Epic 3: Part 2
Now that the population scoring point is past I built a few more workers, and also ramped up my army. Still mostly Axemen, but I didn't chase any of the military techs, instead I aimed for Currency as my economy wasn't exactly happy. I also (somewhat belatedly) micromanaged all my cities for maximal commerce rather than maximal growth and got my science rate back up to 50%.
And not long after - Louis declared war. I'd been expecting that as he wasn't happy & he was more powerful than me. But I'd hoped for a little more time. Still, his attacking stacks didn't exactly look fearsome:
So I undid some of my MM and got production back online in some of the cities. And dropped the science rate again ... After I'd churned out several Axes & dealt with the stack attacking Cuzco (very easily) I had a stack ready to go kick some French arse :) I was quite keen on getting Rheims, and its defenses didn't look too bad:
Louis starts to panic & asks for peace before I get to Rheims, but I'm not especially interested.
Rheims falls, rather easily:
And I sue for peace. He's not interested in giving me anything, but I could do with the breathing space to build up some more army before getting more of his cities. 
Currency is finally discovered and I aim for Feudalism for Longbowmen for city defence (having discovered how useful they were in Epic 2) I'm also starting to think about the need to find other civs - Louis hates my guts, so isn't interested in trading with me.
A Great Prophet is (finally) born in Cuzco in 920AD, which means I get the Buddhist Shrine & my economy breathes a sigh of relief:
The other rather nice side-affect of the shrine is that Buddhism spreads into Louis' lands even more quickly. And shows me the garrison in Chartres:
Now, that doesn't look so bad. My army is growing rapidly - and Louis is trying to demand Copper from me, so I guess he's a bit short of metals. So despite the power advantage that the French have:
Chartres falls in 1136AD:
I revolt to Vassalage a couple of turns later as I've got to build up a bit more army anyway. I'm still mostly building Axemen, but Cuzco is working on Longbowmen for defence - particularly as I've seen this little lot heading my way:
I'm not that worried about them, though. And when they land next to Rheims I see them off without much trouble at all. Finally in 1256AD my armies are in place & I take two cities in one turn:
I'd quite like a pause now, so I sue for peace again (the screenshot got lost). Louis gives me 2 techs and quite a bit of gold, so I've clearly dented his pride somewhat ;)
My current research goal is Theology - I've picked up Code of Laws along the way, so I'm building Courthouses everywhere. I was aiming for Theology for the 2XP bonus that comes with Theocracy, but I don't think I ever actually revolted to Theocracy to use that. After Theology I aimed for Gunpowder - next time take cities from Louis I aim to be doing it with musket men ;)
The only other thing of note for the next 250 years or so is that I met Roosevelt. Who has a score that I'd expect of a Monarch AI - I've clearly been rather successful at crippling Louis.
1502AD rolls around & another population score point - I'm not doing that well, with 4,550,000 which is less than 2 of the AI, so surely less than all the other people playing this Epic.
Backward to Part 1 | Onward to Part 3