BOTM 31 Final Spoiler

[Karstedt]

You guys are all so much faster than me. I went cultural in 1960 at the easiest level. I probably could have done whatever I wanted by then, but it seemed like a hassle to start crushing everyone when I was only 25 turns to cultural dominance.

I had a slow tech start because I didn't go for caravels very quickly, and neither did anyone else. So it was some time before I met anyone other than Catherine who made no attempt to settle on my shores because I rex'd the coast and then stagnated while my economy caught up.

Joab hated me throughout the game, but never did anything about it. So I converted all his friends to my religion and passed the apostolic resolution to cut off trade with him and eventually harassed him with privateers just for kicks. I also gifted hordes of obsolete (to me) to the French to support their efforts vs Spanish aggression, and later hordes of obsolete units to England to defend against the vile French. While I pretty much sat around building wonders and lots of units that would never see battle until I gifted them to some other nation when they were no longer cutting edge.

I probably could have easily hit my culture vic in the late 19th century had I not waited until the 1500's to decide on a cultural vic though. But I get comfortable and lazy when building my empire.

 

[chopster]

I also played a culture vicotry from the contender save, and scored a dismal mid 1800s (I think) finish.

I played this one pretty much fast without too much thought and cold not doubt have done much better, but I had fun.

 

[whb]

Late UN victory (1907), a few turns before my spaceship would have arrived.

 

[TrailblazingScot]

This was an ideal map to try cultural, especially as the AI was teching so slowly I could have picked up 5 religions without too much difficulty. However, it wasn't to be.

I settled in a forest two space to the east of my start. Forest start means no resources underneath and I hoped there was more food in the darkness - and I got lucky.

My first mistake was teching AH first to get the pigs found in the darkness and then go straight for writing to have libraries for tech. The mistake was that I couldn't farm the corn early. I was also pretty late to bronze working by my standards.

I then got more into my stride. Got plenty of decent wonders, expanded reasonably quickly and took out the Russians.

At this point I started to regret not having gone cultural...so, once I had met everyone I decided that a UN victory might be good fun.

I beat up those civs that didn't like me much...France had to be vassalised and Spain, after just losing a single city became a vassal as well. Built UN and managed to win the diplomatic victory on the first vote, which was a pleasant change. In the screenie you can see my decent stack of galleons filled with cavalry and artillery ready to deal with anyone who voted for Elizabeth...they weren't required.

Things I particularly liked? My second city, became my new capital. My capital became spy central and Wall Street and Statues went to the very icy fishy, silverly and deery city which later hosted Sushi. Injured barbarian trapped in the ice for 1000s of years. Best of all was killing Frenchies.

What I didn't like...where the stone was...worstest city ever...for my colony.

So, 1790AD Diplomatic Victory

Turns played: 268
Base score: 5375
Final score: 86812
Time played: 5:01:36

 

[TrailblazingScot]

Looking at the other posts, I'm genuinely surprised that people kept with Berlin as their capital. I thought Berlin was a pretty weak capital and moved to the flood plain and pig city where I put Oxfords and National Epic and was really pleased with the results.

 

[Welnic]

...
It's time to rewrite the history of Europe! you're playing as Bismarck against all European opponents. Wanna see Europe united under the hegemony of the French? Or perhaps see Europe beat America to land a man on the moon. Well, tough luck on both of those since you're not playing the French and the Civilization spaceship doesn't go to the moon. But maybe you can think of some other innovative version of history to play. Like Germany suffering a conquest loss? ...

I wanted to see Europe united under the hegemony of the French, and I ended up with a French Religious victory in 1715. I played a pretty confused game, it took me forever to figure out where Cathy was. She never expanded off her island and vassalized to me about the time I met other people. Converted most of France to Confucianism, and had to take cities from Elizabeth and Isabella, convert them and give them back for peace.

 

[TrailblazingScot]

A French Religious victory...so you lost?

 

[Welnic]

Technically I lost. But I did what I set out to do, sort of. I originally wanted to have a French domination victory, but with everyone being on separate continents that was going to be more work than I wanted. Then I decided that establishing a hegemony sounded more like a religious victory anyway.

