Turn 0-10: Where to settle? Go south for Petra attempt, or not? I end up settling on the hill next to the mountain. I pop a village for mining. Yay! And then for population. Yay! Lotta ivory around here. Culture ruin! This is going well.
Turn 10-20: Steal a worker from Montezuma. I’m always worried doing this. Harald never gave me peace in other scenarios, lets hope this war ends. Fortunately, it does. Build a pyramid. These are pretty cool.
Turn 20-30: Steal worker form Mbanza Kongo. This turns out to be a mistake (I get one more) but they build defenses quickly, and I can’t steal with a warrior. Maybe militaristic city states build larger militaries? That would make sense.
Turn 30-50 I get a pantheon! Love pyramids. I grab desert folklore. Very good. DOF with Dido, and Montezuma covets my lands, even though I am way down here. Found Tikal on Turn 36, and my third city turns out to be major forward settled on Venice, such that I grabbed his salt and Truffles right from under his nose. Hehehe.
Turn 50-80 Turn 62 Great prophet, and I go with Shinto, because why not? I take Tithe, I’m always underwhelmed by the other options. Get pagodas, which I am happy about. Found my last city on turn 70, on the gems near Kabul. My plan was to take a GG from the Long Count, because I won’t be generating generals myself, and it won’t increase the counter for the rest, and bomb Kabul for the silver. I never do this, ultimately, because I maintain good relations with Kabul, and once it is bought, with Venice.
Turn 80-100 Turn 81 Petra gets built. Problem: the culture boundaries are allergic to desert hills. They literally go EVERYWHERE but to those hills, and I end up having to buy each one. Ridiculous. I look at the Solomon mine location, wanting to build there. Ultimately, I don’t, because I am afraid of Dido attacking me there. She actually gets overwhelmed early by Monty, but then I am afraid of him. Thinking back, I probably should have, though it may have also gotten me into trouble. My Bpt was only so so, and my happiness was very high throughout the game, so I think I should have. Or I might have gotten killed by the AI from this continent or the other.
Turn 100-120 Finally get my NC on turn 105. T110, someone is in the Renaissance. That’s not good.
Turn 120-140 I don’t know what the Sistine Chapel looks like. I don’t know if anyone is building it. C’mon, c’mon, don’t build it… Got it on 131! I’m going to live and love the **** out of God’s peculiar light. Hey, there’s iron here, too. Some late bronze working. Turn 133 is Great Admiral time! Fittingly Magellan, and I plan to sail across the world.
Its Deity, and no one has any money. I get the sneaking suspicion that I am on the short bus equivalent of continents. Should have built another city, too. No one is going for the Solomon mines location.
Turn 140-160 Enhance Shinto, and take swords to plowshares. In terms of Enhancer beliefs, what’s good? I take religious texts, but I really have no idea. Aztecs, of all people, find everyone. I don’t think they even have ships. My Great Admiral spawned on the wrong side to find everyone. I don’t think I ever even got to make a proposal in the WC the rest of the game. Dido is suddenly hostile. Why?
Wait a second: Dido, Dandolo, and Montezuma… I’m on the island of traitors! Is that the theme? I think Dido and Dandolo are deceptive or disloyal or something. Or maybe I’m just being paranoid.
Turn 160-200 So everyone built the wonders I wanted, like Pisa, Globe, and Taj mahal while I thought about building them. Machu picchu, here I come! 6 turns later, pointless, but it looks pretty cool. It… really doesn’t do much for a tradition game, does it? Dido is Friendly again. OK. Carthage got captured, maybe that’s unbalanced her. I Oxford into radio on turn 180. Something tells me I am way behind. Sweet Freedom, here I come…
Turn 200-240 I lose the world fair, badly. I rarely win, and I think I am supposed to win it most of the time. I take alternatives to try and blast culture, with culture sites, of which there are a bunch around. Also build Eiffel, so I am feeling a little better here. Carthage finally gets eliminated, and suddenly everyone is friendly to me. Was Carthage spreading bad rumors about me or something? I had a friendly relationship with Carthage, maybe that poisoned everyone against me. On turn 230 I put full jets on science, so I can start bulbing later.
Turn 240-280 Turn 250 Internet, and the heat is on, because Seijong just finished Apollo 5 turns earlier. Turn 251 Seijong is building Hubble. Uh oh. Turn 265, suddenly Seijong builds great Firewall, abandoning Hubble. My tourism is at 391, but is halved on him. Guess who is going to get a lot of obnoxious music tours? Korea is denouncing me, but Friendly-like in terms of deals? Weird. I try to steal Hubble to slow Seijong down, but he completes it when I have three turns left on it. Not in his capital. That is going to make things annoying to check on. I’ve filled on Tradition, aesthetics, rationalism, and gotten media culture in freedom, so I open exploration on turn 279 to build Louvre to try and speed things up.
Turn 284 Should I declare war on Seijong (and almost certainly die? There are mobile artillery hanging around.). He’s got SS cockpit, stasis chamber, one booster. He knows six techs I don’t, and that counts to exactly what he needs to build all components. I dread clicking next turn. I have a spy, but he is building parts in places other than his capital, so I don’t know what’s building. I finish Louvre, create great works, and shave a turn off my end game. I need to last just 5 turns. He completes two more boosters on the next two turns. One turn left… and POCATELLO completes the SS engine (but no boosters!), almost giving me a heart attack. I win on turn 289. I need a drink.
