7OTM05 - Completion of Age of Exploration Spoiler Thread

[Eyswein]

At the top of your post please post: Number of Age of Exploration turns

A few questions to consider:
- What Legacy bonuses did you chose and why? What other start up things did you do at the beginning of the Age of Exploration?
- What was your plan for moving toward the victory condition? What are the major steps you planned to take? What events, if any, changed the plan in execution and to what new plan? Any interesting decision points?
- Early order for technology/civics? What did you later prioritize for technology/civics?
- How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?
- How many cities/towns did you settle and/or capture? Where did you settle your first few towns in this Age? What was your mix of towns vs cities?
- What were key production/purchase focuses?
- Religious bonuses chosen and why?
- What government did you select? Which bonus did you chose most and why?
- Any cool info we forgot to ask about?
- How did you focus your use of influence for diplomacy?
- Any surprises/frustration/elations you ran into, how did you deal with it?
- Did you enjoy this Age?

 

[patparker]

116 turn exploration

- What Legacy bonuses did you chose and why? What other start up things did you do at the beginning of the Age of Exploration?
Change capital
2 science legacy poimts (gave more value that collector of knowledge)
Fealty (settlement limit is very good)
2 expansionist points as I was behind there and got a military point from sling bullets
Legendary fortifications since I plan on being at war a lot this age

Recreated as many of my cities as possible

- What was your plan for moving toward the victory condition? What are the major steps you planned to take? What events, if any, changed the plan in execution and to what new plan? Any interesting decision points?
Try to keep my alliance with Ben. Will move to eliminate Rome (I deliberatly did not kill them last age, so that the Mongols could kill them this age). I would like to eliminate the other civ on my continent, but happiness will be an issue. The same with settling the rest of the world. I will probably try to play the religion game to maybe boost my science, as that is week with these civs. I have a decent culture due to Paradisia.

- Early order for technology/civics? What did you later prioritize for technology/civics?
Concentrate on uograding military usits and buildings/wonders improving happiness as that will be something of a bottleneck for expansion

- How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?


- How many cities/towns did you settle and/or capture? Where did you settle your first few towns in this Age? What was your mix of towns vs cities?
Started with 10 settlementgs and 4 cities
Founded 2, captured 4

- What were key production/purchase focuses?
military and happiness

- Religious bonuses chosen and why?
Apostilism. Seem,ed to ne the one to give the mot relics
Vippissana for happiness
Dawah for easier religion spread


- What government did you select? Which bonus did you chose most and why?
Feudal monarchy, mainly for cavalry and naval bonus. I wnat at least 3 fleet commanders and 12 ships for the next age.

- Any cool info we forgot to ask about?
What did the AI do that messed up my plan

- How did you focus your use of influence for diplomacy?
Befrended an early military city-state that spawned adjacent.
Went to war to honor Ben's alliance, then everyone attacked me...

- Any surprises/frustration/elations you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Ben immediatly offer alliance .
Could never end the wars which slowed my progress, but at least I won them all


- Did you enjoy this Age?
Somewhat.

 

[ABigCivFan]

Turn 74 completion. 12 legacy points.

Ashoka was left with only 1 city from last age, so eliminating him quickly. Consolidate the home continent while researching toward Ship building. Take over some good cities with wonders and settled cities with those new empire resouces such as ruby and tea to boost econ.

explore aggressively for the best path to distant land.

Aiming to build 3 fleet commanders and get them all the land attack promotions for quick military conquest in the Modern age.

Chose Theology government to boost culture. Culture is always the bottleneck in this age to get all those settlement limits and Civ specific civics.

Was able to get Rila Monestory and wonder spam to get Cultual legacies. AIs were weak and slow in this game. Setup good wonder combos in Capital to use it as a production monster. It will build Manhattan and Project Ivy in Modern.

Rush bought 5 towns in distant land to hurry treasure fleets. AIs left a lot of land on the west coast of the distant land.

Military legacy is now bugged, when I took over distant land AI cities and converted them to my religion, I only got 1 point (instead of 4 lol). So I had to take over more cities.

