BOTM 39 Final Spoiler

[kcd_swede]

I'd love to know how you managed this. I was stuck at size 5/6 cities for a while, with no religion, so I had to go to Monarchy (which the AI's were nowhere near), in order to increase my happy cap. I couldn't really get past 8 cities at size 5 or 6 if I wanted to have the tech slider above 0%. once I got monarchy, and calendar (+2 happiness from dye & sugar) I was able to grow up towards 10-11, and then religion gave me even more space. But by the time this happened, I could only expand to around 12 cities & the rest of the map was full.

My strategy was to develop food tiles first while building Ikhandia. Then whip a courthouse as soon as possible. Any time unhappy faces appear, whip them into infrastructure (markets/grocers/banks are useful here). This strategy works especially good if you cottage every flood plain and work those continuously... with a fair number of fp's you grow too fast... but can't make a lot of hammers. So that's why the whip is so useful. Eventually make workers/settlers while the whip happiness disappears. Rinse and repeat. When you run out of useful stuff for those commerce cities to build, they can build wealth to push your slider up.

Extended wars really suck with the war weariness issues... but those unhappy faces can be whipped away, too. You'll need to whip them just to make enough units to face Mehmed anyhow.

Oh, and before you go and try to reproduce this, just remember that mine was in fact a LOSING strategy. But it could have worked if the iron pops 1 turn earlier... I swear!

 

[WelshGandalf]

My strategy was to develop food tiles first while building Ikhandia. Then whip a courthouse as soon as possible. Any time unhappy faces appear, whip them into infrastructure (markets/grocers/banks are useful here). This strategy works especially good if you cottage every flood plain and work those continuously... with a fair number of fp's you grow too fast... but can't make a lot of hammers. So that's why the whip is so useful. Eventually make workers/settlers while the whip happiness disappears. Rinse and repeat. When you run out of useful stuff for those commerce cities to build, they can build wealth to push your slider up.

Extended wars really suck with the war weariness issues... but those unhappy faces can be whipped away, too. You'll need to whip them just to make enough units to face Mehmed anyhow.

Oh, and before you go and try to reproduce this, just remember that mine was in fact a LOSING strategy. But it could have worked if the iron pops 1 turn earlier... I swear!

I had so little infastrucutre I could build. I went to monarchy before currency and code of laws but hit my pop limit some 50 turns before I got to monarchy, so they were just stuck around doing nothing. I think I went in for building research as the alternative was more units i couldn't do anything with, or workers/settlers who would sit around doing nothing & just cost me money in unit upkeep.

Surely it doesn't matter how many size 5-6 cities you have - you just can't support a big empire on that alone, it doesn't bring in enough gold to cover immortal torroidal maintenance.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

Submited a 1824 ad conquest victory with challenger save. In the end, I got ride of the Ottomans

Spoiler :

Backfilled my land (see screens in previous spoiler thread), and expanded up to 15 cities (or close ). I was able to put Alex, Mehmet, and Pacal friendly with religious bonus, civic bonus (vassalage with Mehmet and Alex) and selling techs. I was able to trade all game thanks to this, keeping an healthy tech lead.

Here is a view of the empire at then end of the rex phase:

Spoiler :

General tech path after midgame: Took constitution out of liberalism (speaking of which, I played farm eco transitioning into workshop/mills eco... 5 cottages built - relying on whips/specialists then on hammers). Then beeline toward communism, then cavs, then planes/tanks/nukes.

Still, tech speed was slow (and with my uncontrolled rex, I wasn't helping the cause ), so I reach cavaleries in the 1400 .

Meanwhile, the Chinese had vassalized the celts...

I started with a 2 turn war against Alex (grabbing 5 cities and a vassal). At that point Pacal vassalized peacefully to me. I turned my eyes on the chinese/celt team, which took more like 6/8 turns to see the light. Celts broke off their master and vassalized to the Ottomans who had dogpiled. I took the chinese as third vassal. The British had been dogpiled all game (being the lone buddhist), it only took a city for him to join my little club.

Mehmet meanwhile had grown huge so I waited modern tools to take on him.
Started the job with fighters and tanks (together with my vet cavs) and finished him with nukes. Him and Boudica completed my collection of vassals in 1824.

I got somehow unlucky with my specialists (was aiming for golden ages after bulbing techs like chemestry and SM but my micro was kinda sloppy at that point ).
Built only the Sixtine Chapelle after the initial GW iirc.

