Civ: Prussia
Map: Archipelago
Level: Piety
Victory type: Conquest
Outcome: Easy win
I don't think we support custom civs for our win/loss rate chart.
Also...Piety difficulty?
G
Win Rate Data - Please post your games' results here!
- Thread starter Wodhann
- Start date
I don't think we support custom civs for our win/loss rate chart.
Also...Piety difficulty?
G
Der_Zorn_gottes
King
- Joined
- Apr 10, 2003
- Messages
- 773
Civ: Persia
Victory Type: Loss
Relative Rank: Harder (Deity)
Outcome: Loss
Version: 18/3
I didn`t found a religion this game, but my neighbour Japan did. I conquered his capital and holy city with immortals, and tried for a sacred sites cultural victory again. When India backstabbed me, I took several of his cities, but except for the capital, they were mostly crap.
Still I experienced again that I lacked followers for a reformation, and there were no religion free cities left in the world. So I provoced my friend and neighbour russia into a war. The war was going so-so, when america joined on his side. Having no units left to defend against a second deity front, I quit again.
Brazil was a too strong runaway anayway.
Victory Type: Loss
Relative Rank: Harder (Deity)
Outcome: Loss
Version: 18/3
I didn`t found a religion this game, but my neighbour Japan did. I conquered his capital and holy city with immortals, and tried for a sacred sites cultural victory again. When India backstabbed me, I took several of his cities, but except for the capital, they were mostly crap.
Still I experienced again that I lacked followers for a reformation, and there were no religion free cities left in the world. So I provoced my friend and neighbour russia into a war. The war was going so-so, when america joined on his side. Having no units left to defend against a second deity front, I quit again.
Brazil was a too strong runaway anayway.
Der_Zorn_gottes
King
- Joined
- Apr 10, 2003
- Messages
- 773
Civ: Brazil
Victory Type: Culture
Relative Rank: Harder (Deity)
Outcome: Challenge
Version: 18/3
I started on a continent with only Germany and Indonesia on it. I figured, if sacred sites can work on deity at all, then on a start like this, where you can fill a whole continent with your cities. I didn`t found myself, but relied on my neighbours to do so. Germany did, but Indonesia had the plantatation pantheon, which would be perfect for a jungle heavy area. And indeed, Indonesia got the last religion.
With the huge amount of cash I got from the first golden age, defeating them both was trivial, even if it took very long. By the time I finished the last city, I had contact with two other civs, which didn`t mind.
Then I proceeded filling the whole continent, and realized that Siam had no religion in many of it's cities yet. Together with some random CS that was exactly enough to get my 20% for sacred sites. Unfortunately, it was later that I hoped, around 1700. Still, the effect was huge, and together with the tourism from hotels and a couple af GM tours and golden ages I won around 1800.
Two disapointments were that I was too late for the archeology race - I got most of my sites up, but just got to dig up half a dozend parts. Also I lost the race for crystal palace closely despite putting my whole empire at it. Fortunately, none of it matters, as my sites were sacred.
Victory Type: Culture
Relative Rank: Harder (Deity)
Outcome: Challenge
Version: 18/3
I started on a continent with only Germany and Indonesia on it. I figured, if sacred sites can work on deity at all, then on a start like this, where you can fill a whole continent with your cities. I didn`t found myself, but relied on my neighbours to do so. Germany did, but Indonesia had the plantatation pantheon, which would be perfect for a jungle heavy area. And indeed, Indonesia got the last religion.
With the huge amount of cash I got from the first golden age, defeating them both was trivial, even if it took very long. By the time I finished the last city, I had contact with two other civs, which didn`t mind.
Then I proceeded filling the whole continent, and realized that Siam had no religion in many of it's cities yet. Together with some random CS that was exactly enough to get my 20% for sacred sites. Unfortunately, it was later that I hoped, around 1700. Still, the effect was huge, and together with the tourism from hotels and a couple af GM tours and golden ages I won around 1800.
Two disapointments were that I was too late for the archeology race - I got most of my sites up, but just got to dig up half a dozend parts. Also I lost the race for crystal palace closely despite putting my whole empire at it. Fortunately, none of it matters, as my sites were sacred.
Fragamemnon
Warlord
- Joined
- Aug 6, 2007
- Messages
- 112
Civ: Maya
Victory Type: Domination
Relative Rank: Harder (Deity)
Outcome: Win
Version: 24/3
Map type: NQMod Pangaea w/ small islands
Pretty standard Deity progress->piety game. Pacal is really strong and one of the few Civs where you are generally favored to secure a religion even on Deity. Went taller over wider and slowly expanded out through the renaissance period with pioneers to fill in my land.
Religion was straightforward-luxury-based pantheon into cathedrals + pagodas. Reform with Glory to God.
Eventually got to industrial, used glory to god bought scientists to help turbo out scientists into artillery and started the murder. If you have artillery and the AI is six techs behind there's really nothing they can do to interact with it, even with 500-600k soldier value worth of late renassiance/early industrial land troops. Go straight for landships after that to increase clear speed.
Ideology helps with happiness problems as you conquer but I was literally able to go through 40 excess happiness in about 12 turns on standard speed. Yields get really tough to keep up with if you let your cities get too big, BUT you lose the game if you don't work a billion science specialists across your empire. It's really hard late game to work the required 4-5 science specialists per city and not have it wallow in crime, boredom and poverty.
I had 10-12 promoted Atalists and they did crazy damage all game. I was at war from about turn 80 onward due to a very aggressive Cathy but you can't break a wall of Atalists and their upgraded to units.
Maya definitely above the curve and one of the few Civs that I really like as progress on Deity with my playstyle.
Note: I could have won this game with science it would have just taken more turns (and I judge win quality in part by turn number). Once you get ahead in late Industrial/Early modern the AI has a really hard time catching up.
Victory Type: Domination
Relative Rank: Harder (Deity)
Outcome: Win
Version: 24/3
Map type: NQMod Pangaea w/ small islands
Pretty standard Deity progress->piety game. Pacal is really strong and one of the few Civs where you are generally favored to secure a religion even on Deity. Went taller over wider and slowly expanded out through the renaissance period with pioneers to fill in my land.
Religion was straightforward-luxury-based pantheon into cathedrals + pagodas. Reform with Glory to God.
Eventually got to industrial, used glory to god bought scientists to help turbo out scientists into artillery and started the murder. If you have artillery and the AI is six techs behind there's really nothing they can do to interact with it, even with 500-600k soldier value worth of late renassiance/early industrial land troops. Go straight for landships after that to increase clear speed.
