Ok, I've been broadening my civ4 horizons recently. It started with switching to CE and going for space race victories. That was fun, but now I'm branching out further.

First, I am also now trying for cultural victories. I won a sub 1850 cultural victory with Gandhi last night after going for a hinduism (1st city), judaism (2nd city), stonehenge-oracle (2nd city), lightbulb theology (tried to get it 3rd city, but went in 2nd) opening. I was hoping to not have to fight anyone but I had Shaka and Kublai nearby and limited land. I vassalized Kublai getting to 9 cities and managed to keep Shaka from attacking me the whole game despite serious close borders :goodjob:

My first question is what is a good finishing time for a cultural victory on monarch? My sense is that you can win earlier than the other victory conditions. This was my first sub 1850 victory.

The other branching-out I've done recently is to move to playing "shuffle" map instead of standard continents. I've been enjoying pangaea and fractal in addition to continents, but archipelago is a whole new experience!

My second question is how do people approach archipelago maps? I've been beelining great light house and colossus, but I'm mainly interested in victory condition and tech strategy. Domination seems... :shudder: "lengthy". I won a space race with elizabeth with very little land (I was kinda proud of that one actually as I usually win with the most land). Cultural seems like a really good idea actually. Also, what about tech strategy? I tried a SE and it failed pretty dismally tbh. I really believe the advantage of SE is warring (pangaea) and there is little if any sub-renaissance warring to be had on this map. I'm thinking CE and either space race after renaissance warring or cultural victory?

Thanks!

I always have random maps so I have run a a fair number of archeoplogo games, marathon speed, huge maps, prince level. Commerce is big (as AIs have lots of it with costal cities) so you have to compete. Treasure production sites, do not chop unless you know you can get production otherwise. Space is the easiest. Domination is tedious, but humans are alot better at amphibious landins than the AI. Cultural is fairly easy if you get a few religions, 12 cities (because of my marathon speed) with a temple everywhere so you can get a catherdral in each city. Stay on yout own island (kill anyone with you), build a BIG fleet but you don't need that big of an army. Run caste system and pump out the great artists. Wonders help but are not as important as the number of religions on your island (exceptions parthanon and sixteenth chapel). Keep up good relations and perhaps religions on other lands will migrate to your continant. Once you have indutrialization and mass media turn off research, and go to culture. Do not use your great artists until the end of the game. I have won cultural victories with HC, Agustus (Isolated archeopolgo), Hatshepsut, Mansa Musa, Louis XIV.

Domination seems... :shudder: "lengthy".

:lol:

In one of my early games I made the mistake of going for a late-game domination victory on an archipelago map. My massive fleet filled with artillery and marines was storming across the globe, but I'd go to a lot of trouble to take a city with almost no gain in land percentage. It was a disaster victory-wise, though a rather fun amphibious war.

I personally like the commerce approach to a cultural victory- You get 1 cottage spam city (or all three), research to Biology and crank culture slider up and research to 0%. Biology is better for farming 1 of the cities to run artists specialists on, which join cities if you get them as first 2-3 great people or cutlure bomb towards end. Biology isn't needed if the cities have good food already, like a corn + pig, so you can stop research earlier. It is also good to have 2-3 hills in all the cities, to build various culture buildings/religious buildings under free religion.

I find I shut down research after beelining democracy after liberalism. I use universal sufferage to rush buy everything I need and then put my 3 main cities on build culture and crank the slider to 100%.

IMHO the best way to win in Archipelago maps is conquest. AI does not excel in naval warfare ( I'm being polite :lol: ), and that allows to build a naval SOD and slash and burn city by city, island by island.

I've won early 1800s conquest victories on Prince with Ragnar by spamming Berserkers and upgrading them. CR III, Combat I, Amphibious grenadiers are just sick on water maps. I've actually found this easier on Ice Age-Islands maps than on regular Archipelago, as there seem to be more sites for production cities.

But yeah, cultural victories are pretty easy on water maps. The toughest part about going cultural is "playing defense" at the end, and this is so much easier on island maps because the AI stinks at naval warfare and you can just build a huge fleet.

