I've been playing Civilization for about a month now and since it was getting quite easy to win on noble (with builder victories anyway, I'm still having a hard time winning domination wins, let alone conquest), I decided to move on to prince.
Wasn't too long before I got a cultural win there too using the Netherlands (some of the guides in the War Academy are really excellent). It was however the first time I really noticed the "Approval Rate" and "Life Expectency" statistics on the demographics window after you finish the game.
My civs approval rate was a rather impressive 79%, however the life expectency was only 52 years.
Now don't ask me why but I care about these statistics for some reason (even though they have no impact on the actual gameplay as far as I can discern) and the idea of people only living 52 years on average just didn't feel right to me. It kind of gave me the association of people loving life but also drinking and smoking it away.
So, purely for fun, I decided to start a game trying to get the highest life expectency possible. I didn't quite succeed but I got a long way. Winning would be a nice side objective but it wasn't the main focus.
It seemed clear to me that as the approval rate depended on culture, so would the life expectency rate be dependant on health in your cities so my goal was to get this as high as possible (and off course create as little unhealtiness as possible so forges, factories etc. are not an option this game).
To this end, I played a normal speed, standard size Pangaea map with barbarians disabled (I was going for complete peace and they kept getting in the way).
For my civ I was torn between Ottomans with Mehmed and Suryavarman with Khmer. Expansive was obviously a necessity for a trait and since I'm going to be building aquaducts in every city, these two civs stood out.
I ultimately decided on Suryavarman because the Creative trait will also help me expand to a decent size early on and hopefully claim food/health resources. Besides the Baray just appeals to me as the only UB adding food to a city and looking nice on top.
The game started out well enough. I opted for a strategy of expansion over research at the beginning. Worker - Settler in Yasodharapura, then another settler in both cities.
The map was extremely kind to me. Yasodharapura was a coastal city with marble, horse and no less than 3(!!) health-providing food sources in its radius, being 2 clams and a crab.
I also deliberately chose to build the second city quite far away in order to claim a rice field, while the third and fourth cities provided another rice field, a wheat field, banana source, a cow source and a clam source for health all of which I was able to snatch from underneath the AI's noses (gotta love creative). I'm not even mentioning the numerous sugar and spice sources that were also in the region. Overall, excellent start.
Anyway after that rapid settling my economy was near the gutter but I had researched what I wanted to, namely Mathematics, and Yasodharapura began work on a Baray and the most important wonder, the Hanging Gardens immediately (and succeeded building it quite easily).
By this time all of the opponents have announced themselves (my position was in the southeast of the continent) and they are:
- Suleiman (on my above right and initially isolated on a peninsula due to my rapid expansion though he would later colonize a few islands as well)
- Hammurabi (on my above left side)
- Joao (smackdown in the center of the continent. Like me he expanded early)
- Cyrus (on my immediate left)
- Justinian (at the northpole, he'd be stuck in unfavorable tundra land for most of the game because of Joao's expansionism)
- Mansa Musa (on the far west of the continent)
Overall, not at all bad for a peaceful victory although I'm slightly concerned by Hammurabi.
Anyway the first part of the game is fairly uneventful. I stabilize the economy, give help when people ask and more importantly make a LOT of technology trades.
After building the Hanging Gardens I basically beelined Medicine which gave me quite a few techs the others weren't researching providing for a lot of trading leverage. Conveniently this beeline also goes past every early building that produces health in some way namely: Granary, Grocer, Harbor, Hospital
(and we already had the Baray off course).
I thought beforehand three opponents surrounding me directly might be hard to manage but it was actually ok. Fortunately buddhism spread to me early on through Joao, and at that time, none of the civs surrounding me had adopted a religion yet so I decided to convert and sure enough soon the others did too.
The problems begin when I encountered Mansa and Justinian who both had hinduism and more precisely when Hammurabi decided to declare war on Justinian because of this.
Up until then Justinian had been cautious to me and Hammurabi pleased, however this changed when Hammurabi invited me to join him in the war...
I wasn't sure what to do at this point. Needless to say I only had one warrior per city but Justinian was far away from me with Hammurabi right in between our lands. I was also very worried that if I rejected Hammurabi might go back to being cautious with me and I could well be his next target, which would be the end of the game.
So I decide to join in on the war, especially after seeing that Hammu has captured one of Justin's cities.
This seems to go allright at first, Justinian is too far away t pose any threat and after 10 turns I offer peace again and at a very small gold price he accepts.
However, at this point I see that Suleiman, Cyrus, Joao and Mansa now all have a -1 modifier with me because I declared war on their friend. WTH?!
I expected Mansa as he and Justin shared the same religion but the others had absolutely no reason to be friendly with Justin...oh well.
Eventually Hammu accepts peace with Justin as well having only captured one city.
