TSG 262 After Actions

[Nizef]

In this thread you can post the results of your game. Please state your victory/loss date (preferably in the post title) and describe your path to glory in this post! Players are encouraged to provide feedback on the game.

- Did you play peacefully or warlike? Did you use your UU?
- What technologies did you prioritize?
- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
- How many cities did you have in the end and where did you settle them?
- Final remarks?

 

[qontroL]

T293 Culture Victory.

This was a bit of a yikes. My strategy wasn't bad, I think with some refinement it wouldve won 50 turns sooner, but I ran out of gas right before the finish line as I neglected public relations to destroy Arabia, who seemed to be the final hurdle. (He ended up not being the final hurdle)
I found myself staring down the barrel of a pretty awkward situation as a World War broke out, and all negotiations were off. I think they weren't happy about the World Religion proposal passing. Honestly I have so much to learn still when it comes to Culture Victory. If I had delayed the international games by 1 congress this win wouldve been so easy, but alas, I'm terrible.

My gameplan was to go for a pretty wide Civ, and rush Patronage to befiend every City-State in the game. I mainly didn't want to do a standard Tradition/Rationalism game. And overall it worked quite well, I had a pretty decently dominant grip on my area, with Egypt/France/The Celts being eliminated. It was quite late in the game when I scouted Greece, who I definitely wasn't happy to see, since he countered my gameplan.

My lategame became a total mess, I had a decently sized army of Cav/Arti but they were mostly in Mecca and I wasn't that interested in moving them around, I figured I could just run out the clock and win in time. I was wrong. Not really knowing how to close out the game I just started goofing around as I was thrown in a global war against basically everyone. My policy tree looks like a total fiesta as I was trying while turtling out their assault.

The main concept I wanted to experiment with was a possible synergy between the Futurism and the Great Person gifts. But honestly, that Patronage Finisher is absolutely horrible, I barely got any great people, and when I did they slapped a Merchant of Venice on my city. It's a bit of a bummer, because it's such a fun policy bonus, conceptually.

The internet is the safe way to a Culture Victory, but I wanted to see if I could get there without it, and it wasn't pretty, but overall it was pretty fun. I think next time I end up in a game like this I will just continue warring until the game is over. I had a pretty extreme techlead over everyone else by the time I built my factories and I think I should've just locked myself into war, using the bottom half of the tech tree, rather than going up the tech tree and getting hotels. The late game was awful, but the early game turned out really well, so I'm still somewhat pleased, I came out the first 100 turns extremely strong.

 

[jrwh]

- Did you play peacefully or warlike? Did you use your UU?
Finished on 244. Played a peaceful tradition game. Had a few legions just to pump up the army score.
- What technologies did you prioritize?
The midgame asked the question, "when do you deviate for caravels to meet the last two players?" And my answer was after public schools. Not sure if it would have been better to do sooner, but I was able to nominate International Games as soon as I met Arabia and Morocco, so definitely not later. After the caravels, I got Electricity, Oxford into Radio to pick Freedom and engineer Broadway, then bulbed some scientists for museums and hotels. That combined with the 100% tourism bonus and a pair of musicians sent to France was the game finisher.
- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
Full trad > Aesthetics 3 > Rati 3 > finish Aesthetics > Freedom 6 > Finish Rati (wasn't really necessary but I had the points to spend).
- How many cities did you have in the end and where did you settle them?
Just the four. Thought I had pretty good river locations to grow tall.
- Final remarks?
Think this can be done faster. Even if my strategy was optimal, I had a number of inefficiences that could've sped it up by 5-10 turns or more. And there could just be better strategies for this that are significantly faster, I guess we'll see. Labs weren't required, though I got them at the very end while I was pressing next turn.

Spoiler :

 

[fiddlesticks]

Culture Victory turn 210

Tradition/liberty mix into Rationalism (finished - Plastics ~ 182). Finished Aesthetics with WF and bulbing a 4,000 culture GW. Autocracy for Futurism.

Bulbed Eiffel and Broadway with GE's. Built Globe, Uffuzi and Sistine in Rome. I should have concert toured the Broadway GM, but instead made a GW. The 1,000 faith-bought GM toured France, and a 1,000 faith bought GW gave the last 250 boost to put me over the top with the Ottomans.

I only ended up capturing 1 great work from Egypt. I gave his cities to far off civs for trade routes. Egypt had sacred sites, so I captured and used his GP's to convert or plant. I probably should have taken Edinburgh for a great work or two late in the game. (I had the troops there and DoW'd Boudicca because open borders ended when I had an antiquity site almost completed).

I was at war with France, the culture leader, but in culture victories you have to gauge whether it will be quicker to conquer the entire civ or make peace and get the trade boosts. I went peace and took Troyes in a peace deal to dent France's culture growth and Napoleon was friendly afterwards and I got open borders and trade routes going and even shared religion for a while.

 

[sebtanic]

Won turn 264. Almost completely peacefully, except DOWed Arabia a couple of times because he wouldn't stop sending me his Prophets. I had shared religion with France and others on my continent for a while, because Boudica spammed Catholicism all over the place. Being Rome I didn't mind it

Game notes after turn 100:
t111 Swords into Plowshares, Reliquary
t125 Education, tech leader
t183 Radio (with 2 GS)
t200 won WF (close call)
t244 Internet
t264 Culture victory

Won with 2 faith bought GMs. One to Arabia, one to France. I had Hotels everywhere, NVC in the capital, and bought two Airports turn 263 before buying the last GM. Then sent it over the border to France and that made me influential over the last 2 or 3 civs.

