jesusin, challenger. Goal: fastest cultural game. Result: 1130AD cultural victory.
Why did I research Medi-Mining-Wheel-Pottery first?
Go and read my first spoiler!
Research path
1.- Medi-Mining-Wheel-Pottery
2.- Wri-PH-CoL-Math-CS from Oracle in Barna in 1680BC
3.- Alpha-cursethemPrinceAIs-Aesth-Poly-Lite-Drama-Music-Philo
4.- Paper-Educ-Liber-FreeNatio-nothingelsethankyou 175AD
Why Drama so soon? Because as a prerequisite of both Music and Philo I had it just for free. Also it was my solution to happynes, I never had Monarchy.
What's every city going to do?
Look at the map:
Very difficult decision.
Plan 1: Maximum food (Bar) is GPFarm, capital in Bureaucracy takes me to Liberalism.
...but with only 6 cottages Mad is not taking me too far. I need more cottages... reiverside since it's early... so Bar will be cottaged...
Plan2: Oh, then next maximum food city will be GPFarm.
...but that's the capital, Bureaucracy and GPfarm doesn't match.
Plan3: ok, ok, GPFarm in Sev. Bar will be a great cottages city, with enough hammers to build his cathedrals. Madrid will have few cottages, so will need the Hermitage. Sev will be bombed... but it can work some cottages too, why not, they are food neutral.
Did I get a few GPs?
GS 1560BC for Academy in Madrid
Free GA from Music, settled in Madrid 875BC, was a mistake, too late unless Hermit there (as I had planned)
GPro, 76%, bulbed Theo. I could have delayed it much more, but now it was useful to get a religion, much later would hav ebeen a disastre (a GAge).
GA, nine of them, bombed 2-2-5(Sevilla).
Total 12. Too few for a 900BC NE... I never hired an artist till 375AD!
Diplomacy.
Musa: adopt the religion that spread to him, gift fish, wait, we are at +21
Sury: Treacherous! Worker stolen in the corn 3040BC, then 2280BC, then 1920BC.
When his culture kept me form repeating the trick, I dowed him again 600BC with a Spear+Axe pair and a floating chariot. Poor guy, he never had any improved tile.
I hated when Musa wouldn't dow Sury because of WHEOOH. Who else would you dow!?
Stats:
Game phases:
1.- Grow, research, CS sling. I'm glad when I'm doing 100 sustainable bpt in 1560BC and have already 11 cottages.
2.- I'm unhappy. 10% cultural slider (overall increasing my research), from 850BC to 400BC
3.- Hammers! Whip the flesh out of them! 1000BC to 175AD. OR only from 300BC
The WW I built are all artist producers, of course. Resisting the temptation of cheap GLIB is hard, but it pays off when I pop a GA from each city at the end.
4.- Cultural Slider up (from 175AD). I am very surprised to see that I was doing 900cpt between all 3 cities at 0% culture! This has never happened to me in Vanilla. All culture before using the slider was insignificant. Sistine's in 600BC was the real starter of culture production.
5.- Let's get also some GA From 375AD.
My game was very different from my usual one. Normally I would have emphasized research and GA much more, ignoring buildings. I forced myself to play for hammers and I've seen the usefulness, but I haven't got the right balance yet.
Planning:
I think I'm good at planning cultural games. But this time...
First time I planned was 1AD, which is far too late for this game. I miscalculated the number of GAs available for bombing, counted 7 in 1300AD when I really got 9 in 1130AD. I forgot to add two factors: 1) the GAge affects GPP factor and 2) the you've got to love starving them factor. The first accounted for 33% of a GP, the second for a 150% of a GP and a time-advance.
According to my mistaken calculations and due to all the WW in the capital I saw that Hermitage in capital would never be matched by the other cities even with the bombs. So I moved the Hermitage to Barna. Since at the end I bombed 2-2-5, this was a big mistake, costing me some 1600c.
Curious things I learned
In BTS when AI retakes a Worker inside their borders they keep it. Would have been different out of their borders?
You can build 3 cathedrals if you have 1 temple, not the opposite!
I am able to purposely delay the pasturing of mined pigs (my SGOTM team is affecting me!