Ideology helps with happiness problems as you conquer but I was literally able to go through 40 excess happiness in about 12 turns on standard speed. Yields get really tough to keep up with if you let your cities get too big, BUT you lose the game if you don't work a billion science specialists across your empire. It's really hard late game to work the required 4-5 science specialists per city and not have it wallow in crime, boredom and poverty.
I had 10-12 promoted Atalists and they did crazy damage all game. I was at war from about turn 80 onward due to a very aggressive Cathy but you can't break a wall of Atalists and their upgraded to units.
Maya definitely above the curve and one of the few Civs that I really like as progress on Deity with my playstyle.
Note: I could have won this game with science it would have just taken more turns (and I judge win quality in part by turn number). Once you get ahead in late Industrial/Early modern the AI has a really hard time catching up.
Der_Zorn_gottes
King
- Joined
- Apr 10, 2003
- Messages
- 773
Civ: Poland
Victory Type: Diplo
Relative Rank: Harder (Deity)
Outcome: Challenge
Version: 18/3
The grindiest of all games. I played a lakes map, which is all land. The is a row of civs in the south, the a belt with most CS in the middle, and the rest of the civs in the north.
I was in the south, with Indonesia and Venice as neighbours. I attacked Indonesia in the classic age, and took most of his good land, so that I had room for three civs to expand. I did not go for a religion this time, just watched missionaries from all sides fight over my cities. A bit later Indonesia attacked again, and I took his last good city, vassaling him. Unfortunately, this city was the buffer between my and Byzanz, so a bit later Byzanz decared. They got very close to conquer two cities, but I could hold. Just when I had gotten tech advantage and arranged my winged lancers to push them back, Carthage brokerd a peace "on my behalf". Geez, thank you.
It sounds like it was a very warlike game, but it wasn`t. Besides the skirmishes I mentioned, I had no wars in the first part, but was friends with literally everyone. Even with Byzanz I had a DOF shortly after the end of the hostilities. Also I had research agreements with everyone, so my tech speed was very good. I had a monopoly on tea, and a lot of pasture resources for my ducal stables. This, together with the free policies meant that I was getting a lot of wonders - something I wasn`t used to anymore. Everybody else was fighting all the time, because free space was gone very soon. Especially the CS had it hard this game, everyone conquered them left and right. Less than half of them made it beyond industrial. Wich was sad, because I had take statecraft. The most powerfull civ was Sweden, who has swallowed Morrocko and several CS.
As peacefull and easy the first part of the game was, as brutal and grindy was the second. I was the first to chose a ideology (by filling 3 trees, thats the first time I had that happen) and went order. It didn`t take long for everybody to hate me. Fortunately, the hated each other as much. Still, both Sweden and Byzanz declared on me. The amount of units Sweden had was staggering. I was only saved by the fact that he had mostly Tercios/Fuseliers, where I had machine guns and artillery. Still, he sent the units as fast as I could kill them. I started to kill so many units, that I opend Authroty and picked Dominance in the modern age.
Slowly and steadily I grinded forward on both sides, liberating quite a few CS in the progress. I was even aproaching Stockholm, when Venice also declared. His army was weak, but by now he was virtually in the middle of my empire, threating several undefended cities. I had to make peace with Sweden, and turn my army aroud. Still, he was defeated very quickly, and Venice became on of my finest cities.
By that time, I had also subdued Byzanz, and finally there was peace. I thought.
Just a few turns later, three of the northern civs attacked.
Germany, which never did anything.
Siam, which has allied itself with all the CS that I just liberated from Sweden, and attacked throgh them. Their military was no match for me, but I had to manouver around the treacherous CS, so it took long until I could advance.
Finally Ponynesia, which was super powerful. Authority and Autocracy made very powerfull units, and he had initially air superiority while I scrambled for oil for fighters. He even took one of my cities briefly (and would have gotten more, had I not gon back two autosaves to rearrange my army, I must admit). Fortunately, I got Dido to attack him for 3 paper. Her units did not do much, but they distraced a few of his, so that I could start to kill them faster than he was able to replace them, and could start to go forward. At this time my other army has finally gotten around the traitor CS and I was conquereing Siam also (at this time the greates diappointment happend. I bought 3 GS to get a tech advantage, but I had to burn all three of them to get just a single modern tech. Bleh.).
It was increadibly grindy, but I eventually defeated them both. But I know that war with sweden was inevitable, and of course I was not disappointed. I mean, every good game needs a bossfight, right?
So when Gustav declared, it was like that on the western front (note his paratroopers):
For the first time in my civ career, I had to use a nuke (the free one from the project), just to hold that line. I the east there was a stalemate too, but on our third border my troops from the Siam campaingn started to gain ground, and liberating CS. Again he was sendong incredible amount of troops agains my rocket arties, which I dutifully grinded away. But once I stared to conquer cities, the equilibrium of produced and killed units slowly shifted towards my favour, and I was able to advance at all fronts. I the end, he collapsed very quickly.
The last turns were very funny: I had liberated most of Morockos cities (but he hated me for my warmongering). So I let Sweden take them back, and then they would set them ablaze. In the end there was a time where he was literally burning down every city he had...
I coulnd`t observe how this would have ended, because I won diplo victory shortly before.
Victory Type: Diplo
Relative Rank: Harder (Deity)
Outcome: Challenge
Version: 18/3
The grindiest of all games. I played a lakes map, which is all land. The is a row of civs in the south, the a belt with most CS in the middle, and the rest of the civs in the north.
I was in the south, with Indonesia and Venice as neighbours. I attacked Indonesia in the classic age, and took most of his good land, so that I had room for three civs to expand. I did not go for a religion this time, just watched missionaries from all sides fight over my cities. A bit later Indonesia attacked again, and I took his last good city, vassaling him. Unfortunately, this city was the buffer between my and Byzanz, so a bit later Byzanz decared. They got very close to conquer two cities, but I could hold. Just when I had gotten tech advantage and arranged my winged lancers to push them back, Carthage brokerd a peace "on my behalf". Geez, thank you.
