SirPleb
Shaken, not stirred.
(predator)Link to Ancient Age spoiler
Link to Middle Ages spoiler
Summary
100K cultural victory in 1310AD.
Invading the Second Continent
At the end of the Middle Ages in 870AD I was expecting to coast through the remainder of the game without warfare, spending my time filling in towns, building railroads, and rushing culture improvements with assistance from Civil Engineers.
In 870AD I gifted Germany, Sumeria, and Byzantines to the Industrial Age. Their free techs were Medicine, Steam Power, and Steam Power respectively. The price to trade for Steam Power seemed too high so I started researching it. In 880AD those three Civs had done some trading and Steam Power was affordable. I traded horses + 4 luxuries + 76gpt for it from Germany.
And then the big whammy - there was no coal anywhere in my lands! The world's only coal was on the other continent. And there wasn't much even there - it looked like poor odds that I'd be able to trade with anyone to get coal.
I'd invested a lot in reaching Steam Power and after doing that I wasn't about to finish the game without coal. The other continent had two sources near the coast where I could quickly take it over. One in Byzantine lands, one in Hittite lands. I had a commitment to supply the Byzantines spices for another 14 turns. I had no obligations to the Hittites so I targeted them for my invasion.
I still had my two Knight armies from the Iroquois wars. They would lead the invasion. I rushed some galleons and a settler, and brought all of my remaining Knights from around the continent to the departure point. I started some barracks builds to replace the barracks I'd disbanded earlier on and to then begin rebuilding my military.
In 950AD I declared war on Hittites and landed my first troops on their shores. In 960AD I destroyed their coal town, replaced it with my own, and rushed a harbor:
I didn't have any difficulty fending off the Hittite counter-attacks. And now that I'd begun military operations again I couldn't resist the opportunity to expand my holdings a bit. It was slow going because I didn't prioritize military production. I just produced units in the few core cities which had finished building all improvements and shipped them to the new world. I gave the Hittites peace in 1020AD. In 1100AD I declared on the Celts to take their wines and some of their land. In 1240AD I finally gave the Celts peace. At that date I controlled 57% of the world area.
I had no further warfare but did gain a bit more land by cultural expansion. It was especially nice to take a source of ivory this way from Sumeria
At the end of the game I'd grown to have 60% of the world area. Here's my world map at the end, 1310AD, showing the details of the ivory squeezed out of Sumeria's hands (first a library rushed in Agedincum gained access to the tile where ColonyIvory was established, then I rushed its cultural improvements:
Research
After trading for Steam Power I researched directly toward Replaceable Parts. I learned Electricity in 920AD and Replaceable Parts in 960AD, four turns each.
After that I ran at zero research for a while, slowly trading away my tech lead to get Medicine, Printing Press, Economics, Military Tradition, a luxury, and some gold.
Eventually I started research again. My reasoning was that I could probably make a net profit on just a bit more research. Some of the other Civs were finally developing reasonable purchasing power. I learned Scientific Method in 1180AD, built Theory Of Evolution soon after, and took Industrialization and The Corporation as my free techs. Researching that one additional tech allowed me to build a number of Stock Exchanges before the end of the game and to continue trading my tech lead for the other Civs' cash.
An amusing thing I saw in the early Industrial Age: When the Byzantines discovered Printing Press in 900AD it became clear that they hadn't made contact with Sumeria yet!
Growth
As soon as I learned Replaceable Parts in 960AD I started using Civil Engineers in corrupt towns. Unhappy citizens and surplus citizens (those who were already specialists due to filling the land, and those producing an oversupply of food in towns which needed aqueducts) became Engineers.
The Civil Engineers helped first with temple production. Many towns had 2 or 3 of them and this resulted in a considerable production boost. Soon a lot of corrupt towns had completed both their library and their temple. I set a number of these towns to building universities (if small) or cathedrals (if large and the happiness boost would help.) After a while I started switching new towns which completed their temples to wealth since the end of the game was in sight. In 1290AD my last temple was completed - all 233 of my cities had libraries and temples. I managed to also rush a number of cathedrals and universities in corrupt towns before the game finished.
Despite the shortness of the time I had them I think that the cost of getting Civil Engineers (i.e. research to Replaceable Parts) is worthwhile in a 100K culture game. It feels like I got more back from them than I lost due to the research cost. Hard to be sure though.
During the Industrial Age most of my productive cities completed all basic improvements (each ended up with temple, library, cathedral, university, colosseum, marketplace, bank) and a number of them also completed stock exchanges.
My income at the end of the game with the luxury and science sliders at zero was 1838gpt. 266gpt of that was coming from trade with other Civs.
Culture reference points from my game:
Code:
date culture c/turn
750BC 298 +30
10AD 2663 +109
300AD 5476 +220
600AD 15747 +501
900AD 36824 +872
1000AD 46104 +1028
1100AD 58088 +1299
1200AD 72139 +1461
1250AD 79760 +1558
1300AD 96623 +1821
1310AD 100356 +1881I didn't quite reach my goal of +2000 culture/turn.
And the culture graph:
Northeast Island
It took me unti 1020AD to deal with all the barbarians which had accumulated on this island. I handled most of them by just absorbing their attacks, settling towns where I could draw them out and then letting them pillage the towns. (I never had much gold left at the end of a turn so this didn't hurt.)
Eventually I did control the island and I settled it very densely. During the war on Hittites I took their one town there and during the war on Celts I took their two. That left just two stubborn foreign towns, one belonging to Germany, one to Sumeria. I really thought I'd get one or both of these towns to flip to me. I applied great cultural pressure on them but both remained stubbornly loyal till the end. Despite my culture lead and pressure in many places I didn't receive a single town from a culture flip in the entire game. Here's a picture of the culture squeeze on the two most stubborn resistors at the end of the game:
That's one for the "Screenshot of the Day". 
![[c3c]](/images/smilies/c3c.gif "Civ3 Conquests [c3c]")
predator
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It is not good for health to be an unemployed. I just went to food store and forgot my wallet back home 
Too much Civ, I guess.
