Cultural Deity before 1000AD is possible

Xin Yu said:

I used world builder to build a perfect starting spot (hills/plain city spot; 2 golds on hills/grass, and one wheat on grass). Played Saladin. After several trys, now by turn 26 I get alphabet. Tech sequence mining-agri-pottery-writing-alpha. Building sequence worker-warrior-(wait till size 3) settler. Worker improvement sequence gold-wheat-gold. With a wheat the city can work on two golds with no food problem. 2-3 turns can be saved if mining or agri is a starting tech. 1 turn may be saved if leader is financial. That takes to turn 23 for alphabet.

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I think the worker should farm a resource first thing.

jesusin said:

I think the worker should farm a resource first thing.

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With that tech sequence, yes. But it does not account for an early religion, which is a major benefit of using Saladin.

The best "realistic" map start for Saladin is 1 gold, 1 gems, at least 2 fp+corn, settler on a plains hill (capital site), all on rivers, gems 1 square from capital, corn 1-2 squares from that and the gold 1-2 squares from there. Go med(6)-min(4)-ag(~4). Start warrior(2). Switch to worker(8)-finish warrior and grow to size 2 while mining gems(3)-work gems, start settler(5) and farm corn when ag done-work corn+gems, mine gold, switch to stonehenge while growing to 3(you are doing this for the gold you will get when the AI builds it, alternatively you could start another warrior)-at size 3 work gold, gems+corn to finish settler. If the gold mine isn't ready at size 3, work a fp until it is.

Marble would be nice too, but I don't know if the regenerator is that generous. Closest I've found it with a 2g start was inside the 2nd border expansion.

On quick, the fast worker's "fastness" ends up being equivalent to 20-25% speed increase. Farm- 5 turns, mine- 3 turns, chop- 3 turns. You save the 1 turn movement on chopping, which is probably the most valuable. Slower speeds are much worse.

Xin Yu said:

There are some questions regarding the 'perfect city spot' issue.

2) ... On the other hand, a gold on grass/hills has one food.

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According to the "Civ4 Reference Charts"

http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=2499

a Gold tile is possible only on a plains hill or a desert hill.

No doubt you can use World Builder to add the Gold resource to a grassland hill, but it will never be generated on a HOF compliant map.

Nothing generated using World Builder can be used in a HOF compliant game. So, I question the usefulness of using World Builder, even as a research tool in developing a strategy. It is just too easy to create tiles (or combinations of tiles) using WB that would never appear on a HOF compliant map.

Sun Tzu Wu

FiveAces said:

switch to stonehenge while growing to 3(you are doing this for the gold you will get when the AI builds it,

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If only it would make sense to have Stone connected and get double gold from a failed Stonehenge building attempt.

Since Meditation is researched by time the capital is growing form 2 -> 3, rather than build Stonehedge for gold, wouldn't it be better to build an early Monastery for the 2 Cpt and 4 Cpt a thousand years later?

Sun Tzu Wu

jesusin said:

I think the worker should farm a resource first thing.

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My rationale for mine a gold first is 'to be able grow to size 3 and work on two golds as early as possible'.

After several tries, is seems to me that mine-farm-mine is the best sequence. If I use farm-mine-mine, then the first mine will be ready by turn 16 and the 2nd by turn 20 (average of turn 18) -- this is according to the worker's speed. However If I do mine-farm-mine, then the first turn I can work on a gold (after growing to size 2) is turn 13, which gives me more tech output overall.

Sun Tzu Wu said:

If only it would make sense to have Stone connected and get double gold from a failed Stonehenge building attempt.

Since Meditation is researched by time the capital is growing form 2 -> 3, rather than build Stonehedge for gold, wouldn't it be better to build an early Monastery for the 2 Cpt and 4 Cpt a thousand years later?

Sun Tzu Wu

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Depends on what you will do after the first settler is done - if you build another settler I think your monastery hammers will have decayed by the time you are ready to resume building. At least stonehenge gives you a chance at getting something for them. If you finish the monastery you will delay the 3rd settler, and I've generally found that not to be ideal. That's why I say stonehenge.

