[BNW] Immortal - Peaceful Culture Victory Guide - this time with pictures

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chazzycat

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This is a follow up to this thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=12716682

In that thread, I laid out a basic strategy of peacefully building 4 cities, teching up (but not signing RAs), fully utilizing the world congress and getting some key wonders en route to a cultural victory before turn 300.

I got some good feedback but also some criticism, for instance: it's too reliant on religion, what happens if Shaka is next door, those are stupid wonders, why no RAs, etc. So I fired up another game. This time I would document my build order and take screenshots.

I decided to play as Genghis Khan. I knew I was going to be a pacifist so my traits and uniques wouldn't factor in the game. The idea was that if Genghis can do it, anyone can do it.

I also restarted the map a few times, mostly because the starts were too good. Flood plains? no thanks. Salt? Get right out of here. I want to show this works in your typical non-godly start.

Settings are immortal, pangea, everything Standard. So here is my start:

Spoiler :

I like wheat & riverside plains, but it's nothing spectacular. This will be suitably average for demonstration's sake I hope. Pardon the "quicksaving"... I haven't done screenshots in a while.

I open with scout, scout, granary in this situation, then follow it up with a worker. Stealing a worker would be great but I didn't manage it this game. All further workers would be bought with gold. After the granary my build was: archer, settler, caravan, archer, settler, settler. I generally micromanage all my tiles, mostly to get a lot of food, unless building settlers, in which case it's max production. The caravan was sent to nearby Korea mainly for some sweet, sweet, beakers. I went for 2 rounds of external routes, then after that was all internal (food) for a long time.

My early tech order was: Pottery, Animal Husbandry, Mining, Calendar, Writing, Philosophy. Popped archery from a ruin. Otherwise ruins were not great: 1 culture (late), 1 pop (badly timed), 1 gold, other crap.

The next pic is after I have dropped my 4 cities:

Spoiler :

Yes, that is Shaka, and I settled my 2nd city right at him. Maybe, not the best idea you say? I have a hunch he will be more interested in nearby Japan than me, for a while at least. To the east, Korea. He seems friendly for now. I noticed he had a bunch of salt in his cap, so he'll probably be a threat before long. If this was a normal game, I would be salivating at the prospects of a Keshik invasion. Ah well.

The trade route that sailing opens would soon be a caravan created in Karakorum, transferred to Beshbalik and sent with food back to the capital. I like to do this to make up for the lost growth time from the settlers.

I did get a pantheon from a barb quest for a religious CS, which was nice. So I grabbed +1 culture/faith from wines & incense. I have a few wines, it's a decent little bonus. Maybe I'll get a religion after all, but I'm still not planning on massive faith buys for this game.

So the build order in the capital after settlers was: library, caravan, Oracle, Composite Bow, National College. The second city built an archer then that granary for the trade route, then library. There was a chop or two in there to get the granary out. The third & fourth cities were founded a couple turns apart and went straight for libraries. These two cities aren't as good as the first two and I start to have some concerns about their long term growth prospects.

After philosophy, my tech order was: wheel, masonry, sailing, construction, mathematics, engineering, currency.

Next update is turn 100:

Spoiler :

The cities are growing OK, except for Hsia. It just got a trade route, so it's picking up now. But stupid Japan stole some of the good tiles by expanding so close.

Shortly after I noticed the Impi and I had just CBs...I bribed Shaka for the first time to DOW Japan. It only cost 7 GPT and kept them both occupied for a while. I hoped Shaka would raze that city for me, but he just puppeted some others instead. He started trading with me as well, so we were actually getting along OK.

I'm about to found a religion now. I would found Judaism on turn 104, taking tithe and +15% growth. Not too bad.

The market shown in the picture above was built right after the NC, which was completed on turn 96. Hsia was the slow culprit on the libraries. Not a huge deal, I built Oracle in the meanwhile. Took the tradition finisher, speeding that up a bit (turn 82). Oracle is the only early wonder in this strategy, but it's an important part...mainly to get consulates quickly.

After the market I continued to build up, going watermill stable workshop. Then I built a couple pikemen and it was university time.

