Emperor Culture Challenge

Moriarte

Moriarte

Immortal
Joined
May 10, 2012
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Following dicussion in Strategy section i decided to open this thread, so we can try different approaches for a cultural game. Everyone is welcome to try, as long as we all follow the HoF rules.

Settings are:

Expansion: Gods & Kings + DLC
Victory Condition: Culture (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
Difficulty: Emperor
Map Size: Standard
Map Type: Pangaea
Speed: Standard
Leader: Napoleon (France)
Opponents: Any

Maybe we can agree that Spain can be excluded from the list. Or maybe not? Tell me what you think.
 
Background: We've been speculating about CVs in Strategy & Tips, especially about the conventional wisdom that tall empires and Piety are best for culture. We're interested in experimenting with wide empires and Rationalism to challenge that wisdom. There's some doubt whether a science-based culture game can compete with the fastest known CVs (less than 250 turns).
 
To clarify. The goal is a culture victory, presumably through science, without using the Piety tree.

The original discussion was about tall or wide culture, but this is a little different. Tall or wide may work equally well for this goal depending on civ and map.

I'm thinking Spain on continents is a real advantage. Spain on Pangea does not seem to get the same results.
 
I am actually interested in seeing "control" games using the conventional wisdom, plus "experiment" games using wide empires or avoiding Piety (or both, since they seem to go well together). I just posted an identical challenge with comments to that effect; I will ask the moderators to merge the two threads.
 
Yes, let's not limit ourselves to specific culture path.

Shall we specify Napoleon as the leader? For the sake of medals :).
 
I did recommend Napoleon in my thread for those seeking medals, even though the overall challenge is open to whatever folks think will fare the best.
 
Alright, i'll go with Napoleon for now. He seems strong enough :).
 
spain on any map where the GBR or uluru can show up breaks stuff.

why would you avoid the piety tree? is the implication that rationalism should somehow be better? +33% culture and -10% cost early from piety seem somehow better than getting to broadcast towers (+33%) and cristo redentor (-10% cost) sooner, so i'm not sure how that's even a consideration.

if you want comparable results everyone should just play as napolean. the game plays quite differently with siam or korea
 
vexing said:
spain on any map where the GBR or uluru can show up breaks stuff.

why would you avoid the piety tree? is the implication that rationalism should somehow be better? +33% culture and -10% cost early from piety seem somehow better than getting to broadcast towers (+33%) and cristo redentor (-10% cost) sooner, so i'm not sure how that's even a consideration.

if you want comparable results everyone should just play as napolean. the game plays quite differently with siam or korea
Click to expand...

I played quite a few starts on pangea and continents with Spain and found that the continents script can give a wonder in range where you can easily grab the tile with city 2, which you just bought. The pangea script does not place wonder the same way. But, lets just leave Spain out of it.

The hypothesis is that you should be able to finish at the same time (~t250) by taking a rationalism approach and using the second half of the tech tree instead of Piety for a culture win.
 
What counts as a 'wide' empire ? Tall is usually ~4 cities for the tradition tree.

Is wide something less than ICS but larger than 4 cities ? That's quite a large range to call 'wide'.

cas
 
Thanks, Ozbenno! I edited my original post to remove the redundant parts.

vexing said:
why would you avoid the piety tree? is the implication that rationalism should somehow be better? +33% culture and -10% cost early from piety seem somehow better than getting to broadcast towers (+33%) and cristo redentor (-10% cost) sooner, so i'm not sure how that's even a consideration.
Click to expand...

Basic reasoning is this: We discovered some interesting mathematical properties of culture production. Specifically, we found that there are no diminishing returns for founding more cities, culturally speaking. Instead, there is simply a point in the game where it helps to have as many cities as possible, and another point where you need as few cities as possible. The Reformation policy adds a third state, where it helps to have as many cities as possible, but only if they have a wonder.

