Come Watch a Civ Noob Make Noob Mistakes

[Gold Ergo Sum]

So this is not only my first ever RB game and first ever write-up, this is also my first game ever above the Noble difficulty, my first ever game on BtS (or Warlords), and only my fifth game ever of Civilization (including I-IV). I am not expecting a good result. But I consider myself to be a brilliant sort of guy, and I’ve studied Sulla, Kylearan and T-Hawk’s playbook, so now I just have to go out and execute so to speak.

I have spent quite a long time contemplating my choice of wonders. Let me break down my thinking on the subject. I am aware that the AI gets pretty large production/commerce/research bonuses on the higher difficulty levels, so I figured I would struggle to get off to a good start. So my initial plan was to grab The Great Library and Statue of Liberty. With these wonders, I might be able to keep up with the AI in early research and production. In fact, I went so far as to request this combination from T-Hawk. But I quickly came to realize that counter to my noob-thinking, the Great Library does not provide two free scientists in every city. But before I could contact T-Hawk to change my wonders, he had already sent me my save file. But he graciously agreed to let me request another, so I was back to the drawing board.

Before choosing Statue of Liberty and Great Library, I strongly debated Pyramids, Shwedagon, and Cristo Redentor. My debate between Pyramids and Shwedagon came down to a debate between Representation and Free Religion. Both provide extra happiness, which is no small advantage, especially when combined w/ upper difficulty penalties, (but slightly less valuable w/ Hannibal’s Charisma) and a research bonus. The Representation bonus, when combined with the Statute of Liberty, would provide nice synergy. Free Religion (+10% beakers) with Shwedagon would provide more value late game, but by the late game, I would already have Free Religion. So really, the only great advantage of Shwedagon would be rushing Free Religion to stay on everyone’s good side. The appeal of Cristo to me was that it was a late game wonder, and thus provided more value. But the ability to change civics for free during a Golden Age nerfs the power of Cristo IMO. And since I have to use my first GP to trigger a GA anyway (or settle), well, there you go. I’ll just save my first GP until I need a civic swap/GA combo. I really came close to picking the Pyramids/Cristo combo for their synergy, but I just couldn’t get past the need for the early flexible production/beaker/gold provided by Statue of Liberty, especially since my understanding of a Ring map (from googled screengrabs) means the entire land mass will be one large continent.

Since I had made up my mind about one wonder, I decided to restudy the whole wonder list over again for the umpteenth time. And for the first time I stopped thinking in generalities and started thinking about victory conditions. And since I suppose on my first try I am unlikely to out-tech the AI on Immortal, I probably don’t want to go for a Space Victory. And I have never tried a cultural victory, so this didn’t seem like the right time to get my feet wet. So that largely left Domination/Conquest. And since a strong military will help keep me alive against better AI/Barbs, West Point seemed like a great choice. Especially when combined with the Charismatic trait of Hannibal, by my math, WP, plus barracks, plus Vassalage/Theocracy will create my units with three free promotions. Three! Even I should be able to win battles with that much XP. I am thinking I might even try to save promotion three for a quick heal after battles unless I need the promotion for better combat odds. Now, a part of me wanted to use Cristo w/ WP so that I could quickly switch in and out of V/T war civics when I was producing units. But Lady Liberty, I just can’t quit you. So Statue of Liberty and WP it will be. The only real hesitation I have about these two wonders are the GPPs they create (Spy/Merchant). But if I just use them for a few GAs, then no harm. No real wonder synergy, but hopefully just what I need on separate accounts.

And then I loaded up my game and realized that my ignorance knows no bounds. The free specialist the Statue of Liberty granted me was only gave me a mere Citizen early on. I didn’t realize I had to have the buildings required to specialize the free specialist. I figured free meant free. Oops! And on another note, I didn’t realize until after the game was over that I had asked for West Point when what I actually wanted was the Pentagon. I kept wondering why Carthage couldn’t build a second National Wonder (Ironworks would’ve been beastly) and just decided that the Palace must count as one of your two NWs in your capitol. Again, oops! So between loading the game up a few times and being paralyzed with fear to make a move, and then also turning it off in frustration after inspecting the specialist screen, I think it took me until Session 5 to even make my first move.

I switched my early build to Fishing boat to let Carthage grow and decided to try to get my Numidian Archers as soon as possible and ignore Axemen (horses were close to Carthage), since who knew where you devious RB guys would hide the resources. Ironically, I wouldn’t end up researching Horseback Riding for ages (I would have Bronze and Iron Working first) and despite choosing West Point, I never declared war the whole game. (I razed one barbarian city, and even that I waited until Mansa did all the dirty work, and then I cleaned up the last Longbowman with my western sentry unit). When my cultural border popped, it gave me a scout from a hut (the only hut I saw all game) and I sent my warrior to the east and my scout to the west. I saw stone on a little island to the east and decided to put my city on that island (negating my Statue of Liberty bonus like a doof) since I didn’t go for any early religions (this becomes very ironic later) and had no way of creating an early border pop in my second city. But this required me to research Sailing and produce a galley. Six of one, a half dozen of another. I would finally settle that second city at about 2200 AD and get the Moai Statues (first time I’ve built them) and the Pyramids in Carthage. Carthage ends up producing nearly every missionary, soldier, settler, worker and ship in my empire.



