NC XVIII: Willem

Brief history of the game so far [no pics]
Settled in place and quickly decided the GLH looked a good bet for all those coastal cities on the starting island.Also built the Pyramids and Notre Dame,mainly for the happyiness bonuses.Built Moai city on the horse island towards Zara.

It's currently 1260ad just reached Liberalism[took Astronomy] and also got the navigation bonus.12 cities so far,just discovered small barb island between me and Gilgamesh.Going to take barb cities but not sure whether to keep them or create a colony .Guess i'll see how my maintenance looks first.Never created a colony before, so not sure if it's worth it.

Not yet decided on final victory path but thinking either space or Diplomatic.Relations seem pretty good so far.Don't really fancy intercontinental wars with very limited production.Although this will change shortly as i'm heading towards Steam Power for those Dikes.

Nice game so far thou'.I can't believe how slow the AI tech's in this game on Monarch.It almost feels like Noble level.

Haarlem gets founded on the desert island with three Clams surrounding it at 530 AD. I wasn't sure if settling here would be a good idea as it would get some cultural pressure from Zara, but I decide to risk it as I really have nowhere else to expand to.

595 AD comes around and Zara makes the following trade proposal on the same turn that Machinery is finished. [insert screenshot] I try to renegotiate, but 210 gold is actually the most he will give me for Mathematics (he has 220 gold total), so I accept the deal. Optics is next and thanks to the refilled coffers it can be researched in 6-7 turns, making it come that wee bit sooner.
Optics done in 700 AD, Astronomy is now available to be researched and I start immediately.
I don't want to research too much of Astronomy though as if I'm not mistaking, a GS would bulb over 2k beakers towards it. I got curious and decided to look into the mechanics.
A GS bulbs 1500 base beakers on Normal speed, but this is Epic so we get 2250 (1500*1.5). Every pop adds another 4.5 beakers on Epic speed, and at the moment I have 40 total. So bulbing now would give 2430 beakers towards Astronomy, meaning it's safe to research a little more than 1500 beakers towards it and let the GS bulb the rest.
Sorry for getting a little geeky there *lol*.

Zara comes begging Calendar at 730 AD. I hand it over for some easy diplo boost.

Not much happens for a few hundred years, Workers run out of improvements to build, so I automate them for trade for a while. As I get enough beakers put into the Astronomy and the GS can bulb the remaining part, I switch research to CoL. Yes, I don't have any courthouses in place yet! Luckily, no cities are costing any major maintenance, but it would still help. Next target is Civil Service, Amsterdam could greatly benefit from Bureaucracy.

In 900 AD I get a GS and he bulbs the rest of Astronomy. Excellent, the UU is unlocked as well by this move Naval invasion just got easier. On the same turn, I meet Hammurabi to the west. I get Gems for Fish and Sugar for Crabs from him, not bad deals! This will greatly help the Dutch empire in growing.
Overall, he seems to be pretty much on par with Zara in terms of techs, although he's lacking CoL.
I also revolt to Caste System to run 5 scientists in Rotterdam.

Hammurabi begs Currency at 950 AD. What the heck, let him have it.

After Civil Service is in, neither Hammurabi nor Zara will trade techs with me still. My next goal is to win the Liberalism race, but since Meditation is a pre-req, I figure I can pick up Monarchy on the way. I meet Joao to the far southeast and Saladin straight south of me around the same time. I also revolt to Bureaucracy. I'm pleased to see that Saladin will actually trade techs, so I make a few deals. I get HBR, Mysticism, Hunting and 20 gold for CoL and Alphabet. Yes, pretty lopsided in Saladin's favor. He only wanted to give me HBR for CoL and then the most backwards and cheapest tech I had left was Alphabet. No biggie though as I still have a big tech lead on him.
Next turn I make another backfilling
trade:



Tech trading continues. I make the following deal with Hammurabi:



In 1010 AD, Dutch citizens of discover that the world is actually round!



I'm first to Philosophy, so Taoism gets founded in Utrecht. I don't want to adopt it as it will only piss everyone off, I suppose I'll just make a few Monasteries to make sure it can get spread after Scientific Method and then go with Free Religion when it comes around.
I found it quite crazy how fast Taoism spread everywhere. I only used a missionary to spread it to Amsterdam, all of the remaining cities had it spread to them by trade routes.



