Last night I finially finished a game of Civilization V. A game that I started back in October. I had never played a game to completion, in fact I think this was the first and only game I ever started. Obviously I hadn’t put a lot of time in it, mainly because I couldn’t figure out how to win. The only Civ game I had ever played was Civilization Revolution on the 360 and I thought those matches were long, so when I wasn’t nearing victory after an hour investment I assumed I was doing something wrong. Three hundred and fifty (give or take) turns later and I finally achieved victory.

When I took the photo above I thought I was finally nearing victory, I had just overtaken Russia on the northern part of the continent and I moved my ‘massive’ army south to take on Songhai. I figured I’d rush in and burn their three cities to the ground and the game would be over. After the fires cooled I still had not won. “Was there something I’m missing? Do I have to take out the city-states too?” I pondered. Then I realized there were still three civilizations I hadn’t even encountered yet, somewhere out in the mist.

So I sent my troops to sea, at first to the east and couldn’t find anything. After an agonizingly long time of sending ships around the entire continent I found another continent to the west that held the Egyptians and Greeks along with an occupied India.

I started to send every unit in my country westward after forming an alliance with a city-state so I could start staging my troops on their land. I then stormed into Greece and started attacking two cities at once. I liberated Mumbai and returned it to Gandhi as I continued to exterminate the Greeks from existence. I allied with Egypt in order to use their land to surround Greece and burn it to the ground. Greece had fallen.

Now all that stood in my way was Egypt, and I wasted little time breaking my alliance with them (angering Gandhi) and storming across their borders. I at first concentrated all of my troops on their northernmost city and they put up the most difficult fight yet. They took out three or four of my units before I realized if I just took out their capital in the south I would win. I moved my cannons and rifleman south and engaged some of their troops with swordsman as I set up my siege troops. More units were lost, but it was inevitable, their capital would soon fall. I thought I would still have to face India since I handed Mumbai back over to them so I started setting up the rest of my troops on the edge of their border to make my final advance toward victory. Egypt soon fell and it turned out I was victorious. The long war ended sometime in the 1900’s. It was over.

I learned quite a bit during this game. When I first started out I would try to overpower cities rather than attack them strategically with archers and siege units while my ground troops stayed back. I’d lose entire armies trying to take a single city. I also thought in order to win I had to burn every city to the ground, not just the capitals. It’s probably easier to attack a civilization’s outer cities before going for the capital, but next time I don’t think I’ll go after every single one. I also ended up with way too many cities. I had at least 15, if not 20 or more since I annexed almost every city I came across (eventually I started razing them as my unhappiness grew).

I think I’m more prepared for the next game, though there’s still a lot I don’t know. For one, toward the end a few of my cities started starving and I couldn’t figure out why. Also, production was painfully slow in almost all of my cities (30 turns or more for a basic unit) and I still don’t know why that happened either. I still have a lot to learn, but I have to say I enjoyed completing my first game.