Cultural Deity before 1000AD is possible

Hi, I have been thinking hard about best possible cultural game for more than a year and I have been always beaten by WastinTime and Lexad. I have tried lots of different strategies and I have been reporting my progress here, in different threads. Today I have taken the #1 position in the std quick cultural deity table with a 1280AD far-from-optimal game.

I was playing aimlessly, since it was a failed trial for a hammer-rich game that had become a not-so-hammer-rich, Taoism-failed-by-1-turn, 1-single-religion game. I have got used to finish all my cultural games, maybe it is a waste of time, but I have learned new things that way. I was thinking that would be my last game with Eliz, since she couldn’t get any religion for me. I was shocked when I absent-mindedly made my estimation for victory date for the first time in 1085AD (shame on me, had I made that sooner I could have shaved a good 5 turns). I had only put 6 hours into the game (usually they take me 12 hours) and I spent 1 more hour just optimizing the final 10 turns (are you one of those who just press enter once and again in the end game? you are not really playing the game then, you don’t know what you are missing!).
I feel embarrassed when I think of someone opening the save and looking into my game. You will find lots of wasted hammers into half-produced useless-short-term buildings.

Anyway, let's tell about the game a let's ask ourselves why this is the best game in its category.

*Vanilla, Quick, Deity, inner lake, 6 rivals (no Gandhi), no barbs. Wheat+pigs+gems riverside start.
*Cities: Only 6 (4 by 1000BC, 6 by 1AD).
*Copper, marble or stone: none of them
*Wonders: none at all
*Missionaries built: 2
*Religions founded: none at all
*Religions spread: one in the BC, one in 1000AD, one in the last turn, total three, only 1 really useful.
*Cathedrals: only 3 (by now you must be thinking I am kidding. I am not).
*GP: 15. 2GS lighbulbed Philo and Educ. 13 GA were bombed (3-3-7). All of them were born with a 100% probability, I knew what I wanted.
*Civics: slavery and OR first, for the missionary-temples-cathedrals explosion that never happened. Then Bureau+HeRu. Then FreeSp+CS+Pacifism. Near the end, FreeMarket too.
*TechPath: Agri+AH for development, then Pottery and Alphabet, then Col and Philo, then CS and Liberalism, taking Nationalism and stopping research in 55BC.
*Tech trading: As you already know, in a Deity game you trade 3 times. The first time is Alphabet. I wasn’t very successful in my game, only got Maths+IW+Priest and their pre-requisites. In other games I have got Monarchy or Currency or Calendar too. The second time is when you are sure you will win the Liberalism race and you trade away CoL+CS+Philo. I did fine this game, getting the three post Maths, Machinery, Lite… The third time is when you give away every single tech. I was nice too, I got Print, Economy and a lot of money.
*Stats 1000AD: multipliers 3-3,5-2. Cpt 500-500-200. Total GPPpt 300.
*Capital: wheat+pigs+gems+2dyes+plenty of green tiles. Heavily cottaged, but started using cottages quite late (500BC or 1AD). At the end it had 20 pop, with 3 10commerce traderoutes. 2 cathedrals.
*Second city: It was not legendary. I put it next to a horses tile and it was worked for the whole game. It was pop=3 90% of the game. It was very useful, it was producing settlers and workers all BC years. At the end I tried to pop a GA there without success, 1000GPPpt wasted!
*Second Legendary city: Floodplains, lots of them. Heavily cottaged. Hammer poor, only 2 hills. It took ages to build the Hermitage there. 1 cathedral too. It worked its cottages non-stop, as I didn’t hardly whip here. It had –5 health at the end.
*Third Legendary city: My GPfarm. Fish, cow, 2FP. Doesn’t sound impressive? With some farmed grasslands it was able to sustain 8 specialists.
*The other two: they just built 1 temple! They helped popping a few GA, though.

