Many Leaders Game 4 - The Cultured Monarch

141: useless culture wonder, finish theology, start divine right. I think... I'll use my one great artist to bulb it in a few turns. It'll get me there 7 or 8 turns faster, which hopefully will be worth the artist.



144: roosy comes demanding civil service.... I begrudgingly hand it over. At least it was worth +5 relations.

145: Islam founded.... and my theatre in the capitol burned down and I couldn't save it because I used all my money finishing DR.



148: Got an artist out of my wonderspam city. Really really hoping for a scientist...

150: I start education. The hard way.
I get the harbalists find plants on a tile message. I don't have the money for the expensive option, but I'm not sure if I would do it anyways, as the scientist would poison my artist factory.

153: Well this great person roll went in my favor at least. Got a prophet in my capitol at 45% odds



155: All hail the Sistine chapel



Everybody wants an arm & a leg for any of their resources =\

160: Education in

164: wonderspammer spits out another artist at bad odds. Rather have had a scientist again. oh well.

165: I take Joao's marble by culture, then sell it back to him for 7 gpt, since I've already built all the marble wonders.



167: liberalism > nationalism

Put down my last two cities to make 9 somewhere in here.

176: GA in the capitol

180: printing press is in. I've read some other comments about where on the tech tree others are going to stop, but I'm going to roll the dice and stop here. My islandmates are behind me on tech, my top unit is the musketman, and the next tech I'd potentially like is replaceable parts. I'd need guilds and banking, and that's just too high a price to pay. Here goes. I'd like to build up 3 turns of cash to let hermitage complete in my third city, but I'm afraid of being extorted.



Also, time to start giving back cottages that secondary cities have been working for the three big ones.

182: spiral minaret is finally in depite the lack of stone. Time to build some of those tao monasteries I've been neglecting to build. Also, wonderspam city defies the odds for a third time in a row and produces an artist (~35% each time), except this time, I'm happy for the result.

185: trade roosy for banking, and switch to mercantalism. My trade routes are crap, and besides, mercantalism is roosy's favorite civic.

186: Meet hannibal. I'd hoped not to meet anybody else. Ever. I gift him drama, and get a quick +4 relations.



third city is at 5109 culture.
4 great artists in reserve.
2 cathedrals left to build, both underway in their cities.
Very little culture work left to do, much power graph improvements and AI brown nosing left to do (though I have started on both)

So I was thinking to myself, I’m going to be away most of next week, but I want to continue my “culture” theme of reports. Self, I thought, a picture is worth 1000 words, that’s a plenty big enough report! And then I waited until I got back to post it anyway.


I honestly don’t remember a lot of this turnset (partly because I’ve already played my next one ), but I finally got the upper hand on Toku, got Parthenon, and am back in business. I did a lot of trading to maintain something resembling parity in the tech race, and can now begin to build the infrastructure I so desperately need to get my third leg up.

Here is a map of my lands in 1400 A.D.:

192: party time.



I do a bunch of last second slaving, then swap to caste system to milk some artist GPPs out of the GA. I had planed to go back, but after 12 turns, I was certain I never would.

196: My great library is quite defective, but I'm not going to complain. Wonderspam town put out it's 4th straight artist at ~35% odds.

198: capitol pushes out another great artist.

202: I get the coliseum quest. I would get the extra bonus for having the SoZ, but I don't know what it would give me. I'd guess it would give me some happiness bonus, which is kind of pointless since I'm running 90% luxury tax at a surplus.

207: Completed what should be my last wonder of the game, Versailles. And bonus! Roosy just got himself 1460 gold. I traded printing press away for 1260 of it. I'm not going to part with gunpowder or liberalism.



Now I don't have to worry so much about pacifism upkeep as I climb back on the power graph.

211: I get extra taxes. Just what I need. treasury back over 1300.
Wondertown fails me. I get a prophet. And I had the best ever chances of an artist at 48%.

Well, it's not all bad. Partytime. I MM many of my cities back into slow starvation to get more artists

213: roosy offers economics for gunpowder + 345 gold. I laugh.

