AI Cultural Victories are EVIL

[wodan11]

Originally posted by couerdelion
Wodan,

Do you play on settler level or something?

Stonehenge, Oracle, Pyramids, Parthenon and Great Lighthouse are a lot of early game wonders even if you do get lucky with the resources.

Not quite sure how you are whipping Parthenon and Pyramids. Particularly since you talk of whipping the Pyramids with a brand new city. I thought that a Pyramid whip would need something like 10-15 citizens (ie size 20-30 city)!!!!

oops, said "whipping" but I meant "chopping" of course. Slip of the tongue. I hardly ever whip wonders... that is horrendously expensive.

I play on Emperor. I was able to do this because of heavy chopping and because of running a SE with emphasis on these 3 cities doing nothing but work food resources and mines. I specifically built those cities in locations with at least 2 food resources and 5-6 hills, with at least one having heavy forests so I could chop Pyramids.

To be honest, I could care less if I got the Great Lighthouse etc. My empire only has 3 coastal cities so the benefit of the wonder is negligible. It's main benefit is simply that it will add 12 culture per turn by 700 AD or so.

The comparable option presented by Snoopy would be to have those 3 cities be working cottages. Obviously, that is a completely different situation and making wonders is all but impossible (in those cities, anyway). These are two completely different play styles.

Wodan

[wodan11]

Here's the math. I'm doing this off the cuff so feel free to correct me. If you have a size 8 city working, 2 food resources and 5 mines, something like that, you'll be making what, 17 hammers a turn. That means Oracle takes only 9 turns, Great Lighthouse takes only 12 turns.

They get up to size 8 pretty fast. The first wonders can probably be at least partly chopped, while the citizens are working primarily the food resources. Health isn't a problem so much, probably because my cities are seeking out the health resources on purpose, and Hanging Gardens is pretty easy to get with this strategy. Happiness isn't an issue because temples are part of the strategy. I did have elephants and 1 furs that got with my 5th city I think.

Plus, I purposefully and specifically got trade relations with 4 AIs by intentionally spreading one single religion to them, and have been able to trade them for extra resources.

It's really not magic or anything, it's simply play style.

Wodan

[realpolitic]

Hmmm, never won a cultural victory I think I'll give it a try.

[Unimatrix11]

Cultural Victories can be so much fun... Right now, i am playing a game with my bro. He´s got problems with the A.I. on his continent and tries to convince me to support him against them all the time. Now with me being 50-60 turns away from CV (and located on quite a continent alone - smart maps luck) and him being absolutely unaware of this, i have no issues promising him to send a major force of tanks and battleships out there in like 20-30 turns... It will do both: Sidetrack him as well as the most powerfull A.I. from me winning and give me some extra entertainment at the end of the game...

[wodan11]

Okay, here's another report, to give some hard numbers on my SE version of a Cultural victory.

It's 1400AD or thereabouts, and my lowest culture of my big3 is making 908 culture / turn with the slider at 100% research. At 100% culture, it's making 1188 culture / turn. That's the lowest city... the biggest one (my capitol) was making 1100 and jumps to 1616 with the slider.

To compare, a CE culture game would be more like 300 / turn jumping to 1000+ / turn when you move the slider. So, a CE culture game (when I do it anyway) tends to be a rush toward a fixed tech (such as Rifling), and then you turn off all research so that you get massive culture all in one rush.

With a SE culture game, my culture / turn has been going on the whole game. It slowly creeps up as cities make cathedrals etc and wonders, and as they increase in population and run artists. A slow steady increase instead of a big rush at the end.

Here's the end game culture graph. You can see how it ramps up all game, rather than a big spike at the end the way a CE will do.


Asoka has almost caught up to me in score, and Elizabeth and Qin are not too far behind.

Let's see... what other information is good. I've been running SE all game, and have specifically not gotten Scientific Method. In fact, I've been going for Railroads / Combustion so I can get Public Transportation. Haven't gotten there but it hasn't been a big issue.

Science is 600 / turn with full culture slider (I'm running scientists in all cities except the big3 and about 1000 / turn with 100% research slider.

