*Spoiler4* - Gotm20-Spain - End Game Submitted

[smackster]

Middle Ages Post

Industrial Age Post

Lost to Ottoman space victory in 1973, civ score 3247

I have learned so much in this GOTM and for most of the time enjoyed it. I decided the game was over around 1440 as I was so far behind in tech, everyone hated me and didn't have a clue how to come back. I'd like to give Moonsinger my 1440AD .sav and see what she can do

Answer to Cracker Q's

1) In the ancient age I spread out my cities too much, didn't see the choke points north, and was scared of barbarians so built too much defence. Result was I got behind in culture and everything else. In the Middle ages I launched my attacks but probably didn't build enough troops, and then lost 3 cities to culture flips (my cities). The rest was just survival, I always found rubber to trade when I needed it.

2) I didn't play GOTM18 live, I played it in May. That map freaked me out when I first saw it all. Didn't affect me on this one.

3) The RNG led to Ottomans being dominant and I was scared of their UU. Apart from that I don't think the RNG made much difference.

4) I think the Spanish UU is fairly useless, I did get them to cut a few railroads, but not much more, got a GA and saw them all die easily. OK they were slightly good for defending an exposed weak troop in enemy territory.

 

[jeffelammar]

1.21 - Open

Industrial Post

Well this sure has been a roller coaster.
At 1000 BC I thought I was rolling along to an easy victory.

I couldn't see all this in 1000, but relative to the AIs on the home landmass I thought I was set.


As I realized the diplomatic cost of my early betrayals I began to think I was doomed. I also had a suboptimal Forbidden Palace Placement. I placed it on the border with the Ottomans fully intending to conquer them, but I never had the military strength to do so.

As I went through the Industrial ages, I felt that I might be getting back into things and might have a chance.

At the end of the Industrial I had everyone polite to me except the Gracious Celts and Americans, and the Furious Zulu.

After discovering Flight and entering Modern, I set research to max on Fission. I also set Paris (my best production city at 20 pop using all squares) to build a Palace in 11 turns (vrs 10 for the Fission).

Over the next 10 turns I made generous donations to all civs except the Zulu. At this point the Aztecs were attacking America, throwing a kink into my plans.

The way I saw it I had the Americans and Celts in my camp for sure. I knew people hated Shaka, so I was sure that I would win a UN vote. Unfortunately the Aztecs took out America 3 turns before I completed Fission. This made me unsure who would be the 2nd candidate as it put Aztec near Zulu in territory (but probably not population)

I finished Fission, switched Paris from Palace to UN in 1, hit next turn and crossed my fingers.

As hoped Shaka was the opponent, and miracle of miracles everyone voted for me. I had expected at least one abstain or to support Shaka.

I finished with the histograph looking like this.

Firaxis Score 7507
Jason 7640

My first Diety win (haven't played a game other than GOTM in months, so hadn't tried diety recently), and my highest Firaxis score other than my one milked game. (Not in a Gotm)

I never built a Conquistidor as the era they would have been useful was consumed with holding off the Zulu with all production. Then I never went to war again, so never had a chance to use them. I don't think that this UU is nearly as useful as most of the others. It is only useful in very specific circumstances.

My experience with GOTM 18 made me think I should be able to conquer the landmass, and frustrated me when I couldn't.

The RNG actually seemed fairly balanced. I only had one turn where I thought it really hurt me in combat against the Zulu. I lost 4 Cav attacking Zulu Cav in the open. Other than that I don't think the RNG had a big effect except this. Whatever RNG actions caused the Ottomans to sit and do nothing but build stuff from the middle of the middle ages till the end.

 

[mad-bax]

Well, the modern age started with a 5 turn research on fission and a prebuild for the UN. Of course, being a complete fool I miscalculated the pre-build, and ended up finishing the UN 9 turns after fission was learned. My games are littered with stupid errors like this.

