Introduction
Once again, I would like to apologize for the lame report. I actually could not start playing until about a week ago. My real life âsituationâ is really messed up right now. Without getting into the boring and personal details, suffice it to say that⦠well, never mind. I hope to have things back under control for the next Epics and Adventures.
Any now, on to the lame-ass report! I decided that I wanted to play a Cultural game. Itâs been a while since I played one. Oh yeah, I knew that most of the people on RBCiv would crush me in a war game. So I decided to go all lovey-dovey. I figured there would be less competition and it would be a much less stressful game to play. And since I started the game with little time to complete it, it turned out well.
So which civ would I select? That is a question that took a while for me to ponder. In the end, I decided with Huayna Capac of the Incan Empire. I chose them for several reasons. 1) I wanted to start with Mysticism for an early religion. 2) Industrious (+50% Wonder building) is very important when going for a cultural victory since you will rely on many Wonders to get a big culture boost. 3) Financial seemed to make sense since we started on a river. In hindsight, I barely took advantage of the Financial trait with my starting city (capitol), although it did pay off very well for many other cities which also had river access. Cottages starting with 3c are nice. Also, once I had Machinery, it meant that all River/Hills could generate 3c with a Windmill. All of this commerce would lead to a comfortable tech lead throughout the game. The Incan âGranaryâ (the Terrace also has additional culture which would help towards my ultimate goal). PS: Sullla gave me a Warrior as a starting unit rather than a Quechua. Clearly, I would have easily won 1,000 years earlier had I not been cheated in this fashion.
The Game
I planned to play a mostly peaceful game, but that didnât work out at all. Kublai Khan and I would be at war for most of the game. Early on, I befriended both Julius Caesar and Montezuma. They decided to go to war against Alexander of the Greeks and invited me along for the ride. I accepted, although I never sent any troops. That war would last several thousand years. Around 800 AD, the war finally ended when I was shocked to learn that the Greeks had been completely wiped out! Wow, I havenât seen the AI do that in a long time. The good news is that I could finally get Monte to attack the Mongols once I was ready to resume the war again.
It wasnât long before Caesar attacked the Mongols. Monte followed suit shortly thereafter. It wasnât long before I jumped on the bandwagon to claim my share of the Mongol territory. I was still going for a Cultural victory, but getting rid of the Mongols would pretty much guarantee that I would be left alone for the rest of the game once this war ended.
In the meantime, I had founded every single religion except for Hinduism which had become the state religion of two other civs. This is the first game where I have ever founded so many religions. I mostly wanted to make sure I could spread the religions to all my cities. Ironically, Hinduism (the #2 religion world-wide) never spread to any of my cities.
That night I had a dream that I won via the AP. The next day, I really thought it had happened. Later that day, I load the save and canât figure out what happened with that AP win. I check the log. I wait for the next AP vote, but nothing. It was really, really strange. In hindsight, I probably could have gotten a pretty early AP win had I bothered to try. But Iâve never liked it as a Victory condition.
Looking back at the early game, I managed to get a CoL CS Slingshot which is pretty much like cheating, although I donât feel is what as abusive in this particular game as it has been in others.
In other news, I finally discovered Mansa around 1400 AD. I had completely forgotten about him. I knew where he was because of map trades, but never made it over his way since I did not have Open Borders with the Mongols (due to non-stop wars with them). I finally built a Caravel after I researched Optics, but that was not a priority for a very long time.
Cultural Victory in 1665 AD
Not a fast time for a Cultural Victory, but that was mostly due to constant war with the Mongols. In the end, I ended up taking over 4 of their cities with Monte and Caesar splitting the rest. So two civs were utterly wiped out as I played a mostly peaceful game. I probably had a better shot to come in first aiming for a Space victory, since I know this Cultural win wonât be anywhere near the best. Oh wellâ¦
Once again, I would like to apologize for the lame report. I actually could not start playing until about a week ago. My real life âsituationâ is really messed up right now. Without getting into the boring and personal details, suffice it to say that⦠well, never mind. I hope to have things back under control for the next Epics and Adventures.
