BOTM 04 Final Spoiler

BOTM04 Final Spoiler

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As I mentioned in the first spoiler thread, I settled on the starting location, stole some workers from Gilgamesh in a couple of early wars, and went for the kill later with Axes and Catapults, finishing him in the early ADs. I didn’t build any really early wonders, but did get the Parthenon and Great Library.

I didn’t realize that Sitting Bull would trade until after 500 AD, but once I did I picked up Alphabet and made a few decent trades with him. Meanwhile I developed Uruk as a great person farm and used Caste System to run huge numbers of Great Scientists. York, between Uruk and London with two food resources and lots of cottageable tiles, received an Academy to complement its Great Library, and then I settled the other Scientists there.

My goal all along was a space race victory, and at this difficulty level and starting position it was never seriously in doubt. The issue was the speed of that victory, and I don’t think I did particularly well in that respect. Taking so long to start trading with Sitting Bull was one mistake. And I don’t think running Caste System for all the Great Scientists was a good long-term plan either. It was great for short term research but Slavery or Feudalism would have helped me more when it came to expanding across the continent. As it was I did that rather slowly, but even so saw my research drop below 50% for a long while as I struggled with maintenance costs.

Mind you, I was still pretty dominant in technology. I was first to Optics. First to Liberalism, which I used for Astronomy. First to Economics and Physics. The list goes on. All this even though I was giving away lots of techs to everyone else in the game so they’d hopefully research things I didn’t already know but could trade for. Typically I would hold back a single tech so that I’d have something to trade when and if the opportunity presented itself, everything else I gave away. This worked reasonably well, especially for awhile during the 1700s when my espionage provided me with knowledge of what the three technologically savvy civilizations (Dutch, Khmer, Carthage) were working on.

Since I was pouring everything I could into research, and emphasizing techs that would boost research even further like Electricity and Superconductors (developed 1774 AD) I inevitably reached the point where I outstripped everyone else and had to research most of the remaining space race related techs on my own.

I used London as my primary production center, with Ironworks, and it churned out most of the big parts for me while a couple of other major production cities chipped in some of the large stuff as well and secondary cities built the rest. My ship reached Alpha Centauri in 1919 AD. I ended up building every part, including the spare engines and whatnot, and later determined that had I launched as soon as possible instead of when absolutely everything was done I’d have won a turn or two earlier.

I got a culture victory in 1861.

I used 9 cities and founded three religions. I built cathedrals in all 3 cities and ran GAs in Uruk to distribute among the 3 cities. I managed to sync legendary culture pretty closely as you can see:



In hindsight I wish I had focused on founding another religion and maybe getting the cathedrals installed earlier instead of spending time and energy on several wonders...

Challenger-Cultural

Settled 2NE, captured Uruk+worker with 3 warriors in 3250BC. SE of Uruk came York as "3rd Legendary. Filled up continent to 9 cities rather slow. Last and ninth city was South of Capitol With three missionaries ready to spread religion in it and forest pre-chopped to get three temples in a few turns. City did nothing else then generate 5gold for theremainder of the game.

Was sloppy on wonders GL points distribution and ended up with to many non-GA's. Used them for bulbing and 2 golden ages.

wonders:
Oracle in 1425BC (chose mathematics...)
Temple of artemis in 140BC (just for culture and priest)
MISSED pyramids in 20BC
shwedagon Paya 100AD (early philosophy)
Parthenon 115AD
Great Library 175AD (gave me to much GS and was les usefull without pyramids)
Hanging gardens 415AD
Kong Miao 565AD
MISSED maussoleum of Maussollos in 930AD (I know...) by 7
TajMahal 1180AD
(conclusion: I really have to learn at +- what dates rival civs get certain wonders on different difficulty levels. Is there some reference chart? As with a lot of you, time to do test games is not always available )

Important techs:
1050BC alpha
245BC theology (with GP)
100AD music
265AD Civil Service (with GP)
550AD Education (with GS)
940AD Liberalism (chose Nationalism and ended research, still traded a lot though)

Was mostly clicking a red button for the rest of the game. Although I did fear some kind of end game naval invasion by other civs that had reached me by caravel/galleons (build few macemen and knights).

Ended up with 1714AD Cultural Victory, which I guess I'm ok with for my first cultural game.

