A strategy for consistent cultural wins on Monarch
- Thread starter walkerjks
- Start date
.
Drunken Master
Chieftain
- Joined
- Nov 16, 2005
- Messages
- 2
I tried a cultural pursuit with this article in mind with Gandhi on a pangea map, everything standard, seven civs on Immortal.
I ended up losing to space race in 1898, with only 4-5 turns to a cultural win, but two of my cities had way over 60 000 culture points. I found that I had chosen the wrong city as my third culture city. I had four religions (one of my own, one from normal spread and two from missionarys), and nine cities giving four cathedral buildings in all my culture cities.
Playing with Gandhi and early access to marble gave me lots of early wonders (Stonehenge, The Oracle, Sistine Chapel, Taj Mahal and more), but that only made my great people almost all turn out to be prophets, so that is not a very good thing I guess.
Just to see if it was possible to win (which I was very sure it was considering my bad choice of third city and other mistakes) I did a reload and chose another city as the third city, somehow this time the AI kept attacking me so I reloaded even further back and started to build more military. This approach slowed me a lot, but the warmongering AIs were obviously slowed even more fighting amongst each other so I ended up with a cultural win in the 1940s. This time I had fully developed SIX religions in my culture citys, so 6 cathedral buildings in all. The biggest culture producing city (the one with all the wonders) was pumping out way over 1000 culture points per turn.
Just wanted to say thanks to a great post by walkerjks and say that a cultural win using more or less this strategy is VERY POSSIBLE on Immortal. Even without a financial/creative/philosophical leader.
I ended up losing to space race in 1898, with only 4-5 turns to a cultural win, but two of my cities had way over 60 000 culture points. I found that I had chosen the wrong city as my third culture city. I had four religions (one of my own, one from normal spread and two from missionarys), and nine cities giving four cathedral buildings in all my culture cities.
Playing with Gandhi and early access to marble gave me lots of early wonders (Stonehenge, The Oracle, Sistine Chapel, Taj Mahal and more), but that only made my great people almost all turn out to be prophets, so that is not a very good thing I guess.
Just to see if it was possible to win (which I was very sure it was considering my bad choice of third city and other mistakes) I did a reload and chose another city as the third city, somehow this time the AI kept attacking me so I reloaded even further back and started to build more military. This approach slowed me a lot, but the warmongering AIs were obviously slowed even more fighting amongst each other so I ended up with a cultural win in the 1940s. This time I had fully developed SIX religions in my culture citys, so 6 cathedral buildings in all. The biggest culture producing city (the one with all the wonders) was pumping out way over 1000 culture points per turn.
Just wanted to say thanks to a great post by walkerjks and say that a cultural win using more or less this strategy is VERY POSSIBLE on Immortal. Even without a financial/creative/philosophical leader.
LeSphinx
Bachogwa
Drunken Master, when this occur, you have to use spy (by constructing the Scotland yar before) and send them around the world or just in the foregn civ most advanced. Then, you can sabatage his work in the space ship in order to achieved your cultural win.
I've done it twice.
LeSphinx
I've done it twice.
LeSphinx
Drunken Master
Chieftain
- Joined
- Nov 16, 2005
- Messages
- 2
LeSphinx. Yes, that is a way, problem is I would have to research Astronomy or Chemisty plus Scientifit Method plus Communism before I could even build Scotland Yard. That is at least 15 turns of extra non-100% culture slider. Plus I would have to devote 10% or so to gold to be able to fund the spys activites, which would make te culture victory another couple of turns further away. Do you think (lots of) spys are capable of delaying a space race by as much as 15 or 20 turns? And it was not just one AI that was building SS life support etc...
LeSphinx
Bachogwa
Lot of spies: your are limited to 4 spys.
When I used one 2 times, it delay much more than 15 or 20 turns.
I do not remenber how much time but the space **** component are long to construct so It can help.
As soon as you notice a civ is constructing some space ship component, building is a must have even if you have to improve your research rate and slow down your cultural rate!
LeSphinx
When I used one 2 times, it delay much more than 15 or 20 turns.
I do not remenber how much time but the space **** component are long to construct so It can help.
As soon as you notice a civ is constructing some space ship component, building is a must have even if you have to improve your research rate and slow down your cultural rate!
LeSphinx
kobo1d
Chieftain
I used a strategy based on this and it worked for me!
