BOTM 40 Final Spoiler - Game Submitted or Abandoned

[DynamicSpirit]

BOTM 40 Final Spoiler

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[Duckweed]

This is the worst deity game I have ever played, but I really enjoy on fixing the mess and have an interesting story to tell.

I Set up your empire

1. The challenger save

This is the 1st time I chose a challenger save. I always and still think that challenger save is nonsense because xOTMs are games mainly for comparison and fair competition. There are stages for bragging -- BOTMs provide almost every level up to deity, moreover, there have been many difficult maps posted in S&T forum. The only reason I chose the challenger save is because it's not fair to deprive a deity AI's right of invading you because of his lack of strategic resources. Preparing/dealing a defensive war in early stage is very common in a deity game.

2. Wonders

As everyone already knows that GLH and TC are the 2 most important wonders in watery map. In deity game, TC is usally related to Oracle, getting MC from Oracle almost guarantees TC since MC is a low priority tech for AI. However, no matter how hard you want to try, chasing every wonder in a deity game is a risk. GLH and Oracle could be gone between 2000BC~1000BC. So the common strategy of chasing wonders in a deity game is to monitor the date of SH and TGW before starting and also think about how to minimized the cost if failed.

I did not expect to build any wonder from beginning since the capital site is neither commerce rich nor production rich, so I went for Agri->AH->Mining->Sailing->BW in the opening. Until I found that TGW was the 1st wonder gone in 2400BC, which usually is gone between 3000BC~2500BC. The fact that SH was completed in 1800BC told that the wonder dates in this map was immortal level. Therefore I gave GLH a shot, I even researched Mys before Masonry. So in 1640BC I started GLH, with an overflow of 72H, and I saved the 3 forests until the last minute.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

3. REXing

In most of the situation, rexing is the optimal way to play a game. Don't let the deity high maintenance scare you, the only thing to stop rexing is the safety consideration of barbarian and aggressive AIs, these two don't exist in this game. There's a famous rule about the number of workers you need -- 1.5 per city. I sniff at it since in over 95% of the game I have played. I have only used less than 1 worker per city. Settlers are the most valuable investment in early stage. A simple criteria for me to choose a build in a city is "Is this build better than a settler?". You certainly have the right to sniff at me as well. But please take a look at this.

Spoiler :

I had 8 cities with merely 2 workers in 325BC! You might also question that this was because I grabbed the GLH. Surely GLH empowered and made the rexing much easier, but not the necessary thing. I expanded to 9 cities in BOTM30 in 750BC without building any early wonder. The peaceful expansion ended with 14 cities and 9 workers.


For comparison, here's the situation of my empire at 1AD, ~20 beakers short to Music. 0 cottage build since I don't have enough workers.

Spoiler :

4. Diplomacy

This is the most important skill in deity. I usually include the decision of tech path in diplomacy. Your decision of tech path mostly relies on your judgment of what AIs will not research at the moment or in the near future so that you can choose a tech with the most trading value. The wrong decision of tech path is one of the worst thing in a deity game. The timing and what to trade are also very important and complicated. However this skill can only be obtained by experiences and in game intuition.

The relation with AIs is only the apparent part of diplomacy. In this game, the only AI really matters is Toku since you are his nature target if you don't make him pleased (of course this won't be a problem if you did not choose challenger save), but the OB with him and hence Saladin is still a good boost to your economy. I got lucky to get Toku's religion, if not, I will definitely gift him a city or feed enough techs to make him pleased.

5. War or rush

Rush is rarely a good strategy in deity games without overpowered UU such as Quechua, Immortal and War chariot. In most of the time when I went for an early war with a close or an aggressive neighbor, I'd rather do the choke with a few units than go entirely for taking cities. You can stop one AI by rush, however you will easily fall back to other AIs due to the war. Berserker seems appealing in this game, but without seige support, it's bad against LBs, which deity AIs can usually have ~1AD.

II The path to domination and an entertaining story full of stupid moves.

1. The loss of Music race

I started Literature in 325BC when no one has it yet and my cash in stock is enough to complete Music under 100% science slider, then I made 2 foolish moves without any reasonable excuse

A. I did not build research to complete Music 1 turns earlier.
B. Even worse, I make a civic switch to HR + OR 1 turn before the completion of Music, as a result, Nappy won the Music race that turn.