Cheers,
Ras

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

I'd love to know how you managed this. I was stuck at size 5/6 cities for a while, with no religion, so I had to go to Monarchy (which the AI's were nowhere near), in order to increase my happy cap. I couldn't really get past 8 cities at size 5 or 6 if I wanted to have the tech slider above 0%. once I got monarchy, and calendar (+2 happiness from dye & sugar) I was able to grow up towards 10-11, and then religion gave me even more space. But by the time this happened, I could only expand to around 12 cities & the rest of the map was full.

Build wealth in your cities once the infra is in (ie granary/library/forge/court/rax)!

 

[MarleysGh0st]

So, at 1 AD I'm at war with Alex, trying to take his last city. I lose one stack in the attempt, before finally conquering it in 500 AD--a whole millennium after taking his capital!

Meanwhile, a second Great Spy has infiltrated England. I really need the stolen techs, because my economy has been depressed by the long war. Everyone but Churchill has become Jewish (I'm the last to get the faith in 1000 AD), so he'll be my next target. I capture two border cities, have a brief cease fire, then capture one more city before signing a peace treaty in 1240. Churchill had also been at war with Pacal; when they made peace, Churchill still had more units than I wanted to deal with.

Pacal volunteers to be Mehmet's vassal. They go to war against Churchill in 1460, along with Mao. I join the dogpile in 1490 and take one more city. After that, it's becoming clear that I can't carry the war any further and that I'm losing a tech race to Pacal. So I'll let my allies finish off Churchill (Mehmet vassalizes him in 1605) while I try for a cultural win. After changing to Free Speech, Caste System and Pacifism, I switch to building culture in 1625.

After that, there's a long period of peace and my culture grows. I begin to think that I might be able to win this game, despite my late shift to this objective. I sign a defensive pact with Mao, but I cancel that after Mehmet switches to Free Religion and I notice that the pact with Mao has made Mehmet cautious about me. Sadly, he remains so, even with a +4 relationship. More sadly, I don't try to resume the defensive pact with Mao or with Boudica.

And then...in 1890, Mehmet and his vassals attack me. Their stacks of doom quickly overwhelm my cities. In 1902, I have one last chance to be saved: an A.P. motion to stop the war. But by that time, I've lost so many cities/votes that the motion fails, even with Mao and Boudica supporting it. Pacal breaks free of Mehmet, so I give him one of my remaining cities for peace. Mehmet takes the rest in 1908, and I'm history.

 

[WelshGandalf]

Build wealth in your cities once the infra is in (ie granary/library/forge/court/rax)!

See earlier comment about not having currency.

Do you think I should'vee gotten currency before monarchy... normally I concentrate on it but happy cap problem was so acute I decided being able to have size 7 or 8 cities was more important than staying at size 4 or 5 and being able to build wealth.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

See earlier comment about not having currency.

Do you think I should'vee gotten currency before monarchy... normally I concentrate on it but happy cap problem was so acute I decided being able to have size 7 or 8 cities was more important than staying at size 4 or 5 and being able to build wealth.

Well indeed monarchy was very usefull on this map. With hindsight, Rusten tech path (monarchy before currency) was better, but you need to use it to get benefit. ie build warriors (gifting your copper fro some turns, or better selling it) to get your capital (I don't like building cottages in later cities) to work as much cottages as possible in order to sustain your rex (by this I mean capital size 12 or more in the early ad, not size 7 ). In my case I had gem/fur in the bc so size 7 cities could work a couple of mines each together with library scientists. Enough to reach currency from alpha (see last pic in first spoiler), then to reach calendar/MC/monarchy (main happy techs on this map).

One of those tricks is needed if you want to keep up with immortal/deity rex AND tech decently.

 

[The-Hawk]

I got off to a good start, decided to try for domination. Got almost halfway to the land limit when maintenance tanked my economy. AI's got ahead on techs and the weaker AI's were vassalized by the beasts, so I decided to abandon.

I should have been satisfied with conquest or space. Tip of the hat to anyone who finishes a dom victory on this map.

 

[Arnold_T]

Really enjoyed the opening of this game, surviving the Barbs, get the GW, and the Oracle was cool. But retired in 1635 after Mao declared on me and took two of my cities, and I was short of Iron, Horses, and still two turns away from Gunpowder. I was thinking of replaying this one, but after reading some of the other reports here, I'll think I'll just write it off as too hard for my skill level. I guess cottage spamming and faster rexing would be what I would try though.

