1685 Domination win. Toku was the least developed and so he was my first target. He capped after I took 3 cities, leaving him with 2. I think Shaka may have DoW'd me during that time, so he was #2, also capping after 3 cities, leaving him with 2. I think I traded for a couple of their techs they had that I didn't, but with so few cities left they didn't contribute to my tech progress after that. Their war help was also pretty pathetic, although Toku did manage to take one of Isabella's cities (that she stole from the French) that was right on his northern border at the very end. Monte was next, and surprisingly capped after only 1 city (although he'd lost a lot of units trying to take one of Toku's hill cities). He still had around 6 cities and was able to contribute a few techs to aid my progress along the way.
Meanwhile, Isabella had capped the French and Indians, so I turned to the last independent civ, Russia. Catherine was nearly as advanced as Isabella but had participated in few if any wars, so she had relatively few units and was an easy target. By that time I had a monopoly on Steel/cannon, followed shortly by grenadiers and then Rifling for rifles and cavalry. Isa and her minions were my last target; I left the French to my northern allies, who managed to take one whole city while Russia lost one of hers. The French stayed independent to the very end, since I tripped the Dom limit once Isa capped. She had a LOT of units, and she got rifles before I did. We traded a couple of her border cities back and forth since I couldn't hold them--I'd capture, only move in one unit, and let her take it back next turn. She had a stack of over 30 units that caused me great consternation, but eventually she moved it against my Heroic Epic city where I was able to smash it (over two turns) with cannon, etc. from my southern stack that I was afraid to commit to a march across Spanish territory, lest her SoD smash it. After that it was pretty straightforward, with France and India breaking away from Spain at the end. I took one Indian city to make Gandhi cap, and that was enough to push Isa to cap, too. I got to Steam Power and revealed lots of coal for my Great-Engineer-built Iron works to reach its full production potential, but Railroad was probably 10 turns off. Russia already had SciMeth and was working on Electricity. I think I finally caught up to Isabella, though--she didn't quite make it to Steel.
Thanks very much for the game, kcd--a nice challenge for the holidays. Now why has nobody else has even posted in the first Spoiler thread? I demand entertainment!
