I got wrecked. I had well over half the population of the game for almost all of the game, and lost to diplomatic victory 5 turns after conquering Cuzco. I had a nagging feeling I that I should raze the AP, but I wanted to keep it for Wall Street and corporations, as it had both the Christian and Buddhist shrines.
Unfortunately, I forgot to save the game after defeat, and I loaded the game I was working on before the next day.
I got wrecked. I had well over half the population of the game for almost all of the game, and lost to diplomatic victory 5 turns after conquering Cuzco. I had a nagging feeling I that I should raze the AP, but I wanted to keep it for Wall Street and corporations, as it had both the Christian and Buddhist shrines.
Unfortunately, I forgot to save the game after defeat, and I loaded the game I was working on before the next day.
Thanks for uploading! Sorry for your loss. A tip on avoiding AP loss without killing the AP is (a) spread the AP religion internally, and/or (b) bribe one of the big vote-holders into war with AP resident if you can, (c) build diplo with vote holders by bribing them to war on a common enemy with you to build some love.
It completely slipped my mind that I could straight up lose, because only Gandhi and Capac were left. Pretty tricky with such a small number of AI's (Gandhi only needed 8 more votes to win not counting his own). What I should have done was not wipe out both of Shaka and Monty, and possibly gift Astronomy to Gandhi and Capac so I could start spreading religions.
It completely slipped my mind that I could straight up lose, because only Gandhi and Capac were left. Pretty tricky with such a small number of AI's (Gandhi only needed 8 more votes to win not counting his own). What I should have done was not wipe out both of Shaka and Monty, and possibly gift Astronomy to Gandhi and Capac so I could start spreading religions.
Well... what comes before (a)? That's easy... check the victory screen often, and if UN/AP is still in play, check Members/Vote counts. There's always a way... but knowledge is power. Without knowledge... well, you should remember to get more knowledge next time. Nothing like experience (or my advice) to teach you things you already know.
Funny game, got conquest in 700AD. Surely can be faster with a more dedicated approach to astro. I started on it in 1AD which didn't seem entirely awful to me, but from the first spoiler I read that BornInCantaloup already had it in the bag by then so I'd expect conquest to be doable around 300 or 400AD.
I slung CS with the Oracle at the same turn I also got the Pyramids, which was around 950BC IIRC. GLH went before. Started working on the Aztecs with maces and catapults, probably way too cautious there. At 1 AD was at 10 cities with Monty nearly toast. The 2-city Zulu empire didn't last too long either.
5 or 6 East-India Men sailed out east for the Incans who didn't last long, but for one brave Incan longbow that consumed 3 siege and 3 maces without a scratch. Turn after that, his luck ran out. Just when only Gandhi was left standing, the brave Indian proposed to be my vassal to protect him from harm. Wonder whom he was thinking might hurt him. Well, lucky break there which saved me some turns on my date.
For a change it's fine. However, it depends a bit on the general course xOTMs are taking. If we have one BOTM a month, I surely wouldn't like it to be small every month. However, if we end up with 2 BOTMs a month (at the expense of WOTMs and GOTMs as was discussed recently), then one normal size/speed and a smaller one would be excellent.
I was going to win via AP until I misread a request from Gandhi to cut ties with Monty. I thought it said HC so I agreed when Monty was the AI I needed for the AP votes Only excuse was couldn't sleep so playing in middle of night lol
Funny game, got conquest in 700AD. Surely can be faster with a more dedicated approach to astro. I started on it in 1AD which didn't seem entirely awful to me, but from the first spoiler I read that BornInCantaloup already had it in the bag by then so I'd expect conquest to be doable around 300 or 400AD.
Maybe yes, with better bulbing and less focus on settling cities than what I did.
I got a 520-540 AD opportunity for Conquest when Gandhi offered to peace vassal (last opp standing).
I declined and eventually got Domination on 1180 AD.
Game has been a giant durdling fest from Shaka's death up to the end. Settling cities, growing cities, moving ships, building wonders...
Getting Astro fast proved to be a fine move : I settled nearly as many cities on the other side of the world as on ours (about 20).
I neglected Sushi, thinking that I'd get it too late for it to be relevant but I have been wrong in that regard. I had a beaker overload (not much production needed on this map) and ended up researching Medicine anyway in the final turns (after detouring via anything possible to avoid obsoleting wonders).
So I couldn't really maximize population and agreed to end the game. Average cities were size 10-15 at that time.
I also found I don't have the patience, yet, to fully optimize an endgame for score.
Maybe next time.
Didn't manage to get 1000AD like I wanted with my espionage victory, but the game managed to surprise me once again!
Behold, my 50 spy army was doing their thing in Shaka's 3 legendary gift cities, and then this happens:
Spoiler:
Gah! Shaka started a colony with all of my gift cities.
I forgot he could do that before Feudalism/vassals since we are on separate islands.
So there I am with 6714 in Shaka and am panicking because all my spies have -50% bonus and I know I haven't put any into Stalin yet because he didn't exist a turn ago.
So I check the espionage screen.
Spoiler:
Wow!
Shaka and Stalin both got 6714 I instantly got 6700 espionage for free!
..
.....
Then I notice that I don't have open borders with Stalin and lost my -20% trade routes bonus.
