http://www.civfanatics.net/methos/hof/staff/gauntlet.gifWhile the general Hall of Fame is an ongoing competition, we like to run time-definite competitions between updates that we call Gauntlets. Standard Hall of Fame rules (*) still apply, but any games meeting the settings will be counted towards the Gauntlet.

(*) Please read the >> HOF rules << (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/rules.php) BEFORE playing!


Settings:

Victory Condition: Cultural (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
Difficulty: Deity
Starting Era: Ancient
Map Size: Small
Map Type: Any
Speed: Normal
Civ: Any
Opponents: Any
Version: 1.74.002, 2.13.002 or 3.13.001
Date: 10th June to 10th July 2008
Must not play as Inca.

The earliest finish date wins, with score as a tiebreaker.

Jesusin to win ;)

Jesusin to win ;)

Are you taking bets? :mischief:

Or WastinTime? Place your bets, gentlemen and ladies :)
I'm subscribing to this thread in the hope I can learn enough to be able to replace my ultra-cheesy deity HOF entry (well, it did allow me to be a QM :blush:).

Well...I have already lost once.

I played as the Chinese. I set up the world as a Hemispheres map with three continents and had one landmass to myself. There was gold and silver in by BFC and my second city had gold and floodplains. I beelined for Music. I was able to build the Parthenon and the Great Library. I missed the Sistine Chapel by one turn :mad:. I built five or six cities to fill up my continent. I had four religions spread to me and built Cathedrials for all four in the city with the least culture. The AIs never declared war on me, and two of them actually gifted me several techs over the years because I was so pathetic. Hyman Cupac won a Cultural Victory in 1850.

Suggestions would be much appreciated. Dieity is above my level, but I am tenacious and have a lot of free time to play for the next month. I only have to win one time ;)

Just transplant the whole content of that Cultural Deity thread by 1000AD thread here!

Suggestions would be much appreciated. Deity is above my level, but I am tenacious and have a lot of free time to play for the next month. I only have to win one time ;)

EDIT: BTS and vanilla timelines are the same at normal speed. It's only quick speed where vanilla had the advantage.

Remember, less is more. Research only what you need to get to Liberalism (for free speech) and build only enough cities to get cathedrals built. That's 6 at most on a small map. Four cities is also enough if you use Great Artists. Get 10 - 15 Great Artists and avoid all other great people. You will win eventually.

Jesusin or WastinTime to win, I meant to say ;)

Mesix, I would give the Great Library a miss myself. Not that I will be able to win... Sistine seems alot more important to me.

Parthenon and SoZ (BtS) are pretty good too for culture.

WastinTime surely you want to tech to Nationalism as well after lib (or are you assuming we will win the lib race) for Hermitage.

I've not played BtS deity but if they tech slower that has to be good no?

Oh, make sure to turn barbs and goody huts off... AI nabs all the huts.

Inland sea is probably best for this? Liz, Gandhi or vanilla Saladin or Qin?

This game is not hard at all, the only tough thing is to get a fast finish

Here are my 2 cents:

I would suggest big maps...like lakes, oasis, great plains, so you have at least 5 cities (so you can build those small wonders.) Also, dont build any wonders (unless you need some quick cash or very good/lucky because there are at least 4 competing ai). Pick peaceful ai that dont go culture (plenty to choose from BTS; ai such as Gandhi and Hatty really likes to go cultural in my games), and start planning early.

I had never won liberalism/oracle races at deity, so I dont have a benchmark for those. I got close in my last game when Lincoln beat me to it about 10 turns...probably could have organized my tech priority...

The main obstacle I faced was health in the end....although I have about 5 health resources and traded 3 others and aqueducts in my cities. Also, make sure you select choose religion, it often makes building cathedral much faster.

Definately giving this a whirl, my only previous deity gauntlet win has been wiped out as it was Inca. Not sure what map type to use though...

Wow! This might be a tourney to attend!

Anyone got a list of resource multipliers by Cathedral type?

Copper - Buddhism, Confu, Tao
Marble - Hindu, Islam
Stone - Christianity, Judaism

This makes BtS "select religion" feature a bit cheesy - is it allowed in HOF?

Yes it is.

Never tried it but of course I will for this...

Deleted.

Posted in wrong thread.

Jesusin or WastinTime to win, I meant to say ;)
...
Oh, make sure to turn barbs and goody huts off... AI nabs all the huts.


Oh, thank you for the confidence.
I am in bad shape and RL is taking its toll on me. I'll try to play one game, though.

You shouldn't forget Lexad's Quechuas, FiveAces shrewdness and killercane acuteness either. Probably someone else can come and surprise us all, too.


If you want to follow the "lean on them" strategy I advocate, you shouldn't play with GH off. You want the AI to be as advanced as possible. I don't think you can have Liberalism in the BC with Prince AI, but you do with Deity AI. Help them as much as you can!

Quechua's are banned though!

Quechua's are banned though!

Ahaha.

Did you hear that, Lexad? :D

Rats!

Well, they aren't that good at Normal speed. However, this also means more culture comes from religions [than on Quick] as we've learned in BOTM-4 Gauntlet - therefore prioritizing an early religion is very important.

Who do you think would be added to the roster once Philo trait s down the drain, and the early landgrab (and religion-grab) is an opportunity? Pericles? Rammeses?

How about Isabela?

Lousy UU, lousy UB, good but not the best traits.

Why is philo down the drain? Isn't it still the best trait?

If you're looking to replicate the Inca strategy, wouldn't you use Immortals or War Chariots? I think this will be tough at normal speed. I'm betting on a peaceful strategy. You can always try to steal their cities with culture instead of military.

Killkillkill!

Warchars, maybe. In BtS AI is much smarter militarily, though. Still, BtS provides great opportunities due to better and cheaper golden ages and further Parthenon, so it does not compete for hammers with Oracle.

Philo is certainly not down the drain, but it is less potent than on Quick as the real required culture is much higher, while Philo's marginal effect is decreasing with time = number of GP. Therefore more religions = faster victory.

I agree with your assessment--religions are important, but they should spread to you on a small map. Founding is not necessary.

In the early days of Deity Culture (before quick/Great Artists became the fad) the prevailing strategy was pyramids/rushbuying. If you don't want pyramids, you could always tech to democracy.

I do not like to risk religions distribution - this has already slaughtered a couple of great starts for me in due time.
In BtS AI on higher levels issues a plague of missionaries once founding a religion to religion-less nations; obtaining others later thus might be extremely troublesome unless you're the founder, and late-game conquest is highly infeasible.

Maybe Praetorians? :)

Well, I've tried 4 times now and it always goes about the same. Miss every religion by 1 turn. Miss every wonder by 1 turn and depending on the map type; total annihilation or a cultural victory by someone else in the early 1900s.

I tried two times. The first time I survived to the end but I lost because an AI shot to space. I researched far too slow, I got few GP, no way I could win that game. On the second game I researched much faster, I was near from bulbing Philo before 800 BC but one AI decided to attack me. A stack of more or less 10 units (axes, swordsman and chariots) against my lonely warrior per city.... I quit that moment.

Hmm...the problems for my games are that I either get box in very quick by all the ai and cant make more than 2 good cities or I dont start with a food source! ( I have been playing on oasis maps and i dont know how to use mapfinder.)

It's nice to practice on less difficult settings (still deity, but try the tiny map w/ 3 ai); I learn the in-and-outs for deity ancient tiny maps, and the small map just require a little more precision.

I think the ai to play against in this gaunlet are the American leaders. Good old Abe and his predecessor and successor are good allies and they are too righteous to pick on smaller foe. For the wild card 4th leader, why not the "Native" American leader Sitting Bull?

I think the ai to play against in this gaunlet are the American leaders. Good old Abe and his predecessor and successor are good allies and they are too righteous to pick on smaller foe. For the wild card 4th leader, why not the "Native" American leader Sitting Bull?
Roosevelt declared war on me, but I guess the Americans are quite peaceful.
Turn 81/460 (875 BC) [14-Jun-2008 00:36:21]
Tech learned: Code of Laws
Roosevelt(America) declares war on AnitaGaribaldi(England)
While defending in English territory at York, Warrior loses to: American Chariot (1.44/4) (Prob Victory: 10.6%)
York lost
While defending in the wild near San Francisco, Worker loses to: American Chariot (4.00/4) (Prob Victory: 89.4%)
Attitude Change: Roosevelt(America) towards AnitaGaribaldi(England), from 'Pleased' to 'Cautious'

The first game I tried archipelago/low sea levels/snaky continents and I got a small piece of land big enough for 6-7 cities. The AI was near me, but not on my landmass, so it needed to build a boat before settling. My economy was a mess and I could not trade well. The second game I tried inland sea, I could build the cities but Roosevelt...:( The third game I tried Pangaea and I got boxed before settling the second city. I could just settle two more cities not on good places. Now, I'm back to inland sea again. I'm planning what to do with a gold and marble start on my BFC. I might try to build Parthenon.

On the philo/non-philo debate, my theory is fast GS have more value on this speed as they accelerate FS, which is critical path for 2nd legendary city. I plan to pop 2 - 1 to bulb Philo and one for academy, and perhaps a third for edu depending on how good my 2nd cottage city is. To get them asap I will be philo.

On the philo/non-philo debate, my theory is fast GS have more value on this speed as they accelerate FS, which is critical path for 2nd legendary city. I plan to pop 2 - 1 to bulb Philo and one for academy, and perhaps a third for edu depending on how good my 2nd cottage city is. To get them asap I will be philo.

I am trying with BTS Gandhi. Spiritual is not as good in BTS. Golden Ages deprive it of half its value. Maybe it's time to go back to old Lizzy.

Hey guys´n´gals, I need a bit of advice.

I follow godonut´s strategy, and normally get wins around 1700. However, I´ve tried this challenge twice now, and lost twice in the 1400s. Clearly I need to up my game a bit.

(BTW. I am playing vanilla, elizabeth, inland sea vs gandhi, hatty, cyrus, and mansa).

A specific question I have is what to do when I get Alphabet. Usually I beat all the AI to this. They usually have plenty of techs to trade, but I have nothing to offer other than alphabet. Should I trade alphabet, or should I research to drama, say, and trade that?

