Game: Civ5 GOTM 15
Date submitted: 2011-07-11
Reference number: 24547
Your name: isopaha
Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1924AD
Turns played: 344
Base score: 1137
Final score: 1672
Time played: 7:39:00
My strategy in the beginning was rapid expansion. By going to Liberty, I had 3 cities before any of the AI's had founded their second city. Then I cooled down a bit, but had my 4th before any other AI than Arabia had their 4th. I founded New York to the east first because it seemed the most crowded direction, and because I wanted to grab the dyes (by buying tiles) and the incense for trade, which proved useful as with 4 incense I always had something to trade with the AI's.
Philadelphia I founded close to Washington, to the west, because it seemed like a nice production city place with lots of (non-luxury) resources. Also later, with a great artist I managed to claim the 4th incense and the 6 irons. I still had time to found Boston North to claim the whales and a nice defensive position against future attacks. Later I founded Atlanta to the south to claim second dyes and to get a decent production/coastal city.
I had decided quite early that I won't have that much room to expand further than that, so I started putting effort into the city states. When I had maxed out Liberty, I maxed out Patronage. Most of the time I had 4-5 allied city states, which were useful especially in the beginning. They provided almost half of my culture and in the beginning a good deal of science and the odd great persons. They also acted as barriers against invasions and the militaristic ones provided some updated units to keep my army strong enough without building many units.
Tech-wise first I went to calender for the luxuries, then Philosophy for the Oracle. Then I went for Theology and got the Hagia Sophia. After I had finished it, I got a great engineer from the free GP pick, which I used for the Great Library which was still available that late.
I focused quite a bit on wonders. In Philadelphia I got GL and Taj Mahal + 3 nationals. In Washington I got the Oracle, Hagia Sophia, Porcelain Tower, Sistine Chapel, Eiffel + 3 nationals. Also tried Machu Pichu in New York, but got beaten by a couple of turns. I used the free tech on Education and later other free techs to get to Astronomy and to Scientific theory really early to boost my research. I also got early to Plastics, which really helped my reseach, after which I beelined to Rocketry and the space ship parts. Before that I focused mainly on gold, because I didn't really have to worry about military techs, though I got to Dynamite relatively early to use them in my only conquest war against China to capture Beijing quite late to get a good city (capital) before the conquering Persia.
The other wars I had to go through were all early, with Egypt, Russia and China declaring on me separately and once two at a time with just warriors up to swordsmen. I pushed them back really easily, though I didn't even kill a lot of units before they fell back.
In my game while Arabia maintained its superpower status all game, Russia was the other early superpower, while Egypt got wiped out early on. Persia rose as the score winner quite late with conquering everything he saw. I had planned a war to capture a mature Russian city, but Persia beat me to it with his blitzkrieg war.
I'm quite happy with my play in general, though some minor mistakes cost me a few turns in victory time. With my early rapid expansion I maintained a score lead for a time, but had to give it up to Arabia with his paradise island and later the rampaging Persia. I managed to get the most techs and even most policies, even though I didn't focus on culture. My military was adequate -I concentrated top of the line units in key positions, which seemed to be enough to keep most invaders at bay. I got a lot of golden ages, so gold was an issue only momentarily. By trading I got enough happiness to keep my empire happy most of the time. Like many others, though, the lack of iron caused me grey hair at times, when I tried to keep an up-to-date army.
This is my first GOTM (and my first post on an English speaking forum if I recall), so feedback would be appreciated
I haven't played CiV nearly as much as Civ4, especially this year.
. First I thought it had ruined everything (my RA median got screwed up as well), but I had another RA coming in at 215 and along with my own research I got back on track. My production was pretty good so with insta-space-factories it went quite fast after that. 
