Noble's Club 1- Elizabeth

Okay I'm finished, Cultural victory in 1888 AD,



With hindsight it could have been earlier if I had played better at the start, had three more cities to build more temples and unlock more cathedrals. In the end I had access to six religions so I could have built more cathedrals. The main thing that helped me in this game was not warring, in fact I wasn't involved in a war the entire game, unlike other people out there I actually buddied up to monty and sitting bull, they were both buddist so I converted and managed to play the game in peace.

I should have also picked my earlier wonders a little better as towards the end even with 10 artist specialist's running I was popping the odd scientist which was annoying.

here are the three legendary cities a turn before victory, I had saved three great artists at this point so could use them to make all three cities go legendary by the next turn.







Final score, not amazing, but I think cultural victories tend to have lower scores.



And a couple of the graphs, first culture, no suprises here.



and power, managed to keep myself in the middle most of the game



and on a side note, here's a pick of poor old germany under pressure from the culture of one of my legendary cities.

Last update, goes through the end.
I finished up with the Taj Mahal and triggered my golden age:


Domestic Advisor - Golden Age edition:


London - Golden Age edition:


Shortly after the GA, I declared on Bull with a small stack of redcoats/leftover elephants and trebs.







I had run 3 turns at 0% to upgrade my existing maces to redcoats. As expected, Spiro fell on the next turn, followed by Chaco Canyon, Poverty Point and Cahokia (peace was forced TWICE by the AP between the city captures...)


Native America after peace was forced for the THIRD time by the AP (I couldn't defy, the resultant unhappiness would have crippled me..)



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1776 AD:
I pick up my game again, with 7 turns left on rocketry, I'm going to build apollo program asap and beeline the necessary techs to win space. There are a lot left...

I declare on Bull again as soon as the forced peace expires, and quickly take Mesa Verde, Mound City, Moundville, Anhaica and Nacogdoches with redcoats/artillery. I vassalize Bull:


And gift him Anhaica, since it will be under cultural pressure from him and I want him to be able to do SOMETHING for me. I continue teching towards space, with apollo going up in York, which has Ironworks.


It's going up this late because I needed to hook up aluminum and finish the Ironworks. I got a really nice event near one of my new cities, for +5% spaceship production!


What follows is DeGaulle declaring on me and I proceed to suicide a bunch of redcoats and then making peace, only to repeat the process three more times, near the end I vented on him with modern armor/mechs..


Sorry about the concise update here, but I showed once again that I can't win peaceful conditions as well as warmongering.. I win space in 1952, for a score of only 18663 .

Some of the highlights shown below:






Save is attached

Woohoo!
Well that turned out to be better than I expected. The end of my round was filled with all sorts of fun!

First off Tech; I can't be bothered to write out the whole list! Got to Lib first and took Nationalism, then teched on to Rifling for the Redcoats - which as you'll see saved my ass. Also steam power, RR among others and started on Assembly line.

Wonders I built this round



This really helped the money roll in

Golden Age here I come! Infact two Golden Ages as I popped a great profit 1 turn before the first GA wsa over.


A nice research boost


Ummmm free specialist. Can you feel the love?


Finally met the last AI. He quikley became a good if somewhat useless friend


He looks so creepy!

Well then During this round De Gaulle really went for it. His power graph was massive at one point. Fred twice voluntarily Vasselised to him which was a problem as he was my mate. Whilst I was checking some trades I noticed De Gaulle was "Hands Full".


This set the old alarm bells ringing. I tried to get on side with him by offering him some stupid trades and giving in to his demands to stop trading with SB - SB didn't like that. I realised this wasn't going to work so I revolted to Nationhood and Theo (actually OR because I clicked the wrong one and didn't notice for ages ). Anyway I turned down the culture from 90% to 70% to get some cash to upgrade my troops to Redcoats, drafted loads, and reconfigered my cities to pump out Cannons and Redcoats as fast as they could. When De Gaulle finally declared I had a decent amount of troops heading to the front but I needed to slow the MASSIVE stacks he was sending my way. I sent some cannons and rifles to Snake Town (which revolted to me) and parked them outside. DG attacked the city and captured it. I then suicided the smallish stack there to take as many troops out as possible. He then moved onto Hastings - one of my big 3 - and whilst it could have been close, I slaughterd him as on the turn he arrived I hit him with cannons and then a load of Readcoats. This hurt him a little, but happily I'd already taken out most of his nearby siege troops, so he spent several turns bombarding the city. This gave me a chance to hit him with cannons and rifles a few more times. When he finally attacked I still had about 25% cultural defences so he died. Simple as that really. Sadley no screens of this as I forgot in the exitment. One thing to note is that using promos to heal your troops works very well in this kind of situation!

Took peace with Fred - who had broken away again - and DG.




Oh yer Monty wanted a pop the turn before I took peace


So after I took peace...


Hahahaha!

During the peace I went back to Free Speech and Pacifism and reconsentrated my big 3 on victory, whilst still pumping troops out at a good rate. I built 2 stacks and when the 10 turns of peace where over declared on DG. I razed a few of his cities to keep my economy afloat while I went for victory. Those Redcoats propmoted to Drill 3+ were monsters! Heres an example of a city being razed.


I also took Montys new capital and then turned the it and anouther city on a small island in to a colony - Lincoln.

My big 3 one turn before London went legendary - I culture boomed York and Hastings






Shortly followed by


Nice. Very nice.

My score


Final power graph - in your face De Gaulle!


Finally here's a picture of my army that made this all possible. Cheers guys!


Well In summery I probably could have won sooner If I'd consentrated on spreading my religions faster and playing a better diplo game, thus avoiding the war at the end - still I like it better this way as the war was fun (apart from all those Airships DG had)!
Also if I'd dropped the culture slide I could have teched the the others into the dust and probably have got space or one of the millitary victorys. Liz really is a versatile leader!

After Checkpoint 2 it was all mostly: build army - attack - make peace - fix economy - build army/attack.

I had a silly relationship with De Gaulle. He declared war and didn+t want peace so i had to give him Hastings (that would anyway flip to SB).
Haty and Augustus showed up as colonies of Frederick.
After finishing Monty i attacked Fredy (he wouldn't capitulate, so he disappeared of the map), than Haty and Augustus that capitulated.
Sitting Bull and Suly were culture maniacs.
So the next target was SB. Had to give some techs to De Gaulle as he was also after SB, and i didn't want SB to become his vassal instead of mine. After capturing some of SBs cities, he capitulated. Next target was Suly and he capitulated also after i captured his best cities.
Than i had to decide: attack De Gaulle or Saladin. De Gaulle was cautious, Saladin annoyed, so Saladin! Anyways I give everything De Gaulle wanted so he wouldn't attack while i was at war with SB and Suly. All of my Tanks, MAs, MIs towards Saladins cities.... and since i build UN and had most of the land and most off AIs were vassals I won diplomaticaly
Victory came a bit late, but I like playing modern and future era with all those warfare. Here are victory screens:









I could play this game better tho. But it could take too much time, managing this, managing that, instead i focused in building army and clicking on the red dot
congrats to everyone for the win... SimonL had a great game from what I see.

Cheers!