Getting the best out of futurism

Magean said:

Assuming you're the first to go autocracy, how will you spend your two free tenets ? What is worth a policy in Tier 1 Autocracy ?

Industrial Espionage, definitely.
Mobilization is quite good.

The rest is meh, but futurism has its use if you plan to go cultural, or to build some tourism defence, while coming from behind in tourism.

So you may take industrial espionage and futurism as free tenets, and later on, mobilization.

That's not a culture overinvestment, is it ?

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You can't take infinite policies, and there are sooo many Autocracy policies I'd rather have:
Clausewitz's Legacy
Cult of Personality
Elite Forces
Fortified Borders
Gunboat Diplomacy
Industrial Espionage
Lightning Warfare
Militarism
Mobilization
Nationalism
Police State
Total War
Universal Healthcare

If you have all those, you CAN'T take more autocracy policies. If you take Futurism before any of those, you're delaying them.

The only policies I don't like way more than Futurism are United Front (which is useful in certain situations) and Third Alternative (which is VERY useful when you're running out of oil for bombers) but not ALWAYS useful.

And re: over-investment. If you've got so much culture to spare that you can take 10 Autocracy policies... maybe you should focus more on tech. Or happiness, or gold, or whatever. Leaning too hard on one lever is very inefficient. Futurism is so bad it's implied that you're generating more culture than you need if you take it. If your tourism is suffering, there's a better way to fix it. Guaranteed.

Cromagnus said:

It's not useless unless you take into account opportunity cost. Obviously 250 tourism is nice. But compared to what? Building factories 2x as fast w/ 25% bonus science?

It's a very very poor social policy compared to say, completing Rationalism, or Aesthetics, or most other policies. That's why I say it's terrible.

By the time you can even get this policy, 250 tourism is a waste. The max value is gained by holding off on spawning GWAM, which is really bad unless you're talking about musicians, and if you're spawning musicians, you should be doing so when you have a *minimum* of 100 tourism/turn, +100% tourism for the internet, etc. etc.

At that time, 250 tourism is nothing.

Now, if you're using it for defense (to protect your ideology from flipping) it's also a waste. It'll result in *maybe* 20 tourism per turn at most, and if you're taking that instead of all the other juicy policies in autocracy, you're *doing it wrong*.

It may seem tantalizing at first, but it's terrible. And, again, if you have social policies to spare... you're also doing it wrong. If you've tipped the scale so far in favor of culture generation that you've already taken full rationalism, full aesthetics, full commerce, 8 Autocracy policies, etc. etc. and this one is the best on the board, then perhaps next time generate less culture and focus more on science, or building units, or generating gold... See my point?

If you want to manipulate tourism through Autocracy to influence an eventual target, convince that person to DoW someone, then DoW them yourself. +50% tourism every turn is WAY better than +250 once.

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I didn't know that Autocracy had a tenet that gives Building factories 2x as fast w/ 25% bonus science.
I also didn't know that it has a level 1 tenet that gives 50% tourism.
And I also didn't know that you could pick policies from the Rationalism tree with the two free tenets you get to be the first to Autocracy.

Calouste said:

I didn't know that Autocracy had a tenet that gives Building factories 2x as fast w/ 25% bonus science.
I also didn't know that it has a level 1 tenet that gives 50% tourism.
And I also didn't know that you could pick policies from the Rationalism tree with the two free tenets you get to be the first to Autocracy.

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Clearly it doesn't have that tenet. But you're delaying getting all of those except Worker's Faculties by taking Futurism. Opportunity cost. And if you're taking futurism as a lvl 1 policy in autocracy, you aren't taking a lvl 1 policy in order. Opportunity cost. There is no context in which the most efficient way to solve your tourism woes is Futurism. Boosting gold so you can relieve build pressure and make archaeologists is better. Boosting damage or military production so you can take GW in cities is better. Etc. etc.

The return on investment is terrible.

Cromagnus said:

You can't take infinite policies, and there are sooo many Autocracy policies I'd rather have:
Clausewitz's Legacy
Cult of Personality
Elite Forces
Fortified Borders
Gunboat Diplomacy
Industrial Espionage
Lightning Warfare
Militarism
Mobilization
Nationalism
Police State
Total War
Universal Healthcare

If you have all those, you CAN'T take more autocracy policies. If you take Futurism before any of those, you're delaying them.

