Bollywood achievement (India 3 cities cultural victory)

[Wuddel]

Gentlemen,

I usually do not care for achievements, but this one caught my attention and I am currently working on getting it. Usually I go for domination or science.

So there is a thread about the cultural victory already here, but for the sake of discussing the specifics of this scenario I opened another.

So, first of do you know if puppet states count as a city? What about razing a city or liberating city states? Do they mess up getting the achievement?

How would you work the land and what technologies and wonders are key? So I play on King and the AI will not led you build up peacefully, but attack you when you are to weak. Which is kind of hard, since you need all the hammers for wonders and not for units. How would you go about that?

 

[KrikkitTwo]

My guesses
Puppet states count
Razed/Liberated cities don't

 

[bhavv]

Do it on settler difficulty and spam wonders.

 

[Martin Alvito]

If you don't want to take bhavv's easy way out and want to do it at the difficulty level you normally play at, some thoughts:

You're going to have to get maximum mileage out of the relatively few units you will be able to build. Defensible city sites will help. You also should read threads on using your military effectively for ideas.

Not every Wonder is absolutely critical. You must get Stonehenge and the later big Culture Wonders. The Great Library and the Oracle have a good Culture/Hammer ratio. The rest are very desirable but still situational. Rolling a map with one more Cultural city-state near you early is going to have a bigger impact on your game than missing a half-dozen Wonders would. So don't neglect building units; you don't have to.

Speaking of which, learn how to manage the city-states. There are several solid threads up already that explain how.

Moving up in ages seems to strengthen your cities. That in turn makes them more effective at swatting annoying barbarians and angry neighbors, as well as surviving damage. Using the Great Library on Civil Service makes your cities strong like ox in the early game. Great Scientists can be used for the same purpose (push Ages and snag key techs at the same time) later on.

Ideally, you'll want to be on a river. The food bonus from Civil Service will make a large difference in your game, and you can get that bonus very early using the Great Library. Rivers also tend to make city defense a lot easier. Build ranged units, post a few cheap, fast units as scouts so that you can see invaders coming, and use the river to your advantage by posting the ranged units on the other side. Others have already posted screenies proving that the AI is dumb, and will keep throwing away hammers by sending units into arrow storms to die.

Doing all of these things will improve your game, and may just enable you to move up in difficulty level as a result of what you learn.

 

[ShaqFu]

I'm trying for this achievement now (Prince, Earth), and the most important thing to keep up on are Cultural and Maritime City-States. One Cultural CS is worth about as much as a city and won't increase SP costs, and Maritime puts your growth through the roof. I'm on track to lose this game, since I was isolated in South America (that damned Panamanian mountain is still there...) with one of each CS type, and thus couldn't use diplomacy for easy culture.

 

[AlienFromBeyond]

Everyone says Cultural City-States are worth it for Cultural Victory, but I just don't see it. A measly +20 culture per turn is insignificant when I'm churning out a couple hundred or more Culture a turn. Maritime is totally worth it however.

 

[Shillen]

I did this on prince difficulty, normal size, normal speed.

I razed 3 cities, I puppeted one and had it recaptured by the AI 2 turns later. I still got the achievement at the end of the game.

I'm thinking as long as you have 3 or fewer cities when the game ends you will get the achievement. Puppets may or may not count, not sure. But having a puppet at some point in the game will not preclude you from the achievement - I know that for sure.

 

[ShaqFu]

Everyone says Cultural City-States are worth it for Cultural Victory, but I just don't see it. A measly +20 culture per turn is insignificant when I'm churning out a couple hundred or more Culture a turn. Maritime is totally worth it however.

+20 per City-State adds up, fast.

I'm curious how you're getting so much culture - with 3 cities, stocked with specialists for Temples/Gardens, along with Opera Houses, and modified by the Sistine Chapel, I'm only getting about 70/turn before City-State culture.

 

[DalekDavros]

The Great Library and the Oracle have a good Culture/Hammer ratio.

The most important thing to remember about the Oracle is that ITS FREE SP DOESN'T INCREASE THE COST OF THE NEXT SP. So, you get a forward-propagating wave of SPs (that is, the cost of each SP is what the cost of the following SP would have been if you missed Oracle), and it's really the last SP you're getting free. Extremely, extremely powerful for cultural victory.

Everyone says Cultural City-States are worth it for Cultural Victory, but I just don't see it. A measly +20 culture per turn is insignificant when I'm churning out a couple hundred or more Culture a turn. Maritime is totally worth it however.

Monument+Temple+Museum = 10 culture per turn for 5 gpt maintenance. With the right SP, a city-state will give you more culture for less in gold costs. The balance changes a bit late game when you start getting the culture multipliers in cities, but the cultural city-state is definitely worth it early on. (In fact, this is partially true even if you aren't going for a cultural victory too; if you're spamming cities left and right, one cultural city-state is still good for getting about 4-5 SPs before the costs become prohibitive.)

 

[AlienFromBeyond]

+20 per City-State adds up, fast.

