Cultural Deity Std 1485AD writeup: REX strategy

jesusin, cultural victory 1435AD, 1600basic->50249points, 12hours.
Eli, Quick, Deity. lakes, temperate, low, Std, Nocheating, No barbs. 6other: Gan, ASo,Cyr, Hat, Roo, Wash.
7 cities. 3 religions plus a late one. 6 cathedrals. 25 cottages. 13 GP, all of them Artists, bombed 2-6-5. Multipliers 4-3-3.
Alphabet 1660BC, Liberalism 470AD, 0% research 800AD. Didn’t race for Music. Lost the Liberalism race by 2 turns.

Strategy: REX, build as many cities as possible as soon as possible. Then cottages. Stop research when Print, Liber and Natio are known.
I have realized that I usually whip a very profitable Library in the capital when I have around 3 cities. Then I never find a good spot for the following cities, Deity AIs have taken them. That’s why I wanted to try an extreme strategy of landgrabbing.

Good things I did:
- Fantastic tech trading. I got BW, IW, Maths, Poly, Hunt, Archery, Mono, Sailing, Medi and Priesthood in exchange for Alphabet.
- More cottages than usual: 25 instead of 17. It can be improved.
- More Workers than usual, 1 per city. A couple more would have been of help
- Good landgrabbing.
- Overlapping. Silly cities worked legendary cities cottages for a long time.
- Correct ordering of GP generation to get the number of GPs I needed to emulate the current best date.

Bad things I did:
- Overextending. I went almost broke. Researching Drama took 1000 years. When I got it, I wished I had researched Currency instead.
- Delayed research meant late pacifism with a very late start of GP generation (2nd GP 530AD).
- Delayed the settling of the 6th and 7th cities because of the broken economy, building those settlers so early was a waste.
- Prioritizing settlers delayed missionaries.
- So many land grabbed meant that my workers had tons of resources to connect, so I didn’t have a single cottage by 1000BC. As a result I only saw towns by the very last turns of the game.
- Late cottages made me focus too much on their growing, so I almost stopped whipping, thus worsening the lack of missionaries problem. My last three cathedrals arrived in the last 25 turns of the game. So late!
- Late GPfarm set up made me panic, so I changed slavery for Caste System too soon, thus worsening the cathedrals building problems.
- After all my early efforts, only 7 cities. My production was so bad that growing to 9 cities wouldn’t have given any more Cathedrals.

Strategy evaluation.
- 5 cities by 1120BC without a single cottage is too much.
- Hurrying the settling of the first 4 cities is very good, I took some nice resources in the face of AI settlers.
- Lots of early cities means the workers must do a lot of roading, a lot of resource connections, a lot of cottaging, a lot of mining… very early. One worker per city is not enough in the beginning.

Conclusion: a fanatic REX approach is a bad idea. However, there are good things in this strategy that can be applied to other games.

Another advantage of REX is that you will probably win tie breakers.
Too bad you didn't submit yesterday and make the HOF cuttoff.

I respect your hard work and details of your strategies. I will try to go another 2 weeks without playing std cultural, but I want to see 1300's soon! I should have had 1365 AD on my Duel game. I think Tiny will be easier than Duel if I can keep the peace.

I have played one more game, same settings. I didn’t intend to do it, but I got 5 cities before 1000AD anyway. After Alphabet, I went broke. But I knew it was going to happen, so I traded my last techs for money and I hired 4 scientists, so that the next tech didn’t take too long. 2 GS popped. It is a big investment to renounce to 2 GA, so I HAD to be first to Liberalism. I played the ‘hiding game’ and it worked so well that nobody had Education when I had Liberalism. How did I do it? I ignored Philo. After CS I researched Philo almost completely and Paper almost completely. If you finish Paper, it will be easier for the AIs to research it. If you finish Philo, it will be traded to all AIs. So you delay both. Then, on turn 1, you finish one of them, accumulating a good overflow. On turn 2, you finish the other one, accumulating double overflow, and you use your 2 GS on Education, choosing Liberalism next. The overflow allows you to finish it sooner. This was my best game at this point, but for one little detail. Even if all my cities were connected, I had not a connection to nobody else till almost the ADs. No religions.

By the time 2 religions spread, it was too late, Cathedrals were very slow to set up, because I was in Caste System after having revolted for the last time to Caste System, Free Speech, Mercantilism and Pacifism at the same time when I shut off research. In addition, there wasn’t a good place for the sixth city, so it came too late and never got to having 9 cities.