At 1050 AD I meet Wang Kong who is at the bottom in terms of score. He's not very happy with me because I traded with Saladin, his worst enemy. He only has Construction on me.
Paper is in at 1070 AD and I trade World Maps around as much as possible. Saladin has the most cities with 10, his island is pretty long and he has boxed Wang Kong in.

I finally meet the last civ at 1190 AD, which is Sumeria. Gilgamesh seems to have the most cities of all civs, totalling 11 of them. I decided to stop the round here as I am one turn away from Liberalism and have a monopoly on both Philosophy and Education, meaning all of the AI's are still some time away from it. Rotterdam will also pop a GS the following turn. Demographics are looking better, particularly GNP where I am in the lead.



Where do I go from here? I plan to delay Liberalism for as long as possible, but what free tech should I aim for? Steel to start an invasion on Zara perhaps? Engineering -> Gunpowder -> Chemistry would take 20 turns, I don't think any of the AI's will manage to win the Liberalism race during that time. Cannons would be absolutely devastating against Zara, he doesn't even have LB's yet.

I've also begun building a Settler and will follow up with more, they will colonize the island directly east of me, which is unoccupied.

Builds wb->wb->warrior->warrior->lighthouse->settler->worker->glh

now settler I think for the nearby river city with wine/pigs
Second city next to copper on tundra
Oracle->
maybe colossus next.
research
mining->bw->wheel->sailing->masonry->pottery->meditation->priesthood
->writing->aesthetics(not done yet)
MC from oracle want to go for colossus to complement GLH.

Contacts: Have met Zara already seen a galley of his so guess he has small land mass as well.

REX'd our island. Hooked up iron but not copper. Barbs not a problem because island is small. Happiness is a problem though... and Ethopia on a small island to the east

Pics west then east...





I settled on Ethopia's island to get a foothold for invasion and also for the gold. I went for the GLH but got beat to it. Thought about the Colossus, but that got built before I started it. I'm going to try and wipe out Ethopia, keep maybe 2 of their cities and then get economy and tech back on track because this looks like the only pre-Astronomy conflict

ZY managed to hold onto his one hilltop fortress. Now he's like Ernst Stavro Blofeld - down to one city and sulking and plotting his revenge! I threw 4x galleys of swordsmen at it twice - no joy. Discovered that not only couldn't you bombard a city from a boat with a catapult (kind of expected this), you cannot attack a city from the water with a catapult either! (did not expect this). He never went vassal, has nothing to trade and will be a thorn in my side for a while. "Will no one rid me of this troublesome [ZY]!" I'll get my economy and research back up to speed while I found a couple more cities in the new land" (Razed everything except the captial because I couldn't really afford to keep it at the time. Have grabbed the marble spot on the west coast so far and need to keep ZY from gaining a foothold again, although I assume he'll probably manage one city somewhere. I still haven't managed any wonders, and I don't think it's worth going for Lib at this point as I'm probably too far behind, so it's grow and expand for a little while while I'm going for optics/astronomy to see who else is out there!

West, then East...

And I'm about middle of the pack. Have met all the other AI's. There's a decent island off our west coast which is (so far) unoccupied except for barbs, so I have this idea to settle/invade it. I've made some trades and sold some tech. I still don't think anyone's got Lib yet - which makes me think maybe I should have gone for it. I'm a few turns away from Astronomy and overseas trading. All the AI's seem to be getting along, so I'm not really sure where this is going long term. I don't know exactly what I'm planning, but I'd better figure it out pretty soon.

Gilgamesh has got a lot of pretty decent land and he's in the lead - he'll be hard to catch. I don't see invasion of anyone soon. Not while I can continue to expand by reaching the other island first and setting up a few more cities there. I guess I need to start thinking about the UN.

For the next bit it's continue to expand peacefully as much as possible

I suspected bombardment with trebuchets and catapults from ships wasn't going to work, and, indeed, I tested later and found out this was true. I looked up that Amphibious requires Combat II, and recalled that my axemen got the event that gives them a Shock promotion. So, I went back before civil service obsoleted them, beelined Theocracy and Feudalism, and built a bunch of Combat II shock axes. After Civil Service and some conventional land warfare, I upgraded them to Amphibious Macemen. With a spy to put the city in revolt, I only lost 2 of them in 8 fights despite their lack of City Raider.

