I could not have hoped for more luck in many regards. Brennus founded Hinduism and didn't take long to send me a Hindu Missionary (a la Isabella style). Rather kindly, he also sent me a Jewish Missionary not long afterward (two Monasteries). I was expecting the Jewish Missionary to go to one of Roosevelt's cities and have America take up Judaism and split the island, but not to be, and after not long Roosevelt too took up Hinduism. I later founded Taoism, and it spread naturally in America like wildfire, so I ended up producing some Hindu Missionaries of my own to send to Roosevelt to keep him in the Hindu family. I saw Brennus as the major threat of the two, and could not have done more to please him. Roosevelt wavered between Cautious and Pleased throughout much of the early game, but the only one to wheoohrn was Brennus, and he was Friendly with me at the time.
So, back in the capital I didn't take too long before going after and getting The Pyramids. The Great Wall was part-built too, but it was taken before completion, giving me a desirable cash payout. I decided to leverage Sitting Bull's Protective trait, Dog Soldier, and Totem Pole promotions, as I was quite wary of being attacked. Popped a Great Engineer and held him back for The Great Library.
A somewhat regulation game targeting key technologies; Masonry, Literature, Code of Laws, Philosophy, Civil Service, Liberalism, Biology. I traded to get Monarchy along the way and diverted research to get Feudalism for the Protective Longbows. I took Printing Press with Liberalism, not knowing the tech' rate of the opposition, but there were clues (World Wonders being built, and one report on 'The Most Advanced Civilizations') that whoever was 'out there' was doing a bit better than Roosevelt and Brennus, but not concerningly so. I would have loved to slingshot Scientific Method or better yet Biology, but it wasn't worth the risk of missing the freebie all together.
After Biology (National Park and a team of Workers 'Preserving' every forest in my borders starting obviously with the BFC), I did alter my typical research path. Normally I go after Astronomy and Superconductors for the Observatory and Laboratory / Research Institute respectively, but instead headed for Railroad to load up on Machine Guns. I upgraded all of my original Archers (except for one Medic) to Machine Guns thanks to the great promotions, and supplemented these with quite a few comparatively ordinary 3XP new ones.
I also went after Radio a lot sooner than I usually do in order to get Cristo Redentor. I had a feeling that I was going to be asked to jump into lots of undesirable civics, and couldn't stand the thought of blowing a lot of turns in Anarchy and a lot of turns in unwanted civics just to fend off the probability of invasion.
Although the economy usually takes care of itself in an OCC, running Pacifism with a particularly large defensive force really began to take its toll. At one point I ended up running Merchants and popping a Great Merchant to put these economic concerns behind me.
Brennus had built the Apostolic Palace, and never seemed to have any resolutions other than to keep re-electing himself as the leader, which I kept reaping positive diplomatic modifiers from. He was Friendly, and ultimately was prepared to sign Defensive Pacts with me whenever he was not waging war himself.
It took a really long time to contact the other tribes, and generally I was at least on tech' parity with most, with Bismark somewhat trailing. One plus was that Peter wasn't in Mercantilism, and all of a sudden my trade routes came good again, as I was getting only a dribble of commerce out of Roosevelt who was one of the first to switch out of his own favourite civic.
I opted not to chase Superconductors immediately, and instead went after Computers, assuming that if I got The Internet, I'd probably get it as a freebie. I swapped into Organised Religion for building both Cristo Redentor and The Three Gorges Dam (still unsure on the value of latter for 'denial' purposes). Indeed I did get The Internet in the end, and with it came a surprisingly mediocre bunch of tech's ... not even Rocketry, let alone Satellites. I self researched most of the spaceship technologies myself, and kept switching civics between research-friendly and production-friendly. I went after The Space Elevator, and was competing more against the clock than concerned that any rival was going to beat me to it. Brennus and Gilgamesh each looked as though they were going after a Diplomation win, and Peter had a respectable sized empire that could challenge for Space, Diplomation, or maybe even Culture. Gilgamesh had built The Manhattan Project, and I painfully had to stall my spaceship building to construct our SDI, just in case. I fired off two conjoined Golden Ages to get Fusion and Composites as quickly as practicable, although my Cockpit had to be built
three times thanks to enemy espionage.
Strangely, I was also getting hemmed-in in terms of both Brennus' and Roosevelt's culture from around the mid-1800's. They were both running Free Speech and their cities appeared to have about five religions each. While I didn't lose any BFC tiles in this culture push, I lost some of those outer-lying resources over time and was very worried about losing the Aluminium and/or the Iron.
Anyway, 'Blast off, it's party time!', only to find that I was going to lose by two turns to Peter's culture that had raced ahead. Moscow and St. Petersburg had gone way past legendary, and Novgorod had a reported 12 turns to hit legendary to my space landing's 14. Well, I did what I had to do. I got three away, and was planning to use a couple more, but was really risking retaliation from the Sumerian-Zulu clan for nuking their friend. He fired two at me, and both got intercepted. My nukes must have done enough, as it was my 7 turns against Novgorods 14. It was on about 46,500 culture but clearly I'd taken out enough buildings, population and cottages to nullify its threat. Peter was prepared to talk peace rather than face more of the same. 'Fine by me', the game's 'all but in the bag'. However as each progressive turn passed, Novgorods culture seemed to gain more and more momentum. It went down to the wire, however by
one turn;
I've got to say, a very unusual OCC. Not an absolutely perfect spread of resources, but just about as good as I can remember. Aside from Barbarians at one end, and Nuclear Warfare at the other, I was never in conflict. My continual signing of defensive pacts with Brennus may have been the difference, as he was becoming a monster and had both Roosevelt and Bismark as vassals. I also got every World Wonder that I seriously wanted. National Wonders: National Epic, Oxford University, National Park, Ironworks, Globe Theatre (defying lots of resolutions). Also, an unusually late finish (1957AD).
Thanks for posting it Sidney Magal!
.
