I'll expand a little with what I can say from memory (posting from work
, and having finished this game a long time ago).
I settled in place, did a risky gambit (since this was only king, right ?) by going BUILDER FIRST
, and landed Stonehenge at my capital
.
My warrior went exploring to the east and north (I always like scouting the tundra, the AI rarely pick the huts there), met Hong Kong quite fast (nice +2 hammer) then Yerevan, then got through its unenforced border to find Saladin and the natural wonder there that finished Astrology.
My first settler went to the desert spot to the south (I was lured by the perspective of an awesome Petra).
Egypt declared an early war, which I punished with the usual 3 archers, getting a bit of gold in the peace treaty.
I don't remember what I got from the huts, but I think I got a scout and I had the same crazy luck as Sulla in getting the eureka for state workforce (I generally hate building a district super early, specially here where I was trying to get Stonehenge and had to overcompensate in expansion later. I also met Buenos Aires first (nice +2 hammer yet again). I wasn't able to get past Mahenjo Daro by the time my units arrived there.
Without the possibility of war, after settling my third city to the east, then south I planted two more cities between Rouen (where I planned to go for Petra) and Egypt, on the coast, then later one in the southeast to make use of that +5 Adj bonus for a campus, another one between Buenos Aires and Mohenjo Daro, one west near the deer, even one past Yerevan right in Saladin's face one south of Egypt in a small peninsula on the west coast, and two coastal cities on the west coast of the desert, so I think 11 cities in total.
I had all sorts of crazy plans to get culture. Alas, the best early sources are wonder I didn't get (Pyramids were off limit for me, as Paris was settled in place, I was still disappointed when Cleopatra landed it), and actually I didn't chase any ancient wonder after I got Stonehenge : I was quite scarred by my stunted expansion at first, and went churning settler and builders as fast as I could for quite some time.
I now understand that as far as wonder tourism goes, the earlier the better, but I didn't do any research before getting into this game, and learned much about tourism by reading Sulla's Kongo OCC report... after the game.
I was much too late to grab Sun Tzu for a non-writer generated great work. I was declared upon a second time by Cleopatra, this time bringing Saladin as well. I pillaged Saladin's land to the stone age, And went pillaging in Egypt as well, specially as I was in a very tight race for Petra with Egypt ! I had sacrificed a lot to get this wonder, and my second city would never amount to much without it. Of course I was in autocracy, I had the civic giving a bonus to wonder production, but Petra is classical and still doesn't get France's bonus. I even chose the pantheon that gives bonus production to marshes and floodplain to make that city viable !
So I remained at war with Egypt and tried to pillage everything I could. In the end I landed the wonder, and I then managed to get sweet sweet peace treaties with both Saladin and Cleopatra, including a relic :-D.
I was planning to get as many relics as I could, so I wanted Mont Saint Michel and hoped to be able to get a few more by extortion.
In the end I never got Mont Saint Michel, but I spread my religion quite a bit (I think I had 3 holy sites, with the religious building that can hold religious art), and I think I actually got quite a bit of tourism from religion (you get bonus tourism from believer in your faith). I missed quite a few very important wonders (notably Oxford university). I met Trajan and Teddy quite late, and Rome was a cultural powerhouse in my game. My spies stole several of his great works by the end of the game.
My culture growth was excruciatingly slow. I got inspiration for almost all the civics I was researching, but I messed up my priorities (after reading Sulla's report, it is very clear than going for Merchant republic was a huge mistake for example). My science was okay but not stellar, there too I lacked focus.
In the end I got :
01 - Stonehenge
02 - Petra
03 - Coloseum (didn't realism about the toursim either)
04 - Hagia Sophia
05 - Terracota army
06 - Forbidden Palace
07 - Potala Palace
08 - Big Ben
09 - Eiffel Tower
10 - Venitian Arsenal
11 - Hermitage
12 - Great zimbabwe
13 - Rurh Valley
And I was 2 turns from completing Cristo redemptor at the end of the game.
I made chateaux, but I didn't have my priorities straight and didn't replace other improvement with them as soon as I could consider that a city was done, which in hindsight was a mistake; they were very welcome in this game when I could finally build them, but still it was infuriating to see Egypt building sphinx everywhere, not requiring rivers and much less frickin'humanism to do so !
I made a huuuuge economy this game, with a lot of commercial districts and harbors. I had many many caravans, making incredible money at the end of the game originating from Paris (and its 8 resources IIRC) with the great Zimbabwe, each trade route was getting a +16 gold bonus just from it
. I had the largest Big Ben gold infusion ever, as I think I had more than 6000 gold when I landed it. I ended the game with almost 20K gold. Yes, I am stupid enough not to have bought any GP with it, I could have bought a (late game) artist straight from 0 GPP... I also generated quite a bit of faith with my few relics and holy sites, but I used it to spread my religion and defend against heresy.
I didn't capture or raze any enemy cities, and I think I never got even one envoy with Mohenjo Daro. That was easy, I just had to NOT send them a trade route.
Retrospectively, my game lacked focus, I should have pushed for more early wonders, certainly define better priorities in the civics tree, and accept to sacrifice more tiles to chateaux. I should also have verified, rather than find out that the 3 flood plains I hoped to put them on near Rouen couldn't hold chateau. Makes sense, but that was a nasty surprise and with Petra and the flood plain pantheon, those would have been crazy.
Probably the most important failing was lack of exploration. I should really have met Trajan and Roosevelt much earlier. Also, locations for 6 to 8 good cities were settled very late (to the south of Saladin, and on an island east of China) that could have contributed. I also wish I could have settled the Pantanal south of Kongo, but I'm not sure of reasonable such a hope would actually have been. I also wish I had realized the importance of beelining flight and computer before the end of the game.
In many situations, I ended up chasing several rabbits at the same time, hoping to get all kind of odd GP (from Sun Tzu to the merchant that gives great work slots to a bank), I delayed some civics for too long as I was loath to miss on the inspiration with so little culture (which delayed humanism and thus... culture). I should definitely have started using spies much sooner, my spies ended up crazy good.
I managed to make a few seaside resorts, which didn't actually contribute that much (I only had a handful of suitable slots). I'll check how many relics and great work I managed to steal and extort this evening .
In the end, I think that is 30 Points for a finish before t300, and 26 Pts for 13 wonders : I claim 56 Pts for this game.
This game was really, really great to play, I loved the way the variant changed the game, and I hope I'll find the discipline to play a really focused game one day, with a strategy outlined from the start and everything !
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