After the Chinese campaign, the entire Egypt was put into consolidation mode. I needed to build the infrastructure strong enough to support yet another war, which I felt was inevitable after Elizabeth beat me to Liberalism. I mean, such manners must be punished hard.
To enlighten my troubled brain, this message popped up in 1526 AD. Great! let Elizabeth think on something else instead of gaining technological edge.
Constitution was discovered in 1544 AD and I swapped to representation immediately. This brought JC down to cautious. Apparently, he much preferred that I stayed in hereditary rule. To bring him back to pleased, I gave him a very cheap deal on nationalism.
I also traded printing press to Saladin for banking and 510 gold. Since I had just adapted representation, I needed to wait five turns before switching to mercantilism. Unfortunately, I forgot this and did not swap until 1577.
The last trade during that turn, was nationalism to Roosevelt for gunpowder, his world map and 50 gold.
Research was set to replaceable part for some extra oomph in my production (lumber mills).
In 1574, both Saladin and Elizabeth asked me to join their war on their respective sides :-) I was not ready yet to jump on Elizabeth, so I had to decline.
Rifling was discovered in 1586 and I started on chemistry. I had decided that cannons and guns would win the next war for Egypt. This was not the smartest decision I took during this game. Let me put it like this: Giving Elizabeth time enough to discover rifling (for redcoats) was exactly the thing I decided to NOT do just a couple of turns ago. Here I was, letting that happen.....
My plan for how to conquer England was all set. I had decided to split my army in two halves, one should attack Coventry via Mansa's lands, and the other should attack Hastings from Elephantine. The cultural borders were such, that I could stand on neutral soil, declare and attack on the same turn.
I decided to do something I hade not tried before in any of my CIV games, namely to draft an army. After researching nationalism and rifling, I switched to nationhood and started to build an army from thin air. Quite fun I must say!
In 1598, my forces were ready to kick into action and I declared war against England. I had not yet assembled a task force against Coventry, but Hastings fell on the first turn. When my soldiers finally reached Coventry, they were greeted by the following sight:
Redcoats!! Gaahhh.......
I must admit that a period of intense self spanking followed upon this revelation. The war against England would now turn into an extremely bloody and prolonged affair. Chemistry is right around the corner though and grenadiers have a bonus against riflemen, so maybe it would be doable.
Redcoats are riflemen, right? Right?
Wrong!!!
Grenadiers have a bonus against riflemen, that is true. I was learnt the harsh way though, that the bonus only applies to the base unit, not the unique version of said unit, namely the redcoat in this case. Sigh..... The worst part though, was that I had only myself to blame for not attacking sooner. Elephant's, mace men and catapult's did just fine against China and they would have been
While I was sending catapults up to Coventry, my second great prophet popped and I used him to build the Confucian shrine, Kong Miao, to further improve my finances. After the shrine, I had break even science at 70%.
Since my strategy to draft riflemen went dead in the water and with the "antidote" grenadiers right around the corner, I switched back to free speech.
After sacrificing a truckload of catapults and a couple of riflemen, the last redcoat in Coventry fell to my maceman.
The battle of Nottingham. The city defended by only two redcoats should mean that my "superior" forces would just cruise through and put another scalp to the belt. Right??
Wrong!!
The only reason I managed to take this city is the unlikely event that one of my suicide catapults managed to draw blood from the top defender. A CG 2 redcoat in a city on top of a hill is scary!!
Anyway, the city fell in 1625 AD and the route to London lay open.
Hmm.....
That was a disheartening sight for my weary soldiers. No less than eight (8) redcoats were defending London, one of them CG3 and another CG2. I had to abandon my plan to conquer London first and instead aim for York, which fell in 1646 AD. The war had now raged since 1598 and I had only managed to capture 4 cities.
My only consolation in the never ending war against Elizabeth was the list of buildings remaining in Nottingham. Both the Judaism and Christian shrines were intact and supporting a healthy amount of $$ to the Egyptian finances.