 

[JacktheBodiless]

I'd like to request the Razzie for slowest victory (I am a lurker newb, after all!)...

Spaceship landed on Alpha C in 1980s (not long before my stack of Modern Mechanized Everything was about to finish vassalizing the southern continent).

And by the way, that was with the Adventurer save ... I don't think I expanded aggressively enough. For one thing, I was determined to try a Specialist Economy(never had before) in land (except for flood plain/pigs city) that seemed better suited to Cottage Economy. I teched way ahead of AI, so no trading partners. I did not choose victory condition until way late, and didn't grab ANY early religions. I finally decided to build the ship when I got bored bludgeoning the AI with my vastly superior forces.

Still, it was cool to actually win a GOTM, even if it was really slowly. I probably could have won much earlier if I had just focused on military. I had several good production cities and a big tech lead. I think I just got caught up in perfectionism, building buildings when I should have been building units.

In hindsight, I would have built more workers, chopped Settlers instead of slow-building them, and tried to fill up the original continent faster. After all, that would have been a more synergistic plan with my leader's traits. Oh well, live and learn!

Off to lose the Beffudlov challenge!

 

[Grifftavian]

I achieved a late cultural victory in 1858 AD. Probably could have finished earlier, but kept up full bore research until Mass Media, in case I needed UN as a backup plan. On the other hand, keeping the research up allowed me to build Broadway, Hollywood and Rock 'n Roll, so maybe not.

I had 15 cities at the end, 3 of which were captured barbarian cities. Never fought any wars. Built the AP, but couldn't get my state religion (Confucianism) spread to Isabella. Gifted her a Missionary, but she either deleted it or gifted it to someone else Also built the UN, but no luck getting elected. Nobody had built the Apollo Program in my game.

After 500 AD, I built 18 Great Wonders, 2 Holy Shrines, and I used one of my Great Artists to build Civilized Jewelers.

My Moai Statues city was a captured Barbarian city on the SE coast.

 

[mushroomshirt]

Built the AP, but couldn't get my state religion (Confucianism) spread to Isabella. Gifted her a Missionary, but she either deleted it or gifted it to someone else

It's likely she was in theocracy. You would have to use a spy (or bribe her) to knock her out of it for a few turns to get your religion to spread.

 

[Grifftavian]

It's likely she was in theocracy. You would have to use a spy (or bribe her) to knock her out of it for a few turns to get your religion to spread.

Hmmm... now that I think about it, I believe you're correct, Isabella was in Theocracy for most of the game. Thanks for the tip, I'll try that next time. Need to brush up on my Espionage skills as well.

 

[jesusin]

First time played noble and tried culture victory, made a lot of mistakes and learned quite a lot. Tried to abuse Sushi, liberalism took Medicine and then researched Communism for Kremlin. No luck for GA, so only produced 4 GAs for culture bomb. However GAs did not matter too much since every culture city could produce over 1.5K each turn. If optimally played and with luck on GA, could pull a win ~1400AD and that's it. I am interested to see how fast the old way of stopping research at PP and Nat could achieve. Experts advices are welcome.

I don't think experts can say a lot if you don't give them some more info, like number of cities, number of religions, etc.

One think experts would tell you is you could be running 21 artists instead of 21 scientist in your Legendary cities. That would help with both culture production and GreatArtist probability.

Would you be so kind as to elaborate on your desire to have Kremlin? What for? What date was that? How many cathedrals had you already built by then?

 

[Jbourne]

I don't think experts can say a lot if you don't give them some more info, like number of cities, number of religions, etc.

One think experts would tell you is you could be running 21 artists instead of 21 scientist in your Legendary cities. That would help with both culture production and GreatArtist probability.

Would you be so kind as to elaborate on your desire to have Kremlin? What for? What date was that? How many cathedrals had you already built by then?

From the images, I see 5 religions and 5 cathedrals in each plus the globe (3.5, 3..5 and 4.5 multi). I bet he used kremlin to rush buy some cathedrels. However I too would like to see more data like you post at diffeent times of the game.

As for the scientist, they were likely artist before it went Legendary.