I'm curious how you're getting so much culture - with 3 cities, stocked with specialists for Temples/Gardens, along with Opera Houses, and modified by the Sistine Chapel, I'm only getting about 70/turn before City-State culture.

The double culture for having a wonder in a city is amazing, I made sure each of my three cities had at least one wonder to trigger it. Add in the Hermitage, plus about 9 Landmarks around Dehli, and there you go. It was taking me about 11 turns per policy when I hit the ~3k breakpoint on them.

And yes, Cultural city-states are quite nice in the early game. But don't rely on them for the actual win when policies are 2k+ culture to get.

 

[better days]

And yes, Cultural city-states are quite nice in the early game. But don't rely on them for the actual win when policies are 2k+ culture to get.

I disagree. Earlier today I pulled off a cultural victory on Emperor with the Songhai mainly because I was surrounded by four friendly, cultural city states.

 

[AlienFromBeyond]

Songhai, or Siam? Because I could see the latter possibly doing it because of the unique trait, but I just don't see how you would get enough culture per turn.

Plus, this is a thread about doing it with India .

 

[better days]

Songhai, or Siam? Because I could see the latter possibly doing it because of the unique trait, but I just don't see how you would get enough culture per turn.

Plus, this is a thread about doing it with India .

Haha I know it's about India

And it was with the Songhai. What I was getting at is that I think city states are vital to a cultural victory, cause I got one, with a civ not ideally suited for it, mainly because of city states. (landed elite free great engineer rushing sydney opera house ) EDIT: uriously, it didn't quite do the entire production, there were still a few turns left. Thought it was an insta-build

If randa-civ had picked Gandhi, it woulda been the dream setting for a culture victory.

 

[Rishara]

+20 per City-State adds up, fast.

I'm curious how you're getting so much culture - with 3 cities, stocked with specialists for Temples/Gardens, along with Opera Houses, and modified by the Sistine Chapel, I'm only getting about 70/turn before City-State culture.

I was playing as Napolean trying to get a cultural victory. I only had 3 cities and was getting about 400 culture per turn by the end of the game. Unfortunately, I ran out of time while building the Utopia project! It is quite tough to get enough culture with only 3 cities, I think. I was pretty much being a wonder whore, had all the culture buildings, several landmarks, etc. I also had lots and lots of golden ages.

 

[arcath]

I was playing as Napolean trying to get a cultural victory. I only had 3 cities and was getting about 400 culture per turn by the end of the game. Unfortunately, I ran out of time while building the Utopia project! It is quite tough to get enough culture with only 3 cities, I think. I was pretty much being a wonder whore, had all the culture buildings, several landmarks, etc. I also had lots and lots of golden ages.

You too?

I am going to try this again with India as I didn't realize there was a India specific achievement.

 

[Rishara]

Yes, it was quite frustrating! I think it might be easier with India because of their bonuses for having bigger but fewer cities. Napolean's cultural bonuses in the early game are rather nice but probably don't matter so much in the long run.

What's even more sad is I lost the time score by a few points too. The guy who beat me (I think it was the Ottomans) just started out-teching me like mad in the end-game.

Edited to add: I gather from Lemmi's game walkthrough that if you disable time victory, the game does not end in 2050 but will keep going until a different victory condition is achieved. I actually like this if it counts the win correctly.

 

[Ahriman]

Puppets are useful for a cultural victory, because AFAIK their culture income is still income, but they don't increase the cost of policies.

 

[Martin Alvito]

The most important thing to remember about the Oracle is that ITS FREE SP DOESN'T INCREASE THE COST OF THE NEXT SP.

Fair point. Even if that were not true, I'd still say it would be worth building the Oracle if at all possible. It compares well to midgame buildings just for the +1, it has no maintenance, and it indirectly yields further culture from the free SP. That indirect culture is going to be more efficient than whatever tech the GL pops, of course.

Has anyone posted a table for the base culture required for each Social Policy? It would be interesting to compare whether Stonehenge or the Oracle is ultimately more worthwhile for a Culture win. This decision will matter at the higher difficulties, where you will not be building multiple early Wonders.

 

[adrianj]

Stonehenge vs Oracle

It depends on how many turns your game is going to take.

Oracle is a one-off free SP. But as pointed out earlier, it's actually a saving in culture cost of the LAST SP you learn. Could be something like 3000+ culture. This number will be more or less depending on how many cities you have.

If the game is going to go for 300 turns after you build Stonehenge, it's worth 8*300 = 2400 culture. But, the benefit is more than that because eventually you'll include +% culture modifiers, and also the ability to power through SPs in the early game. It's also a bit cheaper to build than the Oracle.

So I think in summary, Stonehenge is more powerful than the Oracle, especially for smaller empires where the one-off SP gain of the Oracle isn't as valuable.

 

[bhavv]

Stonehenge vs Oracle

.......

So I think in summary, Stonehenge is more powerful than the Oracle, especially for smaller empires where the one-off SP gain of the Oracle isn't as valuable.

????????????

Why is this even a choice? If you want a culture win, you build BOTH, no questions asked.