Taking Video/Help Requests (BNW)

If you want a save, I will post one, I have plenty of good failures ready to be nitpicked. I nitpick them myself too, but every play-through new problems arise.

That would be helpful, yes. I'll be doing a Deity game completely from "scratch" for the France DCL (peaceful Cultural Victory), but there's already a lot of excellent entire Civ games on YouTube. If I'm doing something in particular that you find more helpful than the existing videos then I don't mind doing whole games...but I figured more people might be trying to focus on specific aspects or issues.

Holy crap, LordB--I can't wait to start watching the videos when I get home tonight.

Thank you very much!

They'll be uploaded within a day, takes a lot of time to turn the raw 250 GB files into 3-4 GB mp4 files.
 
Would be nice if YouTube wasn't taking 8 hours to upload 8 GB of data. Might be another day or two to upload all the videos at this rate, though I'll be able to publish one or two tomorrow, at least.
 
Here's the first of four videos for the Mongolia game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWwTPJq75Vk

All the videos are processed on my end, but the second video is at 39% uploaded...with 589 minutes remaining. Apparently YouTube just does this sometimes (insanely slow uploads).

Also, I'm planning on trying to break up future videos into 30 minute segments per some feedback I received (more manageable chunks). Other feedback is welcome and appreciated.
 
That I do. People seem to think one should be able to rush buy all the science buildings so that way turn-to-tech and turn-to-building are one in the same. But my economy is never doing well enough to come close to that. Usually I can rush buy in the city that would otherwise be last to build Public Schools or Research Lab.

Your economy isn't doing well because you're wasting time with garbage buildings.

I DL'd that Ethopia save. You have default focus on in all of your cities, and you have a stable built in the capital. You are working exactly zero pastures. That stable nets you nothing. You have a forge built in your capital. You have 1 iron. Repeat this in every city that's not Lalibela - that's the only city that's working all of it's pastures. That's not a good ROI. You have an armory and a barracks built in every city, and yet you said above "you have peaceful neighbors on this map." You have a shrine and temple in every city, on a civ with +2 faith on it's monument. You don't really need to be hauling down 50 faith per turn at the cost of 3 maintenance in every city. You are dragging your own economy down by building every building that provides marginal to no returns.

You've had scientific theory researched for quite awhile and still don't have public schools built. You're building garbage like East India Company in the capital, and an Opera house and Seaport (for 2 resources) in your expansions. Science is always the focus, you should always be generating as much science as possible as fast as possible for any VC other than early domination and you're not doing that.

Because of the default focus, you're not working specialists in any city either. Hard to tech for science when you're not working scientist slots. This is pretty basic stuff, I'm not surprised you're having a hard time with deity.
 
^^Thanks for the feedback Chum, I really should time to force myself to experiment with micromanaging the city screens, and see for myself if I can make that make a difference. This map might be as good for that as any other. I could not get a CV from this map -- If micromanaging swung the game, that could make a believer out of me!

That said, with the Korea DCL people asserted the same thing -- but the much bigger problem was with where I had put my expos. My stubborn belief is that the good Deity players are doing several things much better than I am doing them -- and that micro managing city screens is the least important but easiest to spot.

@LordBalkoth, that might be an interest video lesson too: 50 or 100 turns with the default governor versus 50 or 100 turns micro managing the city screen.
 
^^Thanks for the feedback Chum, I really should time to force myself to experiment with micromanaging the city screens, and see for myself if I can make that make a difference. This map might be as good for that as any other. I could not get a CV from this map -- If micromanaging swung the game, that could make a believer out of me!

That said, with the Korea DCL people asserted the same thing -- but the much bigger problem was with where I had put my expos. My stubborn belief is that the good Deity players are doing several things much better than I am doing them -- and that micro managing city screens is the least important but easiest to spot.

@LordBalkoth, that might be an interest video lesson too: 50 or 100 turns with the default governor versus 50 or 100 turns micro managing the city screen.

