Well, here's my recipe for the 20k culture win in Regent.
Please remember that Great Library is the key to this strategy.
With that strategy, I get 20k around 1950.


ANCIENT AGE

1°) Try to build the 20k city on the coast alongside of a river.
Some wonders needs access to the sea to be built and the connection to fresh water saves you that turn-consuming building of Aqueduct (Construction). Remember that Hoover Dam (Electronics) needs a river in the city range...

2°) Try to make that 20k your capitol.
Advantages: You get the Palace's culture (2 cpt) from the start. The building of wonders won't be slowed by waste/corruption (red shields).
Drawbacks: you won't be able to prebuild with Palace (that can be very dangerous if AI completes the wonder you were building and you have no other wonder to fall back to).

3°) Build Temple (Ceremonial Burial) quickly to benefit the 1000 years old bonus early.

4°) Build at least 2 (preferably 3) ancient times wonder in the city.

My favorites being Great Library (Literacy), Colossus (Bronze Working) and Hanging Gardens (Monarchy).

Great Library for its power (which essentialy allows you to catch up those damn AI in the tech run) and a wondrous 6 cpt (12 cpt after a millenium!) which is the max culture per turn you can get for a wonder of Ancient Age.

Colossus allows more income in those times were it is so scarce. The needed tech is quite low and the shield cost is the cheapest of all wonders. And it won't get obsolete until the discovery of Flight, 3 full ages of use! Base 3 cpt is also quite cheesy.

Hanging Garden (Base 4 cpt) benefits just in the peace of your civilization. But having that is interesting since you profit from it to the start of Industrial Age.

5°) Try to build all common buildings buy pop-rushing (in the begining) or money-rushing (later) between building two wonders, which means you spend 2 turn to build them.

Here's the build order:
Any building providing culture (Temple, Library, Colosseum, Cathedral, University, Reserch Center).
Any building improving shield output (Courthouse, Factory, Police Station, Any Plant).
Any building allowing population growth (Granary, Aqueduct, Hospital) with respect to the limiting factor involved.
Any building improving the stability of your city (Marketplace)

6°) Use luxury slider to have all worker in city working, not entertaining each other! Use military police and any luxury ressource to handle unhapiness.

7°) Your way up the tech tree in Ancient Age shall then follow the path (Some techs (*) are better bought than researched, if you can get them):

Ceremonial Burial* (Temple) - Bronze Working* (Colossus) - Alphabet* - Writing - Literacy (Great Library) - Mysticism* (Oracle) - Polytheism - Warrior Code* - Monarchy (Hanging Gardens).

The rest will be given by Great Library. Search any missing tech in order to get to next age quickly.
Do not sell the tech you own, even if the wonder is already built. The idea is to slow as much as possible the advance of the AI to have enough time to build most wonders of the...


MIDDLE AGE

1°) Strive to build the most culture-producing wonders:
Sistine (6 cpt), JS Bach (6 cpt), Shakespeare (8 cpt) and Newton (6 cpt)

2°) Get Feudalism as soon as possible and start building Tsun Zu as a prebuild to Sistine.

3°) Get Ingeneering and Invention to have Leonardo as fallback. Other techs should come through Great Library.

4°) As soon as Theology is discovered by someone, wait a few turns to see if it will be exchanged between AI (you then get it for free). Otherwise pay anything needed to the AI that have it. Switch Tsun Zu to Sistine. If you finish Tsun Zu and no one get Theology, prebuild with Leonardo and switch to Sistine when available.

5°) After getting Invention, you can slow tech reseach. Search Printing Press (seldom seached by AI, good bargain value) then the bottompath (Invention - Gunpowder - Chemistry) to maximize benefit from Great Library.

6°) When you get Education from Great Library, buy out Astronomy if available and start prebuild JS Bach with Copernic while researching Music Theory. Switch the JS Bach as soon as possible and start heading to Free Artistry.

7°) Sell Music Theory just before completion of JS Bach to get Banking and possibly Navigation. Prebuild with anything handy (Magellan - Smith). Switch to Shakespeare when available.

8°) Sell Free Artistry just before completion to head to Gravitation, again use Magellan or Smith as prebuild.

9°) Get to next age as soon as possible (you can skip Military Tradition if you have no victorious army).


INDUSTRIAL AGE

1°) Get Steam Power and Industrialization first.

