The Great DoC URV challenge

[2015]

Game Info: Regent/Normal/1700 AD/SVN 887
Nation: England
Religion: Hinduism
Score: 4488
Winning Date: 1894 AD

BRITISH EMPIRE:

Spoiler :

Strategy:
This victory is probably the easiest one out of all religious victories. Being England in 1700 AD makes it even easier. Use your Trading Company troops to take over all cities in modern day India. Capulate Mughals in Pakistan, demand their resources. Build missionaries and send them to Britain. Take the troops from London and send them on a ship to China.

China Invasion: Invade Hangzhou. Send all troops besides 1-2 towards Guangzhou. Here you will lose the most amount of troops, don't worry. Then, move all your troops upward and take Shanghai. Take Kaifeng for gold input, you don't need to worry about the rest (Hangzhou will be 1/5 population cities, make sure it takes advantage of all tiles!!)

Adopt Republic & Scholasticism & Capitalism. Beeline to Physics, you will need the Great Scientist in London. Use the excess great people to start a GA, drop research to 0. Use the gold acquired to buy the Olympic Park as the GA ends, triggering a new one. Take the Great General you earned & 3 non-Prophet great people and send them on your ships towards Patna.

Settle all 3 in Patna and wait for the game to end!! In the end, the 36 turns of golden age took the longest to finish.

The 5 Cities:
- London
- Edinburgh
- Dublin
- Patna
- Hangzhou

 

[2015]

Game Info: Regent/Epic/3000 BC
SVN: 894 (Latest one, forgot the #)
Nation: Spain
Religion: Orthodoxy
Score: 4279
Winning Date: 1800 AD

SPANISH EMPIRE:

Spoiler :

Sadly I don't have a picture of Spanish England and Morocco together. Here's a picture at the (almost) height of Spanish Europe.

Spanish Ethiopia (most cities were razed afterward)

Spanish India. I took Calcutta and Kanchipurnam (renamed New Madrid, lost it after I lost the war).

VICTORY:

Spoiler :

Strategy:
Orthodox victory is a relatively easy victory but a bit time-consuming. Not "action packed" but whatever. There is no set strategy like there is for the other victories that I did (Buddhism, Hinduism), it's about thinking about what you have.

4 Cathedrals: The hardest part is getting 16 cities. In the end I had:
- 4 cities in Iberia (Core)
- 2 cities in Italy
- 2 cities in France
- 4 cities in Britain
- Sparta, Carthage, Dublin and Addis Ababa for the rest

Just conquer any independents you can. Even 1 tile islands are good, just run slavery (although they might drag your economy down). I had no New World cities, they take too much time/money to maintain.

Top 5 Culture: While playing the game, you should run artists in your cities. I got all my artists in Milan and culture-bombed 3 of my cities at the end of the game. I had to invade the surviving Tamils in order to lower their culture and stop all research to gain culture to beat other East Asian civs. All my other Orthodox allies were basically useless so I had all 5 cities. Conquest is much faster than espionage, especially because as Spain you always have units to build/use.

No Catholic Civilizations: Start the Reformation yourself. In order to avoid any conflict, I bulbed Printing Press and converted to Orthodoxy before I got the display (so I had no choice). Keep spreading Orthodoxy, HRE converted to Ortho. on their own and it took a little espionage to get the Vikings to convert. St. Basils Cathedral might help but I used barely any espionage in this game, I built my first spy around 1700 AD.