The cost of losing the Music race is that I delayed the CS by more than 10 turns or a precious GA.

2. The loss of navigation

I got Optics from trade and there are several AIs having it more than 10 turns ago, however I neither whipped 2 caravels to head for 2 directions, nor trade map every turn from other AIs.

3. The delay of 1st war

This was the 1st time I played the archipelago map, so by the time I DOWed Toku, it's 1180AD. I had more than 60 units to start. It's a war with cannons + Grens + berserkers vs LBs. A few turns later, I took 4 cities from Toku and made him a vassal.

Spoiler :

4. The DOW from Toku -- my 1st vassal

My 2nd war target is Vicky since she was beeline Rifling and had a good research power, so I only took 2 cities and keep ker as a good trading partner. The tech trade opportunity of this game is very low. 4 AIs have the lowest tech trade cap 5*1.2 = 6, and 2 AIs have the medium tech trade cap 10*1.2 = 12. The 3rd vassal is Meh nearby.

The 4th war target was not very clear. From the power consideration, I should go for Saladin, who had Riflemans and was on the opposite area from my stack. SB was the most powerful and dangerous AI, but my stack is on his door and he only had LBs at that moment and I was heading for infantry. Finally I chose SB as the next target.

Now there came the breaking news after I traded SM from Vicky -- I did not own the oil with 2 dozens of cities. Seeing that Toku had an oil, I came up with a thought-to-be-brilliant idea -- my vassal's resources are mine! Therefore I fed him techs all the way to combustion and then demanded the oil. And here was the brilliant result from the brilliant idea. Now Toku had Destroyers and I had Frigates!

Spoiler :

This sudden event forced me to change the entire war plan. I sent my stacks back toward Toku and Saladin. Fortunately the AP resolution popped up in the next turn so I chose to stop the war with Toku and it passed.


5. The sink of my major stack -- 40 units with a medical GG.

The 4th war target now became Saladin since he planted a city on top of an oil. With infantries vs Riflemans, the war result was nothing exciting. My plan was to take the oil site and all 3 cities in his home islands. With the fall of his 3rd city in the 3rd turn of the war, I sent the stack into the captured city and spent ~4000g to upgrade them. The only defending unit for the city was a wounded infantry while all other units were still on board. Then in the beginning of next turn, I heard a very familiar music -- the announcement of the dead of a GG and of course 40 elite units of destroyers + transports + infantries. One and the last remaining camel archer won the battle against my infantry and then sunk my whole stack in one battle. This similar thing happened in my BOTM30 play.

6. The victory

With the superior military techs, I managed to defeat Saladin in a few more turns and included Tokus as a vassal for the 2nd time with the remaining forces and some reinforcements. Then there was a long period of the rebuilding of military -- 10 carriers with 30 fighters and 7 transports with mainly Marines to resume the conquering -- SB->Nappy. 1770AD, the worst date for a domination victory I have ever achieved in deity games, not surprise for the worst performance!

Spoiler :

Interested in hearing more story of my silly moves, not until when I am ready to play another deity game.

 

[neilmeister]

Well, I cant tell of any tales of heartache and woe, I went for a cheddar victory.

Tokugawa was a particularly nasty neighbour to have, especially when the routes past him are going to be blocked, not long after sending out WB's.

What really upset me in this game is that almost everyone was buddhist, but I couldn't catch it. I settled several cities on my island with the sole aim of catching a religion. I suceeded only with my last city, which caught Taoism. Thankfully SB was in Toaism.

Now, how to spread christianity to Toku. In the end I came up with the devilishly cunning 'have-him-invade-you-and-take-only-1-crappy-city' strategy. I must say, it worked a treat, even if it was completely unintentional.

So, Toku never made peace, which made getting the caravels past him to SB's lands interesting. Thank god for the Trading Post, as this is the only reason my caravels survived.

Awful date, well past a respectful DV date and about the same as a SV, but it was a WIN!!!!

edit: Now Duckweed, please explain how to win a proper deity victory.

 

[kcd_swede]

Also went for the cheese. (Sorry, forget the actual victory date.) Its the only kind of Deity victory I feel confident of victory (well, OK, a future start with aluminum and oil I can handle, too).

