A few questions

[Easycompany68]

Im just playing my 3rd game and slowling getting the hang of things.....I've been reading posts on various boards and got some good info but now I need some clarification on things.

Currently Im into "cultural victory"... I'm playing on king..

What I know so far is that although theres no "right" answer, the consensus is that 3-4 cities is the ideal amount for cultural due to the increase in cultural for each city you have. (1 or 2 is also good)

I read that a nice looking game is 3-4 cities with 3-4 city states as puppets (again, probably a matter of opinion).

1) If you puppet a city state then does it continue to act and build buildings as it would have if you just left it alone and became friends/ally's with it? The reason is becuaes would i be better off taking over a "cultural" city state because it would have a higher cultural output as opposed to taking over another type of city state?

2) If theres a militaristic city state near me and I freind/ally with it, it will give me troops every so often but will it continue to do that if I take it over and puppet it? Keeping it friendly would also cost me a lot of gold since i'm not taking the patornage policy line.

3) Is there a rule of thumb on how many troops you should have in a city (per city) to avoid being attacked by other Civ's....it seems that always attack...even ones that are friendly the turn before and then all of a sudden attack.. I've been caught off guard a few times and so I decided that i have to make sure I build a few more then just 1 archer per city..

4) Since it seems you always get attacked by a CIv, should i just eliminate a Civ that is near me ASAP.....? Again, I read posts about games in which the player says they literally didnt get into a single battle with a Civ. I don't know how to pull that off? I try bulding embassy, try offering freindship, i even gave some gold a coupld of times to strugling CIv's...still get attacked..lol Maybe its my face they don't like..lol

5) Should i focus on religion...is it somthing that makes a difference in the game...having followers, does it really play a role in the outcome...? Any info on what religion is useful for and how to use it?

6) In my second game I got a great sceintist for 1000 religion points..in my 3rd game i only got the option for Great prophets or building people to spread religion. How come i can't use relgion to buy a great scientist? Can it be a building i had build in my other game? I was babylon...

7) Any cultural tips, info, anything would be good to know.

 

[Zezima]

I imagine that what you read meant to say that 3-4 cities with 3-4 city state allies is a good setup for culture. If you puppet a city state (via military capture or diplomatic marriage), it acts as any regular city would as a puppet: the city governor continues to build buildings, it doesn't increase social policy cost, and you continue to reap the benefits of the city. In this case you no longer reap the benefits of the city state, so if it was cultural you do not receive it's culture. In order to receive the CS benefits, you need to befriend/ally them.

3) For number of troops, there really is no algorithm to determine the optimal number of units to defend yourself with, especially since it varies with difficulty level. Instead, you can open the demographics screen and compare military strength there. If you are low on military strength and have some aggressive or guarded neighbors, you can expect an attack to come soon.

4) Eliminating a nearby civ immediately isn't always the best approach. Sometimes getting your infrastructure up and running is more important, especially in a culture game. When going culture, I suggest you play more defensively by building up 2 or 3 cities while also keeping your military up to date. When war comes to you, then you can take the opportunity to nab puppets or eliminate opponents.

5) Of course religion makes a difference, that's why it is there . Especially on king, you have a great shot at getting decent religious beliefs. And there are several of them that complement culture games well (Cathedrals, World Church, and Religious Art come to mind).

6) Great people can be bought with faith once you reach the industrial age. The caveat is that the great people you can choose from are determined by the social policies you have adopted. Rationalism gives you access to great scientists, etc. If you hover over the policy tracks in the social policy screen, you can see which GPs are unlocked with which policies.

7) The social policy path I generally take in culture games goes like this. Open with Tradition. Get Representation in Liberty as soon as practically possible. Beeline Religious Tolerance in Piety. Finish Piety before Freedom becomes available if possible. Once Freedom is available, finish it ASAP. Fill in other policies until Utopia is available, prioritizing culture boosting ones (I usually go Honor last for Military Caste).

Other advice is to try to ally cultural CSes as much as possible. Great wonders for culture games are the Oracle, Sistine Chapel, Louvre, and if you can get them Chichen Itza and Alhambra. Terracotta Army is nice but becomes significantly less so with every city you settle.

Make landmarks with every great artist you get before finishing Freedom, use them to produce golden ages afterwards. Make sure all landmarks and %culture boosting buildings (Hermitage, Alhambra) are in the same city (usually your capital).

