Orion's Home School 3: Nobles Learning Culture

Orion071

Home School Tutor
Joined
Feb 28, 2006
Messages
546
Location
Raleigh, NC
Due to the huge public outcry for a third Home School, ;) I've decided to come back for one more round and show a Culture Victory.

I don't want some easy isolated culture win, so I'm playing on a Panagea map. This will force me to play the diplomacy game to keep the AI's off of my back. So it's a Standard-sized Panagea, with Low water level and a Solid coastline. The speed is Epic, and I'm playing this in BtS version 3.13, with Bhuric's unofficial patch of the patch.

I had a lot of suggestions for a leader, and I decided to choose Huayna Capac of the Incas. HC has a lot to like for a Culture win. First, he's Financial and Industrious. Financial is always nice and goes well with my strategy of a cottage-based culture win. Industrious is obvious - more wonders quickly. He also starts with Agriculture and Mysticism, so I can grab one (or both?) of the early religions.

His UU is the Quechua. The Quechua rush is a well-known tactic, since they're effective against Archers - the most common early defensive unit. Most likely, I won't do an early rush. In fact, I want to see if I can play this game totally peacefully. If I'm boxed in like the last game then I'll have to bust out, but if I can acquire 10-12 cities through peaceful REX, then I may not declare war for the whole game. That doesn't mean that the Quechua is useless to me. It will actually be very useful. If I want to key on the early religions and wonders, then I won't be able to research military techs like Bronze Working, Iron Working or Archery. The Quechuas will be necessary to hold off Barbarian Warriors and Archers. They'll be more than enough to do the job until I can get better defenses in place.

HC's UB is the Terrace, a Granary replacement that provides +2:culture:. My love for the Granary should be known by now, I think it's one of the most important buildings in the whole game. Every one of my cities will have a Granary, so the bonus culture is perfect. The Terrace is also nice when you're on the warpath. Since the Granary is not a culture building, it will often be left when you capture an opponent's city. When the city passes to your control, the Granary turns into a Terrace. Now you have a culture building to quickly pop your new city's borders! Very nice.

OK, so I've rolled up a start and here it is:



Um, wow? This start might actually be a little too good. The Plains Hill will give me an extra hammer right away. I start with Agriculture, so I can start with a Worker and still research a religion right away. I've got Gold for early happiness and insane early teching. I've got a mysterious Grassland square that could be Horses, Copper or Iron. I've got 2 rivers that could link my early cities. Good times all around.

There's no question about settling in place. My early techs will probably go Polytheism -> Mining -> Masonry -> Monotheism. After that will depend on what's around and what I need.

As I said, I'll start with a Worker. He'll be able to Farm the Corn and Mine the Gold. After that...? Well, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. But that's more than enough to justify Worker first. If I can find early Stone or Marble, then I'll kick out a quick Settler for some even cheaper wonders.

I'll start the game tomorrow and post the beginning save after round 1.

Stay tuned!
 
Excellent, can't wait for this one to get started.
 
Thank you for doing another one. I've read the other two over the last few days as a substitute for exam studying. Hopefully with my exams nearly over I can actually start trying out some new stuff.

A question from the previous threads. Often you have a "science city" - what makes this a science city? I was always under the impression that you get gold, and then you set a percentage away for your science.

Cheers
 
Thank you for doing another one. I've read the other two over the last few days as a substitute for exam studying. Hopefully with my exams nearly over I can actually start trying out some new stuff.

A question from the previous threads. Often you have a "science city" - what makes this a science city? I was always under the impression that you get gold, and then you set a percentage away for your science.

Cheers

Close, you make commerce :)commerce:), and convert it to science :)science:), culture :)culture:), and gold :)gold:). A science city is simply one that has a lot of commerce that is converted into science. You can multiply the output of a science city by adding buildings like a Monastery, Library, University, Observatory or Oxford University. Another way to achieve a science city is through the use of scientist specialists. A high-food city could run many specialists and generate science that way.

Any city that generates commerce will generate some science output as long as your science slider isn't set to 0%. A specialized "science city" will be optimized to generate a lot of commerce and maximize the science output with all of the proper multiplying buildings.

I'm not starting until tomorrow, so until then, hit the books!
 
Love these threads. Suscribing.
 
To me, this is a new way to approach the culture win.