Info: There was some really odd stuff in this game:
- Greece instead of Byzantium. However Greece collapsed eventually and the Byzantines respawned in 1265, only to be crushed by me a few decades later.
- Miletos instead of Constantinople (1E2S)
- No Protestant civs in Europe.
- No Europeans in the New World (until Dutch). Not too weird, I killed every Western European civilization and never bothered to settle the New World.
- Indian conquerors
- Japan conquered Korea and the Philippines. When the game ended, they started invading Manchuria.
- Catholicism founded in Mumbai
- Islam founded in Calcutta (we need that found-5-religions for India's UHV back)

 

[Rackham]

- Protestant victory (Monarch/Normal, no SVN)
- Holy Rome (600 AD start)
- victory date : 1640 AD
- score : 7627

This was pretty easy.
I researched Engineering first to get access to Landsknecht+Trebuchet and be prepared for the catholic/protestant wars.
I got Printing press in 1360. Only France and Spain stayed catholic, which definitely helped.
I was ready with a big stack of units, and quickly invaded and capitulated France, asking them to convert in the process. I then completely destroyed Spain.
In Monarch there is no difficulty in getting the necessary techs in time. Weirdly, the first victory condition checked after I got Constitution, but before I got Economics.
The GP goal was pretty easy too : I got all the GMs and two GEs myself, and the AI took care of the other GEs for me, which was definitely appreciated.
All of Europe (except dead Spain) being Protestant, I merely had to convert Congo and Russia to achieve victory.

 

[Rackham]

- Orthodoxy (Monarch/Normal, no SVN)
- Byzantium (3000 BC start)
- victory date : 1695
- score : 8574

One word : espionnage. Good thing St Basil's helps a lot with that ; unfortunately I didn't actually manage to build it... see below.

1. Building up the empire
   Starting in 3000 BC, I was hoping for some good wonders in my cities, but I didn't really get many great ones (the Colossus and that's pretty much it iirc). Rome collapsed very soon after my spawn though, so I was able to capture Rome and southern Italy.
   The early game was focused on developping my core, researching Gunpowder and preparing a big army to conquer the Near East and North Africa after the Turkish spawn ; it felt alot like a normal UHV game.
2. Conversion
   I waited until the Reformation to know which European civs I would have to convert or conquer. I had prepared long in advance though, by opening borders with as many euros as I could.
   The only civs who remained catholic were France, Poland (I converted both easily), and Spain, which I had to conquer because they wouldn't open borders. This incidentally gave me my 15th and 16th cities for the cathedrals (although I could have invaded the Moors for those).
   The American civs didn't pose a problem, being dead later on, and Congo nicely converted to Orthodoxy all by itself
3. Culture
   A nice surprise was the fact that France built the Sistine Chapel shortly before I converted them to Orthodoxy, thus helping with French Milan, the most cultured city in the world till the end (their other cities had very high culture too, in the 3ks, just not high enough to actually count in the end).
   A less nice surprise was the fact that they then proceeded to beat me to St Basil's by just a few turns, but that wasn't crucial.
   In the end there was one city in India to compete with 3 of mine (Constantinople by itself, and 2 boosted by a great Artist each) and French Milan.
   My victory was delayed because I believed spreading orthodoxy to that Indian (later Mughal) city would be enough, but I actually had to convert them for it to work.
   I realized that fact only when France adopted Secularism and the number of top 5 orthodox cities fell from 4 to 2 (I promptly forced them back into Organized Religion).
4. Ending remarks
   I can definitely see how this last victory condition could be annoying to fulfill, since there is no way to check the culture of individual cities around the world except for the most cultured foreign city (through the victory conditions screen), or through really heavy spying.
   Fortunately, in this game this could only be an Indian or Mughal city, thus limiting my endgame spying needs to two civilizations.

 

[calad]

Pictures demanded.

 

[LacsiraxAriscal]

Isn't the top 5 cities a culture ranking?

 

[ales_]

It isn't.

 

[Rackham]

Pictures demanded.

Picture added. I only took one screenshot during that game though, which I know isn't much.