In 1676 AD, I had finally assembled a significant stack of cannons outside London's city walls. The bombardment and subsequent bloodbath followed and in 1682, the city fell to my forces.
The last remaining English city, Canterbury, fell as well in 1703 and with it the English civilization. The war against Elizabeth lasted more than 100 years and involved only 6 cities and virtually no fighting at all in the field. Almost all actions were directed against fortified defenders.
During the many turns of war, I had researched Democracy and started the Statue of Liberty in Thebes. I had also research Steam power, which revealed that I had plenty of coal resources. One of the coal deposits were revealed under a mine at my production powerhouse, Alexandria. I built my Ironworks in that particular city.
A snapshot of my empire in 1706 AD.
After discovery of railroad I researched astronomy before picking scientific method.
I passed the 20 million mark in 1727.
At this point, I was still unsure what kind of victory I should pursue. The demographics showed that I was number one in all categories except approval rate and life expectancy where I was second. I was in prime position for a race to space as well as a domination victory with 42,9% land area already under my control. Since I felt that, after the conquest of England, I had already beaten the AI, I felt more drawn to the fastest of the two options.
However, in 1746 I finished the Statue of Liberty and revolted to Free market for the extra trade route. I discovered physics in 1750 and started research on biology.
In 1754, to further emphasize that I was still indecisive whether to go for domination or space, I declared war on Mansa Musa
Mansa's stack of defenders in Djenne was impressive in numbers, however there were not one single gunpowder unit amongst them. My stack attacked with everything they had and Mansa responded in the after turn with his remnants. It was in vain for poor Mansa however, cause in 1756 Djenne capitulated.
A funny thing happened during the fight at Djenne. I noticed that York had turned green!!! However, I was pretty sure that I captured that city from Elizabeth and not Saladin. I had to look at the log file to see what had happened and saw that York indeed flipped to Saladin back in 1748!! I may have been the absolute ruler of Egypt, but I did not do a particular good work to let such a happening go unnoticed..
I won't plague with the details of the war against Mansa, cause it was kind of single sided. Mansa must have had at least 60% of his forces inside Djenne when I attacked and the remainders huddled up inside his other cities when Djenne fell. The Mali campaign was more logistics than excitement. Wlak the cannons, riflemen and grenadiers to the nearest city, bombard, conquer, rinse and repeat.
In 1792, Ghuzz fell and with it, the entire Malinese empire. That is more like it, 7 cities over 38 years.
After the conquest of Mali, I was up to 52,8% of controlled land area, needing 62% for a domination victory, which now definitely felt like the fastest strategy.
After the discovery of assembly line, I ordered up factories in every city. Alexandria finished its factory in a couple of turns and was set to construct the Pentagon.
The world map 1819 AD. My city count was up to 28 after the defeat of Mansa Musa.
After discovering industrialism in 1824, all cities not needing infrastructure buildings, was set to produce tanks to fuel the final charge of Egypt.
My forces had amassed outside Saladin's borders and in 1837 I declared on him. Medina fell on the same turn and Damascus and Baghdad the turn after. Mecca and York was captured in 1840 and finally,
Najran in 1843 AD. It took only six (6) years to exterminate Saladin and the whole Arabian nation. Elizabeth took 103 years to break, Mansa Musa 38 and Saladin 6. That is what I call improvement.
Unfortunately, Saladin's lands had already been heavily pressured by my culture, so the total land area gained was not enough to take me over the domination threshold, 60,12% vs 62% needed.
I had to take the Egyptian tanks for yet another campaign.
Tokugawa, you can run but you cannot hide.......
Despite the late years, Tokugawa's highest defender was a Samurai!!!
Many units were killed during the war against Japan but none were Egyptian.
Both Tokyo and Edo (attacking through Roman lands) fell in 1849 and after the fall of Osaka in 1851 I checked the Victory conditions.
62,28% Mission complete!
I pressed enter and this picture popped up.
Please move to the next page for some statistics and afterthoughts.
