jesusin, contender. Goal: Fastest Cultural Victory. Result: 1775AD cultural victory.
My position at 1AD wasn't so bad. Why this disappointing result?
There were two important strategic flaws in my game at 1AD. I identified and solved one of them, but failed to see the other.
The
first problem was happiness. I realised later than I should, but I reacted, researched Monarchy and built some 40 Warriors along the game. Problem solved.
The
second problem was research. And it was a serious one. I never saw it coming, due to the abundance of commerce early (3 gold tiles in the first 2 cities).
One of the reasons for my mistake was following old fashioned clichés.
"It is a big waste to farm over a matured cottage". Well, that sentence is fairly true, but it is not an absolute truth.
"Saving worker turns is important; don't build a cottage first if you want a farm there later, go directly for the farm and save worker turns".
Well, the problem was I farmed the GPFarm (much before I had the opportunity to hire any artists). I farmed all non-Legendary cities, as they would have the mission to pop one or two GA each by the end of the game. I only cottaged 1 city, the one working desert hills (and no those few cottages) in order to get Moai finished.
The result? I was paying Immortal maintenance, I didn't have Pyramids to research with specialists, I didn't have cottages to research with commerce. Basically I didn't have any research at all. I reached Liberalism only 1220AD (and that with the help of 2GS bulbs, Philo and Educ).
I should have cottaged all first, then built more Workers while happily researching, then turn all cottages into farms (except for the Moai city) at Liberalism.
Apart from these two strategic problems, I made 3 relevant mistakes.
Mistake one: Building a city 625BC and putting it to slow build (no slavery) Moai to begin to be productive, since it doesn't have any hammers.
This simply doesn't work. By the time Moai was completed (780AD !!!) the city didn't have any infrastructure, no cathedrals, etc... This was a bad candidate for a Legendary city.
Mistake two: Staying at 1 single religion all game long.
How did this happen? Well, the early religions were out if I wanted a decent expansion rate and I wanted to survive the barbs. I was first to CoL. Christianity was taken too fast. I was planning to get Taoism... but by the time I got my second GS I realised it would bulb Alpha instead of Philo. Oh, why didn't I check beforehand?
While I was researching Alpha, another civ was first to Philo.
Mistake three: Failed Golden Age
After the Philo mistake, I started to think how to make up for my mistakes. And I tried too hard.
My civics were Castes and Bureaucracy. Normal thing to do would have been 1 turn of anarchy to go HR, then wait till Liberalism to launch a GoldenAge with the GS. Revolt to FS, Pacifism and Confu then, with a previous 5 turn period in slavery+OR.
What I did was launch the GoldenAge with the GS immediately, hoping to stay in slavery for 5 turns. I revolted to Confu. Then I realised I hadn't got BW yet, so delayed that 1 turn. Revolt then to HR+slavery. By the 6th turn, the plan was to go Castes+Pacif... but of course, since I had used the GS on the GoldenAge I didn't have Philo yet... so finished Monoteism in a hurry and revolted to Castes+OR in the last turn of the GoldenAge.
What a waste! When I reached Liberalism, I had to revolt to FS+Pacifism with 1 turn of anarchy.
Well, to finish the story, I wasn't first to Music but the 2 GS bulbs got me being first to Liberalism (1220AD !!!).
At that moment I was estimating a 1846AD victory. I took a risky (but correct) decision then:
I didn't go 100% culture (well, 30% was more like what I could sustain) but kept on researching beyond Liberalism. I got Constitution, I revolted to Representation and only then I went 100% (30%) culture.
Getting Constitution costed 17 turns. How did I make up for that investment? My artists researched for me:
- Banking: Mercantilism helped a lot to get more GAs.
- PP: helped a bit to the backwards Moai city.
- Astronomy: helped a lot since I could get more health and trade my resources away for money to raise the culture bar.
The end game was well played, starving 5 cities to get more GA and get them sooner.
Key data:
Cultural victory 1775AD. Multipliers 3.5-2.5-2.5 (only 3 cathedrals), bombs 2-7-8, base culture per turn 180-125-150, 4GS used for Academy, GoldenAge and bulb Philo and Educ, 17 GA bombed, total 21GP, none of them for free.
EDIT: very fun game. Isolation is the perfect laboratory to measure one's ability as a builder. Thanks for this great game, I have learned a lot.
) 
. After 1 AD I continued to build cities in all of the continent, but completely late from the others. By oceanic passages and isolation, this map was so cool for my first attempt of Immortal victory 
, but it stayed for the next 
...
! It remained unknown until the final map in the end of the game. Would it be the Land of the Lost 
???