Abe was winning the war against Japan. so when it came to the vote I was facing Abe rather than the Japanese. Abe was gracious towards me but the Japanese were furious. So the vote was no longer a foregone conclusion. I sued for peace with the Japanese and gave them a tech, but they were still furious, and also still at war with America. So he would abstein. The Ottomans were gracious towards me and had been at war with america in the past so he would vote for me. The Iroquois were nearly always at war with america and were gracious towards me. So I thought the vote was safe, and it was.

Because I intended to go for a military victory I had slowed tech pace down a lot. So the vote was very late. My war against the Zulu was ermm... difficult. But I really wanted this city.

I guess it has just been a learning experince

My empire looked like this on the last turn.

My Firaxis score was around 9500.

A few hairy moments but I won, so I'm pleased. But I really never felt comfortable in this game until the Zulu were out of the way.
BTW: I kept the Ottomans in the game for tech purposes, but they were too small. In retrospect I could have given them half a dozen cities to help them contribute tech. Just another mistake.

Stupid off-topic question. Why are the wonders in this city not contributing culture? Or are they?

 

[Sailorstick]

Vanilla 1.29f Conquest

Well, I made it! I had to go for space race victory because there was no way I could possibly have acheived conquest/domination before the AI built theirs. I had also built the UN some time earlier (rushed with a GL) but I was not confident at all at securing the vote.
Interestingly, I was thrown into anarchy a turn before completing the space ship. I suspect it was the Iroquis' doing.

Just a heads up to cracker, when ever I try to look at the Hall of Fame with GOTM entries in it my game crashes horribly. I need to delete them from the high scores file just so the game won't crash when I win games.

Due to the VERY disappointing fact that there was no mobilization (I don't even know what the exploit is) I had to create a couple of missionaries to trigger a golden age just so I could pump out 1 turn tanks. Seems a tragic waste but it was necessary.
The UU was never useful for me. It was far too expensive for what it is.

I remained reasonably strong throughout all the ages but I was never in a position to bully more than 1 civ at a time.

mad bax I had the same problem with captured wonders not producing ANY culture. Is this supposed to happen?

As for the conquest bonuses:
A great idea and the extra settler was a nice help. I didn't need the Defence unit at all and the chests were of only a small help (but still nice to have).
I didn't use the new ship as I didn't start building a navy until I got battleships.

 

[cracker]

Gentlemen,

Captured Wonders never produce culture for you. You can also never capture any improvements in tact when those improvements can produce culture.

 

[a space oddity]

Originally posted by Sailorstick
mad bax I had the same problem with captured wonders not producing ANY culture. Is this supposed to happen?

Unfortunately yes, you still get the effects though (if they're not obsolete) so capturing the Pyramids is (almost) always worth it.

 

[King Of America]

Bottom line first: Conquest, Space race loss 1660 Jason score in low 1000s.

Cracker's questions:

1.

Had a nice early game but I played defensive most of the time.

In Middle Ages, watched Zulus smash French and attack me one turn before I was going to attack France (and try to ally with Zulus). Focused on getting to Gunpowder at the expense of Monotheism and Education. Besides hurting me in the tech race, that hurt me culturally, which apparently hurt my trading abilities.

Reached GA by nailing one of tiny England's last lowbowsmen and then the huge Zulus trashed me, despite the fact that we had trade and I was paying them de facto bribes.

In retrospect, I should have been more aggressive.

2. I tried to settle aggressively to make a solid west-east block. I had good control of the north for a while, but with the Zulus replacing the French in force, expanding to the south was a problem

3. Was OK with RNGs--I got a suicide galley to the New World with no problem. I notice that there is a lot of variation in the AI's relative strengths between games. In some games the Zulus are huge, others have the Ottomans huge. To me, that suggests big RNG differences because most of us were not affecting those two AIs early (i.e., no wars, no crimping their borders with settlers), while I'm sure I affected the French and other neighbors by my actions.

4. I'm no fan of the UU. For such a weak unit, it comes very late. The 4x4 capabilities are nice, but I would have rather had a modified Knight, with the earlier GA.

