The hint on the last page was that I was researching Philosophy (which is useless), before some other ancient techs. Now, this gives it away:
Quoth Sirian, PROD Shadow Thread, 10/14/2002: If you are playing Always War, the representative govts are useless and you can skip them.
Quoth T-hawk: Oh, really?
Another one of my credoes in Civ is that a Republic, even at 30% luxuries and significant military spending, is a more powerful economy than a Monarchy at 0% with free units. The trade bonus is THAT powerful. If I can stay in Republic, I should be a lock for Fastest Space Victory, and also be able to pretty much clean up on the points for hand-building the medieval wonders.
Those of you who've read my other reports might know that warmongering really isn't my favorite part of the game. Not because I can't do it (see Epic Five), but because it drags on and on forever (see Epics Two and Nine.) I do like specific, targeted wars (see Epics One and Fifteen), but global conquest is more tedious than it's worth (well, except in Epic Ten.)
But what about war weariness? Now, in Always War, the only way to ever end war weariness is going to be to eliminate the civ that is causing it. Which is not an impossibility. Down here on Monarch difficulty, in Republic, it should be a cinch to get a heck of a window of tech advantage (knights before muskets, cavalry before rifles) to eliminate a civ if I need.
But a higher concern is going to be to never get any war weariness in the first place. In Epic 9, I fought a defensive-only war against Babylon for centuries - something like sixty or eighty turns - without seeing a glimmer of war weariness. In DEMOCRACY. So I'm going to see if I can actually pull that off here.
Of course, you can't get any war weariness from a civilization you haven't contacted. So, I plan to never build any boats to explore, and just keep building and building until somebody contacts me. Yes, I'm going to miss out on all the points for contacting AIs, fog-busting, settling on islands first, and so on, but I'll get to finish the game before December. :) It's not likely to win the Epic scoring, but now I just want to see what happens and prove this can be done.
It isn't time for Republic just yet, though. First we want to eliminate the Zulu, since that war has had a lot of action and would probably have significant war weariness. (WW _does_ accumulate while you're in other governments, and hits in full force if you switch to a representative government during the war.)
That's easy enough, though.
I do decide to revolt now (in 170 AD) while India is still alive; I haven't fought many of their units or cities (thanks, Zulu), and the war weariness should be light enough to bear for a dozen turns or so until the swords can get up to Delhi.
The anarchy is pretty brutal on the cities, as I knew it would be, as it always is for a civ relying on military police and luxury tax for happiness. Those cease working during anarchy, while luxury resources and buildings/wonders do function. Several cities go into food shortage, but thanks to the Pyramids making sure every city had a food reserve, none starve.
Over on the easternmost tip of the continent, I can see a coastline of another landmass under the fog. So, the city I found in this area is intentionally kept AWAY from that coastline, so that if there's anybody else over there it'll take longer to contact them.
