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Sorry I could have organized this better.

From here you can play whichever save you prefer and share the ending.
 
Spoiler :

Not over yet but here we go...

Went for autocracy. Perhaps it was possible to win with a different one but when there is only one strong AI who you are right next to this has to be the best choice. Took the reduced upgrade cost, extra experience, and double citadel tile radius. Worth bearing in mind that with this policy and tribute policy from authority you get pretty large amounts of gold and production from using GGs which was one of the reasons I was so keen to take Authority before.

Took out Kabul and then used a GG to push into Persia. Kept building loads of railroads and managed to take out most of Persia pretty quickly. This meant we finally had some coal:dance: so could build some factories. Also gained us Statue of Zeus and some nice bonuses from Imperium. Also released La Venta coz i'm nice like that and vassalised Persia for some money.

poland 10_Moment.jpg


I think I messed up a bit by not using my inquisitors earlier to keep my cities my religion. Had to spend a bit more faith than necessary to get them converted back but eventually managed to get that done and get to reformation belief. Also am using inquisitors to keep Lisbon Catholic for the syncretism bonus. For reformation I chose Glory of God. Defender of Faith is good as well but I wanted to be able to buy GGs and GSs which we don't have the policies to do. This was my plan for a while which was why I didn't focus trying to finish Authority or go Rationalism.

Took out Ragusa while I was waiting for perfect timing to attack Siam which came straight after: Had the +attack from Armor units policy and got dominance as well for the heal on kill. Then just after taking Ragusa I took the temporary attack bonus Policy and ballistics and raced my units down to the border with Siam where the workers and GGs had done quite a job on the land:

poland 10_Moment(2).jpg


Also started spamming out Hussars and Artillery to make reinforcements.

The war was a pretty great success. Not sure if I took 0 casualties but was definitely very few. Mostly I just artilleried the city and picked off units I could kill and still get away after. Didn't take too long to get into Sukothai and get those sweet Wonders.

poland 10_Moment(3).jpg


Stopped here for now but I don't imagine there will be too much trouble finishing this one. Also I took Giorgio Armani Corporation and still have World's Fair to come so will be interesting to see how many Policies we can get in this game.

This felt like a pretty perfect time to attack. Had the same troops as them but many more and a lot of bonuses to go with them, I suspect it was possible to attack a lot earlier and still win though so am curious to see if anyone did that.

 
Spoiler My playthrough :


In short, I delayed a lot more than you did. I conquered the city states standing between me and Siam. As I went Order, I waited for Great Leap Forward, used that to get tanks, upgraded 10 hussars to landships to tanks, and then swiftly took Siam's bottom 3 cities. Taking Sukhothai turned into a bit of a grind, but I managed. I chose to wipe out Siam, so that my ally Portugal would become the ally of the city states. (I didn't want Siam as my vassal because Siam would have a tech lead.) After that, it was just a matter of how I would win the game.

From that point on, it was non stop war, with Order's science letting me swiftly get through the tech tree. I upgraded about 20 hussars to landships, then tanks, then modern armors, and then giant death robots, winning the game and taking the last set of capitals very quickly over the last few turns for a domination victory on turn 332.

I annexed most cities, as my religious and policy choices were built to enable wide, scaling culture, given Creativity and fealty.

In my game, I got beat to Giorgio Armani Corporation and had to wait for the hammer corporation after taking other monopolies.

I had considered going Autocracy because I was tempted by the double citadel radius policy but opted for Order instead. One of the lessons that it took me a while to learn when playing this game is the strength of war weariness. On deity, the +75% war weariness is huge - it means that highly upgraded units are almost invulnerable on owned territory but mere mortals on enemy territory, due to the 75% anti-warmonger fever. Using citadels to advance into enemy territory is effectively a +75% boost, so its very strong.

Poland Turn 255- Great Leap Forward.png
Poland Turn 332 - Great Leap Forward.png

 
My play through of the war game

Spoiler :


So like other people this final war was a bit of an anti climax. Siam loves building wonders but units a lot less so. It was still building wonders as I was murdering it, even starting more while I was attacking their cities. citadel push was super effective, removing 75% from most fight was huge. When you have the biggest army you know the AI is real dead.

T248 co op army.png


T248 co op battle.png


T269 co op end.png
T269 co op end.png

 
My play through of the war game

Spoiler :


So like other people this final war was a bit of an anti climax. Siam loves building wonders but units a lot less so. It was still building wonders as I was murdering it, even starting more while I was attacking their cities. citadel push was super effective, removing 75% from most fight was huge. When you have the biggest army you know the AI is real dead.

