Last month I decided to give myself a break from domination and try some cultural wins. Most games I play now are cultural. I couldn't win at Monarch (as usual), I got a late win at Prince, so I decided to go back to Settler and work my way up to Deity. In other to have fun, I decided to play for the HoF.

Settler and Chieftain

I have played a lot of Settler games and just one Chieftain. I used the same strategy at Chieftain and I had a similar finishing date. My best dates are 1540 AD for Settler and 1560 AD for Chieftain.

Settings
Small Land Map (Pangea, Lakes, Inland Sea, Great Plains, ....)
Normal
No Barbarians
Hand-picked opponents - trying to avoid trouble makers (Mounty, Isabela, etc.), spiritual, with hunting as first tech.

Diplomacy

The diplomacy is simple: always accept open borders, never cut relations, always give out techs. Plus a few trades, everyone will be pleased with you, regardless of Religion. I never hand-picked Religious fanatics or trouble makers. It's possible to have a war declared against you even on Settler.

Wonders

I read that the wonders are not so important for Cultural wins, because it's a gamble try to get many of them, it's only possible for lower levels. Well, I guess Settler is a low level. You can get all Wonders. You can wait a loooooong time to build them. You don't need to hurry. I played games with few wonders but the finishing dates were worse.
The AI expands too slowly. The maintance costs are low. I usually could get all resources: marble, stone and copper. The wonders were even cheaper.

Leaders

Gandhi - Industrial/Spiritual - Cheap wonders and temples.
Bismark - Industrial/Expansive - Cheap wonders and health. I have noticed that health is the biggest issue at the game. You want the big cities, working all tiles, so, no trees. You really get close to it.

Tech Trade

You cannot count on that. You may get sailing and other cheap techs. I must try one game with Mansa Musa as rival and see if it gets better.

First build

If I don't have Hunting, I research it first and than build a Scout. The huts are just so good. I usually get workers and settlers.;)

Military

One warrior per city. You may declare war to get a sweet capital. I did that a few times. You don't need to disturb the production of your two/three cultural cities (you may get a city to be your third), use the production of the other cities to go for war. Because I am busy building early wonders, I cannot early rush. Something like 5 Swordsman and two cats are enough to take a civ down by the time I decide to attack. Be prepared for the warrior the AI will sent into your territory :lol:, once I wasn't and lost a city :blush:. Well, the game is one the tables, first place. :mischief:

Cities

You should aim for six cities.
For this strategy to work without changes, your capital needs to have a good food surplus, two food resources. The capital should have production too. The other two cities should go for the places where you can put a lot of cottages and with some hills for production. The other cities you should aim for production and resources.
The three cultural cities should be cultural buildings, the missionaries should be built in other cities.
I usually make the capital the GA farm. I'll put there all GA wonders plus the Globe Theater and National Epic. I aim for 5 artists. The theater + Globle Theater alows 5 artists without Caste System. I never contaminate the GA pool, not even with a shrine. The other wonders I build in the other two cultural cities.

Religion

At the begging of the game I choose a religion that is on most of my cities, I take Organized Religion for building faster. When I can run Pacifism, I choose a religion that only my GP farm has. It will produce much more GP than the other wonder full cities. I usually get one-two GP that are not Great Artist.

Technology

I go for Democracy for getting Emancipation for faster cottage grow. Guilds are useful for grow, Banking give you a free Artist each city, but I am not sure they are worth researching. The AIs are so slow, the game will be finished before you can trade this techs.

End Game

The cottages of your cultural cities should are growing fast while you build/rush buy all cultural buildings. Then you put the culture slider at 100% and wait.
At the end of the game you want gold from the other cities. This means hiring Merchants and build wealth. You need culture just for three cities. No sense building a cultural building, e.g. a temple, if it will be finished few turns before end. It's better just build culture. I'm doing this in my new games.

I think if you go for 9 cities, you'll get faster wins ;)

I think if you go for 9 cities, you'll get faster wins ;)

Depends on what map size she's playing on. On the smaller maps, only six are needed.

I think if you go for 9 cities, you'll get faster wins ;)

Depends on what map size she's playing on. On the smaller maps, only six are needed.

