Well, we have a victory. It all started with these:
The game is a lot easier with 2 SGLs in your first 2 first techs. As mentioned in a previous post, I chose Pyramids for SGL 1 and ToA for SGL 2, hoping for territory grabs through the free temples, thinking I could still pull off the Great Library.
Tech pace was remarkably slow, and I tech traded a lot early, brokering some good deals at minimal or no cost. I only popped Warrior Code from a good hut, everything else was trade, trade, trade. I think we hit Writing second, but the AI who hit Writing a few turns before me didn't know other AI so I flipped Writing into a lot of key techs. I hit CB, and Philosophy and Literature (from Philosopy) first, I believe. I finished the Great Library late, and it felt like we were researching techs in the Medieval Era later than normal. I think the reason was that we left the AA without The Republic or Monarchy, and I wasn't giving up Literature. I turned off science after I hit LIterature and realized all the other AA techs were hit by the AI and I just needed to broker trades to get them. The other AIs seemed to be content with not researching Theology / Education quickly. By the time I got Education I had flipped into the Republic and had a pretty lucrative gpt of 100+ per turn in BC based on tech at 0%.
As mentioned before, we did a quick archer / cat rush on the western German cities, taking one and razing another. We took the city immediately west of Berlin, and I think Otto got really nervous because when I sued for peace, he gave me three cities, all but one of which had pretty good food supplies. He was down to four cities but he kept building Wonders, and wound up finishing the Great Lighthouse (useless) and the Hanging Gardens in Leipzig. It was nice of him to build HG for me. His core and mine were so close that Frankfurt became my Forbidden Palace city and I built the UN there.
We fought a second war against Germany with the express purpose of annihilating them. The new western border town (Cologne) fell quickly although grabbing Berlin took a couple of more turns. I didn't take any chances; I allied everyone in the world against Germany, using luxes and cash to get them on board. I was worried they would take Leipzig but AI did the AI thing and didn't take a single German city with their huge armies because they were throwing Medieval Infantry without trebs against fortified pikes in cities. My 10 treb stack was enough to reduce the German cities and take them easily, although hat tip to the Greeks for weakening them. Germany had a rump couple of cities on islands, and when my 20 turns of obligation to my allies ended, I got peace plus cash and an island city that I periodically heard from. Someone finished off Germany somewhere a couple of turns later.
Next we targeted our good friends and neighbors Korea. By taking the German empire, we were disturbingly long and skinny. Korea was my neighbor to the north, with several cities close enough to my cap to be useful. Once again, we bought a lot of allies, this time pretty cheaply. Four knights, 10 trebs, and 4 MI were enough to take the two close cities I wanted. I would have been satisfied with just that but our buddies in Persia took out Seoul! Weakened by surrounding armies, I pushed on and wiped out all but two of the Korean cities before getting peace (I intended to keep the Koreans around for a bit). They were around long enough to hit the Industrial Era from my gifts, but Alexander - still fighting years after I made peace - wiped them out. We were down to the Ottomans, the Persians, and the Greeks, who were the largest civ.
When we flipped research back on, it wasn't hard to beat the AI to techs like Physics, Magnetism and Theory of Gravity. I pulled them into the Industrial Era (including the Koreans), but Korea was the only one with Steam Power and wanted too much for it. So I researched it on my own in 6 turns and sold it at a huge profit to the Greeks, who were still warring with Korea, who had it. I thought I had a slower than average tech pace with lots of 6 and 7 turn stuff, even in a well timed Golden Age from building SoZ (I was surprised by it). But it was the same old Fascist path for AI, so we did Electricity, sold it, got SciMeth easily and had a well timed prebuild for ToE, getting AT and Electronics. I then hit Industrialization a turn after the AI, but got to the Corporation first, and then got Replaceable Parts for Atomic Theory. The AI didn't beat me to a tech after that at all, even though I was hoping they'd pick Flight. I did Steel, Refining (got it 2 turns before they did), Combustion, the whole works. We hit the Modern Age with Flight in 1250, wound up paying 10k gold for Fission, finished the UN the next turn, declared war on Greece (#2, but still less than 25%), allied Persia and the Ottomans and we finished with a Diplo victory in 1255. That misses 3rd place by 4 turns, which is largely explained by the AI's not teching quickly in the industrial age. I took 7 turns on flight after motorized transport having sold Greece Combustion but Alex researched weird stuff instead of Flight so I had to do all 7 turns when I was expecting no more than 2-3 given that they had Combustion by the time I started MT. I also detoured to research Economics for 4 turns to get Smith's, which saved me a lot on the trade market.
This was very much an SGL/ map victory since I had Gems, Wines, Ivory all near my core, as well as Iron and horses. I never was concerned about resources, and wiping out the Germans gave me furs and spices for 5 luxes decently early. We later stole incense on a culture border play from the Persians. Silks and Dyes were available via trade, so happiness was not much of an issue. I popped an early settlement that was too far from the core to make a difference, and had to be gifted to the Ottomans during the Korean war (useful for teleporting the troops in it out of harm's way). The Koreans took it and then I took it back from the Koreans about 5 turns later.
Here's the empire.
I'm assuming as my borders spread out, the core cities will only be producing stuff that gets disbanded in outer cities once they build their culture + marketplaces.
That is a great idea in addition to the specialists. The cities are growing at a pretty good clip (will be even faster with RR when I get it), so it's just a few turns extra growth anyway.
