10 turns (1675 AD - 1725 AD)
Mostly focused on diplomacy and war management for these last few turns. Ended up making peace with Ramses around 2 turns in. His peripheral cities were too well defended to take over, and we were both just fortifying our borders staring at each other the whole time. I think we knocked him down a peg with our triple team, as we're a bit more comfortably ahead of him score wise now. Louis also made peace with him, but it seems Ragnar is still carrying the war torch against him.
For really no particular reason at all, Stalin decided to declare on us again. His grenadiers were actually giving me some problems, as our redcoats weren't placed well strategically for his attack at first. If he starts wandering around our territory with grenadiers, try to be the aggressor with the redcoats. Grenadiers get a huge +50% attack bonus against riflemen/redcoats, but don't get the same bonus on defense, so we want to try to head them off at the pass. I sent a small band of units up towards his territory. His city is defended with 3 riflemen, which I think is a bit too strong to try to take over right now. I'm really just planning on moving around tile by tile to do some pillaging. He has very good production in that city now, so I want to blow up all the mines and windmills so he can't create as many units close to our territory. I don't think we're in any real danger with him, just make sure to pay attention to the borders to see what he's sending in at us. We could also use a few reinforcements for London, so some unit shifting wouldn't be a bad idea.
A few turns into our war with Stalin, Genghis finally revealed what he was up to. Hannibal ended up being his target, and just taking a peek at the conflict down there, it looks like it's going to be a massacre. Genghis was WELL prepared for war. Just take a look at what he's sending down there...huge clumps of cavalry and riflemen. In fact, one turn after declaring, Genghis took over Hannibal's northwest city. I have a feeling this isn't going to be pretty for Hannibal, and if Genghis is feeling especially ambitious, this may eventually end up with Hannibal being wiped off the map. Of course, Genghis asked us to join the war, and being the good ally that we are, I accepted. Hannibal should be so busy trying to defend, I really don't think he'll do anything in the way of attacking us. Just make sure the southern most cities have some kind of decent defense, but otherwise, we'll just watch the border like we did with Ramses.
So just to summarize on current world events: We're at war with both Stalin and Hannibal, Genghis is at war with Hannibal, and Ragnar is at war with Ramses. Let's try to minimize the damage, build up our army, and maybe get rid of that annoying city of Stalin's near the iron if the opportunity presents. Of course this is going to cause more unhappiness like before, but I don't think we have to switch back to Hereditary Rule. We'll hold things together by building happiness related buildings in cities that need them. At this point, we're just playing the political game, with the ultimate goal being to strengthen relations with Genghis, Louis, and Ragnar, while weakening Hannibal and Stalin. Ramses we're fine with, as long as he remains a world power and is hated by everyone.
Tech wise, I was thinking it wouldn't be a bad idea to beeline towards Mass Media. That's the tech we need to build the U.N. so we can go for diplomatic victory. If need be, we can detour to learn some additional military techs if the rest of the world gets ahead of us, but I think priority should go to techs like Physics and Electricity so we can get to Mass Media ASAP.
