Aesthetics---> Music Line

How do you handle the Aesthetics ---> Music Line?

  • I keep a monopoly on it, and build the GL/Go for Music

    Votes: 2 11.8%
  • Marbie/IND dependent

    Votes: 8 47.1%
  • Aim for Music/Trade Bait

    Votes: 6 35.3%
  • Trade Bait/Fail Gold

    Votes: 5 29.4%
  • It doesn't get me trebs or cannons, so I don't care

    Votes: 1 5.9%
  • I don't bother at all

    Votes: 1 5.9%
  • I can't trade with anyone. They're all dead.

    Votes: 1 5.9%
  • Other

    Votes: 3 17.6%

  • Total voters
    17

Archon_Wing

Vote for me or die
Joined
Apr 3, 2005
Messages
5,255
The decision to get aesthetics is always something that bothers me a bit. The free artist is nice and the AI often avoids this, but you also sometimes put off other good techs and then worst yet some culture AI ruins your parade.

Aesthetics also is good trade bait, but once you trade it away, you have competition to get to music.

So what's your typical policy?
 
Without marble I don't think it's a good idea to pursue that line, but with marble and planning a post-lib breakout, going aesth-lit-music is pretty good imo. Trade away when you are sure you can win music.
 
The Music gambit is primarily to get the free Great Artist for a well timed Golden age, which usually more than makes up for the diversion. Plus, Music can net you some decent trades. And if you can get a fast TGL to go along with that golden age. But yeah, as Sampsa said, it not always the best thing to do.
 
The Music gambit is primarily to get the free Great Artist for a well timed Golden age, which usually more than makes up for the diversion. Plus, Music can net you some decent trades. And if you can get a fast TGL to go along with that golden age. But yeah, as Sampsa said, it not always the best thing to do.

Isn't music also needed for military tradition and therefore cuirs, anyways?
 
That it is, though it's usually no problem to trade for Music if you don't get it yourself. Main reason to get Music is the Great Artist for a 'free' Golden Age. Of course, you can also use it to backfill a bunch of techs, and also some decently expensive ones if you trade Music+something.

If you have Marble, you can get a bunch of failgold from Sistine as well.

That said, it sucks to lose the race, as otherwise you could have been well on the way to CS (but in some games you can still win Music after getting CS).
 
Lately I have been learning the power of Pacifism and using trial and error to figure out bulb paths, so i usually do something like Aes>Lit>Drama while waiting on a GS and for the AIs to finally trade away Math. If I can't get a GS before Drama or the AIs won't trade Math because they are bastards about it as is their wont, I'll tech Philo instead of Music. Drama cheapens it and is more trade fodder to help get there. Ideally also getting the Music GA for either Golden Age or to help bulb Nationalism (requires a handy Prophet or extra Artist to get Divine Right out of the way, trade for Theology isn't too hard usually) before getting Lib finished up, but at this point can be forgone.

I don't really like the Great Library in general unless doing a "wonder capitol" type thing for GPP or if I have marble and I might as well snag it in the NE city as well. This is because I've been on such a strong Pacifism kick recently and will be sitting in Caste+Pac soon anyway after prioritizing Philo; the National Epic takes priority and especially so if I DON"T have marble. First 1-2 Scientists are also pretty easy with a simple Library city before Caste+Pac, especially if you're PHI as well. I'm sure it's not ideal or faster to do so, but I'm always learning in this game and I just love bulbing up through as much as I can until Lib is done (usually Paper, CS, Edu, maybe Nationalism), sometimes beyond (Printing Press on the way to Rifles, Guilds + Chemistry for the major workshop boost with Caste, etc)
 
It's different for me, I love the Great Library. You get almost 3 free scientists with it, and that really helps to get out GS, especially a little down the line when it takes a while without caste. The first GS is easy no matter what. Marble helps ofc. With that, I tend to try to put the GLib in the prospective National Epic city, preferably with chops, and then NE right after. If you happened to kill somebody early, their capital tends to be good place.
 
I'm a fan of tradebaiting, GLib, Failgold, and GA. There's another couple of options - 'I love a Culture game' (nothing wrong with GLib getting you two or three Academies whilst NE city adds Parthenon & SC culture & GApts - and sometimes an AI will even trade you Calendar when Mausoleum isn't built; with Marble/IND it's fairly doable in a potential Legendary city) and 'if neighbour has Marble/IND I'll teach him how to build awesome Wonders in exchange for him teaching me how to build Elepults'
 
2 or 3 academies :crazyeye:
 
I love the Music Artist. Free Golden Age. also its great trade bait later because nobody will go for it when you already got the Artist. On top of that you require it for Mil Tradition.
 
