No Military Resources, How would you play?

[aronnax]

Found a religion, spread it to everyone, pray for peace till feudalism

 

[cabert]

Found a religion, spread it to everyone, pray for peace till feudalism

that's what I did for my latest cultural win (emperor level, standard sized fractal map, epic speed , playing Spain)

I founded buddhism, spread it like plague to my neighbours.
Guess who those neighbours were?
- alexander : the most famous backstabber around
- tokugawa : the closed borders guy
- frederick : the Rexing guy.

At the time when I discovered copper, It was already under AI control.
At the time whe I traded for IW, it was already under AI control.
I managed to get horses (and stone) with a remotely good city. But freddie's culture took my pigs, making this city totally .

In the meantime I had built stonehenge and oracle and earned a very early prophet that I used to build the shrine. Buddhism wasn't widespread at this time, but the shrine (and monastery and temple ) helped a lot in the automatic spread = buddhism became the official religion of everyone around, except Mansa Musa (who was a bit further away and had founded hinduism).
My few cities (4) were defended by warriors mostly and 1 chariot in the stone/horse city (barb city next door).

In this situation, I didn't face a single attack for the first 5800 years.
I built up culture and got myself 2 other cities, then flipped a 7th one (with forbidden palace in it ). This city was offered to me with 2 LB, who were my best defenders .
Then, just after Alexander signs a defensive pact with me, Saladin (the other continent was Mao + saladin) lands cavalries and cannons next to the ex-german city, defended by 2 LB. I quickly moved the chariots, catapults, warriors and trebuchets into the city to defend it (while culture was piling up, I didn't have astronomy to strike back anyway, so purely defensive war).
I $rushed muskets (the best I could do!) and catapults (colateral damage!!!), killed the invaders (at a high price but who cares?), then lived with galleons and frigates cruising along my coasts and destroying my food and commerce (I had the colossus, that's why I didn't care for astronomy in the first place ).
This stinky war made me finish in the late 19th century but alexander never backstabbed me , in fact he helped me out .
Then Mao and Toku dogpiled on... saladin. Too late to matter, but still !
Nice to have toku on my side