About BTS cultural games on low levels of difficulty

If you are interested in Deity Vanilla Cultural games, you should probably be reading this instead. http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/culture_victory.php

I have gained some experience in BTS and in levels around Noble since I wrote that article. But not enough. I will be writing here my findings in order not to forget them. Please comment your ideas here too, I'll appreciate it.

Most of my experience comes from GOTM games. Some of it from HOF games, like Minor Gauntlet 112. You can read the writeup of that game here http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=10149336&postcount=16

I have just improved the Small Normal Prince Cultural slot of HOF. You can read the writeup of that game on the second post of this thread.

I plan to comment here in additional posts every cultural game I take a number 1 spot in the HOF tables. If I have the time to play, my next goal will be BTS, Small, Normal, Warlord.


Here are some observations I made in GOTM35, GOTM36 and GOTM37:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=10059388&postcount=11

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I've been comparing data between my most recent games. Maybe I am just finding useful info about my personal way of playing... but I think I've found some "universal constants".

My way of playing is stopping at Liberalism and going 100% culture just then, with 2 cities dedicated to cottages and/or WorldWonders and a city dedicated as main GPFarm; all other cities are secondary GPFarms.
Conclusions (numbers come from Normal speed, apply the appropriate factor for other speeds):

I always can put Hermitage in my best city (and yet have to use some GA bomb on it).
At the end of the game the cuantity of unused GPP is 4 times (CONSTANT1) the cost of the last GP. So having to go to 1 more GP means 800GPP lost to inneficiency, apart from the cost of the GP itself. This means that using a GA in a GoldenAge can be a good idea, if you can hire enough artists during the GoldenAge .


At the end of a game I'm always doing some 2200 to 2300cpt (CONSTANT2) in the 3 cities. This means that, as an average, the last GA is worth 2 turns. If you plan to lose 2 turns to anarchy, using a GA in a GoldanAge is a good idea.




During many months I studied my data and couldn't perfectly correlate it with the victory date. I was missing a key parameter. That parameter was "the date where all the cathedrals get built".
Perfect timing makes you finish your cathedrals at the same time you reach Liberalism.

Assuming you got perfect timing, the time between Liberalism and Victory date is 45 turns (CONSTANT3).

During that period the 3 cities are doing a total of 500 to 600 base cpt (not includng multipliers) (CONSTANT4).

During that period 1 GA is going to be generated every 3 turns (CONSTANT5).

During that period you'll be doing 1800cpt as an average (CONSTANT6).

An additional religion, with its corresponding set of cathedrals, it's going to mean a saving of 5 or 6 turns (CONSTANT7).
At 100% culture, I was doing 243, 168 and 196 base culture points (before multipliers) in my cities. If I had had a 4th religion and I had been able to have the 4th cathedral magically built in my 3 cities at Liberalism date, then I would have done 50%(243+168+196) = 300cpt additional in my civ. Considering this additional culture, I would have won sooner, but how much sooner? Every saved turn would have deprived me of the 2300cpt I was doing at the end and also of the GPP I was doing every turn... So all in all, the new religion with it's free cathedrals would have saved just 5,2 turns!


At the end of the game you won't have done just 50000c per city, or a total of 150000culture, but 155000 culture. Excess culture is 5000c (CONSTANT8).

So all in all you would have added:
- 12000 culture before you reach Liberalism.
- 45 turns at 1800cpt = 83250c
- 15 GA = 60000c
Total: 155250c






Practical application:


What do all this numbers mean for you?

Well, if you are just like me, you probably don't need them. When you have to take a decision like "will I pop enough GA from here to the end of the game as to set up the Hermitage in the best city?" or "Is it worth building another monastery or am I close enough to victory that it is better to build culture instead?" you just prepare a huge spreadsheet, spend a couple of hours calculating and then you know for sure the turn of your victory and how many GA you are going to have.

Now, if you don't do that kind of calculations, then you are probably at a loss about the turn you expect to win or the number of GA you will have for bombing. In this case, my constants can be a useful guide.



Example 1: You are playing a hammer rich game. You were very early infected by foreign missionaries with 3 religions. You can go for Paper-Educ-Liberalism directly or I can first make a detour to get Christianity from Theology. Should you try?

Well, if your game is hammer rich and you have had the time to spread the religions and build temples, you'll probably finish your cathedrals before you reach Liberalism.
In that case, a 1 turn delay of Liberalism will be a 1 turn delay in your victory date, since it will take around 45 turns from one date to the other.

