Culture abuse

stachnie

Theorist
Joined
Jan 3, 2002
Messages
532
Location
Not far from Krakow, Poland
In my games I love to abuse the effects of Culture wonders. Here is the recipe:

- gather as many Cultures as possible (in the best case all 7: Europe, North America, South America, Africa, Asia, Middle East, Oceania)

- build as many Culture wonders as possible

- take the advantage of unique units, Heroes, sometimes buildings and bonuses to build certain Wonders.

UU's may be very good (like Coyote Warriors - 7 strength, 2 moves, ignores terrain cost, free Flanking 1, Culture wonder available with Masonry, the unit available immediately). Heroes may build some nice Small Wonders (with bonuses to research, commerce, production, Health, GP rate etc. in all cities) or may be settled as Great Military Instructors/Great People/Aristocrates/... (I prefer to settle them as Aristocrates in my main GP city and GMI's in my main military city).

If I lack some culture groups on my continent (and I always do), I wait until Barbarians develop into minor civs. If they start as a civ from culture group I already have, I try to load the last autosave before they emerged as a new civ - usually they will start as some other civ (however, further reloading seems to have a limited effect). E.g. in my present game (Emperor, Huge, Hemispheres with 3 continents) I own one continent and already have 5 culture groups (no luck with the two last ones).

Game-wise this may sound as an exploit - and I think one may consider to make some drawbacks of such strategy. Each new Culture wonder may give some small National instability in all cities, while each new Culture group may give some more serious instability. This may force the players to focus on the Culture wonders they really WANT to get.


S.
 
general hint: a game is much more fun without reloading (which is called ironman play). I reload only to figure out obscure game-rules or to bypass bugs, never to get an advantage, to bypass bad luck or to remedy a mistake I made. Try it.
 
I've noticed this potential for abuse is possible even if you're not trying, just simply being a successful civ.

Some LONG term plans should address this so that there very much IS a potential problem if you build too many culture seeds.
 
The culture "wonders" seem to be of wildly differing balance. American culture apparently provides discounts to a vast number of wonders, yet a couple of the unpronounceable ones seem to provide no bonuses at all.
 
I've noticed this potential for abuse is possible even if you're not trying, just simply being a successful civ.

Some LONG term plans should address this so that there very much IS a potential problem if you build too many culture seeds.

Making me just that more tied up in trying to keep things together while Hoarding all the Things, i am a Completionist and I have been prone of Wiping out entire Civilizations because they got the Hanging Gardens a Turn before i did :lol:

So Far in my Current game i have been successful in keeping my wrath in check but the A.I is kinda behind me due to my kinda Aggressive Expansion which actually works without making a mess out of me

But i Agree Cultures could get an Overhaul and a better spread and balance, I noticed some Iron Ware needing UU's being "available" long before iron working, which is kinda a Tease, Yeah you have unlocked the Tech for the Unit just not the Tech for the Requirement good
 
I've noticed this potential for abuse is possible even if you're not trying, just simply being a successful civ.

Yes, exactly. In my present game I am in a middle-late Ancient era, own a continent (Hemispheres with 3 continents) and already have 4 culture groups (everything but both Americas and Oceania) - without any reloading.

@Raven Destroyer: it seems Coyote Warriors are a replacement for Obsidian Swordsmen (so availability with Masomry is nothing wrong) but simply they are too strong. +2 strength (5->7), +1 MP, ignore terrain cost, one free promotion...

S.
 
The current Culture is a good start and Johny Smith's ideas on the topic are also very interesting. A cross between the two may be interesting.

Hydromancerx's Cultures have five basic Cultural Regions from which Cultures are almost independent with some being prerequisites for others.

Johny Smith has a branching tree of cultures were by at a certain point you get a choice of two Cultures based on your existing main culture and you can only choose one of the two as your new main Culture. It does not handle many cultures merging into one.
 
The plans for cultures and nomadic starts would do well with that sort of approach I think DH. It's nearing but it's still a bit off to get to those projects. Much of what I'll be doing in the near future will be looking to pave the way for some of that.
 
By the way: obtaining one new culture group maybe a good reason to two or more wars :ar15:

Thanks to Barbarians I managed to get 5th culture group (South America). Then, due to cultural expansion, I gained access to another continent (with one big civ that conquered two other ones) and an island (a smaller civ). This smaller civ had one foreign city - a Northern American one!

The big civ was still far from Writing, so no Open Borders, no way to transport troops to the small civ without starting a war. I prepared an invasion force (some merged Immortals and Impi - Size Matters - led by an extra strong Great Hunter) and attacked the big civ. After dealing with them (I had sunk a lot of siege units trying to get their capital) I swallowed the small civ.