He is -1 from caught spy in between turns and -3 from border pressure(Annoyed), so I gift him a tech for +4 trade and wait 1 turn for worst enemy to go away so I can open borders.
Spoiler:
Getting the trade route bonus(-20%) in espionage games is counter intuitive.
Closing all your borders with every AI except the one you gave the gift cities doesn't work.
Rather, you want the AI to have open borders with only 1 civ, yourself the human.
So Trade Embargos actually have a use in this game.
Then the next turn, Stalin switches to Confu religion and give me -2 heathen, so open borders is impossible because he is annoyed with only me so I'm still his worst enemy.
Angry that I lost a few 1000 from the loss of open borders, I use all 6700 I got on Stalin, DOW Shaka+Stalin, wipe Stalin out, then give the cities back to Shaka so I can spend his 6700 points.
Now if there was a way to make an AI form a colony, this accident could be abused to make espionage victory even faster/easier.
I did get 2+ Great Spies worth of espionage for free, and it would have been 3 if the colony had formed a few turns earlier.
Anywho, built 104 spies and 80% of them died.
Really needed 5 more spies to shave off 2 turns as I had some bad luck at the end.
Spoiler:
The religion bonus wasn't too hard to manage.
When me and Shaka were both Hindu, I only had -25% bonus because I had the Hindu capital.
During a golden age, I switched to Confu and bribed Shaka to Confu also once I spread it to all his cities.
Then I switched back to Hindu 5 turns later and had -40% religion bonus in espionage cities.
The extra 15% on top of the 25% occurs if the target city has your state religion and the AI isn't using it for their state religion.)
I was Hindu, the cities my spies were operating in also had Hindu, and Shaka was running Confu.
Any indication about total EP you needed?
In the first spoiler you mentioned you had done all teching by 1AD, I wonder, what are the essential techs? Do you even bother with spy buildings? I've done some experiments with espionage games with early-ish constitution/democracy but I'm under the impression you just use the spy slider and that's it... Is that correct? Is the GW of any importance at all?
Embarrassing game for me, ended up retiring right after 1AD after my invasion of the Aztec islands turned into a fiasco. I was in position to promote units and conquer the capital, but a Spear attacking out of the capital killed my Sword in a forest, allowing an Ax to kill my other weakened Sword awaiting promotion. My counterattack then fell short and it was too discouraging to continue.
I was shocked to see how poorly I was doing compared to those who used Warrior rushes(!) to branch out way early. Might try playing again and see if I can play a less disgraceful game....
Any indication about total EP you needed?
In the first spoiler you mentioned you had done all teching by 1AD, I wonder, what are the essential techs? Do you even bother with spy buildings? I've done some experiments with espionage games with early-ish constitution/democracy but I'm under the impression you just use the spy slider and that's it... Is that correct? Is the GW of any importance at all?
On normal speed I feel I don't have time to wait for -50% waiting bonus until the spread mission starts to cost a lot. (Spread 1000 or more)
Essential techs?
I like my 1st Great Spy to make Scotland Yard in capital, so Civil Service is very important.
Aesthetics+Drama+Literature+Music is also important I feel.
Alphabet for spies and Code of Laws for Courthouses. (And 1 religious capital is always required for a spy game, so Confu can be nice. )
I didn't bother teching Philosophy and built Shwedagon Paya to run Pacifism after all my buildings were whipped.
For the most part, yes, it is mainly about slider starting between 500BC-1AD for me.
The Great Spies (+3000) and Great Artists (+4000 or 30 spy missions I don't have to do) speed things up nicely, so I try hard to spawn them with odds weighted towards Great Spies.
So Great Wall + Courthouse (running 1 spy specialist) + National Epic in one city as early as possible is your best friend in this situation. (83% Great Spy - 17% Great Artist)
Teching Nationalism and beyond for Jails and such?
I think it might be worth it on fast teching Deity games.
Nationalism, Jails, and Castles from Engineering all greatly boost generation. Running more than 1 spy specialist would be great also.
I'm not really sure if it good to stop teching early or later.
For this game with little fail gold, no gold trading with AI, and self researching everything, definitely best to stop teching early.
Me and WastinTime debated in the past, but I don't remember any conclusions forming.
Interesting difference in strategies, with this talk of warrior-rushing Monty. I did the opposite - deliberately left him alone through the early game. That was partly because I was inspired by the watery map to build the great lighthouse early on, and I didn't want to scupper half my lucrative foreign trade routes, and partly because I noticed Monty founded a religion very early on (Hinduism I think), so I figured (correctly) that if I left him long enough, he'd build a shrine for me
Of course, once I had astronomy (around 500AD) and so was able to get foreign trade routes with both Gandhi and Huayna, then both Monty and Shaka were basically toast (Shaka, astonishingly, still only had two cities, even though by the time I'd finished off Monty and declared on him, it would have been around 700AD).
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so I'd expect conquest to be doable around 300 or 400AD.
Turn after that, his luck ran out. Just when only Gandhi was left standing, the brave Indian proposed to be my vassal to protect him from harm. 
Wonder whom he was thinking might hurt him. 
Well, lucky break there which saved me some turns on my date.
Only excuse was couldn't sleep so playing in middle of night lol
in Shaka and am panicking 
because all my spies have -50% bonus and I know I haven't put any 
or more)
)
