Pre-Game: My original plan for this game went as follows: I could remember (but not see, not having internet at the time I was working from memory of the game's objectives) that the game was about population and speed to Modern Age and victory. Since I am not great at population building I decided to aim for a finish prior to 1500AD, so I didn't have to count in that category. With that in mind, I though I could probably get Modern Age and a Diplo victory pre-1500. Unfortunately, as I said I did not have the game setup text in front of me, so I did not realise Diplomatic victory was disabled at that time. Oops, huh. Nevertheless, I begun my game...

I sent the worker SE to check out the wheat under the fog, and followed it with the settler, founding there on the coast and river, with the wheat in range. Started a jag and ceremonial burial, and irrigation. The worker take ages when you're not industrious, it seems.

I scouted East first off, and soon founded my next wierd-named city on the E coast just near the wheat and the game. Good for the growth I wanted. I failed to realise that the wheat S of Tenochtitlan was of course on a floodplain, so my early expansion probably suffered compared to others as a result.

My early tech choices were skewed towards finding the resources, as on a custom map I (rightly, as it turned out) didn't trust them to be anywhere nearby. After that, I made a beeline for Republic, to get that all-important tech going ASAP. My exploration wasn't great, so I took rather a long time to confirm what I suspected, that I was alone on the continent, which was much larger then I expected at the start. When I confirmed that, I made the decision to pull the Great Library if at all possible, and go no-science until I met the others, using the cash to rush infrastructure. If I had started my wonders earlier I could probably have got more, but Emporer play has left me such that I almost never even try anymore. I did get the Library, although no others.

In 10 AD, since I wasn't really trying hard, aiming to score big on the later categories, my population was a paltry 2,007,000. I wonder how that ranks?

I was running with 5 jaguars 'defending' my whole empire for a long time, as I finally realised there was exactly zero military threat from either enemies or barbs, so I just didn't build any units at all. In fact my first spear turned out to be built in 170 AD! The lack of wonders meant that Egypt had the Great Lighthouse, so it wasn't long before I met a galley of theirs, at which point I bought contacts and maps, and got catapulted 7 techs ahead by the Great Library. That still wasn't up to Education, so i kept on 0 science.

With the Lighthouse in enemy hands, I knew that I was in a race against time to settle up before they got to me, and indeed as fast, as I think I was, they still got to 4 spots on the Western island and even 2 on my big peninsula. Eventually the majority of these flipped, but not for some time. The next major point was the completion of my FP 3 cities South of the capital, which made enormous improvements in the South and jumped my income by 50%. That was in 430 AD, probably the earliest I have ever built it in any game, at least from scratch.

Before long the AIs researched up to education, as nobody seemed to have informed them that this was only Monarch, and they were researching at almost an Emporer pace the whole time. I decided that in the spirit of my aim for early Modern Age I needed to keep researching even now, and went for Astronomy, then Printing Press and Democracy. I'm absolutely certain that to produce this pace the AIs must have been almost constantly researching different paths. Do they have some way to know what they are each researching?

Navigation came in soon also, and at last I was able to trade, so I bought 2 new luxuries and repeatedly throughout the entire game was able to trade more for techs, freeing the money for rushing. I made a fairly serious mistake when I got Democracy, rushing straight into the revolt without noticing that Sistine was only 4 turns from completion. So of course it was built 5 turns later. Oh. oops! On the other hand, that city built Smiths a few turns later, which as a commercial wonder sparked my GA, at just the right time.

On that same turn, just 830 AD, I bought my way into the Industrial Age. It's really hard to tell this is Monarch level. I began Steam Power, and from that point on researched almost every single tech in 4 turns. A couple of the expensive ones took 5, but only very few indeed. I lost a couple turns of rails when the coal turned out to be on one of about 3 mountains that didn't have roads yet, and only connected an iron that same turn!

The wonders fell all in a row, fortunately ending just 3 turns before they got Industrialisation, I couldn't sell to them as it would continue the cascade. From that point, then, I of course got all of the wonders, and the techs continued apace. It was pretty much a straight run from here, with a few minor dramas such as one of my cities with 100+ culture flipping to a 0 culture french city, and the discovery of Chivalry on the same turn as I got Motorised Transport (pointless, no?). I allowed the AIs to get the dead end techs, and took them as part payment for my techs, along with the many hundreds of gpt they were paying me.

In fact I was able to run the entire of the Industrial Age on 100% science, with my expenses and more being covered by their payments. I was now sure that I could achieve my Diplomatic win pre-1500 AD, and achieve my original aim. The AIs got Radio in 1345 AD, which I bought to put me in the Modern Age. That feels pretty good, to me.

In 1375, though, the disaster struck. I got Fission, and discovered I couldn't build the UN. Ah. RIGHT.
I see. It's gotta be spaceship, then, but I don't think I can get it by 1500. I decided that of course I would try, but also make a rather belated attempt to get a larger population, by re-irrigation etcetera.

The rest was really a forgone conclusion, the only real drama was the first wars of the game when France and America declared on Egypt in 1385. If they weren't paying me over 600 gpt I might even have joined in, my military had been bumped by cities with nothing better to do to the point where I could have taken them all on without difficulty.

Indeed, in 1500 AD the game was not yet over, so I had to record my population, as 61,524,000. That doesn't seem bad, but it's not going to beat anyone who madee a real point of it.

The final spceship part was built on the same turn as I got The Laser due to judicious use of a placeholder and the scroll-ahead function, giving me my spaceship victory in 1535 AD. Final score was 5133, going to first place on my high scores.

It felt pretty fast, lets see how it stacks up.