Civilization V Solo Reports

[T-hawk]

I've really enjoyed your Civ5 reports, T-hawk. I haven't played too many games of BNW, but I thought I'd chime in with my thoughts on your latest.

Thanks for the thoughts. I've avoided going to CFC to research the optimal paths, but don't mind some gentle pointers in the right directions.

The fastest culture victories actually take the Liberty-Piety route: ICS + faith-generating pantheon/civ ability + faith buildings + the Sacred Sites reformation belief (all buildings purchased with faith provide +2 tourism). Victory dates are typically in the late renaissance.

That's an interesting path. I'm still not seeing mathematically where early tourism matters. Even 20 tourism from a bunch of faith buildings that way shouldn't be keeping up with AIs that should be at something like 100 culture/turn around the renaissance. It really seems like you need the later tourism multipliers to catch up tourism to culture. But I'll give it a shot at some point.

What other civ would you pick? The Netherlands for Polders? They're very map-dependent.

Yeah, that one. I have no problem cooking a map for them. And don't forget their keep-half-the-happy trading ability too. The Dutch abilities get up the early-mid growth curve way faster than anything anyone else has.

What use is a missionary converting 2 cities for +1 happiness from CB, when the AI will just convert them back in another 25 turns?

The use is that those two cities will exert pressure for those 25 turns to convert another couple cities, which convert more in turn, and so on. To pull this off correctly requires going insanely fast on religion, you need something like the religion founded by 1500 BC and missionaries out by 1000 BC, for time for the pressure to work before the AIs start founding their own. Desert Folklore on a cooked map is about the only way to make that work. But work it does. At least in G&K before BNW. The two BNW games I've played do indeed seem to have the AIs better at spreading their religions faster, so yeah wide fast religion might not be the optimal way to go.

World Congress: It's actually pretty easy to pass World Religion, even without converting any AI civs. Just buy their votes! AIs that don't hate you will ask for a luxury or 7gold/turn in exchange, which is a bargain!

I like this thought, but how do you get enough diplomats to negotiate with them all? You only get one in the Renaissance.