It sounds like it was a very warlike game, but it wasn`t. Besides the skirmishes I mentioned, I had no wars in the first part, but was friends with literally everyone. Even with Byzanz I had a DOF shortly after the end of the hostilities. Also I had research agreements with everyone, so my tech speed was very good. I had a monopoly on tea, and a lot of pasture resources for my ducal stables. This, together with the free policies meant that I was getting a lot of wonders - something I wasn`t used to anymore. Everybody else was fighting all the time, because free space was gone very soon. Especially the CS had it hard this game, everyone conquered them left and right. Less than half of them made it beyond industrial. Wich was sad, because I had take statecraft. The most powerfull civ was Sweden, who has swallowed Morrocko and several CS.
As peacefull and easy the first part of the game was, as brutal and grindy was the second. I was the first to chose a ideology (by filling 3 trees, thats the first time I had that happen) and went order. It didn`t take long for everybody to hate me. Fortunately, the hated each other as much. Still, both Sweden and Byzanz declared on me. The amount of units Sweden had was staggering. I was only saved by the fact that he had mostly Tercios/Fuseliers, where I had machine guns and artillery. Still, he sent the units as fast as I could kill them. I started to kill so many units, that I opend Authroty and picked Dominance in the modern age.
Slowly and steadily I grinded forward on both sides, liberating quite a few CS in the progress. I was even aproaching Stockholm, when Venice also declared. His army was weak, but by now he was virtually in the middle of my empire, threating several undefended cities. I had to make peace with Sweden, and turn my army aroud. Still, he was defeated very quickly, and Venice became on of my finest cities.
By that time, I had also subdued Byzanz, and finally there was peace. I thought.
Just a few turns later, three of the northern civs attacked.
Germany, which never did anything.
Siam, which has allied itself with all the CS that I just liberated from Sweden, and attacked throgh them. Their military was no match for me, but I had to manouver around the treacherous CS, so it took long until I could advance.
Finally Ponynesia, which was super powerful. Authority and Autocracy made very powerfull units, and he had initially air superiority while I scrambled for oil for fighters. He even took one of my cities briefly (and would have gotten more, had I not gon back two autosaves to rearrange my army, I must admit). Fortunately, I got Dido to attack him for 3 paper. Her units did not do much, but they distraced a few of his, so that I could start to kill them faster than he was able to replace them, and could start to go forward. At this time my other army has finally gotten around the traitor CS and I was conquereing Siam also (at this time the greates diappointment happend. I bought 3 GS to get a tech advantage, but I had to burn all three of them to get just a single modern tech. Bleh.).
It was increadibly grindy, but I eventually defeated them both. But I know that war with sweden was inevitable, and of course I was not disappointed. I mean, every good game needs a bossfight, right?
So when Gustav declared, it was like that on the western front (note his paratroopers):
Spoiler :
For the first time in my civ career, I had to use a nuke (the free one from the project), just to hold that line. I the east there was a stalemate too, but on our third border my troops from the Siam campaingn started to gain ground, and liberating CS. Again he was sendong incredible amount of troops agains my rocket arties, which I dutifully grinded away. But once I stared to conquer cities, the equilibrium of produced and killed units slowly shifted towards my favour, and I was able to advance at all fronts. I the end, he collapsed very quickly.
The last turns were very funny: I had liberated most of Morockos cities (but he hated me for my warmongering). So I let Sweden take them back, and then they would set them ablaze. In the end there was a time where he was literally burning down every city he had...
I coulnd`t observe how this would have ended, because I won diplo victory shortly before.
Libber21
Chieftain
Civ:Japan
Victory Type:Domination
Relative Rank:Compatible (Immortal)
Outcome:Defeat
I don't know the version I was using (I found the file, I started the game February 24 after installing current patch), I'm reporting from a couple months ago when I first tried the CBP. I played as Japan because I thought they were in need of some big improvements from the base game. I had a lot of mistakes as I was figuring out the new mechanics and ended up way behind the tech leader. I made a push with my samurai, but they were two upgrades ahead and I conceded. Overall, I think Japan felt very competitive, if in the right hands, and I was excited to move on to the next attempt.
Victory Type:Domination
Relative Rank:Compatible (Immortal)
Outcome:Defeat
I don't know the version I was using (I found the file, I started the game February 24 after installing current patch), I'm reporting from a couple months ago when I first tried the CBP. I played as Japan because I thought they were in need of some big improvements from the base game. I had a lot of mistakes as I was figuring out the new mechanics and ended up way behind the tech leader. I made a push with my samurai, but they were two upgrades ahead and I conceded. Overall, I think Japan felt very competitive, if in the right hands, and I was excited to move on to the next attempt.
Libber21
Chieftain
Civ:France
Victory Type:Domination
Relative Rank:Compatible (Immortal)
Outcome:Defeat
I started this game March 8 after updating to the latest version of CBP, again sorry for not knowing the exact version.
I had a very solid start with France, happened to get one tile of Great Barrier Reef in my capital's borders. I founded three more solid cities and was neighbored with Carthage in the south, a bunch of CS in the west, and Egypt just beyond the CS in the northwest. I am not an expert on culture victories, so I'm sure I was inefficient in my strategy. Egypt began to build wonders like crazy. I could not get to Egypt easily, so decided to take on Carthage for now and build up for another military campaign against Egypt in the future. After taking the closest Carthaginian city, Rome declared war on me, who was just west of this new city. I made a favorable peace with Dido and went after Rome. He had The Great Wall and after slogging it through for a while I was able to take the closest city. He had gone Authority and was starting to turn the tides when I sued for a white peace and kept the one city I took from him.
In the meantime, Spain's religion was insane. My cities, which were surrounded by my religion, were sometimes getting +150 pressure. I was never able to hit the 20% followers to build my National religious building. The Shoshone rocketed up through the tech tree after taking out Russia. It became a three-way battle between Spain, The Shoshone, and Egypt. I had a solid chunk of land in the east, but an angry Rome and Carthage declared war on me. I would have definitely lost that war and accepted that I had lost.
This was my second game with CBP and was able to figure out some more mechanics and already my third game is going much better.
Victory Type:Domination
Relative Rank:Compatible (Immortal)
Outcome:Defeat
I started this game March 8 after updating to the latest version of CBP, again sorry for not knowing the exact version.
I had a very solid start with France, happened to get one tile of Great Barrier Reef in my capital's borders. I founded three more solid cities and was neighbored with Carthage in the south, a bunch of CS in the west, and Egypt just beyond the CS in the northwest. I am not an expert on culture victories, so I'm sure I was inefficient in my strategy. Egypt began to build wonders like crazy. I could not get to Egypt easily, so decided to take on Carthage for now and build up for another military campaign against Egypt in the future. After taking the closest Carthaginian city, Rome declared war on me, who was just west of this new city. I made a favorable peace with Dido and went after Rome. He had The Great Wall and after slogging it through for a while I was able to take the closest city. He had gone Authority and was starting to turn the tides when I sued for a white peace and kept the one city I took from him.