)
Axe+Spe are a great pillaging pair. I had never gone on a pillage rampage before (why to do that when you can just get the city and use the improvements?).
How to get a 1000AD cultural victory from this map
Playing as I did
(of course, what did you expect?)
But changing some small things here and there:
- Research Monoteism before Paper.
This would have been huge. OR would have saved so many whipped citizens that they would easily have paid for the cost of Monoteism. And I would have had more buildings, sooner.
Also it would have allowed not to bulb Theo but to research it and then bulb DivRig.
- 5th religion
With no workload of temples and missionaries, stopping at 4 religions makes no sense.
- Looking at the map
Why whip 9 people into Christian cathedrals 2 turns before the stone is yours?
- Not settling GA in a x4 culture multiplier city with only 100 turns ahead.
- Planning correctly, taking starvation factor into account for a correct Hermitage placing.
- Not failing last turn because of 100c in one city. Specially when it now has GPP to spare and it has been working grass farms instead of grass towns to improve GPP generation.
EDIT
- Not directing all my spy points towards Musa, my trade partner. Taht induced him to waste some of his puny research on the spy slider.
Dealing with barbs
Oh but, were there barbs in this game? Once my units came back from exploring I positioned 3 warriors in strategic positions in the S to fogbust.
Screenshots
I won't share my final city screenshots, but my 1000BC ones. I think that will be much more instructive for all, experts (when are they arriving, kcd_swede?
) and normal players alike.
Can you see the mined pigs, LC?
Why did I research Medi-Mining-Wheel-Pottery first?
Go and read my first spoiler!
Research path
1.- Medi-Mining-Wheel-Pottery
2.- Wri-PH-CoL-Math-CS from Oracle in Barna in 1680BC
3.- Alpha-cursethemPrinceAIs-Aesth-Poly-Lite-Drama-Music-Philo
4.- Paper-Educ-Liber-FreeNatio-nothingelsethankyou 175AD
Why Drama so soon? Because as a prerequisite of both Music and Philo I had it just for free. Also it was my solution to happynes, I never had Monarchy.
What's every city going to do?
Look at the map:
Code:
City . . . Mad Bar Sev
Extra food . . 12 14 10
Hammers . . . 12 17 14
Cottages Riverside/not . 4/2 7/5 0/11Plan 1: Maximum food (Bar) is GPFarm, capital in Bureaucracy takes me to Liberalism.
...but with only 6 cottages Mad is not taking me too far. I need more cottages... reiverside since it's early... so Bar will be cottaged...
Plan2: Oh, then next maximum food city will be GPFarm.
...but that's the capital, Bureaucracy and GPfarm doesn't match.
Plan3: ok, ok, GPFarm in Sev. Bar will be a great cottages city, with enough hammers to build his cathedrals. Madrid will have few cottages, so will need the Hermitage. Sev will be bombed... but it can work some cottages too, why not, they are food neutral.
Did I get a few GPs?
GS 1560BC for Academy in Madrid
Free GA from Music, settled in Madrid 875BC, was a mistake, too late unless Hermit there (as I had planned)
GPro, 76%, bulbed Theo. I could have delayed it much more, but now it was useful to get a religion, much later would hav ebeen a disastre (a GAge).
GA, nine of them, bombed 2-2-5(Sevilla).
Total 12. Too few for a 900BC NE... I never hired an artist till 375AD!
Diplomacy.
Musa: adopt the religion that spread to him, gift fish, wait, we are at +21
Sury: Treacherous! Worker stolen in the corn 3040BC, then 2280BC, then 1920BC.
When his culture kept me form repeating the trick, I dowed him again 600BC with a Spear+Axe pair and a floating chariot. Poor guy, he never had any improved tile.
I hated when Musa wouldn't dow Sury because of WHEOOH. Who else would you dow!?