For science, use wonder boosts, and build high yield buildings in quarters. Got the Expansion legacy points to do the 25% food savings on new specialist at the start of the age.

Befriended 8-9 CS to get boosts, the wars with AIs to distract them from killing CS. At the end rush bought many stone heads to boost culture for the next age. Will need lots culture in modern to rush to Ideology for conquest.

Spoiler Turn 2 Attack Ashoka :

Spoiler Turn 7 Use Fast moving Noya as transport to settle good towns :

Spoiler Turn 13 laying siege on Athenai with 2 wonders, captured in turn 16 :

Spoiler Turn 28 Wonder combos in capital :

Rushed to build Serpent Mound and Tomb of Askia to boost capital production. Had 4 unique improvement and assigned 19 resouces to get it over 100 hammers per turn

Spoiler Turn 35 settled first distant land city :

Spoiler Turn 49 Rush bought 4 more settlers to hurry treasure fleet :

Rushed warehouse buildings in each town to bring treasure resource on line asap

Spoiler Turn 60 Rush bought 2 fleet commanders and ships to train Exp :

Spoiler Turn 63 Got 2 fleet commanders to level 4 and the Order commendation within 4 turns :

Spoiler Turn 65 Attacking Ben just to get commander EXPs :

Spoiler Turn 69 Moved 2 best Noyas and their armies to the distant land, now attacking Spain :

Spoiler Turn 74 End age :

Strong Econ, Army, weakened AIs, well established for a quick Conquest vic in Modern.

 

[Manpanzee]

70 turns Exploration
105 turns Antiquity
175 turns so far

This age did not go as planned.

Starting off, I assumed that Terra Incognita map meant a good chance that progressing Economic legacy path would be very difficult. Therefore, I would need to look elsewhere for age progression. I settled on a heavy culture focus, intending to get one or even two Future Civics, which would set me up to grab a quick ideology in Modern.

About halfway through the age, I finally checked to verify how Mongolia’s UA worked, and had to make some major pivots when I realized the truth. While I applaud Firaxis for putting unique legacy objectives into the game, the tuning here is pretty off – it’s a massive nerf that Mongolia needs to invest a full 12 settlement limit into capping Exploration Military, while every other civ in the game can consistently do it in 6 or less.

After weighing how to proceed, I decided to spam out way more settlements than I’d intended to, putting me far, far beyond the settlement limit – at one point I was a full 10 over the cap. While this had the upside of letting me bring in the Treasure Fleets faster than I’d planned, the unhappiness absolutely tanked my yields, bringing my promising culture game to a screeching halt. I wasn’t able to complete even the one Future Civic, even with 70 turns to work with.

I attempted to mostly ignore Mongolia’s uniques, instead leaning hard into universally available culture stuff. I didn’t open their unique civics tree until very late, when it was clear Future Civic was off the menu and I might as well grab some settlement limit. I also didn’t war much, taking only an easy wipe of the already-weakened Ben Franklin. The Amina-Isabella alliance declared on me late in the age, but I had enough influenced banked to absolutely bury them in war support, and it didn’t really matter.

Despite the road bumps, I think I’m reasonably well set up for Modern. I’ll carry over six Army Commanders, three Fleet Commanders, and enough military to pack them all full. I also succeeded at my major age objective of spamming a colossal number of Colossal Heads, including this absolutely beautiful Mundo Perdido city. The dream of the 10-culture Head is alive in Sparda!

