Here is a break down of what I think went right and what could have been a little better.
What went right and why I think I won:
Not much, I think I played a fairly good game, utilizing the best parts of my civilization. There were only a few stumbles I can think of:
If the lurkers know of any other miss steps, I would like to know. Help me make my game a little stronger. I did end up playing the rest of the game by turning pin and sub to AI control. I ended up getting a cultural victory on T242, a little quicker than I thought I could. I will write up a brief summary of it later this week.
What went right and why I think I won:
- To start, I think I had a perfect marriage of Civilization and pantheon. Persia's ability to build the Pairidaeza and add +2 appeal to surrounding tiles works perfectly with Earth Goddess. It allowed me to generate huge amounts of faith that I turned into production using Monumentality.
- Early war and getting Jester's lands for my own. Looking the map now, I think I had the smallest area for expansion. In my original area I had locations for 3 decent cities plus some coastal okay cities. North of Bomb Cyclone, in the area between Jester and me, there was a few locations for more cities but Jester's second city was settled towards me and I don't think I had much of an option but to go to war. Taking out Jester open up a large area to settle that took the rest of the game to fill up and I still have a few locations I could settle if I need too.
- El Nino (aka Istanbul) and the Temple of Artimus. Building the temple so early probably cost Jester his game but damn, that wonder help make El Nino a magnificent city. It was at 17 population when the game ended and with Pingala in the city, it accounted for 36.4/181.8
and 43.4/121.6
The most of any city. It still had a little room to grow and could grow further if I built a Neighborhood in it. Probably would have needed an Entertainment District too as it was starting to get crunched by happiness and war wariness. Not sure why the war wariness, as I don't think I lost any units yet.
- Wonders. I was able to secure some vital wonders: the Pyramids, Stonehenge, and the Colosseum. The Colosseum help me grow my empire large as I was limited 4 luxury types. It would have been hard to grow 20 cities without have 7 cities within range of the Colosseum. The Pyramids were great with all the builder labor and Stonehenge got me the only religion in the game, which with Choral Music, added to my massive lead in culture. I also built the Mahabodhi Temple, Great Bath, and Hanging Gardens but those were not as vital and only really help get era points for Golden Ages. I guess the Temple helped save me some faith for more settlers and builders.
- Three consecutive Golden Ages and Monumentality. Unlike the other players, I was able to use faith to supplement my production and out expand everybody. At the end of the game I had 20 cities versus 10 for pindicator and 9 for suboptimal but suboptimal was about to lose a city next turn. It allowed me to buy builders when I needed them. The only downfall was I didn't spread my religion until near the end of the game and lost out on some gold but think the settlers and builders were better uses of the faith.
- Luck. I was very lucking in this game. I was lucky to stumble across the staging of suboptimal's army as he planned to sail across the sea. Because I spotted him early enough, I was able to sink his army in the water with 2 shots from my Frigates. If he had made landfall it would have been much harder to stop them. I say I was lucky since I thought it was going to be pindicator, or both of them, that was planning an invasion, which lead me to sail my fleet across the ocean to check for staging units. Then getting and using Leif Erikson for the add vision let me stay out of sight as I followed suboptimal across the sea and set my trap to send all his units to the bottom of the ocean.
- Culture. People always seem to focus on science but I think it is culture that helps win games. Pindicator pointed to this in PBEM 5 as a reason he won, I have to agree. Higher culture leads to getting better governments faster, the ability to change policies more, and being able to work better tiles in your cities. I had more culture that the others for most of the game. I was starting to research the first techs in the Atomic Era, while sub and pin where researching the starting civics in the Industrial Era.
- Faith. Gathering Storm and Rise and Fall have made faith much more useful than in the base game. Using Monumentality to faith buy settlers and builders in almost a must so you can expand quickly while developing your core cities. As I mentioned earlier, I out expanded the others by a margin of 2-to-1 and most of those cities where faith bought. I think I built 5 settlers in total, maybe 6, and captured 2 cities from Jester. Meaning, excluding the starting settler, used faith to buy 11 or 12 settlers, plus numerous builders. With Monumentality and Theocracy, I was getting a ratio of
-to-
of 1:1.1. I think suboptimal was talking about his production advantage towards the end but one thing he didn't realize is my faith generation plus having the Grand Master's Chapel. Normally, the ratio is 2-to-1, so with 174 per turn I could use 87 per turn for units. I think that is higher than his best city and I could use it anywhere I wanted. Plus, and after I finish Mass Media, I could use it for districts too. The others pretty much ignored faith and it gave me a huge advantage.
- Tech Boosts. My science rate was lower than sub's and pin's for most of the game due to my early aggression but I was able to catch up by getting crucial tech boosts. This was helped by them going to war with each other and then it was my turn to sit back and develop my empire. At the end, I was about 10 turns from starting to pull away in science. I chopped out another Campus at Thundersnow and was about to chop another one at Tornado, then once every city had all three levels of walls, I would run the card that gives +2 for an additional 40. Throw in a few more universities and I would have become the tech leader but it really didn't matter. I only needed a few more techs to win via culture, Steel, Radio, and Computers.
Not much, I think I played a fairly good game, utilizing the best parts of my civilization. There were only a few stumbles I can think of:
- Declaring war on Jester a few turns to early. It would have been nice to have a road across the river at Bomb Cyclone. Much of my added movement was wasted getting out of Bomb Cyclone and across the river. This extended the time it took to eliminate him by quite a few turns. In the end I was successful but it didn't need to take as long as it did. Of coarse, there is not guarantee he would have not declared on me when he saw my trader putting down a road. I think I might go back now and see how quickly I could have captured his cities if I had waited.
- Another thing I could think of was I probably could have gotten a little more mileage out of Monumentality and got out a few more settlers. Maybe played with the policies or made sure I was working all the faith tiles. In the end, it didn't really matter. I already had more cities than the others combined but still might have had more.
- Fighting over Antananarivo with suboptimal. I should have brought the fight to Bologna instead and made him waste a bunch of envoys there. I would have needed a few more envoys and should have built the Apadana instead of the Great Bath at Bomb Cyclone. That would have gave me 2 more envoys, then I could have built the Great Bath at Polar Vortex for another 2. That would help me control Antananarivo and take the fight to Bologna sooner.
If the lurkers know of any other miss steps, I would like to know. Help me make my game a little stronger. I did end up playing the rest of the game by turning pin and sub to AI control. I ended up getting a cultural victory on T242, a little quicker than I thought I could. I will write up a brief summary of it later this week.
per turn, with most of the increase coming from seaside resorts. 