I also put cities on the two small islands between me and Zara, just so I only had to experiment with taking over one island (the one to the southwest of Zara's continent). Warning: shows post-Physics resource locations.Despite making beelines for the military techs, I took longer to get started on conquest; I didn't keep track of why. I didn't finish off the main continent all that much later given how long I worked at preparing (1732 vs the mainland instead of 1710). That means I was more effective at managing the main second conquest than the first time. I needed one 10-turn peace treaty to let reinforcement production catch up with losses, instead of the 3 on the first go.

I built the National Epic in Utrecht, my city with GE-generating pyramids and hanging gardens, plus a specialist after forges. I know you're supposed to put it in the GP farm, but my farm wasn't all that great (the city south of Amsterdam, with access to 2 fish and not a lot more), and the NE in that city generates more Great Engineers. I hope to use the 2nd GE, which I now have, to rush Versailles on Zara's continent. Once I had a grand plan to conquer more of the world and put Versailles on, say, Saladin's territory near Wang Kon, but I found this one conquest very tedious (and not just because I did it twice; it was just as tedious the first time). I may enjoy warmongering more when I get more experience with it.

Amusingly, Zara stayed Friendly through most of the war. I think I understand the interaction of turn-to-turn increments (where "you declared war on us!" is only one of many factors) with my initially very high rating with Zara because of millenia of open borders and common religion. Seems like you ought to go hostile much sooner during a war! Maybe it's like USA vs England in 1812-1814 where England was often more worried about France and Napoleon; still they'd have to have counted as hostile rather than furious.

I built the AP and Moai Statues in Maastricht, the city on the desert branch of the island south of the main part of the continent, using the first GE to rush AP. I did this mostly to keep it out of enemy hands -- but then my caravels, in the process of proving the world is round, spread Confucianism to Joao and Gilgamesh. I suspect this was a mistake. They voted for Zara once and took the Papacy away from me but something changed later and one of them supported me instead. Now that he's gone one of them might consistently vote with the other against me. As you can see, Gilgamesh is my nearest rival, and I'm reluctant to start another war to cut him back.In the first time around I hadn't settled on a victory condition until I found that Zara was a very close rival, so decided that whatever else I did, I'd experiment with warmongering by taking him out. Now I'd better decide for real -- and, yes, I know I should normally have decided long before now, but I really need more war experience even if I don't go for domination or conquest. I have the Confucian and Islamic holy cities, so could spread both and go for culture, but as far as I recall from my dim understanding of jesusin's guidelines for cultural victory I've taken a very inefficient route to get here! I'm inclined to go for a spaceship, which before starting to tackle the Nobles' Club and xOTM scenarios was the only condition I tried to meet. In that case what I've done so far hasn't delayed me much.

Given the high culture for three Babylonian cities, I'm wondering if Hammurabi is going for culture; he does have a lot of wonders, so might be a good target if I want more warmongering -- which I'm not sure I have the patience for.

I'm exploring the barbarian island to my west, with a view to conquering and settling there, but since Joao already has one city I'm not so sure that's a great idea. I won't know if it's an aluminum source for a while, which is the only thing I can think of that would make me regret taking it over.

It's all about oil:

The oil north of my continent is only accessible from a 1-square island with lots of unusable ice around it, which makes the barbarian island I mentioned previously winds up looking like this:

Joao picked the best spot, and I'm reluctant to go to war with him to take it. The only place I can figure to put the oil city is up in the northeast, accessing the coast and fish, but that's waiting on a 3rd cultural expansion to put it within my borders. I dunno why the barbarians put their South city on top of the rice when 1NW makes 1 desert square useful and lets them farm the rice; are barbs more stupid than other AI?

Hammurabi has oil adjacent to Akkad, and as previously noted would be a suitable target for conquest if I'm up for more warmongering. I'm still waffling about attacking him.It would take longer than settling the barb island. On the other hand, he also has gems, cows, and sugar, all of which I lack. Am I talking myself into more war?

Even if I do go after Hammy, is the barb island worth paying attention to?

I'd go for that unclaimed oil asap, even with a junk city with no other purposes. My late wars in this game was very sloppy because I didn't have oil. Had to hide and wait for uranium to build decent ships and rush Hammurabi to avoid his tanks.

