I didn't say so explicitly in my first spoiler, but I retired in 3640BC, after losing all of my musketeers. I suppose I could have sailed around with my galleon, hoping for an ambulance, but I was too demoralized and didn't have time to waste on that. (On the other hand, those turns would have been quick! And would any of the AI bother declaring on a galleon when I had no cities to capture?)
Replaying for fun, I tried the strategy of capturing a worker from Saladin and using that as bait to draw out one of his archers. Didn't work. Three times, including one at Adventurer level, where the odds were just as bad as contender, because he had contender starting units.
Others had already reported how Berlin was the weak link in the game, but what I didn't like in this game was that we had no clue that this might be the case. We had specific hints about the strengths of Shaka and Sitting Bull, as for the rest of the AI, we just knew that they had "custom" starting units. After seeing that the first three all had their cities on hill, with protective bonuses for their starting archers, why shouldn't we have assumed that
all of other AI had been given this advantage, and our only option was a forlorn attack, hoping for the blessing of the RNG?
For my fourth replay, I thought of a new strategy. Instead of attacking Saladin's capital, I attacked WK, capturing a worker and razing improvements. When Shaka settled his second city, I made peace with WK and attacked Medina. That was founded on grasslands and had only one archer defending it. And, because of the "no razing" rule, that meant I could capture a 1 pop city without it auto-razing!
Well, at least this part of the strategy worked. Medina was captured in 2960 BC, after which I had to fight another long war of harassment against Saladin, waiting until I could build catapults to assault his capital. WK attacked me again, and I turned my attention to him. I finally conquered the Koreans in 620 AD and was ready to turn my attention back to Saladin, when Mao attacked me. I knew I couldn't stop him from taking at least one of my cities, and meanwhile Shaka and Sitting Bull were pulling far ahead of everyone. I decided to end this experiment I try it the way others did.
So, for my fifth and final "fun" replay, I went for Frederick first. He fell easily, then I bottled up Shaka in a long war, before destroying him in 150 AD. Ultimately I conquered all of Eurasia and fought a short war against Gandhi, to block him from achieving a cultural victory. Then it was time to face Sitting Bull, who was far ahead in tech and had launched his spaceship. It must have been nearly there, when I captured his capital, thereby destroying the ship. I managed to hold on to Cahokia and repulse his counter-invasion. Later, I destroyed a second spaceship by going back to war and capturing his new capital. He was starting work on a third ship, when I finally crossed the domination threshold in 1913.
Too bad that game doesn't count.