Prince/Standard/Lakes/Elizabeth/All victories
Won in 1970! The tough part was disrupting space race and holding off highly advanced militaristic civs.
The solution to both is mad diplomacy skills. Bribe the science civs into fighting the military civs. While you huddle down and wait for the culture win.
Tough victory, but very fun!
Prince/Standard/Lakes/Elizabeth/All victories
Won in 1970! The tough part was disrupting space race and holding off highly advanced militaristic civs.
The solution to both is mad diplomacy skills. Bribe the science civs into fighting the military civs. While you huddle down and wait for the culture win.
Tough victory, but very fun!
popsicledeath
Chieftain
- Joined
- Nov 11, 2005
- Messages
- 9
Thanks for the post and subsequent posts. I love cultural victory (and dimplomatic to a lesser extent) as it's imo a very hard way to win because of the risks and chances that have to be taken. The thing that drives me nuts, and this really goes for all victories late in the game, is the scoring system is out of whack. There was somebody here asking what a typical score is so I figured I'd add the stats from my second cultural victory (never completed one though have played half games several times):
I was playing as Catherine of Russia (my normal civ as I speak Russian some and love that they have actual Russian voice, is a good cultural victory civ luckily too). Settings were continents, normal speed, monarch difficulty, small map, against all pretty non aggresive civs (inca, egypt, arabia, germany/fred, and one other I think, didn't see most civs until very late) (good and bad, won't steamroll you militarily but sometimes outdistance too far in tech and make it hard to win). I didn't get into any war but people were getting pissed at me late. Got two religions, but founded none.
final stats were 6889 score with an in game score of 1835 (was second to last). I won in 1920 AD and thought it would show up in the final stats page but didn't so I can only estimate to making around 11 great artists (and one engineer that rushed a wonder related to great artistry).
I was on a continent with Frederick of Germany and had only 5 cities until around 1100ad when a nicely placed barb city converted by culture (my military was that weak heh) and then a decent germany coverted a bit later. I converted 2 or 3 crappy cities and just gifted them to the highscoring civs to cripple them slightly as they spent alot of time in rebellion.
I only saved and reloaded a few times when my buggy mouse made me click things I didn't mean to (like the time very late in the game my mouse froze them came to while in control of a great artist only to research monarchy for me instead of doing a masterpiece thingy); just added this to clarify it wasn't a trial and error "perfect" game.
It wasn't the best game in the world, but should give some of the people wondering about typical games happenings and scores and such some perspective.
The pisser is it was my 4th highest score on monarch level and was well behind my 51k+ 900AD domination victory on duel size map despite being one of the harder games I've played. The scoring system really frustrates me.
Gonna go up a difficulty level and see what I've learned from my first completed cultural game and all the goodness of this thread
The real question is why I'm so passionate about cultural and diplomatic wins and completely despise warmongering... think maybe I'm just a sissy >_<
I was playing as Catherine of Russia (my normal civ as I speak Russian some and love that they have actual Russian voice, is a good cultural victory civ luckily too). Settings were continents, normal speed, monarch difficulty, small map, against all pretty non aggresive civs (inca, egypt, arabia, germany/fred, and one other I think, didn't see most civs until very late) (good and bad, won't steamroll you militarily but sometimes outdistance too far in tech and make it hard to win). I didn't get into any war but people were getting pissed at me late. Got two religions, but founded none.
final stats were 6889 score with an in game score of 1835 (was second to last). I won in 1920 AD and thought it would show up in the final stats page but didn't so I can only estimate to making around 11 great artists (and one engineer that rushed a wonder related to great artistry).
I was on a continent with Frederick of Germany and had only 5 cities until around 1100ad when a nicely placed barb city converted by culture (my military was that weak heh) and then a decent germany coverted a bit later. I converted 2 or 3 crappy cities and just gifted them to the highscoring civs to cripple them slightly as they spent alot of time in rebellion.
I only saved and reloaded a few times when my buggy mouse made me click things I didn't mean to (like the time very late in the game my mouse froze them came to while in control of a great artist only to research monarchy for me instead of doing a masterpiece thingy); just added this to clarify it wasn't a trial and error "perfect" game.
It wasn't the best game in the world, but should give some of the people wondering about typical games happenings and scores and such some perspective.
The pisser is it was my 4th highest score on monarch level and was well behind my 51k+ 900AD domination victory on duel size map despite being one of the harder games I've played. The scoring system really frustrates me.
