4th Civilization Post

I have almost beat the game! I am so excited to only have 80 turns left... although once I beat the game I have to start up another so I am not really sure why I am excited. Anyways... my subject this week is power. In my last blog I was considering ending the long war I was involved in with Alexander. I was concerned about doing this because I didn't want to be seen by the other empires as a weak target, so I thought of another way to end the war. I used power to make Alexander surrender. When any empire wanted to trade something with me I would allow the trade but only if they entered war with Alexander. I had about 5 empires along with my own pounding on Alexander, who was the smallest empire to begin with. This forced Alexander to come crawling to me to ask for an end to the war. So in the end I got what I wanted and even more. After the war was over all of the empires saw me as the strong leader and they all wanted to be on my good side, offering very generous trades. During this time I also discovered steel, oil, rifles and removable parts. Everyone wanted to trade for those goods but I kept them for myself. This allowed me to be the most powerful in terms of production as well as military. The game started moving along very fast with the new technology.
The lesson learned this week is to gain control: strategize. To keep control: keep your strategies to yourself. By out smarting the empire Alexander I was able to remain on top and profit from the war.
This type of power by numbers and forcing of surrender has been seen many times in history. A specific example is WWII. During WWII the main axis powers of Germany and Japan were out numbered by the main allied powers of the US, the Soviet Union, China and the UK. After the axis powers surrendered the US along with the Soviet Union emerged as superpowers.