2°) Prebuild a factory and rush it when available, then rush a coal plant. Build Women Suffrage.

3°) Get Electricity, search or buy Medecine from AI. If you have time, search Sanitation before Scientific Method.

4°) Build Darwin while searching/buying Replaceable Parts, Nationalism, Espionnage and Communism.

5°) Use Darwin to discover Atomic Theory and Electronics. Build Hoover Dam.

6°) Build Small Wonders only when no Great Wonder is available.

7°) Get to next Age.


MODERN AGE

1°) Depending on the position of the AI in the tech run: If you have time, get Computer, build SETI and Research Center.

2°) Get Fission and prevent a diplomatic win by snatching UN for yourself. Build Manhattan if you wish it.

3°) Get Miniaturization to build Off-Shore Platforms and get Genetics.

4°) Build Cure for Cancer and Longevity.


I'm not sure about the use of this strategy on higher level though. Feel free to add any constructive remarks.
Thanks for reading.

Good strategy!:goodjob:

I just gave up on my 3rd attempt at trying to get the 20K after failing to build any ancient wonders at all. I got pipped by the AI on every single one by a few turns.

The last island I was on was 90% desert anyway. As usual, the next civ was on green and verdant lands.

I had no Iron or Horses as well. Thats the second game in a row without either of these. I'm starting to wonder if the 20K is even possible anymore :(

The best way to get 20k is to NOT build in your capitol. The ability to use a palace prebuild easily outweighs the 2cpt, and you can build the forbidden palace to get the 2cpt back anyway.

Make sure your wonder city is the closest to your capitol for reduced corruption, I usually build 3 or even 2 squares away.

Great post. A very sound strategy!!:goodjob:

I needed this strat like a week ago. Il try it as soon as my computer wakes up. :D

That is a pretty darn good strategy!

newtons is 4 CPT not 6 just letting you know.

Anyway, I would say all in all a good strategy, though loosing the palace prebuild is pretty harsh. Notice, though, it really depends on the city's terrain, in my current emperor game, my capitol is on GREAT lands with a river covering most tiles(maybe 14), 4 mountains (1 w/ gold) 3 hills, the rest grasslands, 3 of them bonus, 1 with cows, 1 with game, so it really depends on the terrain. The captiol is so good its better to build things strait up than to prebuild with a palace.

Good strat! :goodjob: Might even be useful for an OCC....

This might be a bit picky, but when in your build list do you build a settler to found a second city or any armed forces to stop your 20K capital city being overrun?

I guess this might work on the easier difficulty levels but at the higher levels you would get whipped. Has anyone every tried this on emporer or deity? Is a 20K win possible on the higher levels?

Yes, it's possible....

Give us a clue how then! I assume that you have to get very lucky with your starting location as basically you need seperate settler and military factories away from your 20K city so that it can concentrate on culture improvements. On any deity level game where you have close neighbours they would be walking all over you before you managed to get more than 4-5 cities up and running.

I don't know about emperor or diety but on monarch it's possible!
Moonsinger won GOTM18 (monarch level) with a 20K win, so you might want to try reading her posts on that game in the spoiler threads for GOTM18...

Spoiler 1:

This is where she shows her city that eventually became the 20K city...

PS: It's the twelfth post on the first page....

Thanks for the link. Going to have my work cut out now trying to copy a goddess like moonsinger! :worshp:

Why spend two turns to rush the common buildings?
Rushing it in a single turn doesn't cost much more. E.g., at 20 shields/turn, you can rush a colosseum in 2 turns for 320 gold (start building marketplace with 20 shields, rush for 320 gold, switch to colosseum), or you can rush it in a single turn for 440 gold (rush worker for 80, then switch to marketplace and rush for 360, then switch to colosseum). Not that big a difference, if time is really critical.

Originally posted by DaviddesJ
Why spend two turns to rush the common buildings?


Because it's cheaper. After one turn building a temple, the cost for rushing it is more than halved....

I guess this might work on the easier difficulty levels but at the higher levels you would get whipped. Has anyone every tried this on emporer or deity? Is a 20K win possible on the higher levels?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=49058


it is possible. (as long as your name isnt civgeneral)

hey leave civgeneral out of this he felt bad aenough as it is!

i was just kidding around. a little nub in the ribs. i know the feeling of having people pissed at you for some :smoke: that you did. thats why i came here.