 

[Lux_willow]

Has anyone managed to get Superconducter before 1400AD?
If so how did you manage to speed up the tech pace so fast? In my game after the early industrial age all but 2 of the AI´s managed to keep up in tech... even though some like the aztecs and Japs had large territories they could barely afford outdated techs. Should I have given away techs to speed up the tech pace?
Other thing is the slow tech pace of the scientific civs in the game... in my experience in GOTM20 they were never nº1 in science

 

[Smirk]

Open

I gave up on my game at around 1385AD. I had about 56k culture and with a gain of 800+ a turn expected to get 100k somewhere around 15-1600AD. That's assuming I could satisfy the two times more than leading AI civ which is unknown.

The key here was that things were heating up on my island and I had *no* rubber, there was some rubber on the east edge of my civ in Celt territory and I tried to get it with a culture expansion.

So even though I was ready to war Celts and planned on this for 40 turns prior to take more land (and reduce their culture); the failure to get rubber would take about 150gpt to import. While I already planned on spending at least 300gpt on alliances, this was a major blow, I needed to get Ottomans, Zulu and the Iroquios in on an alliance and I couldn't do that with anything short of 300gpt minimum. The 40 turns estimate was that I had been building up artillery and muskets to upgrade, and was working within the bounds of peace trades. I delayed my attack 20 turns ago because thats when I discovered I didn't have an rubber, I delayed another 20 hoping to get it, but at this point I figured it wasn't worth the effort been too busy this month.


More of the specifics at 1385AD my peace treaties with Zulus, Celts and Ottomans expire. I planned on getting a tech trade with Celts and then forcing them off my land or go to war which I am 98% sure they would. Celts have a MP with Aztecs and Japan so would have them declare on me, but they are all on the other island except one Japanese city and the Iroquois. But at the same time I can do some gpt trades for techs with them as well knowing they would fail once the MP kicked in. Then I would need at least 100-200gpt for the alliance from Ottomans, Iroquois and Zulus. I'm leaving France out since I figure they would come in with someone other than the Celts.

I figured I could get close to tech parity this turn since I could spend the same 300+gpt in three seperate stages. That is assuming Celts declare war. I'm not actually sure if AI civs will trade any turn trades knowing that all I need to do is attack to set off their MP. I may try this later with the save and see for sure. Anyway Japan is the tech leader and entered modern age about 10 turns or so ago, I'm still midway thru IA. After many wars in the MA its been quiet since the IA and this has increased the tech pace and also let the AI civs build up a lot of culture which was a mistake on my part, I figured with all my cities I could easily outpace them but can't beat that AI production bonus.



So I gave all my cities to France and then got in a quick war with Ottomans moved all my units out of my capital and awaited their attack, in 1400AD I lost by conquest.


I'm pretty disappointed in the luxury and resource balance in this game. I also lost iron twice in the early game which was a big annoyance, not that I needed it to build anything (I had less military units than I had cities for the bulk of this game). Losing iron 3 turns after I got rails is at the minimum highly annoying.

 

[zagnut]

1.21 OPEN

Prior post here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=1058956#post1058956

During a war with the Ottomans I got my first Great Leader in 1370 AD. Good thing I didn’t count on getting one earlier.

I had seriously underestimated Ottos ability to discover techs after I got TOE and sling shot my way to Electronics. I kept the GL for the UN. Up to the end of the Industrial Age I had great relations with the other civs and thought I would win without too much trouble. But then World War started and many of my friends were now my enemies. To make matters much worse, Otto beat me to the UN. At that point I realized I wasn’t going to win diplomatically. I had not undertaken wars of conquest and so only controlled about ½ of the home continent, and Otto was researching so fast he would easily beat me to the Spaceship. It didn’t look as if I had any victory options.