 

[Browd]

1) If you puppet a city state then does it continue to act and build buildings as it would have if you just left it alone and became friends/ally's with it? The reason is becuaes would i be better off taking over a "cultural" city state because it would have a higher cultural output as opposed to taking over another type of city state?

No. A cultural CS will almost always provide more culture as a friend or ally than it would as a puppeted city. Puppets remain on gold focus and prioritize gold and defensive buildings (they will eventually build culture and science buildings, but get a 25% haircut on culture and science output, and you can't control what they build and what specialist slots they work).

2) If theres a militaristic city state near me and I freind/ally with it, it will give me troops every so often but will it continue to do that if I take it over and puppet it? Keeping it friendly would also cost me a lot of gold since i'm not taking the patornage policy line.

No. If you conquer the city and annex it, you can instruct it to produce units (like any other city), but no freebies.

3) Is there a rule of thumb on how many troops you should have in a city (per city) to avoid being attacked by other Civ's....it seems that always attack...even ones that are friendly the turn before and then all of a sudden attack.. I've been caught off guard a few times and so I decided that i have to make sure I build a few more then just 1 archer per city..

Most common advice is to check Demographics from time to time and try to stay in the middle of the pack on military. Also, archers lose their impact fairly early -- keep them upgraded contemporaneously with the AI.

4) Since it seems you always get attacked by a CIv, should i just eliminate a Civ that is near me ASAP.....? Again, I read posts about games in which the player says they literally didnt get into a single battle with a Civ. I don't know how to pull that off? I try bulding embassy, try offering freindship, i even gave some gold a coupld of times to strugling CIv's...still get attacked..lol Maybe its my face they don't like..lol

Conquer early may be an option - depends on map, difficulty level, and how quickly you and they are developing. When [possible, have them attack you, destroy their invading forces and then march on their cities.

5) Should i focus on religion...is it somthing that makes a difference in the game...having followers, does it really play a role in the outcome...? Any info on what religion is useful for and how to use it?

Again, it depends on the map, difficulty level, what civ you are playing, who your neighbors are, etc. Check out the Religion articles in the War Academy sub-forum of the Strategy & Tactics forum.

6) In my second game I got a great sceintist for 1000 religion points..in my 3rd game i only got the option for Great prophets or building people to spread religion. How come i can't use relgion to buy a great scientist? Can it be a building i had build in my other game? I was babylon...

To buy a GS with faith you need to (A) be in the Industrial Era and (B) have opened Rationalism. Each type of Great Person (other than Great Prophet) is opened by a particular tree - GS = Rationalism, GA = Freedom, GM = Commerce, GE = Order and GG/GAdm = Autocracy.

 

[dopingman]

Im just playing my 3rd game and slowling getting the hang of things.....I've been reading posts on various boards and got some good info but now I need some clarification on things.

Currently Im into "cultural victory"... I'm playing on king..

What I know so far is that although theres no "right" answer, the consensus is that 3-4 cities is the ideal amount for cultural due to the increase in cultural for each city you have. (1 or 2 is also good)

I read that a nice looking game is 3-4 cities with 3-4 city states as puppets (again, probably a matter of opinion).

1) If you puppet a city state then does it continue to act and build buildings as it would have if you just left it alone and became friends/ally's with it? The reason is becuaes would i be better off taking over a "cultural" city state because it would have a higher cultural output as opposed to taking over another type of city state?

2) If theres a militaristic city state near me and I freind/ally with it, it will give me troops every so often but will it continue to do that if I take it over and puppet it? Keeping it friendly would also cost me a lot of gold since i'm not taking the patornage policy line.

3) Is there a rule of thumb on how many troops you should have in a city (per city) to avoid being attacked by other Civ's....it seems that always attack...even ones that are friendly the turn before and then all of a sudden attack.. I've been caught off guard a few times and so I decided that i have to make sure I build a few more then just 1 archer per city..

4) Since it seems you always get attacked by a CIv, should i just eliminate a Civ that is near me ASAP.....? Again, I read posts about games in which the player says they literally didnt get into a single battle with a Civ. I don't know how to pull that off? I try bulding embassy, try offering freindship, i even gave some gold a coupld of times to strugling CIv's...still get attacked..lol Maybe its my face they don't like..lol

5) Should i focus on religion...is it somthing that makes a difference in the game...having followers, does it really play a role in the outcome...? Any info on what religion is useful for and how to use it?

6) In my second game I got a great sceintist for 1000 religion points..in my 3rd game i only got the option for Great prophets or building people to spread religion. How come i can't use relgion to buy a great scientist? Can it be a building i had build in my other game? I was babylon...

