Looks like I will be the first to post this spoiler
Start of the story
here
The current state of empire is: I'm at war with Napoleon, and expect to finish him off. Washington is a great production city, solely responsible for my military. Boston works gold an gems, thus being decent in both production and commerce. Philadelphia is a pure commerce city, being designed as my research centre. Unfortunately, my health is very low, Washington is stuck at size 6, Boston at size 5. Can't say it hurts me too much though, they're mostly surrounded by plains, and do work all the good tiles. However, I'd love to get more health, to at least grow Philadelphia and the French cities. I rarely build Aqueducts, but this was one of the games where I had to
A mid-term plan is to build Heroic Epic in Washington, tech to Civil Service to be able to build more farms and switch to Bureaucracy. +150% to unit production in Washington is nothing to sniff at; it won't help commerce much, but thanks to my Organised trait, I can afford it. Then work towards a domination victory
25AD - Trade for Monarchy
100AD - Paris captured. It's not in a great location, but I decide to keep it anyway
Same turn - Code of Laws discovered, Literature next
I'm now sure I have enough military, and switch Washington to producing workers. That French territory is almost completely unimproved, I need a horde of workers to change it to my liking
125AD - Switch to Hereditary Rule and Caste System. My cities are rather food poor, and I don't see much use staying in Slavery. Caste is awesome to pop borders in captures cities, hiring extra scientists can also help
150AD - Got Horseback Riding from someone. Useless tech on this map, but can be used for trades
175AD - Lyon captured, and France is no more. The force is now going for the barb city SE of Paris
250AD - A Great scientist born in Philadelphia. Bulbed Philosophy, I don't need it right away, but I might go for the Liberalism race, so it will help
300AD - Scythian captured. A decent city, with dye and crabs. Those barbs can find good city locations sometimes
I now start thinking about my next target, and whether I will be able to launch the next campaign with the same force. I'm considering either Peter or Liz, who are both very close. But the same turn, in 300AD, Liz gets Feudalism; Peter also gets it a few turns later. Well, that only means I will have to change Axes to Maces
325AD - Literature discovered, start on Civil Service, start Heroic Epic in Washington. A few turns later, start National Epic in Philadelphia
500AD - This was a big year for the American civ. At the same turn, we discovered Civil Service, and built Heroic Epic. Revolt to Bureaucracy; once out of anarchy, Washington started building Cats, with so much overflow that it was adding money to the treasury every turn
Also after I captured France, my score started to climb very fast, and this was the first turn when I was in the first place
Researching Machinery next, for Maces
720AD - Machinery in; I have an invasion force of 18 Cats, and switch Washington to Maces. I also get Music in trade on the same turn. Researching Paper next, towards Liberalism
Around the same turn - Liz, who was warring with Peter for several centuries, asked me to cancel agreements with him. By this time, I already decided that Peter was going to be my next target, so I agreed
860AD - At some point earlier, Orleans built all the necessary infrastructure; it had decent production, so I decided to build a few wonders there. In 860AD, it completed Hanging Gardens
Around the same turn - Peter calls, and says that English are a threat to us all, and he assumes he can count on my assistance in destroying them. Hey man, and I thought you were smart, and understood what it meant when I cancelled open borders with you
900AD - Paper in, Education next. Got a map from Mao, and finally saw where everyone was
Same turn - A Great Prophet born in Washington, courtesy of the Oracle. Settled him in Philadelphia
960AD - Invasion force ready! I think it was 12 Maces and 18 Cats, or something like that. Declared on Peter
Same turn - Captured Rostov. This city was just 3E of Boston, and losing the culture war, so I could attack it from my borders. It was a crappy city, built in the middle of plains, without any food. Still, decided that it was going to count towards the domination limit anyway, and kept it
I expected to get a relations boost with Liz thanks to this war, but she made peace with Peter in 1000AD
