Poland strategy guide

Let me post this here too since my start was based on this, excepting that I needed to go to Machinery before Education, to see what advice -if any- would be worth giving.

I have been working on a cultural game on Immortal for some time now and finding it challenging. I stayed with my usual small empire but just couldn't get the growth and science going until later. In the meantime, I've lost out (as usual) on most all of the key wonders (up until Industrial so far) except for Oracle and used a GE for Louvre.

After getting Machinery, I then did Education->Acoustics->Archaeology and while I late getting Acoustics, I was the first to Archaeology. I see Radio a long ways off, though. Additionally, I completed the Aesthetics tree (along with Tradition and Liberty). I am getting over 200 cultural per turn (non-golden age).

Right now, as I am back-filling techs, I got several digs accomplished, did a lot of swapping (one of the most awesome mechanics, btw) and filled my Louvre, Hermitage, Cathedrals and Amphitheater slots and working on getting Museums up = so far netting me +54 base Tourism which is by far the most.

On top of all that, I have a significant delegates lead and Arts Funding has been enacted. Worlds Fair is up now but I don't want to stop my meager production of Museums and such to spend on the Fair.

Finally, I have two Artists, Musicians and Writers specialists going in my capital along with Garden and National Epic.

So with all of this, is there any hope for a Cultural Victory? It is a hard victory to achieve, esp. without key wonders. Despite the late start, what can I do now to push it ahead?
 
You have to push strong for Hotels and Airports, finish the tech tree. The mid games stuff you have now wont carry you through. Don't let your second half science slide. Max your bonuses in the diplo screen for open borders, trade routes, ideologies etc. Stay in control of congress push your agenda. Target the high culture civs and use war& diplomacy to slow them down.

Here's a tip: All that stuff that looks good for culture in the congress menu is a red herring. It only helps the defense of the culture civs; ie it helps them make more culture. Stick with science. By finishing the tree will you get the 1000 tourism that you want in order to finish it. You will also get the weapons you need to invade the culture leaders (the ones with 40,000 points) should you have to.
 
Almost pulled it off. After finishing Hermitage and continuing with GWAM, I made science the top priority by going into and completing Rationalism, Porcelain Tower and Scholasticism plus public schools, added scientists and Great Scientists. Was first to Atomic Era, RA'd Electronics and was working on Ecology. Then the Ideology Wars started and I lost my open borders, my trade routes and my tourism/musicians momentum. Maybe I should not have proposed a World Ideology. :(
 
Its layers upon layers. I think the way to keep your ideology is strong culture defense, which means your fair share of world wonders amongst other things.

The ideology will help if you can swing the votes --diplomats in capitals and enough bank to pay the price. The secret to the first round of votes is Forbidden Palace. Buy off the owner or make it yourself. Then time the congress so that you have 2 diplomats and can buy the vote of 2 civs.
 
What got me was that while I had the most delegates and 6 of 8 civs had Order (including me), the two civs that didn't (Siam and Mayan) were very strong and pissed off at the world, esp. the one that proposed the World Ideology in the first place.
 
Almost pulled it off. After finishing Hermitage and continuing with GWAM, I made science the top priority by going into and completing Rationalism, Porcelain Tower and Scholasticism plus public schools, added scientists and Great Scientists. Was first to Atomic Era, RA'd Electronics and was working on Ecology. Then the Ideology Wars started and I lost my open borders, my trade routes and my tourism/musicians momentum. Maybe I should not have proposed a World Ideology. :(

Actually, almost pulling it off. Survived the first wave of attacks (five declarations on me at about the same time) with my meager forces and now I am fighting a strong next door neighbor. It's a Small Continent-Low Seas map and thus, lots of AI naval, air and ground forces.

I've reached Internet long ago and while that provided a nice boost, I still have a long ways to go and I hope to survive long enough. The problem is exacerbated by missing out on almost all of the wonders, esp. the Musician one. I am making do with just the Louvre, Hermitage and Oxford for my themes. I've done four concerts and can buy one more.

I just don't know if this strategy can work at the higher difficulties without wonders. I understand now how important the key wonders are (and the science needing to get there first). But I've got two Influential, four Popular and two Familiar while getting about 400-550 tourism on them as they all fight each other (and me as well). Will that be enough?
 
This is my strategy for wonders.