 

[2015]

ALL VICTORIES FINISHED

Game Info: Regent/Epic/3000 BC
SVN: 913
Nation: Mongolia
Religion: Confucianism
Score: 2200 (something like that, doesn’t matter anyway)
Winning Date: July 1993

SCREENSHOTS:

Spoiler :

VICTORY:

Spoiler :

NOTE: I don't think I WB'd in this game (I certainly didn't give myself units) but make sure just incase I did. I don't want to seem like I use WB to win, this game had a lot of bugs on the way and it's been going on for a while so I don't remember if it was this game or another game. Thanks, I assure I didn't WB to win though.

Strategy: I have so much to say about this game. The Confucian victory is long and hard (at least it was for me, I'm a newbie)

These last SVNs are super China and super Indias. So take China out quick, you just need to capture their core and everything will fall. Don’t raze China, it’s very important, your civilization center around their anyway.
Your core will shift to North China. Raze all of Korea and found Liaoyang (a core city, takes Korean pig & rice). Dunhuang, Mukden, Beijing and Liaoyang will get rid of all expansion stability problems. Build farms most plots that they use, they need to be nice and big.

Build galley after galley in your coastal cities. When you have enough, start sending your Keshiks to conquer Japan. With no special wind to stop you, take over Kyoto and Tokyo and raze the rest of Japan. Now you’ll have almost all of East Asia, raze all of South East Asia (I captured Hanoi and kept it, although it caused me a lot of problems later)

Don’t bother with Persia. Instead focus on building units in China, research and money in all other lands you conquer. Ideally, you should get 2/3 UHV conditions complete (although not so ideal, most civs will hate you). Whatever, keep building melee units and when you get a new tech to upgrade units, just drop research to 0 and upgrade (you should be making a lot of money.)

Friendly Relations: Hardest out of the 3. The 2/3 UHV is hard but worth it (Triumphal Arch, Golden Age), as a result most people will be annoyed with you. That is why peace vassals are important. Almost all of the late game civs want to vassal to anyone and make sure to not waste those opportunities. Find 1-2 civs that are also weak but will not vassalize to you and keep giving them gifts, convert them, etc. In the end, I had 4 vassals (Brazil, Canada, Argentina and Italy) and one friendly civ, Mughals, which allowed me to win.

Five Wonders: Be happy if you get any other holy city but Hangzhou. The city can be one of the largest (see my English Hindu victory) but also is one of the crappiest cities for production. Build whatever Confucian related wonders you can in that city then aim for the secular wonders. In the end, I had: Porcelain Tower, Eiffel Tower, Statue of Liberty, Wembley and Graceland (Radio is important!!)

200 Units: Easy, but tedious. Build units no matter what, from start to finish. I made the stupid mistake of building Keshiks, they may be useful in the beginning but they don’t count towards the 200. So ignore the Keshiks and build whatever melee units you can, then promote them as you advance. Because of China, your research will hopefully not go down past 40%-50% which, after Radio/Assembly Line, doesn’t matter anyway so this goal is again, easy.

 

[2015]

Another victory

Game Info: Regent/Epic/3000 BC
SVN: 961
Nation: Prussia
Religion: Orthodoxy
Score: 2775 (something like that, doesn’t matter anyway)
Winning Date: July 1978

SCREENSHOTS:

Spoiler :

VICTORY:

Spoiler :

Strategy: I started off by settling Berlin, immediately attacking HRE and taking Vienna/Budapest in the first few turns. Then I razed Poland and The Netherlands, took over some important cities (Oslo, Stockholm, Paris, Milan, Istanbul, etc.) and converted to Orthodoxy. There were a lot of wars but the Prussian UP and UB are both great so the game was pretty easy.

4 Cathedrals: I switched to Scholasticism near the beginning of the game so I could spread Orthodoxy quickly. My 16 cities were: Berlin, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Konigsberg, Vienna, Budapest, Milan, Rome, Athens, Sparta, Paris, Rennes, Oslo, Stockholm, Barcelona and Lisbon.

