TSG40 After Action Report

That looks like an ideal roll of the dice. I wasn't sure what I got, so I tried a few starts. I ALWAYS get a crude map first. Next usually upgrade and gold. Which makes me wonder if the random seed is set so it comes out the same every time. But that would mean the random seed is in the save, so shouldn't everyone get the same results from the ruins?

Just curious.

 

This was my first game of the month. I'm sure I made many mistakes, but I am pleased that I won my first game on this difficulty level.

Social Policies: Honor (6) -> Commerce (1) -> Rationalism (6) -> Freedom (2)
Religion: Goddess of the Hunt -> Ceremonial Burial and Cathedrals -> Feed the World and Religious Texts

I thought my Pictish warriors would see more action, so I went Honor to start. I irritatingly got a 7th social policy before the Renaissance Era, so I opened Commerce. My two free techs were Rocketry and the tech that provides the CN Tower.

The early game was always treading water in regards to happiness, so I tried to balance Food growth and happiness. I should have built more Shrines and Temples, as while I was first to found a religion, I was second to enhance it.

Cities:
Edinburgh settled in place.
Dublin settled south, between the two deer.
Cardiff settled east, on top of the 2 Uranium sources.
Truro was my spaceship part building city, and was settled just south of the stone on the river.
Nantes was settled west of the sheep. I settled this too quickly, and had to purchase a lot of libraries in order to build the National College. I waited on Oxford University until later. I can't remember what exactly I used it on.

I only had 2 wars with the Netherlands, and in both all I did was capture a Great Prophet that was trying to starve my citizens. Peace was brokered soon after. I was way ahead tech wise, so I only stole a few technologies, saving about 10 turns or so. No spies were caught, and most of my spies spent their days rigging elections, though it was not very effective. I shared intel as often as possible, and this seemed to make everyone like me for the most part.

Edit: I'm blind or way too tired, I think, as I can't find the PM system. I had one CTD and restarted from an autosave (set to save each turn) and I played this game over several sessions. That seemed to be acceptable in the rules as long as no turns were replayed (they weren't) and I can't imagine leaving the game running for the week that I took to finish the game, so hopefully that's ok.

 

This looks really pretty ideal, espacially this pop right after 1. growth making captial size 3 8 turns after plant.

The random seed is affected by multiple stuff - so planting your cap differently does change random seed for example. Meeting CS does change it. But its not affected by other stuff I think - f.e. I think its not affected by trading with an ai or switching the tiles or production.
I am not sure if the outcome of a ruin is also bound to the ruin you pop. sometimes there are 2 ruins to pop in 1 turns (with 1 or 2 units) - not sure if it matters which one you pop (first).
Poping ruins also change random seed for future ruins I think.

edit:
In my game I poped animal husbandary in 3rd ruins, I usually dont like poping cheap techs but this one really helped as I could therefore tech writing for gl straight and still have traping in a reasonable time.

 

It's nice (better than I usually get) but certainly not ideal. The early culture is easily the most important result here - if you go down the Liberty tree, which is no longer automatic in Gods & Kings. But it is possible to get more than one of those. But we also have the 60 faith now, and there is still Writing. We did not get either. Depending on the surroundings, Animal Husbandry or Calendar can also be a very favourable result. (Otoh, Bronze Working rarely is.)

A survivor from size 3 to 4 or 4 to 5 is often significantly better than from 2 to 3. And of the six ruins on our continent, one gave a map and another we did not reach until much later.

There are a few things you can do to improve your expected results:

- wait until your city grows;
- wait until you have discovered a new tech;
- pop the ruins with a unit you would be happy to see upgraded, or with a civilian if you don't want an upgrade.

Of course if you are not alone on the continent, waiting has a downside...

In this case there was no need to wait. The Warrior simply made the most logical round and arrived at ruins #3 at a good moment. Also, I didn't mind an upgrade of that Warrior or later the Scout.

AFAIK, the yields of a ruins are affected by:
- the random seed;
- the turn number;
- a number of actions, indeed including founding a city;
- the random events that use the same random number sequence, including battles, but also other ruins;
- the unit that does the popping (in case of a possible upgrade);
- the discoveries you already made (in case of a possible tech).

Note that it may take several random events before the outcome changes.

I've always found it unjust that you can still get a map or camp locations if you have everything plotted already.


