Round 5
I actually changed my mind regarding warfare. It would take a long long time to slug through all those Deity AIs and I was eager to finish the game. Space was the quickest way to achieve that given the diplo situation.
I started off by setting Shaka on Pacal to slow him down somewhat as proposed yesterday.
The round was mostly trades/improve land+cities/espionage.
Trades to get back in the circle:
Once Communism was in I did a major civic switch.
Shaka didn't prove too useful. Granted that he was fighting with backward units but hey, you expect Shaka to at least amount to something!
I built some of the espionage buildings and went to work on Pacal.
Augustus was once again a good trade partner.
I did manage to squeeze in a Great Prophet but at this point it was pretty marginal.
Some more trades... moving towards Computers.
I was first to Computers and this was a mandatory build for the spoils.
The earlier focus on espionage made it easier to start sabotaging Pacal's space attempt.
And again.
I had saved up 2 Great People for the late space push. The Golden Age was great and lasted until launch time.
Birka ended up being my Ironworks city. It had a lot of riverside tiles I started building an Engine there.
You can't whip, rush buy or Great Engineer rush space parts, but you can chop trees into them! This saved 1 turn on the building time. (4 -> 3)
I get to launch first, having sabotaged Pacal's faster attempt.
Having some left over EPs, I sabotage him up some more.
I guess he wasn't too happy with it though...
Too bad he was late hehe, as you can see through the window in the last screenshot.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Post-game
Statistics
Mandatory revenge on Pacal...
A difficult first 50 turns to this game due partly to a bad read (Bronze Working could be delayed somewhat) and abundant barbs. The midgame was fairly easy however with so many cities to be settled, which lead to a rather easy war against Wang Kon.
The Space Race wasn't very threatening, the AI is just bad at sabotaging and protecting themselves. Pacal's idea to settle a city on my landmass made this way easier.
Had he gone for Culture however, I'd have needed to take arms up and go deal with him.
So, that's it for this game, see you in the next game, as usual, tomorrow!