Cultural Victory T204
Thanks GOTM team, this was an incredibly fun game! This was a game to knock the rust off as I have not played a Cultural Victory game in several months. Ever so slightly missed my T200 goal, but did at least manage to finish the game before the Nov 15th deadline.
My general strategy when I saw all the Cultural City states was to beeline Cold War. When I met Rapa Nui, I decided to beeline Flight as well but since I met them late I never really had much science - only two Campus in fact. So Fez helped a TON. I tallied 1960 science rewards from cities I converted with Missionaries, and probably gained a another couple hundred from border cities passively converting which I did not track.
Early Game:
Religious Settlements Pantheon, took Amani first to get Suzerain of Kumasi early, narrowly missed out on a Classical Golden Age. Got up a few high-adjacency Holy Sites. Saved up my gold to levy Kumasi (T57), Fez (T61), and Vilnius (T69) and rush Brazil and Norway, capturing 2 cities, 1 Settler, 2 Builders, pillaging a few hundred faith and gold, and most critically 91 culture (huge in early game). My only losses in the war were a Trader and some levied Warriors (which would have been given back after 30 turns anyway).
Founded a religion on T63 with Choral Music and Religious Unity. I used the pillage faith to pump out missionaries, which in turn were a major source of science thanks to Fez and scored me five crucial early game envoys thanks to Religious Unity. I made one of my worst moves of the game T79 when I walked two missionaries up to Fez, who Norway had stolen as Suzerain, thinking I could convert the city for an envoy to make them neutral again. I forgot about zone of control and both were killed which was quite the setback. Norway struck again with envoy games, un-levying my Vilnius army exactly one turn before I would have conquered their largest city (T90). That was probably the biggest overall setback as by the time I could re-invade they had Crossbows and it thus took about 50 extra turns to get the city.
Mid Game:
Pen Brush and Voice Golden Age (T87) to help with Cold War push, followed by Monumentality (T127) to chain together faith-purchased Settlers+Ancestral Hall+ Feudalism. Most of my cities simply used their Ancestral Hall Builder to chop a Theater Square and Amphitheater, since the latter were worth 12cpt with City State bonuses, and then filled out their land with Moai. Hit 100cpt on T105, 200cpt on T124, and 300cpt on T138.
There was one funny play when a Maori Settler wandered by one of my empty cities unescorted despite being at war, and I was able to buy a Scout and catch it the next turn. World Congress declared two Military Emergencies against me which gave me 400DF. I used the giant stockpile of DF to buy 4 Great Works of Writing from culture-leading Netherlands. I never bothered capturing any more cities after my first set of wars, but still declared a few pillaging wars to stockpile faith/gold over the course of the game. I ended up with about 4000f from pillaging, but definitely stopped too early since I could have used at least twice that amount when I hit Rock Bands.
Late Game:
Finally hit Cold War on T161 which felt shamefully slow with all the Cultural City states. Coincidentally, I hit Flight the next turn. I lost focus on what I was researching after hitting Cold War and ambled to Social Media T196 and Environmentalism T201 very late, since I mistakenly thought the game would be over about 20 turns earlier. I had ~3500 faith in the bank at this stage and purchased 6 Rock Bands immediately and bought another 6 from pillaging and natural faith (~220fpt) before the game was out. Part of it may have been slightly bad luck as 6 of my 12 bands disbanded after their first concert. Meanwhile I spammed Moai like there was no tomorrow eventually hitting >300 tourism per turn from them alone.
The results:
Band 1: ??? promotion, plays at Theater Square for 500 and instantly disbands.
Band 2: Surf Rock promotion, plays at Harbor for 500, then Theater Square for 362, then Harbor for 1500 before disbanding.
Band 3: Music Festival promotion, plays for 750 at Eye of Sahara, then 1250 at Mahaboudhi Temple, then 3500 at Mt. St. Michel, then after ~20 turns traveling plays finally reaches Great Library and plays for 4750 before disbanding.
Band 4: Surf Rock promotion, plays for 350 at Harbor, then plays at another Harbor for 1375. Sadly killed by barbarians while crossing the ocean!
Band 5: My only Goes to Eleven band the whole game but it sure counted: plays at Theater Square for 187 (stupid of me to risk them), then after a long trip across the ocean plays at Terra Cotta Army for 1500, gains Cover Art promotion, plays at Great Library for 3750, and finally plays at Chichen Itza for 4750 before disbanding. All of the Wonder concerts were in range of Sweden, Maori, Spain, and Netherlands so total tourism was ~25,000 lifetime.
Band 6: Music Festival promotion, plays at Eye of Sahara for 2500, then plays at Mahaboudhi Temple for 1750 before disbanding.
Band 7: Roadies promotion, plays at Theater Square for 187 and instantly disbands.
Band 8: ??? promotion, plays at Kilwa for 2000 and instantly disbands.
Band 9: Space Rock promotion, plays at Campus for 5500 and instantly disbands.
Band 10: Cover Art promotion, plays at Kilwa for 2500, plays at Harbor for 467 before disbanding.
Band 11: ??? promotion, plays for 2000 at Kilwa and instantly disbands.
Band 12: Glam Rock promotion, plays for 500 in Theater Square and instantly disbands.
Rapa Nui plus Fez were truly amazing and I don’t think I fully tapped into their potential. If I could start over I think I would just go all in on Moai/Flight as early as possible - I feel like T150 was possible with better planning.