It's pretty easy to see the swing. A university is 33% science + 2 specialist slots. The slots amount to 6 science (+33%, so 8 - +50% in capital, so 11 in the capital). 8 in 3 expos + 11 in the cap is 35 science. That's more than 10% extra science. That's a lot of techs faster, and it snowballs the longer the game goes on. The sooner you get to schools, the sooner you can get them up and staffed and the sooner you'll get to research labs and then finish the tech tree. That's pretty common sense -- if science wasn't the way to win games, no one would bother building/staffing those buildings. But you can't do a T250 science victory without building those things. People who are winning the games slower (or potentially losing games on deity) are the ones who aren't getting the snowball effect fast enough to win the game as fast.

I don't think the micromanaging cities thing is as small as some people claim it is. That's a ton of lost value. Not to mention just switching your capital from default focus to production focus made it pick up 20 hammers and it barely lost any food at all. I really don't see anyone having an easy time with deity not managing tiles - the AI is so completely godawful at it.

And yeah, the second part is really your economy. If I don't have a faith pantheon, I sell shrines once I get temples. 1gpt for 1 faith is great if you need a pantheon, but is it great if you're producing faith? I'd say no. That's a pretty bad return. If I have a faith pantheon (a good one), I don't bother building shrines OR temples usually. 20-30 fpt early/mid game is more than enough to get you what you need. I don't remember the last time I built a grand temple.

Stables/forge -- simple hammer investment. How long is it going to take to recoup that hammer investment? If I only have 1 pasture, I'm not building a stable. 1 hammer for 1 gold is a poor trade, I'd rather have the gold. Plus it takes 100 hammers to build, so you don't even get to that 1 hammer for 1 gold trade for 100 turns. Same thing with the forge. Stoneworks is a different beast, because happiness is important, but it's a similar thought process. Barracks and Armories are maintenance heavy and return low - I MIGHT build a barracks in every city for Heroic Epic, if I'm planning on doing warmongering, but Armories generally don't get build, except for one or 2 cities I'm planning on churning out units with (high production cities that are ahead on infrastructure and can spare the turns). There's no reason to have them in every expo.

Streamline your economy and streamline your cities and you'll get WAY better results. You can't sit there and be stubborn in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. If you don't wanna do it, that's fine, but don't expect to have the same results as people who are.
 
It's pretty easy to see the swing. A university is 33% science + 2 specialist slots. The slots amount to 6 science (+33%, so 8 - +50% in capital, so 11 in the capital). 8 in 3 expos + 11 in the cap is 35 science. That's more than 10% extra science. That's a lot of techs faster, and it snowballs the longer the game goes on. The sooner you get to schools, the sooner you can get them up and staffed and the sooner you'll get to research labs and then finish the tech tree. That's pretty common sense -- if science wasn't the way to win games, no one would bother building/staffing those buildings. But you can't do a T250 science victory without building those things. People who are winning the games slower (or potentially losing games on deity) are the ones who aren't getting the snowball effect fast enough to win the game as fast.

I don't think the micromanaging cities thing is as small as some people claim it is. That's a ton of lost value. Not to mention just switching your capital from default focus to production focus made it pick up 20 hammers and it barely lost any food at all. I really don't see anyone having an easy time with deity not managing tiles - the AI is so completely godawful at it.

And yeah, the second part is really your economy. If I don't have a faith pantheon, I sell shrines once I get temples. 1gpt for 1 faith is great if you need a pantheon, but is it great if you're producing faith? I'd say no. That's a pretty bad return. If I have a faith pantheon (a good one), I don't bother building shrines OR temples usually. 20-30 fpt early/mid game is more than enough to get you what you need. I don't remember the last time I built a grand temple.

Stables/forge -- simple hammer investment. How long is it going to take to recoup that hammer investment? If I only have 1 pasture, I'm not building a stable. 1 hammer for 1 gold is a poor trade, I'd rather have the gold. Plus it takes 100 hammers to build, so you don't even get to that 1 hammer for 1 gold trade for 100 turns. Same thing with the forge. Stoneworks is a different beast, because happiness is important, but it's a similar thought process. Barracks and Armories are maintenance heavy and return low - I MIGHT build a barracks in every city for Heroic Epic, if I'm planning on doing warmongering, but Armories generally don't get build, except for one or 2 cities I'm planning on churning out units with (high production cities that are ahead on infrastructure and can spare the turns). There's no reason to have them in every expo.