[Challenger]
First spoiler

Our first Golden Age of three was started by a Great Merchant in 400ad, when we had just discovered Civil Service. At the time we had 3 religions and 4 Temples.

Three Golden Ages were used in total, and quite necessarily so, to build all those Wonders and Cathedrals, as we ended up founding no less than six religions (missing only Buddhism, which reached our shores a few turns before the end). For the same reason, we stayed in Organized Religion until quite late.

The Golden Ages were timed to allow civic switching without anarchy:

Golden Ages
[1] 400ad-625ad (Great Merchant)
400ad Representation, Bureaucracy, Caste System
[2] 1315ad-1385ad (Taj Mahal)
1325ad Mercantilism
1380ad Free Speech, Pacifism
[3] 1390ad-1460ad (Great Prophet + Great Merchant)

The second part of the game saw no remarkable events (no +2 health or free Golden Age), except that on one turn both Silver and Iron popped up, rather uselessly. We had some bad luck by not getting a Great Scientist for Education, but the Great Artists came with the (high) odds.

After Optics, the remaining AI were easy to find and to please. We brought our state religion, Hindusim, to the Khmer and Korea, who had none. In 1515ad, Carthage was the first to discover Astronomy, and we could finally get those missing food resources.
They were good for one round of growth in the remaining few turns.

On the final turn London, Uruk and York reached legendary status at the same time. Uruk did this by adding the Great Artists that it had just generated itself. No population burning was needed, although Uruk ran a lot of artists.

Result
1565ad CULTURAL VICTORY (86105)
26 towns, 240 population heads

Great People
580ad #3 Great Prophet (London) -> Temple of Solomon (Uruk)
595ad #4 Great Artist (London) (Music) -> Great Work (York)
625ad #5 Great Engineer (Nottingham) -> Sistine Chapel (Uruk)
890ad #6 Great Artist (Uruk) -> Great Work (York)
990ad #7 Great Scientist -> Academy (London)
1170ad #8 Great Artist (Uruk) -> Great Work (York)
1255ad #9 Great Scientist (Nottingham) -> Academy (York)
1330ad #10 Great Prophet (London) -> (1/2) Golden Age
1355ad #11 Great Artist (Uruk) -> Great Work (York)
1380ad #12 Great Merchant (Economics) -> (2/2) Golden Age
1425ad #13 Great Engineer (York) -> joins London
1460ad #14 Great Prophet (London) -> Church of Nativity (Uruk)
1475ad #15 Great Artist (Uruk) -> Great Work (London)
1525ad #16 Great Merchant (Nottingham) -> joins York
1560ad #17 Great Artist (Uruk) -> Great Work (Uruk)

London
445ad Jewish Temple
550ad GREAT LIBRARY
610ad SHWEDAGON PAYA
670ad Jewish Synagogue
700ad Theatre
880ad CHITZEN ITZA
900ad Christian Monastery
990ad Hindu Mandir; Academy (Great Scientist)
1010ad Taoist Monastery
1030ad Christian Temple
1100ad Confucian Academy
1130ad Christian Temple
1210ad Christian Cathedral
1230ad Islamic Monastery
1275ad Taoist Pagoda
1330ad ANGKOR WAT
1335ad Taoist Temple
1345ad Islamic Temple
1365ad Islamic Mosque
1390ad Stock Exchange
1420ad Grocer
1470ad GLOBE THEATRE
1510ad University
1555ad OXFORD UNIVERSITY

Uruk
445ad Aqueduct
535ad PARTHENON
580ad NATIONAL EPIC
610ad TEMPLE OF SOLOMON (Great Prophet)
655ad SISTINE CHAPEL (Great Engineer)
670ad Hindu Mandir
760ad STATUE OF ZEUS
775ad Theatre
820ad Harbor
900ad Confucian Academy
920ad Christian Monastery
950ad Christian Temple
970ad Taoist Monastery
1020ad Jewish Synagogue
1080ad Christian Cathedral
1100ad Islamic Monastery
1130ad Christian Temple
1160ad Taoist Temple
1220ad HERMITAGE
1240ad Islamic Temple
1315ad TAJ MAHAL -> Golden Age
1335ad Islamic Mosque
1355ad Taoist Pagoda
1380ad Stock Exchange
1400ad Grocer
1455ad VERSAILLES
1465ad CHURCH OF NATIVITY (Great Prophet)
1515ad University

