Italy, 1892, 7909
I was actually playing for the UHV but reached domination before 1930.
I didn't use my initial settler right away, planning on sending it to Tunisia. As it turned out, it stayed unused the entire game since everywhere in the mediterranean was overcrowded with cities. so I didn't found a single city in the entire game. heh.
Veniced flipped and became my capital, and HRE declared war. As I flipped 2 longbows and 3 catapults, this wasn't so bad. A few knights ventured inside my borders but were killed by my pikemen and peace was made not too long later.
The French assaulted Rome a few turns after I spawned, and didn't capture it right away. I moved in and captured it, then immediately kept moving and captured independent Napoli, so Italy was swiftly united. The Moors had already collapsed, so I invaded the independants there, capturing Marrakus and Wahran. I had 5 cities after not too many turns, so it was a strong start.
Since Italy is often gangbanged by it's stronger neighbors, I used the initial tech advantage to bribe Spain into a war with France. The war dragged on for a long long time, with Marseilles and Bordeaux changing ownership many times and eventually staying in spanish hands. France became unstable, but didn't collapse and eventually became stable again. This proved eventually beneficial.
HRE attacked me again pretty much as soon as the peace treaty was over, but they never made a concerted offensive. A mix of trebs and Landsnerkts (sp?) was destroyed by crossbows in the east, and knights were picked apart by Pikemens in the west. Peace was made eventually with few losses.
Meanwhile I was building a small invasion force against Egypt. First grabbing Tunis, then Alexandria, then making peace. Egypt collapsed soon after, and I was done shooting cripples.
Italy can obviously spawn tons of great people early on. I spawned at least 7 before 1600: 3 great engineers, 1 great spy, 2 great artists and 1 great merchant. With Venice focusing on wonders, building a cathedral and then running culture for a little bit, I got my first 5K culture city there, and the 2 great artists in marrakus and Rome did the trick for the last 2. The great Spy, used against Spain, also meant I stole Banking and Astronomy from the Spanish. The last tech for the wonders UHV was philosophy (for the LEaning tower), and I rushed it with a GE in 1495.
After getting 2/3 UHV, I switched out of city states for Republic since stability was slowly creeping down toward 0.
I got the conquerors against the Incas and brought them back home. Rome was pumping units meanwhile, and I was planning on striking against Spain to wrap up the 3rd UHV. The Turks however, had different ideas and attacked first. But as is often the case, despite a small superiority in numbers, they have a hard time handling their European/asian/african situation, and never achieved local superiority anywhere. I often see that with Byzantium as well, like leaving their capitol lightly garrisonned to be taken by barbarians when they actually have more than enough troops to garantee security everywhere. It's the same with the Turks, where they often huddle troops in Bagdad while the fighting in in Europe. Not sure why it is o.
Anyway the result was that the invasion of the balkans went unopposed, and I captured Athen and Constantinople with very little opposition (I had 26 units there) . Meanwhile the Turks were putting on a better show in Egypt, but I let a strong independant Cairo army soften them up first, then counterattacked and razed the city, forever denying them a presence in Africa. I made peace after that. A turkish city was left on the horse north of the danube and was choking Constantinople, so in order to free it up and prevent further turkish wars, I bribed Russia to war against Turkey.
Shortly after, Bengazi and Tripoli flipped. I refused and disbanded them, but still got the tiles to wrap up the UHV in 1706.
France peace vassaled to me a little bit after, which proved valuable as they ended up a great research slave, researching Steel, Biology and Medicine for me. Marseilles also flipped to me, and combined with France leaving it's tiles to be worked by being my vassal, ended up a pretty productive city.
I got to assembly line in the late 1700, and I was converting my troops to excellent Bersagliere infantry, the 1st world congress happened in 1800. I waited out for the result of the congress before invading Spain. In order to protect myself from the gangbang that often breaks out when I refuse congress decisions, I made a defensive pact with Portugal (the only major power that would accept) on the turn right before. As it turned out, Portugal attacked Mongolia right before the congress started, starting off a chain of defensive pacts, and I ended up at war with Russia.
So once again I cancelled my invasion of Spain and turned east. Still at war with Turkey, Russia wasn't much challenge, fighting medieval and early renaissance units with rank 4+ bersagliere infantry, but had tons of units and held out for a long time. I actually thought they'd collapse, but after losing tons of units and 7 cities (5 to me, 2 to Turkey), they capitulated. I freed up the garbage cities, but kept Kiev and Moscow. Russia hovered between shaky and unstable the rest of the game, but didn't collapse and covered tons of land for the win.
Meanwhile Spain declared war on America when st-Augustine flipped. America actually did very well against a huge, but relatively backward spanish empire with 4 vassals but eventually got stalemated in Texas. And when my war with Russia ended, they promptly offered to peace vassal against my aid, which came.
However Spain had a defensive pact with Germany, so I had to deal with them first. With most of my troops still deep in Russia and some injured, it took a while to whittle them down, leaving France to capture the mostly useless remaining cities after conquering Francfort. I then pushed into Spain, conquering a few cities. The french actually took madrid, and with no more cities in their core, Spain collapsed. I then invaded Portugal to free up the BFC of my spanish cities, and I was pretty surprised when they offered to capitulate after just 1 turn of conflict. At that point, with Russia, France, America, Congo, Portugal as vassals I was real close to the win. A few gifted settlers to America and an invasion of Turkey did the trick.
Really fun game. Italy starts as a regional power with a very local focus, but eventually grew into a domination, without settling a single city and no cities outside of europe and the mediterranean area.
