Marriage Summary

Having thought things through a bit beforehand, I actually had something resembling a plan in mind this time! It didn't all pan out, though - sometimes it worked out better! For instance, I'd been hoping, via Goddess of Beauty, to have an engineer ready to rush the Great Lighthouse in whatever coastal city I could rustle up, but it turned out Goddess of Springtime could be a thing so I snatched that up instead. Otherwise, I knew I had to prioritise exploration, money and science, in that order. You can't marry off princesses to places that you don't know exist (well, not without destabilising your lineage, anyway), and knowing that this was a Continents map there was only the scarcest chance I'd be able to reach eight city states without getting a trireme over to the other major landmass. Weddings are also expensive (I blame the cakes), so I was hoping to get a money-spinning religion formed off of the Springtime pantheon, and if it did turn out that there was no way of making it to the other continent before Astronomy, I'd have to beeline it, with Education being the only permissble detour.The first hundred turns or so went fine - stole the False Maria's woefully unprotected settler (and narrowly missed snatching one of her workers, hmph), wandered my starting pathfinder around with the aim of getting +2 vision asap, dealt with barbs for Vancouver, Colombo and Hong Kong, then hooked the latter up with tobacco and waited:The GL rush succeeded, and I mean both Library and Lighthouse, so I bought a trireme and eventually bumbled my way up to Kiev, finding Sri Pada for Colombo and Vancouver to boot. With no sign of a shallow-water connection to the other continent, I was exploring with fingers crossed that the extra vision on both my trireme and my (now) scout might allow them to spot something; if not, then I'd have to reconfigure my empire to pour everything into that aforementioned Astronomy rush. And then Kammy showed up, fashionably late, butappreciated. I ran my scout over to where he made landfall, and bingo:Next turn, a caravan of his showed up in Byblos to seal the deal: this is where I needed to look to find the rest of my desired Prince Charmings. There was a slight hitch in the form of the False Maria's war declaration, presumably an attempt at getting her own back for my earlier transgressions. Fortunately, the forests around Salzburg made it perfectly defensible, but her move did force me to spend some of my precious dosh on unit upgrades...First religion meant free pick of Thrift to get that cash flow going, plus Holy Law because moneys. Colombo wanted a trade route, so when Maria pillaged the caravan that had allied me with Vancouver, I had the perfect excuse to sort them out with one.Three marriages down, five to go: I'd declared on Kammy just to get through his coastal waters, which turned out to be a bit more awkward than I'd anticipated on account of a horseman he'd sent over to Marialand for reasons best known to himself. It did mean that I had Buenos Aries and Zanzibar on the potential suitors list, so all I needed to do to beat the challenge was ally (at least one of) them. Until Astronomy, that meant completing quests... which I could only do if they gave them to me... which they didn't... for a while......so anyway, once I'd peaced out with False Maria, I bought some skirmishers (yes, that way round) and went and cleaned up the camp Vilnius had been moaning about for a couple of millenia. After that, they took a field trip to Kiev and polished off their barbarians too. Throw in a visit to Wittenberg from a Great Diplomat, and I soon had marriages four, five and six down. Still haven't run out of princesses yet though - surely I'm into the cousins by now?Finally, the city states on non-Marialand (temporary name) starting piping up: Buenos Aries wanted religion (no can do, matey), Byblos implored me to denounce Askia (definitely can do, bud) and Zanzibar fancied the Circus Maximus (okie dokie, I'll put it on the to-do list, pal). All of these quests would confer enough influence to both form an alliance and maintain it for ten turns, so all I needed was the money... which I'd have, because I'd enhanced with Mastery and Tithes to form the weirdest religion I've ever composed in VP. That meant I just had to weather Maria's latest attempt at bothering me, assuming I could actually keep Byblos and Zanzibar allied with me for those full ten turn periods. I flirted with the idea of just declaring on everyone, but then Kammy declared on me and I figured that would probably do. And it did:I could have shaved two or three turns off by rushing the arena and/or Circus Maximus in Vienna, but I wanted to be 100% sure I'd have enough banked to organise the wedding number eight. Admittedly my only major expense was the occasional unit purchase/upgrade to keep False Maria's toothless sallies at bay, but it's the thought that counts. Thus ended a run that I'm extremely pleased with, all things considered - a little planning went a long way...093 Hong Kong120 Vancouver130 Colombo152 Wittenberg158 Vilnius165 Kiev177 Byblos181 Zanzibar