I could have improved my (and Lexad’s) date. But then, stupid mistake caused me to pop a GA in the wrong city, somehow a specialist had gone to the cottages. Disaster!!! What could I do? 12 turns left or it is not the new record, 3 GA expected, I would finish 3 turns late. All three cities would become legendary at the same time, so one or two additional GPs wouldn’t help. I spent a long time calculating in despair. Then I saw the light, starving all of my cities would give 6 GP, the capital would even pop 2 GA in that short time. I had to plan the date of the beginning of each cities starvation so that the order was the correct. Than I hired every population as artist, losing 1 pop a turn. And I reached my goal, 6 GA were born were only 3 were expected. My finish date was 2 turns too late, though, 66% of population had been starved in the capital so its culture per turn output was halved. Bad luck. I hope I’ll do better next time.

WastinTime said:

Another advantage of REX is that you will probably win tie breakers.
Too bad you didn't submit yesterday and make the HOF cuttoff.

I respect your hard work and details of your strategies. I will try to go another 2 weeks without playing std cultural, but I want to see 1300's soon! I should have had 1365 AD on my Duel game. I think Tiny will be easier than Duel if I can keep the peace.

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No, no, no! Please, play as many games as you like in the settings you like. Don’t avoid std maps so that my game gets to the main HOF game. I am playing that same settings myself to improve this game!

I am more of a theorist than a competitor. If I were after dominating the HOF tables I’d never post my strategies. If I had wanted this particular game to get to the tables, I wouldn’t have posted about it the very same day a HOF Update is released.

If you want to please me, don’t respect my records, but point out a mistake in my games. Like “you don’t know how to place cities” or “you should never trade Drama away”. That way I would become a better player and I would be closer to the “perfect strategy”.


Now that I think of it, I have never detailed my chopping habits. It could be a flaw in my games. Would you (or anyone) be so kind as to give me your comments about it?

I usually go worker first. My first worker connects resources and is roading towards the second city site when the first settler is out. Workers keep on connecting resources, recently built cities work unimproved tiles for a few turns. If by any chance I think about chopping, if think that pre-Mahs could be a waste and I decide that the priority is to travel with some new settler to its intended settling site.
Then I reach Alphabet, I trade for Maths and I realize that its almost 1000BC and I haven’t built a single cottage. If I want towns by 1000AD I need to have cottages in the BCs. So workers rush to build cottages and don’t chop anything.
When religion spreads, some chopping is done to help with missionaries, temples and Cathedrals. Most of the hammers come from slavery, though. The National Epic is helped with chopping too. The next chopped building is the Hermitage. When my workers start to feel better, after everything has been connected or cottaged, (around 1000AD maybe) I realize there are some forests left. I chop them to build monasteries in the 3 cities for the 2 additional culture points. By the end of the game there are still a couple of forest in the 3 cities, for health reasons or because I hoped that I could build one more cathedral. And my worker have been idle for the last couple of centuries, being the main drainer of real time in this part of the game. I usually have one worker per city (or one more) and I feel I am “one short” for half of the game.

I know there were people in "the old days" that insisted that early workers and settlers had to be chopped. I never could commit to that and then they nerfed early chopping by requiring math, so I never tried out that strategy. I don't know if those people still chop out the first settlers. I can't, because I never research bronze myself. I hook up resources like you do. I make sure my capitol has a cottage ready if it's ready to grow. I usually have to chop the river/forests whether I want to or not to get a cottage in there. Otherwise I focus my chopping on the National Epic and then on Cathedrals.

jesusin said:

...point out a mistake in my games. Like ... “you should never trade Drama away”.

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You research Drama yourself?

jesusin said:

My first worker connects resources and is roading towards the second city site when the first settler is out.

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Seems like more important things to do than roads. Actually, if you play on my pet map, Inland Sea, you are almost always on a river. And, every river connects through the sea, so roads are not necessary.

Agree with Wastin here, I never research Drama (or go for Music anyways - maybe this is my strat's minus) and try to select a river start. Maps like GPlains or Oasis realy favour this strat. However, if you play with Salad, there's pretty much nothing else you can do at the very start besides roads

I just got a 1355 AD win. Tiny, Saladin, No Parthenon, so only 14 GP + the Music one.

Only 2 1/2 religions (i.e. 5 cathedrals). And I had the cathedral resource for only 1 of those. Mansa had copper available for 94 turns, then on turn 95 when I wanted to rent it for 10 turns or so, it was gone. Grrr. I also had no marble for the Nat. Epic.

Cottages only in the capitol.

I threw up a fourth city just to build a couple temples, otherwise it was useless.

A fifth city flipped from culture and that city made 1 GA...almost 2.

I did a pretty good job of trading tech. At the end I got guilds, banking, Economics, Corporation and even Constitution! So I spent 10 turns getting Democracy and using Univ. Suff. for a change.

For the smaller 3 maps, I need to set my new target for 1295 AD -- about 135 turns.

WastinTime said:

Seems like more important things to do than roads. Actually, if you play on my pet map, Inland Sea, you are almost always on a river. And, every river connects through the sea, so roads are not necessary.

