jesusin, contender. Goal: Fastest Spaceship. Result: shameful retirement
"Jugué como nunca, perdí como siempre"
is my Deity-games motto.
If you've read my first spoiler you'll know I had 9 cities, I had been all game long in economic collapse, that I had lost a city to barbs, that I was winning my wars and sending a 18Axe+Holkans stack to Monty's capital. Would have needed 4 more Axes,,. or 4 less Axes and a Cat... 60% on a hill was a bit too much.
I gather another 20 units stack (not so difficult when all you can build are units) and then I luck out: SB gets Alpha at last, I get Sailing, Poly and most of Maths for my MC investment, then I accept Monty's Construction+IW+PH for peace. Research set on Machi, that nobody has. Use those 10 turns to build cats, come back at him before his lbs appear...
500AD stats: 10cities, 60pop, 9wor, Constr, MC. 10sust bpt, working 25 cottages
Take capital and another Monte city, HC is quick to take another one. SB is quick to settle "my" mini islands. Settle 2 more cities, cottage all. Moai in the food rich N pole city. GS settled in capital (ugh, a 80% probability GProphet for the hindu shrine would have been huge).
When I get Machi, SB gets it the same turn. I am out of the trading game for good. I'm doomed. I had grown my pop well into unhappiness, hoping to trade for Calendar or Monarchy. Accept Monty peace (his other cities are worthless) for Calendar, put all the unhappy people on the newly built cottages.
Monte capitulates to HC, all others have lbs and knights now, no more Axe wars for me. Why am I paying 40gpt in unit maintenance now? Disband 10 units, use the others for HR. SB won't trade currency, in the last 3 games I've learnt it is a key tech, research it myself. Once I have it I am doing 120gpt at 0%, I am out of the hole!!! Grow, work more cottages. Revolt to OR, bring the only religion of the continent to all of my cities.
1000AD Stats: 14 cities, 120 pop, set, 10 workers, 53 units (14Cat, 2Gall), 4 strategic resources, 6 luxury resources, 8 health resources, 2 great persons, 0 world wonders, 1 national wonders, food/production/commerce=313-120-296, 225 sustainable beakers per turn, 65 culture per turn, 4 great person points per turn, 500 gold. 1 religions. 56/60 cottages used, 33 Techs: Optics, Monar, no Aesth, no CoL. 0 civs killed. 17 hours played.
No NE because not Literature, no Bureaucracy because no CS... I've had a really slow start. Beeline Astro, trade, get tons of gpt for my resources. I thought I would win... till I see every AI on the other continent has 15 cities, just like me.
Play the broker game, fill in "old" techs that way. Backwards Monty is very useful this way.
Build NE, keep settling cities, get Educ before my continent colleagues, trade and trade and trade again.... Beeline Medicine for Sushi. Take my chance when HC (Friendly at +16 in spite of my early worker steal) is first to Rifling, trade it from him, trade for ANtio too, revolt to Nationhood, draft rifles like crazy, send them to SB, get steel for some cannons to go with them.
Timing is bad, though, I delay Universities and Oxford.
Worst mistake in the game: I trade from HC a lot of useless techs as the first trade in a new round... everybody else goes WFYHBTA... I should have started trades with others, leaving my friendly HC for the last.
At least I am fast, in 5 turns I have 11 cannons and 24 rifles and I dow SB who has no rifling. Take two cities, start advancing with 2 stacks... and then he gets Rifling and Infantry in 2 consecutive turns. I try to push, it's useless. He will talk... make a failed attempt with 1 of my stacks... he won't talk anymore! I had never seen that!!!
Make a desperate attempt with the other stack in a mad rush to their capital... I am able to take it, with my very last unit... there is a stack next to it, but now they will talk... buy peace with a tech, keeping the capital, whcih will control zero tiels for the rest of the game, but has SoL inside.
Great isn't it? Yeah, but I am so scared of infantry and of the "full hands" of the other AIs that I hurry to make a DP with HC... the following turn Isabel dows HC and I dow her accordingly... everybody hates me for dowing such a nice girl.
Pay for peace as soon as I can.
I am at 20 cities now while other are at 15, will that be enough to win the space race? 1300 bpt at -0 gpt at 1500AD.
At long last I get a GPro for the shrine.Found sushi in the shrine city, use a GP in a GAge, revolt to Repres, Bureau, Emancip, FM and Pacifism. Disband old Axes.
1515AD: 1900bpt at -0gpt in a GAge with the new civics. I've reached tech parity!
1555AD: GAge is over, 2000bpt after revolting to FR... HC is Cautious after having lost the civic and the religion bonuses. Sushi in all cities (just +10fpt), I get elected UN SG.
1600AD, Wall Street is done in shrine+sushi headquarters city, 2500bpt at -0gpt.
I make my excel homework. I'll be finishing research 1720AD, winning 1785AD... not enough for an Award I'm afraid. I'll happily take my first real Deity win, anyway...
But of course HC hadn't forgotten about the worker steal 5000 years ago... Huge stacks of Infantry and Artillery came to pay a visit. I think about retiring, this game has taken too long already... but I don't. Wait 1 turn, get another GP, launch a GAge, revolt to Nationhood and slavery, see my people go unhappy suddenly, whip, draft, draft, whip, upgrade Axes to Infantry, have my first ever modern war, learn that anti-tanks are good units, learn that marines are done to kill artillery in the open, learn that border cities are a trap and you should never put your stack in them (bye bye, 30 unit stack just because they had 5 suicidal artillery and mop-up units), draft, whip, upgrade, whip, draft, use the trick against them, take the border city every turn, defend it with just 1 unit, see it retaken every turn, kill part of their stack in the city the following turn...
A fun thing happened, when voting for stopping the war against me, nobody agreed; when voting to stop the war against HC it almost succeeded!!!
The war is won, I wouldn't have believed it when HC dowed. The game is probably lost, Joao hast built half of the parts, my research is at 100bpt if I stop upgrading old units... revolt out of slavery and Nationhood, I am at 1200bpt now but my cities will grow, my stack enters HC lands... and Joao dows and disembarks a ton of units on the other side of my empire.
Enough. I'm not revolting back while not in a GAge and I'm not using up more hours on desperate defense. If I hadn't chosen to go for Labs but for modern armour, I would probably have continued. Hadn't I have gone to FR, I could have had a victory around 1800AD.
This is one of the games I've enjoyed the most in my life. Thank you, Niklas.
I haven't forgotten that game 
Thanks!
). She was on the way to an unusually early culture date, and I misjudged the speed at which I could build enough troops+nukes to destroy inland cities.
