Suggestion for next civ to play?

Ai also starts out with an extra worker, settler or two.

Man, the website went down just as I had news for everyone.

Anyway, I finally managed to play a decent game as America. Started on a fractal map and went for a domination victory. Finished the game by 1925 or some such. America was fun, but I wouldn't go for it again.

Currently, I'm playing as Ethiopia on a pangaea map, normal difficulty, and with 6 players: Persia, Arabia, Carthage, Zulus and Huns.

I'm having fun, since I wanted to play defensively anyway, and have gotten in my fair share of wars with the Zulus next door. Never lost one yet. Being their enemy has made the whole world my friend. However, I am running into a problem. Currently I am pursuing a cultural victory, and Persia is proving to be a tough nut to crack unsurprisingly. I've thought about just giving up on the game and starting with a different civ entirely.

Any ideas for how to break a cultural stalemate? I currently am influential with Arabia and the Zulus, Carthage and Huns are not far behind. But Persia.....

Also for next civ, I'm debating between Siam (diplo), Ottomans (dom/sci), or Poland (cul).

historyman101 said:

Any ideas for how to break a cultural stalemate? I currently am influential with Arabia and the Zulus, Carthage and Huns are not far behind. But Persia.....

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You have two options:

1) Go to war with your cultural rival & conquer his cultural heartland. This is the option I usually choose: most of my cultural victories will require a war or two with my cultural rival, so I usually just assume that I'm going to need a strong & conquest-ready military.

2) Target your rival with tourism bombs from Great Musicians. I haven't had much luck with these guys; their culture bombs only have a noticeable effect when I have substantial tourism, at which point I often don't really need them. Mostly I use them to put me over the top with a final holdout civ.

I'm leaning more to 2. I have a good army, but I don't want that backstabbing penalty that comes with conquering Persia, who has so far been buddy/buddy with me. Plus, the Zulus are more persona non grata in the world, so it's better that I fight with them than I do with Persia. Plus, Persia has the same number of cities as me (3), so I don't have any edge in combat going in, anyway. (Ethiopia gets a combat bonus when fighting larger civs)

I guess the best option is to stockpile GMs and then "culture bomb" one after another after another. Yes?

My second question regarding next civ still stands.

historyman101 said:

I guess the best option is to stockpile GMs and then "culture bomb" one after another after another. Yes?

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Actually, no. Great Musicians are weird. Unlike Great Scientists, where you can stockpile 'em & then spend them later in the game when your science is much higher, Musicians' Tourism Bomb is set by the 8 turns before they're produced. So if you create a Great Musician as soon as you hit the Renaissance, and then save him until the endgame, when you do use him for a culture bomb it'll be for whatever piddly amount of tourism you were producing back during the Renaissance era.

I'm not totally sure what/how to use Musicians. When going for a cultural victory, I generally build the Musician Guild fairly early, but I don't put any workers. This means it very slowly gives me one musician (from the GM points the guild itself produces). I save that guy, and then before Broadway is built I'll put workers into the guild to get a second GM, and then pop all 3 after the Wonder is built. (So they're all from the same era, fulfilling Broadway's theming bonus.)

I'll then leave the workers in the guild, and use subsequent GMs for culture bombs as they come out.

I've seen better players than myself advocate not even building the Musician's Guild until the endgame, at which point you build it & churn out the GMs for bombs. *shrug* I dunno. Like I said, they don't seem real effective to me no matter how I've tried using them.

historyman101 said:

Also for next civ, I'm debating between Siam (diplo), Ottomans (dom/sci), or Poland (cul).

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Here are my thoughts on each of them:

Siam - IMO, this civ isn't really geared for a Diplo victory. I mean, any civ can go for that victory route since it's probably the easiest of the four. But Siam's UA grants them more benefit from CS alliances... but doesn't help them actually *get* those alliances. By all means, go Patronage so it's easier to get & keep CS alliances. But I usually use the increased CS yields to chase after another victory type. And those increased CS yields *are* indeed really nice. Fantastic, even. Of course, in my last game with Siam, the map was filled with Mercantile CS's.... the one kind unaffected by Siam's UA. Grrr. Anyways, these guys are a lot of fun, but they can be hard to get started.

Ottomans - I really like this civ in BNW. As you can tell from their abilities, they're *really* good at war, both on land & at sea. Janissaries (supplemented by some ranged units) are really, really nice. If you've been playing a more "normal" civ, however, it can feel weird to head for Gunpowder before even getting Education. But you do need to pick up the war-oriented techs earlier, so you can start using your Janissaries early enough. (Alternately, depending on the map, you might want to focus on the top of the tech tree for naval units instead.)