The only policies I don't like way more than Futurism are United Front (which is useful in certain situations) and Third Alternative (which is VERY useful when you're running out of oil for bombers) but not ALWAYS useful.

And re: over-investment. If you've got so much culture to spare that you can take 10 Autocracy policies... maybe you should focus more on tech. Or happiness, or gold, or whatever. Leaning too hard on one lever is very inefficient. Futurism is so bad it's implied that you're generating more culture than you need if you take it. If your tourism is suffering, there's a better way to fix it. Guaranteed.

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Do you actually know how tenets work? Like the basic fact that you have to pick 2 levels 1 tenets before you can pick a level 2 tenet, and 3 level 1 tenets plus 2 level 2 tenets before you can pick a level 3 tenet?

Picking say Gunboat Diplomacy and Cult of Personality would be nice, but you don't get that choice. Futurism is up against the other level 1 Autocracy tenets.

EDIT: Never mind, I saw your post above. You indeed do not know how it works. Or how opportunity cost works. You're not delaying getting Cult of Personality by picking Futurism, because you have to pick 3 level 1 tenets (and 2 level2 tenets) in Autocracy before you can pick Cult of Personality. The only opportunity cost there is not picking any of the other level 1 Autocracy tenets instead of Futurism.

Let me supply a context. The original discussion was about "aggressive cultural victory backed by autocracy"...

Let's pretend for a second that the best way to achieve cultural victory with autocracy isn't *focusing 100% on military strength*. It is, but let's pretend it isn't. (The fastest way to achieve cultural victory is to eliminate all cultural runaways)

To justify taking Autocracy instead of one of the other Ideologies better suited to Cultural Victory, you have two goals:
1) Capture great works and wonders to boost tourism.
2) Eliminate cultural runaways.

On low difficulty levels #1 doesn't apply. And they amount to the same thing.

So, beyond that, let's talk about generating tourism with an autocracy-focused build: Let's assume for a second that you previously invested wisely, to max out your tech rate and tourism output, or (even better) your warfare effectiveness. (IE you got the right policies in Aesthetics, Rationalism, Tradition and/or Liberty)

So now you're hitting Autocracy and you need some policies. What policies do you need? Well, on high difficulties you need 2 Happiness policies. Then you need bonuses to combat, gold and military production. Not to mention tech stealing. Ok, now we're 5-6 policies in and still no room for Futurism. But we've got the opportunity with our 6th policy for Cult of Personality. Should we take it? This is debatable, as the bonus pales in comparison to the Internet or National Visitor Center, but it's pretty juicy otherwise.

One of the most effective strategies in Domination is to pay someone to DoW someone, and then DoW one of them. CoP plays right into that. You don't even have to actually attack them! You just get bonus tourism.

I can either get 250 tourism every 15 turns (I estimate), or I can get 50% every turn.

Well, I'm taking out cultural runaways, so I've got tons of great works. Maybe I even made some myself. Or made some archaeologists. (But why bother, really?)

So, I'm probably running somewhere around 30 tourism per turn with theming bonuses. (More if I went into Aesthetics)

30/turn + 50%... 45/turn... hey, I'm generating more Tourism than Futurism would. Without having to delay spawning Great Writers, which I really want for the World's Fair.

And that's at 30/turn. If you're trying to win at 30/turn in the Modern era, you're insane. At 100/turn, it outperforms Futurism by orders of magnitude. It's a no-brainer for me. /shrug

Calouste said:

Do you actually know how tenets work? Like the basic fact that you have to pick 2 levels 1 tenets before you can pick a level 2 tenet, and 3 level 1 tenets plus 2 level 2 tenets before you can pick a level 3 tenet?

Picking say Gunboat Diplomacy and Cult of Personality would be nice, but you don't get that choice. Futurism is up against the other level 1 Autocracy tenets.

EDIT: Never mind, I saw your post above. You indeed do not know how it works. Or how opportunity cost works. You're not delaying getting Cult of Personality by picking Futurism, because you have to pick 3 level 1 tenets (and 2 level2 tenets) in Autocracy before you can pick Cult of Personality. The only opportunity cost there is not picking any of the other level 1 Autocracy tenets instead of Futurism.

