I forgot to take screenshots or saves along the way (I never did get around to scouting the entire globe), but I have an immortal cultural win in 1921.
Spoiler :
I opted to try a power tech to Hinduism/Judaism so I moved the settler over the hut (yes cash) and then settled next to the FP/gold. Hinduism is a long shot, it will only work if I manage to have only one financial or religious AI also none of the AI's can have good gold/gem starts. I'm also screwed if anyone goes for Polytheism before meditation.
Worker immediately begins mining gold, city production is set to Stonehenge (I want the GP, hopefully I will get 7-8 over the game, all early). Warrior pops a scout from his first hut, which allows me to not have to worry about spawning massive barbarian hordes.
Hinduism is founded by Saladin in 3600 BC, the Kmer nab meditation in 3440 BC, and we only get polytheism 3240. Well it was a long shot anyways, now on to race towards Judaism. We score Judaism in 2600 and the Greeks bite the dust right about then. In 2360 we finish Stonehenge for an early great prophet points (and culture) and proceed to found our second city, Shanghai off to NW midway between the cows, rice, and gold. Beijing moves on to the Oracle while we research writing; Shanghai makes a warrior and begins a second to get to pop 2, then makes a second settler for our third city. In 1520 the Oracle completes and we elect to receive Code of Laws, religion founded in Shanghai. In 800 we found Guangzhou on the last good set of FP next to the cows we have saved our first GP for this date and pop Theology. Shanghai proceeds to build a settler then a library for the Great Library which will soon be being built. We have been researching Bronze Working (to help build the Temple of Artemis with chops), wheel (trade connections, sailing just isn't happening for a LONG time), and Animal Husbandry. In 750 we complete the Temple of Artemis with just a few mine chops and immediately begin working on the AP. We elect to take Christianity as our state religion as our earlier missionary was placed on fog breaking duty. We also now move into OR (faster buildings, quick missionaries) and slavery (we've been farming floodplains, this isn't rocket science). It has now been confirmed we are going to run towards cultural victory.
Our next city, Nanjing, was founded with the crabs and Marble at the edge of its BFC in 250 AD. The slaves revolt in Beijing, we bribe them and only flog 1 to death. The Great Library is built in 325 AD Shanghai which then proceeds to build monasteries. Beijing is just wonder pumping we build the Golden Pagoda in 125 AD (more priest points) and the Statue of Zues in 475 (AIs tend not to build this till after they get the Parthenon and may not be able to) and the University of Sankore in 940 . Techwise we are running Literature -> Philosophy -> Paper -> Divine Right -> Lib as our preferred course. It was hoped that we'd get a GS to bulb Philo, but the AI elected to make one Priest specialist I missed and we had to settle for building the Church of the Nativity in 175 BC. Guangzhou finishes off Ankor Wat (culture) in 900.
We use Nanjing to found other cities next to the Silver/Wheat, at the west most rive mouth, and in the horse hills (the southern FP/Gold is barb territory and our strongest unit is the mighty Chariot). In 1150 we manage to found Islam in Nanjing, our great people have not been kind to us giving us two GM instead of the much more desirable Great Prophets. We use our first GS to bulb most of Education only to make contact with the Ethiopians (to whom we trade Paper and Philosophy for backfill techs) who then race ahead of us to Education and Liberalism in 1250. In 1300 we finish the Spiral Minaret in Beijing; with our shrine, AP, UoS and SM we finally have a very good economy. If we had gotten any Great Artists we'd have bulbed to Music and gotten the Sistine Chapel for great ownage, but in spite of reasonable chances we get no more GPs until we have no techs to bulb with them (shrine building is decent, at least) and more merchants. The first Ethiopian Galleon scares us, particularly when they drop a settler on our island (on top of the northwest most horses). We quickly drop two wretched filler cities in the north and on the desert isle. We do however get to complete the Master Smith quest and opt for the free GE in Beijing.
We trade with Kmer for machinery (so we can build our UU and take down the barb city with them before the Ethiopians do), unfortunately it appears that they and we are the only non-Hindu states in the world. We give Ethiopia and Arabia buckets of gold, free resources and even Divine Right while we are trying to finish Versaille in Guangzhou. Well at least they don't hate us.
