Could use some advice for normal speed (immortal)

[TheMeInTeam]

Actually I'd have rifle/cannon ---> infantry/arty raped the continent if one AI didn't peacevassal 2 of the others and cap the 3rd after doing so. I only took a cheap way out because the game felt inclined to cheese me...the best answer to that is more cheese.

Before I switched to culture, I:

- Could have had rifling/steel before anyone had rifling
- Sustained ~400 BPT while building up for and executing war, allowing me to reach infantry
- Had enough production base to hammer out military reasonably

I just didn't want to bang my head against the wall vs cheapness, so I didn't.

 

[DampRain]

I hate mass vassaling. Who would ever expect egyptian girl hatty to be world leader in power >.>

 

[Grashopa]

HAs TMIT, take out KK and SB and you won't be worrying about someone picking up vassals. This culture crap has turned you into a wuss. Theres 50 some hammers in the first 3 cities! Knowing you'll be boxed in as you are - there is no comparison to an early war vs waiting for cannons in this situation.

 

[TheWilltoAct]

Gotta say I'm not too impressed with it (vassal system) either, in fact I'm thinking of disabling it.
I'm going along conquering Genghis when suddenly I get a notification that he is now a vassal of my (formerly) best pal, WHAT'S UP WITH THAT!? Even more bizarre (but predictable I suppose), he doesn't even lift a finger to support Genghis and annoys me with maybe 3-5 frigates...

 

[TheMeInTeam]

HAs TMIT, take out KK and SB and you won't be worrying about someone picking up vassals. This culture crap has turned you into a wuss. Theres 50 some hammers in the first 3 cities! Knowing you'll be boxed in as you are - there is no comparison to an early war vs waiting for cannons in this situation.

HAs are excellent but there IS a chance of it failing, especially vs spam-happy SB. This seemed like a bad play to me, since there was religious dissent that let me race out to a huge tech lead untouched.

If they didn't peacevassal, sweeping the continent is easy. Since they did, my outcome was both easy and 100% safe (my DP partner had enough raw power to deny anybody in the world from a DoW). I could have gone space instead, but culture's a bit faster.

 

[GreenShift84]

start to finish (1810AD):

Spoiler :

Everyone except Sal goes Jewish early on, so I adopt and join in a phony war against Sal for diplo. I blocked Kublai in enough that he would friendly vassal to Justinian then later SB, so he was no threat. With four religions and marble it was straight to culture:

Seemed like the easiest option here.