My first BTS Deity Cultural game

[jesusin]

Settings:

Deity, Quick, Inland Sea, Std map, Peter against S.Bull, Gandhi, Musa, Pericles, Eliz, Lincoln.
1corn, 1gems, 1FP, lots of grassland forests start.

Result:

1510AD victory (turn 141). Gandhi had 2 Legendary cities and the third was at 20000 culture when I won, he was 6 turns away from victory. The UN had been built around 1200AD and Apollo completed around 1400AD.


Highlights:

Run out of space very soon, so I had 4 cities and 2 miserable cities just to get to 6. 2cottage cities+the GPFarm became Legendary. Failed to get Oracle. I built the Pathenon. 2religions spread, I founded another 2 (CoL+Philo), 8 cathedrals built. Gandhi was my neighbour and put so much preassure into my GPFarm that it lost half its tiles to him. 17GL born. The first 3 were GS, used to bulb Philo and the whole Education. Stopped research at Liberalism, so I didn't try Corporations or the Natural Reserve, which look promising.

Even being expansive I failed to build enough workers, so my cottages were built late, so at 1AD I was doing 100bpt instead of the desired 175-200. That's what I tried to win the Liberalism race by bulbing 3GS and by getting Paper without researching CS (nor Alpha, nor Lite, nor Music). I failed by 3 turns anyway.

I revolted to slavery+OR once to whip some cathedrals and missionaries, then back to CS+Pacifism. I think I should have used one of my GA to start a Goldan Age. That way, I would have saved two turns of anarchy and I would have improved my culture, hammers and GPP. On the other hand, I would have lost 2680 culture, which was just 2 turns in the end of the game. So single-GL Golden Ages must be used.

I added the first 2 GA to the second city around 500AD. That was a mistake, since I built the Hermitage in the capital. In order to add a GA to a city it has to be much much sooner or it has to be in the Hermitage city. Otherwise it is better to bomb them. I bombed 12 GA, 0-4-8. Culture multipliers were 5-4-2.


Differences with Vanilla:

Although I played just as it was a Vanilla game, I found very interesting differences.

- They went for Alpha quite soon.
- Parthenon is veeeery easy to get now.
- The 2 hammers from AP-religion buildings come in handy, specially for hammer poor cities like the GPFarm.
- You must actively and quickly spread the AP religion to your cities.
- There is not so much room for mistakes. The AI will win the game by culture much sooner than it used to win by spaceship.
- There are a bunch of useless WW giving 10cpt and 2GPP(flavour GA). If you have the required resource, you should be able to build a couple of them.
- GP pool purity is not mandatory anymore. You can risk to get a GL of the wrong kind, since it can start a GA now and save some anarchy turns. Spiritual is less important a trait now because of this.
- When building culture the rules are very different from Vanilla. Where I would be building yet another monastery in Vanilla, I was already building culture in BTS.
- Even though Theology is out of the research path, it is maybe possible to get a GPro and use him on Theo, getting a religion and a good chance for the greatly improved Sistine's. EDIT: I take this back, Sistine's needs Music now, no Theology.
- Chopping mistakes are less common.



My ideas on specialists:

I have been thinking lately about the value of a specialist. Let's use normal speed conventions and let's think about a cultural game, although the calculations are valid for GS instead of GAs too.

In a normal game I get 15GL. That means that I have transformed 13500 GPP (100+200+300...+1800+2000) into GLs. But at the end of the game there is always some GPP in the cities. Those are wasted. Let's say 2500 wasted GPP at the end of the game. For the sake of simplicity let's say that every GL in my game is a GA and that I use all my GAs as cultural bombs. So I get 60000 culture out of my 15 GA. Of course, in a real game, I can decide to add a GA to a city or to get a GS instead of a GA; if I am not stupid I am doing that in order to get a better result than getting a GA and bombing it. So let's say 64000 culture instead of 60000.

So, I build 16000 GPP and I get 64000 culture in exchange. That means every GPP I generate is worth 4 culture. EDIT: Please note that the culture generated via GPP is not attached to the city that produced it, but can be transported to other cities.

