Challenger Cultural Victory
I settled one west based on a blue circle recommendation. From the initial screenshot, I had been tempted to settle on the Ivory, but decided that with only two guaranteed Resources (one Ivory and one Corn) in our starting area, it would be too weak of a capital if no other Resources appeared and with me having sat down on one. The blue circle just helped to push me in the right direction.
Of course, later I'd find out that we had more Ivory and a Copper Resource around, but I was happy enough with where I had settled.
I expanded slowly, focusing on getting out an early Oracle. In 1400 BC, I switched to Bureaucracy.
I'd already met Gandhi within the first couple of turns and then Washington and Hatshepsut on the same turn as each other in 3400 BC.
My expansion was slow, so I went for and got Stonehenge in 875 BC, to better expand my borders and to provide some early culture that I knew I would need to make up for the lack of a large, production-based empire.
I also focused as much as I could on the scientific pursuit of religions. Buddhism was mine with a sacrificial beeline to Meditation, meaning that although I could work the Ivory, there wasn't much else for a Worker to do at first. As a result of a Worker not having much to do, plus with the fear of Monte's cockiness in declaring war on everyone that we met, I think that I went for a Warrior first.
As part of my Oracle run, I beelined Confucianism. I also then beelined Taoism. Unfortunately, before I could turn around and head towards Christianity, it had been founded (3 turns before I picked up Taoism).
Still, with a nearby neighbour who would later "gift" me two religions and with three of my own, I was well set religiously. The tough part would be carving out an empire that would last.
By the time that I got the war machine rolling, Gandhi had Axemen and Swordsmen. I played cat-and-mouse with both Gandhi and Washington, losing about 1-for-1 Axemen or Jaguars in the open to their units--not a great trade-off but enough for me to pillage Gandhi's metals and to keep Washington on the defensive.
After pretending to go for other cities of theirs, I turned my armies around and headed for their now lightly-defended cities, taking one city from each as my first conquests, in the early ADs. The city from Washington was poorly placed and I ended up letting him take it back later and reclaiming it the following turn to raze it, but for now it slowed his military unit pump while giving me a forward base to heal my units and avoid the costly Unit Supply fees that were eating away at my tech pace.
It wasn't until 500 AD that I'd taken my third city, which was just one of Gandhi's that I razed in order to put down a better-placed city in the Jungle area.
So, compared to a lot of players, my military conquesting was very slow.
Shortly thereafter, Gandhi built me Notre Dame, but by the time that I was ready to take it from him, happiness didn't really matter as I had begun to crank up the Cultural Slider aka the Pursuit of Happiness Slider.
The only other Wonders that my local buddies built for me were Chichen Itza by Washington (which just meant that my 80%-complete version of it wouldn't help one of my cultural cities in getting more culture) and The Great Library by Hatshepsut, which I wouldn't take until the final turns of the game--I think that I got one turn worth of that city being out of revolt.
I lost a city to Gandhi in 880 AD (the afore-mentioned Jungle city), but I took it back from him shortly thereafter, only losing a couple of buildings.
Mansa was the founder of Islam, but it was Cyrus' Christianity that spread to all of his mates. I don't know if its shared-religion bonus was part of the reason for them being so technologically advanced when the other AI met me or if they would have been that far ahead anyway, with their Settler Level's we-love-each-other inherent bonus making them inter-trade-happy. Fortunately, Islam spread to a marginal city of Gandhi's, so once the city grew in size, I captured it, sealing my revenge on Gandhi a couple of hundred years after he'd captured my city.
With 6 religions under my control and 7 or 8 cities by this point (around 1200 AD), the game mostly became a scenario of "defend with the smallest army possible while putting as much production possible into the spread of religion and the construction of cultural buildings."
I ended up getting a lot of Great Prophets from my early Oracle and Stonehenge (both built in the same city), which I thought at first was bad, but actually worked in my favour. Without anyone with whom to trade and without a big enough army to get gold from city conquests, my budget was stretched very thin. Every Holy City Shrine (I think that I built three in all) had a big enough effect as to barely keep my finances from going in the red.
The city of Washington finally fell in 1350 AD, but Washington the Leader would live on until the end of the game. Gandhi wasn't as lucky, being eliminated in 1505 AD.
Hatshepsut was my fiercest competitor.
Crossbowmen fought my Jaguars.
Knights fought my War Elephants and Jaguars.
Cavalry fought my War Elephants and Jaguars (oops, my tech-pace slowed in its advancement).
