Cultural Victory: Discussing the basics

[snafuc4]

Originally posted by gentle
...but another prob is, that i cant change civic (pacifism) and religion (taoism) in the same turn, which i do in my current games because i am PHI / SPI (saladin-see above). this actually slows that down by 5 turns *sigh*

Yeah, I get that dilemma when founding Judism & want to go for Organised Religion

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Well last night I finished a game in 2 hours with Saladin, where I did not really play the best in 1904. Score wise this type of victory suffers as you finish very quick after discovering Liberalism, and there is no more science progress neccessary.

I think that the optimum strategy needs to balance the need to get to Liberalism, while getting the neccessary sciences along the way, ASAP and to build all the cuture related buildings and wonders in three cities of choice. Once you get to Liberalism and Nationalism you can ignore science unless you are in a war.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Originally posted by snafuc4


Yeah, I get that dilemma when founding Judism & want to go for Organised Religion

Is there any benefit to changing to the last religion you founded? - 5 culture per turn in the new city, or just the spread of that religion?

in any case Saladin would than give a good advantange for that reason only if nothing else.

Btw how fast does the religion spread without a shrine and how much/ does Organized religion help the spread? What is the optimum / how many turns do you need to keep the religion as main one and than switch? To make the number of missionaries built at a minimum.

(just some random questions I am thinking about )

[gentle]

Originally posted by OneFootInTheGrave


Is there any benefit to changing to the last religion you founded? - 5 culture per turn in the new city, or just the spread of that religion?

There is actually no real benefit but this thought developed out of following scenario:

1.I might play non-myst starter, so I dont get any of the early 3 rels (possible scenario)

2. Nevertheless I need to make sure my wonder city has a religon to profit from pacifism.

3. Ah! I get a missionary when I discover philosophy so I can make sure my wonder city has a a religion but ..oh no! if I have to change civic AND religion I cant do that the same turn ^^

how many turns do you need to keep the religion as main one and than switch? To make the number of missionaries built at a minimum

Good idea - wrong question =P ^^
I guess the correct question would be :"How many missionaries can you built in the period between Organized and Pacifism?"
I dont want do switch religion: If I have founded several I stick to the oldest one (ok, maybe aestethic would be to wait for Islam when playing Saladin but I dont research Divine Rights , so ..Duh!)

[gentle]

Originally posted by OneFootInTheGrave
Well last night I finished a game in 2 hours with Saladin, where I did not really play the best in 1904. Score wise this type of victory suffers as you finish very quick after discovering Liberalism, and there is no more science progress neccessary.

If u dont mind I would like to see the savegame to have a look at the tech tree ?

sry, for doublepost

[OzzyKP]

I started a Prince level game as Gandhi with a very interesting start. I went through and got a Culture win, then I reloaded from the 4000 bc save and am trying for a culture win again to maximize my score and get the win earlier. I am doing much better.

I think at some point I will start an Apolyton University thingy with this save. The start is right on a river with like 8 (!!) flood plain squares. While this kicks ass later in the game, it actually is a slow start because of all the sickness the flood plains cause. But not too far away from that is a spot with some good specials and stone. I was able to churn out wonders in that city and it quickly became dominant culturally.

I was able to found hinduism, judaism, christianity and islam. I've been attacked twice now. The first war I was able to fend off with few losses. Now I'm in the midst of another invasion. The first game I played I was only in one war.

Anyways, its a very interesting game. I'll be back to talk more about it later.

[Rancidlunchmeat]

You don't actually cut off all tech spending after liberalism, do you?

I usually greatly reduce my spending, but I still keep chugging away.. usually have one or two cities building research and one or two building $$ (in addition to my three building culture), and keep my slider at 70-80% in order to grab electricity, radio, democracy, mass media.. etc.

There's a great deal of huge cultural wonders available after liberalism.

[OzzyKP]

Yea, I don't stop science until mass media.

[DirtyMartini]

Dumb question --

When a building/wonder becomes obsolete, do you still continue to accrue culture points from it (I assume the answer is yes).

Also, when monastaries become obsolete, do you lose both the +10% science as well as the ability to produce missionaries. (Again, I'm assuming yes)

I guess I could check myself, but I'm at work and I know I'll forget to check when I get home.

[Arrian]

You lose the +10% science, but you can still produce missionaries.

-Arrian

[DirtyMartini]

Doh, of course you can still produce missionaries, what was I thinking. Probably wasting brain power on work again.

[MasterDave]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by gentle


Indeed. I guess the theoretical best civ for culture would be PHI / FIN...problem there is the civ that actually has these traits starts without mysticism, which i think is a more than just notable drawback, because it can mean that you do not get any of the early religions.
I wouldnt want to change PHI so it comes down the question if FIN is worth being non-mysticistic/non-religious.


I can get hinduism with England about half of the time with England on medium maps. This percentage goes down on larger maps with more civs competing for it. If I do not get Hinduism, I can usually get Judaism by beelining, but this is not a good tech research order for developing one's territory. Having a tile or two that produces commerce in the beginning definitely helps you get polytheism before the others.

