Would you believe that this was my first full game on Highlands? (Aside from verifying it worked while testing.) You actually had more experience on this map than me!
I agree that it's a fun one to play though. Sirian did some nice work on this one, for sure.
Your opening was identical to mine - Meditation for Buddhism and then Fishing, with a worker build first in the capital. I think that was a pretty good start to the game, in my completely unbiased opinion.
As far as religions go, it's entirely possible to get a religion first with Spiritual civs most of the time. The AI likes to pick up a defensive or worker tech a lot of the time (though again, it depends on the personality of the AI civ). You're right though that it gets very hard to found an early religion with a non-Spiritual civ on Monarch and above!
You also built Stonehenge early on and founded your second city in the same spot as me. 1000BC Oracle? Wow. I would have beaten that but JUST barely, I finished it in 1040BC in my game. I wonder if I actually won the race by 1 turn! That would have been something - but I hope it wasn't actually that close!
Pyramids built by Vicky... not good. I was extremely relieved when Saladin got them in my game. The last thing you want is a Financial civ jumping into Representation or Universal Suffrage early on when everyone else is in Despotism.
Early war against Caesar, wow. I suspected that at least one person would try it. As you stated though, Jags don't fare well against the Roman legions. See, you ran into the very problem that I was worried about - yes, you can take out the AI, but at the cost of falling way too far behind in the tech race. Maybe tech trading could have helped (?) Conquest is a tough path in Civ4, certainly much more difficult than the no-brainer it was in Civ3!
Yikes! Dead last in GNP!
Well, there's the very opposite of my maritime civ there!
Days of our Civs...
Calendar in 1790AD was also quite amusing to see. I wonder what all the Industrial and Modern age civs were thinking as you and Caesar continued to fight a medieval conflict in their backyards.
Ye gods, that was a rough dogpile on you! I think you earn a gold star just for surviving that one intact. Even if it did involve gifting cities to civs with whom Alex did not have Open Borders.
Well I have to disagree and saying that expanding over water WAS the best way to go in this game. Attacking someone early on, however, was not the best path. Conquest was probably best done later on, when it was possible to support more cities financially. But congrats on a bold move with Jags, and for surviving all the way to the end despite long odds!