I only got 4 religions but that has been plenty. The fact that I was able to pin Shaka with an early city has given me plenty of room and time to expand and build those early wonders. Plus, I've been carefully playing him, Genghis, Lincoln, and Isabella against each other. They've been fighting all game. I join in on a couple of wars against Lincoln and Isabella, and once against Shaka, but it was minor. I think I killed maybe two units the whole time. Then I got some Privateers simply to make some more money and kill some of Shaka's and Genghis' galleys, so they didn't get ideas.

Anyway this game was as much about how I was able to play the people on my continent against each other, as it was about my technique of building wonders and running a SE to get a culture victory. Still, the theory is sound. Hopefully all this might help others give it a try.

I guess bottom line I find this much easier than a CE culture win, and less risky too.

Wodan

[couerdelion]

Still can’t see where all that culture is coming from but it is perhaps more interesting to know how you got into a position where you

a) Got size 8 cities
b) Built all those wonders

Somewhere in all this, is access to marble and stone and happiness resources while you’ve also acquired a religion and all of these wonder techs. Also you have been building granaries, temples as well in this period and I presume had to deal with defence – particularly against barbs in the early game.

Just to understand, 900 culture with +300% modifiers would imply that the city is making 225 culture unmodified. Without the doubling of the wonder benefits, this would still need 112 culture from buildings OR lots of Sistine fuelled artists. I’m assuming the latter since 112 culture from buildings is a luxury that I think only belongs to a capital city.

[wodan11]

Size 8 is easy... I wasn't running Slavery. Simply do nothing, and your cities will get to size 8 very quickly. Again, we're only talking about my big3 cities, which I have defined as having a couple of food resources. All my other cities were what I would call "normal" on Emperor, between size 3-5 at that point in the game.

Building wonders I described. Again, the cities were founded on sites that have 5-6 hills, which I quickly mined. The city resources plus a single food resource will allow working, what, 3-4 mines right there, depending on what it is. The second food resource makes it easy to see.

Happiness resources come from having a semi-large territory. If we're thinking about prior to Calendar, that's moot anyway. I had elephants and that's it until I got Calendar. There was a gold up north of one of my cities that I got when it expanded (pretty quickly, because it was a culture city after all). Again, regardless, each city quickly had multiple temples so the happiness was never a big concern.

At the end of the game, my big3 cities were size 23-32 or so. That means between 4-12 "sistine fueled artists" as you put it. You're also forgetting about settled artists. Since I had an Artist GP farm, all of my early artists were settled.

In addition, several buildings and wonders were double culture. All that was necessary was to have built them by 400AD or so. Since 5 mines allows cranking out an early wonder in ~10 turns, it wasn't that hard to do.

I think also you have some preconceptions that aren't necessarily true. You equate a "capital city" with the kind of production I'm talking about, and you say it only belongs in your capital city. Don't you think you could find even one similar site, in a typical game? Then, couldn't you find a third site with max food for your GP farm? Don't you do a GP farm already, anyway?

Wodan

[wodan11]

Think of it this way: instead of planting cottages, what if every single one of your cities is a production city? Think how fast you could make settlers. Units. And, devote a couple of cities to nothing but making wonders.

This isn't about my example game... it's about giving some ideas and excitement to try something new.

Challenge yourself to try it.

Wodan

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by wodan11
Size 8 is easy... I wasn't running Slavery. Simply do nothing, and your cities will get to size 8 very quickly. Again, we're only talking about my big3 cities, which I have defined as having a couple of food resources. All my other cities were what I would call "normal" on Emperor, between size 3-5 at that point in the game.


Wodan

Well obviously you can’t really mean “do nothing” or your cities will take forever to get to size 8. But even then there is a time lag for getting everything

a) Most cities do not get immediate access to both food and production. You need culture to expand the city first (takes around 450 years)
b) Growth only really takes off with a strong food tiles (Irrigated Corn or Grassland Pigs).

So let’s assume that you have at least one 6f tile and it is already improved, that you also have a 4f tile, and the rest of your tiles are grassland hills. The cumulative time to grow then it would take 900 years to grow to size 8 and in this time, production would have been, in total, just enough to build one temple, one lighthouse and a Great Lighthouse.

Somewhere in all this there needs to be a lot of support to generate all that extra production. And even here, you’re city is probably stuck on a happiness cap of 5 (base 3, +1 temple, +1 ivory). You’ve not built a granary or any defences and all you’ve got for your troubles is are weak (in your words) wonder.

This is where it doesn’t add up.