No Catholic Civilizations: Pretty much every civ will turn secular, except for Italy, Spain, Portugal & Brazil who unfortunately all prefer Catholicism. It's good to take out all of these civs early, I destroyed Italy and Spain, Portugal collapsed on her own and Brazil became secular in the mid 1950s. Build up a massive army to take out any civs that wont collapse and are Catholic.

Top 5 Culture: Probably the hardest out of the 3 requirements. Prussia is too late to build any Catholic wonders themselves but The Sistine Chapel is a must. Use your most productive cities for the culture part (I used Konigsberg which is a pretty bad city). My cities were: Frankfurt, Hamburg, Berlin, Konigsberg and Vienna.

But that's not all. In my game, I had to invade East Asia to lower their ridiculous culture. I took over the capitals of Thailand, China & Japan (Bangkok, Xian & Japan) which took an extra 30-40 turns getting prepared. Only East Asia (and India if they stay alive) can compare to culture production in Europe. The German UB and UP is amazing though, and the European land means you can get 5 infantry every turn without drafting.

Other Info:
- Almost everyone was backwards. Including me, although I probably could have almost finished the tech tree if I didn't turn down the slider.
- Brazil in Britain. The civ collapsed early on and Brazil took Edinburgh/Newcastle while the Portuguese took London/Plymouth. When the Portuguese collapsed, Britain respawned with only the 2 Portuguese cities. They still managed to pull ahead in the end.
- I never bothered to take Russia because of their UP. That eventually led to a giant war that lasted for a good chunk (I'd say 30%) of the game. Even though they were 2x stronger than me, their units were all over the Middle East and I gave them 200 gold for peace before they could invade. That was ridiculous on it's own: I conquered both of their vassals and took 2 of their cities and they still wanted gold
- Italy respawning in the 1940s delayed my victory a lot. I could have won it 10-20 turns earlier if I still had Milan
- China was doing well for themselves, I think they were the same civ as from the 3000 BC spawn (so no deadly collapses). Pretty impressive, they were close to me in score before I capitulated them.
- I don't know if this is a bug, but I never got the Third Reich name. I mean I don't WANT to be the Third Reich but maybe it's a bug? I was Facist but I wasn't secular (Scholasticism) so that might have been the reason why the unique name didn't show up.

 

[Tigranes]

You never traded for maps? I never seen 1978 game without full map revealed,

 

[2015]

I didn't want to get the map because I read somewhere that it lags the game a lot although I don't know if that's true.

Besides I've played this game enough to know every corner of the map

 

[Tigranes]

It is my understanding you are loosing a lot of trade by not getting the best deals from the cities you cannot see. Cannot comment on lag though.

 

[2015]

Oh I thought trade just happened regardless of cities you see or not. Besides I had a lot of cities not doing much so my research was fine (culture bar was usually the one in use anyway)

Currently trying late game civs with religious victories. I think it's going to be difficult but it's worth a shot

 

[soul-breathing]

Game Info: Monarch/Epic/1700 AD/v1.13
Civilizatiom: Turkey
Religion: Secularism
Score: 6632
Winning Date: 1846 AD

It's not so difficult to win a secularism victory with Turkey in 1700AD Scenerio. First build research in every city and research Chemistry-Steel to enter Industrial Era. Combine all your armies(with 1 Janissary settle in every city) to Iraq and declare war to Iran, needs a bit luckiness to destroy most of Iranian Armies, then Iran will capitulate.

Go straight and capture Independent Merv, Samarkand, Kashgar and Turfan. At the meantime you can trade Rifling from the other civs(like Dutch), update your armies to Riflemen, Cavalries and Cannons, capture Xi'an, Beijing and Kaifeng easily, then China will be destroyed. then Mughal to get Delhi and Patna. Now you have Islam, Catholics(Jerusalem), Orthodoxy, Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism and Hinduism temples. Meanwhile research straight to Mass Media to enter Modern Era.

Then just turn to Secularism and build library and university in every city.

Spoiler :

 

[ales_]

Judaism is added to the OP.