Other interesting facts:
- Only opened borders to religion-founding AIs. I had been dowed in my last two games and I didn’t want to show my weakness more than necessary.
- Having only 1 commerce resource in the capital and having to get AH myself to make use of the pig meant that I got a late Alphabet (I usually get it before 2000BC).However, quick settlers and quick workers made me get to Liberalism sooner than usual (I usually get it 200AD-400AD).
- Around 500BC I got bored of waiting for religions to spread, so I used my missionaries and declared a state religion. No artist had been hired at that point.


Why is this the best game so far?

I really don’t know. I wish I had been more serious about this game, and I had taken notes as I used to do. There are some factors that I think have helped:

- The immediate-hammer-rich second city. It was a pathetic city long-term, no doubt. But it freed my legendary cities from producing settlers and workers (and missionaries later, if I had had a religion to spread).
- 2 cottage cities, 1 GPfarm. No culture wasted from the specialists, no need for 9 cities.
- 2 food resources in the capital. I used to play only 1corn+2gold or 2gems+1rice starts. Food is power. The early years fly, you have to make the most of them.
- Plains-hill start. If you are going for the fastest finish, you shouldn’t accept a 20gems start if your settler is not in a Plains-hill.


What would have happened if…

*…I had had five religions spread to my cities? I suppose I would have overconcentrated on hammers, overwhipped, and thus damaged my culture output.
*…I had founded Taoism? I missed it for 1 turn. Being so early in the game, I could have easily built 1 or 2 early cathedrals, it would have shaved a lot of turns.
*…I had farmed everything, instead of cottaging 2 cities? I would have got 20GP, instead of 15, but I am not sure it would have been better.
*…I had decided from the beginning that I only would have 1 religion? I would have spread it immediately to the no-religion cities, I would have declared the religion sooner, I wouldn’t have paid OR maintenance for nothing, and most importantly, I would have started hiring specialists much sooner.
*…I would have had Marble and I had tried to build the Parthenon? I would have run the risk of losing the best city sites. Now, if I had been able to have Parthenon and 4 cities 1000BC in my sites of choice, it would have been huge.

Any comments will be appreciated.

Let me be the first to congratulate you. Sounds like you'll be beating this date soon. It seems ending tech earlier (BC) is more powerful than we thought maybe? I can't see much else that is different.

10 commerce trade routes? did you have a Harbor?

15 GP is a lot when you're finishing this early. I wouldn't plan for much more.

4 turns of anarchy? or 3?

Indeed, impressive result. Hats off!

I'm now checking with experience accumulated over a year whether significant improvement is possible at Marathon. Good old Inca rush... If I find time to finish another game we could compare, although I do not really believe strong warfare and Financial trait are going to beat those 13 NitroGA at Quick.

P.S. At my rate I tend to get 6 cities long before 2000BC Then it's trying to put some ends together with gold mines and cottages until I get BW from Alpha and see there's no Copper

To make trade more rewarding use max alowed # of opponents and returned from Terra to Pangea to give them more lands for cities to trade with.

That does sound impressive. I love how you make it sound so easy. I really don't understand how you can get the required culture so quickly.

Harbourboy said:

That does sound impressive. I love how you make it sound so easy. I really don't understand how you can get the required culture so quickly.

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I'll give you a hint. He stopped researching in 55BC and won in 1280 AD...I seriously doubt he was building up his treasury.


Nice analysis Jesusin. I think I might be overthinking my culture victories.

Thank you all for your comments.

WastinTime said:

10 commerce trade routes? did you have a Harbor?
4 turns of anarchy? or 3?

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No harbour, just the 20 pop made the trick.
4 turns of anarchy, 1 could have been saved as your question points out.

Harbourboy said:

That does sound impressive. I love how you make it sound so easy. I really don't understand how you can get the required culture so quickly.

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Padraig said:

I think I might be overthinking my culture victories.

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Neither do I, Harbourboy, this result came as a surprise out of a bad game. I think Padraig is right, I was overdoing things with cathedrals, simplicity might be the key. Also a food-rich map might have helped.

