Civilization V

[fragger]

I gave myself a challenge - try to research all technologies in the game before the turns run out. In all my years of playing Civ V, I've only ever pulled that off once before. Usually you're playing towards a specific one of the four victory types and as a result don't need to research the whole tech tree - or you simply run out of time before you can get them all (a standard game lasts for 500 turns).

So I put all other considerations aside and focussed solely on scientific advancement. It almost bit me in the bum  - by concentrating on Science, I had very little in the way of military forces and tech, so when not one but two of the other Civs simultaneously declared war on me, I nearly lost the lot. I just managed to repel them with only two badly damaged Swordsman units remaining to me, but it was enough to send them scurrying back behind their borders - and in true bully fashion, once they'd been hit back they didn't bother me again (though they kept denouncing me for the rest of the game, the sulking cry-babies).

I actually pulled off the challenge with about 50 turns to spare, better then I'd hoped, especially with that invasion setback. I got all the way to here, the end of the Information Era, to the final tech simply labelled "Future Tech":

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Started from here, in the Ancient Era (the entire Tech tree scrolls from side to side):

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There are 82 techs in the game, divided up into eight eras: Ancient, Classical, Medieval, Renaissance, Industrial, Atomic, Modern and Information. All players start with "Agriculture", and go from there. You can actually choose which Era you want to start in during game setup - by default, "Ancient" is the start Era, which is how I always play. You can see how the tree is like a flowchart showing which discoveries lead to which, left to right. You can also see how some Techs may require two or more prerequisite techs to be researched, e.g. "The Wheel" requires both "Animal Husbandry" and "Archery". This may seem an odd combination to lead to the wheel, but bear in mind that the earliest military use of both animals and wheels together was in the invention of the Chariot, a unit which "The Wheel" Tech allows you to then build ("Chariot Archer"), so it does actually make sense. The Tech Tree is very well thought out in regard to logical progression. There are a few leaps here and there, but they can be forgiven since overall it's very cleverly worked out.

Once you get to the end of the tree, you just keep researching Future Tech over and over. They are numbered - Future Tech 1, Future Tech 2, and so on. The Future Techs don't allow any new units or abilities or anything to be created - it's really just to give that part of the program something to do. You do, however, score additional points for every Future Tech you manage to research before the game ends.

A profound pearl of wisdom is dispensed by the great G. W. Bush upon completion of a Future Tech. Very insightful, George:

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Along the way, I managed to gain ownership of this:

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The chance to build the ISS doesn't come up very often. It only becomes available when any player is the first to research the "Satellites" Tech. Even then, the opportunity to build the ISS can only be proposed as a resolution in a regular session of the World Congress, which then may or may not be passed, depending on how many Delegates each player commits to a vote of "Yea" on it. So it's a bit of a rarity, but it does convey some nice benefits to whichever player contributes the most Production points towards its construction (it's a collaborative effort, not built by a single Civ like other things, but whichever player can commit the highest amount of Production points towards it during its construction gets to "own" it when it's finished. There are similar World Congress projects, like the World's Fair and the International Games. All this World Congress stuff comes with the EXP, "Brave New World". The World Congress doesn't exist in the vanilla game, but it should, IMO. It's a fantastic addition).

Incidentally, you can switch the Time Victory (turn limit) off altogether, so the game will just keep going until someone wins whichever of the other four victory types you have enabled at the start of the game: Conquest, Scientific, Diplomatic and Cultural. These can be toggled on/off independently of each other, so you can have any combination of victory types in a game (you can turn off all victory conditions entirely, including Time, so the game will go on ad infinitum with no winners, if you're so inclined. I don't see much point in that, but the option is there). If Time is the only victory type enabled, then the game will run until the final turn is reached (in 2050AD) and the winner is then determined by highest points scored. If any of the other victory types are enabled, then the game will end when somebody achieves one of them. Regardless of how a game ends, you can still keep playing on afterwards for as long as you like, but of course nobody can "win" for a second time, and scoring is automatically turned off.

