TSG98 After Actions

Game: Civ5 GOTM 98
Date submitted: 2014-11-16 06:59:19
Reference number: 31925
Your name: Fayl
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1500AD
Turns played: 210
Base score: 1009
Final score: 2402
Time played: 2:11:00
Submitted save: f_tsg98_t210.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Fayl_C509801.Civ5Save

Carthage
Objective: To get a Cultural victory.
Turn 1, move warriors south, I see a mountain and some desert.
I decide to settle one space north so I can settle a second city on the desert and take

+1 faith from desert tiles. I start building a monument and toggle between growth and

production so the city can grow to size two faster while still getting culture ASAP
My plan is to dip into Piety and then into Liberty so I can build lots of cities and

abuse sacred sites.

Turn 24, the Piety start pays off, I am really divded between +1 culture from shrines or

the +1 from desert. Their are patches of desert around but not a lot and nothing

worthwhile either. I go ahead with +1 faith from deserts. I decide to settle my second

city directly on desert for the faith as i really want to be the first to get to beliefs

and I am fearful of the AI building stonehenge

Turn 30 I settle my second city and not a moment too soon, local barbarians are running

amock. I decide to use my starting warrior ro kill them without investing in military

right now. More than anything I want faith!

Turn 37 working on another settler and I get notice that someone has adopted a panthenon.

It is late but it also means they are now gaining faith which worries me. I hope Arabia

is not in the game because out of all the faith based leaders they are the strongest at

pushing faith fast and are a huge thorn.

Turn 51 A golden age occours which is surprising because my lack of a worker and owning 3

cities with no points in either Liberty or Tradition means I am running thin on happy

faces. I don't really care right now as my goal is just to get more shrines up and get

that faith. Scouting out my starting location their is little worthwhile room here worth

expanding into. I will have to set sail to find better spots. I have also pumped into the

Huns, Russia and Polynasia.

Turn 64 two turns prior (turn 62) russia gains a panthenon, extremely late to the part

but I am still nervous. Turn 63 a GP is born and turn 64 I burn him to found my faith. I

pick Mosques and Cathedrals. Normally I am short on spaces to place a great artist so

while Pagodas are almost always a must have pick, for now I am risking them because

Mosques will give more faith over all at +3 and the catherdrals will allow me to plant GA

so I can get more tourism that way.
I also build no libraries of any kind whatsoever! I want to delay science (specifically

advancing eras) so that faith purchase costs are low. I need to get those faith buildings

so I can pump that tourism ASAP!

Turn 123 an unmet nation still lurks and this is really bad! I have met every other

nation except one and whomever this one is, I may have to kill because the tourism will

not build up fast enough against them, unlike everyone else. The first mosques are

starting to go down now and the +2 tourism is growing to +4 and +6 with every passing

purchase. Remember the huns? They decided to leave a large empty spot on their island so

I settled on it.
For a few turns the huns marched menacingly against my borders, I expected war but never

really prepared for it, hoping that the huns were just annoyed at me and letting me know,

and even if they did declare I imagined I could hold them off easily. I was wrong!
War begins and at first it is swordsmen. No problem, i weaken them so they can kill

themselves when they kamikaze against the city. It is in the process of building walls

anyway but I lack the funds to fast buy them. Then the battering rams turn up and its all

over. The city is holding on by a shoelace, surprisingly but it won't be long before it

falls. I sell it to Korea for 5gpt and he proceeds to set it ablaze. I will be back

Attila.

Turn 151 my religion is complete and not a moment too soon, Russia only a few turns later

founds Buddism and then this turn that unmet player founds Protestism. I am very anxious

to meet them because the gears of sacred sites is beginning to turn and I have met

everyone by now except one.

Turn 162 even Korea is worshipping its own gods now but I don't care, i don't need to

care because I don't need to spread my faith, I benefit the most when I am using it

myself. Speaking of which the fruits of my labour have really paid off. I take over one

civ with tourism and it looks like the others are not far off either. 162 turns the game

tells me, but I won't wait that long. The goal is to win with tourism and if I have to

kill everyone to do that then I will! Their corpses can come visit my hotels. I am

building an army to get revenge on Attilia. It dawns on me too that I have a lot of gold

and a lot of faith, originally I was going to burn everything down but looking at it now,

I can buy courthouses, convert the cities to my faith and viola, instant happiness and

more tourism!