The additional set of Christian cathedrals will save 5 or 6 turns out of your final date. So if you can research Theology in less than 5 or 6 turns, you should go for it; if your research capability is worst than that, you shouldn't.


Example2: You've got your first GA from Music. Should you settle it or save it for a culture bomb at the end of the game? It's an Epic game. The land is very bad.

Count how long will it take for you to research up to Liberalism. Add some more turns if your cathedral building is slow. Add 66 turns (45*1,5, Epic factor). Add a couple of turns because the land is so bad you don't really trust the "jesusin's 45 turns contant" applies in this situation. Now you know the number of turns the GA settled as a superspecialist will be contributing.

If number of turns * contribution per turn is more than 6000 culture, go for it, settle him.


Example3: Was wasting a GA in a GoldenAge a good idea in this game?

I invested a whole GA. If the GoldenAge returned more than a GA, then it was a good idea. Popping a new GA to substitute the used one had a direct cost of 4200GPP and an indirect cost of 1200GPP in the shape of additional unused GPP at the end of the game. Total cost = 5400GPP.

The GoldenAge lasted 15 turns and during them I was doing 300GPP more than out of GoldenAge. That's a direct benefit of 4500GPP. But a 10% of my specialists were in cities that didn't ahve a chance to pop a GA, so they were merchants instead of artists. The direct benefit gets reduced to 4050GPP.
Also I was doing some more hammers which were translated to a few culture points I won't bother to count.
Also I was doing additional culture in my ciites: 150cpt during 15 turn or 2250c. Since a GA is worth 6000c, then this additional culture is the equivalent of more than a third of the cost of the GA (5400*2250/6000= 2025GPP).
So total benefit was 4050+2025 GPP and a few hammers, which is more than the 5400GPP cost. It was the right decision.

BTS: Prince, Small, Normal Speed, Cultural game.
Victory date: 1170AD


Settings:
Gandhi against Musa, Elizabeth, Roosevelt and Washington.


Map Finder:
Please go and get me a mining resource+Marble start or a 2 mining resources start.


Starting position:
2corn, 2gold, not in a Plain Hill.


Initial turns:
Research Meditation, for 5 turns work unimproved gold in order to be sure of getting the religion.
Research Agriculture and AH. Find horses on my 3rd ring of culture.
Research The Wheel, Writing and Alphabet.
Steal 2 Workers from each American leader. Stupidly give one of the workers back. Lose 3 chariots while killing 3 warriors, then put together 7 chariots and use them, there are only 2 AIs left in my game.
Can't resist temptation, take Worker and city defended with a single warrior from Elizabeth. Make peace.

Execute CS sling without Marble. Get infected from Musa. Academy in the capital, although I am at 0% research.

1000BC stats: 7 cities, 7Workers, 31bpt at 0gpt, 3religions, 6religions*city, 0 temples.


Mid game:
Beeline Music.
Pyramids 725BC.
400BC: 9 cities, -13gpt at 0%, bulb Philo, get infected from Lizzy, build HG.
300BC:Music, Marble, first courthouse,
Detour to Currency, losing 300b, only to find Musa goes for it too.
Get Parthenon, Sistine's.

Cities:
Capital has 2 gold, 2corn and a few cottages and mines.
2nd Legendary is a hammer city with 22hpt. It builds wonders and at the very end hires artists.
3rd Legendary is GPFarm, with 17 food excess.

Only 6 cities are needed for 3 cathedrals per religions. 7th and 8th cities are only settled in order to get Stone and Marble. 9th was settled because of having 12 food excess. I left sites with Fish+clams, which I normally use as good auxiliary GPFarms, unsettled.

1AD stats: 9cities, 9workers, 79bpt at 0gpt, 5religions, 23religions*city, 16 temples, 3 cahtedrals. 178GPPpt, no paper, no drama.
Still 0% research.


Endgame:
Beeline Liberalism. Bulb Education.
200AD, still missionaries needed, still in OR, 7Cathedrals.
No trees left for chopping.
500AD: Liberalism, choose Nationalism, revolt to FS and Pacifism, 3 missionaries left for 1 infection that always fails. I am at 0% culture. Doing 800cpt in the 3 cities together.
Get SoZ, MoM, 10Cathedrals.
T134, My estimate is that I'll be at 30% culture and need 56 turns with 15GA for bombing 1-8-6, winning around 1300AD. This estimation does not need to be precise, it only serves to decide that Hermitage will go in the capital, the city with the best base culture. Well, it also serves to determine that one city will never pop another GA.