I have discovered all the AI by now and they are Alex, Suleiman, Pedro & Kamehameha. Pedro is building wonders, that could be a problem. I'm thinking long term, Shaka & Alex should be good enemies. They both have room to expand, mostly towards each other, mostly. I'll do my part to help them along, of course ;)

Tech order: bronze working, trapping, drama+poetry, civil service, iron working.

And here are my demographics at turn 100:

Spoiler :

I'm doing ok, pretty competitive in most important categories except my military, which could use some work. Shaka has a trade route with me and I have a DoF with Sejong, so I'm not that concerned, but a little bit.

So here is the next update, 25 turns later:

Spoiler :

Little Hsia is growing up fast. Now Turfan would be the weakest grower...I would soon have double food routes there. Still, my science and economy have nearly doubled in the last 25 turns. Markets helped a lot, my road network is finally done, etc.

You'll notice Shaka has gone south and taken a Polynesian city. That was my 3rd bribe of the game, having previously bribed him twice against Japan.

I like to go for workshops before universities in this strategy. This is a key bit that I forgot to mention in the other thread. The reasoning with it all comes down to my obsession with getting Globe Theatre + Leaning Tower. The second (or third in this case) city probably needs to have Ironworks to build wonders in a decent amount of time, and that means all cities need workshops. Now, you could go universities first then workshops, but then you could get stuck waiting too long for the weakest city to complete both its buildings, if you can't afford the rush buys. Plus the workshop shaves a couple turns off the universities, so it's not a bad strategy anyways. Also, it gives the cities a little more time to grow at max speed before you start working specialists.

So my tech order in this phase was: metal casting, theology, education, guilds, machinery.

Next update, turn 150:

Spoiler :

I am building my key wonders here, and will end up getting them in the number of turns shown. Sistine Chapel will soon be rush bought in my capital with the free GE from LT, completing the trifecta. Only Sejong made it into the Renaissance in a similar time frame, but he opened with gunpowder (I have a diplomat in his cap). Good for now, but makes me think he might be going militaristic...hmm.

2 of 3 guilds have been built. My strategy for the guilds this game is to get as many writers & artists ASAP, of course. For musicians though, I want to get some later for Broadway, but other than that I want to keep the cost down to get more in the late game. This is basically an adjustment I'm making, due to not having a lot of faith that I would normally spend on musicians. I've discovered by now that there is only 1 religious CS on the map, so I'm never going to be raking in the faith.

Consulates+Pledging has kicked in for a while by now. I have a good number of culture, food, and happiness friends, but only the one religious and only two militaristic. I might actually have to build some military units, ugh. Still, I shouldn't complain about food & culture.

Shaka has wiped out poor Kammy, and is naturally fighting Alex without even needing to be bribed. I haven't seen his units around for a while. I feel safer with crossbows but still would rather not deal with impis.

My tech order to get here was: chivalry, physics, printing press, acoustics, banking.

Here are the turn 150 demographics:

Spoiler :

Doing fine, for the most part it's all good here. Military is still on the low side but there are lower targets. Shaka and Sejong seem content to trade with me.

I forgot to take a screenshot at 175, so my next update is at turn 184...

Spoiler :

My economy is doing much better. I have built caravansaries now to trade with Shaka & Sejong, the routes are pretty good. What allowed me to stop the food trade routes, was I beelined fertilizer in this phase. Normally I would almost always open the industrial age with industrialization, but the map beckoned to me. Those two cities on the east have always been slower growers than I'd like, but they have good potential with fertilizer. Lots of pastures, plantations & flat land. Plus I will get nice boosts in my other cities. This wasn't a no-brainer but seemed like the right call. Keeping the cities growing strong is important - this is a tall specialist based approach after all.

That resolution in 22 turns will be the world's fair. I was a little worried that my fertilizer detour would slow down factories, but it looks like I will have time to get them up. The first resolution was arts funding, which passed of course. For reference, from that other thread, my world congress order is: arts funding, worlds fair, world religion, international games.