Turn 200 I have decided I want to finish this game by turn 250. seems resonable since a

lot more civs are under my sway now but my not finding america until later has really

hurt me like I knew it would. I leave attilia with one city, I was tempted to knock him

out the game but it dawned on me that I already dominate him culturally so killing him is

fruitless. I would be better off moving my army overseas and knocking America out. As the

last civ I met, they will take the longest to overcome. The other civs will be under my

thrall in 30 turns or less except America so I move my army to the oceans, we set sail,

for America!

Turn 220 Korea has an army and my army is floating in the sea. I bribe Korea to attack

America but as it turns out they must have been itching for an excuse because all they

want is one horse! I give it to them with my blessings! And war begins. Korea takes the

city state of Mombasa and America takes it back. This repeats over and over until America

has no army left. Korea then takes over one of Americas three cities and America is

unable to take it back. Better than planned because now America is not going to be

working culture. Everyone has granted me open borders and I have trade routes finishing

off the last of the resisters of my culture! I spawned a GP but my lack of technological

prowess is finally starting to hurt me! He can't cross ocean tiles and it will take him

11 turns to get to America! That is 10 turns too long but if I decalre war now I will

lose open borders and the trade route bonus. I park my army again, restless every turn as

I wait for Korea to polish off Americas army, content in the knowledge that Americas

culture will not be growing unless they trigger a golden age and I should win soon.

Turn 233 I won. My GP was constantly blocked by Korean ships heading off to America so

that 11 turns turned into he never made it at all!
If I could have done anything better or faster I really don't know what. Having four

cities was unfortunate because every step of the way I was wishing I had taken tradition

instead. When Attilia burned down my fifth city it was a minor set back but at the time

it seemed like a major one, if their was ever a point I felt like quitting, that would

have been it. I knew war would slow me down but as it turned out it didn't slow me all

that much actually and it did infact help me. With no faith buildings left to buy,

annexing cities and then buying all 3 faith buildings really shot my tourism up! Open

borders is so cheap to buy early in the game and the +25% bonus is a huge deal!
The lack of places to expand really hurt but even with more places to go, I doubt it

would have made a difference because I was hurting for culture and faith every step of

the way, not because I didn't have enough but because I wanted as much as I could get!
I never did touch liberty or tradition, I had an extra SP at the game end and that went

into city states. I had only met four! Their were obviously more on the map but my train

of thought was to get them in my good books so I can gain bonus faith and culture from

them but the game ended before that ever happened.

Sacred shrines seemed like the obvious way to go and I don't feel that making a super

capital would have faired a faster win time. If anything I think it would have made it

take longer in terms of game turns because I would be waiting on hotels to really push

tourism. Normally when I play for tourism, war is never a thought in my mind. I need

those open borders anyway and being a warmonger just makes people not want to give you

anything but this time it really worked out. I started taking cities the moment I had

nothing left to faith buy so when I saw my money and I saw my faith I realized that

rather than just puppet Attilias capital and declare peace, I should take over all his

cities, buy courthouses and then shove holy buildings in them instead. Near the game end

I made a new city just to get those religious buildings into it, trying to push my win

time down even more since America was the only civ with double digits before I won/

Everyone else was showing 5 turns or less before they were under my thumb. Attila amazing

built the great library and only ever declared war on me, he also built the great

lighthouse and extremely surprisingly had his great library filled with great works of

writing! Taking him out was the best thing I could have done and I put his great works of

writing to good use to bolster my tourism even more, trading them away to get the +2

theming bonus. Speaking of which, I settled every GP I spawned with the exception of a GM

which I used for favor and gold with the local CS. That gold was perfect for buying more

courthouses and I do not regret it at all.

My science was a joke, this is the first time I have never built any libraries, ever. How

I even kept up is an amazing feat as my cities were all set to production in order to

keep population low. Somehow though the order was given to grow as much and as fast as

possible because every city except my capital just refused to stop growing! It was kind

of embarressing seeing my tiny size 5 capital amongst all these size 11, 12 cities.