I put down a few more cities, trying to concentrate on commerce so that I can get my tech rate up. Unfortunately, the game is not helping ... a careless apprentice burns down the forge at Washington and vermin eat my stored food. I also get a smart-ass blacksmith that manages to get extra production out of Boston's forge. Our shipmasters also devise a way to reinforce the hulls of our triremes (promoted to combat I). I just want to take them out the back and beat the stuffing out of them. How did they do that without copper?
I finally finish Optics in 900AD (turn 155) and start to build caravels to go and meet the others and gain that circumnavigation bonus. Two turns later ...
Man this game sucks the biggest one. I finally met my first AI ... or he greets me ... Churchill in 1010AD (turn 161) and his score is 1099, mine ... errr ... 445. See above re comment on this game. Its now a flood of AIs (Hammurabi in 1060, Genghis Khan in 1070, Caesar and Mao in 1080 and, finally, Pacal II in 1260). Hammurabi gives me Currency, Mediation, Polytheism and 15 gold for Optics. Khan gives me Priesthood, Code of Laws and Masonry for Optics. This trade hurt because everyone hated Khan and I had just traded with everyone's worst enemy. Who cares - what can they do at the moment?
Well, with this game in the bag, I decided to play abit with the BtS new items ... things like stealing techs that I hadn't done before. I turn my research off and put everything into spying against Churchill. I put together a spy and sent him over to visit the barbs - can you steal techs from the barbs? On the way, he visited the hut that was guarded by the archer and I got my second fav moment ...
Its at this stage that the single event that was the lynch pin in the whole game comes along ... Churchill asks me to help in the war with China. The mainland had been going war crazy with a fair amount of conflict between the parties.
