(0) 1500 AD
In case anyone has forgotten our 6-religion empire, here's an overview:
And our finances:
I copy pindicator's suggested specializations for my own reference:
Madrid: Population/Specialists
Barcelona: Finance
Cordoba: Commerce
Santiago: Production
Toledo: Production
Murcia: Commerce
Salamanca: Production
Seville: Production
Valencia: Commerce
I rename the cities with a (P) or a (C) after them to denote Production or Commerce. Feel free to change them back (by clicking on the city name in the city screen) if you hate this, but it makes it infinitely more easy for me.
Quick note about cities focused on Commerce. Building Markets, Grocers, and Banks has almost
no benefit if we're running a high Science rate, as those improvements only increase the gold after the percentage is applied.
Research boosters should be the first priority for the "Commerce" towns. As such, I change many Markets to Monasteries, on the theory that +10% of 80% is better than +25% of 20% (8% vs. 5%).
We have the Jewish and Confucianism Shrines built, both are in Barcelona. This makes Barcelona the exception to the above rule, as Shrine income comes in directly as gold, and thus gets multiplied by Banks and Markets, having never gone through the percentage cut between Research and Gold.
I look around try and determine how we might win this game.
- Histographic: Maybe. We're ahead in points, so it is not ruled out, however painful it might be.
- Cultural: No. We lack a decent third city to make three 50k cities very unlikely.
- Spaceship: Maybe. Never rule this one out, its always an option. This is probably the only option we could lose by.
- Domination: No. Very unlikely given our current 18.5% of the needed 64% land requirement, and the fact our military is ranked #6.
- Conquest: No. Same as above.
- Diplomatic: ...
Yes? Here's one where we have a decisive ability, and is likely the fastest win. We already have 3 other civs sharing our state religion. And I think Cyrus (Persia) can be converted as well. Having many cities with the same state religion is a sure-fire way to get a +4 to +7 diplomatic boost. This should be enough to get votes for Diplomatic victory on Noble. The risk is having everyone go Free Religion before the vote.
Thus, in the interest of winning the game (per the title of the game), I plan to send as many Jewish Missionaries as the National Unit limit (only 3 missionaries of one type allowed) will allow to other nations to gain favor with them now, and to gain their votes later.
Unbelievably, Mass Media (required to build the U.N.) is
only 6 techs away!
- Astronomy in 12
- Scientific Method in 14
- Physics in 18
- Electricity in 23
- Radio in 23
- Mass Media in 21
Of course, that sort of bee-line is something I've never considered doing (or heard of) in Civ4. But its out there!
111 turns of research, then around 20 turns to build the U.N., and then around 6 turns to get voted in... that would leave us with 83 turns to go. Let's see if we can beat that (ridiculous) mark by researching techs that make us research and build faster.
(1) 1505 AD
We learn Guilds. Very intersting research choices:
Nationalism has the Hermitage National Wonder for +100% culture in one city, and the Taj Mahal Wonder for a free golden age, but it is a very large Wonder to build.
Education for the University to speed up our research, but they are not small improvements to build.
Astronomy for the obvious reason that its one step closer to victory, and also has the Observatory for more research boost.
And of course, Gunpowder for better defense.
But I must select Banking for 50% gold boosting Banks, which we'll need to get building if we want Wall Street as soon as possible.
Barcelona: Confucian Missionary -> Grocer in 6 for the +25% on the city's 32 base gold (will add +8 gold/turn!)
Seville: Jewish Missionary -> Conquistador in 4 to improve our defenses while waiting for a Jewish Missionary to be used up (we're at the limit).
Cyrus (Persia) builds the Hagia Sophia Wonder (+50% worker improvements).
We add Confucianism to Seville with a Missionary.
I catch the two other Jewish Missionaries on auto-move to Victoria's heavily Taoist lands, and divert them to Cyrus, who I think is both bigger and easier to convert.
(2) 1510 AD
Arbela (Persian) has Judaism added to it (had Taoism). I thus start a new Jewish Missionary at Seville, putting the Conquistador on hold.