Barbarians end up chopping down my warrior and scout fairly early, but I never fought another barbarian all game I don’t think. I posted one Numidian Archer on the west side of my Civ and the east side of my borders ran into Ramses quickly when I placed a push city to pick up the Iron near his borders, and that was that for barbarians thank god. Mansa didn’t seem too likely to push all the way down from his spawn to encroach on my borders early, so I tried to build close to Carthage to keep maintenance costs down. My first GP popped as a Merchant, so I ended up settling him to help defray maintenance costs. I rushed to Alphabet and made as many tech trades as I could and managed to stay in second behind Justinian for quite a while. I only met Justinian when I loaded my second Great Merchant into a galley and floated him up the coast for a trade mission in Constantinople (?) for 1300 gold. That 1300 gold proved invaluable for keeping my research up. Once I hit currency, I sold techs every time the AIs could offer me 100+ gold.

It was a weird game, because I never declared war the whole time and only one time did someone try to call out my game of chicken I played by building so little army. I never once got to friendly status with any AIs, but most of the tech leaders (and the ones I annoyed most) like Justinian and Alexander, were on the far side of the map. The whole game stayed peaceful until around 1000 AD when all hell broke loose with this:



I managed to stay out of the fray. But at this point, I came to a few realizations. One, I was falling way behind in score. Two, I had almost no army and no inclination to make one. So Domination wasn’t going to work. I wasn’t the tech leader, so space race seemed like a bad idea. So despite my initial intentions, I decided now would be a perfect time to try my first cultural victory on the fly. The problem was, that circa 1000 AD, I didn’t have a single cottage built yet (oops!). I had spent so much time connecting resources (I had a ton) and chop rushing builds, that I had no infrastructure. For better or worse this hadn’t really been a big deal yet, because I whipped my cities so relentlessly that they had no people to work upgraded tiles anyway (my first time ever using the whip). So I triggered a Golden Age and switched to Serfdom and Bureaucracy, produced a few extra workers, and started cottaging the hell out of everything (with some watermills and mines in Carthage thrown in).

Now what little I knew about cultural victories from reading Sulla/Kylearan and some stuff on CivFanatics, I knew you needed religions (I hadn’t founded any) and lots of commerce for the culture slider. By cottaging, I figured I would be ready to go by 1500-ish AD on commerce. But it was time to take stock of my religions. Between my nine cities (after a late push to get three more settlers out to fill in blank areas), I had four religions. Since Carthage was such a production powerhouse, I started producing one missionary per turn for ages. Now, I knew it was important to build monasteries before Scientific Method (I ended up holding off on this tech for at least 100 years) and to get temples built. And after building the temples, I finally realized exactly what those sweet +50% culture buildings were meant for. But I didn’t realize that you got one for every three temples you built.

Once I realize this, I did a quick city check and realized that I had exactly nine cities, which would allow me to put all four religions’ +50% culture buildings in each of my three cities with the most green for cottages (and Carthage, because of the culture points tied to the early wonders). This was the biggest stroke of luck I had all game in a game filled with tons of luck. Instead of having to settle a useless ninth city just to Universal Sufferage some temples, I just kept pumping missionaries in Carthage every turn and Universal Sufferaging temples everywhere and +50% buildings in my 3 culture cities. By this time, I had long since turned off Research after getting Liberalism, Economic, Corporations, Gunpowder (for token D), Constitution and Democracy (later tech trades would get me Physics, Railroad, and Combustion).



During the build up, I switched to Emancipation and Free Market. By 1500 AD, I was generating about 600-700 gold per turn (and selling old techs for 500-700 gold) and just buying all my buildings. I built the Hermitage in the weakest of my three culture cities (which made it 2nd to Carthage) and the Globe in the other. I ended up building the National Epic in one and Oxford in the other just for additional culture points. This bring me right up to the late 1500s and I was just about ready to roll on the culture slider, when Caesar decided to travel all the way across the map to attack me, despite us having Cautious relations.

A combination of things saved me. One, I turned back on research and finished Rifling in 1-2 turns. Two, I had enough money saved up to upgrade my units and US-rush more units. Three, Carthage was a total beast and could produce Muskets/Rifles/Knights (w/ West Point/Barracks) in 1-2 turns. Four, Caesar only ever sent two piddly land units (Cuirassers) which I quickly dispatched. They only managed to destroy an Iron Mine (which I didn’t need any longer) and one village in a non-culture city. Caesar did send several ships, but in another stroke of luck, not five turns prior I had rushed out Cothons and Caravels to complete some Harbor task the game gave me at random. So I upgraded those Caravels and hammered Caesar’s ships. The fighting was over in a couple turns, but I kept producing units just in case, which slowed down the start of my culture rush, because Caesar wouldn’t even talk about peace for almost 100 years. After a few more turns to get everything in order, I threw down the hammer.