Inspired by this thread I have been trying to get a culture victory on Monarch level with Saladin, a leader I have not played before, but I am not having much luck. I keep getting into wars with my neighbors who seem to object to me whoring three or four of the religions.

[MasterDave]

To address some other posts:

You CAN change a religion and a civic at the same time, or on successive turns. The 5 turn waiting period after changing a civic does not apply to religions conversions.

You DO get culture for "obsolete" buildings and wonders. This is why building all of the monasteries you can in your would-be legendary cities before you get scientific method is important if you want a culture victory.

I play on Monarch, and I am quite certain that the AI's would seriously declare war and crush me badly if I stopped teching at liberalism. You have to stay competitive in war techs if you want to keep the peace at that difficulty.

[uberfish]

Partially inspired by this thread, I just won my first cultural victory on Emperor with Egypt (creative/spiritual) in 1935.

This was a rather unusual game, as cultural victory wasn't my original plan. Usually my wins at emperor come from early Iron or Gunpowder age wars to establish a dominant position on my continent and then powering to a space victory. This game, after being forced into an early chariot war with Spain for resources, I found myself surrounded by 4 AI civs with 6 decent to good city sites and access to a lot of calendar luxury resources but limited by health, no iron, stone or marble, and low hills. So my early tech path was Animal Husbandry, Alphabet, Calendar, Drama, Education trading for as much as I could, using cottages to stay in the research game, and making liberal use of slavery. I built one wonder, Hanging Gardens, mainly for the +1 health.

After finishing education I took stock. I had Germany and England, the leading powers to my north and south, both with border tensions and diplomatic penalties from refusing a few unreasonable demands, mitigated by a shared religion (Judaism) of which fortunately I owned the holy city having taken it from Spain at the beginning. Both liked each other a lot more than they liked me and were clearly trading techs with each other but not me, so attacking either would most likely lead to a suicidal two front war with my low industrial capacity. To the west was the unexplored ocean, where France was an unknown quantity who would at least trade techs. To the east was Persia and the crippled Spanish, but I feared attacking that way would extend my border tensions enough to trigger a war with Germany or England before the captured cities were fully assimilated and up to speed. I decided to attempt a cultural victory instead.

Two of my selected big 3 cities had 2 food specials, the third had 1 special + 2 floodplains. The holy city had a shrine but I had to reject it due to too many plains and no food resources. The big 3 cities ended up at size 16-18 with 2-4 artists depending on food supply. I set up as many grassland cottages at each city as possible, and researched up to military tradition (for cavalry for defence), democracy (for civics) and economics (for trade routes as two of my cities were coastal) before stopping research completely at about 1650. England beat me to statue of liberty, so I actually used a great engineer to rush Oxford for lack of anything better to do with him at the time. I ran organized religion for the majority of the game to help hammer-poor cities build infrastructure, and switched to caste system + pacifism to run more artists once most of it was done (which was long after I'd switched over from science to culture.)

I chop rushed hermitage at the worst city, and built two cathedrals in the other two to get a +100% multiplier in each. Fortunately, another religion had spread to the 7th and last city I built enabling me to get the other two cathedrals up. At the end of the game each city was generating 400-450 culture a turn. My capital had the most food and production, so got national epic + globe theatre to run extra artists. I got a total of 5 great artists, all in the late game, and used 4 for the win.

I trained a horde of cavalry which I had to use to fight off Persian/French/Spanish attacks, while trying to carefully manage diplomacy so England and Germany remained pleased. I would trade resources for gold per turn just to get the diplomatic bonus, and once declared "war" on the Aztecs on the other continent at England's request. Since I didn't have a navy and in fact never personally saw any Aztec units during the entire game, no shots were fired but Montezuma eventually paid me 100 gold for peace anyway. I never got astronomy, so kept losing my one fishing boat which I kept a spare on hand parked in port.

I ended up capturing one city garrisoned by infantry from Persia in the late 19th century with cavalry + catapults, which turned out to have Broadway in it, and the last Spanish city which by the time I got there had about 8 riflemen in it and another two shrines allowing me to push culture up to 90%. Casualties were high. Also, the English city with statue of liberty revolted and joined me in 1905. It seems the AI likes to build wonders in border cities in an attempt to relieve cultural pressure. England and Germany were on course for what I guess would be a 1950-60 space launch when I won, fortunately neither of them ever attacked.

Not sure how this got so long - I really just wanted to show that neither wonders nor a heavy focus on pumping out early great artists are necessary for the culture win.

[gentle]

Originally posted by MasterDave
You CAN change a religion and a civic at the same time, or on successive turns. The 5 turn waiting period after changing a civic does not apply to religions conversions.

Actually both periods are applied seperately.
Religions also have a waiting period, though this one does not intermingle with the civics, and vice versa.
Ok, so changing a rel and a civic means skipping 2 turns and have them active at the start of the 3rd (not 5 as I wrongly stated above).
Still it means skipping 2 turns ^^

Not sure how this got so long - I really just wanted to show that neither wonders nor a heavy focus on pumping out early great artists are necessary for the culture win.

Sure, though concentrating on culture should lead to a faster victory and thats what I want.

--
Free day today *cheer* After a week of non-gaming there is no way I wont start the deity game.