[wodan11]

You're looking at a much earlier time than I'm talking about. And, throwing out "900 years" is nonsensical because that is dependent upon game speed.

Starting at 3000 BC and using your numbers, the city you talk about would build a temple, lighthouse, and Great Lighthouse by 2100 BC. What's the problem? At this point, it's now size 8 and using my numbers can crank out any number of early wonders in ~10-15 turns each. Throwing in temples, granary, etc, is easy.

I clearly said that all my other cities are devoted to making workers, settlers, and units. Plus, I also said that the big3 cities can make units while they're waiting on techs to allow more improvements. I mean, you don't start out at 4000BC with religion and everything.

I get the feeling that you are so "used" to playing conquest/domination and/or having early wars, and that you almost always go straight to BW and crank out axemen. There are other strategies and other ways to play. And there's nothing wrong with having warriors for quite a while. Warriors are cheap and inflate the power graph. You can also use 4 of them to fogbust without maintenance.

Wodan

[realpolitic]

I'm playing for my 1st CV and it's my 1st Diety game, playing the 18 civ map as Rome. The AI built the GW before I had my 2nd twch, IW, this doesn't look good.

[snoopy369]

CV in an 18 player deity game I wouldn't even think of going for wonders except maybe the late game ones that give +% to culture (hollywood etc.) You're not going to get many except for wonders the AI avoids (which you can and should go for, if you know what they are).

[realpolitic]

I can't believe I lost out on the Great Lighthouse. I got it before on this map on Emprorer.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by wodan11
You're looking at a much earlier time than I'm talking about. And, throwing out "900 years" is nonsensical because that is dependent upon game speed.

Starting at 3000 BC and using your numbers, the city you talk about would build a temple, lighthouse, and Great Lighthouse by 2100 BC.

Wodan

Steady Wodan, the use of years, rather than turns was deliberately done to avoid confusion over game speed. You will get a few differences where the game speed does not accurately match the build times so dates are not quite the same (Epic 1000 BC is about equivalent to Normal 1250 BC but time starts to slow down a little) but the differences are not big enough to counter the whole point.

Having said that, I am talking about times around the 1000 BC - 1000 AD period. The sentence you use about finish GL in 2100 BC is certainly nonsensical since it is obvious that you can't do any of those things in 3000 BC lacking

a) A city
b) Either Priesthood or Sailing

Since you’ve already said that you are not talking about your first three cities as being the cultural powerhouses, the focus of my questions is purely on Culture City No.3. You imply that this must be city 4 at the earliest, so I can reasonably presume that you are not found before 1000 BC – at which time it would not be unusual for you to have researched both Sailing and Priesthood and to have acquired a religion. For resource techs you will have also researched Hunting, Wheel, Agro, Fishing, Animals, Mining, Bronze and Masonry which pretty much fills up most of the research if we add Mysticism and either Poly or Meditation – I’ll assume Poly because you are building wonders. With 2 starter techs that’s 9 techs so maybe there’s room for Writing and Monotheism too but not a lot more. Within all this, religion is looking to be a bit of a lottery too. You either have Mysticism and go for an early religion – not only is this a bit of a gamble but it also significantly delays your general development – or you hope for early links to a civ that can lend you a religion.

Anyway, you’ve got City 4 up and running around 1000 BC and you can get this up to size 8 by around 0 AD and complete the Great Lighthouse but this is far too late for that wonder. In fact, you say you got the GL by 300 BC – implied by the fact that it is earning 12 culture by 700 AD. This means that your city will have been up and running before 1000 BC which means that you have been building settlers, and I assume garrisons with other cities.

So I’m question where all this production is coming from if at least two of those cities are also building wonders. Chopping might be one answer but even this is only a partial explanation because some city has to build workers and chopping has only a limited benefit – prior to 1000 AD a single worker takes 540 years (Epic speed) to chop its own cost in hammers – and if that worker is built from 4000 BC, he will not even be finished until 3300 BC(Epic speed). Noting also that the worker first strategy is not ideal if you want an early religion.

I can recall one time when I was able to take a whole load of early wonders but this was a very different situation in which I had little room to expand, had access to marble, was industrious, had “too much” production in my capital and popped at least one early Great Engineer. But even here I only really had two cities that had early wonders and my people lived in misery.

[realpolitic]

Is the creative trait important for a CV?

Are any other traits?

Is the UU inportant?