In the meantime, Spain's religion was insane. My cities, which were surrounded by my religion, were sometimes getting +150 pressure. I was never able to hit the 20% followers to build my National religious building. The Shoshone rocketed up through the tech tree after taking out Russia. It became a three-way battle between Spain, The Shoshone, and Egypt. I had a solid chunk of land in the east, but an angry Rome and Carthage declared war on me. I would have definitely lost that war and accepted that I had lost.
This was my second game with CBP and was able to figure out some more mechanics and already my third game is going much better.
Civilization: Netherlands
Victory Type: Cultural
Relative Rank: Compatible (With this mod pack, played prince. Will bump up for next game )
Outcome: Walk in the park
Version: downloaded today.
Map: Archipelago (Prolly why it was so easy)
Description: Built 6 cities really quickly real early on. Build all of them in the first 2 eras. Even though Babylon was really close, he never even tried to settle on my island. Later on I harassed him with my religion the whole time while he was trying to spread his own. I had an outdated military at that point and I am surprised he dint Declare War
The whole game through i had No War I was denounced once but no one bothered fighting me, even though my military was below average. By pumping my religion and trade routes I got Influential over everyone but Rome and Celts. Rome I had to use only one composer and about 4 on celts (was no problem because of faith purchases).
Where I think the AI failed:
What I believe I did right:
Victory Type: Cultural
Relative Rank: Compatible (With this mod pack, played prince. Will bump up for next game )
Outcome: Walk in the park
Version: downloaded today.
Map: Archipelago (Prolly why it was so easy)
Description: Built 6 cities really quickly real early on. Build all of them in the first 2 eras. Even though Babylon was really close, he never even tried to settle on my island. Later on I harassed him with my religion the whole time while he was trying to spread his own. I had an outdated military at that point and I am surprised he dint Declare War
The whole game through i had No War I was denounced once but no one bothered fighting me, even though my military was below average. By pumping my religion and trade routes I got Influential over everyone but Rome and Celts. Rome I had to use only one composer and about 4 on celts (was no problem because of faith purchases).
Where I think the AI failed:
- Did not declare war on me, Did not see my culture as a threat
- Early on I had no competition at all.
- Could grab almost all the wonders I wanted
What I believe I did right:
- I got a early Jade monopoly
theraresheep
Chieftain
Civilization: Carthage
Victory Type: Gunning for science/diplo eventual loss
Relative Rank: Compatible (King)
Outcome: Defeat
CBP Version (3-9)
Additional Info Archipelago like map, I had shuffle on. I was on my own island room for 2 cities + city-state. Everybody was quite hostile to me, with vague comments like 'your actions anger them' 'they feel you are competing with them'. I'm guessing religion and diplo-relations upset them. Netherlands won by Culture Victory, quite comfortably eclipsed all other civs. I put up a fight but around Turn 500 (Epic speed). A great musician ended the game.
A few bugs encountered, I set up a trade route with Quebec City for a quest and soon after Greece declared war on me, and they plundered my trade routes. Now I don't know if the trade route was like this all along but it took up a slot and the turns to go was infinite (well it was the range of an int, if my coding is up to scratch). Anyway that carried on for the rest of the game.
Also when I got the spy quest, it didn't have a text message to describe the quest, the ones that go like 'The cultured elite feel the world has become boring and so desire the building of X'. Intentional?
On the quest front sometimes I got quests like build Musicians Guild when I had already built one Intentional?
All in all AMAZING!!!!
Victory Type: Gunning for science/diplo eventual loss
Relative Rank: Compatible (King)
Outcome: Defeat
CBP Version (3-9)
Additional Info Archipelago like map, I had shuffle on. I was on my own island room for 2 cities + city-state. Everybody was quite hostile to me, with vague comments like 'your actions anger them' 'they feel you are competing with them'. I'm guessing religion and diplo-relations upset them. Netherlands won by Culture Victory, quite comfortably eclipsed all other civs. I put up a fight but around Turn 500 (Epic speed). A great musician ended the game.
A few bugs encountered, I set up a trade route with Quebec City for a quest and soon after Greece declared war on me, and they plundered my trade routes. Now I don't know if the trade route was like this all along but it took up a slot and the turns to go was infinite (well it was the range of an int, if my coding is up to scratch). Anyway that carried on for the rest of the game.
Also when I got the spy quest, it didn't have a text message to describe the quest, the ones that go like 'The cultured elite feel the world has become boring and so desire the building of X'. Intentional?
On the quest front sometimes I got quests like build Musicians Guild when I had already built one Intentional?
All in all AMAZING!!!!
pandasnail
Prince
- Joined
- Nov 18, 2015
- Messages
- 538
4/10 Version
Goddess of Protection deleted. Great Lighthouse at 4 policies. Barbarian exp at the -1 setting (I promise I don't exploit). RAs no tech trading. Resources revealed. Large 12 24 Continents. Marathon speed. No time victory. Ice Free Coasts.
England
Culture Victory
Immortal (Above I guess)
Challenge
As I outlined on github, the turn 1 Spy got me the tech lead by the end of the Ancient. Getting a religion from Mt Fuji and 4 Wheats allowed me to use the Tradition Mastery combo to vault to the culture lead. So I could just do whatever I wanted via wonders, which is prob not the true Immortal diff experience. Including Great Lighthouse, which ironically I ended up not starting til I had five policies anyway.
Fought nothing but defensive wars until I had 'Cruisers of the Line' and Steam Mills built and Imperialism filled. 5 CotLs and 3 regular SotL (and 1 caravel to finish the deal) tore thru Indonesia's coastal cities while our lands stood there staring at each other. He might maybe could have made a move on by land, but held back. I actually had 3 Hwacha turned Artillery from Kongo, so the units he did send died pretty quick. He just had a lot, esp including the ones he sent to try to conquer (EDIT: meant to say 'conquer my CS allies'.). Anyway, eventually I had all of his and Mr. Bluetooth's cities, and then I went back to peace, finally getting the culture win in the Atomic.