The above implies that you can improve your ruins outcomes by reloading, which is one of the reasons why am in favour of playing comparison games without ruins.

 

Code:

Game: 	        Civ5 GOTM 40
Date submitted: 	        2012-08-07
Reference number: 	26845
Your name: 	        xiziz
Game status: 	        Science Victory
Game date: 	        1858AD
Turns played: 	        299
Base score: 	        1372
Final score: 	        2325
Time played: 	        11:21:00
Submitted save: 	        TSG40_Xiz.Civ5Save
Renamed file: 	        xiziz_C504001.Civ5Save

Finially finished this game, turn times were long in the end, I had Carthage and Ethiopia dow me around turn 165. Captured 4 of carthages cities and got a fifth in a peace deal(which left me hurting in unhappy so I gifted it to my long time friend, Sweden). Ethiopia gave me a favourable peace deal, some 900gold and 30gpt after seeing me smash in Didos face in just a few turns and subs showing up in his waters.
I thought I'd make sub 300, but I never thought it would be this close! Could have waited off a little to pop my GS(did so right after GEing Hubble). Maybe a few fewer cities/built more culture buildings in those I had helped. Got the two free techs to late for them to matter, same with oxford.

Learnt a lot about how religion plays in and how the new naval warfare works. And there has been a lot of changes to the tech tree, which was fun to try out and contend with. I ended up beeing 3 turns from finishing future tech, so science victory feels like just that now. A fun game, even if it was a very long one for me, mostly due to having to play a lot of shorter sessions instead of a few long ones... And I need to turn of combat/movement animations, those take forever, just rememberd thats easily done now.

Spoiler :

Empire at turn 299


Edinburgh launches spaceship, oh the eye candy.

 

Code:

Game: 	Civ5 GOTM 40
Date submitted: 	2012-08-07
Reference number: 	26841
Game status: 	Science Victory
Game date: 	1945AD
Turns played: 	365
Base score: 	965
Final score: 	1321
Time played: 	6:58:00

This was my first GOTM for any Civ, though I've been playing since III. Forgive the terrible turn length/end-date. Although for me, this was one of the earliest science victories I've had! It was also my first game on King (only played up to Prince before.)

I have played G&K for a few sessions before, but this was the first time I tried to engage with the elements properly. First thing of note: the AI was super-pacifist. I was very surprised. I don't think I got DOWed even once. My overall strategy, besides usual growth-for-science and great-people, was to use the Celts faith bonuses to rack up big stores of faith, and spend them on Great Scientists later in the game. This worked to some extent, I got an extra few of them out of it. Not sure if it was worth the time/effort expended. I used Espionage to maintain ally status with the two city-states on the Celt's starting continents. (Which I never left apart from a single Great Prophet.)

The only other thing of note is that I didn't sign any Research Agreements... that might well be a terrible mistake from everyone else's perspective!

In any case, really pleased to find this particular corner of the Civ community.

 

Now there's an understatement. I've tried out a number of different ways to pop the first few ruins to see how it affects play. I think the closest I've gotten is being 10 turns behind in development compared to what you got. And that's after 30-40 turns. That's a pretty huge advantage so early on. The culture makes the biggest difference. Second is the extra pop at the right moment. If you get it at turn 9 I think it takes something like 5 turns longer to grow to 3.

Using the gold to purchase the deer is a nice move. But then you need to kill some barbs in order to be able to buy a worker later on.

 

I tried only one way: the game. Perhaps it helps if you specify which ruins you popped on which turns, and what you got from them.

The seed is fixed, so you should get culture from the same ruins on the same turn if you make the same moves.

Certainly. That's why it often pays to wait a turn and allow your city to grow first.

We did not destroy a camp until turn 47.
Purchasing a good tile in the opening game is pretty standard move, often worth a delay of several turns in buying the first Worker. This can easily explain a sizable difference in development after 30-40 turns.

 

I've tried different ways and different paths but the most logical one seemed this:
move the warrior NE (to see what's across the river). And the Settler NE twice and then NW and settle on turn 2. The warrior continues NW, sees the ruins and then W to get the ruins on turn 3. But I get either a map (most of the time) or gold.

Now the result of the ruins differs in which order the units are moved it seems, but I haven't found the one that gives culture yet.

It's rather academic of course. I just never had thought the results in the beginning could make such a big difference.

 

There is no need to move the Warrior NE. The Settler is already going that way.