York
460ad Library
490ad Jewish Temple
505ad Barracks (Y)
565ad HEROIC EPIC
595ad Theatre
715ad Hindu Mandir
850ad Jewish Synagogue
890ad Harbor
950ad Christian Temple
1040ad Confucian Academy
1070ad Islamic Monastery
1100ad Taoist Monastery
1140ad Taoist Temple
1220ad Taoist Pagoda
1250ad Christian Temple
1260ad Workboat
1270ad Academy (Great Scientist)
1300ad Christian Cathedral
1330ad Islamic Mosque
1335ad Islamic Temple
1375ad SPIRAL MINARET
1430ad UNIVERSITY OF SANKORE
1460ad Stock Exchange
1515ad University

Additional wonders
860ad HAGIA SOPHIA (Nottingham)
1300ad FORBIDDEN PALACE (Nottingham)

Technology
445ad Aesthetics
475ad Literature
520ad Drama
580ad Monarchy (Native America)
595ad Music -> Great Artist
655ad Theology -> Christianity (Uruk)
900ad Philosophy -> Taoism (Nottingham)
1030ad Divine Right -> Islam (Canterbury)
1150ad Nationalism
1190ad Feudalism (Native America)
1240ad Paper
1260ad Machinery (Native America)
1265ad Horseback Riding (Native America)
1275ad Optics
1295ad Guilds
1305ad Construction (Korea)
1325ad Banking
1360ad Education
1370ad Engineering (Dutch)
1380ad Liberalism -> Economics -> Great Merchant
1450ad Printing Press
1485ad Replaceable Parts
1520ad Constitution
1560ad Astronomy (Native America)
1565ad Democracy

Cultural progress (turns until legendary)
1150ad London 174, Uruk 195, York 302 (1 unused Great Artist)
1200ad London 169, Uruk 188, York 268 (")
1250ad London 132, Uruk 136, York 199 (")
1275ad London 109, Uruk 131, York 186 (")
1300ad London 104, Uruk 126, York 134
1325ad London 97, Uruk 106, York 121
1350ad London 85, Uruk 83, York 100
1375ad London 70, Uruk 70, York 74
1400ad London 40, Uruk 45, York 37 (80% culture)
1425ad London 33, Uruk 39, York 30 (100% culture)
1450ad London 28, Uruk 32, York 23 (")
1475ad London 23, Uruk 22, York 19 (") (1 unused Great Artist)
1500ad London 13, Uruk 17, York 14 (")
1525ad London 7, Uruk 10, York 8 (")
1550ad London 2, Uruk 6, York 2 (")
1560ad London , Uruk , York

I have never even seen an AI Diplomatic victory before, but there is a first time for everything.

My spaceship was only 8 turns away from reaching its destination when Hannibal swept the table at a UN vote (every single other AI voted for him except me). I think he must have rigged the vote somehow. I demand a recount!

I'll have to go back and check, but I believe I triggered a Domination win

Unintentionally?

Domination win pretty late ca. 1900. But a lot of fun in the interim, a wonder building dream game early and a late Infantry led charge to the win.

Great setup DS, lots of options!

jesusin, challenger. Goal: fastest cultural. Result: 1730AD cultural victory.

From the first spoiler:
- Great Axe rushing of Uruk.
- Great CS slingshot
- 1 religion
- Early expected NE
- Horrible first GP: a GPro
- 7 cities settled maximizing food
- Bankrupcy
- A whole lot of 3 cottages

I whipped my granaries and some theaters, so I could hire both scientists and artists.
NE and Parthenon built around 230AD. At 460AD I popped a GS, which would yield less profit as an Academy (being so late) that as a bulb. I counted the remaineing techs, the relation between the capital and the rest of the empire and conluded an Academy would only give 1500b. So I bulbed Philo with the GS and Theolo with the GPro, getting to 3 religions.

At 520AD I lost the race to the Pyramids. Considering I was to hire some 40 artist for the rest of the game, it was a terrible setback. I should have whipped the Pyramids when I had the opportunity. This was as big a mistake as the bankrupcy situation.