Step 1. Build a wonder in 50 turns that gives engineer points.

Step 2. NC > Metal Casting, run engineers.

Step 3. Banking or Printing Press.

Works well on immortal. I got many more wonders than usual when I did this even though I was OCC until Hermitage. So, if I had expanded it would have worked better.
 
Hi all, I registered for this forum to specifically thank the folks in this thread for posting this strategy guide. I followed it broadly and did my first-ever Deity win (science) at 1852 AD as Poland; even though I was blessed with an amazing start position, it was not easy, and it would have never happened without this guide.

Anyway, thanks to everyone!
 
Nice thread, tommynt. I followed most of what you outlined and still couldn't get close to your turn 219 victory despite the OP map. I feel like I'm playing in slow motion compared to you and glory7. Well I did get a little bored and decided to use all my donated units and take out Japan but that still would only have cut my victory down about 20 turns.

By the time I placed my 2nd city, Japan had already settled where you settled your 4th city. So I went with only 3 city opening and spread them out a bit further. I should have gone with 4 with the 4th being NE of Lodz near the mountain for an observatory but I was experiencing happyness problems at the time. However by around turn 180 I had +34 happyness so I really regret not getting that 4th city from the start. There was a lot of warmongering in my game. I had to do a lot of bribing between Genghis, Monty and Oda who were beating on civs and CSes like crazy. Had very few RAs which hurt me a quite a bit.

This is how my game ended with Monty and me taking pieces of Japan :)
Spoiler :

Taking Osaka, Satsuma and Kyoto cut my happyness to -8 but at that point it didn't matter since the space ship was in the air.
 
he has some pretty sweet dirt. 5 salts in his first 2 cities, irrigable wheats, tons of river, hills, other luxes, etc. It's not going to be doable every time.

Salt is OP... IMHO, brokenly so. +food, +production, +happiness... all with one improvement that only requires mining? If I get a 3-salt start I can pretty much build every Wonder I want, even on Diety.

That being said, I think the strategy is sound, from looking at it. Haven't tried it. Random variables like DoW and barbarians can break this though. Even on BNW, I've had starts where you get DoW'd early, HARD, and if that happens, none of this crap works because you're still behind in tech... it's only turn 60, and by then they can have tons of units if they want to.

That's somewhat rare but still. Only building scouts sure encourages an early DoW. Composite bows/etc seem necessary to prevent early DoW sometimes. I still think Poland is strong enough to survive that even with the earlier construction detour and get away with this strategy, but if you wait until you're attacked to start building CBs you're kinda screwed. So, personally, I would just suck it up and add early defense to the guide. Otherwise it's a bit situational... Unless I'm just getting unlucky in BNW getting so much barb and DoW activity on Diety.
 
Tried this last night. Had to tweak a few things, and only got a turn 290 victory. I will say though that "only" 290 is a matter of perspective. Any strategy guide that gets you a turn 290 victory ain't half bad. ;-)

0) No trade routes. If I hadn't forward settled I would have had none at all, due to being on a peninsula. So I had no beakers from trade routes for a long time.
1) There weren't as many unique luxuries around me as the guide wanted there to be, so happiness was an issue until Freedom. I constantly had to slow my growth to stay at 0+ happiness, and I didn't even take a growth pantheon or religion. I took +2 happiness from Gardens (one of the only things left) and it's a good thing I did!
2) I had to forward-settle my second city to protect the rest of my peninsula, and I had to do it in a spot with no unique luxuries, but that spot had Lake Victoria, 3 fish, lots of jungle, hills and banana. :-D So happiness was REALLY an issue. That city was sick once I hit Freedom though.
3) I had to rush-buy a unit more than once to fend off barbarians. That slowed Universities by a fair amount of turns.
4) I had no coal and no aluminum, and no one to trade it with, so I had to get Freedom by entering the Modern era. It was fine though. I actually got Freedom before my last Rationalism policy.
5) Culture growth was an issue. In retrospect I wish I'd gone with a +culture pantheon or religious trait.
6) I had no trouble getting Pyramids, and as a result, ended up with more workers than I really needed. I probably could have skipped building any, and just relied on the one I stole + pyramids + liberty.
7) I had 6-7 research agreements throughout the game. This slowed down universities, public schools and research labs. I'm still torn on whether I should have passed on the research agreements and rush-bought some of those earlier.
8) Alexander was the tech leader (?!) despite me entering the modern era around turn 180. I didn't pass him until around turn 200. He almost ran away with the game, and I had to spend 4000 gold of my rush-buy spaceship part money to prevent him from winning the World Leader vote around turn 275. I would have definitely had a turn 280 victory otherwise. But, this strategy does adapt well.
9) I wished I had entered construction earlier, as I expected. Barbarians were a problem. Plus, I had an unlucky scout death, so I didn't meet Byzantium until turn 140. (The kind of death where they move into view of multiple barbarians with their last move and get immediately ganked)