I find I shut down research after beelining democracy after liberalism. I use universal sufferage to rush buy everything I need and then put my 3 main cities on build culture and crank the slider to 100%.

That's probably a better cut-off point than Biology, if you want to go ahead and crank out the last bits of culture. I like seeing a big bomb to top everything off, but its just icing on the cake. Its hard to get artists towards end of cultural victory.

IMHO the best way to win in Archipelago maps is conquest. AI does not excel in naval warfare ( I'm being polite :lol: ), and that allows to build a naval SOD and slash and burn city by city, island by island.

Don't you find the AI just respawning on the little islands? I'll try it though.

The other victory for archipeligo is diplo. Backdoor or otherwise, it takes some of the slog out of it. We got one recently in The Merchant Queen SG in my sig.

Futurehermit, in the Anglophilia SG (in my sig) there is debate ATM about how much to war in cultural victories. Mutineer is arguing that we need to clear out or vassalize all the other 3 civs on the map. Mutineer's arguments are worth reading, as usual.

The other thing I'm doing is forgetting about 'early' for my victory. I go for 'elegant' or 'emphatic' now. Archepeligo can be just slower so it's good to not be pushed to finish early IMO,

I like Industrious for culture wins. Getting culture by wonders isn't quite as fast but you don't need to shut off research and you can still warmonger for a respectable score. Its more fun than just turtling and pressing enter each turn.

Ramses might be a good leader to try this with - start with just three cities, building wonders and trying to get lots of religions started. With Pyramids early you can run specialists to keep research going when a city isn't building wonders.

Don't you find the AI just respawning on the little islands? I'll try it though.


Indeed.... it requires some "policework" to stop that but is doable. Just be prepared if the situation goes to a all war state .... but again, you're aiming to kill them all, aren't you :devil: ?

Another guy good for that kind of "slash and burn" strat is Toku. The samurai is not as good for a amphibious attack, but those 2 extra strikes and CombatI out of the bat makes a lot of diference when attacking archer type garrisons

SE can be tough on archipelago. You can usually finagle a food resource in most city sites, but I've found fresh water can be tough to come by. It's usually better IMO to use the water-borne food resources to permit cottage spamming on plains.

I agree with those who talk about cultural. It's actually much easier on archipelago than on a "land" map. Use your best city site with fresh water to do all farms and make your GP farm, and cottage everything else.

Wodan

Don't you find the AI just respawning on the little islands?
They do, if you're not at war with them. If you are, they don't.

I liked Archipelago conquests playing as Tokugawa in Vanilla. In Warlords Toku lost his Org trait, and Pro is not nearly as useful. Elizabeth is still my favorite leader, though.

Andrei_V I thought you might weigh in on this one. Your Toku strats got me off Noble up to Prince.

I'm still fascinated by the cultural win on water maps, but it helps if you get a decent bit of land to start on , three cities needed or the first invasion is tough.

I find that all the buildings in the world don't matter and neither does democracy (universal suffrage). All that matters is how quickly you get into caste + pacifism and run artists.

Eg.

A building producing 4 culture, built in 1000BC (doubling to 8 culture in 0AD), is worth about 200 culture in 1500AD. That's nothing.

3 cities. CoL, bulb Philo, caste + pacifism. Chop any buildings you need (temples/theatres/cathedrals).
CS, Lib (doesn't matter what u choose, it's all worthless - hermitage is too expensive, better to run 4 artists under pacifism - it's just for denial and free speech). Run 100% culture and max artists.

Takes about 15 artists. I practiced on noble and got victories from ~1600-1700.

Despite a couple cultural victories in MP, I decided that 1700 was simply too late to be vurnerable, and instead developed astronomy rushes.

My earlyish cultural victories involved having defensive pacts with multiple civs. That helped a lot. Good call on the artists though. I will have to keep that in mind.

I find that all the buildings in the world don't matter and neither does democracy (universal suffrage). All that matters is how quickly you get into caste + pacifism and run artists.

Eg.

A building producing 4 culture, built in 1000BC (doubling to 8 culture in 0AD), is worth about 200 culture in 1500AD. That's nothing.
In general, that's somewhat true. The exception are Cathedrals and other culture multipliers.

Wodan