Probably building a golden walls in the city N of Uruk would have helped too.

My worst mistake was yet to come. I had chosen the 2sugar-corn-pigs-marble-copper city as the third Legendary city. I had planned to cottage it all, but with all that jungle and the late settling cottages were coming online too slowly. I then realised the city would be much better off as a GPFarm than as a cottage city. So I finally played a game with a single cottage city, running a whole lot of 7 cottages at the end of the game, while the rest of the empire, including the other two Legendary cities, were GPFarms.

I picked Music before Paper, getting the free GA and a shot at Sistine's, built in 950AD. Its effect was noticeable.

At 1070AD (sooooo late, one thousand years out of schedule) I finally got Liberalism and Nationalism, revolted to FS and increased my joint culture output in the three ones from 350cpt to 600cpt. This means that the last GS used on Education which saved me 12 turns served to win 12*250=3000c. It would have been much better to get a GA (6000c). I had 3 cathedrals by this time.

Trading maps with SBull didn't allow me to meet other civs. Spy points allowing me to see his cities gave me contact with passing by units of other civs, though.

Hermitage in 1230AD in the third city. With the three GA I had added to the city, it was slightly better than the capital. The fact that I knew this in advance allowed me to add GA to the city as late as 1300AD.
Soon after the AP was built, but I wasn't scared. No city would get it spontaneously, and when almost all civs had it I could close borders with the AP builder and religion founder. No other civ would try to spread it. On the other hand, if I was one of the first to be infected, I would have the time to spread it around my empire, almost getting to 25% of the votes by myself.

By 1340AD I had finished building my 6 cathedrals. One of the auxiliary cities finished the TajMaj too. During the GAge I was doing more than 500GPPpt civ-wide.

RE: the lost of a farm in a long chain almost starved two of my cities, since it happened 2 times in a row. I also witnessed a gladiator RE and a heartrending ballad RE, none of these appear on ori's list (??????).

Revolted to Merc when I could trade for banking, researched PP on my own with the artists beakers (50bpt, not so bad, pity of Pyramids).

Once again I didn't use any spy. I had no points accumulated against my "enemies" and I didn't want to risk my relationship with my "friends". One of them, Will, became too busy (too much on our hands) but it was already too late.

My cities went Legendary in 3 consecutive turns, with the help of 13 culture bombs. They were doing 1500cpt by then (650-200-650). Not a bright game, I did what I could considering the research paralysis and the infortunate chosing of the 3rd legendary city.

Epic Speed is disgusting:
1.-Starving a city has little effect on GA generation order.
2.-Revolting several civics at the same time doesn't offer reduced anarchy.
So there are less strategic decisions involved in Epic games.


Quick Summary: Axe rushed my neighbour to get the whole continent, Oracle for CS, settled 7 cities, ruined my economy, failed to have an early Academy, founded 3 religions, got a very late (1000AD+) Liberalism, built 6 cathedrals, multipliers 3.5-2-4.5 , farmed 19GPeople, the GPro and the 2 GS were bulbed, the first 3 GA were added as superspecialists 0-0-3, the other 13 GA were used as great works 3-9-1.

Ribannah said:

Result
1565ad CULTURAL VICTORY (86105)

Click to expand...

Wow, congratulations. I am glad I didn't express my opinion about your decisions in the first spoiler.

So I have gone and re-read your first spoiler with the impressive result in mind. Yet I find I can't approve many of the things you did:
- Purposelly nurturing different kinds of GPs ¡Nonsense! No wonder you only got 6 GA. Please compare to my 16.
- Building WW in Uruk. Hey!, that's your GPFarm, respect it! Get those poor artists out of the mines!
- Oracle used for MC. MC????? You must be kidding. MC isn't even in the critical path for a cultural game, where all you need is Music and Liberalism. You say you want to build forges? Forges? That building that brings unhealthiness and that won't pay for itself if you get an early victory?
- Shrines. You built shrines. A single early one, I can understand, but sooo many of them? Did you know that if you have been so unfortunate as to get a GPro, using him on a shrine wll only give you more GPro later on?