I built Ravenna after NC, and had a feeling it may have slowed my down. It kept me from building National Wonders and I had to keep pouring money in to build basic infrastructure. That money probably could have been used better elsewhere. City was rather hammer poor too. So maybe the game would have been more straightforward with 4 cities, standard tradition play.

 

[Bol]

T242 culture victory with really no opposition from the AI.

Write up to T100 here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/tsg-262-opening-actions.694535/post-16761724

I built 6th city right after NC and procedeed to play a standard game; I got DoWed by Boudicca at ~T140 because I forgot to bribe her again, thankfully I killed enough units to peace her just before she could take one city...
I also got randomly DoWed by France ~T180: he wasn't threatening at all, all he did was blocking some tiles really, but it prevented me from upgrading the only source of Aluminum for like 8 turns, delaying HydroPlants.

I rushed Pisa into an expansion to cycle a GE, built Sistine, Globe, Uffizi and Eiffel, rushed Broadway. Oxford -> Radio ~T180 into Freedom.
I also built a wonder into each city just because I could: Porcelain Tower, Statue of Liberty, Cristo and Sydney OH, and I excavated all 13 slots + 3 landmarks.
Teched Archeology -> Plastics -> Internet -> Airports.
Sadly World Fair was skipped, idk how much it slowed me down
As for faith, I bought a very late Artist (I had to wait T240 to produce one) and 1 Musician...which I didn't have time to Tour!

One last note, I think if you get Sistine (which you normally should, even on Deity) you should skip Uffizi, this game finally convinced me it's bait: it takes forever to generate the 6th Artist, you have have to wait for it to close Aesthetics, and you have to buy the 8th Artist with faith; it also comes at a time where your build queue is full (Globe, PubSchool, Factory, HydroPlant, Broadway, Eiffel).
You should instead focus on Louvre: sure it forces you to open Exploration and you have to get 2 more Artifacts, but requiring one less Artist is huge, as you can buy an extra Musician or a GE instead. It also comes a better time to fit it into the build queue, and wrt Uffizi it saves you at least 100gpp (5-6 turns on the last Artist); you can also consider closing Aesthetics super early (35-40 turns earlier!) and buying the last Artist with faith. And if you struggle with excavation sites, just don't fill a Museum, duh.

Some screenshots:

 

[Nizef]

One last note, I think if you get Sistine (which you normally should, even on Deity) you should skip Uffizi, this game finally convinced me it's bait: it takes forever to generate the 6th Artist, you have have to wait for it to close Aesthetics, and you have to buy the 8th Artist with faith; it also comes at a time where your build queue is full (Globe, PubSchool, Factory, HydroPlant, Broadway, Eiffel).
You should instead focus on Louvre: sure it forces you to open Exploration and you have to get 2 more Artifacts, but requiring one less Artist is huge, as you can buy an extra Musician or a GE instead. It also comes a better time to fit it into the build queue, and wrt Uffizi it saves you at least 100gpp (5-6 turns on the last Artist); you can also consider closing Aesthetics super early (35-40 turns earlier!) and buying the last Artist with faith. And if you struggle with excavation sites, just don't fill a Museum, duh.

Really insightful! This is something I struggle with all the time myself.

 

[Bol]

Culture Victory turn 210

Tradition/liberty mix into Rationalism (finished - Plastics ~ 182). Finished Aesthetics with WF and bulbing a 4,000 culture GW. Autocracy for Futurism.

Bulbed Eiffel and Broadway with GE's. Built Globe, Uffuzi and Sistine in Rome. I should have concert toured the Broadway GM, but instead made a GW. The 1,000 faith-bought GM toured France, and a 1,000 faith bought GW gave the last 250 boost to put me over the top with the Ottomans.

I only ended up capturing 1 great work from Egypt. I gave his cities to far off civs for trade routes. Egypt had sacred sites, so I captured and used his GP's to convert or plant. I probably should have taken Edinburgh for a great work or two late in the game. (I had the troops there and DoW'd Boudicca because open borders ended when I had an antiquity site almost completed).

I was at war with France, the culture leader, but in culture victories you have to gauge whether it will be quicker to conquer the entire civ or make peace and get the trade boosts. I went peace and took Troyes in a peace deal to dent France's culture growth and Napoleon was friendly afterwards and I got open borders and trade routes going and even shared religion for a while.

How do you have such large yields on T150?!
Science, Culture and Faith are all insane!

Also do you think the "Futurism rush" would work on Deity, where it's likely an AI gets an obscene amount of culture?

 

[fiddlesticks]

Thanks @Bol

At the 150 turn mark I had some tourism from Egypt’s religion in Mediolanium (3 buildings) and Ravenna (2). I kept that most of the game until Arabia snuck a GP in when I wasn’t paying attention.

Culture was booming from the Golden Age (a natural one I think, although I do bulb some GA’s). I had a good number of cultural CS allies too.

Science was just Uni’s and jungle tiles at this point. I left a few cocoa tiles undeveloped for the science. I think I had a few observatories too.

I like Sistine if there are too few cultural CS’s and you’ve got some cultural religious buildings. Plus end game the 25% can really add up.

 

[fiddlesticks]

I just noticed I was starving Ravenna at the end of that game It was a good sized city from a sea trade route. Oops!

 

[Bemep42]

CV turn 194.

SS+futurism. 31 city (21 founded) in end. I lose pagodas, mosques and cathedrals for my religion but was luck with monasteries. Conquered Celtia (mosgues), France and England, free Egypt from Napoleon for case if i play for domination culture. Gave Tur for Arabia and finished game with 1st GM. (lose 1 turn because sword blocked GM)

 

[vadalaz]

Results for GOTM #262
Rome / Culture / Immortal / Fractal / Large

...Player.....................Turn
1. Bemep42.....................194
2. fiddlesticks................210
3. sebtanic....................264


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