If you are strong enough to attack Hammurabi right now, do it. If not, settle that junk oil city. You can make it decent with corporations anyway.

Thanks! I have an experienced army from conquering Zara, with lots of East Indiamen to deliver them, but would need to build more suicide catapults to complement the macemen (and the trebs, and the spies...), and plenty of longbowmen to hold the conquered city. So, I think I could take him fairly soon as long as those builds don't take so long he gets gunpowder. He's not all that far away so the ships could shuttle back and forth with reinforcements.

On the other hand, I was thinking about learning how to use corporations in some game fairly soon, and all the seafood on this map might make it a good place to make my mistakes. I could kill off the barb city and plant two of mine (the oil, and near the barbs) fairly quickly.

Well, i found barbs being more reasonable at NC series. And water maps... Well, at very least it becomes really quick clear if you get GLH or not.


Well, i was lucky to hit some pearls to fasten research

And i did one of main things

Copper is one turn from hooking in my second city. I have zero roads and only one worker, but workboats and their protection IMHo is moire important

Well, given fact Zara came from west I would prioritize settling some islands toward him. That land on my island won't go nowhere while islands would give nice trade routes.

On Emperor i would call the game won, so I will check how i fare immortal.

Well, i looked at stone and at few forest remaining and no happy resources.

Well, at current date Mids are still open, just who could expectthat with stonehenge being built at 2300Bc and a GW at 2000BC. Well, honestly i thought that i should settle on stone or should have hooked stone with second city.

I expanded a bit. Well six cities and just made one more settler. If i could deal without making biliion workboats for all seafood... I also settled on Zara's island. Unluckily he beated me to a gold place by few turns.
Luckily instaed of drwaing hurricanes and tornado's i popped gold in capital. Also go nice food event than Zara sent some food (not that much) to my city.

Tech went Maths/Currency/Code of laws (founded Confu while not knowing Mysticism). Holy city is actually on Zara's landmass. (at least not one tile island).

Zara is teching Monarchy and... acording to my scouting built fancy statues in capital. That is why he was so slow to expand.

I have quite abunvh of questions to answer myself.
Techpath - Alphabet for trading Monarchy and removing it from bulb path?
Religion i need at least OR to abuse it. Should i hope Zara get's religion bonus high enough to go to friendly and be my partner or i will have research everything on my own?
GM is arriving in ten turns. I thought about MC since barb galleys are already getting annoying and forges would bring even more happiness.. Or should i fire him in trade mission?
While i heavily rely on trade routes Compass and harbours is big priority.
Well again, as soon as I will run out of land (3-4 cities more) I should start gearing to kill Zara. City on marble is at least reasonable, but that one on gold...

And of course i should gear for optics (luckily maces are on same path). Hate to saybut i have not run single scientist yet. Well, again i need check bulbing order, since GM might be preferable.

At the beginning of this round both Giggles and Saladin were WHEOOHRN - so when Giggles attacked with his vassal Charlemagne I was ready. ZY joined in too, but since he has no units this was kind of a joke. I lost a few fishing boats before I got Chemistry and then destroyed most of his fleet. I wasn't really in a position to go on the offense - only to defend , so it was pretty much a stalemate until I got the "mercy" event and ended the war. I just got beat to the Stat of Liberty by a few turns (despite having used a GE to speed it) - used the money to upgrade troops.

I settled the west island. Hammy tried to settle it too, and so far has lost 2 of 4 cities on it to culture flipping. He does have the one oil site, but I've got uranium and I'm in the lead (albeit not by much). This game is probably very winnable either by space or (more likely) diplo, since I'm reasonably well liked, but I just can't be bothered.

Too much micromanagement and pushing the enter key for me now. I don't really enjoy playing after about 1850 or so if victory's not clearly in sight.

So, I decided to shoot for Steel from Liberalism, which means the Engineering -> Gunpowder -> Chemistry path is what I want next. A random event gives me -1 with Zara, no biggie, he's dead meat soon. The GS builds an Academy in Nijmegen, the best long-term commerce city I have besides Amsterdam.
Zara comes begging Paper at 1285 AD. I refuse to hand it over as he will be dead soon anyway.

