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Welcome back. Last time you might remember we soundly thrashed Korea's woefully outdated stack and took our first city, Wonsan Marrakech. In other news in the empire, we almost have 2 Prophets and a (presumed) Scientist popping in quick succession, though there'll be time between each Great Person due to the points needed going up each time. One will bulb Divine Right and the other will probably make the Church of the Nativity, because the next tech in the bulb path is Music and we should be able to trade for that.
We'll open with foreign affairs like usual, but first, I noticed something interesting when I checked how many cities Wang Kon has:
We've talked about vassals in the thread before (mostly about how people don't like them 
), but I don't think anyone's gone into detail about it yet. Basically, the civ becomes a "junior member" of your empire. You get to count half their population and land toward your Domination threshold (and other things that factor that in, like the Power check to see if another civ wants to declare on you), and you can order them to research things and make deals they might not otherwise want to, like trading their only copy of a resource. They join your wars and can't start any on their own, and you get one Demand they have to accept; successive demands can make them break away from your empire.
They also affect diplomacy. Making someone your vassal makes the other civs nervous (they get a permanent -1 "We are afraid of our rivals becoming your vassals!" as long as you have one, and that goes up as you cap more civs), and their view of you is colored by your vassals. Basically, your rivals average their opinion of you and them and react accordingly, such as refusing deals if they hate your vassal enough to take them from Pleased to Annoyed with you, for example. In this case....
Wang isn't really any worse with the Hindu bloc than I am (except for Sury, who he was just at war with, of course ), and is substantially better liked amongst his fellow Buddhists. Getting him on my side poisons the well with one civ, in exchange for boosting my rapport with 3. And once things sour with these guys (Capac is still on the list), I can force Wang to convert to Christianity, and I'll probably spread Islam to his cities too for more votes and Shrine gold once those are both in play.
I take his gold and accept his service. I could've gone on once the reinforcement trebs were in and took his capitol, and a lot of players do that in war even if they plan to cap the AI in question. Two things, though. One, Capac hates me and likes Korea, so this is a prime situation for a "peace vassal" (one civ surrenders to a more powerful friend, bringing him into the war as his protector against you) and the treaty I had with the Inca just expired a few turns ago. So I'd have to be ready for the Inca to swarm Damascus or Khurasan while I'm in Korean land. Two: Kon is Financial, meaning he's potentially a solid techer, but he needs his cottages to actually make that commerce and turn it into science. And I want to direct his research to grab things the AIs don't have or aren't trading and trade him my stuff (which'll pocket any money he's stockpiling at the time, too). For example, I tell him to grab Drama, and he says it'll be 6 turns, despite only 1 AI having it and thus no discount in play yet, meaning his (AI-adjusted) tech rate is about 90 beakers/turn. Far less than me, but he's doing it on 1/4 the cities!
I sign Open Borders and set up a trade of wine for fur, which is Happiness-neutral for him and +1 for me; both to start boosting relations. Fog of war gets pulled back around his culture to reveal... he actually has a production capitol, and his tech rate is without Merrakech's cottages, since they're out of range of his other cities. Not bad! Well, the first thing I'll trade him is Machinery, then: he's Protective too so crossbows are as good for him as they were for me, and he'll probably turn those river mines into windmills, which'll get his commerce back up. The AI tends to focus its improvements on max yields, and windmills technically have that over mines, even though most of the time if I want the production, I want as much of it as I can get and work other tiles when I need to grow, not do a little of both like windmills. Finally, I see that Capac is almost done with Theology and has a fair bit of cash, so I sell it to him. "Cha-CHING," as the AIs say. 
So the plan now is to start rushing those specialists out, since that's what I'm really behind on. I set up things to whip next turn (like a crossbow in Mecca, 60 hammers being the goal in a Bureaucracy capitol with a Forge thanks to 30 base x75% = 52; if I didn't have the Forge, I could 2-pop whip a Stables, which is what I really want), mostly courthouses, and plan to switch to Pacifism and Serfdom for 5 turns after next turn (remember, you have to end your in Organized Religion for the multiplier to apply!). I'll start but not finish building units in my cities during those 5 turns and run as many specialists as possible, and then switch to XP civics and actually finish the units, so as many as possible get the bonus. If you're curious, I have to put some beakers in Divine Right since a prophet won't bulb the whole thing on his own.