I made a mistake earlier this phase by forgetting to buy a missionary with my 2nd 200 faith. I ended up enhancing (itinerant preachers, +15% production) earlier instead. I think I would have been better off getting the spread started earlier. Neither Shaka or Sejong had religions so it could have taken off somewhat. Ah well. I did get my religious infrastructure up, finally, hence the 34 faith. I should be able to buy a couple GP eventually, at least.

Tech order was: steel, gunpowder, chemistry, fertilizer, economics, industrialization.

Next update, around turn 200:

Spoiler :

I'm prepared for the impending world fair, with Hermitage & the last factory going up now. I would like to have public schools built by now as well, but the fertilizer detour probably cost me that. I ended up purchasing the public school in the capital, but waiting until after the world fair to hard build the other three. I'm saving that bank to buy the cultural CS before the world fair, to get that culture multiplied.

I have just taken the freedom ideology a couple turns ago, taking avant garde & civil society (faster great people & less food consumed by specialists). Next will be creative expression before tier 2, to get that extra culture for world fair. But rationalism/secularism definitely take precedence over any freedom tenets.

Even with fertilizer those two cities to the east aren't quite where I'd like...size 20 by turn 200 is a good general guideline. But I think I'll be ok.

Shaka has still been pre-occupied with Alex & Oda for a while. I haven't needed to bribe him in some time. Not much else has changed on the world scene. People still like me.

turn 200 demographics:

Spoiler :

Yeah...1st in pop & GNP, woo hoo. Still quite haven't caught Sejong in tech though. Also, around this time is when I noticed he was getting quite a strong military. His going for military told me two things...I can't trust him anymore, and, he probably won't be going for my 2nd set of favorite wonders. That's my hope at least. Brazil is still building quite a few wonders, and is the tourism leader, so I am thinking bribing Sejong to attack him is the natural play here. I will do so at some point before too long, I don't recall exactly when.

world fair is done!

Spoiler :

Man, talk about overkill. Oh well. Still...after I buy all the CS my culture per turn would shoot up over 600. I'll probably end up getting 5 policies or so in the span of 20 turns or so. Pretty nice. That reminds me, I haven't mentioned policies in a while.

After consulates I went straight through aesthetics as planned. I like to complete it before the world fair, which has happened here. Then rationalism after that, at least getting secularism before spending any culture on ideology tenets. This is about when the worlds fair has hit, with secularism already taken. I will fill the right side of rationalism and add as many freedom tenets as possible next, with media culture being the end goal. The plan for rationalism is to finish it later and take one of the last most expensive techs with the free one.

Near the end of the reward period:

Spoiler :

World religion in effect!

Science is up, culture is up, tourism is way up. Broadway has been completed, with 2 modern era great works awaiting its completion in nearby opera houses. Archaeologists are ramping up, and would end up finding all 8 pieces I wanted. I hope it goes without saying by now, that I swapped great works & artifacts with the other civs to get the best theming bonuses. Again Sejong has been the only one in the same era as me so as to be a danger for stealing my wonders. But I've kept an eye on his capital and he never attempted Broadway or Eiffel Tower. So I hard built both of these. Sometimes faith buying an engineer is required here.

The world opinion has turned against me recently with my proposition & passage of world religion. I paid Pedro to vote for me, and he still denounced me for it, haha. Actually everyone on the map denounced me at this point, except Shaka. I thought it was odd that Sejong denounced me despite having no competing religion. Whatever, guy. Go kill Pedro already.

I have some great scientists sitting around by now...I created 4 academies and will save the rest.

Tech order since industrialization has been - compass, astronomy, architecture, scientific theory, radio beeline, refrigeration beeline.

Not researching astronomy earlier was a bit of a mistake...I kind of forgot I had 2 cities with mountains.

Next update, turn 260:

Spoiler :

Plastics was bulbed with Oxford, and all research labs have been built. One was purchased in the capital as it was building Statue of Liberty, the rest hard built. Same thing with radio towers. I like SoL a lot for this strategy.

