Turn 179 Science Victory
Wow, your science is amazing BV. I'm trying to reconcile the difference in beakers. Your pop might be higher overall at a much earlier date, although naturally my Vienna has more pop due to just playing longer. I did not build any trade posts at all. I did get two observatories though.
I was pleased though with my finish. I'm not gonna come close to the pros here, but I think I am improving. I don't know what is optimal at this speed but happy with a sub-200. I was shooting for sub-t180 and just made it.
I settled in place. Vienna was an exceptional city. Based on my knowledge at the start I did not want to lose any desert hills for Petra. I ended up building Petra before NC as I was waiting on that last library anyway. After Petra, Vienna was just ridiculous. There was no point ever rushing a wonder (except Hubble) as Vienna could build them so fast. With that said I did not build ToA or Great Library. TGL was built by Nappy fairly early anyway so I don't think I had a chance. ToA might have been possible. I've generally changed my focus to just getting my expands up fast and worrying about early wonders later if any are available. Surprisingly, Denmark was hoggin wonders, including Mauso and ToA. But honestly, I did not pay much attention to these. I built most of the wonders, but I just waited for a mission or two to pop up and then Vienna would knock the wonder out in a couple of turns.
I went Tradition, ofc, but actually opened Honor for the barb culture on the 3rd or fourth policy. Generally, not an optimal strategy, but I was farming tremendous amounts of culture from killing barbs the whole game. I actually did get the buying policy in Commerce in time for Unis, though cash was not great in the early stage cause a) the AIs were terrible b) I was terrible with scouting.
I basically only knew Rome, France, and Denmark for a good portion of the game, which is silly really considering there were 3 other AIs on the same continent. It was a big map though.
Like BV, World Congress was a complete non-factor in this game with the first vote actually coming the turn before victory. (At one point after the World Congress started and the end of game, there was a host vote and then another vote. I think I realized that one of those votes must have been for World Leader and I was not paying attention. Thank goodness that did not pass)
I'm not exactly sure where I missed on an earlier finish, although I know my bulbing at the end could have been more optimal. I had a lot of GSs and bought at least 4 of them with faith. I think I should have started bulbing a bit sooner than I did, but ultimately had what I needed to finish up the last 10 to 15 techs in a few turns. But it was not a boom-boom buy parts in-one-turn deal, so I could have shaved at least a few turns. I built one part in Vienna, maybe two, and bought the rest.
As for wars, I only fought an eternal war with France but let Rome take his stuff as I did not want to bother with more cities and Paris was kinda crap anyway. JC was a pill the whole game though.
Klag was okay...my goal was to get it up fast so chose that spot, although the truffle area was better for growth. but it did have good production and forest to get out the first buildings decently fast. La Venta was kind of annoying there. I thought about taking her out, and she never had any good missions.
Prague was great early. Kept getting workers stolen which I would capture and return and then block so the next nearby barb could capture. I had like 300 points with Prague extremely early lol.
Lastly, with Desert Folklore, Kailish was really a non-factor although obviously I settled over there. I grab tithe, pagodas, production and IP.
Policies - Trad opener>Honor Opener>Finish Trad>Commerce to buy policy>Ration>Freedom. Oh, I did open Liberty at one point early with the idea of maybe going wider but decided against it - I breezed through Trad and had a policy choice before Commerce was available to me and did not think I needed Patronage, which I did not, so I opened Lib. I did take the production policy much later though for nothing else better. Freedom was straight to parts buying while taking the obvious stuff and a couple of happy policies, and then ignoring the rest.