In Vanilla, in the right circumstances, getting Writing from a ruins is the only result that can produce an advantage in development of about 10 turns. In Gods & Kings it's less, because Civil Service is further away.

 

Code:

Game status: Science Victory
Game date:	2010AD
Turns played: 431
Base score:	1240
Final score:	1441

Not my best game ever, but a very enjoyable one. I think promotion saving should be turned off -- it's a bit overpowered.

Key moments:

-- Got the natural wonder away from Geneva by dropping a citadel culture bomb.

-- Founded first pantheon and first religion, thanks to the power of Celtic forests. Most important religious belief: the one that gives a science bonus when spreading religion in cities that follow a different faith.

-- Built the Great Library.

-- Held off an early two-pronged attack by Sweden and Carthage, took and held Stockholm for the rest of the game.

-- Ethiopia became the top world power, but I managed to become friends with them by backstabbing Theodora, in support of Ethiopia's war against her.

-- Both Ethiopia and Austria beat me to the Apollo Program.

-- In the late game I was backstabbed by Pacal and invaded once again by Carthage. I held off a much larger force thanks to my superior technology (key quote from Dido: "what are these flying machines?!?"). Blowing up Pacal's fleet of Battleships using completely undetected submarines: extremely satisfying.

-- I got the Hubble telescope despite fierce competition from Austria and Ethiopia, but I had to commit blasphemy to do it, tearing down the sacred Celtic forests to provide a boost to production.

-- Victory finally came in 2010AD even though Austria had already built all but one piece of the spaceship. Whew!

Thanks for the game! Great fun. Hope to join another GOTM soon.

 

Fine, how was yours?
It was my first GOTM but not my first G&K, and it was a civ and map and difficulty I would have played anyway so it was just playing for a specific victory that was different.
With hundreds of posts it's hard to see the differences between games without reading every one and it's not like I can make my own questionnaire.

I had no previous GOTM strategies and it wasn't my first G&Ks so I was already adjusted.

Quite well. I named it Druidism. I got messenger of the gods for increased science, and throughout the game most of my gold surplus came from my religion with the 2 gold per city, and also pagodas, Feed the world and I was going for many cities to take advantage of it all. Did anyone else go for a wide empire?. Also I got about three extra great scientist and three great engineers from spending faith. I had about 120 faith a turn by the end. It was the biggest religion by far. Only civs that founded there own didn't have it. I don't think the AI spreads religion very well.
Theodora failed to found a religion! How bad is that? Add to that the UUs that don't carry anything when they upgrade and they were basically a generic civ after a short time.
I don't really remember how I used spying, but I got good use out of it.


I recorder a whole bunch of details in a text file. I forgot some things and I wasn't always consistent in what I recorded or whether I listed a leader or a civs name etc. and I didn't fix spelling to other mistakes because I wanted to keep playing not edit so there it is.

Some details:
Religion:
Messenger of the gods
Chuch property
Pagodas
Feed the world
religious text

Policies:
Liberty - all
Honor - part
Rationalism - all
Order - a little

Victims:
Inca - Pacal

Lets see what I remember
My warrior was turned into a pictish warrior by ruins so that was lucky.

I used the great library for drama and poetry because it was expensive, but if I had thought ahead I would have make sure iron working was open for it. It's expensive and if you have no iron then it's not that useful so getting it free is the best option. I'm sure I'm not the first to think of this.

I went for Liberty and somewhat into honor because I planned to make use of my early UU and take someone out early. Was I the only one that took down Pacal? Haven't seen anyone else that did that but I thought it was the obvious choice. His capital was a nice production city especially for wonders. I planned it from the moment I met him. I bought two cats, three pictish warriors, one warrior, a comp archer, and I think a horseman. Left him his second city.

Dido attacked but it wasn't too concentrated. They took Geneva but I liberated it and took out the units around it.

Pacal also declared with that message of them not thinking they can win but they have to try. They didn't killed their few units. One was a pikeman which was above me but he had only one. I pillaged everything he had. Several landmarks. I got 73 gold from hims and 135 gold, marble, dyes from Dido for peace.

I went to war with Attila by request of everybody but never had to fight. At some point Austria sided with him for some reason I was worried because they were so close but they developed no advanced naval tech so I quickly got some and then they were outmatched. Took out several ships but never got as far as invading.

