Meth01: Culture, with no Wonders

After playing LK108 I’ve grown curious as to how hard it would be to win a cultural victory with absolutely no wonders at all. Since I don’t seem to be able to make the time for a SP game with this variant I figured I’d force my hand by starting a SG.

Obviously I have no desire to build a single great wonder in any of our three cultural cities, but I’m still undecided as to national wonders. I’d like to try this variant without national wonders as well but am curious what other players’ opinions are.

As we learned in LK108 multiple religions is a definite requirement of a cultural victory, especially a wonder-less one. Due to this we need to definitely start with the Spiritual trait in order to hopefully grab up all the early religions. The question is what other trait do we want?

Note: Notice above I stated that we could not build any wonders in our three cultural cities, that does not include any non-cultural cities. Outside of those three wonders are allowed and probably needed.

Aggressive: I don’t plan on this game being a military endeavor. I’d prefer to keep it relatively peaceful if at all possible.

Creative: Though it does grant +2 cpt per city it really doesn’t seem worth it to me. In LK108 all three cities were making over 1,000 cpt so I’m unsure if two more would be worth it. Even at the full 400 turns we’re talking 800 culture total. That would shave off a single turn and I’m not sure taking the trait to save one turn is worth it.

Expansive: Bigger cities grant higher income so this is definitely a good one. With all the religious buildings we’ll have happiness shouldn’t be a problem for us, but health might.

Financial: Money appears to be king in CivIV, so I see this trait as being a benefit to any game played.

Industrious: Even though we can’t build wonders in our cultural cities doesn’t make 50% build discount useless. Could be handy, though I’m not for sure.

Organized: This one probably isn’t really worth it for this game. Since our primary focus will be the culture three I don’t believe we’ll have a ton of cities.

Philosophical: Could be very handy with its +100% gpp. We will need a couple non-cultural cities to specialize in producing great people so this trait could definitely come in handy. One thing we need to discuss first is whether we use great works in our culture cities.

Spiritual is a definite, we’re just discussing what will go with it. Philosophical, Expansive, and Financial look the best but I’m half tempted to try Creative instead. I know I stated above I don’t believe it’s really worth the trait, but I’m a little curious anyway.

Great Artist and Great Works: Since we’re going for a cultural victory without wonders I’m tempted to also state no great works in our culture three. I can see using them as super specialist but building a great work seems to defeat our primary goal.

Game Speed: I’m thinking of playing this on epic, though am up for either. Epic would definitely make the Creative trait more worthwhile, if we went that way.
Difficulty Level: Definitely nothing below Noble as that’s way too easy. Possibly Prince or Monarch?
Map/World Settings: Open for discussion. I really don’t have a preference.

Requirements:
CivIV with 1.09 patch

Roster:
Methos
Soul Warrior
MeteorPunch
Conroe
ChrTh

signing up.
should be great fun.

*disclaimer - RL is proving tough right now, so i might need skips or delays from time to time.
** disclaimer 2 - dont have a culture victory under my belt yet.

if these 2 disclaimers are hindering, ill be happy to lurk this one.


spiritual and financial seem to like me.

national wonders? dont really mind. winning without them would be grand

noble or prince would suit me fine (*see disclaimer for sorry excuse for not having full control of yet)

world - mild climate with continents?
epic speed, eh? never tried that. sounds
do we want to pick our AI buddies?

I've been wanting to play a culture SG.

1. you need minimum 9 cities for the cathedrals. did you forget this, or is your variant evil?
2. Exp, Fin, Ind, Phi, Spi are all good to me.
3. No great works?
4. Do you want to try Monarch? Otherwise, Prince is okay.
5. Normal speed preferred.

MeteorPunch said:

1. you need minimum 9 cities for the cathedrals. did you forget this, or is your variant evil?

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Whoops, totally forgot about that. Okay, nix the whole 5CC thing. I'll remove that from the original post.

MP said:

3. No great works?

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Honestly I'm not for sure about that. Just something I was thinking on. I don't have any problem using them just as I don't have any problem not using them. This is something that is more up to the team as a whole.

