Epic 8: War
Before I get started on the wars here's a little look at the state of the Egyptian Empire in 20AD while I was in the middle of building up my army. You can see I've got the three eastern civs fairly well blocked in here:
And my score is still competitive - more land would improve that:
And finally, the demographics:
My plans at this stage were to build up a stack in Alexandria, then attack Mao and hopefully finish him off in one chunk. I'd got quite a few units built up (some War Chariots, some Axes, some Swords) and was beginning to contemplate declaring when the Trumpets of Doom startled me! Julius had sent a a little stack up towards Heliopolis and declared war on me!! I'd refused a demand of his just a little while ago and I remember thinking at the time that it might've been unwise 
So after a bit of a scramble to reinforce Heliopolis I finally get my main army along to deal with the Roman mini-stack:
So now I build up some more troops to replace those I lost against the Romans (City Raider promotions not so good out in the field, but they were sufficient, so can't complain too much). Then I shall go and capture a city before suing for peace. Ceasar is clearly doing the same:
But rather than head on past my stack and attack a city he just suicides units against me. I send a War Chariot on to have a look at Pisae (my target):
And once I've got a couple more Swords I press on towards Pisae, where the defences look slightly more formidable:
Except that he moves the Praet out before I can attack. Yay! I easily take the city:
I keep it, and sue for peace - getting a bit of cash, and a nice breathing space.
Once I discover Construction in 545AD I start building some Catapults to augment my forces and (crossing my fingers that Julius won't re-declare) I return to my planned expansion by declaring war on Mao. He's got a couple of Longbows in Nanjing, and I don't even have Feudalism yet.
Not that it matters, I've sufficient troops to take (and keep the city):
I'd originally wanted to take Shanghai as well, but looking at its defences I see there's several Longbows in there and the city is on a hill. I decide to see what I can get for peace (some cash, whooptedoo). And I spend the next several hundred years getting Macemen and Longbows, and shoring up relations with the rest of the Judaic bloc. 1000AD falls in the middle of this period, so here's a couple of overview shots:
The demographics are looking pretty good - my major concern is that Ceasar seems to be most powerful judging by the graphs, and he's not best pleased with me :/
I carry on building up my infrastructure for another couple of hundred years - the only points of interest here are the Julius went and declared war on Roosevelt, and Kufah (Arabian - circled in yellow above) revolted to me. Both of these were good - Ceasar's keeping himself busy without bothering me, and Kufah finishes sealing off the land to the east.
Just before I'm ready, Mao declares war on me! I dropped to 0% science and upgraded all my Swords to Macemen, revolted to Vassalage for more XP for future units, and went on the offensive.
Shanghai's defences hadn't got any better … but my attackers had 
Roosevelt proves he's useful for something (I think this was the only worthwhile interaction I had with him all game) and gives me his world map, which lets me see where the Chinese are:
I'll take the three cities on this side of the Japanese, but I'll leave him his one city over there till I can come back later 
Beijing rapidly falls:
And even though it gets sacked three times (I took it, they took it back, I took it back and kept it, damnit 
), I still find this nice little present from Mao:
Ok, not the most useful wonder on this maptype, but hey! it's a wonder
Ghangzhou fell in 1520AD:
And I finished the Chinese war by razing Chengdu:
My plan at this point was to build up some more troops then fight a (probably limited) war against Toku - there's some major culture pressure against Beijing, so I want to relieve that if nothing else. I've just discovered Gunpowder, so I feel a pause is in order to build up a new better army, and to shore up my relationships with my allies. None of them are Jewish any more, so I revolt to No State Religion to keep people happier (Mansa's Confucian, Sally's Christian and Lizzy has no state religion). This also improves things with Ceasar a bit.
Unfortunately I don't get the breathing space I'd like I have a quick look at Tokyo's defences:
Which really doesn't improve my outlook on this war. However, I decide to raze Kagoshima (which has been a bit of a thorn in my side for ages, planted up there between Pisae and Heliopolis):
Toku still won't speak to me, though. I trawled round all the AI looking to see if anyone would join in. But no, I've nothing sufficient to bribe them with. I finally gathered enough force together and in 1607AD I raze Tokyo:
And after that I manage to get peace again for a while. It's beginning to be a bit disconcerting how far ahead Ceasar is in power:
And in retrospect I was surprised to find that screenshot and my notes at this point - as it makes some subsequent events rather foolish (as opposed to just unfortunate).
I'm still the largest empire, which I wasn't expecting:
I'm beginning to think about possibly aiming for a Domination victory at this point, I mean I'm still the largest now … So, back to war with Japan we go:
I'm also involved in a phony war with Roosevelt - Ceasar asked me to join in, so I did. But I didn't send a single troop over there, let alone see anything from the Americans. Ceasar being up to 'pleased' now, I ask him to join with me in obliterating the Japanese. This is the foolish thing I refered to above. I managed to raze the city that Toku had replaced Tokyo with, but I wasn't having much joy with taking anything else. Ceasar, on the other hand, sent a string of units down into Japan. And captured all the Japanese cities and wiped out Japan. And somewhere in there he'd finished off Roosevelt too. So now Ceasar was the biggest and most powerful civ … and it was kinda my fault.
Once I noticed how far ahead Ceasar was, I changed my mind about Domination, and decided a nice peaceful Spaceship was the way to go.
Backward to Part 1: Exploration | Onward to Part 3: Peace