I build many Pictish warriors early on to keep the foreign lands bonus for the future but I never got to upgrading them so really I wasted 1000s in upkeep keeping them for most of them game. It was only in the modern era when I build up significant units as a deterrent for Spain that has turned and had a huge military and often had 7000+ gold on them. I gave away the pictish to CS (I saw Quebec with one later) and built new units with my three good production cities, Douglas Cardiff and the Inca capital. I had four academies around Nantes and just ran out the tech tree and build my spaceship.

That's all I remember.

Spoiler :

Turn 5
Messenger of the gods

Tunn 6
Ruins turns warrior to pictish warior!

turn 10 runis give cultue. Open honor

turn 18
ruins- free sailing tech

turn 20
liberty

turn 23
start great library

turn 29
republic

turn 41
meet Pacal

turn 47
collective rule

turn 48
great library - drama and poetry

turn 57
Great Prophet - (Judism) Druidism
Church proporty
pagodas

Turn 60
meet dido

Turn 71
Warrior Code (two CS wanted GG)

Turn 77
meet sweeden

Turn 80
meet Atilla

Turn 86
third city

Turn 97
Citizenship

Turn 103
fourth city

Turn 118
Feed the world
religious text

Turn 122
Fifth city

Turn 142
War with Pacal

Turn 144
Great Scientist born

Turn 147
Takes Palenque Maya capital
great mosque
oracle

Turn 149
Pacal offers peace and 122 gold

Turn 152
Atila goes to war with sweeden

Turn 158
Alila makes peace with Sweeden

Turn 192
Dido declares war

194
7th city

Turn 195
Pacal declares war

Turn 197
Geneva is taken by Dido

Turn 199
I liberate Geneva

Turn 203
Attila and Dido declare war on Ethiopia

Trun 210
Meritocracy
Great Engineer

Turn 217
Peace with Pacal - 73 gold
Peace with Dido - 135 gold, marble, dyes.

Turn 218
Ethiopia peace with Attila

Trun 221
Ethiopia makes peace with Dido

Turn 230
Dido shares Attila has embarked a force to attack Palenque

Turn 248
Met Spain

Turn 258
Multiple requests to go to war with Attila

Turn 260
lost porcelin tower

Turn 280
Peace with attila
Dido peace with Attila

Turn 287
Attila makes pease with Spain

Turn 297
Sweeden and ethiopia declare war on Dido

Turn 298
Spain, Inca, Netherlands declare war on Dido

Turn 305
8th city

Turn 311
Austria makes peace with Attila

Turn 326
Ethiopia makles peace with Attila
William makes peace with attila

Turn 328
Spain makes peace with Dido

Turn 334
Attila declared war on Bysantium

Trun 338
Great Engineer born

Turn 340
Spain Sweeden declare war on Attila

Turn 342
Dido makes peace with Ethipoia

Turn 343
Netherlands makes peace with Dido

Turn 348
Free thought

Turn 349
Ethiopia war with Huns
buy great scientist

Turn 350
Pacal declares war on Attila
Netherlands war with Attila

Turn 352
War with Attila ()

Turn 357
Sweeden peace with Dido

Turn 358
Pacal peace with dido

Turn 359
Ethiopia war with Austria
Spain war with Austria

Turn 360
Sweeden, Pacal, Netherlands war with Austria

Turn 362
Dido war with Austria

Turn 365
Attila is plotting against Austria
Attila is building up an army with navel escorts

Turn 367
I make peace with Attila

Turn 370
Attila makes peace with spain

Turn 374
Order
Great scientist

Turn 375
15144 from great scientist!

Turn 376
Austria makes peace with Netherlands

Turn 377
Austria offers peace

Turn 380
Huns make peace with Byzantium
Sweeden is sending a fleet for a sneak attack on an unknown civ. (they're next to my capital)

