AI Cultural Victories are EVIL

[snoopy369]

That's worth considering, although I think pacifism is better assuming you're trying to build GAs ... that'll probably give you more raw culture over time than will Free Religion. That said, I probably run free religion more frequently because of the happiness boosts.

[couerdelion]

I've not found the culture slider very useful for generating culture. Artist specialists seem to do a lot more.

[snoopy369]

Culture slider generates a lot more culture than artist specialists, if you have the city for it (eg, cottage city). You can't get 80+ unmodified culture from artist specialists without a worldbuilder modified city; I regularly have cities with 80+ unmodified commerce.

[wodan11]

Wouldn't it take something like 90 artist specialists to match the effects of 100% culture slider in a CE city? Couerdelion you're usually good at this kind of math so your opinion is surprising. Maybe you just haven't thought it through and you're reporting on direct experience? I'm guessing so I apologize if that's not the case. Regardless, that's one thing nice about the boards... we get exposed to other strategies that probably would have never occurred to us otherwise.

Wodan

[snoopy369]

It would take I think 13 or 14 artist specialists, unless their generated culture is not modified by buildings (I never remember how that stuff works). Then subtract a bit because of the commerce you're generating even running an all-food economy; and a bit more for the extra GAs you'll generate.

[wodan11]

Good point about the extra GAs, Snoopy. Anyway 13-14 seems low but I'll take your word for it.

Anyway, despite what I said, when I go for a cultural win, I usually have an Artist GP Farm as one of my cities, and the other two production cities to make wonders and culture buildings, that I farm over at the last minute to run artists.

Running cottages is well and good, but really lacks production earlier when you need it. I have found that having the production is essential, especially when you need to make 5-6 temples, 5-6 cathedrals, plus all the other buildings, plus have time for a few wonders in each city. And, it's tough to effectively cottage over and have Towns by the time you're ready to crank the slider.

So instead I usually go the artist route.

Wodan

[jnh140]

I find it really quite annoying when AIs go the culture\space race route.

Give me a few turns and a couple carrier battle groups and we'll see how many culture points they get making cave art and fashioning crude stone jewelry.

[snoopy369]

Commerce is nearly always better than production; in my example above, you're using 16 squares for towns (80 raw commerce) with only 4 squares for production (which you stop using after you've produced the minimum buildings). You can produce only about 35 raw culture per city with buildings, and no matter how many buildings you have, once you've built them the hammers are wasted. Unless you're using a late-built city to try to win, producing raw culture (ie hammers -> culture) is a bad apple because you are not getting as much as towns. Even villages usually will give you more than raw hammers for an entire city...

You're right that if you are really late in building your city then you'll of course think other thoughts, but to be honest you're better off picking a couple of earlier cities (to have the building doubler effects). It's not hard to have cities very early on with lots of towns, they help you in your monetary endeavours anyhow Specialized cities is the way to go, and no less for a culture victory.

[couerdelion]

I’ll have to admit to being new to almost any victory so I am just finding my way in all of this. As ever the answer depends on a whole lot of things so there will be a lot of exceptions which might force another course of action.

Let’s compare one simple tile – grassland. At a base 2/0/0 it is the one tile that we can add almost anything to. For the purposes of this discussion I will compare two options.

1) Cottage economy will have this eventually grow into a town. With all of the late game adjustments, this will be generating 7 commerce so 0.7 per tile per 10% movement in the slider. Requires Free Speech which is fine because we should be running this anyway if we are going for a cultural victory.
2) Biology-fuelled and irrigated farm. Generating +2 food, this can support an artist specialist who can produce +4 culture and 3 artist GPP points. Now running with Representation, Free Speech, Caste System and Pacifism and having built the Sistine chapel, your artist specialist gives you +6 culture,+4 beakers,+6 artist GPP.

Now I think option 2 looks the more flexible in that it can be used for almost any city that has a decent supply of food. A sea-food city with hills might be even better because it still needs the production to build all of the city-based culture modifiers. Comparing base culture it gives just a little less than a fully developed town on the tile with 100% culture and, on top of all this, will occasionally produce a Great Artists who, dumped in the Hermitage city can add up to 91 culture per turn – any more than 4 cathedrals is going to be a big ask. It has as its downside

a) You need to work the farms in order to support the additional artists
b) The larger city size means that the city must build more health buildings
c) You need to build (or acquire) Sistene Chapel for this to look competitive versus the Cottage Economy.
d) Even when you are running at 90% probability of a Great Artists a Prophet will almost always pop-up

OK that last one is just me getting annoyed at what my game has thrown at me for the last two GPs. Those 4 culture for a third Shrine and 6 culture for Chichen Itza are not always good news.

I think the reason I prefer this approach is that I get a little bit more from my specialists than purely culture and, with the GAs (that’s the artist variety not the age type), probably get a little more – although the other type of GA works better with towns). I can also work the terra-forming a little later since the planning of this cottage variety of the cultural victory . In any case, 100% culture is probably going to difficult to achieve in practice. But the time it takes to get a cottaged city fully functioning is the downside of the CE-variety even if U.Suff is used to finish off any important buildings for those cities

[wodan11]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Commerce is nearly always better than production; in my example above, you're using 16 squares for towns (80 raw commerce) with only 4 squares for production (which you stop using after you've produced the minimum buildings). You can produce only about 35 raw culture per city with buildings

First, let's look at the detail, and then I have a comment about the bigger picture.