Anyway, I still have about fifty turns left in this game (due to the nature of my self-imposed challenge, all victory types are turned off except Time). I met my challenge, so I'll play out the rest of the turns and see what kind of score I can rack up. One side benefit of having all the Techs is that I now have a formidable arsenal of advanced units on hand, so If the other Civs get uppity and try invading me again they'll find themselves up against Missile Cruisers, Nuclear Submarines, Battleships, Destroyers, Stealth Bombers, Jet Fighters, Helicopter Gunships, Mechanised Infantry, Rocket Artillery, Modern Armour , XCOM Squads and Giant Death Robots - and if all else fails, I have nukes in the barn. A few Fat Men dropped on their Capitals should make them rue the day >:D

[Art Blade]

brilliantly played, fragger :) Apparently it takes at least one advanced ball but more likely a pair of those to pull that off. Wasn't me who said so, I can read it there in the first pic, from top left three down.. actually, there are three balls in that slot.. I can imagine that the game pops up an inspiring message on your way getting there which, since it's all about development, might read, "grow a pair for extra points and grow three for the win." :-()


Although it sounds funny, unfortunately I am pretty sure that the advanced ball got cut short and it was probably advanced ballistics if spelled out. ;)

[fragger]

 

Yep, it is indeed "Advanced Ballistics". I really don't need another ball, advanced or not :-()

[Art Blade]

Alright, now that we played ball and hoofed it a bit we may abstain from dwelling on it for much longer and let the ball do the w@&k :-()

[fragger]

Agreed, let's change the subject :-()

I played the rest of the game out, and although I still won on points, my final score wouldn't set any records. I still made Augustus Caesar though - just:

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Points are awarded for many things, including total population, land occupied and enemies destroyed (and much else). Because I was focussed on science, I didn't throw up a lot of cities, do much expanding or mong much war, so my score didn't loom very large. I'm still happy with it though, considering. I racked up no less than six Future Techs, which was beyond my expectations.

My personal best so far has been about 5400 points, more than a double Caesar (no, that's not some kind of fast-food salad). Vanilla Civ V used to have a "Hall of Fame" screen which preserved one's highest scores and lent credence to one's bragging rights, but they did away with it in some update years ago. Now you just have to take my word for it :-()

[Art Blade]

good. :-D

OK -- waiter, one double Caesar and a glass of Charlemagne to wash it down with, please. :-D

[fragger]

 :-D

[fragger]

Yay! I finally won a game on "One City Challenge", a Cultural victory.

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AND with over a hundred turns to spare (game normally ends on Turn 500 / 2050 AD).

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You win a Cultural victory if you can get your Tourism output to overtake all other players' Cultural outputs before the turns run out. This is how Culture Victory is achieved in Civ V with the Brave New World EXP installed. A Cultural Victory in vanilla Civ V is achieved by totally different means. The BNW version of cultural victory is far more logical and is a lot more fun to w@&k towards.

This is how the win looked in my Culture Overview / Influence by Player window, with me selected (Shoshone) and my cultural influence over the other players shown. The grey bars with the little suitcases over them represent my level of tourism, the purple bars with the little quill & scroll icons are each player's cultural output. You can see how my tourism has overtaken all other players' culture, resulting in an "Influential" level over each.

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"One City Challenge" is enabled through the Advanced Setup menu, towards the bottom of the page inside the Advanced Game Options panel.

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Note that above this panel is the "Victory Types" one. These are the five victory types allowable, and they can be toggled on/off independently. You can see here that I have "Time" and "Cultural" selected. The "Time" option is interesting. This is enabled by default, so that a game will end when the time, or rather turn, limit is reached (500 turns in a game, given my choice of map size and difficulty level). However, if "Time" is disabled, the game will just run ad infinitum until somebody achieves whichever of the other four Victory types are enabled - Science, Domination (Conquest), Cultural or Diplomatic. You can turn all of them off if you want, so that the game would run forever and nobody would ever win, but why you would want to do that I don't know.

If Time is enabled, yet nobody wins by any of the other enabled means, then the game will end on the last turn and the winner will be whoever has the highest point score at the end. It's still a way to win, but not as satisfying as the other methods.

I have won a Cultural Victory once before on One City Challenge, but on that occasion I had Time disabled. Even so, I won on turn 469, so that had I had Time turned on it I would have had a more legitimate reason to celebrate. But this time it was, so now I officially do 8)

Cultural Victory is not easy to achieve even in a "standard" game, where you can have as many cities as you can afford to build and thus a whole empire to support your ambitions. Pulling one off with just a single city is something of an achievement for me.

Now to see if I can win any other victory types in One City Challenge... Maybe I'll go for a Science victory next. It really is an interesting way to play the game :-X

[Art Blade]

very nice, fragger  :-X :)

[PZ]

Nice read, fragger  :-X