 

[jesusin]

I've attached my notes below, and would welcome similarly detailed notes from others, or suggestions on what slowed me down.

I hope my comments are welcome. I can't resist commenting on a cultural game.

Build worker, warrior, warrior (1 turn), settler, warrior(finish), warrior, settler

Would a Worker instead of the last settler have had enough tiles to improve? If so, maybe another Worker is preferable here.

Research animal husbandry, agriculture, bronze working (for chopping), masonry (to work the marble), wheel, pottery (to get cottages started), writing (need libraries for some culture in our cities), alphabet, fishing???. Then better consider archery or horseback riding for defense.

AH and BW are more than enough investment for defense. Don't ever research (nor trade for) Archery in a Noble game.
Agriculture before AH looks more natural. That way you also get a discount on AH.

Hamburg is settled west of capital on the floodplains 2N of the pigs. Will build worker > granary.

Aaaaaah! Forget any advise given so far and any advise that might follow. If you just learn to send a worker with your settlers, you will save 200 years on your cultural games... and on any other kind of victory too.
You have 2 cities, one with 3 wonderfully improved tiles and one with zero improved tiles. Where do you really want to build that new Worker?
And while building your Worker in the wrong city, how much are you delaying the working of improved tiles in your second city? Are the new tiles the capital is getting as good as the first improved tile int he new city would be?
One way of measuring your progress in a game is counting the number of improved tiles you are working every ten turns. Please do the experiment of sending the worker ofthe capital and building a new worker there, compare the results and come back here to refute my idea or to confirm it.

At 1000BC we have 4 cities, 5 cottages and 3 more coming, 6 workers, 11 warriors, our faithful scout (still exploring - has explored all the SW jungles, then NE dodging barbs and viewed Russian territory across the sea, and is now heading SW to try and go round the corner and N to see whether the Russians are on the same continent as us, and whether there's anyone else around). We're ahead of the Russ on score. Normally would have built more cities and less workers, but following advice in Jesusin's culture thread, delayed building more cities. We don't have any religions yet.

Nice proportion of cities and workers. But I think you have too few of them. The advice given in the thread is for playing Deity, where the cost of supporting more cities is significantly higher.

200BC The Russians beat us to COL by 5 turns, so we're way behind on religions for our culture goal. Fortunately it spreads to Essen next turn, so we're finally underway with getting religion

Too slow development! You could have CS by now.

300AD Got first great person - scientist - used to start a golden age and have 2 cities using 2 science specialists during it to rush towards 2 more great people.

Interesting move, specially if you changed some civics during this period. It might have been a mistake, how many GS do you want to get anyway? Every GS now costs you a GA later.

780AD We found Dusseldorf in the far south to get wheat and sugar - our 9th and last city

When there are more 2-fod-resouces sites, it is advisable to settle more cities. They cost in research initially, but they pay back later and they can generate at least 1 GA each.

About now our GP Farm (Hamburg) is size 13 and allocates 5 artist specialists while staying stable on food (I've never before recruited so many specialists - I'd usually have wanted to keep working more cottages, but am trying to follow the ideas in Jesusin's thread). [Later when plantations kick in to raise my happiness threshhold I work more tiles to grow larger for a while. ]I realise however that my 9 city strategy is suboptimal - the GPFarm will be generating minimal hammers and so won't be able to build cathedrals, so 6 cities would have been sufficient. Living and learning... I'm now thinking maybe a GPFarm should not usually be one of the 3 culture cities???

Did you really read that guide you mentioned? You either play a 6 cities game with GPFarm as Legendary or you play a 9 cities game with 3 cottage cities as Legendaries.
Also cottaging the GPFarm is not such a good idea. Raw culture from cottages that doesn't get multiplied by cathedrals is not so hot. Farming gives you more artists. Less than 8 artists in a GPFarm is a so-so one.

1000AD We discover Music and get a free great artist (who will culture bomb Munich). We start on Civil Service, then Paper, Education and Liberalism

CS before Music gets you Music cheaper... if you are not risking losing being first.



Were you playing with only 2 religions or did I lose my count? It's not enough. 4 is great, more might be beter or worst depending on production capacity.