MP said:

4. Do you want to try Monarch? Otherwise, Prince is okay.

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Either one actually. Noble is too easy and I don't have enough experience with either Monarch or Prince to know how different they are.

Welcome aboard, MP, was hoping you'd join.

Missed SW's post, so welcome aboard as well. Don't worry about not having any experience with a culture game, as I've only done it once. That was in LK108.

I honestly don't really know how differenct epic and normal speed are. I've only played epic once and that was a SG, and it was tough to notice much of a difference. I'm hoping more people state any experiences they have with epic speed to see if its worth it.

Sounds like a challenge. Sign me up, please.

@Conroe: Consider it done, and welcome.

I've been giving a lot of thought to which trait would be most suited for our second trait. And, frankly, I'm at a loss. I see the biggest gain from the financial trait. The extra commerce would translate directly into culture at our three designated cities. The only spiritual/financial civ is Mali, which incidently is the only spiritual civ that doesn't get mysticism from the start. Personally, I think this is a non-starter.

If I can't have financial, then my second choice would be philosophical (ie Saladin). I'm not sure, though. I can see this being a big help or a big waste. Because of the chosen variant, we will not be able to create a GPP factory. However, this may be good from a philosophical point of view. Not really sure, only experience will tell.

If I read your original post correctly, it would seem that you are leaning towards creative. That would mean the Egyptian. I never enjoyed playing them in III and haven't tried them in IV. I'd be willing to give them a shot, though. As I look at the manual, I see there are 2 spiritual civs without mysticism. Egypt gets ag and the wheel, but not mysticism. Religions will be tough without mysticism.

Now, let me throw you a curve ball. The Inca are aggressive and financial. But, they are also the only non-spiritual civ to start with mysticism. The aggressive would be nice from a defense standpoint. I'm not so much recommending it as I am throwing it out for discussion. I believe this civ's suitability is map dependant. If nobody declares on us, it is a bit of a waste to be aggressive.

Speaking of maps, have you chosen one yet? Since you would rather not do any warmongering, a map that lends itself to a defensive posture would be helpful. I see hub and custom continents as two possibilities. I haven't played either, I'm just looking at Sirian's pictures and making a wild eyed guess.

Ok, I'm willing to give it a try ... sign me up.

BTW, you nixed Organized at the beginning, but then you nixed the 5cc, so should we go back to considering Organized?

Conroe said:

Because of the chosen variant, we will not be able to create a GPP factory.

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Note that in my original post I stated absolutely no wonders in the three culture cities. Wonders are allowed in the non-culture cities. In other words one of the non three could be made to specialize as a gpp city.

ChrTh said:

Ok, I'm willing to give it a try ... sign me up.

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Welcome!

Looks like we now how a full roster, so we need to figure out who were playing and what type of map. Conroe came up with some great suggestions that we should discuss. I'm trying to figure out what I think of them myself.

Methos said:

Note that in my original post I stated absolutely no wonders in the three culture cities. Wonders are allowed in the non-culture cities. In other words one of the non three could be made to specialize as a gpp city.

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Silly question: what if one of the non-culture cities ends up surpassing one of the culture cities? Do we need to put in a "max culture allowed" in the non-culture city rules?

Methos said:

Note that in my original post I stated absolutely no wonders in the three culture cities. Wonders are allowed in the non-culture cities. In other words one of the non three could be made to specialize as a gpp city.

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If you build too many wonders in any one city, it's culture will more than likely overtake one of our chosen cities. We will need to manage the culture in all cities, not just the chosen three.

Edit: Oops. Cross posted with ChrTh.

ChrTh said:

Silly question: what if one of the non-culture cities ends up surpassing one of the culture cities? Do we need to put in a "max culture allowed" in the non-culture city rules?

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I honestly don't expect this to be a long term problem. What I mean is there is a good chance that a non-three city could run a higher culture amount compared to the culture three, at first. I expect this due to our tailoring them as a gp factory. In time the culture three should surpass the non-three and out distance it rather quickly. Hopefully.

Noticed Conroe's other post.

True, but we'll be expecting it. With only wonders and gpp focus I don't believe the non city will be able to keep up with one of the three. Again, hopefully.