In conclusion, my start was only so-so. The fact that I was protected from DoW was a big plus, but it was a slow start due to where I was forced to place my cities. I'm pretty sure you can consistently win on Diety with this strategy if you adapt to your starting location.

That being said, I've had multiple Poland games with faster tech starts than this by going pure Tradition... games where I was the undisputed tech leader way earlier. The only problem with said games is I usually can't get a 3rd or 4th city out. So, I tend to lose momentum and have trouble building things.

I'm not a Tradition expert like Tabarnak, so I probably just need to refine my strategy... but I guess what I'm saying is that I'm not convinced this is necessarily better. Especially the part about avoiding the bottom of the tree. I was the first to meet everyone and Pisa would have really helped. Printing Press earlier would have been really helpful, especially to slow down Alexander.

Greece running the World Congress from the start of the game is NOT what you want.
 
Your first point brings up a good point. A lot if people said it's easy to set many trade routes and therefore get lots of DoF. But in each of my long cultural, science and diplo games, I was either isolated or on a peninsula at the end of a landmass.

So guides like this and others assume a particular kind of map situation to achieve similar results? Do you re-roll until you know you are within range of several civs?
 
Your first point brings up a good point. A lot if people said it's easy to set many trade routes and therefore get lots of DoF. But in each of my long cultural, science and diplo games, I was either isolated or on a peninsula at the end of a landmass.

So guides like this and others assume a particular kind of map situation to achieve similar results? Do you re-roll until you know you are within range of several civs?

Getting lots of DoF isn't hard when you're isolated. In fact it's easier because people don't covet your lands as much. What's hard is that on Diety you *need* those trade routes to catch up on tech. Early. Later on when you're ahead on tech, it's better to switch to trade routes with city-states and get that +4 faction/turn imho. Otherwise you're helping *them* catch up on tech. :p

But DoFs are very situational. I was lucky in this game, (somewhat, aside from my slow start) because everyone wanted to be my friend, even Alex. Also, my nearby neighbors were all relatively friendly. (Austria, Polynesia)

Heck, everyone in this map was somewhat friendly, with the exception of Greece, who is generally only your enemy if he's nearby. Full list: Greece, Austria, Portugal, Polynesia, Byzantium, India, Hiawatha. That's about as friendly as it gets. If it wasn't for my resource-starved start I'd feel like I got away with something in this game. :p

EDIT: Also, you can do what I did: Forward-settle to be close enough to have trade routes. This was key to salvaging my start, even though it forced me to pick a non-ideal city location. Although, be careful about forward-settling. I aimed for 10 hexes from the nearest city. Just barely within range to get one trade route, and praying he wouldn't covet Lake Victoria. Luckily, and not shockingly, the AI covets luxury/strategic resources, not +food Natural Wonders.
 
Great guide for my favorite civ.

I only think that grabbing Consulates before going Rationalism is a better move for long term gains (faith, culture, food, happiness). Did someone went this way ?

I would also love to have some tips on a Poland warmonger guide from you also, Tommynt. How would you change the strategy with that in mind?

Thanks a lot for the numerous insights in this thread.
 
Great guide for my favorite civ.

I only think that grabbing Consulates before going Rationalism is a better move for long term gains (faith, culture, food, happiness). Did someone went this way ?

I would also love to have some tips on a Poland warmonger guide from you also, Tommynt. How would you change the strategy with that in mind?

Thanks a lot for the numerous insights in this thread.

I've been testing a Trad Opener -> Liberty Opener -> Aristocracy -> Oligarchy (if needed) -> Pat Opener -> Consulates -> Oligarchy -> Finish Trad -> Rat build myself. You miss out on the production policies but you get a really fast Consulates and you can still do the Legalism trick for the Amps in like 3 of your cities.
 
