This is probably going to turn into a lament rather than anything else, but it seems I underestimated the power of some horrible stability-destroying factor, probably the ability for expansion to hurt. (This and I probably didn't use my civic very wisely. I was afraid of anarchy.) Essentially, my problem is that the Spanish Empire fell apart in 1675 A.D. into about 30 different little barbarian pieces.
Although, I don't know how to make any screenshots, I'll try to describe my situation. Prior to my collapse, I had conquered Rome, Constantinople, Per-Wadget, some barbarian city near Morocco, Aksum, the Egyptian capital, Ciudad de Mexico, an Aztec city just above Ciudad de Mexico, Nueva Orleans, Cayenne (I think it was supposed to represent French Guyana), Tikal, Chitzen Itza, and four Incan cities. I had also gone on a war against France (in order to win UHV) which had lasted about 12 turns. I managed to take Paris, Bordeos, and Marseilles (I forget the Spanish spelling.) I also burned Aix-la-Chappelle and was about to take Palermo from the French (they captured it early on from the Romans). Besides this, I built Montevideo, Caracas, another city right near the end of Brazil, and one final city to the SW of the Egyptian capital. I also controlled four cities in Spain proper.
I'm aware that this is a lot, but I had grown my cities very well. I had built at least a dozen courthouses (perhaps as many as 6 more), a half a dozen jails, the Summer Palace, and two wonders. I developed my cities so that my total population was nearly 30,000,000, and my approval rating was 62%. Three quarters of my cities had populations higher than 10. At least a quarter had a population above 14. I was the most technologically advanced nation in the world, having at least a half dozen techs more than my biggest tech rival. I was even playing the easy difficulty of viceroy.
My civics were universal suffrage (I transitioned from heredity rule more than 15 turns ago), emancipation, decentralization, resettlement, free speech, and free religion. I guess my biggest flaw here was not choosing to go for occupation. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that occupation was a temporary benefit or one only lasting as long as it was enacted. I used resettlement because I assumed that any city gained by any format that was more than 15 tiles away would count.
Anyway, I am kind of disappointed since I'm the kind of guy that spends 3-5 minutes just deciding the perfect spot for a settler. I took three days just to get this far, and I endured three days of nagging from my parents to do my chores. Since I don't think I'll have the time to play this game much longer since I have to prepare for the beginning of the new school year, I at least want this question answered: what was my fatal flaw? My hypothesis is that overexpansion plus poor use of civics did me in.
Edit: Note, I was playing the vanilla version.
Although, I don't know how to make any screenshots, I'll try to describe my situation. Prior to my collapse, I had conquered Rome, Constantinople, Per-Wadget, some barbarian city near Morocco, Aksum, the Egyptian capital, Ciudad de Mexico, an Aztec city just above Ciudad de Mexico, Nueva Orleans, Cayenne (I think it was supposed to represent French Guyana), Tikal, Chitzen Itza, and four Incan cities. I had also gone on a war against France (in order to win UHV) which had lasted about 12 turns. I managed to take Paris, Bordeos, and Marseilles (I forget the Spanish spelling.) I also burned Aix-la-Chappelle and was about to take Palermo from the French (they captured it early on from the Romans). Besides this, I built Montevideo, Caracas, another city right near the end of Brazil, and one final city to the SW of the Egyptian capital. I also controlled four cities in Spain proper.
I'm aware that this is a lot, but I had grown my cities very well. I had built at least a dozen courthouses (perhaps as many as 6 more), a half a dozen jails, the Summer Palace, and two wonders. I developed my cities so that my total population was nearly 30,000,000, and my approval rating was 62%. Three quarters of my cities had populations higher than 10. At least a quarter had a population above 14. I was the most technologically advanced nation in the world, having at least a half dozen techs more than my biggest tech rival. I was even playing the easy difficulty of viceroy.
My civics were universal suffrage (I transitioned from heredity rule more than 15 turns ago), emancipation, decentralization, resettlement, free speech, and free religion. I guess my biggest flaw here was not choosing to go for occupation. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that occupation was a temporary benefit or one only lasting as long as it was enacted. I used resettlement because I assumed that any city gained by any format that was more than 15 tiles away would count.
Anyway, I am kind of disappointed since I'm the kind of guy that spends 3-5 minutes just deciding the perfect spot for a settler. I took three days just to get this far, and I endured three days of nagging from my parents to do my chores. Since I don't think I'll have the time to play this game much longer since I have to prepare for the beginning of the new school year, I at least want this question answered: what was my fatal flaw? My hypothesis is that overexpansion plus poor use of civics did me in.
Edit: Note, I was playing the vanilla version.