GOTM2 – Victory Turn 315, Score 654
Achieved a Cultural Victory after turn 315. Started out slowly (as discussed in my
Turn 100 post, spent too long fighting barbs before developing my cities). By turn 170 I was feeling pretty good, had industrial districts in my core cities, finished Forbidden Palace. By turn 200 I had a solid lead in overall score, but I saw that Japan was actually beating me in Tourism. I started to ramp up museums, but got caught up in several mid-game wars. After that, I focused on culture/tourism and started pulling away.
How many cities did you settle or capture?
Settled 9, captured 2. I started with six on my main island, then settled two on the island to the east for resources (Niter and Oil), and another to the south. Captured Alesund after Norway settled on my island and then declared war, same with Ahmadabad from India when they settled on the eastern island and declared on me.
What did you prioritize for research and policies?
After my early drive for Industrialization, I went back and picked up some techs on the lower branch for defense (Engineering, Iron, Machinery to get Crossbows). The mid-game wars caused me to get a few more military techs, but generally I was pushing for Computers. Policies focused on culture buildings and improving my government type, I ended up in Merchant Republic for a long time, the extra wildcard slots helped me use military policies when I needed them without changing governments. By the end my culture was so high I had cleared the tree and was alternating between Globalization and Social Media every 4 turns (I think I hit them each at least 8 times). Research wasn’t as far, after Computers I was slogging thru the space techs but not in a hurry.
I did prioritize Espionage related policies, especially when I saw Japan had an early lead in the tourism race. I learned from one of my previous games, when I was going for a Science win and saw Russia going for culture, that stealing Great Works is a great way to shift the tourism tide. I think I stole 6-7 great works by the end, which also helped me get theming bonuses (because they were from different artists).
Did religion come into play in your game, please explain.
Not really, although my lands were a massive battlefield for religious warfare between England (Confucian) and India and America, they mostly cancelled each other out. As long as neither took a major lead, I was fine with that. I did accumulate a bunch of faith from a Holy Site in captured Alesund, that I couldn’t do much with.
How much warring did you do? Was it effective in supporting your Culture objective?
I didn’t initiate any. I tried to keep good relations with everyone, but after decades of Harald denouncing me, he convinced Japan to join him in a surprise war:
It took a few turns of moving forces around, but I had field guns and muskets against Harald’s swords and I took Alesund, rounding out my home island. I sank a couple Japanese ships, but never saw any ground forces, and got a treaty after about 15 turns.
Then, just when I thought it was safe to re-focus on culture, Teddy declared on me (because of my Niter city on his continent). It took time to get forces over to that continent, but I gradually beat back his Cav corps and took a peace deal without taking any cities.
Good timing for me, as devious Ghandi decided to declare on me a couple turns later (turn 243) – due to HIS city on the same continent. Luckily I had my cannons nearby from finishing the American war, so I was able to defeat his forces and take Ahmadabad pretty easily. He also talked Brazil into joining the fight, but I never saw one of their units, and eventually got a peace deal with both.
Were City-States helpful?
Yes, but I don’t think I got as much from them as I could. I tended to try to get at least 3 envoys with each, for the district benefits, but didn’t stay Suzerain with any except Nan Madal. After reading some of the descriptions I think I would have been better to focus on a few and get/keep Suzerain status, then I could also use some of the city-state policies better.
Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Didn’t realize builders couldn’t demolish a district, so I was stuck with a Holy Site in Alesund, which blocked the perfect Natural Park along the Cliffs of Dover - after I spent 1600 faith on a Naturalist! L I also didn’t realize until late in the game how critical Open Borders and Trade Routes were for tourism, I had read it earlier but kind of forgot (and it doesn’t help that there’s no notification when an Open Borders expires).
I realized that you get the policy to build Archeology Museums well before the policy to build Archeologists….
So I ended up carrying a couple empty museums for a couple dozen turns.
For the first time, I was beaten to a wonder (Broadway, by Japan – another reason I wanted to steal their great works!). But I was expecting a pop-up or something – instead I just got the usual icon that someone had built a wonder, and then as I was doing my ‘Choose Production’ I noticed Athens was awaiting a project and had a big empty hex next to the Acropolis… Also it seems we don’t get any gold or production when we get beat – is that right? Makes it a bigger gamble, at least in Civ V we got a bunch of gold IIRC.
Did you enjoy the game?
Yes, it was my first Civ 6 game at Immortal, and first try for a cultural victory. I felt a little frustrated because I knew I wasn’t being very efficient in going after the tourism, but I learned a lot. I was able to keep good relations with England and Rome throughout, one of my objectives was to avoid a pile-on against Immortal-level AIs. It was interesting to see the variation in the AI development- Japan was strong in culture and science (even with only a handful of cities), England had a large empire but seemed to be lagging, Norway, India and Brazil remained an era or two behind most of the time.
Captured many more after I built up my core navy of 7 Frigates and 2 Caravels. Later upgraded to Battleships and Ironclads.
