Finally finished my first GOTM, and I really enjoyed it. This was my first Cultural victory, intentional or otherwise, and so I also learned more about how the cultural aspects add up. This was also my first game on Warlord (I started on Regent when I got the game), so there were some adjustments there too.
Like most everyone, once I saw the bottleneck I hurried to settle there, then fill in the rest of my half of the continent. I initially pushed a couple of other cities past the bottleneck, to settle near the Ivory, but Babylon had already gotten it within their borders, so I had to rush culture to push the borders back, which worked. I did not notice that I had no iron until it was too late, the Babs had already settled that one too. I concentrated on peacefully building, and got the Great Library, but with only contact of the two civs, and on Warlord, I soon realized I wasnt going to get much tech from them. I also was surprised to complete so many wonders, I am so used to the AI getting all the early ones. Once I realized that, I tried to get them all, and after Pyramids and Oracle, I got every wonder.
With the Great Lighthouse, I started exploring, and two of my suicide Galleys made it to the other continent. I soon was able to trade communications with all other civs, but did not initially give communications with the Persians or Babs. I also did start getting some techs from the Great Library, including Monotheism. About this same time I completed the Colossus, which triggered my Golden Age, around 350AD. With that, I built Cathedrals in every city, and most of my core cities had run out of things to build. This was when I started to think about a Culture victory. I was only at 15 cities, a little under 4000 culture total, but by adding all these cathedrals, I knew it would start to grow. It seemed that neither the Babylonians or Persians were building much culture, most of their cities only had a border of 1 tile.
I cranked out some more settlers and started building cities in the creases of their borders, as well as about 6 more cities on my half of the island. I normally go for a pretty spread-out build to minimize overlap, but I decided to maximize culture I would need more cities, for more temple-library-cathedrals.
I originally wasnt too excited about playing India, I always thought the War Elephant was a wasted Unique Unit, with no advantages, but it really came in handy on this map, with no iron. I used the rest of my golden age to crank out horsemen, planning to then upgrade them to War Elephants when I got Chivalry and Leos Workshop. I did get a temporary trade deal with the persians for 20 turns, just before I got Fuedalism, so when it came I finished Sun Tzu and quickly upgraded a bunch of spearman to pikeman.
Unfortunately I got impatient, because even with my growing culture, no cities defected over to me, so I invaded babylon with the horseman and a bunch of swordsman. I made some quick progress until the Iron deal lapsed, and I still didnt have Ashur, which was the Babs Iron city on a hill. I finally pounded it down with catapults and my last few swordsmen. I then made peace to rebuild, before finishing them off.
Meanwhile, in 550 my golden age was over, and I stopped to look at my culture situation. I was at nearly 7000 culture, growing by almost 200 per turn, but when I calculated out the doubling effects, which would be kicking in, I figured I would be at 25,000 by 1250 AD, growing by 360/turn. This didnt seem like it would be enough, so I knew I would need to build some more cities, or take them from the Babs/Persians. Throughout all of this, I still had no Great Leaders, and no citys had flipped to me! I rebuilt a new city at the site of Ashur, and built the population up with Indian workers from my home cities, to start building the Forbidden Palace. By rushing Temple/Library/Cathedral/Courthouse/Market, I was able to get it up to a size 8 and keep it in WLTKD, which reduced corruption below 50%, so I could actually put about 6 shields per turn into it, but it still took like 35 turns.
Meanwhile, I finished off the Babylonians, and prepared for my war against Persia. I could see they now had two sources of Iron, so I sent galleys loaded with my first few elephants to wait off their coast near the iron. When Leos workshop was done, I upgraded the rest of my horsemen and launched the invasion. The turn before, I fnally got a Persian city (Arbela) to flip to me, so I could push my invasion forces a little closer to his core. Unfortunately, he had already developed Fuedalism, so I took some serious losses against his pikeman, but I took about half his cities over the next couple centuries. By then, we had gunpowder, and the elephants were not doing so well, so I negotiated peace. Still no leaders. I focused on rushing culture buildings in my new cities. My core cities, since they had run out of things to build, began a modified caravan approach, and started cranking out elephants and catapults, which I would then move to the newer cities and disband, to boost production. Especially before the FP was completed, it helped me finish many libraries and cathedrals.
By now my plan was to have temple/library/cathedral in every city, and a colosseum and University in every city greater than size 7. By 1250 with persia down to about 5 cities, I had about 48. I never did attempt to settle on the big continent, in fact other than tech sales, I had almost no dealings with the other civs at all, until near the end. At this point, I knew I was going for culture victory, and I had enough cities on my continent already. If I got too many more, corruption would be too high, and it would take even more micromanagement. Anyway, in 1250 I had nearly 30,000 culture, and growing by 400 per turn. The next stretch, to 1450, saw a huge increase, as all those buildings built in my golden age doubled, and I built up the old Persian cities. By 1450 I had almost 60,000 culture and growing by 850 per turn. I continued to complete all the wonders as they came available. I had been shooting to hit the 100,000 by 1750, but now I thought I could do a little better than that.
I was almost on cruise control when Persia and Zululand sign a military alliance against you!! The Persians struck fast, taking out a bunch of workers and some cannons, but no cities. I pumped up research (I had been cranking out cash to rush colosseums), and got Cavalry in 4 turns. I also got a leader! An elite elephant from the last war took out an Immortal, and Chandragupta appears! I used him to build an army, so I could fill it with cav and write the Heroic Epic. By this time I was within 5 turns of finishing Newtons, Smiths, Magellans and Shakespeare in four different cities, and knew the AI was going very slow with wonders. Anyway, I paid the Chinese, Japanese and Germans with tech to go after the Zulus, and I attacked the persians. After I took a couple more cities, I was able to get peace, and two more cities, leaving them with only the capital and Samaria. This was about 1600, so I just kept cranking out culture, and watching the turns tick by. I did rush to build hospitals in most of my cities, so population would grow, and my luxuries kept most everyone happy, but I dont have the patience to truly milk a game for score. At this point I was just happy to beat my target date for the culture victory, which I finally did in 1680.
Like I said, lots of fun, I had never done that before. The beginning part of the game was fun too, almost reminded me of Civ2, lots of food, easy expansion, docile AI, getting every wonder! Anyway, looking forward to next month.
I succeeded in begging peace after lost 1 city. Returned from Persia I changed to Republic.
So I researched immediately Military Tradition and upgraded all my elephants to cavalry. Started an assault on Persians, wiped them out of the continent in 20 turns or so(without their immortals I would finish much more quickly).
. After that things was much more easier, I decided to attack the Zulus to improve my score, and they were wiped out in 10 turns. Then I stopped my armies, called them back to see the magnificent launch of Rama-1( the name of the ship, of course).
To recap my game:
But it was huge improvement over my first GOTM and gave me the opportunity to employ much that I learned in that one, so I look forward to the next one 