This figure is very important. Let's call it the UAV, Universal Artist Value. UAV=4. Please, see the figure at motion in these examples:

Example1: is it better for this city to run Mercantilism or FreeMarket? It can have 3 6commerce per turn routes or 2 1commerce per turn routes and 1 artist. At 100% cultural slider, if this is a Legendary city, it is 18*4cpt (let's imagine culture multipliers are 4 in this city) against (2+4)*4cpt plus 9 GPPpt (I am Philosophical and I run Pacifism), which according to my UAV is 72cpt against 24+9*4==60cpt. FM is better! But, what happens if this city is not one of the 3? Then the commerce transformed into culture is useless, while the GPP are useful as long as this city pops a GA eventually. In this case is 0 against 9*4==36 cpt. If you make this calculation for every city in the empire, you can get to know what is better.

Example2: is it better for this city to work the plains-hill gold or to hire an artist? Food is the same. I will lose some hammers if I choose the artist. The artist will give me 1bpt instead. What about culture? The gold is 7*4==28cpt. The artist is 4*4+9*4=52cpt. So, if the value of the hammers is not very big, it is better to leave the gold alone!

Ok. You now understand the importance of this figure. But, is it accurate? I have made a lot of assumptions, haven't I? Let's see how the figure changes when the assumed parameters change.

- The optimizator. The optimizator only wastes 1000GPP at the end of the game and knows how to handle his early GLs to get an optimum result, 8000 additional culture. Optimizator's UAV = 68000/14500 = 4.69
- The easy going. The easy going never cares to starve his cities in the last turns and doesn't want to calculate the value of a GS compared to the value of a GA, so he wastes 3000GPP and 2000 culture. Easy going's UAV = 58000/16500 = 3.52
- The lazy. The lazy wastes 2500GPP and gets 4000 additional culture out of his early GLs, just like me. But he gets only 12 GL per game. Lazy's UAV = (12*4000+4000)/(8100+2500) = 4.91
- The farmer of GLs. The farmer wastes 2500GPP and gets 4000 additional culture out of his early GLs, just like me. But he gets 20 GLs per game. Farmer's UAV = (20*4000+4000)/(26500+2500) = 2.9

So your UAV depends on your playing stile and the way your particular game is developping. Your UAV is a number between 3 and 5. If you optimize a lot and you are going to get few GLs, then it is probably around 5. If you never care about MM and you are getting a lot of GLs, then it is probably around 3.


I would appreciate your pointing out any mistakes. If you have different ideas about cultural games in BTS compared to Vanilla or about the value of a specialist, I am willing to read them!
Thanks for reading.

[karmina]

Originally Posted by jesusin

...
Example1: is it better for this city to run Mercantilism or FreeMarket? It can have 3 6commerce per turn routes or 2 1commerce per turn routes and 1 artist. At 100% cultural slider, if this is a Legendary city, it is 18*4cpt (let's imagine culture multipliers are 4 in this city) against 2cpt plus 9 GPPpt (I am Philosophical and I run Pacifism), which according to my UAV is 72cpt against 2+9*4==38cpt. FM is better! But, what happens if this city is not one of the 3? Then the commerce transformed into culture is useless, while the GPP are useful as long as this city pops a GA eventually. In this case is 0 against 9*4==36 cpt. If you make this calculation for every city in the empire, you can know what is better.
...
Example2: is it better for this city to work the plains-hill gold or to hire an artist? Food is the same. I will lose some hammers if I choose the artist. What about culture? The gold is 7*4==28cpt. The artist is 9*4=36cpt. So, if the vaue of the hammers is small, it is better to leave the gold alone!
...
I would appreciate your pointing out any mistakes. If you have different ideas about cultural games in BTS compared to Vanilla or about the value of a specialist, I am willing to read them!
Thanks for reading.

Thanks for posting this, very interesting!

Here are some mistakes:
"...it is 18*4cpt (let's imagine culture multipliers are 4 in this city) against 2cpt (*4) plus 9 GPPpt (I am Philosophical and I run Pacifism) plus (4*4(or 6 with Sixtine)) for the Artist culture, which according to my UAV is 72cpt against 2+9*4==38cpt."
So it's rather 72 vs. 60(68). FM stills wins, but hardly noticable, and will lose at a better UAV. Do the leg.cities always generate 3*6 commerce with FM?

"...The gold is 7*4==28cpt. The artist is 9*4=36cpt."
Again, you forgot the Artist's primary job which adds 4*4(6) culture.
=> 28 vs. 52(60)

This makes me wonder if you need any luxury resources or cottages. According to the goldmine-artist example, wouldn't food and health be the only thing you want for cultural victory? But then again, the UAV quickly drops with more GAs...