Turn 380
buy Great Engineer

Turn 387
Warsaw joins Austria

Turn 389
great merchant
Spain makes peace with austria

Turn 390
austria makes peace with Sweeden

Turn 391
Appolo program

Turn 392
Hubble space telescope

Turn 395
Pacal peace with attila

Turn 397
golden age

Turn 398
but great engineer

turn 402
sweeden makes peace with attila

Turn 403
Sweeden war with ethiopia

Turn 404
spain, pacal, netherlands war with ethiopia

turn 406
austria peace with dido

turn 409
ethiopia makes peace with attila

turn 410
netherlands makes peace with attila

turn 411
austria peace with attila

turn 413
ethiopia apollo program

turn 414
attila war with byzantium

turn 415
spain war with huns

turn 416
pacal war with huns

turn 422
sweeden war with huns

turn 424
war with huns (request by sweeden)
spain apollo

turn 425
planned economy

turn 426
dido builds cristo redentor

turn 433
netherlands war huns
spain peace with ethiopia

First city

Spoiler :

second city

Spoiler :

third city

Spoiler :

fourth city

Spoiler :

fifth city

Spoiler :

sixth city- captures inca capital

Spoiler :

seventh city

Spoiler :

eighth city

Spoiler :

nine, ten and final empire shot

Spoiler :

final demographics

Spoiler :

 

Spoiler :

I played the original Civ extensively as a teenager, only dabbled in Civ2 3 and 4, and hadn't played for several years until I just bought Civ5+G&K a week ago. This is my first GOTM ever, my 5th game of Civ5, previous were also on King with a 454 turn Cultural Victory, a 428 turn Science Victory, and 2 defeats. I am (maybe was?) a chronic reloader so this was actually really nice not being able to reload.

Suffice to say I made a few mistakes...

I settled in place and upon learning I was the only player on the decent sized island I decided to develop the landmass as best I could and hope my isolation would allow me to stay as pacifist as possible. My intent to most efficiently utilize the landmass with no workable tile overlap between my cities resulted in a plan for 5 cities. However, my pacifist ways had not secured the island of barbarians and led to a shortage of escorts for my settlers, resulting in two killed escorts, a delay in founding my 4th and 5th cities, and their locations both being not quite where I wanted them because I settled rather than risk my settlers further. My northern city got the worst of it getting tundra instead of river (sorry Nantesians!)

Maya and Sweden declared war on me pretty early and for no reason I thought, but I guess they thought that 4 or 5 cities was too much and I was weak and an expansionist threat? In any case it spooked me but I had never seen more than one naval unit from each of them, and I thought that Geneva as my ally would take the brunt of an invasion and buy me time to buy units, so I decided to ignore Maya and Swedens DoW and did not build any new units, while all I had was one warrior and one scout at that point. Turns out I was right and they never sent more than that one ship each at me which I just slowly city bombarded to death, but the state of war lasted for like 120+ turns because their terms were always too unreasonable. I eventually made pretty unfavorable deals with both to achieve peace and they quickly became very friendly.

The rest of the world for the most part was the much described lovefest between basically everyone it seemed including my two former enemies. I think I had 5 or 6 RAs at one point. I accepted all reasonable propositions, refusing only outright gift requests and joint DoWs. Austria was the first to be target by the makeshift alliance of almost everyone. When they all declared war on her I thought very hard about it and decided seek favor with the alliance by denouncing Austria. This worked well I think, the only civ I angered was The Huns, and they were targeted by the alliance soon after so I ended up denouncing them too. Denouncing Austria and The Huns were the only unfriendly acts I committed the whole game aside from sinking the two Mayan and Swedish ships.

I allied to La Venta and Geneva early to secure my landmass against them unexpectedly flipping on me since either one easily outmatched my feeble military. Other CS I allied with by topping them off if I completed a mission or two for them, except for one I bought off outright for his lux during a happiness crisis. I ended allied to 7 CS.

My plan was to beeline to Engineering to get my free Aqueducts so my cities would grow nicely while I went straight for Education next to build Universities. I think a big mistake at this point was I thought my economy was weak and I needed to catch up on the untouched paths of my tech tree, when instead I should have gone forward and focused on getting to Hospitals and Public Schools. I ended up building those much later than I think I could have and I'm sure it hurt my time considerably.

My religion I am still not entirely sure what to do with, I tried to keep the 3 forest bonus but then I thought I screwed it up when I built roads through them, so I don't think I was getting the +2 bonus but I did make sure to leave one forest untouched. I chose Shinto with Messenger of the Gods, Ceremonial Burial, and Swords into Plowshares. Sweden and Carthage had no religion yet so they were easy and I ended with solid Shinto from my island, east to Atilla's Court, and south Kuala Lumpur. After damaging relations with Ethiopia by converting a city once, I stuck to only CS after that, got Hong Kong and Sidon but a few other attempts were not strong enough and wore off. I used the faith to buy several scientists which I parked until I could use them efficiently for discovering techs. I probably should have built an academy or two early though for more cumulative effect.

