Congratulations on an excellent performance, muzbang!
I am sure your own notes will later reveil some interesting details on how you were able to win this game so quickly. For now I would just like to add a few comments on the key moments of the game as they appeared from my point of view (as a "watcher from the distance"):
First of all you played the diplomatic side very well, making good use of the opportunity that Hawklord's early attack on Portugal presented to you: of course Portugal was practically forced to join an alliance, as otherwise the more powerful Spain (which additionally had just started its Golden Age) would threaten to knock it out completely. And after that, England practically had to join the alliance as well, otherwise it would be in danger of being left behind, if Portugal and France shared the Spanish possessions between them...
By making this diplomatic alliance, you a) ensured the prerequisites of capturing a large empire and b) at the same time secured that empire against a possible later attack from England & Portugal. And what I like especially is that even after you had obtained your dominant position, you remained true to your peaceful disposition and never attacked your peaceful neighbors! Something like this is greatly honorable.
Lesson to be learned for Spain is, I guess: Spain needs to play carefully, simply because it is probably the most powerful start position, so the other nations are very afraid of getting pushed over and will form a dogpile at the first sign of Spanish aggression. Best option would probably have been to sign Eclipse's "No War in Europe" treaty and then try to increase the already quite good position overseas.
The next key factor in muzbang's play was the concentrated military action to secure the lion's share of Spanish possessions, especially the precious Cuban collonies.
And finally what astonishes me the most, is the fact that you managed to do both things at the same time: build up a strong military and at the same time expand very fast in Canada. Usually in most games the resources allow only the one or the other, but not both. I assume that the very powerful unit of the
Colonist played a key role here? If setting up a town correctly, it can during Golden Age practically produce one Colonist per turn without ever loosing population! (I tried to use this unit myself, but for some reason the Aztecs cannot build it, even after I had the necessary tech?!
)
As to my own position (the Aztecs): at the end of the game I had accumulated 1800 culture points. If I had sacrificed the slaves that I currently possess, I would have gotten a bit over 2000. So this is only 50% of the necessary points. And this despite the fact that I had good luck with several points in this game:
- My prebuild secured the first Temple of the Moon
- I had completed an early aqueduct, which enabled me to get the second Temple of the Sun. Only the third Temple I had to concede to the AI, which I think cannot be avoided anyway, because the Mayan "prebuild" remained intact through the entire cascade from the first Temple. (And also the Emperor AI gets a hefty 20% discount.)
- I never got attacked, so could concentrate all resources into the capital, bringing it to size 12 asap. No need for diverting shields into military protection. Here a big thank-you in this regard goes to England for the early protection in a phase, where I was practically without defense!
- When the Netherlands were nearly extinguished I was lucky to find a Netherlands Longbow that I could kill with two Jaguars. So I was able to start my Golden Age at a very convenient time without having to risk a dangerous war. The GA brought me a fast second Temple of the Sun, a Cathedral, a University and a Collosseum. (And then a Sugar Plantation, a Bank and a couple of muskets.)
So I think there is absolutely no way I could have gained the missing 2000 culture points by this point of time. In my opinion the only slight chances of winning are, if the 4 European nations ballance each other all the time and keep destroying each other's colonies without one of them becoming a super-power. But there's no way a meso-american nation can influence this, so it can only watch from the distance and "hope". And even if none of the European nations runs away with the game, the chances for a culture victory are very slim, because a lot of victory points can be gained by research. (I assume a significant part of muzbang's points come from research?!) So it may be too slow in any case.
After muzbang also eliminated the Netherlands quickly, England, Portugal and Aztecia formed a "trade alliance" trying to catch up to France in a peaceful way. The plan was that the Aztecs would try and produce treasures quickly and sell them to the Europeans for workers. However, even that plan came too late, because I made a big mistake earlier: I had stopped researching/tech trading, shortly before I got Invention. I thouhgt I had to avoid Invention, because that tech would give me Longbows, which would replace the Quetzal Bowman. My plan however had been to use a large Quetzal force to conquer Mayaland and generate a lot of slaves that way. (The Longbow no longer has the ability of enslavement.) But it turned out that long before I had a sufficient number of Quetzals, the Mayas had already been eliminated by Portugal and France...
So I could as well have continued research and started my treasure production some 20 turns earlier...
But anyway, even if this is such a
completely unbalanced scenario, it was a lot of fun playing it. I think a lot of what we learned here, can be put to good use in the
Pirates!Yarr game, once that'll get off the ground.
A big
thank-you to Hawklord, Eclipse, TomBxx and muzbang for the fair-play and for the interesting twists and strategies we have seen here!
Eclipse or muzbang: can you sent me the final .savs? I will try to make a couple of "finish screenshots" and post them here.
Lanzelot