Originally posted by Pal {UI}
This might be a bit picky, but when in your build list do you build a settler to found a second city or any armed forces to stop your 20K capital city being overrun?

I guess this might work on the easier difficulty levels but at the higher levels you would get whipped. Has anyone every tried this on emporer or deity? Is a 20K win possible on the higher levels?

It is on emperor level. DaveMcW did it in GOTM19.
He had at least a dozen great wonders in his city.
See his post (it's the fifth on the page, I think)...

After one turn building a temple, the cost for rushing it is more than halved....

One dirty trick you can use is to disband a military unit in your 20K city, knocking that 'first' turn off the temple/improvment, then rush the rest. You get to rush the thing in one turn for the second turn cost plus a warrior.

Yes, that also works very well! This trick takes a turn of the build-time so can be helpful....

But the other trick is also very useful if you dont have any units to disband. Just rush a worker for 80 gold and then rush the desired building for less than half the original cost. In this way, you dont have to lose a unit. You have to pay 80 gold extra but if time is that important, surely you can cough some money ;)

I have found(and others may get different results) that

-a temple ends up at about 1000 culture
- library 1500 culture
-Great library 3000 culature
- cathedral/University 1000 culture
-Hanging gardens ~1500 culture
-Palace ~500 culture
-Colosseum ~1000 culture
-Sistine Chapel ~2k
-Bachs ~1500

Then the rest are around 1000k culture or less.
I am unsure of the pyrimds/oracle/collassus due to not building them. I agree that the collassus could generate a ton of culture as well.

I've always had a thing, even in Civ 1, for trying to play with the smallest possible civ and see how well I could do. Yesterday I won the game on emperor level with only 3 cities. I played as the Babylonians and got started on a tiny peninsula, blocked in by the Persians, so I went for the 20k win.

I started by building warrior, warrior, settler, temple, colossus, great library.

Babylon had a pretty decent spot, with a cow and by the sea, my second city plugged the peninsula and had wine. My third city was on the tiny thread of land in between. I focused all of Babylon's energy on culture while my other cities were dedicated to defense. The Persians attacked me fairly early in the game, but my city walls and spearmen held off their archers until I could pay them off for peace. I basically spent the whole game trading techs (had to buy and sell them rather than develop them) maintaining a sturdy defense on that one city and avoiding any treaties that could lead to a war. About 10 turns before I won the Zulu's attacked me for no apparent reason, but my defenses were easily adequate to fight them off long enough to win... and I also was easily able to convince Germany to join me in the war. I won the game in 1952 with 973 points. It didn't make the hall of fame, but it was a fun, and relatively quick game. It was a lot of fun watching the rest of the world go to war while I traded with everyone.

You should mention, which civilization to take for a cultural victory.
I think, Babylon is the right choice (no matter if you are going for a cultural victory in one city or overall culture), because of the cheap temples, cathedrals, libraries and universities. And you spend less time in anarchy (so you can switch govt while you are building a wonder, which would otherwise be stupid), and the free tech in each era is also good.
And in C3C you get more SGLs with a scientific civ, so you can rush wonders!
So if you want a cultural victory, go for Babylon (you can even win an OCC with Babylon through 20K culture)!

vary nice!!

I know it's about 2 years too late, but I followed your advice perfectly... I was doing very well until Education rolled around and made the GL obsolete... then I was screwed. I got pwned by the Russians!

Lol,

Last post was 4,5 years ago, but i have a question.

When do you switch your government type, and to what government?

It depends, a bit.

I generally switch to republic, unless I anticipate a LOT of war. Even so, I generally switch to republic ;) And I almost always switch as soon as I can. Unless I'm in the middle of a GA that is helping me a lot.

Warring in Republic make the game that much more addictive, and tedious. :lol:

Lol,

Last post was 4,5 years ago, but i have a question.

When do you switch your government type, and to what government?

I usually follow the Republic slingshot and stay in Republic. Gamezrule is right, warring in Republic is addictive. I like to keep my wars short and sharp.

In C3C, don't forget the Statue of Zeus. It has about the highest culture for the cost and is a very useful wonder if you have Ivory. At Regent it's a big help to getting more land to keep ahead of the AI. If I have Ivory I always try for it - the only ancient wonder I try for in normal games.