1020AD - Captured Novgorod, a decent city to the west of me, on the southern coast, with iron and 2 seafood. Peter pillaged this seafood later. In this and all future wars, pillaging seafood was the most annoying thing the AIs did; I had no fleet at all, it didn't look like a reasonable investment. Without Triremes, I couldn't give a good protection to this seafood, I thought it was cheaper to rebuild the nets after every war
1060AD - Captured St. Petersburg
1070AD - Completed Colossus in Orleans. I didn't have a lot of coastal cities initially, but captured quite a few, and without any incentive to research Astronomy, it was going to serve me for a long time
1120AD - Captured Moscow. Peter was left with one last city, Yaroslavl', which was in Tasmania. Again, I had no fleet, and no intention to build it, so decided that I could deal with the "rejoin our motherland" unhappiness, and made peace with him, getting Feudalism in the treaty
Now, it was time to consider the next target. Originally, I was planning to deal with Liz; she was the tech leader, as you would expect from a financial leader, and also was annoyingly winning culture wars on our borders. But by this moment, Toku was furious with me, even though we never were at war: he was friends with Peter, and I refused to help him in his wars with Asoka a few times. He was finishing off Asoka at that point, and I was worried he was going to come at me next. So I decided to go for a preventive strike against him
I also consider switching to Vassalage, but eventually decide against it. 50% bonus to
in Washington is much better than an extra promotion, and even the extra maintenance-free units don't convince me
1140AD - Liz start wonderspamming, finishing Notre Dame
1150AD - Got Compass in trade. Actually I could discover it myself, Harbours were going to help my health issues, at least in coastal cities
1170AD - Education in, Liberalism next
1210AD - Great scientist born in Philadelphia. Bulbed towards Printing Press
1220AD - Liz completes Sistine
1260AD - Liz completes Angkor Wat. Wonderspamming at its best
Same turn - I declare on Toku
To be honest, I completely forgot about Toku's Samurai. Their 75% against melee was very bad for my Macemen-based army. This turned out to be a bloody war
1270AD - Toku finishes off Asoka
Same turn - Liberalism in. To be honest, this was a waste. Nobody still had Education, and I was planning to stop researching Lib with one turn to completion, and try to get Replaceable Parts with it. But with the start of the war against Japan, I completely forgot about it. Ah well. Took Nationalism, at least I could try to build Taj
Research set to finish Printing Press
I also finally get out of Paganism, adopting Free Religion. I didn't care about religion at all in this game, but got quite a few random spreads, so Free Religion was great for me
1280AD - Tokyo captured
1300AD - Kyoto captured. But now, Toku has recovered from the initial blow, and starts to send Samurai my way. Fortunately, he send them one by one, and while they manage to kill a lot of my Maces (sometimes I need 4 Maces to kill just one Samurai), they can't get into position to reclaim those cities. Again, I have to say that the BtS AI would have handled the situation much better. If at any point Toku sent 5 Samurai together, I would have had to return at least one of the cities. But he was sending them one by one, and with reinforcements constantly coming from Washington, I managed to hold on to them
1320AD - Printing Press in, Engineering next
1370AD - Liz continues wonderspammind, finishing Chichen Itza
Same turn - I realise that the war with Toku is going nowhere, and try to get peace, but he demands Kyoto back. Sent packing
Same turn - Engineering in, Gunpowder next
1380AD - Toku's Samurai which was close to Kyoto dies trying to attack my Mace. Toku pops up and offers 80 gold for peace. That's more like it
Peace signed
The next plan was to rebuild the army, get Gunpowder, upgrade Maces to Muskets, and attack Toku with new units against which Samurai don't get a bonus
1430AD - A Great artist is born in Philadelphia. Not exactly sure how he managed to sneak in, I've been running 2 or 3 scientists there all the way, and the only great artist point is coming from the National Epic. Ah well. Decide to keep him for now, and use him to culture bomb the next Toku's city, try to deprive him of his iron this way
1440AD - Gunpowder in, and I learn that my plan has a major flaw: Maces upgrade to Rifles, not to Muskets! Ah well. Washington switches to Muskets, and I set research to Guilds, going towards Replaceable Parts and Rifling
