Who to go for?

[Pengu]

Well, playing as SB on emp I am having a tough game. My starting area was so so and almost everything was costal. My only real neigbour was Zara and I do dislike him alot as he expand like crazy and is hard to deal with. I settled a bit away from my 1st city both to try and block him in and get bronze. But Zara didn't care and settled like crazy, all over the jungle and built both the mids and GLH. At 1 AD I was sitting at 5 cites with room for a couple of more and had lots of food for GP but Zara was getting up to 12. A bit slow for me by my economy didn't allow for more. With the way Zara was going decided I had to attack. I had no horse and no phants...
The religious picture: Dutch, Ethoipia, China Hindu
Aztec Buddism
Sumeria, Greece Judaism
Willem, teching like crazy built the AP which would be a disaster.
I bulbed machinery and went trebs with xbows. Bribed in Monty on him and declared. Took his 1st 2 cities with few problems.
Then his knights started to turn up and and his number of cities made his army production go up. I had guilds but no horse so he had better units. Then after just a few turns i am forced to vote against the AP as China, Zara and the the dutch are the biggest and all hindu. -5 happiness in most of my cities really hurt my production.
I still trudged on and took 3 more cities. Then ANOTHER damn vote came up and more unhappiness. A few of my cities went to pop 1 so I hade to take peace or I would have lost cities back and my economy was hurting. So close to capping him too
More damn AP **** as a vote came to give back cites to Zara. Grrr
After 10 turns would be up I would attack again trying to vassal him. Meanwhile Sumeria just peacevassals to China... Sigh. The Dutch just run away techwise and get lib around 1250. So I declare again and take a city. Then the following turn China and Aztecs dow Zara. I know I am in trouble and and to take another 1. Zara, down to 4 cites just refuses to cap. Then Aztecs and China take 1 city each and Zara caps to Monty right away... Now I was in trouble having no vassals getting into tech trouble and culture trouble. I decide I will try to take out Monty's stack as he has 6 cites and is behind me a little in tech. Then just as I am about to dow Monty he dows China....
China is the undisputed no 1 now with 12 cites and 6 city vassal sumeria. We are about the same techwise besides they having Gunpowder. No am am wondering if I should join Aztecs to try and take on the big one or try to kill the Aztecs.
Decalring on the Aztecs would be easier of course and would get me a few cites. But....
What if I do that and he vassals to China? Quin, Gilga and Monty would be an impossible future war. If I could somehow break China's back, hard I know, with the help of Monty it would open up the game alot.

 

[Shaandore]

Question is, do you have units for crashing China? Starting a late medieval war with badly whipped and low pop cities against a bigger AI at tech parity won't work. You need either tech advantage or numbers to crush him.

How about teching to Steel, and going after him with cannons?

Can you steal techs from Willem?

Of course a save would help us, we could give more direct advice...

 

[Pengu]

Well, It might be tricky. Depends on how much he will be involved with Monty.
If he takes his stack to me I might have difficulty.
I played on and just a couple of turns later grecce dowed Monty so I thought I had no choice but to dogpile. And after losing a couple of cites to China I was nervous. But I took 4 cites from him and he capped to me with 1 city left. I gave back all but 2 of them. By then it was 1500 And everyone had or were close to MS and Rifling. So I decided to backfill a few cities which I hadn't settled before and tried to get my economy and cites going. After slowly getting to 20 cites and steel and rifles I decided to go for the Dutch. Even if they were the farthest away they were close to both AL and Artillery and that would be majorly annoying if he got those. Everyone else were either at friendly or pleased and not that close to AL. But sending armies across the map takes forever as do support. utrecht went easily enough but he had like 20-30 units in Amsterdam. His cannons and cavs ate a few of my armies and I didn't have enough armies to take the city in 1 turn. So he reinforced and reinforced and was scared I was running out of time. But finally after losing almost half my stack Amsterdam fell and Willem capped. Just before my war China capped Greece and Sumeria broke free so Sumeria looks to be next on the menu. I will try to get AL but it will take forever with my techrate.

 

[Pengu]

Well, the game turned out to be a disaster and a long eternal slugfest.
1st:
Zara on his 1 island city was a pain. His culture created revolt in 1 of my cities many time, all cities that had been his was still unhappy and the damn AP voted all the time to give him back cities.
2nd:
After the Dutch I went for the Sumerians forgetting to beg for gold with resulted in war vs China too. So I reloaded. Sumeria fell after awhile, but he had a huge army for only having 6 cites. So I lost achunk of my army again.
3rd: Once sumeria was done, China and his vassal Greeece had Infantry and soon artillery.
I was way behind the Dutch and Sumeria techwise and my techrate was non existant.
I had to wait for Infantry and artillery before declaring which delayed me and build a new army. Once attacking I took 3-4 cities pretty fast but China's culture was a pain as most of the cities were completely surrounded by Chinese culture. This made the war a pain as over and over again Chinese stacks sniped my small armies moving through Chinese Culture.
4th: The war for my vassals was mostly a defensive one. Sumeria did nothing but defend as did the Aztecs. the Dutch lost a city to Greece. So in the beginning little help from them.

But soon Dutch had tanks and took back his city and moved into Greek territory. Sparta and Athens fell and even Monty took back his capitol. China wasn't even close to capping so I went on and took 2 other cites and his capitol. Still no change and I hoped that by killing his vassal he would give up. He took back Beijing only for the Dutch to crush him. No China was down to 6 cities, mostly in the tundra and Greece 1 after the dutch taking another. I went straight for that city and took another Chinese one on the way. With Greece deade and Chine down to 5 tundra cities I thought for sure he would cap. But nooo. I had like 23 cites and my vassals had 5-10 cities each and he was all alone. China had tanks in the end but I didn't care and after taking 1 more city I finally won dom. In 1932 AD! My latest pangea finish in eternity. So annoying this game was...