Whenever I did them myself, I'd have 3-4 production heavy cities (plus any I culture flipped ;)) and just spammed wonders and anything that gave culture. Any excess population would go into artist specialists so I could get more great artists.

But getting a buttload of commerce and routing it into culture isn't something I've ever really thought about. I'm looking forward to seeing your finish time and end score on this game, see how it compares to my braindead wonder spam. :p
 
2 corn and gold and you are still hoping for horses/iron/copper in your BFC. Isn't that pushing it? ;) Damn nice start though. Commerce culture win is a nice variant on the normal GP culture win. Will be subscribing. Teach me something new Orion071.
 
To me, this is a new way to approach the culture win.

Whenever I did them myself, I'd have 3-4 production heavy cities (plus any I culture flipped ;)) and just spammed wonders and anything that gave culture. Any excess population would go into artist specialists so I could get more great artists.

But getting a buttload of commerce and routing it into culture isn't something I've ever really thought about. I'm looking forward to seeing your finish time and end score on this game, see how it compares to my braindead wonder spam. :p

2 corn and gold and you are still hoping for horses/iron/copper in your BFC. Isn't that pushing it? ;) Damn nice start though. Commerce culture win is a nice variant on the normal GP culture win. Will be subscribing. Teach me something new Orion071.

Don't get me wrong, there will be plenty of wonders and GP's in this game. The capital especially looks like it will have enough production for lots of early wonders. My other 2 Legendary cities will have their share of wonders as well. But they will also have plenty of cottages and I'll use the culture slider at the end to push them over the top.

I'll also have a GP Farm to produce my share of Great Artists. It may or may not be one of the 3 Legendary cities. It all depends on the terrain, of course.

This type of culture win is done in 3 phases:

1) Research and REX phase - You need a minimum of 9 cities on a standard-sized map for a culture win. This is because a Cathedral requires 3 Temples of that religion before it can be built. You want a Cathedral for each religion in each one of your 3 Legendary cities, so, 9 total cities. This part of the game will look much like any other. I'll be expanding and researching like normal. But I'll make a point to prioritize founding religions and building wonders more than a normal game.

2) Money and Infrastructure phase - At this point, sometime after Democracy, research is shut off. You simply don't need to keep researching everything in a culture win. I will be going 100% gold production and use Universal Suffrage to rush-buy Temples and Cathedrals in all of my cities. I'll need plenty of Missionaries to make sure all of my religions are present in every city as well. This is a pretty short phase. If I haven't founded enough religions, or if my cities aren't producing as much culture as I'd like, then I'll research through Radio so I can build Broadway, Rock N Roll and the Eiffel Tower - very useful wonders for a culture win, but most often I don't need to research that far.

3) Culture phase - I'm sure you've seen the AI do this by now. Crank up the culture slider to 90-100% and hope for the best. It's usually pretty scary to watch the AI's blow by you in technology and run around with Tanks while you only have Riflemen. Hopefully, your diplomacy is enough to keep everyone away from you until you win. If my previous games were any indication, I should have a substantial tech lead at this point, and the AI's will probably catch up but not surpass me before I can win. I can't say how soon it will be, but I'm sure that I can win sometime in the 1800's.

To me, this is a normal culture win. All of the others are weird offshoots. :p
 
Nice starting position! I've done quite a few culture games, and your three phases sound like a solid plan, and pretty straightforward for the religious/cultural type of game. Another interesting way to get there (AKA my favorite weird offshoot) is to specialize your culture cities to a certain degree in order to get the type of great people you need. I like having a great-engineer-producing city, and an artist-producing city, by carefully selecting the wonders that go in the cities. Then the third can be a catch-all city, or perhaps a great prophet-producing city. With a variation on this, with only 9 cities, I've managed an early 1800s culture win (didn't touch the culture slider until the very end, either).
 
3) Culture phase - I'm sure you've seen the AI do this by now. Crank up the culture slider to 90-100% and hope for the best. It's usually pretty scary to watch the AI's blow by you in technology and run around with Tanks while you only have Riflemen. Hopefully, your diplomacy is enough to keep everyone away from you until you win. If my previous games were any indication, I should have a substantial tech lead at this point, and the AI's will probably catch up but not surpass me before I can win. I can't say how soon it will be, but I'm sure that I can win sometime in the 1800's.

