This is the story of my game of Civilization IV Epic Twenty-one from Realms Beyond Civilization.
I passed on this game when it came out, just lacking the time and interest. But lately I've been finding myself still wanting more Civ, especially with the Apolyton democracy game coming to a close (in August 2009.) And looking back over the RB game list for games that deserved playing, I found this one. Nobody played and reported a full game, just one early conquest loss. So let's give this scenario a proper shot. The mod is no obstacle and downloaded and played just fine.
So anyway, what can we do here? Cottage economy is severely nerfed with double maturity time, and so is a Great People economy at -50% GPP. Specialist economy (Pyramids - Representation) might still work, but the lowered caps will pose difficulty there too. Great Lighthouse water economy isn't likely either on a Hemispheres map.
So what does that leave, what types of economy definitely do work? Pillage economy. And conquered cottages work as normal.
And since the goal is to make Quayle rank among "Caeser Agustus", I do want to aim for a high game score, which means conquering my way to domination. And Epic speed demands an aggressive approach. I think our course is set.
And how can I turn -50% GPP into an advantage? Well, if anything, the Oracle can be built without producing too many lousy Great Prophet points. So here's the plan: Oracle Feudalism. Early Vassalage is very good for conquering -- the free unit upkeep is great. I'll build "shacks" only at the capital where they'll have the longest time available to mature.
Finally, this mod was built on BTS patch 3.17, but the world has moved to 3.19. I'm just going to plug in the mod and play whatever happens. Maybe the world is a bit muddled but that's perfectly on theme. :)