Continued from first spoiler:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9531233&postcount=2
I never took peace with Sitting Bull (that's why I couldn't remember my motivations for doing so
). I waited until I had taken every one of his cities in the south. Thought he'd be dead, but he had a city in the furthest NW corner of the map. How did he get a settler there??? Anyhow, I waited for Feudalism and capitulated him, my first vassal.
Even a worthless weak vassal makes the AI over-estimate your power, so as soon as cats were available I attack Greece again and capitulate him as soon as he will talk, keeping another city or two. I'm so far ahead of all AI in tech, that trading partner Suleiman (or is it Mehmed?) is no longer useful. I take Istanbul first, and it has the Pyramids (and 6 other wonders), so I switch to Police State (and Vassalage) and run those for the rest of the game.
Sury + Washington were in lots of wars early, so both were pretty ******** in their tech pace. Everyone else had me to worry about.
I capitulated Mehmed after taking his 4 best cities. More wonders! Meanwhile, The Inca's have made Vassals of the Americans (forcibly). I attack the Inca's next... and after taking his capitol he stops saying "We're doing fine on our own" and instead refuses to capitulate because "We fear your enemies". Well... I'm only at war with Washington because he was vassaled to HC... so he's afraid of his own (now former) vassal??? Anyhow, I give Washington a ceasefire, and then HC will capitulate.
I turn on Washington next (who is at war with Sury again) and wipe him out before he will talk to me again. Then directly on to Sury... take four or five cities and he will capitulate. I accept capitulation. Game over next turn. Now the decision... I'm at 65% in land area and this would put me over the Dom limit, or I can liberate some cities and stay under the Dom limit, thus assuring a Conquest victory. Since my date is very slow (1545AD) for a military victory, I decide I'll just keep the points and accept Domination. But suprisingly enough, the victory screen says Conquest Victory for Montezuma anyhow. (157109 points). Confused me, but it doesn't really matter.
Why so slow? I don't really know. I got no help in tech pace from the AI who were very backwards. All of them except Sury (who built the Great Wall rather late in 875BC) had lost cities to the raging barbs. I never settled nor fogbusted the west, so constantly had to have units in reserve t odeal with barbs... and since I was heavy in the mounted units and they started bringing spears, it forced me to whip melee units more than I would have liked. Also, by keeping everything (almost) that I captured, even with whipped sacrifical altars as the first build everywhere, I had high expenses and my own tech pace was therefore low (not to mention a lack of any kind of buildings to increase commerce or science
). I was only building barracks, altars, and units, for the most part. And I did not really start to roll until my Cats were supplemented by Knights... because frankly the AI got Engineering and a horse archer is just too weak to take on Pikes. I also had to tech Engineering myself to get faster movement on roads, because this map is just tooo big and spread out. Trebs were much more effective at suicide than cats. (I didn't bother with much knocking down culture defenses because I was producing so many units... much overkill at the end). I had 3 Supermedics, one for each stack, and unlike my usual play, I managed to keep them alive (except the last one who got killed when Sury took back a city as I had moved most units away to take the next a little too early). That was the only city I lost (and I took it back next turn) the whole game.
I laugh at the barbarians. Ha ha!
At endgame, some stats:
Buildings:
Improvements:
Units (8 workers built, 10 lost, 23 current)
A real bloodbath, just the way Monte likes it!!!
Fun game. I'm still disappointed though that I accidently played this on Monarch level instead of Emperor level... Emperor would have made me have to work for it.
Thanks for a fun game, though.
. First I vassalized Greeks, I didn't have to take any of his cities even - and I left them, cause I thought they would be more useful if he runs them, I think now I was wrong. I didn't want to capture Athens (some weak unit was in it, and I had a lot of army in front of it), but I saw that he has HE in it, and 4 or 5 GG. I wanted it cause of GG, and it was great positioned, but then I thought about his spies causing trouble and unhappiness and left it. Then Ottomans wanted protection from Americas, I accepted, although they had some really nice citties and I was about to attack them. That drag me onto war with America, and they capitulated when I crashed they army winning one Turks city they previously captured. Then Incas declared, but I took 2 of them cities and they capitulated. First I destroyed all of their units in city they captured from America. I returned about 10 cities I captured in this game, don't know how smart was that - I think at the end I had only those that I build. I also gave all techs to my vassals, so that they could better fight, but that was probably another mistake, they fought badly anyway, I had to do it myself, and as I figured, points are given by relative population and techs, not absolute, so I mustn't gave biology to all of my vassals (4 of them), and I gave about 5-10 techs to every of my vassals... At the end I declared on Sitting and Sury at the same time, cause I was afraid that some of my vassals would trade Assembly I gave them, and then would be much harder to attack. Some of them were in really good relations (+16). I don't know why I attacked Sitting at the end, I was afraid of him being protective, but I crashed him even without any artillery, same as the others. That was another mistake, I shouldn't be afraid, just bring artillery 
+1
on a riverside hill by the capital, and then to top it all off that same tile uncovers a source of Iron! Sure, some random events didn't go my way, eg, pastures destroyed by disease, volcanoes destroying mines, but overall I definitely think I had the best of it go my way. Ah, well, there was that Great Merchant at the end that had 70% odds to be a GE to rush the UN (to save me ~19 turns) but I guess that's my own fault for not putting more effort into the GE generation earlier. Picking up Radio from Liberalism was definitely a nice bonus.
. I'm hoping I won't even meet any of Washington's units anyway.
/turn with the golden age, multiplied by 8 turns, does it do better than the GS bulb of 1893. The answer is yes. 2 