I ended up taking the foreign legions from freedom on the way to radio culture, which was the free one from SoL. This was just to boost my pointy stick rating. I like these guys for that, they are a good unit to get free because the upgrades are very cheap too. I also got the happiness/golden age one. My happiness had been low since the world religion thing...only Shaka will trade luxes with me. Speaking of Shaka, he took freedom and then signed a DoF with me.

All artists till this point had created great works, but I did golden age one here (during a regular one). After popping out 2 musicians for Broadway earlier I took the musicians out of the guild slots for a while. I will put them back in to time them with the internet/international games.

At this point I'm pretty close to the end. I am basically waiting the 8 turns for the research labs to be in effect, will then bulb to the internet, and should win shortly thereafter.

Korea did me a favor and finished off Brazil, so I didn't have to worry about them. Korea was my biggest culture target now. A while after the denouncement, once I had proposed a better resolution (int'l games) they went to neutral and gave me open borders again, for like 5x normal price. This is important for the great musicians. Even with my mediocre faith output, I amassed enough for 2 musicians. I hoped between that and the one I would time to come from the guild, game would be over.

Sometimes, things just work out...

Spoiler :

Talk about perfect timing. This was taken right after I bulbed my 4 scientists. The rationalism finisher was also involved, taking atomic theory. For the scientists it was a straight shot from penicillin to internet. With the international games about to finish, this timing couldn't get much better. I was confident enough in my production to pull my capital off the games a few turns early to start the visitor center.

overkill again?

Spoiler :

Sejong was kind of rude and built 4 citadels into one of my cities. That kind of tested my pacifism in this game. But I grinned and beared it. Then, I performed all my concert tours on his citadels:

Spoiler :

I made a couple mistakes that cost me some turns off the victory time here. I had decided to skip airports in this game, because of my low faith output. It costs about 2 extra scientists to get radar, which I didn't have. But, I hadn't noticed that I actually would pop another scientist after internet. The bulb would help reach radar eventually. So I did end up building airports, but I had already blown my load on musicians by that point. I had sent 3 musicians to Sejong's citadels when my tourism was at ~750, which finished off Sejong but still left me 8 turns on Alex. He had gobbled up a lot of the cultural CS since I had been ignoring them after the world fair. If these 3 had the full strength of my final output, it would have been insta-over. That was the first mistake. The second mistake, was sitting on over 2k faith that could have bought a scientist. I was saving for another musician, but it should have been obvious I wouldn't get to 2500. Math is not my strong suit. Anyways, a bit later...

Victory! Turn 288.

Spoiler :

Final map view:

Spoiler :

Final demographics:

Spoiler :

No RAs.

Final culture screen:

Spoiler :

Hopefully I've shown that on immortal, a peaceful culture game is pretty doable on a lot of maps. If you really want to cruise, try this as France, Siam, or Poland. The science civs (Babylon and Korea) and trading civs would be good as well.

I hope this helps. Good luck, and don't forget to bribe Shaka early & often! Feel free to post questions.
 
So you go NC>MC for GE's. That's what I was doing before I read your guides. Thanks for clarifying. Have you tried just libraries to MC? I have also been doing that with success.

I believe this basic tech order is the heart of BNW. I also encourage you to try a test game with liberty instead of tradition, but still using the same tech path.
 
I usually play tradition into freedom if I'm going culture with any civ except Brazil.
My cities usually have lower production from jungles and I need the settler boosts but most importantly need the free engineer to get Chichen Itza (even then it might not happen)

Brazil with Chichen Itza got me a culture win before plastics because my tourism had been boosted from a golden age for 100 turns prior and many turns to go.
 
You were very lucky in this game. Your starting location with plains, on a hill, with two tiles of wheat and one mineable luxury resource is a dream come true. It guaranteed you possession of the best city in the world thorough the whole game. Beshbalik and Hsia also have great locations, while Turfan makes up for lack of river, with cattle and a mountain. You were able to settle the optimal number of cities, all in optimal or almost optimal locations.

