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Welcome back. Last time you might remember that we left off with an imminent counterattack from Kublai. And... well, there wasn't one. 
I think I know why; he wanted that mace and catapult north of the city to join the stack first. Well, lucky break for me I couldn't snipe them, then, I was tempted to! I think I'll throw 2 catapults to soften him up, use that Shock knight and the wounded crossbow to try to kill his maces, then use the praetorians to hit all those units that aren't getting any defense from the hill.
OK, I was definitely lucky on this one. None of those fights were below 75% once the catapults chipped in (what helped was using the horse archer as soon as I had 90% odds, it wounded all those catapults, letting my spears actually kill them), and most were 92% (all the praets vs. keshiks), but you'd still expect about 3 losses, and I didn't have any. The 2nd battle of Karakorum was as decisive a win for Rome as the first!
Go forth, my minions! Yep, I'm grouping my trebs in the south, so I can take Turfan ASAP, it'll mostly be them plus the knights I rallied to Corfinium when I thought Kublai was going after it. That one lone War Elephant is basically our mascot, and it gives me a chance to point out I could've absolutely clowned Kublai with them, but elephants are seriously overpowered all the way until gunpowder units, and because I made friends with Cathy I didn't even need to have any myself! Oh yeah, that reminds me, I screencapped this but hadn't used it, because it broke the flow of the wartime discussion earlier:
Yes, she actually canceled the Ivory deal, to accept one more in my favor. Catherine the Great Negotiator she is not.
Some strategery here, as Kublai (presumably) blows up one of my iron mines. Unfortunately for him, that was "one of" them and I have a bunch of idle workers to get that patched up in no time, but keep in mind that AIs can and will sabotage your strategic resources!
Looks like Lincoln never got out much (neither Alex nor Boudica probably ever Opened Borders to him), you can see by the swing in gold on the table that my map is worth at least 100G to him. About half the civs still don't have Optics, but most have Philosophy, so this is a good deal for me. Optics unlocks Caravels, which I can use to sail through Vicky's culture and get missionaries to Greece if I still want to do that. I mean, that's just more gold for Cathy's shrine, and she just made the Spiral Minaret this turn for even more money! Checking diplo afterward, I have a -1 "traded with worst enemy" from Boudica and Cathy, so my map was worth way more than 100 to him, probably twice that. Poor guy. 
Well, I couldn't have known, so I'll just deal with it. That's like 4 trades with him now, I deserve to get dinged eventually.
Guess Cathy wants some tech too. 
Most AIs always give -1 demerits for doing things they don't like, but Cathy is one of a few that gives -2 for refusals (and boy was that a surprise the first time I saw her as a rival!). Fortunately, I'm almost done with Sistine and Music isn't a monopoly anymore (Boudica has it), so it's safe to agree. And it's been long enough the +1 from her last beg has worn off, because of course it has.
Apparently it's time for a resolution, and Bismarck wants out of the war. This isn't a strategic thing, the AP and UN unfortunately have very basic scripts for what AIs will put forward and vote for, and in this case Bismarck saw that he had an option that benefits himself and went for it. I'm going to vote no, because I don't think I'd get a "you voted for us" for a war resolution like this (and in any case I'll get it again when the Resident election comes up) and I want to keep his military strength in play to pressure Kublai, but I won't be sad if it passes; I already got my diplo point for the "shared military struggle."
But this turn is just getting started. First, Karakorum will starve to 1 because it can't work any tiles, so I need to decide the most effective way of converting those 8 citizens to units (the only thing worth doing because I have to give the city back once he capitulates). The issue is that whipping from scratch halves the hammers you get, and while the Forge surviving helps it's still pretty inefficient. So my plan is to queue a longbow (8 -> 5), spy (5 -> 3), and warrior (3 -> 2, but can't queue up 2 of the same thing separately), and go to the city each turn to make sure any overflow that would be lost (especially from those warriors) goes into another longbow. The warrior will just go to provide security elsewhere, like Arpinum.