Spoiler :

 

[MACKA0ili]

86 turns
Total Score so far: 108 + 86 = 194

A lot slower than I expected. Started with Fealty, Silk Roads Golden Age, Xerxes' economic legacy, +1 science per codex, and 1 military science and culture attribute point. The plan was to go for high income plutocracy and buy my way to victory.
I immediately declared war on Charlemagne since my cog was blocked off from the ocean by one of his cities. I also used my influence points to win over Ben Franklin and we became war allies as a took over all of Charlemagne and Ashoka's cities. I ended up eliminating both of them around turn 56 or so but, with the new update, the era tracker was no where near completion despite 2 civs being eliminated and a completed Cultural Legacy path. I had to settle three more cities in distant lands in order to complete the Military Legacy path but even then it only just started the crisis. Things might have gone faster if I decided to betray Ben Franklin, but I wanted to keep him around to be an easy target for the Modern Era Military Legacy Path.
I managed to finally get the age tracker to 100% by completing the Science Legacy Path as well, so I converted a few more towns into cities to get Universities set up in them so I can turn them into Golden Age Universities, though with the Mughal's yield maluses that might not be a good idea. I'll be starting the Modern Age with 3k gold and max influence, but I feel like I've wasted at least 10 turns just trying to end the age.

 

[cas]

man, that was a slog.

85 turns Exploration
115 turns Antiquity
200 turns total so far

- What Legacy bonuses did you chose and why? What other start up things did you do at the beginning of the Age of Exploration?
Fealty, Powerful Nobles, Diplo/Science/Economic attribute points (1/each)

- What was your plan for moving toward the victory condition? What are the major steps you planned to take? What events, if any, changed the plan in execution and to what new plan? Any interesting decision points?
Eliminate remaining 3 home continent AI, eliminate 1 distant lands AI and take capitals/major cities of the other 2. Leave enough AI settlements with the remaining 2 for victory points in Modern.
Chose the order of the distant lands wars poorly. Went Frederick first. Should have gone Amina->Isabella instead and left Frederick alone.
Wars:
DoW T7-BenFranklin-eliminated him T23
DoW T13-Charlemagne-eliminated him T26
Ashoka DoW T14 due to alliance with Charlemagne-eliminated him T21
DoW T40-Frederick-eliminated him T73
Isabella DoW T74 due to alliance with Frederick-peace T78 after I took her capital and great barrier reef settlement. gave her 3 small settlements in return.
Dow T73 Amina - peace T83 after I took her captial and 3 other settlements. Gave 3 back + one additional. Kept capital.

- Early order for technology/civics? What did you later prioritize for technology/civics?
piety->4 mongol civics->colonialism2 for El Escorial->last two mongol civics->whatever gave me additional settlement cap
tech focus was Shipbuilding (T40) then whatever

- How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?
unique generals and keshig were useful, of course.

- How many cities/towns did you settle and/or capture? Where did you settle your first few towns in this Age? What was your mix of towns vs cities?
Lost track. I gave back several settlements at the end to Isabella and Amina so I would have more to capture in the modern era. I should have settled small islands and given them each several more.
I had about 40% cities, 60% towns ? I never know how when to use town specialties other than 'hub town' for influence points. I need to use town specialties better.

- What were key production/purchase focuses?
military units, navy, science buildings

- Religious bonuses chosen and why?
+2 relics for 1st time conversion of capital. I used this late to acheive culture legacy path. capture capital, convert next capital, capture, convert, etc...I should have spammed missionaries and used it during my war with Frederick too.

- What government did you select? Which bonus did you choose most and why?
Theocracy. I wanted the culture bonus to get settlement limit increased asap.

- Any cool info we forgot to ask about?
nothing comes to mind

- How did you focus your use of influence for diplomacy?
Constant wars / city razing meant low diplo points. Eliminated all independent peoples on home continent for the bonus prod/science/gold. Wanted to befriend one culture CS for the unique improvement, but wasn't able to. All influence points went toward supporting wars to offset negatives from city razing.

- Any surprises/frustration/elations you ran into, how did you deal with it?
crazy amount of unit spam as expected on Diety. Takes forever to move the units and attack.

- Did you enjoy this Age?
Not really. the unit/missionary spam makes the game super tedious. victory was never in doubt, which is sad for Deity. You just have to out product the AI on units and constant war = win. Attempting a peaceful deity playthrough with no city capture/razing may be interesting...not sure.

Thank you for hosting the game.

cas

 

[RaidandTrade]

Antiquity: Turn 130/131
Exploration: Turn 102/103, 5 Legacy Points

Spoiler Legacies :

Spoiler Ranking :

Spoiler End of Age Yields :

What Legacy bonuses did you chose and why? What other start up things did you do at the beginning of the Age of Exploration?