I finish exploring the island directly west of me just before 1300 AD comes around and find that it's pretty poor, mainly because it lacks inland food resources, although it does have Gold, so that's a first priority to settle. I also settle 2N of the Wheat and 1SE of the Crabs. The latter city has four hills in its BFC. It's not much, but there really aren't any better sites that the map can offer us in terms of production that also has a food resource.

The island south of Gilgamesh looks a bit more juicy. It has ivory and dye (nice with Theatres as Creative), but it's so far away, I think maintenance would really hurt the economy. Invading Zara with Cannons seems like a better idea.
I win the Liberalism race in 1305 AD and pick Steel. Swap to Free Religion immediately for the beaker boost.
Without really trying, Hammurabi goes friendly at 1330 AD and opens for trading all of his techs. Nice!
I end up backfilling everything and maintain a complete tech lead over all of the AI's by trading with Hammurabi. In return, he gets far ahead of everyone else in tech (except Willem of course!).

GLH + Astronomy really rocks. Even with colonial expenses, newly founded cities are still instantly profitable. Corporation is definitely going to be delayed as long as possible.

My next goal is Economics, mainly for the GM which will be saved for Sushi as I have a feeling this game will be going for a while still. FM will also help the economy. Banking is also required for Steam Power which unlocks the UB, that's my goal after Economics.

I revolt to HR+FM as Economics come in. I didn't revolt to HR previously because I didn't really need the happiness boost, but now several of my cities are getting close to it. Relations also get boosted with Joao and Gilgamesh, because both of them have HR as a favorite civic. Everyone except Hammurabi and Wang Kong are now pleased with me. Hammurabi is friendly and Wang Kong is cautious.

I'm getting a little annoyed with the hideously low production, so I swap back to Slavery. In hindsight, I probably should have stuck with it rather than going Caste System, becase I'm only running 5 Scientists in Rotterdam (can easily run that many specialists without Caste, but not all Scientists) and have very few Workshops in place.
Gilgamesh becomes friendly now as well. Diplomatic win seems like more and more of an option.

Ooops, there was actually another civ left in the game that I had yet to meet, although he's pretty insignificant. Suleiman only has three cities and is south of Gilgamesh, he agrees to become Gilgamesh's vassal in 1475 AD. Suleiman is horribly backwards in tech.

Nothing happens for a while. I make Communism the next tech priority and use the GSpy to start a GA in 1590 AD. State Property is also a nice economic boost over FM and The Kremlin will help a lot with whipping, which is my main source of production. Still haven't started a war with Zara as the lack of production is really a big handicap. I should probably have thought of building a Privateer and getting it to level 4 a bit earlier in order to make the HE in The Hague.
Corporation and Medicine are done in 1695 AD, so I revolt back to FM to found Sid's Sushi. Dikes are starting to help a fair bit with production and I'm finally almost ready to take on Zara. Next goal is Fascism to get a GG so I can build HE.

At 1712 AD I feel like I'm finally ready to take out Zara. Got 4 Cannons and 8 Rifles lined up near his border.




I plan to raze Addis and Lalibela and keep the remaining cities. I'll probably re-settle a new city a little south of the Iron, to grab the Sheep and Gold as well.



The war with Zara doesn't take too long and I lose very few units. I think that I actually only lost a single Cannon. The East Indiamen were good to wage war with, since all of Zara's cities except one were coastal it was just a matter of sailing along his coast and dropping off the SoD near a city, then re-loading them onto ships while leaving a couple of defenders behind.



I captured MoM, Chichen Itza, Hagia Sohpia, Angkor Wat and Schwedagon Paya from Zara. None of them are really helpful to me, but some extra GPP never hurts. Four of them are in Aksum, which will be the GP farm, so that helps. Still haven't built the National Epic...

My next immediate goals are to secure Oil on the western island and settle one more city on the freshly conquered island while beelining Mass Media for the UN and attempt a Diplomatic win directly from here. Failing that, I might have to invade someone, but that really shouldn't be a problem. Saladin could be a possible target here, as only Hammurabi and Suleiman are pleased towards him, the rest are cautious and Wang Kong has him as worst enemy. Saladin is also my rival for the UN, but since everyone likes me more they are not likely to vote for him.

If the only purpose for settling on that island is to claim the oil I'd put a junk city right on top of it, defend it heavily and your oil will be safe and instant access. Then if you want you could put some better placed cities as well on that little continent to claim most of it, the AI will be there shortly otherwise, if not Joao then Gilga will likely make a move on that western shore.