The next part of the game is again fairly uneventful, though there are again loads of tech trades. I also brush up my relations with the people around me by helping out people and using the Apostolic Palace to vote for people whose relations are poorest with me (mostly Suleiman, sometimes Joao).
Eventually Joao emerges from this peaceful time as the clear leader with a substantial tech lead and score lead on everyone else.
Doesn't really concern me, I'm not playing to win anyway and I have by now managed to build hospitals in all 5 major cities (with the sixth still building up on an island).
And then, Justinian declares war on me.
But not only that, he actually brings with him a whole stack of troops from Cyrus's land (clearly they were still on good terms even though Cyrus was also friendly with me by now) to invade me.
I had previously signed a Defensive Pact with Hammurabi who also keeps up his end of the bargain and declares war but I know that something better happen fast or I'm toast.
Two turns later, Angkor Thom, the westernmost of my 5 big cities is captured.
By now I've also convinced Suleiman to join in on the war but he's really too far away to be of much use.
Joao and Cyrus don't want to declare war on their "close friend"
At this point Mansa is the only one who might be able to help me. He switched to Free Religion a few turns earlier, bringing him from cautious to pleased with me but still not enough to come and help me.
Then one turn before my second biggest city gets reduced to 0% defense, a LOT happens (for some obscure reason Justin wanted to bombard my defenses down before attacking the lone warrior in the city
):
Mansa asks for a tribute and I give it to him. Just for show I try to get him to war with Justin again and this time he ACCEPTS!
Also, the Apostolic Palace proposal comes in and to my enormous surprise it's "stop the war against Tarew".
Obviously I vote yes and so does everyone else except Justin. Only because he is now being attacked from all sides by Hammu, Suleiman and Mansa he only votes 'no' rather than 'never' meaning the resolution passes and I'm safe.
Not only that, over the next few turns, no less than 6 of Justin's towns get captured by Mansa's and Hammu's combined offenses.
Hammu also recaptures Angkor Thom (the city I lost previously) and GIVES IT BACK to me a few turns later (amazingly enough, Hammu, who I was worried about most at first, had a +21 relations modifier with me by the time the game ended and absolutely LOVED me)!
So now I'm back on track. I immediately start rebuilding health buildings in Angkor Thom, adopt Environmentalism, beeline to Combustion for Public Transportation.
I then intended to beeline straight for Genetics. Joao still had a massive lead and had already finished the Apollo Program so I know that I can no longer win by conventional means and really just want to see it through to the end to see the life expectency.
But then something inspiring happens.
I always leave random events on and they had been mostly negative but then I got the following message (or something similar, I don't remember the exact text)
Guardian Angel
"The hospital in Yasodharapura has acquired the reputation of having a guardian angel watch over its patients. This has greatly increased the hospitals standing"
It resulted in 5 extra gpt which was unremarkable but I just loved the event because it fitted so well with what I was trying to build and made me decide to take a detour through Mass Media before going to Genetics. The UN hadn't been built yet (in fact Joao had skipped Radio alltogether). I was third on the scorelist after Joao and Mansa and feeling lucky.
After getting Genetics in 1900 AD exactly (incredibly early for me), Yasodharapura had a health of no less than 41 with the other cities not far behind (except the one on the island). Clearly my strategy had worked very decently.
I was also elected to be chairman of the UN (the only other choice being Mansa who was not too popular). However, the first Diplomatic Victory resolution fails. Hammurabi, Suleiman and Cyrus all vote for me but Mansa and Justin vote for Mansa and Joao (who has finished his thrusters and cockpit by now) abstains.
The second one goes the exact same way, except this time the option besides myself isn't Mansa but Joao.
I ponder this for a while. Joao was never ever going to vote for me being the clear favorite to win himself so thi might actually be a good thing.
If I can only convince Mansa to vote for me rather than abstaining, I win.
Unfortunately he;s only please with me and a generous technological gift doesn't change that.
I'm out of options to make him like me more too, and then out of nowhere, he demands tribute again. I accept off course and another +1 gets added but darn, he's still only pleased.
When the third resolution comes (and probably the last before Joao lauches his ship) I absently click my own name again preparing to move through and lose in the next 20 turns or so.
Then I discover I actually have enough votes! Apparently that +1 tribute modifier was enough to convince Mansa to vote for me giving me a diplomatic victory as early as 1921 AD (my quickest win ever). Not only that, I actually triple my previous high score, with 16009 points, giving me the alleged leadership qualities of Augustus Caesar!
And to top it all off, the life expectency was an excellent 73 years on average with an approval rate of 60%. I'm sure I could have gotten it even higher by teching all the way to Future Tech and by finishing the health structures in the island city but overall I'm very pleased.
Hope you enjoyed reading this and remember, stay healthy!