I was already at war with Otto but had been fighting defensively, hoping for a diplomatic win. I had no choice but to go on the offensive and try to wipe out Otto. Fortunately I had a lot of Artillery that enabled me to drastically reduce the size of his big cities before I had to send in my offensive units. He was no match for me. I captured 5 of his cities all over size 20 with a minimal lose of units. I liberated the UN, Hoover Dam, Universal Suffrage, Manhattan Project, Sistine Chapel, Smith’s Trading Co and the Great Wall! Not a bad haul.

In 1540 I have my first UN vote and it is a tie, 3 to 3, with 2 abstentions. That is the closest I ever get to winning a UN vote.

Now the Zulus go on a rampage. They end up eliminating the Celts, English, Indians and finally the Ottomans. It’s only the Zulus and me left on the continent, but I have been diligently researching. I beat the Japanese to the Spaceship launch and celebrate with a victory in 1810. It took me about 400 years longer than I expected, with the end game being very tough.

One thing that really surprised me was the ability of the Ottomans to continue fast research at the end of the game. Otto was the first to discover Space Flight. But he only had 2 cities, one of size 11 almost completely surrounded by pollution and the other of size 8. I don’t get it.

I was taking about 10 turns to research a new discovery with the science slider at 80% and -200 gpt. I had Universities in just about every town, Research Labs and was in Democracy, but still couldn’t get the research rate down. Anyone have any suggestions, or can you direct me to a thread on the topic.

 

[Yndy]

ptw 1.21

I'm all done with GOTM 20. The links to my reports are here for your reference.
Ancient age Medieval age Industrial Age

 

[a space oddity]

I finally submitted. Phew, I really was scared I wouldn't make it this month.
Bottom line: I won [dance] space victory in 1804, 6092 firaxis points.

Here's the post in spoiler 3.

To answer Crackers questions:

1. How I felt?
ancient age - ok, good starting posistion, slow going in due to Deity Paranoia, I played in short sessions, taking it slow
middle ages - great, I built wonders, planned and won a war, used one UU especially built to trigger the GA and it worked, got several GLs
industrial ages - several unwanted wars with the strong Zulu, learning you can survive even that, build the UN to find out I was never going to get enough votes
modern times - will I make it, ... have ... to ... play ... zzzz ... won!!!! First Deity win, yeah!!!!

2. Compared to GOTM18?
I played a lot better. I've learned so much the last couple of month, thanks Cracker and team! It was also due to the terrain. Lots of luxeries near, chokes to defend etc. The only resource I had to fight for (or at least settle so near the Zulu they had come after me at some point) was Rubber.

3. RNG?
Was kind to me. GLs and reasonable fight statistics.

4. Conquistadores?
I had one very useful GA triggerer! I the little dog.

All in all enjoyable but very time consuming.

PS: Do the aluminium cans always say 'civ ace'?

 

[rabies]

Is that what the aluminum cans said? I could not for the life of me read them.

 

[acivguy]

open ptw 1.21

1)
ancient - lots of good land to claim, hope no one declares war before i'm ready
middle - with sole contact ownership, I can get ahead in tech
industrial - the AI's are really behind now
modern - just wanted to finish, i'm moving in a couple days..

2) N/A

3) The only rng event that really mattered: my first suicide galley survived. this was big, but I had Toledo set up to build them every 5 or 6 turns. My first leader made an army of 3 vet cavalry that lost to a redlined rifleman, so that was kinda sad.

4) if the UU had 4 attack I think it might be useful relative to explorers.


I finished a space race victory in 1380 AD with no help from the AI on research for the industrial ages/ modern time. My in game score was 9433 I think.