To me, this is a normal culture win. All of the others are weird offshoots. :p

It's good you're playing AIs that often have "dumb" responses so long as they're friendly to you. Whenever I see the culture explode in an AI, I have just one response. It's called the Scorched Earth war. I send as massive a SoD as I can beelining straight for the high culture cities and raze them. That pretty much solves any culture win problem :D .
 
A comment and 2 cents about my view on cultural wins.

I never charged up the culture slider until I have teched industrialization and have access to oil. Occasionally I will also tech flight for airports and air defense. I will also tech radio/mass media for a culture win.

Tanks/infantry/airforce are the best diplomatic tools for keeping the AI off your back while you focus on the three culture centers.
 
Wow! Nice start! Even though cottage spam is the strategy, I don't the capital will be production starved either.:)

This is probably going to be a cruise/snooze fest. Unless you get some interesting neighbours. I'm hoping for a Monty/Alex/Izzy combo. They always seem to cheer me up when I think I'm gonna have a good win...
 
If interesting neighbors show up, then carefully planning religion early on would be a good idea. With one or two of the early religions, I like to share my state religion with Shaka, Monte, etc., then share my spare religion with some poor civ on their border so they can keep each other entertained for a few centuries of war...
 
If interesting neighbors show up, then carefully planning religion early on would be a good idea. With one or two of the early religions, I like to share my state religion with Shaka, Monte, etc., then share my spare religion with some poor civ on their border so they can keep each other entertained for a few centuries of war...

The problem I see with this is that you'll constantly be asked to go to war. Unless you wage a token war, but I don't know if Orion wants to take that risk (lolwutrisk?). Maybe he could found all the religions, take no state, and then once the winners have been firmly seperated from the losers, ally up with the power leader. A juicy DP can be all you need to safely win a cultural victory!

Of course, it all depends on whether or not you get fanatical leaders for friends. But hopefully they are people who'll shake things up. Would be kinda funny to see the tutor get messed up by a Noble Dogpile:crazyeye:
 
Now this is more like the maps I play- played two Pangaeas in row this week, actually- so this will be more helpful than the "dominate your continent and go from there" strategy that seems to be the norm on water heavy maps. The diplomacy will also be good to follow; in my experience, you'll draw five warlike AIs and one peaceful AI on these land heavy maps, and that makes picking and choosing sides a lot more tricky. Don't believe you'll be threatened, but also suspect there will be at least one war in this game . . .

A question or two starting out:

So, you're going to build the early Wonders that produce Prophet points? I've never really tried a Culture win, and changing the type of GP points has had a lot to do with why I haven't even tried. I can see skipping Stonehenge, and maybe even Oracle, in favor of the Parthenon-- but maybe not.

If you do produce a Prophet, will you settle him, or wait to found a religion? I'm assuming Scientists will create Academies, and Engineers will help with Wonders-- but what to do with Prophets? Try to keep peace by founding the later religions and not letting your neighbors convert? Shrines? Settling? Each seems to have advantages and disadvantages.

Will you settle early Artists, or always culture bomb? When might the cut off point in turns be, if there is one, to make that decision? (Ie, 200 turns from projected win= settle, while 100 turns away= culture bomb.) Or is that the wrong way to think about it?

How early will you have to spot the third culture city? I'm guessing the first two will be pretty obvious, but the couple times I aimed for a cultural win, deciding which city to make third was not easy, though this was a couple years ago.

Last but not least-- will you still aim for a cultural win if Monty is in the game and not next door? :lol:
 
ROUND 1 (4000 BC - 1125 BC)

Here we go with round 1. I like my starting spot, but I always seem to find that the better the start, the worse the area around it seems to be. Let's see how it goes...

Turn 1: Settling in place is a no-brainer. Silk is revealed in the BFC, and another Corn is to the SW:



I'm not a big fan of Plains Silk tiles. I start on a Worker and Polytheism is the first tech. Since I'm on a river and I can work a 3F, 1C tile to start, I'm not worried about anyone beating me to Hinduism.

Turn 8: My Quechua goes east along the river and reaches the coast. There's several floodplains in the area as well as some more good resources. North is Jungle and south is Tundra and Ice.