Get Hermitage and TajMaj. Build Moai and AP in an auxiliary city in order to get the hammers from temples and monasteries.
Beeline Mercantilism.

1000AD stats: 15cathedrals, Mercantilism, 2200cpt in the 3 cities together, 590GPPpt civwide.
At last I move away from 100% gold.
Launch Gage with Economy's GM, research PP. Then Engineering needed for a GA to travel faster to the Legendary cities.
Doing 2750cpt in the 3 cities together.
WON 1170AD with bombs 3-7-7, 1GoldenAge, 1 useless Academy, 2 bulbs (must have been 3, but I can't remember). Total 22GP, 2 of them free. Last bombed GA saved 2t.

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Reflexions provoked by this game:


*** First of all, in my GOTM games I've been getting 14xxAD results while here I have a 1170AD result. Where does the difference lay?

Well, anyone can win a Warlord-Prince cultural game around 1500AD. All you need is a strategy adequate for a cultural victory.
Moving from 14xxAD to 11XXAD in this game, apart from the good starting position, is due IMO to quick REXing. I had 7 cities by 1000BC.


***So how, to get to a pre-1000AD result?

Being a better player, getting an even better starting position (particularly settling on a PH), avoiding mistakes like the lost Worker can help to a certain extent. IMO the big jump would have been to develop my civ even faster, something like 8 cities and 10 Workers at 1500BC.

Also, read about the fundamental flaws of my game below.


***Is 9 Workers for 9 cities a good ratio.

No. 1 more Worker would have been better.


***Was your Academy a good idea?

No. Not at all. It never saw a slider different from 0%. That was a wasted GP.


***Aren't 22 GP too many?

No, that was right. 2 were free from Music and Economy, so I just nurtured 20, the last one needing 3000GPP. That is a sweet spot, the previous one cost 2800GPP while the next one would have cost 3300GPP. I paid the price of so many GP in the shape of reduced research rate due to paying maintenance costs for 9 cities.


***Isn't Liberalism at 500AD a bit too late?

Yes. A couple of gems in my cities would have helped a lot. In this game research was the critical path. Or earlier Pyramids with lots of specialist hired from the very beginning.


***Was killing half of your neighbors a good idea?

Well, I needed their cities. But certainly a third trading partner would have come in handy.


***Did you made good use of the Spiritual trait?

No. My slow research meant that I never felt the urge to whip.So I stayed all the time up to Liberalism in Castes+OR, instead of alternating long periods of Castes+Pacifism with short periods of slavery+OR.


***Am I approaching the perfect cultural game?

Could I have built things faster in my Legendary cities? Well, I can always find a map with one more hill. Apart from that, my capital just built indispensable things, like settlers int he beginning, temples and cathedrals in the middle, required WW when available. So no much room for improvement here.

In addition, contrary to what I stated in the previous post, I don't think that saving a turn in cathedral building is so important, when compared to reaching to Liberalism 1 turn sooner. When you get to Liberalism you start building Hermitage and you revolt to FS. So saving 1 turn on Liberalism saves the equivalent to 1 turn in 8 cathedrals.

I can certainly get to Liberalism sooner. But with 800cpt just after Liberalism, 400cpt just before Liberalism and 2750cpt just before the
end, it looks like getting Liberalism 14 turns sooner will save just 2 turns out of the end date.

So there seems to be not much margin for improvement. But on the other hand...


***Is 5 religions best?

Certainly having a 6th set of cathedrals would have saved some 3 or 4 turns. But building the missionaries and temples would have delayed my GP nurturing, building the cathedrals would have been a drag for the Legendary cities... I think it would n't have been beneficial.

Staying at 4 religions sounds interesting. As I said, my capital didn't have any spare time and it was working tis mines up to Liberalism. By having 1 less religion I could have gone to Pacifism sooner, helping my GPs to born. And with one less cathedral in the Legendary cities, mines there can be abandoned sooner. Not to speak of researching agriculture first, instead of an early religion... I'll try this next game.


***Fundamental flaws

I can't help but feeling that there is something wrong, very very wrong, with my way of playing cultural games.

