And right from the start, I guaranteed myself a poor finish. I settled in place on the Hill Coast while my mind was in full BNW mode where Cargo Ships and sea trade routes are amazing. In G&K, the Coast is death. Glad coastal cities are greatly improved in BNW (Lighthouses also giving Hammers to sea resources is another major thing that will help coastal cities).
Capitol build order: Scout, Monument, Granary, Scout, Shrine, GL (t42), NC (t58), HG (t71), Petra (t82).
Huge mistake #2: My late Shrine meant that I founded a very late Pantheon (and Desert Folklore was gone). I ended up founding no Religions and completely missed out on that part of the game.
Stole a Worker from Geneva to the East, and stole an unprotected Settler (which became a Worker) from Dido in what would turn out to be a very, very long War where nothing much happens.
Side note question: If you steal two Workers from City-States early, will your influence with ALL City-States degrade 50% (1.5 per turn even for Friendly ones) for the rest of the game? I've noticed that twice now (not in this game, but in the replay I did).
Founded 2nd city (Samoa on t58, just as NC completes) to the NE (towards Arabia) just NW of the Sheep, N of the Sugar.
Mistake #3: Since I settled in place, this mistake was actually ok since Samoa turned into a decent city. But going OCC (with River OCC city) would have been much, much better.
On t75, Pythogoras reveals the People with the Pointiest Sticks: I am last, but the good news is that the top 3 (by far) are nowhere near me! Dido who I am still at War with only has 188 to my puny 87 which is still nowhere near danger zone.
Founded 3rd city (Tonga on t85) on the Sheep next to the Mountain, just North of the Gems. I debated a long time on where exactly to place this city.
Huge mistake # 4: While this City would have been ok in a Science VC game, it was disasterous in a Culture VC game. I didn't come close to making up for the extra Social Policy costs. Not to mention that defending this City would be a huge pain.
Took Oracle late ~t89 (I had the Pantheon that gives +15% to early Wonders). Chichen Itza on t99.
Missed the Hagia Sophia to Korea by a handful of turns. I was essentially locked out of religion as a result. But Arabia founded a religion the same turn, so maybe not terrible. Except it was terrible since Arabia never spread their religion until very late in the game.
Pyramids on t106 (only took 4 turns to build). I only had two Workers at the time so decided to might as well try.
Once again, if I had gone OCC, a lot of my Capitol build order would have been much more streamlined and I would have had the gold to buy all the non-Wonder buildings rather then spending gold on Granaries and such in my 2nd and 3rd cities.
I only got 1 early Ancient Ruin despite starting off with a Scout and making a second one too. I did get 5 or 5 Ruins after turn 100 when my two Scouts found some of the larger City State islands. Of course, by that point in the game, the Ruins are pretty worthless.
On turn 166, I popped 1 GS and 1 GE, plus another GS from the Porcelain Tower. One of the few things I did right this game. Ok, from here on out, I need to start pumping out some Artists... that is, if I didn't need to start doing it a lot sooner...
Dido was eventually conquered by Alex which now put me in a precarious spot. I had the "friendly" Arabians with a significant army to the north, and Alex with his massive army to the south. It forced me to use all my spare cash to buy more Crossbows. What I really needed was for Hia to get upity and head north into Alex-land. He has 7 Cities to Alex's 6, but two of Alex's are tiny crap cities taken from Dido in her dying days.
Sure enough, several turns later, Alex declares War. Defenses are still a little sketchy, but I should be able to arm up quickly enough. Having built the Great Wall back in the day should be enough to buy me the necessary time.
I only lost a couple Pikes and Swords during the War with Alex because my westaward Tonga city was surrounded by Hills and had the Great Wall. Eventually Alex offered a Peace deal giving me a little extra gold. Just about everything got Pillaged though.
On t196, Hia and Harun ask me if I want to punk Alex. I reply that I need "10 turns" to both. I am actually ready, but am hoping they will DoW first and lure away some of Alex's troops so I can sneak in from behind with little worry. The War goes as expected with Alex losing his Hippo Regius city in between my cities. I make Peace as soon as Alex offers me a decent deal with Gold.
Arabia waited until turn 204 to spread religion my way, so I ended up with no religious bonuses past the Classical Era for most of the game.
t205 Plastics. I tech'ed like this was a Science VC game for the most part. The tech paths aren't all that different, but still. <sigh>
On t239, Alex declares War... again. He comes with 6 Muskets and 3 Crossbows, but no Siege yet. I didn't really see that one coming, but a few Military City-States have gifted me some decent Units (including an Infantry).
ZZZzzzZZZzzz...
On t306, I finally complete all 5 Social Policies. I didn't want to deal with pre-building given my terrible late finish, so it took 9 turns to build. Ended up with 2 extra GEs at then end that I used for Manufacturies.
Turn 315 Cultural Victory.... YUCK.
The ability to navigate across Ocean tiles from the start led me to build an extra Scout and to eventually discover the second continent which allowed for more trade. Things were mostly peaceful on my continent so it wasn't as important as it would otherwise have been. Although selling all the extra Salt was nice.
I was friends with everyone all game except Dido (for stealing a Settler) and then later Alex on and off for most of the remainder of the game.
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I replayed this map as an OCC game and settled next to River. Posted a turn 260 VC (a whopping 55t improvement) despite having a little bad luck getting Marble as the "We Love the King Day" resource from the start (no one had more than 1, and none of the City-States had any). While knowledge of the map helped a little, I still built two Scouts like in my original game, and they pretty much explored the same way (not to mention the fact that I didn't really remember exactly where a lot of stuff was). I even teched to Plastics for Research Lab because... ummm, they are pretty?
What made the huge difference was: settling on the River (I was in BNW cargo ship mode in my first game), not building any other cities that would just slow down the Social Policies which is the limiting factor in G&K Culture VC.
I am glad that BNW will radically change Culture victories, because the current system is really flawed.
. Note however that you still had Maoi up on the coast hill instead of mines.
after 200+ turns.