I usually trade away alphabet since all the other techs on offer are just too tempting; but this does seem to mean that the AIs then trade away techs with each other with a vengence and I struggle to keep up.

(BTW. I´m not necessarily looking for a super-fast win - just to beat the AI would keep me happy).

Further to my previous post, I also have a question about the optimal time to build cities five and six.

I don´t usually struggle to get my six cities founded. I have four cities fairly early (3 legendary cities & a GP farm) and later I don´t normally have any problem squeezing two more in.

My question is, when should I squeeze these in? At the moment, I hold off doing this as long as possible until just before I switch to US and start the buying religious buildings phase. My reasoning is that a) I want to avoid the additional maintenence costs and b) the cities are usually sub-optimal and I end up buying all the temples in them, so there is not much value in getting them much earlier.

Is this reasoning sound, or should I be approaching this question differently?

How are you losing the game in the 1400s?

RE: cities 5 and 6...don't build them ever. On a small map, you only need 2 temples per cathedral. With 7 religions, you should be able to make 14 cathedrals work. Even 10 or 12 cathedrals is probably enough.

At present, I use the GE from the pyramids to build the GL. I then use 3 GSs to build 3 Acadamy´s in the legendary cities.

I´m not entirely convinced this is worth it. The cultural benefits of the acadamy (+4) are nice to have, but not necessarily worth the expense of a GE, and teching to lit. The +50% science is of course a big bonus, but I seem to be getting my GSs quite late. Indeed, I´m often reasearching Edu/Lib by the time the third one comes, when I´m beginning to think about switching research off.

Another problem with the GL, is that often (not always) I end up getting a fourth GS when what I really want is GAs i.e the GL is messing up my GA pool.

So, I have a number of questions around this.

Should I build the GL?

If I do build the GL, what should I do with the GS? Build academies, or grab new techs to trade e.g. philo, edu?

How should I maximise GS production? Should I have as many scientists in as many cities as possible, or should I concentrate on only having as many scientists as possible in the city with the GL?

If I should build the GL, but the AI beats me to it, is it worth perservering with the game or should I start again?

If I don´t build the GL, what should I do with the GE?

Also, in the city which has the pyramids (which is usually the capital), should I use additional scientists (either before or after the first GE has popped). What I am getting at is should I be trying to preserve the purity of the GE gene pool in the hope of getting a second GE (for the taj majal say), or should I be throwing as much effort at research as possible as early as possible in the game?

How are you losing the game in the 1400s?

The first time was a space race victory (Cyrus I think, but I´m not quite sure).

The second time was diplo win in 1480 for Cyrus.

RE: cities 5 and 6...don't build them ever. On a small map, you only need 2 temples per cathedral. With 7 religions, you should be able to make 14 cathedrals work. Even 10 or 12 cathedrals is probably enough.

This sounds like a key piece of advice. I will definitely try this in my next game. In fact, if my wife wasn´t giving me withering looks which signify "you´re spending far too much time on that damn game again, why can´t we go shopping", I´d try again right now :)

Spreading the religions and building temples in all six cities does seem to drag on for a bit (especially when you get into a losing streak with failures of religion to spread!)

On a small map, you only need 2 temples per cathedral. With 7 religions, you should be able to make 14 cathedrals work. Even 10 or 12 cathedrals is probably enough.

This reply to a previous post pre-empted my next question, which I was in the process of composing (not that I am complaining you understand).

But my question is essentially, how long should you go on building cathedrals for?

If a new religion spreads to you six turns before you are about to get your cultural win, then obviously you wouldn´t even stop to consider stopping to build more religious buildings.

But say that you have four cities and six religions, which I believe means that you can build 12 cathedrals. Would you always build all the cathedrals that you can? If you don´t have access to the special resource for the cathedral (marble say), it can drag on a bit before you´ve got enough dosh to buy two more cathedrals. Is this time always well spent?

(I appreciate this might be a bit of a nonsense question if you only have 4 cities. I´m really prompted to ask it in the context of my experiences with six cities, where my cathedral building can drag on to the 1500 and the AI is well on the way to building the spaceship. Hopefully just building four cities brings the time-line forward so that it is a non-question).

Nonsense or not, I can´t help asking a supplemental question, since it is one that always causes me anguish when it occurs.

Suppose you have built all your cathedrals and have embarked down the final straight of accumulating culture a.s.a.p and then another religion spreads to you. How do you judge whether it is worth another round of missionary/temple/cathedral building?

If all other cathedrals are built, it's probably too late, but what you need to try to calculate is how much culture you lose because you have to generate cash and compare it to the extra culture you get from the cathedrals. Or, if you're not rushbuying, then you have to see how painful it is to work the mines and build it instead of building culture and/or running Artist specialists. It takes a bit of guesswork/intuition. I find that the most important number to know is the turn you plan to win.

Your other question: building all cathedrals. I usually don't get the ones built that require a resouce I don't have--maybe one of the two. However, that's in quick culture games where there isn't time to rush-buy. With rushbuying, you WANT to buy those missing-resource cathedrals. They cost the same! I guess a better way to say it is: You don't want to buy cathedrals when you do have the resource.

If you are building four cities, should the GA farm be one of the legendary cities?

If the GA is to be one of the legendary cities, do you rely solely on the culture from the artists (plus religious buildings etc), or do you throw in cottages as well i.e. do you irrigate or cottage grasslands?

If all other cathedrals are built, it's probably too late... It takes a bit of guesswork/intuition.

Intuitively (based on my experiences with six city games) I would hazard a rule of thumb that says if a religion spreads before you have built all the other cathedrals, build cathedrals for the new religion as well; but if you have built all the other cathedrals already, don´t bother with the new religion...

... it´s just that it´s just so tempting to try and squeeze a bit more culture out from a few more cathedrals. Maybe I´m just too greedy :).

If you are building four cities, should the GA farm be one of the legendary cities?

If the GA is to be one of the legendary cities, do you rely solely on the culture from the artists (plus religious buildings etc), or do you throw in cottages as well i.e. do you irrigate or cottage grasslands?

Your super GA farm (with the National Epic) can't waste citizens on cottages. Just food and artists. You probably won't touch grassland. It's not very efficient, just 1 extra food. Try to find corn, pigs, flood plains, etc.

This city is usually the 3rd legendary. It will require 9-10 Great Artist culture bombs, give or take. I don't know exactly how many cus I don't play normal speed.

Your other question: building all cathedrals. I usually don't get the ones built that require a resouce I don't have--maybe one of the two. However, that's in quick culture games where there isn't time to rush-buy. With rushbuying, you WANT to buy those missing-resource cathedrals. They cost the same! I guess a better way to say it is: You don't want to buy cathedrals when you do have the resource.

This sounds like another key piece of advice. If I´ve understood you correctly:-

a) In quick games, build cathedrals for which you have the resource, but don´t bother with those for which you don´t.

b) In normal games, build cathedrals for which you have the resource, and rush-buy the cathedrals for which you don´t. I can do that.

BTW. I assume that the "normal rule" applies to epic and marathon as well, or would you even consider rush buying resourced-cathdrals in these games?

... it´s just that it´s just so tempting to try and squeeze a bit more culture out from a few more cathedrals. Maybe I´m just too greedy :).

Another important factor is if you have 1 city that is lagging. Generating cash for X turns is a culture loss to all cities, but the new cathedral only goes into 1 city. It helps to know if 1 city really needs that boost. To know that, you really need to figure out how many extra artist bombs you have to aid that lagging city.

But you're rule of thumb is good. If it's so early that you're still building other cathedrals, you should probably add the new ones.

Your super GA farm (with the National Epic) can't waste citizens on cottages. Just food and artists. You probably won't touch grassland. It's not very efficient, just 1 extra food. Try to find corn, pigs, flood plains, etc.

This city is usually the 3rd legendary. It will require 9-10 Great Artist culture bombs, give or take. I don't know exactly how many cus I don't play normal speed.

Thanks for your clear advice here.

In my heart of hearts I knew that this was the answer before I even posed the question, it´s just that I am always tempted to fiddle around with my workers trying to improve every single square. Its very helpful to have a knowledgable person confirm that you are wrong.

Of course, receiving advice and acting on advice are two different things :). Let´s see what happens in the next game...

BTW. I assume that the "normal rule" applies to epic and marathon as well, or would you even consider rush buying resourced-cathdrals in these games?

Yea, any non-quick is the same.

Don't forget if you're spiritual, you really don't want to buy temples. Buying missionaries is always good. It's been years since I did this, but I think it made sense to even buy banks if you plan a lot of rushbuying. That advice might only be best on lower difficulty levels. At Deity, I think you can trade tech for lots of cash.

I really should play one of these before giving all this advice. Many things could have changed in BTS. I can't play until July, if at all.

Having built all my cathedrals and ramped up the culture bar, should the legendary cities continue building other edifices or should they switch to culture?

Maybe the answer is a straightforward no, but I would like to consider what type of building we are talking about.

a) Monastries. These are relatively cheap and I pretty much always complete building them if I haven´t already done so.

b) Universities. These are quite time-consuming to build. I usually do build them, but I suspect that I am wasting my time.

c) Financial buildings. (Courthouses, Market, Grocers, Banks). Since my culture bar is usually at 70%-80%, I´m often tempted to build these buildings in an attempt to push the bar up to 90%-100%. I lose 20-30 culture per turn whilst building these, but hope to get this back when the culture bar is raised. However, I suspect that this is false (over-optimistic/greedy) reasoning, especially since these are relatively time-consuming buildings to construct.

Yea, any non-quick is the same.

Don't forget if you're spiritual, you really don't want to buy temples.

This is a good piece of advice. It doesn´t apply at the moment since I´m playing Elizabeth; but I may try someone else latter - and I guess other people reading this may be using spiritual leaders.

It's almost always worth building the monasteries, etc unless the game is very near the end. Don't forget, if you pound these out early (before 400 AD) they will double their culture before the end of the game. (e.g. 4 culture/monastery instead of 2). That's true for every building (except the Academy for some strange reason.)

If you're philo, the universities are double speed (vanilla civ). But I usually skip these because cathedrals come first and then it gets too late.