Poland - These guys are just broken. So yeah... they're a lot of fun, but they're stupidly over-powered. Hell, one of the reasons they're so much fun is *because* they're so broken. So yeah... enjoy.

If that is the case, it seems better to just send them off to music tours when you have them rather than waiting around. Thing is Persia churns out so much culture I can't really get my influence rising that much without that "culture bomb", so I don't have many options short of war, and Ethiopia is not really a warring civ.

Maybe it's just that Persia is so difficult to beat in a cultural battle. The alternative is I could just start Ethiopia over from scratch and just exclude Persia from the game entirely (I tend to customize what civs I'm playing with, just so it makes sense, historically. My brain is really OCD like that).

Given your comments, I'm going to head with the Ottomans next, on an archipelago map.

Musicians' Tourism Bomb is set by the 8 turns before they're produced.

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I'm pretty sure their value is always 10x the TpT the turn they are produced.

In order to give you a better idea on how to proceed, you need to provide some numbers such as your current TpT, Persia's total accumulated culture, and your accumulated tourism on them.
Also, make sure you have trade routes, diplomat if different ideology, and open border from them.

In most games, especially on higher difficulty levels for a peaceful CV, you will have to have hotels, airport, NVC built in the capital. All of your cities filled with artifacts in museums, and also several theming wonders built in the capital. For social policy, you have to complete Aesthetics and get the tier 3 freedom policy that gives tourism. You also need the Internet tech and possibly win International Games AFTER doing all the above. Sometimes you don't have all of these condition and can still win, but they are required for the most difficult opponents.

Musician guild is pretty much a personal thing, I always build it after getting Broadway and force it to get the theming bonus, then i stopped working them and only work them in the very end when the above condition for maximum tourism is met. It is also important to have enough faith to buy 2-3 musicians at the end.

If you could get a respectable amount of tourism per turn and have your tourism rising with everyone then maybe you could pull off at CV with a few great musicians making a concert tour. A respectable amount of tourism could have you being first or second place while making tourism per turn. Not only that but the bonuses you get from trade routes, shared religion and open borders even could get your great musician's great concerts some more confidence. Late great musicians could be generated and eventually purchased off either to the glory of god reformation belief in your religion or with the aesthetics complete social policy tree. Remember, that can be done with enough faith to buy you a couple or great musicians.

Thanks for the tips. I was pretty much leading in tourism by 2x when I came asking for help. Something like 50-60 Tourism, and the Persians had like 24 or something. Can't remember. But essentially, tough it out and build the hotels, airports and such. I'm on the road to victory, just can't rush it right now.

As for the great musicians, currently I have all opera houses filled, so the best thing to do is just stop making musicians for now until Broadway is built. At least, that's the general sense I get from everyone.

I will report back once I start a new civ!

Having Great Musicians early is not that good for a Culture Victory. If you do the math you can see that that 2TPT generated for a great work of music placed in an Opera House doesn't even compare with the potential of a post internet Great Musician (by performing a concert tour of course).

If pursuing a CV it is recommended to delay the generation of Great Musicians until you have a big enough tourism (enough that you can win just by concert tours). This means having the hotels in all cities, National Visitation Center, Internet, sometimes Airports and even the bonus from International Games. Sometimes you even get world religion for a 50% boost to tourism in the Holy City, and this helps a lot.

If you didn't generate any GM throughout the game, the first one costs only 100 GPP, you generate 9 points, but with all modifiers (25% each from National Epic, Garden, LToP, Aesthetics, Ideology, and 33% from World Council) that is 23, so in 13 turns you already have two GMs, and in another 13 turns you have the third. If you could buy another 2 with faith, that will be 40-50 turns worth of tourism.

If you however do generate GM thought the game the late cost for a GM could be 400 or even 500 GPP (I think the musician from Broadway also increases the GPP cost, so it isn't exactly free). Even with them maximum modifiers that could mean 17 or 22 turns just for that first musician to perform a concert tour. So a lot more turns for the AI to accumulate culture, and an even less value of the concert tour because of that.

The GMs should be purchased when you believe that you have a large amount of tourism. GMs born when there's more tourism per turn are better at making concerts since they make a lot more tourism influence to other civilizations in their concert.

If you do the math you can see that that 2TPT generated for a great work of music placed in an Opera House doesn't even compare with the potential of a post internet Great Musician (by performing a concert tour of course).

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I don't think it is that simple. It really depends on how soon you're expected to win CV after reaching Internet. The Broadway wonder itself has significant theming bonus that gets multiplied and results in a GM that is born/purchased with higher tourism. If you think you only need 1 natural born GM (plus however many you can buy with faith), building the Broadway and filling it with GM works is superior. Otherwise building Broadway is a waste of hammer and you're better off saving all musicians until after internet. A lot of the time it also depends on when IG triggers. If IG happens before you even got to Internet, then probably you only have time for 1 boosted natural GM.

