Game: Civ5 GOTM 42
Date submitted: 2012-08-24
Your name: kargano
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 2006AD
Turns played: 426
Base score: 1896
Final score: 2230
Time played: 4:32:00
Prince is my normal difficulty and this was my first serious attempt at a Diplomatic victory, so I was mainly concerned with winning the game rather than doing it as fast as possible.
I started with a Honor opening, because I was also new to raging barbs and did not want to risk losing before I got going. Started scout - attalist - monument - pyramid, with pottery first. My warrior got a map from the first ruin which revealed THREE other ruins, which were all snapped up. +1 pop, 20 culture and Mining. Scout got a gold ruin.
I decided to settle my second city in the desert quickly to grab the 8 faith mountain and as a sweet locale for Petra. I bought up the oasis and all the floodplains I could to help that city grow. I spent my first long road on a great engineer to rush petra there, and it worked beautifully as that city became my production center while the capital was a science powerhouse with academies and unimproved jungle everywhere. Tikal was settled in short order since that location seemed pretty luractive. Uxmal was a bit embarassing - I wanted to place that city on the coast between Cathokia and Yereven, but I didnt' realize the 4 tile from a city limit so I was forced to settle it more inland. About a dozen turns later Sweden declared on me and took Uxmal before I could react. I took it back a little later and he offered all his gold which I gladly took. After that peace reigned for a long time.
I was lax on my religion, and got beat to both the culture for jungle pantheon and Tithe by Boudicca. That sucked because my religion was absolutely dominiant worldwide, but I did grab Papal Primacy and Itinerant Preachers and used my high faith income to spam prophets to convert every city state I could find.
Polices were full Honor > two Patronage > left side Rationalism > finish Patronage > Commerce. Culture was not a strength for me, and I finished in the middle of the pack. Thankfully, opening Honor let me keep up in social policies in the early and mid game so I didn't have to worry about any pit fights to the death as a form of election.
During the long peaceful lull, Sweden conquered Cahokia and Austria took Geneva. I contemplated attacking both of them - I held a grudge against Sweden for catching me with my pants down early game, plus liberating Cahokia gave me a guaranteed vote. Cahokia had been my most steadfast ally before being conquered, so I was insulted and felt it was my duty to reward their loyalty. On top of all that, Sweden had been spamming wonders all game. Stockholm was RIGHT THERE and the terrain was favorable, so I was drooling over it. I had no particular beef with Austria, I just didn't want her buying up city states. However, Sweden made it easier for me by declaring on Austria and beating her around for a few centuries. Austria was dead last and denounced by pretty much everyone in the world but me, so she became a pretty safe UN vote for me and I judged she would be too weak and depleted from warring with Sweden to buy up city states. Somewhere in this, I founded Tulum in the lower left corner when I noticed the unclaimed rich plots of land over there, and I needed a coastal city so I could finally discover Siam and Greece.(England had sent a scout across Celtic lands before her borders expanded)
So things are going well, I have a massive lead in tech and total dominance in religion. I declared on Sweden and did a three pronged attack from Tulum, Uxmal and Chichen Itza. I finally rewarded Cahokia for their good service by freeing them, then proceeded to raze Helsinki and annex Stockholm, which had something like eight wonders. Gustav refused to give me anything but a peace treaty, so I went ahead and puppeted Sigtuna and destroyed some pathetic town on the south coast. He STILL would not give up the goods, so I went up and rampaged through the cities that he had taken from Austria - Vienna was captured, a city between Vienna and my cap was razed. Before I took Vienna though, I tried out a sneaky plan. Sweden at this point held only Vienna and Bregenz. Maria was dead last in score and hated by everyone but me, and still held Geneva. I declared on Maria, liberated Geneva in two turns, but Maria ignored my offer for peace so I was forced to puppet Linz, then she finally agreed. I then proceeded to take Vienna....but Maria wasn't grateful! Are you only able to liberate a civ if they are completely removed from the game?
Oh well, in any case I puppeted Vienna and then sued for peace with everyone. I had built the UN while I was sacking Stockholm and had 9 of 10 votes at the first election, but Alexander was a douchebag, yanking city states out of me the turn before the next vote which ended up being 7-7, hence my plan above to gain the votes of Geneva and Austria via liberation after securing Cahokia's vote. Soon after I declared for worldwide peace, a few carefully chosen city state bribes gave me 11 votes to Siam's 3 and left Alexander in the dust with two.
I'm satisfied with how I did considering I was new to diplomacy victory and raging barbs, and I like knowing I have such a long way to go. Lots of play time in this game left for me!
)