I expected espionage to be much more useful than it was. I decided to go for the NIA and also to jump ahead in Ages to get all my spies by beelining for Rocketry to get the Apollo Program out of the way early then continue to Satellites for Hubble and the Information Age. With a full roster of ranked up spies I thought they could quickly mop up the lesser techs however I quickly discovered that nobody had any tech I could steal! I got to this point before I had Plastics and Penicillin, so I missed quite a bit of growth and sci fro the lack of Medical and Research Labs which again I ended up building way too late, AND I screwed myself on RA costs by jumping ahead in Ages like that.

I built the Apollo Program in 1872 (t306) but did not launch till 93 years or 59 turns later. Not quite according to plan...

Not sure if I will try TSG41 yet, probably will go back and try an older one or few first for more no-reload practice.

 

> How was your first experience with G&K in a GOTM?

I've been offline for a couple of months, and though I got G&K on the day it was released I didn't get to play it till August. for my first game I took the settings of this GOTM and played half-way through it as a practice game for this. I really like G&K - seems like a new game! Vanilla was getting a little boring using the same SPs, techs, and wonders all the time.

I found G&K a little buggy though.
bug#1: I ran into a problem where I couldn't get past "A unit needs orders" message, then a "Please wait" message. Very frustating, and had to kill the game, reboot, turn unit cycling off to get it to go finally.
bug#2: I found units were being sent off to strange places all the time. I finally figured out that for some reason when I was right-clicking the notifications away on the right side of the screen, it would also send the active unit to that location on the map that was underneath the notication that I just right-clicked away. Anyone else notice that? is there a way to prevent this from happening?

> How did you have to adjust your strategy and/or play style to adjust to the changes?

I tried going Tradition then Rationalism. seemed to work well.


> How did you use religion or spying to your advantage

I went for the growth adds on religion. for spying I just played defense since I was so far ahead on tech.

Easy isolated start on this one - thanks Lief!

 

How was your first experience with G&K in a GOTM?
Was my first GOTM of any kind as well as my first G&K game. In fact I guess it only my second game of Civ5 since I didn't much like it when it came out and put it aside after one game.

How did you have to adjust your strategy and/or play style to adjust to the changes?
GoK didn't change my strategy at all really, just augmented it. However being in a GotM certainly did as mentioned under general comments below.

How did you use religion or spying to your advantage?
I used religion to supplement things but it didn't change my strategy.
Spies were beneficial in keeping the bulk of the maritime, cultural and mercentile CS on side, particularly as I was leading in tech by so much that I had more than the other civs.

General Comments
I like strategy games and can usually beat them at high difficulty levels. But I don't tend to follow the 'theory' of the game much, preferring to just follow my normal empire building style that I prefer. I did that for the first 193 turns, settling 12 cities and with a clear lead over the AI, then came online and read about some people managing to finish the game in not much over 200 turns and using only 4 cities!! Sure I had read about 3 city challenge in Civ 4 and great person economies (never tried either) but didn't realise that so few cities could be so powerful in Civ 5. I also wasn't really using RAs, had only met 3 other civs, two of whom had DoW me, etc. (actually Carthage spent most of the game at war with me, offering ludicrous peace deals despite losing 10 times as many ships as I did).

So I spent the next 118 turns trying to make up for my suboptimal start. Then overcooked it by focussing on research for way too long, ending up researching 7 Future Techs before I could finish the spaceship. Should have started bulbing my G Scientists much earlier, paid for less RAs and built a couple of great engineers.

Fun though. Nice to have my normal casual style of play challenged.

One question: Is it possible to get hold of the saves from the top finishers? I would be REALLY interested to see what their empires looked like!

 

This is my first GOTM submission. I am totally stunned by Attaturk's 17th Century victory. I know you gave the play by play, but I'd be keen to watch a video LP how you achieved that anyway.
This was a humbling game. Bring on the next one.

 

Well I got 266 turns, but I'm too lazy to submit anything.

I basically did a standard tradition->rationalism, delaying oracle to rennaisance. Got Pyramids, Great Library, Hanging Gardens, etc early. I managed to be friendly with every Civilization so I had a ton of research agreements going all the time.

I only had four cities and my 4th city came up late and I neglected it it quite a bit so it didn't grow as well as it could have. Probably would have been a lot better if I had a couple more cities.