So here's my notes from the test game. I worldbuildered the religions back to the right ones to avoid confusion.
Researched Poly-Mono as planned, adopting Org Rel and adopted Confucianism. I removed Math in the world builder, then to simulate researching it, I started putting beakers into Theology to waste them (since it would get bulbed anyway) then re-gave myself Math once we had 585 beakers there.
As planned, whipped a temple at Vijay and bulbed Theology. Researched Alphabet, and bulbed Philo with a scientist from Delhi in 185 BC. Researched straight through Aesthetics-Literature-Music next, trading for Sailing and Iron Working and Monarchy.
Whipped settlers out of Pataliputra and Varanasi for two more cities. Hanging Gardens in 425 BC, boosting 7 cities.
Barb galleys were a big problem indeed. Vijayanagara's pretty much sole purpose in life was to whip galleys to kill them.
I bounced back and forth between Slavery/OR and Caste/Pacifism several times. In my first trip into Caste/Pacifism, Vijay hired 6 scientists to make GP #3 a scientist for an academy in Delhi. This was to intentionally delay the Great Engineer since we didn't need it yet. GP #4 was indeed the Engineer to clock the Sistine Chapel in Varanasi. GP #5 was a Merchant from my Agra (western flood plains city) who settled in Bombay mostly for the food.
Reached Music in 160 AD (Great Artist settled in Bombay), largely by hiring Rep-boosted Merchants in many cities. Thanks to
gold-beaker skew, direct cash production is more valuable than direct beaker production.
Cut back to Slavery / Org Rel briefly to whip out another round of infrastructure (granaries and lighthouses in new cities, a couple courthouses, and even the first Confucian Academy in Varanasi because it needed the happy). Then back to Caste/Pacifism to keep Varanasi stoked to the max. Bombay built the Parthenon. Delhi built the Apostolic Palace - since a culture civ builds so many religious buildings (the Confucian cathedrals too), it easily more than pays for itself in hammers.
I expanded out to 9 cities total, the 9th being on the sugar island as you can see in the pic above. Calcutta played an important role: it worked and grew three cottages for Varanasi and one for Delhi. I really like this trick for culture games and I suggest we built a city in Calcutta's spot in the real game. Pataliputra also worked and grew several plains cottages for Bombay to take later.
After Music, research went Calendar, Currency (traded), Civil Service, Drama, Paper (Delhi built Sankore), Education. Traded for Metal Casting and Machinery and Engineering and Guilds and Banking but none of those were important. I built no forges until late, only a couple libraries, universities only late for culture (no Oxford), and definitely no markets or banks.
GP #6 came as another Scientist (at about 50/50 odds, Varanasi had run 2 scientists and 2 artists while not in Caste), who bulbed towards Education. GP #7 artist from Varanasi settled. All the rest of the Great People were Artists, 9 all total including Music. I got them from several multiple cities - besides Varanasi, also one each from the northwest clams site and west flood plains site. Bombay also spawned a second engineer later (about 60% odds) who rushed Versailles for culture. One Artist started the 1-man Golden Age when the math worked out that he couldn't help the win date (Delhi and Bombay were tied and he couldn't speed up both cities.) Three Artists bombed in Varanasi at the end.
Liberalism -> Divine Right in 640 AD. Islam was my 5th religion. My India founded Confucianism, Christianity, Taoism, Islam, and got a random spread of Hinduism in one city. That is the most likely case for the real game - we can found four religions and can probably get one by spread from the AIs.
I stopped research right after Liberalism. I went Uni Suffrage with 100% cash slider to rush missionaries and cathedrals, staying in Slavery/Org Rel to also whip temples. I researched Nationalism at 0% science (about 30 turns total) all by Sankore and cities building Research.
1140 AD I have 12 of 15 cathedrals completed. Back to Caste/Pacifism for the last time, plus I took Representation for a short time to research Printing Press at 0% science, then back to Suffrage once Taj completed for the Golden Age town hammers.
Zara declared war on me in 1375 AD and bought Tokugawa in. I didn't feel like fighting it so just worldbuildered us back to peace. I had just traded for Gunpowder so winning the war would have been easy. It would have slowed culture by just a few turns at most.
Attached is a package of several saves if anyone wants to see more of how I did it.
Does that count saving 4 Great People or were all Artists used? I look forward to the details.
This I forgot about. I used all the artists. Saving those artists for Eldine would indeed cost about 20 turns (100 years) on the finish date.
