Episode: 4690
Title: Playing Civilization V, Part 14
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4690/hpr4690.mp3
Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:51 (official HPR transcript)

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4690, for 2026-07-24
Today's show is entitled, "Playing Civilization V, Part 14"
The host is Ahuka and the duration is 00:05:48
The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA
The summary is "We conclude a sample game of Civilization V"
Oh, this is a hookah welcome you to Hacker Public Radio and another exciting episode in our ongoing series on computer strategy games
and we're wrapping up the sample game of civilization five in which we are playing as Austria and
trying to get a diplomatic victory
We've already done a couple of episodes about the earlier part of this game
and just to refresh your memory, I made a mistake and
the mistake was to think that puppeting city states was going to help me get to the diplomatic victory
In fact, it pushes me further away from it, but let's see what happens
So now I'm at turn 340. I just puppeted another city state and I have one more on the way
I have sent a large number of military units both land and sea
to the city states that are on Japan's border
If he tries anything now he will likely regret it
Now I'm starting to build things I had not bothered with before like granaries and amphitheaters
I got a couple of great engineers and used them to rush build a couple of wonders
I'm nearly finished puppeting all the city states and my happiness and income are both quite healthy
I am in such good shape that I started to build the world's fair which I initially proposed then ignored
Now at this point I only have one more city state to puppet and then I will have puppeted every city state in the game
So it's time to put my large income to use in other ways by giving gifts to the other players
I may want to get a few more votes on my side to help get over the top and the world leader vote when it happens
On turn 357 I completed the puppeting of all the city states in the game
Meanwhile I'm building up my science and building wonders as they become available
I didn't build any in the early game because I had other priorities
And we've talked before about how I typically tend to do that in Civ Games
Because the early game I really want to get out my cities and develop them
And I find wonders to be a distraction from that
But you know at this point I've got a strong military, a high income and no other pressing needs
My scoring leader board is now double that of my nearest competitor which is still Japan
And there's denunciation of me just expired with them taking no action
Now I used a great engineer to rush build the porcelain tower earning me another great scientist
I then used to build another academy
Now at this point it is mostly a slog to the finish
Since I was so dominant and so wealthy I could afford to pursue a couple of other options just in case
One was a science victory which looked like a possibility though it would be close at this point because I had not been focusing on science from the beginning
I had to be very focused in my science research to do this I couldn't afford to spend time researching every possible technology
The science victory is built on launching a spaceship so I had to focus on things that would get me to that goal
Now the other thing I could try for was a culture victory
Now I'd already dominated two other empires culturally without half try
And I was generating great artists, great musicians and great writers pretty rapidly
So I built museums and then archaeologists and grabbed every artifact I could find to stuff into the museums
But the final victory came when I researched globalization
Now globalization is a tech that allows you to get an extra vote in the world council
For every spy you send to another empires capital and designate as an ambassador
Now I had a bunch of spies by this point which I had mostly kept in my own cities to do counter espionage because I had a big tech lead over everyone
So I didn't want them stealing all my tax
But the fact that I had all of these spies handy meant I could basically put one in each of the other ships
All of the other empires
Doesn't make them as ambassadors
A few turns after I did that a vote for world leader came up and I won
So I did get my diplomatic victory after all
Now this was my first time using Maria Teresa of Austria as my leader and it was fun
But in the end, puppeting all of the city states actually made it harder to win a diplomatic victory
And other games I've played every city state that was an ally was an extra vote in the city council
And I assumed that making them puppets would mean I would get that many votes, but apparently not
Of course if I'd read more carefully in the civilization wiki, I would have realized this because it says they're very clearly
That Austria is one of the worst empires to pick if you're going for a diplomatic victory
So the fact that I managed that anyway is nice
I think I actually could have done a science victory as I had my spaceship half built when I won the diplomatic victory
But I hope this analysis of how I actually played this game will be helpful to someone else
So this is a hookah for hacker public radio signing off and it's always encouraging you to support free software. Bye-bye
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