ok, as we left off, I was in 6th place in score, and 5th place in everything else except military, I was dead last in military size.
I had just finished warring Alex and was planning on declaring again once I had built courthouses in all my cities.
Tech Strategy
I essentially shot for any tech that I could see the AI did not have yet, simply so I could trade for the ones they did have.
This strategy worked well with Hatty and Victoria trading techs with me happily for the entire game.
At the end though, Hatty and Victoria, while still trading techs with me, eventually outpaced me, while I managed an easy 3rd place in techs.
Some mile markers are:
580AD- Code of Laws
1070AD- Feudalism
1440AD- Optics
1525AD- Liberalism
1610AD- Gunpowder
1725AD- Astronomy
1755AD- Scientific Method
1816AD- Military Tradition
1884AD- Mass Media
1925AD- Fission
1939AD- Rocketry
1954AD- Industrialism
1963AD- Combustion
1978AD- Satellites
1988AD- Fiber Optics
that's my last tech...obviously that isn't all the techs I learned, but those should give a grasp of what type of path I took. Unfortunately, the later I got in techs, the more I got into somewhat uncharted territory. Almost all my games have ended before Modern tech, and only a couple have gone this far into tech-one was a warlord level and all my tech was rather pointlessly researched as I was 800+ years ahead of the computer, and the other was GOTM3, where I didn't get into Modern era before Victoria won with a space race.
I mainly beelined for the UN, then tried to get the techs for a Spaceship, but my unfamiliarity with the later techs led to many false leads toward spaceship parts.
Wonders
I managed a great deal more wonders in this GOTM than in the previous one somehow.
In addition to Pyramids and Stonehenge:
600AD- Hanging Gardens in Delhi
920AD- Colossus in Madras
1886AD- Broadway in Athens
1896AD- United Nations in Bombay
1926AD- Hollywood in Athens
I missed out by mere turns on the Eiffel Tower and Rock n Roll
Wars
~750AD-950AD Victoria, Gandhi versus Alexander
She wasted all her armies on him without killing anything, and then when I sent my troops in and was one turn away from taking the city, Victoria swooped in again and stole the city. This happened to Sparta and Thermopylae.
After this war, Greece was no more, and I built new cities all along the northern coast of the continent, this nearly doubled my empire size.
~1750AD-1835AD Isabella versus Gandhi, Hatshepsut
Hatty quickly lost a city on Izzy's continent and took a spanish city on the small southern island.
I won at first on the seas and placed 4 knights in the spanish mainland, where they wreaked havok, pillaging the countryside in an effort to convince Izzy to peace me. They eventually died, as did my galleys and caravels, and then Izzy landed on my coast.
Unfortunately, for some strange reason, I was not informed that there were enemies near Calcutta or Madras...in fact they either attacked the turn they landed, or they sat next to both cities for a turn without me being told they were there.
Regardless, my garrisons of Longbowmen were insufficient and I lost both Madras and Calcutta, Izzy then razed them
and left me to take out her remaining troops...which were quickly destroyed by my converging armies.
1780AD- Madras razed(goodbye Colossus and a major commerce center)
1800AD- Calcutta razed
After destroying her troops, I gave her a tech for peace, then resettled both city locations.
~1880AD-1925AD Victoria, Gandhi versus Saladin
Victoria declared war and quickly took numerous cities from him, then I joined in, in an effort to gain some size and bonus points with her.
I took Saladin's last three cities and so destroyed a second civilization.
Unfortunately for Victoria, every city she took from Saladin revolted and joined France soon afterward.
In the end, France gained the three cities I took as well, as I gave them to him hoping to make him like me enough to vote for me.
Infrastructure
I created a vast trade network and had a very good infrastructure built within my cities. All had the basic buildings and nearly all had 3 religions which I was able to build some religious structures for. My cultural rating ended at 3rd place, but my cutlure was rising at 4x the speed that Isabella's was rising...and this despite founding no religions and lacking any religion at all until the late 1100s.
Here's the second half of my city construction/loss history:
800AD- Corinth captured from Alexander
1340AD- Bangalore founded
1350AD- Calcutta founded
1470AD- Lahore founded
1780AD- Madras razed
1800AD- Calcutta razed
1812AD- Karachi founded(replacing Madras)
1818AD- Kolhapur founded(replacing Calcutta)
1912AD- Kufah captured from Saladin
1920AD- Khurasaon captured from Saladin
1923AD- Basra captured from Saladin
1971AD- Kufah, Khurasan, Basra given to Louis XIV in an attempt to strengthen relations
Diplomacy
Saladin, Louis, Isabella, and Alex all either disliked strongly or hated me.
Luckily Alex and Saladin died, while Louis never got along with anyone, so he was always trapped in his little corner of the continent.
Toward the end of the game, I had Defensive Pacts with both Hatty and Victoria, which kept Izzy from ever declaring war on me again.
I built the UN and attempted a diplomatic victory, unfortunately, Victoria grew bigger cities than Isabella did, and so she was my opponent for Sec-Gen.
Because of this, I always won the vote for Sec. Gen. but never became the Sec. Gen because I never had 1/3 of the vote...Hatty always voted for me, and I voted for me, but Izzy and Louis abstained and Victoria voted for herself.
This essentially ended my chances of a diplomatic victory, and when Victoria and then Hatty built the Apollo Program I was assured of losing to a space race again, it was just a matter of which one I would lose to.
End Game
Victoria won with a Space race victory in 1989.
Hatty had 4 parts left, and I had 6 parts left.
Isabella built her first part the turn Victoria won.
I essentially turned in a fairly good performance and it turned out that 3 things made all the difference between a Diplomatic Victory and a Space Race loss for me.
1) Sparta and Thermopylae being stolen by Victoria(these two cities gave Victoria 3.4M population by the end of the game!)
2) Madras being razed by Spain(lost 1.5M population, the Colossus, and my top research/3rd culture city)
3) My lack of thought in the end game.
Isabella was 4 million people behind Victoria in population-if I had gotten Thermopylae and Sparta, Isabella may have been my opponent instead, which would have netted me the votes of the two most powerful nations for both Sec. Gen and for a Diplomatic Victory. Hatty had +15 with me while Victoria had +17 until I gave Louis some cities to attempt to get his votes, then she went to +13
To expand upon reason #3:
Victoria built the Apollo Program just after I built the UN-nearly 100 turns before she ended up winning.
At that point, I had two options...push militarily for a diplomatic victory(take out Louis and maybe Izzy too so I had enough votes to win) or attempt a belated Space Ship of my own.
For some reason I stopped thinking and attempted a space race victory. I raced through the techs toward Apollo Program, built it, and managed to get all but 6 pieces built in a fairly short period of time...but Victoria and Hatty both had 50 year head starts and larger empires and cities to build in.
That strategy was doomed from the beginning, but I didn't think about it until it was too late.
So to conclude: I lost, but I did welll despite that loss, and learned a number of things for me to use in the future.
Game Score: 3140
Final Score: 5022*.85
Now to play some games on my own for the next 3 weeks
a shame I'm already done and Spring Break is just starting