7) Any cultural tips, info, anything would be good to know.

1) You are not supposed to puppet them, you should Ally them. Killing CSs is bad and doesn't appeal to other CS and AIs. Expect some DoWs if you do so.

2) No. Patronage is a strong Policy for Cultural Vic if combined with pledge to protect. Use this to your advantage.

3) Early on 1 archer type unit is enough per city, I usually go with 2 and then attack the enemy after they DoW'ed me and I killed their expeditionary forces, in the long run your military should have 10-15 units.

4) Always go after their cities. You can sell them back for cash after they have money again, add them to your empire or just burn them to the ground. The AI will always DoW you, no matter what you do. Hate it, but you have to live with it.

5) Pantheon is always useful, but a Religion is either hit or miss. Either you found one early or you can scrap on getting one altogether.

6) You can buy GS with faith after you opened up Rationalism, considering you want a culture vic you should go Piety and those two Policies lock each other out.

Edit: Darn, beaten by Browd

 

[Easycompany68]

Thank you (all 3 of you) for your answers. Very informative, some stuff i kinda knew and other info really opened my eyes..

I actually never knew you can check the "demographics"...lol

I'm currently 5th out of 6th and the 6th guys is about to get taken over by me..lol so i guess that's why he's 6th..lol

I"m wondering what they look at for the calculations cuase I have basically an awsome capital and 2nd city, (3rd city is a capitcal i just took). I'm producing a ton, got 4 tiles that have about 10-12 resources being pumped out (faith, culture ones). I'm at turn 210 and i'm producing 140ish culture and that's without having the culture buildings ticked off...i have opera houses in all 3 buildings so i can get probably about another 30-40culture right now but then production and gold drop while i build important buildings. I'm really wondering why they have me at the last spot for all of the categories..lol i'll have to google how they look at that..


In terms of the 3-4 cities and 3-4city states taken over...the post i read said 3-4 CS as puppets....not friends/ally's.... So is that bad? Should i go for freind/ally with them? I would have to open up patronage and change my plan completely?

 

[Zezima]

There really is almost no reason you would ever want to puppet a CS through conquest in a culture game unless one nearby you has Fountain of Youth in its borders or something. Conquering a CS in any game is pretty rare for me, unless I am playing Mongols, which is also rare.

Patronage isn't a necessity for holding lots of CS allies, in fact most of the Patronage policies won't do much for you in terms of culture. The opener alone is enough to just save you a decent amount of gold during the course of the game, and it isn't uncommon for me to just take it while I am waiting for Rationalism to open.

If you've got a big treasury to spend, Philanthropy is a no-brainer by giving you even more spending power for city state influence. If you don't see yourself spending lots on influence, Aesthetics + pledging to protect will get you friendship status with every CS. Enemy spies rigging elections can sometimes impact this, and if some very aggressive civs are in your game you will find them telling you that they bullies your CSes pretty often, which can impact your diplomacy.

Besides that, I don't really see anything in Patronage that catches my eye for a culture game (this is typically why I forgo it for Honor, there is nothing in Patronage that inherently boosts raw culture output). Educated Elite looks amazing on paper, but in practice I find that it only gets me 3 or 4 extra GPs per game, and half are usually GGs/GAds.

If you are finding it hard to maintain influence, look at other city state quests and see if there are civs you can trade with for luxes, barb camps to eliminate, or civs to find. A helpful tip in the early game is to hold off on finding or buying civ embassies until a CS asks you to. Quick and easy influence.

The thing about civ is that you are never going to use the same strategy for every game, and you certainly should never plan to do so. You might find that Siam, Greece, and India are in a game that you planned to go hardcore Patronage, which throws a serious kink in your plan. Siam especially makes a conscious effort to finish Patronage fairly quickly, and it counteracts the bonus you get from the opener.

So to answer your original question, albeit a little long-winded , going Patronage may not be necessary at all, but you should try to ally every single cultural city state you can. Once you get Mandate of Heaven, mercantile CSes can help a little too, as well as religious.

And of course this is just with culture games in mind.

 

[Novalia]

The reason puppets are beneficial is they are good gold producing cities. After you research guilds be sure to build trading posts everywhere including hills. The city will only work gold producing tiles (unless it will starve itself).

Be sure to fill the artist slots in your culture buildings (amphitheater, opera house, etc) to help produce great artists. Build gardens and the national epic to speed up great person generation.