Turn 12: Buddhism is founded in a distant land. Man, that always gives me a heart attack when I hear that sound. I keep thinking that I've lost the religion. Well, I guess that means I won't get both of the early religions. Not that I was planning on that in the first place.

Turn 15: Polytheism is done:



I don't convert right away. Instead, I'll wait for my Worker to be done in 3 turns. There's no reason to delay his arrival even 1 turn. My Quechua was attacked my a Panther and has to rest 1 turn.

Next is Mining so I can get that Gold on-line.

Turn 18: The Worker is done so I start another Quechua. First I'm going to convert to Hinduism. The Worker starts Farming the riverside Corn.

My Quechua has fought a ton of Wolves in the southern Tundra and has already reached 5XP. You know what that means: Woodsman I and II. Now he'll move double speed through the Forest once he's healed.

Turn 24: I finally pop my first hut, but it's only a map. Incredibly, it shows me Amsterdam is only 8 spaces west of my capital!:



Um, no. Sorry, buddy, but that's waaaaaaay too close to me. Yeah, he's going to die.

Turn 25: I formally meet Willem. OK, I'm peaceful now, but don't expect it to last. Mining is complete and instead of Masonry as I planned, I switch to Bronze Working. If there's Copper nearby, I need to grab it and take Willem out. Enemy capitals make excellent Legendary cities. :mischief:

The Worker finishes my first Farm and goes to Farm the other Corn.

Turn 30: The second Quechua is done and I start a third. He'll go wander around the northern Jungle while the next guy is garrison duty.

Turn 32: West of Willem is everyone's bestest buddy:



Surprisingly, he's not the Buddhist. I must have beaten him to Polytheism instead. He's actually a threat to beat me to Judaism. I'd better get to it after Bronze Working. The last thing I need is for him to be a different religion than me.

Turn 37: The third Quechua is done and fortifies. Next will be a second Worker. I plan on chopping out a Settler and then a couple of Axes for my good pal, Willem. Bronze Working will be done soon. The second Farm is done on the Corn and my Worker moves to the Gold.

Turn 38: My Jungle-exploring Warrior dies to a Panther at 4.4% odds. I hate animals.

Turn 39: Gee, no wonder Monty missed the early religions:



And she's soooooo happy with me too. Just look at those loving eyes. Great, now I've got 2 psychos to deal with in this game.

Turn 41: Bronze Working is done. There's Copper on the east coast. I can make a riverside city that will grab Pigs, 5 Floodplains and the Copper. Nice. Unfortunately, the Copper will be in the second ring and the new city will need a border pop to access it. I revolt to Slavery.

Turn 42: The Gold is on-line and research takes an obvious big step forward.

Turn 43: I meet Pacal II. I really don't know anything about this guy. Let's look him up. Hmmm, Expansive and Financial - that's kind of a pain. UU is a resourceless Spearman. Yawn. UB is the Ball Court. Double yawn. Kind of unremarkable, I guess, except for the goofy picture.

Turn 45: Here's an interesting event:



Wow, that last option sure seems tempting. My city is small enough that the happiness hit isn't a big deal. Losing 1 pop is kind of bad since it will take the Gold off, but a permanent +2 health in every city? Now I'll be Financial, Industrious and Expansive. Too good not to try.

The treatment was a success! Now my health cap in Cuzco is a ridiculous 14. My Worker will be done next turn so I can regain the population I lost.

Turn 46: Far to the NW, my exploring Quechua meets Joao II. I already know what an expanding pain in the butt he can be. Good thing he's not too close to me. The second Worker is done and he'll help the first with a couple of chops. I'll start another Quechua until I'm size 4 and can whip a Settler.

Turn 49: Masonry is done and Monotheism is next. I want my Settler out in time to become the Jewish Holy City. I may have to delay Monotheism a turn or 2 to make that happen. I hope I don't lose it.

Turn 54: Another chop comes through, allowing me to whip the Settler in 2 turns.

Turn 56: I whip the Settler. Monotheism will be done in 5 turns since the Gold is offline again. That's enough time to found my second city.

Turn 57: The Settler is done and I start a Barracks for the upcoming Axemen. He heads east to the appointed spot where a Quechua is waiting for him.

Turn 58: The Gold is back on-line and I will have to delay Monotheism 1 turn to accomodate the Settler.

