I have been playing alot of civ4 OCC. So much so that I cant play a normal game anymore
Well, I just had my most exciting OCC game. After winning a few on noble against about 4/5 civs, I thought Id crank up the difficulty. Even though I lost by 12 turns!!!! it was rather exciting.
Map: Pangea, standard
Difficulty: Prince
Leader: Saladin
9 other civs, chosen randomly (china (moa), mongols, spanish, incas, german (fred), english (vicky), malinese, romans, aztecs)
I managed to make an early game rush to the pyramids, stonehenge and the parthanon. The oracle wasnt available when I got preisthood (damn fast civs). I had borders with the mongols and germans. Early on in the game monte of the aztecs decided he didnt like me and tried it on. I managed to hold him off and eventually made peace with him.
All was going along smothly. The mongols had destroyed the chinese and I noticed the neighbouring germans were the only race that were technologically a threat. A quick bit of trading with the mongols and got them to go to war with the germans, to try to slow them down a bit.
The mongol empire was constantly the biggest (just how big I didnt know at this point, but had the biggest score by about 500) but he always seemed behind in tech, so I used him as a war mongerer for me. Things were generally quite good, with me being ahead in tech most the time. I think some other petty wars were going on. I only had 1 religion, but it was the same as the germans, so it kept them from going to war with me (as they had to get through me to get to the mongols, who they were at war with alot).
Fast forward a bit (quite a bit), and I notice mali has done its usual thing of just sitting around being clever, and were the first to build an appolo program. I couldnt have this, so negotiations were made with spain and the romans for open borders (as the malinese were all the way over the other side of the map, and I couldnt build boats). I discovered he had 1 city just the other side of the mongols, which I razed asap, then trecked over the continenet and started stiring up some **** by piligaing as much as I could. He only had 4 cities, but still managed to be be very tech (the mongols had about 20 citys by this point). The mongols were just wondering around generally annoyed with everyone except me, at war with the germans and spanish at the same time.
I then lost borders with the spanish (I think izzy had one of her hissy fits) so declared war with them. I didnt have many units spare to did as much as I could before I lost the units I had around there. This is where the mongolian power came into view. They defeated the germans, followed by the spanish, then the romans, then the malinese as a favor to me (they even did it for free), aswell as going to war with the english for a bit. As mali had got itself back on track I declared war on them again (after some peace to regroup). Unfortunatly this brought the english against me (werent that pleased with me anyway). The incas were now starting to catch up and overtake in the space race (as were the mongols, but slowly as they lacked a few key techs), while being at war with the english.
The war with the english really hurt, as they had a city with 6 bombers on my borders and were really doing some damage to my improvements. My forces were a little thin and attempts to destroy the city were in vain. I managed to get the internet built in the middle of the war which really helped. As vickys space was pretty lagging I decided to declare peace for some advanced tech so I could get on with the spaceship. Then it just became a drag race, and I eventually finished only 12 turns behind the incas who took a space race victory!
My city never made it past size 17 (was 13 by the end) due to having limits on food (had 5 lake tiles around the city) rather than health.
Wonders I had (order they were built): Pyramids, Stonehenge, Parthanon, Hanging Gardens, Great Library, internet. Incas managed to grab the space ladder which I think was the biggest problem.
Being spritual saved me alot of trouble changing civics. Had I had more religions it would have helped alot in diplomacy too. But then theres next time.
Sorry if its too long. I thought it was rather excitign and wanted to share it.