Streamline your economy and streamline your cities and you'll get WAY better results. You can't sit there and be stubborn in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. If you don't wanna do it, that's fine, but don't expect to have the same results as people who are.

I never thought of selling Shrines after I was done with them. After a temple is built, there isn't much point in wasting the money on them is there? Micro-managing has turned my Civ game around, I'm always locking and unlocking tiles to see how much food/production/gold/etc. I can maximize to get what I need built. In regards to buildings though, this is what I try to prioritize when building my cities.

1. Monument - For culture and border growth
1.1 shrine - if I want a pantheon
2. Granaries - For food
3. Libraries - For science and universities
3.1-Lighthouse or watermill - More food
3.2 Temple - If I want a religion
4. Circus - For free happiness
4.1 Stoneworks/stables - if I have 3+ pastures/quarries
5. Colosseum - For expensive happiness
6. Aquaducts - for more food
7. Markets - For Money
8. Universities - For research
9. Workshops - For production and Ironworks
10. Banks - For Money
11. Stocks Exchanges - For Money
12. Schools - For science
12.2 Zoo - If I need happiness
13. Factories - for more production
14. Research labs - for more science
15. Hospitals - for more food
16. Medical labs - for more food

I never make it all the way through to 16 though, and I don't know where to stuff culture buildings in there either, or others. I wish I could say I followed this list exactly while playing, but that absolutely does not happen.

Anyways, does this look streamlined enough? Where should I stuff the rest of my culture buildings? What am I leaving out here?
 
@chum, I have a favor to ask. Would you be willing to take my file, set each city screen, and upload back to this thread? Thanks!
 
Holy crap, LordB

I realize I really suck a this game.

I think part of my problem is that other folks say "don't build wonders," but you did successfully.

Other folks say get chariot archers first and then upgrade to Keshiks, which I was trying to do (and you disagreed with).

My first opening in tradition was wonders (which you said was a mistake--although it came in hand).

I think there are so many experts and advice and sometimes they conflict.

I am very impressed (and I mean that) about your micro-managing.

And I'm always neverous as heck when gold is negative or happiness at zero or a few below.

I feel stupid.

But--that's not your fault. I can't believe what you did in that game so far. I am in awe.
 
I pretty much only build military xp buildings if playing Shaka or going for happiness from autocracy leading to air repair bombers. Otherwise there isn't much point of building. Early war units don't need extra XP, they get enough from farming barbs/cities.

I never build culture buildings other than monuments unless specifically going for CV where you need opera houses for hermitage and museums to hold artifacts.

Also Grand Temple mostly never get built since I usually never build additional shrine/temples unless I specifically invested in Piety for a religious game.
 
I realize I really suck a this game.

Eh, you should have seen some of my first games. I found the save file for my first Immortal try where it was turn 177 and I hadn't even researched Philosophy for National College.

I think part of my problem is that other folks say "don't build wonders," but you did successfully.

Well...that depends on your end goal. In this case, I was trying to win a Cultural Victory...which means I do need to build wonders. But if you're going for a Scientific Victory then sacrificing production (needed for wonders) for Growth/Science will lead to a faster/easier victory. If you're going for a Domination Victory then spending that production on units and conquering the wonders is better. Also remember that this is King which means I can get away with a lot of stuff I couldn't otherwise.

Other folks say get chariot archers first and then upgrade to Keshiks, which I was trying to do (and you disagreed with).

I don't disagree with that, actually. Keshiks are the single best unit in the game. And if I had gone Keshiks I could have conquered the entire world with them easily.

But I wasn't trying to conquer the world, I was trying to win a Cultural Victory. Which makes Keshiks much less valuable.

My first opening in tradition was wonders (which you said was a mistake--although it came in hand).

