It's a very nice challenge. I managed it in 1888 on a standard size continents map at prince level, epic speed. 2 AI's had built the Apollo program, but no spaceship components were built. Hathseputh missed a Diplomatic victory by 40 out of about 950 votes. I shudder at the tought of trying 18 civs.
I used Elizabeth (fin/phi). I had 3 inland riverside cities but without enough food to get much past size 10. My largest city was size 13. The general area had far too many plains. The alternative would be jungle however. That would have been more difficult early on but much better later.
I was able to found confucianism and islam and win the liberalism, music and economics race. You can't really keep up after that with only 3 cities.
I shared a continent with Tokugawa, Mansa, and Suryavarman. Mansa and Toku were well to the south, but Surya was pushed away in a crescent shaped area to the north of me with lots of tundra. He had six cities, of wich 2 were revolting all the time. He would declare war 4 times. He was easily driven off, but caused problems sabotaging improvements. It was a good thing I had built far more improvements than I could work.
I managed to keep Mansa and Toku happy even tough they hated each other:
Mansa by trading techs, and Toku by giving in to all his demands, and bribing him to go to war against Surya. I Think a lucky random event, giving a +3
boost with Toku helped a lot.
The other continent was all buddhist, and had Hathseputh, washington and Augustus Caesar, with Hathseputh and Washington with a clear tech lead over anyone else. Eventually everyone would go to war against Toku who did manage to defend himself!
London 412 culture, 85000 total
- Stonehenge
- Oracle (code of laws)
- Parthenon
- Great Library
- Sixtine chapel (very important)
- University of Sankore
- Heroic Epic
- National Epic
York 537 culture, 75000 total
confucian shrine
3 cathedrals
1 settled great artist
1 great work
Nottingham 489 culture, 76000 total
3rd city
hermitage
2 more cathedrals (never got christianity or judaism)
spiral minaret
2 settled great artists
2 great works
Important points:
You want good production everywhere. You need this for all the buildings and also for military. Enough food will be harder to find than 4 hills.
The national epic should go in a city that only has artist wonders. I generated far too many prophets and scientists. only 6 out of 17 were Artists. The heroic epic can go in the best production spot wich is likely the capital.
Your military teching will likely stop at riflemen and maybe cavalry, so England is very good.
Pacifism is a good wartime civic for this. If you are spiritual you can switch between organized religion for buildings and pacifism for generating GP's while building troops. If not spiritual you should think very carefully about when to switch.
It's important to build courthouses and buildings that produce espionage, and
perform regular counterespionage missions when some is at war with you, or if you detect spying.
