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Treacherous diplomats can win
A diplomatic win is possible in spite of treachery earlier in the game.
In another tiny map game at deity level, using the Babylonians, I rushed the Zulus early with bowmen, capturing 5 of their cities. With them subdued, as a vassal state (see randomturn’s excellent “3 step strategy for higher levels”), I continued with a peaceful game, the only serious competition being the Iroquois, who had wiped out the Americans on the other continent.
With control of 5 sets of luxuries, it was easy to stay ahead on the tech path, with hefty “per turn” gold payments with the Iroquois keeping their science rate at 30% most of the game. Meanwhile the Zulus were understandably “furious” for quite awhile, but gifts of 10-20 gold to them every 10 turns or so, slowly raised their attitude to “polite” by the time I had built the United Nations wonder. At that time, they had a Mutual Protection Pact and Right of Passage with the Iroquois, following a brief war between the two much earlier in the game. One would expect Shaka’s vote for Secretary of the UN to go to the Iroquois, but I was surprised to see it go my way for a diplomatic win, in spite of breaking peace treaties 3 times with the Zulus in the beginning of the game.
Some other notes:
1) After two deity level games with the Babylonians, its hard not to like their Scientific and Religious traits, as these allow construction of all religious and science improvements at the same speed as the AI construct theirs, nullifying their production edge somewhat for cultural improvements. The bowman (and swordsman if you research Iron Working first) are sufficient for an early military rush against one AI opponent on a tiny continent game.
2) Theory of Evolution does not allow you to choose the two advances that come with its construction. They are selected randomly and are likely to be unresearched techs one skipped earlier in the game! So its useless, when compared to the CivII version, where the player could select the two advances.
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