But if you picked the +2 food and growth rate first, for example, that allows you to work a 3 production mine without stalling growth (or more food or whatever) and gives more science. In this particular case (a OOC focusing on wonders) then it's not as bad, perhaps even better in some instances...but overall it should be the last thing in Tradition taken.

I think there are so many experts and advice and sometimes they conflict.

Sometimes. Usually they're talking about different goals, though.

And I'm always neverous as heck when gold is negative or happiness at zero or a few below.

Negative happiness is bad. Negative gold per turn (but positive gold), not as much. I had like negative 100-200 gold per turn in one game, but it didn't matter since I kept raking in 300+ gold each turn from other things.

I DL'd that Ethopia save.

Beetle, I think I take back about what I said about it being straightforward given some of the stuff Chum said, and I will play it from Radio to Plastics.

You have a shrine and temple in every city, on a civ with +2 faith on it's monument.

This is something I'd disagree with. If you had, say, 4 cities with a Shrine and Temple in each one from turn 1 (note, that's impossible)...for a 300 turn game that's 4 cities times 3 gpt times 300 = 3600 gold total. If that even results in a single extra Great Scientist you're talking about getting an extra 6000+ Science. If you hit Public Schools (and thus Industrial Era) on turn 60, that means you have about 140 turns (less, actually), to earn 1000 faith for a single Great Scientist, 2500 faith for two, or 3500 for two Great Scientists and a Great Engineer (or 6000 for three GSes, and so on). Obviously you hope to have some "built up" prior to that but since the game so kindly auto spawns Great Prophets, it may take some fiddling to avoid an awkward spawn.

In order to get 2500 faith in <140 turns you need 17.8ish faith per turn. Four Steles gives 8...so unless your faith pantheon is insane you need another source of income (and if you want to be able to buy 3 Great Scientists an an engineer, for example, you need 5000 faith, or >35 faith per turnish). In theory you could build Shrines and Temples and then sell them after Grand Temple is built, but then you're pouring in 560 production plus the Grand Temple production. And all this to save 12 gpt from 4 Temples/Shrines? Not like they even have to be built that early. And even if so...you have major problems if 12 gpt is crippling your economy.

You've had scientific theory researched for quite awhile and still don't have public schools built.

That's really bad. Should basically be building them the instant you finish Scientific Theory.

You're building garbage like East India Company in the capital, and an Opera house and Seaport (for 2 resources) in your expansions

East India Company isn't garbage, not in single player. Helps attract foreign trade routes and adds 4 gpt to every existing trade route to you. So if you have even 5 trade routes to you (and I've had plenty more) that's 20 gpt plus the base 4 gpt (which is modified by Markets/Banks/Stock Exchanges/Commerce Opener to boot).

What's wrong with an Opera House? Hermitage is a good chunk of Culture for faster policies. Not at the expense of science buildings, of course, but...

Seaport for 2 resources is fine if you build it relatively early. 1 or less not so great, though.

Science is always the focus, you should always be generating as much science as possible as fast as possible for any VC other than early domination and you're not doing that.

This isn't true for Time, Cultural, or Diplomatic Victories. You'd also have to define "early domination" -- something like Honor/Commerce/Autocracy can go well into the 200s if needed and doesn't even bother with Research Labs.

B
ecause of the default focus, you're not working specialists in any city either. Hard to tech for science when you're not working scientist slots. This is pretty basic stuff, I'm not surprised you're having a hard time with deity.

Now this stuff, though, that's bad. I assumed you (meaning Beetle) were at least doing the fundamentals right.

^^Thanks for the feedback Chum, I really should time to force myself to experiment with micromanaging the city screens, and see for myself if I can make that make a difference.

There's micromanaging and then there's micromanaging. Do you have to check every single city every single turn to see if you can squeeze out more of whatever? Not really, get some harsh diminishing returns there. But do you need to make sure basic stuff like working Scientist slots are taken care of? Hell yes.

The default governor will also do really stupid things at times -- like working a 4 food tile and a 4 production tile rather than a 3 food/2 production and a 2 food/3 production tile. You literally just lose a food and a production.