Anyway, who needs my approval when your finish date is an eternity earlier than mine!
Then I read your final spoiler and I can't believe what I see.
- You spread hindu to the AIs. Why would you want to waste good hammers on such a pointless task? Wouldn't you get a better result by building wealth?
- Liberalism and FS in 1380AD. Come on! Had you waited a bit more, you would have won the game before reaching Liberalism!
- You built 6 sets of cathedrals. This can't be worth the cost.
- You paid 2 GP for a GAge. Is a golden Age worth 12000 culture?

And you got an outstanding result anyway...

Ribannah said:

26 towns, 240 population heads

Click to expand...

I need help to understand this part. Surely you don't mean you built more than 9 cities, do you? What might be the purpose of additional cities?

Then it may mean that you had 26 cottages in your 3 Legendary cities that had already grown to the maximum level. Is that right? Did you heavily cottage Uruk too?


What's the secret of your game? Well, I can't yet know, till I understand the "26 towns" thing, but I think I have some ideas.

Your cultural game wasn't based on GA. Your cultural game wasn't based on cottages. Your cultural game was almost completely based on hammers. With hammers you built zillions of culture buildings, which were the base culture output. Then you had hammers enough to spread 6 religions to 9 cities (think of it, more than 50 missionaries, 54 temples, 18 cathedrals...). No wonder you wanted to stay in OR for most of the game.

Then the other factor is the 6 available religions. With an isolated (does anyone remember Gilgamesh by now?) start, going for early religions was the best strategy. Your culture multipliers were 5-6-5, impressive.


This all comes to show that you can't blindly apply other game version and other level of difficulty conclussions. It's time to test all the different cultural approaches again, to draw different conclussions. I will appreciate anything else you have to say to enlight me.

I did not finish this game but my estimated end date was ~1720 AD. I really have a lot to learn about cultural victories.

Conquest 1794AD

Seems like there are alot of people going cultural. In all of my games, I have never gone for Diplomatic or Culture. I like to war too much. Even my OCC games on Monarch and Emperor end up with Conquest victories.

After Taking out Gilly and filling my continent....I headed for Liberalism. I got it late, but i had to self research Nationalism first or I was gonna lose the Taj.....I took Astro from Lib and headed to Rifling. I was building the galleons while heading there.

My first target was Willem...not because he was the tech leader, but because he will usually capitulate quicker than most. Declared in 1680AD and he capitulated in 1704AD....bout 7 turns I think is all it took. I attacked with redcoats and trebs. While I was sailing the army over, I was heading to cannons. I only kept 1 city of Wilhem so I could turn research off and upgrade the trebs to cannons.

Next target was Hannibal...who was the tech leader of the AI's. He allways takes a long time to capitulate and he didnt dissapoint. Declared 1720AD and he capitulated in 1748AD. He was declared on with 2 seperate stacks. I was allways shuffling galleons around to take out coastal cities fast.

Next target was Sitting Bull. Heres where I made a mistake. I attacked him with 2 Armies from both sides....when in fact, I should have only attacked with 1 and put the other army on Galleons heading to Suryavarman and Wang. I was in fact building the 3rd Army to go down there, but i could have shaved some turns off the victory had I managed it better. Declared 1760AD and vassaled in 1782AD.....He waited till he had 2 cities left.

I left Sury and Wang for last because they were the furthest behind in Techs and I thought that maybe 1 of them might offer to become a friendly vassal.....no such luck. Declared Sury 1772AD and vassaled in 1788AD. Declared Wang 1788AD and vassaled in 1792AD. Conquest in 1794AD. I made sure to stay under the Domination limit so I could trigger Conquest as i thought more people would go for Dom over Conquest.

All in all, Im not happy with the date.....I spent too much time building wonders and not micromanaging enough. I expect to see someone get Conquest or Dom in the 1500's.

This all comes to show that you can't blindly apply other game version and other level of difficulty conclussions. It's time to test all the different cultural approaches again, to draw different conclussions. I will appreciate anything else you have to say to enlight me.

Click to expand...

Wow. Somebody out-cultured Jesusin!