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Thank you! Little things like this one can make a difference, and not only in cultural games. I was placing a high value to every settler turn saved, but I can see how working a mine instead of a grassland forest in the capital can more than make up for it.

I am so road oriented that in Barbs games I usually use 2 Axes/Charriots, a lot of roads and zero fogbusters to defend from barbs.

Time to change some of my habits.

WastinTime said:

You research Drama yourself?

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Well, that sentence was just a silly example. But the answer is yes. My typical techpath goes:
1.- Eliz(free fishing and mining)-Agri (first resource is corn)-wheel-Pottery-Writing-Alphabet
2.- Then trade for everything possible while researching something I won’t get from trades right now: Drama. Trading gets me BW, IW, Maths, sometimes Prieshood, little ones.
3.- Then I research Drama. If I have Parthenon, a GA lightbulbs Music getting a GA back (unusual). If I have a GS, I can lightbulb Philo for a religion of my own (unusual). Tech trading for Monarchy, currency and sometimes CoL.
4.- Maybe Philo to trade for CoL or other missing tech. More usually CS, then Paper and Philo.
5.- Education and Liberalism. If the Liberalism race is lost, I could try to get Nationalism and trade for Liberalism).
6.- Nationalism and Print.
7.- Shut off research. I once had very undeveloped cottages so I researched up to Democracy for Emancipation.

EDIT: I never try to be first to CoL or Music. END_OF_EDIT

What do you both recommend after Alphabet instead of Drama? A direct path towards CS, maybe?

@Wastin: WOW

@jesusin: As I wrote, I go for Code after Alphabet, which is easier as being non-spiritual I spend a n anarchy turn during which I can make another trade round and start researching Phood. Think again, on Marathon it'll be 2 turns -even better

@jesusin: ... I spend a n anarchy turn during which I can make another trade round and start researching Phood...[/QUOTE]

Aaaaaah!
I see.

i just wanted to say thanks to you guys. thanks to tips here and other threads, i just submitted my first noble cultural victory. i'm good at them at lower levels (yeah noble is way lower than diety too but it's higher than i'd ever tried for culture). OMG it was sooooooo scary seeing 300+ turns to research things the other civs already had when i flipped the culture switch! i can't even imagine on diety, sheesh.

i had fantastic luck. late in the game flipped a german city that had buddhism and conf, neither of which had ever spread to me. ok not pure luck, i'd been trying for it, but i was soooooo happy! it was during the 'should i make 2 more cities, do i want to make that many more temples to have cathedrals in all the big 3?' (standard map) so it was about perfect.

i like the attitude of not being competitive for spots on the tables, sharing strategy and knowing it's all for fun. that is so cool! thanks again

One great thing about this game is that such vastly different strategies all can work. I tech in a completely different way. I have never been able to sacrifice a GP to lightbulb a tech. I should try that sometime, but it seems like you're not in that big of a rush...as long as you get to liberalism first.

First off, I use Saladin, so I go for Polytheism if I have marble or Meditation if not. Then Priest, Writing, CoL so I (almost) always get Confucianism. Then Alphabet. I'd really like to do Alpha before CoL, but would lose the religion for sure. Next I've tried two paths. Lit, Music, CS.... or CS, Lit, Music. I've gotten to Music 1st, but it's risky with the 2nd path. Have you guys noticed that Liz and Hatty seem to be the ones that beeline to Music? Probably not if you're playing Liz. I'm thinking of kicking them out of my games.

Is it best to try and found all the religions so that you can get cathedrals to increase culture? I find by doing this I cannot ensure that I get GA and end up getting GP instead. Is there anyway around this, ensuring you only get GA?

Sure, don't build any shrine, or religious wonder, or run any priest specialist in cities likely to produce Great People. So, no oracle or stonehenge, etc. Religions by themselves and without a shrine don't produce GP points.

@WastinTime
You might want to check out leaders' flavours in xmls. Hatty, for example. has cultural flavor of 10, meaning she'll rush to cultural tech whenever possible.
I'm also having second thoughts about lightbulding - at least Edu. I managed to ge a sure lead to Liber lately. Philo, however, gives religion almost for sure and pacifism, and for this I'm ready to sacrifice 1 GP - to get more sooner.

I was just browsing those flavours in the XML a couple days ago. I was hoping to correlate that with how much your trade relations improve when you gift a tech. Sometimes you get +3 from one leader and no change in relations from another. But you're saying those relate to what beeline they will go for. Hmm. It probably effects both in some way. I don't feel like reading the code. It's seems more interesting to figure out their behavior instead of disecting the code.

