Monty: Awful start. No forests or jungles in sight, at the edge of flood plains and desert, quite a few calendar resources but none before them. Barb busting allowed me to still promote a few Jags, but overall my army was decidedly backward and weaker. I fought a couple of successful defensive wars and one nominal war which netted me a lot of money, a few techs, and a few workers, and kept reasonably alive until the Renaissance, but there my luck ended, and I discovered a dreaded Gandhi/Mansa lovefest on a neighbouring continent. They were too far ahead and too collectively strong to do anything about by the Industrial Era, and were outfitted with Infantry and Artillery by the time I got to Rifles. I desperately tried to pull off a cultural victory using the fact that I had quite a few religions, but by 1600 AD, Mansa was just ahead of me in culture, and Gandhi was beelining space. I don't feel like I could have won at that point. However, I blame this on the bad start. As is, the Jags allowed me to do a uniquely successful defensive war (don't underestimate the WIII promotion,) and the Altar allowed me to build up as good an infrastructure as I could hope for, so I was able to stay afloat.
Shaka: Also quite a poor game, though with a couple of hilarious twists throughout it. This time around my early rush worked perfectly, and I had enough hammers in my capital and second city to collect a lot of failgold. The rush was done by a mix of Impis and catapults, but really any units would have worked, my target was America, and they didn't even have hilltop cities. I managed to expand quite a bit, fueled by failgold and the money saved by the Ikhanda. I got a bit cocky and perhaps slightly underbuilt my army. As a result, a surprise invasion by the friendly Medieval Boudica actually knocked out a city of mine, and though by the end of the war I had achieved parity and was even able to coax a world map out of her for peace (and circumnavigate without building a ship other than one workboat,) it was a crucial setback. One civilization ran away in culture and was already a clear contender for a cultural victory, and so I was quite angry when I discovered that who should it be but Sitting Bull with his hilltop cities and super-defenders. There was no way I was busting those CGIII Drill II longbows upgraded to rifles. Though I was doing quite well, SB and his vassals were just too far ahead. My defeat was secured around 1500 AD when two of his cities achieved Legendary Culture and my army, though doing decent against his fringe, was stalled with no hope of getting to the third in time.
Genghis: REX-ing worked wonders. I strolled into a motherload of riverside gems and ivories in the jungle, just north of my riverside gold and wine start in the plains. Everything up until Iron Working was a bit of an uphill struggle, but everything past then was amazing. With all those lovely commerce tiles, I was able to build up a very impressive empire and still keep my research going strong to the point where when Monty declared war on me, I was able to hold him down by being a clear generation ahead in techs with a small army. I did not actually fight an aggressive war until I had beelined Guilds, at which point keshiks wiped Monty, Cyrus, and vassalized Sitting Bull (in an act of cruel revenge for the previous game, I made it a point to take the Sistine Chapel from him.) I could have easily won a conquest victory on this map, due to insane military production and promotions (This time I settled all but two GG's, of which I had like 7.) The Agg trait was actually useful because I could crank out Combat III maces midgame which were fairly easy to then grind to March or Combat IV, both of which help the healing time and make for faster wars.