Cultural Challenger - 1670AD victory

Continuing from First Spoiler

I founded Islam, then Music for GA, and then started moving slowly to Liber and building missionaries, temples and cathedrals. I founded the 9th (GPfarm) city in SE jungle coast with 3 sugars, pig and corn. After Maussolos launched GA (with GA ) to switch to slavery+OR and rush some buildings and missionaries. After research ended (Liber-Nat and PPress) I used lucky GE from capital to rush Taj and switched finally to USuffrage, Free Speech, Paci and Castes. The last revolution was a tad later when I got Mercantilism from trade.

Excellent trades with Sitting Bull - Hunting, Sail, Calendar, IW, Compass, Optics, Metal Casting, Machinery - right after Optics got caravel and traded with Hannibal and William for a load of cash and techs, up to Astro, Const, Chemistry and ReplParts. But Astro was only ~10 turns befoe finish, so there was no threat of overseas invasion through the whole game. This also allowed me to trade for some health resources (like fish), eliminate diseases and work some more commercial tiles in the end.

Despite relevant safety, I was still uneasy remembering Cathy's overseas strike in GOTM28, therefore after giving birth to a GA devoted 1 city to defense-building, mostly (protective) muskets.

GPeople - 1 GE, 1GS for Academy in London, 14 GA (1 from Music). 1 GA for GA, 1 GA settled to bring London to Legendary 1 turn earlier, other bombed 3-3-6 (required 2.95 - 2.93 - 5.2).

Legendary cities: London (pigs, grass farm, 2 golds, 8 or 9 towns), loads of wonders, 4 cathedrals, all monasteries and temples. Wonders - SHenge, Pyrs, MofM, Sophia, maybe sth else, can't remember. Circa 870cpt in the end
Uruk - loads of wonders, Hermitage, 4 cathedrals, all monasteries and temples. No cottages, purely building and specialist culture. Wonders - Parthenon, Sistine, Taj, NEpic. Circa 740cpt in the end.
Nottingham - loads of wonders, 4 cathedrals, most monasteries and all temples. Few towns and vilalges. Wonders - Oracle, HG, Zeus. Circa 670cpt in the end.

What could've been done better:
Less purchases of buildings in Legendary cities, this cost me over 2K cash. Could've saved no more than 10 turns, though.
More regular approach to civic changes - did several OR-Paci and Slavery-Castes switches outside of GAges.
Maybe southern riverside city with cottages would've made a better Legendary as it had more riverside cottages than Nottingham. But I built it rather late, it had no culture buildings or early wonders, and building there would've drained the efforts from cottage-cultivating. Therefore, especially as I bombed the last in Ngham when only ~1K of culture was required, I'm not sure I've lost much (or anything) here.

Altogether this still would've not allowed me to crawl into 16th century, so it really would've required more than 6 religions - completely unavailable in my game. And going for an early religion would've endangered CS-slingshot and Pyramids. Therefore except the abovementioned steps I'm quite pleased with my game.

I also had an intention of testing Corporations, but as there were too few resources on the home island (no fish, wheat or rice, iron or silver), I decided against it.
Random events - I had an event of culture, so had a +450 culture for 35 cash in London Also gems randomly popped in a mine near Uruk in 2nd millenium AD. And I was offered to train 8 knights withour iron
As I also never built my UB and never had a tech for my UU, there was not much difference with Vanilla game Except buffed Sistine and late Parthenon.

Seems to me that all of the Culture dates so far have been excellent. I guess this was a really favorable set up for that type of victory. Lots of room (if you killed Gilgamesh), including plenty of good city sites. And the opponents and difficulty setting were such that you could found lots of religions and build lots of wonders if you were so inclined.

jesusin said:

This all comes to show that you can't blindly apply other game version and other level of difficulty conclussions. It's time to test all the different cultural approaches again, to draw different conclussions. I will appreciate anything else you have to say to enlight me.

Click to expand...

Hi there Jesusin,

This was my first cultural game, so my thoughts were not tainted with prevailing strategies.

It occurred to me that cottages are not fully usable in a cultural game. You want them to help you get to Free Speech asap, but once you're there, all your villages and towns in supporting cities are useless, as they will only provide culture, and in your central cities you will be running specialists. This when you really need those supporting cities to generate income. In the meantime, you lack the hammers to build.

Therefore, I set out instead to maximize production, with workshops and watermills, and I chose as my third cultural city one that would build the Moai Statues. The supporting towns would use those hammers to quickly build what was needed and produce income and research in the late game, rather than superfluous culture. The core cities would use their hammers to build basically anything that generated culture points.