I prefer random maps rather than one of the custom ones, just because, well, it's random.

I think National Wonders should be ok. The Epics, for example, are only +4cpt, and while that's a good number, it's not overwhelming like some of the World Wonders.

The idea of playing the Incans is appealing, I must say. However, I think we'd want to be able to build cheap Temples. How about Monty? Aggressive to keep our military in the forefront, and Spiritual to help with the other stuff. Plus the Jaguar Warrior means we don't have to worry about Iron.

Methos said:

True, but we'll be expecting it. With only wonders and gpp focus I don't believe the non city will be able to keep up with one of the three. Again, hopefully.

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Hope you are right. I am just unable to envision it at the moment. I've noticed that the culture on a wonder will double over time. I'm not sure if this is true of other buildings or not -- I've never really looked into it. I just see a city with early 8cpt and 10cpt wonders generating 36cpt around midgame. And then when the culture slider gets turned on, it gets even worse.

Ooohhh, a light bulb moment just occured and I can't find a light bulb smiley.
If we minimize commerce in the non-culture cities, then the culture slider will have little impact at those locations.

You're right, this may work.

ChrTh said:

The idea of playing the Incans is appealing, I must say. However, I think we'd want to be able to build cheap Temples.

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We will be building a lot of temples in this game so being able to build them cheap is nice. Every religion we have will require at least nine temples in order to build cathedrals. A cathedral grants a +50% culture bonus so this makes both temples and cathedrals very valuable.

Remember that’s nine temples for every religion we have, even those we don’t control the Holy City too. Keeping a city without any religion next to religious neighbor is a good way to steal another religion. We don’t necessarily need the Holy City. Though the money would help.

Map-wise I’m wondering about continents. It seems like nearly every SG I’ve been in has been pangea and I’ve played several terra SP games. I’m thinking on continents as it’ll allow us to only have to deal with very few other AI’s right off the bat. If forced it would also allow us to gain control of more land a bit easier. As MP stated we’ll need at least nine cities in order to build three monasteries of the same religion in all three culture cities.

Conroe said:

I just see a city with early 8cpt and 10cpt wonders generating 36cpt around midgame.

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At the end of LK108 our three culture cities were producing over 1,000 cpt. Several of the non-culture cities were only producing several hundred cpt. As I mentioned earlier, I’ve only had experience with a single culture game so am basing my thoughts off of one single game. The thing is as long as we don’t mass several wonders all in the same city I don’t see it as much of a problem.

Possible ideas would be to create one city to specialize in producing great artists. Another to produce great prophets, etc. We’ll just watch the culture as we go along.

As to civ I’m thinking possibly either Saladin (Spi/Philo), Queen Isabelle (Spi/Exp), or either of the Indian leaders (Ind/Spi), (Org/Spi).

Have you guys read this thread yet? It may help out with our decisions.

Another possibility map-wise could be Inland Sea. It looks interesting at least. Just a suggestion as I've never played it. I'm looking at Conroe's link to the world map index.

Methos said:

As to civ I'm thinking possibly either Saladin (Spi/Philo), Queen Isabelle (Spi/Exp), or either of the Indian leaders (Ind/Spi), (Org/Spi).

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Do you feel lucky? How about Elizabeth (Fin/Phi) of the English. Two powerful traits according to the link that ChrTh posted. But, no mysticism.

Obviously, there would be no way to get all three of the starting religions. After researching mysticism, if we can found either Budhism or Hinduism then we should be able to beeline to Confucianism and Taoism. And then circle back and go for Christianity if it is still available, otherwise Islam.

Unfortunately, I've never tried the religion race without mysticism, so I have absolutely no idea if my theory is practical. My guess is it is only practical with the right start. Something like this start, where you have 2 gem mines (or 2 gold mines) would probably work. Note that Liz does start with mining.

So, do you feel lucky? It is a risk. But, to quote Sirian:
"Sometimes it is better to be Lucky than Good! (TM)"

Edit: I just went back and did some more reading in the link that ChrTh posted. According to the author, Walkerjks, founding a religion is not all that important. As long as they spread to you, that is enough.