The Community Deity Game #2 - Assyria

However, playing around with El Dorado is always interesting, so I will give this one a go when I get the chance.

I saw Skilldorado on T3 and almost quit right there but after founding KSM & Vatican City few turns later I thought I'll something cool with religion and settled 2nd & 3rd city right away, shrines first only to discover that last religion was taken on T37 so screw this game.
Dido attacked T43, Parthenon was gone on the same turn, Oracle early 60s, Ribbentrop & Molotov (Darius & Theo) splitting the CSs between themselves so the future didn't look too shiny for my 6 city Liberty nor did it get much better later with the classic symptoms of no money or happiness to support growth but I can't remember when I last finished Rationalism so the game has achieved something.

Only my second Diety win and pretty pleased with the victory. I have to admit to restarting when I realised El Dorado was a few tiles South and I'd missed it, so on my second attempt used the gold to purchase a settler. I went three-city NC Tradition start, before adding a fourth city. Turn 102 Education, which might be my fastest turn time to Education. Went full Rationalism and then Freedom.

I remained friendly and at peace with everyone for the majority of the game and had DOF with Byzantium and Arabia pretty much throughout. Was going to just turtle my way to victory, and if I had I might have been slightly quicker to space, but Ethiopia was rampaging across the map and I couldn't resist the opportunity to engage in a bit of modern warfare. So I built up a military force and using artillery, bombers and mech infantry captured Ecbatana, Ergili (which I immediately liberated for Persia), and Gordium, before managing to take Addis Ababa (as you'll see from the screenshots I subsequently lost Addis before retaking it). I was amazed by at how little resistance I faced, but Ethiopia had invested all its forces in taking out Arabia to the west leaving their eastern flank unprotected.

I managed to maintain a good economy throughout and bought most of the spaceship parts however, frustratingly both Byzantium and Arabia were relatively poor throughout so couldn't trade for a lot of gold. I did take advantage of a late DOF with Persia though to sell them Gordium and also sold Almaty, which was an Ethiopian ally, to Carthage for GPT.

Other than victory, don't think I achieved any of the extra challenges. I may have passed Science Funding but really can't remember, and actually forgot that was one of the challenges...

Ethiopia was my enemy from around turn 100 when they forward settled the silver to my west. Quickly razed that city and was on and off at war with him for the next 140 turns until I wiped him out. I need him gone to set up for my achievement B, and to take ToA. Most of my gpt came form selling his cities for gpt.

Arabia

Ethiopia

Since Darius and Dido were the strongest in my game, I made sure they would be satisfied enough not to eat me once they get bored. Once I denounced Ethiopia and Arabia (who were kind of irrelevant towards the end), there didn't seem to be any trouble. It helped that Dido was locked in a war with Theo for like 150 turns

Settled on coast, used El Dorado gold to buy settler to settle that NW, 5 city NC at t89. Stole workers off Adrianople, and several from barb camps and captured settlers.
No chance for religion as noted by others. Possibly AI started with prebuilt religious buildings.

Education 112
ST 169
Plastics 200

It would probably be approximately 240 ish SV so I just ignored A and went for military tech such as stealth, and never beelined for parts.

1st major AI war was expected between Ramses and Dido, and after the 2nd time I bribed Dido to eliminate Egyptians, the only combat action I had was a single scout I sent there to witness the action. Thebes fell to Dido on T138.

Persia and Arabia was spamming wonders like mad, but Ethiopia got ToA. Later they forward settled my western expo close to silver, so it seems good idea to get military early to take some of his cities, and maybe utilize the UA to steal some tech. In total 2 tech were stolen this way. I would take 1 city, raze it, and settle for peace since my army was too small for any further action. I only started taking his capital on T224, after significantly outteching him. His UU was what kept me from taking his capital earlier. Every AI civ was at war with him at one time or another, so no warmonger penalty for wiping him out at the end. I gifted all his extra cities to Harun or Dido for gpt. Harun paid something like 400 gpt for these which was great for upgrading my army. I kept Addis Ababa since it's a great city and got ToA. Also kept his expo to the south with Oracle and since it is extremely close to Addis Ababa.

