strijder20
Wallowing in irony
Or a tale of Italian syncretism.
I am very glad Italy is now a full civilization in RFC-DoC : I love the country itself in real life and they have a lovely central position in RFC. So I decided to try out their UHV. Eagerly, I started researching Banking and opened the victory advisor to see what other techs I needed for the UHV...
Be the first to discover Banking, Education, Patronage, Fascism and Banking: NO.
I was about to close the game and do something else, and wait for Leoreth to rework Italy's UHV - and the city-states mechanic, I really like the new idea of giving specialists bonus food - when I remembered historical victories are not the only option to go for.
Seeing that the Apostolic Palace and the Notre Dame were not constructed yet, I decided to try winning by culture. Italy - and the Mediterranean - has many food resources, allowing you to farm GArtists, and it's production isn't that bad either.
Well, now I just had to choose three Legendary cities. Fiorenza seemed obvious, it's in a good location after all. After the Byzzies collapsed, leaving an empty Constantinople behind, I settled on Byzantium as my second holy city. The third one was a though choice: I had Sparta with the Great Cothon, Trieste, Athens and Rome to choose from. I ultimately took Rome.
The strategies for cultural victories are applicable in RFC too : you need a lot of religions and the correspondent cathedrals, and should run a lot of artists.
Well, Constantinople happened to have Islam, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Catholicism and Orthodoxy in it. That was one problem out of the way
Of course I later got access to Protestantism too, by joining counter-reformation nor reformation (does anyone join either of them?). 6 Cathedrals + Art studio gives you +275% 
, which is usually enough to win the game in a reasonable timespan. I didn't try to get Hinduism, Confucianism or Taoism, as that would probably be too much trouble.
My neighbours were as annoying as usual. After conquering the Byzzies - who declared war on me, not the other way round - I had to deal with the Ottomans. Janissaries are a pain if you don't have gunpowder yet, but there was a monster Egypt taking Turkey's other cities and allowing me to make peace when they had only Angora left.
The HRE sent a stack to invade me too, so I killed it with knights and took some cities on their French border and gave them to France. France was quite agreeable for most of the game, and they collapsed later on, giving me an opportunity to get some French cities.
So I had four Italian cities, Byzantium, Athens and Sparta. Quick mathematics shows you that you need at least - and preferably more - 12 cities to get all the cathedrals up. Well, the Ottomans - and the Egyptians not much later - collapsed, and Iran decided to go berserk on Mughals killing them both, so the Middle East was free game. It allowed me to settle a city in Anatolia, one in the Kaukasus, one near Baghdad and Tel-Aviv. I also founded Tripoli and what would be Hippo in Phoenician.
My tech path? Teching was a pain this game. Not because Leoreth messed up the Italian tech modifiers, but because I controlled the Colossus, and had spammed Monasteries around. Paranoia took possession of me and I researched every tech I could before I teched Scientific Method, and never teched Astronomy at all - while my game ended in 1945!
I grabbed the Patronage GArtist early on, went for Liberalism and took Constitution as a free tech.
Constitution seems a bit unusual, but it leads to Democracy. I had a clear civic plan in mind: Egalitarianism - obviously for the free artist slots - ; Republic, for the GPP boost ; Secularism, because anything else hurts a lot if you have 6 religions per city; Universal Suffrage, because I did not really need Representation's tech boost and because it's stability boost is always nice; Free Market, because the danger of Great Depressions was rather limited and finally Commonwealth, because running Subjugation just does not feel right
Here are my three core cities. Rome was the one lagging behind and thus getting the Artist bombs, but I still managed to let Byzantium and Rome achieve Legendary status one turn after each other
Byzantium got a lot of GPriests settled: I got a bit sloppy with my specialist management
and aside from four GArtists I also got 6 (!) Great Engineers, 5 Great Prophets, 2 Great Scientists and a Great Merchant.
Don't be deceived by Fiorenza's low size: I gave all it's tiles to Rome after it achieved Legendary status. It also has surprisingly much production for it's location.
The best thing about Rome was that it could build the Islamic wonders without having to spread it with a missionary. I also built the Blue Mosque in Vibo Valentia - that was a mistake on hindsight, should have built it in Rome too.
Notice the very long building bars : it's because every religion takes up 3 building slots. The science boost from Monasteries is impressive too : my science took about 50 turns to reach it's former height after obsoleting the monasteries.
The Italian empire. If you wonder why there is a large gap where Spain uses to be, that's because Filips II decided to invade Italy with his 'vastly superior' army - Rifles and Conquistadors don't really stand a chance against Bersaglieris, and you won't beat a destroyer with a galleon, Filips
- and I decided to collapse him by blockading and pillaging all his tiles.
And getting a victory at 1945 AD - and, funnily enough, there was a world war going on in the game - earns me this memorable score and compares my leadership with this happy fellow:
This is probably the first time I managed to dominate the top 5 cities screen:
I just wanted to post this game to show that it is possible, and not even that hard, considering even I can do it, to win a cultural victory with the later civs. Oh, and this was Monarch, 3000 BC, Normal speed.
