1070 culture win

I am glad we have come to agree in everything.

Perugia said:

However, if I have nothing better to build than the monastery for 2 turns and want to switch to a Hindu Mandir as soon as copper is hooked up then plainly I'd be better off chopping with bonus to get the Hindu Mandir completed in 18 turns with the monastery completing after a further 6 turns.

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Our difference here is only a semantic one: I wouldn't say you are chopping with bonus, I would say you are producing the Mandir as early as possible so you save your trees for it. You would do the same if you didn't have accesss to the bonus resource.

Perugia said:

It would appear that your argument applies to units or buildings when running OR. For example if you plan to build a missionary and a monastery it's absolutely fine to chop the missionary? Do you agree?

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Yes. I wanted to keep my example easy and clear. Having bureaucracy or OR or a forge has no impact on the decision to chop with or without the 100% resource bonus (or with or without the 25% buildings bonus as in your missionary-monastery example).

jesusin said:

Great thread, guys, keep up the good work. I'm having a lot of fun reading your tactics.

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In fact I was having so much fun that I decided to try your strategy in a slightly different difficulty level: deity.

I had to adapt the tactics because of the difficulty level:
- I traded far more techs.
- I didn’t even try to build a wonder.
- I delayed my declaration of a religion to keep everybody happy.
The only thing I kept, then, was farming everything instead of cottaging everything.

EDIT: Ah, I wanted to add that I find very amusing that 3 very different tactics (Liz-peaceful-all cottages, Huaya-kill 1 civ-all cottages, Saladin-peaceful-all farms) lead to the very same result (5 turns more or less). Civ4 is a very well balanced game, indeed!

So, I chose Saladin, asked for a GreatPlains map and obtained a SW start. FP all around made me start losing food to unhealthiness from turn one. But that didn’t matter a lot since I had 2 corn-floodplain tiles!

With such a good start, how was I able to spoil the game to such a point that I won as late as 1465AD? Well, it was my first try so I messed up a bit.
The worst error was this: I popped a Great Scientist first to be used for Education. I lost the raze to Liberalism anyway to Gandhi by 1 turn in 260AD. But with all farms, you don’t make a lot of cpt (I had 350-150-100 cpt in my three cities maximum). So going 100% culture a few turns later is not so important. The fisrt GP should have been an Artist, as the other 18. My next GP would have required 2010GPP at Quick speed!
Another mistake was founding budism. I had only 2 religions, built 12 temples but only 2 cathedrals, they weren’t worth it. Yet another one was my late tech path, banking seems much more important than Liberalism now. Do you want some more? I made plenty of mistakes, I didn’t build my 4th Worker till 440AD.

I didn’t find marble or stone, but really, it is not a big deal. On the other hand, I had lots of desert-hill-silver to sustain research.


Well, let’s review the details:

jesusin, cultural deity victory in 1465AD. 45152 points (1474 base). 11 hours, 5 sessions. Std, GPlains , no barbs, no cheating. Saladin, Finan y Spirit; Arab, Myst y Whee. Gand, Hat, Musa, Cyr, Vict, Wash.
19 GP, 1sci for Educ (error), 18 art bombed. Music failed. Liberalism failed, got in 290AD. 2 religions, 2 cathedrals, 2 cottages, 6 cities.
Half a warrior-Worker-Warrior-Settler-Settler-Worker-Warrior-Settler.
Meditation-Agric-Mining-Pottery-Wri-Alpha-Drama-CS-Educ-Philo-Liber-Natio-Bank


Alphabet in 1360BC (Gandhi had it since 1780BC). Tech trading was ok. I did a good use of the Spiritual trait, 9 revolutions. I should have researched CoL and started farming GP much much sooner. Declared hinduist to enjoy Pacifism in 740AD when AIs had started to declare Free Religion. Yet another mistake, since religious hate has an upper limit, I should have done so much sooner. The flipping of a city at the end didn’t have any importance, since I was filthy rich (more than 60gpt came from selling resources).
I culture bombed with 3, 7 and 8 artist my three cities. The last Great Artist cost me 5 population starved and only served to save 1 turn in the last city. Plenty of room for improvement!