Your culture bar is 70-80% ??!! There's your problem. I've never found a reason to ever go below 100% and I never build any of those financial buildings. Why would you with 0% gold? You should be able to trade for cash or trade resources for cash/turn. Remember, you can sell all your happy resources once you turn up the culture slider. Happy is never a problem, even if they emancipate.

Buying missionaries is always good.

This is good to know. I have been doing this to a small degree, but not systematically. I shall try to be more rigorous about doing it.

BTW. When buying missionaries, I usually wait 1 turn, because the cost comes down quite significantly, but again I suspect that time is more important than cost i.e. I should be buying straight away and damn the cost.

Also, if I´m building missionaries in my capital it often only takes 2 turns, I don´t bother rush-buying these; but again, I guess time is more important and I should be buying these straight off.

Your culture bar is 70-80% ??!! There's your problem. I've never found a reason to ever go below 100% and I never build any of those financial buildings. Why would you with 0% gold? You should be able to trade for cash or trade resources for cash/turn.

O.K. I need to have a look at what is going on here.

A contributory factor maybe the six cities. If I switch to 4, the maintenance costs will come down.

I am trading resources, but not all of my opponents seem to have the cash to trade. Perhaps I should consider playing with more opponents?

Another problem with the GL, is that often (not always) I end up getting a fourth GS when what I really want is GAs i.e the GL is messing up my GA pool.

So, I have a number of questions around this.

Should I build the GL?

If I do build the GL, what should I do with the GS? Build academies, or grab new techs to trade e.g. philo, edu?

How should I maximise GS production? Should I have as many scientists in as many cities as possible, or should I concentrate on only having as many scientists as possible in the city with the GL?

If I should build the GL, but the AI beats me to it, is it worth perservering with the game or should I start again?

If I don´t build the GL, what should I do with the GE?


I am still trying to win this but I never build the GL in my cultural game. Not even on Settler. You can use the GE to rush National Wonders: National Epic or Globe Theater. Sometimes the perfect GP far is on a terrain with little production and the GE might help you get those GP faster. The Globe Theater allows three artists specialists, so you will still have one good GA farm even if the UN votes emancipation for all civs. This is painful for me because I cannot defy resolutions on Warlords.

A contributory factor maybe the six cities. If I switch to 4, the maintenance costs will come down.

I am trading resources, but not all of my opponents seem to have the cash to trade. Perhaps I should consider playing with more opponents?

Your intuition is solid here. I'd bet the six cities is the problem. And playing w/ more opponents is a wise thing to consider for exactly the reason you pointed out. The only problem with that is running out of land. If you can grab enough land, then an extra opponent or two is nice.

BTW. When buying missionaries, I usually wait 1 turn, because the cost comes down quite significantly, but again I suspect that time is more important than cost i.e. I should be buying straight away and damn the cost.

Also, if I´m building missionaries in my capital it often only takes 2 turns, I don´t bother rush-buying these; but again, I guess time is more important and I should be buying these straight off.

Again, good intuition. You do NOT want to waste the cash buying on turn 1. In your capitol, where it's only 2 turns, you still want to buy the rest on turn 2. Why would you do that if it would get built next turn anyway? Because you get a nice big overflow of hammers for the next build.

My final question concerns the start position.

I am using map-finder to find start positions with stone and then manual browsing to choose the map to use, but I´m not totally sure what I should be giving priority to.

Oddly enough, I don´t necessarily give priority to stuff that might make an exceptional cultural city (cottaged grassland, floodplains etc) since I usually find that, short of settling in the middle of tundra, the capital city is usually the lead cultural city anyway, so there is no need to over-egg it.

I tend to look for stuff that gives the city a good start (so I can get the 1st settler out quickly etc.)

My priority is usually a hills plains for the extra hammer from the outset, and then an oasis (preferably) for extra commerce whilst building the first worker (failing that a flood-plain). Ideally corn would be nice for the first improved square to have the extra boost for growth (and the extra production for the 1st settler, 2nd Worker). Lots of trees would be nice as well.

I know this is a bit of an open-ended question and there is no right answer, but any views would be appreciated.

In your capitol, where it's only 2 turns, you still want to buy the rest on turn 2. Why would you do that if would get built next turn anyway? Because you get a nice big overflow of hammers for the next build.

Oooo! :eek: I never knew that. That could help quite a bit.

I am using map-finder to find start positions with stone and then manual browsing to choose the map to use, but I´m not totally sure what I should be giving priority to.


Stone? Marble the the key for culture. (Nat Epic, Parthenon, Oracle, sistine chapel)
But you don't need it in your first city. I like the capitol to have a couple commerce resources (gold/gems, maybe furs). Food obviously and a lot of river.

Stone? Marble the the key for culture. (Nat Epic, Parthenon, Oracle, sistine chapel)
But you don't need it in your first city. I like the capitol to have a couple commerce resources (gold/gems, maybe furs). Food obviously and a lot of river.

I think it's not possible to build Parthenon, Oracle and Sistine Chapel. What wonders are the most important?

Oh my, Pious_Pete has set the ball rolling and I am missing it! I love talking about cultural strategy.

I can believe your AIs are winning so early!

WastinTime has answered a lot of your questions. I just have the feeling that you are abusing rushbuying. Let me throw a challenge at you: play a game without Pyramids, get Liberalism around 100AD and use 100% culture from then on, no matter how few cathedrals you have built at that time. For this experimental game try a 1 food, 2 Gems start. You might get a better or a worst result, but you'll learn not to build so much and not to wait so long out of 100% culture.

Never build the GL in a cultural game.

Get 1 GS for Academy in the capital. The capital should be the engine of your research.

Get 0-3 GS for lightbulbing.

Get 10-15GA for bombing at the end. Very early ones get settled.

I normally use the GPFarm as Legendary, without a single cathedral. But, if you have the space for cities and 3 wonderful cottageable locations, maybe GPFarm not Legendary is better.

Were to use the GE? What about not building the Pyramids, but Parthenon instead?

If you are waiting so long to build cities 5 and 6 it's normal they are at marginal sites. I love having my 5th city in a fish+2FP location. At size 8 is is running 5 artists, providing 45GPPpt as a secondary GPFarm. It more than outweights its cost.

Now, nothing is perfect. Since I don't buildrushbuy anything, unless I am Spiritual instead of Financial (which delays Liberalism date) I have to build all my cities very soon in order to choose and appropriate civwide time to revolt from slavery to CS.

As for money for 100%culture, appart from selling all your happy resources, do you sell your techs for cash when you reach Liberalism?

Buildings: every building is worth it if you build it slowly and you are not in the last 10-20 turns. At the very end it is better to build culture. Just do the maths.

The best piece of advice I can give is this: know the turn you are going to win. That allows you to know how many GA you'll have and to place the Hermitage in the more powerful city without unbalancing the cities' end-date.

I think it's not possible to build Parthenon, Oracle and Sistine Chapel. What wonders are the most important?

In BTS you should be able to build all three, only Oracle being at risk, since Parthenon is not an early WW anymore.

In Vanilla you can sometimes build both Oracle and Parthenon. I believe Sistine's isn't worth it in Vanilla.

Another game lost. It seems every time I got a good start, the AI knows: this girl will win by culture, let's whip her out of world. :mad:
This time was Gandhi:
Turn 75/460 (1040 BC) [15-Jun-2008 16:21:15]
Tech learned: Meditation
A Camp was built near Moscow
St. Petersburg finishes: Settler
Gandhi(India) declares war on AnitaGaribaldi(Russia)
Attitude Change: Washington(America) towards Roosevelt(America), from 'Pleased' to 'Cautious'
Attitude Change: Gandhi(India) towards Roosevelt(America), from 'Pleased' to 'Cautious'

5 games and I was eliminated in 2 of them, is it normal?

I got Parthenon in this game. I was thinking if I should try to get Notre Dame. Parthenon is worth 20 culture (after doubling). I would build Notre Dame on BC era or early AC, I would have by the end of game 40 base culture just from wonders. I had a capital with a lot of production (2 marble, iron, corn and a mined gold) and six forests. My second city city had stone. My plan was to be the first to Music using the Great Artist from Parthenon to lightbulb Music. I would exchange one Great Artist for the free one. This would have a small cost on gold, but I think 30 gold or so is worth the Notre Dame. This game was lost because of Gandhi. Which AI do you choose? I play Warlords.

Very unlucky. I don't think Gandhi will bother you again. Sometimes the tension from close borders causes these unlikely wars. Gifting tech can solve this problem. Get them to Pleased. Open borders ASAP.

Sistine has become even stronger in BtS. I also prefer to build Taj. However, in my best quechua games I managed to build also Pyrs, Henge, and smth other for base culture - each after 1000 years is worth like 2-3 towns. Also very useful wonder is Mausol, as GAges are much more available and efficient in BtS.

Even the most peaceful AI tended to attack if I was settling quickly and boxing them in their 2-3 cities. Keeping them pleased, howeer, usually does the trick.

I don't know how it is in BtS - AI tend to be smarter, judging by my previous experience.

Very unlucky. I don't think Gandhi will bother you again. Sometimes the tension from close borders causes these unlikely wars. Gifting tech can solve this problem. Get them to Pleased. Open borders ASAP.

I had no open borders with Gandhi, so I guess this would help. Gandhi was cautious but I guess I'm not very luck, I got attacked by Roosevelt at Pleased. I checked the Deity Hof games, the Americans are oft one of the rivals.

I still haven't played any games as Aztec, Greece, Japan, Mongolia, Viking and Zulu for the Quattromasters challenge. I'll get my revenge. :mischief:

I had no open borders with Gandhi, so I guess this would help. Gandhi was cautious but I guess I'm not very luck, I got attacked by Roosevelt at Pleased. I checked the Deity Hof games, the Americans are oft one of the rivals.

I still haven't played any games as Aztec, Greece, Japan, Mongolia, Viking and Zulu for the Quattromasters challenge. I'll get my revenge. :mischief:

lol, Ive seen Gandi pleased at -2 :) How did you piss him off so bad he went cautios?

lol, Ive seen Gandi pleased at -2 :) How did you piss him off so bad he went cautios?