Fortunately, both Liz and Mao already know Guilds and Banking; they don't want to trade them, but I get nice discounts researching them
1490AD - Guilds in
1510AD - Banking in, Replaceable Parts next
1540AD - Declare on Toku again
1545AD - Captured Edo
Same turn - Got Theology in trade
1550AD - Culture bombed Edo. The border fails to move the Japanese border even one tile, and the iron is two tiles away! Ah well, too bad, I did't need that great artist anyway
1555AD - Replaceable Parts in, Rifling next
1570AD - Captured Satsuma. An extremely crappy city in the middle of the desert, but next to Toku's iron, and the Taoist holy city
Same turn - Wonderspamming continues! Liz finishes Versaille
1585AD - I finish Taj Mahal, yay! Good timing, the golden age shaves a turn off the Rifling research, and will help me gather the upgrade money
My forces come to Osaka, which is in the NW corner of the continent. Toku was very nice to leave a lot of forests there (another thing BtS AI knows not to do), so my army approaches him safely. However, the city is quite well defended, and I still only have 2 or 3 Muskets, the rest of the army are Maces and Cats, and they can't do much against Samurai. I almost get the city, but lose a few 65-75% battles, and end up in a stalemate
1610AD - Rifling is in. I sign peace with Toku, getting Drama in the treaty. I don't want to lose my highly experienced Maces; once those City Raider 3 Maces are upgraded to Rifles, Toku has no chance. Research is set to Chemistry, towards Steel
Same turn - Traded Liberalism to Liz for Optics and a ton of gold. I have no use for Optics, but it was very nice of her to offer me gold, very good timing, I can certainly find a good use for it
Same turn - Liz completes The Parthenon. I was so impressed with her wonderspamming abilities, I just have to mention every single wonder she got. At least someone built them
I was too busy warring, and Taj was my last one. So, I got 4 wonders total: Oracle, Hanging Gardens, Colossus and Taj. What a waste of the Industrious trait
1620AD - Another Great artist is born on Philadelphia. I try to culture bomb Satsuma, at least this time the iron is right on the next tile. But again, the border doesn't move!
1650AD - Liz completes Hagia Sophia
1665AD - Declare on Toku for the third and the last time. I have 14 Rifles ready for action, plus a few Cats to deal with culture defences. He doesn't have a chance this time, even though he discovered Gunpowder and has Muskets now
1670AD - Chemistry in, Steel next
1680AD - Osaka finally falls. Toku's self-founded cities are all mine now, but he still lurks in former Asoka's territory
1710AD - Delhi captured
1730AD - A Great engineer born in Washington. I don't have a really good use for him. In the end, decide to use him for Oxford Uni in Philadelphia. Not that I really need it, with Steel on the horizon; I'm reasonably confident I will be able to finish the game with Rifles and Cannons
1735AD - Madras captured
1745AD - Bombay captured, and Toku is dead
Now, I had a dilemma. I had two opponents left, Liz and Mao, and was sure it was enough to eliminate one of them to achieve domination. So, who was going to be the target? (Well, technically I had 3 opponents, but Peter was still sitting in Tasmania, popping up from time to time and demanding Education. I didn't budge
)
Actually, the decision was easy. They were both ahead of me in tech, on par in military tech; both had Rifling. In Liz's case, it meant Redcoats. After running into Toku's UU when it was at its best, I wasn't going to make the same mistake. Also, Liz was finally pleased towards me, thanks to the Free Religion civic (I think it was the first time an AI was pleased with me during the whole game
); while Mao was friends with Toku, and I pissed him off by those 3 wars with Japan. So, it was clear: Mao had to go
1750AD - Steel in, research turned off to upgrade the Cats, Washington set to build Cannons. Research set to Constitution next, towards Democracy. Liz was going to get there and adopt Emancipation soon, and I didn't want to deal with Emancipation unhappiness and war weariness at the same time
1775AD - Sure enough, Liz adopts Emancipation. Also, bad news: Mao also has Steel. Better news: he doesn't have iron
Anyway, I decide it's safe to trade Steel to Liz for Constitution, to get to Democracy earlier. She also doesn't have the iron anyway
1802AD - Liz gets The Statue of Liberty
1804AD - Democracy in. Revolt to Emancipation right away. Research to Economics, towards Assembly Line - just in case
1810AD - Declare on Mao. A stack of 13 Rifles and 14 Cannons enters Chinese lands!