I want lots of GP. But I spend all game long (up to Liberalism) in OR in order to improve my building times and in order to build missionaries everywhere and without any monastery. So no Pacifism.

I want to get to Liberalism fast. But I don't get good research rates (200-300bpt) till AFTER Liberalism, when I maximize Pacifism by hiring artists everywhere.

Apart from the initial turns, I've never been in slavery. My cities weren't so food rich, apart from the GPFarm. Running Castes and OR up to Liberalism smells fishy. Slavery is the best friend of OR, not Castes. And Pacifism is the best friend of Castes, not OR.


I read and re-read what I've written and I can't find any obvious solution. Whipping brings in quicker buildings, but delays reaching maximum size and thus hiring specialists. Hiring early specialists would bring in more research, but I would have to grow more slowly and if I abandon the mines buildings will come in more slowly. Never being in OR would delay my buildings and would sacrifice a city per religion in the task of building a monastery and all of the required missionaries from that particular city.


I need help. Any comment will be appreciated. Please, share your ideas!

You have just persuaded me that I should never take part in a GOTM. Spreadsheets! Spreadsheets!
I don't have that level of dedication....

bras0778 said:

You have just persuaded me that I should never take part in a GOTM. Spreadsheets! Spreadsheets!
I don't have that level of dedication....

Click to expand...

What do you mean? In this last HOF game I described I've spent 16 hours. Probably 6 having been spent in front of the game, while 10 have been spent in from of my huge spreadsheet.

The use of spreadsheets and mathematics is related to individual players ("number crunchers") like me. It has nothing to do with the competition you are playing, GOTM or HOF. In fact, I also use spreadsheets in my private games, when I'm not competing.

Not liking the green and light blue text much

You have just persuaded me that I should never take part in a GOTM. Spreadsheets! Spreadsheets!
I don't have that level of dedication....

Click to expand...

Just don't try to compete with jesusin on culture Most of us wouldn't dream of using spreadsheets for XOTM's

ParadigmShifter said:

Not liking the green and light blue text much

Click to expand...

Colors changed.

Well, theres nothing fishy about that date, 1170 is impressive!

One of the hardest things I found to becoming a better player was letting go of my previous strategies. It always seemed counterintuitive (or fishy), but it usually paid off.

For instance, teching and building military, conquering several AI really pays off for a space race. I admit I started as a total builder, and still have builder tendencies, but nowhere near as much as I used to.

Played another game. The goal was to make an experiment, staying in OR as little as possible, trusting my research to early Representation beakers and building monasteries to get out missionaries. Here is its description.


BTS: Warlord, Small, Normal Speed, Cultural game.
Victory date: 1100AD


Settings:
Gandhi against Musa, Elizabeth, Lincoln, Roosevelt and Washington.


Map Finder:
Please go and get me a mining resource+Marble start or a 2 mining resources start.


Starting position:
The main reason I chose this map was I saw a close by Marble plain-hill. I climbed there and settled with 2clams, 1gold, 1oasis, 2FP, 1Ivory.


Initial turns:

Research Fishing while building Worker. The 3 hammers of the city center and the oasis are great.
Beeline Alphabet through AH.
I have put 5 rivals only to conquer some of them more easily (closer). I kill my first AI with 3 warriors against one.


What a horrible map!

I must have left the shoreline setting on "random". This looks more like a Fractal map than a Pangea map. I am not in the center of the world, but in a far away semi isolated peninsula.

I won't find any 2nd close AI to conquer. And what is worst, when I reach Alphabet, I haven't met anyone to trade with yet.

I meet my second conquered AI so late that they have archery. I steal a worker and make peace (CF). So I patiently delay everything in my cities to get 6 chariots going and attack... only to find the city defended by 2 warriors. Oh well...

Of course I let one of my costly workers die to an errant warrior the turn I dow... What's the problem with you, jesusin? Oh well, oh well...

I left the other 3 AI alone, as trading partners.


Mid game:

CS sling completed 1200BC.

1000BC stats: 7 cities, 7 Workers, 75bpt at 0gpt, Academy, CS, Literature, 4 religions.

Parthenon, Pyramids and NE completed soon(750BC), go to Castes+Representation just after having whipped the last granary. Made a building queue mistake that delayed NE 2 turns. Oh, well, what can I say?... Playing HOF games makes me careless, since I know I can throw away this game and start another one for a similar result whenever I want.