Here is my modern timeline:
1110: finish radio, start computers in 4 at 100%
1150: finish computers, finish several research labs
start rocketry in 4 at 80%
I gift aztecs, japan, iriqouis, america into modern age, hoping they will research fission (they didn't)
1190: finish rocketry, start space flight in 4 at 90%
1230: finish space flight, apollo program, start ecology in 4 at 80%
1255: Japan eliminates aztecs.
1260: finish ecology, start synthetic fibers in 4 at 80%
1280: finish synthetic fibers, start fission if 4 at 70%
1300: finish fission, finish UN in murcia(palace prebuild)
start superconducter in 4 at 70%
1320: finish superconducter, start satellites in 4 at 60%
1330: Japan sneak attacks me in isandlwana.. i take it back, but to luxes are cut off. i set lux tax to 10% just in case.
1340: finish satellites, start nuclear power
1360: finish nuclear power, start laser in 4 turns.
1380 finish laser, launch the ship

between 1360-1375 I launched about 10 ICBM'S on Japan for lack of anything better to do..

 

[Naboo]

Open, V1.29b (macintosh Os9)

Diplomatic victory - 1800AD
Score 4127
Ferdinand the Magnificent

More like Ferdinand the Bottom-feeder

Stopped taking notes in the Middle ages when the game looked hopeless, from a game standpoint and also due to numerous crashes. The instructions for the various downloads (the all-in-one zip wouldn't expand on my system) rely on folder names for instructions. On the Mac (at least in os9), the name of the folders apparently truncated and I ended up putting resources at the root of Civolopedia folder when they needed to go deeper. Got help from the CFC forum and finally was able to play through the middle ages. Between that and a week's vacation forgive me for not splitting into the 4 spoiler threads, will try for just an overview here. Also, the crashes did result in me replaying quite a few turns. I tried not to take advantage, but don't know if that means my save is still eligible?

First, I had no Golden Age. I only engaged in one early war with England and couldn't manage the wonders. No opinion on usefulness of the UU, but I liked the graphic.

Early game I made several blunders. First, I found and blocked the lower of the 2 northern choke points, but not the other. By the time I discovered the 2nd, it was too late. England, and later Keltoi got some northern sites on (my) subcontinent.

France went far afield to settle Marseilles, to get horses and avoid the large jungle area. This put me on the defensive in terms of land grab; I started overextending myself and ended up wasting a lot of space right in the core. France settled a group of cities in my area and I tried pushing back with very aggressive settlements in hope of flips and also to get resources. The flips never worked and I had cities with France's borders on their doorsteps for almost the entire game. I spent too much time focusing on this. On the other hand, some land area was denied to them by my extending...

Did poorly with coastal cities, again wasting the available territory; was trying to take advantage of resources but ended up unbalanced. Only a couple of coastal cities and they were late and weak. Naval exploration was not much of an option and so I was late with contacts.

Needless to say I fell behind pretty solidly. I did wage an early war against England to get some of those cities in my north. I had inferior units even at that early point, but a proximity advantage. I did capture 2 cities, but lost one back. Keltoi also declared on England and I hoped to reap some spoils from that, but they advanced so quickly that even my horses couldn't keep up! England was reduced to a few cities and that was the end of war for Spain.

Thus began many centuries with Spain lagging the world in technology and development. I produced a goodly number of units even though they were obsolete to the point of ridiculousness; hoping that the numbers alone would discourage aggression from the other civs. Once those needs were fulfilled I built as much culture as I could, given my lack of techs. Other than that, quite a number of workers to at least get the land improvements and hopefully utilize Spain's commercial strength later.

Eventually (middle ages?) Zulu started taking out the Keltoi, and that finally turned into a dogpile. I did get some spoils from that, reducing my territory problems to France. France ran up a goodly streak of wonders and I didn't have much hope with such a strong nation impinging on my productive core and blocking my only avenue of expansion. Taking on the French, even with any conceivable alliance, was out of the question. Military victory seemed a deadend, and space race as well, as the tech situation looked hopeless. I continued to trade as much as possible, a lot of deals with the new-world civs so as not to feed my close rivals, but not exclusively; realizing that constant trade was the best way to keep everybody polite -- diplomacy seemed my only dim hope and I couldn't imagine getting Fission in time to have a chance at the UN. But I kept hope alive. Right of passage for everyone!

