Got a nice start from the last session as Sejong DoWed Augustus out of the blue while I continued my pathetic shooting range activity though a couple Xbows finally with range made a difference so I took Akwesasme with totally pointless Petra T168.
Sejong also went into military lead and I didn't him wasting those units in a pathetic single war I bribed him to DoW Pedro on T169. T171 with WF starting I took opened Order with happiness policies to hurry a GA before WF is ready; managed that but it wasted for that purpose but invaluable when others picked Freedom or Autocracy few turns later. -37 from ideology didn't make me especially happy. Onondaga fell T181 and Grand River few turns later but it wasn't keen on working Uluru but me & Hiawatha thought that we should continue swapping arrows for a while.
T184 Cathy built PT which was a bit of a surprise though I wasn't in the competition so it wasn't disappointment like the next turn when she built Brandenburg. I was building cannons and heading for Dynamite. I wasn't in too much of hurry as OB from Pedro was about to end T195 and before renewing that I dared not to start the march towards Korea. T201 Cathy suggested a Korean co-venture which I gladly took after a preparing period - it gave me a surprise ally but postponed the start for several turns.
Sadly, though, Sejong asked The Question on T207 at which point none of my units were closer to his borders than 3 tiles besides what hostile intentions could these happy ravers possibly have - probably on their way to Glastonbury or Roskilde.
Arties work, no question about that and manoeuvering on hills is way easier with the Inca. Annexed Kaesong as soon as possible T219 to buy two tiles to be able to plant some GGs. It totally screwed Korean comeback with land units and the road abled me to shoot Daegu down quickly. Tons of Korean units in the seas but way less on dry land and luckily his air force probably relied on foreign oil so the pilots were mainly having a smoke behind the hangars. GWI vs artie isn't a 50-50 fight but I lost only few; much less than in my worst case scenario. Cathy was doing a fair job killing his naval units. Seoul down T226 and Korea off the map T229.
Bulbed flight T226 as I stole RR form Sejong earlier and managed Kremlin T228. Neuschwanstein with GE on T223 gave few much needed happiness points. Meanwhile Assyria had built only units so I bribed him to attack Cathy and even Pedro started showing some genocidal tendencies so I paid him, a lot still, to attack Rome. I don't know if it resulted any casualties but at least it broke their friendship, much like the earlier Korea vs Brazil match.
Augustus probably wasted his units while defending from Korea so I had a nice walk through his lands - wasted few turns waiting pop drops and/or CSs taking his cities until it seemed unlikely so I took Rome T236 and his last city T242.
T239 got Bombers like Pedro & Cathy and Oxforded Rocketry unlike them. Also bribed Pedro to wipe Hiawatha off and was more than slightly surprised when the cities fell the other way round. Pedro probably didn't realize that a superior army is only useful when it's on the battlefield - not on a beach light year away sipping breezers.
T242 DoWed Cathy and she acted like it was a surprise. I also annexed Seoul as I needed a navy for the newly born Russian one-tile-island cities near the coast. She managed to start 4 cities in formerly Korean lands in few turns. Had to build two RAs for the Eastern front as well as Cathy liked AA Guns - too risky for the bombers especially after the incident in last DCL. Moscow down on T252 but her wonders were spread out in several cities so I kept them and burned the rest.
After finishing Rome with my lands units I started a long and slow march to tempting Brazilian cities; the pathway surely wasn't waxed but I had high hopes for cities. Attacking on 4 fronts sort of caught him off guard so I took the first cities with ease while I lost Kaesong for a moment. The damn inland-viking had a dozen battleships in the lake but apparently so was his oil and after pillaging the wells the air force concentrated on spreading DDT on corn fields rather than attacking me. Rio was mine on T259 and Brazil wasn't Pedro's on T266.
This somehow made Hammu a bit angry and he called me all sorts of names - a man can only take so much so I DoWed him and since my army in Brazil was becoming very casual I DoWed Hiawatha on T267.
T270 I took Assur for the 2nd time to keep it. The main obstacle were the 3 more one-tile cities I found in the seas - the continental advance had to be slowed.
T271 I saw a lone Russian worker to my surprise - I thought I already wiped her off so I had to buy a destroyer, carrier & 3 bombers in Seoul to head into the clouds. I also made all my free melee units to hop into their canoes and looking for the last Russian city. Assyria was down to 2 troll cities. Found Magadan T277 and no wonder Cathy colonized the icy island - clearly an epic spot for a city.
T278 Russia off the map and Karakorum as the last city so task completed.
With a start like that my approach doesn't make any sense but the Inca rule - they did in vanilla and nothing has changed but the benefits are more subtle than with the other top tier civs. Thw movement bonus is awesome and cash savings can be huge wide empire.
Early on I was struggling with happiness so I didn't make very good use of terrace farms. Another thing that didn't go well was the Mongols and their bad performance and them so far away from Mombasa that I couldn't risk of prolonging war with them or settling a fifth city between Mombasa and Karakorum, eventually Cathy planted 4 cities in that space.
Religion was a major failure, too. I did get a decent pantheon with ease but I didn't expect Genghis running for Pope so my faith in the game was wasted apart from 2 Pagodas - other buildings I couldn't buy since no one picked the perks. Later in the game I could've done quite a few CSs quests with prophets and/or even convert for some gpt the cities that were left but in terms of effort/benefit it didn't seem worth it. I could've spent faith on generals as well but since the first I had more than I needed anyway.
Policywise I wanted to avoid the usual stuff so Rationalism, Patronage & Commerce were no-go areas. Liberty followed by left side of Honor and Trad opener for border expansion, then all the happiness from Order and Honor filled which I wasn't planning but I had to dump the culture somewhere.
I had a timing issue on T171-T177 when the WF was built. At the start I was ~120 GA points short a GA so I allied a Mercantile CS and with that I managed a natural GA 2 turns before WF and I though I could the natural one before multiple wars and some serious city razing. Spawned GAs were also to be saved for that. But ideologies hit hard, Pedro & Hiawatha went Freedom and others Autocracy so depending on whether my allied luxes were pillaged or not my happiness was flipping like Romney on both sides of 0. In the end I used 3 GAs for a 36 turns GA and never got the next natural GA.
Avoiding Rationalism is an oddity for me and after T150 things really feel slow but Observatories do compensate that nicely. Stole twice of Hiawatha before my stepped on a mine but luckily the 2nd one managed to steal 3 times from Sejong before he joined the astral researchers at which point my spies were defending or eyes for arties.
Amongst other things I avoided teching for uranium as I didn't want to use nukes. As far as I could see apart from Pedro no one built Manhattan.
The Total Domination part adds some happiness management and quite a bit time but is an interesting option for a usual dom game. I pretty much razed every captured city without a WW which delayed my Oxford a bit. At worst I had 6 cities burning and happiness somewhere -25 but this time the barbs popped in a nice location so I even got some CS repu for killing them.