Interesting game...
Hit triple legendary status in 1884, which looks about mid-table for the cultural wins posted so far. (Thanks to orb, Simon c, Harbourboy, Erkon and Fronx for the cultural references...
)
Original plan was to play peacefully from the start, but apparently Peter had other ideas...
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Aarghh!!!
I had figured my cultural buffer was healthy enough to give me warning of any possible sneak attack from my comical mustachioed neighbour. Who'd have thought he'd be sneaky enough to launch an amphibious swords attack directly from his galley? Though I must admit I was impressed - I wouldn't have given the AI this much credit.
Anyway, nearly gave up at this point. This was a triple holy city and at 680AD, was already well stocked with cultural buildings and it's first GA specialist. I almost cried... then turned on War Chariot mode instead and decided to gave Peter a good seeing-to just as a point of principle.
After retaking my holy, holy (holy) city without too much of a struggle, I did sue for peace again and focused back on the cultural win, though now many, many turns behind my original plan.
The next thousand years or so were a tense, satisfying struggle (if rather predicatble) as I slowly pushed Peter into his corners with my cultural boundaries, flipped two of his cities (and one of Qin Shi Huang's) and watched with some satisfaction as he got successively pounded by Saladin - the clear score and power leader - and then Washington (who was the tech leader), sometimes both at the same time. =)
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Looking back, it seems those who did best (Erkon: 1715
, Fronx: 1856) both started early wars against Peter, grabbing some choice city spots and avoiding the need for unplanned (and potentially rather disasterous !) defensive wars later. Unlike the rest of us, it seems. I wonder if this is key? Or whether an extra archer or two for me early on would have nullified Peter's attack, and let me reap the benefit from all that early cultural building in Memphis.
Interestingly, as a natural warmongerer, I found the cultural option to be surprisingly tense and enjoyable. Unlike military wins, which can get boring towards the end (clearing up the cannon fodder after you already know you've won
) the cultural end game was tense and challenging as you switch off science and watch the AIs slowly sail past you on the tech tree, sometimes building up massive stacks of advanced military units to stare at you across the lines and give your riflemen and knights the heebie-jeebies. (It didn't seem worth the
to tech military tradition for cavalry, and none of the AIs were willing to trade it - and I avoided chemistry to hold onto the Parthenon's +50%
bonus for my GA farm).
This seems to be the real challenge for a fast cultural win - how to hold off an increasingly advanced AI from attacks in later half of the game. What tactics do people use for this? Does it help to build up your standing in the power graph (does the AI pay much significance to this)? , or do you rely on diplomatic relations and gifts to ensure peace?
(I did also like Erkon's tactic of bribing Shaka to hound the other AIs and keep them busy...
)
In retrospect, my early tactic of creating hostility between the AIs by spreading different religions to each may have made life more difficult in the long run. While fun, it did make it hard to stay friendly with them all at the same time. Next time perhaps just spread one religion across the world to nurture a friendly, pacifist planet where my cultural plans can flourish... (well, until next time that is...
).