And when it came, I must say, I’ve never quite seen anything like it in my short Civ career. I triggered a Golden Age, finally switched to Free Speech, and pushed my culture slider to 11 (OK, actually 90%). Bam!



That massive orange spike is my economy more than doubling in one turn. At this point, I was creating 700-900 culture points per turn in my three cities. Around this time, I got lucky (less than 50%) and popped a Great Artist, which I saved for a bomb in my weakest city. After 20 turns or so (about 30-ish from victory), I decided to briefly turn back on Research and get Medicine in two turns so I could grow Carthage slightly larger. I also realized that with the slider happiness, I could take the happiness penalty from leaving Emancipation and go back to Caste System for more artists. This helped me pull my second Great Artist at only slightly better than 50/50 odds.

From the time I threw on the cultural slider, I was running a decent profit at 90% culture and did nothing but pump token rifles, cannons, and machine guns everywhere in my empire to hopefully keep the AI at bay. I kept running up my gold reserves just in case I needed to quickly research Assembly Line and upgrade to Infantry. Carthage finished up about 15 turns early and I put it on wealth production and decided to switch to 100% culture. With the two top civs, Justinian and Alexander, beating on each other mercilessly, from here, it was just a cruise in. My second best culture city finished about 12-15 turns later and with my third best city at 42,500, I set off the two Great Artists I had waiting and ended my turn. I got my culture victory in 1901.



Here is a screenshot of my empire in 1900. You’ll just have to excuse the low res textures. My PC is old as dirt.



As you can see, I fell behind in score early and kept falling farther behind. You can see late where Justinian, the long time score leader, got completely hammered by Alexander on the far side of the world from me.



You can see how little military I maintained all game, only really adding to my power late in the game when I was just waiting for my culture to build up turn after turn.



And here you can see what happened when I turned my cultural slider up!



This was Carthage on the final turn. It was a real production powerhouse for me, even without factories/power/Ironworks upgrades. And even still it was my fastest city to Legendary culture, even when I watermilled/mined several tiles rather than cottage.



So this was a game of many firsts for me. But this shall not be my last game at RB, rest assured. I managed to defeat Immortal I suppose only because of the combination of two free wonders (even if I didn’t get anywhere near what I expected out of them), going for cultural victory, and getting incredibly lucky. In summary, I think it comes down to this. Even though I fell way behind in score and failed to execute my original plan, I managed to adapt and find a way to win anyway. And this pretty much comes down to having read through so many of Sulla’s reports. When it came time to consolidate my empire and grow my GNP, what I learned from reading Sulla, Kylearan, and T-Hawk’s reports gave me the know-how. But I have to admit, after never having played on a difficulty higher than Noble, it was really disconcerting to see the AI so far ahead in score and ahead in tech. On the lower difficulties, you stay so far ahead without even really optimizing your game. This was definitely a different AI. Thankfully I seemed like such a minnow, that the AI never bothered with me. So when Caesar said this to me in 1900, once I already had my culture win queued up, I could only smile:





CULTURE WIN
1901
Score: 2223
Hall of Fame Score: _______
Cities Built: 9
Cities Captured: 0
Cities Razed: 1

[Rowain]

Welcome and congrats on your win

Looking at the charts I would say your real luck was that Justinian got attacked by Alex else he might have finished the culture-victory way before you

[Gold Ergo Sum]

I didn't notice how much culture Justinian had pumped out until I was posting that picture yesterday.

But I will say that while I was playing, when I monitored the victory screen, no one else ever seemed very close to victory. I don't think anyone built a single space ship part and Justinian sort of stupidly threw all of his culture into one city if I remember. I think he had one city at like 65000 culture, but his other two were lagging way behind my two slower culture cities.

But Alex really did a number on Justinian in that war.

[T-hawk]

My debate between Pyramids and Shwedagon came down to a debate between Representation and Free Religion. Both provide extra happiness, which is no small advantage, especially when combined w/ upper difficulty penalties

In BTS, there is no difference in the happy cap based on difficulty level. It is 4 on all difficulties. (5 with the Charismatic leader of course, and 6 in the capital with Palace.)

Nobody picked Shwedagon. I think anyone that considered it came to the same conclusion that you did - it would only be good for Free Religion, and other wonders can give you much more happy and research than that. (I like how this Adventure inspired this sort of analysis even for choices that weren't played out.)

I didn’t go for any early religions (this becomes very ironic later)

If you've read of culture wins from the likes of Sullla and myself, you'll know that founding religions isn't key to a culture win. You need access somehow, but there's no need at all to have them early, or to found them since ideally you won't be making Prophet points for any shrines. Typically you'll get three or four from missionary and random spread, and sometimes you can even get one by flipping a city with it.

Very nice recovery to the culture win, even with a dud of a wonder in West Point. One's first culture win is always the most awkward. Mine came in 1874 AD even trying from turn one.