Gonna go up a difficulty level and see what I've learned from my first completed cultural game and all the goodness of this thread
The real question is why I'm so passionate about cultural and diplomatic wins and completely despise warmongering... think maybe I'm just a sissy >_<
ÆnigmÆffect
Warlord
Curious:
If you have a "specialist farm" city, won't that city have a lot of culture purely from the amount of artists? If so, would that city be a good candidate for one of the "3"? If you rush a few cathedrals there, having 6 artists has a base of 6 x 16? 14? x cathedrals and free speech, so a base of something like 300 culture/turn, and some commerce with culture slider will probably pop it up to 4 or 500... AND it's generating culture during the whole game (if that becomes its purpose)...
Any thoughts on this?
If you have a "specialist farm" city, won't that city have a lot of culture purely from the amount of artists? If so, would that city be a good candidate for one of the "3"? If you rush a few cathedrals there, having 6 artists has a base of 6 x 16? 14? x cathedrals and free speech, so a base of something like 300 culture/turn, and some commerce with culture slider will probably pop it up to 4 or 500... AND it's generating culture during the whole game (if that becomes its purpose)...
Any thoughts on this?
popsicledeath
Chieftain
- Joined
- Nov 11, 2005
- Messages
- 9
My specialist/greatperson city was my most cultured city and my capital. I didn't intend this, but I started near floodplains with gold I think it was near there. I actually didn't build farms like I normally would and just built cottages so that one city was actually my most cultured, generated nearly all my great artists and also brought in the most amount of cash. Think about the strategy, but keep in mind you may have to addapt it.
Most of the time when you're playing a cultural victory you'll be woefully behind in points, especially late when you turn the meter up to as much culture as you can get as you will no longer be gaining new techs. This is one of the reasons it's fun and challenging though, you'll pretty much always feel like the underdog. My advice is to make friends.
~~~
I have a question for more advanced civ4 players: ever used slavery, even mid game. The population hit didn't seem all that bad if you've got large cities with graneries and alot of food. I was thinking maybe it would especially handy for the great person generating city that sometimes doesn't have the greatest hammer output. Usually, unless very unlucky and lacking any religion, I wouldn't see the unhappiness hit being an issue? Anyone have thoughts or experience with this? I wanna try it soon but won't be able to play for at least 3 days and am not always the best at implimenting and examining ideas.
Most of the time when you're playing a cultural victory you'll be woefully behind in points, especially late when you turn the meter up to as much culture as you can get as you will no longer be gaining new techs. This is one of the reasons it's fun and challenging though, you'll pretty much always feel like the underdog. My advice is to make friends.
~~~
I have a question for more advanced civ4 players: ever used slavery, even mid game. The population hit didn't seem all that bad if you've got large cities with graneries and alot of food. I was thinking maybe it would especially handy for the great person generating city that sometimes doesn't have the greatest hammer output. Usually, unless very unlucky and lacking any religion, I wouldn't see the unhappiness hit being an issue? Anyone have thoughts or experience with this? I wanna try it soon but won't be able to play for at least 3 days and am not always the best at implimenting and examining ideas.
Just curious. Why do you have to stop researching completely?
Can't you just adjust the culture amount only for the 3 cities that you're targeting for the culture win?
Req
ED: Never mind. I just figured out that the slider in the city doesn't change it for individual cities but is exactly the same as the universal one.
Nothing to see here.... Move along.
Can't you just adjust the culture amount only for the 3 cities that you're targeting for the culture win?
Req
ED: Never mind. I just figured out that the slider in the city doesn't change it for individual cities but is exactly the same as the universal one.
Nothing to see here.... Move along
.You do not stop research totally, you just put the science to 0% and culture to 100% (or 80/90% if you have money problems).Requies said:
Since you use a lot of specialists, if you choose reprensentation (i always do, i see no reason to do differently), each of them will give you science. Many monasteries, universities and so on, so your science input is not so low.
The main point i have encountered is the difficulty to have artist, most of my GP are scientists/prophets, because i don't see early means to have more than 2 artists specialists (except for some wonders) with theater, you have to go radio to have more :/
I managed to win culturally using this excellent guide trought prince and monarch, on the last i was even first on ladder but with an excellent territory (china on earth 1000 AD scenario). Nevertheless, prophets profusion was a difficult point to manage. I used them to make specialists to help culture cities to produce, but aftermath i wonder if it would not have been more efficient to limit cityies growth as to use only 3 specialists, so with a majority of artists.
