A tight game with surprisingly small military.
DrRerNate went for Roman Roads and Hammurabi turn 2. Palino went for Pyramids and Hippocrated. Since both of my opponents went for peaceful leaders I got away with a greedy early game with Aristotle and Stonehenge. I picked up Iron for 2 round 2. I got Monarchy, Knights and Code of Laws for 1 round 3 and 4. By round 6 I had Code of laws, Iron and Monarchy in play and Knights, Swords and Irrigation in hand getting great value from Aristotle.
DrRerNate went for Iron, Code of Laws, Swordsmen and Genghis Khan. DrRerNate lacked the military actions or a tactic to play immediately, maybe due to Hammurabi which gave me time to be greedy. I think either going for more military or more economy would have been better here from him. A switch to Joan and open borders from Palino made me safe without investing into military for the time being. Palino had taken Saladin to get a quick transition from Hippocrates and pacted with me to avoid giving DrRerNate military actions that he needed. Palino had also developed Alchemy which made him leave an early Harvard to me. This was great with high rock production and only philosophy. I built it immediately turn 8. It is great when you want the opposite cards of the player before you. This meant I had to pass on strategy for 3 leaving it for Palino on 2. This felt acceptable as he had 3 science per turn and needed many other techs as well.
Turn 9 I payed Palino back for the open borders with an international trade agreements since I did not want to seed into Foray. My military was a swordsman and a temple by this point =) . Turn 10 DrRerNate took Robespierre for 3 to go with his Republic and Strategy solving his lack of actions. Palino went for both Selective breeding and Coal with the help of a wealthy territory, matching my greediness. He also played Conquistadors giving me a direction for how to build my military. Turn 11 saw DrRerNate revolt to Republic, get Scientific Method upgraded and pick Selective breeding solving all his issues. Palino got Cook for 3 culture per turn and grabbed Kremlin. I got Ocean Liner and switched to conquistadores readying a War of Territory to punish their greed. Unfortunately, Joan died early and Darwin was late so I did not have the tempo to push militarily with 2 conquistadors.
With Darwin I gambled on getting Computers as age 3 had Gates, Meier, Jobs and Curie. I was dismayed when Gates came from the deck immediately after. Luckily for me DrRerNate skipped an early Gates for Coubertin valuing 4 culture over 4 ore per turn. I got Gates for 1 action turn 12, built a third lab and also snagged Military Theory. Next turn DrRerNate and I got the two Air forces making it hard for Palino to keep up despite his large stash of production. He tried fundamentalism to keep up but his Churchill still got assassinated and he lacked science the rest of the age. DrRerNate got into one Modern Army but had a small population with only 1 farm. He went for more arenas and movies to win by culture. That meant I could get by with my 2 conquistadors and was free to build into democracy and 4 computers with Gates. DrRerNate had a small culture lead but it vanished in face of Popularisation of science, the impacts and the Gates bonus.
End scores: Chumchu 256, DrRerNate 241, Palino 171
Replay: FAJADERA