 

[CocoLoco]

Yippie a slow slugfest Diplo win in 1954. Didn't think I'd have enough time to finish this. I used the adventurer save since Immortal is above my comfort level but I'll take it.

SIP built warriors then a nail biter to build the GW on T52. I then expanded north to get the Iron by the elephants. Used the Gspy to wander the map. Alex declared on me and I spent a long time until I had mace/trebs before he capitulated. Had a lot of trouble all game with captured cities revolting multiple times. AP was not a factor in the game. I think I shared religion with 4 others which keep them off me for a long time.

I was then thinking of going after Melmed but he had too many knights. I then rushed to rifling with the help of two more GSpys to steal techs and with that advantage took out Melmed and then used Inf to take out Mao. By then Pacal was way ahead in tech but not in number of units and stuck in a stalemate war with Churchill. I then researched tanks and declared on Pacal. After taking three cities he capitulated and I won the next UN vote.

I enjoyed the game but if I had not built the GW it would have been over early and expanding north along the two rivers was critical. I did go for monarchy before currency, used the whip a lot and tried to keep the same number of cities as the AI. Pacal didn't expand to my borders until about 1200ad which I thought was slow. I think these traits helped me alot in my game, without them it would have been an early death.

 

[Joe Banana]

War with Alex went well and I took two cities only to make a stupid mistake and let Alex recapture Sparta just as the AP forced peace. The AP then handed Argos back to Alex before I could declare again. This set the tone for the next few centuries: I’d capture one or two of Alex’s cities only to have the AP force peace and then hand them back, very frustrating. With hindsight I should probably have converted to the AP religion and become a full member.
As time moved on and the AP influence declined and I managed to keep two of Alex’s cities, he becomes a voluntary vassel of the Chinese just as I am about to declare for what I hope will be the final war. Soooo annoying. The Immortal AI seems to me to be a lot more savvy and tactically aware than at lower levels, or maybe it’s me being paranoid.
Otherwise things went better than expected. I started building the pyramids for cash and ended up finishing them, so ran Representation from quite early on and I even got to Liberalism first, which quite surprised me and was either second or third to Rifling. Unfortunately after that my tech trading faltered and I began to fall behind.
I had toyed with the idea of a domination victory, but knew this was not going to happen even before Alex vassalised to the Chinese. For a while I thought a Space Race victory was possible but when I started to fall behind in tech I had to forget this idea. Diplomacy didn’t seem to have much hope and Conquest / Religion were right out. The only possibility of a win was therefore Culture, so (rather late) I turtle up, set the culture slider to high as it will go and build cathedrals... and it almost works. I’m around 50 turns from victory when the Chinese win an easy Diplomatic victory in 1904 using the UN that Alex has kindly built for them.

 

[donsig]

I ended up with a spaceship loss in 2001 AD. That's really not bad for me for this level since I'm usually conquered. I even had a vassal at the end (the Maya). I was all geared up to attack the Ottomans and their rifles with infantry and artillery when Churchill launched. The game ended before I could take any Ottoman cities. I was behind everyone else in tech.

After my early Greek war I went about capturing barbarian cities. My research was slow. This was the first game where I used a Great Spy to infiltrate a city. I concentrated all my espionage on China and used the points to steal tech. I did manage a few coastal cities and built the colossus and great lighthouse. I was hampered in my later imperial efforts since I lacked iron. Finally traded uranium to the Celts for both iron and horses but by then things were out of reach.

All in all, a fun game and good learning experience for me.

 

[Alamankarazieff]

Still not good enough...
I learn a lesson about how much I suck each Gotm. This time : I have to stop being all other the place. After some intense testing, I went and grabbed GW, but almost change my course when the copper popped. Built lots of axe to curb stomp alex, and then switched to an oracle race (which I won) instead of finishing him for good.
Ended up founding Confucianism and stupidly ran it. And then never was able to get another religion, and never was smart enough to get away from it.
I was munching and playing with Alex until he vassalized to Mehmet.
Attacked him one turn too late (he got longbowmen, and I was still stuck with axe).
Then I ended up being at war with everyone thanks to the AP. It sucks being the infidel.

Too tough for me, but frustrating because I felt I could have done it, if I had been more focused.

 

[Xcalibrator]

That which does not kill us makes us stronger. And in Civ, that which does kill us makes us stronger, too. At least, that's what I tell myself.

