I just finished a long game (25-30 hours) resulting in a tough but satisfying loss. The set up is France, King level, standard size and speed, Small Continents (which produced long snaky continents with multiple fat parts - best map I've seen in Civ5) with 9 extra civs and 16 city-states.
It was my goal to focus on culture and to get a cultural win but maintaining a high-quality military (not doing so can be a death knell on some maps). To that end, I managed only three cities (easy to do since the map played tight) with puppets of a couple nearby civs (but not totally destroy). I never focused on culture and policies that much in previous games, so it was a learning experience and something different besides my usual superior military strategy.
My tech rate was good, usually in the top 2 literacy most of the game thanks to policies and wonders (built 19 in all). Had Rifling by 1000ad (along with Steel, Astronomy, etc.). Each of my three cities grew to 10+ without a lot of food specials and only 1-2 maritimes.
The problems were India and Greece. By 1500, India was expanding and growing like crazy on a fat grassy part at the end of the continent. There were amassing 10,000+ in gold and then raced ahead in techs. They knew I was going for culture and did what I usually do to the AI - disrupt my progress. They declared war on me around 1800 but because of a chokepoint in the mountains and several well-placed Destroyers, I was able to hold them off. But they did impede my progress enough for them to get a Science victory while I had 4-5 policies left to get (plus Utopia).
Greece, on the other hand, ended up causing me to lose more than India. We were about even in the number of allied city-states (with most of them being cultural) until they started getting very aggressive in going after my city-states. They had the gold and what they couldn't bribe, they conquered. In the end, I lost all but two city-states due to Greece's aggressiveness. I had not seen that before but it was good to see them taking me on directly by under-cutting profitable city-states.
By 1700, I was running +250 culture after getting Constitution and then +425 in early 1800s after Hermitage and a broadcast tower in the capital. But after that, the effects of India and Greece mitigated my cultural points advancements to where getting the Eiffel Tower didn't help much.
And then to top it all off, India sent me a nuke on my capital - the first nuke ever against me in any civ game that I have played since Civ2. They did that the turn after they completed Apollo and it took me by surprise.
In the end, I learned some things, esp. what I could do better. I learned about some new policies and their effect, which were very cool given the right circumstances. That's the reason I play civ - to be challenged and it was great (and humbling) to get beaten fair and square by using tactics that I would do against the AI.
It was my goal to focus on culture and to get a cultural win but maintaining a high-quality military (not doing so can be a death knell on some maps). To that end, I managed only three cities (easy to do since the map played tight) with puppets of a couple nearby civs (but not totally destroy). I never focused on culture and policies that much in previous games, so it was a learning experience and something different besides my usual superior military strategy.
My tech rate was good, usually in the top 2 literacy most of the game thanks to policies and wonders (built 19 in all). Had Rifling by 1000ad (along with Steel, Astronomy, etc.). Each of my three cities grew to 10+ without a lot of food specials and only 1-2 maritimes.
The problems were India and Greece. By 1500, India was expanding and growing like crazy on a fat grassy part at the end of the continent. There were amassing 10,000+ in gold and then raced ahead in techs. They knew I was going for culture and did what I usually do to the AI - disrupt my progress. They declared war on me around 1800 but because of a chokepoint in the mountains and several well-placed Destroyers, I was able to hold them off. But they did impede my progress enough for them to get a Science victory while I had 4-5 policies left to get (plus Utopia).
Greece, on the other hand, ended up causing me to lose more than India. We were about even in the number of allied city-states (with most of them being cultural) until they started getting very aggressive in going after my city-states. They had the gold and what they couldn't bribe, they conquered. In the end, I lost all but two city-states due to Greece's aggressiveness. I had not seen that before but it was good to see them taking me on directly by under-cutting profitable city-states.
By 1700, I was running +250 culture after getting Constitution and then +425 in early 1800s after Hermitage and a broadcast tower in the capital. But after that, the effects of India and Greece mitigated my cultural points advancements to where getting the Eiffel Tower didn't help much.
And then to top it all off, India sent me a nuke on my capital - the first nuke ever against me in any civ game that I have played since Civ2. They did that the turn after they completed Apollo and it took me by surprise.
In the end, I learned some things, esp. what I could do better. I learned about some new policies and their effect, which were very cool given the right circumstances. That's the reason I play civ - to be challenged and it was great (and humbling) to get beaten fair and square by using tactics that I would do against the AI.