Stats:

*1000BC: 4city, 11pop, 3wor, 5units(War), nothing. 2Lux, 1+health. 0GP, 0WW, 0NW. 18ftp, 12htp, 28bpt, 8cpt, 0gpp, -5gpt, 112g. 3Gra,1Obe. 1Relig, 1 mine. 1/1cottages used. 17Tech: Alpha, Maths, IW, AH, Priest,Sail, Curr. 2hours.
*1AD: 6cities, 35pop, 6worker, 6(War). Almost Horses, Copper, Iron. 4Lux, 3health. 15fpt, 36hpt, 142bpt,-35gpt, 90cpt, 81GPPpt. 300g, 4000c. 0WW, 1NW,2GP. 39Techs: Educ, no philo, Music,no Machi, monar. 2reli. 5,5 hours. 0 civs killed. 2/2 cottages used. 2temple, 0 Catedr. 4rel*city
*1000AD: 6cities, 62pop, 6worker, 6(War). Copper, Iron, Horses. 3Lux, 4health. 6fpt, 20hpt, 41bpt,-11gpt, 742cpt, 317GPPpt. 826g, 39500c. 0WW, 2NW,10GP. Techs: Liber,Natio, Bank, DivRi. 2reli. 9 hours. 0 civs killed. 2cottages used. 9temple, 2Catedr. 12rel*city

EDIT: Ah, I almost forgot to say that I find very amusing that 3 very different strategies (Liz-peaceful-all cottages, Huaya-kill 1 civ-all cottages, Saladin-peaceful-all farms) lead to the very same result (5 turns more or less). Civ4 is a very well balanced game, indeed!

Congratulations on deity victory! I did suspect that this GA strategy should work for all difficulty levels, glad to see somebody made it.

The best leader for this strategy, in my point of view, should be Peter (phi, exp). The 3 health points will allow you more specialists.

A marble resource is going to be very helpful. So is another cathedral cost-cutting resource (either copper or stone).

I still haven't used the HOF patch, so I'm getting multiples of 20 shields for each pop. Under this, some cheap buildings won't take advantage of OR or Bureaucracy when pop-rushing.

Granary (exp leader)- cost=20: always 20 shields for a pop, so won't take advantage of OR or BU. If not exp leader, OR+BU is helpful, but only OR will require 15 shields accumulated to take the advantage.

Library - cost=60: 60 shields for 2 pops under OR after 10 shields, won't take advantage of OR+BU (unless you accumulate 25 shields and use one pop for 40 shields). You'll be able to whip earlier with BU though.

Theatre- cost=33: takes advantage of OR after 8 shields, OR+BU earlier.

Temples - cost=53: 60 shields for 2 pops under OR (Spiritual leader: 40 shields for 1 pop under OR), won't take advantage of OR+BU(unless you accumulate 18 shields).

Cathedrals: It seems that cost-cutting resources only counts towards the first pop. But with or without the resource, cathedrals cost a lot and can definitely take advantage of OR+BU.

Therefore my research path (under settler difficulty) is: 2 early religions, bronze and switch to slavery, pottery to whip a granary first, mono to switch to OR, then writing to whip a library, then alphabet and drama, then CS to switch to BU, then music, then liberalism.

I don't think a GS is a waste. Actually I plan to use 2 GS's for lightbulbing philosophy and education, then the Oracle to liberalism. Still have plenty of GAs for culture bombing. Making GS's at an early stage havs two advantages: your scientists will speed up research, and GS's can lighbulb key techs. That combination should save you more turns than a GA could lose.

Thank you, Xin Yu.
If you would allow me to give you a piece of advice, go and install the HOF MOD right now. I have enjoyed every bit of it. The way you are playing with hammers and whipping is not the way the game was meant to work.

Regarding your strategic comments, I would have agreed with every one of your words only a week ago. But, after playing this enlighting game, my views have changed.

At deity, with a farms/GPs strategy, I would not found any religion, specialy the early ones. I would not change to slavery to whip a Cathedral, even if I am spiritual. The list of buildings is reduced to:
-Granary in every city
-National Epic in the city with more food
-A monastery of the most popular religion in the world (to enjoy the benefits of pacifism in every city).
-A handful of warriors.
-Nothing else (well, as you have to use your hammers for something, go and build some temples and a Cathedral, even the Hermitage if you have teched so far).