Just like seemingly I'm the only player who likes partisans, I guess I'm the only person who likes negative events. I just think its fun to have to make sudden changes and adjustments. Of course, I was in a real good place to begin with. But all four cities had drought at the same time as my empire was in an seemingly infinite Ice Age (i really should have picked the production penalty). I got a hurricane too, except as others have said, it didn't actually kill citizens. And, yeah, I thought recovering from all that while fighting Berserkers was good fun. Idk. I was sad that the meaningful negative events basically stopped in the Med. Just a pillaged mine here and there. I want there to be more. Maybe I'll try to make some. Sounds like I'd have to learn what a 'fireturner' is tho.
One weird thing about this game is that the AI kept declaring war on and conquering City States. Not even as part of that CS vs CS war quest (unless the AI gets diff ones, but that would be weird since they actually fight). Prob ten times an AI declared without provocation. Is this a new feature, an Immortal difficulty deal, or somehow a result of playing a smaller map than I'm used to? Guess I'll go ask in the main thread, see if anyone knows.
(One unbelievably dumb thing I did was propose and pass Treasure Fleet while only having four cities. Praise be that I never had to fight Shaka. Amusing thing, Shaka and Oda fought a war for the entirety of the 1800s and first half of the 1900s and in all that time one city got taken)
Goddess of Protection deleted. Great Lighthouse at 4 policies. Barbarian exp at the -1 setting (I promise I don't exploit). RAs no tech trading. Resources revealed. Large 12 24 Continents. Marathon speed. No time victory. Ice Free Coasts.
England
Culture Victory
Immortal (Above I guess)
Challenge
As I outlined on github, the turn 1 Spy got me the tech lead by the end of the Ancient. Getting a religion from Mt Fuji and 4 Wheats allowed me to use the Tradition Mastery combo to vault to the culture lead. So I could just do whatever I wanted via wonders, which is prob not the true Immortal diff experience. Including Great Lighthouse, which ironically I ended up not starting til I had five policies anyway.
Fought nothing but defensive wars until I had 'Cruisers of the Line' and Steam Mills built and Imperialism filled. 5 CotLs and 3 regular SotL (and 1 caravel to finish the deal) tore thru Indonesia's coastal cities while our lands stood there staring at each other. He might maybe could have made a move on by land, but held back. I actually had 3 Hwacha turned Artillery from Kongo, so the units he did send died pretty quick. He just had a lot, esp including the ones he sent to try to conquer (EDIT: meant to say 'conquer my CS allies'.). Anyway, eventually I had all of his and Mr. Bluetooth's cities, and then I went back to peace, finally getting the culture win in the Atomic.
Just like seemingly I'm the only player who likes partisans, I guess I'm the only person who likes negative events. I just think its fun to have to make sudden changes and adjustments. Of course, I was in a real good place to begin with. But all four cities had drought at the same time as my empire was in an seemingly infinite Ice Age (i really should have picked the production penalty). I got a hurricane too, except as others have said, it didn't actually kill citizens. And, yeah, I thought recovering from all that while fighting Berserkers was good fun. Idk. I was sad that the meaningful negative events basically stopped in the Med. Just a pillaged mine here and there. I want there to be more. Maybe I'll try to make some. Sounds like I'd have to learn what a 'fireturner' is tho.
One weird thing about this game is that the AI kept declaring war on and conquering City States. Not even as part of that CS vs CS war quest (unless the AI gets diff ones, but that would be weird since they actually fight). Prob ten times an AI declared without provocation. Is this a new feature, an Immortal difficulty deal, or somehow a result of playing a smaller map than I'm used to? Guess I'll go ask in the main thread, see if anyone knows.
(One unbelievably dumb thing I did was propose and pass Treasure Fleet while only having four cities. Praise be that I never had to fight Shaka. Amusing thing, Shaka and Oda fought a war for the entirety of the 1800s and first half of the 1900s and in all that time one city got taken)
Der_Zorn_gottes
King
- Joined
- Apr 10, 2003
- Messages
- 773
Civ: China
Victory Type: Loss
Relative Rank: Harder (Deity)
Outcome: Loss
Version: 9/4
My lands had lots and lots of food, but little production. So my cities grew extremely fast, but lacked buildings. As a result of this a bit of overexpanding, I plummeted into unhappiness. For the better (actually the worse) part of medieveal and the whole Renaissance I was around -10. There were two mercantile CS close, which would have helped. Once I started to befriend one, literally all AIs went apehorsehockey and sent all their envoys right there. There where more than a dozen uncontested CS left, but they sent their diplo units literally all across a huge map to contest for this one. WTH. Against all those dedicated deity AIs, I could not compete and abandoned this one. The other was absorbed by Mongolia. Fine.
Still, I was good friends with a lot of civs, an apparently the pitied me and kept giving me gifts, so I could stay in touch tech wise. In industrial I had my happiness finally sorted out when Mongolia attacked. That was fine with me, I wanted to liberate the mercantile CS anyway and was prepared. I was winning the war, even though at a glacial speed.
However, I really bugled the diplomacy with my southern neighbor who used to be my best buddy. But with him setlling all around (and inside) my territory, and me stealing, tile buying and citadelling him, our relationship cooled down.
Once he had enough of me, I had no way to stop a much stronger and more advanced civ with the token force I had on my southern border.
Victory Type: Loss
Relative Rank: Harder (Deity)
Outcome: Loss
Version: 9/4
My lands had lots and lots of food, but little production. So my cities grew extremely fast, but lacked buildings. As a result of this a bit of overexpanding, I plummeted into unhappiness. For the better (actually the worse) part of medieveal and the whole Renaissance I was around -10. There were two mercantile CS close, which would have helped. Once I started to befriend one, literally all AIs went apehorsehockey and sent all their envoys right there. There where more than a dozen uncontested CS left, but they sent their diplo units literally all across a huge map to contest for this one. WTH. Against all those dedicated deity AIs, I could not compete and abandoned this one. The other was absorbed by Mongolia. Fine.
Still, I was good friends with a lot of civs, an apparently the pitied me and kept giving me gifts, so I could stay in touch tech wise. In industrial I had my happiness finally sorted out when Mongolia attacked. That was fine with me, I wanted to liberate the mercantile CS anyway and was prepared. I was winning the war, even though at a glacial speed.
However, I really bugled the diplomacy with my southern neighbor who used to be my best buddy. But with him setlling all around (and inside) my territory, and me stealing, tile buying and citadelling him, our relationship cooled down.
Once he had enough of me, I had no way to stop a much stronger and more advanced civ with the token force I had on my southern border.
Civ: Iroquois
Victory Type: Domination
Relative Rank: Equal (Emperor)
Outcome: Both very challenging and very easy.
