The lack of Rationalism really hurts so I got to PSchools T205 even with several large cities growth severely handicapped by the lack of happiness. I also bulbed Dynamite on same turn which indicates my weird teching path. Surely it was late for any sort of proper push but best of the options currently available; well most entertaining anyway.
DoWed Lizzy T219 & took York 2nd time T226 and had I bothered to check I'd have noticed that all her 4 WWs were in York I'd have started the war probably earlier. Burned a couple of cities and sold the others to Boudicca in hope of creating much needed tension between her & Askia so Lizzy was off the map T235, too and I didn't even get too much bad press out of it.
WF was build T222-227 and won by Pacha with barely 900 hammers so I'd have won that had I tried it but settled for 350 as usual and managed Eiffel T228 which was badly needed for happiness. The nice side-effect was that it wasn't build by the Celts or Egypt.
T226 Askia decided on his own that Pacha was in his way and DoWed - didn't make any sense but I was happy.
Too bad the Celts took my Byblos which was immediately bought by Pachacuti and parts of my fleet nearby took some beating which turned out later more serious than I originally thought.
The 2nd continent was too peaceful so I paid Boudicca to DoW Rammy T231.
A novel classic GWB war - they have range of 8 against my 6 so the chances of advancing are zero. I had to buy planes & meat shields as Venice couldn't build them quick enough and swimming over the Genevan Channel was slow & risky. Almost all my arties got logistics due to the Incan invasion swarm. Worked reasonably well until the GWBs came when they all got badly beaten. I usually go for cover 1st but this time it'd have resulted losing Venice.
Liberating Almaty T232 and Bratislava twice gave nice diplo bonus but Mogadishu made an impressive move T246. I took Machu as I saw no chances of the Inca getting it back right away but I didn't expect them moving a carrier out of the way to make room for Mogadishu privateer. I also lost the only available melee ship and I suddenly started to regret losing Byblos earlier. Machu was razed so I didn't have much needed coastal city so time for plan b.
T235 bulbed Flight and Railroad on the next turn but Askia got Kremlin T239. With the help of fellow Order nations it was passed as World Ideology T242 and even it didn't make the Freedom loving Boudicca cross with me. T245 bulbed Plastics and bought RLabs one by one with rate permitted by my wallet. I really needed beakers. I only passed 1k beakers on 280s despite of having ~12 cities by then. T248 Neuschwanstein purely for happiness - the gpt was an optional extra.
Liberated Antwerp with one of the bought privateers but it's positioning after liberation wasn't the most fortunate one - all the other ships moved in afterwards.
My ninja cavalry. Usually the see-through units are waving AI colours but this isn't much better.
T264 not a free DoW 2nd time. It was a bit pricy taking more than 30% of my gpt but I thought I really needed that war at the time. Forgot to scroll down so I accidentally gave him OB as well.
Cusco for the 2nd time. Luckily it was only 6 tiles from the sea and not 7 though I used Ica as long as it was burning down, too. Tiwanaku was much easier to capture and the 2nd privateer liberating Antwerp found itself there - not optimal but way better than being sunken on next turn.
Yeah, logistics & range battleships are cool but one would think that Huamanga isn't vulnerable to sea based attacks - devs should do something about this.
T267 Askia built Apollo and was the clear tech lead but his war against Boudicca didn't go anywhere and the reason is visible in the pic - I just didn't believe it until I DoWed T275.
I also Oxforded Satellites & took the last of Incan cities so there were 5 of us.
At some point I noticed peace between the Celts and Egypt so I very discreetly changed that status quo. Boudicca was cheaper and friendlier as Rammy didn't appreciate my war with Askia nor did Pizza Enrico so they both broke DoF and DoWed. Very bad career by Enrico as after taking Gao T286 I DoWed him and took two cities not following superior Tengriism while out of my suggestion Boudicca took the other two by T295.
Askia was more keen on attacking Hong Kong than depending so it was an easy war 2 battleships taking care most of the MSAMs. T287 Hubble & T288 Askia RIP. Gave two cities Egypt, kept Gao & one was captured by Hong Kong.
T291 DoW Boudicca and T298 Egypt. Rammy didn't have anything while Boodicca did but I managed pillage and/or capture most of her oil quickly so it was more about converting the last cities than capturing them as quickly as possible. Almaty took Nottingham with my help but then I had to block them from taking London, too.
All in all far more interesting game than I originally though - the start was too good for a normal play and when one finally gets a religion why not spread it everywhere. The total domination part is always nice as it makes a some nice happiness limitations especially if there're other stuff preventing one from getting tech leads and hence superior units like in vanilla when -70 happiness only slowed SBs a bit.
My policy choices didn't make any sense whatsoever but that wasn't the point - I just wanted to avoid the normal stuff but at least finishing Exploration for the first time made me able to see a hidden arch site. The culture aspect of the game was a bit odd as finished Liberty in reasonable time, struggled to pass Piety and after it wasn't that important anymore.
Didn't build a single archaeologists myself but that's not really a novelty. At first the captured cities didn't have GWs, then nobody had spares so I couldn't swap for tourism bonuses and in the end I didn't have suitable slot available. 4 GAs used for golden ages and near the end 2 used for GWs as I had enough GA turns to finish the game. On the first half of the I'd have gladly swapped my maritime allies for a single cultural one.
The first 100 turns were sort of normal play but then the lack of beakers start making a difference and instead of leading the tech race by Industrial I was 6th and the Danes were already gone. Too bad that once there's a map with Liberty where one can run all the specialist slots and still grow beyond belief (and happiness in this case) one chooses not to benefit from it.
Religion wasn't exactly what I wanted but decent and there's something wrong when Boudicca fails with religion. I had one religious CS ally from early on but I couldn't keep the 2nd. On the other continent Inca had far too many cities to be converted so I burned pretty much all of them.
Boudicca capturing quite a few Egyptian cities made it is easier for me to flip them and by far the most annoying Pope candidate was Enrico with his two leftover prophets. He had 4 own cities none of them following his religion but the prophets walked behind me negating my early efforts.
World Religion would've helped but as I controlled the WC I ultimately voted it down for experimental purposes. I was curious to see how long it'll take without that and faith NWs. Probably the fastest way to convert the whole world is to play a normal sci game from the start until nukes/SBs/XCOMS and kill everyone apart from one city & then buy the needed prophets to convert the capitals while razing everything else - that just doesn't seem equally interesting.
Half the world taking Order saved me from the worst but burning up to 5 cities at the time made me dropping below -20 happiness more than once but there just wasn't happiness available even though I build lighthouses etc in every coastal city and had everything the CSs could offer.
Making war was extremely painful at first. In this game I lost more units than in all the previous DCLs combined (sort of). Few I lost due bad luck with CSs, several by own negligence ie running into too deep when subs were available etc but mostly because of Pachacuti. Instead of slinger-line he had tons of cannons and when they upgraded to arties it hurts, it really. The other main problem was the GWBs which I had no way of defending myself from. Quick healing and decent cash flow were the saviours.
By the time of Rocket Arties the happiness and lack of it can be ignored - they still kill everything and fully upgraded battleships are pretty much the same. I ran out of aluminium somewhere @35 units but that was more than sufficient.