RB25 - The Golden Five

[Gusto]

1880 AD (Turn 0)
Hippy Variant

Machine Gun -> Ratata Boy
Rifleman (3) -> Tundra Slug; Tundra Slugs will replace units in Tundra area playing sentry in the fog.
Rifleman -> Merry Man
Frigate -> Santa María
Galleon -> Toga Party Boat

Military Upgrades
Robin Hood (Shock Longbowman -> Rifleman)
Easy-Bake Oven (Catapult -> Cannon); Renamed Easy-Bake Oven -> Cow Chip Thrower

Military Retirement
Merry Man (4 Longbowman)
Wonder Boy (Maceman)
Felix (Crossbowman)
Grenadier

Venice
Frigate -> Hindu Missionary (Build Switch)

Izzy Boats

Hello Izzy Boats. Are you the naval spies from years yonder? I brought a friend with me. Could you play with us?

1882 AD (Turn 1)
IBT
Shankara born in Timbuktu
Jalal al-Din Rumi born in Ravenna

Cornelia
Wealth -> Research; Physics drops to 27 turns from 44 turns.

Tuscany
Ratata Boy (Machine Gun) -> Ratata Boy (Machine Gun)

Venice
Hindu Missionary -> Hindu Missionary

Diplomacy

1884 AD (Turn 2)
IBT
Alhazen born in Santiago
Caesar starts GA

Military Upgrades
Dr Raider (Swordsman -> Rifleman)
Captain Hammer (Swordsman -> Rifleman)

Izzy Boats

They disappeared. I guess they didn't want to play with us.

1886 AD (Turn 3)
Tuscany
Ratata Boy (Machine Gun) -> Cow Chip Thrower (Cannon)
Fired Artist -> Hired Scientist; Physics drops 2 turns.

Venice
Hindu Missionary -> Hindu Missionary

Military Upgrades
Tuskelicious (Swordsman -> Rifleman)

Military Retirement
Aqua Boy (Maceman)

1888 AD (Turn 4)
Izzy Boats

You came back! You had a nice talk with Spanish Inquisition? Did he said you should play with us?

1890 AD (Turn 5)
Tuscany
Cow Chip Thrower (Cannon) -> Cow Chip Thrower (Cannon)

Venice
Hindu Missionary -> Resumed Frigate

Hindu Missionaries

Hindu Missionaries onboard Toga Party Boat chant "Toga! Toga!" on their way to convert a few Roman cities.

Click for Part 2

 

[Gusto]

1890 AD (Turn 5 Continued)
For one turn, increased Gold Rate to 100% to raise gold.

1892 AD (Turn 6)
Lillehammer
Hurried Market

1894 AD (Turn 7)
Lillehammer
Market -> Culture

Tuscany
Cow Chip Thrower (Cannon) -> Merry Man (Rifleman)

Venice
Constitution (Frigate) -> Workboat

1896 AD (Turn 8)
Tuscany
Merry Man (Rifleman) -> Merry Man (Rifleman)

Venice
Workboat -> Hindu Missionary

Spreading The Faith
Hinduism spreads to Arretium
Hinduism spreads to Ravenna

1898 AD (Turn 9)
IBT
Mansa completes Broadway
Caesar GA ends

Venice
Hindu Missionary -> Hindu Missionary

Spreading The Faith
Hinduism spreads to Circei

1900 AD (Turn 10)
IBT
Caesar adopts Free Markets
Izzy adopts Free Markets

Tuscany
Merry Man (Rifleman) -> Merry Man (Rifleman)

Work Boat
There's Fishing Nets on the captured Fish resource near Santiago. The Work Boat gets retired.

Domestic Advisor

Cities sorted by total cultural value.

German Empire

Lillehammer is culturally pressuring Madrid and Barcelona. Poor Madrid. It's been culturally squeezed by Barcelona and now Lillehammer ever since Mansa captured the city away from T-Hawk. Niani in the West is feeling cultural pressure from both Lillehammer and Tuscany. The two junk Roman cities North of Cornelia are feeling cultural pressure themselves.

Second Golden Five

We own the top five cities in the world and completed the Second Golden Five.

Saved Game
View attachment 140283

Turn Set
Sullla <<< UP NOW
mucco <<< on deck
T-Hawk
Gusto
Strauss

Welcome to the 20th century.

 

[Sullla]

It's very cool that we now have the world's top five cultural cities too! However:

1890 AD (Turn 5 Continued)
For one turn, increased Gold Rate to 100% to raise gold.

This was the one moment of the turnset. We don't give a darn whether we research Physics or not, ok? Much better to keep Cornelia on Wealth in order to avoid delays like this towards our overall cultural victory.