Joao comes begging Replaceable Parts at 1786 AD. Perfect, he is now friendly as well. I think all that's left is to build the UN, only a few techs are missing.



Damn! Hammurabi beats me to the Oil spot by exactly one turn. Well that makes culture a big priority for the newly settled junk city.

With the power of Sushi, I claim the Oil on Kampen's first border pop.



I sign defensive pacts with Hammurabi, Gilgamesh and Joao at some point, thinking that would give me diplo bonus, turns out it only caused some trouble in the end.

Nothing really happens for quite a while, I just build infrastructure and aim for Ecology after Mass Media because health is becoming an issue. The UN gets built in 1843 AD and as expected, Saladin is my rival. Both Gilgamesh, Joao and Hammurabi are friendly towards me. Nobody is friendly towards Saladin. On the very same turn, Gilgamesh DoW's on Hammurabi, dragging me into the war, bah. My relations to Gilgamesh drop to cautious. The unhappiness from Emancipation is also getting pretty annoying, some cities are up to 4-5 angry faces, so I make the switch and adopt it.

The UN Diplo Win voting comes in at 1852 AD.



Darn, not enough votes! If only that war hadn't broken out, I would have had Gilgamesh's votes. Turns out the war is very short though, as everyone makes peace three turns later . I follow through and do the same, gifting back two of Gilgamesh's cities that I captured during the quick war, and he manages to bump back to Friendly towards me, great!

And a few turns later, the win is mine. My first on Prince to boot





Compared to Noble, the main differences I noticed was that the AI made a lot more demands and teched a little faster, other than those, it didn't feel like much of a change, but that probably has something to do with the map as well, as the AI tends to do poorly on naval based maps.

Continued peacefully and had good relations so decided to try for diplomatic victory.

Built the UN in 1752, with Gilgamesh as my opponent.Sal, Hammy and Zara were all friendly towards me, with Gil and Joao both pleased.Wang was furious.I was horrified when Gil was voted in as the secretary general.

This meant i couldn't control the diplomatic victory resolution.The vote finally came around in 1800.I needed 569 votes out of 918.I got 536, just 33 votes short.

I guess my mistake was not trying to make everyone hate Gil while i was building the UN.However, it would not have been easy as the whole world was peacefull and Gil never adopted a religion.The only war the whole game, so far, was between Sal and Wang, with me joining Sal as a phoney partner.

At this point in the game i am deciding to carry on with world peace and fly to space.The game was won a very long time ago and i could persue any victory.
I have a massive tech lead on everyone and have the largest, most advanced army.I have refused to sign any DP so as not to get dragged into any future wars.It would be quite easy to get Joao to friendly and swing the diplomatic vote in my favour, but not sure when the next diplomatic vote will come along.It would also mean adopting useless civics to me as i don't want to switch to HR.

Just researched Rocketry so can now build the Apollo program to shhot for the moon.

1070 Education
1130 Uni of Sankore, building temples and monasteries everywhere
1140 Gunpowder
1145 conquered 2 barbarian cities on the island west of me, made a colony: Amerika (Roosevelt)
1200 War against Gilgamesh and his colony Caesar
1215 Liberating Caesars cities to second colony: Sitting Bull
1220 Cathedral built, running 3 priest to get a Great Prophet
1230 Caesar destroyed, Sitting Bull has 5 cities now, builing settlers for Roosevelt
1295 Printing Press, lost some troops to gilgamesh's protective longbows... waiting for rifles to continue the war
1300 Great Prophet -> Church of Nativity (+21 gold) the bad thing: holy city is also my heroic epic city
1320 7th city for Roosevelt, my idle workers go to my colonies to help building roads
1372 Replaceable parts
1378 Taj Mahal, 24 turns of Golden Age
1388 Rifling from Liberalism, selling techs for 1290+550+950 to upgrade attackers to rifles
1404 Consitution, switching civs to Rep/Nat/Slav/Merc/Theo (still in GA, so no anarchy)
1410 Gilgamesh capitluates -> 37% pop+land
1432 War against Joao, roading finished on Sitting Bulls island
1442 Joao capitulates after conquereing two cities (liberate them back, too much culture pressure)
1450 getting ready for babylon, Hammurabi has the Spiral Minarett, would give me +70 Gold (i already built lots of temples/monastaries for Uni of Sankore)
1454 War against Hammurabi starts, he has only Cuirassiers, no match for my rifles. Korea has Grenadiers and Saladin has the highest Power of the three, so Babylon is the best target
1460 Military Science, building Ships of the Line. Captured Babylon with 9 Wonders + 5 Settled GP