Version: 9/4
Speed: Epic
Started off on a continent with Germany, Spain, America, and England. Every time I bump into England I'm tempted to reroll because she always, always plants her spy in my capital and ruins any chance of me building any wonders and spams me with spy notifications every turn and never takes that spy out even if she agrees to. Beelined Trapping because I was near some deer and because I spawned next to two Dyes and a mostly forested frontier (letting me scout efficiently with just the initial warrior) I decided to forgo a monument or scout rush (since i got the 2 culture from the two dye tiles) and rushed a Shrine. I had no idea how amazing my idea would work out. My warrior dinged into a spearman from a ruin and after meeting all my neighbors and playing nice with them I noticed how defensively poor the other capitals were. I'm a bloodthirsty guy.
After spitting out two settlers, I bought and hard-built some military units to form my city-murdering gang: Two archers and two warriors plus the initial spearman. I was able to get the basic Medic promotion on one of the warriors from barb clearing and immediately declared war on my nearest neighbor, Germany, who had two additional cities with very poor defenses and unfortunately for him happened to be within the very same broad swath of forest/jungle I spawned in.
Note to self: Melee units are exceptionally powerful early on if you can get even a single warrior with the double medic promotion and wolf-pack your way across the continent, eventually getting March on your other units and just forming this rapid, always-healing ball of death.
Here's where things got synergistic. I picked up the God of Commerce Pantheon, and the three opening progress policies for a worker and +3 food / +3 science from city connections. This meant every city that I put down (or captured, in germany's case) instantly popped up with 2 faith, 3 science, and 2-4 gold (from GoC and city connection-for-free-gold) due to the forest connection. I was swimming in gold by turn 80, having completely steamrolled over germany (who could not defend his cities anywhere near capably with the insane iroquois forest advantage) and with nearly every city giving me a free military unit soon after capture (from the event rolls) I didn't lose a single unit.
By turn 200 I had my religion (WLTKD bonus + culture-per-citizen because it's literally the best choice 90% of the time) and had safely taken over half the continent with every other civ either completely wiped out or reduced to a single excuse for a city. Happiness was not even an issue due to the Progress tree plus my religion giving every city a baseline of 3s/4g/ 0.5c/cit leaving the only major unhappiness producer before 10 pop to be Crime, which was quickly solved by planting my armada units into garrisons until I bought or hard-built some basic melee units to take over.
The rest of the game was a matter of time. I had half the map to myself and 18 cities under my belt, swimming in science, gold, faith, and production. I simply turtled and kept my units upgraded until I got Navigation and just took over the other warring continent.
Thoughts: Early warfare can extremely quickly snowball a human player out of control. AI civs don't tend to really start going on the warpath until late Classical, while a player can heavily abuse the 1-range cities by having even a handful of ranged and melee units take down a city in a half dozen turns, all the while getting massive exp. Maybe this game was just a case of incredible synergy gone wrong, and the fact that promotions seem more than a bit unbalanced on longer game speeds.
Victory Type: Domination
Relative Rank: Equal (Emperor)
Outcome: Both very challenging and very easy.
Version: 9/4
Speed: Epic
Started off on a continent with Germany, Spain, America, and England. Every time I bump into England I'm tempted to reroll because she always, always plants her spy in my capital and ruins any chance of me building any wonders and spams me with spy notifications every turn and never takes that spy out even if she agrees to. Beelined Trapping because I was near some deer and because I spawned next to two Dyes and a mostly forested frontier (letting me scout efficiently with just the initial warrior) I decided to forgo a monument or scout rush (since i got the 2 culture from the two dye tiles) and rushed a Shrine. I had no idea how amazing my idea would work out. My warrior dinged into a spearman from a ruin and after meeting all my neighbors and playing nice with them I noticed how defensively poor the other capitals were. I'm a bloodthirsty guy.
After spitting out two settlers, I bought and hard-built some military units to form my city-murdering gang: Two archers and two warriors plus the initial spearman. I was able to get the basic Medic promotion on one of the warriors from barb clearing and immediately declared war on my nearest neighbor, Germany, who had two additional cities with very poor defenses and unfortunately for him happened to be within the very same broad swath of forest/jungle I spawned in.
Note to self: Melee units are exceptionally powerful early on if you can get even a single warrior with the double medic promotion and wolf-pack your way across the continent, eventually getting March on your other units and just forming this rapid, always-healing ball of death.
Here's where things got synergistic. I picked up the God of Commerce Pantheon, and the three opening progress policies for a worker and +3 food / +3 science from city connections. This meant every city that I put down (or captured, in germany's case) instantly popped up with 2 faith, 3 science, and 2-4 gold (from GoC and city connection-for-free-gold) due to the forest connection. I was swimming in gold by turn 80, having completely steamrolled over germany (who could not defend his cities anywhere near capably with the insane iroquois forest advantage) and with nearly every city giving me a free military unit soon after capture (from the event rolls) I didn't lose a single unit.
By turn 200 I had my religion (WLTKD bonus + culture-per-citizen because it's literally the best choice 90% of the time) and had safely taken over half the continent with every other civ either completely wiped out or reduced to a single excuse for a city. Happiness was not even an issue due to the Progress tree plus my religion giving every city a baseline of 3s/4g/ 0.5c/cit leaving the only major unhappiness producer before 10 pop to be Crime, which was quickly solved by planting my armada units into garrisons until I bought or hard-built some basic melee units to take over.
The rest of the game was a matter of time. I had half the map to myself and 18 cities under my belt, swimming in science, gold, faith, and production. I simply turtled and kept my units upgraded until I got Navigation and just took over the other warring continent.
Thoughts: Early warfare can extremely quickly snowball a human player out of control. AI civs don't tend to really start going on the warpath until late Classical, while a player can heavily abuse the 1-range cities by having even a handful of ranged and melee units take down a city in a half dozen turns, all the while getting massive exp. Maybe this game was just a case of incredible synergy gone wrong, and the fact that promotions seem more than a bit unbalanced on longer game speeds.
Teproc
King
Civ: Egypt
Victory Type: Cultural
Relative Rank: Easier (King, first time playing the CBP)
Outcome: Walk in the Park
Version: 9/4
Pretty fun. The AI looked somewhat competent, with 3 of them declaring war on me and being vaguely menacing for five seconds. Can't wait to see what Immortal (my preferred level of play in vanilla) looks like.