Next, assigning our 2 Great Generals. Most players just dump all 20 XP onto one unit to hyper-focus them ("super-Medics" being the most common), but this is another way to do it, getting an entire squad over the 10XP hump. For example, that spearman in pic 1 gets Formation, which is amazing stack defense against keshiks, and the mace gets Woodsman 3, for backup healing and the first strikes. The other praetorians, as well as the trebs on the right, are getting enough XP to go to City Raider 3. CR3 is astoundingly powerful, reducing the foe's strength by 75% and making it likely the Raiders will survive fights and get used again (as well as giving us more GG XP).
Then we finally cash in our Great Artist for a Golden Age. We're swapping civics to Caste System (hence getting the whipping out of the way earlier), Free Market, and Pacifism. The extra trade route commerce will help balance out the surge in unit cost, and it'll be all to the good when we switch back to Organized Religion later; and we're going to try to get a few Great People out of this. I want at least 1 each Scientist, Merchant, and Prophet (in Rome, I'm building a Christian temple so I can run 2 priests there), though as much Scientist GPP as I can get is great. I plan on bulbing Printing Press and Chemistry by the time we're through.
Next turn, and unsurprisingly the measure succeeds, saving Bismarck from having to actually do anything. Oh well. I'll try to trade Nationalism for Gunpowder next turn before his affinity drops; if both the +2 from the election and the +1 from the war fade he'll drop back to Pleased. So let's check the tech situation and see how we look:
They both faded. 
OK, I might well reload then, I didn't expect that to happen. In fact, let's do that and vote yes, and see what happens.... No, doesn't change anything. Argh. Need to figure out how to get some brownie points with him ASAP.
I took 300 instead of the full 540 he had for Music, and that was enough to get another +1 "fair trade" point. Whew! Now watch him have been researching Nationalism instead of Education and I can't even trade for Gunpowder....
I forgot that keshiks get to ignore terrain costs and got a worker sniped. 
No big deal, I have plenty more and he shouldn't have been idling in the open (I just do that because if they're in cities I lose track of them, heh). I start seiging both New Sarai (just walls) and Turfan (castle!). Probably 2 turns of bombardment and then I move in, trying to hit both in the same turn. I go ahead and trade for Gunpowder now, just to be safe!
It's been 2 turns, but Turfan will definitely need more, castles take so long to chip down. Before I move in to Sarai, though, it's a pretty full turn, with 2 more wonders completing. I was hoping to get Sankore, but with Alex actually getting Paper and me not getting stone, it wasn't happening. I definitely want to conquer either Greece or Russia to get ahold of those buildings, especially since I don't plan on my monasteries obsoleting anytime soon. I've been leaning toward a domination win anyway, so maybe after Kublai I'll build up and then sweep through England going east? Before I attack, though, let's look for failgold!
Definitely some gold to be had, nice! And see how Bismarck isn't trading Astronomy? Yep, I got unlucky again and one of the fair trade bonuses faded, down to just +1. I've had good and bad streaks militarily, but diplo points have been horrible! In any case, I sell Paper to Abe and Boudica, and then make this deal with Cathy:
"But Wayne!" you're probably thinking, "Isn't Divine Right worthless now?" And it is... but they don't know that. No AI is going to tech it, and Cathy is the last person to get most of this stuff anyway. This gives me something to trade with further down the line.
The Battle of New Sarai. This went pretty much by the numbers with one huge exception: the mace-vs.-mace fight was a huge bottleneck, because he was Combat I + Shock, and I couldn't crossbow him thanks to the keshiks. I threw my new Woodsman 3 mace at him, just hoping to do more chip damage with the 2 first strikes... and won at like 20% odds. I absolutely should've lost 2 units there and here we are. Nothing happens the following turn, except that with Rome having a lot of overflow production and Military Tradition 1 turn away, I put it on Research for a turn to save that overflow to immediately make a cuirassier next turn. And "next turn" I try to snipe some of Kublai's reinforcements (a praetorian on a keshik and longbow in Karakorum on a catapult) and lose both, there're some of my low rolls!
