Retired 1884 after my nuclear assault on Toku failed miserably
Congrats to Mitchum (and after that unlucky start!) and neilmeister (that counts as a win in my book)! I really wanted a military win (largely because I lack the skill and subtlety required for peaceful wins, and there was no hope for Space) and maintained an estimated probability of 25% for a win until the very end when reality hit hard. Here is my sad story.
In
1 AD Qin had recently culture bombed his sneakily-stolen former barb city near
my iron, thus culturally stealing my copper on the eastern island. I was trying to decide between attacking Washington (only 5 cities, Friendly, tech leader) or Qin (bigger, badder, thorn in my side, with GLH and Colossus in his easternmost city). I chose the wiser, wimpier course and DoWed Washington, mostly using cats with LB support, starting with Boston (next to the iron and dyes). That went pretty well, and I also managed to take his island city with the gold, wheat, fish, and clams (although it took awhile to claim all of those culturally). I still had a decent strength advantage on him despite his shiny new muskets so I figured I should keep pressing while I could. At the beginning of the war I had landed a couple Guerilla LBs and a cat on the hill next to New York to distract George--it seemed to work, as he only sent 1 LB up to Boston. After Boston fell I reinforced my NY beachhead and took that city, then landed more troops in the forest next to Atlanta. After that fell I moved everything I could scrape up against Washington DC. I knocked him down to 1 redlined unit but couldn't finish him off. The next turn, up popped a grenadier. I lost a couple more units taking it, and the city was mine. But it was a very near thing. I made peace and left George with 1 city up north, conveniently placed to block Toku on one front with his closed borders. Leaving George alive (not that I had much choice at that point) also left him as a trading partner; he still had quite a few techs I didn't, but with him nerfed I would inevitably get others before he did and then do some trades before I killed him off.
Somewhere along in there my island wine/copper city revolted and joined Qin's empire--that culture bomb served him well, but I will make him pay in the end! Oh yeah, he also beat me by 1 turn to Liberalism in 1070 AD.
Time to die! Once I got conquistadors, but shortly before I got grens, I attacked Qin's Thorn City (golly, it had a lot of units in it) and my former island copper/wine city. With my core lands secured I then sent everything west to take his city near America. I had to take peace at that point, extorting 560 gold. Before my new western possession came out of resistance I gifted it to George since it was going to be culturally pressed and I didn't want to waste units defending it during my next assault on Qin. George was typically stingy and gave me nothing for it. After 10 turns of peace I attacked again with grens and cannon (and lots of lesser units), transporting 8 units at a time via galley across the narrow sea to my northeast. That city fell with some messiness, immediately followed by the prize of his easternmost city with GLH, Colossus, and Versailles. Meanwhile, Qin was harassing/pillaging near Boston and then Julius DoWed me with a frigate, galleon, two grens, and a cat on my island. I didn't have Astro (hoping to get my money's worth out of the Colossus, not that I had beakers to spare anyway) so despite having Chemistry I had no counter to the Chinese and now Roman frigates pillaging my seafood and whales. Pretty much everyone else had rifles by now but nobody else had cannon. My plan was to skip Rifling and tech Steam Power to unlock ironclads and then Railroad for the production boost and machineguns. Yes, I know ironclads are universally reviled but if you're on the defensive, don't want to tech Astro, and are beelining Steam/Rail anyway (as I often do), they're pretty handy. And although Mguns can't attack, they give you an almost invincible base from which to attack cities with cannon (which kill in Vanilla). Nothing can touch them until maybe infantry, and if you've been careful your Mguns will have lots of promos by then.
Well, that was the plan, anyway. I managed to see off JC's land units, but then Louis DoWed me, landing a bunch of grens, LBs, and cats by the gold city (1505 AD)! I only had 3 weak units in the city with my stronger forces still up north after their Roman battles. To top it off, I finally got Steam Power so I could build ironclads and.... there's no coal!!
The nearest was near Boston, in Chinese territory. And I see that Qin now had RR and is laying track (and is presumably building Mguns). Toku also has Steam Power. I've gotta kill Qin, build up my empire, and then weaken Toku before he gets too far ahead.
OK, this is getting to be seriously grim. I need the coal to build ironclads to deal with the frigate-pillaging threat and to lay track, but I won't have any Mguns until I get RR in 7 turns. I really need those Mguns to protect my cannon and grens so I'm going to have to wait to attack Qin. Fortunately, I just popped a Great Eng and used him to rush Iron Works in my marble city so I'll be able to crank out units pretty quickly. Qin doesn't have a Heroic Epic, as I'm the only one he's fought and I never let him get any 10XP units. Back on the island, rather than let Louis kill my weak units with no losses, I evacuate the city, let it fall, and then retake it the next turn.
