BlakeTheDrake
Warlord
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2010
- Messages
- 131
The BNW version of Cultural Victory is much more interesting, deep, and creative than the old one, that's true... but unless I'm specifically planning to AIM for Cultural Victory, I always disable it. Unless I forget, which I did in my latest game, which then nicely illustrated WHY I always disable it.
I was playing as Gustavus Adolphus, and going full conquest. I basically started fighting as soon as I'd invented the trebuchet, and then never really STOPPED - just took breaks to rest, resupply, and do a little R&D between conquering civs. None of that 'surgical strike against capitals' bull this time - I would CONQUER THE WORLD! And I was doing it, too. Took full advantage of the period where my UU's dominated, bringing out fast-moving Hakkapelita to harry my foes, and building as many Caroleans as I could afford - after all, their valuable 'March' upgrade would endure when they were upgraded to more advanced forms, and infantry never really stopped being useful.
As the Atomic Era rolled around, I finished yet another conquest, and now only one target remained - The Ottomans, who still dominated a solid quarter of the world, mostly thanks to taking a rather aggressive stance against city-states. Their armies were immense, but I had a slight edge in technology, and I'd cleverly sapped their strength by gifting advanced military units (mostly the 0-XP ones I received from my militaristic City-State allies) to their targets, forcing them to expend significant resources in their conquests. And now it was time for the final war for dominion! Two great armies were ready to catch the well-prepared Ottomans in a pincer-attack, and two great fleets - including well-stocked Carriers - were ready to swoop in on their seaside properties. Each Carrier also came with an Atomic Bomb - tech the Ottomans didn't have, and which I hoped would come as an unpleasant surprise to them. Finally, proving the value of military intelligence, my submarine scouts had managed to locate the bulk of the Ottoman Navy - clustered just out of sight of one of my main production-centers. They were clearly no fools, and had their own counterattack planned. But now, I had a wolfpack of submarines ready to deal with their strikeforce before it could move...
War was declared, and the first shots were fired! Well-prepared forces charged into the breach while pre-placed artillery began to shell the enemy cities. Naval forces leapt into action, and fully half the Ottoman strikeforce fell to my submarines before they even knew what hit them. Everything seemed to be going according to plan, and while my front-line soldiers would soak up some nasty damage from the Great Fortresses the Ottomans had scattered across the main frontier, I was confident that I'd be able to take at least two of their cities by the second turn of the war. But they still had a lot of land, and a lot of cities. There remained plenty of opportunities for them to spring surprises on me, and I was still looking for a worthy target for my Atomic Bombs...
*NEXT TURN*
"You have achieved victory through the awesome power of your culture..."
...you see where I'm coming from? It's easy to lose track of your cultural influence if you aren't directly monitoring it, and once your Tourism surpasses the enemy's cultural output, you can't STOP it from happening. Worse, everything you do to increase cultural growth - and thus your acquisition of cultural policies and ideological tenets - also tends to boost your Tourism. And of course, if you're going for 'full' conquest and thus whittling down the number of competitors, it becomes even easier to wind up with an unintended cultural victory, and a serious case of Conquest-blueballs.
I was playing as Gustavus Adolphus, and going full conquest. I basically started fighting as soon as I'd invented the trebuchet, and then never really STOPPED - just took breaks to rest, resupply, and do a little R&D between conquering civs. None of that 'surgical strike against capitals' bull this time - I would CONQUER THE WORLD! And I was doing it, too. Took full advantage of the period where my UU's dominated, bringing out fast-moving Hakkapelita to harry my foes, and building as many Caroleans as I could afford - after all, their valuable 'March' upgrade would endure when they were upgraded to more advanced forms, and infantry never really stopped being useful.
As the Atomic Era rolled around, I finished yet another conquest, and now only one target remained - The Ottomans, who still dominated a solid quarter of the world, mostly thanks to taking a rather aggressive stance against city-states. Their armies were immense, but I had a slight edge in technology, and I'd cleverly sapped their strength by gifting advanced military units (mostly the 0-XP ones I received from my militaristic City-State allies) to their targets, forcing them to expend significant resources in their conquests. And now it was time for the final war for dominion! Two great armies were ready to catch the well-prepared Ottomans in a pincer-attack, and two great fleets - including well-stocked Carriers - were ready to swoop in on their seaside properties. Each Carrier also came with an Atomic Bomb - tech the Ottomans didn't have, and which I hoped would come as an unpleasant surprise to them. Finally, proving the value of military intelligence, my submarine scouts had managed to locate the bulk of the Ottoman Navy - clustered just out of sight of one of my main production-centers. They were clearly no fools, and had their own counterattack planned. But now, I had a wolfpack of submarines ready to deal with their strikeforce before it could move...
War was declared, and the first shots were fired! Well-prepared forces charged into the breach while pre-placed artillery began to shell the enemy cities. Naval forces leapt into action, and fully half the Ottoman strikeforce fell to my submarines before they even knew what hit them. Everything seemed to be going according to plan, and while my front-line soldiers would soak up some nasty damage from the Great Fortresses the Ottomans had scattered across the main frontier, I was confident that I'd be able to take at least two of their cities by the second turn of the war. But they still had a lot of land, and a lot of cities. There remained plenty of opportunities for them to spring surprises on me, and I was still looking for a worthy target for my Atomic Bombs...
*NEXT TURN*
"You have achieved victory through the awesome power of your culture..."
...you see where I'm coming from? It's easy to lose track of your cultural influence if you aren't directly monitoring it, and once your Tourism surpasses the enemy's cultural output, you can't STOP it from happening. Worse, everything you do to increase cultural growth - and thus your acquisition of cultural policies and ideological tenets - also tends to boost your Tourism. And of course, if you're going for 'full' conquest and thus whittling down the number of competitors, it becomes even easier to wind up with an unintended cultural victory, and a serious case of Conquest-blueballs.