Maybe it sounds easy because there are not great figures in it: I have seen 1000cpt in a city before, and I have seen 22GP in a game before, those numbers sound impressive, don't they? but those were 1600AD or 1700AD finishes, not 1280AD finishes. Numbers at the end of the game don't matter, numbers at 1AD or 1000AD do matter.

Some more data:
I was 78 turns researching and 55 turns accumulating culture.
35000 out of the required 75000 culture came from GA. The rest was produced.
The raw culture in my cities (no taking into account multipliers) was 184-174-90 in 1085AD. It is by far the highest I've ever seen (no wonders!). The key must be here.

I've been thinking about a hybrid strategy to apply to lower levels (I still can't beat Emperor under normal conditions) taking one food-rich city, building only farms there, and running as many artists as possible the ENTIRE game (teching to CoL as soon as possible). Cottages in the other two cities would help somewhat, but the majority of the culture would come from GA bombs. I figure you'd need about 20 GAs to do it right, and I'm not even sure if that's possible pre-1000 AD. (The best culture victory on any difficulty is 890AD on Settler.) Also applying some techniques from trying the latest G-Minor, by playing with two relatively good teching opponents, then backfilling all early techs with Alphabet.

A few wonders would help: Parthenon for a few extra GAs, Pyramids for Representation (the artists might as well be doing something) and later US (so your cottage cities get a lot of production later on which can be looped back into building culture). Sistine's for extra culture in the artist city.

Xerol said:

I've been thinking about a hybrid strategy to apply to lower levels (I still can't beat Emperor under normal conditions) taking one food-rich city, building only farms there, and running as many artists as possible the ENTIRE game (teching to CoL as soon as possible). Cottages in the other two cities would help somewhat, but the majority of the culture would come from GA bombs. I figure you'd need about 20 GAs to do it right, and I'm not even sure if that's possible pre-1000 AD. (The best culture victory on any difficulty is 890AD on Settler.) Also applying some techniques from trying the latest G-Minor, by playing with two relatively good teching opponents, then backfilling all early techs with Alphabet.

A few wonders would help: Parthenon for a few extra GAs, Pyramids for Representation (the artists might as well be doing something) and later US (so your cottage cities get a lot of production later on which can be looped back into building culture). Sistine's for extra culture in the artist city.

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Since you probably have Marble (not stone), it's sometimes better to squeeze in the Oracle instead of Pyramids. Just do either (or both) in a city with less food because you won't want to run artists there. The gene pool is contaminated. Also, don't forget the National Epic in your farm city.

(The best culture victory on any difficulty is 890AD on Settler.)

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The changes in BTS will blow this out of the water; cities will make 400+ GP points per turn. In fact this will probably be quite unfair for Vanilla players.

Jesusin, your crusade for the perfect culture game is very enlightening. The biggest thing that I have learnt from you is to place more value on the generation of Great Artists. I now recognise (although obvious in hindsight) that you pretty much have a set number of Great People that you can possibly produce in a game so it is important to:
a) get them as quickly as you can
b) make sure every single one is the best and most valuable you can get. In many cases (but not all) this means 100% Great Artists.

I now try and make a much bigger effort to make best use of every precious GP point and only "waste" points where there is a genuine reason to do so (such as a definite strategy to GE a wonder - or to run scientists in a science city etc)

Jesusin, your crusade for the perfect culture game is very enlightening. The biggest thing that I have learnt from you is to place more value on the generation of Great Artists. I now recognise (although obvious in hindsight) that you pretty much have a set number of Great People that you can possibly produce in a game so it is important to:
a) get them as quickly as you can
b) make sure every single one is the best and most valuable you can get. In many cases (but not all) this means 100% Great Artists.

I now try and make a much bigger effort to make best use of every precious GP point and only "waste" points where there is a genuine reason to do so (such as a definite strategy to GE a wonder - or to run scientists in a science city etc)

killercane said:

The changes in BTS will blow this out of the water; cities will make 400+ GP points per turn. In fact this will probably be quite unfair for Vanilla players.

