My current game

I'm playing a warlord difficulty game as the Babylonians, and it is 820 AD. In this game I am testing this Culture Rush strategy (that's possibly a little outdated) by Clutch-3. If you don't feel like reading the strategy article, it basically says to build as many cities as possible using ICS-style, and then gold-rush culture-producing improvements as quickly as possible (and of course the goal is to acheive a culture victory). It also says that you should try to make lots of money by buying techs and selling them for profits, and use this money to rush culture buildings. Well, the problem is that in my game, all the AI civs barely have any money, and therefore AFAIK my only possible sources of money are domestic. This leads to several questions:

1. How should I try to make money, or should I not even worry about it (see following questions)?
2. Should I switch back to despotism and pop-rush instead of gold-rush? Unless I can somehow make lots of money, this would probably be best, since I could rush with just about as much effectiveness (which isn't that effective ), and I can up my science rate to normal. (Right now it is at 0%, with one scientist.)
3. Whether I stay in monarchy or go to despotism, or go to republic, is there any hope of getting a culture victory?
4. I am currently leading in score. Is this just because I have tons of cities, and when the AI's cities start to grow, will my lead decline and eventually go away? If not, I guess I could just try for a histograph victory.
5. What victory should I go for? Stay with culture? Histograph? Diplomatic? I doubt I would be able to go for spaceship, domination, or conquest.

Also, feel free to critique any parts of my game that need improvement. And to anyone who bothers helping me, thank you very, very much for your time.

Here's a screenshot of my game:



Here's a save of my game: Hammurabi_of_the_Babylonians,_750_AD.zip

Man, go willj! I read the stratgey a while ago, and it did seem pretty interesting. The only question I feel qualified to answer would be #5.

Go for the culture win.

(Ok, I admit, I love to see how the stategy works out while going for this type of win).

Good Luck!

willj: the money should come from taxes, after all your inner cities harld yneed defnders, right?

buy/sell isn't really an option anymore to make money - until you can tech-whore (research-sell) in the Industrial era.

You really should get the culture victory - maybe you will have to eliminate one or two civs though. Do try to get them all to go to war before they build cathedrals - the later they build them and universities the better for you.

It's on warlord: that means you can out-research the AI if you want. Make sure you have temples build, since cultural output doubles if they're 1000 years old (oh, your in 825 ad, so ignore that)
If you're high on culture, you should get some cities that flip to your side.

IMHO, (and without looking at the save game), it seems that you are too crowded in your core cities.

The idea (again IMHO) of culture by ICS is to leave your core cities with as much land as possible for as long as possible. The point is that once you have your core cities producing enough gold, you can start doing the ICS style layout outside your core city area. This enables you to carry on getting lots of gold while you rush buy your improvements in the ICS cities.

As you rush more improvments your g.p.t. goes down with all the upkeep you are paying, but if you time it right it works really well. After you run out of space for your cities, you can start filling in your core area (from the outside in, to minimise impact).

There is a real art to it, but the basics are easy.

From looking at your map, if you were to do it again, I would take more AI land, and build the ICS cities on the land you take.

As a guide, I tend to only be on about 3000 culture by the time I start my ICS layout. Untill then I play as though a domination game. At this point, science goes to 0 (with a scientist), and the gold pours in to my ICS cities. I usually am getting about 1500 culture per turn by the end, and it ususally takes about 80 turns to do this 'culture building' phase. This is an example on a standard map.

HTH for future attampts

Thanks everybody for your replies!

Originally posted by Lt. 'Killer' M.
willj: the money should come from taxes, after all your inner cities harld yneed defnders, right?

Click to expand...

Yes, but right now that isn't that much money, only about 75-80 gpt, which is about enough to rush one building a turn, which I don't think will be enough to get 100,000 culture in time. Do you have any suggestions for getting more gpt? And if not, I probably should switch back to despotism, bring my science rate back up, and pop-rush instead of gold-rush. Or is that not a good idea?

Originally posted by Shabbaman
It's on warlord: that means you can out-research the AI if you want.

Click to expand...

Yeah, but if I did that, I wouldn't be making nearly as much money, and I couldn't really sell any techs since the AI has almost no money.

Originally posted by anarres
IMHO, (and without looking at the save game), it seems that you are too crowded in your core cities.

The idea (again IMHO) of culture by ICS is to leave your core cities with as much land as possible for as long as possible. The point is that once you have your core cities producing enough gold, you can start doing the ICS style layout outside your core city area. This enables you to carry on getting lots of gold while you rush buy your improvements in the ICS cities.

As you rush more improvments your g.p.t. goes down with all the upkeep you are paying, but if you time it right it works really well. After you run out of space for your cities, you can start filling in your core area (from the outside in, to minimise impact).

There is a real art to it, but the basics are easy.

From looking at your map, if you were to do it again, I would take more AI land, and build the ICS cities on the land you take.