No idea. I guess there are some hidden random modifiers. I think I didn't have a single -1.

I'm starting a new game soon. I think I have time for just one more game this week. I'm curious, which is the best start?

Gems+Gold Start
http://i170.photobucket.com/albums/u275/lalgarve/Hof%20G-Mayor%2029/Eli_Dei_Sma_Inl_Nor_Anc_4000-BC_Tro.jpg

Gems + Marble Start
http://i170.photobucket.com/albums/u275/lalgarve/Hof%20G-Mayor%2029/Eli_Dei_Sma_Inl_Nor_Anc_4000-BC_-1.jpg

Dunno, Gold+Gem Id build on gold and reroll if no food resource
I dont really like start 2 either but I would build on the plain hill to left of marble and hope for food resource somewhere in the blackness, else reroll

You can e-mail me start #1. I'll play that!
No doubt I'd go for that one. You have Rice. Don't move and hope for something in the fog to the east.

On 2nd thought move 1 south. That will give you 7 unrevealed tiles instead of 3. Good chance for something special.

No actually move the warrior south first and see what shows up.

Do them both :)

the last game I played was a close call...Roosevelt was popping SS parts (he even finished 2 engines!), Sitting Bull planted a huge army on my border (did nothing though), and Lincoln won a Diplomatic "victory" on the turn I won. I think because culture is added at the end of my second last turn, I gain a cultural victory before he gets his diplomatic victory, phew!!!

This game was an improvement of my last, because I have 2 religions in my cities in this game, but 3 in the last. I won the liberalism race by 800AD, the ai never even got to education yet (I guess less trading in hemisphere maps), also I was blessed with a good start (1 gold, 2 corn, 1 clam) and my 3 legendenary cities have grassland cottages almost everywhere. Though I was pretty unlucky as I lost the race to build both parenthon and sistine chapel.

At present, I use the GE from the pyramids to build the GL. I then use 3 GSs to build 3 Acadamy´s in the legendary cities.

I´m not entirely convinced this is worth it. The cultural benefits of the acadamy (+4) are nice to have, but not necessarily worth the expense of a GE, and teching to lit. The +50% science is of course a big bonus, but I seem to be getting my GSs quite late. Indeed, I´m often reasearching Edu/Lib by the time the third one comes, when I´m beginning to think about switching research off.

Another problem with the GL, is that often (not always) I end up getting a fourth GS when what I really want is GAs i.e the GL is messing up my GA pool.

So, I have a number of questions around this.

Should I build the GL?

If I do build the GL, what should I do with the GS? Build academies, or grab new techs to trade e.g. philo, edu?

How should I maximise GS production? Should I have as many scientists in as many cities as possible, or should I concentrate on only having as many scientists as possible in the city with the GL?

If I should build the GL, but the AI beats me to it, is it worth perservering with the game or should I start again?

If I don´t build the GL, what should I do with the GE?

Also, in the city which has the pyramids (which is usually the capital), should I use additional scientists (either before or after the first GE has popped). What I am getting at is should I be trying to preserve the purity of the GE gene pool in the hope of getting a second GE (for the taj majal say), or should I be throwing as much effort at research as possible as early as possible in the game?

I try to specialize my cities GP points in the early game. If I build the Pyramids, I also build a forge in that city to maximize GE points. If I get the Great Library, I try to add at least two scientists to that city to maximize GS generation. These are in separate cities of course so that the GP pool is not diluted. In the late game they switch to artists of course.

When going for a cultural win, I try to use the GE to rush the Sistine Chapel. In BTS this gives +2 per specialist and +5 per state religious building. To me this is a lot more beneficial than the extra trade routs from the Great Lighthouse. When playig on a small map with 5-6 cities, the affect of the extra trade routes is minimal anyway.

Won by 1595 AD as Mansa musa on Inland sea- not all that great but decent for a first try (and my second cultural victory ever) :)
There was a bunch of things I could have done better but most notably I think I need to go for higher population in my culture producing cities.

Got attacked by isabella in 1000 BC which was really bothersome, however after a while she made peace

used 4 cities, 3 religons and 5 cathedrals. Stopped tech at liberalism @ ~~100 AD

Manged to build MoM (had marble and didnt have anything else to build), and after I reached liberalism I also built sinistine and Tach? Mahal.

Got 1 GS and a total of 11 GA, of which I used one to generate an extra golden age. (Dunno if this is good but as it improves the great people generation it partly pays itself back)

Oh my, Pious_Pete has set the ball rolling and I am missing it! I love talking about cultural strategy.

Well, I was really enjoying the discussion too. Unfortunately, my wife´s aformentioned withering looks were beginning to turn into barbed and caustic comments, so a diplomatic charm offensive was in order to avoid a more serious escalation of hostilities.

I´m afraid I had to abandon the forum in favour of the Sex in the City movie.

Still, she´s in bed now, so I can pick up where I left off!

Stone? Marble the the key for culture. (Nat Epic, Parthenon, Oracle, sistine chapel)
But you don't need it in your first city. I like the capitol to have a couple commerce resources (gold/gems, maybe furs). Food obviously and a lot of river.

The reason that I go for stone is that I am following Godonut´s strategy which calls for stone to build the pyramid.

Let me throw a challenge at you: play a game without Pyramids, get Liberalism around 100AD and use 100% culture from then on, no matter how few cathedrals you have built at that time.

Well maybe I do need to abandon the pyramids as the cornerstone of my strategy.

I think I´ll try the pyramid strategy with four cities first; but if that doesn´t work I´ll probably have to change tack.

Never build the GL in a cultural game.

Get 1 GS for Academy in the capital. The capital should be the engine of your research.

Get 0-3 GS for lightbulbing.



I never was entirely sure of the net value of the GL, so I´ll definitely try this in my next game.

Get 10-15GA for bombing at the end. Very early ones get settled.


How do you get so many GA?

In my games (which typically run to c 1700) I get 1 GE, 3-4 GSs, and 5-6 GAs.

I can trim off a couple of GEs as per previous posts, but this still leaves me a way off.

I normally build NE and switch to pacifism when the other AIs have free religion.

I guess Parthanon would make a signficant difference. (Can you get Parthanon and Pyramids?)

Also, how many artists do you usually run in you GA farm? On a good day, I get 5. To get more (without irrigating grasslands, which Wastingtime suggests is not worth the candle) you´d need at least 3 food resources in the city, and I must say that I rarely manage to achieve that on diety.

I normally use the GPFarm as Legendary, without a single cathedral.

Well I´m convinced about making the GP farm one of the legendary cities; but what is the advantage of not building cathedrals in it?

I love having my 5th city in a fish+2FP location. At size 8 is is running 5 artists, providing 45GPPpt as a secondary GPFarm. It more than outweights its cost.


How many GAs would this secondary farm pop?

I would have thought that it would get dominated by the first GA farm (which would have NE in it)?

But then, what do I know :).

Since I don't buildrushbuy anything, unless I am Spiritual instead of Financial (which delays Liberalism date) I have to build all my cities very soon in order to choose and appropriate civwide time to revolt from slavery to CS.

This implies that you do a fair amount of whipping whilst in slavery. Is this correct?

Well I´m convinced about making the GP farm one of the legendary cities; but what is the advantage of not building cathedrals in it?

It's related to your other question about how to get so many GA's - except when you're building granary, library, NE, and maybe temples, you only work food tiles and run artists. So you have no hammers for cathedrals. (Rush-buy strategy is different of course - if you have enough cities and money there is no reason not to buy cathdrals in the GP farm if that is a legendary city).

I suggest you follow Harbourboy's advice and read the Cultural Deity by 1000AD thread to get an idea of what you need to do to have a fast non-pyramids game.

As for money for 100%culture, appart from selling all your happy resources, do you sell your techs for cash when you reach Liberalism?


I will be from now on :mischief:

BTW. I normally tech on beyond liberalism. I definitely go for Nationalism (for Hermitage) (even if I don´t get it for free for being the first to Liberalism).

I also normally tech to Printing Press.

Sometimes I even tech to Economy (but I guess this is going too far).

I tend to be still trading for requisite techs once I get beyond liberalism rather than for gold.

But I will try stopping at Liberalism/Nationalism and trading for cash instead.

I suggest you follow Harbourboy's advice and read the Cultural Deity by 1000AD thread to get an idea of what you need to do to have a fast non-pyramids game.

This sounds the ticket! Where is this discussion thread? (I´m not that lazy - I did do a search; but all I keep finding is Godonuts guide).

I was thinking if it is not so easy to make the GP farm one of the legendary cities. You need 13 GA to take one city from 0 to 50000 culture, the farm will have some culture.
Say it has 14 base culture from buildings, hire 7 artists without Sistine Chapel.
culture: 14+7*4= 42 base culture plus free speech 84 culture/turn
gpp : 7*3+1=22 philo+national epic = 66 gpp/turn
10000 culture = 120 turns = 7890 gpp
6700 gpp = 11 GA
7900 gpp = 12 GA
You will need 10-11 GA just for the farm and it's a good farm. In other hand, It's hard to get 4 good cities on deity. I was think of trying a game as Alex, the philo trait helps, the agressive helps getting one more capital and the UB is nice. Not sure if I can pull this off, though.

A specific question I have is what to do when I get Alphabet. Usually I beat all the AI to this. They usually have plenty of techs to trade, but I have nothing to offer other than alphabet. Should I trade alphabet, or should I research to drama, say, and trade that?

I usually trade away alphabet since all the other techs on offer are just too tempting; but this does seem to mean that the AIs then trade away techs with each other with a vengence and I struggle to keep up.


There´s been lots of feedback on my other questions (thanks everyone); but no one seems to have picked up on this question. Any views?

I was thinking if it is not so easy to make the GP farm one of the legendary cities. You need 13 GA to take one city from 0 to 50000 culture, the farm will have some culture.
Say it has 14 base culture from buildings, hire 7 artists without Sistine Chapel.
culture: 14+7*4= 42 base culture plus free speech 84 culture/turn
gpp : 7*3+1=22 philo+national epic = 66 gpp/turn
10000 culture = 120 turns = 7890 gpp
6700 gpp = 11 GA
7900 gpp = 12 GA
You will need 10-11 GA just for the farm and it's a good farm. In other hand, It's hard to get 4 good cities on deity. I was think of trying a game as Alex, the philo trait helps, the agressive helps getting one more capital and the UB is nice. Not sure if I can pull this off, though.

