Fun game!
First, I decided to start with OCC. Then after the AI's started to build wonders, I thought I'd hold a puppet empire consisting of only cities with wonders. Near the end of the game, I started accepting/puppeting non-wonder cities too.
As OCC (w/o Patronage), my science output was pathetic. By the end of the game, I had all the Industrial techs except Dynamite, and had inched into Modern with Radio. Was still working on Replaceable Parts.
My capital had 24 wonders and for once, I actually got all of the National Wonders (except the National Intelligence Agency which wasn't worth it). I'll try to recall the build order but there are probably some mistakes (and I'm not sure exactly when I built the National Wonders):
GL (T42) -> NC -> ToA -> HG -> Petra -> CI -> Oracle -> Terracotta -> GW -> Mausoleum (still there!) -> Great Mosque -> HS -> Alhambra -> Sistine -> Hermitage -> Angkor Wat -> LT -> PT -> Taj Mahal -> Louvre -> Forbidden Palace -> Himeji -> Prebuilding -> Kremlin -> Brandenburg -> Big Ben -> Eiffel -> Utopia.
Had a nice pre-building queue for the end:
1. Armory
2. Circus Maximus
3. Heroic Epic
4. Kremlin
5. Brandenburg
6. Big Ben
7. Eiffel Tower
8. 4 turns to Utopia!
Besides Attila's Court, the highlights of my empire included:
1. Thebes w/ Stonehenge
2. Madrid w/ the Colossus
3. London w/ the Pyramids
4. Carthage w/ the Great Lighthouse
5. Washington, D.C. w/ Notre Dame
* At this point, I accepted a city from America in exchange for peace, in order to position myself against Hiawatha. I also DoW'ed Egypt to stop a Great Prophet, and he gave me a city for peace. When attacking Hiawatha, I had to took two of his crappy cities in order to position myself against Onondaga.
6. Onondaga w/ the Statue of Zeus
* And then a pair of crappy cities for fun
Every other wonder was in my capital (through Industrial and plus Eiffel), with the exception of Machu Picchu. Alas, mountains were too rare so no one ever built it!
For the first time ever, I was pleasantly surprised by my puppet cities. They actually developed very well, the governors made mostly smart decisions with the buildings (several built cultural buildings, most built science buildings). I only wish they had staffed the scientist slots, but their overall output was extremely impressive!
I enjoyed the game, but thought that OCC would finish faster than I actually ended up doing. I guess my pitiful tech rate meant that I reached key culture techs a bit slow and it took awhile to open/complete Freedom. (I popped Archaeology around T170 but had to use Oxford to do it).
Religion was: God of the Open Sky + Tithe + Religious Community + Cathedrals + Itinerant Preachers. Was fast to religion due to Egypt's donation of Stonehenge!
Beeline Writing, then Philosophy, Education, Architecture, Radio.
Social Trees were Tradition, Liberty, Honor, Piety, and Freedom. Maybe Patronage would have been better than Liberty....
Was allied with Cultural CS' for most of the game.
Everyone hated me for being the warmonger who took their capitals. The one exception was Harun/Arabia, who I had a DoF with and had my only RA in the whole game. Fortunately for Harun, he was wise enough to not build any wonders which would have otherwise tempted me....
Mistakes I might have made:
1. On my home continent, I decimated Egypt, Spain, and England, taking all of their wonder-laden capitals. However, I left all their other cities alone (didn't want to deal with crappy puppets and unhappiness). In hindsight, I wonder if I should have taken them too, for their meager contributions to science/gold? Is it better to puppet nearly everything? Or just ignore it (or raze it)?
2. I generated a lot of great people, but they included Scientists and Engineers. I wonder if that might have "slowed" me down compared to a strategy that focuses *only* on Great Artists. For example:
A. My first pop was a triple Artist / Scientist / Engineer. I do that quite often in Cultural games. For Science/Diplomacy, I usually forego the Artist and do a dual Scientist / Engineer pop.
B. Then I did an Artist / Scientist double pop.
C. Then an Artist by himself.
D. And then I finished with another triple Artist / Scientist / Engineer pop.
But the point is, all those Scientists and Engineers slowed down the progression of Artists, so *maybe* a highly optimized culture game should only be generating Artists? What do you think?
3. When I attacked Carthage, taking their capital was one goal but the other objective was liberating Monaco. (Actually it turns out that America had conquered Monaco first, and then Carthage took it from America). Since the city had now been taken 3 times, it was in poor shape. When I attacked Hiawatha, he sent an army which took Monaco for about 20 turns before I could liberate it again.
I technically didn't need to attack the Iroquois (just wanted their capital for fun). Or maybe I should have sued for peace before Monaco fell. Not a major issue, though it might have cost me a turn. (20 turns x 26 culture = about 520 culture?)