Open accidental Domination victory, 1870. 4928 Firaxis, 4970 Jason. Not too bad for my first real Emperor game.
I was last to MA in 340AD ?!?, and at least half an Age behind the other continent. Being this far behind, I figured my only shot at victory was to take over my continent militarily, and hope the size advantage could be worked to overcome the deficit. Allied with Iros v. Zulu, and once I got swords in numbers in the late AA it was all but over for the Zulu. They were beaten back to the mountains when Sams came in, and it went very quickly from there. Iros were mad that they'd marched a stack of 40+ longbows all the way to Zulu capital, redlined the last defender, and ended up with nothing to show for it. I let them get their stacks retreated back through the main jungle/mountain area then went on offense with Sams and cats. Held on to one city by the skin of my teeth on their counterattack, when one lone archer took out three attacking LBs!
They had a few muskets right at the beginning, but the proximity of their saltpeter to my border meant that didn't last long. Paid India to join in, and they got everyone else allied. I never did see any other civ's units in this war, but it helped that they weren't selling Iro's resources. I got SEVEN leaders during the end of the Zulu war and the first 10-15 turns of the Iro war, but really had nothing I could usefully rush besides an FP, which I established in the (for the moment) heavily jungled area between the two rivers in the 'hub' of our continent. I think this was a good location for the FP, as I got many productive cities around the outside of the hub, and had enough captured workers that the jungle clearing didn't take too long (helped to have the nicely timed GA). Did rush the Pentagon and Historic Epic. However, these were to be the last leaders I got throughout the entire rest of the game, even being at war from 1700 - 1870 straight.
Research wise I was 300 years or so behind the other continent on getting to IA, and they wouldn't sell me many techs at all. My economy wasn't very strong until early in the IA. Should have had tighter city placement and more cities I think. Iros were down to their capital, 3 cities on the far end of the pennisula, and 5 cities on the NE island as I neared end of MA. I wanted to make peace, since Republic WW was catching up to me, but held off a few turns til I could hit IA and got an IA tech and an island city for peace, hitting IA around 1220. Either got steam and bought medicine or vice versa, don't recall, but started in immediately at full science on Sanitation, which no one had. My gamble paid off, and I sold sanitation to everyone at full price
Others went for US, leaving me to get ToE without much trouble. Sold off AT and Electronics to get almost entirely caught up in tech, with Korea 1 ahead.
When peace with Iros expired, I finished them off. France never really got off the ground, maybe 8 cities at their peak, most of which ended up Korean blue. Rome was very large at one point but collapsed in the face of Korean and Indian aggression. By the time I had my continent and NE isle to myself (1500?), it was clear it was going to come down to me v. Korea. They got computers as their free tech, so I went for rocketry, hoping to beat them to a space race, which I'd decided on for my victory condition. Then they picked up Fission, and wouldn't trade either for anything I could give and I got worried.
I had a bunch of leftover military (mostly cavs & a few inf) from Iro war, and I'd decided to throw them at China's relatively lightly defended eastern coast to 1) reduce excess antiquated unit costs w/o disbanding, while picking up something positive and 2) securing rubber source. So I took China's easternmost city and Hangchow on south-central coast for that Ivory (lux had been a problem). Then I wanted to steal tech from Korea. I figured it'd be safer if I had a spy, so I tried to plant one. No dice. They declared. Crap.
At this point the power bar showed me at 40%, Korea at 40% and India and China splitting the remainder. I was worried, but I had one advantage: I'd never sold anyone coal, so only India had any rails at all. Tanks with 50 bombers in support took out Korea easily but slowly. I got India in with me, and really wanted to make peace after the 20 turn alliance was up, if only Wang would give me
one tech! But no! He'd rather be pounded into oblivion. Oh well, his choice. I was amazed at this though. He went from world superpower to one city challenge, and was still insulted by a peace offer where he gave up any tech at all. I finally gave him space flight for Fission (having bought computers from India) in a false peace deal. Left units in his land, refused to move, he redeclared. He died. [Question: I think false peace is allowed in GOTM, am I right? Seems devious but not exploity, and I didn't care about the rep hit at this point.]
Towards the end of the Korean War I made two mistakes. First, a 100+ year war in Democracy. I was running 50-60% lux with 7 lux resources. Cities mostly weren't in revolt, but I had a lot of entertainers. I didn't really care, as I was still getting all the production I needed for the war and research times weren't much faster with max sci vs. min sci, so I let it go. My democracy was overthrown by the people. Never had that happen before, though I knew it was possible. When specifically does this happen? When the majority of non-specialist citizens are unhappy? Any threads on this? It didn't really hurt me, since I was selected as King the following turn, but still.
Second mistake: I forgot about investigating cities. Once Korea was gone, the only threat I could see to my space win was a possible 20k win from China, which had 4 early wonders in Beijing. Besides Beijing, they had 5 size 1 cities and a size 6 island city, with 1 tile to work, so I figured that almost all of their culture had to be concentrated in Beijing. Eyeballing their culture bar on the histogram, I figured they were in the 25-30k culture range, meaning Beijing had to be near a 20k win. So I destroyed it, and since I was there and it was easy, took the rest of China too. Going back to the saves later, I was very wrong on this. All of their size 1 cities had 2-4000 culture. Must've sold off all their culture buildings just to hold on in the last small war. Beijing, which I was so worried about, was still under 9k!! D'oh!
Thought I was still decently under Dom. limit, but wasn't using any programs to watch that. On my way to space ship (half done) in 1870 when I was surprised to find I won! My highest Firaxis score to date, but thousands of points lower on Jason score than my COTM45. Still, glad to have my first emperor win under my belt!
)
). But fortunately I had leader luck and managed to get Leo's (together with Sistine's) for my golden age.
