Game: Civ5 GOTM 23
Date submitted: 2011-11-13
Reference number: 25161
Your name: danglading
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1957AD
Turns played: 377
Base score: 1449
Final score: 1932
Time played: 12:20:00
Renamed file: danglading_C502301.Civ5Save
First GotM for any Civ ever. A little slow, but I got there eventually.
I expanded to 3 cities to start the game: Original starting spot, down on the hill near the snow to get the furs (I know, but it slowly became one of my better cities...), and west between the mountains and coast (I know, I know...not a great location). This felt like a tough starting spot for expansion, for sure.
I intended to expand as fast as I could, hold enough military to slap around any irritants, and basically pile up money while teching my way to as many science buildings as I could and then the UN.
The terrain and Japan put the kibosh on the whole "early expansion" idea by expanding right up to my doorstep. They declared war on me right when I got swords, and after I slapped that down pretty hard (terrain was a HUGE advantage here) I quickly realized that I was hopelessly boxed in and there was no way I would keep up the economic strength I needed to buy this victory without some conquest. So, while Japan was busy fighting Gandhi and Askia I went to war with them. I razed a city and puppeted another before accepting one favorable peace treaty, which I used to regroup. One more round of war (spanning muskets then rifles) pushed japan off the mainland to the little pissant island off the west coast.
From there I just turtled. I milked my happiness till I could annex Japans two best cities and tweak them to my liking. I ran neck-and-neck with Persia on the tech race the whole game, which helped a lot when the bastards attacked me for no reason. (Is there ever a reason...) After shredding their initial attacking force with only one troop making landfall I made an ill-fated expedition to attempt a liberation of Quebec City but got completely humiliated. After the remnants of Operation Canadian Storm limped home I just worked on my defenses and used my small but hard-hitting navy to sink flotilla after flotilla that Darius sent my way. Eventually he saw the wisdom of taking peace without demanding half my cities and I took it because I was feeling sorry for his poor army.
At this point it was just a question of tweaking my economy to science & gold to make sure I was the first to the UN and had the cash to take advantage of it. I maintained my alliance with the three military CS's on my part of the continent (didn't realize it wasn't a separate continent until Satellites revealed the whole map), so once my defenses were comfortable I just kept shuttling the gifted troops to my turf and turning them into cash.
Not a great game for great people, but I got enough scientists to keep my tech going strong, more merchants than I'm used to (including two in the end game which helped the coffers a LOT), and had a spare general to pop a well-timed golden age during the second half of my UN build (total of 13 turns or so to build it). I managed to save up enough cash to buy all the remaining CS's on the last turn before the vote, which would give me 12 total votes. Alex bought one on his turn, making me sweat until Darius finished his turn, because he and I had been bidding up Rio for the previous four turns. But I held on to the bare minimum 11 votes for the win.
By the end of the game I had about a dozen wonders while every other team had one, maybe two. That was definitely a first for me. I had about 250gpt without a golden age, and over 1100 beakers per turn. I ended up completing the Liberty (there's that expansion plan again...) and Rationalism trees, the first tier of the Honor tree (for the barb/production/combat bonus) and the left half of the Patronage tree.
This was also my first attempt at Emperor, so it felt pretty good to never find myself in any "oh CRAP" situations. A few "what the heck was I thinking!" moments, but I can live with that. =)
Next month I'll work on screen shots. ;-)
This put me 15 turns behind where I should've been, but I'm still pretty happy with finishing at turn 337.
high enough for the last 70 turns. Conquests fund me some RAs and Alex was litterally my 
bank. I went into a golden age for approx 40 turns in a row until the end. I began to ally cs 20 turns before Globalization to let my capital to grow from 10 to 15 
to complete the UN in 1 turn. Thanks Alex!
. He could have won the game if he just tried. This is why I don't like playing diplo, it feels too fake. Maybe it needs to be reconsidered... I would suggest that the longer a civ keeps an alliance with a City State, the more it costs other civs to buy it off. How about that?