Nothing spectacular... 1655 Quick Duel Inland Sea with Saladin vs Mansa. He finishes Apollo Program in 1385, 5 casings late 1500's... and that was it. First win on Deity for me, and I'm still looking to improve.

Highlights:
* Meditation > Priesthood > Mining > Writing > CoL > Alpha. Mansa has CoL, so I must do Math. Mansa gets Oracle way early, so I must do CS as well. Bulbed Philo, then Paper > bulbed part Edu > Lib.
* 410AD Liberalism race won, but I have to back-tech Music.
* Parthenon built 620AD while I wait for Music.
* Taj Mahal built 920AD, even while Mansa has Nationalism and I wait until after Hermitage is built. Worth it since golden age finishes 2 cathedrals.
* PH Marble/PH Gold/Plains Wheat/4 Floodplains start, GP farm gets Clams, grassland Pigs, Grassland hill Gems (in the jungle), and 2 Floodplains, 3rd gets Iron/Copper/grassland Spices/tundra Deer in trees, merchant city gets Copper, Dye, and Incense. Overall population is smallish since Mansa doesn't trade any health resources. Duel maps do not have many duplicate resources, though with my start, I can't complain.
* Buddism and Confu founded, and Mansa sends a Hindu missionary early. I lost Philo, so I stay with 3 religions.
* Alphabete traded, Civil Service traded, then Nationalism/Liberalism. I have to backtrack through Music and Banking. I win CoL, but he has it already when I look to trade. I waited too long to trade Paper, too.
* 14 GP. 2 scientists pop Philo and Edu, 1-4-7 artist bombs. National Epic in way late, around 620 AD. But, other two legendary cities hold 5 and 4 artist specialists after everything was built. They produced 2 GAs each.

In retrospect, I don't think a Mansa duel is ideal in this format. Even if I had something like grassland Gems in the capital, he's teching too fast. On all my other Deity attempts, I'm able to trade off CoL with Alphabete, and I can capitalize on Paper better, too. In fact, a duel map with only one opponent may not net the best time, though clearly you do have time to win. I think I'll try Vanilla a few more times and limit myself to Tiny instead of Duel maps, though I'm very uncertain on opponents.

Some other interesting notes:

* Mansa goes Free Religion 530 AD, 2 turns after I trade it to him. Relations remain at pleased, and they never were any lower that I can recall. He stayed Hindu, and I go Hindu as well.
* Mansa gifts Constitution 1365 AD. With 7-5-4 artists and 2 merchants, teching wasn't all that bad under Representation.

I mention these facts because they may be important in more unpredictable BtS games. I don't think BtS has been explored that much for HoF purposes, but I suspect that will change after the holidays.

I have about a billion questions for you folks doing this 30 turns sooner than I seem to be able to, which I'll get to as I think about this more.

Congratulations, Kanidyen.
After 2 years of constant tries I have come to a point where I can finish in 1355AD any 1gold or 1gem start. But that doesn't mean that anyone can get a win in 10 tries easily.

By looking at the way you have writen your writeup I can see you will be improving your finish date very soon. You haven't talked about irrelevant things, but you have chosen a set of key parameters that are just on the point. I just miss one important highlight: the date you built the NE and the number of artists specialist your GPFarm was able to support.

Regarding the content, I would suggest leaving Banking for Mansa to research, thus going to 100% culture a few turns sooner.

Good luck.

Regarding the content, I would suggest leaving Banking for Mansa to research, thus going to 100% culture a few turns sooner.

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I couldn't get it in trade. After beelining CoL/Alphabete, I went to trade, but he already had CoL. So there was the first missed opportunity. The second missed opportunity was he surprisingly reasearched Paper right as I was finishing Education. He must have run out of things to research, and now we definately know that Paper is at the rock-bottom of priorities for AI research. I was thinking if I gave him Paper, even with the GS pop on Edu, he would win the Liberalism race; I couldn't allow that seeing in other games how painful it is to get late Nationalism and Hermitage. (As a side note, I think my trade of Natio/Lib netted like 8 techs, cash, and a map... Mansa's a nut )

I just miss one important highlight: the date you built the NE and the number of artists specialist your GPFarm was able to support.