That´s an interesting calculation.

This seems to suggest that all the GA will go on the GP farm to get it to legendary. (This means that the other two cities would have to self-generate all their own culture).

If this is the case, surely it has to be better to use the fourth city as a cultural city? Even if it is a bit weak and feeble, surely it ought to be able to self-generate more than the 10000 culture that the GP farm would self generate?

BTW. What sort of a finish date would 120 turns translate into?

This sounds the ticket! Where is this discussion thread? (I´m not that lazy - I did do a search; but all I keep finding is Godonuts guide).

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=232250

Well I´m convinced about making the GP farm one of the legendary cities; but what is the advantage of not building cathedrals in it?

Because a good GP farm should be working food, not hammers?

Well, Deity is way above my level of play but I tried it anyway. After getting trounced early 5 times (3 of them by barbs with archers right away) I decided to do this but on Noble level (my typical level of play) since I need a cultural win anyway. I just submitted by game that I won, took about a day and a half of play.

Not sure if my strats will work on Deity but they did work at noble. First off I played as Greece (Pericles). My thought here was Creative for the culture and Philo for the 100% GP since you need lots of Artists for culture victory. Also a good UU to help if attacked.

I went straight for a religion and got Hinduism. Also ended up founding Confusionism. Had Egypt (Hatty) and the Holy Romans on my continent. Churchill and Kymer on the other. On my continent between the 3 of us we founded every religion except one of them so I got them all. Lots of cathedrals in my 3 culture cities. I went mostly with wonders that got me artists and had 2 GP cities pumping out artists. I had the tech lead but was a bit weak at first in military. Holy Romans attacked me 3 times but I was able to beat him back and eventually took one city which gave me 6 total. Shut down tech after getting rifles but it still took me until early 1900's to win. But a win I got anyway.

Good luck to everyone!

Well, Deity is way above my level of play but I tried it anyway. After getting trounced early 5 times (3 of them by barbs with archers right away)

If Deity is way above your comfort zone, I´d play with barbs switched off. It´s not cheating...it´s one less thing to worry about!

When you win at Diety, then you can think about playing with barbs on.

I´m playing most of my games at Diety these days... and I´m sure as heck playing with barbs off.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=232250

Thanks for this FiveAces.

I´ve read through this once and it is jaw-dropping stuff :eek:

All I can say to anyone else reading through this forum to get ideas for G-Major 29: you definitely need to read this link as well.

There´s been lots of feedback on my other questions (thanks everyone); but no one seems to have picked up on this question. Any views?

Of course, having now read the "1000AD Cultural Diety" thread, I can answer this for myself...

... trade alphabet a.s.a.p.

... so a diplomatic charm offensive was in order to avoid a more serious escalation of hostilities.


I have to use similar strategies too ;)

How do you get so many GA?
What are your auxiliary cities doing after building a granary and a couple temples?
Several factors.
- All my aux ciites are secondary GPFarms (+1/+2 each)
- Parthenon (+2)
- Final starvation phase (+1)
- Pacifism asap (+1)


I guess Parthanon would make a signficant difference. (Can you get Parthanon and Pyramids?)


Not in Vanilla.


Also, how many artists do you usually run in you GA farm? On a good day, I get 5. To get more (without irrigating grasslands, which Wastingtime suggests is not worth the candle) you´d need at least 3 food resources in the city, and I must say that I rarely manage to achieve that on diety.
8 (9 with Mercantilism) on the last turns of a good day.
Mid game it's 5. Then I use farmed grasslands till I reach my health limit.
Pigs+Corn+Sugar+some grasslands gives you 6 artists before using the grasslands and it's not so rare a location.
Your building the Pyramids might be delaying your settlers too much to get to the prime sites. I have 4 cities by 1000BC.

Well I´m convinced about making the GP farm one of the legendary cities; but what is the advantage of not building cathedrals in it?

It should be obvious: running artists instead of mines.
In your case, running 100% culture civwide instead of saving money.
In the just 4 cities case: because you want the 2 cathedrals in the best possible cities, and that's always the 2 cottage cities.

This implies that you do a fair amount of whipping whilst in slavery. Is this correct?

Yes, I do.
I love to whip my granaries. Maybe I am too granary loving, what do you think, WastinTime?

I will be from now on :mischief:

BTW. I normally tech on beyond liberalism. I definitely go for Nationalism (for Hermitage) (even if I don´t get it for free for being the first to Liberalism).

Well done.

I also normally tech to Printing Press.

Sometimes worth it, sometimes not. Aren't you able to trade for it instead?

Sometimes I even tech to Economy (but I guess this is going too far).

Wrong. Please, don't.

I tend to be still trading for requisite techs once I get beyond liberalism rather than for gold.

But I will try stopping at Liberalism/Nationalism and trading for cash instead.
It's not either trading for techs or for money. You can get both. On a lucky day I can trade from Guilds up to Corporation, and get all their money several times on top of it. Getting to Mercantilism (and the money) is usually more than enough.

There´s been lots of feedback on my other questions (thanks everyone); but no one seems to have picked up on this question. Any views?
Sorry, It's easy to miss one between so many! (J/K)
Two views that I know of:
- jesusin's: gift it asap (well, it's more like wait for Maths to gift it around), that way AI advance quicker and you'll get to trade more, you'll get to Liberalism sooner, to Mercant sooner, etc...
- WastinTime's (I hope I'm remembering right): Keep it as long as you can, as a means to guarranty being first to Liberalism, Tao, etc...

How many GAs would this secondary farm pop?

I would have thought that it would get dominated by the first GA farm (which would have NE in it)?

But then, what do I know :).

Thank you for asking so good a question. I think I had never really asked/answered this myself.

Let's compare a game in which the 5th city is built with the same game without the 5th city.

Let's imagine that at 1AD we have all 5 artists, we are running CS+Pacif; we get 15GPeople all game long and we win 1300AD. At the end of the game, some 500GPP are left in this city, so they are wasted.

The 5th city adds 5*3*(1+1+1)*75turns==3375GPP.
The last 2 GA have cost 2000+1800GPP. (Of course the 5th city didn't pop precisely this 2 GA, but it is just the same for our purposes).
3375-500wasted == 1.5* 1900 so I conclude that the 5th city gives one and a half additional GA.

Now, I think more or less the cost is Null. Before Liberalism, the beakers the 5th city makes more or less pay for its maintenace. At the end of the game, those 500GPP that are wasted don't need to be gotten by artists, so you hire merchants instead: this more or less pays for all the maintenance post Liberalism.

So in my mind getting a 5th Settler results in 6000c in the Legendary cities for free. Any blunders in my maths?

Just played a second try. Did better this time and finished around 1500 AD.
Tried building Sinistine and Tach Mahal in a non-legendary city and built a 5th city for extra GP farm. This city popped 3 GP in my game I think.

Big mistake on my part though. I manged to set all specialists to merchants in my extra GP farm for a few turns :cry: and popped a useless great merchant.


---

Q

What do you guys think of getting 3 cotteged cities (including capital) and having a forth city as worker farm early and GP farm for mid/late, possibly adding a 5th city/sec GP farm about the time you reach liberalism. I might try it out lateron.
Last game my GP farm totally sucked culture wise. I bombed 0 in capital, 1 GA in cottage city and I think 9 in GP farm... Well the farm did suck and a good farm should prolly be able to support more than 8 pop but still.

I think that if you get Sistine Chapel, the GP farms will ultimately become Legendary faster than the cottaged cities. Especially if you have a GP farm with a couple of early wonders. All of the artists produce culture afterall.

I am thinking about a different strategy for this: OCC + PA and play GPFarm for my ally.

I do have a couple of questions, however:
1: Which AIs are good at getting an early cultural victory?
I played a test game with Asoka as my PA, and I couldn't get him to touch the slider or spread his religions around at all.
Will the AI recognise that my city will become Legendary, and so only focus on two culture cities?
If I gift the GAs instead of settling them, will my PA culture bomb them in those two cities, or waste them on golden ages and such?

2: Which AIs are easy to get in an early PA?

3: Which map settings make it easiest to get gold or gems at the start? I am all for using MapFinder, but I don't want to run 7000 regenerations to get a good start.

I am thinking about a different strategy for this: OCC + PA and play GPFarm for my ally.


EDIT: All my comments refer to Vanilla/Warlords OCC + PA, unless qualified as BTS.

It will be extremely hard to get a cultural win via OCC + PA at Deity level.
Getting the PA will require mutual war or DP (Military Tradition), followed
by either Communism or Facism to allow the Permanent Alliance.

A date less than 1800 AD will be extremely difficult via OCC + PA
and the top dates for this gauntlet will likely be < 1300 AD.


1: Which AIs are good at getting an early cultural victory?


The AIs in BTS actually try to win via Cultural Victory, so start there.

My experience with OCC + PA is in Warlords which is similar to Vanilla.
Your PA partner will do nothing to increase culture in his two highest culture
cities, until somewhat close to a cultural win. The situation in BTS should
be much better.

Ramesses II will build many WWs early on. Research the tech that unlocks
the WW you want him to build and gift it to him on the turn you research it.
This is advice for Vanilla/Warlords. There may be better choices for BTS.


I played a test game with Asoka as my PA, and I couldn't get him to touch the slider or spread his religions around at all.


Not sure there is a way to force your PA partner to increase the culture
slider. There may be a way to do this in BTS.

If you and your PA partner have about %50 Pop, build or have him build
the UN, and vote for Free Speech.

Gifting missionaries to your PA partner should work somewhat OK in getting
him to spread his (your) religions


Will the AI recognise that my city will become Legendary, and so only focus on two culture cities?


In Vanilla/Warlords this seems to happen, mainly by accident, but only when
a cultural win is only a few turns (10-20) away.

In BTS, where the AIs may have the goal of a cultural win very early in the
game, this may happen earlier than anyone suspects.