Next turn, and a snapshot of the empire. That should be about enough on Divine Right, and I put Medina into a little starvation to run another priest, shaving a turn off the Great Prophet's emergence. Mecca is working all its production tiles and the cottages, and then the corn to make sure it grows back next turn. I'll definitely be cutting it close on Angkor Wat!
Paper comes in, and Wang immediately demands we trade maps. Since I don't think he's Melth in disguise with a master plan of killing me afterward, why not? He's probably scouted people I haven't--
...or not. 
Guess he didn't get out much. Well, if you're the first to Paper it's often worthwile to see if you trade and/or sell maps to get some quick gold. If you buy (not trade or sell) maps on a Continents game, and piece together what AIs in the Age of Sail have explored, you can get the circumnavigation bonus without ever leaving port. That doesn't help much on pangaeas, of course, but it probably won't stop me from sending a caravel east and come out the other side if I'm the first to Optics.
Welp, there's a pang of buyer's remose on vassaling Korea: that -1 was enough to bump Suryavarman to Cautious, and we know he's actually worse than that because of the attitude averaging; see that Worst Enemy list being half the other civs, among them Wang Kon? Yeah. Pericles still won't talk to us, so we know what happens if we accept this deal, and we know Sury is in no position to do anything about it, being on the losing end of a war right now.
OK, sure, Holy City in my 3rd-largest city instead of a far-flung fishing village like usual, why not? Heck, I was half-expecting something like when Alemanni became the Confucian holy city the turn after it was captured, and Merrakech being the Muslim holy city! This is still handy, of course: Damascus is a great city and the free culture will help push back Incan borders. I also go to trade Drama to Wang, probably for Feudalism or something... and found out he's traded Theology to his Buddhist bros for that, Metal Casting, and Code of Laws! Well, I was going to trade him Machinery anyway, so I still do that for Drama and his gold, and set him on Music: he has all the discounts in play and, more importantly, can't trade it to his friends because they already have it. 
The only way to stop this is force them to stop trading with the other AIs, but that makes relations drop and a big part of the reason I did this was to prevent a 3-on-1. It worked, at least for now; Huayna stopped plotting now that our relations are effectively Pleased.
While I'm wheeling-and-dealing, I see Pericles is willing to talk again (though going off that sweet sword-sharpening animation I've never seen before, he's still not happy with us) so I sell him Literature. His friendship with Wang is enough to get him to sign Open Borders with me, and it might be possible to turn him against Capac when fighting breaks out (he dislikes him the most of all the Buddhists, thanks to that "trade embargo" Capac inflicted on me way back when), so I take it. I'll need to get some missionaries there for AP shenanigans anyway eventually.
I check the tech screen again since Huayna suddenly went from 4 turns on Civil Service to nothing, and sure enough, he traded Theology and some cash to Boudica for it, who now has 200 gold for me to sell something to her for. This is a good example of why disabling "tech brokering" can slow the pace of a game substantially. As-is, I don't sell her anything; the best bet would be Machinery, but she'd just turn around and trade it to Capac for Music if I did. Though, wait a minute... I'm courting the Buddhists and not the Hindus, and I have a pretty strong Power rating thanks to my vassal and military that basically took no losses. So I just take some. 
You get a feel for how much you can beg as you play, and you can demand about half again that much (maybe x2 that much, but that seems to fail more often than it's worth). Now, I know you're probably thinking, "Wayne, isn't Boudica the one person who hasn't jerked you around this game?" and my reply is "Life Civ isn't fair."
The other thing this turn is that the AP is almost done! Now, in a sane game, you'd be putting this in your majority religion already so all your cities would instantly benefit, but this is a challenge run and it has to be Islam. The Palace uses your state religion at the time it's built and doesn't change, unlike civics that go off your religion. So since we're Spiritual, my plan is to delay this until I'm 1 turn away from a civics change (so in 2 turns), then switch to Islam and finish the AP, then switch to Free Religion the following turn, which will kick us out of Islam without having to wait the 5 turns. That'll give me time to get missionaries out and start building Muslim religious buildings. I'll probably actually switch back to Christianity after Free Religion until more of the missionaries are out. And despite what the picture says, after typing this, I hold back research 1 more turn so max the benefit of Free Religion's +10%.