Sounds like I've been going at this completely wrong, and I need to restart Ethiopia to do this right. Bleh.

Well, I was kinda in a stalemate anyway, so no harm no foul...?

Thanks for the advice everyone.

Sclb said:

I don't think it is that simple. It really depends on how soon you're expected to win CV after reaching Internet. The Broadway wonder itself has significant theming bonus that gets multiplied and results in a GM that is born/purchased with higher tourism. If you think you only need 1 natural born GM (plus however many you can buy with faith), building the Broadway and filling it with GM works is superior. Otherwise building Broadway is a waste of hammer and you're better off saving all musicians until after internet. A lot of the time it also depends on when IG triggers. If IG happens before you even got to Internet, then probably you only have time for 1 boosted natural GM.

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Broadway fully themed with all bonuses is what? You have 3 great works, so that is 6 tourism for each one (Hotel + Airport + NVC) + 6 from the theming bonus? A total of 24 that can be further buffed by World Religion to 36. This will add 360 Tourism to your concert tours, and will naturally add tourism influence over the course of how many turns? At most 40-50? So roughly 1500 tourism over the course of the game (because you don't get the maximum tourism from the beginning) + 360 x how many concerts you perform (let's say 5 for round calculation, that is another 1800 to a total of roughly 3300 tourism) . Now those 3 GMs spawned at a time when your tourism is just 500 TPT (which is pretty low) each will give you 5000 tourism towards one civ (and 1000 towards all the others). So just from secondary bonus of the concert tour (20% to all other civs) you are already in the same ballpark. You get 1500 tourism towards the most cultured civs, and that is almost 5 times better than Great Works of Music.

Another factor in theming Broadway for a CV is that this greatly delays your GM generation, your first GM to perform a concert tour will cost 400 GPP, and to get 3 you need a total of 1500 GPP (when you get at most 23 GPP/turn so unless the game is lasting 60-70 turns after getting Broadway you won't even get 3 natural GMs)

L.E. I did not include the internet bonus in the calculations. I don't know how internet and World Religion modifiers are added, but if they are compounded it will probably add an extra 4-5000 2-3000 (realistically) tourism on the themed Broadway calculation (but only for 5 Concert Tours which means a total of 8 Great Musicians). This still means that Broadway is significantly slower than just spawning GMs after reaching a high TPT.

I also did not include the modifiers for shared religion, open borders, etc because they apply to both your normal TPT and to the Concert Tour.

Thank you claudiupb for that math. Is a themed Broadway any better for defensive tourism? I very much tend to pick up Eiffel Tower when I can, since it unlocks the same as Broadway. So much simpler!

I would say definitely Eiffel Tower. Broadway even themed has only 9 tourism before modifiers. Most likely you won't get the aesthetics double theming bonus, you won't prioritize hotels and airports, and NVC, and not even internet. In time Broadway will end up having more tourism than Eiffel Tower, but I don't think it's relevant because it comes too late.

If you went for hermitage you already have places to store great works of music. So 3 Great Works of music in Opera Houses + Eiffel Tower is much better than a themed Broadway in my opinion.

Also Eiffel Tower has some happiness so that is a plus especially since we are talking about defensive tourism so ideology pressure is a problem.

That's a relief. I thought for sure I had screwed up the whole game just by building opera houses and a Hermitage period. But at least I still have a chance.

The only thing is, I've already restarted Ethiopia...

claudiupb said:

I would say definitely Eiffel Tower.

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Great to have you confirm my subjective opinion!

If you went for hermitage you already have places to store great works of music. So 3 Great Works of music in Opera Houses + Eiffel Tower is much better than a themed Broadway in my opinion.

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Just a correction here, but hermitage holds art not music. The is point is still valid because you can get it themed early. I often like getting works of music to fulfill CS quests, and unless I am going for CV, there does not seem to be much harm. Opera Houses get the GWM since there is no other good use of them.

beetle said:

Just a correction here, but hermitage holds art not music.

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Yes but by getting Hermitage you need Opera Houses in all of your cities, so this guarantees you have spots for great works of music (along with works of art from the hermitage of course). Normally I won't even build Amphitheaters if I don't want Hermitage, so no Opera Houses. I build an Opera House in the capital for a Museum and Broadcast Tower. Later if I have nothing else to do I may build all culture buildings for the Broadcast Tower in other cities as well.

In CV you have to build cultural buildings. How else will you not allow other civilizations to influence your civilization if your civilizations is the one that is supposed to influence everyone else for a CV?