing cities (2 now) to the English Rebels.  Revolutions are no joke, especially for the AI.  Always fun to see.  



Time to cash out of this war...for now.  



Meanwhile, it is 240 BC, and still NOBODY has taken the Pyramids yet.  I might as well go for it since I have this monster production city (although no stone...).  In my mod, the Pyramids provide a worker speed bonus and, most importantly, start a golden age when you build it like the Taj Mahal.  (In my mod, the Parthenon is the wonder that opens up all government civics).  A golden age would be sweet right now.  But at worst, I'll get some failgold.  



We swing a trade with Egypt to get meditation for monasteries.  Now I can finally start spreading Confucianism around.  



I also self-research guilds.  I don't have horses for knights/daimyos right now (and Japan's daimyos are nothing special, just knights with a little more withdrawal bonus.  After all, Japan does have 3 UUs in this mod, so they can't all be amazing).  But guilds will be very good for my economy.  



Aaaand we resettle Maastricht, I mean, Nara.  (Notice Ragnar exploring with the War Elephant.  Yeah, that's why I'm glad I kicked the Dutch out of this area of the map.  They would have had War Elephants soon if I hadn't done something).  

[Psillycyber]

It's time to take out Zara and his annoying holy city culture:



I get visibility on Zara's capital and holy city, and he doesn't have much at all guarding it (is his army somewhere else and out of place?), but the French have a surprisingly decent stack. I had been in a fake war with them for diplo reasons, so I call up the French and sign a white peace so that I don't have to worry about dealing with that stack too. 



I have armies converging on Zara's capital from both sides.  Zara still doesn't have much defending it.  Just an extra explorer.  This will not be difficult for my dozen-or-so units.  



Aksum comes with some very nice goodies!



Copperville can get the SoZ made pretty quickly, and based on the war with Zara so far, I doubt that I'll need a bigger army for that, so I go for it. 



Another weak garrison.  WHERE IS ZARA'S MILITARY???



I get the free music artist. 



We finish that quest to seize Zara's horse resource and get 4 free knights (Daimyos) to supplement our invasion force.  



Ragnar is having more trouble with the English rebels, who have nearly caught up to the Vikings in city count!



I snag the Pyramids, which starts a golden age.  This game is starting to be in the bag.  I should not have been able to snag the Pyramids this late on Emperor difficulty.  The AI truly does struggle with Revolutions.  



I actually lose a few units trying to take down the warbowman in the next Ethiopian city.  It's a good thing that we struck when we did so that we didn't have to face more of those units.  



The former Ethiopian lands.  I think I will stop here and consolidate.  



We extort some tech out of the deal too.



Hah! We get a random event Goth invasion of some axemen.  Thankfully, I had some units nearby that could rush to the defense of that city.  



The Dutch want me to convert to Hinduism, and now that I control the Hindu holy city too, I had been planning on doing that anyways.  And I'm in a golden age, so why not?  I'll quickly get Hinduism more spread around to my core cities to regain the building construction bonus from OR. 



Optics.  I'll get additional happy from whales.  



I get the Statue of Zeus and start on a Hindu monastery in Copperville to get some Hindu missionaries cranked out now that I'm in Hinduism.  



The poor Ethiopians...their citizens didn't take the loss of their 3 more important cities very well.  Major revolts now in some of their remaining cities.  They are truly not a concern in this game any longer. 



Paper is in. 



I also get an engineer around the same time, and instead of using him to immediately complete the University of Sankore, I just settle the Engineer since I'm pretty sure I'm a lock for getting that wonder anyways, and settling the engineer will pay off for the rest of the game. 



Now that the Ethiopian threat is contained, it is time to finish off the Dutch and relieve the cultural pressure on my ex-Dutch cities.  



They do have more units than the Ethiopians, although not any particularly good defenders, and I'm not worried about the horsemen with my pikes.  



The Vikings have ANOTHER rebellion.  But on the other hand, the Ethiopians manage to suppress their Malinese rebels.  



I still have quite a few cities to spread Hinduism to, although I wouldn't have been much better off sticking with Confucianism anyways.  



Banking. This will help my finances a lot.  I'm starting to pay a lot on city maintenance.  



For example, banking means an extra 13+ gpt in my Confucian holy city, once the bank gets built.  



I get Egypt's maps for 95 gold.  Egypt does not look like a threat.  In fact, that whole other continent looks to be very backward.  We are truly the game leader by far.  



I'm gonna relocate my palace to help with maintenance costs. 



The Dutch fall like reeds under a machete.  



In a shocking turn of events, Hitler declares war on us while we are still finishing up with the Dutch!  The first real crisis of this game in a while!

This is his stack.  It's not too crazy.  I think I can hold Kagoshima if I send back my Daimyo from the Dutch front and build some more in nearby cities.  



We get another great engineer, which we also settle in our capital.  Our capital is becoming a production beast and can sustainably produce 2 daimyo every 3 turns.  



Printing press boosts our economy quite a bit:



Cleaning up the Germany stack:



And readying the deathblow to the Dutch:



After cleaning up the German invasion stack, we turn the tables and invade with about a dozen daimyo (knights), easily taking this city that only had a few crossbows in it.  



This city is a bit better defended, but still nowhere near enough for our stack that has come back from the finished Dutch campaign, + the dozen or so Daimyo I have in the neighborhood.  



Look at my Charles Martel great general super-medic warbowman!  86 xp and counting!  



We cash out of the war with Germany for now so that I can consolidate my gains.  These cities form a natural chokepoint in front of the rest of the German lands.  Hitler also gives me Stuttgart, but I immediately gift it back, as it's an undeveloped Christian holy city some distance away from my empire that would be sure to revolt soon anyways, so there's no point trying to hold onto it.  



Here is the Japanese Empire circa 800 AD.  Honestly, this game is in the bag.  I am thinking of starting a new game on Immortal difficulty this time since this game on Emperor has been such a curbstomp of the pitiful AI and its difficulty in expanding and dealing with the Revolutions mechanic.  So, this might be the last report on this game.