Your western border was pretty safe due to presence of a CS, what is usually a decent tranquilizer for an AI. Korea is usually dormant till later game, so it makes up for 3 safe directions (nothing to the north). The biggest threat was Japan. You could have been ground to dust by coalition of Oda and Shaka. Fortunately, they decided to leave your alone.

In late game, Koreans were kind enough to wipe out the only civilization in game capable of defending against culture (Btw, there is something wrong with Brazil in BNW - i've played half a dozen emperor+ games with Pedro and don't yet know how brazilwood camps looks like because he never builds it). I daresay that if there were Mayans, Babylonians, the English or the Poles in the game, your victory might have not came this easily.

The whole text above is meant for less experienced people reading this guide. The guide extremely well written, perfectly illustrated and the strategy is sound, however there were a few very favorable elements of the game that made achieving cultural victory on immortal much easier than it usually is. You, readers of this guide, will most certainly find your games more difficult, less smooth and near endgame, you may need to wipe out the strongest culture in order to win cultural victory before others achieve science victory. This is especially true for bigger maps.
 
That's skillful foresight, not luck.

I have to agree here. I mean, the guy won a cultural victory on immortal before T300 with Shaka, Oda and Alex on the same continent. Oh, and he did it peacefully with GHENGIS freaking KHAN. You can nitpick because he didn't start in the tundra with no resources and 6 tiles of ice, but come on. That's good skillz and sound strategy.
 
You were very lucky in this game. Your starting location with plains, on a hill, with two tiles of wheat and one mineable luxury resource is a dream come true. It guaranteed you possession of the best city in the world thorough the whole game. Beshbalik and Hsia also have great locations, while Turfan makes up for lack of river, with cattle and a mountain. You were able to settle the optimal number of cities, all in optimal or almost optimal locations.

Your western border was pretty safe due to presence of a CS, what is usually a decent tranquilizer for an AI. Korea is usually dormant till later game, so it makes up for 3 safe directions (nothing to the north). The biggest threat was Japan. You could have been ground to dust by coalition of Oda and Shaka. Fortunately, they decided to leave your alone.

In late game, Koreans were kind enough to wipe out the only civilization in game capable of defending against culture (Btw, there is something wrong with Brazil in BNW - i've played half a dozen emperor+ games with Pedro and don't yet know how brazilwood camps looks like because he never builds it). I daresay that if there were Mayans, Babylonians, the English or the Poles in the game, your victory might have not came this easily.

The whole text above is meant for less experienced people reading this guide. The guide extremely well written, perfectly illustrated and the strategy is sound, however there were a few very favorable elements of the game that made achieving cultural victory on immortal much easier than it usually is. You, readers of this guide, will most certainly find your games more difficult, less smooth and near endgame, you may need to wipe out the strongest culture in order to win cultural victory before others achieve science victory. This is especially true for bigger maps.

I disagree that 2 wheat (1 irrigable) and a mining resource is some kind of amazing start...it's one of the more common setups. I had to restart several times because I got placed in flood plains, or with salt, and I didn't want to have that good of a start. Korea had 4 salts in their capital, so I'm not sure what you mean by "that guarantees you the best city all game long".

As far as getting "lucky" with not getting attacked...I disagree there. I was very active in the diplomacy all game, bribing various AI to attack each other at the best times. Even Shaka needs someone to trade with, so if you can get him to attack everyone else nearby, you are left as the only trading partner. His early attacks on Japan weakened Oda sufficiently such that I wasn't worried about them going forward. I like to think, that my long term plan of how to handle Shaka really worked out nicely.

Korea wasn't "kind enough" to take out the culture leader...I bribed them to do that when I noticed they were turning away from wonders, getting the tech lead and building a strong military. This was not a cheap bribe like Shaka.

Having a CS or two on your border is extremely common...given my neighbors, shared borders with Shaka & Oda...I really don't think this was an over-protected starting area by any means.

And no, 2 cattles does NOT make up for not having a freshwater food source. Turfan required double food trade routes most of the game to keep pace, and ended up losing half its territory to Korean citadels. Hsia would have been fine if Japan hadn't settled so close. If I wouldn't have had to deviate from my tech path to get fertilizer early, this game would have been much easier.