Stats:
Code:
Date . . . 1000BC 1AD 1000AD
Cities . . . 3 3 3
Population . . 25 31 48
Workers . . . 6 7 7
x/x Units (best, all others) . 1/8 1/12 1/8
Best Unit Type . . Chariot Sword Axe
Horses . . . X X X
Copper . . . X X
Iron . . . X X
Stone . . . X
Marble . . . X X X
Luxury Resources . . 2 2 5
Health Resources . . 5 5 7
# Great Persons . . 1 3 9
# World Wonders . . 1 4 6
# National Wonders . . 0 1 4
Food . . . 67 87 91
Production . . 42 30 10
Commerce . . . 188 659 2419
# Sustainable Beakers per turn 106 175 31
# Culture per Turn . . 40 451 2400
# Great Person Points per turn 2 14 197
Gold . . . 38 4 300
# Religions . . 2 4 4
# Cathedrals . . 0 9 12
#/ Cottages Used/Total . 11/21 21/26 22/34
# Civs Killed . . 0.5 0.5 0.5
Time Played . . 7 12 18
Academy Date . . 1560BC
Alphabet Date . . 1400BC
Civil Service Date . . 1680BC
Liberalism Date . . 175AD
Oxford Date . .
Astronomy Date . .
Biology Date . .
Victory Type & Date. . 1130AD, culturalGame phases:
1.- Grow, research, CS sling. I'm glad when I'm doing 100 sustainable bpt in 1560BC and have already 11 cottages.
2.- I'm unhappy. 10% cultural slider (overall increasing my research), from 850BC to 400BC
3.- Hammers! Whip the flesh out of them! 1000BC to 175AD. OR only from 300BC
The WW I built are all artist producers, of course. Resisting the temptation of cheap GLIB is hard, but it pays off when I pop a GA from each city at the end.
4.- Cultural Slider up (from 175AD). I am very surprised to see that I was doing 900cpt between all 3 cities at 0% culture! This has never happened to me in Vanilla. All culture before using the slider was insignificant. Sistine's in 600BC was the real starter of culture production.
5.- Let's get also some GA
From 375AD.My game was very different from my usual one. Normally I would have emphasized research and GA much more, ignoring buildings. I forced myself to play for hammers and I've seen the usefulness, but I haven't got the right balance yet.
Planning:
I think I'm good at planning cultural games. But this time...
First time I planned was 1AD, which is far too late for this game. I miscalculated the number of GAs available for bombing, counted 7 in 1300AD when I really got 9 in 1130AD. I forgot to add two factors: 1) the GAge affects GPP factor and 2) the you've got to love starving them factor. The first accounted for 33% of a GP, the second for a 150% of a GP and a time-advance.
According to my mistaken calculations and due to all the WW in the capital I saw that Hermitage in capital would never be matched by the other cities even with the bombs. So I moved the Hermitage to Barna. Since at the end I bombed 2-2-5, this was a big mistake, costing me some 1600c.
Curious things I learned
In BTS when AI retakes a Worker inside their borders they keep it. Would have been different out of their borders?
You can build 3 cathedrals if you have 1 temple, not the opposite!
I am able to purposely delay the pasturing of mined pigs (my SGOTM team is affecting me!
)Axe+Spe are a great pillaging pair. I had never gone on a pillage rampage before (why to do that when you can just get the city and use the improvements?).
How to get a 1000AD cultural victory from this map
Playing as I did
(of course, what did you expect?) But changing some small things here and there:
- Research Monoteism before Paper.
This would have been huge. OR would have saved so many whipped citizens that they would easily have paid for the cost of Monoteism. And I would have had more buildings, sooner.
Also it would have allowed not to bulb Theo but to research it and then bulb DivRig.
- 5th religion
With no workload of temples and missionaries, stopping at 4 religions makes no sense.
- Looking at the map
Why whip 9 people into Christian cathedrals 2 turns before the stone is yours?
- Not settling GA in a x4 culture multiplier city with only 100 turns ahead.
- Planning correctly, taking starvation factor into account for a correct Hermitage placing.
- Not failing last turn because of 100c in one city. Specially when it now has GPP to spare and it has been working grass farms instead of grass towns to improve GPP generation.
EDIT
- Not directing all my spy points towards Musa, my trade partner. Taht induced him to waste some of his puny research on the spy slider.
Dealing with barbs
Oh but, were there barbs in this game? Once my units came back from exploring I positioned 3 warriors in strategic positions in the S to fogbust.
Screenshots
I won't share my final city screenshots, but my 1000BC ones. I think that will be much more instructive for all, experts (when are they arriving, kcd_swede?
) and normal players alike.Can you see the mined pigs, LC?
. . . . . . . . . 