Basically everything important was provided in my first spoiler. My original wb explorer hadn't reached all civs by 1AD, so even though it still had not reached a dead-end exploring westward, it was quite clear that Carvels would speed up the process of infecting. Note... the last civ I contacted was Saldin (when my culture borders in the east popped) which was awesome luck for me, since he is a zealot who will hate you and one of the last you'd want to infect anyhow for self-spread dangers.

Some funny anecdotes along the way:
I sweat bullets every time Toku (Confu Kid) goes into WHEOOHRN. Never the target, even though he snuck one city in on my island (which got the AP relig by spontaneous spread saving me much trouble... but at the time it really irked me as it was the only iron available... oh well, I only wanted cheap warrior garrisons anyhow... yeah... that's the ticket.).

3 co-Bhudist civs I can get to vote for me no prob. Gilga, SB, and Vicky. Prior vote, Vicky voted for me at +9 pleased. But I came up a few votes short. So next vote I had "doubled down" by switching to Xtianity after the vote in order to double my votes and reach the victory margin. I was sure I won, but she must have dropped to +8 pleased on the voting turn, and abstained.
Stupid, since I still had +3 fair trade bonus I could get by cash gifting. Cost me 10 turns (or whatever #turns between votes was).

I was gifted several techs along the way. Most were either used as gifts to others, or totally obsolete and worthless to me... though actually being able to see where the oil was placed gave me some laughs.

But the rest of the time was getting enough missionaries to my friends to counter the spread of christianity in my non-friends. Caravels from Trading Posts with the circumnav bonus are fast, but the distances are large, carrying capacity is only 1, and you can only have 3 missionaries (including those in queues) at a time. So it was challenging, but I'll admit the biggest part of the challenge was trying to do it quickly.

I won the vote with the slimmest of margins, at the end... and that with 3 friendly cities infected on the turn after the votes registered but before results announced!

On Deity, any win at all is quite satisfying. I guess part of the skill of Civ4 is knowing what VC you are capable of acheiving, and pursuing that relentlessly from the start.

And BTW: if I have in my game descriptions confused this BOTM40 with one/several of my HoF CS-IV#10 games... sorry. My brain is full.

 

[Ronnie1]

I watched Napoleon's Spaceship land in 1939AD!

I had Toku as a vassal since about 1300AD but my 2 wars with him cost me precious time researching. In the middle of my first war with Toku, Saladin Dow'ed and took my eastern most city and my Iron city. But when he marched on my southern city, I was able to retake the iron city and kill off his stack of Grenadiers with Cats and Knights. Eventually I got my eastern city back also and then Sal forced peace with the AP. This allowed me to go take enough of Toku's cities for him to vassal.

Nappy and SB were both very strong by now. Nap ended up spawning 2 of his own vassals, SB spawned 1 late and had Ottomans also. England eventually spawned 1 vassal so in the end there were actually 11 live civs in my game.

Not a very good story to tell except that I was not dead in the end.

 

[kcd_swede]

Excellent spoiler Duckweed! You know, ever since I learned from you that units on ships but inside cities are vulnerable, I always make sure to off-load at least some of them if I put my fleet in a city. Maybe it was traumatic enough for you this time that you will remember this yourself next time?

And the Toku oil-tribute demand... I'm sure you knew the risks there. Its actually refreshing to hear when a really good player's calculated risks don't work out... since my own so seldom do.

Very impressive game, Duckweed, despite the things that didn't work out for you.

 

[Duckweed]

^Nice win on a deity game, even AP is not very easy.

The main reason for playing so badly is that my energy is short to support my old and rusty brain in an intensive deity game.

 

[MacBalt]

I got a culture victory in 1820. Not a great date, but I don't attempt Deity level very often. Even so, it could have been significantly earlier if I hadn't lost the Music race and Napoleon hadn't decided to show up on my island with several boatloads of riflemen. Ah well... thank goodness for the archipelago map.

Thanks for the great write-ups, Duckweed and kcd. Maybe I'll try this map again looking to follow Duckweed's path to a military victory... (doing my best to skip the part about the boats in the harbor, of course ). Kcd, your guide to a religious victory in the first spoiler looks delicious. Can't wait to give it a try.

 

[Joe Banana]

My first ever Deity victory! My best performance before was a single victory at Emperor (out of three attempts; I've never even won at Immortal). And that despite mis-clicking and settling my second city somewhere stupid.

