Hello, and welcome to the second of my all-peace high-level tutorials.
Again, there are no records to be seen here, and there's no attempt to outstrip any other achievement of any other players, but, rather, it's simply an example of a way to manipulate the game to enable the more casual player to attain a satisfying high-level victory without having to engage all the unpleasantries of the awful AI and RNG by, instead, just trying to use the diplomacy function combined with a desired destination.
The last tutorial was a 20k cultural victory on Monarch, This one is a Diplomatic victory on Emperor.
While it's always nice to have a Cow in your Capital City's radius, for this example it wasn't actually crucial as can be seen from this 'amazing' little cruddy island this game took place on:
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The Cows here are on plains and start off with just the two food per turn. Luckily there was one square of fresh water, so I could make use of them later, but the initial food variables are quite variable as you don't need a lot for this victory condition.
Once again I recommend the following starting options:
Huge
Raging Barbarians
Archipelago 80% Water
Arid - Cool - 3 Billion Years
AI Least Aggressive
Emperor Difficulty
Seafaring Civ
Maximum Rivals
Reload until you are sure you have your own 'secure' island.
A 'secure' island is one that does not have any Coastal waters attaching it to another island and there are no nearby Coastal waters that could allow an AI to hop over.
The only priority for the first few thousand years then is to defeat the Barbarians, expand over the entirety of your island and, most importantly, build the Great Wonder - The Great Lighthouse (to prevent other AIs from finding you).
This will leave you 'safe' to do whatever you want until one of the AIs discovers Astronomy - a good long way down the road. You can then send out ships to scrounge for Techs but happily refuse any of those revolting AI Demands. You can also go 100% Tech research without having to fork out for any armies at all.
Once they do find you it's just a matter of 'keeping everyone happy', even if this involves forking out for a dogpile against a random AI Civ that does decide to 'try something'. Remember to also be first to The Great Wonder - Magellan's Voyage, just as an additional deterrent to any wavering AIs.
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By this method of play you can still start off relatively slow and still find yourself the Tech leader by the end of the game, you can still build Wonders (I had 1 Ancient, 5 Middle, 1 Industrial and 1 Modern) to which obtaining the United Nations Wonder is absolutely crucial as you won't be able to compete for land to keep you in the running.
Take the first vote and, if you've played your diplomatic cards right, you should get a unanimous vote in your favour, even from the big boys:
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To which, for this game, the fairground hammer, for once, even gave an accurate result:
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And you won't have to spend a lifetime achieving this and it could be achieved quite easily over a weekend or in a week of evenings:
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If you're interested in having a closer nosey at the specific game then here are the saves for the pictures above:
Attachment 347380
Attachment 347381
Once again, I hope I've encouraged some people to find hope in this game beyond mindless AI-counter-spamming/cheating and given hope to those who would like a nice easy high-level epic-victory for the price of a small casual session.
Buttercup
Again, there are no records to be seen here, and there's no attempt to outstrip any other achievement of any other players, but, rather, it's simply an example of a way to manipulate the game to enable the more casual player to attain a satisfying high-level victory without having to engage all the unpleasantries of the awful AI and RNG by, instead, just trying to use the diplomacy function combined with a desired destination.
The last tutorial was a 20k cultural victory on Monarch, This one is a Diplomatic victory on Emperor.
While it's always nice to have a Cow in your Capital City's radius, for this example it wasn't actually crucial as can be seen from this 'amazing' little cruddy island this game took place on:
The Cows here are on plains and start off with just the two food per turn. Luckily there was one square of fresh water, so I could make use of them later, but the initial food variables are quite variable as you don't need a lot for this victory condition.
Once again I recommend the following starting options:
Huge
Raging Barbarians
Archipelago 80% Water
Arid - Cool - 3 Billion Years
AI Least Aggressive
Emperor Difficulty
Seafaring Civ
Maximum Rivals
Reload until you are sure you have your own 'secure' island.
A 'secure' island is one that does not have any Coastal waters attaching it to another island and there are no nearby Coastal waters that could allow an AI to hop over.
The only priority for the first few thousand years then is to defeat the Barbarians, expand over the entirety of your island and, most importantly, build the Great Wonder - The Great Lighthouse (to prevent other AIs from finding you).
This will leave you 'safe' to do whatever you want until one of the AIs discovers Astronomy - a good long way down the road. You can then send out ships to scrounge for Techs but happily refuse any of those revolting AI Demands. You can also go 100% Tech research without having to fork out for any armies at all.
Once they do find you it's just a matter of 'keeping everyone happy', even if this involves forking out for a dogpile against a random AI Civ that does decide to 'try something'. Remember to also be first to The Great Wonder - Magellan's Voyage, just as an additional deterrent to any wavering AIs.
By this method of play you can still start off relatively slow and still find yourself the Tech leader by the end of the game, you can still build Wonders (I had 1 Ancient, 5 Middle, 1 Industrial and 1 Modern) to which obtaining the United Nations Wonder is absolutely crucial as you won't be able to compete for land to keep you in the running.
Take the first vote and, if you've played your diplomatic cards right, you should get a unanimous vote in your favour, even from the big boys:
To which, for this game, the fairground hammer, for once, even gave an accurate result:
And you won't have to spend a lifetime achieving this and it could be achieved quite easily over a weekend or in a week of evenings:
If you're interested in having a closer nosey at the specific game then here are the saves for the pictures above:
Attachment 347380
Attachment 347381
Once again, I hope I've encouraged some people to find hope in this game beyond mindless AI-counter-spamming/cheating and given hope to those who would like a nice easy high-level epic-victory for the price of a small casual session.
Buttercup