[Shabbaman]

Yesterday I finished a game on Emperor. I had won a cultural victory on king/archipelago (with Egypt, basically that's cheating), so I thought I'd perfect that skill on a smaller but more difficult map with Siam. And a difficult game it was! Unfortunately not because of the AI. The AI was a bit more aggressive, but that might've been because I started on a small continent (yes, on archipelago there are small continents...) with Askia.

Eventually I settled two more cities, one to grab luxuries (iron and incense, plus two fish and a sheep on a hill (which looks exactly like New Zealand in real life!)) and one (on a more than decent spot, next to 1 fish, 1 cow and 1 marble) to grab a spot between my second city and the capital. I could keep up in research with just these three cities, and because of a marble next to my capital I could build all the wonders I wanted. Most importantly I got Stonehenge, even before I connected the marble. Everything went okay, but I had two major problems:

1. Gold income was lacking. I only build the culture and gold buildings, yet I don't earn enough money. At first I identified that this problem had to do with the terrain: not enough gold bonuses, not enough food bonuses to use a lot of specialists either. In the end it proved to be a lack of puppets (read: trade network).
2. No resources. A small map means a small number of city states, archipelago means city states with few resources. Even if I had had all the money to buy all the city states, I would've lacked a lot of resources. For instance: there were no city states with either oil or coal. But I didn't have any money, and the single cultural city state that I bound to me by building a wonder was captured by Caesar. The city state continued to give me culture every turn, yet not in the amount I appreciated: -4.

So Askia attacked me eventually. I had two frigates by then (and he didn't), but I had very little land units. As it turns out I just slaughter his army, build a cannon and two infantry and grab his capital. I make peace and get his second largest city, cutting his empire in half. 10 turns later I mob up the remaining cities). By now I'm getting over 50 gpt again (nearing 100 at the end), but I'm running out of turns: it's 1940 already.

Caesar had captured the american capital, so I had a feeling he'd be coming for me. As I had little faith in a cultural victory (would've easily been possible if I had had the gold income to buy some city states) I had figured out that I had a shot at domination victory if I could get Rome. Impossible, but 1 unit per tile makes everything possible. So, with 1 oil I build a battleship, which wiped out his invading army (with the help of 3 destroyers), I allied a city state next to his coast, captured Antium on the island next to it, got a bomber with the other half of my 1 oil, and beat the crap out of Rome. When I embarked my mechanized infantry out of Antium, he embarked his mech. inf. out of Rome. Epic fail on his part, win in 2048.

Basically I think that if I focus on Maritime instead of Cultural city states I can win on immortal or deity easily. Maritime pays for itself (if you convert the food to gold specialists). I need to be more aggressive to get some puppets. And two cities might be enough for a cultural victory. But the AI is retarded, the difficulty in this game was the terrain (not much luck there), the map size and type and my play style.