Arrrr, mateys! I just put the finishing touches on my cultural victory last night. My cultural skills are a little second-rate, and I thought the Japanese would be challenging enough to teach me a thing or two.
At the start it seemed clever to rush headlong for Construction and get some Colusseums built early for the big culture total. Being an emporer game I figured the GL and Pyramids would be out of reach, and I was right. Couldn't even get the Oracle! Even with the advantage of a settler from the goody hut! So a 20,000 city wasn't going to happen. I kept to my research and my temple and settler building while France and China pounded each other like two bulls in a water closet. I traded Iron to China, but they apparently couldn't do much with it and lost the war...badly. I assimilated Tsingtao in a prime location, and when Beijing fell into French hands and the culture border shrank to nothing, my settlers were there to claim the lions share of my half of the continent. Still quite early in the game, without all that messy fighting. Meanwhile I did acquire Construction, but on the same turn as the French, so it didn't trade for much. I only got up 1 real early colluseum in Osaka, by the end of the game it was worth 1148 culture points. Looking back maybe I should've gone for Literature and built Libraries for their higher culture yield, but hey, on the bright side I didn't have to trade for construction and I did get Some culture out of it. Other notable culture structures by the end of the game:
Kyoto-Temple:1582, Library:1623,Colossus:2097 (insurmountable!), Lighthouse:1136, Shakespeare's: 1016 (Built in the 1500's!!), University:1308
Osaka-Library:1521,University:1144
Catherdral of Edo:1077
Temple of Tsingtao:1008
Temple of Satsuma:1204
Paris- JS's Cathedral:1110
Temple of Tokyo: 1376
Needless to say I had temples and libraries etc. all over the dang place. Getting them built before 300 AD or so really makes a huge difference when their values double later on- I certainly could have done better in this respect. Too many Samurais...I never thought I'd say that.
So yeah. Once Chivalry hit and I had the Golden Age France declined to nothing over several centuries. Most of my science in this period came from making peace with France for tech, then attacking again- being cultured doesn't mean I'm civilized! Persia and Germany ganged up on Rome and eliminated them. Persia then wiped out Germany and became my sole company on the planet. Interesting how other players had different top dogs on that other continent- I think Persia got lucky in combat and razed important German cities and they never got over it.
After this it wasn't as boring as it might seem. Persia charged exorbitant prices for Incense and Wines, and it seemed easier to just take them by force. The battle was quite difficult, but I got my two cities with the luxuries and really didn't need Persia anymore. I hope it isn't against the rules to use Mapstat to judge your distance from a Domination victory- I stayed about 30 squares beneath the limit until close to the end, when it shrank to 8. For scoring this certainly could have been better, too.
When it was clear that Japan would dominate the world, Persia attacked again and razed several cities of mine on their continent. This war was quite fun, Destroyers were just making the scene, Persia had a ton of cavalry giving it a go. I was almost sorry to stop when I finally hit 100,000 culture, but at least I got to see Persia grovel.
So, I'm curious to see if anyone managed a 20,000 city in this game. It'a been tough to do in my opinion. Anybody who built the Pyamids or GL should have been able to beat me culturally. And my finish was at a fairly late date, no big bonus, my score is no whopper for sure. I really enjoyed this game, and I can't wait for the results to come out. Nice game, Thunderfall!
To rub salt into the wound Germany then settled the site which has now become Roman(see Frankfurt post above).
Take a look at the direction the lowest scoring challenge went. We now have expert OCC players!