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You're really missing the point here. And no, you're not just delaying lvl 1 policies. First of all, there are at least 4 lvl 1 policies that are more *essential* towards victory than futurism. If you take Futurism first or second you are delaying them. That would be insane to do, but yes, you're delaying lvl 1 policies. So, it's implicit that you're delaying level 2 or 3 policies if you chose futurism after taking 2 or more of those more effective lvl 1 policies. Also, there's almost no chance you've completed Rationalism/etc when you open autocracy. So every point (beyond the ones that *may or may not be free*) is delaying key policies in other trees. Opportunity cost. Yes, I understand what it means.

How to make best use of Futurism? The name gives it away: Begin in the future of course! Or in the modern era at least. Say cheese, please!

OK, let's focus the debate on the opportunity cost of picking autocracy versus picking other tier-1 autocracy tenets. Because clearly, it's not about picking futurism or cult of personality. These two aren't competing against each other, they simply aren't in the same category. Futurism is simply one of the ways that lead to cult of personality.

We're likely to take 3 tier-1 autocracy tenets. 1 or 2 immediately, as free tenets, and the other(s) later, because we want 2 tier-2 tenets.

So, what do we get in tier-1 autocracy ?

-Elite forces : if I understand correctly, it actually "reduces the reduction" of wounded units' strength by 25%.
If the perks are additive, the strength of your unit will decrease by 8%*damages instead of 33%*damages. The use of it is debatable. It's not useless but not a must-go either. As a side note, for Japan... I wonder if it actually makes wounded units 25% stronger than unwounded ones.
If the perks are used as multipliers, then it definitely is garbage. Your wounded unit will lose 75%*33%*damages of its strength, which amounts to 24,75%*damages. The difference will be barely noticeable. And it does nothing for Japan (75%*0%).

-Mobilization : that's a good tenet, we agree on it.

-United front : honestly, who allies militaristic CS ? They are bottom priority compared to other CS. Not a very good tenet IMHO.

-Futurism : thread.

-Industrial espionage : excellent tenet. The one I'll almost always take.

-Fortified borders : OK, we need happiness, but we want decent happiness for the cost of a policy. And how much are we likely to get out of this one ? Most cities have other things to build than walls, let alone more expansive fortifications. The amount of we'll get is likely to be meagre, unless we change priorities in cities for walls.

-Universal healthcare : it's even worse. At least, walls can be built quickly in most cities. But how many national wonders do we have by the time we open autocracy ? Probably not more than 4, if not less. And this number won't grow quickly.



In the end, for me, the very question is whether I start with industrial espionage + futurism or industrial espionage + mobilization.

The other tier-1 tenets aren't simply worth their opportunity cost. Futurism is actually better than any of those (for a CV obviously) baring industrial espionage and mobilization. And it doesn't suffer to be delayed, because of the way it works.

I have always felt the main benefit of Futurism was preventing other AI from influencing me. Its not strictly about winning a CV, although it clearly help with that. It gives you the time you need to destroy the culture leaders. After that you can decide whether to keep going or wait for your own CV.

also,
Fortified borders : one of the best autocracy policies ever. EVAR. I take it 99.9% of the time as early as possible.

taking this early allows you to keep building happiness for the rest of the game. Yes, walls are not needed everywhere (anywhere?), but happiness is. walls and castles are dirt effing cheap. Cheap happiness. Fast builds. No maintenance! awesome.

Freedom has Capitalism, which immediately gives a happiness boom since you're likely to have lots of markets, if not banks (at least, I have plenty of them).

Order has Socialist Realism, which is a real boon, because I've a monument in every city, so that's an immediate +2 per city.
And it also has Young Pioneers. Most cities have workshops, if not factories, so once again the happiness boom is immediate.

Autocracy's Fortified Borders, on the other hand, requires me to build things I've not yet built, because other buildings had a higher priority. So the happiness comes later, and ideologies are supposed to offer at least one level 1 tenet that solves your happiness problems very quickly.

It's maybe because of this delayed effect that's I'm a bit sceptical as for the value of Fortified Borders.

Cultural Victory in 33 turns on King (Brazil. Modern era start. Otherwise all standard.) Not too shoddy

I suppose it should be quite decent if you have good faith production and can buy lots of cultural GP too.

Futurism is better served in Domination or Diplomatic Victory Types. I just finished a Sweden/Honor/Dom game on Deity/Pangea Plus/Large where I captured a bunch of Capitals early and got bogged down in the Renaissance but came back in the industrial era. I gifted or burned all of my GWAM and Futurism along with captured GW got me to the first level of influence with the Tourism holdout so I didn't suffer Ideological unhappiness while attacking them. That's essentially the only use for Futurism. You use it in Domination or Diplomatic games, not in CV games.