Riflemen fought my Macemen and War Elephants.
Infantry fought my Macemen and War Elephants (it was not pretty).
Fortuately, her economy couldn't match her scientific progress--you can trade techs all you want, but money won't start growing on your trees.
Or will it?
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So, cities would have 1 Infantry unit and then mostly Riflemen or Longbowmen as backup defenders. In my last fight against her, she wasted an Infantry by taking out a War Elephant in the open filed and left herself with 2.0 health on the Infantry. My stack of about 25 units (the Aztec Horde) ate it up the next turn and pressed on to her capital, which was "only" defended by an Infantry, a Rifleman, a Cavalry, and a few Longbow units. I lost a lot of units against that stack but I still had enough "numbers" to make the difference and take down her capital. According to the end-game replay, she still had about 4 cities, though, so it was far from a complete conquest of her lands.
Most of the off-continent AI were good at harassing my fishing boats and nothing else. There was a panic moment where I used our Spiritual Trait to switch into Nationalism and fend off a Persian incursion of 2 Cavalry and a Rifleman, drafting about 9 units in the first three turns and managing to fend him off. From then on, each of my cities got more defensive units and I was able to go back to my goal of winning the game under Free Speech.
I'd self-built my first two cultural cities, with Delhi being the host of the last one. I'm not sure that I used Delhi properly. I made it a hybrid Legendary City and Great Person Farm. That situation may have worked in a game where one could trade for more Resources, but as it was, the city suffered from massive unhealthiness from the large population required to support a lot of Artists and thus I hardly had any Cottages there--most of the Flood Plains squares were Irrigated.
So, although a combination city can work, in this instance, it wasn't the best choice, as it meant that I had 9 Irrigated squares that should have been Cottage squares. Plus, without the Sistine Chapel (I'd missed founding Christianity so I didn't even bother chasing after this Wonder), the "extra culture" from the Artist Specialists was only about half as good as a mature Cottage would have been.
Add to that the fact that I wasn't even able to research as far as Guilds for Grocers, Delhi ended up with 11 Food per turn lost to Health at the end of my game!
Oh well, at least many of my marginal cities were each able to pump out a Great Artist or other Great Person, so I ended up mostly making up for this situation by using every single Great Artist in Delhi (two settled early on and the rest Culture-bombed).
Thanks for a fun game, Erkon! If I played it again, I would really want to try the Kill'em All approach. Even with my delayed warmongering, I made good headway against the AI. It just goes to show that tech will only get you so far--you still need the mentality of Montezuma to be able to field a large enough army and to be singly-focused (suicidally-focused?) enough to throw masses of Jaguars up against Infantry. Of course, it would have been preferable to throw hordes of Jaguars against Archers, as many of you probably did!
As game feedback, I will say that although Goody Huts are fun in my personal games, I do appreciate having a lot of the XOTM games without them.
I also think that having another AI (seven instead of six) probably helped us out, by giving the far-away AI more trouble in growing massive empires.
I also liked the variant of not having Barbs to go along with the Always War setting. That way, a player can be reasonably rewarded for razing AI cities early on. Had Barbs been around, players might have been forced to delay their conquests for fear of highly-advanced AI from other continents later landing and taking over Barb Cities which had spawned in the "vacuum" created by destroying the nearby AI early on. Even though this particular combination of settings worked against me compared to the last Always War cultural game that I played (in that game, I delayed meeting AI because a Barb City blocked them from meeting me for a long enough period for them to stay Peaceful long enough that victory was relatively easy), I still think that this Barb-less Always War approach makes for a "more natural" type of playing, where you are not tempted to mess around with keeping the AI around just to thwart the Barbs or vice versa. So, good foresight into picking the game conditions, Erkon!
). Built the usual national wonders (Heroic epic in capitol, and Forb palace in Washington, Nat epic and wall st in Dehli). Had a few cities carring the wieght of empire, with everything else just cranking out units without all too much thinking needed -- a game tailored to my skills in that respect.
to workshop not available.
per turn.
- 3 legendary cities, 1 Egyptian city away from conquest, 1 tile away from domination, 1 part away from a SS victory and I would have built the UN too if it was available.
. My goal was space. As of 520, I had 13 cities. Shortly after, I moved my capital to Dehli to take advantage of the commerce potential. By 1300, I had about 2 dozen cities. I had been cottaging like a nut from the beginning, so I had a pretty awesome research engine.
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