As a guide, I tend to only be on about 3000 culture by the time I start my ICS layout. Untill then I play as though a domination game. At this point, science goes to 0 (with a scientist), and the gold pours in to my ICS cities. I usually am getting about 1500 culture per turn by the end, and it ususally takes about 80 turns to do this 'culture building' phase. This is an example on a standard map.

HTH for future attampts

Click to expand...

Thanks, I guess I'll give this a try next time I go for a culture victory, since I can't really change my current game.

Originally posted by Lt. 'Killer' M.
You really should get the culture victory - maybe you will have to eliminate one or two civs though. Do try to get them all to go to war before they build cathedrals - the later they build them and universities the better for you.

Click to expand...

Hmm, I guess I'm a little scared to exit my culture-mode and enter the conquest path; that would probably set me back quite a bit. Do you really think it is worth it? Since it's on warlord, do you think other civs getting more than 50,000 culture is a threat?

Originally posted by Raijer
Man, go willj! I read the stratgey a while ago, and it did seem pretty interesting. The only question I feel qualified to answer would be #5.

Go for the culture win.

(Ok, I admit, I love to see how the stategy works out while going for this type of win).

Good Luck!

Click to expand...

Thanks! I'll need it...

Originally posted by Shabbaman
It's on warlord: that means you can out-research the AI if you want. Make sure you have temples build, since cultural output doubles if they're 1000 years old (oh, your in 825 ad, so ignore that)
If you're high on culture, you should get some cities that flip to your side.

Click to expand...

lol, i thought it was Cheiftain. you can't lose on warlord, the only thing you need is a couple good cities with production. You don't need all those cities, it takes a long time and corruption is so high. I tried this once (on my very 2nd game when i knew basically NOTHING) i had no military, and my cities produce so slowly that i could not even stop the cheiftain enemy from evading me! (it was at about 2020, my whole military was about 8 spearmans, 4 knights, and 2 horsemen lol) One thing I did have was strong culture. I never done somethign like this ever since then. I find it really annoying to play a game like yours.

Go for conquest, that is easiest victory for warlord. It your case, culture victory will be very possible too. Don't go for histograph victory, points are way too low. Since you play warlord, fliping cities is easy, just keep building cities and surround enemy cities!

OK, everyone, I'm back! I've decided that I'll switch back to despotism and pop-rush, and see how that goes. Other than that, I'll just play along like normal, and continue going for the culture victory (unless anyone has any suggestions). So now I'm off to play!...

Hey everyone, I'm back again. It is looking very bad: The English declared war on me, and allied with the Iroquois (sp?). Then the English ally with the Germans in the next turn. (I found out when I played on to the next turn and then quit without saving.) Both the Germans and Iroquois are right next to me, and their military is more technologically advanced than mine. None of them will accept my envoys, and it's starting to look grim. I might be able to buy Feudalism and then rush a bunch of pikemen (probably after some of my cities have been captured), but instead I've decided to quit, or at least for a while if someone convinces me to keep on playing. Also, if any of you want to play on, or want to help me out, here's the save:

Hammurabi_of_the_Babylonians,_960_ADwarwengandir2.sav

EDIT: I'm quiting mostly because I'm now interested in PTW MP games and Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit 2. Eventually I may go back to this game.

The problem in tech-brokering is that in lower levels of difficulty, the AI doesn't have much money...

Originally posted by gugalpm
The problem in tech-brokering is that in lower levels of difficulty, the AI doesn't have much money...

Click to expand...

Yep, and that's why I had to do pop-rushing instead of gold-rushing, which is going very well, although now I wish I had concentrated a bit more on my military.

WillJ, you may want to try switching to communism once you get it. Communism reduces corruption to the point where a good amount of gold can be earned each turn. Now, once you save up gold, switch back to republic or monarchy and rush-build w/ gold. Since Babylon is religious, this will be no burden at all. Or, you could pop-rush under communism. Also, under, say republic, you could set sliders @ 10-0-0 for several turns, earn gold and rush-build, then reset sliders for tech, repeat when appropriate.

It's Warlord Willy. You can do whatever you want and the AI is gonna pretty much give you the win. Go for Culture on Regent our Monarch and get back to us. Thanks! Remember to keep the slider going every turn!

willj
it doesn't look like you have too many roads, roads bring commerce and science. Get them lazy a$$ workers working!!

Edit: Oopsie, double post.

Hello everyone, I'm back again. After a little bit of playing some more I got caught up in stuff and stopped playing for a while, then I played for a couple of weeks, then I was just about to post an update, but my computer broke (don't know exactly what happened), and when I got it back all nice and fixed, the guy said I'd have to install everything again, but the files (saves, documents, etc.) should still be there. Well, that was true for some games, but I can't find any Civ3 saves. Looks like I'll have to start a new Civ game (this time with PTW).

And my game was going so well... *sigh*