Well, forget what I said about who I'm attacking first. The iron is more important, and I founded my city right on top of the resource. No time to wait eight turns for an addled worker to get there and build a mine.
Also changed research from Mathematics to a beeline to the Heroic Epic. This should get me a 10 XP unit, and Math should come as a peace concession from Gilgy.
Stalin, far to the south, even bought into the war on my side for the low price of Monarchy!
Maybe this wasn't the best idea I ever had, though. I feel wholly inadequate in backing down to a Monarch AI, but fighting right now just isn't the best move. Gilgamesh will trade techs even at Annoyed, so I could make peace, flip Aesthetics for Mathematics, and come back in a couple hundred years with Heroic Epic catapults. And in the meantime he will go fight Russia, so later I can Operation Backstab his backside.
And naturally I also built the Great Library - National Epic combo. That's pretty much the "auto-pilot" button for Great People. Build that, certainly worth it with marble, and ensuing is a steady flow of Scientists even if you're Addled. Doesn't make for precise slingshot plans thanks to the Artist chance. And the timing gets rather spaced out after the first couple. But it's a guaranteed way of at least cashing in the first few cheap GPs that bear such excellent conversion from GPP to something tangible.
An aside: I realized that the Heroic Epic city can never multiple-whip except from scratch. No unit is expensive enough to take a turn invested and then still have 60/90 hammers left, until knights. Is it worthwhile to scratch-whip, or to stick to only single whips?
Another aside: The computer has no idea how to handle the Addled trait. It often made new population into specialists, oblivious to the fact that each would produce just 1 GPP. (Because Dan Quayle makes 3 * -50% equal 1, of course.)
A third aside: Hey, I never noticed this before, but if you "over-whip" a forge (by whipping just before you'd accumulate enough hammers to make it the next smaller whip), the overflow gets the forge bonus itself so it's like you whipped with the forge in place.
War with Gilgamesh then restarted a handful of turns before I'd planned, when Stalin came back asking for help. Why not, since I can clean up this city before going after a core one.
Hey, it's been a very long time since I've played a warring game without the Imperialistic trait. The first Great General took quite a while. He settled to start making 5 XP catapults, since my stack was making do fine with a regular medic.
Now with catapults I was able to punch through, capturing the Sumerian capital at the total cost of just two suicide catapults (two retreated at amazing odds) and one chariot batting cleanup at 85%.
Heh, the screenshot is blurry because conquering Stonehenge did the center-the-map globe-view thing right in the middle of the capture.
After one more city, I made peace for the moment, to extract Calendar and because there was a momentary gap in the reinforcement unit flow while the Heroic Epic city built a forge.
During the brief peace time, I made it to Currency by burning conquest cash, and traded it for Metal Casting (thanks to a City Ruins event that gave me some beakers towards MC). Even with Currency, I was in a pretty thorough economic crash now. Hereditary Rule is very addicting for happiness. More units more units more units! oops more costs. Vassalage is the remedy, but I didn't want to research Feudalism since it's too easy to trade for (high AI research priority but no wonders.)
Here's my next idea: research Compass, which will let a Great Scientist bulb Machinery! and I can get an early start on Optics. Going for domination, I *really* want Magellan's. The screenshot says 100 turns, but that's the 0% phase of binary research. I planned it like this:
0% research now until an Academy from the first GS
100% research on Compass
0% research until the second GS bulbs Machinery
100% research on Optics.
But that didn't even happen. Hammi turned up with Machinery, so I did in fact research Feudalism to trade for it. Then I just lightbulbed Optics directly with the second scientist.
Let's analyze whether Vassalage will be worth the anarchy. With an economy at net +28 cash at 0% science, +11 free unit support will pay for itself in less than 3 turns. Uh, YES.
Are the nerfed cottages going to help anything towards economic recovery?
Maybe, if the heat death of the universe doesn't come first. I still haven't figured out whether this leaves cottages nerfed but still playable as the best option, or total junk. Given my goal though - game score to Augustus Caesar - it's probably better to just farm for the population score.
Wait, how did that happen? Did something go off the rails with patch versions of the mod? That Sumerian city had a courthouse but not Code of Laws?
Anyway, Sumeria bit the dust in 920 AD. I'd been hoping to capture real Workers, but Dan Quayle's mere presence was enough to reduce them to sniveling Public Servants. (These Public Servants were easily the most irritating part of playing with this mod. There's a reason the standard worker has 2 movement.)
Stalin helpfully built the Apostolic Palace for Hinduism, letting me snag the hammer bonus for free. And I definitely have enough clout to block any attempted wins.
And I bulbed Optics as planned, and immediately whipped a caravel to sail each direction. Definitely 0% research till I find out what I can pick up in trade. I've got all the time in the world to plan my next move at home, since my Hindu buddy Hammurabi will not attack at Pleased.