Other Enjoyable Civilization V Games (Immortal and below)

[The_Black_Vegetable]

I was looking for a game to attempt a quick science victory, and I first tried the Austria game OECG#113: Picking your spots... and your CS. However, I misplayed the game a little. I went 5-city tradition, and got all of the wonders I wanted: ToA, HG, Petra, Oracle. However, the fourth and fifth cities took way too long to get workers, and I was struggling with happiness. 5-city tradition can be great, but you need to make sure you have sufficient happiness and workers, and I failed on both counts, so I abandoned the attempt.

Then, my attention was caught by OECG#105 Good starts give a good feeling, part 1.

Spoiler :

Turn 219 science victory. A pretty good game, but it fell short of being a great game for me on three counts:

1. I love the Shoshone, and the civ is all about getting a strong early start by picking your ruin outcomes. However, we're in quite a crowded corner of the map, and both Brazil and the Netherlands scouted in my direction before I could get my first pathfinder out (those guys are expensive to build, and in games like this you pay the price). As a result, I got only three ruins. I don't usually record ruins in my game, but this time I know there were three because I only got 1 pop ruin, and was forced to start on my first settler at pop 3. Around turn 60 I got two more ruins north of England where Elizabeth hadn't scouted: Trapping which was useful, and an expand from 2 to 3, which was not that impactful. Then finally around turn 160-170 I discovered an island with 5 city states (three of them wanted the camp with the worker in it!) and a bunch more ruins including a pop ruin that went to the capital for pop~30.
2. I generated an engineer in the capital. This was completely unnecessary, and I usually pay better attention, but it meant that with 4 techs to go, I had only 1 scientist left, and had to wait for the 4000-faith one.
3. The game #### me over! At least, I think it did. I never quite got a complete understanding of scientist bulbing, but I think in the picture below I should simply have gotten the tech. In had just normally finished Mobile Tactics, and bulbed my final scientist 'at the start' of particle physics. My micro-management of science the turns before had paid off, because I got the final tech with 12 science to spare! Except, the game did not give it to me :-(
4. I know I said three, but I was still annoyed to lose Temple of Artemis (to Spain, whom I could not have seen yet). In some games, I feel it makes a huge difference to city growth, although here my cities were of a pretty good size (who knows how big they would otherwise have grown?), so perhaps it does not matter so much.

All in all, a fun game, and perhaps I will give 106 a go soon, though I see a devilish dilemma already: settle hill river mountain (as Korea, where the observatory gives a science boost!), or settle hill river coastal, with a couple of fish? Probably the latter.

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

106, the Korea game, did not go very well. I did not manage enough early worker steals, and ended up having to build too many. I played until around turn 200, but I was not going to get much below T230, if at all, so I abandoned the game. Then I noticed: OECG#115: Settler scouting. I know the description suggested a culture victory, but I wanted to try science on it.

Spoiler :

T140 science victory. I'm a tiny bit disappointed, I thought I might get a sub-140 with three natural wonders nearby (I did not first-meet Gibraltar, but even so). The game felt like it was going really well, though perhaps I was wonder spamming too much. Three city NC (the three wonder cities for which I bought the settlers), then two more cities, and later Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Honolulu with crossbows.