I was rushing to meet the deadline after this so I have no notes. I made peace with JC, got my Mguns and blasted Qin with cannon, taking all his cities. Midway through that war JC and Louis started going at it. By the time I was through with Qin and could spare units to "assist", Louis was down to 2 cities. I had the dubious honor of razing his last city, on the southern tundra. Toku was (and had been for a long time) a beast so my grand plan at this point was to take out everyone else for Domination. I wanted to strike quickly while JC was still recovering so I hit a big stack in one of the southern French cities and took it. Unfortunately JC had another stack I didn't know about and hit me back. I held the city but would lose all my units if he attacked again. I hit him again and then gifted the city to Toku (who had closed borders with everyone but me), losing a crappy city but saving my units. After a couple turns to heal I headed north to take Paris from JC but Toku DoWed JC the turn before and took it! This pattern repeated for another few cities, as Toku kept arriving firstest with the mostest (with his tanks), just ahead of me and my infanty/artillery. He finally got a little tired, I guess, and I was able to sneak in and take the last 4 of JC's core cities, but Toku had mopped up all of Louis's old cities; even if I took out HC I'd have less than the 64% for Domination, so it was time to alter the Plan (again).
I'd been beelining toward Fission and Rocketry to build nukes and timed the Manhattan project to finish just when I got Rocketry. I planned to build/whip 7 or so nukes in 5 turns and then take Toku's coastal cities amphibiously (probably after 2 nukes each), and hit his 2 cities that bordered on HC with conventional forces; I couldn't nuke them because HC's land would be affected, but Toku couldn't fight back because he didn't have open borders with HC, heh heh. Well, after 3 turns of building nukes, Toku got SDI (1868). Daaaaarn. :suicide:
What to do? I could nuke HC (I was the only one with Fission) but Toku would still have 40+% of the land and was well on his way to completing his spaceship; either way I'd still have to attack Toku, time was growing short, and he'd have Fission soon and then could build his own nukes. (I'd planned to secure all the uranium for myself but Toku had captured a former northern Roman city with U.) OK, proceed with the plan but build more nukes since SDI gives a 75% of shooting them down. In 1880 I had 17 nukes ready for launch, but Toku was now stocking his cities with MechInf. Sigh. No choice. Launch! The 1st one erupts in a mushroom cloud! Yay!!
That leaves 16 more, so I can expect 4 more hits, give or take! #2 is intercepted. #3. 4. 5,6,7. 8 gets through. And that's it. 2 out of 17. Is there something I don't understand about SDI? 25% should get through, right? Well, the game was lost but I played a couple more turns. Took those 2 border cities at high cost and gave them to HC. Came within 1 unit of taking 1 coastal city but failed. Built 2 more nukes for grins and launched. Neither made it so I was 2 for 19. My high water mark was around 37% in land and pop and I was tops in score (barely) for awhile.
Misc thoughts: I was always behind everybody in tech, including Washington even though I'd reduced him to 2 cities. Dang, Deity is hard! I wasn't able to make good use of the horse monopoly--mounted units were pretty obsolete by the time I got them. Cavalry were potentially useful at the end (since I didn't have tanks) for rushing to take nuked cities but you know how that turned out.
Diplo: I got lucky with nobody attacking me (until JC). Oh yeah, Louise DoWed me once, too, briefly taking one of my island cities. Founding Hinduism, which spread to America and China and converted them, helped keep my immediate neighbors sweet at the beginning. They dropped it after I attacked them, so I switched to NSR from then on, improving relations with the other AI (although none of them were ever warm). I was lucky Toku didn't attack me, although I was shielded to some extent by his closed borders with America (and everyone else but China). I temporarily got OBs with him for around 20 turns late in the game, conveniently timed to help me shift units over to attack Louis and then JC.
This was the best I've ever done at Deity, and I certainly enjoyed the challenge, although it sure was a bummer when Toku got SDI. If he hadn't let himself be distracted from buiilding spaceship parts I just mighta won, yeah, that's it! Thanks for all the great games, CP!
). Getting the Diplo win was harder as many AI didn’t like me enough and would abstain from the Diplo vote. As the saying goes, the fifth times a charm. 
I finally won a Diplo victory in 1720 AD. I was getting worried as the AI were cranking out space ship parts left and right.
. I spam chariots and raze one of his cities. However, he won't make peace unless I give up my second city. At first he is attacking with archers and I am holding my own, but eventually he brings swords and spears. With no copper, I can't fight them off. I research Alpha and trade for iron, but it is not in my second city's borders. Qin won't take Alpha for peace. I give up, simply can't see how to fight him off without metal.
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The GA was from Taj Mahal, I took Nationalism from Liberalism.
Okay he is a bit more advanced than Qin. 
I made armies and decided to attack those horseless cowboys. I attacked them after they completed plantations, because I lacked some techs.