1462 Hammurabi tries AP- Resolution to stop the war, defying it, my only citiy with AP-Religion is Babylon, still 5 rounds of anarchy there.
1464 2nd city of Hammy, Gem resources pops on my home island!
1472 3rd city, double holy with shrines (+5 and +10 gold) and 3 wonders
1480 4th city, need to get all cities here, want to keep the wonders and shrines without culture pressure. Event gives me a Military academy in Utrecht, my Moai city, building SotL in 2 turns , marathon speed!

1482 Hammurabi vasalls to Wang Kon, i immediatly redeclare war
1486 5th city, finished roading for Roosevelt
1494 Babylon destroyed 47% land (64% needed) Waiting for Infantry to invade Wang Kon.
1500 Economics. Golden Age with a Great Engineer.. no wonder to build in the next time
1508 Corporation, Heavy sea-fighting with Wang Kon
1524 Selling some techs to my vasalls and colonies, upgrading my archers to rifles.. just for fun.. the game is won already
1536 Assembly Line. 2000 Gold needed to upgrade my attackers to Infantry
1538 Spreading Christianity in all ex-babylonian cities, 48% christian now
1550 Saladin also declares on Wang kon, My invasion starts
1554 Combustion, Trade for Scientific 'Method to see Oil (obsoleting monasteris reduces my beakers from ~1800 to ~ 1600)
1564 Wang Kon capitulates, he gets his 2 cities back: 56,5% land (64 needed)
1574 War against Saladin. soldiers: Me: 1552000, Saladin: 1227000
1576 Physics, GA with 2 great people (24 turns... i love MoM)
1588 Great Prophet in Babylon (the 9-wonder-city...settled, wont get enough GP for another GA before i win)
1590 Soldiers: Me: 1696000, Saladin: 862000
1596 Flight, capture Mecca with shrine (+13gpt)+Academy+Scotland Yard+3 settled GP
1602 Facism
1604 Saladin Capitulates, both conquest and domination
Power Rating:

I spreaded Christiantiy to 57%: (i played with choose religion)

My colonies love me:

Finacial + lots of water + Great Lighthouse + Uni of Sankore = big tech lead, even on immortal
Colony maintenance was high, so i liberated a lot of conquered cities back, the 2 colonies and the vasalls gave me nice traderoutes even in Mercantilism

Attacked after getting key military techs, killed the 2 civs that were closest to my island, vasallized the rest:
Zara with maces+trebuchets
Gilgamesh + Joao with rifles
Hammurabi with cannons
Wang Kon + Saladin with infantry

After just missing out on last diplomatic vote i was pushing ahead for Space Race victory when...i finally got voted in as the Secretary General of the UN in 1834.

This now meant i could control when the victory resolution was put forward.In any event, i carried on for space but switched religions to Judaism, even thou' i only had 1 city with that religion.Sal and Joao were both Jewish so i thought eventually this would raise my relations enough with Joao to get from pleased to friendly.

I build the Apollo Program in 1844 and was in the middle of building my space ship when i could put forward the diplo. victory resolution in 1860.Joao had just turned friendly so he gave me the required votes to win on the next turn.

Typical, i actually wanted a space race win then, but hey ...a wins a win.Continued on [just a few more turns] and arrived in space in 1910.So the record book says....

Diplomatic Victory in 1861 for 46,371 [Augustus Caesar]

This was probably my easiset win on Monarch and shows how badly the AI does on water maps.They were way behind in tech all game.
I played a completely peaceful game and only fought a few barbs.Only built 4 wonders,GLH, Mids, Notre and UN. I built 17 cities, 10 on the main island, 2 on the small islands to the east and 5 on the barb island to the west.

Actually finished off. Used Zara for some trades and destroyed him in treb age. Later on it was basiccaly mop up.

Okay, i had AP wins on immortal before. Apparently i also can do things at watery maps.