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I'll look up the date when I can see my logs better, but I know it was late. With Banking, I had a solid seven artists. The capital and other legendary produced 2 artists apiece, supporting 5 and 4 artists repectfully after I specialized the miners.

It's interesting that you bring up the point about the NE. My slavery skills could use some work, and I feel, while the GP farm was always running an artist throughout the game, I think I got caught up in optimizing/perfecting that city with some extra builds (lighthouse, harbor, etc) that could have waited or weren't necessary. In other words, that city should have had the NE and 3+ artists much sooner. In fact, now that I think of it, I actually whipped in the NE... It's probably best not to slave away your specialist population. Normally, the GP farm is the second city that I build, but I had to rush a settler to a very good production/cottage spot before being boxed in; you know how it is on Deity. Finally, Literature came after Liberalism as well... messy game, but it is a win.

My purpose in posting regarding this win was to inspire some more conversation in this excellent thread. I have to look at some others' dates, tech paths, and build orders to improve my own game. I'm glad to see someone feels I've got the idea down, but clearly there's a deficiency somewhere; perhaps others would benefit pinpointing that as we look to always improve our own games.

Finally, it will be interesting to see how this all fits into BtS, and I'm curious as to others are coping with cultural wins on Emperor and up.

Duel is harder than tiny or small or even standard. There's no one to trade with. That's probably why you had the banking problem. Move to small.

WastinTime said:

Duel is harder than tiny or small or even standard. There's no one to trade with. That's probably why you had the banking problem. Move to small.

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For whatever reason, I've found a niche in Tiny Inland Sea maps, and I'm having some success with Julius/Peter. They tech like turtles on Deity, but I'm able to better leverage trades. I'm surprised that I'm getting away with an Oracle build; they don't research Priesthood, leaving CoL wide open... so long as either of them doesn't Goody Hut it. Even with a different religion than Julius, he can stay at 'pleased' and DoW Peter. The only problem is that Julius is a Music lover, but I can scoop up techs from Peter with the Literature line.

I will take your advice on Small... after I sort through 100ish MF Tiny maps and toy around with BtS.

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By the way, anyone trying Deity BtS? I've messed with a focused game on lower levels, but haven't bothered trying Deity yet.

WastinTime said:

We are way overdue for a comparison game. Someone generates a juicy start and uploads it for everyone to try different strategies on. Won't be valid for HoF, but we'll learn something.

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This is a very juicy one

Try save-loading all the time. This is Ghandi, normal speed.

I suggest moving the settler 1 up as a starting point. There is stone after 2 culture pops.

The enemies:

Napoleon
Frederick
Mehmed II
JOAO II
Peter
Churchill
Washington
Hannibal


None of them have Mysticism. If you're settling in the first turn go for Hinduism. If you're settling in the second turn go for Budhism I suggest.

After reading that thread I became interested in test some theories in BTS. I played two quick games with Unrestricted Leader as Pericle of Inca ( even not the best choice after all ... ). The first one was lost - for the second one I set "Always Peace" ( I know that is not enabled in HOFs games ) and win a cultural victory in 1740 ( or something - I became to excited to click only END TURN to get my last city at legendary too ).

Some random thoughts :

- Have gold in fat cross of capital, marble in the second city. However lacked a really productive city for the beginning/mid term of the game ( for that reason probably I was so easy attacked in first game ~1400 AD ).
- Aesthetics is somehow easy to get and keep untouched until you could build Partheon and Statue Of Zeus in capital. Also Sh... Paga help - because will not matter that you lost race for Philosophy/get there a little bit earlier.
- Relatively easy to get Music + Literature and keep them without trading until building Sixtine Chapel, but this way I lost to ~10 turns the race to Liberalism this way.
- Espionage is somehow killing you - had the water poisoned in key cities for 3 turns => halted of artists specialist allocation for ~6-7 turns each time.