That said, with the Korea DCL people asserted the same thing -- but the much bigger problem was with where I had put my expos. My stubborn belief is that the good Deity players are doing several things much better than I am doing them -- and that micro managing city screens is the least important but easiest to spot.

Micromanaging it to the degree I did in those videos, yeah, that winds up not mattering that much overall. But stuff like Scientist slots are huge. A size 20 city generates 94 science per turn with Research Labs (40 from population, 3 from Public School, 4 from Research Lab...then multiply that 47 base by 200%, with 50% from Universities and 50% from Research Labs). A size 20 city working 4 Scientist slots generates 134 science per turn (an extra 20 from four Scientist slots which is then doubled by the multiplier). So that's literally 42% more science from the city (winds up being less if you work Academies or Trading Posts with science or whatever -- but National College/Order Factories/Observatories don't change it).

@LordBalkoth, that might be an interest video lesson too: 50 or 100 turns with the default governor versus 50 or 100 turns micro managing the city screen.

Yeah, I'm definitely doing to do that.

Stables/forge -- simple hammer investment. How long is it going to take to recoup that hammer investment? If I only have 1 pasture, I'm not building a stable. 1 hammer for 1 gold is a poor trade, I'd rather have the gold. Plus it takes 100 hammers to build, so you don't even get to that 1 hammer for 1 gold trade for 100 turns. Same thing with the forge. Stoneworks is a different beast, because happiness is important, but it's a similar thought process.

This is all good stuff, though. Need 2 (worked) Pastures for Stables. Forge is more iffy -- if you'll actually be producing any kind of non-naval units the 15% bonus is a lot broader than the mounted bonus of stables. But if the city is just making buildings then yeah, not worth it. Stoneworks has the benefit of giving a base production inherently in addition to +1 for quarries, which makes it more clear cut (plus a happiness).

Barracks and Armories are maintenance heavy and return low - I MIGHT build a barracks in every city for Heroic Epic, if I'm planning on doing warmongering, but Armories generally don't get build, except for one or 2 cities I'm planning on churning out units with (high production cities that are ahead on infrastructure and can spare the turns). There's no reason to have them in every expo.

Indeed. Honestly can just sell the Barracks once Heroic Epic is built unless you expect to be building military units in that city too -- it gives zero benefit for simply existing.

Anyways, does this look streamlined enough? Where should I stuff the rest of my culture buildings? What am I leaving out here?

Why are you building Monuments and Aqueducts in the first place? And if you are building them, Aqueduct is extremely high priority. The main issue with your list is that you shouldn't be having to choose -- if you seriously have to debate Factories vs Research Labs then something is dreadfully wrong as Factories should have been up for a LONG time.
 
This is something I'd disagree with. If you had, say, 4 cities with a Shrine and Temple in each one from turn 1 (note, that's impossible)...for a 300 turn game that's 4 cities times 3 gpt times 300 = 3600 gold total. If that even results in a single extra Great Scientist you're talking about getting an extra 6000+ Science. If you hit Public Schools (and thus Industrial Era) on turn 60, that means you have about 140 turns (less, actually), to earn 1000 faith for a single Great Scientist, 2500 faith for two, or 3500 for two Great Scientists and a Great Engineer (or 6000 for three GSes, and so on). Obviously you hope to have some "built up" prior to that but since the game so kindly auto spawns Great Prophets, it may take some fiddling to avoid an awkward spawn.

In order to get 2500 faith in <140 turns you need 17.8ish faith per turn. Four Steles gives 8...so unless your faith pantheon is insane you need another source of income (and if you want to be able to buy 3 Great Scientists an an engineer, for example, you need 5000 faith, or >35 faith per turnish). In theory you could build Shrines and Temples and then sell them after Grand Temple is built, but then you're pouring in 560 production plus the Grand Temple production. And all this to save 12 gpt from 4 Temples/Shrines? Not like they even have to be built that early. And even if so...you have major problems if 12 gpt is crippling your economy.