With Keltoi gone and England reduced to a colony, India and Zulu split the eastern half of our continent (oh yeah, ottomans went out early, before I even made contact. I think Zulu and India may have ganged up on them). I felt not much stronger than England, and in fact Liz was way ahead of me in Tech despite her devastated Civ.

Finally, Zulu declared war on France! My dream come true. France was powerful and had rails by now, but Zulu outmatched her in military and eventually French cities started to fall. I poached some good land and France falls back to a single city - Avignon. Whew! But now Zulu at my doorstep - yikes. I am still dragging the world in Tech.

Another bit of luck - India and Zulu get into it!! Talk about a clash of the Titans! Meanwhile in the new world, Aztecs take out America while Japan demolishes Iriquois. The India-Zulu battle gets into Tanks. I think I'm still around Gunpowder or so. Keep trading my butt off. I did get some good deals for extra Iron and with the fall of England I did manage to wrap up the world's Fur trade. By and by India crushes Zulu and... they're building the UN. I am soooo far behind....

Eventually, with France so far in the hole I am finally able to start trading some techs for techs. Got one deal with Zulu before they went out. My rep had been dinged early on when Iriquois lost a harbor or some such, so when Zulu went out it was no big deal to have trades outstanding. I was able to keep the AIs polite for the most part; though Japan and Aztecs required frequent gifting. Ghandi was nice too, until an Indian city flipped to me and I ended up abandoning it. oopsie! But since Ghandi was sure to be voting for himself... And around this point I start to have some glimmer of hope; I am starting to catch up on techs, India is the only Civ building the UN and they're building it in a backwater colony in the new world! Way to go Ghandi! I am self-researching Industrial techs like mad.

By and by I get to the modern age and finally research Fission. A palace pre-build gets me to within 12 turns on the UN. Japan stops and starts the UN at least 3 times. Japan and Aztecs just couldn't share that whole big continent and they have a goodly war over there.

The turns tick by and I don't want to risk planting a spy on India, but I figure UN is building in a 1 shield per turn town. I think I'm gonna get this....

And.... YES! My first and only Great Wonder of the World!!

The build governors are not without a sense of irony

and with 90% of precincts counted we are predicting....

The final map

and the histogram

Somehow, Spain ends up the histographic winner too I would never have imagined. Well, it was an ugly win but my 2nd Deity win, so I'll take it

I went on longer than I expected here. Nice game and very interesting to see all of the different outcomes. Looking forward to #21

 

[danchamp]

PTW v1.14 Open class

First completed GOTM, first completed deity game, albeit a very generous deity

I lost, in 1842 to the space-bound Iroquois, but learnt sooooo much. In summary the most fundamental lessons:

1. Explore more quickly! I missed the choke point to the north-east so didn't have the control I should have had early on.
2. Extract full value from first contact with new civs. I traded contact same turn to try to make up for my tech deficiency, but I see now I should have held out a lot longer and traded maps and techs between continents.
3. Be much more careful about breaking gpt deals. I did this fairly early on to war with France, and for the rest of the game no-one would entertain gpt with me, even for silly money.
4. Turn off animations! I started the game mid-month and was struggling to finish it in time until I realised turning off the bells and whistles would increase my turns per hour by about 1000%
   [/list=1]
   
   Anyway, I had a ball and want to thank cracker for a most entertaining game. I'm hooked now, so roll on gotm21.

 

[Naboo]

Originally posted by rabies
Is that what the aluminum cans said? I could not for the life of me read them.

I guess they did say "CIV ACE" after all

During the game I thought they said "ON ICE"!!

You've reached the modern era. Time for a cold brew!

p.s. anybody - what is a "jason score" ??

 

[zagnut]

It is a scoring system that improves on the in-game score. It takes into account many more variables and solves a tendency of the in-game score to favor a style of game play called "Milking". Milking is micromanagement of all aspects of the game until the final year of 2050. Before the Jason System was implemented a couple of months ago, milking was the best way to get a high score in the game. However, many players didn't have the inclination or the patience to practice it. The Jason System balances the scoring system by giving more credit for an early finish. As a result there are now more ways to achieve a high score in the GOTM.

