All the World's a Stage: Part 3

During the end of the last session I'd discovered Feudalism and Civil Service, so I was now able to build Longbowmen for defense and hopefully shore up my crappy power ratings. I also revolted to Caste System and assigned as many artists as I could to each city while still having them grow a bit. Hastings had topped out at size 12 (just not any more food) which is conveniently above the scoring point.

Napolean gives me a bit of a fright as he's got a stack wandering around my lands:

All the World's a Stage Screenshot 39

But at this point there's nothing really to worry about, he's heading to take out the barbarian city to my north:

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My culture rating currently isn't that high:

All the World's a Stage Screenshot 42

But I'm beginning to make a difference with that. Great Artists 6 and 7 are born over the next few turns:

All the World's a Stage Screenshot 43 All the World's a Stage Screenshot 44

I've merged all these first 7 Great Artists into the cities as super-specialists so that they will count towards the 1500AD scoring point - most culture in one single city:

All the World's a Stage Screenshot 45

With 5205 I don't think I'm getting the points for that one! That screenshot also illustrates that I've significantly improved both my Great Person generation rate and my culture rate. My research goal at the moment is Liberalism - not so much for the free tech (though that would be nice, if rather unlikely) but for the civics. Free Speech with the +100% culture will be awfully useful. Hastings is mostly making Longbowmen, I'd switch it to Culture, but I really do need the military.

Building the Hanging Gardens in Nottingham has had one negative effect:

All the World's a Stage Screenshot 46

There'll be no further mention of him - there's nothing I want to rush build right now, and I didn't want the tech he'd lightbulb that badly, so I just put him to sleep. And he was still there when the end came.

I met Washington back in 1515AD, and finally met Huayna in 1555AD (I seem to have forgotten a screenie of that). I'm finally building up my military a bit, but it's a case of too little too late I think. I'm still capitulating to whatever Napolean wants, but it doesn't make him like me any more:

All the World's a Stage Screenshot 47

And I'm producing Great Artists like nobody's business:

All the World's a Stage Screenshot 48 All the World's a Stage Screenshot 49 All the World's a Stage Screenshot 50

Each of those guys (and all future ones) created a Great Work in one of my Big Three cities. I finally discover Liberalism (not first) and revolt to Free Speech and Free Religion which has nice effects on my culture rate:

All the World's a Stage Screenshot 51

I'm pretty sure I'm not winning this at this rate, but at this point I wasn't expecting to actually lose. The Voice of Hindsight is having hysterics right now :lol:. I, however, am still congratulating myself on the pressure I'm putting on Rheims:

All the World's a Stage Screenshot 52

Notice his rifleman in that city? I've still got Longbowmen as my defenders … and I've only just discovered Gunpowder. My research path now was to beeline to Mass Media (for the broadcast towers), and I switched production in most of my cities over to what was supposed to carry me through to end game - the Big Three are producing Culture, the others are repeating Musketmen. The Voice of Hindsight gets one last observation in - I should've stuck to Longbowmen as they seemed to be stronger against Rifleman & Cavalry attackers.

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Great Artists 11 and 12 were born and created their Great Works. And 1842AD was the beginning of the end …

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I'd been checking occasionally, and finally saw that Nappy was about to come for me. So I switched the Big Three over to Musketmen, too and prepared for my doom.

All the World's a Stage Screenshot 56

In the midst of all this chaos my 13th & final Great Artist was born. Appropriately enough for the variant it was Shakespeare:

All the World's a Stage Screenshot 57

But then Napolean captures 2 of my cities, including Nottingham:

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And I kinda lost heart. I don't think I could've dug myself out of that hole, and there was no longer even a slim chance of winning the game. So I retired in 1858AD.

Back to Part 2 | Onward to Scoring