And the Battle of Turfan. The CR3 trebs did the job well, and really, losing one of those was the only long odds I was looking at (besides the knight-vs.-pike, I had to sacrifice one because I needed the knights to hit his tough defenders), the first one was only about 70% odds of surviving. But all 3 made it and shredded the defenders, though you can see from the limited collateral damage that some catapults were selected, and as a result the pike and longbow both had 5.5/6! But I can't complain. That's another series of 10 90%s, you do expect to lose at least one of those! I had my horse archer selected to deal with that catapult and ride back into New Sarai, he spotted with that Sentry vision bonus that Old Sarai only has 3 defenders. As soon as I heal up it'll be next, since Kublai still won't capitulate.
Not that I'm ungrateful for a new Academy, but, uh... yeah, this might explain Kublai's teching woes. How much commerce do you see in this Science City? 1 cottage. 1 lousy stinkin' cottage! I'm going to put my idle workers in Corfinium and get started putting more cottages down by the time the city comes out of revolt.
Uh oh, look at this. I didn't think too much of it when Kublai converted to Judaism a few turns ago, but that made him Friendly with Cathy. Peace-vassaling follows the same rules as bringing someone into a war, you're basically offering your civ instead of tech or gold; so in this case Cathy wouldn't accept... unless she's Friendly with the would-be vassal (her criteria for getting bribed in). Well, now she is, and she can declare on someone she's Friendly with. So Kublai has put me in a tough position: negotiate an early peace, not including capitulation; or risk war with Russia. And she has stacks of war elephants running around the border. Unfortunately for Kublai, there's one thing he didn't count on.
I have more money than you. We're not actually doing this just yet, I just wanted to make sure we can. Why? Because Bismarck is still AP Resident and he'll probably do a "Everybody stop fighting " resolution in a few turns, but after that we'll move to end this war. In fact, seeing that his cities all have castles now, I'm going to send that whipped spy toward Ning-hsia and build one in Ravenna this turn and put my espionage slider on 100% on the last turn of the Golden Age (this turn I'm going to bulb Printing Press and finish it, so I get a little more commerce for the EP). I'll try to take Beshbalik the old-fashioned way and then revolt down the castle to take it ASAP. Liberalism isn't in danger yet, and this will save a lot of time dealing with Kublai. ...y'know, if it works.
Sorry bro, "I'm afraid of your enemies." It is a good sign that we've worked our way back to Cautious with him, though.
Boudica also pops up, offering to trade maps. Looks like she's in a similar predicament, missing part of the map because of not having Open Borders with a neighbor. Every time an AI does this, click to negotiate and see "What would make this deal work?" because usually they'll toss some gold in, in this case; 60 of her 250. Cha-CHING, right? 
Here's the real reason I made that elephant, to upgrade it later. Yep, you can "upgrade" your giant pachyderms into far more powerful horses. I upgrade all the knights, no reason not to and I have the cash.
Swapping back to our "building" civics, since I'm pretty sure I have the manpower to beat Kublai with those upgraded cuirassiers (and Rome will churn out a few more too until I have the Universities whipped to build Oxford). 430 EP is just about exactly enough to revolt Ning-hsia with the full 50% discount:
So we should only need to run espionage for 1 turn. If I forgot to mention it previously, the total amount of EP each civ has spent provides a global modifier on costs (that's why I'm underwater on all opponents, paying more than the standard amount; I've never touched the slider yet and the AIs sometimes will, plus they tend to build courthouses zealously), so it'll go down next turn.
Great People pop up (and as mentioned, I'm saving that prophet to be 1/2 of the next Golden Age), as does a keshik, just in time to test our new mounted units. 
Hey, look at that, enough EP to get sight on his cities! Looks like he's been spamming macemen, and has no clue how to deal with my variety of units, trying keshiks, cats, and a pike in Tiflis (plus a settler in Tabriz, the city way up in his NE, where's he planning on going...?). ...hey, I need to settle that river spot where Samarqand used to be! Thanks for reminding me, Kublai! Also with New Sarai coming out of revolt, I officially rename it to... let's see... Sirmium, that's close enough.