I got to wondering whether you could do better overall by ignoring the crossover point and taking advantage in a way that helps culture indirectly, even if it doesn't beat the conventional Piety approach in an obvious way. Science and conquest are two things that benefit from wide empires, and they can potentially benefit overall culture. The question: Is it enough?

cas said:
What counts as a 'wide' empire ? Tall is usually ~4 cities for the tradition tree.

Is wide something less than ICS but larger than 4 cities ? That's quite a large range to call 'wide'.
Click to expand...

For this experiment, I am thinking of anything wider than the conventional 3-4 cities for culture victories, but especially ICS empires. I have personally won an ICS culture game, but it was not fast.
 
Science and conquest are two things that benefit from wide empires, and they can potentially benefit overall culture.
Click to expand...

Problem with settling more than 3-5 cities is that you won't open enough early policies, also you won't be able to build most wonders you really want, cause you'll have 7 size 6 cities by turn 100, instead of having something like this:

Spoiler :


While having a strong core you can quickly annexe another 4-5 cities by means of war and really start swimming in culture and cash.

Early archers are much more valuable than settlers in that sense - they will get you size 4-5 cities with some infrastructure around turns 100-150.

Sure, you might be able win in 250-260 turns with Rationalism. For real fast times you need Piety though.
 
Moriarte said:
Problem with settling more than 3-5 cities is that you won't open enough early policies, also you won't be able to build most wonders you really want, cause you'll have 7 size 6 cities by turn 100, instead of having something like this....
Click to expand...

I understand the problem with wonders (although even ICS approaches mitigate that by keeping 1-3 strong, core cities). I don't understand what you mean about early policies, though – that's exactly where rapid expansion is strongest for culture.

Speaking of which, for this challenge it would be useful to keep track of city and policy timing, so we can see where the actual slowdowns are, if any.
 
Well, I just tried one but my growth was real low so by t130 I still hadnt opened Rationalism. Missed GL and did not have the pop for specialists when unis came. For pacing, i think you want only your cap and the free city until you get the NC, hopefully around t50 to 60. Then get more cities.

I went Tradition opener, left Liberty, Legalism for 3 free Amps and then closed Liberty aroung t80 or 85. Chose a prophet which was wrong. Religion never took off. Took rep last. Should have closed it with the happy policy instead and taken rep 5th.

A lot went wrong.
 
By early policies i meant everything before freedom. If you take Representation and Reformation early, compound that with a natural golden age, you can have 45 turns of golden age starting from about turn 100. (if you can manage it right) As a result, one can fill tradition, representation, full piety and 3-4 in patronage before entering freedom.

I doubt ICS can show better result during pre-freedom period, even with France. After you finish Freedom (with your strategy) you'll be faced with more policies to finish off, and each next policy will be more expensive (without piety) since you have so many cities.

Sure, at some point Broadcast towers and CR will kick in, but it looks to me there is a huge gap with no culture to fill it.
 
If you are going to go for a Rationalism culture finish, you want slower policy development in the early game, not faster. You'd want your science to slam forward to Renaissance before you had to fill too many policies in, and THEN fill up Rationalism ASAP.

Personally, I don't think it's comparable to Piety though. Losing the GA and 10% policy bonus isn't worth it. Perhaps a case can be made for filling rationalism and then switching to Piety near the end when you'd gotten as far down the tech tree as you need to, but even then, I feel Piety is better.

Also, I'm a big fan of Darius as a culture civ. I can usually go perma-GA around turn 90-100 with Darius, and that really helps in the long run.
 
BWS said:
For this experiment, I am thinking of anything wider than the conventional 3-4 cities for culture victories, but especially ICS empires. I have personally won an ICS culture game, but it was not fast.
Click to expand...


ICS or not, I think piety beats rationalism. 10% cheaper policies, 33% more culture in at least your capital are really big benefits. I don't think it's a question of traditional 3-4 city piety vs wide rationalism, but a question of 3-4 city vs wide (which is the interesting one to me) and a question of piety v rationalism (which I think is one-sided, regardless of number of cities)
 
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