Time for the end push. Our minor cities are whip/chop building temples of our four religions. Beijing spams missionaries trying to get 4 religions to all 10 cities (soon to be 11 with barbs), Nanjing spams our UU and then muskets once we research gunpowder (taking a break whenever we manage to spread a new religion there). We burn a GM on a golden age to enter free speach, Monarchy (on the off chance its someone's fav civic) and caste. This was poorly timed as I had neglected to whip build my Christian temples and monasteries in my final two filler cities - easily 10 turns. Priorities for cathedral equivalents are outside of the capital (which has massive culture from wonderspam) and we load up Shanghai and Guangzhou. Techwise the only things left that are useful (now that Ethiopia has rifles) are Military Tradition (defensive pact), Nationalism (Hermitage) and possibly the constitution -> corporation track. The Hermitage is begun in Guangzhou and Shanghai stops building culture only to get Oxford (it had previously built the Forbidden Palace). Visigoth is captured after the nice Carthagians remove cultural defenses and our UU and muskets take down six longbowmen. Our capital swaps out of cash production (like all of the non-culture cities now) to send missionaries out) and we lower our culture rate down to 90%. Hannibal asks us to fight the Kmer, we join in and stay at war for a few hundred years. This was stupid as it stopped us from getting a good defensive pact.
We end the war with the Kmer right when they begin to burn boats. Unfortunately they demand all our surplus cash and cash per turn and about the same time the emancipation damage to our small cities starts to bite. We had earlier swapped to representation (stupidly for tech when we flipped out of theocracy which was a tribute demand) so we had to drop culture rate while they built pavilions instead of cash.
In 1866 we are about to get thoroughly screwed. Our best targets for a Defensive Pact, Shaka and Hannibal, are still fighting inconclusively against the Kmer. At this fine junction Ethiopia decides to say "hi" with 4 marines in our desert isle filler city. At times like these we are extremely glad that we have all our culture cities safely inland. We gain military science so we can at least build grenadiers if our vote is defied in the Apostolic Palace.
Success the Ethiopians merely vote "No" we want to continue curbstomping these backwards Chinese idiots instead of defying us and having one craptacular city get angry. Thankfully the Kmer finally bite the bullet and capitulate to the Carthagians. This frees us to sign a defensive pact with the Zulus. From here on out we just run 100% culture and vote for Hannibal in the UN. Hannibal rewards us with single currency and environmentalism votes which are carried. Over the last 150 years of the game a number of GA are born which are promptly settled in Guangzhou and Shanghai.
Ethiopia makes the mistake of demanding cash/resource tribute from us, which we pay, gaining 10 turns to win the game (the Ethiopians had completed the Manhattan project and then had a nice bevy of nukes, jets, armor, and mech infantry vs our ... muskets). I might still have won by opting for the "spam loads of crappy units so you get enough turns to win" strategy as they took all my coastal cities, but the AP once again proves it is among the best wonders in the game.
Stupid major mistakes:
1. Not getting the marble online sooner. It was the last area scouted and I should have dumped a city there sooner.
2. Trading with the Kmer. Ethiopia was clear and away the tech leader mid game, so I figured they weren't going to be able to trade as much tech before I could not offer them anything. Unfortunately I had assumed Ethiopia had gotten the tech lead from killing the Greeks, and possibly that there was only one block of countries out there. Unfortunately the world was not shaped that way and because Ethiopia got to the third block first, everyone followed Saladin into Hinduism.
3. Not whip building the wonderful Christian temples/monasteries before swapping to caste.
4. Possibly letting the barb city spawn in the SW corner. I wanted a barb city so I could promote guys to unlock the HE. Which occurred. However, it did block off a good bit of territory when I didn't get machinery before they got went to longbows. What I really wanted was a barb city in the far north.
5. Not getting more workers sooner. I know I wanted to get a large number of wonders, but having only one worker for the first three cities was likely unhelpful. Not having bronze or be willing to research archery, I had to devote the turns I'd normally spend on workers into more warriors for anti-barb defenses.
6. At some point in the late 18th century someone spread Creative Constructions to Guangzhou, and I failed to notice.
So between lousy great people spawns and these I took an easy 1870ish win and made it go to 1921.
