Today's adventure

well I pretty much had the same setup as last week. Japanese Culture on the Earth map, quick game blah blah etc. So what was the difference? Well, this week I decided to start early and not waste turns and develop as many wonders as I could, develop as many resources as I could and mainly KEEP GROWTH within the small island of Japan. I was ahead of every culture in the game by 400 years for 3/4 of the game. I was really proud of myself then decided to expand towards the Americas and develop settlements there. This is where I stretched myself beyond my means because aparently I just HAD to land on the part of the continent that was inhabited by angry villagers that continuously attacked my city. They didn't stand a chance, BUT it kept me from truly developing that city. In the meantime the mainland was continuing to develop technology and wonders but what I DIDN'T KNOW was that Germany was building alliances with the other countries on Eurasia. So I then see an odd German vessel heading towards my colonies and I decide to declare was on Germany and destroy it's ship just because it was heading towards my colonies. BIG mistake, because of this Germany got the upperhand from here on out in the game. I ended up losing one of my two colonies by the end but I wasted alot of time. Because I started war with Germany I lost one of my cities on the mainland to India, one of Germany's allies. I got pissed and decided to reclaim my city. Another distraction in the game was that I started the UN and Germany was getting very close to getting enough votes for a diplomatic victory, so I wasted alot of time on giving gifts to the other countries to make sure that they would give me enough votes to stop Germany from winning with a diplomatic victory. My next strategy was to win by getting to space first. So by the time I was beginning to develop my space program, Germany won with a space race victory. needless to say I was pissed, BUT I learned to NOT expand into continents with hostile inhabitants. So in a nutshell, expansion is tough, especially for Japan who doesn't have alot of land to expand.