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Yeah, and Sistine's Chapel now gives +5 per state religious building in addition to its previous +2 per artist.

Your strategy looks quite sound, Xerol.

Xerol said:

...taking one food-rich city, building only farms there, and running as many artists as possible the ENTIRE game...

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I have always thought in terms of efficiency, so I have restrained myself from using artists until the NE is built. I now realise it was probably a mistake. It is better to have "inefficient GPpoints" that no GPpoints at all.




That Sistine Chapel is a monster. Where can I read a "BTS civilopedia", please?

those who have the game already have been posting info and screenshots since they got it...the closest there is to a BtS Civilopedia is right here

i was actually referring to the National Park, +1 free specialist for every forest/jungle tile in a city's radius, available with Biology.

You need to have an extremely wooded (farns wih Bio would give extra help thoug) area then to pay off extra teching of Compass, Optics, Machinery, Gunpowder, Chemistry, Scientific Method, Biology, Press, Engineering, even if you get half from trades. I'm not sure whether it wil be the fastest way - you could still get the same from just irrigating the same terrain under Bio and keeping extra hammers from lumber, and on 100%-culture regime you don't care about happiness. But all in all I agree, Park is a killer.

I don't think Sistine's is going to be as powerful as it seems because you won't usually be running a state religion.

I'm having a hard time keeping a game together past 50AD under the GA method. My most recent attempt was the best, but I passed 940AD with over 10,000 to go in all 3 cities (on Normal speed, not Quick). I think Marathon would give the best overall results (like any game) because there's less relative turns spent on things like moving units and fewer rounding losses.

I've modified my plan to just run GAs in one city (because trying in more than one city is just a waste) and cottage the other two, which makes the city selection a bit easier. My best start so far could support 13 artists before biology, assuming I had the happiness and health in check for 33 citizens, but by 1000AD I was only at population 16, of which 7 were artists. I'm debating whether to hold off on assigning artists until after the city grows to a large level so the citizens can be used to grow the city faster. I popped Math AND CoL from a hut so Bureaucracy went in early (around 1200BC) but I think I should've stayed in Slavery longer before going to Caste System because most of the turns I saved I was only running one Artist, and since I built Oracle in my artist city I ended up popping two prophets before any artists (which is just bad luck).

Marathon would not provide the best results because on Quick the efect of 1 GA bomb is greater.

It is hard to get into the mindset of going pure Great Artists. In my current Emperor Isabella game, I had nearby marble and an easy chance of getting The Oracle so I did. But I probably shouldn't have, because all I got from it was Iron Working, and now I keep getting all these useless Great Prophets, despite having Parthenon, National Epic, and 3 artists in the same city. Each GP effectively is costing me 6,000 culture points, so was certainly not worth it.

I'm definitely going to consider either building the Oracle in the second city, or making my GP farm not the capital. It works nicely with the capital, though, just because you usually end up chopping all the forests to make farms anyway. If ever given the opportunity to settle the second city on a marble plains hill, I think that would be the ideal opportunity to make that your wonder city (except for the GA wonders, which should still go in the capital).

One of the biggest issues I've had in my last few games is balancing buildings with settlers. While I think it could be done with 3 cities, at least 4 is ideal for several reasons:
-A fourth city can build workers without slowing down the growth of your core cities.
-You can get 2 cathedrals per religion
-It can run other specialists to boost research or gold production when needed without contaminating the GA Farm's pool.
-It can spread religions where necessary.

I don't think you need 6 cities. At the speeds involved, by the time you build a second cathedral you should be approaching the necessary amount anyway, so with 3 religions and 4 cities you can get 2 per culture city. With 6 cities you can do it with 2 religions, but that requires the same number of missionaries (albeit at lower failure rates) but with more maintenance costs, as well as the cost of building 2 extra settlers (which, once again, where every turn counts can be devastating).