(3) 1515 AD
Salamanca: Barracks -> Conquistador in 8. We're way behind in military, want to stave off an invasion from Tokugawa.
Toledo: Jewish Monastery -> Conquistador in 5.
(4) 1520 AD
We learn Banking. I start Replaceable Parts in 8, as I think we need better tiles than we do more buildings to build.
Seville: Jewish Missionary -> Resumes Conquistador in 3.
Cordoba: Confucian Monastery -> Resumes Market in 7.
(5) 1525 AD
Victoria wants us to cancel Open Borders with China. But we'd much rather make her mad than China, as she isn't voting for us at the moment anyway.
Santiago: Confucian Monastery -> Confucian Missionary in 3.
We add Judaism to the Persian capital of Persepolis, which was previously Taoist.
We add Judaism to Parsargadae (Persian), which was Islamic.
Cyrus now has one religion in his 3 biggest cities, with another few Missionaries incoming. Hopefully, he'll switch soon, but he's not Spiritual, so it would come at a cost. We need to make it worthwhile.
(6) 1530 AD
BOOYEAH 
So now the world religious scene looks like this:
After we solidify Cyrus a bit more, lets try for Victoria, on a whim.
Qin Shi Huang (China) is the
first to discover Liberalism (and thus get the free technology). He took Astronomy. So he's up Education, Liberalism, and Astronomy. We are unable to do any tech trading. Perhaps a little more Judaism would soften them up!
(7) 1535 AD
Barcelona: Grocer -> Bank in 9. The Grocer was a 9 gold/turn boost, the Bank should be double that, and allow us to run 100% science.
Seville: Conquistador -> Jewish Missionary in 2.
(8) 1540 AD
Cyrus, now our Jewish buddy, comes asking for Printing Press out of the kindness of our hearts. Well if he think he's our buddy now, wait until we convery
all of his cities. His request is denied.
Toledo: Conquistador -> Jewish Missionary in 2.
Santiago: Confucian Missionary -> Confucian Missionary in 3.
We successfully add Confucianism to Toledo (had Judaism and Islam).
(9) 1545 AD
Seville: Jewish Missionary -> Confucian Missionary in 2.
Susa (Persian) is now a follower of Judaism, in addition to already-present Confucianism (A Spanish two-for-one!). Thats four Persian cities. Its time to focus on Victoria (England) next.
(10) 1550 AD
Toledo: Jewish Missionary -> Confucian Monastery in 3, for research boost and the day when we're not running Organized Religion.
Murcia: Library -> Jewish Monastery in 10.
I put the Jewish Missionary from Toledo in the Galley, bound for Cologne. The Galley can go into Cologne, unload the Missionary, and convert the city all next turn.
And the resulting finances:
33% more beakers. Go Monasteries (and being able to go up to 90% research due to Grocer and more converted cities). The financial goal for the next 10 turns should be the Bank in Barcelona and more Judaism and Confucianism, gaining us at least +15 gold/turn, allowing us to run 100% science.
Other notes:
- Confucianism for our towns.
- Judaism for Victoria next.
- Then
more Judaism for everyone else, so that they start loving us.
- Continue specialization of towns. I went pretty hard-core on the plan when it came to tile improvement and city MM. If you see a crazy city MM assignment, blame the specialization.
- Monasteries for Commerce (C) towns (and some of the coastal (P) towns).
- Conquistadors and Missionaries from Production (P) towns.
- Replaceable parts in 2: that means Lumbermills! (and those Windmills get +1 hammer) The capital is most in need of those Lumbermills, but Toledo needs 4 of them as well.
- Hopefully we can trade Replaceable parts for Education and Gunpowder from Qin Shi Huang and Victoria.
- There are two cities within 2 population of their happiness limit. But we haven't even tried to build all the temples we have available, so I was making our cities grow as much as I could. I think we should have no city with less than a 2 food surplus, and preferrably 4 or 5 where we can.
And a minimap:
--- The Save ---
Roster:
This one confuses me, I'm going to let LK tell us what it is.
I played just before ThERat did! 
) I was tempted to build in Madrid. But Barcelona is the town built for producing wealth, so I built the Great Temple there first.