That's true, you need only two temples per Buddhist Stupa, Christian Cathedral, etc. I know I can get faster wins, my best dates are 1540 AD for Settler and 1560 AD for Chieftain, but I am quite happy with them. I have just decided to go up. At higher levels I might learn more tricks and may improve the dates even more. I just want to fill up the table and get a few more first places :p , if I can manage it. I mean, there are few games cultural/small/normal, some slots are still empty.

ah, I see....you didn't mention map size, and since i always play at Standard or larger maps(or almost always) I was assuming you were too :)

I really forgot to specify the map size. Thank you. I'll edit the first post.

Last month I decided to give myself a break from domination and try some cultural wins. Most games I play now are cultural. I couldn't win at Monarch (as usual), I got a late win at Prince, so I decided to go back to Settler and work my way up to Deity. In other to have fun, I decided to play for the HoF.

Hi Anita, I can’t play anything but cultural since I first tried it.


If your goal is to train yourself so you are able to win at Monarch, I would recommend you not to build any wonders at Settler. And not to pop any huts.

If your goal is to take the empty slots with good dates, you are doing it remarkably well. Your plan is sound. I would only change a pair of minor details:
- I wouldn’t use my capital as a GPfarm, but other city. When you hire artist you are not working mines or cottages. If you don’t work mines or cottages, your Bureaucracy bonus goes to waste. I would use one of the other Legendary cities. Others would recommend you one of the auxiliary cities, so that the big 3 can concentrate on building Cathedrals.
- I would get a GS first for an Academy, then all GA as you are doing. Of course this doesn’t make sense if you don’t follow the previous advice.

Good luck with your remaining games, culture fellow!


By the way, can you provide a rough idea about how many turns do you spend researching and how many turns do you spend accumulating culture? Is it 50%-50%? 75%-25%?

Hi Anita, I can’t play anything but cultural since I first tried it.


If your goal is to train yourself so you are able to win at Monarch, I would recommend you not to build any wonders at Settler. And not to pop any huts.

My goal is to play each level the fastest way possible. So I try to use all bonus I get from low levels. In order to get good dates you need to plan, I've never planned my games as much as I am planning now. When I tried Monarch, after three starts to warm up, I was better. I wasn't playing cultural.


If your goal is to take the empty slots with good dates, you are doing it remarkably well. Your plan is sound. I would only change a pair of minor details:
- I wouldn’t use my capital as a GPfarm, but other city. When you hire artist you are not working mines or cottages. If you don’t work mines or cottages, your Bureaucracy bonus goes to waste. I would use one of the other Legendary cities. Others would recommend you one of the auxiliary cities, so that the big 3 can concentrate on building Cathedrals.

Well, it's no quite true. Of course you are working more farms. I use the capital because of the Bureaucracy bonus. I can still have enough production for all buildings. You may have a look at Berlin and give me your opinion (inside the spoil tag). You just need a big capital. ;) It's true, the capital has some late cottages, but they grow fast with emancipation.
http://i170.photobucket.com/albums/u275/lalgarve/cultural/Civ4ScreenShot0049.jpg


- I would get a GS first for an Academy, then all GA as you are doing. Of course this doesn’t make sense if you don’t follow the previous advice.

I'll take note of this. I'm still planning the next game for Warlord level. No time to play now. :( I have exams this week.


Good luck with your remaining games, culture fellow!


Thanks.


By the way, can you provide a rough idea about how many turns do you spend researching and how many turns do you spend accumulating culture? Is it 50%-50%? 75%-25%?
Well, my last good game, I quit researching at turn 151 (820 AD) and won at turn 222 (1560 AD). I used 71 turns to rush buy buildings with gold and for accumulating culture.

Well, it's no quite true. Of course you are working more farms. I use the capital because of the Bureaucracy bonus. I can still have enough production for all buildings. You may have a look at Berlin and give me your opinion (inside the spoil tag). You just need a big capital. ;) It's true, the capital has some late cottages, but they grow fast with emancipation.
Nice city. I wasn't refering to the end of the game though, but to something around 1AD. Imaging you were running bureaucracry at 1AD. Then you were either hiring artists and thus wasting the 50% bonus, or not hiring artist and then you were delaying the set up of your GPfarm. Does it sound reasonable?

