Game: Civ5 GOTM 71
Date submitted: 2013-11-02 09:52:15
Reference number: 29992
Your name: flipsix3
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1860AD
Turns played: 301
Base score: 1247
Final score: 2078
Time played: 3:29:00
Submitted save: TSG71_Finish.Civ5Save
Renamed file: flipsix3_C507101.Civ5Save
NB: Suffered a Blue Screen of Death the turn after popping Oxford, resulting in an autosave reload. My PC has some minor issues with the GFX card and throws me a crash every few days.
Following on from the Opening Actions as outlined in that thread...
T100: Popped religion (Cult of Maguire, i.e. "Show Me the Money").
- Tithe
- Swords into Plowshares
Opened 'Exploration' SP tree (as not played it before) and sent out Trireme to start finding City States.
T115: Hagia Sophia
- Divine Inspiration (as expecting to wonder-whore the game)
- Itinerant Preachers
Planted first GS at Venice
T129: Education
Teched Compass next, for Great Galleas (x2) to take out Shaka. Dropped Grand Temple (as I never have before).
Popped Oxford, as I was already teching Astro by then used freebie to nab Acoustics and hit next age. Sent my Spy to Kyoto, as Oda was nearest tech rival (though still behind in Literacy demographic)
T143: Puppet Ulundi, bye-bye Shaka - it's been fun. Not surprisingly taking a big diplo hit with all but my two closest allies. 8

but Ulundi has 3 unique lux so divert workers. Ulundi has Granary in place.
T146: Hit Astro, auto-beeline set for Banking (Money, money, money)
Relocate Spy to Venice, as can't sting Oda for anything. He (my spy, that is) promptly goes on a rampage taking down several visiting spies over the following 10-15 turns.
T150: 63 GPT, 112 BPT
At this point I'm torn between letting other Cvs catch up in tech, or reducing their numbers to speed up the "at least 50% of Civs...." requirement for UN. Warmongering doesn't feel very diplo, and letting people catch me as kind of counter-intuitive to me. Instead I decided to plant my second GS as he pops, then horde the rest for a massive bulb-a-thon to get through Atomic.
Bulk-buying cargo ships, GPT is silly - feels like it's really just a tech race by now as there's no way I won't be able to buy up every CS (not started yet, see no need until they have any impact on World Council)
T175: China DoW Indonesia - first true war in the save.
Popping Great Writer(s) for culture speeds me through to 4 of the 5 Exploration points (extra gold from sea trade), really not bothered about filling out 5/5 for Admiral & bonus.
T195: Printing Press
132 GPT
189 BPT
Into Golden Age with Taj due to build in 4 turns
By now Venice is chaining Wonders and I'm all-out buying anything else I need. I know that the cost is greater that way, but frankly with the money I'm making it's not a factor.
Proposed World's Fair for the first sitting of the council.
Open Rationalism tree.
Pop Industrialisation, and grab a 7-coal spot to open up Factories for Ideology - buy all three, opening Order as I've not tried it before.
T224: Open 'Order'
- GP +25%
- -33% to buying buildings
Pump all Production into World's Fair, and start to pick up City States slowly. Wars are breaking out all over.
Take Radio into modern era, and increase rate of CS purchases. In addition my influence over many of them increases as I satisfy Luxury/Strategic Goods missions from those that I buy.
World's Fair completed, me 1st (2064 Hammers), Oda 2nd (352).
Question: Is there any way to monitor the progress on these projects? I can't see it, but clearly I could've won only putting in 5 or 6 turns (Venice at 85 hammers)
Culture boost and another GW sees me fly through Order:
- +25% science from factories
- Young Pioneers
- Party Leadership
- Iron Curtain
T260: Cult of Maguire voted in as world religion
Continue along top of tech tree.
T276-t278: Pop 5 or 6 Great Scientists, plus Faith Buy and pop another. In the space of two turns bulbing through; Penicillin, Flight, Electronics, Atomic Theory, Ecology and all but 2 turns of Telecommunications.
UN comes online circa T280.
Vote held on T300 which I cannot possibly lose, victory on T301 as I finish Internet.
At the end of play:
Venice: 34 Pop
Antwerp: 24 Pop
Ulundi: 19 Pop
14,207 Gold, growing at 615 GPT
810 BPT
After the first MoV (Antwerp) any others that came along were used on straight trade missions, allowing me the gold to then flat-out buy more City States whilst my pot was refilling.
I feel like I could certainly have finished sooner, as I said in the Opening Actions I'm nowhere near to being an optimal player and therefore I really don't know all the nuts and bolts of the ideal timings for Diplo (or any victory to be honest). For the last 50-75 turns I was pretty much building/buying stuff at random. Had a bunch of Frigates, a couple of Ironclads, and a Nuclear Sub parked off my coast, and a few land units, but no-one ever came close to taking a run at me - I'm sure that time could've been better spent.
Still I felt pretty good about this one, and it sits fairly high on my personal Hall of Fame score.