I do agree there was some luck in this game, just not the things you pointed out. For one, there was no Austria or Venice buying up city states. That can hurt. Also, I had a unique luxury in each of my cities, which is not always possible. Not that happiness is typically a huge issue with 4 cities, but it still helped.

Also, Korea's decision to turn away from wonders towards military was a stroke of good luck for me. They beat me to the Renaissance by a few turns, and maybe could have stolen one of my wonders, but they went for gunpowder instead of Printing Press. This also allowed the eventual bribe and conquering of Brazil.
 
So you go NC>MC for GE's. That's what I was doing before I read your guides. Thanks for clarifying. Have you tried just libraries to MC? I have also been doing that with success.

I believe this basic tech order is the heart of BNW. I also encourage you to try a test game with liberty instead of tradition, but still using the same tech path.
My reasoning for MC after NC is not for GEs. I typically won't get any GEs, because too many scientists. It's more for getting ironworks up in time to build Leaning Tower.

Straight libraries to MC, sounds like it might actually get you a GE but no, I haven't played around with that. I feel like pushing back NC that long would risk being too slow to Printing Press.

I do still like liberty in BNW, just not for this 4 city approach. I have done a couple liberty culture games, but those were with more cities (like 6), and more focus on archaeology than wonders, so it's just a different approach. I found that it ended up being a bit slower that way, but maybe others have perfected that strategy. I haven't focused on it too much yet.
 
My reasoning for MC after NC is not for GEs. I typically won't get any GEs, because too many scientists. It's more for getting ironworks up in time to build Leaning Tower.

Straight libraries to MC, sounds like it might actually get you a GE but no, I haven't played around with that. I feel like pushing back NC that long would risk being too slow to Printing Press.

I do still like liberty in BNW, just not for this 4 city approach. I have done a couple liberty culture games, but those were with more cities (like 6), and more focus on archaeology than wonders, so it's just a different approach. I found that it ended up being a bit slower that way, but maybe others have perfected that strategy. I haven't focused on it too much yet.

That is the way I was playing before I saw your guide and its a good way to play. If you can combine one GE wonder (toa or sh or pyramids) plus the early bought workshop, you will be popping GEs right when you want them for the renaissance intro wonders. Give it a try, see my france; liberty to physics thread for more ideas.

Pisa is about 50/50 this way with no hard building, but I usually go banking first. I believe the AI follow this route, thats why its hard to get pisa/globe. Science may lag but that's what spies are for and I never fill my university slots. My bad, I need to work on it.
 
I'm one of the 'lesser experienced players' on the board - struggling with figuring out winning culture games. This walkthrough is really awesome - both the screenies and the commentary esp about your diplomacy management which is one of many parts of the game I'm trying to get better at. Thanks for taking the time to do this writeup.
 
Great game using Genghis Ghan when the UA/UUs are useless for a culture victory. It almost seem masochistic.

Though in general I find Pangaea maps are good for culture victories. You find every civ early and the WC gets founded more quickly. On a continent game things would look very different. Or, imagine yourself isolated for much of the game until you get Astronomy.

Still, having a sub300 culture win as a civ that does nothing to help cultural victories is pretty good. Civ5 do require its bit of luck on higher difficulties, but that shouldn't take away the victory of this game.

I'd say a good thing about Genghis Khan is he has like a what, plain bias? or something, since he always seem to find horses. Or horse bias, Idk. Kind of like Poland.

Cultural victories is also dependent on other civs, obviously. A game with a bunch of peacemongers wondersnatching civs like Egypt and Venice might make the game much more difficult. And of course, this game was a bit lucky. Genghis Khan having a religion usually requires a good faith pantheon and good production early on - both of which was accessible.
 
Great game using Genghis Ghan when the UA/UUs are useless for a culture victory. It almost seem masochistic.

Though in general I find Pangaea maps are good for culture victories. You find every civ early and the WC gets founded more quickly. On a continent game things would look very different. Or, imagine yourself isolated for much of the game until you get Astronomy.

