Maritime vs. Cultural

For a fast science game on Deity.

Which should be higher priority for allyibg?

Before the Renaissance, I think Cultural CS alliances are bad because they make it harder to open Rationalism with your 7th SP. Afterwards, you'll have a culture bottleneck so Cultural CS are very good. If you don't have a faith NW and didn't found a religion, Religious CS are probably the most important, at least after around the Industrial Era.

As finishing tradition or getting key policies in liberty ASAP is very important cultural CSs are always good.

Maritime CSs are only good early as theirs bonus don't scale with eras and especially with tradition is meaningless after civil service (but they are still worth allying if have unique lux).

Culture CS give insane bonuses - 26 CPT once you hit industrial and are allies. Fast science game isnt just about science alone, culture is important for fast trad finish, fast secul, and also reaching your tier 3 ideological tenet + finish rationalism.

Not to say that maritime CS are not good, is just that in terms of value for gold its hard to top Cul CS...

Before being allowed into Rationalism: Martime better by far. Many more turns for the population growth to take effect and in addition reduces chance of being forced into taking an extra filler policy which would slow down the Rationalism ones.

But after being allowed into Rationalism then Culture ones are better. Culture per turn from allies increases as the game goes along.

Maybe this is why I'm not as successful at Deity as some other players, but I reject the notion that the you have to open Rationalism with your 7th SP and fill it with your 12th. I actually enjoy playing one game differently than the one before. If I used the same cookie-cutter strategy on every single Deity game, I'd stop playing Civ.

For that reason, I open as many SPs as I can pre-Renaissance. If I take a few SPs from Patronage before opening Rationalism, then that's good news! It means I'm one small donation from allying any CS I want. And you can still win Deity playing that way.

That being said, I still agree that Maritime > Cultural pre-Renaissance, and Cultural > Maritime post. But that's only because the Cultural benefits scale with era. +3 food in Classical is huge. +3 food in Atomic hardly makes a dent. At that point the Maritime CSs are more for the UN votes.

Sometimes it is not possible to open Rationalism with 7th SP, due to having culture wonders, culture CS, or NW. You will have to know how to adjust so that you open rationalism with the minimum delay after entering Renaissance. Also, it is not even necessary to open rationalism to win deity, as long as you know how to get science from other sources. I myself prefer culture over maritime, even before renaissance due to finishing starting SP tree is often much better. The problem with early food is usually cities are growth limited by happiness and I usually found as many cities as possible and play wide.

If you're playing tradition, getting those growth bonuses earlier can net you more food than allying a mercantile cs. Also, if you plan on going freedom, 3 policies in commerce can be very useful, and for everyone a couple of patronage policies can pay off nicely. So I don't think throttling your culture (e.g. by not allying culture cs or by not building oracle) in order to time rationalism is necessarily the best play.

Just to clarify, I'm talking about midgame. I find that early game gold is better spent on infrastructure

vivalamexico said:

Just to clarify, I'm talking about midgame. I find that early game gold is better spent on infrastructure

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Many of us were including prioritizing cheap quests given by a city state of a specific type such as acquire X luxury/resource. I would agree there's a better use for cash.

vivalamexico said:

Just to clarify, I'm talking about midgame.

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I wish you had said that in your OP. The thread might be derailed now.

How early do folks find that they can afford to be dropping gold on CS? Do you wait until you have 1K banked, or do you start spending earlier?

joncnunn said:

Many of us were including prioritizing cheap quests given by a city state of a specific type such as acquire X luxury/resource. I would agree there's a better use for cash.

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I was initially viewing this thread as more theoretical than practical. Having to choose between early CS quests does not come much in my play! I pretty much do every one that I can.

I quite often spend my last bit of cash on buying a CS if it seems useful. Unless you are in a difficult diplomatic situation, money in the bank isn't doing anything, and early culture / growth etc is always better than later (exception threshold points such as rationalism)

I think most of the time, early CS alliances are not formed by gold gifts but by barb camps (and often the subsequent worker liberation). Sometimes I'll supplement those alliances by giving a gold gift afterwards, but I will almost never give an early game gold gift to a city-state until I've accomplished some other mission first. My logic is that if you give a gold gift starting from 0 (or 5 with protection) influence, a 1000 gold gift only grants a few turns of alliance, hardly worth it. But a gold gift starting from 50 influence is worth maybe 40 turns of alliance.

That's why the 2 SPs in patronage can be totally worth delaying rationalism. Every gold gift will give you your money's worth once you have Consulates.

Cultural is usually better. The exception is if it creates an awkward renaissance timing. Maritime is very good for Liberty though but Mercantile is usually the most important for Liberty.