adhiraj.bose
Deity
Has anyone attempted this and won it ? Because it seems quite impossible to accomplish.
^
|
Just checked if this is still the case. It is. Cultural victory gets achieved at about 2/3 of the total gameturns (easiest difficulty though).
City states is your friend.
Not really a guide, but I wrote down what I did under the spoiler tag to get to the cultural vicotry.
Spoiler :
(part1: preplay as Egypt)
difficulty heir
speed marathon
Start as egypt.
reason: on marathon 1 chariot is very strong for a very long time.
Found the city 1n of the starting location so you have acces to wheat.
Build a worker. Start researching animal husbandry for the chariot.
After the worker build warriors for happiness.
Research pottery next for cottages.
Build a road and a pasture on the horse (road can be prebuilt)
Rush the chariot asap.
Be unpossible Lucky (/reload) and capture Jerusalem and raze babylon.
(upgrade your chariot to march)
After you get march you are strong enough to beat the chinesese and greeks (raze both)
In the meantime cottage up your lands. Start with the stone and the marble (you want those wonders built by Rome, not Egypt) you will have one additional worker from babylon and one from China.
start researching Hinduism (meditation), Judaism (monotheism) and Zoroastrianism (monarchy).
(rush only the second settler)
Found Melpum/Mediolanum (spot) or Spalatum (spot) before you researched hinduism so hinduism gets foundend there.
Found Judaism in your capitol and Zoroastrianism in the third (final) city.
Faze both greek cities and make sure to lose Jerusalem and don't recapture Jeruisalem. Don't raze any more cities (you want to remain as stable as possible).
Send about 4 workers to Italy (I kept one to continue building cottages in Egypt, keeping two might have been better because you can't allow the roman cities to grow to big because of expansion stability penalties) and improve the lands (build pastures, quarries and roads).
ignore India, Phoenicia/Carthage and Persia.
Research mining and horsebackriding.
I didn't build a jewish missionary, but getting Judaism to Italy will help.
Switch to Rome.
(make sure to reach a city of yours that will flip to Rome the turn after you switched civilizations)
(part 2: Rome)
Rome will start Confucianism (mathematics).
Build a forge (don't be shy to chop it) and a granary in Rome. Afther that the great cothon. (along with the floating gardens that will be all the classical/pantheon wonders you will build in Rome)
Build forges (and granaries) in Mediolanum and Spolatum (they will have egyptian names though) and all the classical wonders. Keep enough forests for health around in your BFC (even number) but chop everything else. You want those wonders asap.
Before you start building wonders make sure to build (don't chop, that's a waste) a hindu temple so buddhism gets founded in Rome.
Research literature and construction before orthodoxy (theology will obsolete some of your wonders) and use the oracle to get divine right (obsoletes the great library)
All new religions will be founded in Rome.
Switch to buddhism to build the Shwedagon Paya (for the free religion civic) don't forget to trade with egypt.
Don't build any additional cities. Keep city states as a civic.
Use great prophets to found profitable shrines.
Settle great generals in Spalatum (so you can get better triremes against the barb navy)
divide the other great people over Spalatum and Mediolanum (Mediolanum needs them a little more)
After Shwedagon Paya build the Terracotta army (and the great wall) and you will need very few additional units to fend of the barbs.
France and Germany will start rather weak because you chopped so many of their forests so I advise you to vassalize them asap (I didn't and had to suffer suboptimal spots for Mediolanum and Spalatum for quite some time (eventually Byzantium and Germany vassalized peacefully)
big contributors to the culture are
...drumroll...
3. Himeji Castle
2. The Sistine Chapel
honorable mention: Blue Mosque
and 1. Wat Preah Pisnulok
(the synergy between shrines (great prophet) and city states (+1 for every citizen (so great persons net food)) and artist slots is very strong.)
Also Absolutism (civil service) helps a lot.
Even by the time I achieved the cultural victory (2/3 of the game) setteling great artists yielded a (much) better return on culture than creating great works (and they also provide additional gold and food).
Use conquerers to get your hands on corn and temporary switch back to pantheon for one additional 'classical' wonder for each of your 3 main cities.
And that is pretty much it.
Perhaps conquering 6 cities for a short time to get an additional golden age is worth it (it probably is) But I decided against it because I figured I wouldn't get much mileage out of the triumphal arc (even with absolutism Rome is non stop building buildings and wonders)
Rome got legendare at about half of the game and the other two cities at about 2/3.
I didn't mention national wonders (sofar), but they should be built at your discretion. (only the national galery and the opera house really matter, they would go to waste in your capitol (Rome) if you got the Blue Mosque there.)
A warchariot vs a fortified archer in Jerusalem is a chance of 41.3%.