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I worked myself to one turn away from Liberalism before switching to other techs (and keeping a close eye on what the AI's were researching). A Great Scientist sped this discovery of Printing Press by many turns. And this helped the tech rate for a good 12 turns:
Another Great Scientist was born, and I stored him while researching Constitution by hand so that Liberalism would allow:
At this point, I felt I could afford to trade some techs again. So, I gave Willem 45g and Nationalism for Optics and Guilds. This allowed me to research Banking in 2 golden-age turns and Economics in 3 golden-age turns, thus nabbing the free Great Merchant for getting to Economics first. I settled him in Paris.
On the last turn of the Taj-granted golden age, I took advantage of the no anarchy to switch to switch my civics to Universal Suffrage, Bureacracy (no change), Emancipation, Free Market, and Free Religion (no change).
A note on Free Religion: I built the Apostolic Palace during a golden age when I'd switched to Christianity for that purpose alone. Before the first resolution could be brought up, I switched to the Free Religion civic. I wondered if something was wrong because I was never given the choice of voting on anything except the Apostolic leader, which I always won and which always had votes attributed based on Christian cities. (I spread it to one of Willem's cities, and he spread it throughout his empire, so I actually started worrying about staying leader after a while, but he and everyone else always voted for me.) I found it strange that the Apostolic Palace continued to remember what my last religion had been for leader elections, but never gave me any chance to present resolutions while in Free Religion.
Anyway, the golden age was over when Paris completed this beacon of liberty (presumably on Lake Paris):
At this point, the wonder race became a bit clearer. I wasn't in any big hurry to discover Astronomy and obsolete several wonders, so I saved great people who might be able to bulb useful techs (i.e. scientists) and hand researched techs. Justinian declared again on Mansa, but this basically led to Mansa getting his city of Djenne back from Justinian who'd captured it in the first war.
Pacal declared on Asoka which ended with Asoka becoming his vassal. (I don't remember if it was the first war or a later war).
I kept an eye on the announcements and noticed this in the early 1500s:
Since he was nowhere near any wonders that I hadn't already built, I wasn't too concerned. Ten years later--in 1525--he started a golden age, so I figured I was safe. Still, I kept my focus on wonder-granting techs. At one point, I had a list of what techs I needed for every remaining wonder and I prioritized the techs based on what I could do with them.
A great prophet--appropriately enough it was St. Augustine--founded the Church of the Nativity for me in 1535 and immediately dropped my cash deficit at 100% science from -71gpt to -46gpt. I guess bulbing Theology was a good move after all.
In 1585, Justinian popped a Great Engineer, but since only Asoka was lower on the scoreboard, he was no threat to build any wonders. But Pacal got another Engineer in 1590 and as the AI score leader had to be taken somewhat seriously.
I researched through Railroad and Corporation before finally obsoleting many wonders with Astronomy in 1660, not long after Asoka becamse Pacal's vassal. Pacal got yet another Great Engineer in 1645 and seemed to be heading for Mass Media, so I interupted my run at Assembly Line to get there first. I burned my two stored Great Scientists to shave the research time for Physics down from 5 turns to 1.
In 1670, Mansa's city of Gao finally flipped to me after being mostly French in culture for hundreds of years. I expected his city south of Lyon to flip too, but it never did. Gao was welcomed with its tech-speeding cottages.
In 1725, Pacal vassalized Mansa, so he now had both Asoka and Mansa as vassals. I started to wonder if an AI victory might be a serious possibility. But still the wonders kept coming, always with me at least two techs ahead of any AI:
And *still* I felt I needed all three production cities to get the wonders done. I'm sure glad I decided on three production cities at the beginning of the game:
I didn't get a movie for Mt. Rushmore. Did everyone else? Edit: Oh, I see...it's just a National Wonder! Ooops. I guess I went out of my way for something I didn't need. I should have studied Sullla's list *before* the game, not at report time! I guess it was only one additional tech, so it wasn't that big of a deal.
And, of course, while I did catch a number of enemy and not-so-enemy spies (yes you, Mansa!), a few got through. Usually, they cost me precious food and shrank my cities. Rather effective, actually. I was impressed:
Finally, in 1832, a new diplomatic era dawned:
Now, not having expanded at all since the initial land grab (and one culturally acquired city), I did have some misgivings about building the UN. Especially with the AI score leader now having two vassals. Sure enough, Pacal beat me by earning his vassals' and Suryavarman's votes. Fortunately for me, he didn't have the land or the votes to do anything I really didn't want done anyway.
A more serious problem came with the last two wonders. I had completely forgotten about being burned by both in the distant past. With the Three Gorges Dam, I forgot that your city needed to be on a river to build it. Fortunately:
...Lyons is on a river!
And then a while later, after having every city building nothing but research for decade after decade (centuries?), I have one of my biggest scares of the game. I finally get Satellites and so can build the Space Elevator only to be reminded of the 30-degree latitude limit.
Oh no. Paris can't build it.... Orleans can't build it.... and Lyons, which is 1 tile south of Orleans:
Oh thank goodness. I about dropped a brick when I realized that the effort of the entire game could have been thwarted by not having placed a city far enough south in 2000BC. Of course, I would have turned up the culture to try to flip another of Mansa's cities a little further south and then probably stockpiled cash to try to rush the thing, but still. Wow. On the very northern row of tiles in which the Space Elevator could be built. I wonder if this was an intentionaly part of the scenario design? The last two wonders could only be built (by me anyway) if I placed that third production city in just the right place. (Assuming no efforts at aggression, anyway.)
And so, with a Great Artist and a Great Scientist, I started another Golden Age and got to work. A few turns later:
Got it. Got them all.
And so, in summary, here are the three "wonderfull" French cities:
I like the fact that I can still build chariots from scratch after building the Space Elevator.
And just for curiosity, I thought I'd check to see how I did with Great People. The next great person was due in 8T in Paris and was going to to cost 2800 GPP (Paris was generating 92GPP/t). And here are the build stats:
I think I got the free People for Music, Economics, Fascism (my only General, whom I never used), Communism and Physics. There is no free Great Prophet, right? And I didn't need to get Fusion for the free Engineer. (Though I would have been tempted if it had turned out the Lyons couldn't build the Space Elevator.)
Only managed to get one measly Great Engineer for myself compared to four or five for the AIs. Oh well, it appears that good production trumps Great Engineers most of the time, especially over the long run.
Final note: For me, this was an excellent introduction to BtS. As I went back over the wonder list, I could remember the game situation when I built each one. Very cool. Good way to learn a bit about the new tech tree and what the new wonders are. Thank you much for this one, Sullla.