You have to push strong for Hotels and Airports, finish the tech tree. The mid games stuff you have now wont carry you through. Don't let your second half science slide. Max your bonuses in the diplo screen for open borders, trade routes, ideologies etc. Stay in control of congress push your agenda. Target the high culture civs and use war& diplomacy to slow them down.

Here's a tip: All that stuff that looks good for culture in the congress menu is a red herring. It only helps the defense of the culture civs; ie it helps them make more culture. Stick with science. By finishing the tree will you get the 1000 tourism that you want in order to finish it. You will also get the weapons you need to invade the culture leaders (the ones with 40,000 points) should you have to.

Actually the +3 culture from world wonders get added into tourism, and it gets multiplied by hotels/airports/NVC such that that proposal alone will lift your base tourism by several hundreds of points. (if you wonderhog like I do)

Same with Landmarks (although if you go freedom this doesn't really matter much... but if you have several of these and you went order, this can boost your tourism by more than it boosts the other civ's culture)

The trick is to get this later in the game (if you get this early then as you said it gives the culture civs more culture to run away)

CV is a little different from SV (at least in my experience); what matters is not the speed of your tech (you can skip all the wonders and crank science to arrive at internet really fast) but the maximum point of your tourism. ICS sacred sites is the exception (and that will probably get nerfed so don't rely on it)

Example: you reach internet, skipping all the theming wonders and burnt all your GA and GW for treatises and golden ages... your tourism is now 400+ at t220... A lot of times you will win with a concert blitz, but sometimes as you get close to popular suddenly one civ has reached 400+ culture/turn. You stay just at popular for the rest of the game unless you use multiple GM bombs... (and sometimes there are two or even three such civs such that you cannot bomb them all). You are forced to go for DV or SV, in other words your CV goal failed, or you need to take those civs out of the game (hard if they are the whole map away). Sometimes you can't even win International Games if one civ has conquered other civs and has 10+ cities and they decide to go for it. World religion depends on having a religion to begin with (and it might come at the cost of pissing other civs such that they refuse OB)

On the other hand, you burn all your GA for artwork for your hermitage and Louvre, 2 GW to fill Oxford, and because you lost out on the Rennaissance theming wonders you built Broadway just to get that base value up. You went for Hubble before Internet and beelined Great Firewall afterwards to prevent other civ's SV and deny them the firewall. At t260 or so your tourism is now 800+... now your CV is inevitable, and it is simply becomes a matter of preventing other civs from winning before you do. (this might take 30-40 turns in the worst case)

Sometimes it does gets scary when the spaceship parts from other civs start going up (but you can always build all the parts yourself and have them ready for an emergency SV); but most of the time I find that if I reach a base tourism value of 700-800 I can win peaceful CV on deity.

In other words, in some cases a 500 tourism (for the sake of argument let's make it such that you have a diplomat and that your ideology differs, leading you to -9%, which I will consider negligible in rough calculations) civ may take 500 turns to become influential... (say their cpt is 450 and they have 25k culture headstart) in other words, no way in hell unless you concert bomb FIVE times. Doesn't matter if you hit it on t200.

But an 800 tourism civ will take 70 turns. Or 3 concerts (doable).
A 1000 tourism civ will take 46 turns. So 2 concerts and some turns.
Brazil with 2000 tourism in an unending golden streak will take 17 or so turns and perhaps only one concert.

In reality, trade routes, open borders, shared religion and shared ideology (order) can make it such that once you hit your peak tourism you win in 20 or so turns without any concerts with some luck in international relations. My average adjusted tourism against the highest culture civ in my CVs are around at least 1200, and if you haven't neglected tourism all game usually at most you'd be looking at a 15-20k culture gap.

Of course, blazingly fast tech (t170 SV that people mention) is the exception to this rule... if you hit 400 tpt at t170 you are sure to win :lol: (you can always go back and built the wonders you skipped anyway)
 
Good thing other people bumped this as I m more and more a fan to play like that with every civ.
Its so solid, with not needing to produce settlers for ages the games feels much "smoother" u r free to produce other stuff ...

and with expanding borders with 4 culture per turn instead of 2 u save SOOO much cash later to buy tiles.

Finishing tradition 15 turns later really doesnt brake the game - NOT AT ALL
 
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