Magean said:

Autocracy's Fortified Borders, on the other hand, requires me to build things I've not yet built, because other buildings had a higher priority. So the happiness comes later, and ideologies are supposed to offer at least one level 1 tenet that solves your happiness problems very quickly.

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Presumably all those puppets that you captured prior to the industrial era built walls, obviously prior to annexing

I have to agree with Cromagnus. Futurism has potential for hilarity, but its benefit is hard to leverage enough to make it worth it, and Autocracy has so many great policies to take instead.

Elite Forces is +25% damage. This means that a unit at 99 health inflicts 124% of normal damage. It means that at 80% health, a unit inflicts full damage. This is incredibly useful, regardless of whether you're playing as Japan. Although, as Japan, I imagine it means you inflict 125% damage when damaged... I haven't tried.

Here is how I open Autocracy typically when *not* doing militaristic CV:

In an ideal world, this is my order.
1) Mobilization+Industrial Espionage
2) Total War
3) Elite Forces
4) Nationalism
5) Clausewitz's Legacy
6) Fortified Borders
7) Police State
8) Gunboat Diplomacy

Realistically, you will *never* get all of these, unless you're playing as Poland or on low difficulty level. (where you can take 400 turns to win and strategy doesn't matter)

This would be the order I would take for militaristic CV as well, *assuming I took Autocracy*, because *efficient domination is the key* to CV on high difficulty levels. (IE Emperor-Deity, where you're competing for wonders, and the AI is making great works and archaeologists)

On lower difficulty levels, it hardly matters what strategy you use, and military conquest is much easier, so I might go straight into policies that directly assist CV.

A more realistic list of policies (on Emperor-Deity) is this:
1) Fortified Borders (You didn't get Autocracy first, so only one SP)
2) Mobilization (you desperately need to save money)
3) Militarism (because you've captured 2 capitals + 2 puppets by now, at least)
4) Clausewitz's Legacy
5) Universal Healthcare (because your ideology is getting trounced)
4) Police State (because your ideology is still getting trounced and you have capitals you desperately need to annex)
3) Third Alternative or Nationalism (because you ran out of oil or money...)
8) Gunboat Diplomacy

I know, you're thinking Universal Healthcare?? I typically have 5 NW by the time I open Ideology. (Oxford, NC, Ironworks, Circus Maximus, Palace) Sometimes I even have East India. +5 happiness es muy bueno.

But, despite the fact this thread is about autocracy CV, I think it's worth mentioning that Autocracy is not necessarily the best Ideology for militaristic CV.

This is because, (on difficulty levels where the game is actually a challenge) happiness + science is everything. Autocracy has the happiness, but not the science. Tech theft helps yes, but not as much as half-cost factories that give +25% science. Order is just a really bad-ass Ideology.

Socialist Realism is the best happiness policy. Academy of the Sciences is a nice touch. Skyscrapers and Workers' Faculties are perhaps the best policies in any tree. Spaceflight Pioneers is awesome for CV. Why? Free GS + Free GE = CV wonder and the tech you need to build it. Young Pioneers is also great. Happiness from your production and science buildings is WIN.

Why happiness + science? Because on any reasonably high difficulty, you likely will need Airports, Hotels and even the Internet to win a CV. Completely eliminating EVERY city of every Cultural runaway is exceedingly taxing on Happiness, and time-consuming to boot. Better to capture their best culture cities and stall their cultural output.

So, after all that conquest, you're still waiting around for victory until you overwhelm their culture. So science really does matter. And that brings me back to Rationalism. You need to be dipping into Rationalism to win a CV. Which is why it's ABSOLUTELY fair to compare Rationalism policies to Futurism. There's no way (unless you're Poland) that you aren't having to choose between Rationalism and Futurism.

That 250 tourism every 10-15 turns is a drop in the bucket compared to what you'll need to win, and completely *pointless* compared to the happiness + science you need.

Anyway, IF you're going to go Autocracy (which definitely helps loads with the conquest part) then you can at least take advantage of Police State. (Which helps a lot if you're going for total elimination of a civ)

I think a lot of people examine social policies in a vacuum, instead of the situation you'll actually be in. I did this exact same thing a while back, defending Futurism. And then I tried to fit it into my SP order in REAL GAMES. And it just doesn't fit. EVER.