214: Capitol pops yet another great artist

215: Two of Joao's front line cities have had a revolt now. I was wondering if I should keep them or not if/when they flip, but with all this money, it would be silly not to.

217: Joao canceled marble for 7 gpt. I hope he's not getting antsy.
And a bank completed in my third legendary city, the tao holy city, cutting my paltry 32 gpt deficit in half.



221: Joao offers a defensive pact... I strongly consider it, but I turn it down.
Also, I get a city flip.



223: I start running a few merchants here and there, as I'm going to run out of money before the end of the game.

224: I get a 90% great artist in a side city.

225: I worked the numbers, and gave up on a great artist in the northwest city.

230: worked the numbers. I have 9 artists, two for sure on the way, one more which is a 50/50 chance.

234: Wondercity comes through yet again with a 46% artist. I believe this will shave several turns off the finish. It all comes down to how fast my capitol can push out artist number 11. It reads 5 turns, but if I can hire another artist, I can push that down to 4.... I have 3 food in the granary, but I'll grab my workers that had been idling and farm over the copper mine, and work some sea tiles instead of some plains cottages. That should bring me to even food just in time to avoid starvation, and the culture loss from the plains cottages will be no problem.

238:
1640 AD.
--------------------------
Timbuktu: Special thanks to Louis Armstrong, Rambrant von Rejin, and Claude Monet.



Culture - 50334

Tokyo: Special thanks to Mark Twain, Li Po, Dante Alighieri, and Joseph Conrad.



Culture - 50117

Kubei Seleh: Special thanks to Ling Lun, Miguel de Cervantes, Vincent van Gogh, and Thespis



Culture - 50463

and..... civ 4 crashed. Probably from minimizing so much to get all these names. Or maybe I did too many paintings at once.

ok. go back in. make lots of paintings again. and, enter.

1645 AD, my very first (intentional) cultural victory



13 hours, 8 minutes.
Also, I couldn't have dreamed the final culture numbers would work out so perfectly, but that's just what my back of the envelope figures showed me.
Also, 44 musketmen.

As it turns out, missing the music GA didn't make a single turn of a difference.
I'm sure I would have finished faster if I hadn't missed confucism by a turn, but that's just how it goes. Also, I probably could have made it without gunpowder, but that probably only cost me..... 2-4ish turns.

Still pretty happy with managing it this fast.

Well done. Very competitive date. I certainly won't be catching that one.

Very nice piccies. You going to leave Toko alone now or finish him off.

Note: quotes my be slightly modified from their original context.

Caesar:
"Cowards die many times before their deaths,
The valiant never taste of death but once.
And our spies seem to taste it the very second they set foot in rival territory."


ShylockHannibal:
I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands,
organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same
food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases,
heal'd by the same means, warm'd and cool'd by the same winter
and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If
you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?
And if you wrong us, do we not revenge? If we are like you in the
rest, we will resemble you in that.



Pistol:
Why then the world's mine oyster,
Which I with sword will open,
Unless of course, the slaves of mine enemies, open it for me.



Richard:
Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this son of Greece;
And all the clouds that low'r'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.



Hamlet:
And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy,

Horatio:
But look at the trade value!




Spock:
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages, and his mundane theaters numbering six,
For if the sixth is lost in a city revolt, his stage is taken from him!



Duke Orsino:
If Great Artists be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it; that surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.



For what it’s worth now

Great date. The rush did pay off in the end. Hail the power of FIN (and the good make their own luck with low-odds Artists )

In hindsight, I agree it was better to stick to the CS.
I went for emancipation basically for two reasons :
1/ cottage growth which has quite improved my culture slider ability
2/ make everyone around start having happiness problems so that they are not lurking on me as a potential attack victim.

Magnificent effort!
I'm pretty sure not to do that well - those pesky artists went their way in my game, I only generated one before 1600AD...

Having such fantastic luck with artists definitely helped (getting to trade to Roosy for 1260 gold probably shaved off 3-4 turns too), but I do wonder if great artists are overrated. My three cities were fairly well balanced - I spread my 11 3-4-4, but in the end, each artist was only shaving ~6 turns off each city's trek to 50k. Thus, after the first artist to balance the cities, it took 3 great artists to take 6 turns off the finish date.

I can't help but wonder if I should have burned one of the artists much earlier on a golden age to get the temples and cathedrals up faster. I also wish I had built hermitage in my capitol instead of my weakest legendary city (in both culture and hammer production). That would have allowed the completion of culture multipliers at an earlier date, as the weak third city was already way behind on those. It also would have made hermitage worth more, so to speak. It would have multiplied more culture in the capitol than city 3. The unbalance could have been covered by the artists, which is really what they are good for.

This is all in hindsight, of course. I knew all this beforehand from reading theory from other threads, but, being my first actual cultural game, I was timid and sat on my great artists and used hermitage to balance the cities for fear that I wouldn't have enough artists to cover the difference if I put it in a stronger city like I should have, with as many artists as I was getting.

How are we going to close this out.

Well, we research Democracy (hopefully get a trade for Banking). Swap civics (more on that later). Dial both sliders to zero and buy us some culture.

Lets see how it goes.

Start out with the same rancid luck on missionaries I had last set.

We research Democracy. Can't trade for Banking and that is two turns so I want to research it as well. Got five turns left on my GA so is all right.

As suspected, I research 1 turn of Banking and all 3 will trade me. Stuff you all I say.

OK civics changes.

Universal Sufferage to buy culture. Emancipation to grow cottages quicker. Mercantilism for a free artist, Pacifism for greater production of GAs.



Research is dialled to 0%, as is culture. Let's buy up big.



400 gold per turn isn't too shabby

GA number 6 pop.

What an event to get



Tiwanaku (2nd city) completes all culture buildings.

Kyoto (3rd city) completes all cultural buildings.

GA number 7 pop.

Cuzco (1st city) completes all cultural buildings.

Culture dialled up to 100%. All non-big 3 cities put on building wealth and emply merchants. Big 3 cities producing culture (exept capital is building Statue of Liberty) and employing artists. I can survive to the end on 100% culture with this.

I take a turn to switch back to Caste System as well.

After MMing on turn 213 I have the following for the big 3.

Cuzco, 14627 culture, 878/turn, GA due in 7 turns [41 turns to legendary]
Tiwanaku, 9442 culture, 929/turn [43 turns to legendary]
Kyoto, 6192 culture, 483/turn, [91 turns to legendary]

So cities 1 and 2 are well matched. 3 needs some bombing. I immediately send 2 GAs that way for the first bombing of the game.

Still doesn't even up too much, so send another 2 over for bombing.



Pop another GA. Send him to Kyoto.

After bombing the turns left reduce to 32, 35, 41.

Hannibal is Annoyed, has enough on his hands and has Astronomy. I'm last in power by a mile. I wonder who he's coming after





I then extend the middle finger Hannibal's way.

Another GA pops in 1600AD.

OK, the culture situation.

Cuzco, 29698 culture, 854/turn, GA due in 13 turns [24 turns to legendary]
Tiwanaku, 25594 culture, 985/turn, GA due in 17 turns [25 turns to legendary]
Kyoto, 34600 culture, 519/turn, [30 turns to legendary]

So another two bombs of Kyoto and a bomb of everywhere else should see us withing sniffing distance of home.

BTW, Hannibal no longer has enough on his hands.

First flip of the game.



I take it, check to see how quickly I could get a GA if I stack the city (23 turns by which time the game will be over) so I give it back to Roosevelt. I actually get 2 free longbows out of it.

Time for one more wonder.



In the wash up of this extra free artist I now have the following.

Cuzco, 32260 culture, 959/turn, GA due in 6 turns [19 turns to legendary]
Tiwanaku, 28549 culture, 1012/turn, GA due in 11 turns [22 turns to legendary]
Kyoto, 36157 culture, 540/turn, [26 turns to legendary]

I start to starve all my cities to get them legendary quicker and pop out 2 more GAs quickly.

I bomb some more artists.

I mistime my bombing by 1 turn but achieve victory in 1685AD





Here are three legendry cities. I had Tiwanaku earmarked straight away as a 1000/turn possibility so glad to see that pan out. Cuzco was starved a bit to get the last GA out.







By far my earliest cultural win, so I'm happy about that. Still could have managed the end game better and shaved a few turns off. I certainly enjoyed it more than other culture games. The few dys off between turns helps immensely I find.

Doing my early wise-@$$, I have already posted the 190-230 turns in the episode 5...

Here we go then for the last part of this great adventure (and great it was ).

So, as on every pre-turnset, let's fix objectives for the next 40:

- Win before it ends
- Get some GA finally to drop the last leg time

As action, I set some more Artists where it's possible.

232
Rifles in, time to switch to no slider research time. All cities are set to wealth / culture, except a city or two building military.

Versailles is achieved in Rotterdam, helping to get to 90% with no loss or 100% with loss.

236
Got two revolutions in the same turn :



Evora and SF envy our culture
No wonder why...

238
At last he is in: a Great Artist is born in Amsterdam.
My neighbors hate me since then for the dance of joy performed quickly after, but what the hell!

241
I meet Brennus, the Annoyed.
How comes he is annoyed, hey, I don't even know the guy

243
I do my 'get my buddy to Friendly' stuff with my other neighbor:

Step 1:



Step 2:



Joao is a best friend now.

244
Corporation managed to research itself @0% research (god, I love my GNP)

245
Trade DR with Joao for Chemistry and some gold

251
Optics researched too... Starting Astronomy, knowing it won't end

252
GA offensive on Urtrecht pays by a second GA.
Sent to Kyoto, the weakest leg.

253
My first leg is finally leg. Urtrecht in.
Brennus is Furious with me...

254
I try to make Rossy and Brennus upset with each other. No way to make my buddy Rossie DoW him.

258
The turn of all the turns.
First of all, Brennus DoWs me and attack my coastal (and pretty well defended) city of Rotterdam. He achieve heavy losses, aside from it nothing. Oh, he pillaged a fish of mine
My second leg, Amsterdam, is leg
At last, at 72% odds I finally get a GA in Kyoto.

With three GA, it's time to detonate the final bomb:



Kyoto is leg too. Victory conditions met for 1745 AD.

259
Brennus has no more guns on hand (above the fact that he attacked the 5th leg), so without too much of a surprise :



Score-wise it's nice, by far my best culture score :



Demographics rocks, but has to be read with the massive Wealth builds in mind.



And just before the curtain falls, a last glance on the empire:



Time to sum up things.
The game has taken 5h40, with only one rush war in the beginning and a final desperate move one turn from victory. Pretty calm game, still great fun to play.

What went well:
- This was my best financial game ever, I'm happy with the way I played the Dutch potential
- Three religions, early temples and cathedrals were great to manage a nice culture growth in the legs
- CS Slingshot , though it wouldn't be possible without fin trait, with less cottages or with a wonder-hog like Rammy in the opposition

What went wrong:
- the SE, especially the GP generation. I completely sucked at GA generation, failing to specialize one city to this purpose, like many of you guys did
- theology and music loss, costed me a religion and a free GA. I managed them both very early, still a far away AI got there first (in late BCs for Theo and 425 AD for Music ). A fourth religion would surely help me a lot to finish earlier
- gone too far into research - I could have switched to full culture as soon as the lib/nationalism were in

Well done, another nice game

The short version:



General comments:

The 4 religions spread nicely. Never built the final cathedral in 3rd city as it was just taking too long while running GA's.

Got lucky with the 2 X ~60% GAs at the end - having both shaved 3 turns off my win date, which 1 wouldn't have done.

The Sciences were a bit of a mess. With hindsight, should have stopped at liberalism or just carried on to the modern age. Would love to shadow this turnset and see where I would have ended up if I'd chased corporations and radio wonders...

Did build a sizable military. My HE city spewed a unit /turn for most of this turnset. Had hordes of muskets and knights - backed with a few catapults. The AI had grenadiers and rifles by the end of the turnset though - an actual war would have been a desparate holding action...

Lots of fun though! Thanks for the game Oz.


Fuller version

I'm getting closer. You only beat me by 1 turn this game, as opposed to 2 last game . Well done, another great effort .

In uber-shortened form:

A good wonder:


A good building:


A good culture wonder:


A good event:


A good GA (#5)


http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/96336/Gandhi_AD-1300.CivBeyondSwordSave

Okay, with less time in real life, I originally decided that i would go for an ol' fashioned praet/cat war. Later, i decided that no war is faster than any war, so, that's what I decided to go with. Do something most people don't expect w/Rome and use the Praets for Garrison duty I *think* I’ll be able to have 9 cities total, but even if not I’ll compensate with wonders.

Confucianism was FIDL, confounding my plans to found it

I couldn’t make up my mind initially about a 3rd Culture city. I had just founded a city west of Rome to get those pigs, wheat and some incense (Ravenna) and stuck the Statue of Zeus in it. Instead, I opted for my 3rd city to be the one in the SE, near the fish and iron.

I built several wonders in all the cities, including the Church of the Nativity, and lost the Apostolic by a few turns

And met Hannibal:

When I start off the next set, I’ll get an overview of my land and a good look at my Big Three.

Okay, here’s where I picked up at again after t200 from rounds 3 and 4.

Here’s a shot of my realm as it is now:


And here’s a pic of the Big 3:


I’m the 5th most advanced:


Here’s my demo @ 5 million people:


My turns continued quietly along. I was aiming for a Liberalism>Nat’l sling for the Taj, but it was built way before I got to Lib. Still was first, but no Taj for me. From there it was to Democracy, and then Rifles and then shut off the culture.

I built several more wonders:






Revolted:


And made it finally to nine cities:




Things were chugging along nicely. I switched off research, and went all culture and wealth in my cities. I most likely would’ve won at approx. t350. I say ‘would’ve’ because, well . .

He WAS my good Christian buddy, but Free Religion kills everything!

[and to add insult to injury]

There was no way I could stop FDR; I had two cities constantly pumping units, but America was still WAY above me. I gave in to this demand, though refusal wouldn't've meant much.

He went right for Cumae:


And, with my third leg chopped off, I retired in disgrace:


Call me Mr. Quayle:


Hmm . . . maybe MLGs just ain’t my thang i just lost an SP monarch game about a week ago when i was about 30-40 turns from victory; dang AI

...er I mean oh dear. That's always the risk when you can't keep the AI at pleased or above. Bummer. Looks like the Emporer's Council is going to be a fun ride.

i just wish i could get in on MLG5 to try and at least, ya know, WIN a game here -- perhaps mlg has sapped all my poor PH series luck, adn i can only win one or the other

My plans to get Toku and Joao onto Roosy took a dent when I found out through focused EPs that America was researching Steel, but then something came up:



This caused the Furious Roosy to DoW me, thus allowing me to bribe me friends into attacking him. He sent no units my way as Joao besieged a southern city, and Toku attacked Boston. Roosy tried to use the AP to stop the fighting, but I had nearly as many votes as he did, so it failed repeatedly.

Error:




I tried to use Bursa to generate extra artists to overcome the lack of investment in Cathedrals: wrong move, so back to the drawing board, and time to whip in those culture buildings...

Toku eventually took Boston and was marching on DC when I made peace: I didn't fancy my chances against America's Frigates, so I bribed him with Education for peace. I didn't manage to get hold of the rice tile until I bombed in an artist

I had written early that I felt I'd regret putting the Hermitage in Istanbul, and so it proved: it raced ahead of Edirne, even though I had it building commerce to keep the culture slider at 100%.

Toku managed to get himself (bribery by America?) into another war, and I agreed to join in. Bren did stage a landing against an exposed northern city, but he was bribed off for 75 gold (the cheapskate).

I took a turn of anarchy to switch to Pacifism and Caste once the cathedrals were completed in Bursa. I'd got sloppy by this point, and was punished with a low odds GE from Bursa (and a couple of 50% Artists went the wrong way, too). So, eventually....



I think I had a dozen artists in all.

Twas a fun game, but I was guilty of many a move.