Worker immediately begins mining gold, city production is set to Stonehenge (I want the GP, hopefully I will get 7-8 over the game, all early). Warrior pops a scout from his first hut, which allows me to not have to worry about spawning massive barbarian hordes.
Hinduism is founded by Saladin in 3600 BC, the Kmer nab meditation in 3440 BC, and we only get polytheism 3240. Well it was a long shot anyways, now on to race towards Judaism. We score Judaism in 2600 and the Greeks bite the dust right about then. In 2360 we finish Stonehenge for an early great prophet points (and culture) and proceed to found our second city, Shanghai off to NW midway between the cows, rice, and gold. Beijing moves on to the Oracle while we research writing; Shanghai makes a warrior and begins a second to get to pop 2, then makes a second settler for our third city. In 1520 the Oracle completes and we elect to receive Code of Laws, religion founded in Shanghai. In 800 we found Guangzhou on the last good set of FP next to the cows we have saved our first GP for this date and pop Theology. Shanghai proceeds to build a settler then a library for the Great Library which will soon be being built. We have been researching Bronze Working (to help build the Temple of Artemis with chops), wheel (trade connections, sailing just isn't happening for a LONG time), and Animal Husbandry. In 750 we complete the Temple of Artemis with just a few mine chops and immediately begin working on the AP. We elect to take Christianity as our state religion as our earlier missionary was placed on fog breaking duty. We also now move into OR (faster buildings, quick missionaries) and slavery (we've been farming floodplains, this isn't rocket science). It has now been confirmed we are going to run towards cultural victory.
Our next city, Nanjing, was founded with the crabs and Marble at the edge of its BFC in 250 AD. The slaves revolt in Beijing, we bribe them and only flog 1 to death. The Great Library is built in 325 AD Shanghai which then proceeds to build monasteries. Beijing is just wonder pumping we build the Golden Pagoda in 125 AD (more priest points) and the Statue of Zues in 475 (AIs tend not to build this till after they get the Parthenon and may not be able to) and the University of Sankore in 940 . Techwise we are running Literature -> Philosophy -> Paper -> Divine Right -> Lib as our preferred course. It was hoped that we'd get a GS to bulb Philo, but the AI elected to make one Priest specialist I missed and we had to settle for building the Church of the Nativity in 175 BC. Guangzhou finishes off Ankor Wat (culture) in 900.
We use Nanjing to found other cities next to the Silver/Wheat, at the west most rive mouth, and in the horse hills (the southern FP/Gold is barb territory and our strongest unit is the mighty Chariot). In 1150 we manage to found Islam in Nanjing, our great people have not been kind to us giving us two GM instead of the much more desirable Great Prophets. We use our first GS to bulb most of Education only to make contact with the Ethiopians (to whom we trade Paper and Philosophy for backfill techs) who then race ahead of us to Education and Liberalism in 1250. In 1300 we finish the Spiral Minaret in Beijing; with our shrine, AP, UoS and SM we finally have a very good economy. If we had gotten any Great Artists we'd have bulbed to Music and gotten the Sistine Chapel for great ownage, but in spite of reasonable chances we get no more GPs until we have no techs to bulb with them (shrine building is decent, at least) and more merchants. The first Ethiopian Galleon scares us, particularly when they drop a settler on our island (on top of the northwest most horses). We quickly drop two wretched filler cities in the north and on the desert isle. We do however get to complete the Master Smith quest and opt for the free GE in Beijing.
We trade with Kmer for machinery (so we can build our UU and take down the barb city with them before the Ethiopians do), unfortunately it appears that they and we are the only non-Hindu states in the world. We give Ethiopia and Arabia buckets of gold, free resources and even Divine Right while we are trying to finish Versaille in Guangzhou. Well at least they don't hate us.