Turn 60: I found my second city, Tiwanaku:



Yes, it's far too late for Stonehenge at this point, especially with at least 2 other civs starting with Mysticism. But what the heck? I need the city to grow for a bit.

Turn 61: Montheism is done and Tiwanaku is the Holy City. I convert to Judaism so my second city will get the +5 culture and pop its borders. Next on the tech tree will be The Wheel and Pottery for my unique building.

Turn 64: A third chop in Cuzco will finish the Barracks next turn.

Turn 65: The Barracks are complete and I start a third Worker. I need to get the Copper hooked up before I can build the Axemen.

The Wheel is complete and Pottery is next.

Turn 70: Pottery is done. The Copper is Mined and now needs a road to hook it up to Cuzco. The next tech will be Animal Husbandry.

Turn 73: Ack! I saw a Barbarian Uprising event, but assumed that it wasn't near me since I didn't get the additional pop-up. But now out of the fog between me and Willem comes 4 Barbarian Archers. They're special Barbarians that will immediately enter cultural borders. I need some more Quechuas, fast! The Copper is hooked up, but Quechuas are cheaper and still effective against Archers.

Turn 75: I actually have to whip another Quechua. That will give me 3 defenders against 4 Archers. I should have a 4 defender in place by the time they attack. Animal Husbandry is done and I'll start on Writing.

Turn 76: A flood destroys my Barracks. What else can go wrong? On the plus side, my 4 Quechuas (2 with Cover) should rout these stupid Barbarians.

Turn 77: Yup. 4-for-4 and I win with no losses. Time to start on some Axemen. Meanwhile, my Workers are busy Cottaging the Floodplains around Tiwanaku. I am Financial, after all. It will make a great super-science city.

Turn 84: Writing is done. Next is Priesthood so I can get the Oracle. I'll Open Borders with everyone except Izzy, because she hates me. I'll use this opportunity to scout out Willem and see how much I need to destroy him.

Turn 91: I guess it wasn't too late after all as Tiwanaku finishes Stonehenge in 1725 BC! It will build a Terrace as Cuzco continues with Axemen.

Amsterdam is guarded by 2 Archers, while Willem has a second city to the SW guarded by a single Warrior. The second city has Copper in its first ring, but there's no Mine yet. He has 2 Workers on the way, so war is imminent. I only have 3 Quechuas and 2 unpromoted Axemen (*sigh*). It will have to be enough for now.

Turn 94: The Workers start Mining Willem's Copper. That's a big no-no:



I have a Quechua in place to snag both Workers. I have 3 Axes and 2 Quechuas moving in on Amsterdam.

Turn 96: By the time my forces arrive outside Amsterdam, he has 4 Archers and I have no chance to take the city. I'll pillage around it until help arrives.

Turn 101: Interesting. Pacal II is actually listed as being more advanced than me. Of course, I have Alphabet due in only 3 more turns. We'll see who's better then, Pacal.

Amsterdam has been whipped down to size 1 and has 5 Archers. I have 4 Quechuas and 4 Axemen ready to attack. It may be an exercise in futility, but I have to try next turn.

Turn 102: The assault begins:

First I attack with a Combat I, Cover Quechua. He has a 20.5% chance and wins! Things are looking up!

The second Combat I, Cover Quechua attacks at the same odds and loses, but he knocks the defending Archer down to 1 strength. I'll take it.

Next an Axeman attacks at 18.5% odds and wins! Wow, the gods are smiling on this fairly foolish attack. It might actually work.

The next Axemen attacks at 20.7% odds and does little damage. Only 1 undamaged Archer left.

The next Axemen has 24.5% odds (the odds are greater because the Archers have less fortify bonus). He loses, but does OK damage to the Archer.

My last Axeman hits the wounded Archer at 42.5% odds. He loses and does no damage to the defender. Ouch.

Another Qeuchua attacks and loses, doing a good bit of damage to the defender. He has 3 badly wounded Archers left.

My last Quechua attacker wins and takes no damage. I have 3 attackers left and he has 2 wounded Archers left. Unfortunately, the Archers will most likely promote and heal next turn. But so will my attackers.

Turn 103: Hmmm, only 1 Archer promoted and he got Combat I instead of City Garrison? My undamaged Quecha promotes to Cover and attacks at 45.4% odds. No dice. :sad:

Next, my Axeman that won at such great odds last time can promote to City Raider I and II. His attack against a badly wounded Archer is no contest. Only 1 defender left!

