Epic 26: Compromise...till the 15th century

[Compromise]

First, I'd like to say that I had a great deal of fun with this game. I'm sure I spent three or four times as much time thinking and planning for this game as I did playing it. And I think I needed all of those plans despite the fact that I ran out of RL time to finish this.

At the outset, I decided to try for Stonehenge--landed around 2500BC--so I didn't have to worry about border pops. This seemed to work out well.

The starting warrior got Woodsman II very quickly, and I had a great overview of the starting continent from very early on. This helped me plan a 3-city northern perimeter that blocked off Saladin from most of our starting continent. Actually, one of those cities was founded by the barbs and I used a 10-chariot stack to take it.

I used HR for happiness and somehow managed to found Confucianism in one of my blocking cities. For relations though, I was Hindu with Saladin and Sitting Bull.

After the block, I went on a mad island expansion campaign. Here's my view of the world when I stopped:



Here, I'm on the final turn of a Scientist-induced golden age.

My first gp was a Prophet who was settled in London. The second was also a Prophet and founded the Kong Miao. The third was a low-odds Merchant who was settled in the Confucian holy city. The fourth was a Scientist who was burned for the golden age that is ending in the screenshot above. All great people were generated in the capital.

My plan for the future was to beeline rifles--I'm only Rep Parts, Gunpowder, and Rifling (total ~15 turns) away from that here--and take Saladin and maybe Sitting Bull's lands for myself.

I thought I'd been doing well until recently. Monty has kept Peter in a state of low score and severely crippled his own long-term prospects as a result. Hammurabi and Louis are teching peacefully along and bringing the owner of their Buddhist shrine with them.

I did manage to score a couple of unexpected mid-game accomplishments. In addition to my surprise at founding Confucianism, I noticed the Colossus was still available in the early ADs when I got MetalCasting, so I built it.

Also, when a border pop from the triple-fish southwestern island introduced me to Hammurabi, I noticed he already had Optics. Not deterred, I beelined Optics myself, upgraded a couple triremes to Caravels and got the Circumnavigation bonus.

But that's it for "first-comer" achievements. Liberalism fell soon after 1000AD and was the first sign that I was in some serious trouble compared to the other continent grouping. All of the AIs except Monty seem to be trading techs with each other at every opportunity.

I am starting to suffer from emancipation unhappiness as the Buddhist block has recently switched to Emancipation.

Louis is actually going completely nuts. Even with my 1st-place position in total land, I've got half his GNP in my golden age. And he just had a HUGE golden age; it lasted from 1220AD to 1380AD with no interruption!

Here's the Demographics:



...and the tech situation:



...as the 15th century dawns for the Compromised English Empire.

I suspect this game is winnable from here, but it will a long slog at best. Louis and Hammurabi will likely be sneak-attack threats until Rifling--and presumably some local conquests--bring up my power rating.

Louis is a threat to win culturally or by space; I see no signs of him slowing down. Also, Monty's land is likely to be available to him if he wants it.

So...great game! Thank you for the fun setup. I wish I had time to finish it. If I do, I'll post here, but Adventure 43 looks really interesting, so it'll be a while.