 

[lymond]

1896AD Diplo Win

This game was sloooooooooooow but actually really fun. At one point I felt a bit daunted by both the map and the overall situation with the AI, but I was able to bull my way to victory diplomation style.

My goal from the beginning was a military victory - culture and space were never given a thought. However, it took some time to get the war machine up. Raging barbs combined with this large land-focused map really slowed all aspects of the game down. I haven't read everyone's reports yet but I will be very interested to go back and read them to see how they compare.

If I recall, I'm pretty sure that I settled in place. Went straight for Masonry and BW to build the GW. I don't think I even bothered building a worker until I could whip one out, so I just grew on unimproved tiles and built workers and an ikhanda until BW come in. Barbs, primarily warriors at first, start pouring in early. I had a huge scare when a stack of barb warrior congregated next to the city and my warriors took a beating so that on the next turn I had a very weak warrior left with 1 healthy barb standing next to the city. I thought this was game over until it dawned on me that I just switched to slavery, so I simply whipped out a new warrior to save the city. Whipped a worker and got the GW up. I can't recall if I was able to get in chops into the GW as my worker played dodge the barb.

(cont. in spoiler due to length)

Spoiler :

Meanwhile, my scout did a good job staying alive and revealing land all around including Alex just east and Boudi/Mao to the north. After the first barb appeared I used the immortal scout trick of only moving 1 turn at a time. Kept a warrior out in the wilds fortified on a hill forest to gain some promos and bust fog for future cities.

I honestly don't see how folks can survive this game with the GW. Hats off to any who accomplished it though. The copper right in the BFC did help, but it still would have been a huge slog with all the open land around.

So expansion and tech was slow as I teched up to Priesthood and built Oracle (in 800BC!!!). I took Metal Casting for a couple of reasons. First, Alex had Alpha and some techs I need so I knew MC would make great trade bait, which it did. Second, I wanted to leverage Colossus for some early extra commerce to improve the research a bit, despite the lack of water in general. I settle 2 cities NW and SW. The NW rice/fP city became a nice HE city. The city on the coast with seafood/pigs become my NE city and built GLH and Colossus. Not great wonders for the map but they did help a lot and I wanted the GM points. Those GMs were huge mid game.

I slooowly filled out land to the north along the river and FPs as well as to the south and west. Took some barb cities with axe and impis and by mid-game I had basically a square block of 10 to 12 cities from the desert in the middle of the map to the channel in the south.

Not surprisingly, Alex DOWs on my in 75AD. I knew he was going to attack since I used my Great Spy on him. Oh...and I did steal quite a few techs from Alex who actually teched quite well for much of the game. He was first to alpha too. Anyway, I basically whipped out some Axe and archers as I stole Construction from him and he continued to suicide units on my GLH city down south. I got peace and then we both joined the Buddhist lovefest with Mao, Boudi and Mehmed. Pacal was Hindi and Church Conf.

Ran Vassalage for quite some time as I built the war machine and it helped with diplo too. My goal was to get to Rifles and Nationalism in order to abuse the draft. I used Lib (1300AD!!!!) on Printing Press. Meanwhile Alex and Mehmed fought a war with Church and Church eventually capped to Mehmed, who was huge. Of course, Pacal - the wuss - peace vassals to Mehmed.

I was really concerned about the game at this point and who to go after. Mehmed was out since he was huge and powerful and had 2 vassals. Boudi's location was rather awkward relative to mine and I'd rather use her as an ally. I really wanted revenge on Alex, but he did not have much to offer at this point. I decided on Mao since he was wonder whoring and had a ton of early to mid-game wonders that I coveted.

I was first to Rifles by far and traded for Nat from Boudi (who built Taj). I got up my Globe city in one of the coastal seafood towns just SW of my cap which was just awesome for drafting. Switch to Theo and drafted tons of rifles as I built and whipped cannons. Before DOW, I made sure to get peace treaties and/or get other AIs into war with each other. I used a 3 pronged attack with 3 rather large stacks to hit Mao. Without horses, things were slow and Mao did have Curs, but my stacks proved too strong for him as I inched my way up to Beijing. Basically took just about all of the Chinese Empire and all his wonders except for Ankor Wat which he had built in a lone city in the East next to Boudi, which I left for him. Mao capped and gave me Corps I think and one of his coastal cities. He still had a few cities grouped together in the East and was a sufficient techer as a vassal.