I'll play later today. Since we're basically just clicking next turn here, I'll probably run through 20 turns instead of 10 to speed things along.

 

[Sullla]

Sorry I didn't get a chance to play yesterday. Here are the (uneventful) turns.

(0) 1900AD Not much to do, this game is on cruise control. I'm going to replace one mine at Cornelia with a windmill to prevent completely unnecessary starvation. Other than that, pretty much just moving missionaries around and hitting next turn.

(3) 1906AD Mansa completes Versailles.

(6) 1912AD I actually scout out the Roman interior, which apparently no one else bothered to do yet.

(10) 1920AD After 10 turns, our cities stand at 48577 (+622/turn), 29885 (+612/turn), and 29407 (+616/turn), which will trigger victory in 34 more turns (1954AD) if nothing changes.

(12) 1922AD Physics discovered, select Communism for the heck of it.

(13) 1923AD Cornelia goes Legendary, and we get some more big news:

Mansa's finally gotten around to completing the Apollo Program. Can he build the spaceship in 30 turns? I rather doubt it, but we'll see. Just be aware that we are on the clock now.

(16) 1926AD Great Artist born in Cornelia. Excellent. We'll hold him for use as needed (though I doubt he'll shave more than one turn off the finish date). Also in the news, Cornelia's Legendary culture has stolen a deer resource from Rome in the extreme north, hehe.

(20) 1930AD And a quiet ending to a quiet turnset. We've now spread Hinduism to every city in the world except one (Awlil); I would have gotten it on this turn, but there was a failed conversion attempt. mucco should be able to finish the job on his turn. The Roman city of Setia is down to 35% culture, and falling fast. There's a good chance it will flip... if so, we'll have to disband it, but that would still be fun.

Cornelia: 54806 culture (Legendary)
Straussburg: 36023 culture (+615/turn), Legendary in 23 turns
Lillehammer: 35654 culture (+633/turn), Legendary in 23 turns

Mansa has only finished one SS Casing, so this looks pretty safe. mucco should feel free to play anywhere from the usual 10 turns to a full 23. No sense dragging this out much longer. It's been a fun game everyone.

 

[Strauss]

Even though this game isn't officially won yet, I think we can safely assume it a victory. Congratulations everyone and thanks for a fun game.

And it's nice to see Straussburg make it to the end of the game this time

 

[Liquidated]

funny how late you set upon culture as victory and are making it easy. Facinating game to lurk grats guys.

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[Beamup]

Cornelia: 54806 culture (Legendary)
Straussburg: 36023 culture (+615/turn), Legendary in 23 turns
Lillehammer: 35654 culture (+633/turn), Legendary in 23 turns

Don't know about you guys, but that would make the GA very annoying to me. He can't actually do anything to speed up the finish!

 

[mucco]

Great, so we just have to bring this game to the end. I think I'll stick with the pace that Sullla has set, that is 20 turns each.

(0) Enjoying the state of things. There's only one non-hindu city, and the missionary is queued up already. Then exit the game and restart it in 1024x768 windowed mode. Click next turn...

(1) Mansa is not wasting time at all!

He managed to build three casings in 8 turns, not so bad for an AI, but it won't be enough for him.

(2) Mansa completes the three gorges dam.

(4) Caesar wants us to adopt representation: I have to turn him down, poor Julius. He goes cautious. In other news, Awlil becomes hindu.

(6) I start to farm over towns in Venice. I feel bad for that city, why does it have to starve?

(14) Communism completes. Not that I care to build scotland yard now... Going for medicine, sort of.

(15) JC manages to build a wonder before Mansa does. Mali is literally grabbing every single wonder it can, instead of SS parts

(19) Mansa shows some knowledge of what he's doing, finally.

We're 5 turns away from victory now... "A" for effort though.

(20) Ending the turn. I'm going to leave T-hawk the honour of finishing the game, for his city was the last one to be founded.

Straussburg must work one extra tile, because it would starve before it becomes legendary. I take out an artist, it won't slow down enough to lose a turn.

With four turns to end for both cities, the artist is completely useless. So guess what did I use it for?

Well, it's Dante. He HAS to go in Tuscany!

I originally wanted to send him in Venice, but then I saw he was Dante, and Tuscany was the one city that feared to go out of the top 5, so... Venice gets the prize for "biggest city in the world" anyway!

Thank you all for the great game, I hope to play with you again soon!

 

[T-hawk]

I see it. Won't get a chance to play until Monday or maybe Tuesday night, but there's no rush at all now.