Basically everything went to plan. I was the same religion as Toku and Sitting Bull so they were pleased most of the time, I voted for Saladin in the AP, so he liked me and trading with Vicky meant that she liked me also. Mehemet was a bit harder and I was trying bribery on him when suddenly Napoleon appears and vassalises him. Unfortunately Napoleon has a different religion and hates me. Fortunately he hates others more, so there are some serious wars out west. After a while I decide I have to go Free Religion to keep Napoleon from coming calling. It means losing Pacifism, but I'll still be in the game. It also means that Toku is not so pleased any more.

As time goes on relations with Toku fall and he goes into WHEOOHRN, but it's a war with Sitting Bull who is also in Free Religion. I'm at -4 with Toku when I finally hit 3 legendary cities in 1890. It would probably have been much earlier if I hadn't had to drop Pacifism, but at this level I'll take any sort of victory.

 

[kcd_swede]

^Congrats on your first Deity victory!

That's one of the nice things about the Games of the Month... they'll give you a reason to try things that you thought were beyond your abilities. That's how you learn, and that's also how you get the satisfaction of a trulöy challenging acheivment. Nicely done!

 

[godotnut]

Sloppy Cultural win in 1903. I made a number of errors and recklessly went after a couple of late wonders. This is my worst deity cultural victory date ever, but it's been so long since I won on Deity level at all, that I sill feel pretty good about it. Plus there were some real nail biters toward the end with AI invasion imminent.

Hey, it's a win on Deity. I'll take it.

 

[Psiven]

By 1AD, I had 5 cities and was preparing to research CS/Machinery for a Berserker invasion of Sitting Bull and Tokugawa. After some actual scouting that I had neglected, I realized that Sitting Bull was a much farther target and decided to go after Tokugawa. While building up forces in 940 AD, Tokugawa declared on Sitting Bull, playing perfectly into my plans.

...Unfortunately, by the time I was ready to declare on Tokugawa, they had signed a peace treaty and he had begun upgrading his forces to Longbowmen and Caravels. The Longbowmen weren't a big problem, but when I moved out he had at least ten caravels. As soon as my forces landed at his capital, their transports were obliterated and I couldn't reinforce. During this time three AIs skyrocketed in tech, handily beating me to Liberalism and there are now three people with Astronomy and as many Privateers blockading me in. I signed peace with Tokugawa after taking his capital (Temple of Solomon) and the spice island, and held exactly zero friends. Military power and tech levels are at an all-time low when Napoleon (who has vassalized Roosevelt on the other side of the world) declares war on me the same turn he signs peace with Sitting Bull.

As Napoleon begins to chew on me, Emancipation weariness strikes and the privateers run unopposed. Spice island falls immediately, and he hits my mainland so hard it crashes the game.

Result: Computer retired me forcibly in ~1450 AD.

 

[MacBalt]

Hey, it's a win on Deity. I'll take it.

I agree... and I want to thank you godotnut. I think your "Guide" was the first strategy article I read on Civ Fanatics, and after pouring over it for days I was hooked on these forums and more than ever on the game. I'm sure I'm not the brightest student who has learned from it (it has been years now), but I am grateful to the maestro. Gracias!

 

[Xcalibrator]

1st spoiler

1934 space race loss to Sitting Bull. This was winnable if I hadn't messed up my early game, as so often happens. Main errors were not settling in place and not even trying for TGL or Colossus. SIP didn't have many hammers but would have been good for food and spamming settlers--could have moved palace later. The eastern location I chose for my capital (4E2S of starting position, on the coastal plains hill) should have been my 2nd city, with good production for a wonder. Bad luck with religion spread didn't help.

I was in a hole by 1AD, but did mange to eventually dig out a little. I first captured Toku's city on my mainland and then Spice Island. I briefly took his southern mainland city but couldn't hold it. A second war with him went better and I vassalized him, leaving him 2 cities on Horse Island to the northwest. Then I went for Saladin and eventually took 7 cities, including his core 3. Couldn't get him to capitulate, though--the turn after I made peace (the turn before SB's SS arrived) he vassaled to Nappy. At the end I was second in population and land and would have gone after Vicky next but was many techs behind all the others. SB was way out front in score and techs, then the 2nd tier of Nappy and Vicky, with me not far off their scores. Well, at least I finally played a Deity game all the way through. Some day...