Time for the end push. Our minor cities are whip/chop building temples of our four religions. Beijing spams missionaries trying to get 4 religions to all 10 cities (soon to be 11 with barbs), Nanjing spams our UU and then muskets once we research gunpowder (taking a break whenever we manage to spread a new religion there). We burn a GM on a golden age to enter free speach, Monarchy (on the off chance its someone's fav civic) and caste. This was poorly timed as I had neglected to whip build my Christian temples and monasteries in my final two filler cities - easily 10 turns. Priorities for cathedral equivalents are outside of the capital (which has massive culture from wonderspam) and we load up Shanghai and Guangzhou. Techwise the only things left that are useful (now that Ethiopia has rifles) are Military Tradition (defensive pact), Nationalism (Hermitage) and possibly the constitution -> corporation track. The Hermitage is begun in Guangzhou and Shanghai stops building culture only to get Oxford (it had previously built the Forbidden Palace). Visigoth is captured after the nice Carthagians remove cultural defenses and our UU and muskets take down six longbowmen. Our capital swaps out of cash production (like all of the non-culture cities now) to send missionaries out) and we lower our culture rate down to 90%. Hannibal asks us to fight the Kmer, we join in and stay at war for a few hundred years. This was stupid as it stopped us from getting a good defensive pact.
We end the war with the Kmer right when they begin to burn boats. Unfortunately they demand all our surplus cash and cash per turn and about the same time the emancipation damage to our small cities starts to bite. We had earlier swapped to representation (stupidly for tech when we flipped out of theocracy which was a tribute demand) so we had to drop culture rate while they built pavilions instead of cash.
In 1866 we are about to get thoroughly screwed. Our best targets for a Defensive Pact, Shaka and Hannibal, are still fighting inconclusively against the Kmer. At this fine junction Ethiopia decides to say "hi" with 4 marines in our desert isle filler city. At times like these we are extremely glad that we have all our culture cities safely inland. We gain military science so we can at least build grenadiers if our vote is defied in the Apostolic Palace.
Success the Ethiopians merely vote "No" we want to continue curbstomping these backwards Chinese idiots instead of defying us and having one craptacular city get angry. Thankfully the Kmer finally bite the bullet and capitulate to the Carthagians. This frees us to sign a defensive pact with the Zulus. From here on out we just run 100% culture and vote for Hannibal in the UN. Hannibal rewards us with single currency and environmentalism votes which are carried. Over the last 150 years of the game a number of GA are born which are promptly settled in Guangzhou and Shanghai.
Ethiopia makes the mistake of demanding cash/resource tribute from us, which we pay, gaining 10 turns to win the game (the Ethiopians had completed the Manhattan project and then had a nice bevy of nukes, jets, armor, and mech infantry vs our ... muskets). I might still have won by opting for the "spam loads of crappy units so you get enough turns to win" strategy as they took all my coastal cities, but the AP once again proves it is among the best wonders in the game.
Stupid major mistakes:
1. Not getting the marble online sooner. It was the last area scouted and I should have dumped a city there sooner.
2. Trading with the Kmer. Ethiopia was clear and away the tech leader mid game, so I figured they weren't going to be able to trade as much tech before I could not offer them anything. Unfortunately I had assumed Ethiopia had gotten the tech lead from killing the Greeks, and possibly that there was only one block of countries out there. Unfortunately the world was not shaped that way and because Ethiopia got to the third block first, everyone followed Saladin into Hinduism.
3. Not whip building the wonderful Christian temples/monasteries before swapping to caste.
4. Possibly letting the barb city spawn in the SW corner. I wanted a barb city so I could promote guys to unlock the HE. Which occurred. However, it did block off a good bit of territory when I didn't get machinery before they got went to longbows. What I really wanted was a barb city in the far north.
5. Not getting more workers sooner. I know I wanted to get a large number of wonders, but having only one worker for the first three cities was likely unhelpful. Not having bronze or be willing to research archery, I had to devote the turns I'd normally spend on workers into more warriors for anti-barb defenses.
6. At some point in the late 18th century someone spread Creative Constructions to Guangzhou, and I failed to notice.
So between lousy great people spawns and these I took an easy 1870ish win and made it go to 1921.
). I built the Hagia Sophia in Guangzhou, which enabled me to get by with fewer workers.
from my matured towns. I went for gunpowder, chem, steel for military protection (I was bottom of the power chart most of the game), then rifling, and then up the guilds/banking line. I was building temples like crazy so I could get all 3 cathedrals in all 3 cities. 
. 
Rut Roh...trouble here.