Wasn't too long before I got a cultural win there too using the Netherlands (some of the guides in the War Academy are really excellent). It was however the first time I really noticed the "Approval Rate" and "Life Expectency" statistics on the demographics window after you finish the game.
My civs approval rate was a rather impressive 79%, however the life expectency was only 52 years.
Now don't ask me why but I care about these statistics for some reason (even though they have no impact on the actual gameplay as far as I can discern) and the idea of people only living 52 years on average just didn't feel right to me. It kind of gave me the association of people loving life but also drinking and smoking it away.
So, purely for fun, I decided to start a game trying to get the highest life expectency possible. I didn't quite succeed but I got a long way. Winning would be a nice side objective but it wasn't the main focus.
It seemed clear to me that as the approval rate depended on culture, so would the life expectency rate be dependant on health in your cities so my goal was to get this as high as possible (and off course create as little unhealtiness as possible so forges, factories etc. are not an option this game).
To this end, I played a normal speed, standard size Pangaea map with barbarians disabled (I was going for complete peace and they kept getting in the way).
For my civ I was torn between Ottomans with Mehmed and Suryavarman with Khmer. Expansive was obviously a necessity for a trait and since I'm going to be building aquaducts in every city, these two civs stood out.
I ultimately decided on Suryavarman because the Creative trait will also help me expand to a decent size early on and hopefully claim food/health resources. Besides the Baray just appeals to me as the only UB adding food to a city and looking nice on top.
The game started out well enough. I opted for a strategy of expansion over research at the beginning. Worker - Settler in Yasodharapura, then another settler in both cities.
The map was extremely kind to me. Yasodharapura was a coastal city with marble, horse and no less than 3(!!) health-providing food sources in its radius, being 2 clams and a crab.
I also deliberately chose to build the second city quite far away in order to claim a rice field, while the third and fourth cities provided another rice field, a wheat field, banana source, a cow source and a clam source for health all of which I was able to snatch from underneath the AI's noses (gotta love creative). I'm not even mentioning the numerous sugar and spice sources that were also in the region. Overall, excellent start.
Anyway after that rapid settling my economy was near the gutter but I had researched what I wanted to, namely Mathematics, and Yasodharapura began work on a Baray and the most important wonder, the Hanging Gardens immediately (and succeeded building it quite easily).
By this time all of the opponents have announced themselves (my position was in the southeast of the continent) and they are:
- Suleiman (on my above right and initially isolated on a peninsula due to my rapid expansion though he would later colonize a few islands as well)
- Hammurabi (on my above left side)
- Joao (smackdown in the center of the continent. Like me he expanded early)
- Cyrus (on my immediate left)
- Justinian (at the northpole, he'd be stuck in unfavorable tundra land for most of the game because of Joao's expansionism)
- Mansa Musa (on the far west of the continent)
Overall, not at all bad for a peaceful victory although I'm slightly concerned by Hammurabi.
Anyway the first part of the game is fairly uneventful. I stabilize the economy, give help when people ask and more importantly make a LOT of technology trades.
After building the Hanging Gardens I basically beelined Medicine which gave me quite a few techs the others weren't researching providing for a lot of trading leverage. Conveniently this beeline also goes past every early building that produces health in some way namely: Granary, Grocer, Harbor, Hospital
(and we already had the Baray off course).
I thought beforehand three opponents surrounding me directly might be hard to manage but it was actually ok. Fortunately buddhism spread to me early on through Joao, and at that time, none of the civs surrounding me had adopted a religion yet so I decided to convert and sure enough soon the others did too.
The problems begin when I encountered Mansa and Justinian who both had hinduism and more precisely when Hammurabi decided to declare war on Justinian because of this.
Up until then Justinian had been cautious to me and Hammurabi pleased, however this changed when Hammurabi invited me to join him in the war...
I wasn't sure what to do at this point. Needless to say I only had one warrior per city but Justinian was far away from me with Hammurabi right in between our lands. I was also very worried that if I rejected Hammurabi might go back to being cautious with me and I could well be his next target, which would be the end of the game.
So I decide to join in on the war, especially after seeing that Hammu has captured one of Justin's cities.
This seems to go allright at first, Justinian is too far away t pose any threat and after 10 turns I offer peace again and at a very small gold price he accepts.
However, at this point I see that Suleiman, Cyrus, Joao and Mansa now all have a -1 modifier with me because I declared war on their friend. WTH?!
I expected Mansa as he and Justin shared the same religion but the others had absolutely no reason to be friendly with Justin...oh well.
Eventually Hammu accepts peace with Justin as well having only captured one city.
The next part of the game is again fairly uneventful, though there are again loads of tech trades. I also brush up my relations with the people around me by helping out people and using the Apostolic Palace to vote for people whose relations are poorest with me (mostly Suleiman, sometimes Joao).