Oh, in case anyone else out there doesn't know (or keeps forgetting like me), although you can see uranium and mine it when you have Physics, it doesn't count as a usable/tradeable resource until you have Fission. I was using galleons to ferry troops against Saladin for longer than I planned, dodging his destroyers and battleships by scurrying from port to port. I finally got oil so I could build transports, although I still had to scurry. Oh, and that reminds me, when I first DoWed Toku, I counted 38 of his frigates patrolling my coasts! Idiot. He could easily have blocked the coast around my ports to prevent any land units from reaching him, but fortunately the AI are stupid that way.

 

[Redtooth]

Ah, my first GOTM in a long time, and my first Diety game in Civ IV!

Things began quite well. I found the iron and waged early war on Toku and Sitting Bull, the latter with little bloodshed (took 1 city and sunk one ship). I used these wars to keep a slight tech advantage that was otherwise slipping away from me. I made some bad Science related choices, but was re-assured that my cities were well placed and in general doing well.

Once I met the other powers in the world, things had started to fall apart. I had Napoleon and Victoria vying for world power, and getting angrier and angrier with me as they pushed ahead tech-wise and gobbled up Saladin and Mehmed. I planned another war against Toku first, and if needed Sitting Bull, to make up for Tech. Both were still using Longbows, and I had some 25-30 zerks/knights/trebs. I knew they were both getting close to gunpowder, so I went for a quick war. Razed two of Toku's five cities, and marched on his Capitol, confident that he'd give in to any of my demands.

All of a sudden, Victoria declares war. Damn. My mainland wasn't very safe, but might last a few turns until my expeditionary force returns. My spies sabotaged the walls/castle, my trebs brought the defense down to 0, and my knights began to charge. But it was not the glorious battle I imagined...The longbows held, and held, and held. Within 30 seconds, I had sent most of my army to their death, without any thought at all. My stack of doom was reduced to 4 slightly injured units, not including my GG. There were still 3 longbows however, each injured. The % announced my GG at 90% victory, and in another bout of reckless, I launched him to his death. Within a turn, my decent attempt at Diety turned into complete failure

The onset of a second war had made me hasty and overconfident. And it spelt my doom. I tried, with broken spirit, to persevere. Victoria wouldn't let up, and Toku managed to reclaim his lost lands. I was suddenly down to a handful of cities and was disastrously behind tech-wise. Most unfortunately, I had lost the will to continue.

All in all, a very fun attempt for me. I'll make my next GOTM goal to finish the game, regardless of outcome. But this one was too sad to continue for me. =P

 

[adrianj]

First spoiler is here.

With my Great Lighthouse in the capital, my plan was to expand out to 9 cities as quickly as possible (8 on main island, 1 on southwest island) and shoot for a cultural victory. As at 1 AD I had 7 cities, 3 religions spread to me (Confu, Hindu, Juda), and shortly after I received a 4th (Christi). I’m a little unhappy that the religion of my wannabe friends Toku and Sitting Bull (Buddhism) hasn’t reached my shores. This makes the diplo a bit tricky - I really want to befriend Toku as he is growing enormous.

Eventually I get a culture bridge to meet Saladin to the east. I almost wish I hadn’t met him, as he is just another AI that I need to keep out of war with. I do benefit from a lot of favourable tech trades from him though. It’s a similar story with Mehmed and Napoleon. Tech trading is going so well that I almost had a shot at Liberalism - Sitting Bull beat me by about 4 turns, but it felt closer than that.

With the arrival of Banking in the world I lose out on a lot of my awesome GLH trade routes. It does present an opportunity to get friendlier with Toku - I’m pretty much playing a game where I am like his voluntary vassal, as I have a Defensive Pact with him (he does this at Pleased ). There is a period of world peace for a while where Victoria has finished her war with Mehmed and Sitting Bull has finished warring with Napoleon. I expect it to be short lived however, as Toku now has enough on his hands. Maybe I should tech up to Chemistry/Astronomy and build a navy? But how long would that last versus Deity AI? I think I’ll just stick with the plan - get Cathedrals up ASAP and run 100% culture - crossing my fingers I don’t get declared on.

