About Factory....

I am on the verge of winning my second Monarch game (in about 30 tries), but I paused it to get some advice from you guys. I am playing for a Culture victory and have my 3 cities up to "influential".

I researched Assembly Line to get Infantry to keep me one military tech level ahead of Saladin and Caesar. They both have Riflemen now and huge armies. Both are "cautious".

Here is my question/problem: Should I build a factory in my 3 cities aiming for Legendary status? If I have a city set to "build culture 100%", does adding a factory to the city increase its speed in building culture, or does it just add another "sick" worker in my capital (that already has a sick worker with no additional health resources available)?

Second question: Should I stop research now and set the culture slider to 100%. I have been running it around 40% with the rest going to research. If I switch to 100% culture growth now, the idea is that my infantry will hold off the war-mongers long enough to get my 3 Legendary cities. That seems to be the recommended strategy for Culture victory. How do you guys normally decide when it is OK to stop researching military?

I thought about doing a defensive pact with Washington (he is "pleased" and has the best military of all of us), but he and Saladin have already had two wars, and I don't particularly want to get sucked into their third.

Thanks for any suggestions!

If i get that late I tend to go for mass media anyways to pick up hollywood, rock and roll, the eiffel tower and broadway. Factories will increase production. Do you know how far from legendary your three cities are ? Depending on this and what year it is, you may want to forgo these wonders (very helpful however, and the AI doesn't mass media/radio/electricity making great possible tech trades, i picked up flight, industrialism, fascism and plastics with them).

Don't sign the defensive pact.

Hello, magical doppelganger.

First answer: Yes, a Factory increases your total production rate, which means you can build Culture faster as well. What you don't want to build is a Laboratory.

Second answer: I'd say that when maxing out the culture slider would put you 50 turns away from Cultural victory, you should do it.

Also, it's a bad idea to sign defensive pacts with anybody who is generally disliked by the world or has a history of warmongering. So no, don't sign a pact with him.

Well, I am just about ready to max out the culture slider by your rule. It is year 1875 and both under 50 turns even with the slider at 50%. I figure I can drop a couple Great Artists into my third city and it won't be far behind.

Doppelganger, indeed! Let me ask you, do you have a preferred path to victory with Ramesses? I have tried all kinds of stuff. Some people here tell me I should ignore religion at the start, and just launch an early war with the War Chariots against the weakest neighbor. I have had mixed results with that. Last game I immediately wiped out my worst rival (Capac), but the war dragged out so long that by the time it was done, Cyrus raced out to a big lead on me. That happens to me at least half the time when I go war-mongering. On the other hand, my wins at the higher levels happen when I go for religion early and keep cranking out Great Prophets. In my current game, I founded 3 religions and have made a lot of culture with religious buildings in my three cities. I have also incorporated the "Liberalism beeline" into my strategy (thanks to a great article on this forum). In my current Monarch game, I got Great Library, ran as many as 10 scientists in Thebes, and beat Musa to Liberalism. Sweet!

Anyway, I am curious what approach seems to work best for you. Thanks.

I had founded christianity and islam while hinduism and taoism spread to my cities. So I had all four with various shrines in my three legendary cities. I culture flipped the Russian capital towards the end of the game, pretty kick ass.

um could you elaborate why you dont want to build a laboratory, plzthnx...

oilnwater said:

um could you elaborate why you dont want to build a laboratory, plzthnx...

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He's going for a culture win, hence he doesn't need the science. Therefore a lab is a waste of time and

Going for a culture win and being less than 50 turns away, I'd say it's not worth going for the factory in your culture city. You only get a 25% boost to hammer production, and the amount of culture you could build in that time just doesn't add up. Really, when you get within 100 turns of your culture win, it's probably not worth building anything, except maybe a cathedral.

UWHabs said:

Going for a culture win and being less than 50 turns away, I'd say it's not worth going for the factory in your culture city. You only get a 25% boost to hammer production, and the amount of culture you could build in that time just doesn't add up. Really, when you get within 100 turns of your culture win, it's probably not worth building anything, except maybe a cathedral.

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With the enormous culture multipliers you'll likely to have, most culture producing buildings will pay for themselves in 10-20 turns after they are
built. Even something expensive as an university will produce 9 to 12 culture
after multipliers and so will pay back its cost in about 20 turns.

What gives more culture for the sprint to the finish, working hammer tiles and building culture, or working nothing but food (farming over your towns) and running as many artists as possible in caste system? I always assumed it was the latter (even better with Sistine), so that's what I do on the rare occasions when I go for a culture win, like in the latest monarch student game with Mao. Factories in your culture cities just seem like a waste to me, and on top of that they add unhealthiness.

For your second question, yeah, I think it's probably time to shut everything down. Every other city can build factories and crank out Infantry, which should keep your power rating from dropping and making you a target. If you're really concerned about a possible invasion, you can research or trade for Artillery as well, not just for the artillery but also for anti-tank. Can't say for sure what to do without seeing your game, though.

Farming over towns to run artists is a ridiculously terrible idea for culture wins.

I moved up to prince recently and in my first game at that level I won a cultural victory. I did this by getting the tech to get machine guns because I knew I would not be fighting many offensive wars. Once I had that, I bumped culture to 100% and had my non culture cities dedicated to gold or building machine guns. I pulled all military units back to my 3 culture cities except for one or two machine guns in the others. I won the game having lost most of my country and with the enemy literally at the gates of one of my three culture cities!

So to answer part of your question, I think it's ok to stop researching at railroad. I think for a cultural victory it makes sense to stockpile machine guns within the cities. They are immune to collatoral damage for a start.

Also, once you're less than 50-75 turns out, you can build wealth in every city other than the big 3, and culture in the big 3, and turn the slider to 100%, sometimes still making a profit. I've done that if I have no fear an AI can get to my 3 important cities.

The yield from building culture in town cities isn't enough to justify building factories in culture cities, but if you run out of multipliers you can still build culture directly in your top 3.

I emphasize again, that if you already have towns in these cities, they easily beat sistine artists. Farm your artists elsewhere.