Still, having a sub300 culture win as a civ that does nothing to help cultural victories is pretty good. Civ5 do require its bit of luck on higher difficulties, but that shouldn't take away the victory of this game.

I'd say a good thing about Genghis Khan is he has like a what, plain bias? or something, since he always seem to find horses. Or horse bias, Idk. Kind of like Poland.

Cultural victories is also dependent on other civs, obviously. A game with a bunch of peacemongers wondersnatching civs like Egypt and Venice might make the game much more difficult. And of course, this game was a bit lucky. Genghis Khan having a religion usually requires a good faith pantheon and good production early on - both of which was accessible.
All good points. Pangea is definitely ideal for this strategy, meeting the CS for consulates is pretty huge.

I'm not sure if it's the starting bias, but yeah plains is nice for production. Also, it means no Genghis AI in the game killing city states :)

Normally for wonder builders like Korea was in this early game, I wouldn't have hesitated to just attack him. But I was trying to be totally peaceful for sake of this demonstration. Warfare is still going to be important a lot of the time. If Egypt or another strong wonder builder is in the game, would definitely recommend attacking him or bribing someone else to.
 
I finally got one, t342 Korea. I forward settle into Washington's first ring and had to survive 3 attacks. I'm sure it slowed me down. I had Sistine and Broadway for my theme drivers. Made some mistakes though so it could have been faster.
 
I disagree that 2 wheat (1 irrigable) and a mining resource is some kind of amazing start...it's one of the more common setups. I had to restart several times because I got placed in flood plains, or with salt, and I didn't want to have that good of a start.

1. Why u r talking about flood plains? Is there any diff between flood plains and grassland attached to river? Do u really think that river-plains are much worse than river-grassland? I doupt.

2. 2 wheat + [early lux]-hill is good for early 4 cities. May be it is not best start ever, but it is for sure better than average. Only salt is better.

3. Having opportunity to build 4 cities close in not bad spots is not common.

After all, impressive story - i need to pick something up. I wish you to make RA to speed up things and play Deity, cause then I can compare.
 
1. Why u r talking about flood plains? Is there any diff between flood plains and grassland attached to river? Do u really think that river-plains are much worse than river-grassland? I doupt.
In the previous thread a lot of the feedback was that the strategy was too reliant on a strong faith start, like flood plains. So I just wanted to make a point that I wasn't getting a ton of free faith from my pantheon.

2. 2 wheat + [early lux]-hill is good for early 4 cities.

3. Having opportunity to build 4 cities close in not bad spots is4 not common.
Both fair criticisms. Like most strategies, it's not for every map. I don't consider this map to be that special but yes, probably better than average for 4 cities.

After all, impressive story - i need to pick something up. I wish you to make RA to speed up things and play Deity, cause then I can compare.
Honestly I am not sure this would translate to deity, too many things can go wrong. But I think there is a good deity level thread around here somewhere for peaceful culture.
 
What I have noticed is that the leader in science will continuously ask me for an RA which I refuse. I don't think there is any harm with singing a few t270 RAs to help finish up the last bit as long as you aren't signing with the tech leader.
 
yeah the RA thing isn't a hard & fast rule. It's just about pushing back the diplo vote...if that isn't a concern then feel free. In general in BNW, I just haven't found that RAs are necessary to keep pace with the AI. The AI kind of sucks at teching TBH. You only REALLY need RAs on deity (in my experience so far).
 
Since I have been playing into the 340s, some votes have come up. I haven't lost any once I started managing the CS. I lost an early attempt to an Alex diplo. But, after I get 6 policies in Freedom and rationalism is filling up, I take the 3rd policy it Patronage to give more support per gold.

What I didnt realize until just the game before last is that landmarks will give tourism with a hotel, up to 15. So I had been taking the artifacts from my lands instead of making the land marks.
 
You mentioned from the ruins u got a population. And u put "badly timed" can u tell me what u mean by that? Is there times in which u Do not want to increase in pop?

Sorry if this noob but I'm trying to play on higher levels but it seems I'm missing knowledge on certain understandings of the mechanics.
 
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