With Alex and Augustus as neighbours, we were sadly lacking in one department... Religion. The original plan was to research CoL, bulb Philo for Taoism. However that turned out to be unneeded as I managed to score Confucianism. Philo was bulbed nonetheless but Taoism was unneeded. Later in the game I got a prophet as well for the shrine.
And Al decided to start up a war in 1 AD. Augustus is the victim.
All is well. Alex and Augustus get in a couple of wars but that was almost expected because of their peaceweight difference. I tech Aesthetics, even get the free GA from Music - because I could get away with that diversion! Meanwhile, I went on a wonderspamming spree. If you get the mids you might as well get the Parthenon and the Great Library as well, Angkor Wat + obelisks, the University of Sankore, and more. Basically I just wonderspammed because everything ran well in this game, did not need military except a small border force in case Alex tries something funny. AC & Alex join the happy Confucian club as well, though Alex later converted to Taoism. Bulbed Edu, got Nationalism for the Taj, then beat everyone to Lib.
However as I've just discovered gunpowder Alex suddenly declares war on me out of nowhere - no WHEOOH, maybe 1-2 turns or something like that. Must be the dagger strategy mentioned somewhere in Dan's thread. I abuse spiritual once again as I change into slavery, whip a castle and several muskets. Alex takes forever to take down Alexandria's defenses...
... and when he finally did take them down he lacked the common sense to not attack a city on a hill across a river.
So peace was declared again before I was ready again to take Alex out.
I discover the other continent. It's much more advanced though at that time still behind me. We have Charle, Bull and Mao in a not-so-happy Buddhist club (Mao declared on Bull once I believe) and Asoka as the lone Hindu, despised by everybody, with bad land and down a city because of Charle.
I plan war against Alex as soon as rifling is discovered. I changed to Nationhood (Spiritual FTW!), drafted an army, bribed Alex into war against AC to get his stack out of the way and several turns later declared on Alex himself. He went down relatively quickly, having lost his SoD and lacking troops able to stand up against rifles & cannons. After that I simply passed by the rebuild period after a war and declared on Augustus straight away. His SoD was done away with easily and thus we could take over Roman lands as well.
Unfortunately, by the time I was grinding Augustus both HRE and China took off in research. I found myself going from a situation where I had Nationalism and Astronomy on everybody and was ahead, to a situation where I was out of trade options and several crucial techs (Physics, Railroad, even AL!) behind. Damned Immortal research bonus! Frankly, Augustus didn't put up much of a fight after I had done away with his SoD outside Pharsalos, but it still took a lot of time to get to the last cities and mop up all the remnants of the Roman army.
After defeating Augustus I was hopelessly behind. Charlemagne already had Radio and Combustion, Mao was far ahead as well and Bull/Asoka were so far behind they did not matter anymore - underlined even more because Mao took out Bull around this time and Charle would later declare on and vassalize Asoka as well. I managed to kick the economy a gear or two higher with two consecutive GA's, State Property and US/Free Speech. Alex and Augustus had left a lot of matured towns behind, and those around Heliopolis/Thebes were by now fully matured as well.
Yet that was still not enough. There was only one option: Internet to the rescue! A straight beeline to Computers was in order here.
And when the Internet came in, I went from this...
to this. And all of a sudden I was tech leader again and a few crucial techs in the space race ahead.
A little scare in 1876 AD: Aachen achieved legendary culture. Gah! Did Charlemagne go cultural while I wasn't paying attention???
Of course not. It turned out he had simply wonderspammed in Aachen.
1896 AD: Egypt launches. Charle did not stand a chance post-Internet. At that point, he still didn't have Fusion or Genetics.
And so, in 1908 AD:
Time played: little over 5 hours. I know that's not going to be a speed record, though.
Why I think the map was (too) easy:
-No fast techers with land. Asoka generally techs fast but he got bad luck from the map generator and trouble with Charlemagne, plus he made a poor diplo choice by holding on to Hindu while Charle/Mao/Bull were Buddhists. Augustus can tech fast as well but he was warring with Alex for a large part of the game. That made it easy for me because both of them were stuck with medieval units against rifles and cannons - for the entire length of the war.
-Good land available. Jungle hampered both Alex and Augustus in their initial settling, leaving more good sites for us. If there was no jungle I would not have been able to settle Alexandria and Pi-Ramesses as easily as happened here.
-Conflict. As mentioned before, whenever the AI's are warring tech rate slows down and helps the human. There was no Happy Peaceful Monoreligious continent, or a continent dominated by peaceful AI's.
-Luck. I got lucky that Alex decided to take on the much more powerful Augustus instead of me. Not that I didn't have a backup plan (that would involve fortifying Alexandria just like I did in the game). When Alex did decide to attack I already had Engineering and Gunpowder and could keep him out with ease. Same for having relatively easy-to-handle AI's in the game. I can only imagine how this game would've gone with Mansa Musa instead of Bull.
-The Internet. The AI REALLY does not value this project enough, nor know how to use it or what its effects are. If I was Charle I would've teched to Computers to keep it from falling into Hatty's hands.
-And of course, playing Hatty. If the map is with you and you've got a strong leader nothing should stand in your way.