If I gift the GAs instead of settling them, will my PA culture bomb them in those two cities, or waste them on golden ages and such?


In Vanilla/Warlords, gifted GAs are bombed in only culturally weak cities near
your capital's high culture. Otherwise, the GAs are used/saved by your PA
partner for golden ages.


2: Which AIs are easy to get in an early PA?


Ramesses II will enter into an early DP. Do almost anything to make him
pleased and he will be ready to enter a PA when it is available.


3: Which map settings make it easiest to get gold or gems at the start? I am all for using MapFinder, but I don't want to run 7000 regenerations to get a good start.

To reduce the number of cities your PA partner has and thus reduce the
number of WWs and other culture wasted, select the maximum # of
opponents (7 for Small). If you are somewhat lucky, he will be land locked
in two cities. Terra map may be best here. (The downside is fewer
potential Cathedrals due to only 2-3 temples per religion.)

For gems at start, Pan and Terra are good.

For golds at start, Inland Sea and Rain forests (BTS only) are good.

Good luck!

Sun Tzu Wu

I am thinking about a different strategy for this: OCC + PA and play GPFarm for my ally.

I do have a couple of questions, however:
1: Which AIs are good at getting an early cultural victory?
I played a test game with Asoka as my PA, and I couldn't get him to touch the slider or spread his religions around at all.
Will the AI recognise that my city will become Legendary, and so only focus on two culture cities?
If I gift the GAs instead of settling them, will my PA culture bomb them in those two cities, or waste them on golden ages and such?

2: Which AIs are easy to get in an early PA?

3: Which map settings make it easiest to get gold or gems at the start? I am all for using MapFinder, but I don't want to run 7000 regenerations to get a good start.

I'm glad somebody's testing this to see how fast it can be done, but I really hope it's not the optimal way for a cultural victory in BTS. We already have space for OCC PA.

1) from posts in the OCC PA gauntlet (you might want to look at this one), ramsees, ghandi, prob some others. IIRC that was before BTS, so don't know about those leaders. Note vanilla/warlords won't work on deity since someone will launch well before your team wins as the AI won't touch the slider. On vanilla, the AI will not bomb a city unless they have <60% culture in it (condition of the SDK). Don't know about BTS.

2) ones whose favorite civics are the ones you will be in at the time: HR, beauo, caste, etc. since it will be easier to get them Friendly. Then those like Cathy, Roos etc. that make a DP only at Pleased. but really you should be able to make it easily with almost anyone. you could even do mutual war and start working on it before MilTrad

3) Actually I've gotten 2commerce starts fastest on fractal, but it's not really that good a script. GP Sea and Pangea seem to be ok, though on GP you are in the mountains, but that's ok for OCC.

I think that if you get Sistine Chapel, the GP farms will ultimately become Legendary faster than the cottaged cities. Especially if you have a GP farm with a couple of early wonders. All of the artists produce culture afterall.

This is not true at all. GP farm will have low production so it will be hard to build cathedrals and such for multiplyer. My GP farm sucked hard because of lack of population as well, its hard to find a really good spot on a small map.

Also specialist artist = 6 culture/turn, cottage = up to 9/10 gold per turn (with or without press), and cottage also produce food.
Anyway, the base culture of GP farm even with sinistine chapel will be alot worse than your cottage cities.

It will be extremely hard to get a cultural win via OCC + PA at Deity level.
Getting the PA will require mutual war or DP (Military Tradition), followed
by either Communism or Facism to allow the Permanent Alliance.

A date less than 1800 AD will be extremely difficult via OCC + PA
and the top dates for this gauntlet will likely be < 1300 AD.


I disagree. This was going to be my secret strategy. Have you ever tried a Space Race in BTS? It's hard cus someone will win culture around 1500. With the help of an OCC PA I think 1300ish is possible. (EDIT: Since we're forced to play normal speed, 1400ish.) I'll need to go back and read your proposed strategy, ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF, and make comments. Have fun with it, I won't be able to join you until July.

BTW how the heck did you land on ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF as a forum name? Wouldn't QWERTY have been easier? ;) Or is it the English keyboard equivalent of something in another alphabet? Just curious.

up to 9/10 gold per turn (with or without press), and cottage also produce food.

10 ? Are you building cottages on gems/river tiles?
Or am I counting wrong?

If I gift the GAs instead of settling them, will my PA culture bomb them in those two cities, or waste them on golden ages and such?


Wasted, unless under severe cultural preassure.
You can settle your GA in their cities after the PA, though.

Since Vanilla AI wouldn't touch the slider, cottages are useless while hammers aren't, so I send my workers to watermill/workshop over their towns.

Since Vanilla AI wouldn't touch the slider, cottages are useless while hammers aren't, so I send my workers to watermill/workshop over their towns.

This should only be attempted in BTS. In vanilla, it would be 1800's before you win. The BTS AI will crank the culture slider and use FreeSpeech. They even do it when you want them to build spaceship parts, so it's important to know which AI get distracted by culture and which will focus on the space race if that is your goal. (I've done a lot of BTS space race lately which is why I planned to try the OCC PA on this gauntlet.)

Ramesses II will enter into an early DP. Do almost anything to make him pleased and he will be ready to enter a PA when it is available.


Ramesses could be a good choice, but IIRC I found a bug in the code for Industrious leaders that make them less likely to go for culture wins than the programmer intended. Normally I like to play by intuition and not spoil the mystery behind the AI by reading the code. It's disappointing to find out exactly how dumb they really are, but I didn't want culture wins to interfere with my Space Colony.

10 ? Are you building cottages on gems/river tiles?
Or am I counting wrong?

Im pretty sure that my Towns at river tiles(without gems) generated 10 gold. Without the river it would have been 9. (This was after I had traded for printing press)
Didnt check all that careful, maybe I was in a golden age or something :)

Thanks for the input, guys.

I will only be trying this with BTS, and have done some looking at the code to see when/if an AI will go for a CV.
The main factor seems to be a pseudorandom number based on the capital's placement, with a substantial boost for economic traits and a small one for owning holy cities. (Good spot on the industrious bug, WastinTime, it only has half the effect.)

I also found that the BTS AI can use GAs to bomb/settle in its Legendary cities, but only in the 3rd one, so this is quite possibly useless here.


With the help of an OCC PA I think 1300ish is possible. (EDIT: Since we're forced to play normal speed, 1400ish.)


I agree with this. Based on my test game, I decided that 1500AD would be more than feasible, and 15-1600 would make a sensible first goal, before trying to push it earlier.


BTW how the heck did you land on ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF as a forum name?


It is a secret code, rotate the letters one back in the (English) alphabet.
I stole it from It was inspired by a crossword puzzle I saw a few years ago.

The main factor seems to be a pseudorandom number based on the capital's placement, with a substantial boost for economic traits and a small one for owning holy cities. (Good spot on the industrious bug, WastinTime, it only has half the effect.)


Right, then leaders that prefer Theocracy (no religion spread) lose some incentive to go for CV.

Checking Aggressive AI has a similar effect for everyone (but who would check that?)

10 = town (4) + river (1) + financial (1) + PP (1) + FreeSpeech (2) + GAge (1)

It will be extremely hard to get a cultural win via OCC + PA at Deity level.
Getting the PA will require mutual war or DP (Military Tradition), followed
by either Communism or Fascism to allow the Permanent Alliance.

A date less than 1800 AD will be extremely difficult via OCC + PA
and the top dates for this gauntlet will likely be < 1300 AD.


Sorry, the above comments were meant to refer to OCC + PA on Vanilla/Warlords.

I disagree. This was going to be my secret strategy. Have you ever tried a Space Race in BTS? It's hard cus someone will win culture around 1500. With the help of an OCC PA I think 1300ish is possible. (EDIT: Since we're forced to play normal speed, 1400ish.) I'll need to go back and read your proposed strategy, ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF, and make comments. Have fun with it, I won't be able to join you until July.

Remaining comments on strategy refer to only OCC + PA on BTS:

Good point about normal speed making the winning date more like AD 14xx
rather than < AD 1300.

So some BTS AIs are winning Culture victories around AD 1500? Mmm,
maybe a Deity Cultural win via OCC + PA is more viable than I thought.
Since I haven't tried OCC + PA on BTS, I will defer to the judgement of
who have.

However, it seems that it would be a disadvantage to have to tech to
either Communism or Fascism just to have the chance of a PA. That's
a lot of researching when a high culture slider would be preferable.
On the other hand, our PA partner is not saddled with Deity handicaps,
so perhaps it is a possible winning strategy for this gauntlet after all.

Sincerely,

Sun Tzu Wu

However, it seems that it would be a disadvantage to have to tech to
either Communism or Fascism just to have the chance of a PA. That's
a lot of researching when a high culture slider would be preferable.
On the other hand, our PA partner is not saddled with Deity handicaps,
so perhaps it is a possible winning strategy for this gauntlet after all.


Ah, but you don't have to tech to communism/fascism. As long as your partner has one of the techs, you can still make the PA.

When going for OCC cultural the AI needs to control all 3 legendary cities right? (you cant use your own capital?)

If you're in PA, you should have 3 among the two of you - that allows to include your capital.

Well, despite all the excellent advice, I´m afraid my third attempt ended in a defeat with a 1660 diplomatic loss to Cyrus.

I´m not too downhearted since I was playing quickly (therefore sub-optimally) to see what would happen. The game seemed to go quite well with only 4 cities so I will try that again. I had a number of problems as follows:-

a) I didn´t get to Liberalism until 450AD (losing the race with Gandhi in 150AD). Clearly there is some room for improvement there. Does anyone have any views on what a reasonable target date is to acheive a win? (Any win, not necessarily a super-fast win).

b) I didn´t concentrate enough on my second cultural city early on. I don´t think I had even a single cottage before 500 AD (doh!).

c) I built the Hermitage in the capital city on the grounds that it is best to maximise culture in your best city. Unfortunately, the capital went ledgendary when the other two cities only had around 15,000 culture each, so there was obvioiusly too much of an imbalance there.

d) I mistakenly (I think) built one GS in the GA farm to start things off, and two more in the capital city. Unfortunately, once the second of these had been built, I was still a little way off liberalism, but didn´t want to run anymore scientists in the capital (wasting GP points and all that). I guess this contributed to my slow time to Lib.

