Epic 8: Defeat
So, I'm pretty sure I've lost this one. I don't think I'm going to get anywhere with the Space Race - I'm still researching Scientific Method, 2 civs have built the Apollo, and Lizzy's got 2 casings built too. Ceasar has getting on for double my points, so time is out. Ditto Domination - Ceasar is doing a lot better, and I don't think my economy could handle that many more cities. Culture, well, Lizzy has the lead with that. I suspect if I was someone else then Conquest would be doable, even from here - tech up to some nice uber-unit (Tanks, maybe?) and stomp all over everything in sight. Personally, I don't think I can carry it off. But. It's better to go out with a bang than a whimper, so I shall try for Conquest rather than just pootle along peacefully till the AI win.
So I change my tech path - first I'll get Infantry (Assembly Line), then I'll aim for Tanks:
I try and buy some techs, but no-one's selling. Once I finish Scientific Method I discover I'm going to have no problems fueling my Tanks:
And before I get too far I also realise that I'll need to research Combustion to be able to hook it up - so I slot that in the queue after Assembly Line. Glad I noticed that before it bit me in the arse 
5 turns before Assembly Line is discovered I revolt to Vassalage and Theocracy, as the tech comes in I revolt to Confucianism (Mansa nicely spread that to all my cities for me, earlier). Then I switch Pisae (Ironworks city) and Thebes (Heroic Epic city) over to making Infantry and a few Cannon. I also make an Infantry in every city for defence. Once I've got 25 Infantry plus a few Cannon together I declare war on Lizzy:
I went for her first for 2 reasons, first of all the cultural pressure on Thebes and Memphis will be relieved if I raze Nottingham and secondly she's ahead with the Spaceship. I didn't wait for Tanks, despite my plans, as I was beginning to feel I was running out of time. Mistake number 1 was this:
She had a defensive pact with Mansa, and I didn't even think to look 
That was really rather foolish.
I'm slightly startled to see this in the UN Secretary General elections:
He's at war with me, but he's voting for me??
Mistake number 2 of the war is that my defence is not up to scratch. Firstly, Mansa and Lizzy are bombing me back to the Stone Age, and I've nothing to counteract their Gunships at all. And secondly, their ground troops take Memphis, Thebes and Heliopolis pretty quickly.
I do appear to have judged the attacking force correctly:
My stack gets whittled down shortly after this, though, I could've done with 2 that size. And after that it's all over bar the shouting. I did manage to kick off a world war though:
Only Ceasar is sitting it out - and he makes good use of his un-interrupted time:
So yes, defeat. But I did turn it from a defeat where I just passively got beaten to one where I at least learnt something. Even if some of the things I learnt should've been obvious (like check for Defensive Pacts first, you ninny) It was a fun game, too, & I'm looking forward to seeing how the other Egyptians got on (and seeing the human Ceasars do better than the AI one in my game, vicarious victories!).
And playing at Monarch for RB events does seem to have helped my game no end. After finishing this game I went back to trying to crack Prince - which is what I've been working on for months, still hadn't won a single Prince level game. And startlingly, I had a game where I had a plan, where I kept things together and felt in control of the game the whole time, winning comfortably with a Spaceship victory. So now I can move up to Monarch for my private games and start floundering around again
Backward to Part 3: Peace