I'll be the dissenting voice in the crowd. I have nothing against Republic and I've used it from time to time. But Republic does not fit my gaming style most of the time. I am a very cautious player and that means that wars last a long time. Long wars = unhappy republic.

I generally go into monarchy and stay there. It's good to be king. :king: The benefits of monarchy is that you can use MPs to control happiness and war weariness is a minor nusiance if even that.

I also like the Hanging Gardens as a wonder. It is worth a 20% reduction on the happiness slider for the MA, which is the time period that always seems to last the LONGEST (my god, why won't it end). Since the AI rarely goes that route, it is an easy wonder to grab and I can usually afford to dedicate a city to building a wonder by that time.

With MPs and the Hanging Gardens I can generally function rather well without many luxuries. For some reason I have a hard time gathering enough luxuries to make a republic stable. I find I am always fiddling with the luxury slider and adding/removing clowns. The one time I tried republic on an Emperor level game it nearly killed me. It was even worth the 5 turns of anarchy to go to Monarchy to get back on track.

Strange, I have fought some long wars in Republic. The key is to get luxury's and keep you're kill ratio high.

Yeah I never had any trouble with long wars while republican in C:Conquests. I don't think I really used other governments. Also, Raliuven, while it took me a loooong time, at some point I got comfortable with not just losing troops but even losing a city or two during war. Being able to risk that or lose cities goes a long way to being able to win wars and the game. I was emperor in vanilla civ3 and demigod in conquests.

Strange, I have fought some long wars in Republic. The key is to get luxury's and keep you're kill ratio high.


That's also my experience, although I try to avoid long wars. Sometimes the peace treaty get you more than continued conquering would. I'm always trying to focus on getting whatever resource the enemy has that I don't. 5 more Scientist farms might not be worth much.

I believe Vmxa also uses Republic and he is a warmonger and excellent player.

Oh I have no doubt that it is possible. I just need more practice at it. It is probably what is holding me at emperor and making deity so hard to crack.

I find that Monarchy is less hassel during war - don't need to care about body counts or old units sitting around as MPs (as long as I don't go over the limit), etc. As I get a little better at my warring skills and develop a true passion for luxuries (I mean a full blown passion, not a casual glace of interest), then maybe Republic will work. It just seems to hit me in all my weaknesses. But I am trying. Really I am. :shifty:

I don't think we will go into the long list of things that vmxa can do that I cannot do. I don't think I can stand that kind of humiliation. At any rate, I think it would be more appropriate to start a new thread on that topic if we were going to do that. No one wants to go through that much effort, right?

Oh I have no doubt that it is possible. I just need more practice at it. It is probably what is holding me at emperor and making deity so hard to crack.

I find that Monarchy is less hassel during war - don't need to care about body counts or old units sitting around as MPs (as long as I don't go over the limit), etc. As I get a little better at my warring skills and develop a true passion for luxuries (I mean a full blown passion, not a casual glace of interest), then maybe Republic will work. It just seems to hit me in all my weaknesses. But I am trying. Really I am. :shifty:

I don't think we will go into the long list of things that vmxa can do that I cannot do. I don't think I can stand that kind of humiliation. At any rate, I think it would be more appropriate to start a new thread on that topic if we were going to do that. No one wants to go through that much effort, right?

You are quite correct. I got OT.

There's a long list of what vmxa can do that most of us cannot do. I didn't mean it as a put-down at all. Few of us want to compare ourselves to his level of play. I certainly don't want to. Sorry if I offended or upset you.:sad:

You are quite correct. I got OT.

There's a long list of what vmxa can do that most of us cannot do. I didn't mean it as a put-down at all. Few of us want to compare ourselves to his level of play. I certainly don't want to. Sorry if I offended or upset you.:sad:

1. I believe VMXA has played civ III in form or another since it came out.

2. I don't believe VMXA has much experience with doing a fast research game. I feel even more sure that he has very, very little experience with either of the cultural victories also.

You are quite correct. I got OT.

There's a long list of what vmxa can do that most of us cannot do. I didn't mean it as a put-down at all. Few of us want to compare ourselves to his level of play. I certainly don't want to. Sorry if I offended or upset you.:sad:

Oh no, no bad feelings at all. I should have used more :D :D :D's.

I see some of the conquest and domination victory dates in the GOTM and I just shake my head. I've never tried a 20K victory before. But now I am inspired to try.