2 or 3 academies :crazyeye:

It's in a culture game, you're going to have 2 or 3 high commerce cities, giving them academies gets you to Lib faster and is like having an extra Town in each one when you crank up the Culture slider.
 
It's in a culture game, you're going to have 2 or 3 high commerce cities, giving them academies gets you to Lib faster and is like having an extra Town in each one when you crank up the Culture slider.
Bulbs are guaranteed to be better than the 2nd and 3rd academy if goal is fastest possible lib. But skipping Glib and not making those GScientists in the first place is probably better still if goal is fast culture victory. The last thing you want is a polluted GP pool.
 
That's why when you are pursuing this approach - especially if you've got Marble and IND or PHI - you put GLib in a core city other than the NE one. NE wants Parthenon, probably SC, maybe Taj, perhaps Mausoleum or Zeus in fringe circumstances; its GApts are managed so as to begin its pumping them out after the GSs have done their work, whereupon GLib continues to pump out 16 raw Culture - two Towns' worth - and the extra Academies likely produce the same come the final phase. That's almost as much extra CPT in the two commerce cities as you'd get from being FIN.

Is it more optimal to go for earliest possible Lib instead? You do want to get it first, obviously, but by the time you do get it, you're probably still building Cathedrals. Chances are you're also going to want Gunpowder before you cut the research budget for art grants, maybe even MT if it looks like Cuirs will be needed to defend your galleries and supergroups, so the Academies will be helpful, especially as universities don't see, to be worth the hammers for how short their lifespans will be as beaker multipliers and how distant their double Culture bonus is.
 
lindsay - let's just say that the most cpt comes after you adopted Free speech...then there is all the GAs you produce to balance out to your Hermie cap. that is fast culture

(granted that is with at least 1 or 2 cottaged L cities..a non-cottaged approach is a tad different and relies more on GPP)

PP is the cutoff on a culture game..techs after that are irrelevant. MT and Gunpowder are irrelevant. If you are worried about defense you have done something wrong much earlier.

I've never even considered building a Uni in a culture game

so the point here is that your "perspective" on how Civ works maybe could be altered :)
 
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Lindsay, to explain, you said "you're going to have 2 or 3 high commerce cities, giving them academies gets you to Lib faster". I would consider a decent Lib date in a culture game to be something in the t140-t150 range. In HoF styled play it can be faster, on a tougher map it's later, but shouldn't be much later than t160.

So, when are you planning on building those 2nd and 3rd academies? You get the GSs with the help of GLib, so I'd suspect they won't be born very long before 1AD. Let's say you are really fast to GLib and you get that second scientist t105. If target lib date is t145, this gives your academy 40 turns to actively produce science. A GS bulb at this time should give at least 1600 beakers, so your academy needs to make 40 beakers/turn on average. In other words, the second city needs to average a minimum of 80 base bpt. That's not going to happen. Your cottages are not developed enough by then and cities aren't large enough. Even the academy in your capital will have a hard time paying off in time for lib.

Now, you might say that your lib dates are usually later, hence the academies have more time to pay off. But in that case, one reason your lib date is later is that those GSs were wasted on 2nd and 3rd academies.
 
The Music gambit is primarily to get the free Great Artist for a well timed Golden age, which usually more than makes up for the diversion. Plus, Music can net you some decent trades. And if you can get a fast TGL to go along with that golden age. But yeah, as Sampsa said, it not always the best thing to do.

This is why I do it. Don't go for it every time or anything but if I see in the trade-tech screen that I can plausibly get music first I'll try it.
 
Hmm. Culture strategies appear to have evolved since I last read up about them!
 
I usually play spiritual civs, so great library is less useful for me. Caste + pacifism while starving a big city gives me plenty of GPP.

Fail gold is the way I go, especially if I have marble. Let someone else build wonders while I focus on my land and military.

Music is fairly expensive as a tech. I think it's the same as paper, so why not open up edu bulb? Spiritual reduces the benefit of the golden age a bit as well.

I like cannons more than cuirs, so I don't bother with music in my games. If cannons can't finish the job, infantry and artillery will be fine.
 
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