5-6 religions
x1 (temple)
x2 (monastery)
= 15-18 culture

+2 (library)
+1 (obelisk)
+3 (theatre)
+3 (university)
= 9 culture

Subtotal 24-27 culture
It's reasonable to have all of those very early, except perhaps the university. So, let's x2 (for 1000 years) all except that one. (21-24)x2 +3 = 42-48 +3

Total 45-51 culture.

A bit higher than 35, but in a real game some religions will arrive late or whatever, so 35 is probably a good number.

Now, about the bigger picture. The number you can get from buildings is limited, which is why wonders are so important. Parthenon is +10 right there, and, you'll be making it early enough that it becomes +20 after 1000 years. That's about a 67% increase just from that one single wonder!

, and no matter how many buildings you have, once you've built them the hammers are wasted.

In every single culture victory game I've gone for, I don't think I have ever run out of things to make. Usually there's too much to do!

It's not hard to have cities very early on with lots of towns

I'm confused... earlier you mentioned having 4 production tiles (with mines or whatever) that you use to make all your temples (etc), but how do you this at the same time you advance your cottages? Your health cap is only going to be 6-8 or so, unless you're playing at very low level.

I suppose you could do 100% city overlap, with 4 cities on each side of each of your big 3 cities, so that the overlap cities are working on making Towns, while your big 3 are using mines. That's certainly workable.

Wodan

[couerdelion]

The 45-51 is probably too high. Particularly since you will have been required to get 5 religions spread to all of these cities AND build all those monasteries and temples by around 900 AD.

If I look at this in terms of Epic speed, then this represents around 230 turns. In this time, I will have spent the following hammers.

Spreading religions:

Assume that the first one comes free to each of the cities. The next religion costs 70 hammers for the missionary – 60 hammers x 7/6 to allow for failure.
Third missionary 84 hammers
Fourth missionary 105 hammers
Fifth missionary 140 hammers.

In total, somewhere in my civ, I will have to find a total of nearly 1200 hammers just for missionaries. There’s a fair chance that some of this will also have to come from my core cities

Now for the buildings. Temples+Monasteries cost 210 for the pair, so each city will have needed 1050 to build those cultural buildings. That’s an average of 5 hammers per turn – since the game start spent just building temples and monasteries.

If you want to add to this expansion costs (settlers, workers and military) and then want to throw in a few early wonders the whole things start to look very unlikely.

[wodan11]

Originally posted by couerdelion
The 45-51 is probably too high. Particularly since you will have been required to get 5 religions spread to all of these cities AND build all those monasteries and temples by around 900 AD.

Yeah, that's why I agreed 35 was probably a good number. Maybe I should have put that part in bold.

If I look at this in terms of Epic speed, then this represents around 230 turns. In this time, I will have spent the following hammers.

Spreading religions:

Assume that the first one comes free to each of the cities. The next religion costs 70 hammers for the missionary – 60 hammers x 7/6 to allow for failure.
Third missionary 84 hammers
Fourth missionary 105 hammers
Fifth missionary 140 hammers.

In total, somewhere in my civ, I will have to find a total of nearly 1200 hammers just for missionaries. There’s a fair chance that some of this will also have to come from my core cities

Now for the buildings. Temples+Monasteries cost 210 for the pair, so each city will have needed 1050 to build those cultural buildings. That’s an average of 5 hammers per turn – since the game start spent just building temples and monasteries.

If you want to add to this expansion costs (settlers, workers and military) and then want to throw in a few early wonders the whole things start to look very unlikely.

Not sure the point here. Cultural victory is very possible; people do it all the time. In fact, it's consistently one of the earliest victory types.

One thing your analysis overlooks is that the hammer cost is spread out. Your "big 3" are building nothing except buildings and wonders. Missionaries, settlers, units, workers all come from other cities.

Seriously... the same kind of hammer analysis you portray could be done on other victory types. e.g., how many hammers does a typical conquest victory spend on units, barracks, etc.? I wouldn't be surprised if it ran into 5 figures (over 10,000 hammers), and on Standard size maps. On Huge it would be even more.

Wodan

[snoopy369]

Artist specialists in one city is a good idea. In two it's not a good idea unless you have crazy food in two spots. Why?

Because you will get about the same number of GA's with one city as with two... you might get two more at the most if you're going for a very long (or very short) time, but ultimately the number will not be anything close to double, because of the increasing amount needed.

[couerdelion]

Well it wasn't so much of an analysis but a suggestion that it would be very difficult to get all those buildings by 900 AD and also get those things done that you need to do at that time.

Either way, I think we agree that 35 is about as realistic a figure for buildings that you can get - at least for all of your cities. Which means that the bulk of the culture required for the cultural victory with either come from specialists or commerce. I can't recall a game where I have had three early cities all with the capacity to build wonders.

[Robert]

No wonders?
Early wonders do a lot for culture on the long term.
not to mention the 'happy resource' generating wonders that give +50% culture!!!