I finally finished my game with a diplomatic victory instead of the space race victory that I was aiming for. Even though I kind of wasted my time trying to win the space race, it really doesn't bother me at all because at the time I was just trying to finish the game as fast as I could so I could start another.

I started my next game in a totally different scenario than the last one. Unlike the ice age scenario, the one I'm playing now (the Earth scenario) there are several continents meaning less diffusion and more need for a better navy. I went with Rome as my civilization, mostly because they're special civilization advantages were very similar to the Incan's. I figured that since I was so successful in my last game with the Incans, I'd be better off with a civilization that was the next closest thing. As soon as I started, I noticed the differences between this game and my last game. In the ice age, the world was pretty much just one big land mass making there no need for much navy power or traveling across the ocean. Everyone and everything is on that one land mass. In the game I'm in now, however, the geography is much different. There's more than one continent with much more bodies of water in each. It's actually been pretty agravating. Ever since I started playing Civ, I've been used to being able to travel across miles and miles of land without the hassle of trying to cross large bodies of water or mountains. Now, I can't move 3 spaces without walking into some sort of obstacle. I'm slowly getting used to it now and there are some plus sides to it. First of all, because of the large amounts of fresh water sources in the continent, it makes for some very convenient healthy places to settle. There are also some areas that have so many mountains they seem practically cut off from the rest of the continent. This offers very good geopgraphic defense in case of war. A second plus, whether it has to do with the scenario or just my luck for starting off where I did, is that there are many natural resources such as iron, copper, dye, fish, wheat, and more that are all around my civilization. Whatever the reason is, my great location has given me a huge competitive advantage in advancing my empire and I took advantage of it quickly by settling cities in all areas where there were large amounts of resources. Already I've gotten a head start in copper and iron tools. I have swordsman, spearmen, and chariots when all the other civilizations are still creating warriors. Hopefully my jump-start pays off even more in the future allowing me to keep this huge competitive advantage.