Pfff - truth be told I didn’t actually play with my fingers crossed - makes typing and mousing much harder. Perhaps I should have, because sure enough Toku declares on me, despite our defensive pact! What a freakin backstabber! Napoleon declares on me on the same turn, so I’m unsure who bribed who. I’m fighting a purely defensive war, and with a switch to Nationalism and a few whipped defenders (interesting how Draft gives me Berserkers instead of Longbows) I take minimal losses, despite some aweful RNG luck with my triremes vs galleys . After about 100 years both Toku and Nappy will take peace (Education gifted to Toku, 350 to Nappy) and it’s back to Cathedral building.

Toku is once again my best friend (read: Friendly) and I sign another Def Pact with him, but that crumbles when he goes off and declares on Saladin. The entire world is at war for a while (Vic losing to Mehmed, Sitting Bull vs Nappy stalemate, Toku vs Saladin stalemate) which suits me just fine. My GP production is pretty woeful, as I’m too scared to choose a religion, going with Free Religion instead of Pacifism. It’s not until about 1600 AD that I have all my temples built and I switch from Slavery to Caste System. I don’t quite turn my tech off completely, choosing to go up through to Constitution (part trade from Toku) and then slowly working through to Chemistry and Astronomy on the back of Representation artists and merchants.

The rest is history and rather uninteresting. I played like a turtle and stayed out of any further wars saying yes to most demands, but saying no to war/stop trade requests. Cultural Victory in 1862 AD. Sigh of relief!

 

[beestar]

1959AD space race victory, on the Adventurer save (I've never won on Deity but I wimped out this time!)

Will write more later but for now I'll only mention that I had nothing left to build while waiting for my spaceship to land on Alpha Centauri, so I rush-bought ICBMs in as many cities as I could out of a combination of paranoia and boredom.

I got to use them ...

 

[Manco Capac]

I'm sure no one can beat that stupid move which led me to game over.
In a nutshell, I thought to trigger a world war where the main fighters would be Sitting Bull and Nappy. Nappy didn't find a gain by going to war, thus I decided to DoW Sitting Bull so as to incitate Nappy to join me. Unfortunately, I didn't take one thing into accout: my frigging vassal with which Nappy is annoyed. We need a pleased stance in order to bribe him, so I was. The vassal (Saladin) just ruined my plan because he lowered Nappy's real stance towards me. Mehmet II didn't want to join even friendly as he finds no gain this war would bring to him...even though he lost a city to Sitting Bull. Damn Mehmet II, last time I save your **s from the bull by bribing him off.
Oh yeah, I thought with my army near Sitting Bull would take a side country city...darn he pumped so much soldiers even at far-flung cities. With tech parity, better be off once for all. Well, this was expected as it is my second deity game (my first is the horrendous G-Major 90 which turned out to be a failure too).
It was a good game so far:
Got -the great lighthouse
-The Colossus
-Nappy gave me for free Monarchy which led me almost to tech parity
- I was first economic power by 1 AD
-Got Music first
- Steel from Liberalism
- Captured Saladin's capital around 800 AD with Parthenon, TGL and an Academy (He still had archers so I bribe his friends to embargo him to avoid feudalism)


So easy to mess a game early, so be it later game at deity.

 

[beestar]

For some reason I thought I had downloaded the Deity save so I played things very safe.

After discovering our isolated start, I built GLH in my capital and then started to expand. I quickly took the horse-crab-clam-fish island to the west so that I'd have overseas trade routes, and this successfully blocked Toku from expanding.

I thought the diplo situation was a nice gift - our neighbours Toku and SB tend to be backwards and hated by all, so they are perfect targets. The only problem is their Protective trait, which means war can't start until we tech up a bit first.

So my plan was to go into space but to grab some more land and resources first. I played very conservatively, especially with the diplo situation, and Toku went down in 1420AD to Berserkers/Trebs/Cuirassiers when he was still stuck on longbows. I left him an iceball city so everyone had someone to hate.