Cost: 6 Impi (2x3), a lot of siege units.

Gain: a lot of free captured soldiers and civilians (from razing), one North American city and one town with a Culture wonder. A turn after capturing the first one I was able to start to build about 10 Culture wonders. Now I can build Coyote Warriors.

Future: if I manage to get an Oceanian city, I will have all 7 culture groups. I have not razed the capital of the big civ, because it has a wonder (a Prehistoric one, but I avoid destroying wonders). I left it undefended. If Barbarians appear, maybe they will capture it (I hope my newely built Great Wall does not work at another continent) and spawn a new Civ.

Note: with Size matters, one can build almost unlimited number of the Culture units. Build 3 of them, merge, if there are 3 merged once, you may merge them again, rinse, repeat. This way once I had 53 Spartan Warriors :)

S.
 
That does sound abusive. I don't play size matters, but it seems that unit limits should not be reset by merging.
 
I haven't gone out of the way to keep that from happening... perhaps because I'm not a believer in unit limits in the first place. But it is on the list of things to eventually do for those games that don't have unlimited national units.
 
I'm not a believer in unit limits

Sometimes they make more sense, like e.g. Early Imperial Guards (in games with No limits on AI was crazy producing them, Warlords etc.).

There are two limits: limited number of units and increasing cost. Perhaps one of them would be enough. However, the trick with merging units helps to avoid the first and lower the second.


S.
 
There are some units that have an exception set under the no unit limits option. Warlords are one because they are quite dramatically OP if not. I was not aware imperial guards should be as well but I've not made it that far in the game in a LONG time. I can put those into the exception list.
 
I don't even use the added cultures in my C2C games. In fact, I removed the special cultures file and moved the Neanderthals to the Cultural Units file, which makes its use entirely optional.
 
These proposed changes are all well and good if you use SM and FoF. But when they bleed over and affect gameplay outside those Options, then I have serious concerns.

There are many users of C2C that actually prefer not playing with the concept of the old Avalon Hill Board game called Platoon Leader. SM and FoF remind me in particular of that Board Game. You either loved it for the detail in it or you didn't.

JosEPh
 
What proposed changes are you talking about? Someone merely pointed out that SM allows unit limits to be exceeded if you work things a bit. And then someone else pointed out that Early Imperial Guards may need to be set to have an Unlimited National Unit Exception in place so that even on Unlimited National Units option they are still limited due to being dramatically OP. That may also need to then apply to all of the Imperial Guard line though I don't know yet because I've never looked too closely at them.

Not sure how that would be a potential 'bleedover' problem.

And by the way, have you at least TRIED them yet? lol
 
One more tip how to get more Culture groups. If you use Fight or Flee (or however it is called in English) and Size Matters, strike team units like Stalkers and Ambushers may be very valuable if they have enough "Flee" promotions. In my present game I have max numbers of them (3 and 3) after one Quality Up, Stalkers have STR 15 and 2 Ambushers have STR 12, all of them may heal when moving. For me this is early Medieval era, for AI's this is early Classical.

At this point AI has no counter to my Strike Team. Even if it merges units to Str greater than 20 and puts in a good defensive position, they may be weakened and killed by my special forces. If I kill the last defender in a town, it becomes Barbarian. If the size of the town is greater than 3, it may form a new Civ. If I like the culture group, it may be taken by my regular army; if not - rinse, repeat. Using this technique in my present game I have 6 Culture groups and I try to roll the dice to get the last one.

Strike team with proper promotions are almost immortal. If I do not want to settle/conquer some land, I just weaken and split the strongest AI's.

S.
 
One more tip how to get more Culture groups. If you use Fight or Flee (or however it is called in English) and Size Matters, strike team units like Stalkers and Ambushers may be very valuable if they have enough "Flee" promotions. In my present game I have max numbers of them (3 and 3) after one Quality Up, Stalkers have STR 15 and 2 Ambushers have STR 12, all of them may heal when moving. For me this is early Medieval era, for AI's this is early Classical.

At this point AI has no counter to my Strike Team. Even if it merges units to Str greater than 20 and puts in a good defensive position, they may be weakened and killed by my special forces. If I kill the last defender in a town, it becomes Barbarian. If the size of the town is greater than 3, it may form a new Civ. If I like the culture group, it may be taken by my regular army; if not - rinse, repeat. Using this technique in my present game I have 6 Culture groups and I try to roll the dice to get the last one.

Strike team with proper promotions are almost immortal. If I do not want to settle/conquer some land, I just weaken and split the strongest AI's.

S.

Cool evaluation!

By the end of this version cycle, the AI may learn a few ways to counter your tricks but they'll never be completely obsolete. Similar strategies with JUST Fight or Flight also apply in similar ways...
 
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