Being very strong on religion is not the better way, maybe, but in another hand it is really useful for cash and to not allow too much cash for the ia.
popsicledeath
Chieftain
- Joined
- Nov 11, 2005
- Messages
- 9
theatres and some wonders if I'm really trying usually get me to caste system (i think is name) with a couple great artists. Once I get caste system I crank up full great artist production, which also helps alot with culture of that city, which is often my capital (seems the starting location system is good about providing food resources for me), which means my capital/great person city is very often one of my culture cities. Makes the other cities jealous being my capital often does so much, but works for me. I guess a one sentence response could have been: "I don't make very many great artists before caste system, at which point I crank them out as best as possible.
My next game I'm planning on turning 3 cities into great artist generation (aka burn some cottages for farms) somewhere between caste system and culture bomb time to see how badly it straps me as it's great for culture gain and I think can more efficient if you've got 6-9 cities. Not sure what's better for culture alone, all farms and artist specialists/gp production or all cottages with maybe a specialist or two.
My next game I'm planning on turning 3 cities into great artist generation (aka burn some cottages for farms) somewhere between caste system and culture bomb time to see how badly it straps me as it's great for culture gain and I think can more efficient if you've got 6-9 cities. Not sure what's better for culture alone, all farms and artist specialists/gp production or all cottages with maybe a specialist or two.
Wodan
Deity
Couple of thoughts. Overall great advice and extremely useful.
-----------------------------
Being a little too focused can be "double or nothing".
Game I just won yesterday with cultural victory, early on I specifically went out of my way to get mounted archers, because two of my neighbors were aggressive and I had this itch they'd be coming in a few hundred years. Sure enough, and those units not only kept me alive, they allowed me to wipe out the incoming stacks. This will set back an aggressive AI quite a bit, because he'll then redirect most of his cities to rebuild his military (taking away from his science and economic advancement and effectively setting back his infrastructure).
Point is, these are great strategies, but I think it's important to be flexible and to keep your eyes open. Simply following a "play book" is going to get you in trouble.
On the other hand, I think the general strategic advice is wonderful...
-------------------------------
Let's see, I had one other comment. Oh, yeah. Much was made of the choice between what would be the Big 3 cities. Very true. However, I daresay that the choice is not all THAT significant. Sure, make good choices, and don't pick them at game start, but it's not necessary to wait until the endgame either.
Let's say you pick them in early midgame. Say you get one of them "wrong", wrong meaning you make what turns out to be a suboptimal pick. You decide on a city that by endgame would be your 4th biggest cultural provider (instead of the 3rd). So what? The difference is a few culture points only. And, by popping a great artist in there as a Super, earlier, you get the benefit of XXX culture points that you otherwise wouldn't have. (The turns that he is in the city as a Super specialist instead of simply fortified in your capital as a Unit.)
So, this comes down to this: you choose "right", and you get the extra XXX free and clear. You choose "wrong", and you break even, no harm no foul. With this, I'd say there's no downside to picking your Big 3 earlier than suggested.
Wodan
-----------------------------
Being a little too focused can be "double or nothing".
Game I just won yesterday with cultural victory, early on I specifically went out of my way to get mounted archers, because two of my neighbors were aggressive and I had this itch they'd be coming in a few hundred years. Sure enough, and those units not only kept me alive, they allowed me to wipe out the incoming stacks. This will set back an aggressive AI quite a bit, because he'll then redirect most of his cities to rebuild his military (taking away from his science and economic advancement and effectively setting back his infrastructure).
Point is, these are great strategies, but I think it's important to be flexible and to keep your eyes open. Simply following a "play book" is going to get you in trouble.
On the other hand, I think the general strategic advice is wonderful...
-------------------------------
Let's see, I had one other comment. Oh, yeah. Much was made of the choice between what would be the Big 3 cities. Very true. However, I daresay that the choice is not all THAT significant. Sure, make good choices, and don't pick them at game start, but it's not necessary to wait until the endgame either.