If anybody else play BTS on deity in order to attempt a cultural victory ... please share some advices !!

Regards

I need help!!! I keep getting owned in this game (BTS deity tiny map). Gandhi has been winning cultural victories game after game. The closest I got was about 20000 cultural pt at my highest cultural city. Gandhi's legendary cities have culture like 500/turn while my highest is also at around 500/turn.

Ok, I finally won . The key is switch off Gandhi and play with Lincoln and Roosevelt. There are many ups and downs in this game. The good things happen in this game are that the AI (mainly Lincoln) spread all his religions in my cities, which is awesome and by midgame he sends tons of missionaries to my cities which saves me some time. Also, I have high productions in my capital and I manage to grab some wonders stonehenge, hanging garden, chiten itza, statue of zeus, taj majal (I miss parethenon and sistine chapel to Roosevelt ). In addition, AI actually have health resources to trade, which is quite rare in tiny maps. The bad things happen to me are that I only gets 1/2 artists and the majority of culture comes from the cathedrals. Some random events are quite annoying, fire destroy my buddhist stupa and theaters .

As I have been playing the high score games, I really have a newfound respect for the power of Sushi. It really is too powerful for culture, score, and space games. So I remembered this thread, and I have found that the synergy with deity level and Sushi is great.

The reasons for this are many:
*Since culture is delayed as opposed to the Stop Liberalism 100% approach, tech speed is key; the AI helps by researching Constitution and Corporation for you, and in this case Economics as well
*The AI settles all the islands on Big and Small map (Wastin Time's idea for the map), builds all the workboats, and then trades you all the sushi food you need for happiness resources and gpt.
*Sushi adds a raw roughly 100 cpt and with multipliers this becomes 500+cpt with multipliers
*Biology has its own obvious benefits
*National Park will give you a few extra artists (I always rush buy it); whether to put National Epic there (very late vs. early somewhere else) is a question I dont have an answer for yet
*You can get done researching roughly turns 400-450.

Highlights
*Missed Liberalism by 2 turns
*Missed Econ merchant and therefore had to push for one from National Epic city
*3 prophets (1 Buddhist building, 2 for golden ages), 1 merchant, 1 Music artist, 1 artist from an event, 1 artist for a golden age, and 6 or 8 others produced
*Late Oxford
*Whipped just about everything as quick as possible
*No academy
*About 10-11 cities for the most part
*No Wall Street
*5 religions (4 for most of the time, then Christianity was in a city that flipped to the Incan empire); Taoism, a 6th religion, spread too late
*Stupid me lightbulbed Military Tradition and had to therefore reload to test my theory so the game is not to be submitted; this turned out to only delay the final date by about 12 turns since the cities were making 1200, 1300, and 1800 cpt so that was dumb.
*Built Oracle in NE city; no really nice GP farm was available
*Played with Mansa, Indias, Americas, Mehmed, Frederick; added a couple of AIs to improve tech pace
*NO MARBLE!
*Sankore, Spiral Minaret, and Apostolic Palace would have been nice. I dont think the AI ever built the Apostolic Palace.

Inca of course helped a lot, but I think you can apply the strategy to just about anyone financial or philosophical. Imperialistic would be a nice trait if you play totally peaceful, and the islands close by the main (Massive setting) continents means you can get the appropriate number of cities one way or the other. Suleiman, Pericles, and a host of others could be useful.

Wow.

killercane keeps rewriting the history books!

Well done.

Nice work, but I won't play marathon/Inca unless forced to. You should wait until patch 3.17 is legal. Then you might be allowed "no espionage" for more culture.

I was thinking about this very thing recently. I thought Sushi might be doable well before turn 400. Maybe closer to 350.

I'm a little confused though. You seem to have won the game on turn 439. Was it really worth the trip to Sushi for that? How many turns of sushi did you get? EDIT: Oops, that's a 489 not 439. I see now how it can work.