well done harbourboy, i
knew you could do it! i am very curious ... who did you end up with as neighbors and overall opponents in this game? how mean were they to you, and did they help you backfill techs thru trading? i depend on my handpicked fast teching peaceful types for backfilling some junk; for example, i just went thru the "hand out metalcasting to 'em all now that some
finally researched it and was willing to trade it to me" phase. i mean i was working on education at this point, come on you slowpokes!! i want everybody to have it, to increase the chances i can mooch machinery to save time getting PP. your style is obviously much different, and more flexible so i'm very very impressed. here i shall be totally rude, you can feel free to say no, but if you're in the mood and don't mind uploading the final save, i'd get a kick out of looking it over. quite presumptuous of me to ask tho, shame on me!! please don't tell my mother.
you can do it too superslug! just remember ... make artists, not nukes.

good,

bad for this gauntlet. this personally-tailored graphical service announcement is not under copyright and may be printed as a reminder if that might be helpful

. if you feel the need to nuke, do that when you need a break, but be aware it will almost certainly not help you achieve a cultural victory if you do it in your actual gauntlet attempt game. see below for a case when i myself have decided to do that, and i've never even nuked before! in fact ... may i PM you for advice about the most satisfying way to do it for revenge *giggle*?
my current game is verrrry odd. first tries were as gandhi and i'd get sidetracked on the "oh let's found this religion, let's try for that one, let's stack the deck with opponents who don't know mysticism, lalala". i had some really pretty map starts (almost hafe with marble visible on the starting turn!!!) but none worked out. thankfully none had a more than a few hours invested before i considered them not worth continuing. in thursday's game, victoria DoWd from halfway across the map in one and took my sistine chapel city. i hate her i hate her i hate her, and when i'm done with (or need a break from) this gauntlet i will play a game against up to 6 victorias and kill them all, painfully and starting with sneak attacks, making them think we are good friends right up to "got you now, you many-names-i-wouldn't-say-in-front-of-mother!" with her repeated as a leader, it's obviously not eligible for HoF and i just might not check LMA and let myself cheat if i feel i need it or if it would make me more satisfied. once all instances of her die relatively legitimately, i will reload from a save prior to that point and give myself 50 zillion nukes and blow her to bits, simply because i've never tried that and she seems the perfect victim for my first experience.
so today's try, still in progress, i'm playing as liz (altho my name is IHateVicky), she's my usual in the past, but i'm having tendencies to play and improve the land as tho i'm gandhi. i miss his fast workers so badly, and have to remind myself to be much more careful about changing civics. get this ... i have my usual suspects in the game, fast techers that trade early and often, and i began the game telling myself "do NOT go off chasing early religions, trust that they will naturally spread to a city or two. keep to your alphabet/liberalism/turn off research and culture up beeline, do not pass go..
but in this game, my starting warrior popped mysticism out of a hut on turn 3! this was of course a sign from the gods that had not yet visited our world to deviate from the standard beeline, so i changed research to poly, and london is the hindu holy city. buddhism was founded rather late, 3340 BC, i assume the indians were teching poly like me and lost that race. the founder of buddhism was ... mansa musa! i assume he got a myst from a hut too. asoka and gandhi must have been shocked and dismayed. no religions have been founded by either of them to date (only islam is still out there). hatty got judaism (quite common), george got theology after getting a great prophet, and i got to CoL first even tho i missed the oracle. strange universe for sure! wicked fun so far, and we'll see how it turns out. i'm knocking on wood, but i love that it's fun even tho i know i may not reach my goal of winning, props and thanks to whoever picked this gauntlet. the deity diplo was that way for me too; the highlands time victory was not, but i recognized that early on and didn't spend much time on it. variety is good, that's not a complaint, it's a thank you.
the posts here sooooooo help me improve. you guys rock! each attempt i learn more, and do something(s) better than before, mostly due to what i read here, and how the advice sinks in more when i try it. despite the fact that victory was a you-know-what and ruined my day and my beautiful city. and even there, i whipped up and got to the front lines enough troops to beat off the first sneak attack wave, and that made me proud, i've never even tried that in a cultural game, usually it's "trumpets? exit to main menu!!". but then she came back, from way across the map. with a lot of jumbos. and my sistine chapel city that she took was my only source of jumbos. i have the save still but not the heart to try to turn that one around

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ok stop typing. point is, grats harbourboy, superslug you can do it if you remember how non-nukey you are supposed to be, and good luck to all (including myself *giggle*).