My capital, my GPFarm (just 7 specialist) and my hammer city would be my 3 Legendary. WW were divided between the capital and the hammer city, my capital (with Oracle) taking care of all non-artist GPP wonders.

T86 I settled my Music GA in a won't-get-Hermitage city (the hammer city). I carefully took note of the multipliers increase in that city. So as to know at the end of the game if that was a wise decision or not. At the end of the game the settled GA had produced 250g, 250b and 3620c. Looks like keeping it for a cultural bomb at the end would have been unremarkably better.

Built SoZ and Sistine's. My research is so good (mainly due to Warlords level) that I have to bulb Educ before bulbing Philo. Leading to 2 turns delay in reaching Liberalism. I got there and took Nationalism in 300BC. Remarkably early.

I was in slavery+OR for 7 turns before Liberalism, whipping missionaries everywhere to alleviate the load of the monastery cities and whipping my first 3 cathedrals too.


Endgame:

I made my first estimate T103 (300BC, I had never started estimating my victory date so early). If my cities were already at full size, had already built all cathedrals and I could sustain 100% culture all the time, then I would win T155, bombing 15GA. I thought that taking into account that nothing of that was real, I would need some extra 30 turns, leading to T185. I finally won T170. The main two uses of this estimation were:
- Knowing that I would have enough GA to bomb the other cities even if I put Hermitage in the best city.
- Knowing that 1 of the cities would never pop another GA, so I freely hired merchants or scientists there.

The non artist GP I popped (from my apital) was used to launch a GoldenAGe... before nobody had Calendar yet so before MoM
In order not to repeat the mistake, I delayed finishing TajMahal... which was bad for the culture of the city, of course. By the way, I should mention that I always gift Maths to every AI as soon as I get it, even risking the HG.

Decided against forges when all that was left to build were 4 cathedrals and theaters and the like. My capital refused getting its 5th religion for a long time. The 7th missionary succeeded. On a curious note, I had to build a GAlley in order to improve 3 tiles for the coastal GPFarm.

By 175AD I had all religions in the 3 Legendary cities and in at least 6 cities each; 7 cathedrals had already been built.
I stayed from 300BC-660AD at 100% gold. That was a mistake. I had too much money all the rest of the game. I wasn't confident in Warlord AIs to keep up my slider. But they happened to have 500g available once, and my won't-pop-another-GA cities hired a lot of merchants.

Auxiliary cities built AP and GLH to indirectly help the 3 Legendary ones.

Post Liberalism research was beelining banking, then PP, then Economy, then useless things. Mercantilism is important.
A GP with 58% GA probability failed, so coupled with Economy GM they launched a second GAge.


In the end I was doing 2500cpt in the 3. Base culture was 225, 125, 166. Multipliers were 5,5 4,5 and 4,5. I bombed 1, 7 and 5 GA in them.I had settled 0, 0 and 1 GA.

I received 2 free GP and nurtured 19. 3GS for Academy and bulbing Educ and Philo. 2GPro and 1 GM for golden ages. 15GA: 1 settled, 13 bombed and 1 unused in the end (all cities finished the same turn).

Conclusions

So, what have I learned from this experiment?



The general idea in Deity Vanilla games was: build a lot of commerce, build a lot of multipliers, rush to Liberalism, go 100% and win. For that cottages were key.

Now I look at my game's data:
- I had just 4 cottages civwide (all in the capital). One of them didn't even reach Town status, since I would generally prioritize and mined PH over a grassland riverside cottage.
- At 300BC (post-liberalism) I was doing 340cpt at 100% and 220cpt at 0% in the 3 Legendary cities.
- At 660AD I was doing 1000cpt at 100% and 750cpt at 0% in the 3 Legendary cities.
- At 1000AD I was doing 2630cpt at 100% and 2100cpt at 0% in the 3 Legendary cities.
- At 1000AD, launching a GoldenAge increased my culture output by just 100cpt.

This means that commerce was an irrelevant factor in my game. At 100% cultural slider commerce accounted for only 20% of my base culture output. The 80% was culture from buildings and specialists. Let's do the actual number... wait a second... here they are:

- commerce accounted for 30% of the base culture of the capital, 10% for the other 2 cities.
- specialists accounted for 40% of the base culture of the GPFarm, 20% or 30% for the other 2 cities.
- Buildings accounted for 50% of the base culture of all 3 cities.