I'm about to head out to Beshbalik (1 more turn to heal, 2 to get there since I can cut through culture-vacated land), and the time has come to deal with Cathy. Boudica has Judaism, and Catherine wants all my techs to deal with her (which is a shame, Boudi and Bismarck really need to be fighting someone to slow them down), so she's out; Bismarck can resolve to break up a fight between them. Ditto Kublai, like we discussed before. She wants almost as much tech to fight Lincoln, and I'd rather not part with all my monopoly techs to do that, plus I'm currently at +0 with America and may well make friends with him later. That leaves Alex and Vicky. Greece has the fewest cities and doesn't have Guilds, he'll certainly lose if he gets double-teamed. But Victoria might be able to fend Cathy off, and she's a competent enough techer she might be able to get herself out if she starts losing cities. So here we go. It really stings giving away half my war chest, but it'll be worth it if I can wipe out Mongolia undisturbed, and this way Catherine doesn't get even further ahead in tech.
I should've seen that coming! If she asks again I will join in, I just can't afford to have my eastern holdings taken while I'm moving my armies west.
Bismarck, why OK, I have two options now if I want to finish this war. I can Defy, which will almost certainly result in Rome "being considered a villain" and inflicting -5 Happiness everywhere (worse I'll lose my 2 hammers for Jewish religious buildings!). Kublai would probably Defy himself if he thought he was winning, but we know he's on the cusp of capping. Or I can ignore this another way: I can vote yes, negotiate a cease-fire with Kublai, and re-declare next turn (cease-fires don't invoke a 10-turn peace the way treaties do). Both options have their pros and cons, but there's only one way I can see Caesar handling this: going to the Palace and delivering a speech exactly where he thinks Resident Bismarck can put his resolution. ...and then there's riots in the streets of Rome because this is Civ and not life, but what're you gonna do? Ceasefire abuse is really gamey and I don't like it, much like failgold and building wealth instead of actually making economic buildings, but it'd probably be the better move here. Oh well.
Yep, it happened. The happiness penalty lasts for 20 turns or once you sign onto a resolution that then passes, and that's the only way to bring your hammers back. I'll cancel the gems deal to Bismarck since most of my cities have Forges now, that'll be +2 happiness (on top of the silver now that Karakorum is connected to my network). I should be able to hold on without using the culture slider for now, but once I take another city or two war weariness is going to start giving me unhappiness I have to resort to bread and circuses to deal with.
I can also renegotiate some deals, such as putting the Copper I'm not using (and probably won't again until I try for the Statue of Liberty, if I even do) and 1 little gold per turn into 2 happiness resources, so I can barter my 2nd Gems for something else (ultimately I sell them to Bismarck for 10 GPT because nobody else had anything I needed).
Go home, Kublai, you're drunk. Seriously, what is the AI thinking, trying to sneak 2 catapults past my SoD? Where are they even going?!
4 production per city doesn't sound like a ton, but it really adds up in high-cost buildings like wonders. I have to give up on the Taj now, and that's a Golden Age I may (hard to say, Industrial is where AI advantages really start ramping up and some of them, like Vicky and Cathy, had a few turns' head start) miss out on, all because of the Apostolic Palace. I'll get that stuff back, and all this land will definitely make up for it, but it's still really frustrating!
For the third time Alex asks me to join the war. It's actually been long enough he's forgotten the first one! I still say no, for the same reason as the last 4 times people at war with Victoria asked me to help. I guess to be fair I did start it.
Turfan Treveri comes out of revolt, and the rejoicing citizens are greeted with a poisoned water supply. At least Kublai isn't stealing my techs! I whip the Theater immediately instead of waiting, it only takes 2 pop thanks to Organized Religion + Forge and takes care of the health "issue," plus it lets me start on the Library without having to build culture first. I'll whip a University here ASAP too, I really need to get Oxford online.
The Battle of Beshbalik, made possible this turn thanks to cuirassiers' ability to ignore walls. I did sacrifice one CR3 trebuchet to grease the skids a bit (it swung the odds around against the maces, and I had Shock cuirs to seal the deal), and lost one anyway, but other than that it was another crushing victory. In fact....
Yep, he's had enough. Unfortunately his palace auto-relocated to Ning-hsia, which is a city I absolutely want. Fortunately neither spy's been caught yet, so I should be able to take it in a few turns. At which point... do I even want Mongolia as a vassal? I guess ultimately it fits the Caesar aspect more to "pacify the tribes" and adopt them in instead of wiping them out, delenda est was a little before his time. If Khan hasn't found someone else to peace-vassal to-- and I can't see who would do it-- then I'll take the deal after I get one last city. I may well give him back New Sarai to give him contiguous borders along with Karakorum, and just demand the stone.
