The Emperor Challenge Lineup - Game #4 SPAIN

All games in this series will be set to EMPEROR difficulty. User civilizations, maps, and opponents will change each game, but the pace will always be set at standard and the starting era will always be ancient. We will try for a variety of starts, and not just having a crazy warmonger as your next door neighbor (although there will be that too). This isn't a competition so there will be no predefined victory conditions. New challenges in the series will be posted every other Friday to off set the Deity games.

Who can play?
Anybody can play. The more the merrier. Even if you normally don't play Emperor games you are still welcome to try. The games can become great learning resources for the player trying to improve. Even if you don't finish the game, we are still interested to hear about your experience.

Do's and Don'ts
We are going to be using the honor system. Feel free to restart, reload, play the same game multiple times, but don't use the science overflow exploit. Also please don't edit the game in IGE. If you do chose to cheat, please don't share your results in the comments. Also, please use the spoiler tag if you post a picture, comment about neighboring civs, close by wonders, or locations of ancient ruins.

Also, please tell us about your Build Order, Social Policies, Tech Order, and what type of wonders you went after. I know a lot of this stuff seems pretty mundane to the experienced player, but the details are incredibly useful to people trying to learn.

Future Games in the Series
I currently do not have a means to accept a map submission. I am open to request for which civs can be next, just shoot me a PM.

After quick assessment I decided to go north to settle my capital near the mountain (future observatory) and the lake (fresh water access).
Build order at the capital was: scout - monument - scout - shrine - archer - worker - granary. After last patch free monument from Tradition came way too late and I usually build monument in capital and get it for free in other cities. If I go Liberty - I need to build monument anyway.

Warrior went scouting around Madrid, first scout went further north (Mongols beat me towards Fuji)), second scout went to the west later (and found Uluru, which gave me 500 gold).
On this gold I bought settler which settled Barcelona near Fuji. Mongols already settled their second city and was really upset with my new city.
First scout became archer, warrior became spearman, last scout died soon after discovering Uluru and Hong Kong.

Researh was: Pottery - Animal Husbandry - Archery (barbarians came to my cap and I needed some defence) - Mining (for Salt) - Writing (no other lux tech was needed at the time) - Bronze working (for production bonus and faith from pantheon which already was taken at this moment).

In Barcelona I placed citizen on Fuji to get pantheon ASAP and after some hesitations took Earth Mother (One with Nature was also interesting variant).

General Strategy was: forward settle to Fuji and secure all big peninsula for myself. I went Liberty to get free settler and faster expansion.

After getting free settler from Liberty and settling Sevilla (on the shore to the east from Madrid) I dropped to -1 Happiness - mistake of mine, I should work Salt before wheat.

At the end I had 8 cities:

Madrid - 25 pop
Barcelona - 19 pop
Sevilla - 23 pop
Cordoba - 22
Toledo - 20
Santiago - 15
Salamanca - 26
Murcia - 18

Gold : 7227 (+378)
+33 Happiness
+440 culture pt
13040 Faith (+128 pt) - I am stupid, I should use it at least to buy scientists, but taking Tradition instead of Liberty may be even better idea. But I simply forgot

For some strange reason I can't make a screenshot but I made a save and can upload it.

Started with 3 cities (found 2 wonders: 500+100 Gold, 1 settler bought, 1 from Liberty), NC around T70. Later at T100+ started conquering my continent. Mongols fell, then Babylon. All with Composite Bowmen and 2 pikemen. Then moved onto the 2nd continent and saw that Rome has already killed China, Siam and had a control of the Persian capital. First I took out Sweden and at the same time I had Frigates and Tercios sailing to conquer the great city of Rome which was pretty easy with that power. After that I took Persian, Siamese and Chinese capitals from Rome and that was the end. I liked Tercios although I think they become obsolete rather soon.

Policies: Full liberty (GE used for ND), almost full rationalism, patronage and commerce opener.

Religion: Pantheon - 10% growth; +1 gold for every 4 followers and mosques; I had religion in my major cities.

I never researched Scientific Theory, went for Dynamite but did not need it at the end.

Thank you for the map.

This one falls into the "God Like" tier for Spain. Found Fuji first....but Mongols beat me to it.....Found Uluru and got the big prize. Settled on the coast between Fuji and the Flood Plains and quickly bought up the tiles for capture Fuji. Pantheon hit just as I got the tiles so I hit 2-3 population and worked it until Prophet spawned. From their Faith just took off with One with Nature. Grabbed Pagodas and quickly bought all I could for happiness. I also founded on the coast west of Old Faithful to get the huge happiness boost.

Apparently the AI went full mode on me. Mongols only settled one city. I took it out with a Crossbow rush. From their Babylon got wiped out so I own the continent all to myself and still haven't met other AIs so they'll never know of my transgressions. I hit Hanging Gardens and Notre Dam so even with 7 cities happiness is doing good.

Just about to T200 and this game is pretty much in the bag. Will meet AIs on the other continent and decide if I want to go for my first Domination win ever. I'm usually the nice guy that never attacks someone

Build Order in Capital: Scout, Monument, Worker, Granary, Archer, Temple of Artemis. In retrospect, I could have and probably should have done the Great Library, which went on T43.

Spain Unique Ability: Warrior went NE, found Fuji 2nd for 100 gold. Scout went west, found Uluru for 500 gold. Scout eventually doubled back north and found Old Faithful for 100 gold. I used the initial 500 gold to buy a settler and plopped him on a hill directly SE of Fuji and worked that tile immediately to get a Pantheon (One With Nature) and kept working it until I popped a Settler with Liberty. More on that below.

Settlement: I dropped settler SE of Fuji, E of Uluru, to the SW of capital to get Marble, two cities to east / SE of capital to get multiple salt, and to the far NE to get Bananas / Ivory. I am swimming a settler / archer / missionary to the island to the west, and swimming a settler / archer to the north to settle old faithful. Will likely self found 9-10 cities before conquering.

Social Policies: Liberty left side, liberty right side except for happiness, piety to reformation, which I used to go Sacred Sites. I originally planned to do Jesuits to faith buy lots of tech buildings and do an Order / Scientist win ... but Sacred Sites will be OK too. I will eventually get a Ratio opener and Secularism, after finishing Liberty for a free GE to build a Ren Wonder.

This seemed crazy easy, and I should have a Culture victory sometime in the 210s or earlier. I'm about to ding Astronomy and go meet the New World. Short term plan is to conquer Mongols and Babylon with Frigates and then ... ?

Going from memory only, I think I went Liberty to free Settler, then moved over to Tradition. I don't really remember my tech or building order, though. Mainly because I never really settled on an overall strategy and was just kinda winging it. If I had to do it over again, I think I would just keep going with Liberty. I don't like Tradition anymore since the nerf. The timing seems all wrong now. Its still probably stronger than Liberty, just not as much fun.