I am very glad Italy is now a full civilization in RFC-DoC : I love the country itself in real life and they have a lovely central position in RFC. So I decided to try out their UHV. Eagerly, I started researching Banking and opened the victory advisor to see what other techs I needed for the UHV...
Be the first to discover Banking, Education, Patronage, Fascism and Banking: NO.
I was about to close the game and do something else, and wait for Leoreth to rework Italy's UHV - and the city-states mechanic, I really like the new idea of giving specialists bonus food - when I remembered historical victories are not the only option to go for.
Seeing that the Apostolic Palace and the Notre Dame were not constructed yet, I decided to try winning by culture. Italy - and the Mediterranean - has many food resources, allowing you to farm GArtists, and it's production isn't that bad either.
Well, now I just had to choose three Legendary cities. Fiorenza seemed obvious, it's in a good location after all. After the Byzzies collapsed, leaving an empty Constantinople behind, I settled on Byzantium as my second holy city. The third one was a though choice: I had Sparta with the Great Cothon, Trieste, Athens and Rome to choose from. I ultimately took Rome.
The strategies for cultural victories are applicable in RFC too : you need a lot of religions and the correspondent cathedrals, and should run a lot of artists.
Well, Constantinople happened to have Islam, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Catholicism and Orthodoxy in it. That was one problem out of the way
Of course I later got access to Protestantism too, by joining counter-reformation nor reformation (does anyone join either of them?). 6 Cathedrals + Art studio gives you +275% , which is usually enough to win the game in a reasonable timespan. I didn't try to get Hinduism, Confucianism or Taoism, as that would probably be too much trouble.My neighbours were as annoying as usual. After conquering the Byzzies - who declared war on me, not the other way round - I had to deal with the Ottomans. Janissaries are a pain if you don't have gunpowder yet, but there was a monster Egypt taking Turkey's other cities and allowing me to make peace when they had only Angora left.
The HRE sent a stack to invade me too, so I killed it with knights and took some cities on their French border and gave them to France. France was quite agreeable for most of the game, and they collapsed later on, giving me an opportunity to get some French cities.
So I had four Italian cities, Byzantium, Athens and Sparta. Quick mathematics shows you that you need at least - and preferably more - 12 cities to get all the cathedrals up. Well, the Ottomans - and the Egyptians not much later - collapsed, and Iran decided to go berserk on Mughals killing them both, so the Middle East was free game. It allowed me to settle a city in Anatolia, one in the Kaukasus, one near Baghdad and Tel-Aviv. I also founded Tripoli and what would be Hippo in Phoenician.
My tech path? Teching was a pain this game. Not because Leoreth messed up the Italian tech modifiers, but because I controlled the Colossus, and had spammed Monasteries around. Paranoia took possession of me and I researched every tech I could before I teched Scientific Method, and never teched Astronomy at all - while my game ended in 1945!
I grabbed the Patronage GArtist early on, went for Liberalism and took Constitution as a free tech.
Constitution seems a bit unusual, but it leads to Democracy. I had a clear civic plan in mind: Egalitarianism - obviously for the free artist slots - ; Republic, for the GPP boost ; Secularism, because anything else hurts a lot if you have 6 religions per city; Universal Suffrage, because I did not really need Representation's tech boost and because it's stability boost is always nice; Free Market, because the danger of Great Depressions was rather limited and finally Commonwealth, because running Subjugation just does not feel right
Here are my three core cities. Rome was the one lagging behind and thus getting the Artist bombs, but I still managed to let Byzantium and Rome achieve Legendary status one turn after each other
Spoiler :
Byzantium got a lot of GPriests settled: I got a bit sloppy with my specialist management
and aside from four GArtists I also got 6 (!) Great Engineers, 5 Great Prophets, 2 Great Scientists and a Great Merchant.Spoiler :
Don't be deceived by Fiorenza's low size: I gave all it's tiles to Rome after it achieved Legendary status. It also has surprisingly much production for it's location.
Spoiler :
The best thing about Rome was that it could build the Islamic wonders without having to spread it with a missionary. I also built the Blue Mosque in Vibo Valentia - that was a mistake on hindsight, should have built it in Rome too.
Notice the very long building bars : it's because every religion takes up 3 building slots. The science boost from Monasteries is impressive too : my science took about 50 turns to reach it's former height after obsoleting the monasteries.
Spoiler :
The Italian empire. If you wonder why there is a large gap where Spain uses to be, that's because Filips II decided to invade Italy with his 'vastly superior' army - Rifles and Conquistadors don't really stand a chance against Bersaglieris, and you won't beat a destroyer with a galleon, Filips
- and I decided to collapse him by blockading and pillaging all his tiles.And getting a victory at 1945 AD - and, funnily enough, there was a world war going on in the game - earns me this memorable score and compares my leadership with this happy fellow:
Spoiler :
This is probably the first time I managed to dominate the top 5 cities screen:
Spoiler :
I just wanted to post this game to show that it is possible, and not even that hard, considering even I can do it, to win a cultural victory with the later civs. Oh, and this was Monarch, 3000 BC, Normal speed.
I certainly had the Great Engineers for it : I spent one on Lubyanka and settled two Great Engineers in Rome because I did not know what to do with them.