 

[Greebley]

Originally posted by Lux_willow
Has anyone managed to get Superconducter before 1400AD?
If so how did you manage to speed up the tech pace so fast? In my game after the early industrial age all but 2 of the AI´s managed to keep up in tech... even though some like the aztecs and Japs had large territories they could barely afford outdated techs. Should I have given away techs to speed up the tech pace?
Other thing is the slow tech pace of the scientific civs in the game... in my experience in GOTM20 they were never nº1 in science

An example of a super tech pace is given in the quick games forum. SirPleb gave a 30BC save that Aeson launched a space ship with in the late 13th century (1265 or some such) at a pace slightly faster than a tech every 4 turns. I think his game could get easily get Integrated Defense by 1400. So all you need to do is be able to do as well as SirPleb and Aeson.

Trivial...not.

Aeson's post

 

[Kemal]

PTW 1.21 Open

For previous spoilers read here (ancient), here (medieval) and here (industrial).

As mentioned in the previous spoiler, I entered the Modern Age with the world in peace but without a Hoover Dam.
First thing to do in the modern age was of course making a decision concerning whether I'd gift the Ottomans the techs to enter the modern age too. While this would result in another tech that wouldn't have to be researched by me, I was concerned about Osman possibly snatching Fission as a free tech, and maybe get the UN built before i could finish it, as I had no prebuilds. (Or even finish it before I could get Fission myself, as they probably wouldn't want to give that away for nothing, especially since my reputation had been destroyed during the Zulu war and gpt trades weren't possible anymore).
My army strength was laughable at that time compared to the AI, so any chance of preventing the UN to be built using brute force would have been in vain.

A decided to make my decision after investigating some Ottoman cities on production, but already my first investigation revealed Sogut with a production capacity of 60+ shields per turn!
That would mean the UN in 10 turns, and as I had no prebuilds at that time capable of getting the UN that fast, I decided to wait gifting the Ottomans the techs until after I had researched computers, which I wanted to have first anyways due to the research labs. I figured that would still leave me with a 75% chance of getting a free tech from the Ottomans anyways. (Rocketry, Ecology or Fission).

So I spent my first 5 turns researching Computers, with most cities close to completing a research lab once research was completed. After most cities had the lab in place, I was back at the 4 turns/tech again, and the time came to help the Ottomans reach the Modern times and find out what their tech would be.
Unfortunately, it was Computers, which I had researched already...

After this disappointment, except for me getting the Hoover Dam anyways (no idea why the Ottmans took so long), not much exciting happened, even though I personally found the turns nerve-wrecking as I was afraid the Zulus/Ottomans would launch an attack again, as my army still wasn't something to boast about to say the least. As it went, the Ottomans and (surprisingly) the Zulus kept their calm, but when researching superconductor, I noticed a few transport/galley/destroyer combos from the Aztecs make their way too my northern lands, and indeed they had evil intentions, as a stack of med. infs and pikemen unloaded norht of Mohacs. As I got plenty of gold and 2 luxes from them, I stalled the unavoidable attack by leaving cities undefended just outside walking distance, but after about 5 turns they apparently had had enough, and attacked. I lost my two luxes, but immediately bribing the other nations except Iroquois and America, who had MPPs with Montezuma, gave me some more confidence I would reach the end of the game without being attacked by my two former enemies, Osman and Shaka.
Another advantage was that Japan apparently entered a GA by attacking the Aztecs, and they invented Ecology a few turns later.

While the New World was the scene of some brutal slaughter, with especially Abe and Montezuma taking heavy losses when the Ottoman transports arrived, Spain peacefully constructed the Space Ship, and, as appropriatly Ciudad de la Luna completed the final component, the SSS Isabella made its way to the stars in 1275 AD.