BTW. I am convinced about the secondary GP farms. My fourth city was a bit feeble, but it did manage to pop two GAs, which I thought was quite neat.

I shall try again.

For my fourth try, I rang the changes and went via Parthenon.

Fat lot of good it did. Another loss in 1660. This time a space race defeat to Mansa.

Basically, I made a pigs ear of this - I suspect since I didn´t really know how to adjust to not having representation so early (for the extra happiness and the extra research).

I think I am going to go back to what I know in order to try to post a win.

Lost to Gandhi Space Race 1700
Lost to Gandhi Space Race 1635

I´m going to bed.:(

The games I played I got to liberal by 150 AD and 175 AD I think. My opponents were nowhere near beating me as I was the only one with education (which I traded away a few turns before I discored liberalism).
- Can AI bulb liberalism btw? then maybe this is not such a good idea.

After I reach liberalism trade/tech for music drama and start building cathedrals, hemeratage, sinistine and tach mahal. It helps to chop alot of forests down in this "phase".

Only wonder I build during tech phase is Mausuleum of M, mostly because capital hasnt got so much to build when it comes around and because AI dont get it before me. 1st game I tried for temple of aritmetis as well(had marble) but failed it with 3 turns, I did not however rush for it, I only built it when I had nothing else to build.

TIP: If you have trouble getting a win then maybe you should get worse opponents. While mansa musa and ghandi may tech very hard which allows for faster tech trade possibly, they also achieve faster wins.
You could try playing with bad opponents like Gilgamesh, he just sits all game, sucks at tech and doesnt go to war. Isabella and justitin may work as well. - just a thought

After I reach liberalism trade/tech for music drama and start building cathedrals, hemeratage, sinistine and tach mahal. It helps to chop alot of forests down in this "phase".

I prefer to have chopped everything for my capitol city while still in Bureaucracy for the extra hammers.

I prefer to have chopped everything for my capitol city while still in Bureaucracy for the extra hammers.

Hmm yeah I guess 50% more for chopping could be nice, however with the tech path I used I dont really need the hammers all that bad before I get nationalism and music. What do you build with your forests? :)

Hmm yeah I guess 50% more for chopping could be nice, however with the tech path I used I dont really need the hammers all that bad before I get nationalism and music. What do you build with your forests? :)

I like to be 1st to music (free artist), so there's plenty to build, temples, missionaries, cathedrals, theatre, monast, etc.

Whoa! This is not easy, at least on vanilla. :eek: 1st attempt ended in 1620 diplo loss to Washington. 1st to lib in a respectable time of 125AD, capital legendary a bit later than usual, but ok, gp farm had enough GA's, but 2nd city nowhere near. Mediocre map and only 2 religions though had an effect. Have to go back to the drawing board to get more religion. Maybe even confu before alpha.


EDIT: It shouldn't be that hard to fix though. Hermitage in 2nd cottage city instead of capital, philo instead of spiritual (played Mansa), and one more religion would have done it in 15xx, even with the suboptimal map.

Defeat #7 1605 Space Race Ganhdi
Defeat #8 1660 Diplomacy

The second of these wasn´t too bad an attempt, though I was still probably 20 turns or so off winning.

I probably got to Liberalism around 250AD (though losing the race), and I switched of building (6 cats+hermitage) c 1200.

This begs the question:-

What is the timeline for a win c1600? What are my target dates for

a) Alphabet
b) Liberalism
c) Completing the building phase?

I probably got to Liberalism around 250AD (though losing the race), and I switched of building (6 cats+hermitage) c 1200.


Getting to Liberalism by 250 AD is probably OK.

However, getting beat to Liberalism is bad; it may be advisable to abandon such a game unless cottage development and culture making building are well developed.


This begs the question:-

What is the timeline for a win c1600? What are my target dates for

a) Alphabet


Turn 50 (BC 2000)


b) Liberalism


Turn 120 (AD 125)


c) Completing the building phase?


What are you asking? When to stop building Cathedrals?

Sun Tzu Wu

1610AD.

Decent food-rich map, still no marble and only 3 spread religions. I knew it was going to be a strange game when Mansa founded CoL before the Oracle was built and then Asoka Oracled Feudalism and proceeded to beat me to CS in 800bc. Sure enough, I got beat to Lib in 50 freaking AD and had to self research Nationalism, the rest of Lib and all but 2 turns of PP.

I made a lot of mistakes with the trading. Or it could have just been the usual trades weren't available because of all the crazy AI teching that was going on. Also mistimed my GS pop for philo by 1 turn and lost out to Mansa again. That cathedral would have saved a bunch of turns.

Delayed pacifism until the switch to FS around 400AD. Still popped 14gp (1 late academy, 2 settled, 10 bombed in GP farm and 1 in 2nd city). Capital went legendary on its own.

@Pious Pete
Alpha by t45
CS by 800bc
Lib by 200ad and run FS/Pacifism no matter what the building status is

EDIT: I built 2 WW - Notre Dame, because I had stone and it was still available, and the Colossus :lol: of all things, because my second city was coastal and the AI obsoleted it before anybody built it.

What is the timeline for a win c1600? What are my target dates for
...
c) Completing the building phase?

I don't have a precise timetable, since I don't rushbuy.

Imagine there is a jesusin playing by your side. He will go 100% culture on 250AD, no matter how few catedrals. Are your actions going to beat him or to put you behind him?

All I know for sure is the last cathedral in each city should be finished by hand (the slow way). IMO, you are rushbuying too much.

Do the maths around 750AD: when would you win if you went 100% culture right now? Now compare that to running 100% gold for N turns, buying another cathedral and then running 100% culture till the end, is that worth it?

Getting to Liberalism by 250 AD is probably OK.

However, getting beat to Liberalism is bad; it may be advisable to abandon such a game unless cottage development and culture making building are well developed.


I think you are probably right about abandoning such games. I believe I read Jesusin claiming to finish all games, but I suspect I am wasting rather a lot of time playing through doomed outcomes.

What are you asking? When to stop building Cathedrals?


Essentially, yes.

I don't have a precise timetable, since I don't rushbuy.

Imagine there is a jesusin playing by your side. He will go 100% culture on 250AD, no matter how few catedrals...

All I know for sure is the last cathedral in each city should be finished by hand (the slow way). IMO, you are rushbuying too much.


I suspect you are correct. My last game was better than my previous ones precisely because fewer religions spread and I was forced to build fewer cathedrals.

I´m going to try superhard in my next game to sit on my hands after 250AD i.e. let any cats finish themselves and not start any new ones and see where that gets me.

1610AD.
@Pious Pete
Alpha by t45
CS by 800bc
Lib by 200ad and run FS/Pacifism no matter what the building status is


Thanks for that. These dates chime in pretty well with what Jesusin and Sun Tzu Wi suggest, so I´m going to use these as the benchmark in my next game.

I suspect you are correct. My last game was better than my previous ones precisely because fewer religions spread and I was forced to build fewer cathedrals.

I´m going to try superhard in my next game to sit on my hands after 250AD i.e. let any cats finish themselves and not start any new ones and see where that gets me.

No, you should continue building as many as you can, you just have to build them from scratch without OR or beauro. Sometimes I will save a couple forests in the 2nd city for this purpose. But WastinTime is right, you should chop out your capital while under beauro. And don't do early chopping either, except to get a settler out.

That's another point - is your capital build queue worker-warrior-settler-settler? If not that could be one of the reasons you are having difficulty.

I think you are probably right about abandoning such games. I believe I read Jesusin claiming to finish all games, but I suspect I am wasting rather a lot of time playing through doomed outcomes.

If it's doomed for certain sure, but missing lib doesn't necessarily mean that, as my result proves. I think if you have good 2nd city and gp farm and can still research lib and nationalsim by around 400AD you should press on even if you are beat to lib.

I suspect you are correct. My last game was better than my previous ones precisely because fewer religions spread and I was forced to build fewer cathedrals.

I´m going to try superhard in my next game to sit on my hands after 250AD i.e. let any cats finish themselves and not start any new ones and see where that gets me.

Try building every Cathedral you have the religion and strategic (hammer doubling) resource for. Never gold rush these.

If you are missing the strategic resource, think hard about building that Cathedral. These can be gold rushed into hammer poor cultural cities, but these are also the cities that should be bombed by late GAs. If you do build them, they should be the last Cathedrals you build, since they take forever to build; you want the cultural multiplying effect of your cheaper Cathedrals while building these expensive ones.

Don't be shy about gold rushing temples you need to allow the corresponding Cathedral, especial if you want to build that Cathedral in 1-2 turns. Hammer build the temples for at least 1 turn to avoid the 4.5 gold per hammer price. 3 gold per hammer is bad enough.

Non-Cathedral related ideas:

For normal speed, early GAs probably could be settled. It's hard to compute the turn at which GAs should be saved. I'd say, error on the side of saving GAs earlier than you think may be optimal, since it will be much easier to know where to bomb them on the last few turns than where to settle them early.

BTW, turn 120 for Liberalism may be a little too aggressive. I'd say that turn 125 (AD 250) is right on target.

Don't forgot to run the cultural slider as high as possible. The best way to use gold is to save it till later after all Cathedrals are build and use that gold (deficit spent) to run the cultural slider at 100% until you run of gold and win (ideally at the same time).

Build as few non-culture adding buildings as possible. About the only exception is the Aqueduct and maybe Grocer for adding Health when absolutely necessary. However, running a city at a large negative Health can be better than building these Health buildings, especially later in the game.

Sun Tzu Wu

If you need gold, just ask. You should be able to get at least 60 from most of them at least twice if you wait long enough between the requests. It really helps stay at 100% slider before you can trade your happies.

If it's doomed for certain sure, but missing lib doesn't necessarily mean that, as my result proves. I think if you have good 2nd city and gp farm and can still research lib and nationalsim by around 400AD you should press on even if you are beat to lib.


I didn't mean to imply that every cultural game should be abandoned if the race to Liberalism is lost, but the Civ that beat you to Liberalism will often beat you in the end. Only abandon, if too much else has gone wrong in addition to losing the race to Liberalism.