Definitely never seen a city founded as late as 900 AD get to Legendary culture before. 'Twas good that we fought for that prime city spot (it has 15 towns, I think) instead of a half-assed hole in the tundra wall. That would have made Venice our city #3, though it wasn't as good for long-term culture production with so much sea.

 

[sunrise089]

This will be weird - first SG that Sulla founded that he won't finish. Still good game, nice to watch a win before I start the horrible defeat I'm going to suffer in the new RB Epic that I just saw.

 

[Gusto]

This SG has been a great experience and extremely fun. Thanks everyone for the good time.

 

[T-hawk]

Both cities need 3 turns to reach Legendary culture, and there's no chance of shaving that to 2; Straussburg would need to increase its production from 615 to 838, and it's already running food shortage to employ artists.

So I just hit End Turn three times. No need to post an updated save; anyone can just grab the previous one, assign one of Straussburg's artists to the water tile so it doesn't starve, and hit end turn. Mansa built no new parts and nothing else happened.

Whack An Arch indeed:

10533 points. Nelson Mandela?!

Thanks to all for the game. And, in a way, we even reached that alternate extra variant goal of having six extra Great People for a hypothetical sixth Golden Age. We had exactly six beyond the 14 for the first five GAs. We had 19 natural GPs (judging by the current GPP requirement of 3000), plus a free Artist at Music. The extra six GPs went for two settled Artists, one Great Work, one shrine, and two Academies (when did we put one in Venice?)

 

[Galileo44]

Congrats, Great Win!
I really like it, so many 5s, Five Golden Ages, Five Top Cities ect.

 

[GRickper]

Great game guys!
I have learned a lot following your SG's.
Thanks! and Keep up the great narration.

GRick

 

[Liquidated]

The slider bar for wonders in cornellia says alot


Amazing game, fun variant and a fitting way to win the game in the traditional sense. A domination/conquest win wouldn;t have been fitting and Diplomatically winning didn;t play to the strenth of your golden 5 variant .

Fun read, grats guys.


Cheers!
-Liq

 

[Sullla]

And a glorious finish for our Golden Five. 5 cities, 5 golden ages, and all of the Top 5 spots at the end of game. I think we fulfilled our goals admirably.

I know some lurkers were disappointed that this game didn't push the "extreme" barrier, but that was never our purpose. We did some fun stuff with culture and Great People, and had some interesting debates along the way. That's a productive outing in my book.

I do think this game highlights some of the problems with the cultural victory option. We had made virtually no progress in that regard as of my 1800AD turn, then we suddenly shifted gears, upped the culture slider to max, built a bunch of cottages, and by 1950 the game was over. Seems a little too easy to me. I'd like to see a cap on the amount of culture you can get from commerce (at a really high amount, say 100/turn) so that you'd actually have to focus on wonders and Great People to get the cultural win, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen. Oh well. I had my chance to do it the hard way in RB19, and it was a fun experience.

Thanks to everyone who participated, and to all the lurkers who chimed in. I've got a number of ideas up my sleeve for the future , but they'll have to wait until my current crop of work calms down a bit.

 

[T-hawk]

Yes, the cultural victory is definitely easy. We turned on a dime after not even considering that win condition for the first 400 turns, and had the victory 100 turns later.

Think of the math like this: A spaceship victory requires about 300,000 beakers in total. Cultural victory requires 150,000 culture, and comes with several advantages: far higher multipliers, more production per specialist and per spent Great Person (a Great Work is 4000, a lightbulb is under 2000), and substantial flat-rate production from wonders and even mundane buildings. So no wonder the culture is easier.

The advantages of a spaceship economy over a cultural economy are two: you keep up to date with military units, and you can use all of your cities instead of only 3. The second is rarely a big factor, as typically your best 3 cities will provide well more than half of your spaceship research anyway. The first depends on the diplomatic situation, but proper handling of that, as we did here, can completely eliminate military danger as a factor.

Is it a problem for the game? I'm not sure. Sirian's fond of the mechanics in Master of Orion and in Galactic Civilizations, where the game usually awards the victory not too long after it's inevitable, thus reducing or eliminating the mop-up phase. Once we were sure we weren't going to lose -- our economy was Mansa's equal all along so we wouldn't've lost to him launching -- it doesn't really matter how you pull down the actual victory credit. The cultural victory just serves as a shortcut to an already won game.

 

[sunrise089]

T-hawk, I know the game is over, but I wonder if you're making culture seem easier than it really is. As far as your space vs culture comparison goes, the culture victor still has to spend the vast majority of the game researching techs as well, and falling behind in military in a larger map with more players can be a lot more dangerous IMHO than in your small map with only a few AIs to keep happy.

Anyways, as I said above, I enjoyed the game and look forward to what RB comes up with next.