Any now, on to the lame-ass report! I decided that I wanted to play a Cultural game. Itâs been a while since I played one. Oh yeah, I knew that most of the people on RBCiv would crush me in a war game. So I decided to go all lovey-dovey. I figured there would be less competition and it would be a much less stressful game to play. And since I started the game with little time to complete it, it turned out well.
So which civ would I select? That is a question that took a while for me to ponder. In the end, I decided with Huayna Capac of the Incan Empire. I chose them for several reasons. 1) I wanted to start with Mysticism for an early religion. 2) Industrious (+50% Wonder building) is very important when going for a cultural victory since you will rely on many Wonders to get a big culture boost. 3) Financial seemed to make sense since we started on a river. In hindsight, I barely took advantage of the Financial trait with my starting city (capitol), although it did pay off very well for many other cities which also had river access. Cottages starting with 3c are nice. Also, once I had Machinery, it meant that all River/Hills could generate 3c with a Windmill. All of this commerce would lead to a comfortable tech lead throughout the game. The Incan âGranaryâ (the Terrace also has additional culture which would help towards my ultimate goal). PS: Sullla gave me a Warrior as a starting unit rather than a Quechua. Clearly, I would have easily won 1,000 years earlier had I not been cheated in this fashion.
The Game
I planned to play a mostly peaceful game, but that didnât work out at all. Kublai Khan and I would be at war for most of the game. Early on, I befriended both Julius Caesar and Montezuma. They decided to go to war against Alexander of the Greeks and invited me along for the ride. I accepted, although I never sent any troops. That war would last several thousand years. Around 800 AD, the war finally ended when I was shocked to learn that the Greeks had been completely wiped out! Wow, I havenât seen the AI do that in a long time. The good news is that I could finally get Monte to attack the Mongols once I was ready to resume the war again.
It wasnât long before Caesar attacked the Mongols. Monte followed suit shortly thereafter. It wasnât long before I jumped on the bandwagon to claim my share of the Mongol territory. I was still going for a Cultural victory, but getting rid of the Mongols would pretty much guarantee that I would be left alone for the rest of the game once this war ended.
In the meantime, I had founded every single religion except for Hinduism which had become the state religion of two other civs. This is the first game where I have ever founded so many religions. I mostly wanted to make sure I could spread the religions to all my cities. Ironically, Hinduism (the #2 religion world-wide) never spread to any of my cities.
That night I had a dream that I won via the AP. The next day, I really thought it had happened. Later that day, I load the save and canât figure out what happened with that AP win. I check the log. I wait for the next AP vote, but nothing. It was really, really strange. In hindsight, I probably could have gotten a pretty early AP win had I bothered to try. But Iâve never liked it as a Victory condition.
Looking back at the early game, I managed to get a CoL CS Slingshot which is pretty much like cheating, although I donât feel is what as abusive in this particular game as it has been in others.
In other news, I finally discovered Mansa around 1400 AD. I had completely forgotten about him. I knew where he was because of map trades, but never made it over his way since I did not have Open Borders with the Mongols (due to non-stop wars with them). I finally built a Caravel after I researched Optics, but that was not a priority for a very long time.
Cultural Victory in 1665 AD
Not a fast time for a Cultural Victory, but that was mostly due to constant war with the Mongols. In the end, I ended up taking over 4 of their cities with Monte and Caesar splitting the rest. So two civs were utterly wiped out as I played a mostly peaceful game. I probably had a better shot to come in first aiming for a Space victory, since I know this Cultural win wonât be anywhere near the best. Oh wellâ¦
Of course, I'm still used to the non-expansion Civ4, where anything before 1750AD was considered a strong showing. Beyond the Sword seems to make achieving a lot of the victory conditions possible at earlier dates, in part due to more economic modifiers (levees and corporations and such), in part due to the vastly more effect Research and Wealth options.