Religious CS. +16 faith after industrial, very low maintenance cost. Could be zero if you end up getting the right quests. Even in the ancient era, friends with a religious CS can get you a religion, because it's +2 faith at a time where you maybe only have 1 + your dirt.

Faith is a funny thing - if you have too little of it, it's worthless, and if you have a lot of it it snowballs into more than you can use. For example, like I said above - if you need temples to get a religion, on any difficulty above probably King, you won't get a religion. They simply come too late for you to get that first prophet. There will already be an AI at Theology cranking out Hagia while you're trying to get a temple up to catch up. In that sense, the temple is essentially worthless, it's producing something that you're not going to be able to make use of if you're running single digit faith for the majority of the game.

Now, alternatively, if you have a good pantheon and good neighbors and can get good faith buildings (honestly, not that hard to get several faith buildings on higher difficulties - embrace the missionary spam, folks), you can end up in a situation where you're producing so much faith that you're planting GP's and producing even more faith. In that sense, the shrines and temples are worthless too because you're producing so much faith via dirt and holy sites and mosques/pagodas that you don't need to be spending maintenance on faith buildings. Once you get to that 4000 faith hump, a couple extra faith won't make a difference on your next GP purchase because it's going to be huge. You've either got the mechanics to get a 4k faith GS or you don't, and 3 faith per city very likely won't change that.

There is a sweet spot of course, and that comes with something like a dragging religion game where you pick something like Sun God. It's possible, but unlikely, for you to take a food pantheon and then back that up via shrines and temples. I've done it, but it's RARE. It's the exception, not the rule. It obviously requires a lot of food (for the pantheon) and then a lot of production (to get shrines and temples up your expos). So yeah - for the most part, I don't bother with the shrines and temples, because in almost all cases in my experience, they don't make sense to build.

East India Company isn't garbage, not in single player. Helps attract foreign trade routes and adds 4 gpt to every existing trade route to you. So if you have even 5 trade routes to you (and I've had plenty more) that's 20 gpt plus the base 4 gpt (which is modified by Markets/Banks/Stock Exchanges/Commerce Opener to boot).

It's garbage when you're sitting around sometime after Scientific theory and still haven't built your schools.

It's a very low priority wonder for me unless I'm coastal. Building it in a landlocked Addis Abbaba with few neighbors and only caravan routes possible is garbage.

What's wrong with an Opera House? Hermitage is a good chunk of Culture for faster policies. Not at the expense of science buildings, of course, but...

Nothing really, other than 1 culture for 1 gpt is half as good as a monument. Not to mention you need amphitheaters too. I'll build them, I just get to them long after I'm done building science/population/specialist buildings. I can't rate an opera house above any science building, workshops, aqueducts, or market line because all of those can potentially generate more science for you. So they're low priority.

Seaport for 2 resources is fine if you build it relatively early. 1 or less not so great, though.

Pretty big hammer investment for 2. Same with those 2 workboats on fish. No bueno.

This isn't true for Time, Cultural, or Diplomatic Victories. You'd also have to define "early domination" -- something like Honor/Commerce/Autocracy can go well into the 200s if needed and doesn't even bother with Research Labs.

Totally disagree. I don't play time, but the name of the game for culture is to tech to Hotels/Airports/internet asap, is it not? Same for diplo - tech to Information Era asap and get globalization. They are all science dependent.
 
This isn't true for Time, Cultural, or Diplomatic Victories. You'd also have to define "early domination" -- something like Honor/Commerce/Autocracy can go well into the 200s if needed and doesn't even bother with Research Labs.

Pretty sure basic culture game is a science game until industrial where you spam archaeologists instead of other things. Then you race to Internet and airports if needed. SS is a different. Diplo is all about reaching information era asap, or a variant of late domination where you take out everything except 2 civ and race to atomic.

Now domination can take 2 styles, early rushes type or late game turtle. The turtle is a science game until industrial or later, and the rushes requires you do prioritize early units and postpone science for the most part while you have the edge.

