Challenge 1 Walkthrough (1) - Pre-game planning

In order to hopefully show that the Level 9 is winnable but requires careful thinking and unyielding persistence, I am going to attempt the challenges at the same time as everyone. My way may not be the most effective. I definitely wish to hear your story on this challenge, no matter the outcome. All stories will be permanently featured on this site. Please simply contact me or reply on this blog.

As mentioned in the tips posts, this map has very low happiness and gold, and it favors a defensive approach. So I am going to skip conquest and leave it to the greatest minds. I will pick one from Cultural, Technology, or Diplomatic victory. (Can't imagine the AIs will delay their space ship launch to the maximum turn.)

The first path to victory that comes to my mind is Cultural victory. From experience, I know Cultural Victory is the least dependent on Happiness - since the empire will be small, and the policies and occassional City State allies should handle unhappiness easily.

Gold could post a problem for Research Agreements. Without enough RAs, the player will drop hopelessly behind the AIs to reach those key techs that enable the completion of key wonders. Without enough gold, the player can't even purchase enough Cultural City States in early game.

While under ideal conditions, Cultural victory can be reached around Turn 220+. However, here I probably need 250 - 270 turns. That could be too late to beat Level 9 AI's Technology victory, which should happen earlier than Level 8 (Turn 270 or so).

Technology and Diplomatic victories are very similar in the first 3/4 of the game. I need to be powerfully rich to buy City States and make good use of their research contribution. That sounds hard on this map, but if I have a  powerfully militarily, it should be able to beat down at least one opponent at the beginning. Then, through subsequent victories either offensively or defensively, I may be able to profit more from AIs. Ideally, I will milk, one way or another, every penny from the other 8 civilizations.

Here we go!