BTW, in your race to Liberalism, never research a Technology that's either not on the way to Alphabet, Music or Liberalism or that could be easily traded for later. Think twice about making trades for Technologies that aren't really required for a cultural win.

Sun Tzu Wu

If you need gold, just ask.

That's very kind of you.
I am a bit short of cash myself, wouldn't you send me anything?


:D

No, you should continue building as many as you can, you just have to build them from scratch without OR or beauro.



In my most recent game (of which more later), I finished building my 2 cats by 1030. I only had one religion until 1250 when a couple more spread.

I decided to sit on my hands at this point, because it seemed a bit late to be building cats. I guess it´s a matter of judgement as to when its not worth it.

That's another point - is your capital build queue worker-warrior-settler-settler? If not that could be one of the reasons you are having difficulty.


Until fairly recently, my build queue was worker-settler-worker-pyramids with warriors thrown in so that settler build was at size 2, and the second worker at size 3.

However, I am now trying for wins without any world wonders, and my queue has been worker-settler-settler (with the second city building a settler straight away as well). I´ve been throwing warriors in as appropriate.

But what is appropriate? I grow to size 2 before starting on the 1st settler. Should I grow to size 3 before starting on the second?

About the only exception is the Aqueduct and maybe Grocer for adding Health when absolutely necessary. However, running a city at a large negative Health can be better than building these Health buildings, especially later in the game.

Sun Tzu Wu

I always build the aquaduct; but I am convinced that negative health is preferable to building a grocer.

Lost to Gandhi, space race 1675.

Key milestones:-

Alpha 1920 BC
CS 400 BC
Lib 500 AD (Losing out to Gandhi c 300 AD)
2 Cats + Hermitage built by 1030 AD.
Only 1 religion until 1230 when, like #7 buses, three turned up at once. I built no further religious buildings.
No world wonders.

At the end I was probably c30 turns of a victory.

On the face of it, this is not very promising; but it is quite encouraging to me.

Basically, I couldn´t sleep last night (planning my next assault on GM29), so I thought I´d get up and play a test game with no world wonders, which I did.

The start wasn´t very good (1 pig, 1 gem, 1 FP), since I didn´t have time to run mapfinder, so the game probably was doomed from the outset; but I think I learnt quite a lot.

With a better start, I think I could pull back 7 turns or so to win the lib race, and this would save another 10 turns or so on Nat. Plus hopefully I´d be able to trade for PP or Econ (which I didn´t get in this game). Also, if I could pop Philo first to get another religion, I think all this might make the difference.

Hopefully I can have another go tonight.

I start out with worker, then I build about 2 warriors and grow to size 4 or 5 depending on start. Then 3x settler and most likly 1x worker in capital.
First city will build a worker

In my most recent game (of which more later), I finished building my 2 cats by 1030. I only had one religion until 1250 when a couple more spread.

I decided to sit on my hands at this point, because it seemed a bit late to be building cats. I guess it´s a matter of judgement as to when its not worth it.

I agree with FiveAces, never stop building Cathedrals unless you have something better to do with your hammers. Build with or without Bureaucracy and/or Organized Religion, but focus on those Cathedrals whose corresponding strategic resource (Marble, Stone or Copper) you have.

Hermitage should be built even if you lack all hammer multipliers, probably in the Culture city with the highest hammer value, so it gets built somewhat quickly.

BTW, a Forge like all non-Culture buildings (with the possible exception of Aqueduct and Grocer for Health) is almost certainly a waste of hammers, since it provides only a 1.25x multiplier. If you have 3-4 Cathedrals, 3-4 Monasteries and 3-4 Temples to build in the same Cultural city, building a Forge first could be a net gain, even considering the delayed early culture lost while building it. On the other hand, with only 1-2 Cathedrals, 1-2 Monasteries and 1-2 Temples per Culture city, building a Forge first will delay the Culture multiplying effect of the Cathedrals without a net benefit.

On the other hand, building non-Culture buildings in the non-Culture cities can be good. For example a Courthouse can be built when there's nothing better to do or it could build Wealth. When a Culture city has no Culture buildings left to build, it should build culture, unless it is the only source for a needed Missionary (that will allow additional Culture building in another Culture city).

Sun Tzu Wu

Until fairly recently, my build queue was worker-settler-worker-pyramids with warriors thrown in so that settler build was at size 2, and the second worker at size 3.


A player owning The Pyramids seems to be a target for at least one the AIs at deity level. Every time I've gone for a cultural win and included building The Pyramids as part of my strategy, an AI would later eventually attack me. jesusin has had the same experience when building The Pyramids as well, 6 of 6 times as I recall. The only effective method for avoiding this is great diplomacy, since building up a military is a waste of hammers for a cultural victory goal. Building The Pyramids may still be a viable option, but extreme care with diplomacy may be required.


However, I am now trying for wins without any world wonders, and my queue has been worker-settler-settler (with the second city building a settler straight away as well). I´ve been throwing warriors in as appropriate.

But what is appropriate? I grow to size 2 before starting on the 1st settler. Should I grow to size 3 before starting on the second?


A worker on turn 0 should be a given in any Settler building strategy, unless you're doing a Quechua rush which can't be used in gauntlets anymore. Trying to grow the capital to size 2 or 3, before building the first Worker, just delays the completion of that first Worker. Without that first Worker, there will be no improvements or pre-chopped forests, so why delay it longer than necessary?

ssjos may have the best city building strategy, start a Worker on turn 0, build up to Population 4-5 and build 3 Settlers in a row and possibly a 2nd Worker. With enough food resources improved by the first Worker, pre-chopping forests may not even be needed to get the Settlers out quickly. This should also maximize research, since you will have only one city for a longer period of time with zero overhead.

Sun Tzu Wu

Until fairly recently, my build queue was worker-settler-worker-pyramids with warriors thrown in so that settler build was at size 2, and the second worker at size 3.

However, I am now trying for wins without any world wonders, and my queue has been worker-settler-settler (with the second city building a settler straight away as well). I´ve been throwing warriors in as appropriate.

But what is appropriate? I grow to size 2 before starting on the 1st settler. Should I grow to size 3 before starting on the second?

You should grow to at least size 3 before the first (working 2 commerce and 1 food during the build) and size 4 if you have a second food.

I am rusty. A very important bit of early strategy is this:
Your first Worker must travel with your first built settler.
I'll try not to forget again.

I am rusty. A very important bit of early strategy is this:
Your first Worker must travel with your first built settler.
I'll try not to forget again.

Curious - Would you still do that if he could only build a grassland cottage? Or do you make sure there is an ag resource or FP in the initial culture box?

Anyone trying the BTS PA route - why OCC? Wouldn't you want 2 cities? That way you could have a GP farm and build cathedrals in the capital and your partner only needs to get his first city legendary.

I am hating oracling CoL. It's a nice boost to research, but I find it delays the library in the capital too much. Also, being so soon, the second city doesn't have time enough to pop a GS before the capital's GPro.


Curious - Would you still do that if he could only build a grassland cottage? Or do you make sure there is an ag resource or FP in the initial culture box?


Well, of course the Worker has to have a couple of improvements to do. Tipically farm food resource and mine grassland hill. That way the second city can colaborate towards Workers and Settlers.

I am hating oracling CoL. It's a nice boost to research, but I find it delays the library in the capital too much. Also, being so soon, the second city doesn't have time enough to pop a GS before the capital's GPro.

Well if you founded confu in the 2nd cottage city, which will get hermitage+caths, that Gpro for a shrine is definitely not a waste. You will never pop a gp from there, working mines and cottages, so pool pollution is not an issue.

A player owning The Pyramids seems to be a target for at least one the AIs at deity level. Every time I've gone for a cultural win and included building The Pyramids as part of my strategy, an AI would later eventually attack me. jesusin has had the same experience when building The Pyramids as well, 6 of 6 times as I recall. The only effective method for avoiding this is great diplomacy, since building up a military is a waste of hammers for a cultural victory goal. Building The Pyramids may still be a viable option, but extreme care with diplomacy may be required.


OMFG, yesterday I had the best game as of yet and I was looking to build a late wonder in my capital to put some idle hammers to use.

I was like, I have stone, noone has pyramids lets do it. I built pyramids, and about 5 turns after that just as I reached liberalism, Isabella declared war from the other side of the map.
She had about 5 maces, 5 catapults and 5 horsearchers moved over my border...

I had at least +3 relations and cautios I may even have been pleased :cry:

Bummer ssjos. That sounds like a MaxWar delcaration where Izzy would have decided to go to war with you many turns before because of the RNG. It probably just coincided with your finishing the mids. That is one reason why it is good idea to use only the leaders that will not DOW you at Pleased (I don't think Izzy is in this category) as opponents. Since your power will be well below everyone else, if a civ gets the RNG to DOW on any particular turn, they will pick you unless your diplo relation prevents it. That's also a reason to beeline alpha - once there you should be able to keep everyone pleased throughout.

IIRC, Cautious does not prevent a RNG DOW with anybody on vanilla.

Anyone trying the BTS PA route - why OCC? Wouldn't you want 2 cities? That way you could have a GP farm and build cathedrals in the capital and your partner only needs to get his first city legendary.

Two reasons:
1) I want Globe + Nat. Park + Nat Epic (+ Hermitage) in one city with lots of biology farms.
2) I had kind of assumed that the AI is better at getting its 2nd and 3rd cities to Legendary than an ordinary non turbo-charged GP Farm. (If you gift any GAs, it will culture bomb them all in the city with the third highest culture rate - even if it is already Legendary. This is something I am taking advantage of)

One more thing - playing OCC means more space for my ally to expand into.

I have been teching up to Scientific Method (by lightbulbing) and then gifting it all to Mansa (my PA target) as the fastest way to get to Communism, for a 15xx finish.

There is a lot more randomness with the map than in a normal game, as I need Mansa to be next to me (ideally far away with lots of room for cities) and the common war target not next to me.

Two reasons:
1) I want Globe + Nat. Park + Nat Epic (+ Hermitage) in one city with lots of biology farms.
2) I had kind of assumed that the AI is better a