First Civ 5 JPH!P World War is over and in the end, C-pop reigns supreme with a scientific victory. Viva la Crayonlucion!
Wish I had taken more screencaps, but it got so hectic at times I forgot, anyways, MY view on how things progressed:
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The game started with me (China) on one big continent, Korea (forthisgift) and Japan (Flyp) on another. So I already had a bit of an advantage of having a continent of my own. I proceeded to settle a total of six cities, concentrating on improving that empire. Since we had no barbarians in this game and I had a hunch things would be peaceful for a good while, I put zero effort in researching and producing anything military-related. China has the Paper Maker, a unique building which replaces the library that instead of losing gold for maintenance, actually produces it. So I whipped those out and proceeded to build a flourishing empire with plenty of luxuries and a couple of city-state allies. I didn't even research seafaring properly so I was really stuck to my continent and the few small islands neighbouring it.
At some point, Flyp came knocking with his scouts, and much later ftg. I sent my own scouts out way, way later. I noticed that Flyp's Japanese empire was spread out fine, but not particularly flourishing. FTG had built a tall (only a few cities) and apparently flourishing little K-pop empire. As is my habit, only enhanced by the Chinese, I produced a lot of gold and used it to keep my city-state allies happy. At one point I finally sent out some scouts and started buying out the city-states on the Korea-Japan continent. I don't think Flyp liked it much coz he started harassing one of the city-states near my continent and eventually took it.
After that, Flyp brought that invading J-pop force to my cities. I still had only a few military units but also a strong infrastructure and tech levels that eclipsed Flyp's. I started cranking out infantries, which were twice as strong as Flyp's riflemen. I also researched the landship just in time, so I managed to add plenty of fast, strong tanky units into the fray as well. Japan has this unique skill that their units deal full damage even if they're completely crippled and near death, but it was of little help because I had such technical superiority among my troops. In the end, I threw Flyp's force back. At this point Flyp had to bow out of the game. Now, I had a massive army built just to defend the assault, but it made sense to use it for something. So I decided to invade Japan with it.
I started taking down the now AI-controlled Japanese cities with my army and eventually ended up on the Korean-Japanese continent. I had plans to simply roll over Japan and take control of all their cities. After I had conquered a few cities, however, ftg finished the Apollo Program (which allows you to build spaceship parts for a scientific victory) and alarm bells started to ring in my head. I wasn't concentrating on winning the game yet, and I hadn't even researched Apollo Program tech myself yet. I knew I had to do something.
I negotiated a bitter peace with Japan, which included them giving me one of their cities closest to the K-pop empire. And since time was of the essence, I quickly built a squadron of bombers and battleships, as many as my oil reserves would allow, and quickly (perhaps even too quickly, as the slower forces lagged behind the tanks) threw all of my forces at the Korean capitol. This is where the real fun began.
As my tanks blitzed towards the western border of K-pop land, I knew the diversion was well-placed. You see, Korea was not prepared for a full-fledged assault from the west via land. He had a fleet of subs ready to take down any eastern naval assault but since I was already on the continent, waging war with Japan, it was easy for me to stage a land attack. I didn't expect any great success, although after I saw the Korean defense force (consisting of a few inferior war infantries) I was momentarily more confident in my chances. Well, at least until the first nuke hit my troops.
Yeah, ftg decided to decimate my troops, along with the western half of the Korean empire, with nuclear strikes. My troops, while many in number, perished quickly when battered with atomic bombs. K-pop land was now all shiny with radiation and black with burning smoke. All this served to create the diversion I was looking for, however. Since Korea was now forced to invest in the war, all my cities were cranking out science, science, science. I caught up with ftg, and soared to all the technologies I needed to build the spaceship parts. Eventually almost the whole of my Crayonese army perished on Korean soil. But they served their purpose, as I finished my spaceship and took the scientific victory.
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I have to say this game was a lot of fun. I've only played CIV 5 for a few weeks now, but playing with friends adds an extra layer of awesome. The simultaneous turns made wars a hectic click-fest of who-strikes-first, but it still worked fine somehow. Hope to play another world war soon, maybe this time with barbarians or something different like that. I did feel like I had a big advantage with the big, peaceful continent I got all for myself.
Some stats from the end.
The size of my main empire a few turns before the scientific victory.