Well this was wretched opening. Bear ate my warrior ... on a hill. No worries, second warrior finds bronze (teched food -> BW), fortifies on a woody hill near the bronze, and dies to an archer. I burn 4 turns playing dodge the barbs with the settler before I can get the city up ... and finally meet China the turn I found the city. Well that sucks, if I had known there was another civ up there (I think China had their scouts get eaten), I'd have blocked Rome and pounded north.
War with Rome goes pretty well, I storm the cap with a heap of axes right as Rome gets IW (rather early). Whatever, I crush rome, burn the Fe mines, and take all but one of their cities. Peace is made for all the backfill techs. 12 turns later Rome is dead.
Cities are mainly running cottages and cranking out units (axes, hwachas, swords, and the odd pike).
China has loads of territory and I make slow progress; about half of China is in my grasp when the idiots get machinery (no CS). So my hwacha losses mount and I slowly kill them off on the mainland (if I had known about the islands I'd have beelined Feudalism to leave them the islands and gotten the rewards of vassalhood).
In the mid 1200s I meet England (massively more advanced) and Egypt (more advanced). I'm in a bit of trouble because I've adopted Tao. But I have the mids (free HR), the GW, and SH (thanks Rome). I make peace with China for an island city and some weak techs (screwy peace resolution systems prevents me from extorting all their techs like I want). I leave a city open hoping England will settle so I can shamelessly steal everything, no dice it gets settled by Egypt.
Two quick wars with galley born troops kills off China (Eman happiness is hitting early, England circumnavigates and gets lib). I cottage pretty much everything and just opt for a tech to space after meeting an oversized Incan Empire, and find that the Turks are poor benighted vassals. Vicky has taken about 1/3rd of the land on the other side of the world and has cottaged it up massively. The Egyptians are down to 5 mainland cities and keep playing the let's be vassals, no let's not game with England. The Inca are large and like the English. I, unfortunately, have no real trading options and spend most of my time getting key techs like PP, lib, RP (for my masses of WMs), and chemistry. I get a chance to trade at biology and get what I can (out towards demo) and then run out to Electricity (UN was already built by Egypt, England is researching computers), and thence to superconductors. Once I rushbuy mass labs I start pounding down the tech tree. I have a bit of a hairy time when HC declares; but CGIII/DI grenades let me throw back his cannons + rifles + infantry (low promos).
During one of the bouts of Egyptian fortitude they also get ready to declare war on me with infantry/bombers/arty ... all of which die to massed CGIII/DI MGs. I'm really racing England to space and this is a distraction, I fail to take the Egyptian colony due to the UN ending the war (and me not wanting to fight defiance anger). I eventually take over the UN and vote in environmentalism (Vicky is using multiple corps and I have Mining Inc.) my mass of WMs offsets the more expensive corps costs, running SE/CreCon/AlCo guts her economy. I push out to fusion, burning my second GA (the first being a GA used for the flip to US/FS/Merc/FR); I start Manhattan in one of my stronger
cities and send a chariot, transport, and two subs, off to get into nuke razing position. I miss the GE from fusion (which costs me a 3rd GA) and beat the English to both Genetics and Environmentalism - but not be enough as AI bonuses let them launch two turns before I'm ready; also Egpyt is about 7 turns away from winning a cultural victory.
So I keep building spaceship parts, turn off my research and start building tac nukes and ICBMs (HE and IW can each drop a tac nuke per turn).
War is first declared against egypt, six ICBMs glass all his cottages and the culture threat moves out to 30+ turns away. HC declares on me, 3 ICBMs into his cap (to kill the stack) convinces him to make peace. I ship 6 tac nukes to london, load them onto subs, and then wait a year ... to nuke London and raze it to the ground with a hastily deleted chariot. England is on future tech II, I think, but hasn't gotten SDI, so I just keep tossing ICBMs and HC eventually declares. It does matter as the English are so much more advanced that they decon their land and build mass WS/farms that they start taking Incan territory.
Mistakes made:
Basically I played the whole game at an information handy cap and never got out of it. Getting into a no partner situation with England in such a dominant position was also almost the kiss of death. Nukes + rushbuy can save a myriad of games and that was certainly the case here.