So I had this army and no-one to use it on (Napoleon and Vicky were starting to run away in size and tech, and SB was too tough for me) but I noticed Saladin was as backward as Toku, defending with longbows in 1500AD. I got Nappy to pile on with me, and took Medina and Mecca, but - crap - Saladidn vassalizes to Nappy, and for the next 600 years, I have to constantly defy AP resolutions to give Mecca back to its rightful owners. I accumulate massive unhappiness and Mecca and Medina are constantly in revolt. I should have bribed Nappy into peace. Nappy was a tech leader and massive landowner in my game, and I didn't want to give him any more gold or tech, especially when he started saying things like:

Spoiler :

Arabia aside, Tokugawa's land gave me about 20 cities, which was plenty to tech on. With so much seafood and a relatively large empire I went for Corporations and founded both Sushi and Mining. Despite this teching wasn't fantastic - I think I didn't build an academy until 1000AD - and I had to rely on the Internet to catch up to Napoleon in terms of tech. Fortunately I was in the lead for the end of the game, scoring Superconductors and Fusion first.

Anyway, I finally built my spaceship in the 1940s and launched. I had nothing left to do and no real threats since the aggressive Nappy demanded gold, and my weak and defenseless Vikings bowed their heads in slavish acquiesence:

Spoiler :

Without any real threats, I was motivated only by boredom and paranoia, and randomly built and rush-bought ICBMs. I was waiting for my spaceship to land when suddenly the whee-horns of doom sounded ... Vicky, my Friendly friend, my Pleased partner, had declared on me, with her vassals Saladin and Mehmed. 40 cities against 20!

But then again, I had 25 nukes and she had zero.

It was a blast (literally!) dropping nuke after nuke on her stack and her allies' cities. I finally got to conquer the rest of Saladin's island, which was a really nice cap to a struggle of a game.

Final result: 1959 landing on alpha centauri, a little bit disappointed in retrospect that I didn't try the Deity save.

 

[The-Hawk]

I had a very frustrating game. I decided to try for a UN diplomatic win. I had a good start, building GLH and Colossus. I think did a good job of tech trading (at least for me) and paid very close attention to diplomatic relations from the beginning.

Around turn 190, I was easily going to finish UN before any AI got close. My expected date for UN completion was turn 229. At that point, Napoleon was the #1 AI in population. He and Toku were cautious with me. The other 4 AIs were all pleased or friendly due to my attention to teching to their favorite civics, early resource trades, etc. All 4 were less happy with Nappy, so I thought I saw my way to a winning vote around turn 234 or so.

Then on turn 197, bad things started to happen. Nappy DOW's on Saladin. Mehmed immediately dogpiles and DOWs on Sally also. This creates my first problem, after several turns of war, with the mutual war modifier, Mehmed likes Nappy more than me.

Sometime around turn 205, Toku goes from neutral to unhappy with me. I don't know why it happened, worse, I missed the message. A few turns later, I notice and gift him a tech to make him neutral again. However, by now he has made a war decision and attacks me on turn 209. This forces me to drop emancipation so I can whip muskets in all cities to fight him off. He also pillages my nets. Between wasting hammers on units, lost population from whips, lost nets, and unhappies from emancipation, this war sets me back close to 20 turns.

By the time I get peace and build UN, it is turn 247 (versus original target of 229). Unfortunately, on turn 233, Saladin is fully abused by Nappy and capitulates. Even though Sally is friendly with me, he now must vote for Nappy. With Sally and Mehmed votes going to Nappy, I've gone from an almost certain 1620 AD diplo win to no hope for a UN victory. Mehmed and Vicky are at odds, so I really can't do much to try to win him back without alienating Vicky. Not sure I would have had enough votes without Sally anyhow.

From here, I make a desperate try for an alliance with hopes of a space win. Vicky is pleased with me, and I have been on her civic for a while. I detour for Miltrad and Communism, but at that level of happiness (I think +7), she will not join me in a defensive pact. In the mean time, Nappy DOWs on Sitting Bull (who was next most pleased with me). I wait around for many turns hoping I will get a +1 from Vicky for civics, but it never happens.

Sitting Bull capitulates to Nappy, so no hope for an alliance there. Then Mehmed demands a tech from me. At this point, I am so far behind in power, I give in to his demand. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, he had become worst enemy of Vicky, so I get a -4 with her. Now there is no hope at all. Not sure there was even if I got the alliance. Vicky was not that strong and Nappy was off to the races.

I kept tech'ing with no hope for victory, even at one point was trying to butter up to Nappy with the hope of a late alliance. All for naught, for some reason he went from +6 for civics to 0 and was never friendly enough for me to get there.

I teched well into the tree, but did not have sufficient hammers to have any hope of building spaceship parts myself. Watched Nappy win a space race in something like 1920.

Urgh!!