Adventure 8: Compromise's brief attempt

[Compromise]

Decided to try this Adventure. Didn't have much time to play. Don't have much time to report. But, since it's fun to compare starts, here goes!

Founded Paris in place. A *great* spot! We decide we're going to kick butt early, so set the research plan for "BronzeWorking via Mining".

Sent the warrior off to the west to look for victim...err...neighbors.



We quickly meet Mansa, who offers us his head. We decide we'll take it from him later. Blast our luck! Our nearest neighbor has Skirmishers for his UU. Better look the other direction. At least the inland-lake map means we know roughly where to look. That and the fact that we can see the edge of the world up north.



Some kindly tribal types show us where we can find other tribal types. The southerners end up giving us gold, though we have to detour a bit around some lions to get there.



And with BronzeWorking...we have Copper in Paris' fat cross. Ohhh this is going to be a ROMP!

After beating up a few lions, we meets some more of our city-builders...err...neighbors:



Saladin offers us his head...and...



Kublai offers us his hand. Good. No ancient era UUs for either of them. Looks like we'll be conquesting off to the east at first.



Ahh. Our workers have provided us with a Copper mine for our nefarious purposes. Now, they can start cottaging our floodplains to pay for our soon-to-expand empire.



Ohh Alex, you sly dog. Maybe we can work together to...expand our respective empires? Ehh? Mmm? Ehh? Mmmm? Let's talk after I secure Mecca.



Oooh, another warmonger with Caesar! Oh it will be a bloodfest, what with all the wheeling and dealing.

(It's just sad that in 2320BC, I'm already planning to use, abuse and backstab these fine leaders.)



Not just a few warmongers, but a choice! This is a well designed Adventure! Hi Izzy! (Okay...we also met Bismarck and Hatty.)



Oh. That's where I put Orleans. Another good spot. All these floodplains and food resources are fantastic.



Now this is pretty cool. I think Saladin just pulled off a Farseer slingshot! He just built the Oracle (for us, heehee) and must have chosen MetalCasting. Why, I'd demand it from him if we weren't just 2 turns away from discovering it the old-fashioned way. We must demand something from him just before we start our axe-assault! Kindly, he gives us IronWorking.



I think these fine workers would love to join the French Empire! A declaration of war and they decide we are certainly worth working for!

Medina is protected by two warriors and an archer. Here's our initial assault force:



Medina is soon ours. Actually, so is Mecca. But this was a surprise!



That archer should have disappeared with the fall of Mecca, but I guess it means there's another Arabian city somewhere. I thought for sure that Saladin would only have 2 cities at this point. I went back and checked when I blackmailed him for IronWorking. I guess I wasn't even connected to his trade network and so couldn't tell how many cities he had. Oops. Rats, I thought this archer would just disappear. I guess we'll have to use him for more experience.



Ahhh. There's Damascus. With a 2-archer defense, this won't take long.



Well, it didn't take long, but it was a bit painful. Those two wounded archers are easy promotions for the remaining axemen, but also represent two axemen of ours who were sacrificed to the cause. Oh well. One enemy civilization down.



Not long after that, in 500BC to be exact, we finish our research in Code of Laws and--somewhat to our surprise--found Conficianism. In a good place, too: Orleans! We should be able to pump a goodly number of missionaries from this production city. I was a bit slow on the draw, and only caught part of the pillar of fire that inspired the Orleansians.



We'd actually picked out a nice production site down by the pigs, but Alex put a city too near the location. We'll have to kick him around for that. This is a great site too, though.



Note to the fine readers of this alternate French history: At this point, the record of this civilization is lost. The above image, taken when they apparently discovered Construction, is our last surviving visual indication of their progress.

Many theories have been offered as to why they only destroyed one civilization in this Adventure and then failed to continue to thrive. A minority of scholars actually think it was a decent start for the French.

Most scholars agree, however, that the French were overwhelmed by the simple size of the world and the fact that no one on the planet could find it in themselves to torch the cities of other nations to the ground. Perhaps if they'd researched Civil Service earlier, their Bureaucracy could have prevented the Imperial Implosion, but that is speculative.

Fragmentary documents have come to light which indicate that the French intended to quickly crush half the planet's surface and compel its citizens to work toward the great French Technocracy.

After achieving a dominating tech lead, the plan, it seems, was to generate a huge cash surplus, enough to support a vast military blitz force with no further income. Then, apparently, this evil dynasty planned to whip its own citizens to size 1 and 2 cities, and attempt to take over the remaining civilizations of the world as fast as possible. Culminating in a last-turn conquest victory with the best troops rolling through all the remaining cities of the world simultaneously.

But, they didn't do that; they only dreamed of doing that. They finished the Adventure, Compromise's first, with but a single point.