Well, my last good game, I quit researching at turn 151 (820 AD) and won at turn 222 (1560 AD). I used 71 turns to rush buy buildings with gold and for accumulating culture.
Interesting. Looking at your figures, the first thing that comes to mind is you should research less techs or you should research faster if you want to improve your finish date.

Thank you for your detailed information, comparing strategies is very interesting.:goodjob:

Nice city. I wasn't refering to the end of the game though, but to something around 1AD. Imaging you were running bureaucracry at 1AD. Then you were either hiring artists and thus wasting the 50% bonus, or not hiring artist and then you were delaying the set up of your GPfarm. Does it sound reasonable?

Yes, it does after a night sleep.It's nice to talk about it with someone. Another point, I usually get one or two great people that are not Great Aritists but late in the game. It sounds me now like a waste. An earlier great scientist is better than a late one.


Interesting. Looking at your figures, the first thing that comes to mind is you should research less techs or you should research faster if you want to improve your finish date.

I was thinking hard. I really need those cottages laid down earlier. I have too few by turn 150. If I manage that, I will not need democracy.

Religion

At the begging of the game I choose a religion that is on most of my cities, I take Organized Religion for building faster. When I can run Pacifism, I choose a religion that only my GP farm has. It will produce much more GP than the other wonder full cities. I usually get one-two GP that are not Great Artist.


Hi Anita. If you're running any civic that is based on religion, it's probably more effective to make sure that religion is in all of your cities. This isn't hard, especially if you only have six. Changing religion shouldn't be necessary for different civic options, since you want to build all the temples, no? And any of your cities, not just the GP farm, can produce a great person ...

i see in your screenshot that you have a health problem in berlin (not surprising, it's a very big city). you have no happiness problems, because you have no globe theatre of course. if your other cities also are doing fine on happiness, which i bet they are since you're at 100% culture now, you might want to trade some of the 4 happy resources that you have that don't also add health to other civs for health resources, if you can, so you can get even bigger cities, and hopefully even more great artists!

i'd keep the spices, sugar, and wine since they give health too now because you have a grocer in berlin. but the dye, gems, gold and ivory you're not benefitting from at all there. the ivory, well, don't trade it to anyone who would make war elephants to beat you up with of course *giggle*.

this is a trick i learned from playing one-city-challenge games. because i have the globe theatre in my only city there, happiness doesn't matter at all after that! you'll still have to check your other cities to be sure of course, but with luxury rate at 100% your citizens love life i imagine.

have fun and good luck! and good luck with exams :)

Tanks everyone for the replies!

Hi Anita. If you're running any civic that is based on religion, it's probably more effective to make sure that religion is in all of your cities. This isn't hard, especially if you only have six. Changing religion shouldn't be necessary for different civic options, since you want to build all the temples, no? And any of your cities, not just the GP farm, can produce a great person ...

Yes, it might be better to have the state religion in all my cities but I would have to change the strategy by building less wonders. I've tried this in my last game and it sounds good so far. I got a 1585 AD finish (Saladin/small/normal/chieftain) but my play was sloopy. I think this time can be improved. It was good for the first try, only 25 years after my best time for this level (1560 AD).

i see in your screenshot that you have a health problem in berlin (not surprising, it's a very big city). you have no happiness problems, because you have no globe theatre of course. if your other cities also are doing fine on happiness, which i bet they are since you're at 100% culture now, you might want to trade some of the 4 happy resources that you have that don't also add health to other civs for health resources, if you can, so you can get even bigger cities, and hopefully even more great artists!
This game I wasn't trading much, I don't know why.:blush: I was selling gold. I think I just have to pay more attention. I haven't worried about the healthy problem because I knew the game would be over before I loose one pop. Berlin grew up near end of game.


the ivory, well, don't trade it to anyone who would make war elephants to beat you up with of course *giggle*.

At Chieftain, I always have 100% peaceful games (if there is war, I started it). I can trade way iron, horses... without fear.

have fun and good luck! and good luck with exams :)
Thanks, I think I did well. :D

I know your working on moving up in the difficulty levels, but I thought I'd point out that this months G-Major 11 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=218974) is a Monarch Culture game.