Fealty for the +2 cap, Silk roads and the rest in points. Switched capital to Roma with the intention of switching back in Modern.

What was your plan for moving toward the victory condition? What are the major steps you planned to take? What events, if any, changed the plan in execution and to what new plan? Any interesting decision points?

Economic - Ignore it because Treasure Fleets have been broken lately.
Culture - Thought I should be able to do it without a lot of effort but failed big time... Thought I'd taken the belief of converting distant lands for relics but took the movement one instead so was thinking I'd hit a bug when distant lands weren't giving me relics. By the time I realised, I'd lost momentum and was in the middle of two wars.
Science - Yep, failed that one too, mainly due to the plague trashing my cities at the age transition.
Military - Got that one. Played to Xerses' strength and kept the war close to home.

Early order for technology/civics? What did you later prioritize for technology/civics?

I left some techs untouched thinking I'd get a steal or two in but, for the first time ever, my spy failed! Civic-wise, I worked the Mongolian tree and then back to normal for the settlement cap increases.

How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?

War on the home continent was the main difference.

How many cities/towns did you settle and/or capture? Where did you settle your first few towns in this Age? What was your mix of towns vs cities?

Ended up settling one in distant lands that was near two treasure resources. Generated two x 1 point fleets that I ended up not even unloading as the age transition jumped from 98% to done so caught me by surprise.

Captured 11 but returned one. Charlie took two of my city states (Pagan and Kath) which was a little annoying as it stopped me claiming potentially better cities.

What were key production/purchase focuses?

A mix of culture, science and units. I wanted the culture tree to move along to get the settlement cap up to stay happy.

Religious bonuses chosen and why?

Distant lands conversion
+4 culture for foreign followers. If my religion spread had have worked as intended, this would have boosted me a little faster through the culture tree.
+2 movement. This was a mistake - meant to take the one that converted cities when sending a trade route...

What government did you select? Which bonus did you chose most and why?

Feudal monarchy, mainly for the food but also for some navy.

How did you focus your use of influence for diplomacy?

Picked up a load of city states for bonuses then the rest went to war support. I was at +10 against Charlie to balance out his units being a tier ahead of mine.

Any surprises/frustration/elations you ran into, how did you deal with it?

My religion...
Age transition jumping from 98 to done in one turn - no way to deal with that one...
Taking cities too fast sometimes meaning my happiness tanked. Had to give an island back to Ashoka in a peace deal just to curb the happiness issues.

Did you enjoy this Age?

This is the worst I've played an exploration age but overall enjoyed it. Charlie was way ahead in science and culture so had to be reined in for the modern. Lahaina was a pain to capture - ended up using a large navy for most of it. Plague hit just as I was targeting the last district. My trebuchets and a lancer were thankfully enough but it was touch and go!

 

[GoblinMatron]

Turns: 70
Total: 101 + 70 = 171

Legacies:
Military: +2 settlement limit, +1militaristic attribute
Cultural: +2 culture attributes
Economic: keep cities, +2 economic attribute
Scientific: +1 scientific attribute

Stupidly, I spent all my gold at the end of the last age, so I cannot convert even one big town to a city. I move my capital to Pataliputra and keep my previous cities to have 5 cities and 4 towns.

My plan to finish the age as soon aspossible is to defeat Charlemagne and one other civ, try to get a future civic and get as many points from the legacy paths as possible.

I want to focus on the culture to get the future civic . For that, I want an early religion and as many relics as possible. In the last gotm I realized how big the standard size map is and how long it takes to move the units over the ocean to distant lands. So I want to try to get as many relics as possible in homelands. There are no beliefs that do that very well, the best of them seems to be the one that gives 2 relics for converting capitals,which will give 4 relics for the two remainig civs on my home continent. Which means that I want to wait with capturing Charlemagne's capital until I have converted it. I also have the idea, that if I convert his capital, then capture his capital, his capital will move to another settlement of his. Will I get 2 more relics if I then convert his new capital? I want to try that.

