Okay, news on the Chinese front. I didn't think it was possible, and I certainly didn't think it was possible for me, but you can fulfill the first UHV condition on time:
The last of the medieval triple Civil Service, Music and Paper. Research is the key for this UHV (your cities will be building the Academies/Pagodas slowly no matter what), and it requires intelligent tech trading and use of GS's as well as good micromanagement. Still, I was lucky to get 50% of Calendar cut off by a goody hut, so it's not all that representative.
Annoyingly, the UHV trigger was broken, but with massive chopping and slaving I did make it in time:
This game required a lot of reloading (not to mess with the RNG, but to avoid stupid decisions and suboptimal MM) and luck (my first goody hut was a scout, which helped to provide useful loot, as well as the already mentioned Calendar boost).
I still wasted some potential, though. The Great Wall wasn't really necessary and cost me a lot of production and forests (I even built it without stone), but what's China without its wall?
All in all, a had everything playing in my favor and still it was pretty close. I don't know if that's the kind of difficulty we should be aiming for on Monarch.
Spoiler :
The last of the medieval triple Civil Service, Music and Paper. Research is the key for this UHV (your cities will be building the Academies/Pagodas slowly no matter what), and it requires intelligent tech trading and use of GS's as well as good micromanagement. Still, I was lucky to get 50% of Calendar cut off by a goody hut, so it's not all that representative.
Annoyingly, the UHV trigger was broken, but with massive chopping and slaving I did make it in time:
Spoiler :
This game required a lot of reloading (not to mess with the RNG, but to avoid stupid decisions and suboptimal MM) and luck (my first goody hut was a scout, which helped to provide useful loot, as well as the already mentioned Calendar boost).
I still wasted some potential, though. The Great Wall wasn't really necessary and cost me a lot of production and forests (I even built it without stone), but what's China without its wall?
All in all, a had everything playing in my favor and still it was pretty close. I don't know if that's the kind of difficulty we should be aiming for on Monarch.