How was it ever possible to win military victories (Domination or Conquest) without dying of boredom before Vassal States were introduced?
I just enjoy the play of the game.
In my current game, it looks like I am going to take my first game loss in the two dozen plus games that I have played. I had a bad start (lots of desert and mountain country). Then my religion, Hindu, looked like it would be dominant but, over a half dozen turns or so, everyone else switched to Buddhist. I was quite willing to switch but I did not have any Buddhist cities. Then to top it off, our favorite Aztec DoWed me. Since I was playing for a peaceful victory in this game, I did not have a huge army and had to switch my economy to military production. By the time I had fixed his wagon for him, I was two cities and a big army richer but way the heck behind everyone else in Tech.
I finally got Buddhist religion by founding two small cities, with little future capabilities, on the edge of the desert adjacent to the capital. One of them popped Hindu but the other popped Buddhist. After that, I was able to endear myself to most of the AIs, instead of being the "heathen" that they all loved to hate. However, by then I was so far behind in Tech that I rarely got one that anyone was willing to trade for. Despite devoting all my resources to teching like mad (to the extent where I typically take only five or six turns to get a new tech), I am so far behind that each new tech just shows me another two or three that everyone else already has.
It has been quite apparent for a looong time that Washington is going to win the game. He has an enormous tech lead over everyone, with Mansa a distant second. The two of them are neck and neck in military but way ahead of anyone else. Since they are best buddies, I can't incite them to attack each other. As far as me attacking them, they are both on the other side of the continent, playing on a Huge map, with several other Civs in between us. Besides that they are using Mech infantry and tanks, while I only have infantry and artillery. Washington is over half way to the Space Race victory and is UN head, which he built. The only question is which victory he wins.
However, I am playing the game out because I enjoy the playing of it. My goal is now to see how much I can improve my position before the game ends. I have moved up from second last in score to fourth place and am looking to take over the only well developed Barbarian city that remains, in a few turns. I also plan to do what I can to cream Saladin, since he DoWed on me, much to his disadvantage. He is on a different continent and I saw his fleet coming. I managed to get a Defense Pact with Washington and Rome the turn before he DoWed. Then I was able to bribe the #3 military power, Isabella to DoWed on him. It also helped that he made the typical brilliant AI move of landing his invading force next to the city where my army that had finished off Monty was quartered. The invaders never got to do anything except land.
I could ramble on but the point is that I am enjoying the game, even though I know I will lose. Also everything takes forever because I forgot that the reason I had only played one Huge map before is that my computer bogs down really slow with Huge maps. Despite that I am enjoying it, although I will remember no huge maps in the future!
PS This is my first game at Prince. For my next try at Prince I will use a smaller map.