We left of pursuing wonders to right and left. This pretty much stopped after the last segment, the interesting wonders where mostly built. Now we just wanted the Broadways, Hollywoods and such.
In the last segment I got the circumnav bonus, I think I forgot to tell you that. Next goal was Astronomy and we got that one first. Then used some scientist to bulb Education and we got to Liberalism first. We took PP from Lib, perhaps not the best tech to take but for us at this point it meant some more income from all our Town and another tech to trade.
So we made some trades, I probably "lost" in the trades I made but I was falling behind, techrate at the large continent was pretty high at this point, with Peter in the lead. Lib and PP got me Nat, Constitution and Engineering + gold and maps which isn't really high value for the techs, but decent enough.
Then the dreaded situation arrives, Astro has been found on the other continent, it spreads like the wind, and
A mediocre stack gets unloaded
Pacals small force killed itself on my Lbow defenders, and my knights cleaned up the leftovers so it wasn't really threatening.
At this point I focus my research towards chemistry, I had intended to skip that line but now I need those frigates. I start to pump out Musketeers for defense, a minimum of 3 for each city.
I took a somewhat "expensive" peace with Pacal:
It turns out to be a good move, because my formerly pleased friend comes around...
He brings is vassal Toku into the fray, surprisingly, Toku is more advanced than Gilga!
I beat of that invasion force as well, I do have some frigates at this point so some galleons didn't even reach dropof. Some turns later, the backward wannabee of the world comes knocking.
Suiciding his whole force in an amphibious assault that didn't do any damage.
And shortly after, takes peace
The Gilga/Toku war went on for quite some time longer, he did refuse to take a decent peacetreaty. But he came around for about 200gold after many years of war (forgot to screenie that one though).
The wartimes are over.
I had been focused on my goal tech, reaching Electricity, Radio and Massmedia. With some lucky GEs I managed to claim.
Unfortunatley missed the other wonders I wanted (Eifeltower and Rock'n'Roll which Peter claimed (he was teching very strongly now).
After that, I quit researching, going as high as I could up the culture scale.
A worrying vote came up from the UN, but fortunately
I did trade around my techs where I could and got some backfill in for example Steampower, Railroad, Combustion.
Another worrying note comes up, I'm about ~30 turns from victory and someone wants nuclear weapons...
I was expecting a nuclear assault any minute during these final turns.
But, first city reaches legendary
And shortly after, Paris reaches the limit
And then some 15 turns later
Lyons joins the other 2 in legendary status
The techsituation 1 turn from the end
The French continent at the end, I never got around to build more than the needed 9 cities, I had room for another 3.
The VCs a turn from the end.
And some mandatory stat pictures
A lousy score, but it was in fact a fairly late cultural vic.
I did one major screwup in this one. I left Rep for US way to early and didn't switch back. I did it as I needed to rushbuy units but it hurt my researchrate alot, leaving me trailing the AIs. I'm no good playing in US, I'm more comfortable with an SE based economy so this one was a fairly uncommon game for me with all the cottages. With a cultural victory in mind, it would've been better going fullblown SE and gaining alot of science from all the artists.
But anyway, a victory is a victory. And it was probably one of my quicker games in history, only 4 and a half hour give or take a little.