Victory Type: Cultural
Relative Rank: Easier (King, first time playing the CBP)
Outcome: Walk in the Park
Version: 9/4
Pretty fun. The AI looked somewhat competent, with 3 of them declaring war on me and being vaguely menacing for five seconds. Can't wait to see what Immortal (my preferred level of play in vanilla) looks like.
tu_79
Deity
Civilization - Russia
Victory Type - Science
Relative Rank - Prince (Compatible?)
Outcome -Defeat
CBP Version - (3-9)
Additional Info - Nice map with inner sea (tectonics). Truffles start. Easy access to 5 CS, decided to go science, though. Brazil bribed war against me several times, until she attacked and I took her capital. I kept the game defending against cultural invasion from brazil, and contesting Austria CS friendships to delay the diplomatic victory. Long bloody war against Austria where she nuked me like 12 times. I lost on turn 500 to Portugal on points.
Victory Type - Science
Relative Rank - Prince (Compatible?)
Outcome -Defeat
CBP Version - (3-9)
Additional Info - Nice map with inner sea (tectonics). Truffles start. Easy access to 5 CS, decided to go science, though. Brazil bribed war against me several times, until she attacked and I took her capital. I kept the game defending against cultural invasion from brazil, and contesting Austria CS friendships to delay the diplomatic victory. Long bloody war against Austria where she nuked me like 12 times. I lost on turn 500 to Portugal on points.
The AI, using nukes?
Also, I couldn't stand losing to points.
My games are always long and the AI score is always inflated by tons of worthless units.
Civ: Shoshone
Victory Type: Domination
Relative Rank: Equal? Higher? (Immortal)
Outcome: Victory
Version: 9/23
Speed: Epic
I wanted to try out the new pantheons, and using Perfect World generation I ended up on a continent with Korea and the Huns with a large swath of desert separating the continent in two. Using the Pathfinder to great cheesy effect, I snagged an ancient ruin on turn five and made that madman a composite bowman. Korea, no matter how many bonuses they could have gotten, were pretty much screwed. I immediately declared war and started farming exp with the bowman, expanding comfortably with an early shrine to get Desert Folklore, tactically placing my first few cities to maximize their effect - and what an effect they had! The original effect,1F1g1f, was fairly lacklustre as the general resources you'd find in a desert would be Wheat, Incense, Sheep, and Stone. With the exception of Wheat appearing on a flood plain, even with Desert Folklore your cities would face low food issues. But with 2F2g2f, you can know for sure that any citizen working a resource would "pay for himself" in food. And since the pantheon works on flood plains, you'll end up with a single wheat on a flood plain giving 8 food before you even get a granary. This combined with every desert resource basically being a free Shrine and vital earlygame GPT lead me to quickly snowballing after finishing off Korea and then it was just "build up nonstop and outscale the AI" for a few hundred turns.
Early war is still extremely effective against the AI. A single ranged unit with proper positioning and planning can farm exp and harass cities nonstop, and a mediocre army (2 ranged units, 2-3 melee units, which are very, very easy to get with maybe hard buying some archers and getting the free military units from events) can effectively render one of your neighbors completely irrelevant, or if you're manipulative like me, render them into a worker and exp generator. You couldn't do this in Vanilla since the Immortal/Deity AI would get so many units they could just roll over on you, but in CP the AI starts with much fewer units and even if the AI is smarter, they still can't beat a human with proper planning and using the terrain tactically.
Winning like this is starting to feel really cheesy, I'm going to try going for a more peaceful hyper-expansionist game where I just aggressively defend my expansions rather than intentionally neuter the closest AI to farm exp/workers/get a free puppet city.
Victory Type: Domination
Relative Rank: Equal? Higher? (Immortal)
Outcome: Victory
Version: 9/23
Speed: Epic
I wanted to try out the new pantheons, and using Perfect World generation I ended up on a continent with Korea and the Huns with a large swath of desert separating the continent in two. Using the Pathfinder to great cheesy effect, I snagged an ancient ruin on turn five and made that madman a composite bowman. Korea, no matter how many bonuses they could have gotten, were pretty much screwed. I immediately declared war and started farming exp with the bowman, expanding comfortably with an early shrine to get Desert Folklore, tactically placing my first few cities to maximize their effect - and what an effect they had! The original effect,1F1g1f, was fairly lacklustre as the general resources you'd find in a desert would be Wheat, Incense, Sheep, and Stone. With the exception of Wheat appearing on a flood plain, even with Desert Folklore your cities would face low food issues. But with 2F2g2f, you can know for sure that any citizen working a resource would "pay for himself" in food. And since the pantheon works on flood plains, you'll end up with a single wheat on a flood plain giving 8 food before you even get a granary. This combined with every desert resource basically being a free Shrine and vital earlygame GPT lead me to quickly snowballing after finishing off Korea and then it was just "build up nonstop and outscale the AI" for a few hundred turns.
Early war is still extremely effective against the AI. A single ranged unit with proper positioning and planning can farm exp and harass cities nonstop, and a mediocre army (2 ranged units, 2-3 melee units, which are very, very easy to get with maybe hard buying some archers and getting the free military units from events) can effectively render one of your neighbors completely irrelevant, or if you're manipulative like me, render them into a worker and exp generator. You couldn't do this in Vanilla since the Immortal/Deity AI would get so many units they could just roll over on you, but in CP the AI starts with much fewer units and even if the AI is smarter, they still can't beat a human with proper planning and using the terrain tactically.
Winning like this is starting to feel really cheesy, I'm going to try going for a more peaceful hyper-expansionist game where I just aggressively defend my expansions rather than intentionally neuter the closest AI to farm exp/workers/get a free puppet city.
pandasnail
Prince
- Joined
- Nov 18, 2015
- Messages
- 538
4/10 Version
Goddess of Protection deleted. Great Lighthouse at 4 policies. Barbarian exp at the -1 setting (I promise I don't exploit). RAs no tech trading. Resources revealed. Large 12 24 'Continents Plus Plus'. Marathon speed. No time victory. Ice Free Coasts.
Egypt
Culture Victory
Immortal (Above I guess)
Challenge
Similar to other games I've played, I conquered a large enough chunk of my continent to amass culture per turn and tourism per turn, and then sent Musicians to other continent's leaders, Shaka in this game, who had racked up Authority yields conquering about 5/7 (minus CSes) of his continent.