That meant that I would need less Great Artists than otherwise. Better said: my core cities reached legendary status too soon! I might have caught up with you on the number of Great Artists, except that the game was already won.

The non-artist GP points generated some non-artists GP's, true, but that was not in Uruk, and all were put to good use. Remember that during a Golden Age, 100% is added to the generation of GP points, so these three GP's easily paid for themselves. The later ones were less useful, perhaps, but in the end did not diminish the number of Great Artists that Uruk produced. Mind you, I ran an engineer or several priests (after Angkor Wat) in my core cities before the culture multipliers were maximized. Yes, these shrines would later cause an unwanted prophet or two to appear. However, there was no later, so that mattered not; meanwhile they added some extra gold and culture.

I found early Metal Casting very important. The Forges were mostly ready when Cathedrals became available and I could build those Temples and Missionaries a lot faster, with both the Forge itself and an engineer adding to my production. Of course, with cottages, one would not be able to build them in time. In the late game, those Forges upped my income. I was able to keep a good pace of research, faster than the AI, even at 100% culture.

On the other hand, Civil Service was not the highest priority, and I might have missed the Oracle if I had waited for that.

You spread hindu to the AIs. Why would you want to waste good hammers on such a pointless task? Wouldn't you get a better result by building wealth?

Click to expand...

I sent only 3 missionaries over. The AI did the rest, and donated to my shrine.

Liberalism and FS in 1380AD. Come on! Had you waited a bit more, you would have won the game before reaching Liberalism!

Click to expand...

That is certainly a possibility. It would not have made a very great difference.

You built 6 sets of cathedrals. This can't be worth the cost.

Click to expand...

They were all built with hammers only. I stayed in Representation.

You paid 2 GP for a GAge. Is a golden Age worth 12000 culture?

Click to expand...

12000 culture is only 4 turns, at the end. A Golden Age will already easily pay back the GP points, in addition to the faster research and production. Only in the late stage, a Golden Age would no longer be of much help.

I need help to understand this part. Surely you don't mean you built more than 9 cities, do you? What might be the purpose of additional cities?

Click to expand...

Yes, I built a lot of extra cities. The first lot contributed to the economy, due to Pyramids and Mercantilism; the last bunch I built simply because I could. Some of the new cities grew quite fast as they used tiles that the old cities didn't work anymore.

Then it may mean that you had 26 cottages in your 3 Legendary cities that had already grown to the maximum level. Is that right? Did you heavily cottage Uruk too?

Click to expand...

No, Uruk had no cottages. London and York each had two, but I didn't work them most of the time. The watermills and sea tiles were much more useful. Canterbury had three cottages, and that was it.

Thank you for your answer. Very interesting. No cottages and no GA.

Ribannah said:

Remember that during a Golden Age, 100% is added to the generation of GP points, so these three GP's easily paid for themselves.

Click to expand...

This is a real eye opener for me. Thank you.

Looking at Ribannah's very impressive culture game again, it strikes me that the really exceptional thing are the six religions founded. I've played many culture games and it's rare that I've been able to get 3 religions in my cities, founded by me or otherwise, early enough to make a difference.

Having 6 religions to play with meant that focusing on hammers was a great move, since it made it possible to spread the religions and build so many cathedrals, and to do it relatively early too. But if Ribannah had only, say, 3 religions to spread around, then all of those hammers probably would have been overkill.

Some other observations:

The Pyramids were important. Not that this is surprising. They seem to feature in all of the very best culture games. Ditto the Parthenon. But this is the best demonstration I've seen of the impact that the Mausoleum--and the tweak to Golden Ages in BotS--can have on a culture game. Three long Golden Ages are a big deal.

If I read correctly, Ribannah didn't settle any Great Artists but bombed them all instead. What with all of the Cathedrals that were eventually built, I'd bet that at least the first GA or two would have paid off even more had they been settled early.

I also am struck, again, that it pays to adjust your play to the difficulty level. Cottages and Great Artists is probably a the best culture strategy to pursue at say, Emperor difficulty, when it's tough to get lots of wonders and religions. But just because its the best strategy for Emperor doesn't mean that it's the way to go on Prince difficulty.