While I was in the diplo screen, I see that Boudica is finally plotting! Geez, lady, you only spent 5000 years next to a country you hate, what'd he do now, forget to send you a birthday card? Anyway, Bismarck has Chemistry, but I'm going to let my wheeling-and-dealing counter wear off a bit and tech it myself, starting with a bulb from the Great Scientist I just got. Once you unlock Scientific Method your Scientists only want to bulb it, so it's not the waste it might seem like (remember, I want SM late to keep my Great Library and stuff active). Nobody has Education yet so Libbing Steel is an option once I get Chemistry, and I'll go back to Replaceable Parts after I finish it.
An update on my stack, and a cool little thing you might call "combat workers" or the "Army Corps of Engineers." By moving a worker up the same turn I took Beshbalik (and I already moved him, but he was covered by a reinforcing cuirassier), and building a road, I saved a turn moving my army to the next target. Every turn counts in war in Civ!
Speaking of stacks, take a look at Catherine, moving two through my territory to go after England. Considering she wasn't plotting on anyone, that's a pretty impressive army. But then Cathy always seemed like a solid opponent, so I bet she builds an above-average amount of units, and she has the most cities (I assume "had," now, depending on how many Mongolian cities I end up with, heh). ...you know, I'm talking about the other leaders, and particularly about Cathy, who has unique rules for plotting... and I just realized I don't know if Bismarck can declare at Pleased or not. I don't want to take the risk, so I beg some gold from him to set up a peace treaty, just in case Kublai could peace-vassal to him. I don't think it's necessary, but why risk it?
I finally finish a 6th University (still a few more in production), and start chopping Rome's remaining forest to go into it, plus 2-pop whipping the rest of a Customs House (Rome's whips are 60 hammers per citizen on buildings, and it was at 116/180, lucky me!). America finished the Taj Mahal and there's some tasty failgold on offer, but the only pile I go for is Boudica's, since she's one of the last to get Guilds. You can see Victoria already has Replaceable Parts, she's almost certainly beelining Rifling to get Redcoats, which would definitely save her from Cathy and possibly single-handedly turn the war around on Alex. There's no answer to Redcoats until Infantry, or a full offensive with cannons and other rifles (or grenadiers, their bonuses against each other cancel out).
It's been a long, hard-fought battle, but it's almost over. The spy succeeds, and as estimated blows through all my EP, I can't even steal 23 gold from him. The Battle of Ning-hsia is a cakewalk, the CR3 trebs followed by the Accurate ones crushing the defenders to nothing and a mop-up at 98-99% odds across the board. Now, we'll discuss Kublai's unconditional surrender.
It's a shame he hasn't finished Astronomy yet, he definitely would've thrown that in if he's willing to part with his 2nd-biggest city. We'll take it, but I'm just going to whip a cuirassier there and give it back. That's the only city of his that can really do any research (actually Old Sarai isn't bad now that I look at it), and we'll be wanting him to tech stuff we're not getting and trade for it, as you do with vassals. The one wrinkle here is I'm not Opening Borders with him. I don't need to (you can move through your vassal's lands freely, it just keeps him from doing the same to you), but there's still a good reason not to. See, I need to vote Yes on an AP resolution to regain full membership (and my hammers ), and since Bismarck is being a total care bear about our inter-sectional strife, I figure he'll move to Open Borders between all members as long as one of us doesn't have them.
Ha ha, holy cow, I'm not keeping this city! I've been holding off on some of my national wonders until I got this land (for example, I'm thinking Ning-hsia will get the Globe Theater, it has great food and not much else), the Forbidden Palace among them. If I get "invited" to join the war on England, then I'll probably put it there. If not, and I don't anticipate declaring myself, I might put it in Treveri. My "number of cities" maintenance will go down once I liberate some of Kublai's cities back to him. I'd do that now (and in fact I did liberate Karakorum this turn, as per our rules), but there's a chance Bismarck might instead resolve to "return a city to its rightful owner," and I want to be able to influence which cities that could be.
