Adventure 52 - sunrise's short report

[sunrise089]

Thanks for this fun adventure T-Hawk!

Settled in place, which was a tough call. Spies all headed out to full-clear the map before settling. The EP was nice, though I only made a few small in-game decisions based on the intel such as selling Aesthetics for gold the turn an AI started on it.

My initial cities focused more on blocking China than Mali, which I think worked out. I took China out with Rifles shortly after landing liberalism (940AD). Spy intel told me they were close to rifles but wouldn't make it. That info was fun for stress relief purposes, but didn't actually alter the war since I wasn't going to stop until I saw enemy rifles I couldn't kill. Scariest moment was Mansa DOW'ing me when my army was finishing up China. I'd have been in big trouble if his stack was in position, but perhaps because it was a likely bribe to DOW it took Mansa about 5t to get units into my land, and by then I had shifted units north. Mansa offered peace the same turn I eliminated China:



After that I consolidated and teched, with little excitement until the late-game. Persia was an absolute monster in my game, and was a legitimate threat to win via domination. Japan and Celtia both vassalized early, and I was worried about what would happen if he conquered Mali too. Sure enough he first DOW'd around 1500 with some impressive power:



It was clear even with a tech lead Mansa was not going to be able to hold out. Fortunately I was able to bribe him to peace with techs before he could take too much or get Mansa to vassalize. Around 1700 he was back:



Time for another tech!



After the second enforced peace I noticed Mansa's tech rate had slooooowed, and checked the victory screen. Sure enough, cultural push. I could have sniped a legendary-path city easy, but I was worried Mansa would immediately vassalize to Cyrus if I DOW'd. Instead I waited for Cyrus to DOW the third time, which he did around 1800. He took a cultural city, and then I bribed him back to peace. Thanks Cyrus! In fact this time since we were such good buddies I joined the war for a few turns, figuring it couldn't hurt to lock up a few more % land area:



After that it was the usual space push. Cyrus did well, and I had about 5 pieces sabotaged while complete/near complete. He was actually ahead in part count at one point:



I launched at most 4t before he would have:



Best Victory, space win in 1941AD.

[Qgqqqqq]

Interesting, in my game Persia was fighting Celtica from very early on, letting Toku expand so they never became so massive. I invaded China MUCH earlier, though with little success (3 wars to eliminate). It'd be interesting to see how much land you took off Mansa, I mostly failed in that regard in an attempt to take out Qin.

[regoarrarr]

Nice report. In my game, everyone (except Qin) got pretty much teh same amount of land and there weren't many wars, at least not ones that did much, until I went on the warpath.

You beat me to Liberalism by about 200 years, though I was definitely sandbagging. I checked the event log and I think the scientist I used to mostly bulb it came in 425 AD.

How many cities did you get peacefully?

[sunrise089]

How many cities did you get peacefully?

Just six. Capital, then copper+clams+sheep, then cow+elephant+horse, then rice+fish+dies, then northern corn, then backfill for iron+dye+silk.