I didn't notice a huge impact from the science building boost, but the bonus beakers from academies and specialists seemed to help a lot.
I went full liberty. I probably should have gone with mixed tradition/liberty, because I got no pillage healing out of the pyramids until t150. I stayed peaceful until artillery. However, I must admit it was immediately very useful as soon as I attacked. Pillage-gold has already made it worthwhile.
I didn't have a great start. I only pulled off one worker steal, and although I had lots of copper and salt, (and the associated pantheon) Pacal converted my best faith city before I could found a religion, which significantly delayed my religion, leaving me with 5th religion and no happiness buildings. I settled for +1 happiness from shrines, but it ended up being moot because by t100 he'd converted 3 of my 4 cities to a religion which offered zero faith and zero happiness.
Anyway, my growth sucked. I was severely happiness limited until I got circuses and coliseums up. And my 4th expo, which I took to get Cerro de Potosi, was all desert. The only food was from 2 desert salt mines. But those only give 1 food until worked, and 2 after. I had to send a food caravan to get that city going at all, and I think it was still at 5 population when I got universities.
The decision to snag Cerro was worthwhile though IMHO. It earned me an extra 1000g by t150. There just wasn't a good 4th expo spot otherwise, so it was better than nothing.
And yet, I think at turn 100 my cities were 9,8,6 and 5 pop. Which is really pitiful. But, otherwise things have gone really well for me:
Even though my 4 cities only had 3 unique resources (copper, salt and cotton) I cornered the market on copper and salt, which eventually allowed me to trade lux for lux and restore my happiness. I was able to get 6 DoFs, so I've had tons of cash from my excess luxuries.
I used the Liberty finisher to plant an academy (+2 beakers from Sejong) and I hard-built NC, finishing on t85. I went for engineering before civil service and hard-built the third caravan. I rush-bought the first two caravans, so I had tons of beakers from trade routes.
I went for Education before Machinery. As a result, despite my pitiful growth, I got Education on T103. I was able to pull off 6 RAs by t114, and I rush-bought 3 universities on t103. (Saved up all my lux trades for a long time)
The one nice thing about getting overrun by Pacal's religion was that it gave me Jesuit Education, and even though I only had 200 faith saved up by t110, I was able to buy my last university on faith. So I didn't have to build any of them.
I entered the Renaissance through Gunpowder, and timed it so that I would get my 7th policy the next turn. I opened Rationalism and I used a GW to get Secularism by ~t120. So, by then I had 8 specialists each generating 7 bpt. I sat around 220-250bpt all the way to Dynamite. I accidentally bulbed Oxford the turn I started researching Military Science, so I started researching Dynamite around ~t139. That cost me 1000 beakers. If it were not HOF I probably would have reloaded that turn... I always get Oxford 1 turn away and keep it in reserve, and just got distracted this time. I like to have it one turn from completion because RA timing is hard to manage, and you might need Oxford at any moment. Anyway, my final RAs kicked in at 144, which would have finished Military Science and allowed me to bulb Dynamite on t145... Oh well. The scary thing is, despite the growth issues, despite goofing on Oxford, I still hit t149, which makes me think t140 Dynamite is possible.
At Dynamite I switched one specialist in each city from a University to a Market. (Still 4 bpt/specialist!) I put the other University specialist on a mine. As a result, my beakers dropped on t150 to about 195bpt.
Caravans: When I hit Education I switched my caravans to food/CS quest trade routes. When I hit Dynamite I bought a workshop in my best production city and switched my caravans to production/CS quests.
On t167, here's where I'm at:
I'm 3 turns from Industrialization. My XBs don't have logistics because I didn't even have barbs to fight... completely peaceful game until t149. I'm going to use pillage-gold from Maria to upgrade them to Gatlings, which will form the backbone of my third army and attack Brazil. I bought an armory in my best production city, and pumped out 3 artillery, so that army will have 3 artillery, 1 cavalry and 1 rifleman in addition to 4 Gatlings. That should punch through to Rio quickly.
I bought two more artillery to supplement my initial 6, so my other 2 armies will be 4 artillery, 1 cavalry, 1 gatling and 2 riflemen each.
I'm building 3 more cavalry just in case... but basically I'm on the home stretch. I figure I'm about 20 turns from victory if I make an optimal push, so there's no time to build anything else. I gave up on World's Fair after 400 hammers, because it was 70% done. No way for me to keep up with whoever the production beast is on that, and I basically don't need social policies anymore. In fact, I ended up taking +1 gold from science buildings instead of opening Commerce after Secularism, because it resulted in +11 base gold instead of +3. When I get my free policy from WF, it'll come just in time for me to finish another policy, so I can open Commerce and get Landsknecht by ~t175. I'll buy a few of them to capture cities for extra gold, and hopefully that will be all the extra momentum I need. I'll put my two specialists from the Writer's Guild on mines then and forget about social policies. If I had been luckier with Cultural CS, I probably could have gotten Mercantilism before turning off the culture spigot, but alas. Also, I never built an artists guild or a musicians guild. I don't have the population to support them anyway.
Marrakech had Taj Mahal, which was nice, and Palenque had Machu Picchu. (Score!)
I've taken more cities than I wanted to... I took all 3 of Pacal's good cities, because I need them to continue my push. Gandhi is a long walk, and it would be that much slower if I had to go around Chichen Itza. By taking them, I also secured 4 more luxes to sell to the civs that are still my friends. Which aren't many.
Gandhi just denounced me for taking so many cities. So he gets army #2 as soon as I build roads to him. Maria has GW and is close, and my DOF just expired, so she gets army #1 and #2 in the meantime. She has Notre Dame, so capturing her first is worth it. And, the way I see it, it's better to have my artillery fighting there while I build roads then it is to have them make the long trek up there while I build roads.
After Maria falls I'll start on Byzantium, and Venice is right next to me, so he'll probably be next after Brazil.
As you can see, this map is very favorable for fast Domination. There's a ton of ocean, so everyone is crammed close together, and everyone is pretty close to me despite getting a corner start. All the unexplored area is ocean/CS. Ideal setup for Domination. Lucky roll I daresay.
If I time everything right, sub-t200 is within reach I think.
My overall strategy was to take advantage of Korea's tech advantages and go peaceful until artillery. However, hwa-cha are so strong I might try to do a hwa-cha-augmented XB rush next time. That could possibly result in a pre-Dynamite victory.
I dunno though. t140 artillery is pretty tempting. What is that, 650 AD? Haha.
] & your fellow fanatics are welcome to try. Standard HOF rules apply and you have time until next gauntlet (approx.: 15/12/2013) to complete the gauntlet. Officially, there is no time limit on any of the games as HOF serves as eternal data base (up until the end of next b'aktun) for civilization games, hence, you can improve your finish time at any time you like.
![[pissed]](/images/smilies/pissed.gif "Pissed [pissed]")
. Still, bulbed two GW to finish last two in commerce by t. 170 or something. Doing rationalism now. If i would win the fair i could probably do half of rationalism with the overflow 
I might play another one in few days, Korea is great! 
No way i could make it through that small passage without losing 90% of my army. I swear this game keeps biting me from different angles every single time. 
