The plan for this game was to win a Diplomatic Victory. The last one has been long ago ...
As planned initially, I settle 1W, on top of the Grass Hill on the river, to leave enough room to the east for a nice 2nd city. Given our great land, that was a mistake, and even worse, I ended up settling the capital on the Copper and the 2nd city on the Iron!
3rd and 4th city went to the Silver/Sugar/Ivory and Gold/Wheat/Stone locations; the next 3 cities were all settled around the same turn, 1 city in the Western Floodplains, near the Rice, another city to the Southeast, with Cows and Ivory, and the last city to the South, with Corn, Cows, Spices, Ivory and some hills ...
7 cities were a bit too much though, despite Gems, Gold and Silver (especially that city further in the Southeast), as it drained my Science down to 40% ...
I had stolen 2 Workers from Peter early on; after the 1st steal, we quickly made Peace, but after the 2nd steal, he refused Peace for free, and I refused to pay anything. Didn't hurt me though, as I ignored him more or less, and his few stacks were easily killed ...
I waited until I had a huge technological advantage and my Economy had recover, before I really attacked him, conquering 4 cities and killing him in 655AD.
In the meantime, there was a nice, friendly block of Buddhists (Victoria, Zara, Lincoln and me), and I decided to win this Diplomatic Victory the diplomatic way ...
Wang Kon and Saladin were Hindu, Alex was Jewish.
The plan was to turn on Alex, hated by everyone and very backwards as well, but for some reason, Saladin DOWed me ... turned out badly for him, as I conquered all cities, and he was destroyed in 1260AD (a Barb city in the East, between England and Ethiopia delayed his fate ...).
I avoided taking him as a Vassal, as my friends wouldn't have appreciated, knowing that anyone accepting to 'protect' him would DOW me ... in the end, down to 2 cities before being destroyed, he vassaled to Wang Kon. That didn't hurt me either, and my troops conquered Korea after the last Arabian city had fallen ... Wang Kon was eliminated in 1285AD.
Somewhere in between, Zara, despite being more or less at tech parity, had peace-vasseled to me!
By that time, although I had left the entire Southwestern part of the map to Alex, Victoria still had the most population (except me, of course) ... that was a problem, as Lincoln liked me, but he loved her ...
I DOWed Alex, but my troops, being tired of the very long war, insisted on returning home to their wives and children. My nice Korean cities, still being in revolt, were unable to build any defenders on themselves, and Alex conquered 3 of them ... at a very fast pace, ~1 undefended city every 4 turns!
Luckily, after these 3 lost cities, Alex showed great mercy by accepting peace. All I had to pay for peace were the 4 remaining Korean cities, as well as 2 very useful Arabian cities!
To my great surprise (
), that gave him more population than Victoria, and on the 1st vote, Zara, Lincoln and Victoria elected me to victory in 1475AD!