But, to each their own. Ultimately, the problem with comparing all these things is that on low difficulty, strategy doesn't matter unless you're going for record times. Therefore the only strategy worth discussing is for Emperor+, and most people don't play on that difficulty... soooo it's all somewhat moot.

I did a play through last week to use futurism, it's actually pretty effective. Basically the plan is to get to industrialisation ASAP and rush buy 3 factories before you generate any GWAMs, and then run all three guilds once you've opened autocracy. By the time you get there you should have Aesthetics opened, Porcelain Tower built, arts funding passed or about to pass, and a National Epic and Garden in your guilds city. The first two or three rounds of GWAMs come out very quickly, you can stack up a lot of tourism very promptly and generate about 5 or 6 thousand tourism over the second half of the game, just from futurism. Late in the game make sure to get the culture runaway into a war and fight on the same side. I cruised to a turn 282 victory with Mayans on Standard/Standard/Immortal/Pangea.

anthropophage said:

I did a play through last week to use futurism, it's actually pretty effective. Basically the plan is to get to industrialisation ASAP and rush buy 3 factories before you generate any GWAMs, and then run all three guilds once you've opened autocracy. By the time you get there you should have Aesthetics opened, Porcelain Tower built, arts funding passed or about to pass, and a National Epic and Garden in your guilds city. The first two or three rounds of GWAMs come out very quickly, you can stack up a lot of tourism very promptly and generate about 5 or 6 thousand tourism over the second half of the game, just from futurism. Late in the game make sure to get the culture runaway into a war and fight on the same side. I cruised to a turn 282 victory with Mayans on Standard/Standard/Immortal/Pangea.

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That +50% tourism is far better spent the other way around, IMHO. Pay a low-culture civ to DoW the runaway, then Dow the runaway and eliminate him. That strategy achieves victory 50+ turns faster than doing it the other way around. Of course, if you do that, you need to use that futurism SP slot for +happiness for your puppets...

And-besides, one GM near the end-game generates more tourism than that. Compare that to what you sacrificed by delaying your writer and artist guilds that long. Or what you sacrificed by rush-buying factories. I personally think if you're going to go that route, you'd be better off finishing Aesthetics. You'd break even on policies from the extra culture and be able to rush-buy 2 GMs. But, hey if it works, it works.

JeSuisNapoleon said:

also,
Fortified borders : one of the best autocracy policies ever. EVAR. I take it 99.9% of the time as early as possible.

taking this early allows you to keep building happiness for the rest of the game. Yes, walls are not needed everywhere (anywhere?), but happiness is. walls and castles are dirt effing cheap. Cheap happiness. Fast builds. No maintenance! awesome.

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I'm still not convinced. I've tried it recently, Fortified borders didn't help much. It really should apply to Walls. Higher-tier fortifications really feel like a waste of hammers. Freedom and Order both have tier 1 policies that give happiness for buildings that are useful everywhere, Autocracy forces me to waste several turns to build Walls + Castle for 1 .

Cromagnus said:

Elite Forces is +25% damage. This means that a unit at 99 health inflicts 124% of normal damage. It means that at 80% health, a unit inflicts full damage. This is incredibly useful, regardless of whether you're playing as Japan. Although, as Japan, I imagine it means you inflict 125% damage when damaged... I haven't tried.

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Are you sure of that ? Did you really notice such a difference ? I've done a research on the forum, apparently Elite Forces' bonus can't exceed full health strength and does nothing for Japan. And it's not a stacking +25%, it's a 25% decrease of the damage penalty. According to the posts I read. I didn't playtest it myself.

Cromagnus said:

I know, you're thinking Universal Healthcare?? I typically have 5 NW by the time I open Ideology. (Oxford, NC, Ironworks, Circus Maximus, Palace) Sometimes I even have East India. +5 happiness es muy bueno.

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Oh, I completely forgot the Palace counted as a NW.

Cromagnus said:

But, despite the fact this thread is about autocracy CV, I think it's worth mentioning that Autocracy is not necessarily the best Ideology for militaristic CV.

This is because, (on difficulty levels where the game is actually a challenge) happiness + science is everything. Autocracy has the happiness, but not the science. Tech theft helps yes, but not as much as half-cost factories that give +25% science. Order is just a really bad-ass Ideology.

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I agree, Order is überpowerful, and that's why I'm trying to refine playstyles that avoid it.

Cromagnus said:

That 250 tourism every 10-15 turns is a drop in the bucket compared to what you'll need to win, and completely *pointless* compared to the happiness + science you need.