From this point, with my power so strong, I succeed in capping Alex and Pacal in order. I took 3 or 4 cities plus Athens from Alex - he had no wonders, but I was still surprised that he capped so quickly. I then moved my forces to Pacal. Oh...he had broken away from Mehmed earlier so now was an easy target. Pacal actually had a good bit of land and was teching very well at this point - not so much earlier - but he capped after just taking 2 of his border cities. I took one more from him that same turn and then capped him.

Mehmed/Church was next. I focused my forces on a 2 pronged attack with huge stacks of Infra/Arty from the south via Mayan land and from my now western border. I used airships to scout his SOD which was in a city bordering Pacal. I simply planted on a hill outside the SOD city and let him suicide the stack. I suffered no losses as he threw just about everything in the city against my stack. Surprisingly, he was willing to cap without even taking one of his cities. I guess his power dropped so dramatically at that point. I still took that city and another one with the other stack and ended the war.

At this point, I'm at like 61% of the dom land limit and was pretty sure that once the borders popped I would probably be just short on the necessary tiles. Meanwhile, Pacal built the UN which I easily win the leader vote. I really wanted to go for the domination win, but once again I make a stupid late game mistake. I had just a couple of turns earlier begged gold from Boudi without thinking. This meant that I could not DOW on her at this point for at least 7 turns. Anway, I prepared my stacks to take her on regardless, but the diplo win vote comes up. I actually stared at the prompt debating whether I should ignore it, but decided to take the easy win and call it a day.

Really fun game and I enjoyed incorporating some new war techniques I'd learned recently. It was slow without horses for much of the game, but the Draft really made things easy for me. I'm always very cautious in war and this leads to later victories on higher levels. I could have cut the time considerably by being more aggressive and fighting on two fronts earlier. I should have taken on Alex much earlier than I did.

edit:

Spoiler :

Adding a couple of more thoughts here on my game. Boudi was a big help in my game. Interesting as I'm almost sure she was going to attack me at pleased around mid-game. At the point Mehmed had Church and Pacal as vassals, Boudi goes into WHEOOHRN. All of a sudden I see an absolutely gigantic Celt SOD in her border city just east of me - far away from Mehmed her WE. I know she's not supposed to attack at Pleased and she was not in "fist" mode at anytime before being please with me. Anyway, I did a lot of sly finagling at this point. I bribed Mehmed to attack her and poof that stack is gone. This is right as I attack China. Now I'm really concerned that at some point Boudi won't be able to hold up to the Mehmed/Pacal/Church juggernaut. I always kept on eye on that long war and the possibility of bribing Mehmed out of war with the Celts if it looked bad. Surprisingly, Boudi did very well. She even took some Otto cities and was able to sustain a very long war with the trio while I finished capped Mao and Alex with no fear of backlash. This also led to Pacal's eventual break away. Very important aspect of this game as the mid-game was very murky with the huge Ottos and my targets all being my Buddhist brethren. Almost makes me glad I never attacked her even that I fell out of favor with her with all the stop trades and bribes.

I had a interesting rage note at one point in the game. After taking Pacal as a vassal, Mehmed finally fell to cautious with me after being at please for much of the game. At this point...boom...I start getting hit by Otto spies. I did have spy stationed in my border cities and the city that was building Ironworks. Well, about 2 turns from finishing IW, Mehmed successfully sabotages it. AAAARGH! Now that is one successful spy mission indeed and a tremendous loss of hammers. I started building it again but I don't think I ever finished before the game ended.

Currency was so freakin' huge this game....not that it isn't always. The Gspy from GW was also a huge boost as I stole a lot of early/mid tech like construction/calender/feud and engineering. I even stole Scientific Method.

Very interesting reports from everyone. This was indeed a challenging game and I'm just relieved I got through it alive. Amazed to see some of the civ gods struggle with it. I could have easily lost this one. Heck, I almost lost in the first 30 turns before the GW and Alex almost wrecked me with his DOW and did nerf me considerably. Drafting and bribes was the key to my game.

If I've read the reports submitted so far, it appears that everyone went the GW route. Seems a few people were touting going without it. I hope we see a few of those reports when all is said and done as I'd love to see how to pull that off.

 

[Conquistador 63]

I'd love to know how you managed this. I was stuck at size 5/6 cities for a while, with no religion, so I had to go to Monarchy (which the AI's were nowhere near), in order to increase my happy cap. I couldn't really get past 8 cities at size 5 or 6 if I wanted to have the tech slider above 0%. once I got monarchy, and calendar (+2 happiness from dye & sugar) I was able to grow up towards 10-11, and then religion gave me even more space. But by the time this happened, I could only expand to around 12 cities & the rest of the map was full.