WastinTime said:

First off, I use Saladin, so I go for Polytheism if I have marble or Meditation if not. Then Priest, Writing, CoL so I (almost) always get Confucianism. Then Alphabet. I'd really like to do Alpha before CoL, but would lose the religion for sure. Next I've tried two paths. Lit, Music, CS.... or CS, Lit, Music. I've gotten to Music 1st, but it's risky with the 2nd path. Have you guys noticed that Liz and Hatty seem to be the ones that beeline to Music? Probably not if you're playing Liz. I'm thinking of kicking them out of my games.

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Very different indeed! Thank you for the insight. You get no Agriculture or AH in the early game, where do you get your food from? What does your first worker do?

No, I haven’t. I play Lizz myself and it is Gandhi who always gets Music. In fact, in 1 game out of 5 Gandhi will get to Alphabet before me and ruin most of my trading opportunities. I have already kicked Mansa out of my pool, because he trades too much to others, I could left Gandhi out too.

Drool said:

Is it best to try and found all the religions so that you can get cathedrals to increase culture?

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All the religions is too much. Spreading a 5th religion to all of your cities is probably not worth it.
And I’d recommend not getting too carried away by the religious path, if you are playing a high level of difficulty you should get Alphabet early.

Lexad said:

Philo, however, gives religion almost for sure and pacifism, and for this I'm ready to sacrifice 1 GP - to get more sooner.

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I have the feeling that I am going very wrong with my Civic changes. Typically I revolt:
1.- Slavery
2.- Bureaucracy + HerRul
3.- FreeSpeech+CasteSystem+mercant/freemark+pacifism
And I always feel bad about delaying my GP generation so much. When I get Pacifism I tell to myself “save an anarchy turn, Liberalism is really close”. Then I get to Liberalism, but I am not ready to revolt because I don’t plan to get to US and my cathedrals would take ages to complete; in addition I haven’t traded for Banking or Economy yet… so I wait yet a few turns. Worst still, I think that hiring an artist before
Pacifism is not 100% efficient, so I put my people to the farms, thus I don’t hire a single artist till 500AD!!!!!
An additional lost turn in anarchy would be worth it, wouldn’t it?

WastinTime said:

I was hoping to correlate that with how much your trade relations improve when you gift a tech. Sometimes you get +3 from one leader and no change in relations from another.

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My experience is that the plus due to good trading is limited to +4. And when something like that happens to me, I assume that they had already research part of the tech, so it wasn’t so valuable a gift.

This is why I think a Spiritual leader is so strong. Especially on Quick speed and especially if you're going to be building temples anyway. I'm surprised you bother switching to slavery, but I've never been a big fan of it like most people are. I would find it hard to delay caste system for so long. I usually switch immediately, before Alphabet even. There's a period of time before calendar resources come along to make you happy so come cities can't work their food and grow too big. I suppose you're using that extra food for whipping/slavery. I just put a few specialist to work and get an early GA. I nice early culture bomb can steal a lot of resources, and reserve a lot of land for future settlers. It can even flip a city, but that seems to take forever.

Spiritual leaders can do so many more civics tricks that I even was using Mansa as my leader for my latest Diplomatic games.


Regarding no Agr. and what my worker does...
I can skip Agr. if I have gems or 2 flood plains, but I usually get flood plains on my map and I try to start with gems or gold. Gems come with food, but with gold, you have to have the flood plains. My worker does mines and connects resources with roads. It's not long before Alphabet comes along.

Lexad, uh, I can explain it,,,I promise I didn't do it on purpose! Another tie!

jesusin, cultural victory 1435AD, 1541basic->52752points, 12hours
6cities, 2good GP, difficult to chose 3rd city, 14GP, all artist. 4 reli, 8cathedrals. Multipliers 5-3,5-2,5. Bombs 2-5-7.

I don't understand how this game can have less basic points and more points, when it has the same finish date.

This is my worst cultural game since my first try. Bad trading because Gandhi won me to Alpha in 1540BC and later because of carelessness. 4cities 1000BC, 6 cities 1AD. Around 1AD someone asks me to convert, and my game is so bad that I agree, thus I take the chance and use Org.Relig. so that no monasteries have to be built.
Liberalism 470AD, obviously not first. At 830AD I whip not less than 19 pop, I revolt to FReeSp+CasSys+FreeMark+Pacif, I start (so late!) my GPfarms and I go 100% culture. By 1000AD I have six Cathedrals.
At 1235AD I stop to think. I am going to fail by 7 turns. I decide I need to finish 1 turn before the current record, I decide I need 2 more GPs than the number I was going to obtain by careful planning... 3 hours of calculations later I have my starvation program set up. 4GP are born in the 5 last turns. My worst city is not starved, so as to keep its finish date... but my capital had to be starved and I came 200 culture points short, so I ended in 1435AD once again.
This game was very bad but my final phase of the game is much better now, so I achieved the same result. Please, everyone believe me, the last 20 turns of a cultural victory don't consist on pressing ENTER 20 times!