What are the numbers for financial+river? Your examples obviously concentrate on pure philosophical leaders.

[WastinTime]

The big difference is the BTS timeline is about 10 turns off (in a bad way) right around the date you'd like to win. That's on Quick speed, so it's hard to compete with vanilla dates. That's probably why I haven't played much culture on BTS.

[ParadigmShifter]

Don't you think the buffed Sistine Chapel will make up for that though?

[WastinTime]

Originally Posted by ParadigmShifter

Don't you think the buffed Sistine Chapel will make up for that though?

Not sure you're directing this at my 10 turn comment. 10 turns on quick is HUGE. The entire game is only 130 turns. First, the Chapel has to make up for the fact that you had to research Theology, then you had to put hammers into building it. The Chapel might save a couple turns, but I doubt it's going to get you down to 120.

[WastinTime]

@jesusin: I know golden ages are only 1 gp in BTS, but what's this about less anarchy?

[ParadigmShifter]

You can change civics or relgion with no anarchy during a golden age in BtS.

EDIT: Plus, you get +100% gp points as well!!!

[WastinTime]

Originally Posted by ParadigmShifter

You can change civics or relgion with no anarchy during a golden age in BtS.

EDIT: Plus, you get +100% gp points as well!!!

wow, I've read a few BTS refereneces, but didn't see that. I'm gonna have to think about how to abuse that. Is there a good article somewhere on new BTS stuff?

[ParadigmShifter]

I've not seen any comprehensive articles... there was a thread in Strategy and Tips about Golden Ages last week, I thik that was more about timing them and so on though.

I'd like to see good articles about espionage (there are walkthrough games however) and use of privateers myself.

The no anarchy/+100% gpp is massive though... with a philosphical leader that built the parthenon running pacifism, that's +350% (x4.5), +450% (x5.5) in the national epic city.

Also the Mausolem of Mausollos gives +10 culture, +2 GA points and increases golden age length by 50%. Statu of Zeus is +10 culture, +2 GA points as well I think, and opponents get +100% war weariness if they fight you, which might come in handy.

Not sure how that applies to super fast wins on deity though, lol.

EDIT: Meant +10 culture rather tha +10 GA points, oops. Corrected that now

[jesusin]

Originally Posted by karmina

Here are some mistakes:
"...it is 18*4cpt (let's imagine culture multipliers are 4 in this city) against 2cpt (*4) plus 9 GPPpt (I am Philosophical and I run Pacifism) plus (4*4(or 6 with Sixtine)) for the Artist culture, which according to my UAV is 72cpt against 2+9*4==38cpt."
So it's rather 72 vs. 60(68). FM stills wins, but hardly noticable, and will lose at a better UAV. Do the leg.cities always generate 3*6 commerce with FM?

"...The gold is 7*4==28cpt. The artist is 9*4=36cpt."
Again, you forgot the Artist's primary job which adds 4*4(6) culture.
=> 28 vs. 52(60)

Thank you very much.
I have corrected this in the first post.
The point of my text is that the main job of an specialist is not its direct output, but the GPP... so much that I forgot the direct output.

A city gets 3 trade routes with Currency and FM. The commerce a trade route gives depends (at least) on its size and the size of the corresponding city. In my cultural games they range from 4 to 10 commerce per turn. If I played with several continents they would be bigger.

Thre is another mistake: Sistine's is not in Theology anymore.

Originally Posted by karmina

This makes me wonder if you need any luxury resources or cottages. According to the goldmine-artist example, wouldn't food and health be the only thing you want for cultural victory? But then again, the UAV quickly drops with more GAs...

Well, you have to research up to Liberalism, don't you?
And cottages aren't so bad. 2 towns give 14 commerce per turn which is 56 cpt in our 4-multiplier city. If we change both to farms and wait a bit for 1 pop to grow and we are not health capped, then we will have 0cpt from the farms and an artist, giving 4*4+9*4 = 52 cpt.

Oh, and everything changes if the city has one less cathedral and its mutiplier is 3.5!

I should mention than the culture coming from GPP is transportable, while the culture generated by cottages isn't.

Originally Posted by karmina

What are the numbers for financial+river? Your examples obviously concentrate on pure philosophical leaders.