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If you can get parity with the AI and are neighbors, war is tedious but doable.

I'm interested in seeing the peaceful game.
 
If you can get parity with the AI and are neighbors, war is tedious but doable.

I'm interested in seeing the peaceful game.

Yeah that will be a bit more tricky but I'm still probably winning. Siam will certainly build a lot more wonders.
 
If you can get parity with the AI and are neighbors, war is tedious but doable.

I'm interested in seeing the peaceful game.

The peaceful game had long periods of doing very little, just research but at least the ending was sort of close
 
My peace game



Spoiler images :


So winning without war is a bit more tricky than just beating everyone up, and 4 cities is a bit tight, could dowith a 5th one really. On the plus side Poland is pretty good for this as we need enough polices to build later wonders, and Poland makes than super easy.

T232 peace.png



At this point I'm already getting to the end game, where it is only other building some buildings that provide large benefits. Any science or production ones but otherwise I tend to just do science conversion. Which makes Wind plants one of the most important.

On the plus side everyone really loves me. Lots of trying to avoid upsetting anyone has helped but it is a bit random. This lets me propose things everyone likes to get even more loved. Siam even offers me a defensive pact, which doesn't make much sense but I'll certainly take it and a bit of money.

T239 friends.png


T260 pact.png


There is a pretty long stretch for very little happening, where I pull further and further ahead. You do need ot be rather ahead because the last age bonuses are huge and the AI will catch up. Siam seems to really fall off here, getting behind Greece and never catching up. I don't really know why Greece is strongest but they are my only really competition from here on.

T310 ahead.png


T310 ahead2.png


This made no difference but I didn't know CS could give you such high tech units. I guess you need the resource.

T313 best CS.png
T313 best CS.png


So the edge a human has over the AI is lining things up better and planning in general. You can't produce as much science or production, but you can spend it better. I went right for Hubble as that is the important wonder, you really do't want them getting it. apollo first is nice but hard to do if you are lose together. I delayed the 2 free techs off order as long as possible so I could take two expensive techs near the end of the tree. I don't think Cern really does anything as you need too many techs to build it and you will be close to the end of the tech tree before you can start it. At which point you want to be building spaceship parts. You need to take the bottom tech not right at the end as it gives 3 parts, the other three are pretty much identical. I started building 4 parts all at once and once my capital finished one I had the tech for the next so I could start building that. It is pretty hard to line everything up perfectly, and the AI's spy killed my last GS so it didn't line up exactly anyway. I had 5 GE saved up and used them to finish the last two parts. I took all five to finish a part so i spread them out so both finished on the same turn. Greece kept up with me on tech but only finished one part before I won. Siam had a bunch of tourism but wasn't that close to getting influential on everyone. They had also passed united nations but were a good 10 votes short. I don't think the AI will ever win a non-science victory first unless it really messes something up.

T330 tight.png


T336 culture.png


T341 victory.png


Overall this was a pretty normal win. Poland's ability is good lets you focus a bit less on culture, but I did end up with 3 extra polices that did very little. My spys were awful and just kept getting killed, which was a real pain and problem slowed down the win a bit.

 
I had considered going Autocracy because I was tempted by the double citadel radius policy but opted for Order instead. One of the lessons that it took me a while to learn when playing this game is the strength of war weariness. On deity, the +75% war weariness is huge - it means that highly upgraded units are almost invulnerable on owned territory but mere mortals on enemy territory, due to the 75% anti-warmonger fever. Using citadels to advance into enemy territory is effectively a +75% boost, so its very strong.

Yea that double citadel radius policy is just so insane. Especially if you have authority so you can buy GGs and using the citadel also triggers the tribute policy and gives you a huge amount of production and gold insta yield in the capital. In one game I finished the Citizen Earth Protocol in 1 turn by using I think 2 GGs lol.

Siam seems to really fall off here, getting behind Greece and never catching up. I don't really know why Greece is strongest but they are my only really competition from here on.

Rationalism vs Industry I guess? Greece also got Firaxis Minerals while Siam goes for that food one.

My spys were awful and just kept getting killed

Got a nice tip from someone to use my spies as Diplomats in Warmonger capitals as they level up faster there and then you put them to steal. Maybe not relevant to your game but it seems like a good strategy when I've tried it.
 
I thought Tribute only gets yields from natural border growth?
 
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