At the end of the
first write-up, I thought I had a useful empire. Early wonders, I'd decided against early warfare, and the economy was in good shape.
Well, how did it all drizzle away to a defeat?
Will wonders never cease?
I was in the grip of a wonder-lust around 500AD. While the Hanging Gardens went, and the Pyramids went the turn after I made an ill-judged start to them, I did come away with the Gt Library, the Parthenon, and the Colossus.
The Gt people points were accumulating nicely, and I popped a Gt Spy, Prophet and Scientist.
Let's try this 'war' thing out
Then Gilga decided to declare on me. About 1260 it was. I had to stir my sleepy troops into a warlike state. He attacked with mainly Vultures and mounted units, so I turned tech right down and used the money to upgrade my old warriors to spears and maces.
It all went quite well, although I could have done without my first 'super-trireme' losing horribly to a galley! (I had fulfilled a quest to get all of my triremes improved)
Whipping helped my military strength, and I fought off everything he threw at me, even when the second wave included a number of War Elephants.
Despite having enough in hand to fight Gilga off, I wasn't mighty enough to take anything off of him in return, so I got a peace treaty off of him in 1340. I had to grant him some tech, and at the end he was even pleased towards me!
Growing - to mediocrity
Despite the enforced slow-down of the research rate during 16 turns of war, I was the first to Liberalism in 1435 and chose Nationalism. During the next spell of empire improvement, I built the Uni of Sankore and the Taj Mahal. Two golden ages had helped things along too - or so I thought - but when I took stock at 1575 I could see I was not in a good position. Bottom score (but that doesn't mean much). More worryingly, behind some civs on tech, and had been forced to lower tech rate to 30% after settling the western end of the continent. Our new FP, however, should be sorting that out soon.
I realised that Space was probably the only victory type left open to me. Diplo was questionable, since our only true friend was Gilga, who had declared on us once before! I needed to focus on Space tech.
Educated, but not resource-ful
The next phase of improvement, research and trading brought us to the point where we learned that we not only lacked iron but oil also. This began to look worrying, as we couldn't build any good ships, cannons (though strangely artillery were ok!) and soon the lack of aircraft and vehicles was going to make me look puny.
I was educated though! Unis everywhere, and Oxford Uni too.
By 1850, we were on our way to Rocketry, and able to run a tech rate of 80%-90%.
We suffered a few times from espionage attacks. I'm sure it was Gilga. Took artillery, which was scary!
Space?
The first bit of good news with resources arrived when we learned Industrialism - and found that we had aluminium in our borders and already mined! Brought our Apollo time in by some years.
Even so, Willem beat us to Apollo by a good 7 turns. He was emerging as the dominant world power. This position was cemented when he built both the Internet and the UN. I realised that everything was slipping away fast, and a Space victory was going to become very difficult to achieve.
As the later stages came around, I built Standard Ethanol in London, and got myself some oil. I spread this to all of my cities fast (spurred on by a quest to place it in all cities 'and see my profits roll in'). Didn't actually see any major profits, but at least I could build tanks everywhere to feel more secure during the space race.
The final stages were spent watching the space race unfold. Five of us were involved, and Willem was winning it. I tried heading for the space elevator, but realised that all of my best builder cities were too far north. Gnash! I could only build it in two rubbish southern cities, which would take 80 turns or so to complete. Then Willem completed the elevator himself, and I knew it was all over.
The Shocking End!
I kept plugging away, building chunks of spaceship. Then I saw that Willem only has his stasis chamber to build, and knew the end would be just turns away.
When it came, the end was wholly expected, but the manner of the defeat came as a total shock. I hadn't been watching cultural points at all - so engrossed in the space race - and I had to read the defeat message several times before I comprehended that Willem had just got his 3rd Legendary Culture city.
All-in-all a strangely quiet game. My wonder-building hadn't resulted in a winning empire. It was all too mixed to run a SE, so I wasn't a world tech leader either. Just kept thinking that if I had taken Gilga out in the early stages, it all might have been so different.
Also had no shot at Liberalism, but managed to grab Economics barely in time. I used the GM for the first of three golden ages.
I was watching out for it, and would have closed borders or gone to Theocracy if needed. But it never happened -- I never saw a single AP vote over many centuries of being in contact.
Seoul had 100% when I started to take it. Luckily I learned a spy is now the atomic-siege engine with city revolt mission (and that felt somewhat unfair to me) 
. (I hope this get me off Wonder Lust 
))
I think this is the information I was looking for. I'll have to give Erkon's Murky Waters write-up a careful read! 