With Benjamin Franklin I want good relations, because he has so many bad settlements quite close together that I think would be good to capture next age. I also took some buffs for assigned resources in the attribute trees, so I want to trade with him. I choose Feudal Monarchy as my government, because Benjamin chose it. He likes me and we become allies quickly.

I start researching Piety first. My army commanders use the time to destroy all city states on my home continent while I wait for my first missionaries. Since I plan an early war, I don't anticipate having enough influence to befriend any of them. Most of them are militaristic or cultural giving me some free Cogs in my capital and an early Piety.

I focus producing some Cogs, Stonecutters and Observatories in my cities (I reasearch Astronomy first to get the science rolling again). I have 6 Army Commanders and 21 military units, mostly Keshig, from the last age. So I don't need more land units.

On turn 18 I start setting my plan into motion. I convert Charlemagne's capital, then capure his capital , then convert his new capital and it works! I get another 2 relics. Sadly, it does not work for his next capital. Maybe because I convert it in the same round as the last? By turn 25 I have defeated Charlemagne, capturing his 4 settlemnts.

At this point, my cogs have scouted the seas and found empty land to the east and a weak Amina to the west. So I found some settlements to the east near treasure resources. I move my military over the ocean to the west planning to defeat Amina.

In the meantime I get a quest to have 8 points in the military path. So I convert my distant land settlementsto my religion and find out, that this does not count for Mongolia towards the military path. Good to know relatively early in the game.

I also realize that I have more relics than space to display them. So I focus on getting Halo o Keawe and House of Wisdom. I am surprised how much science House of Wisdom gives, I should build it more often.

On turn 43 I declare war on Amina doing the convert-capture trick again to get as many relics as possible. By turn 55 I defeat her, mainly waiting around for my missionaries to get into position. I keep all her 5 settlements, because I need the steps in the military path.

Since I plan on goint to war against Benjamin and everyone else who built a settlement on my home continent, I now move my military back there. For civics I focus on getting Notre Dame, so that I have a chance to get some points in the science legacy path. Turn 66 I finish the wonder and immediately finish that legacy path bringing me close to finishing the age.

I realize that I am nowhere near the future civics and that my choice of governemnet was quite stupid, I should have used the one that gives culture. I also plan to declare war on Benjamin in the last turn to have worse relations with him in the next age. But I play the last few turns late in the evening and forget...

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Exploration 80 turns

What Legacy bonuses did you chose and why? What other start up things did you do at the beginning of the Age of Exploration?

Spoiler Screenshot for legacy cards :

Powerful Nobles is the Crisis legacy card. With Barbarian Invasion active if you have 3 or more commanders with at least 5 promotions you can take this very powerful card in the exploration giving production and culture at the cost of a little gold based on total commander levels. I had a lot of gold and science, rounding that up with missing culture and production seemed like a good idea. I moved my capital over to Rome to take advantage of an extra city and because Pãrsa was already powerful as it was with Petra and all the ageless improvements, was landlocked and i didn't want to add further urban district there as they would cost me some of my very powerful flat desert tiles.
The rest is probably self-explanatory. Silk Road GA isn't actually that strong unless you had way more cities than i had but the trade routes alternative didn't make any sense with how few TR i had after waging war for most of the Antiquity.

What was your plan for moving toward the victory condition? What are the major steps you planned to take? What events, if any, changed the plan in execution and to what new plan? Any interesting decision points?
I wanted to get rid of Ashoka and Charlemagne early to score some age progression then focus on Ben and eventually Distant Land civilizations. I had a lot of Military units and Commanders from the previous age so i declared war almost immediately (after reorganizing my armies) and they didn't stand a chance. I then decided to consolidate my economy for the rest of the age, and the next. I was worried about Mughal's lack of science/culture so i tried to find ways to add ageless sources of those yields and didn't start my war on Ben immediately (i also had to solve my settlement limit)