I decide to risk my wounded Quechua against his more wounded final defender. Again I fail at pretty good odds.

Turn 104: My final CR II Axeman has no trouble cleaning up his last defender and the city is finally mine:



You can see at the top of the screen an awesome city site that will give me Corn, Gold and 2 Ivory. That will be my next expansion site. I'll have to hurry to beat Pacal there.

Unfortunately, I only have 1 Axeman left. On the plus side, he'll be CR III. Will that be enough to take out Willem's other city? I doubt it.

Meanwhile, Alphabet is in. Let's look at the tech screen:



Yikes. Willem has Iron Working already. I hope he wasn't able to hook up that Copper yet. I doubt he's been able to muster up another Worker by now.

I don't want to trade just yet so I'll research Hunting myself.

Turn 105: I build another Axeman and chop out a third. The 2 reinforcements are on their way.

Turn 106: Hunting is done. I don't really need Archery or Fishing right now, and Pacal won't trade Iron Working. I'll start on Code of Laws. I'll need to get Courthouses if I plan on having 5 cities right now.

Turn 108: Willem's last city has an Archer and a Warrior. I have 3 more Axemen on their way, but I'll see what the odds are next turn.

Tiwanaku finishes its Terrace and will start on The Oracle. I want to keep the Prophet wonders together so I can get a Great Prophet. I'll want to either get a Shrine or lightbulb Theology for religion #4 (I'll have CoL by then).

Turn 109: Hmmm, 95.7% to take out the Archer. That's plenty good enough for me. I win and still have 3.5 strength left. More than enough for his lone Warrior next turn.

Turn 110: Oops! Willem whips an Axeman. I still have a 55.6% chance to win, but I'll back off until help arrives.

Turn 111: The final AI is revealed in the far west and it's Suryavarman II. Ha. That's Joao II, Pacal II and Suryavarman II in the same game. No love for the originals?

My 4 Axemen move in to take out Willem.

Turn 113: Willem has upgraded his Warrior to a Spearman and whipped another Spearman. So it's an Axe and 2 Spears against 4 Axes. Not good odds for Willem.

I'll save my CR III Axe and attack with an unpromoted one at 20% odds. He loses, but actually does really good damage to the defending Axe.

My CR III can easily take out a Spear (98% odds), and does so with no damage.

My third Axe attacks a Spear at 96% odds and wins as well.

The final attack is my last Axe against his wounded Axe. I won, and the city is mine:



This is a really nice city - Wheat, 6 floodplains and Copper. I think this will be my GP Farm. I'll put some Artist wonders in it like the National Epic and the Globe Theatre and use it to pump out Great Artists all game long.

I'm going to stop here. This was a very long round because of the Axe rush of Willem. I was very foolish with that attack. I should have simply pillaged the Copper Mine and then waited for a stack of Axes before attacking. Instead, I rushed into an attack before I was ready. Unpromoted Axes? What the heck was I thinking? 4 Quechuas and 4 Axemen against 5 Archers and 40% cultural defense? I really should have lost miserably and was amazingly lucky to win. I could have easily kept Willem away from metal, rebuilt my Barracks, and had a stack of 6 or so CR I Axemen along with the Quechuas take him out.

Well, here's my plan for the future. Cuzco is finishing a Library and then will make constant Settlers for my final REX. Tiwanaka is finishing The Oracle in 10 turns or so. I'll get Metal Casting with it for Forges. Then it will also make some Settlers.

Here's the land around me:



My 4 cities are in Yellow. Pacal's city is in his Blue. Monty has a city that I think is on the Light Green dot next to Utrecht. You can see that the Pigs are under his control. I'm not worried about that city. There's no way it can keep up culturally with a Great Artist Farm. It will flip to me and I'll disband it.

Red dot is a high priority for me. The Ivory will be a much needed happiness boost and it's in the most disputed territory. I'll have to get it soon if I plan to get it at all. Black dot and White dot are next on the list. They have lots of happiness resources that I want under my control. The others are lower priority cities just to get me to the necessary nine. Yeah, I have 10 cities mapped out. Well, land IS power, and I'm not going to stop at nine if I can get more. There's decent land above Black dot that could yield a coastal city. I could always plant something in the wasteland in the middle, but with no resources, that's unlikely to happen. I could get the Furs in the far south too, but I doubt I'll need them.