Now, teching: you should beeline to Alphabet (through agriculture, most of the times). Trade for BW (and much more) and whip your barracks and settlers. Beeline to CoL, revolt to CasteSystem asap. Maybe drama should fit somewhere to eliminate happiness problems. Then stop researching. If you research something else, banking and Music are 2 candidates.

Is someone up to trying this? (I will do it, but not before next year, a large epic GOTM is enough for me).

jesusin,

In every culture victory game you want to stop researching at a certain point. We have heard Democracy, Printing Press, Liberalism before, with the first two accompanied with cottage economy while the last more incline to specialist economy. Now you are saying that, we can stop as early as COL. Hmmm... that's something new.

Suppose you want to stop at COL, then there is no benefit to go for such an expensive tech as alphabet. Research agriculture, bronze working then pottery so that you can whip a granary. Then either meditation or poly, then priesthood, writing and COL. If you need any tech to improve the land, just research it by yourself (mining, hunting, animal husbandry). Stop when you have COL and that's it. Then you get your 3 cities to the size of able to supporting maximum number of specialists -- you can run almost 100% culture at this stage so not much warrying of happiness, even without a theatre. Then just sit idle and hit return for several dozen of turns, and you are done. Sounds too easy. Must play it real time to see how it works.

jesusin said:

...whip your barracks and settlers...

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I meant granaries and settlers, of course

Xin Yu said:

Suppose you want to stop at COL, then there is no benefit to go for such an expensive tech as alphabet

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Very interesting idea. I will research Alphabet in my next try and I will keep a record of the beakers I am able to trade that are in the critical path. If they are less than the cost of Alphabet, I won't research Alphabet again.
If they are just the same number of beakers...ummm, maybe I shouldn't go for Alphabet. With it you can get for free things out of the critical path like Maths, but on the other hand you will get BW (and other useful techs) later.

Hmm... if you stop at CoL, shouldn't you be continuing research (or at least have 1 Sci) to Philo for Pacifism?
And if you don't have Alphabet, that means no early Drama for culture slider (wouldn't matter much if no cottage anyway except for happiness), no attempt to get free artist from Music?

Robo Kai said:

... shouldn't you be continuing research (or at least have 1 Sci) to Philo for Pacifism?...

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Yes, of course Philo should be on the list of important things to research

The culture bar does not seem to be so important, since you are not getting much commerce, so you could continue 100% research if you like or go 100% culture. I was getting more research from the 1 beaker each artist provides than from the 100% science bar.

Now, be careful not to use a Sci, or your GPP would get poluted.

Robo Kai said:

... no attempt to get free artist from Music?...

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I used to lose that raze, Gandhi seems to prioritize music. Now, in my cottages games, I concentrate on the raze for Liberalism, and trade for Music.

Drama is probably needed to get the population pass the happiness cap. An alternative is to research monarchy and use heredity rule -- but how many warriors do you need to get population to maximum? Maybe still need drama eventually. It all depends on the AI's willingness to trade alphabet to you when you don't have it.

Philosophy is needed. Mathematics can be researched without alphabet.

Number of cities: 5 or 6? The more cities you put down, the faster of GP rate, but there is a diminishing return, so past 5 may not be worth it.

Why 1 Scientist as first Great Person? (When doing the stop-at-Code-of-Laws plan)

Well, I've been thinking about when we can first generate artist points...
1. Code of Laws / Caste System
2. Drama
3. Building Parthenon

In Immortal/Deity #3 is obviously out of the question. As for 1 and 2, they both come after Writing. So why not generate 1 scientist via library, then artists all the way starting at Code of Laws / while lightbulb Philo with the 1 scientist..?

Robo Kai said:

So why not generate 1 scientist via library, then artists all the way starting at Code of Laws / while lightbulb Philo with the 1 scientist..?

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Ok, interesting question. I guess I have been too lazy to do the maths before, let's do them together. I am away from the game now, so my numbers could be somewhat off.

Let's suppose I have played a game, all artists, 19 in all. Next one would be 2000 GPP. Now I reload and generate an scientist before the first artist.

