sooooo, one part made me question your sanity at first: "The fast speed at which I had to capture the cities and lack of cannon meant that I lost quite a lot of troops, in fact most of my invasion force was gone. That's OK though because I resigned the DP with Caesar and didn't plan on starting another war until I finished the tech tree." i read "resign" like resigning from office, declining the position 
. then i realized you meant signed it again, and realized you weren't completely off-the-wall crazy (in at least that particular sense). awesome game!
blake, that soft/hard cap solves a mystery for me. peaceful cultural games are easier on higher levels in the sense that the AI will send missionaries to you. if you're on noble, you're usually out of luck if a religion you didn't found doesn't spread to you naturally. on deity it's completely the opposite -- i've had OCC games where my single city ended up with 5 AI-founded religions; if there are no wars going on they have 3 missionaries out there at all times. they must reach that cap of troops sooner, with the higher production bonuses. so, "make a missionary" would naturally get picked as the build more often at higher levels. thanks!
. then i realized you meant signed it again, and realized you weren't completely off-the-wall crazy (in at least that particular sense). awesome game!blake, that soft/hard cap solves a mystery for me. peaceful cultural games are easier on higher levels in the sense that the AI will send missionaries to you. if you're on noble, you're usually out of luck if a religion you didn't found doesn't spread to you naturally. on deity it's completely the opposite -- i've had OCC games where my single city ended up with 5 AI-founded religions; if there are no wars going on they have 3 missionaries out there at all times. they must reach that cap of troops sooner, with the higher production bonuses. so, "make a missionary" would naturally get picked as the build more often at higher levels. thanks!
. Bonus information: JC will not send troops to the other continent, so you can start airlifting straight away! More bonus information: you'll need to revolt to police state fairly soonish after starting the war. I did it on the same turn.