When I saw the map rated easy, I was thinking culture (assisted by the faith) or maybe domination (if easy meant a lot of horses and hammers... not so much). Well, I got handily beat to Petra, lost the Oracle by 3 turns, and lost the Sistine by 2 turns. After that, I was pretty annoyed and just went Science since at least I had a decent population. After nearly bankrupting myself buying public schools and research labs, I actually had a pretty decent finish time. This has me re-thinking how much gpt I need to keep in reserve, as borrowing down to 20gpt to get my schools up in 1 turn (down to 50 for labs) seemed stronger than building a couple and keeping my income up. I mis-timed almost everything this game, so I was expecting something in the 270-280 range.
I decided to settle in place because I saw good rivers and what I thought were enough hills. This area of the map really suffered from a lack of production bonus/strategic resources. I sympathize with earlier posters who were continually dismayed when new techs failed to reveal resources. My capital's production was terrible until I installed a hydro plant. I opened scout/monument/scout/archer/settler/settler. My warrior found one faith CS, and my first scout found a second so I scored DF on turn 11. My warrior hit an upgrade ruin, and sniped two workers from Pocatello. The first worker saw that a barb had captured a CS worker, so I made peace and liberated two CS workers in two turns. That got me some extra early faith and a free warrior that proved very useful.
I built the early archer to send South and clear the barb camp by the faith mountain, which I very much wanted to settle. Pedro actually cleared the camp, but I spotted a settler unguarded on the edge of his borders. Presumably he was going to rendezvous with the spearman two tiles away and settle my faith mountain. Yoink. I stayed at war with Pedro until I settled my cities. I snagged two more workers from him. After I finished my second settler I bought a 3rd one to claim the mountain area and block France from expanding into my desert. Right after I plopped Damascus, I was a gifted a warrior in that city. Pedro sent another settler towards that city, and I was able to intercept it with the warrior and kill the escort once my archer caught up. That gave me 6 free workers and a temporarily annoyed Pedro. We were best buds once I gave Mongolia 2!! gpt to DOW him, and he had to send his trade routes to me.
My early scouting suffered from keeping my second scout close to pester Pedro, so I didn't find either cultural CS until after optics. That hurt a bit, and a lack of social policies hurt me all game. I didn't hit a culture ruin, so the early monument helped me into tradition. I went for the wonder bonus after the growth bonus, because my happiness was OK with lots of unique luxes and I was really feeling the lack of hammers. After the settlers, I built a caravan to get some science for Currency/Petra, and it helped me stay friendly with France the entire game. Unfortunately Petra went on turn 60, and I had only started on turn 59. No biggie, I still got my 4 city NC built in the turn 80 range, and had Education on T106. I did switch from the Oracle to the NC, but I still annoyed when I got beat by 3 turns. I bought all of my Unis, and bee-lined Acoustics. Sejong went for Acoustics too, and beat me to finishing the Sistine Chapel by 2 turns despite me throwing every hammer I had at it and rushing in a workshop 4 turns after I started (needed the tech, obviously). I even worked the engineer. After that, I immediately built another settler for no other reason than to send a send cargo ship to the capital, claim the space to the North, and totally wreak havoc on my game.
I should mention at this point, I settled my second city on the marble, so I missed the horses and abandoned any thoughts of abusing CA for a few brazilwoods or chateaus. I actually felt very safe with DOFs from France and Brazil (and everybody else except Pocatello and Ghenghis, the latter because I refused the offer. He was eventually dogpiled and rolled by America), and tactical control of the mountain pass into France. I built two CA, but after that I pretty much got away with a skeleton army of garrisons and a fortified spearman in the pass. I bought the gem hill as soon as I could, and the pass a little later. Napoleon occasionally had enough troops in the area for me to pay attention, but never amassed an army. I was extremely fortunate that both France and Brazil failed to found, so I easily spread my religion to their territory and had that green modifier going most of the game.
After I built the 4th settler, I had Rationalism and saw the Porcelain Tower still available, but I got beat by 4-5 turns to that one too. After that, I burned a faith GE on Big Ben and the SoL. They were both safe, policy-locked wonders, but I was not in the mood for anything funny to happen and both of their benefits came in very handy at the time. I never made it to Mercantilism, so Big Ben really helped with research labs. That city was a boat anchor. I rushed in a workshop and fed it up with a food cargo, working a lot of hills/mines at the start, but I still didn't have a library/university in the city in time to prebuild Oxford before the Worlds Fair started. I got second in the WF despite going full bore with all of my cities, and I really needed that culture boost! Because my production was abysmal and Oxford wasn't ready, I researched Industrialism and Chemistry before I Oxforded Radio and tore off to Plastics. It took a little while for anyone else to research Industrialism and for the CSs to then get coal going, but I hammered in factories as soon as I could.
My string of bad wonder decisions continued with Hubble. I flat out didn't need it. I bought 3 GSs with faith, and had plenty more even after bulbing ST and Plastics. I bulbed 2 more getting to Satellites, and had started Apollo in Damascus. Instead, I should have switched my cities over to gold production about 4-5 turns from the end of bulb fest, because gold for parts held me up. Worse, I didn't finish the Apollo program until 4 turns after I had all the tech I needed. The two GSs from Hubble were spent researching Lasers and Stealth, mainly because they cost gpt and you have to select something to research. I should have just built Apollo in my capital and skipped Hubble, or at least used a faith GE on it (I had enough faith for a 3rd GE, and even a 4th GS at the end). I only had 4 turns left on one of the Boosters in my capital when I stopped production and bought it, so extra gold, a different ending build in my capital, or enough culture for Mercantilism would have really shaved some turns off of this win. Or just not attempting all those culture wonders and thinking Science all game. LToP and PT were there for the taking if I had prioritized them.
In retrospect, I had plenty of signs that Sejong went right into Acoustics and was going for a CV. I should have gone for the Leaning Tower after Education, which I had enough tech to do with Sejong looking to Architecture. I could have then used the GE on Uffizi, and been in position to build the Louvre if no one else opened Exploration. Even then, CV would have been hard with Sejong wonderwhoring and France/Brazil in the game, but I think it was doable.