To compensate for it, I need to generate 2000 additional GPP in order to have 20GPs in all, 19 of them artists. By using the scientist on Philo I save 10 turns. By using scientist to generate it instead of working farms, I will probably save a couple of turns on other tech too. It all adds up to revolting to pacifism ...say... 12 turns before. If I am having ...say... 80GPPpt being philosofical and before pacifism, it will mean 12*40= 480 additional GPP.

Now, I will stop research sooner or later to use 100% culture. Since I have reached Philo 12 turns sooner, I will stop research 12 turns sooner. At the time of going for 100% culture, how many cpt do I win by changing from 0% cpt to 100% cpt? Maybe 100cpt between all three cities? Then I am also obtaining 1200c because of the use of the scientist.

So with the scientist I get 1200c + 25% of a GA.
With the artist I had got 1GA, which is equal to 2680c.

Since 1200+2680/4 < 2680, I prefer not to get and scientist.

Does my reasoning hold?
Are my numbers reasonable estimations?

Actually whether one should use a GA in a cultural city is debatable.

Assume that you have 6 cities. You can let them all produce GPPs, or you can use only 3 for GPPS and the other 3 for cottages. My sense is that the latter strategy should be better.

Why? Because if you already have 3 cities producing GPPS and that's enough for, say 15 GAs. Then you need to weigh the culture points a specialist can produce in one of the other 3 cities against the alternative way of putting him to the cottages.

One specialist has 9 GPPs per turn (assuming philosophical leader and the +100&#37; GP civic), that translates to 9/67/22 times 2680 culture points, or around 16 culture, for the 16th GA. Note that this number cannot be multiplied by cathedrals or liberalism. Certainly this cannot compensate for the loss: to support the specialist, 2 other citizens have to work on farmed grasslands, making it a total loss for 3 cottages. With cathedrals, liberalism, hermitage multiplication the loss definitely go beyond 16 easily.

Therefore, I think the optimum strategy is to use 3 cottage cities and 3 specialist cities.

jesusin said:

Yes, of course Philo should be on the list of important things to research

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Also C.S. for irrigation?

@Alraun: I don't know. CS is too expensive. How much aditional food are you going to get?
On the other hand, since being 100% culture or 100% science makes so little difference...

Xin Yu said:

Actually whether one should use a GA in a cultural city is debatable...
...One specialist has 9 GPPs per turn (assuming philosophical leader and the +100% GP civic), that translates to 9/67/22 times 2680 culture points, or around 16 culture, for the 16th GA. Note that this number cannot be multiplied by cathedrals or liberalism. Certainly this cannot compensate for the loss: to support the specialist, 2 other citizens have to work on farmed grasslands, making it a total loss for 3 cottages. With cathedrals, liberalism, hermitage multiplication the loss definitely go beyond 16 easily.

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I don´t know if using a GPfarm as a Legendary city is good or bad. In GOTM12 both godotnut and I used cottages, but I used the GPfarm as a legendary city and he used another one. Our results were very similar.

As for your calculations, I would like to point out that IMO you have forgotten the 4 culture each artist produces in the GPfarm used as Legendary city. Multipliers apply to those 4 cpt.

jesusin said:

As for your calculations, I would like to point out that IMO you have forgotten the 4 culture each artist produces in the GPfarm used as Legendary city. Multipliers apply to those 4 cpt.

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I didn't forget. Let's say you have 8 SPs in the city on the average and no cottages, so 32 culture points each turn (that can be multiplied). There are also 72 GPPs each turn, for less than 2 culture points (that's 2680/67/22 for the 16th GA) for each GPP, or less than 144 culture points, which cannot be multiplied.

Let's say the city's culture multiplier is 3 (2 cathedrals and liberalism), then the total culture output from these SPs is 240/turn, or equivalent to 80 raw culture points. If the culture multiplier is 4, then total culture output is 272/turn, or 68 raw culture points. Putting cottages to the ground, on the average, should yield more than 68 raw culture points -- especially for the capital.

Xin Yu said:

Suppose you want to stop at COL, then there is no benefit to go for such an expensive tech as alphabet.

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I have been trying food only strategies, stopping research soon. You can read about them in http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=198399

In all of them Alphabet has more than paid off. I researched as far as CoL, Drama, Pacifism and CS.