Sorry for not answering earlier, as I've been away. Ras and kcd have already answered better than I could, but just for the record, in my game the key techs went like this:

125BC - Alpha (partly researched then acquired by trade)
25AD - Math
325AD - Monarchy (stolen from Mao)
400AD - Currency
520AD - CoL (stolen from Mao)
540AD - Aesth
780AD - CS - I had 13 cities by now, Ulundi size 11
880AD - Calendar (trade)

Not sure, but I think the "outdated" cottage-spam strategy still worked well for me here. Let me know if I can be of further help.

 

[Nicol.Bolas]

My first ever win on emperor, among all civ games.
I never really even played monarch, I consider myself prince level player

0 AD: after building great wall I was stuck at 7 cities in constant DoWs from Alex.
(but I did start with worker, warriors, settler - I only built GW when no AI was seem to be building it for a long time, and I could easily build it in few turns)

Alex Eventually I conquered him by trebs and maces
Mao I vassaled him with cannons + grenades, after my veteran army had to retreat (streak of 87% losses). he terrorized my seafood, I even built ironclads, but then he had destroyers suddenly
Pacal he spamed me with Buddhism at start, so I had no religion since rest of world was Jewish. later he peace vassaled Mehmed, who was losing land to Baudica. Then I started losing land to culture and I realized he is 60T from cultural win.

So Pacal was my next target, he was very weak and backward, so I quickly vassaled him and his former vassal Mehmed.

Churchill
Churchill was extremely technologically run away, so he was my final target, I was preparing a massive force to invade him. Otherwise we were in peace, he just kept teching.
Invasion never happened, because I won diplomatic

Boadicea
Many units, but not technologically top, I managed to stay in peace for the whole game

I played a massively military game play, originally just planning a time win by denying any other VC by force. Since Alex was so agressive from start (from a prince PoW), I built many units, never falling behind Baudica and out powering the rest. I also learned to use the City garrison and Drills promotions for real
I was in : police state - nationhood - caste system - state property - theocracy for majority of the game

 

[adrianj]

Congrats on a great win Nicol.Bolas .

I've definitely found that the GOTM series has been a great encouragment for me to play higher than my normal level, and also to stick it out when things are going badly - something I rarely do when "just playing for fun"

 

[Greeder]

...it is continued.
Decimating Mao's stacks was easier, because he had even more obsolete units than Mehmed. My cannons were like meat grinders. And I had enough gunpowder units to finish them off. So I annihilated 2 or 4 stacks and started my offensive. And it was easy going. I had only 2 minor problems - not enough troops to finish him off quickly and his Airships. But I had MGuns already as a defensive measure.
During first 70 years of war I captured 2 Mao's cities and one Pascal's. And razed one. Pascal broke free and became my vassal around 1805. I captured 3 his cities and razed one. The same goes for Mao. Mao still had mostly Elephants and Knights.
But what waylayed me was diplo situation. During our war Mao stopped to be an option in AP voting, don't ask me why. Propably because he adopted Free Rel?? Noo, it was later in 1806... Then 1795 Boudica, my dear friend had been declared as Resident and in 1818 AD she popped diplo win voting. Why it was between me and Mao? Well, he built AP, but me??!? I checked and grrr, Boudica was my friend few turns ago, but I captured Mao's city and we had now common border, "sparking tension" and so on.
OK, so I negotiated. I gave her free tech. Nothing. Without much hope I gave her 110 gold pieces. And... YES!!! she was my friend once again. I checked voting screen and was happy
So I achieved victory I didn't really expect. I was preparing myself for long and hard domination victory, but my friend gave my such wonderfull gift.
It was my best BOTM. The highest level (just second win on emperor, and first was quite save/load engineering). The earliest date - 1822, the highest score - around 48k, the shortest game time - 18 h and new, for me, victory condition.

Lucky game. Settling on Copper really saved my early game. I think I wouldn't manage to build and protect copper mine. But one or two turns after BW I was able to whip Impi, and they were killers. I wonder if anyone else who didn't build GW has won? Knowing life it will be Jessusin.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

My first ever win on emperor, among all civ games.

Congrats to you and Greeder. The difficulty imo was the early game with high maint costs, barbies and neighboring Alex.