Let's say you pick them in early midgame. Say you get one of them "wrong", wrong meaning you make what turns out to be a suboptimal pick. You decide on a city that by endgame would be your 4th biggest cultural provider (instead of the 3rd). So what? The difference is a few culture points only. And, by popping a great artist in there as a Super, earlier, you get the benefit of XXX culture points that you otherwise wouldn't have. (The turns that he is in the city as a Super specialist instead of simply fortified in your capital as a Unit.)
So, this comes down to this: you choose "right", and you get the extra XXX free and clear. You choose "wrong", and you break even, no harm no foul. With this, I'd say there's no downside to picking your Big 3 earlier than suggested.
Wodan
popsicledeath
Chieftain
- Joined
- Nov 11, 2005
- Messages
- 9
I agree with your bit about picking your big 3 cities, Wodan. One thing I've noticed on higher difficulties is that wonders really can't be relied on and that a cities culture is basically made when you decide it's going to be a city to plot cathedrals and national wonders into. My last game most of my somewhat old cities were pretty equal in the grand scheme of 50k culture (my capital slightly ahead, but the difference a drop in the bucket), I have no doubt I could have won similarly with any 6 of my main cities. I saved most of my great artists for the 4k punch, but next game I'm going to try to make more early and pick my big 3 very early as I'm pretty confident now in choosing based on terrain now.
Have won culture games on emperor level in each of the last two days at about 5 hours played for each. I've gotten pretty good at dodging wars when they would hurt most by learning to judge when a neighbor is getting antsy and flipping to their state religion until a different neighbor gets mad; you'll lose a few turns of anarchy, but at least won't get annihilated. With this method I usually maintain pacifism from when I get it until the end of the game paying no additional upkeep for units.
Winning culture victories on emp is becoming easy enough I'm almost thinking it's the easiest way to win on maps bigger then tiny (where of course domination/conquest isn't all that hard of wins).
Have won culture games on emperor level in each of the last two days at about 5 hours played for each. I've gotten pretty good at dodging wars when they would hurt most by learning to judge when a neighbor is getting antsy and flipping to their state religion until a different neighbor gets mad; you'll lose a few turns of anarchy, but at least won't get annihilated. With this method I usually maintain pacifism from when I get it until the end of the game paying no additional upkeep for units.
Winning culture victories on emp is becoming easy enough I'm almost thinking it's the easiest way to win on maps bigger then tiny (where of course domination/conquest isn't all that hard of wins).
I'm beginning to really like The Great Lighthouse (at least in games where your main three cities will be on the coast and you have sufficient excess forests to chop for it). My last game was pretty typical (Emperor difficulty, built 6 cities, won just after 1900 AD) and I kept track of the benefit of The Great Lighthouse at different stages of the game. In this game, The Great LIghthouse gave me around 2000 extra science (adjusted for libraries) before 1500 AD. That is allowed me to flip the culture switch about 12 to 15 turns earlier than I could have done without the Lighthouse. Of course, the cities aren't completely developed yet before 1500 AD, so each turn I flip early may only net me an additional 450 or so culture per turn (as opposed to 1350 culture/turn in 1850 AD). Still, 12 turns @ 450 culture/turn = 5400 extra culture. Plus, I can start building Cavalry or Cossacks that much sooner.
Once I flipped the culture switch, the extra trade routes generated an extra 3000 base culture (before bonuses) in my core 3 cities. This meant an extra 9000 or so total culture spread between those 3 cities.
So I figure in a game where your 3 core cities are on the coast, The Great Lighthouse is worth somewhere in the neighborhood of 14,400 extra culture.
Once I flipped the culture switch, the extra trade routes generated an extra 3000 base culture (before bonuses) in my core 3 cities. This meant an extra 9000 or so total culture spread between those 3 cities.
So I figure in a game where your 3 core cities are on the coast, The Great Lighthouse is worth somewhere in the neighborhood of 14,400 extra culture.
Merzbow
Disrecognized Space
- Joined
- Nov 10, 2005
- Messages
- 450
I keep getting my ass handed to me trying this strategy if I'm surrounded by neighbors. Dead simple if I'm alone or nearly alone on a continent. Otherwise, I find it impossible to prevent some neighbor from declaring on me - there just seems to be no way to keep everybody happy. With just 6-7 cities there is no way to keep a military and go for cultural victory at the same time. Now I'm on a Prince game as Alex where I mopped up my nearest neighbor by 1100 AD to get myself 15 cities, and am now going cultural. With 15 cities I can easily dedicate 5 or 6 to do nothing but pump units.