Angkor 
? This is one of those wonders that seems better than it is, due to Civ4's metagame. Sure, it gives priest specialists +1 hammer, making them slightly better than Engineer specialists (they still give the +1 gold). But you don't usually run engineers for production; you run them to get Great Engineers to auto-build ridiculously expensive stuff like the Pentagon or bulb things in the early game. Meanwhile, Great Prophets stop bulbing techs (and as discussed, are less efficient at bulbing than Scientists anyway) and you don't normally need them for Shrines (though in this case we need two ). But for this challenge it's great. A Muslim temple costs effectively 40 hammers thanks to Spiritual's bonus, gives +2 for free thanks to the AP, and the priest it lets me run is another +2. It's a good way to get hammered in a commerce city. Anytime a wonder race is over, it also pays to check the tech trade screen, and sure enough Pericles is sitting on 310 gold and still lacking Drama. Thanks for your patronage! With that money, and not wanting to jump the gun on Science, I dump all my EP on Pericles (switching "weight 1" from Capac to him) and run the slider to 100%, which should let me watch his research for awhile. I have enough castles and courthouses I actually make almost as much EP as science at full blast! Next turn it goes back on the Inca and the 100% goes to science.
Said shenanigans in action! Humorously, the Muslim prophet heads off to establish the Church of the Nativity; it's spread much further than Islam, obviously, so we'll get a lot more gold for it. We'll be getting more prophets to profit from Islam later. Free Religion's science bonus shaves a turn of Education, which is good, since it seems like Capac has his eye on the Liberalism race, about to break my Paper monopoly.
Holy Shrines are especially desirable in a priest game like this thanks to unlocking 3 more slots. I'm turning the grass hill mine into a windmill and adding a 4th farm, so as to get more food to run these specialists soon. Ideally I'll get enough food to give the floodplain towns back to Mecca and profit more from Bureaucracy and still run multiple priests.
Uh, pretend you don't notice the dates here. 
Yeah, so, I forgot you need to have the state religion you want in the city that's building the AP, and it actually forfeited all my hammers and wouldn't let me build it again when the wonder "finished." I wonder if that would deny it to any other AI, too, if that happens? Anyway, I reloaded and sent my first missionary to Medina instead of Mecca. Actually finishing the Palace this time netted Huayna 200 failgold, and with him 2 turns away from Paper, I sell it to him (he still wants Machinery, and I'm pretty sure that cash + Music would let him get it from someone). It gives me a +1 "fair trade" bonus (yeah, 25% of its value in gold is sure fair ) and bumps him to Pleased while I'm in Free Religion.
In 1020AD, Sury asks to join the war on Caesar, which has to be coming up a thousand years of fighting. I turn him down; my stack has to stay in former Korean territory until it builds up some culture and the chance of revolt goes down. It should coincide with my new unit buildup that's going on now; I have a bunch of horse archers and trebs with just a few turns left to go to build all in a row once I can change to my military civics. For example:
You thought I was mad when I built the Colossus, but turns like this mean I get 5 more commerce than I would've otherwise, so who's laughing now?! Oh, and don't be surprised when I report that Capac immediately traded Paper to Caesar for Machinery. I'm going to have to declare on the Inca or get him at war with someone else, he's Financial and OP as hell the civ with the best shot of catching me if things stagnate, even just on Monarch. Of course, plotting his demise won't stop me from asking him for some cash as long he's happy with Arabia being atheist instead of one of those wacky Abrahamic religions.
Speaking of cash, have we talked about the resource trade screen yet? Pointing out 2 things here. First, I'm making 21GPT in selling excess resources. On a higher difficulty level I probably wouldn't trade Happiness resources to powerful civs (the AI uses its cheating growth curve to fill its cities to the limit, which those trades raise) unless I had to, but here's it helping me pay for my teching. 2nd, you can see what resources AIs lack. Once Wang gets some GPT to pay me, I plan on selling him my Iron so he can actually make those crossbows I mentioned, since I can see he doesn't have any. Boudica lacks horses and iron, which makes her vulnerable, and only Pericles has marble besides me. This screen won't show "won't trades" AIs only have 1 copy of, which is why Caesar's stone isn't listed, even though I know it's right outside Rome (and I want it baaaad why can't I get stone ).
