The Accidental, Almost Cultural Victor!

[LHudson73]

Recently-purchased vanilla without any patches. Noble, customized game, huge map, 18 civs, 4 continents.

I was playing as Alfred the Great of the English (my granddad and my dad are both named Alfred). With Victoria's face looking like Eric Idle in drag. I was going for culture victory, so I beelined wonders and settlers to get my first 4 cities off to a good start. Yes 4, either the Civilopedia was wrong, or I misread it. I founded York next to a marble tile surrounded by tundra, forests, and about 12 furs. There was nothing for shields, or food even, but nobody had settled the north pole meaning there were plenty of trees to chop even 20 squares away. You can read more about my start right here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=229781

All was going well until the Modern era. York has gone from #2 in the world Classical era to not even on the charts, due to its poor location, and a city size of only 6. Not only that but my new most hated enemy Mansa Musa -- in one turn he completes the Eiffel Tower (2 turns away) AND Rock and Roll (5 turns). So I switched London to Broadway and Nottingham to Hollywood and sure enough, about 15 turns later, AGAIN on the same turn, Mansa Musa completes both!!! I tried to rationalize the situation. In the real world, would completing Broadway and Hollywood on the same turn be considered an act of war? Probably not. Those Marines will stay on their transports for now.

But Mansa Musa finishes the UN and I realize the endgame has begun. I have 3400 points and he has 2700. Mao is building SS parts like a madman. Everyone is working on spaceships and I don't even have rocketry! I send a spy into Mali and sabotage production on a stasis chamber. After three turns of "stealing plans" from Mansa my spy gets bored and goes into China and gets caught. London has about 30,000 culture and the next three have about 20,000 each. There is no way I can win!!

For some reason, 11 Civs are Confucian. Two of them used to be Jewish. Why does everyone hate me? I switch to Confucianism to try to nose some brown with them. I complete the Internet and set the science rate to zero. I have no SS parts to rush, so I set culture at 90% and I'm still getting 120 GPT. Suddenly one of those light bulbs that you can use to discover technology appears in pretend form over my head: Build temples everywhere so I can Build Synagogues, Stupas, and Confucian Academies in my top four cities! I had neglected the religious buildings because of my Civ's happiness bonus!

My support cities start popping out missionaries and temples 1 per turn. My four wonder cities are getting 500-600 culture per turn!! By the time Mansa finally launches, I have four cities with over 45,000 culture! In retrospect if I had kept my spy in Mali for a few more turns I probably could have sabotaged more of his SS parts. Whew what a finale. It's 2 am. Time for bed!

It's 3:30 AM, and I have the holy cities of Hinduism and Judaism, and I've just completed Stonehenge, and I'm 5 turns away from the Parthenon. My nearest neighbors are Monty -- who will do anything I ask, once I send a Missionary to his city (Spiritual Civs that aren't Izzy will just about robotically convert to your religion if your Missionary gets there first) -- and my old friend Mansa Musa!