Attempting time victory is quite rare for me. I think the only thing you have to do is maximize number of cities and maximize population. It is actually extremely tedious to do so efficiently due to the high number of happiness that is required. I think in general you end up with somewhere around 80-100 cities on standard map where you want as many cities with average size 16-20 as possible. More than that then they can become happiness drain. 10 from ideology, 6 from happiness buildings.
 
Looking through my save files, I get to Plastics on T223, but that could have been ~T212 if I bulb the GS that I was saving for after labs.

FYI, I played this save and got to Plastics (no bulbs) on turn 212 (33 turns). Then I manually optimized and got to Plastics (no bulbs) on turn 210 (31 turns). And I'm pretty sure the only reason the default governor came remotely close is because I went Freedom and got all the specialist boosting policies, meaning he's working far more of them now. But I have an entire extra Great Scientist in the manually optimized game (not sure how far off the next is for the 212 game, though), for example.

faith stuff

Too tired to respond fully now, will get to this later.

It's garbage when you're sitting around sometime after Scientific theory and still haven't built your schools.

True.

It's a very low priority wonder for me unless I'm coastal. Building it in a landlocked Addis Abbaba with few neighbors and only caravan routes possible is garbage.

Eh. Even in that current game it's providing like 14 GPT, would be more if it was built earlier and Beetle's capital was better.

I can't rate an opera house above any science building, workshops, aqueducts, or market line because all of those can potentially generate more science for you. So they're low priority.

Generally agree, sure, but you should still fit in Hermitage simply for more/faster policies.

Same with those 2 workboats on fish. No bueno.

Workboats aren't as bad as you make them out to be (just terrible compared to workers). For 100 production he's getting 2 more base food and 2 more base gold per turn. A hospital, for example, is 360 production for 5 food and *costs* 2 gold per turn. Biggest issue with work boats is if they get pillaged.

Totally disagree. I don't play time, but the name of the game for culture is to tech to Hotels/Airports/internet asap, is it not?

No, need to pick up at least a few priority wonders on the way.

Same for diplo - tech to Information Era asap and get globalization. They are all science dependent.

Nope, Globalization is worthless if you don't control enough city states. Need to gain control via some method as well as teching...and you can skip Globalization, frankly, if you meet other criteria.

Host = 6 votes
16 city states = 32 votes
World Ideology OR World Religion OR Forbidden Palace = 2 votes

Bam, there's your 40. Even if you can't get any of WI/WR/FP (or you have one or more but lost CSes earlier to Venice/Austria/conquerors), you should still win the second World Leader vote. You could be in the Atomic Era yourself for all it matters.
 
No, need to pick up at least a few priority wonders on the way.

It was rhetorical. It is absolutely a science game, and that's how you pick up the priority wonders. You can't be lax about tech and hope to pick up Sistine/Uffizi. Culture plays VERY similar to science game until industrial, you just beeline slightly different techs, and then you push towards Hotels (my plan usually), then Internet, then finally airports if you need them.



Nope, Globalization is worthless if you don't control enough city states. Need to gain control via some method as well as teching...and you can skip Globalization, frankly, if you meet other criteria.

Host = 6 votes
16 city states = 32 votes
World Ideology OR World Religion OR Forbidden Palace = 2 votes

Bam, there's your 40. Even if you can't get any of WI/WR/FP (or you have one or more but lost CSes earlier to Venice/Austria/conquerors), you should still win the second World Leader vote. You could be in the Atomic Era yourself for all it matters.

Ah, we're talking about different things. I'm talking about making your victory happen, you're talking about taking it from someone else who made it happen. Tech is independent of CS's, you should be able to figure out how to do that on your own. But the way to fast diplo is to A) get an ideology first and push that thru as world ideology before the world has a chance to object, and then B) get to Info era to get it over as fast as possible. You use globalization to account for things like landlocked/eaten CS's. That's a science game - you're pushing to Modern first, getting your ideology passed, and then pushing to Info to trigger the UN. I don't know how much more science game that could possibly be.

The only game I play that's different than science focus is when I'm planning on having the game won via artillery, in which case I just go to Education, then up to Dynamite. Or alternatively, Navigation, map dependent.
 
