Round 11: to 1750 AD
Well, I finally know what victory condition I'm going for, and it ain't Cultural, gang.
First off, though, the recap:
As I said I would, I finished Optics, switched civics to Slavery for a few turns, whipped out two Caravels (one in Barcelona, one in Alexandria), and set off to explore the world. I saw Paris, I saw France, I won the circumnav and did a little dance:
And I finally met my planet's unlikely shrinking violet:
Well, I suspected there was a spiritual civ on that continent. It turned out I was more correct about that than I knew, but more on that later.
As you can see, I did a little tech trading with Monty, who seems to have gotten a personality transplant and is proving very affable. Far from being the joke he usually is by mid-game, as you'll see, he's done okay for himself.
Since my opponents are not exactly stellar technophiles, I'm winning most of the tech races despite my deplorable research levels. The Great Expansion was going full-bore this round, and all those new cities drove my science slider down, down, down, to 10% briefly, to 20% for most of the turns. Yet I still managed to beat everyone to Economics and got my free Great Merchant. I sent him to London, since it's
still the only holy city I have with a shrine:
I was tempted to try a trade mission, but thought, why? I won't need to do a bunch of upgrades to units--my usual reason for a TM--for quite some time, if ever. So I took the long-term view and realized I'd get more money out of this GM by merging him into what will be my best commerce city.
The trade you saw above, for Engineering, opened the next wonder, the Hagia Sophia. Now I often take a pass on this one, but with the amount of terrain I have to improve, and with my research level meaning Steam Power was a long way off, I decided I could really use it:
By the way, for those of you wondering, yes, I built Forbidden Palace quite some time ago, in Madrid (see the little silver star?). I've forgone Divine Right and Versailles, but it still hasn't been built yet and I'm wondering if maybe I should take a run at it anyway. Of course, if I decide to do that, watch it get built by Nappy on the first turn of the next round.
My +1 movement Caravels kept exploring and discovered the identity and fate of the other continent's eliminated civ:
Yes, India! There wasn't just one spiritual civ on the other continent, there were two. I suspect it was Asoka rather than Gandhi since France built most of the wonders. I also found it intriguing that Monty managed to capture both the Christian and Jewish holy cities. It's tough to say for sure, but I think it was him and, surprisingly, not Nappy who eliminated India. And since his only remaining neighbour shares his religion, they seem to be getting along with one another. I may try to break up that little cuddlefest later, if the need arises, but I'm beginning to doubt it will.
Regardless, as I said, Monty's done quite well for himself this game. He's even way ahead of Nappy in score. Who'da thunk it?
Ah well, back to Egypt. I keep spawning Great Scientists when I really want Great Prophets. Normally I love getting a GS, and they are proving handy, so I can't complain too much, but having four shrines right now would really help. As it is, once the expansion is done, I'm going to spread Hinduism to all those cities. As for the GS, well, one got merged into Cairo as a super-specialist--I just don't have another city that's anywhere close to its commerce/science level to justify an Academy--and the other I popped to rush Astronomy:
I switched civics to Free Market shortly thereafter for the foreign trade routes that now became available. I lost my free specialists from Mercantilism, but in most of the new cities, they were just citizen specialists, since my build queue in each one is Courthouse-Granary, then Lighthouse-Harbour if coastal, Forge if they're not--so the free specialists are generally not that useful. Switching to FM gave me a +12 gold boost. Then I went shopping:
And what the heck, I threw in a tech trade while I was at it:
After a little more city tile micromanagement back home, this allowed me to raise the science slider to 30% for awhile. Woo-hoo! Thank heavens my opponents are so pathetic in that regard. Neither of them even has Education, let alone Astronomy. Though in addition to DR, Nappy has Chemistry and Replaceable Parts on me. Pity he's not willing to trade them. I suspect this is why he hasn't built Versailles yet; he's probably indulging in a military build-up instead. So long as he stays away from Astronomy for awhile, I've got no problem with that.
Meanwhile, I kept expanding, even to the most remote and undesireable locations on my continent:
(Heh. "Iceburg". Get it? All right, so I'll keep my day job...)
I have also discovered a little three-tile island just off the northwestern corner of my continent: two plains hills (one of them with a forest), a plains tile with iron, and a crab tile. I'm building a galleon in Alexandria to go claim it.
So I know we discussed spamming cities, but isn't this going a little overboard?
Not at all:
There's your victory condition right there, kids. Domination. Even without a city on Iron Island, I'll probably have enough land on my continent, once a few of the newer cities' borders expand, to get the required 64% easily. (I'm still holding my GA in reserve in Thebes, just in case.) Then it's just a matter of ensuring that the population can increase from 43% to 59%. Hence the emphasis on Granaries and Lighthouses. I also need to build several workboats for all the fish tiles I've claimed.
Here's the map in 1750 AD:
So, if Monty and Nappy delay Astronomy like they seem to be doing, I should be safe to pursue a completion backwards principle domination win. (Kudos to the first person who identifies the obscure pop culture reference in that sentence.) Why backwards? Compare this to the Monty ALC domination win, which was more typical: expand and build first, then start warring and keep warring until you finally have the land and population. Well, in this case, I warred before I was really thoroughly prepared for it, and now I'm expanding and building--but the end result will be the same.
Unless something spectacularly weird (and disastrous) happens--like Nappy and Monty completing Navigation and invading me
en masse--I expect the next round to be played through to the end of the game. I am also going to go out on a limb and predict that since this victory is likely to be achieved far earlier than any other I've had so far--probably sometime in the 1800s--this will be my highest ALC score, and therefore my all-time highest score,
EVAR.
Hatty rocks.
See, it's for things like this (apart from the instructive gameplay and all) why your game reports are my favourite threads right now. Great work. 
just a joke, you played this brilliantly AFAIK) with caste system you could have had +3 gold /city, + 2 culture from sistin chapel, including your most remote iceburgs!
says, "Burn the heathens." 
says, "Burn the heathens." 
