Diplomatic loss
somewhere in the 20th century. i was quite close to a religious diplomatic victory, but alas. I don't know well enough yet how to play the AI so that they vote for me.
Still I learned, as a lower level player, a lot from playing this game. I converted to Buddhism, and so did Spain and Portugal. The only heretics in this game were the taoist Dutch (hinduism and judaism were barbarian, lol). Nobody ever declared war on me, which is a first. I settled my own islands, and planned for an invasion of Holland. The first invasion I took the western most city on their island and their capital. The second invasion I wiped out the Dutch civilization as they had not settled any small islands, only their mainland. This left the world as a 100% Buddhist world. Yet the war cost me a lot of gold and I fell behind technology wise.
After trying to get my economy back running, I decided to take 3 Spanish island cities. After that I planned on taking the spanish mainland, but by that time the portuguese had won the UN diplomatic vote (I still had the apostolic palace and came kinda close to diplomatic victory there, but alas).
Not sure if I should submit this game since I lost?