2nd war was with Theo, I had to wait for the DoF to expire before I can dow. Dido has been at war with her for about 100 turns but couldn't take her capital. I had to send in ground troops while I wait for stealth bombers. I took her expo south of my El Dorado city to get units into range. Took a few turns with my ranged units shooting the city and taking out her subs for Dido's units to get into position, but eventually Dido took Constantinople on T252.

On T264 I had all the SS parts ready, but left the final SS part not assembled into spaceship to wait for the final achievements.

Next war was with Persia, he and Nebby was Order while Harun, Theo, I was Freedom, Dido was Autocracy. His tourism was a bit high and even with Arabia balancing my tourism out, I still got dissident, so it's natural to attack him to steal his great works. He and Nebby both attacked Arabia so it's natural to DoW him to help my friend Harun out. I also paid Dido to DoW Darius a couple turns before. By now I had modern armor, Xcom, stealth bombers, but no nukes, since uranium is extremely rare on this map. I took all of Darius cities except his capital, sold one of them, Susa to Dido, and had my ranged unit keep bombing Persepolis until it has 1 hp. Next it looks like Dido has some GWI ready to take his city, but no, they were too weak and lost all of them. So I just moved several units including Xcom, modern armors, and some mechanized infantry to Susa and donated them to Dido, and she took Persepolis within 2 turns, on T272. In the process eliminating Persia from the game. The next turn, I DoW Dido to recapture Persepolis, liberated the city and revived Darius, then launched the SS.
That completes B and C.

Passing science funding for achievement E was easy, I had control of almost all CS from modern era. Passed it on the same vote as IG, so easy to bribe.

SP: full tradition, patronage opener, full ratio, full commerce, 6 freedom
WC: WF (2nd place, Haile won despite being at with with me and 2 AI), Scholar in residence + culture on WW, Science funding + IG(won), +culture landmarks, ISS (Dido won with double my hammers)

WW: Big Ben, Eiffel Tower for happiness, SoL, Sydney Opera House, Neuschwanstein, Hubble, Pentagon, CN Tower, FP (nobody went patronage and I had extra policy).

Passed every science related to aid AI tech, but still their tech rate was horrible, especially Dido who spammed too many cities.

Also could've won on 264 if I sold Addis Ababa to Dido, but it's more satisfying by letting her conquer her capitals.

I built a total of 2 UU, and was able to used them to capture cities until around late Renaissance. Later upgraded them to rocket artillery with double cover.

I read a couple comments while playing CDG 1, so I knew about Skilldorado. I sent my units S and settled where a lot apparently did, 1 W of mtn. I actually worked the tile a fair amount early, which gave me a very early Tradition finish (65), but really hampered early growth (and Neb finished Trad before t65!). I expo'd the start, then the hill 8 W/NW of cap, NE of horsies, so as to get 3 lux due to none in cap. I was slow to explore parts of the map, so I didn't see all the whales up N for a while, 4th city went there. I was going to do 4th/5th near the E dyes, but just never got there, and it still hasn't been settled.

Many early bungles/challenges. I went for a religion pretty hard early. I'm glad I didn't sink 2 in Piety which I strongly considered. I was able to steal 2 Workers from Theo in 2-3 turns - somehow she kept her units N of Adrianople so I got the 2nd with my wounded Warrior. Then a big challenge to get them home via BAires. Eventually my Scout got a Settler just as she was ready for peace and DOF. I had to use Workers with units to block Theo and Heile from settling near spices, and also to keep Darius from getting around W expo to attack my cap, as it was very hard to bribe him early. He had a very nice Persian rug coming, and would have taken my expo in half a turn. I also bought a ridiculous amount of tiles for blocking.

I didn't even start NC until t97, as I spent my 4th Library gold on tiles, but Education came soon after. I put 2 in Patronage (Consulates) and 4 in Rat (Free Thought) before getting Freedom and Eiffel t178ish. It looks like I will be getting loads of pressure before long, I only used one GW for some XP. Early quests were decent, and I am battling Heile mainly for CS. He founded WC and built FP very early, and has full Patronage.

I came in 3rd in WF which I almost never lose, even though everyone was in at least one war. There is definitely some significant cooking going on here. I had considered Chemistry before ST, and that would have been better as I couldn't build PubSchools for a while anyway due to WF start.

I'm basically ignoring the achievements for now - maybe once I get FL I will go beserk.