The Emperor Challenge Lineup - Game #3 Shoshone

Settled on the hill to the south. Pottery first. I think I went archery then writing and calendar. Had Taoism as my religion: Tithe, Pagodas, Holy warriors and religious Texts. Cannot remember the pantheon....Went Tradition. Cap ended up with ToA, Pyramids, FP, National college, Notre Dame, Oxford, Grand Temple, Eiffel Tower, Kremlin, and Great Firewall) first expo went north of Stockholm on the coast. This city became a very good balanced one (it ended up with Circus Max, EIC, Broadway, Ironworks and Hubble). 2nd expo (Heroic Epic, Macchu Pichu, NE, Neuschwanstein, and Pentagon) went north of my cap next to mountain on the river. Settled on resource. Sweden declared war on me. I easily fended him off and then wiped him out, capturing Stockholm and his one other city. Byzantium had had a DOF with me, but she denounced after that. She was starting to get too strong. Wonder spamming. I was not yet ready to war with her, so I went after Mongolia, who apparently was trying a OCC. As I was about to take his cap, Theodora declares on me. Peace with Kahn for his hastily settled 1st expo, which I razed. Not much of an attack from Theo, so I am guessing Kahn bribed her to do it. My army was a little weak to take her monster cap, but eventually took it (Angkor Wat, Chichen Itza, GLib, GLH, GrWall, Hag Soph, Himeji, Parthenon, Sistine, Terra Army...see? Wonder spamming!) and two other cities, leaving her with one on the far western coast of the continent. At this time, Darius introduced himself and my goal of wiping the continent clean before meeting the other one went out the window. Still went back to take Mongolian cap. Left him with one dinky city in the tundra. Met all the others when Persia started the WC. I had planned to go for SV at this point, as I did not have the desire to move an army to the other continent. But once ideologies hit and no one except Napoleon joined me in Order...plans changed. I declared on Persia and my battleships and subs wiped out his very large navy of frigates and privateers. Took Persepolis (Big Ben, Brandenburg Gate, Colossus, Globe, Louvre and MoH) and two other cities. Razed one, kept Pasargadae. Moved navy to take Thebes (Alhambra, Borob, HG, LTP, Oracle, Petra, Prora, and Stonehenge). Battleships were crushing armies and navies both. As were my bombers from carriers. China had declared on tiny France and took Paris easily. I did not even see a French unit. Declared on China (had gone Freedom). Took Paris. Bejing (Porc.Tower, Red Fort and SoL) was last and with Battleships and XCOM, it fell swiftly for the win. It should definitely have been sooner, but the change in tactics was always going to mess that up. Still,it was fun!

Settled two spots SE on the hill, there was some nice stuff down there
Typical 4-city tradition open
Forward settled west across desert first, quickly settled a third city north up river
Built Petra around T90, built 3-city NC around T110
Settled 4th city on coast near Mt Fuji after NC

Used a ruin to get faith and open pantheon, desert folk seemed obvious
Also got first religion > pagodas and tithe
(in retrospect, I didn't need the extra cash, shoulda taken something else)

After setting up the fourth city, I rush to Xbows and started on the offensive.
Army of 5 Xbows, couple horses, couple melee took out Sweden first.
Then pushed up to Constantinople. Got ND and ToA wonders (among others).
I started running into happiness issues then, I think I got down to -19 at the worst.
Had to pump the brakes a little to catch back up. Left Byz alive with 1 city.
Again in retrospect, I probably kept too many cities, I think capital + 2 from each civ.

At this point, I decided SV might work better than Dom. So focus went back to Science bldgs and GS generation. That is about where I am now. I just built Oxford, used free tech for Electricity. Getting Pub Schools built/bought. Have 2GS + 1GE ready for the end game. I think I'm generating 200+ gps and pushing 500 bps at this point.

Mongolia is being a bit annoying and attacking one of my ally CS (Byblos I think). I might use it as an excuse to attack them now that the happiness is back under control.

SPs: I finished Trad, then took a few of the Commerce spots, then opened Rationalization. I think I'm 2 policies in.

Got my Pub Schls and Labs up, bpt has exploded to 1400
gpt up to around 400
Took 3 policies in Rat, first to Freedom ideology, have 4 tenets
trying to get to buy spaceship parts on Level 3 as I should have $10-15k by then
have about 4 GS to bulb at the end
used GE for Stat of Lib rush
I think I'm probably 15T from Apollo Prog start, should be able to build quickly and start rushing parts
Not quite the sub 300 finish I was hoping for, but good enough.

I did end up picking on the Mongols, defeating them all the way to capital, left them with 2 cities
Only foreign cities on my continent are 2 Mongols and 1 Byz cities in separate corners.