Standard Communitas_Tu on Emperor with Portugal. DV on Turn 337.
It was a nail biter of an ending. I needed 44 votes for hegemony, and had exactly 44. But Morocco and I were in a duel to the death over a single CS....both sides throwing GDs and Ambassadors at it like crazy people. It got even crazier when I liberated a civ....which actually increase my votes needed to 45!!!! I quickly killed that civ back, and though the votes didn't go down I did magically pick up an extra vote (not sure how that happened)....so I won with exactly the amount needed.
A few notes:
1) For iteroi....I had one big war with the AI, in which they did a pretty solid naval invasion on the north continent (where Funchal is). A good combination of ships, g guns, and rifleman to push and take territory. Ultimately I had a crazy amount of gguns... so I don't think the siege was ever truly winnable without air support... but the AI did an impressive job with it and it took me a long time to beat it back....costing me one of my key cities for a good long while. Otherwise, no other notable tactical differences.
2) City Governors are still very wonky and I basically do not trust them anymore. I'm not sure what happened a few versions ago but would love a rollback on that code
3) Happiness wise I danced around 50% all game. I had two weird happiness crashes late in the game (like 10 extra unhappiness on my capital of all places out of nowhere)... but I managed to adjust and overcome. This was with a 6 city civ to start, and then expanding to 8 cities later on. Comparing this game to my last few, happiness was generally easier...yet I don't think I really played any differently (same civ, same policies, same general gameplan). In fact, I actually expanded more aggressively in this game than my last two. That's concerning to me, it suggests a bad volatility with the current system. Some games you are in a good place, other games your down in the dumps....with no really good understanding why.
4) I've noted a few specific things in the Deal AI thread....other than the very annoying World Map bug....I feel like the AI starts out alright, offers decent deals. But later in the game the deals go crazy. They want cities from me for a few GPT, they want me to war on a person for 1 GPT, etc.
5) A Communitas_79 note. In all 4 games I tried on this version....I got my own continent with no other civs (and in one case, no other CS either!). That is standard map settings, with low sea levels and circumnavigation on. Also, I still think there is too little coal in general.... I am always swimming in aluminum but I'm always relying on refiners for my coal needs.
6) The Emperor AI was impressively competitive. I got outplayed in a lot of areas, fortunately I managed to sneak in the DV before the science and culture lead of my opponents got too strong. That said, wonders seemed to be going quite late compared to what I'm used to.
7) Tech pace wise.... at the time I won, the top AI had 71 techs so cruising for a victory probably around Turn 370 if they do it right. That's a bit quicker than I am used to seeing for Emperor but its not out of the ballpark either.
8) City Strength seems to be in a decent place. I felt like I can hold my borders but its not automatic either. I do think arsenals are mandatory for any coastal city though in order to keep up.
9)I tried using industry with portugal for the trade bonuses. I want to like industry I really do, but I just never feel like I'm doing as well as compared to taking rationalism or imperialism.