Not really much happened (besides my feelings and all that resulted from that I guess), I don't know if its a coincidence in my first game on the Continents Plus Plus map someone posted, but there was too much open space and features for the AI to really want to DoW me in the Ancient. By the time they did, I had enough War Chariots (or 'War Skirmishers' even) and nomadic spearmen, it was no problem. When I finally invaded, there was honestly less carpet than I expected. I put Challenge because I was meaningfully behind in tech until I got the Evangelism enhancer and could really put it to work flipping Greek cities over and over with Pacal.
Only early game wonder I got from the UA was Stonehenge, which at least got me the last religion, a science-y one. Couldn't get a Golden Age one, which was a shame with all points Tombs got me.
I deleted Goddess of Protection specifically to help Gandhi, and in this game he choose Springtime and still didn't found. Sigh.
Oh, and for funsies after some debate I had on here, I built zero Horseman/Knights/Lancers. Didn't really end up building many LSes either tho, just ranged horse.
Anyway, onto the One City Challenge mode next.
Goddess of Protection deleted. Great Lighthouse at 4 policies. Barbarian exp at the -1 setting (I promise I don't exploit). RAs no tech trading. Resources revealed. Large 12 24 'Continents Plus Plus'. Marathon speed. No time victory. Ice Free Coasts.
Egypt
Culture Victory
Immortal (Above I guess)
Challenge
Similar to other games I've played, I conquered a large enough chunk of my continent to amass culture per turn and tourism per turn, and then sent Musicians to other continent's leaders, Shaka in this game, who had racked up Authority yields conquering about 5/7 (minus CSes) of his continent.
Not really much happened (besides my feelings and all that resulted from that I guess), I don't know if its a coincidence in my first game on the Continents Plus Plus map someone posted, but there was too much open space and features for the AI to really want to DoW me in the Ancient. By the time they did, I had enough War Chariots (or 'War Skirmishers' even) and nomadic spearmen, it was no problem. When I finally invaded, there was honestly less carpet than I expected. I put Challenge because I was meaningfully behind in tech until I got the Evangelism enhancer and could really put it to work flipping Greek cities over and over with Pacal.
Only early game wonder I got from the UA was Stonehenge, which at least got me the last religion, a science-y one. Couldn't get a Golden Age one, which was a shame with all points Tombs got me.
I deleted Goddess of Protection specifically to help Gandhi, and in this game he choose Springtime and still didn't found. Sigh.
Oh, and for funsies after some debate I had on here, I built zero Horseman/Knights/Lancers. Didn't really end up building many LSes either tho, just ranged horse.
Anyway, onto the One City Challenge mode next.
Der_Zorn_gottes
King
- Joined
- Apr 10, 2003
- Messages
- 773
Civ: France
Victory Type: Culture
Relative Rank: Harder (Deity)
Outcome: Challenge
Version: 23/4
Peaceful expansion in my corner of the map (highlands) was rewarded by the AIs - I was friends with everyone, resulting in lots and lots of research agreements.
Once the available land was settled, there were only two ways to expand: South into Ethiopia, which was very advanced. Or in the center of the map, into Persia.
I needed a war, because I wanted to capture some great works, and I wanted a central trade hub to get trade routes with everyone. So Persia was my target. However, Persia also had many friends, and peace accords were passed, and he had defensive pacts to boot. Therefore, I wanted him to be the aggressor, and did all I could (demanding all sort of things, lining his borders up with units, denouncing) to annoy him. He did hate me, but did not declare.
I was getting a bit desperate here - Brazil was a huge culture runaway, already having three times of my tourism, and boatloads of policies (he got a very early ideology from three filled trees). At the same time, Austria was systematically allying every CS, having firm grip on the WC. I had no idea how I would win this game at that time.
Finally, just when I was about to bit the bullet and attack first, Darius declared on me. His first two cites fell very quick, as my military still was at his borders. But then. Although he had less techs total, he had military techs I hadn't, and was in a golden age. and the terrain was awful. My units were slogging through dense terrain and over a river, while his 3-movers zoomed around a plain and snipe them of at their leisure. I lost so many units in this war - I think I have won domination victories with less losses in the whole game. I just managed to buy new ones every turn. Fortunately, once his GA was over and I got tech parity, I could advance again. As no other AI seemed to mind me taking his cities, I took more than I initially wanted, which turned out to be correct. Cramming Chateaux everywhere I could and building hotels/stadions/airports with priority, tourism surged.
Amazingly, I remained friends with all AIs even after Ideologies (mainly because Brazil forced everyone into Order. It felt really bad at this time to have to switch ideologies if you are aiming for culture victory, but it worked out all right). In the end, it just took 7 great musicians to force victory through.
Victory Type: Culture
Relative Rank: Harder (Deity)
Outcome: Challenge
Version: 23/4
Peaceful expansion in my corner of the map (highlands) was rewarded by the AIs - I was friends with everyone, resulting in lots and lots of research agreements.
Once the available land was settled, there were only two ways to expand: South into Ethiopia, which was very advanced. Or in the center of the map, into Persia.
I needed a war, because I wanted to capture some great works, and I wanted a central trade hub to get trade routes with everyone. So Persia was my target. However, Persia also had many friends, and peace accords were passed, and he had defensive pacts to boot. Therefore, I wanted him to be the aggressor, and did all I could (demanding all sort of things, lining his borders up with units, denouncing) to annoy him. He did hate me, but did not declare.
I was getting a bit desperate here - Brazil was a huge culture runaway, already having three times of my tourism, and boatloads of policies (he got a very early ideology from three filled trees). At the same time, Austria was systematically allying every CS, having firm grip on the WC. I had no idea how I would win this game at that time.
Finally, just when I was about to bit the bullet and attack first, Darius declared on me. His first two cites fell very quick, as my military still was at his borders. But then. Although he had less techs total, he had military techs I hadn't, and was in a golden age. and the terrain was awful. My units were slogging through dense terrain and over a river, while his 3-movers zoomed around a plain and snipe them of at their leisure. I lost so many units in this war - I think I have won domination victories with less losses in the whole game. I just managed to buy new ones every turn. Fortunately, once his GA was over and I got tech parity, I could advance again. As no other AI seemed to mind me taking his cities, I took more than I initially wanted, which turned out to be correct. Cramming Chateaux everywhere I could and building hotels/stadions/airports with priority, tourism surged.
Amazingly, I remained friends with all AIs even after Ideologies (mainly because Brazil forced everyone into Order. It felt really bad at this time to have to switch ideologies if you are aiming for culture victory, but it worked out all right). In the end, it just took 7 great musicians to force victory through.