Hey, don't ask me for more food, I have taught you how to fish!

[jesusin]

Originally Posted by WastinTime

The big difference is the BTS timeline is about 10 turns off (in a bad way) right around the date you'd like to win. That's on Quick speed, so it's hard to compete with vanilla dates. That's probably why I haven't played much culture on BTS.

I am not so much interested in the relationship between dates and turns in different games and in different speeds.

I will concentrate on turns from now on. Even if that's not the way the results are reflected in the HOF tables. And I consider BTS to be a different game from Vanilla.

This particular HOF BTS spot was empty, so I suppose I am #1 right now. How long will you allow me to keep the #1?

[VirusMonster]

Originally Posted by ParadigmShifter

I'd like to see good articles about espionage (there are walkthrough games however) and use of privateers myself.

Inside my walkthrough game, there is a good espionage article. I think you'll like it. Click the link on my signature.

The new BTS features are best learned when you look at the 3.13 patch changes list. And yea the 100% GP generation boost during Golden Ages is huge. Also, now it takes only 1 GP to start your inital Golgen age, (2 for 2nd, 3 for 3rd, etc) Those all make GP based BTS economies stronger.

[WastinTime]

Originally Posted by jesusin

This particular HOF BTS spot was empty, so I suppose I am #1 right now. How long will you allow me to keep the #1?

I guess I only seem to be concerned about getting my name on the default home page. That defaults to "any" expansion, so that's what I focus on.

The culture game I have for Small/Diety (1550 AD) is just a botched space race. I was going to lose, so I PA'd with the guy going for culture win. Maybe the new way to get the fastest win is with a PA (I hope not.) You said the AI had 2 cities already legendary, so you could've won earlier if you had a PA with them.

[jesusin]

Originally Posted by WastinTime

I guess I only seem to be concerned about getting my name on the default home page. That defaults to "any" expansion, so that's what I focus on.

The culture game I have for Small/Diety (1550 AD) is just a botched space race. I was going to lose, so I PA'd with the guy going for culture win. Maybe the new way to get the fastest win is with a PA (I hope not.) You said the AI had 2 cities already legendary, so you could've won earlier if you had a PA with them.

I checked, but I hadn't had a DP with him long enough.
I also hope a PA is not the way to go. My game was quite poor anyway, so I don't think there will be time for a PA being effective. Time will tell.

[WastinTime]

Originally Posted by jesusin

I checked, but I hadn't had a DP with him long enough.
I also hope a PA is not the way to go. My game was quite poor anyway, so I don't think there will be time for a PA being effective. Time will tell.

Depends, when did his 1st city go legendary? If it was 1100 AD, then you only need 2 cities and a PA. Could change the whole approach. Might be fun!

[jesusin]

Originally Posted by WastinTime

Depends, when did his 1st city go legendary? If it was 1100 AD, then you only need 2 cities and a PA. Could change the whole approach. Might be fun!

No, it was only some 3 turns before the end. Two of his cites went Legendary the same turn my last 2 GA were born.

[shyuhe]

Can't you settle your GA in your PA partner's cities though? Would it take too long to get a culture victory on deity with OCC + PA supplying 2 culture cities in bts? Food for thought...

[jesusin]

Originally Posted by shyuhe

Can't you settle your GA in your PA partner's cities though? Would it take too long to get a culture victory on deity with OCC + PA supplying 2 culture cities in bts? Food for thought...

I am hoping there will be a Gauntlet with that settings soon. We will be able to compare how much more intelligent the AI is in BTS compared to Vanilla.

[jesusin]

Did it again. Same settings, same victory date.

Corn+2gems start. Founded 2 food-rich cities and failed to build a green city for cottages, so decided to play with a single cottage city and concentrate even more on GA. Made an effort to have a decent number of workers. 8 for 6 cities, much better now.

Philo slingshot in turn 39 to found 2 religions, another 2 spread. Waited too much to trade for maths, had to research it myself. Used GPro in a GAge, poorly timed. Music too late. Won Lib race for PP but then was unable to trade for Natio for a long time... so cathedrals and Hermitage not before 1000AD. Only 9 (late) cottages in the capital. 17 GA, one of them free, bombed 1-8-8. More than 5000 unused GPP at the end, though.

EDIT: reloaded and replayed the slingshot, a CS sling wouldn't had been possible, they built Oracle in turn 43.