Always feels weird actually making a new city, y'know, Settler and all, this late in the game. If it'll let me, I'll liberate this city to Kublai (and rename it New Samarqand, heh), since it'll be quite poor until Biology; it's mostly there because Samarqand was placed too close and off-river. With Emancipation this city can run a few cottages, but so many tiles near it are desert there's only so much you can do with it. And no resources, of course. ...OK, it shows up as an option to Liberate, cool.
Oxford completes, and... man, what more can I say? 300 beakers just from one city. That'll be another 18 (probably 20 once some tiles get improved too) once the Confucian and Taoist missionaries make it here for me to build monasteries for even more science.
And also in the news, looks like I was right about the direction of the AP as long as it's on Otto-pilot, he resolves this instead of, say, having us all dogpile Victoria (as long as one member is at war with a non-member, you can call a holy war on the other party). The next AP vote should be for the next resident, assuming Bismarck and Cathy are still the choices (and they probably will be once I give Kublai back his cities) I should be able to get Otto back to Friendly and trade for some of his stuff. That means going for something he isn't, which is why I'm on Steam Power; Cathy just got Constitution and I know Boudica was going there from the last time I had enough EP to watch her research.
The vote goes through without a hitch, restoring my status and sweet, sweet hammers. I'll be liberating Kublai's cities next turn, I had to wait until now for overflow (Tiflis) and chops I've selfishly used for military instead of saving them for Kublai (Sirmium) to get those cuirassiers within whip range. Needless to say, if you whip the unit in the queue and then lose the city that turn, you won't get the thing you rushed!
Next turn, I liberate all the previously-discussed Mongolian cities, plus the duly-renamed Circei, catapulting Kublai to Friendly and basically erasing any chance he'll revolt on me, unless Victoria wipes him out with redcoats, which is, uh, definitely a risk. Anyway, we're going to wrap up here, so let's take a look at where things stand.
Beshbalik Brundisium seems like our ideal Heroic Epic spot. It'll have an amazing Levee with all those water tiles, and it's the only Mongol city with a settled General.
Astoundingly, nobody has Education yet, so I'm still safe to meander down the tech tree to scoop the best tech I can with Liberalism. I'm considering using it to get Democracy once I trade for Constitution, that'd be the best way to get the Statue of Liberty (well, I'd have to get my Copper back from Boudica first, but easily done). I'll decide whether to wait one more turn to see if she shows up with it after all, or just trade with Cathy now before she can spend more of that gold. Bismarck is about to get Scientific Method, so he's definitely going for the freebies with either Communism or Physics (or both if he's that far ahead).
OK, so the war is finally over and reconstruction is proceeding apace. How are we doing?
Bismarck has snuck ahead of us in research, but that's because our slider is down because our expenses are up. Once we finish with Courthouses and get Corporation (requiring Constitution, and which we'll need anyway for Assembly Line later) we'll be back on top easily. Unfortunately, we're a little behind everywhere else, with military especially being less than I'd like if we're going to be asked to join in on Victoria (and let's face it, we probably will be). I think I might see if voting for Bismarck as Resident again will bump him to Friendly, and try trading for Military Science for Grenadiers. We're also above water on trade, that's unexpected but welcome! Going Mercantilism once you have Representation is always tempting, but it'd definitely put us behind now.
I mentioned it last time, but here's a reminder that a vassal not only gives you a -1 with everyone, but influences their perceptions of you. For example, Lincoln is still listed at Cautious, but he's actually Annoyed (not allowing Open Borders):
I'll look up exactly how this "opinion averaging" thing works later. I'd heard it basically meaned your relation totals (such as Victoria being at -6 instead of -10 with me), but given the Lincoln example, it might only use your "category" (so if he's Cautious with me but more Annoyed at Kublai, he's Annoyed with both). This is going to be important since it'll determine whether it's with it to court Bismarck or not bother, depending on how many "virtual points" away from Friendly I am with him. Anyway, we'll deal with this next time, along with our next moves... a vassal is definitely great, but half the AIs are still threats and the diplomatic situation is rocky. Thanks for reading!