EDIT: title is wrong, win at turn 296.
Game: Civ5 GOTM 41
Date submitted: 2012-08-13
Reference number: 26917
Your name: landomajstro
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1852AD
Turns played: 296
Base score: 1276
Final score: 2162
Time played: 6:04:00
Social policy path:
- > Tradition (all)
- > Piety (all)
- > Patronage (3 polices until I entered Industrial)
- > Freedom (all)
- > Liberty (until the policy that gives a GA and reduces policy cost)
- > Finished Patronage
- > Finiched Liberty (for the GE to plant it for the Utopia project)
Religion:
Pantheon
3rd to found a Pantheon, took the +1 culture an +1 faith from Wine and Incense (as the start location had lots of wines).
First Prophet
Had the first great prophet when I already had 3 cities. Founded Christianity
Took monasteries (to increase dramatically the culture and faith, as had plenty of wine) as the follower belief.
Took +1 c for every 5 f as the founder belief,
+1 f. for evr city as the bonus belief (plan to increase faith dramatically, for a mass conversion, and to later use it to buy great artists).
2nd Prophet
took Itinerant Preachers (+30% conversion range), for it to spread faster and to win over other religions.
took (+1% production for every follower) as the second follower belief to make wonder production quicker.
General strategy & history
At first I started with one city (moved settler one hex to the bottom right to quickly plow through tradition, in this city, i built:
- Scout;
- Monument;
- Shrine;
- Worker;
- GL; (used free tech to take Philosophy);
- NC;
Early in game made quest to ally to Brussels and get my culture flowing.
After I had my capital strong and big enough, i made 3 settlers and got the following spots:
1. ADRIANOPLE: right above my capital (wich ended up a really decent city), with two wine spots;
2. NICEA: to the right, next to the marble and sugar by the mountain. built an observatory there and it got to be a decent science city;
3. ANTIOCH: to the left, by the river in the desert, manage to build there the colossus and petra, so it became a really decent city;
Build all three, kind of in the same time, general build order:
1. Shrine
2. Monument
3. Amphiteathers
As soon as i got monasteries, i quickly bough 4 monasteries in all 4 cities. Soon, my religion spread really quickly in my continent and in the bottom islands (with the CSs).
Some turns after i built those cities, Rome DOWed me, and I had to stop building wonders and had to build some composite bows and send them to the NICEA to defend the invasion. Some units and the favourable terrain defended me against the legions and ballistas. Made peace quickly and just after Dido came with some elephants, also was easy to repell. After that didn't have any war, the maximum i had was Wu getting angry about me spreading Chritianity over her cities.
Rome finally also took Carthage.
Got really slow in going to the sea. So when i finally got navigation, i had 5 missionaries waiting to navigate through the seas, and i was tossing by then 1 missionary every 4 turns, so it was a giant conversion mission. Wich actually was pretty sucessful, in the end game, i had 114 fpt (37 from religion) and 1141 cpt (83 from religion).
After my religion was up and going the top priority was dicover the culture related techs and build the culture buildings and wonders as soon as possible, and go to freedom as soon as possible. As soon as the mission was over, started saving faith for great artists. And as i got to freedom could purchase (and produce naturally 3 or 4) GA, first planting them, them to keep in GAge till the end of the game, so, as soon as I hit a natural Golden age, i kept it using GAs and the Representation.
So, next was hitting end turn through the end.
My mistakes: could be more focused about science and get earlier industrialization, to be able to take earlier freedom, and also to manage to get to build the Sidney Opera House, maybe it was possible to shift some 20 turns by doing that. And could have done some RA to make me achieve that.
About City States: was very aggressive on that fullfilling quests, wonder spamming and using religion, so by the time both wars finished i got allied pretty much everyone on the continent and the bottom island. In the end I was allied pretty much with everyone except some militaristic and mercantile ones.
Here is a screenshot:
Really enjoyed the challenge and I could see the map was tailored for a cultural victory boosted by religion. My 1st GOTM, actually i joined the forums only to participate this.
Must give credit to MadDjiinn as his LPs taught me a lot.
city on turn 210 i realized how badly I screwed this gameplay.. Constantinople was around 11 
All the bonus culture from festivals and monasteries meant that Patronage came early, and with the money from Tithe, the science boost from allies was significant, as was the culture from Mandate of Heaven (always had happiness > 40). I'd have trouble forgoing Piety for that reason.
got nice timing just after filling Freedom tree and bulbing with scientist just built the turn before
oO