Religious CS. +16 faith after industrial, very low maintenance cost. Could be zero if you end up getting the right quests. Even in the ancient era, friends with a religious CS can get you a religion, because it's +2 faith at a time where you maybe only have 1 + your dirt.

Unless you pick up specific policies, you're often looking at something like 500 gold for 40 rep (or 1000 for 80, same ratio), meaning you're paying 12.5 gold per turn for 16 faith per turn. Not much better of a ratio than Shrines/Temples. And that's not counting having to get them to allied status in the first place.

Faith is a funny thing - if you have too little of it, it's worthless, and if you have a lot of it it snowballs into more than you can use. For example, like I said above - if you need temples to get a religion, on any difficulty above probably King, you won't get a religion.

Never said you needed a Temple for religion. It's for the Grand Temple and/or longer term stuff like buying the buildings and eventually Great People.

You've either got the mechanics to get a 4k faith GS or you don't, and 3 faith per city very likely won't change that.

It's the "very likely" that's the concern. 12 faith per turn over 100+ turns is 1200+ faith, could easily be the difference in many cases (or make no difference at all in others).

It was rhetorical. It is absolutely a science game, and that's how you pick up the priority wonders. You can't be lax about tech and hope to pick up Sistine/Uffizi. Culture plays VERY similar to science game until industrial, you just beeline slightly different techs, and then you push towards Hotels (my plan usually), then Internet, then finally airports if you need them.

You realize you're in a thread where people are not working Scientist slots or frantically trying to broker peace when they have twice the army of their opponent? You need to be literal here. The way you phrased it was

"Science is always the focus, you should always be generating as much science as possible as fast as possible for any VC other than early domination and you're not doing that."

My point is you are NOT "generating as much science as fast as possible" in some of these cases. By that logic you'd never work a production tile outside of maybe when producing science buildings, purely food and gold. Except if your capital has 1 base production, 3 palace production, and 3-4 unavoidable production from terrain...Sistine Chapel is going to take like 50 turns to build. Science is extremely important, but I'll trade off 5% science for 50% more production or whatever. Not going to work a 3 food file over a 2 food/4 production tile.

But in a Science game you could.

Ah, we're talking about different things. I'm talking about making your victory happen, you're talking about taking it from someone else who made it happen.

No, I'm not. If I focus my efforts on allying all the city states and meet the criteria I mentioned in my previous post, I will win on the first vote once half the civs are in the Atomic Era. Doesn't matter which half, doesn't matter if one of them is me. Unless you're trying to argue that the other seven civs should stop all tech progress and avoid the Atomic Era so that the world leader vote doesn't come up unless I force it by hitting the Information Era?

Tech is independent of CS's, you should be able to figure out how to do that on your own.

No, it's not. Ultimately you need to pay money or production to ally with the CSes. It could be flat out bribes. It could be weaker trade routes to them with the Freedom tenet. It could be gifting produced/bought units with the Freedom tenet. It could be a massive army with the Autocracy tenet (though that's very difficult to do on Deity). Etc. I'm going to work a 2 food/4 gold tile over a 3 food tile. I'm going to bribe CSes over Research Agreements or rush buying Science buildings as necessary. In short, I'm going to sacrifice at least SOME Science in some manner. Everything is an opportunity cost (I trust you're aware of that concept) -- spending more effort on CSes has to come from SOMETHING else.
 
Either way, I would be hard pressed to finish the spaceship before T300. So maybe my problem is not Radio to Plastics, but post-plastics? That is part of the problem -- knowing where is my problem!

Played out the 210 Plastics game, finished on turn 279 (Science Victory). Final city sizes were 31, 29, 27, and 22. Will upload the videos over the next few days.

Also, only had enough faith to buy the last Great Scientist (2500 one) 2-3 turns before victory. And was allied with a religious CS and had Grand Temple (could have allied with the religious CS earlier, though, in all fairness).

Here's part 2 of the Mongolia OOC Cultural World War game.

And here's part 3.

Part 4 (final part) is 63% uploaded.
 
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