This time, I also set Boston, Novgorod and Paris to build Rifles and Grenadiers, in case Mao gets a strange idea that he can counter-attack
1814AD - Economics in, Corporation next
1818AD - Beijing captured. I had to deal with Mao's small stack along the way, plus there was a long way through his lands to get to Beijing
Same turn - A great scientist is born in Philadelphia. Now, why do I need him at this point of the game?
Not sure what I did with him
1822AD - Corporation in, Steam Power next
After spending a few turns in Beijing healing, the army finally gets to Shanghai. At the same time, a smaller force gets to Bangalore, another desert city which Asoka built, then Toku captured, then Mao culture-flipped
1830AD - Both Shanghai and Bangalore captured. Mao has just 2 cities left, Nanjing right next to Shanghai in the SW corner, and Guangzhou on the southern coast, near Novgorod. I have assembled some forces in Novgorod, and decide to send them to join the Bangalore stack and take Guangzhou, while the main force deals with Nanjing
Same turn - I had to use the entire force to capture Shanghai, and only managed to get one wounded Rifle into the city. Mao sends a small force from Nanjing and re-captures it
1832AD - My army is still right next to Shanghai, and gets it back. Then I decide to gamble, and take most of the stack out of Shanghai, towards Nanjing
1836AD - As it turns out, Mao has a Rifle close by, and takes Shanghai again. Its culture defences immediately get back to 80%!
1838AD - Culture defences are a good thing, but Accuracy promoted cannons are better
I take Shanghai for the 3rd and final time, and apologise to the dizzy citizens
1840AD - Steam Power in, Assembly Line next
1842AD - While the main stack was having fun losing and retaking Shanghai, the second stack got to Guangzhou and captured it
1844AD - Nanjing captured, but Mao is not dead yet. However, at this point I got an alert that I had 63.90% of land, with domination limit at 64%
Population was over the limit for some time already, and Chinese cities were still in revolt, so I knew I will win as soon as one of those revolts is over. So I sign peace with Mao, getting Divine Right in the treaty, and also his map, showing his last city in New Zealand
1848AD - Actually, the victory comes even earlier. The borders of Novgorod expand, getting me those crucial extra tiles, and resulting in
1850AD - Domination victory!
This is the first Civ4 GOTM I submitted (I took part in a few Civ3 ones some time ago), and it was a great one! I had a lot of fun, although I still think I shouldn't have won it. Ignoring raging barbs, and losing the first settler I built, at the difficulty level which I still think it too high for me... I'm not exactly sure how I recovered. Probably bad AI in vanilla CIV is the main reason; during my wars, I regularly found that I had just enough units, with the AI taking some of its units of out the city for some reason. If he didn't do it, and whipped extra defenders like BtS AI does, I would have probably stalled in the campaign against Peter, and definitely wouldn't have gotten Toku's cities in the first war. Also, Cats and Cannons which can not only cause collateral damage, but also kill units, are uber powerful, virtually unstoppable
Oh, and getting Oracle in 525BC on Emperor.. probably not impossible, but let's say it happens rarely in BtS, even on Monarch level which I normally play
Not complaining of course. I'm quite happy to record my first Emperor victory, as well as my first GOTM submission
Many thanks for the great game, look forward to more!
I wanted Conquest, but discovered that Mao had one more city offshore too near the end to hold off on Domination. I had him down to 3 cities with 3 turns to go until a glorious victory when I noticed an extra city on his 
I've forgotten the details, but around 1000 AD I was in the process of finishing off Peter and Liz when both Toku and Mao DoW'd me. Both were minor skirmishes on my territory and I was able to extract peace and gold from them before I turned on Nappy, who went quickly. Then it was Toku's turn, while Mao finished off Asoka. I could have triggered Domination in the early 1500's by planting a couple cities but I figured (correctly) that other players would be able to smash that date so I went for Conquest instead. A quick war would even give me a higher adjusted score, so what the heck. I razed two small Chinese (recently Indian) cities to avoid the Dom limit and kept the 6 or so big ones. Leaving only Tianjian on the South Island of New Zealand. Grrrr...
Seeing all that orange radioactive fog blowing around at the start was dispiriting, but it was quite localized (why would anyone bomb Uluru and Kata Tjuta? 
, but I'm not sure that's even possible, and it didn't sound too promising:
