I thought I'd share a story about a very close call.
It was a cultural win with Ghandi/Standard Size/Normal Speed/Continents. Space Race shut off.
So, I decided to seriously go after my first cultural win. The game went along nicely. I own about 2/3 of a nice continent. Lots of resources. No health or happiness issues. Louis XIV is to my north and loves me, plus his cities are sending lots of religion cash to me. I'm maintaining a decent tech/points lead. Keeping up on military defense. Early in the game I took out Monty, because I knew he would just be a nuisance later. I've also got two holy cities. One which I founded and Tenochtitlan, the Jewish holy city, that I took from Monty. (statements like that always make me laugh )
Using some of the strategies I learned in these forums , I start cranking up the culture spending late in the game.
My capital goes lengendary, then my second city. By now, the UN has been founded and Mao gets elected General Secretary. I'm getting a little nervous because as diplo victory votes come up, he's getting all of the votes, only Elizabeth and Kublai (the smallest and weakest players) abstaining is saving me. Funny that Mao is at war with Kublai (why wouldn't he vote for me?). Anyway, as Mao is wiping Kublai off the map, his population is creeping up and those votes are getting closer and closer.
Now the Huns are gone and Tenochtitlan, my third city, is now a little over 46,000. I'm six turns away from a cultural victory if I can survive those UN votes. I'm gifting everything to other players, hoping they'll change their votes.
A stroke of luck! A great artist is born in my capital! All I've got to do is move him to Tenochtitlan (2 turns) and I've got my cultural victory!
The artist gets to Tenochtitlan. The next turn, the dipo victory vote comes up. I vote, then expend the artist in Tenochtitlan. Cultural victory. Life is good.
Now, I'm dying to see how that vote would have turned out, so I re-load the auto-save. This time I just leave the artist alone and move to the next turn to see the results of the diplo vote. Liz abstains again, but someone has increased his population just enough for Mao to win by one vote.
WHEW!
It was a cultural win with Ghandi/Standard Size/Normal Speed/Continents. Space Race shut off.
So, I decided to seriously go after my first cultural win. The game went along nicely. I own about 2/3 of a nice continent. Lots of resources. No health or happiness issues. Louis XIV is to my north and loves me, plus his cities are sending lots of religion cash to me. I'm maintaining a decent tech/points lead. Keeping up on military defense. Early in the game I took out Monty, because I knew he would just be a nuisance later. I've also got two holy cities. One which I founded and Tenochtitlan, the Jewish holy city, that I took from Monty. (statements like that always make me laugh )
Using some of the strategies I learned in these forums , I start cranking up the culture spending late in the game.
My capital goes lengendary, then my second city. By now, the UN has been founded and Mao gets elected General Secretary. I'm getting a little nervous because as diplo victory votes come up, he's getting all of the votes, only Elizabeth and Kublai (the smallest and weakest players) abstaining is saving me. Funny that Mao is at war with Kublai (why wouldn't he vote for me?). Anyway, as Mao is wiping Kublai off the map, his population is creeping up and those votes are getting closer and closer.
Now the Huns are gone and Tenochtitlan, my third city, is now a little over 46,000. I'm six turns away from a cultural victory if I can survive those UN votes. I'm gifting everything to other players, hoping they'll change their votes.
A stroke of luck! A great artist is born in my capital! All I've got to do is move him to Tenochtitlan (2 turns) and I've got my cultural victory!
The artist gets to Tenochtitlan. The next turn, the dipo victory vote comes up. I vote, then expend the artist in Tenochtitlan. Cultural victory. Life is good.
Now, I'm dying to see how that vote would have turned out, so I re-load the auto-save. This time I just leave the artist alone and move to the next turn to see the results of the diplo vote. Liz abstains again, but someone has increased his population just enough for Mao to win by one vote.
WHEW!