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Once again, the point of futurism is not to win you the game. It's to generate more tourism in the early industrial era than you would otherwise have been able to. Which means ideological protection, and influence against low-culture civs. It's especially useful against people on the other continent, when you're playing on such a map.

Cromagnus said:

But, to each their own. Ultimately, the problem with comparing all these things is that on low difficulty, strategy doesn't matter unless you're going for record times. Therefore the only strategy worth discussing is for Emperor+, and most people don't play on that difficulty... soooo it's all somewhat moot.

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I've been playing on Immortal for a while now. Oh, by the way, I got to thank you. Your detailed and instructive posts on the forum taught me quite a lot.

Magean said:

I'm still not convinced. I've tried it recently, Fortified borders didn't help much. It really should apply to Walls. Higher-tier fortifications really feel like a waste of hammers. Freedom and Order both have tier 1 policies that give happiness for buildings that are useful everywhere, Autocracy forces me to waste several turns to build Walls + Castle for 1 .



Are you sure of that ? Did you really notice such a difference ? I've done a research on the forum, apparently Elite Forces' bonus can't exceed full health strength and does nothing for Japan. And it's not a stacking +25%, it's a 25% decrease of the damage penalty. According to the posts I read. I didn't playtest it myself.



Oh, I completely forgot the Palace counted as a NW.



I agree, Order is überpowerful, and that's why I'm trying to refine playstyles that avoid it.



Once again, the point of futurism is not to win you the game. It's to generate more tourism in the early industrial era than you would otherwise have been able to. Which means ideological protection, and influence against low-culture civs. It's especially useful against people on the other continent, when you're playing on such a map.



I've been playing on Immortal for a while now. Oh, by the way, I got to thank you. Your detailed and instructive posts on the forum taught me quite a lot.

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I'll have to double-check on Elite Forces. I've been playing mostly gauntlets for a while, so the game doesn't usually last long enough to take autocracy. The problem is, you can't rely on the tool-tip. It isn't always correct. So you have to run a hotseat game to know for sure.

I'm not sold on Futurism for ideology protection, but I concede it might help. Happiness is a better method of protecting your ideology because it's more flexible. And, maybe this is just because I play very aggressively, but I always need happiness whenever a tier 1 policy comes up.

Oh and thanks!

Cromagnus said:

That +50% tourism is far better spent the other way around, IMHO. Pay a low-culture civ to DoW the runaway, then Dow the runaway and eliminate him. That strategy achieves victory 50+ turns faster than doing it the other way around. Of course, if you do that, you need to use that futurism SP slot for +happiness for your puppets...

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Here's the thing, the plus fifty% goes on top of other modifiers, so you're generally getting +100%. That means you're getting a GMs worth every four turns. You can compound this by sending GMs with it. Autocracy is perversely good at tall peaceful(ish) culture.

And-besides, one GM near the end-game generates more tourism than that. Compare that to what you sacrificed by delaying your writer and artist guilds that long. Or what you sacrificed by rush-buying factories. I personally think if you're going to go that route, you'd be better off finishing Aesthetics. You'd break even on policies from the extra culture and be able to rush-buy 2 GMs. But, hey if it works, it works.

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I faith bought a couple of GMs in the late game, I only needed one, as it happened. I really didn't sacrifice much by delaying guilds. I hung around in industrial for quite a while afterwards (40 turns or so) once I got there, so I got a lot of easy theming bonuses, albeit a little later than I'd normally have them. You get more tourism from the post futurism GWAMs than you would if you played a normal culture game. My SPs were full Trad, Aesthetics opener, Exploration opener, 2 in rationalism, 2 early adopters in Autocracy, 3 more in rationalism, the rest of aesthetics, and then SPs into Autocracy while I headed towards Internet. I popped Oxford and the Rationalism finisher to grab the NVC tech and Internet, and then teched towards Airports while getting the third tier tenet from Autocracy. I rushed an Airport in my cap, faith bought a couple of GMs and declared war on the guy who was fighting the culture runaway, the game was over after the first concert.
I'm not making the claim that this is optimal or anything, just that it's viable. You're right, you do miss out on an early SP, and you do spend a bunch of gold, what you get for that is a bunch of tourism and fast producing Archeologists from your factories. I think I popped out close to a dozen GWAMs over the next 40 turns. My theming bonuses were a little slower coming together than they normally would be, and I was an SP behind where I normally would be.