Eventually Joao emerges from this peaceful time as the clear leader with a substantial tech lead and score lead on everyone else.
Doesn't really concern me, I'm not playing to win anyway and I have by now managed to build hospitals in all 5 major cities (with the sixth still building up on an island).
And then, Justinian declares war on me.
But not only that, he actually brings with him a whole stack of troops from Cyrus's land (clearly they were still on good terms even though Cyrus was also friendly with me by now) to invade me.
I had previously signed a Defensive Pact with Hammurabi who also keeps up his end of the bargain and declares war but I know that something better happen fast or I'm toast.
Two turns later, Angkor Thom, the westernmost of my 5 big cities is captured.
By now I've also convinced Suleiman to join in on the war but he's really too far away to be of much use.
Joao and Cyrus don't want to declare war on their "close friend"
At this point Mansa is the only one who might be able to help me. He switched to Free Religion a few turns earlier, bringing him from cautious to pleased with me but still not enough to come and help me.
Then one turn before my second biggest city gets reduced to 0% defense, a LOT happens (for some obscure reason Justin wanted to bombard my defenses down before attacking the lone warrior in the city
):Mansa asks for a tribute and I give it to him. Just for show I try to get him to war with Justin again and this time he ACCEPTS!
Also, the Apostolic Palace proposal comes in and to my enormous surprise it's "stop the war against Tarew".
Obviously I vote yes and so does everyone else except Justin. Only because he is now being attacked from all sides by Hammu, Suleiman and Mansa he only votes 'no' rather than 'never' meaning the resolution passes and I'm safe.
Not only that, over the next few turns, no less than 6 of Justin's towns get captured by Mansa's and Hammu's combined offenses.
Hammu also recaptures Angkor Thom (the city I lost previously) and GIVES IT BACK to me a few turns later (amazingly enough, Hammu, who I was worried about most at first, had a +21 relations modifier with me by the time the game ended and absolutely LOVED me)!
So now I'm back on track. I immediately start rebuilding health buildings in Angkor Thom, adopt Environmentalism, beeline to Combustion for Public Transportation.
I then intended to beeline straight for Genetics. Joao still had a massive lead and had already finished the Apollo Program so I know that I can no longer win by conventional means and really just want to see it through to the end to see the life expectency.
But then something inspiring happens.
I always leave random events on and they had been mostly negative but then I got the following message (or something similar, I don't remember the exact text)
Guardian Angel
"The hospital in Yasodharapura has acquired the reputation of having a guardian angel watch over its patients. This has greatly increased the hospitals standing"
It resulted in 5 extra gpt which was unremarkable but I just loved the event because it fitted so well with what I was trying to build and made me decide to take a detour through Mass Media before going to Genetics. The UN hadn't been built yet (in fact Joao had skipped Radio alltogether). I was third on the scorelist after Joao and Mansa and feeling lucky.
After getting Genetics in 1900 AD exactly (incredibly early for me), Yasodharapura had a health of no less than 41 with the other cities not far behind (except the one on the island). Clearly my strategy had worked very decently.
I was also elected to be chairman of the UN (the only other choice being Mansa who was not too popular). However, the first Diplomatic Victory resolution fails. Hammurabi, Suleiman and Cyrus all vote for me but Mansa and Justin vote for Mansa and Joao (who has finished his thrusters and cockpit by now) abstains.
The second one goes the exact same way, except this time the option besides myself isn't Mansa but Joao.
I ponder this for a while. Joao was never ever going to vote for me being the clear favorite to win himself so thi might actually be a good thing.
If I can only convince Mansa to vote for me rather than abstaining, I win.
Unfortunately he;s only please with me and a generous technological gift doesn't change that.
I'm out of options to make him like me more too, and then out of nowhere, he demands tribute again. I accept off course and another +1 gets added but darn, he's still only pleased.
When the third resolution comes (and probably the last before Joao lauches his ship) I absently click my own name again preparing to move through and lose in the next 20 turns or so.
Then I discover I actually have enough votes! Apparently that +1 tribute modifier was enough to convince Mansa to vote for me giving me a diplomatic victory as early as 1921 AD (my quickest win ever). Not only that, I actually triple my previous high score, with 16009 points, giving me the alleged leadership qualities of Augustus Caesar!
And to top it all off, the life expectency was an excellent 73 years on average with an approval rate of 60%. I'm sure I could have gotten it even higher by teching all the way to Future Tech and by finishing the health structures in the island city but overall I'm very pleased.
Hope you enjoyed reading this and remember, stay healthy!
), I definitely had a 'guardian angel' on my shoulder this game.
.
.
i love those "surprise yourself" wins 
in all current and future cities. it says a chance of +2 but the 3 times i've had it, i've gotten the +2 each time, has anybody not gotten the +2 