Early order for technology/civics? What did you later prioritize for technology/civics?
Since i didn't plan to expand to DL (at least not with my own overpriced settlers) i opened with Machinery then Astronomy (but for Serpent Mound and Observatory, not Fleet Commanders) and towards Education. After i had secured a strong (enough) science generation i researched the military techs to resume my conquests.
On civics i got Ulus early for Ortoos, then Piety (i had some hope religion would double the value of my conquered settlements as it usually does in Exploration but not for Mongolia sadly), then more Mongol civics for higher settlement limit and then the Theology tree. With 3 civs out of my home continent keeping my cities following my religion proved to be far easier that it's usually so i used the reformation civics for most of the age.

How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?
Xerxes stills as strong as in the previous age. Not sure what to think of Mongolia's take on Military Victory. On one hand you can keep warring on your own continent to grow strong and score legacy points. On the other hand you don't have any way to increase the value of those settlements so when most civilizations barely need to capture 3 DL settlements (or found 2 and take 2) you need to capture 12! There simply wasn't enough settlements left on my continent for me to win so i still had to build the famous Mongol navy

How many cities/towns did you settle and/or capture? Where did you settle your first few towns in this Age? What was your mix of towns vs cities?
Settled : 0 / Captured : 12 (this is how many i needed for my Military Golden Age)

What were key production/purchase focuses?
Other than my military units, i tried to invest into ageless culture and science, especially unique improvements (from CS obviously)

Religious bonuses chosen and why?
Huh, don't really remember. I used the Reformation policies to great effect but whatever beliefs i choose when i founded Tengriism wasn't important.

What government did you select? Which bonus did you chose most and why?
Feudal Monarchy obviously. Food or bonus production for Cavalry and Naval was all i really needed.

How did you focus your use of influence for diplomacy?
This time, unlike the Antiquity i was more active to befriend CSs as i wanted to get some Unique Improvements for Science and Culture.

Any surprises/frustration/elations you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Not really. It was longer than i had hoped to reach 12 military legacy points with Mongolia (i hoped religion would sill help them like it helps every other civilization) but not really difficult. Given the choice i probably wouldn't have choose Mongolia and just made sure to conquer 3 DL settlements with another civilization as Mongolia is both a blessing and a curse, but given how little settlements were left on my continent they were more a burden than a help to me in this game. I hope the next GotM won't impose artificial restrictions on civilization choice.

Did you enjoy this Age?
Yes, it was fun to take full control of my continent (except for that silly town Isabella settled at the end of the age). I failed to eliminate Ben unfortunately as he settled a small town somewhere in an unexplored part of the map, otherwise i would probably have finished a little faster than that.

Spoiler :

Final result. You can see i didn't really try hard on the Economic path. There wasn't any easily available "spice island" which didn't help. Still managed to get Toshakhana which was brain dead easy as usual (i swear you can't fail that one unless you choose to) and Enlightenment which required a little more coordinated efforts going for policies, CS bonuses and specialists to finish it.

Spoiler :

 

[Bleidraner]

Turns: 70

Total: 105 + 70 = 175

I played this a few days ago but have not had time to post (I just also finished Modern, but there will no spoilers in this post). Writing this from memory as no notes:-(

The plan:
In Exploration the critical path is the economy legacies. That takes the longest. In this weird map, it was especially difficult, as there were very few good locations for multitreasure settlements. As usual, t1 I sent my cogs to explore East and West, and started building 3 settlers. Found a few spots to the west of my own continent, in the East side, it was crowded with AIs and I actually lost my scout and my settler. So objective was to try to get sub 75 with as many legacies as possible to set up Modern, ideally all of them. It was important for me to try and kill Ashoka, who was down to his cap Pataliputra, a really nice city. Theoretically it was to advance the age, but in reality I carried a grudge from the previous era and it was low hanging fruit in my own continent. Also wanted to hyper connect my cap to continue building the production monster that will be needed in the next era. I wanted to play this era fairly peacefully. I clearly did not understand how the military legacy path works for the Mongols.

