Win Rate Data - Please post your games' results here!

[Der_Zorn_gottes]

Greece/Random(Continents)Deity/Huge/Marathon

Diplo victory


First game in a while where I didn't overexpand, and also the first win in a while. Funny how that goes, eh?
I had the perfect terrain for the plantation pantheon, and good chances at it due to an early alliance with a religious CS, but Monty grabbed it one turn before me. All his plantation resources were on jungle and he got converted before he improved any of them. Way to go dude.
I did found, but against India as my immediate neighbour I didn't bother with it. I was just contend to let him convert all my cities, as long as ther was no religious strife. Instead, I concentrated on CS alliances.
Our continent was quite peaceful. I was the main warmonger, absorbing first Monty (because he was small, backwards and weak and I still hated him for the panteon stunt) and then Attila (because he had nice land). I was really pleasantly impressed with the Odeon - culture rocked in these two wars, I can see Greece as a quite potent conquest civ. This game, however, I wanted diplo so I contained myself and did not fight any after finishing the huns.
On the other continent, Askia really RULED. In the modern age, he had eliminated four other civs from the continent (the last one was a brutal campaign against Japan, where he was taking one or two cities every turn). This resulted in all kinds of monopolies, strong tech, and truly insane culture. By the time I got my second ideology tenet he had filled Freedom. I could see the values on a CS quest for culture (rounded): "you have aquired 20000 culture. The leading civ has aquired 1400000." All right then.
My saving grace was that at this time I was allied with every CS on the map. However, Askia, running out of conquest targets, decided to have a shot at diplo, and sent out his ambassadors. It was really scary to see scores of his ambassadors running around, while I was only sporting one each turn. Once, when there was a stack of 7 of his next to my borders, I was tempted to declare to snag them, but I guess he would have just replaced them next turn and I would have basically surrendered all CS outside my continent. So I just continued the unequal struggle.
I could just keep enough votes to pass a decolonisation for him, and that was savage. Although he did continue to send out the clowns, I could easily keep enough votes for the final election a couple turns later.

 

[tu_79]

Siam/Random(Continents)Deity/Huge/Marathon

Loss

it started quite all right, with Attila as my southern neighbour. I rushed him with archers, and since he lacked those and the terrain was very kind to me, I quickly got his cap. Unfortunately, conquering his cap erazed his pantheon from it and in the end, I couldn't found.
Still, I got myself two very good Pantheons, and a lot of land to expand to. Even managed to ally some nearby city states early.
Rome attacked, but I managed to beat them back due to the noble sacrifice of an allied city state. It was liberated a bit later.
That's about when my luck ended. Not having a religion of my own, my empire became the battleground of two competing religions, and I was sitting on 30 unhappiness from religious diversions, that I just couldn't help.
Rome, which I had at the ropes but couldn't finish due to happiness regained his strength. In the end I found myself in deep constant unhappiness next to a neighbour who didn't like me and was moving ahead in terms of tech and power. No to mention other, even more powerful civs on other continents.
I saw the writing on the wall and conceded. A shame really, the map and the start were really nice. If only I could have founded...

In this case, shouldn't be better to stick to one of your neighbours religion and prevent the other?

 

[Der_Zorn_gottes]

I would have loved to, but there were missionaries constantly piling in. The western part and western parts of my empire were quite stable, but the middle, where the largest cities were, was contested. Sometimes missionaries from both sides would do their thing on the same turn. There were even times where both were so equal that the city had no majority religion, which relieved a lot of pressure, but that never lasted long.

 

[tu_79]

Perhaps religious unhappiness should be lower for people who didn't found any religion.

 

[vyyt]

I would have loved to, but there were missionaries constantly piling in. The western part and western parts of my empire were quite stable, but the middle, where the largest cities were, was contested. Sometimes missionaries from both sides would do their thing on the same turn. There were even times where both were so equal that the city had no majority religion, which relieved a lot of pressure, but that never lasted long.

For me religion is a must, I always focus on getting one (even at cost of reloading or abandoning a game), so I have never been in your situation, and maybe have a wrong idea about how the missionaries work, but couldn't you tip the balance by choosing one of the 2 rival religions and producing your own missionaries? I think the combined efforts of 1 rival civ missionaries and yours would eventually convert most your cities. You would probably still have problems in cities on the border with the other civ though.

Could this have worked??

EDIT: Ok, this is probably what tu_79 had in mind. So are you saying that even when you were producing missionaries of 1 religion it was not enough?

 

[Der_Zorn_gottes]

Don't think it would have worked. Missionaries are good when there are very few or no beliefers. But once all are converted to competing faiths, they do very little. Lets say a city of size 15, with 9 beliefers of one faith and 6 of others will usually have 10 of the main faith after the missionary did his thing.

I could have tried inquisitors, they work in the described circumstances. But it would have taken 1 inq. to purge, and another to guard to city to stop the AI from sending in half a dozend missionaries to undo it. That's a lot of faith for a non Piety civ, and it would have only solved one city, thus only shifting the frontier to the next.

But you are correct, it still was the line I should have taken, rather than purchasing the faith buildings and hoping the pressure would sort things out. That was too greedy.

 

[vyyt]

I could have tried inquisitors, they work in the described circumstances.

Oh, I thought you could not produce inquisitors unless you enhanced your religion - now that I think of it, it probably does not have to be the religion you have founded, you probably can produce them if your majority religion has been enhanced.

If you could produce inquisitors, then I believe you could have pulled it off. After converting a few cities with joint efforts with the other civ's missionaries and then guarding these cities with a few inquisitors, I think you would eventually gain momentum with the pressure of the nearby cities of yours. It would be interesting to find out how effective it would be ... you are not going to salvage the game from an old save to find out, are you?

 

[Der_Zorn_gottes]

Not likely, since I don't think I have such an old save still (I use just the same 4 saves over and over) and it was with an older version anyway.

 

[Libber21]

Civilization - Ottomans
Victory Type - Diplomatic
Relative Rank - Compatible: I peaked as Deity during BNW with no mods, but have been learning the new stuff with Vox Populi and played on Immortal.
Outcome - Challenge: I started in forested tundra with a copper monopoly potential. The early bonus yields from finishing trade routes from the Ottoman's Tanzimat UA were amazing. I was able to hold my scientific ground early and that's usually the only bump I need to beat the AI. The promotion to siege units worked well to grab a couple encroaching neighbors quickly and efficiently. I was able to push everyone out of my area and make Morocco a vassal in the medieval era. From here I feel I would have won regardless, but I hit the Civ V dream, an unexpected continent. I was playing on pangea and had no expectation of another large landmass, but I found a continent about 50% as large as the one that all of the major civs were on. I was able to plant 8 more cities with pioneers on this new continent and that just made it a cake walk to the end. I could have picked between scientific, diplomatic, or cultural victories. I ended in the year 1896 on turn 318. I was #1 in every demographic except soldiers, where I was 3rd. My final score was August Caesar with 11,826 points. I think the Ottomans are very well balanced and can be used to leverage just about any victory.
CBP Version - v13 (I downloaded it 3/8 if that helps). It's an older version, but I had started the game a few months ago and stepped away for a while. Was one of my more fun games of Civilization ever.