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I started the game and made 2 cities as
soon as I could. Ethiopia was being bothersome right off the bat, creating a
city between my 2 cities. I found the extra starting tiles perk useful when
creating cities near resources and grabbing land near other civs like a jerk. I
also started off with Liberty instead of Tradition (which is usually my
tradition), since my plan was to "make" many cities in this game.
The Zulus were being very aggressive and by
the time the Classical era was coming to an end, had already eliminated the
Aztecs. So, naturally I got in on their good side, since at the time, I wasn't
leading in anything. I found that I was lagging behind on technology for quite
a while, and my gold wasn't ramping up as fast as it normally does in Prince.
To compensate for that, I went with the Commerce path.
Around the end of the medieval period, I
decided that the Incas, who were nearest to me, would just have to go. They
were leading in culture along with the Dutch and were also beginning to amass
an army. So, I made short work of their capital, and another one of their
cities (Machu). Their last city was in a very well-defended area, terrain wise,
and I didn't bother taking it. Needless to say, this little escapade cost me
tons of happiness, and I went way into the red (think negative 45). Shortly
after that barbarians began spawning in my territory. I managed to fight them
off, and surprisingly found an awesome solution to my happiness problem (other
than buying zoos and coliseums everywhere).
I was at a point where I got my last point
in the commerce tree, which effectively doubled my happiness per luxury. Seeing
as I had recently acquired several cities and their luxuries, my happiness went
from -45 to +45 in one turn. At this point I was sitting in a good position,
and I turned my attention to Ethiopia, which I always hate because they always
manage to build all the wonders before I do. I took 2 of their cities as well,
leaving them with their capital. I had to stop because the Dutch and the one
tiny Incan city declared war on me.
So, it was that the Dutch, angering me,
sealed their doom. They had very high tourism and I planned to take them out
anyway at some point, but I decided to fast forward. I had chosen the Autocracy
ideology at this point, and with the Zulus also eager to fight the Dutch, I
took their capital and another city (left the Incans alone). The Zulus took the
3rd Dutch city and that was the end of the Dutch.
Then there were many turns of
"peace" where I built troops in preparation to take the Zulus out.
The other 2 civs were no threat to me anymore. By this time I had airplanes and
tons of gold (12000 ish). I also had tons of faith (because I had chosen not to
found any religions, and hadn't spent anything on prophets and the like). I
found that I had adopted the Ethiopian religion, and could buy many science
buildings. I used up most of my faith to buy Public schools and Research
centres in all my cities. Needless to say that increased my science output
considerably, allowing me to research the Atom bomb.
I took out the Zulu capital and turned my
attention to nuking Ethiopia, since I had saved them for a particularly grisly
fate. I bought 5 nukes and nuked Ethiopia 3 times and took over their capital.
I then nuked the last Incan city and razed that to the ground. I then found out
that I had to take the Aztec capital that the Zulus had taken over. That was
out of nuke range so I rushed them from both sides and took them over. I could
have just waited just one more turn to get a tourism victory, but I wanted a
domination victory, so I decided to capture the last capital as well.
End of the game stats:
Gold: ~11000
Faith:~2000
Land: Most of it. Just a few small Zulu
cities remaining
City States: All allies