The execution:
Things did not go as planned. Killing Ashoka was a little more difficult than planned, but it went Ok. t70 is now possible, even sub 70 if I can finish the economic path. After the first 25 turns of exploration with fairly long crossings and some Bermuda Triangle Russian roulette with a scout, I finally landed on the west coast of the other continent, crossing from my east coast. I found quickly a good spot with a silver to plant my settlement and prepared to expand, but Isabella was already there, touching my borders within 2-3 turns. So I declared war much earlier than expected, I don’t remember the exact turn but around t42. Although this tanked my happiness big time, going over the cap, this was a blessing in disguise because that allowed me to discover relatively early that I had no bonuses for Distant Lands or Religion captures. I immediately went into overdrive to try to capture as many cities from Isabella as I could, as early as possible while I rush-bought settlers from my DL town to plant more settlements with treasure. I even reached poor Friedrich towns and declared on him as there were a couple that could be easily conquered. This actually helped with the economic path, as Isabella had some treasure towns and I managed to plant 3-4 myself. But it quickly became evident once I reached Shipbuilding that it was not going possible to finish the economic path before at least t75. Continued the war until I completed the military path by t65 or so, had finished culture long ago (2 relicts for city state conversion makes this one really easy and fast) then finished science and my second economic milestone on t69. I got the message in t69 that the era was ending and a 100% on the counter, but the era did not really end until the next turn, t70.

I doubt that the economic path can be finished before t70. I knew it was going to be difficult and I went all out, planting one treasure towns and even getting the additional belief that allows one extra movement for naval units, which made the treasure fleet trips shorter. I have not explored the whole map as I got a couple of units killed early on and after that borders were closed or there was war, but there does not seem to be a lot of good treasure fleet spots in what I have uncovered. Anyway, happy with the results but I have some regrets:
- I had to spend all my money to finish the path by t69.
- I only have 2 fleets, and ideally I would have liked three.
- Because the lack of war in my own continent (I have plans for early conquest in Modern of Ben F and Carlomagnus settlements, so I left them alone), my Army Commanders in the original continent are not well promoted. I moved my experienced commanders to the DL after Pataliputra fell, and they were at war most of the age, same with the fleets.
- A significant chunk of the map is not explored. That makes me really nervous.

But I am doing Ok on science and culture, I have 5 cities that are pretty good, I achieved 11 legacy points, my presence in both the old and the new continent is very strong, and I have plenty of units and Army Commanders. I have done the usual end of age cleanup, DOWd Ben Franklin and have nice hostile relatioships with pretty much everybody else so I am well prepared for Modern.

Here are some screenshots and my save game.

Spoiler Screenshots :

 

[pmarc]

Turn 68


Legacies from Antiquity

Spoiler :

As I expected I could change the capital to Roma for a free 4th city. Kept only those 4 all age. As usual, I use the Expansionist point for the +1 population in towns, Diplo for the city-state befriending bonus, economic going towards the +15% gold for purchases (though missing one point there).

The plan was to conquer Charlemagne (5 cities) and Ashoka (only 2 cities), while settling for treasure resources. Like the previous posters, I didn't find much in terms of treasures. I ended up with only 1/3 Economic points. However, I also opportunistically took Amina's capital as she was caught in a two-front war with Isabella and Friedrich. They took the rest of her cities to eliminate her and progress the age. Knowing that, I could have probably ended a few turns earlier by speeding up the city-state befriending for the +culture and +science bonuses on buildings I needed to complete Enlightenment. For relics, I missed on the two best beliefs and picked +1 relic from foreign cities with a temple or altar, but it still completed fast enough with the various bonus relics from masteries, etc.

At least, I used the extra time to build some more commanders, build Erdene Zuu, and buy more stone heads (must have spent 10,000 gold in towns for those), because getting to Ideology should be the limiting step in Modern. Unlike in most games, I prioritized specialists on culture rather than science districts, also with the logic of maximizing culture in modern. Also ended with 10 land commanders (45 units) and 3 fleet (10 units).

Final rankings (even the deity AI is really bad at the Treasure Fleet and Enlightenment paths).

Spoiler :