1848AD Cultural victory, later than necessary, lots learned, well enjoyed.

 

[Duckweed]

I don't think experts can say a lot if you don't give them some more info, like number of cities, number of religions, etc.

One think experts would tell you is you could be running 21 artists instead of 21 scientist in your Legendary cities. That would help with both culture production and GreatArtist probability.

I only ran artists in that city before it had the chance to produce any before the end of the game and all the GAs (4 only) I produced were from that city. Berlin was too strong to produce many other types of GPs.

Would you be so kind as to elaborate on your desire to have Kremlin? What for? What date was that? How many cathedrals had you already built by then?

I had too many GEs by luck and did not think about any better usage. Researching Communism took me 2 turns. I had quite a few cathedrals to whip that time.

I realized quite a lot of mistakes in my play, probably the biggest issues were that I expanded too much and not focused. In the same time, I conquered 3 AIs and had >40 cities in the end.

I'm curious how fast you could pull the culture win in this game without using Sushi.

 

[budweiser]

I'm curious how fast you could pull the culture win in this game without using Sushi.

I did not use sushi, but I needed 257 turns.

 

[shyuhe]

I'm curious how fast you could pull the culture win in this game without using Sushi.

I think my 1695 date may be the second fastest culture date right now (at least that's been reported). I probably could have trimmed 10-20 turns on mine if I had planned better (exhibit A - idling GA at the end of my game because he was useless) but your sushi plan worked out significantly better. You don't get GPP pollution but can get the base culture points around the time that you complete your cathedrals, which is key.

 

[jesusin]

I'm curious how fast you could pull the culture win in this game without using Sushi.

Are you going to replay? Or are you trying to incite someone to replay?


Thanks for the clarifications on your game. I have not a lot of experience with cultural with Sushi. I wonder what's better, to infect every city with Sushi to get more money and more GAs or to just infect the 3 Legendary cities...
Also I'd be scared of settling more and more cities for more and more resources because of the maintenance costs. Maybe this strategy can't hold further beyond Noble level (?).

Normal cultural games without Sushi can be won around 1250AD on Noble... but that relays on extra fast development by way of conquering neighbours. I'd say a 1500AD finish is reasonable... which means your strategy was a sound success.

 

[-Asterix-]

Didn't aim for anything but a fun game, ended up with space victory in 1864 AD.

Settled in place, early research was Agri, BW, TW, Myst, Fishing, Pottery, Masonry, AH. Initial builds were worker, warrior, warrior, worker, settler, worker.

Did some crazy mistakes early: lost the first produced settler to some bears when gambling a bit, totally forgot The Oracle as well as The Colossus and The Great Lighthouse which would have helped a ton with all those coastal cities.

Found out quite early that no AIs were near and started to spam settlers and ruin my economy. That made me also try some fog busting which I hadn't really done well in my earlier games. Found Cathy who peace vassaled to me later, quite early though.

Made some more mistakes later, like not going for Astro when I should have and not specializing cities enough. And also stayed with HR too long after getting Representation. Didn't really realize the importance of Astronomy in this map until it was "too late". When I found Isabella & De Gaulle, they were at war. Otherwise there were no fighting as far as I know. Teching was quite ok, I guess, managed to get also 2 Future Techs. Or at least it was not bad.

When I found out that I was way ahead in tech compared to AIs, I started thinking about possible victory conditions. That was way too late to get to earlier finishing dates, though, and about all options were possible. As I hadn't went to space earlier, I thought to give it a try. Started to build workshops and other hammer-stuff and get ready for some kind of big building hazzle. After building Apollo it took about 15 turns to finish all parts and launch the ship. Not too bad for a first-timer I guess.

Oh yes... and I also had 5 golden ages with Mausoleum, which was quite fun.

Things I learned in this game:

- I will not gamble with settlers again
- I don't want to forget The Oracle
- Astronomy is important in maps with many continents
- I need to plan my specializing cities better and get better places for them
- fog busting is great
- I can REX even more than I did now
- now I know what I need for spaceship
- a city with tons of workshops has nice amount of hammers coming