Endgame

And then there's always the Great Gem Heist of 1670:

And for good measure, I turned research back on because the comp was being waaaaay too slow.

And thusly, I ran out of time before the report day around here. However, since I want to finish the bloody game, and it's not QUITE Monday...

<Dwip pulls out his credit card, and cries 'CHARGE!!!!!!'>

There's actually a lot going on in the Mongol war right now, which essentially equates to the world losing a lot on land but owning the seas, and me deciding that yes, Marines are actually kind of cool, since I went to all the trouble of acquiring the tech and such. Not THAT cool, but cool. The "hordes of arty blows up the town before the infantry moves in" would work better, but, well, let's be honest with ourselves. Do I have that kind of industrial base? No? Well then.

And the tech game? That's turned into "Let's watch Korea turn on research and still pull 247 gpt income anyway, just because they can, and because massive world wars sort of end the tech race." In other words, I pulled in Electronics because it was there. Unbenknownst to me, Seoul can actually build the Hoover Dam, too. The mind, it boggles.

And then, as my alliance deals end one by one, I declare peace on Ghengis. At the end of the day, it's about like this:

All in all, a multiturn, largely expensive territorial grab that served no real purpose except to let me play with Marines a lot and give me some rubber. But that's ok.

And with that, Santa Claus and his merry band of gold-plated elves bring the Eternal Infrastructure Christmas to the benighted Mongols. Apparently, if you build hordes of culture buildings and back them up with troops, you don't lose culture wars. Amazing, isn't it?

And it ought to come as no surprise to anyone that I built the Hoover Dam in Seoul in 1764. It's not even worth the pic. Sure, everyone else just got Electronics, but who cares? I'm 7 turns from Modern Era now. Which I do in 1774, pulling Rocketry, and working on Fission. As a consolation prize, I do in fact get aluminum.

Word comes in 1780 that the English are, in fact, building the United Nations. This is bad. Rocketry for Fission to the English, and Seoul's UN ETA is 15 turns. The world watches, waits, and...

For which I pull a Golden Age. Bit late, but appreciate the thought, game. I lose SETI to England, and it was apparently THAT close.

And the vote, well...

And that, as they say, is that. Diplomatic victory in 18 hours, 14 minutes, and 19 seconds of playing (I love that feature...) 2515 points, RBCiv-21 the Lionhearted, and the top of my tiny PTW Hall of Fame.

This game did absolutely nothing for me except for to demonstrate that I have gained enough skill at this game to take a random civ, in the comparative ass end of nowhere, on the second-hardest difficulty. I'll lose out on time to better players, and I've made a few mistakes, but I've essentially found how these things go. Expand like mad to the limits of your territory, improve your land, trade whatever you can for techs, ignore wonders, and just pass time until the world falls apart in industrial and you take the game. That particular formula has ceased to be entertaining for me, yet I do it game after game because it WORKS. Yes, I could do warfare, but Civ-style warfare just isn't all that fun for me. If I wanted a wargame, I'd be playing Medieval: Total War (which is largely what took time from this game) or Age of Mythology. <shrug>

The sole driving factor for me to finish this game was to finish my RBCiv report, to be honest. That has been done. And having had my fill of potlucks now, I think I've had it with standard games of Civ. I've been there, I've done that. Bring on the variants.