Game Diary #14: Civilization 5 -- The End

Hello and welcome to the finale of Game Diary: CIvilization 5. For those of you who came late, this is the story of my first campaign in the latest edition of Sid Meier’s turn-based strategy series. You can read through the previous entries for the full story, but here’s the quick version: Choosing the middle difficulty setting (Prince) and normal game length, I was randomly assigned the Archipelago map type and Egyptian civilization.

I began on a small island, with few strategic or luxury resources, and immediately felt fenced-in by the appearance of clouds on low graphics settings. I managed to squeeze three cities onto my small home island, while I was left waiting for over a millennia to explore the wider world. I encountered my first taste of combat from the rampaging Barbarians, while I prematurely declared war on the nearby city-state of Genoa. It would take around two thousand years for me to capture Genoa, which finally capitulated in Game Diary #5.

My weak civilization was growing in strength, so when the opportunity for war against the Greeks came in the early nineteenth century I jumped at the chance. Despite a few gross errors in judgement, I eliminated the Greek civilization in 1927. Then the whole world declared war on me.

Disappointingly weak AI choices resulted in my Egyptian civilization growing in strength and size, capturing and conquering every rival civilization except for the intimidatingly large Siamese civilization. Coming in to this final Game Diary, there are 43 turns remaining and only the Space Victory, Time Victory, and Domination Victory options seem viable. But first I must clash with my rival superpower.

There may be only one -- let’s hope that one is me.

28 November 2010

I made peace with Bismarck in 2030. Of course, with there being just one German city remaining, it was little more than a formality -- they couldn’t trouble me, even if they tried.

In 2032, the Apollo Program was completed in Thebes. I would have 35 turns to build a spaceship -- not gonna happen. I hung on to the Space Victory dream for another five or six turns before letting it go -- there simply isn’t enough time to get all the parts built, especially when I still need to discover some of the requisite technologies.

Bring it on!

That left only conquest and time victories as viable options. I have no interest in a Time Victory, so I turned my focus to eliminating the humungous Siamese civilization. (I need only capture their capital to win, but reaching it is not an easy feat.) Conveniently, Ramkhamhaeng declared war on me in 2032.

I sent out my Destroyers, Battleships, and a newly constructed Nuclear Submarine to wrestle control of the seas. This triggered a tense naval battle in the southern ocean, which lasted several turns. Thanks mostly to my Nuclear Submarine, I came out victorious. In a world of islands, the civilization with the strongest navy rules supreme -- the Siamese coastline was at my mercy.

I had stationed a few units near the eastern side of the Siamese empire, in readiness for war. These units now, with the help of a Destroyer, approached the Siamese city of Nakhon Si Thammarat. I captured the city, and installed a puppet, three turns later. Rio De Janeiro, one of Ramkhamhaeng’s city-state allies, fell to my forces immediately after Nakhon Si Thammarat. As a result, the city-state of Edinburgh took a shine to me -- I had a new ally.

This turn was a good one, as it also brought me a new Great General, triggered We Love the King Day in five cities (due to a Sugar resource acquired in Rio de Janeiro), and saw the completion of the Oxford University wonder in Heliopolis. I got another free technology from the wonder, which meant I had received three free technologies in as many turns -- the previous two having come from a new Social Policy, Scientific Revolution.

A quick score check told me that I was 150 points ahead, with 23 turns remaining.

I had something of a problem, though, as my civilization was all out of Aluminum. You need Aluminum to build many of the Modern Era units. I needed Nuclear Submarines and Missile Cruisers to carry Guided Missiles, which I planned to use in attacking the Siamese capital. But without a new source of Aluminum, this couldn’t happen.

To alleviate the Aluminum shortage, I captured Martaban, a Siamese city with Aluminum in its territory, and founded two new cities -- Giza and Pi-Ramesses -- in 2044. I quickly built a Missile Cruiser the following turn, stocking it with three Guided Missiles. My Nuclear Submarine also made the trip back to my home territory to pick up a couple of Guided Missiles.

Ramkhamhaeng begged (unsuccessfully) for peace in 2045. I knew then that I had him.

The Giant Death Robot unit that I had been so worried about was nowhere to be seen. I guess they either didn’t have one in the vicinity of the capital or hadn’t finished building their first one.

I launched a vicious assault on the Siamese capital, Sukhothai. Five Guided Missiles were flung into the city, reducing its defences to almost nothing. My naval forces formed a semi-circle around Sukhothai, while my strongest land units disembarked in the surrounding tiles. Ramkhamhaeng tried to send in Modern Armor, Destroyer, and Mechanized Infantry units to wipe out my invasion fleet, but we outnumbered them -- the once mighty Siamese empire was on the brink of collapse.

The first missile strikes the Siamese capital.

I conquered the world in 2047, with a mere five turns to spare. I have captured every civilization’s capital city, so I win a Domination Victory.

(Am I missing something, or does Civ 5 ditch the interactive timeline and mini-replay that (in previous Civs) would show up on completion of a campaign? I loved that feature, and was hoping to utilize it in my conclusion.)

Civilization 5 domination victory

If you missed any of the previous installments, you can catch them at the links below.

Pages: 1/2
1 2 >

(4)

10831_319453355346_603410346_9613365_6156405_n

Richard Moss

November 30, 2010

I still can't add pages to my articles, so I'd appreciate it if a mod could move the final thoughts onto page 2 (and duplicate the previous entries part so that it appears on both pages).

Alex R. Cronk-Young

December 01, 2010

There ya go. Glad you kept at this. Are you looking to get through your backlog with another Game Diary, or to play some upcoming releases this way?

Rob Savillo

Yeah, the timeline graphs and game replay are missing from Civ 5...much to everyone's disappointment. When you win, the game just sort of...ends undramatically. The game even throws up that victory panel before it shows your spaceship launch! (You have to hit "one more turn" for that. Strange.)

Looking at your end chart, I have to say that it really demonstrates the power of maritime city-states. Siam had about one third of the land you did but about three times the population! All possible from the extra food in the cities' center tile.

I have the same concerns about diplomacy and the tactical A.I. as you, too. Firaxis's next patch is supposed to address both, but I have no idea when it'll release.

@Alex I'm looking to consider all games equally for the next Game Diary. Of course, it would be nice to further reduce the size of my backlog (which currently consists of somewhere between 20 and 30 games). But, by the same token, the Game Diary thing could be a great excuse to go out and buy a new release (which I seldom do).

So, in short, I'll take any suggestions.

Siam's population actually dropped by roughly 10 million during this final session - it was around four times as big as mine in 2030. I believe their cities were starving because the city-state alliances they'd forged were falling apart. And I'm sure my capture of three Siamese cities took a big chunk out of the population, too.

I can't help but wonder how much of a drubbing I might have received if Siam had actually used its population advantage.

WHAT THE HECK IS A BITMOB?