Gauntlet G-Major LXXXII - Marathon, Cultural - 1907 AD (953 turns) - 27/03/2017 

Hey!

This is my first Hall of Fame submission, and my first Marathon game!

So err now I've got to think 1000 turns back... aha. :)

Summary:

I have played this one as historically as I can, with mediterranean renaissance era civs - (spain, rome, byzantium, ottoman, morocco, arabia and france). Going first for buying of city states venice-style: I was successful in getting good Wonders - Collossus, Mausoleum and Hanging gardens (was beaten to GLighthouse by Rome!),

This got me early merchants which I used to colonise around the globe, until I had 4 cities. Around this time I had researched Venice's unique unit & I built up a navy fleet. I then began a large conquest of the 4 other Holy Cities, one by one - with the goal in mind of: gaining their biggest cities to stifle their resistance to my future tourism, with the added perks of spreading my Catholicism religion freely globally and gaining their great works & cities (puppets not occupied).

Morocco and Spain were first, they had no military. After their fall Rome expressed its contempt at my conquest, so I set my sights on them next. Their capital city had well built defences, however it had 10 wonders including Great Lighthouse - which was too good to ignore. I started picking off their eastern city of Antium in order to get their iron to upgrade to frigates. By this time I had trained my boats to have +1 range, and though it did not fall in a day, Rome eventually fell to me. 

At this stage, to my disappointment, yet convenience, my friendships with Byzantium and Arabia were deteriorating, so I also eventually took Mecca & Constantinople. I left the Turks alone as they were the least protestant of my conquest, had the least culture, and I did not want a Domination victory of course! Because Venice isn't bloodthirsty, no! I simply established my superiority over most of the known world. As Venice should rightly be. ;)

Though there were wars afterward (eliminating the the Romans and putting a stop to Spain's great prophets), peace allowed me to finally start benefitting from the x2 trade routes, and start building up my great works for tourism. Thus began the religious war as I quenched the presence of other religions as much as I could. I eventually got my head in gear that I should be focussing on the culture victory and my influence over the world grew exponentially, with France (of course) being the last to succumb - eventually falling after I built Eiffel tower (!) and sent 2 musicians for concerts in their lands.

Thanks for reading,

HooperJ

I'd welcome feedback, though I'm not sure how that would be done with the HOF system, I guess contact can be done on CFC.