As if hearing me discuss this, Pericles pops up in 1040AD asking for some Iron. I go to the negotiation screen instead, see that he has nothing else I need and no money for the deal instead, and turn him down. Next turn, we find out we haven't been religious enough and the RNGod curses us with a prophet instead of a Scientist in Mecca, despite 85% odds (the rest evenly split between that and Artist). That's what we get for going Free Religion, I guess! Not ideal, but Shrines increase auto-spread and the odds go way down since our cities already have at least 1 religion, and thanks to the Apostolic Palace the Muslim shrine will give Damascus +2 hammers, and that's a good deal in our Heroic Epic city. So:
Same turn, I switch civics, going to Vassalage (and thus not Bureaucracy) for the first time. Mecca still produces 20 hammers a turn, so it can 2-turn Islamic missionaries. I micro the city to run as many priests as possible to still pull that off and also keep the cottages going, and end up with:
The only thing I'm worried about now is Engineering is popping up. Caesar teched it himself, and Capac and Pericles are a few turns out on it (faster still if they trade him for it, but I don't know if they can, it's a fairly expensive tech). Pikeman and castle walls are the bane of medieval warfare. I have enough EP on the Inca to bring down a few walls with espionage, or I could go after someone who either doesn't have it, or is small enough I can still win quickly despite having to take a few turns to bombard walls down. One advantage of the extra XP is all my trebs can have City Raider I + Accuracy, and do that much more quickly.
Both sides have officially requested Arabia enter the war on their side, and I'm pretty Suryavarman has twice, plus the joint attack on Korea. I'm not interested in marching my stack halfway across the map to declare on someone everyone else likes, so I turn Caesar down. In fact, I think this cinches it: my first move should be taking JC out, he's quite close to my borders, has stone, and has his stack in or around Khmer territory instead of at home. I switch the slider to max culture for a turn, hoping to lower the revolt risk in Marrakech, and start moving my stack to regroup to Damascus the next turn. Wang also finishes Music, so I trade him Civil Service for it (that should also help him tech, going into Bureaucracy) and put him on Compass; nobody else has it and it'd be nice to get Optics and check out more of the map, which I can sell for petty cash (and who knows, maybe there're islands out there?).
Well, I say that, and suddenly JC has Compass and Capac is going for it. That's fine, just makes it cheaper for Wang to research it himself. The more interesting news is Rome put its stone to work on finishing University of Sankore, which left some failgold in the Incan and Greek coffers. I begged from Capac recently so I can't do much with him (and I don't want to trade him anything), but the following turn Boudica declared on Pericles! This lets me kill 2 birds with 1 stone: make a demand on Pericles he's in no position to refuse, and set up a peace treaty with him to keep Boudica from demanding I join her war (nobody likes her now since she's the lone Hindu civ, so I'm as fair a choice as anyone when she goes shopping around for help).
Arabia at 1100AD. We haven't gained any cities, but Islam is starting to make a foothold and we've grown them up a little. I minimized whipping during this unit production cycle, usually just once per city (like in Basra, whipping a Stable so the camels would get more XP and finish a bit sooner thanks to the overflow), and plan to run the XP civics one more turn and then switch to Organized Religion for 5 turns to get some buildings done. My plan is to put the Globe Theater in Basra, and chained farms from the Incan lake near Corihuayrachina (yes, I typed that looking at it ) to irrigate the corn to get a bit more food. There's a trick with the Globe Theater where if you have enough food surplus, you can regrow as fast as you whip/draft, and once I get Liberalism, I'll be Libbing Nationalism and unlocking the draft, so we should be ready. This'll also be a good way to whip additional Muslim missionaries once I send one from Mecca there.
And a quick look at the competition. We're not quite as strong militarily as the Inca, but we're substantially above average, and will be getting another 2 each pikes and camels next turn, plus more castles once I get back in OR. The fact we're ahead of the Inca in tech despite being substantially worse than them in population is a strong argument for the "cottage economy" (and I haven't even been going all-in on it, I run a bunch of specialists too) and partly the difficulty level; the AI starts getting advantages over you, but it's not quite ridiculous yet. On Immortal I'd definitely be lagging behind them!
You've waited patiently, and it's almost time. Tune in next time for Camelgeddon.