The conclusion is,

The general idea in Deity Vanilla cultural games is: build a lot of commerce, build a lot of multipliers, rush to Liberalism, go 100% and win. For that cottages were key.
The general idea in low level BTS cultural games is: build a lot of buildings, build a lot of multipliers, rush to Liberalism and win. For that hammers are key.

Let us now compare my last two games, described in this thread, and try to draw some conclusions about the relative importance of each of these factors.

In both games I had a commerce (relatively) rich capital with some 15 hpt.
In both games I had a Hammer city with some 20 hpt.
In both games I had a GPFarm as Legendary.
In both games I conquered some cities and got to 7 cities and 7 workers by 1000BC.
In both games I built 15 cathedrals and put the Hermitage in the best city.

So both games were really similar in many aspects. The main difference is Lieeralism date, 500AD in the first game, 300BC in the second. That led to a (noticeable) difference of 7 turns in the final victory date. 1 turn saved for every 4 turns of earlier Liberalism.



When you look at the research speed question from a certain perspective, it doesn't look as important:
Immediately after Liberalism, I was doing 340cpt at 100% culture. At the end of the game I was doing 2600cpt at 100% culture. The turn before I reached Liberalism, I would have been doing 170cpt if I had been at 1005 culture.
So in order to save a single turn at the end of the game, I would have needed to reach Liberalism 15 turns earlier (2600/[340-170]).

But it was 1 turn saved for every 4 turns earlier, not for every 15 turns earlier. Why is this so?
I don't know. Maybe the explanation is that you not only reach Liberalism sooner, but reach every tech sooner so you can start building each WW and each cathedral sooner.






On a more irrelevant point, researching Drama before Music to save some beakers on it (not on Philo cause it is bulbed) is a bad idea; Drama should be researched after Liberalism and its consequent revolt to FS.

It is not like you are building any theaters before Liberalism, they only come at the end, when you have finished every cathedral.

And the few beakers you make, don't compensate for the delay to go to FS, nor for the delay in starting TajMahal and Hermitage.

Interesting idea about focusing on hammers rather than commerce in lower level games, the idea of building cottages for culture is what I would do by default.

What level do you think the cutover between hammers and commerce is? Monarch? Emporer?

Ozbenno said:

Interesting idea about focusing on hammers rather than commerce in lower level games, the idea of building cottages for culture is what I would do by default.

What level do you think the cutover between hammers and commerce is? Monarch? Emporer?

Click to expand...

Maybe it's player dependant.
I feel quite confident on building many WW and keeping up with research without a single cottage at Monarch. At Immortal I might fail to build many WW and I might risk falling out of the trading game. So I'd say Emperor is the threshold. I haven't played any Emperor cultural game lately, so I don't know waht side does ti fall into.

These cultural posts all look very solid to me. There just isn't any easy way to get earlier than 1000AD on normal speed on low difficulty.

It gets exponentially harder each turn shorter you make the game. By the end of the game, if your three legendary cities are making 2000 culture per turn, you need a great artist to finish two turns earlier. But the shorter you make the game, the less time there is to produce great artists.

The right time to switch from OR to pacifism? It feels like when 2 religions are spread to six cities and cathedrals start getting built in the two hammer cities. The cap is already getting a 50% bonus from beaurocracy and a 100% bonus from materials, so 25% isn't as big a deal. If I have more than two religions I whip a few monasteries in the perimeter cities and task them with chopping/spreading missionary folk when I go to pacifism.

My best advice is to get MoM, pop a golden age right before liberalism, and then chain the Taj Golden age to get a 24 turn hammer powered bonanza of cathedrals, wonders, and great artists.


I don't know where the dividing line is on hammers vs. cottages vs. difficulty. If I had to guess I'd say Emperor is where I'd switch from a hammer strategy to the cottage one. Thanks to Jesusin for making such an in depth look at a victory condition!

Since its relevant to current Minor

Interesting thread. Answers some questions I struggle with.

Also brings into question the leader. I've been using Rams in the minor because of his wonder building. But Gandhi has Philo. Tough call...

I never saw a difficulty between Ramesses or Gandhi as he has in addition his UU, which greatly helps to accelerate development. Faster development is the key I learnt it hard in challenge-V-05. It may sounds stupid, even on marathon speed, fast worker has its impact. Compared to AI's, it may be negligible, but between submissions, this can break ties.

Yep, and fast worker ability to pop huts may be crucial. I think I will try a Gandhi game or two. Starting to run out of time on the minor though.