Why is everybody mentioning Chinese? I never saw them..
1635 Dom...Asterix just beat me date wise. Actually though I was going for score and made the usual mistake I make near the end by settling some cities without checking the land %. I flipped Dom the turn before taking Mansa's last two cities, including a very large Tim. Scores seem smaller on Vanilla. I expected to finish later in the 17th with more pop. Ofc, I expect the usual suspects will somehow win 1AD Conquest or 600AD Domination.
Yep, Cathy was very large in my game. I waited until the usual Cav before attacking anyone. Cathy actually DOW'd on me after I took one of the last French cities near her borders. I knew she was in WHEOORN, but surprised she attack me really - my power was astronomically larger than hers despite how big her empire. I was just about to attack her anyway and ships were on the way, including the force already there. I bribed in Monty, what little good that did and then attack him not long after to kill a galley with a settler coming my way.
Basically just a slog through a very large Russia (didn't bother with siege). Cathy finally got Knights about midway through the war and they are actually a pain despite the Cav superiority, simply because they get behind you and make you worry about defending captured cities. Monty was a bit easier (left him with one heavily culture pressed city next to Capac, one of his flipped).
Healed a bit and set a large stack over to Mansa to take him out completely. Best he had was Muskets/Pikes. His cities fell easily and Frigs help bombard. OFc, I didn't finish him off due to stupidity.
Blew the AIs away in tech. Capac had Constitution near the end and DR, ofc, but otherwise I had a very strong tech lead.
Capac was darnn near useless. I really wanted to kill him. For some reason he's really stingy on vanilla and can't be bribed into wars unless Friendly. I always stayed 1 point from friendly with him, but hilariously the turn he actually got to +10 he begged Rep Parts which I declined.
Interestingly, it appears you can access all AIs with galleys. If I'd known that, I might have changed my strategy.
I did take 2 barb cities on the lone island and settled one city at the end. Another settler just arrived but did not get a chance. Barbs were pretty hairy on that island.
Fun game and pretty brutal for Monarch, although I always feel deficient when playing sub-BTS.
War weariness is just ridiculous on Vanilla.
. Around 1000 AD the French Empire was dead! One more Barb city and another founded: 13 or 14 cities in this continent! 
! So I tried Diplo with mistakes. It took a long time to meet the others AI's and stay friends. In fact, I don't know how to maintain the right contact to have the votes... Just before the building of The United Nations, I made the worst mistake of this game: a contact with Mansa Musa. This affected the Diplo: -4 with all other Empires for traded with the worst enemy 
. In the first election all voted in Cathy...![[pissed]](/images/smilies/pissed.gif "Pissed [pissed]")
...
)! Definitively I have much to learn!!! 
. I never pillaged. He had some good RNG. However, Louis never got to know LB's.
, as evidence to my poor scouting. I did send a WB that way once, but I think it died to a barb galley. At that point I was focused on setting up to eliminate Louis and I had met all the others AIs. The Chinese leader must have been pinned in with a long war, although it is odd he did not get a wb up my way.