Techwise, I'll probably follow some very strict beelines. Code of Laws is being researched now, and the other religions will be high priority. Music is another priority for the free Great Artist. Instead of a Golden Age, I'll settle him in one of the 3 culture cities. I'll let the AI's research the following techs for me: Iron Working, Horseback Riding, Construction, Machinery, Compass, Optics, Engineering. I'm not going to go the military route anymore.

It looks like my 3 future Legendary cities will be Cuzco, Tiwanaka and Amsterdam. The rest will be science and support centers. Utrecht is the GP Farm.

Diplomacy is going to be tricky here. I'll have to convert Monty and share a religion with him. Once I do that, he's next to Izzy and Izzy will be toast. Pacal is a little close for comfort so I may have to convert him as well. If I can get 1 world religion going (like Judaism), then a Shrine of that religion will be very powerful. Sury and Izzy are not very close by, but Izzy is crazy and could still attack. I'll have to watch out for her until I can get Monty to destroy her. Joao is fairly close by, but Pacal and I can easily block off his expansion. Without his powerful REXing, he loses a lot.

Well here's the current save and the initial save:

View attachment Huayna Capac BC-4000.CivBeyondSwordSave

View attachment Huayna Capac BC-1175.CivBeyondSwordSave
 
Now this is more like the maps I play- played two Pangaeas in row this week, actually- so this will be more helpful than the "dominate your continent and go from there" strategy that seems to be the norm on water heavy maps. The diplomacy will also be good to follow; in my experience, you'll draw five warlike AIs and one peaceful AI on these land heavy maps, and that makes picking and choosing sides a lot more tricky. Don't believe you'll be threatened, but also suspect there will be at least one war in this game . . .

A question or two starting out:

So, you're going to build the early Wonders that produce Prophet points? I've never really tried a Culture win, and changing the type of GP points has had a lot to do with why I haven't even tried. I can see skipping Stonehenge, and maybe even Oracle, in favor of the Parthenon-- but maybe not.

I wasn't really planning on Stonehenge and pretty much started it on a lark. But no one else seemed to want it and it ended up being mine. I'll build the Oracle in the same city for at least 1 Great Prophet. I don't know what I'll do with him yet. The Parthenon is much later in the tech tree now in BtS, and it is definitely a target wonder.

If you do produce a Prophet, will you settle him, or wait to found a religion? I'm assuming Scientists will create Academies, and Engineers will help with Wonders-- but what to do with Prophets? Try to keep peace by founding the later religions and not letting your neighbors convert? Shrines? Settling? Each seems to have advantages and disadvantages.

I'm going to try to create 1 unifying religion and use the Prophet for the Shrine. I'll research all of the religions myself without any lightbulbing.

Will you settle early Artists, or always culture bomb? When might the cut off point in turns be, if there is one, to make that decision? (Ie, 200 turns from projected win= settle, while 100 turns away= culture bomb.) Or is that the wrong way to think about it?

I've never done the math to determine the proper cutoff point. I'll settle the free Artist from Music, but who knows about any future ones. Your thinking is correct, but I don't really know the answer. I'll play it by ear when I get them.

How early will you have to spot the third culture city? I'm guessing the first two will be pretty obvious, but the couple times I aimed for a cultural win, deciding which city to make third was not easy, though this was a couple years ago.

The first 2 are indeed obvious. I'm not sure about #3. I'm planning on Amsterdam, but it could easily be Utrecht. I don't have to decide right away, but I will have to decide soon.

Last but not least-- will you still aim for a cultural win if Monty is in the game and not next door? :lol:

Heh. He wasn't (he is now), and I am. ;) I need an attack dog to take crazy Izzy out of the game for me. :D
 
Converting Montezuma to your religion is a nice strategy. :goodjob:

However, I've seen Montezuma attack someone even if they share the same religion, so this diplomatic route might be hard to pull off.

If you manage to collar Montezuma that is going to be cool. Most importantly I want to know how you are going to keep him happy.

For me my number 1 rule is never gift military techs, but you know Monty might want that from you eventually. :crazyeye:
 
Top Bottom