Similar to the Egypt game, 4-digit culture and tourism... (although admittedly, this time with IG... so without IG I think my tpt will cut at around 1000k flat since broadcast towers are additive and not multiplicative with IG); well mainly I tried IG since I wanted the free SP to complete Exploration to get hidden sites...
Didn't get religion this game (didn't bother with Uluru's location as it looked food-poor.
Full trad, aesthetics, rat, exploration, pietyx1, freedomx6
No bulbs, no GM bombs, stole one worker (admittedly) from CS just because it was too tempting. Three wars actually (defensive ones however... other people decide to DoW me...)
Settled here. For early wonders, granary goods and mining hills are essential.
I seriously should've taken this worker... but didn't... in the end I needed one so whisked one away from Samarkand and made peace immediately.
First wonder, ToA t53
Got forward-settled. Still I am allied with Hanoi so I'm not TOO worried about getting blitzed. This is not deity after all...
Decided against bribing lest Atilla get more cities and thus more hammers (Shoshone already taken out) because I had faith in my CBs... maybe thin out his army a little. Eventually white peace.
Made some cities to sell them to Morocco... (same as the Germany DCL); my tech path at first aimed to get to Engineering then get Great Wall, but Morocco took it before I even got the tech... so might as well get him involved with Atilla a little bit (hey, put your wonder to use!)
Operation Moroccan wall complete! Atilla clearly wanted to DoW Ahmad but my troops blocked his forces.
I saw that Atilla and a few other people already had trebs... since I wanted Notre Dame in Paris, I decided to let my first GP be an engineer. (ToA's GE point really useful here); I eventually hammered down Notre Dame.
Seriously, this is such a beautiful spot... flood plains wheat, trufflesx2, silver, horses, cotton... AND defensible too... People should seriously expand here rather than towards Atilla if this game were on deity.
Here Atilla had the gall to ask me what my troops were doing. "Oh we mean no harm we are merely passing by"... It's so unfair I can't ask him the same question when he brings his troops over.
Dow'd out of the blue by Russia... (despite Cathy not having a clear route to my city behind the mountains... several turns later my friend Portugal backstabs me too... I had XBs however so was never really hurt. I did plunder 3 caravans from her and captured maybe two prophets (shame none of them still had all their charges so no holy sites), and a dozen missionaries)... Atilla later DoW'd Portugal however... (she long had that coming... given their borders)
As you can tell from my rather erratic tech path, my tech was much slower than on deity (since I wanted the wonders of course!)... the scariest part was the wall that I had so carefully built collapse because Portugal was the ally of Tyre... (and because she was at war with me I could not block the CS from being taken... damn her...) Eventually made peace but that damage was done... my wall is gone...
Quest complete! Notre Dame, Eiffel, and Louvre all built in Paris!
I was by far the culture and tourism leader. I forced the commie Russians to embrace Democracy! Atilla the Fascist was more stubborn however, despite having nonexistent culture...
I got world ideology: Freedom passed and his empire imploded... Flipped a city which has zero useful stuff (no wonders, no great works, nothing...)
Too bad he was broke... so I sold it back to him for quite cheap... but something tells me the city will soon return to me... (hint: might be all the single-copy luxes he's putting on the table...)
And I was right...
Sold it to Morocco, who "graciously accepted" for quite a price and his gold and gpt and luxes... (and even after this I got a bright green "we've traded recently" buff) I shudder to think what cities could sell for on deity... Nonetheless with the money I bought myself all the faith and culture CSs.
3 big river cities with hydroplants can put out 2000+ hammers in 5 turns... soundly defeating Atilla's sprawling empire hammer-wise. It's all about quality not quantity.
Oops I won... kinda wished it didn't end... no concerts at all... I didn't even bother checking for trade routes or OBs...
Finally had enough around t320-ish... dug up and made landmarks of all the hidden sites in my borders, resulting in around 1800+ tpt with IG. Complete set of theming wonders except for GL and SOH.
My city can build Apollo in 4 turns on standard... is that bad?
For an immortal AI, wondermonger Maria did quite well... surpassing most deity AIs even at 44k total culture.
Which of course pales in comparison to my 65k... (no I did not win world fair, just a mere golden age boosted my cpt to 1200+)
Didn't really bother with religion this game but bought some mosques; Maria's religion had desert folklore (really useful for my north city) and mosques and +2 happy from temples... really nice.
Wonders in order of build time:
ToA
Oracle
HG
Notre Dame
Pisa (GE)
Sistine
Globe
Uffizi
PT (in satellite)
Eiffel
SoL
Louvre
Cristo
Broadway
CN tower
Neuchweinstein however you spell it (in satellite)
16 total (if I had continued to play I would get Hubble, Pentagon, and Great Firewall for 3 more)